tactics that had saved it from the earlier pack.
Speed. Speed was Leviathan’s only hope. If it could get back to its own Kin, rejoin the others, then the Darters would not dare to attack. Even if they were foolish or desperate enough to try, an entire gathering of Kin could crush the Darters with ease. Darters almost always broke off their attacks when they saw a whole gathering swinging into a defensive sphere. They preferred to attack lone members, waiting until one of the Kin moved off by itself to dissociate and begin budding.
But the Kin were still far, far off. And the Darters were moving in fast. It was going to be a race, Leviathan knew, urging its flagella members to their utmost speed. A race against time. A race against death.
PURSUIT
“Nonsense!” Krebs snarled. “Just because they can mimic what they see doesn’t make them intelligent.”
“It doesn’t make them stupid,” Karlstad quipped.
“Parrots can mimic human speech,” Krebs said.
“Dogs, horses, many animals can respond to human commands. Does that make them intelligent?”
“Dolphins speak with us,” O’Hara said.
Krebs shook her head stubbornly. “Intelligence requires culture, technology. Dolphins have none.”
How could they, Grant wondered, living underwater, without hands to manipulate their environment, without the ability to make fire? They’re stuck with their own muscle power, and that’s a dead end.
“Ants have culture and technology,” Karlstad said.
Before Krebs could respond, O’Hara countered, “The mark of intelligence is the ability to communicate abstract ideas among others of your species. The dolphins do that.”
“Abstract ideas?” Muzorawa asked.
“Yes,” O’Hara replied firmly. “They can understand friendship and loyalty. They have family ties.”
Krebs, still looking utterly unconvinced, said, “We are not here for philosophical debates. Maintain the same course and speed as the whales. The more data we get on them, the better.”
The pain in his back was getting worse. Grant closed his eyes and visualized the faulty thruster. The pain told him that it was sputtering again.
Before he could call out the problem, Krebs complained, “I need full power from all the thrusters, Mr. Archer.”
“Number two is failing again,” he said.
“I can see that. Fix it!”
“If I could shut it down … just for half an hour…”
Krebs seemed to consider the possibility. Then she shook her head. “No. We will lose the whales.”
Muzorawa spoke up. “Captain, we know the herd’s course and speed. We could catch up with them once the thruster is repaired.”
“We are barely keeping pace with them now,” Krebs growled. “Once they move away from us we’ll never catch them.”
“The stream of organics that they are grazing on follows a curving path,” Muzorawa said, calmly reasonable, displaying Grant’s map of the ocean currents with the organics’ course highlighted. “We could cut across the current, once the thruster is repaired, and intercept the herd.”
Krebs closed her eyes. She’s visualizing Zeb’s map, Grant thought, using the implants to give her a picture that her eyes can’t see. The pressure must be affecting her optic nerves, not her visual cortex.
Krebs opened her eyes, but they stared blankly. “Very well,” she said reluctantly. “O’Hara, reduce speed to minimum cruise. Archer, shut down number-two thruster for repair.”
As Grant began to bubble out a sigh of relief, Krebs added, “And get the repair finished in thirty minutes! Not one second more!”
“Yes, Captain!”
Twenty-eight minutes later Grant surveyed the relined plasma tube. Through his implanted chips he felt the ceramic lining as if he were caressing it, running his hands along its smooth length, still warm from the star-hot stream of ionized gas that had been flowing through it. Yes, he told himself, it’s the proper thickness and surface smoothness. All within the specifications. The liquid nitrogen coolant was refrigerating the superconducting coils on the other side of the tube. The coils were well below their critical temperature.
“Well?” Krebs demanded. “Are you finished?”
With a single small nod, Grant said, “Yes, Dr. Krebs.
Thruster number two is ready to go back on-line.”
“Good,” she said, and Grant realized that this would be as close to a pat on the back as he would ever get from this dour, hard-driven woman.
As the thrusters roared up to full power, Grant fought to pull his attention away from the impulses his chips were sending through his nervous system. It took an effort, but through clenched teeth he asked Muzorawa, standing next to him: “Have we lost them?”
The wallscreen showed nothing but empty darkness.
It took a moment for Zeb to reply. “They’ve moved off beyond our sensor range,” he answered, rubbing his eyes, “but if they are still following the organics, we should intercept them in about one hour.”
And if they’ve changed course we’ve probably lost them forever, Grant thought. And it will be my fault. At least Krebs will blame me for it.
Then he asked himself, Are there other herds in the ocean? There must be. There couldn’t be just one group of a few dozen of these creatures. There must be others of their kind… and other kinds of creatures in the sea, as well. We have a whole world to explore, a whole ecology, an ocean thousands of times bigger than Earth.
If the thrusters hold out, he reminded himself. They’re working fine now, but you’ve used up all the reserve ceramic. If anything goes wrong again, we either head back for the station or die here. There’s nothing left to repair them with. And we’re running them full-out. If one of them fails, we’re gone.
Grant glanced at Muzorawa, then at O’Hara and Karlstad, all at their consoles, all straining their senses to find the herd of Jovian whales. They’re not whales, Grant chided himself. They’re nothing like whales. They make whales look like minnows, for God’s sake.
None of the others seemed to know that the thrusters were in critical condition. Looking over his shoulder at Krebs, though, Grant felt that she knew. Those blind eyes notwithstanding, she knows that the thrusters are on the knife-edge of breakdown. And she doesn’t care. She’d rather die than give up this quest.
“I see one!” Muzorawa sang out. It reminded Grant of old stories about whalers, iron men in wooden ships, and their cry of “Thar she blows! ”
Everyone tried to tap into the sensor data at once. Grant got a sensation of a faint, trembling touch along his arms, as if someone were stroking his skin, gently, very gently.
“Give me visual imagery,” Krebs snapped.
“It’s too far off for anything but sonar right now,” Zeb replied.
“Let me
“In a few minutes,” Muzorawa said. “Ah! It’s lighting up the water! Can you see the glow?”
Grant saw a faint deep red shimmering in the otherwise black visual imagery.
“It seems to be alone,” Muzorawa said, sounding puzzled. “I can’t detect any other creatures near it.”
O’Hara chimed in, “It’s not on the same course that the herd should be following. And it’s moving at much greater speed.”
“It’s an intercept course,” Krebs said. “But it’s coming from a different direction than we are.”
“I’m starting to get visual imagery,” Muzorawa said.
“Yes, I see,” said Krebs.
“It’s alone,” Karlstad said.
“Yes,” Muzorawa agreed. Then: “No, I don’t think it is—there are others coming with it. Two… six … ten and more! They’re smaller, though. Different in shape.”
