72 ::: Streaker

FROM THE JOURNAL OF GILLIAN BASKIN

We’re on our way. Everyone aboard seems relieved to be moving at last.

Streaker lifted off the ocean floor late last night, impellers barely ticking over. I was on the bridge, monitoring reports by the fen outside, and watching the strain gauges until we were sure Streaker was okay. In fact, she sounded positively eager to be off.

Emerson and the crew in the engine room should be proud of the job they’ve done, though, of course, it’s the coils Tom and Tsh’t found, that made it possible. Streaker hums like a starship once again.

Our course is due south. We dropped a monofilament relay behind to keep us in touch with the party on the island, and left a message for Hikahi when she shows up.

I hope she hurries. Being a commander is more complicated than I’d ever imagined. I have to make sure everything is done in the right order and correctly, and all as unobtrusively as possible, without making the fen feel “the old lady” is hovering over them. It makes me wish I had some of the military training Tom got while I was away in medical school.

Less than thirty hours and we’ll reach the Thennanin shell. Suessi says they’ll be ready for us. Meanwhile, we have scouts out, and Wattaceti paces us overhead in a detection sled. His instruments show very little leakage, so we should be safe for now.

I’d give a year’s wages for Hikahi or Tsh’t, or even Keepiru right now. I’d never understood, before, why a captain treasures a good executive officer so much.

Speaking of captains. Ours is a wonder.

Creideiki seemed to be in a daze for a long time, after getting out of sick bay. But his long conversation with Sah’ot appears to have roused him. I don’t know what Sah’ot did, but I would never have believed a person so severely damaged as Creideiki could be so vigorous, or make himself so useful.

When we lifted off he asked to be allowed to supervise the scouts and flankers. I was desperate for a reliable fin to put in charge out there, and thought that having him visible could help morale. Even the Stenos were excited to have him about. Their last bitterness over my “coup”—and Takkata-Jim’s exile—seem to have dissipated.

Creideiki is limited to the simplest calls in Trinary, but that seems to be enough. He’s out there now, zipping about in his sled, keeping things orderly by pointing, nudging, and setting an example. In only a few hours Tsh’t should rendezvous with the scouts we sent ahead, and then Creideiki can come back aboard.

There’s a tiny light on my comm that’s been flashing since I returned. It’s that crazy Tymbrimi Niss machine. I’ve been keeping the damned thing waiting.

Tom wouldn’t approve, I guess. But a fem has only so much strength, and I’ve got to take a nap. If the matter were urgent it would have broken in and spoken by now.

Oh, Tom, we could use your endurance now. Are you on your way back? Is your little glider even now winging home to Toshio’s island?

Who am I fooling? Since the first psi-bomb we’ve detected nothing, only noise from the space battle, some of it indicating fighting over his last known position. He’s set off none of the message globes. So either he’s decided not to send an ambiguous message or worse....

Without word from Tom, how can we decide what to do, once we enter the Seahorse? Do we take off and try our luck, or hide within the hulk as long as we can?

It will be Hikahi’s decision when the time comes.

Gillian closed the journal and applied her thumbprint to the fail-safe self-destruct. She got up and turned off the light.

On her way out of the lab, she passed the stasis-bier of the ancient cadaver they had reclaimed at such cost from the Shallow Cluster. Herbie just lay there grinning under a tiny spotlight, an ancient enigma. A mystery.

A troublemaker.

Battered, battle-scarred, Streaker moved slowly along the valley floor, her engines turning over with gentle, suppressed power. A dark, foamy mist rose below her where impellers kicked up the surface ooze.

The nubby cylinder slid over gloomy black rills and abysses, skirting the edges of seamounts and valley walls. Tiny sleds paced alongside, guiding the ship by sonar-speak.

Creideiki watched his ship in motion once again. He listened to the clipped reports of the scouts and sentries, and the replies of the bridge staff. He couldn’t follow the messages in detail; the sophisticated technical argot was as out of reach to him as last year’s wine. But he could sense the under-meaning; the crew had things well in hand.

Streaker couldn’t really shine in this light, dim and blue, fifty meters down, but he could listen—his own sonar clicked softly in accompaniment as he savored the deep rumble of her engines, and he imagined he could be with her when she flew again.

: Never Again Creideiki : You Shall Never Fly With Her Again :

The spectre, K-K-Kph-kree, came into being gradually alongside him, a ghostly figure of silver and sonic shadows. The presence of the god did not surprise, or even bother Creideiki. He had been expecting It to come. It swam lazily, easily keeping pace alongside the sled.

: You Escaped Us : Yet Now You Purposely Sculpt Me Out Of Song : Because Of The Old Voices You Heard? : The Voices From Below? :

: Yes :

Creideiki thought not in Anglic or Trinary, but in the new language he had been learning.

: There is ancient anger within this world : I have heard its song :

The dream-god’s great brow sparkled starlight. Its small jaw opened. Teeth shone.

: And What Do You Plan To Do? :

Creideiki sensed that It already knew the answer.

: My Duty : He replied in Its own speech.

: What Else Can I Ever Do? :

From the depths of the Whale Dream, It sighed approval.

Creideiki turned up the gain on his hydrophones. There were faraway excited echoes from up ahead—joyous sounds of greeting.

Creideiki looked at his sled’s sonar display. At the far edge of its range was a small cluster of dots coming inward. They joined the specks that were Streaker’s scouts. The first group had to be Tsh’t’s party from the Seahorse.

Making sure no one was nearby to take note, he turned his sled aside into a small side canyon. He slipped behind the shadows of a rock outcrop and turned off his engine. He waited then, watching Streaker pass below his aerie, until she vanished, along with the last of her flankers, around a curve in the long canyon.

“Good-bye ...” He concentrated on the Anglic words, one at a time. “Good-bye ... and ... good luck ...”

When it was safe, he turned on his sled and rose out of the little niche. He swung about and headed northward, toward the place they had left twenty hours before.

: You Can Come Along If You Like : he told the god—part figment of his mind, part something else. The ghostly figure answered in un-words made up from Creideiki’s own sonar sounds.

: I Accompany You : I Would Not Miss This For The Song of the World :