Infinity's Shore (73 page)

Gillian understood the lieutenant's testy mood. Her report on the apparent suicide of the two human prisoners had left many unanswered questions. Moreover, discipline problems were also on the rise, with a growing faction of the dolphin crew signing what they called the “Breeding Petition.”

Gillian had tried boosting morale by getting out and talking to the dolphins, listening to their concerns, encouraging them with a patron's touch.
Tom had the knack, like Captain Creideiki. A joke here, a casual parable there. Most fins grew more inspired and devoted the worse things got.

I don't have the same talent, I guess. Or else this poor crew is just tired after all the running.

Anyway, the best workers were all outside the ship now, in gangs that labored round the clock, while she spent hours closeted with the Niss Machine, eliminating one desperate plan after another.

At last, one of her schemes seemed a bit less awful than the rest.

“
Tasty
,” the Niss had called it. “
Though a rash gamble. Our escape from Kithrup had more going for it than this ploy
.”

Ship's Physician Makanee raised the next agenda item. Unlike Tsh't, the elderly dolphin surgeon did not like to ride around strapped to a machine. Naked, except for a small tool harness, she took part in the meeting from a clear tube that ran along one wall of the conference room. Makanee's body glistened with tiny bubbles from the oxygen-packed fluid that filled
Streaker
's waterways.

“There is the matter of the Kiqui,” she said. “It must be settled, especially if we are planning to move the ship-p.”

Gillian nodded. “I'd hoped to consult about this matter with—” She glanced at the staticky display from Kaa's lost spy probe, and sighed. “A final decision must wait, Doctor. Continue preparations and I'll let you know.”

Hannes Suessi next reported on the state of
Streaker
's hull.

“Weighed down like this, she'll be as slow as when we carried around that hollowed-out Thennanin cruiser, wearing it like a suit of armor.
Slower
, with all the probability arrays gummed up by carbon gunk.”

“So we must consider transferring to one of the wrecks outside?”

That would be hard. None had the modifications that made
Streaker
usable by an aquatic race.

The mirrored dome containing Suessi's brain and skull nodded.

“I have crews preparing the best of the drossed star-ships.” A chuckle then escaped the helmet speaker vent. “Cheer up, everybody! With Ifni's luck, some of us may yet make it out of here.”

Perhaps
, Gillian thought.
But if we get away from the Jijo system, where will we go? Where else can we run?

The meeting broke up. Everyone, including the sooner kids, had jobs to do.

And Dwer Koolhan will be waiting in my quarters, asking again for passage ashore. Or to swim, if necessary.

To go back to a savage place where he's needed.

Ambivalence filled her. Dwer was hardly more than a boy. Still, in all the years since
Streaker
was forced to abandon Tom on Kithrup, this was the first time she felt anything like physical attraction to another.

Naturally. I've always been a sucker for hero types.

It brought to mind the last time she had felt Tom's touch—one final night together on a metal island, set amid a poison sea. The night before he flew away on a solarpowered glider, determined to mislead great battle fleets, thwart mighty foes, and make an opening for
Streaker
to get away. Gillian's left thigh still tingled, from time to time … the site of his last loving squeeze as he lay prone on the flimsy little aircraft, grinning before taking off.

“I'll be back before you know it,” Tom said—a metaphysically strange expression, when you thought about it. And she often had.

Then he was gone, winging north, barely skimming the waves, just above the contrary tides of Kithrup.

I should never have let him go. Sometimes you have to tell a hero that enough is enough.

Let someone else save the world.

As Gillian made ready to leave the conference room, she saw Alvin, the young hoon, trying to collect both noors. The female was his longtime pet, to all appearances a bright nonsapient being, probably derived from natural tytlal rootstock, dating from before their species' uplift.
The Tymbrimi must have stockpiled a gene pool of their beloved clients here on Jijo, as insurance in case the worst happened to their clan. A wise precaution, given the number of enemies they've made.

As for the other one, Mudfoot, Dwer's bane and traveling companion across half a continent, scans of his brain showed uplift traces throughout.

A race hidden within a race, retaining all the traits the Tymbrimi worked hard to foster in their clients.

In other words, the tytlal were true sooners, another wave of illegal settlers, but guarded by added layers of camouflage. So disguised, they might even escape whatever ruin lay in store for the relatives of Alvin, Huck, Urronn, and Pincer.

But that can't be the whole story. Caution isn't a paramount trait in Tymbrimi, or their clients. They wouldn't go to so much trouble just to hide. Not unless it was part of something bigger.

Alvin had trouble gathering Mudfoot, who ignored the boy's umble calls while wandering across the conference table, poking a whiskered nose into debris from the meeting. Finally, the tytlal stood up on his hind legs to peer at the frozen projection last sent by Kaa's probe, the image of a privacy wasp. Mudfoot purred with curiosity.

“Niss,” Gillian said in a low voice.

With an audible pop, the pattern of whirling, shifting lines came into being nearby.

“
Yes, Dr. Baskin? Have you changed your mind about hearing my tentative conjectures about Uriel's intricate device of spinning disks?
”

“Later,” she said, and gestured at Mudfoot. Gillian now realized the tytlal was peering
past
the blurry display of the privacy wasp, at something in the scene beyond.

