Port and starboard, the spacious chamber was taken up by the skiff and the longboat. The nose of each small spaceship almost touched the iris that would let it outside, into vacuum, air, or water, as needed.
The stern of the skiff stopped short of the rear bulkhead of the twenty-meter outlock, but the aft end of the larger longboat disappeared into a sleeve that extended into the maze of rooms and passages in Streakers thick cylindrical shell.
Overhead, a third berthing port lay empty. The captain's gig had been lost to a strange accident weeks before, along with ten crew members, at the region Creideiki had named the Shallow Cluster. Its loss, in the course of investigating the derelict fleet, was a topic seldom brought up in conversation.
Dennie gripped D'Anite's arm as another sled passed by more slowly than the white ambulances of sick bay. Sealed green bags were tied to its back. A bottle-like narrowness at one end of each, and a flat flaring at the other, revealed their contents.
There's no smaller bag, Dennie thought. Does that mean Toshio's alive then? Then she saw, by the decontamination lock, a young drysuited human in a crowd of dolphins.
"There's Toshio!" she cried, a little surprised at the intensity of her relief. She forced herself to speak in a calm tone. "Is that Keepiru next to him?" She pointed.
D'Anite nodded. "Yeah. They seem all right. By my count I guess that means Hist't hitched a sky-current. That's a rotten shame. We got along." Emerson's affected burr was completely gone as he mourned the loss of a friend.
He peered through the crowd. "Can you think of an official enough reason for us to shove in there? Most of the fen would get out of our way out of habit. But Creideiki's something else. He'll chew our asses off, patrons or no, if he thinks were hanging around useless and getting in the way."
Dennie had been thinking about just that. "Leave it to me." She led him into the jostling crowd, touching flipper and fluke to pry a passage through the press. Most of the fen moved to one side on catching a glimpse of the two humans.
Dennie looked about the squeaking, clicking mob. Shouldn't Tom Orley be here? she thought. He and Hannes and Tsh't were in on the rescue, weren't they? So why don't I see him anywhere? I've got to talk to him sometime soon!
Toshio looked like a very tired young man. Just out of decon, he slowly peeled off his drysuit as he spoke with Creideiki. Soon he floated naked but for a facemask. Dabs of synthetic skin coated his hands and throat and face. Keepiru drifted nearby. The exhausted dolphin wore a breather, probably under physician's orders.
Suddenly the spectators blocking Dennie's view began to spin about and dart away in all directions.
*… bands of idle gawkers -
cease their vain eavesdropping!
* Lest the nets of Iki find them -
for their lack of work and purpose!
The sudden cetacean dispersal buffeted Dennie and Emerson; in moments the crowd had thinned.
"Do not-t make me repeat myself!" Creideiki reiterated. His voice pursued the fleeing spacers. "All is done in here. Think clear thoughts and do your jobs!"
A dozen fen remained near the captain and Toshio: outlock personnel and the captain's aides. Creideiki turned to Toshio. "Go on then, little shark-biter, finish your story"
The boy blushed, nonplussed by the honorific. He forced his heavy eyelids open and tried to maintain a semblance of standard posture in the drifting current.
"Uh, I think that's about it, sir. I've told you everything Mr. Orley and Tsh't told me about their plans. If the ET wreck looks usable, they'll send a sled back with a report. If not, they'll return with whatever they've salvaged as quickly as possible."
Creideiki made small slow circles with his lower jaw. "A hazardousss gamble," he commented. "They'll not reach the hulk for a day, at least. More days, still, will pass without contact…"
Bubbles rose from his blowmouth.
"Very well, then. You shall rest, then join me for supper. I'm afraid your reward for saving Hikahi for us, and possibly all of our lives as well, shall be an interrogation the likes of which you might not even receive from our enemies."
Toshio smiled tiredly.
"I understand, sir. I'll happily let you wring me of information, just so long as I can eat first… and get dry for a while!"
"Done. Until then!" The captain nodded and turned to go.
Dennie was about to shout to Creideiki when someone else called out first.
"Captain, please! May I have a word?"
The voice was musical. The speaker was a large male dolphin with the mottled gray coloration of one of the Stenos sub-breeds. He wore a civilian harness, without the bulky racks or heavy manipulator arms carried by the regular crew.
Dennie felt a strong urge to hide behind Emerson D'Anite. She hadn't noticed Sah'ot in the crowd until he spoke.
"Before you go, sir," the dolphin fluted. His tone of voice was quite casual. "I must asssk you for permission to go to that island where Hikahi was stranded."
With a tail-flick Creideiki arched over bottom side up to regard the speaker. He addressed the fin skeptically. "Talker-to-races, this is not a fishbrew bar, this island, where poetry can buy back an error. Why venture now courage you never before displayed?"
Sah'ot lay still for a moment. In spite of her dislike of the civilian specialist, Dennie felt sympathy rise within her. Sah'ot's behavior at the derelict fleet, in refusing to go along with the doomed survey party, had not been admirable. He had acted like a prima-donna.
But he had been proven right. The captain's gig and ten fine crew members had been lost, along with Streakers former second in command.
All the sacrifice had gained them was a three-meter-long tube of some strange metal, thoroughly pitted by ages of micrometeorite impacts. It had been recovered personally by Thomas Orley. Gillian Baskin had taken over the sealed relic, and to Dennie's knowledge nobody else had seen it since. It hardly seemed worth the loss they had suffered.
"Captain," Sah'ot addressed Creideiki, "I believe that there is a matter that even Thomas Orley could not have had time to cover in detail. He has gone on to investigate the wrecked warship, but the island still does concern us."
No fair! Dennie had been ready to do this! It was to be an act of professionalism — of assertion, to speak out and demand…
"Honestly Captain," Sah'ot went on, "after our duty to escape this trap, and to serve the clan of Earth species, what is the most important responsibility that has fallen upon uss?"
Creideiki looked torn. He obviously wanted to chew Sah'ot's dorsal fin for baiting him like this. Also, obviously, Sah'ot had hit him with a double harpoon… mentioning the word "duty," and lacing it into a riddle. The captain thrashed his tail, giving out a low series of broad-band sonar clicks, like a watch ticking. His eyes were recessed and dark.
Dennie couldn't wait for the captain to figure the puzzle, or slap Sah'ot into a cell.
"The abos!" she shouted.
Creideiki turned and regarded her. Dennie blushed as she felt his field of analytic sound sweep over her. She knew the waves penetrated her very viscera, telling everything down to what she had had for breakfast. Creideiki frightened her. She felt very far from being patron to the powerful and involute mind behind that broad forehead.
The captain suddenly whirled about and swam to Toshio. "You still have those artifactsss that Thomas Orley selected, young hunter?"
"Yes, sir, I…"
"You will please lend them to Biologist Sudman and Race Speaker Sah'ot before you retire. When you've rested, collect them again, along with the specialists' recommendations. I will examine them myself during supper."