Anyway, from the Jophur prisoners we know the Kothen ship is irrelevant. We have more immediate concerns.

1 HL, Library cube reports no progress on that symbol-the one with nine spirals and eight ovals. I he unit is now silting its older hies, a job that gets harder the lurther back it goes.

In compensation, the cube has Hooded me with records of other recent sooner outbreaks-secret colonies established on (allow worlds.

It turns out that most are quickly discovered by guardian patrols of the Inst.i.tute or ,Viigration. Jijo is a special case, with limited access and the nearby shrouding of Ismunuti. Atso, this time an entire galaxy was declared tallow, making inspection a monumental task. ., I wondered-why set aside a whole galaxy, when the basic unit of ecological recovery is a planet, or at most a solar system'

The cube explained that much larger areas of s.p.a.ce are usually quarantined, all. at once. Oxygen-breathing civilization evacuates an entire sector or spiral arm, ceding it to the parallel culture of hydrogen breathers-those mysterious creatures sometimes generically called 2,ang. this helps keep both societies separated in physical s.p.a.ce, reducing the chance of triction.

It also helps the quarantine. The ^ang are unpredictable, and olten ignore minor incursions, but they can be herce it large numbers of oxy-sapients appear where they don t belong.

We detected what must have been ^ang ships, belore diving past Igmunuti. I guess they took us for a minor incursion, since they left us alone.

The wholesale trading of sectors and ?ones makes more sense now. Still, t pressed the [-,lbrary cube.

Has an entire galaxy ever been declared oH-limits before' The answer surprised me.

Not for a very long time ... at least one hundred and tiny million years.

Now, where have I heard that number before!

Wt^Kh, told there are eight orders of sapience and quasisapience. Uxy-lite is the most vigorous and blatant-or as lorn put it, strutting around, acting like we own the place. In (act, though, I was surprised to learn that hydrogen breathers far outnumber oxygen breathers. But ^ang and their relatives spend most of their time down in the turbid layers of Jovian-type worlds.

Jome say this is because they tear contact with oxy-types. Others say they could crush us anytime, but have never gotten around to it. perhaps they will, sometime in the next molllion years.

The other orders are Machine, ,Viemetic, Quantum, Hypotlietical, Ketired, and Transcendent. why am I pondering this now'

Well, our plans are in motion, and soon Streaker will be, too. Its likely that in a lew Jays well be dead, or else taken captive. With luck, we (nay buy something worthwhile with our lives. But our chances of actually getting away seem vanishingly small.

And yet . . . what U we do manage it' After all, the Jophur may get engine trouble at just the right moment. [hey might decide were not worth the eilort.

The sun might go nova.

In that case, where can JtreaKer go next'

We've tried seeking Justice from our own oxy-culture-the civilisation of the Five Galaxies-but the Inst.i.tutes proved untrustworthy. We tried the Old Ones, but those members of the Ketired Larder proved less impartial than we hoped.

In a universe rilled with possibilities, there remain hall a dozen other quasi-sapient orders out there. Alien in both thought and substance. k.u.mored to be dangerous.

What have we got to lose"

Kaa CLEAMING MISSILES STRUCK THE WATER WHENEVER he surfaced to breathe. The spears were crude weapons-hollow wooden shafts tipped with slivers of volcanic gla.s.s-but when a keen-edged harpoon grazed his Hank, Kaa lost half his air in a reflexive cry. The harbor- now a cramped, exitless trap-reverberated with his agonized moan.

The hoonish sailors seemed to have no trouble moving around by torchlight, rowing their coracles back and forth, executing complex orders shouted from their captains' bulging throat sacs. The water's tense skin reverberated like a beaten drum as the snare tightened around Kaa. Already, a barrier of porous netting blocked the narrow harbor mouth.

Worse, the natives had reinforcements. Skittering sounds announced the arrival of clawed feet, scampering down the rocky sh.o.r.e south of town. Chitinous forms plunged underwater, reminding Kaa of some horror movie about giant crabs. Red qbeuens, he realized, as these new allies helped the hoon sailors close off another haven, the water's depths.

