In the years since, he has gained experience. The escapes he piloted — from Oakka and the Fractal System — were performed well, if not as brilliantly.
Not quite good enough to preserve Kaa’s nickname.
I never heard anyone else say they could do better.
All in all, it was not a restful sleep.
• • •
Zhaki and Mopol were at it again, before dawn, rubbing and squealing beyond a slim curtain they nearly shredded with their slashing tails. They should have gone outside to frolic, but Kaa dared not order it.
“It is typical postadolescent behavior,” Brookida told him, by the food dispenser. “Young males grow agitated. Among natural dolphins, unisex play ceases to be sufficient as youths turn their thoughts to winning the companionship of females. Young allies often test their status by jointly challenging older males.”
Of course Kaa knew all that. But he could not agree with the “typical” part. I never acted that way. Oh sure, I was an obnoxious, arrogant young fin. But I never acted intentionally gross, or like some reverted animal.
“Maybe Tsh’t should have assigned females to our team.” He pondered aloud.
“Wouldn’t help,” answered the elderly metallurgist. “If those two schtorks weren’t getting any aboard ship, they wouldn’t do any better here. Our fern-fins have high standards.”
Kaa sputtered out a lump of half-chewed mullet as he laughed, grateful for Brookida’s lapse into coarse humor — though it grazed by a touchy subject among Streaker’s crew, the petition to breed that some had been circulating and signing.
Kaa changed the subject. “How goes your analysis of the matter the hoons dumped overboard?”
Brookida nodded toward his workbench, where several ribboned casks lay cracked open. Bits of bone and crystal glittered amid piles of ashen dust.
“So far, the contents confirm what the hoonish boy wrote in his journal.”
“Amazing. I was sure it must be a fake, planted by our enemies.” Transcripts of the handwritten diary, passed on by Streaker’s command, seemed too incredible to believe.
“Apparently the story is true. Six races do live together on this world. As part of ecology-oriented rituals, they send their unrecyclable wastes — called dross—to sea for burial in special disposal zones. This includes parts of their processed bodies.”
“And you found—”
“Human remainsss.” Brookida nodded. “As well as chimps, hoons, urs … the whole crowd this young ‘Alvin’ wrote about.”
Kaa was still dazed by it all.
“And there are … J-Jophur.” He could hardly speak the word aloud.
Brookida frowned. “A matter of definition, it seems. I’ve exchanged message queries with Gillian and the Niss Machine. They suggest these so-called traeki might have the other races fooled as part of an elaborate, long-range plot.”
“How could that be?”
“I am not sure. It would not require that every traeki be in on the scheme. Just a few, with secret master rings, and the hidden equipment to dominate their fellow beings. I cannot quite fathom it. But Gillian has questioned the captured Library unit. And that seems a possssible scenario.”
Kaa had no answer for that. Such matters seemed so complex, so far beyond his grasp, his only response was to shiver from the tip of his rostrum all the way down to his trembling tail.
They spent another day spying on the local sooners. The hoonish seaport, Wuphon, seemed to match the descriptions in Alvin’s journal … though more crude and shabby in the eyes of beings who had seen the sky towers of Tanith and bright cities on Earth’s moon. The hoons appeared to pour more lavish attention on their boats than their homes. The graceful sailing ships bore delicate carving work, down to proud figureheads shaped like garish deities.
When a vessel swept past Kaa, he overheard the deep, rumbling sounds of singing, as the sailors boomed evident joy across the whitecaps.
It’s hard to believe these are the same folk Brookida described as passionless prigs. Maybe there are two races that look alike, and have similar-sounding names. Kaa made a mental note to send an inquiry in tonight’s report.
Hoons weren’t alone on deck. He peered at smaller creatures, scrambling nimbly over the rigging, but when he tried using a portable camera, the image swept by too fast to catch much more than a blur.
Streaker also wanted better images of the volcano, which apparently was a center of industrial activity among the sooner races. Gillian and Tsh’t were considering sending another independent robot ashore, though earlier drones had been lost. Kaa got spectral readings of the mountain’s steaming emissions, and discovered the trace of a slender tramway, camouflaged against the rocky slopes.
He checked frequently on Zhaki and Mopol, who seemed to be behaving for a change, sticking close to their assigned task of eavesdropping on the red qheuen colony.
But later, when all three of them were on their way back to base, Mopol lagged sluggishly behind.
“It must-t have been something I ate,” the blue dolphin murmured, as unpleasant gurglings erupted within his abdomen.
Oh great, Kaa thought. I warned him a hundred times not to sample local critters before Brookida had a chance to test them!
Mopol swore it was nothing. But as the water surrounding their shelter dimmed with the setting sun, he started moaning again. Brookida used their tiny med scanner, but was at a loss to tell what had gone wrong.
Tsh’t
NOMINALLY, SHE COMMANDED EARTH’S MOST FAMOUS spaceship — a beauty almost new by Galactic standards, just nine hundred years old when the Terragens Council purchased it from a Puntictin used-vessel dealer, then altered and renamed it Streaker to show off the skills of neodolphin voyagers.
Alas, the bedraggled craft seemed unlikely ever again to cruise the great spiral ways. Burdened by a thick coat of refractory Stardust — and now trapped deep underwater while pursuers probed the abyss with sonic bombs — to all outward appearances, it seemed doomed to join the surrounding great pile of ghost ships, sinking in the slowly devouring mud of an oceanic ravine.
Gone was the excitement that first led Tsh’t into the service. The thrill of flight. The exhilaration. Nor was there much relish in “authority,” since she did not make policies or crucial decisions. Gillian Baskin had that role.
What remained was handling ten thousand details … like when a disgruntled cook accosted her in a water- filled hallway, wheedling for permission to go up to the realm of light.
“It’ssss too dark and c-cold to go fishing down here!” complained Bulla-jo, whose job it was to help provide meals for a hundred finicky dolphins. “My harvesst team can hardly move, wearing all that pressure armor. And have you seen the so-called fish we catch in our nets? Weird things, all sspiky and glowing!”
Tsh’t replied, “Dr. Makanee has passed at least forty common varieties of local sea life as both tasty and nutritious, so long as we sssupplement with the right additives.”
Still, Bulla-jo groused.
“Everyone favors the samples we got earlier, from the upper world of waves and open air. There are great schools of lovely things swimming around up-p there.”
Then Bulla-jo lapsed into Trinary.
He concluded, “If you want fresh f-food, let us go to the surface, like you p-promised!”
Tsh’t quashed an exasperated sigh over Bulla-jo’s forget-fulness. In this early stage of their Uplift, neodolphins often perceived whatever they chose, ignoring contradictions.
I do it myself now and then.
