Buoult's crest riffled with waves of emotion. Krondorsfire lay ahead of them, battered but proud. He had thought the old battlewagon lost since the first day of the battle, and Baron Ebremsev, its commander. Buoult longed to see his old comrade again.
"Is there still no response?" he asked the communicator.
"No, Commander. The ship is silent. It is possible they just now sustained a fatal blow that…Wait! there is something! A flashing-light signal in uncoded open-talk! They are sending from one of the viewing ports!"
Buoult edged forward eagerly. "What do they say? Do they require help?"
The communications officer huddled before his monitor, watching the winking lights, jotting notes.
"All weapons and communications destroyed," he recited, "life support and auxiliary drives still serviceable…Earthlings ahead, chased by a few dregs… We shall withdraw… happy hunting… Krondorsfire out."
Buoult thought the message a little odd. Why would Ebremsev want to pull out if he could still follow and at least draw fire from the enemy?
Perhaps he was making a brave show in order not to hold them back. Buoult was about to insist on sending aid anyway when the communications officer spoke again.
"Commander! A squadron is outbound from the water planet! At least ten vessels! I read signs of both Tandu and Soro!"
Buoult's crest momentarily collapsed. It had come to pass, the very last alliance of heretics.
"We have one chance! After the fugitives at once! We can overpower the remnants even as they overpower the Earthlings, and be off before the Tandu and Soro arrive!"
As his ship leapt outward, he had a message sent back to Krondorsfire. "May the Great Ghosts dwell with you…"
"That's a pretty sophisticated little computer you've kept hidden away all this time," Tsh't commented.
Gillian smiled. "It's actually Tom's."
The fins nodded wisely. That was explanation enough.
Gillian thanked the Niss machine for its hurry-up Thennanin translation. The disembodied voice whispered from a cluster of sparkles that floated near her, dancing and whirling amidst the fizzing oxywater bubbles.
"I could do nothing else, Gillian Baskin," it replied. "You few lost Earthlings have accumulated, in the course of heaping disasters upon yourselves, more data than my masters have gathered in the last thousand years. The lessons about uplift alone will profit the Tymbrimi, who are always willing to learn-even from wolflings."
The voice faded, and the sparkles vanished before Gillian could reply.
"The signal party's returned from the viewport, Gillian," Tsh't said. "The Thennanin have gone off chasing our shadows, but they'll be back. What-t do we do now?"
Gillian felt tremors of adrenalin reaction. She had not planned beyond this point. There was only one thing she wanted desperately to do now. Only one destination in the universe she wanted to go.
"Kithrup," she whispered.
Gillian shook herself. "Kithrup?" She looked at Tsh't, knowing what the answer would be, but wishing it weren't so.
Tsh't shook her sleek head. "There'sss a flotilla orbiting Kithrup now, Gillian. No fighting. There must've been a winner in the big battle.
"Another squadron's heading this way fassst. A big one. We don't want em to get close enough to see through our disguise."
Gillian nodded. Her voice didn't want to function, but she made the words come.
"North," she said.
"Take us out along Galactic north, Tsh't… to the transfer point. Full speed. When we get close enough, we'll dump the Seahorse, and get the Ifni-damned hell out of here with… with the ashes we've won."
The dolphins returned to their posts. The rumble of the engines gathered strength.
Gillian swam to one dark corner of the crystal dome, to a place where there was a chink in the Thennanin armor, where she could look at the stars directly.
Streaker picked up speed.
123 ::: Galactics
The Tandu-Soro detachment was gaining on the strung out fugitives.
"Mistress, a crippled Thennanin is approaching the transfer point on an escape trajectory."
Krat squirmed on her cushion and snarled. "So? Casualties have left the battle area before. All sides try to evacuate their wounded. Why do you bother me when we are even now closing in!"
The little Pila detector officer scuttled back into its cubbyhole. Krat bent to watch her forward screens.
A small squadron of Thennanin struggled to keep ahead. Further on, at the edge of detection, sparks of desultory battle showed that the leaders were still bickering, even as they closed on the quarry.
What if they're mistaken, Krat wondered. We chase the Thennanin, who chase the remnants, who chase what? Those fools might even be chasing each other!
It didn't matter. Half the Tandu-Soro fleet orbited Kithrup, so the Earthlings were trapped, one way or another.
We'll deal with the Tandu in good time, she thought, and meet the ancient ones alone.
"Mistress!" the Pila shouted shrilly. "There is a transmission from the transfer point!"
"Bother me one more time with inconsequentials…" she rumbled, flexing her mating claw threateningly. But the client interrupted her! The Pil dared to interrupt!
"Mistress. It is the Earth ship! They taunt us! They defy us! They…"
"Show me!" Krat hissed. "It must be a trick! Show me at once!"
The Pil ducked back into its section. On Krat's main screen appeared the holo image of a man, and several dolphins. From the man's shape, Krat could tell it was a female, probably their leader.
"…stupid creatures unworthy of the name 'sophonts.' Foolish, pre-sentient upspring of errant masters. We slip away from all your armed might, laughing at your clumsiness! We slip away as we always will, you pathetic creatures. And now that we have a real head start, you'll never catch us! What better proof that the Progenitors favor not you, but us! What better proof…"
The taunt went on. Krat listened, enraged, yet at the same time savoring the artistry of it. These men are better than I'd thought. Their insults are wordy and overblown, but they have talent. They deserve honorable, slow deaths.
"Mistress! The Tandu with us are changing course! Their other ships are leaving Kithrup for the transfer point!"
Krat hissed in despair. "After them! After them at once! We followed them through space this far. The chase only goes on!"
The crew bent to their tasks resignedly. The Earth ship was in a good position to escape. Even at best this would be a long chase.
Krat realized that she would never make it home in time for mating. She would die out here.
On her screen, the man continued to taunt them.
"Librarian!" she called. "I do not understand some of the man's words. Find out what that phrase — Nyaahh nyaaah — means in their beastly wolfling tongue!"
124 ::: Tom Orley
Cross-legged on a woven mat of reeds, shaded by a floating wreck, he listened as a muttering volcano slowly sputtered into silence. Contemplating starvation, he listened to the soft, wet sounds of the endless weedscape, and found in them a homely beauty. The squishy, random rhythms blended into a backdrop for his meditation.
On the mat in front of him, like a focus mandala, lay the message bomb he had never set off. The container glistened in the sunlight of north Kithrup's first fine day in weeks. Highlights shone in dimpled places where the metal had been battered, as he had been. The dented surface gleamed still.
Where are you now?
The subsurface sea-waves made his platform undulate gently. He floated in a trance through levels of awareness, like an old man poking idly through his attic, like an old-time hobo looking with mild curiosity through the slats of a moving boxcar.