Ifni! What did Zhaki and Mopol do to make the locals so mad at the mere sight of a dolphin in their bay? How did they get these people so angry they want to kill me on sight?

Kaa still had some tricks. Time and again he misled the hoons, making feints, pretending sluggishness, drawing the noose together prematurely, then slipping beneath a gap in their lines, dodging a hail of javelins.

My ancestors had practice doing this. Humans taught us lessons, long before they switched from spears to scalpels.

Yet he knew this was a contest the cetacean could not win. The best he could hope for was a drawn-out tie.

Diving under one hoonish coracle, Kaa impulsively spread his jaws and s.n.a.t.c.hed the rower's oar in his teeth, yanking it like the tentacle of some demon octopus. The impact jarred his mouth and tender gums, but he added force with a hard thrust of his tail flukes.

The oarsman made a mistake by holding on-even a hoon could not match Kaa, strength to strength. A surprised bellow met a resounding splash as the mariner, struck salt water far from the boat. Kaa released the oar and kicked away rapidly. That act would not endear him to ' the hoon. On the other hand, what was there left to lose? I Kaa had quite given up on his mission-to make contact with the Commons of Six Races. All that remained was

fighting for survival.

I should have gone after Peepoe, instead.

The decision still bothered Kaa with nagging pangs of guilt. How could he obey Gillian Baskin's orders-no matter how urgent-instead of striking off across the dark sea, chasing after the thugs who had kidnapped his mate and love?

What did duty matter-or even his oath to Terra-compared with that?

After Gillian signed off, Kaa had listened as the sun set, picking out distant echoes of the fast-receding speed sled, still faintly audible to the northwest. Sound carried far in Jijo's ocean, without the myriad engine noises that made Earth's seas a cacophony. The sled was already so far away-at least a hundred klicks by then-it would seem forlorn to follow. But so what? So the odds were impossible? That never mattered to the heroes one found in storybooks and holosims! No audience ever cheered a champion who let mere impossibility stand in the way.

Maybe that was what swayed Kaa, in an agonized moment. The fact that it was such a cliche. All the movie heroes-whether human or dolphin-would routinely forsake comrades, country, and honor for the sake of love.

Relentless propaganda from every romantic tale urged him to do it.

But even if I succeeded, against all odds, what would Peepoe say after I rescued her?

I know her. She'd call me a fool and a traitor, and never respect me again.

So it was that Kaa found himself entering Port Wuphon as ordered, long after nightfall, with all the wooden sailboats shrouded beneath camouflage webbing that blurred their outlines into cryptic hummocks. Still hating himself for his decision, he had approached the nearest wharf, where two watchmen lounged on what looked like walking staffs, beside a pair of yawning noor. By starlight, Kaa had reared up on his churning flukes to begin reciting his memorized speech of greeting . . . and barely escaped being skewered for his trouble. Whirling back into the bay, he dodged razor-tipped staves that missed by centimeters.

"Wait-t-t!" he had cried, emerging on the other side of the wharf. "You're mak-ing a terrible mistake! I bring news from your own lossssst ch-ch-children! F-from Alvi- "

He barely escaped a second time. The hoon guards weren't listening. Darkness barely saved Kaa as growing numbers of missiles hurled his way.

His big mistake was trying a third time to communicate. When that final effort failed, Kaa tried to depart . . . only to find belatedly that the door had shut. The harbor mouth was closed, trapping him in a tightening noose.

So much for my skill at diplomacy, he pondered, while skirting silently across the bottom muck . . . only to swerve when his sonar brushed armored forms ahead, approaching with scalloped claws spread wide.

Add that to my other failures . . . as a spy, as an officer . . . Mopol and Zhaki would never have antagonized the locals so, with senseless pranks and mischief, if he had led them properly.

. . . and as a lover. . . .

In fact, Kaa knew just one thing he was good at. And at this rate, he'd never get another chance to ply his trade.

A strange, thrashing sound came from just ahead, toward the bottom of the bay. He nearly swung around again, dodging it to seek some other place, dreading the time when bursting lungs would force him back to the surface. . . .

