Ears burning, he repeated the call.
Not all Calafian kids did well with the fins, of course. Only a quarter of the planet's human population worked closely with the sea. But those adults were the ones who had learned the best ways to deal with dolphins. Toshio had always assumed he'd be one of them.
Now that was all over. If he got back to Streaker he'd have to hide in his cabin… for at least the few days or weeks it took for the victors of the battle over Kithrup to come down and claim them all.
On his sonar screen, another fuzzy line of static was approaching from the west. Toshio let the sled slip a little deeper. Not that he cared. He continued to whistle, but he felt like crying.
# where — where — where child is — where child is? where #
Primal Dolphin! Nearby! Almost, Toshio forgot his shame. He fingered a rope left over from Brookida's lashings, and kept whistling.
A streak of gray twilight flashed past him. Toshio gathered his knees under him and took the rope in both hands. He knew Keepiru would circle below and come up the other side. When he saw the first hint of gray hurtling upward, Toshio launched himself from the sled.
The bullet-like body of the dolphin twisted in an abrupt, panicky attempt to avoid collision. Toshio cried out as the cetacean's tail struck him in the chest. But it was a cry more of glee than pain. He had timed it right!
As Keepiru twisted around again, Toshio flung himself backward, allowing the fin to pass between himself and the rope. He clamped his feet around the dolphin's slick tail and pulled the rope with all the will of a garroter.
'Got you!' he cried.
At that instant the aftershock hit.
The cycloid clutched and pulled at him. Bits of flotsam struck him as the suction tossed his body about in apparent alliance with the mad, bucking dolphin.
This time Toshio felt no fear of the wave. He was filled with a fierce battle lust. Adrenalin seared through him like a hot flux. It pleased him to save Keepiru's life by physically punishing him for weeks of humiliation.
The dolphin writhed in panic. As the shock rolled past them, Keepiru cried out the basic call for air. Desperately, the fin drove for the surface.
They breached, and Toshio just missed getting blasted by the spume from Keepiru's blowhole. Keepiru commenced a series of leaps, gyrating to shake loose of his unwelcome rider.
Each time they went underwater Toshio tried to call out.
'You're sentient,' he gasped. 'Damn you, Keepiru… you're… you're a starship pilot!'
He knew he should be doing his coaxing in Trinary, but it was no use even trying, when he could barely hold on for dear life.
'You pea-brained… phallic symbol!' he screamed as the water slammed against him. 'You over-rated fish! You're killing me, you goddamed… The Eatees own Calafia by now because you fins can't hold your tongues! We never should have taken you along into space!'
The words were hateful. Contemptuous. At last Keepiru seemed to have heard. He reared out of the water like an enraged stallion. Toshio felt his grip tear loose, and he was flung away like a rag doll, to hit the sea with a splash.
Only eighteen cases were known, in the forty generations of dolphin uplift, in which a fin had attacked a human with murderous intent. In each case, every fin related to the perpetrator had been sterilized. Still, Toshio expected to be crushed at any instant. He didn't care. He had realized, at last, the cause of his depression. It had come to the surface when he was wrestling with Keepiru.
It hadn't been his ability to go home that had hurt, these last few weeks. It was another fact that he had not allowed himself to think of even once since the battle off Morgran.
The ETs… the extraterrestrials… the Galactics of every stripe and philosophy which were chasing Streaker… would not settle for hunting down the dolphin- crewed ship.
At least one ET race would have seen that the Streak might successfully go into hiding. Or they might imagine, erroneously, that her crew had succeeded in passing the secret of her discovery to Earth. Either way, the logical next step for one of the more amoral or vicious Galactic races would be coercion.
Earth might be able to defend herself. Probably Omnivarium and Hermes, as well. The Tymbrimi would defend the Caanan colonies.
But places like Calafia, or Atlast, must be captured by now. They were hostages, his family and everyone he had known. And Toshio realized that he blamed the fins.
Another aftershock was due any minute now. Toshio didn't care.
Pieces of floating debris drifted all about nearby. Not more than a kilometer away Toshio could see the metal-mound. At least it looked like the same one. He couldn't tell if there were dolphins stranded on the shore or not.
A large piece of flotsam drifted near him. It took him a moment to realize that it was Keepiru.
Toshio treaded water as he opened his faceplate.
