The assault never would have been possible without the destruction of his speech centers. Creideiki grieved over the loss of words. He listened to the talk-sounds from the outer world, concentrating as hard as he could on the eerie, musical familiarity.
It wasn't all gone, he decided after a while. He could recognize a few words, here and there. Simple ones, mostly the names of objects or people, or simple actions associated with them.
That much his distant ancestors could do.
But he couldn't remember the words more than three or four deep, so it was impossible to follow a conversation. He might laboriously decipher a sentence, only to forget it completely when he worked on the next one. It was agonizingly difficult, and at last he made himself cease the vain effort.
That's not the way, he concluded.
Instead, he should try for the gestalt, he told himself. Use the tricks the old gods had been using on him. Encompass. Absorb…like trying to feel what Beethoven felt by submerging into the mystery of the Violin Concerto.
Murmuring sounds of angry sophonts squawked from the speaker. The noises bounced around the chamber and scattered like bitter droplets. After the terrible beauty of DOWN, he felt repelled. He forced himself to listen, to seek a way — some humble way to help Streaker and his crew.
Need swelled within him as he concentrated. He sought a center, a focus in the chaotic sounds.
* Rancor
Turbid
In the rip-tide
* Ignoring
Sharks!
Internecine struggle…
*Inviting
Sharks!
Foolish opportunism…
Against his will, he felt himself begin to click aloud. He tried to stop, knowing where it would lead, but the clicks emerged involuntarily from his brow, soon joined by a series of low moans.
The sounds of the argument in sick bay drifted away as his own soft singing wove a thicker and thicker web around him. The humming, crackling echoes caused the walls to fade as a new reality took shape all around. A dark presence slowly grew next to him.
Without words, he told it to go away.
: No : We Are Back : You Have More To Learn :
For all I know, you're a delirium of mine! None of you ever make a sound of your own! You always speak in reflections from my own sonar!
: Have Your Echoes Ever Been So Complex? :
Who knows what my unconscious could do? In my memory are more strange sounds than any other living cetacean has heard! I've been where living clouds whistled to tame hurricanes! I've heard the doom-booms of black holes and listened to the songs of stars!
: All The More Reason You Are The One We Want : The One We Need :
I am needed here!
: Indeed.
Come,
Creideiki. :
The old god, K-K-Kph-kree, moved closer. Its sonically translucent form glistened. Its sharp teeth flashed. Figment or not, the great thing began to move, carrying him along, as before, helpless to resist.
: DOWN :
Then, just as resignation washed over Creideiki, he heard a sound. Miraculously, it wasn't one of his own making, diffracted against the insane dream. It came from somewhere else, powerful and urgent!
: Pay No Heed : Come :
Creideiki's mind leaped after it as if it were a school of mullet, even as the noise swelled to deafening volume.
: You Are Sensitized : You Have Psi You Had Not Known Before : You Know Not Yet Its Use : Relinquish Quick Rewards : Come The Hard Way… :
Creideiki laughed, and opened himself to the noise from the outside. It crashed in, dissolving the shining blackness of the old god into sonic specks that shimmered and then slowly disappeared.
: That Way Is Gone For You :
: Creideiki… :
Then the great-browed god was gone. Creideiki laughed at his release from the cruel illusion, grateful for the new sound that had freed him.
But the noise kept growing. Victory went to panic as it swelled and became a pressure within his head, pushing against the walls of his skull, hammering urgently to get out. The world became a whirling groaning alien cry for help.
Creideiki let out a warbling whistle of despair as he tried to ride the crashing tide.
50 ::: Streaker
The waves of pseudo-sound were fading at last.
"Creideiki!" Makanee cried and swam to the captain's tank. The others turned also, just noticing the injured dolphin's distress.
"What's the matter with him?" Gillian swam up next to Makanee. She could see the captain struggle feebly, giving off a slowly diminishing series of low. moans.
"I don't know. No one was watching him as the psi-bomb hit its peak! Just now I saw he was disturbed."
The large, dark gray form within the tank seemed calmer now. The muscles along Creideiki's back twitched. slowly, as he let out a low, warbling cry.
Ignacio Metz swam up alongside Gillian.
"Ah, Gillian…" he began, "I want you to know that I'm very glad Tom is alive, although this tardiness bodes poorly. I'd still stake my life that this Trojan Seahorse plan of his is ill conceived."
"We'll have to discuss that at ship's council, then, won't we, Dr. Metz?" she said coolly.
Metz cleared his throat. "I'm not sure the acting captain will permit…" He subsided under her gaze and looked away.
She glanced at Takkata-Jim. If he did anything rash, it could be the last straw that broke Streaker's morale. Gillian had to convince Takkata-Jim that he would lose if he contested with her. And he had to be offered a way out, or there might still be civil war aboard the ship.
Takkata-Jim looked back at her with a mixture of pure hostility and calculation. She saw the sound-sensitive tip of his jaw swing toward each of the fen in turn, gauging their reaction. The news that Thomas Orley still lived would go through the ship like a clarion. Already one of the armed Stenos guards, presumably carefully picked by the vicecaptain, looked mutinously jubilant and chattered hopefully with Wattaceti.
I've got to act fast, Gillian realized. He's desperate.
She swam toward Takkata-Jim, smiling. He backed away, a loyal Stenos glaring at her from his side.
Gillian spoke softly, so the others could not hear.
"Don't even think it, Takkata-Jim. The fen aboard this ship have Tom Orley fresh on their minds now. If you thought you could harm me before this, even you know better now."
Takkata-Jim's eyes widened, and Gillian knew she had struck on target, capitalizing on the legend of her psi ability. "Besides, I'm going to stick close to Ignacio Metz. He's gullible, but if he witnesses me being harmed, you'll lose him. You need a token man, don't you? Without at least one, even your Stenos will melt away."
Takkata-Jim clapped his jaw loudly.
"Don't try to bully me! I don't have to harm you. I am the legal authority on this ship. I can have you confined to quartersss!"
Gillian looked at her fingernails. "Are you so sure?"
"You would incite the crew to disobey the legal ship's master?" Takkata-Jim sounded genuinely shocked. He must know that many, perhaps most of the Tursiops would follow her, whatever the law said. But that would be mutiny, and tear the crew apart.
"I have the law on my side!" he hissed.
Gillian sighed. The hand must be played out, for all the damage this would do if the dolphins of Earth found out. She whispered the two words she had not wanted to utter.
"Secret orders," she said.
Takkata-Jim stared at her, then let out a keening cry. He stood on his tail and did a back flip while his guard blinked in confusion. Gillian turned and saw Metz and Wattaceti staring at them.