Some scheme may work- If fate buys it We'll make a gamble- And simply try it Keepiru eyed his twin screens and concentrated. Toshio knew the pilot was listening to a complex pattern of sound-images, transmitted over his neural link. Under Keepiru's command the robot moved to the edge of the pool. Its claw arms grabbed the spongy metal of the rim to pull forward. There was a small rain of pebbles as it brought its treads to bear.

"Watch out!" Toshio called.

The jagged rock tipped forward. The camera showed it tottering ominously. Dennie cringed back from the screen. Then the rock toppled over and crashed into the robot.

There followed a swirl of spinning images. Dennie continued watching the screen, but Toshio and Keepiru shifted their gaze to the bottom of the shaft. Suddenly a rain of objects fell from the gap, tumbling into the darkness below. The debris sparkled in the sled's beams as it dropped into the abyss.

After a long silence Keepiru spoke.

The probe is down there-lungs unbreathing I was spared-the cutoff false-death It still whistles-stranded echoes *

Keepiru meant that the probe still sent him messages from whatever murky ledge had finally stopped it. Its tiny brain and transmitter hadn't been destroyed, and Keepiru had not suffered the jolt that a sudden cutoff could send to a connected nervous system.

But the robot's flotation tanks had been ruined. It was down there for good.

That must be-the last obstruction I shall go then- carefully, testing- Dennie, take the sled-and watch me! *

Before Keepiru or Toshio could stop him, Sah'ot was off his sled and away. He fluked mightily and disappeared into the shaft. Keepiru and Toshio looked at each other, sharing a malign thought about crazy civilians.

At least, Toshio thought, he could have taken a camera with him! But then, if Sah'ot had waited, Toshio would have had a chance to insist on the dubious privilege of scouting the pa.s.sage.

He looked at Dennie. She watched the robot probe screen, as if it might deliver some token about what was happening to Sah'ot. She had to be reminded, before she swam over and took control of the other sled.

Toshio had always thought of Dennie Sudman as one more adult scientist, friendly but enigmatic. Now he saw that she was not an awful lot more mature than he. And while she had the honor and status of a full professional, she lacked the eclecticism his officer training was giving him. She would never encounter the range of people, things, and situations he would, in the course of his career.

He looked again to the shaft entrance. Keepiru blew nervous bubbles. They would have to decide soon what to do if Sah'ot did not reappear.

Sah'ot was obviously a genetic experiment, in which the gene-crafters were pushing a set of traits toward a calculated optimum. If judged successful, the traits would be grafted back into the main pool of the neo-dolphin species. The process imitated, on a vastly quicker scale, the segregation and mixing that worked in nature.

Such experiments sometimes resulted in things not planned, though.

Toshio wasn't sure he trusted Sah'ot. The fin's obscurity wasn't like the inscrutability of Creideiki- -- deep and thoughtful. It grated, like the dissembling of some humans he had known.

Also, there was this s.e.xual game between Sah'ot and Dennie. Not that he was a prude. Such hobbies weren't exactly forbidden, but they had been known to cause problems.

Apparently Dennie wasn't even aware of the subtle ways in which she was encouraging Sah'ot. Toshio wondered if he had the nerve to tell her-or if it was any of his business.

Another tense minute pa.s.sed. Then, just as Toshio was about to go himself, Sah'ot shot down out of the shaft and swooped toward them.

The way is clear- I'll lead you airward! *

Keepiru jetted his sled over to the dolphin anthropologist, and squawked something pitched so high that Toshio couldn't quite catch it, even with his Calafian sensitivity.

Sah'ot's mouth twisted and closed into a reluctant att.i.tude of submission. Still, there was something defiant in his eye. He cast a look at Dennie, even as he rolled over to offer one of his ventral fins to Keepiru's mouth.

The pilot took a token nip, then turned back to the others.

The way is clear- I do believe him Now let us go- and drop these breathers To talk like Earthmen- about our work And to meet our future- pilot brothers *

The sled moved under the drill-tree shaft, then rose in a cloud of bubbles. The others followed.