'Well,' he asked, 'are you proud of yourself?'
Keepiru turned slightly to one side, and one dark eye looked up at Toshio. The bulge at the top of the cetacean's head, where human meddling had created a vocal apparatus from the former blowhole, gave out a long, soft, warbling sound.
Toshio couldn't be certain it was just a sigh. It might have been an apology in Primal Dolphin. The possibility alone was enough to make him angry.
'Can that crap! I just want to know one thing. Do I have to send you back to the ship? Or do you think you can stay sentient long enough to help me? Answer in Anglic, and it had better be grammatically correct!'
Keepiru moaned in pure anguish. After a moment of heavy breathing he finally spoke, quite slowly.
'Don't sssend me back. They're still calling for help! I will do what you ask-k-k!'
Toshio hesitated. 'All right. Go down after the sled. When you've found it, put on a breather. I don't want you hampered by need for air, and you need a constant reminder with you, too!
'Then bring the sled up near the island, but not too close!'
Keepiru flung his head up in a huge nodding motion. 'Yesss!' he cried. Then he flipped and dove into the water. It was just as well Keepiru had left all the thinking to him.
The fin might have balked if he'd caught onto what Toshio had in mind to do next.
A kilometer to the island; there was only one way to get there fast and avoid a scramble up the slanting, abrasive, metal-coral surface. He checked his orientation one more time, then a drop in the water level told him that the wave was coming.
The fourth wave seemed the gentlest by far. He knew the feeling was deceptive. He was in water deep enough so that the swell came at him as a gentle lump in the ocean, rather than a crested breaker. He dove down into the hump and swam against the direction of motion for a time before rising to the surface.
He had to gauge it just right. Swim back too far and he wouldn't reach the island before the following trough arrived and pulled him out to sea again. To remain at the front of the wave would be to body-surf a vicious breaker onto the beach, undertow and all.
It was all happening too fast. He swam hard, but couldn't tell if he had passed the peak of the wave or not. Then a glance told him that it was too late for remedial measures. He flipped around to face the looming, foliage-topped mound.
The breaker started a hundred yards ahead, but the slope rapidly ate away at the wave as bottom dragged the cycloid into a crested monster. The peak moved backward, toward Toshio, even as the wave hurtled upward onto the beach.
The boy braced himself as the crest reached him. He was prepared to look down on a precipice, and then see nothing more.
What he saw was a cataract of white foam as the wave began to die. Toshio cried out to keep his ear channels open, and started swimming furiously to stay atop the churning tide of spume and debris.
Suddenly, there was greenery all around. Trees and shrubs which had withstood the earlier assaults shook under this attack. Some tore loose of their moorings even as Toshio flew past them. Others stood and flailed at him as he hurtled through.
No sharp branch impaled him. No unbreaking vine garroted him as he passed. In a tumbling, tossing confusion he finally came to rest, somehow hugging the trunk of a huge tree, while the wave churned, and finally receded.
Miraculously, he was on his feet, the first man to stand on the soil of Kithrup. Toshio stared dazedly at his surroundings, briefly not believing his survival.
Then he hurriedly opened his faceplate, and became the first man to lose his breakfast on the soil of Kithrup.
8 ::: Galactics
'Slay them!' The Jophur high priest demanded. 'Slay the isolated Thennanin battlecruisers on our sixth quadrant!'
The Jophur chief of staff bowed its twelve-ringed trunk before the high priest.
'The Thennanin are our allies-of-the-moment! How can we turn on them without first performing the secret rituals of betrayal? Their ancestors will not be appeased!'
The Jophur high priest expanded its six outer sap-rings. It rose high upon its dais at the rear of the command chamber.
'There is no time to perform the rites! Now, as our alliance finishes sweeping this sector, as our alliance has become the strongest! Now, while this phase of the battle still rages. Now, while the foolish Thennanin have opened up their flanks to us. Now may we harm them greatly!'
The chief of staff pulsed in agitation, its outer sap-rings discoloring with emotion.
'We may change alliances as it suits us, agreed. We may betray our allies, agreed. We may do anything to win the prize agreed. But we may not do so without performing the rituals! The rituals are what make us the appropriate vessels for the will of the ancients! You would bring us down to the level of the heretics!'
The dais shook with the high priest's anger.
