He doubted anyone could have gotten away in time.
Tom changed goals. His long-range destination was still the eggshell ship floating a few miles away. But first he wanted to sift through the wreckage of that scout boat. Maybe there would be evidence there to make his decision easier. Maybe there would be food.
He tried to crawl up onto the weeds, but found it too difficult. He was still shaking.
All right, then. We'll go under the sea. It's probably all moot anyway.
I might as well enjoy the scenery.
52 ::: Akki
The son of a blood-gorged lamprey just wouldn't let go! Akki was exhausted. The metallic tang of the water mixed with the taste of bile from his fore-stomach as he swam hard to the southeast. He wanted desperately to rest, but he knew he couldn't afford to let his pursuer cut away at his lead.
Now and then he caught sight of K'tha-Jon, about two kilometers behind him and closing the gap. The giant, darkly countershaded dolphin seemed tireless. His breath condensed in high vertical spouts, like small rockets of fog, as he plowed ahead through the water.
Akki's breath was ragged, and he felt weak with hunger. He cursed in Anglic and found it unsatisfying. Playing over a resonating, obscene phrase in Primal Dolphin helped a little.
He should have been able to outdistance K'tha-Jon, at least over a short stretch. But something in the water was affecting the hydrodynamic properties of his skin. Some substance was causing an allergic reaction. His normally smooth and pliant hide was scratchy and bumpy. He felt like he was plowing through syrup instead of water. Akki wondered why no one else had reported this. Did it only affect dolphins from Calafia?
It was one more unfairness in a series that stretched back to the moment he had left the ship.
Escaping K'tha-Jon hadn't been as easy as he expected. Heading southeast, he should have been able to veer right or left to reach help, either Hikahi and the crew at the Thennanin wreck, or at Toshio's island. But every time he tried to change course, K'tha-Jon moved to cut the corner. Akki couldn't afford to lose any more of his lead.
A wave of focused sonar swept over him from behind. He wanted to curl up into a ball every time it happened. It wasn't natural for a dolphin to flee another for so long. In the deep past a youngster who angered an older male-by trying to copulate with a female in the old bull's harem, for instance might get thumped or raked. But only rarely was a grudge held. Akki had to stifle an urge to stop and try to reason with K'tha-Jon.
What good would that do? The giant was obviously mad.
His speed advantage was lost to this mysterious skin itch. Diving to get around K'tha-Jon was also out of the question. The Stenos bredanensis were pelagic dolphins. K'tha-Jon could probably out dive anyone in the Streaker's crew.
When next he glanced back, K'tha-Jon had closed to within about a kilometer. Akki warbled a sigh and redoubled his efforts.
A line of green-topped mounds lay near the horizon, perhaps four or five kilometers away. He had to hold on long enough to reach them!
Moki drove the sled at top speed to the south, blasting its sonar ahead like a bugle.
'… calling Haoke, calling Moki. This is Heurkah-Pete. Come in. Verify p-please!'
Moki tossed his head in irritation. The ship was trying to reach him again. Moki clicked the sled's transmitter on and tried to talk clearly.
'Yesss! What-t-t you want-t!'
There was a pause, then, 'Moki, let me talk to Haoke.'
Moki barely concealed a laugh. 'Haoke… dead! K-k-killed by intruder! I'm ch-chasing now. T-t-tell Takkata-Jim I'll get-t 'em!'
Moki's Anglic was almost indecipherable, yet he didn't dare use Trinary. He might slip into Primal in public, and he wasn't ready for that yet.
There was a long silence on the sonar-speak line. Moki hoped that now they'd leave him alone.
When he and Haoke had found the Baskin woman's empty sled, drifting slowly westward at low power, something had finally snapped within him. He had then entered a confused but exalted state, a blur of action, like a violent dream.
Perhaps they were ambushed, or perhaps he merely imagined it. But when it was over Haoke was dead and he, Moki, had no regrets.
After that his sonar had picked up an object heading south. Another sled. Without another thought he had given chase.
The sonar-speak crackled. 'Heurkah again, Moki. You're getting out of saser range, and we still can't use radiosss. You are now given two ordersss. First — relay a sonar-speak message to K'tha-Jon, ordering him back-k! His mission is cancelled!
'Number two — after that, turn around yoursself! That'sss a direct order!'
The lights and dots meant little to Moki anymore. What mattered were the patterns of sound that the sled's sensors sent him. The expanded hearing sense gave him a god-like feeling, as if he were one of the Great Dreamers himself. He imagined himself a huge catodon, a sperm whale, lord of the deep hunting prey that fled at any hint of his approach.
Not far to the south was the muffled sound of a sled, the one he had been chasing for some time. He could tell that he was catching up to it.
Much farther away, and to the left, were two tiny rhythmic signals, sounds of rapid cetacean swimming. That had to be K'tha-Jon and the upstart Calafian.
Moki would dearly love to steal K'tha-Jon's prey from him, but that could wait. The first-enemy was dead ahead.
'Moki, did you copy me? Answer! You have your ordersss! You must…'
Moki clapped his jaws in disgust. He shut off the sonarspeak in the middle of Heurkah-pete's complaint. It was getting hard to understand the stuck-up little petty officer anyway. He had never been much of a Stenos, always studying Keneenk with the Tursiops, and trying to 'better himself.'
Moki decided he would look the fellow up after he had finished taking care of his enemies outside the ship.
54 ::: Keepiru
Keepiru knew he was being followed. He had expected that someone might be sent after him to keep him from reaching Hikahi.
But his pursuer was some sort of idiot. He could tell from the distant whine of the engines that the fin's sled was being driven well beyond its rated speed. What did the fellow hope to accomplish? Keepiru had a long enough head start to make it within sonar-speak range of the Thennanin wreck before his pursuer caught up. He only had to push his sled's throttle slightly into the red.
The fin behind him was spraying sonar noise all over the place, as if he wanted to announce to all and sundry that he was coming.
With all his screeching, the imbecile was making it hard for Keepiru to piece together what was going on to the southeast. Keepiru concentrated and tried to block out the noise from behind.
Two dolphins, it seemed, one almost out of breath, the other powerful and still vigorous, were swimming furiously toward a bank of sonar shadows fifty kilometers away.
What was going on? Who was chasing whom?
He listened so hard that Keepiru suddenly had to veer to avoid colliding with a high seamount. He passed on the west side, banking hard to sweep past by meters. The mountain's bulk momentarily cast him into silence.
* Ware shoals
Child of Tursiops!
He trilled a lesson-rhyme, then switched to Trinary Haiku.
* Echoes of the shore
Are like drifting feathers
Dropped by pelicans!
Keepiru chided himself. Dolphins were supposed to be hot pilots it was what had won them their first starship berths over a century before and he was known far and wide as one of the best. So why were forty knots underwater harder to handle than fifty times light speed down a wormhole?
His thrumming sled left the shadow of the seamount and came into open water. East of southeast came a faint image-gestalt of racing cetaceans, once again.
Keepiru concentrated. Yes, the one in pursuit was a Stenos, a big one. It used a strange pattern of search sonar.
The one in front…
…It has to be Akki, he thought. The kid is in trouble. Bad trouble.
He was almost deafened as a blast of sound from the sled behind him caught him directly in a focused beam. He chattered a curse-glyph and shook his head to clear it.
He almost turned around to take care of the self-sucking turd swallower behind him but he knew his duty lay ahead.
Keepiru was tormented by a choice. Strictly speaking, his duty was to get a message to Hikahi. Yet it went against everything inside him to abandon the middie.
