'He was down in my section again, t-today,' Sreekah-pol griped, 'sticking his jaw into everybody's work-k. Thinks he's ssso-o-o discreet, but he fills the sound- scape with his Keneenk-k echoes!'
Moki nodded. There wasn't any doubt who 'he' was.
* Crying-Crooning
Talk, talk rhythms
* My group wags tails
To his Logic Logic! *
Hakukka-jo winced. Moki seldom spoke Anglic anymore, and his Trinary had a little too much Primal in it to be decent.
But Sreekah-pol obviously thought Moki's point valid. 'All the Tursiopsss worship Creideiki. They imitate him and try to act like Keneenk-k adeptsss! Even half of our Stenos seem just as swallowed by his spell!'
'Well, if he can get-t us out of here alive, I will forgive even his nosy inspections,' Hakkuka-jo suggested.
Moki tossed his head.
* Alive! Alive!
To deep, rich waters!
* Follow, Follow
A rough-toothed leader! *
'Will you make quiet-t-t?' Hakukka-jo swung about quickly to listen to the echoes in the rest area. A few crewfen were gathered by the food machines. They gave no sign of having heard. 'Heed your scatter! You're already in trouble without clicking mutiny talk! I hear Doctor Metz has gone to Takkata-Jim to ask about you!'
Moki smirked defiantly. Sreekah-pol agreed with Moki's unspoken comment. 'Metz won't do nothing,' Sreekah said. 'It'sss common knowledge half the Stenos aboard were chosen by him. We're his babiesss,' Sreekah-pol crooned. 'With Orley and Tsh't gone, and Hikahi in sick bay, the only's we gotta watch out for is the chief smartass himself,'
Hakkuka-jo looked about wildly. 'You too? Look-k, will you be quiet? There comes K'tha-Jon!'
The other two turned the way he indicated. They saw a huge neo-fin swim out of a hull lift and head their way. Dolphins half his size got out of the giant's way quickly.
'So what-t-t? He is of us!' Sreekah-pol said uncertainly.
'He's also a bosun!' Hakkuka jo answered hotly.
'He hates Tursiopsss smartasses, too!' Moki cut in in Anglic.
'Maybe, but if so he keeps it to himself! He knows how humans feel about racism!'
Moki looked away. The dark mottled dolphin was like a lot of fins in holding the patron race in a sort of superstitious dread. He countered weakly in Trinary.
* Ask the black men -
The brown and yellow men
* Ask the whales -
About human racism! *
'That was a long time ago!' Hakkuka-jo snapped, somewhat shocked. 'And humans had no patrons to guide them!'
'Jussst ssso…' Sreekah-pol said, but his agreement sounded unsure.
They all shut up as K'tha-Jon approached. Hakkuka-jo felt a recurring chill on contemplating the bosun.
K'tha-Jon was a giant, surpassing three meters in length with a girth that two men couldn't span with their arms. His bottle nose was blunt, and, unlike the other so-called Stenos aboard, his coloring was not mottled but deeply countershaded. Rumor had it K'tha-Jon was another of Dr. Metz's 'special' cases.
The giant swam up nearby and exhaled a loud spurt of bubbles. His open jaws displayed a fearful array of rough teeth. The others almost unconsciously adapted a submissive posture, eyes averted, foodmouths closed.
'I hear there's been more fighting…' K'tha-Jon rumbled in deep Underwater Anglic. 'Fortunately, I was able to bribe senior bosun S'thata with a rare sensie tape, and he agreed not to report it to the captain. I'll expect the cost of the tape to be covered by somebody, with interest-t…'
Moki seemed about to speak, but K'tha-Jon cut him off.
'No excuses! Your temper is a burden I can do without. S'thata would have been right to challenge you for biting him from behind like that-t!'
* Dare him! Dare him!
Tursiops coward!
* Dare him…
Moki barely blatted out the beginning before being slammed amidships by a blow from K'tha-Jon's mighty flukes.
He slewed several meters through the water before coming to rest, whistling in pain. K'tha-Jon came close and murmured softly.
'YOU are Tursiops! That is the name of our entire, Library-registered species! Tursiopsss amicusss… 'friendly bottlenose'! Ask Dr. Metz if you don't believe me! Embarrass the rest of uss aboard who have Stenos grafts in our genes — Vice-Captain Takkata-Jim and myself, for instance — by acting like an animal, and I will show you how to be a friendly bottlenose! I'll use your gutssss for hawsers!'
Mold trembled and turned away, jaw closed tightly.
K'tha-Jon swept the cowering fin with a contemptuous spray of sonar, then turned to regard the others. Hakkuka-jo and Sreekah-pol looked idly at the bright, decorative garibaldi and angel fish which were allowed to swim unmolested throughout the central bay. Hakkuka-jo whistled softly.
'Break is almost over,' the bosun snapped. 'Back to work-k. And save your hatred for your private time!' K'tha-Jon turned about and sped away, the turbulence from his flukes almost toppling the others.
Hakukka-jo watched him go, then whistled a long, low sigh.
That should do it, K'tha-Jon thought as he hurried off to duties in the cargo section. Moki, especially, would be quiet for a while. He had better be.
If there was anything he and Takkata-Jim did not need, it was a spate of racist innuendo and suspicion. Nothing would unite the humans in alienation like that sort of thing.
And catch the attention of Creideiki, too. Takkata-Jim insists we give the captain one more chance to come up with a plan to get us home alive.
All right, then, I can wait.
But what if he doesn't? What if he keeps asking for sacrifice from a crew that never volunteered to be heroes?
In that case, someone would have to be able to present the crew with an alternative to follow. Takkata-Jim was still reluctant, but that might not last.
If the time did come, they would need human support, and Moki's kind of interracial bullying could wreck the chances of that. K'tha-Jon intended to ride close herd on that Stenos, to keep him nice and docile.
Even if it was nice, from time to time, to chew the tail of some bloody, shore-hugging, sanctimonious, smartass Tursiops!
16 ::: Galactics
— Rejoice — crooned the fourth Brother of the Ebony Shadows. Rejoice that the fifth moon of the small dusty planet has been conquered! -
The Brothers of the Night had fought bitterly for this fulcrum of power, from which they would soon project irresistible might and sweep the skies of heretics and blasphemers. This moon would guarantee that the prize would be theirs, and theirs alone!
None of the other moons in the Kthsemenee system had the one attribute this one possessed: a core of almost one percent unobtainium. Already thirty of the Brothers' ships had landed, to begin construction of the Weapon.
The Library, as always, had been the key. Many cycles ago the fourth Brother of the Ebony Shadows had come across an obscure reference to a device once used in a war between two races now long extinct. It had taken him half of his lifespan to hunt down the details, for the Library was a labyrinth. But now would come his payment!
— Rejoice! — The cry resounded. It was a paean of triumph meant to be heard, and indeed a few of the other combatants began to notice that something curious was going on over in a corner of Kthsemenee's system. While the fiercest battles raged around the strategic gas-giant world, and Kithrup itself, some enemies had begun to send scouts this way to see what the Brothers of the Night were up to.
— Let them come and look! Can it matter? -
A ship of the Soro had been watching them for some time. Could it have divined their purpose?
— Never! The citation was too obscure! Our new weapon has sat unnoticed too long in the dusty archives. They will first understand when this moon begins to vibrate on the fifteenth probability band sending out waves of uncertainty that will tear their battle fleets apart! Then their shipboard Libraries will undoubtedly remember, but too late! -
The Brother of the Ebony Shadows watched from space as the resonator neared completion, watched as the grounded ships fed their combined energies to the
