A third yellow dot swung toward the Jophur ship.
The last one moved to confront Streaker.
Everyone in the Plotting Room stopped what they were doing when a shrill, crackling sound erupted over the comm speakers. Though Emerson had lost function in his normal speech centers, his ears worked fine, and he could tell at once that it was unlike any Galactic language — or wolfling tongue — he had ever heard.
The noise sounded bellicose, nervous, and angry.
The Niss hologram shivered with each staccato burst of screeching pops. Dolphins slashed their flukes, loosing unhappy moans. Sara covered her ears and closed her eyes.
But Gillian Baskin spoke calmly, soothing her companions with a wry tone of voice. In moments, chirps of dolphin laughter filled the chamber. Sara grinned, lowering her hands, and even the Niss straightened its mesh of jagged lines.
Emerson burned inside, wishing he could know what Gillian had said — what well-timed humor swiftly roused her crewmates from their alarmed funk. But all he made out were “wah-wah” sounds, nearly as foreign as those sent by a different order of life.
The Niss Machine made rasping noises of its own. Emerson guessed it must be trying to communicate with the yellow dot. Or rather, what the dot represented … one of those legendary, semifluid globes that served as “ships” for mighty, cryptic hydrogen breathers. He recalled being warned repeatedly, back in training, to avoid all contact with the unpredictable Zang. Even the Tymbrimi curbed their rash natures when it came to such deadly enigmas. If this particular Zang perceived Streaker as a threat — or if it were merely touchy at the moment — any chance of survival was practically nil. The Earthship’s fragments would soon join the well-cooked atoms of Izmunuti’s seething atmosphere.
Soon, long-range scans revealed the face of the unknown. An image wavered at highest magnification, refracted by curling knots of stormy plasma heat, revealing a vaguely spherical object with flanks that rippled eerily. The effect didn’t remind Emerson of a soap bubble as much as a tremendous gobbet of quivering grease, surrounded by dense evaporative haze.
A small bulge distended outward from the parent body as he watched. It separated and seemed briefly to float, glistening, alongside.
The detached blob abruptly exploded.
From the actinic fireball a needle of blazing light issued straight toward Streaker!
Klaxons erupted warnings in both the bridge and Plotting Room. The spatial chart revealed a slender line, departing the yellow emblem to spear rapidly across a distance as wide as Earth’s orbit. As a weapon, it was unlike any Emerson had seen.
He braced for annihilation …
… only to resume breathing when the destructive ray passed just ahead of Streaker’s bow.
Lieutenant Tsh’t commented wryly.
While Emerson labored to make sense of her Trinary haiku, the door of the Plotting Room hissed open and three figures slipped inside. One was a shaggy biped, nearly as tall as a dolphin is long, with a spiky backbone and flapping folds of scaly skin under his chin. Two pale, shambling forms followed, knuckle-walking like protochimpanzees, with big round heads and chameleon eyes that tried to stare in all directions at once. Emerson had seen hoons and glavers before, so he spared their entrance little thought. Everyone was watching Gillian and Sara exchange whispers as tension built.
No order was given to turn aside. Sara’s lips pressed grimly, and Emerson understood. At this point, they were committed. The second transfer point was no longer an option. Its dubious refuge could not be reached now before the Jophur got there first. Nor could Streaker flee toward deep space, or try her luck on one of the varied levels of hyperspace. The dreadnought’s engines — the best affordable by a wealthy clan — could outrun poor Streaker in any long chase.
The Zang did not have to destroy the Earthship. They need only ignore her, leaving the filthy oxygen breathers to settle their squabbles among themselves.
Perhaps that might have happened … or else the orb-ship might have finished them off with another volley. Except that something else happened then, taking Emerson completely off guard.
The Niss hologram popped into place near the tall hoon — Alvin was the youngster’s name, Emerson recalled — and then drifted lower, toward the bewildered glavers. Mewling with animallike trepidation, they quailed back from the floating mesh of spiral curves … until the Niss began emitting a noisome racket. The same that had come over the loudspeakers minutes ago.
Blinking rapidly, the pair of glavers began reflexively swaying. Emerson could swear they seemed just as surprised as he was, and twice as frightened. Yet, they must have found the clamor somehow compelling, for soon they began responding with cries of their own — at first muted and uncertain, then with increasing force and vigor.
To the crew, it came as a rude shock. The master-at-arms — a burly male dolphin with mottled flanks — sent his six-legged walker stomping toward the beasts, intent on clearing the room. But Gillian countermanded the move, watching with enthralled interest.
Sara clapped her hands, uttering a satisfied oath, as if she had hoped for something like this.
On the face of the young hoon, surprise gave way to realization. A subdued, rolling sound escaped Alvin’s vibrating throat sac. Emerson made out a single phrase—
“… the legend …”
— but its significance was slippery, elusive. Concentrating hard, he almost pinned down a meaning before it was lost amid resumed howls from the loudspeakers. More caterwauled threats beamed by the Zang, objecting to Streaker’s rapid approach.
At long range, he saw the great globule pulsate menacingly. Another liquid bulge began separating from the main body, bigger than the first, already glowing with angry heat.
The glavers clamored louder. They seemed different from the ones he had seen back on Jijo, which always behaved like grunting beasts. Now Emerson saw something new. A light. A knowing. The impression of a task long deferred, now being performed at last.
The Zang globe rippled. Its rasping threats merged with the glaver bedlam, forming a turbulent pas de deux. Meanwhile, the new bud fully detached from its flank, pulsating with barely constrained wrath.
This one might not be a warning shot.
Rety
I GUESS THERE’S MORE TO USING ONE OF THESE transfer point things than I thought.”
Rety meant her words as a peace offering. A rare admission of fault. But Dwer wasn’t going to let her off that easy.
“I can’t believe you thought a couple of savages could just go zooming about the heavens like star gods. This was your plan? To grab a wrecked ship, still dripping seaweed from the dross piles of the Great Midden, and ride along while it falls into a hole in space?”
For once, Rety quashed her normal, fiery response. True, she had never invited Dwer to join her aboard her hijacked vessel in the first place. Nor was he offering any bright ideas about what to do with a million-year-old hulk that could barely hold air, let alone fly.
Still, she kind of understood why he was upset. With death staring him in the face, the Slopie could be expected to get a bit testy.
“When Besh and Rann talked about it, they made it sound simple. You just aim your ship to dive inside —”
