detect the resonance of his tap. Akki had set it up so they couldn't pick up his conversation with Toshio, but even a dullard CommSec fin couldn't miss the side effects, in time.
Where are they? he wondered. Surely they know I only have so much air? And this metal-rich water makes my skin itch!
Akki breathed slowly for calm. A teaching rhyme of Keneenk ran through his mind.
Past, future and present were among the hardest ideas to express explicitly in Trinary The rhyme was meant to teach causation as the human patrons, and most other sophonts, saw it, while keeping essential faith with the cetacean view of life.
It all seemed so simple to Akki. At times he wondered why some of these dolphins of Earth had so much trouble with such ideas. One thought, one imagined actions and their consequences, considered how the — different results would taste and feel, then one acted! If the future was unclear, one did the best one could, and hoped.
It was how humans had muddled through during the ages of their horrible, orphaned ignorance. Akki saw no reason why it should be so hard for his people, especially when they were being shown the way.
'Akki? Toshio here. Gillian's coming. She had to break away from something important, so I ran ahead. Are you all right?'
Akki sighed.
'Hang on,' Toshio called, interrupting the rhyme. Akki grimaced. Toshio never would develop a sense of style.
'Here's Gillian,' Toshio finished. 'Take care of yourself, Akki!'
The line crackled with static.
'Akki?'
It was the voice of Gillian Baskin, made tinny by the weak connection, but almost infinitely gratifying to hear.
'What is it, dear? Can you tell me what's going on on the ship? Why won't Creideiki talk to me?'
That wasn't what Akki had thought she would ask first. For some reason he had expected her main concern to be Tom Orley. Well, he wasn't about to bring the subject up if she didn't.
There was silence at the other end. No doubt Gillian was formulating her next question in a way that would let him answer unambiguously in Trinary. It was a skill Toshio sometimes sadly lacked.
Akki brought his head up quickly. Was that a sound? It hadn't come from the comm line, but from the dark waters around him.
'Akki,' Gillian began. 'I'm going to ask you questions phrased to take three-level answers. Please spare artistry for brevity in answering.'
Gladly, if I can, Akki thought. He had often wondered why it was so hard to hold direct conversations in Trinary without beating around the bush in poetic allusion. It was his native tongue as much as Anglic was, and still he was frustrated by its resistance to shortcuts.
'Akki, does Creideiki ignore the Fish-of-Dreaming, does he chase them, or does he feed them?'
Gillian was asking if Creideiki was still functioning as a tool user, was he lost to injury, drifting in an unconscious dream-hunt or, worse, was he dead. Somehow, Gillian had immediately gone right to the heart of the matter. Akki was able to answer with blessed brevity.
There was that sound again! A rapid clicking, coming from not far away. Curse the necessity to keep his neural socket linked to the static of this line! The sounds were close enough to leave little doubt. Someone was hunting for him out here.
'All right, Akki. Next question. Does Hikahi calm all with her Keneenk rhythms, does she echo herd obedience, or does she sing an absent silence?'
Dolphin sonar is a highly directional thing. He felt the edge of a lobe of a sonic beam pass just above him, without hitting him broadside. Akki got down as close to the ocean floor as he could, and made an effort to direct his own nervous clickings into the soft sand. He wanted to reach out with one of his harness arms and grab a rock or something for stability, but was afraid the tiny whirring of the motors would be heard.