But there was something peculiar about the sound. A softness. A resigned, melodious sadness that seemed to fill the water. Curiosity overcame Kaa as he zigzagged, casting sonar clicks through the murk to perceive- A hoon!

But what was one of them doing down here?

Kaa nosed forward, ignoring the growing staleness of his air supply, until he made out a tall biped amid clouds of churned-up mud. Diffracted echoes confirmed his unbe- lieving eyes. The creature was undressing, carefully re- ' moving articles of clothing, tying them together in a string.

Kaa guessed it was a female, from the fact that it was a bit smaller and had only a modest throat sac.

Is it the one I pulled overboard? But why doesn 't she swim back to the boat? I a.s.sumed . . .

Kaa was struck by a wave of image-rupture alienation- a sensation all too familiar to Earthlings since contactwhen some concept that had seemed familiar abruptly made no sense anymore.

Hoons can't swim!

The journal of Alvin Hph-wayuo never mentioned this. In fact, Alvin implied that his people pa.s.sionately loved boats and the sea. Nor were they cavalier about their lives, but mourned the loss of loved ones even more deeply than a human or dolphin would. Kaa suddenly knew he'd been fooled by Alvin's writings, sounding so much like an Earth ' kid, never mentioning things that he simply a.s.sumed.

Aliens. Who configure?

He stared as the hoon tied the string of clothes around her left wrist and held the other end to her mouth, calmly exhaling her last air, inflating a balloonlike fold of cloth. It floated upward, no more than two meters, stopping far short of the surface.

She's not signaling for help, he fathomed as the hoon sat down in the mud, humming a dirge. She's making sure they can drag the bottom and retrieve her body. Kaa had read Alvin's account of death rituals the locals took quite seriously.

By now his own lungs burned fiercely. Kaa deeply regretted that the breather unit on his harness had burned out after Zhaki shot him.

He heard the qheuens approaching from behind, clacking their claws, but Kaa sensed a hole in their line, confident he could streak past, just out of reach. He tried to turn . . . to seize the brief opportunity.

Oh, h.e.l.l, he sighed, and kicked the other way, aiming for the dying hoon.

It took some time to get her to the surface. When they broke through, her entire body shook with harsh, quivering gasps. Water jetted from nostril orifices at the same time as air poured in through her mouth, a neat trick that Kaa kind of envied.

He pushed her close enough to throw one arm over a drifting oar, then he whirled around to peer across the bay, ready to duck onrushing spears.

None came. In fact, there seemed a curious absence of boats nearby. Kaa dropped his head down to cast suspicious sonar beams through his arched brow-and confirmed that all the coracles had backed off some distance.

A moon had risen. One of the big ones. He could make out silhouettes now , . . hoons standing in their rowboats, all of them turned to face north ... or maybe northwest. The males had their sacs distended, and a steady thrumming filled the air. They Seemed oblivious to the sudden reappearance of one of their kind from a brush with drowning.

I'd have thought they'd be all over this area, dropping weighted ropes, trying to rescue her. It was another example of alien thinking, despite all the Terran books these hoons had read. Kaa was left with the task of shoving her with the tip of his rostrum, a creepy feeling coursing his spine as he pushed the bedraggled survivor toward one of the docks.

More villagers stood along the wharf, their torches flickering under gusts of stiffening wind. They seemed to be watching ... or listening ... to something.

A dolphin can both see and hear things happening above the water's surface, but not as well as those who live exclusively in that dry realm. With his senses still in an uproar, Kaa could discern little in the direction they faced, Just the hulking outline of a mountain.

The computerized insert in his right eye flexed and turned until Kaa finally made out a flickering star near the mountain's highest point. A star that throbbed, flashing on and off to a staccato rhythm. He could not make anything of it at first . . . though the cadence seemed reminiscent of Galactic Two.

