But one of the faces from her dream had stuck with her all morning. Only a half-hour ago she had realized that it was her own subconscious rendering of what Herbie, the ancient cadaver which had caused all this trouble, must have looked like when he was alive.
In her dream, shortly before she had begun feeling premonitions of disaster, the long, vaguely humanoid face. of the ancient had smiled at her, and slowly winked.
'Gillian! Dr. Baskin? It's time!'
She opened her eyes. She lifted her arm and glanced at her watch. It might as well have been set by Toshio's voice. Trust a midshipman at his word, she remembered. Tell him to fetch you in one hour, and he'll time it down to the second. Early in the voyage she had had to threaten dire measures to get him to call her 'sir' — or the anachronistic 'ma'am' — only in every third sentence, rather than every other word.
'On my way, Toshio! Just a minute!' She rose to her feet and stretched. The rest break had been useful. Her mind had been in knots that only quiet could smooth.
She hoped to finish here and get back to Streaker within three days, about the time Creideiki had planned to move the ship. By then she and Dennie should have worked out the environmental needs of the Kiqui — how to take a small sample group with them back to the Center for Uplift on Earth. If Streaker got away, and if humanity first filed a client claim, it could save the Kiqui from a far worse fate.
On her way through the trees, Gillian caught a glimpse of the ocean through a northeast gap in the greenery.
Will I be able to feel it here, when Tom calls? The Niss said his signal should be detectable anywhere on the planet.
All the ETs will hear it, for sure.
She carefully kept all psychic energies low, as Tom had insisted she do. But she did form an old-fashioned prayer with her mouth, and cast it northward, over the waves.
'I'll bet this will please Dr. Dart,' Toshio said. 'Of course, the sensors might not be types he'd want. But the 'bot is still operational.'
Gillian examined the small robot-link screen. She was no expert on robotics or planetology. But she understood the principles.
'I think you're right, Toshio. The X-ray spectrometer works. So do the laser zapper and the magnetometer. Can the robot still move?'
'Like a little rock lobster! The only thing it can't do is float back up. Its buoyancy tanks were ruptured when the piece of coral crashed down on it.'
'Where is the robot now?'
'It's on a ledge about ninety meters down.' Toshio tapped the tiny keyboard and brought a holo schematic into space in front of the screen. 'It's given me a sonar map that deep. I've held off going any lower until I talk to Dr. Dart. We can only go down, one ledge at a time. Once the robot leaves a spot there's no going back.'
The schematic showed a slightly tapered cylindrical cavity, descending into the metal-rich silicate rock of Kithrup's thin crust: The walls were studded with outcrops and ledges, like the one the crippled probe now rested on.
A solid shaft ran up the great cavity, tilted at a slight angle. It was the great drill-root Toshio and Dennie had blown apart a few days earlier. The upper end rested against one rim of its own underwater excavation. The shaft disappeared into unknown territory below the mapped area.
'I think you're right, Toshio,' Gillian grinned and squeezed the boy's shoulder. 'Charlie will be glad about this. It may help get him off Creideiki's back. Do you want to ring him up with the news?'
Toshio was obviously pleased with the compliment, but taken aback by Gillian's offer. 'Uh, no, thank you, sir. I mean, couldn't you just tuck this in when you report to the ship, today? I'm sure Dr. Dart will have questions I'm not qualified to handle…'
Gillian couldn't blame Toshio. Presenting good news to Charles Dart was barely more pleasant than delivering bad news. But Toshio would have to come to grips with the chimp planetologist sooner or later. It would be best if he learned to deal with the problem from the start.
'Sorry, Toshio. Dr. Dart is all yours. Don't forget that I'm leaving here in a few days. You're the one who's going to have to… satisfy Charlie, when he asks you to put in thirty-hour shifts.'
Toshio nodded seriously, taking her advice soberly until she managed to catch eye contact with him. She grinned until he couldn't help but blush and smile.
36 ::: Akki
Hurrying to get to the bridge before watch change, Akki took a shortcut through the outlock. In his haste he was halfway across the wide chamber before he noticed anything different.