22 ::: Creideiki The briefing had gone on far too long.

Creideiki regretted ever letting Charles Dart attend via holoscreen. The chimp planetologist would certainly have been less long-winded if he were here in the fizzing oxywater of the central bay, wet and wearing a facemask.

Dart lounged in his own laboratory, projecting his image to the conference area in Streaker's cylindrical bay. He seemed oblivious to the chafing of his listeners. Breathing oxywater in front of a console for two hours was highly uncomfortable to a neo-fin.

"Naturally, Captain," the chimp's scratchy baritone projected into the water. "When you chose to land us near a major tectonic boundary, I approved wholeheartedly. Nowhere else could I have had access to so much information in one spot. Still, I think I've made a convincing case for six or seven more sampling sites distributed about Kithrup, to verify some of the extremely interesting discoveries we've made here."

Creideiki was mildly surprised at the use of the first person plural. It was the first modest thing Charlie had said.

He glanced at Brookida, floating nearby. The metallurgist had been working with Charles Dart, his skills not currently required by the repair team. He had been largely silent for the last hour, letting the chimp pour out a tide of technical jargon which had left Creideiki dizzy.

What's the matter with Brookida? Does he think a captain under siege has nothing better to do?

Hikahi, recently released from sick bay, rolled over on her back, breathing the fizzing, oxygenated fluid and keeping one eye to the hologram of the chimpanzee.

She shouldn't do that, Creideiki thought. I'm having enough trouble concentrating as it is.

A lengthy, constricting meeting always did this to Creideiki. He felt a stirring of blood in and around his penile sheath. What he wanted to do was swim over to Hikahi and bite her softly in numerous places, up and down her flanks.

Kinky, yes, especially in public, but at least he was honest with himself.

"Planetologist Dart," he sighed. "I am trying very hard to understand what you claim to have discovered. The part about various crystalline and isotopic anomalies below the crust of Kithrup I think I follow. As for the subduction layer ..."

"A subduction zone is a boundary of two crustal plates, where one slips below its neighbor," Charlie interrupted.

Creideiki wished he could let down his dignity to curse at the chimp. "I do know that much planetology, Dr. Dart." He spoke carefully. "And I'm glad our being near one of these plate boundaries has been useful to you. However, you mussst understand that our choice of a landing site was based on matters tactical. We want both the metals and the camouflage offered by the 'coral' mounds. We landed here in order to hide, and to repair our ship. With hostile cruisers overhead, I can't think of permitting expeditions to other parts of the globe. In fact, I must refuse your request for further drilling at this location. The risk is too great, now that the Galactics have arrived."

The chimp frowned. His hands began to flutter. Before he found the words, Creideiki cut him off: "Besides, what does the ship's micro-branch say about Kithrup? Doesn't the Library contribute anything on these problems you face?"

"The Library!" Dart snorted. "That pack of lies! That friggin' mora.s.s of misinformation!" Charlie's voice dropped into a growl. "It has nothin' on the anomalies! It doesn't even mention the metal-mounds! The last survey was done over four hundred million years ago, when the planet was put on reserve status for the Karrank% ... ."

Charlie became so strangled around the extended glottal stop that he started to choke. He went bug-eyed and pounded himself on the chest, coughing.

Creideiki turned to Brookida. "Is this true? Is the Library so deficient in regard to this planet?"

"Yess-s," Brookida nodded slowly. "Four hundred epochs is a long time. When a planet is placed on reserve it's usually either to let it lie fallow while new species evolve to a level of pre-sentience ripe for uplift, or to provide a quiet place of decline for an ancient race that has entered senescence. Planets are placed off limits either to become nurseries or old age homes.

"Both seem to have occurred on Kithrup-p. We have discovered a ripe pre-sentient race which has apparently risen since the last Library update here. Also, the ... Karrank-k% ..." Brookida, too, had trouble with the name. " ... were granted the planet as a peaceful place to die, which they apparently have done. There seem to be no Karrank%-% ... anymore."

"But four hundred epochs without a re-survey?" It was difficult to imagine.

