'The prospecting party!' The fate of the lost patrol had completely slipped her mind, so caught up had she been in her own problems. 'Gillian, have they come back? Have Toshio and Hikahi returned?'
The older woman swam with a reaching, long-limbed grace that Dennie envied. Her low, alto voice somehow carried well through the water. Her expression was grim.
'Yes Dennie, they're back. But at least four of them are dead.'
Dennie gasped. She had to make an effort to keep up. 'Dead? How… ? Who… ?'
Gillian Baskin didn't slacken her pace. She answered over her shoulder. 'We aren't sure how… When Brookida made it back, he mentioned Phip-pit and Ssassia… and told the rescue party they'd probably find others beached or killed.'
'Brookida… ?'
Emerson jogged her with his elbow. 'And where have you been? It was announced when he got in, hours ago. Mr. Orley took old Hannes and twenty crewfen to find Hikahi and the others.'
'I… I must have been asleep at the time.' Dennie contemplated slowly taking apart a certain chimpanzee. Why didn't Charlie tell me when I came in for work? It probably slipped his mind entirely. One of these days that chimp's monomania will cause somebody to strangle him!
Dr. Baskin had already pulled ahead with the two dolphins. She was almost as fast a swimmer as Tom Orley, and none of the other five humans aboard could keep up with her when she hurried.
Dennie turned to D'Anite. 'Tell me about it!'
Emerson quickly summarized the story Brookida had told — of a killer weed, of a burning, falling star cruiser, and of the savage waves that followed its crash, setting off the desperate cycle of rescue fever.
Dennie was stunned by the story, especially young Toshio's role. That didn't sound like Toshio Iwashika at all. He had been the one person aboard Streaker who seemed younger and lonelier than she. She liked the middie, of course, and hoped he hadn't lost his life trying to be a hero.
Emerson then told her the most recent rumors — about an island rescue during a midnight storm, and aboriginal tool users.
This time Dennie stopped in midstroke. 'Abos? You're sure? Native pre-sentients?' She tread water, staring at the black engineer.
They now were only ten meters from a great open hatch at the bow end of the central bay. Through it came a cacophony of high squeakings and chitterings.
Emerson shrugged. The action shook a coating of bubbles from his shoulders and the rim-plates of his facemask. 'Dennie, why don't we go in and find out? So far all we have is gossip. They must be through decontamination by now'
From ahead there came a sudden, high-pitched whine of engines; then three white power sleds sped from the outlock hatch, single-file. They veered, one by one, around Dennie and D'Anite before either of them could move, leaving fizzing trails of supercritical bubbles in their wakes.
Strapped to the back of each, under a plastic shell, was an injured dolphin. Two of them had dreadful gashes in their flanks, crudely bandaged. Dennie blinked in surprise when she saw that one of them was Hikahi, Streakers third officer.
The ambulance sleds banked under the central spine and headed for an opening in the inner wall of the great cylinder. On the last sled, clutching a handrail, the dusky blonde who had accompanied them here allowed herself to be dragged along. With her free hand she pressed a diagnostic monitor to the flank of one of the wounded dolphins.
'No wonder Gillian was in such a hurry. It was stupid of me to slow her down.'
'Oh, don't worry about it.' Emerson held her arm. 'The injuries didn't look like the kind you'd need a human surgeon for. Makanee and the autodocs can handle almost anything, you know'
'Still, there may be biochemical damage… poisons… I might be of use.'
She turned to go, but the engineer's hand held her.
'You'll be called if it's anything Makanee or feMister Baskin can't handle. And I don't think you'll want to miss out on news that bears on your specialty.'
Dennie looked after the ambulances, then nodded. Emerson was right. If she was needed, an intercom call would reach her anywhere, and a sled would arrive to fetch her faster than she could swim. They swam toward the buzzing of excited cetaceans in the outlock bay, and entered the forward chamber amid a swirl of swooping gray forms and a ferment of flying bubbles.
The forward outlock at Streakers bow was the ship's main link with the outside. The cylindrical wall was covered by storage cells, holding spiders, sleds, and other gear for crew who might leave the ship on errands. The bow had three great airlocks.
Port and starboard, the spacious chamber was taken up by the skiff and the longboat. The nose of each small spaceship almost touched the iris that would let it outside, into vacuum, air, or water, as needed.
The stern of the skiff stopped short of the rear bulkhead of the twenty-meter outlock, but the aft end of the larger longboat disappeared into a sleeve that extended into the maze of rooms and passages in Streakers thick cylindrical shell.