"Ex-x-xcuse me . . ." he began, trying to take advantage of the inactivity. Whatever else was happening, this seemed a good chance to get a word in edgewise. "I'm a dolphin . . . cousin to humansss . . . I've been sssent with-th a message for Uriel the-"

The crowd suddenly erupted in a moan of emotion that made Kaa's sound-sensitive jaw throb. He made out s.n.a.t.c.hes of individual speech.

"Rockets!" one onlooker sighed in Anglic. "The sages made rockets!"

Another spoke GalSeven in tones of wonder. "One small enemy s.p.a.ceship destroyed . . . and now the big one is targeted!"

Kaa blinked, transfixed by the villagers' tension.

Rockets? Did I hear right? But- Another cry escaped the crowd.

"They plummet!" someone cried. "They strike!"

Abruptly, the mountain-perched star paused its twinkling bulletin. 'All sound seemed to vanish with it. The hoons stood in dead silence. Even the oily water of the bay was hushed, lapping softly against the wharf.

The flashing resumed, and there came from the crowd a moan of shaken disappointment.

"It survives, exists. The mother battleship continues, went the GalTwo mutter of a traeki, somewhere in the crowd.

"Our best effort has failed. "And now comes punishment."

Sooners THE MOMENT LARK PRAYED FOR NEVER CAME. THE walls did not shatter, torn by native-made warheads or screaming splinters of greatboo. Instead, the sound of detonations remained distant, then diminished. The floorthrobbing vibration ofJophur defense guns changed tenor now that the element of surprise was gone, from frantic to complacent, as if the incoming missiles were mere nuisances.

Then silence fell. It was over.

He let go of the Egg fragment, and released Ling, as well, Lark pulled his knees in, wrapped both arms around them, and rocked miserably. He had never felt so disappointed to be alive.

"Woorsh, that was close!" Ling exhaled, clearly savoring survival. Not that Lark blamed her. She might still nurse hopes of escape, or of being swapped in some Galactic prisoner exchange. All this might become just another episode in her memoirs. An episode, like me, he thought. The clever jungle boy she once met on Jijo.

His old friend Harullen might have seen a bright side to this failure. Now the angered Jophur might extinguish all sapient life on the planet, not only their g'Kek blood enemies. Wouldn't that fit in with Lark's beliefs? His heresy?

The Six Races don't belong here, but neither do they deserve annihilation. I wanted us to do the right thing peacefully, honorably, and of our own accord. Without violence. All this burning of forests and valleys.

"Look!"

He glanced at Ling, who had stood up and was pointing at Ewasx. The ring stack still quaked, but one torus in the middle was undergoing full-scale convulsions. Throbbing indentations formed on opposite sides, distending its round shape.

Both men joined Ling, staring with unbelieving eyes as the dents deepened and spread into circular bulges, straining outward until a sheer membrane was all that restrained them. The Jophur's basal legs started pumping and Hexing.

The humans jumped back when Ewasx abruptly skittered across the floor, first toward the armored door, then away again, zigging and zagging three times before finally sagging back down, like a heap of flaccid tubes.

The middle ring continued to throb and swell.

"What is it doing?" Ling asked in awe.

Lark had to swallow before answering.

"It's vienning. Giving birth, you'd say. Traekis don't do this often, 'cause it endangers the union of the stack. Mostly they bud embryos and let 'em grow in a mulch pile, on their own."

Rann gaped. "Giving birth? Here?" Clearly, he knew more about killing Jophur than about the rest of their life cycle.

Lark realized-the catatonia of Ewasx was not caused simply by the surprise rocket attack. That shock had trig- gered a separate convulsion just waiting to happen.

Membranes started tearing. One of the new rings, almost the size of Lark's head and colored a deep shade of purple, began writhing through. The other was smaller and crimson, emerging through a mucusy pustule, trailing streamers of rank, oily stuff. Both infant toruses slithered down the flanks of the parent stack, then across the metal floor, seeking shadows.

"Lark, you'd better have a look at this," Ling said.

He could barely yank his gaze away from the nauseating, bewitching sight of the greasy newborns. Upon stumbling over to join Ling, he found her pointing downward.

"When it ran back and forth, a dura ago ... it left this trail on the floor."