"Yes, a planet is usually re-licensed by the Inst.i.tute of Migration long before that. Still, Kithrup is such a strange world ... few species would choose to live here. Also, good access routes are scarce. This region of s.p.a.ce is gravitationally very shallow. It'sss one reason we came here."

Charles Dart was still catching his breath. He drank from a tall gla.s.s of water. During the respite, Creideiki lay still, thinking. Despite Brookida's points, would Kithrup really have been left fallow for so long, in an overcrowded galaxy where every piece of real estate was desired?

The Inst.i.tute of Migration was the only one of the loose Galactic bureaucracies whose power and influence rivaled even that of the Library Inst.i.tute. By tradition, all patron-lines obeyed its codes of ecosphere management; to do otherwise courted galaxy-wide disaster. The potential of lesser species to one day become clients, then patrons in their own time, made for a powerful galaxy-wide ecological conservatism.

Most Galactics were willing to overlook humanity's pre-Contact record. The slaughter of the mammoth, the giant ground sloth, and the manatee were forgiven in light of Mankind's "orphan" status. The real blame was laid on h.o.m.o sapiens' supposed patron-the mysterious undiscovered race that all said must have left man's uplift half-unfinished, thousands of years ago.

Dolphins knew how close the cetaceans themselves had come to extinction at the hands of human beings, but they never mentioned it outside Earth. For well or ill, their fate was now linked to Mankind's.

Earth was humanity's until the race moved on or died out. Man's ten colony worlds were licensed for smaller periods, based on complex eco-management plans. The shortest lease was a mere six thousand years. At the end of that time, the colonists of Atlast had to depart, leaving the planet fallow once again.

"Four hundred million years," Creideiki mulled. "That seems an unusually long time with no re-survey of this world."

"I agree!" Charlie Dart shouted, now fully recovered from his fit.

"And what if I told you there's signs Kithrup was occupied by a machine civilization as recently as thirty thousand years ago? Without any entry in the Library at all?"

Hikahi rolled over closer. "You think-k these crustal anomalies of yours may be the garbage of an interloper civilization, Dr. Dart?"

"Yes!" he cried. "Exactly! Good guess!

"You all know many eco-sensitive races will only build major facilities along a planet's plate boundaries. That way, when the planet is later declared fallow, all traces of habitation will be sucked down into the mantle and disappear. Some think that's why there are no signs of previous occupancy on Earth."

Hikahi nodded. "And if some species settled here illegally ... ?"

"They'd build at a plate boundary! The Library surveys planets at multi-epoch intervals. The evidence of the incursion would be sucked underground by then!" The chimp looked eagerly from the holo display.

Creideiki had trouble taking it all very seriously. Charlie made it sound like a whodunit! Only in this case the culprits were civilizations, the clues whole cities, and the rug under which the evidence was being swept was a planet's crust! It was the perfect crime! After all, the cop on the corner only swings by every few million years, and is late, at that.

Creideiki realized every metaphor he had just used was a human one. Well, that was to be expected. There were times, such as s.p.a.cewarp-piloting, when cetacean a.n.a.logies were more useful. But when thinking about the crazy politics of the Galactics, it helped to have watched a lot of old human movie thrillers, and read volumes of crazy human history.

Now Brookida and Dart were arguing some technical point ... and all Creideiki could think of was the taste of the water near Hikahi. He badly wanted to ask her if the flavor meant what he thought it meant. Was it a perfume she had put on, or was it natural pheromone?

With some difficulty, he forced himself back to the subject at hand.

Charlie's and Brookida's discovery, under normal circ.u.mstances, would be exciting.

But this has no bearing on escape for my ship and crew, nor getting our data back to the Terragens Council. Even the mission I sent Keepiru and Toshio on, to help appraise the native pre-sentients, is more urgent than hunting arcane clues in ancient alien rocks.

"Excuse me, Captain. I'm sorry I'm late. I've been listening quietly for a while, though."

Creideiki turned to see Dr. Ignacio Metz drift up alongside. The gangling, gray-haired psychologist treaded water slowly, casually compensating for a small negative buoyancy. A slight pot belly distended the neat fit of his slick brown drysuit.