“I'd like you to do some enhancements. Find out what that little devil is looking at.”

She did not add that she had detected something on her own. Something only a psi-sensitive would notice. For the second time, a faint
presence
could be felt—vague and ephemeral—floating ever so briefly above Mudfoot's agitated cranial spines. She could not be sure, but whatever it was had a distinctly familiar flavor.

Call it Essence of Tymbrimi.

Kaa

T
HERE WAS NO MORE TO ACCOMPLISH IN THE CAVE. The probe appeared to be dead.

Even if it came back to life, any conversation with the natives would be handled from
Streaker
's end. Meanwhile, it was past time to return to the habitat. Kaa had a team he had not seen in days.

A human couple might have paused before exiting the little grotto, looking around to imprint the site of their first lovemaking. But not dolphins. Neo-fins experienced nostalgia, just like their human patrons, but they could store sonar place images in ways humans had to mimic with recording devices. Streaking outside, joining Peepoe under bright sunshine, Kaa knew the two of them could revisit the cave anytime they chose, simply by bringing their arched foreheads together—re-creating its unique echoes in that ancient gulf of memory some called the Whale Dream.

It felt good to dash across the wide sea again, with Peepoe's lithe body sharing every kick and leap in perfect unison. Motion equaled joy after any long confinement to machinery and closed spaces.

On the outward trip, their swim had been exquisite, but tempered by a taut, sexual tension. Now there were no secrets, no conflicting desires. Most of the return journey was spent in silent bliss—like a simple mated pair from presapient days, free of the gifts and burdens of uplift.

Finally, with the habitat drawing near, Kaa felt his mind slip reluctantly back into Anglic-using rhythms. Compelled to speak, he used the informal click-squeal dialect fins preferred while swimming.

“Well, here it comes,” he sonar-cast during the underwater phase of their next splash-and-surge cycle. “Back to home and family … such as they are.”

“Family?” she replied skeptically. “Brookida, perhaps. As for Mopol and Zhaki, wouldn't you rather be related to a penguin?”

Is my opinion of them so obvious?
After breaching for air, Kaa tried making light of things with a joke.

“Oh, I give those two some credit. With luck, they won't have set the ocean on fire while we're gone.”

Peepoe laughed, then added, “Do you think they'll be jealous?”

Good question. Dolphins could not conceal interpersonal matters like humans, with their complex games of emotional deceit. By sonar-scanning each other's viscera, one seldom had to guess who slept with whom.

Envy wouldn't be a problem if I established clear authority from the start, both as an officer and as senior-ranking male.

Unfortunately, chain of command was a recent, human-imposed concept. Underneath, bull dolphins still felt ancient drives to jostle over status and breeding rights.

In fact, Peepoe's choice might reinforce Kaa's position atop the little local hierarchy.
Though I shouldn't need help. Not if I were a real leader.

“Jealous.” He pondered, thrusting harder with his flukes, till his beak pushed their shared shock wave, drawing her along in his wake. “Those two are highly sexed, so maybe they will be. But at least this way Zhaki and Mopol should stop bothering you with hopeless propositions.”

The young males had made relentless crude suggestions toward Peepoe from the first day she arrived, even brushing lewdly against her until Kaa had to rebuke them. While it was true that dolphins had a far different scale of tolerance for such behavior than humans—and Peepoe was capable of taking care of herself—in this case the pair were so persistent that Kaa had to dish out tail whacks to make them back off.

“Hopeless?” Peepoe asked in a teasing tone. “Now you're making assumptions. How do you know I'm monogamous? Maybe a little harem would suit me fine.”

Kaa spread his jaws and aimed a nip at her nearest pectoral fin … slow enough for her to slip aside, laughing, before his teeth snapped.

“Good,” she commented. “Pacific Tursiops go in for that kinky stuff. But I prefer a nice and conservative Atlantean.

You're from Miami-Under, no? Born into an old-fashioned line marriage, I bet.”

Kaa grunted. Even the sonar-based dialect of Anglic wasn't easy while speeding at full throttle.

“One of the Heinlein family variants,” he conceded. “The style works better for dolphins than humans. Why? You looking for a line to marry into?”

“Mnn. I'd rather start a
new
one. Always hankered to be the founding matriarch of a nice little lineage—if the masters of uplift allow it.”

That was the eternal Big If. No neo-dolphin could legally breed without permission from the Terragens Uplift Board. Despite the unusual freedoms humans had given their clients—voting rights and the trappings of citizenship—Earthclan was still bound by ancient Galactic law.

Improve your clients
, went the basic code of uplift.…
Or lose them.

“You gotta be kidding,” he answered. “If any of us
Streaker
fins ever do make it home somehow from this crazed voyage, we'll never face another sapiency exam from the masters. We may be sterilized on the spot, for all the trouble we caused. Or else we're heroes, and it'll be sperm-and-seed donations for the rest of our lives, fostering almost the whole next neo-fin generation.

“Either way, it won't be cozy family life for any of us. Not ever.”

He hadn't expected it to come out that way, with an edge of ironic bitterness. But Peepoe must have seen he was telling the truth. She continued keeping pace alongside, but her silence told Kaa how much it stung.