Gillian laughed. "I will. Now you get some sleep. Shall I turn down the light?"
"Yess, please. And Gillian, thanks for the news. I do think it's very important we do something about the abos. I hope the expedition is a success.
"Tell Creideiki I'll be back on duty before he can open a can of tuna."
"I will. Pleasant dreams, dear." Gillian touched the dimmer switch and the lights gradually faded. Hikahi blinked several times, apparently settling into a seaman's nap.
Gillian headed for the outer clinic, where Makanee would be dealing with a line of complaining crewfen at sick call. Gillian would show the physician Charlie's isotope profiles and then go back to her own lab to work for a while longer.
Sleep called to her, but she knew it would be a long time coming. In this mood that had come upon her she felt reluctant.
Logic was the blessing and the curse of her upbringing. She knew that Tom was where he was supposed to be — out pursuing ways to save them all. He knew it as well. His departure had been hasty and necessary, and there simply hadn't been time to seek her out to say good-bye.
Gillian was aware of all of these considerations. She repeated them to herself as she swam. But they only seemed to disconnect the larger from the smaller of her problems, and rob of poignant consolation the unattractiveness of her empty bed.
19 ::: Creideiki
"Keneenk is a study of relationships," he told his audience. "That part comes from our dolphin heritage. Keneenk is also a study of strict comparisons. This second part we learn from our human patrons. Keneenk is a synthesis of two world-views, much as we ourselves are."
About thirty neo-dolphins floated across from him, bubbles rising slowly from their blowmouths, intermittent unconscious sonar clicks their only sound.
Since there were no humans present, Creideiki did not have to use the crisp consonants and long vowels of standard Anglic. But, transcribed onto paper, his words would have pleased any English grammarian.
"Consider reflections from the surface of the ocean, where the air meets the water," he suggested to his pupils. "What do the reflections tell us?"
He saw puzzled expressions.
"Reflections from which side of the water, you wonder? Do I speak of the reflections felt from below the interface or from above?
"Moreover, do I mean reflections of sound, or of light?"
He turned to one of the attentive dolphins. "Wattaceti, imagine yourself one of our ancestors. Which combination would occur to you?"
The engine room tech blinked. "Sound images, Captain. A pre-sentient dolphin would have thought of sound reflections in the water, bouncing against the surface from below"
The tech sounded tired, but Wattaceti still attended these sessions, in a fervent desire for self-improvement. It was for the morale of fen like Wattaceti that the busy captain made time to continue them.
Creideiki nodded. "Quite right. Now, what would be the first type of reflection thought of by a human?"
"The image of light from above," the mess chief, S'tat, answered promptly.
"Most probably, though we all know that even some of the 'big-ears' can eventually learn to hear."
There was a general skree of laughter at the harmless little put-down of the patron race. The laughter was a measure of crew morale, and he weighed it as he might test the mass of a fuel cell by hefting it between his jaws.
Creideiki noticed for the first time that Takkata-Jim and K'tha-Jon had swum up to join the group. Creideiki quashed a momentary concern. Takkata-Jim would have signaled if something had come up. He seemed to be here simply to listen.
If this was a sign the vice-captain was ending his long, unexplained sulk, Creideiki was glad. He had kept Takkata-Jim aboard, instead of sending him out to accompany Orley and the rescue party, because he wanted to keep his exec under his scrutiny. He had reluctantly begun to think that the time might have come to make some changes in the chain of command.
He waited for the snickering to die down. "Consider, now. How are a human's thoughts about these reflections from the surface of the water similar to our own?"
The students assumed expressions of concentration. This would be the next-to-last problem. With so much repair work to oversee, Creideiki had been tempted to cancel the sessions altogether. But so many in the crew wanted desperately to learn Keneenk.
At the beginning of the voyage almost all the fen had participated in the lectures, games, and athletic competitions that helped stave off spaceflight ennui. But since the frightening episode at the Shallow Cluster, when a dozen crewfen had been lost exploring the terrifying derelict fleet, some had begun to detach themselves from the community of the ship, to associate with their own little groups. Some even began exhibiting a strange atavism — increasing difficulty with Anglic and the sort of concentrated thought needed by a spacer.
Creideiki had been forced to juggle schedules to find replacements. He had given Takkata-Jim the task of finding jobs for the reverted ones. The task seemed to suit the vice-captain. With the aid of bosun K'tha-Jon he seemed to have found useful work for even the worst stricken.
Creideiki carefully listened to the swish of flukes, the uncomfortable gurgling of gill-lungs, the rhythm of heartbeats. Takkata-Jim and K'tha-Jon floated quietly, apparently attentive. But Creideiki sensed in each of them an underlying tension.
Creideiki shivered. There had come a suddenly vivid mental image of the vice-captain's shrewd, sullen eye, and the bosun's great, sharp teeth. He suppressed it, chiding himself for having an overactive imagination. There was no logical reason to fear either of those two!
"We are contemplating reflections from an interface between air and water." He hurriedly resumed his lecture. "Both humans and dolphins envision a barrier when they consider such a surface. On the other side is a realm that is only faintly apparent until the barrier is crossed. Yet the modern human, with his tools, does not fear the water side, as he once did. The neo-fin, with his tools, can live and work in the air, and look down without discomfort.
"Consider how your own thoughts stretched out when I asked my original question. The idea of sound reflecting from below came to mind first. Our ancestors would have complacently stopped with that first generalization, but you did not stop there. You did not generalize without considering further alternatives. This is a common hallmark of planning creatures. For us it is a new thing."
The timer on Creideiki's harness chimed. It was growing late. Tired as he was, he still had a meeting to attend, and he wanted to stop at the bridge to find out if there had been any word from Orley.
"How does a cetacean, whose heritage, whose very brain is built on intuitive thinking, learn to analyze a complex problem, piece by piece? Sometimes the key to an answer is found in the way you formulate the question. I'll leave you all today with an exercise for your idle moments.
"Try to state the problem of reflections from the surface of water in Trinary… in a way that demands not a single answer, or a three-level opposition, but a plain listing of the reflections that are possible."
He saw several of the fen frown uncomfortably.
The captain smiled reassuringly. " I know it sounds difficult, and I will not ask you to recite today. But just to show you it can be done, accept the echo of this dream."
* A layer divides
sky-star — Sea-star
* What comes to us
At a narrow angle?
* The huntsqueaking starcatching octopus
Reflects!
* The night-calling, star following tern