Brookida and Dart argued on, now about rates of heating by radioactives, gravity, and meteoritic impact. Hikahi, apparently, found it all fascinating.

"You're welcome even late, Dr. Metz. I'm glad you could make it."

Creideiki was amazed he hadn't heard the man approach. Metz normally made a racket you could hear halfway across the bay. He sometimes radiated a two kilohertz hum from his right ear. It was barely detectable now, but at times it was quite annoying. How could the man have worked with fins for so long and never had the problem corrected?

Now I'm beginning to sound like Charlie Dart! He chided himself. Don't be peevish, Creideiki!

He whistled a stanza which echoed only within his own skull.

Those who live All vibrate, All, And aid the world's Singing *

"Captain, I actually came out here for another reason, but Dart's and Brookida's discovery may bear on what I have to say. Can we talk in private?"

Creideiki became expressionless. He had to get some rest and exercise soon. Overwork was wearing him down, and Streaker could ill-afford that.

But this human had to be treated carefully. Metz could not command him, aboard Streaker or anywhere, but he had power, power of a particularly potent kind. Creideiki knew that his own right of reproduction was guaranteed, no matter how this mission ended. Still Metz's evaluation would carry weight. Every dolphin aboard behaved as "sentiently" as he could around him. Even the captain.

Perhaps that's why I've put off a confrontation, Creideiki thought. Soon though, he would force Dr. Metz to answer some questions regarding certain members of Streaker's crew.

"Very well, Doctor," he answered. "Allow me a moment. I think I'm finished here."

Hikahi swam close at a nod from Creideiki. She grinned and flicked her pectorals at Metz.

"Hikahi, please finish up here for me. Don't let them go more than another ten minutes before summing up their proposalsss. I'll meet you in an hour in recreation pool 3-A to hear your recommendations."

She answered as he had addressed her, in rapid, highly inflected Underwater Anglic. "Aye aye, Captain. Will there be anything else?"

d.a.m.n! Creideiki knew Hikahi's sonar showed her everything about his s.e.xual agitation. It was easy to tell with a male. He would have to do an explicit sonic scan of her innards to gain the same information about her, and that would not be polite.

Things must have been so much simpler in the old times!

Well, he would find out her frame of mind in an hour. One of the privileges of captaincy was to order a recreation pool cleared. There had better not be an emergency between now and then!

"No, nothing else for now, Hikahi. Carry on."

She saluted snappily with an arm of her harness.

Brookida and Charlie were still arguing as Creideiki turned back to Metz. "Will it be private enough if we take the long way to the bridge, Doctor? I'd like to check with Takkata-Jim before going on to other duties."

"That'll be fine, Captain. What I have to say won't take long."

Creideiki kept his face impa.s.sive. Was Metz smiling at something in particular? Was the man amused at something he had seen or heard?

"I am ssstill confused by the pattern of volcanoes up and down the three-thousand-kilometer zone where these two plates meet," Brookida said. He spoke slowly, partly for Charlie's benefit and partly because it was hard to argue in oxywater. There never seemed to be enough air.

"If you look at the sssurvey charts we made from orbit, you see that vulcanism is dispersed spa.r.s.ely elsewhere on the planet. But here the volcanoes are very frequent, and all about the same small size."

Charlie shrugged. "I don't see how that relates at all, old man. I think it's just a great big coincidence."

"But isn't this also the only area where the metal-mounds are found?" Hikahi suggested suddenly. "I'm no expert, but a s.p.a.cer learns to be suspicious of twin coincidences."

Charlie opened and closed his mouth, as if he were about to speak, then thought better of it. At last he said, "That's very good. Yes! Brookida, you think these coral critters may need some nutrient that only this one type of volcano provides?"

"Possssibly. Our exobiology expert is Dennie Sudman. She's now at one of the islands, investigating the aboriginals."

"She must get samples for us!" Charlie rubbed his hands together. "Do you think it'd be too much to ask her to take a side trip to a volcano? Not too far away, of course, after what Creideiki just said. Just a little, teeny one."