the tiny spy probe. Thoughtful curls of orange vapor steamed from its central vent. Then the topmost ring bulged outward…
… and abruptly spewed a jet of flying objects, swarming angrily toward the camera eye! Kaa and the others had time for a brief glimpse of insects—or some local equivalent — creating a confusing buzz of light and sound with their compound eyes and fast-beating wings. A horde of blurry creatures converged, surrounding Kaa’s lenses and pickups.
Moments later, all that reached his console was a smear of dizzying static.
Gillian
AMAGNIFIED IMAGE FLOATED ABOVE THE CONFERENCE table — depicting a small creature, frozen in flight, whose wings were a rainbow-streaked haze, painful to the eye. By contrast, the Niss Machine’s compact mesh of spiral lines seemed drab and abstruse. A strain of pique filled its voice.
“Might any of you local children be able to identify this bothersome thing for us?”
The words were polite enough, though Gillian winced at its insolent manner.
Fortunately, Alvin Hphwayuo showed no awareness of being patronized. The young hoon sat near his friends, throbbing his throat sac in the subsonic range for both noor beasts, one lounging on each broad shoulder. To the machine’s sardonic question, Alvin nodded amiably, a human gesture that seemed completely unaffected.
“Hrm. That’s easy enough. It is a privacy wasp.”
“Gene-altered toys of the Vuyur,” lisped Ur-ronn. “A well-known nuisance.”
Huck’s four eyestalks waved, peering at the image. “Now I see how they got their name. They normally move so fast, I never got a good look before. It looks kind of like a tiny rewq, with the membranes turned into wings.”
Hannes Suessi grunted, tapping the tabletop with his prosthetic left arm.
“Whatever the origins of these critters, it seems Uriel was armed against the possibility of being spied upon. Our probe’s been rendered useless. Will she now assume that it was sent by the Jophur?”
Ur-ronn shrugged, an uncertain twist of her long neck. “Who else? How would Uriel have heard of you guys … unless the Jophur thenselves sfoke of you?”
Gillian agreed. “Then she may destroy the drone, unless we make it speak Anglic words right away. Niss, can you and Kaa get a message through?”
“We are working to accomplish that. Commands rise from the control console, but the bedlam given off by these so-called wasps appears to swamp all bands, thwarting confirmation. The probe may be effectively inoperable.”
“Damn. It would take days to send another. Days we don’t have.” Gillian turned to Ur-ronn. “This might make our promise hard to keep.”
She hated saying it. Part of her had looked forward to meeting the legendary smith of Mount Guenn. By all accounts, Uriel was an individual of shrewdness and insight, whose sway on Jijoan society was notable.
“There is another off-shun,” Ur-ronn suggested. “Fly there in ferson.”
“An option we must set aside for now,” replied Lieutenant Tsh’t. “Since any aircraft sent beyond these shielding waters would be detected instantly, by the enemy battle-ship-p.”
The dolphin officer lay on the cushioned pad of a sixlegged walker. Her long, sleek body took up the end of the conference room farthest from the sooner youths, her left eye scanning the members of the ship’s council. “Believe it or not-t, and despite our disappointment over the loss of Kaa’s probe, there are other agenda items left to cover.”
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.