He did an overhead flip to stop. His gill-lungs heaved, and he cursed himself for an idiot, speeding and doing fancy maneuvers when there just wasn't enough oxygen available!
Akki looked about. The outlock was as empty as he had ever seen it.
The captain's gig had been lost at the Shallow Cluster. Heavy sleds and a lot of equipment had been moved to the Thennanin wreck, and Lieutenant Hikahi had taken the skiff there only yesterday.
There was a cluster of activity around the longboat, the last and largest of Streaker's pinnaces. Several crewfen used mechanical spiders to carry crates into the small spacecraft. Akki forgot his haste to be early on duty, and kicked a lazy spiral toward the activity.
He swam up behind one spider-riding dolphin. The fin's spider carried a large box in its waldo-arms.
'Hey Sup-peh, v-what's going on here?' Akki kept his sentences short and simple. He was getting better speaking Anglic in oxywater, but if a Calafian couldn't speak properly, what were the others to think?
The other dolphin looked up. 'Oh, hello, Mr. Akki. Change of orders is what-t. We're checking the longboat for space worthiness. Also, we been told to load these cratesss.'
'What are vey… er, what's in the boxes?'
'Dr. Metz's records, seemsss-s,' the spider's third manipulator arm waved toward the pile of waterproof cartons. 'Imagine, all our grandparents 'n' grandchildren here, listed on mag chips. It gives you a feeling of continuity, don't it-t-t?'
Sup-peh was from the South Atlantic community, a clan which took pride in quaint speech. Akki wondered if it were really eccentricity as much as plain dimness. 'I thought you were on the supply run to the Thennanin ship?' he asked. Sup-peh was usually assigned tasks that required minimal finesse.
'That I were, Mr. Akki. But-t-t those runs have been stopped. The ship's closed down, didn't you hear? We're all swimming in circles t-til it's clearer about the captain'sss condition.'
'Wvhat?' Akki choked. '… the captain… ?'
'Got hurt in an inspection outside the ship. 'Lectrocuted, I hear. Barely found him before his breather ran out-t. Been unconscious all this time. Takkata-Jim's in charge.'
Akki lay there in shock. He was too stunned to notice Sup-peh turn suddenly and hurry back to work as a very large dark figure swam up.
'May I help you, Mister Akki?' The giant dolphin's tone sounded almost sarcastic.
'K'tha-Jon,' Akki shook himself. 'What's happened to the captain?'
Something in the bosun's attitude chilled Akki. And it wasn't just the minimal pretense of respect for Akki's rank. K'tha-Jon let out a quick squirt of Trinary.
* Suggestions come
to me,
* How you can know more — *
* Go and ask your
leader,
* Who awaits you on the shore — *
With an almost insolent wave of one harness arm, K'tha-Jon flipped about and swam off to rejoin his workcrew. The wake from his mighty flukes pushed Akki backward two meters. Akki knew better than to call him back. Something in K'tha-Jon's Trinary triple entendre told him it would be useless. He decided to take it as a warning, and turned to hurry toward the hull lift to the bridge.
He was suddenly aware of how many of the best fen in Streaker's crew were absent. Tsh't, Hikahi, Karkaett, S'tat and Lucky Kaa were all gone to the Thennanin wreck. That left K'tha-Jon senior petty officer!
And Keepiru was away as well. Akki hadn't believed the gossip he had heard about the pilot. He had always thought Keepiru the bravest fin in the crew, besides the fastest swimmer. He wished Keepiru, and Toshio, were here right now. They'd help him find out what was going on!
Near the lift, Akki encountered a group of four Tursiops, clustered in a corner of the outlock doing nothing in particular. They wore morose expressions and lay in listless postures.
'Sus'ta, what's going on here?' he asked. 'Don't you fen have work to do?'
The messman looked up and twisted his tail in the dolphin's equivalent of a shrug. 'What'sss the point, Mr. Akki?'
'The point ish… is we do our duty! Come on, what's got you all in such a f-funk?'
'The c-captain…' one of the others began.
Akki cut him off: 'The captain would be the first to say you should p-p-persevere!' He switched to Trinary.
* Focus on the far
Horizon -
* On Earth!
