Part 6 (1/2)

”My rings decide! My rings are those of priesthood! My rings ...”

The oration-peak of the pyramidal high priest erupted in a geyser of hot, multi-hued sap. The explosion spewed sticky amber liquor across the bridge of the Jophur flags.h.i.+p.

”Continue fighting.” The chief of staff waved the crew back to work with its sidearm. ”Call the Quartermaster of Religiosity. Have it send up rings to make up a new priest. Continue fighting while we prepare to perform the rituals of betrayal: The chief of staff bowed to the staring section chiefs. ”We shall appease the ancestors of the Thennanin before we turn on them.

”But remember to make certain the Thennanin themselves do not sense our intentions!”

9 ::: From The Journal of Gillian Baskin It's been some time since I've been able to make an entry in this personal log. Since the Shallow Cl.u.s.ter it seems we've constantly been in frantic motion ... making the discovery of the millennia, getting ambushed at Morgran, and fighting for our lives from then on. I hardly ever see Tom any more. He's always down in the engine or weapons pods. I'm either here in the lab or helping out in sick bay.

s.h.i.+p's surgeon Makanee has a mouthful of problems. Fen have always had a talent for hypochondria. A fifth of the crew shows up every sick call with psychosomatic complaints. You can't just tell them it's all in their heads, so we stroke them and tell them what brave fellows they are, and that everything's going to be all right.

I think if it weren't for the captain, half of this crew would be hysterical by now. To many of them he seems almost like a hero out of the Whale Dream. Creideiki moves about the s.h.i.+p, watching the repairs and giving little lessons in Keneenk logic. The fen seem to buck up whenever he's nearby.

Still, reports keep coming in about the s.p.a.ce battle. Instead of tapering off, it's only getting thicker and heavier!

And we're all getting more than a little worried about Hikahi's party.

Gillian put down her stylus. From the small circle of her desk lamp, the rest of the laboratory appeared dark and gloomy. The only other light came from the far end of the room. Silhouetted against the spots was a vaguely humanoid shape, a mysterious shadow, lying on a stasis table.

”Hikahi,” she sighed. ”Where in Ifni's name are you?”

That Hikahi's survey party hadn't even sent back a monopulse confirmation of the recall order was now of great concern. Streaker couldn't afford to lose those crewfen. For all of his frequent unreliability outside the bridge, Keepiru was their best pilot. Even Tos.h.i.+o Iwas.h.i.+ka had a lot of promise.

But most of all, the loss of Hikahi would hurt. Without her, how could Creideiki manage?

Hikahi was Gillian's best dolphin friend, at least as close to her as Tom was to Creideiki or Tsh't. Gillian wondered why Takkata-Jim had been appointed vice-captain instead of Hikahi. It made no sense. She could only imagine that politics was behind it. Takkata-Jim was a Stenos. Perhaps Ignacio Metz had had a hand in choosing the complement for this mission. Metz was a pa.s.sionate advocate of certain dolphin racial types back on Earth.

Gillian didn't write these thoughts down. They were idle speculations, and she didn't have time for speculation.

Anyway, it's time I got back to Herbie.

She closed her journal and got up to walk over to the stasis table, where a dry, dessicated figure floated in a heavily s.h.i.+elded field of suspended time.

The ancient cadaver grinned back at her through the gla.s.s.

It wasn't human. There hadn't even been multi-cellular creatures on Earth when this thing had lived and breathed and flown s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps. Yet it looked eerily humanoid. It had straight arms and legs, and a very man-like head and neck. Its jaw and eye orbits were strange-looking, but its skull still had a very man-like grin.

How old are you, Herbie? she asked in her thoughts. One billion years? Two?

How is it your fleet of ancient hulks waited undiscovered by Galactic civilization for so long, waited until we came along ... a bunch of wolfling humans and newly uplifted dolphins? Why were we the ones to find you?

And why did one litle hologram of you, beamed home to Earth, make half the patron-lines in the galaxy go crazy?

Streaker's micro-Library was no help. It refused to recognize Herbie at all. Maybe it was holding back. Or perhaps it was simply too small an archive to remember an obscure race so long extinct.

Tom had asked the Niss machine look into it. So far the sarcastic Tymbrimi artifact had been unable to cozen out an answer.

Meanwhile, between sick bay and her other duties, Gillian had to find a few hours a day to examine this relict non-destructively, and maybe figure out what was stirring up the Eatees so. If she didn't do it, no one would.

Somehow she would make it until tonight.

Poor Tom, Gillian thought, smiling. He'll be coming back from his engines, wiped out, and I'll be feeling amorous. It's a d.a.m.ned good thing he's a sport.

She picked up a pion microprobe.

Okay Herbie, let's see if we can find out what kind of a brain you had.

10 ::: Metz ”I'm sorry, Dr. Metz. The captain is with Thoma.s.ss Orley in the weapons section. If there's anything I can do ...?”

As usual, Vice-Captain Takkata-Jim was unfailingly polite. His Anglic, diction, even while breathing oxywater, was almost perfect. Ignacio Metz couldn't help smiling in approval. He had a particular interest in Takkata-Jim.

”No, Vice-Captain. I just stopped by the bridge to see if the survey party had reported in.

”They haven't. We can only wait.”

Metz tsked. He had already concluded that Hikahi's party was destroyed.

”Ah, well. I don't suppose there has been any offer of negotiations by the Galactics yet?”

Takkata-Jim shook his large, mottled-gray head left to right.

”Regrettably, no sir. They appear to be more interested in slaughtering each other. Every few hours, it seems, yet another battle fleet enters Kths.e.m.e.nee's system to join in the free-for-all. It may be a while before anyone initiates diplomacy”

Dr. Metz frowned at the illogic of it. If the Galactics were rational, they'd let Streaker hand her discovery over to the Library Inst.i.tute and have done with it! Then everyone would share equally!

But Galactic civilization was unified more in the breach than in fact. And too many angry species had big s.h.i.+ps and guns.

Here we are, he thought, in the middle, with something they all want.

It can't just be that giant fleet of ancient s.h.i.+ps. Something more must have set them off. Gillian Baskin and Tom Orley picked something up out there in the Shallow Cl.u.s.ter. I wonder what it was.

”Will you be wanting me to join you for dinner this evening, Dr. Metz?”

Metz blinked. What day was it? Ah, yes. Wednesday. ”Of course, Vice-Captain. Your company and conversation would be appreciated, as usual. Shall we say sixish?”

”Perhapsss nineteen-hundred hours would be better, sir. I get off duty then.”

”Very well. Until then.”

Takkata-Jim nodded. He turned and swam back to his duty station.

Metz watched the fin appreciatively.