Overhead, a third berthing port lay empty. The captain's gig had been lost to a strange accident weeks before, along with ten crew members, at the region Creideiki had named the Shallow Cluster. Its loss, in the course of investigating the derelict fleet, was a topic seldom brought up in conversation.
Dennie gripped D'Anite's arm as another sled passed by more slowly than the white ambulances of sick bay. Sealed green bags were tied to its back. A bottle- like narrowness at one end of each, and a flat flaring at the other, revealed their contents.
There's no smaller bag, Dennie thought. Does that mean Toshio's alive then? Then she saw, by the decontamination lock, a young drysuited human in a crowd of dolphins.
'There's Toshio!' she cried, a little surprised at the intensity of her relief. She forced herself to speak in a calm tone. 'Is that Keepiru next to him?' She pointed.
D'Anite nodded. 'Yeah. They seem all right. By my count I guess that means Hist't hitched a sky-current. That's a rotten shame. We got along.' Emerson's affected burr was completely gone as he mourned the loss of a friend.
He peered through the crowd. 'Can you think of an official enough reason for us to shove in there? Most of the fen would get out of our way out of habit. But Creideiki's something else. He'll chew our asses off, patrons or no, if he thinks were hanging around useless and getting in the way.'
Dennie had been thinking about just that. 'Leave it to me.' She led him into the jostling crowd, touching flipper and fluke to pry a passage through the press. Most of the fen moved to one side on catching a glimpse of the two humans.
Dennie looked about the squeaking, clicking mob. Shouldn't Tom Orley be here? she thought. He and Hannes and Tsh't were in on the rescue, weren't they? So why don't I see him anywhere? I've got to talk to him sometime soon!
Toshio looked like a very tired young man. Just out of decon, he slowly peeled off his drysuit as he spoke with Creideiki. Soon he floated naked but for a facemask. Dabs of synthetic skin coated his hands and throat and face. Keepiru drifted nearby. The exhausted dolphin wore a breather, probably under physician's orders.
Suddenly the spectators blocking Dennie's view began to spin about and dart away in all directions.
*… bands of idle gawkers -
cease their vain eavesdropping!
* Lest the nets of Iki find them -
for their lack of work and purpose!
The sudden cetacean dispersal buffeted Dennie and Emerson; in moments the crowd had thinned.
'Do not-t make me repeat myself!' Creideiki reiterated. His voice pursued the fleeing spacers. 'All is done in here. Think clear thoughts and do your jobs!'
A dozen fen remained near the captain and Toshio: outlock personnel and the captain's aides. Creideiki turned to Toshio. 'Go on then, little shark-biter, finish your story'
The boy blushed, nonplussed by the honorific. He forced his heavy eyelids open and tried to maintain a semblance of standard posture in the drifting current.
'Uh, I think that's about it, sir. I've told you everything Mr. Orley and Tsh't told me about their plans. If the ET wreck looks usable, they'll send a sled back with a report. If not, they'll return with whatever they've salvaged as quickly as possible.'
Creideiki made small slow circles with his lower jaw. 'A hazardousss gamble,' he commented. 'They'll not reach the hulk for a day, at least. More days, still, will pass without contact…'
Bubbles rose from his blowmouth.
'Very well, then. You shall rest, then join me for supper. I'm afraid your reward for saving Hikahi for us, and possibly all of our lives as well, shall be an interrogation the likes of which you might not even receive from our enemies.'
Toshio smiled tiredly.
'I understand, sir. I'll happily let you wring me of information, just so long as I can eat first… and get dry for a while!'
'Done. Until then!' The captain nodded and turned to go.
Dennie was about to shout to Creideiki when someone else called out first.
'Captain, please! May I have a word?'
The voice was musical. The speaker was a large male dolphin with the mottled gray coloration of one of the Stenos sub-breeds. He wore a civilian harness, without the bulky racks or heavy manipulator arms carried by the regular crew.
Dennie felt a strong urge to hide behind Emerson D'Anite. She hadn't noticed Sah'ot in the crowd until he spoke.
'Before you go, sir,' the dolphin fluted. His tone of voice was quite casual. 'I must asssk you for permission to go to that island where Hikahi was stranded.'
With a tail-flick Creideiki arched over bottom side up to regard the speaker. He addressed the fin skeptically. 'Talker-to-races, this is not a fishbrew bar, this
