It would work out, one way or another. Right now Dennie needed someone to be nearby. It was satisfying just filling that need.
Maybe, when all this was over, she would go back to thinking of him as a boy, four years her junior. Somehow he doubted it. She was touching him more now, rather than less, holding his arm and punching him in mock anger, even as shivers from the psi-bomb episode faded.
"When are they supposed to get here with the longboat?" She looked back over the ocean once more. "Late tomorrow, sometime," he answered.
"Takkata-Jim and Metz wanted to negotiate with the ETs. What's to stop them if they decide to ignore orders and try anyway?"
"Gillian's giving them only enough power to get here. They have a regenerator, so they'll be able to charge up for space-travel in a month or so, but by then Streaker'd be gone one way or another."
Dennie shivered slightly.
Toshio cursed his awkward tongue. "Takkata-Jim won't have a radio. I'm to guard ours until the skiff comes to pick us up. Besides, what could he offer the Galactics? He won't have any of the charts marking the derelict fleet.
"My guess is he and Metz will wait until everybody leaves, then scuttle off to Earth with Metz's tapes and a hold full of gripes."
Dennie looked up at the first stars of the long Kithrup twilight. "Are you going back?" she asked.
"Streaker's my ship. Thank God, Creideiki is still alive. But even if he's not skipper any more, I owe it to him to keep on, as one of his officers should."
Dennie glanced up at him briefly, then nodded and looked back out at the sea.
She's thinking we haven't a chance, Toshio realized. And maybe we don't. Wearing a Thennanin battlewagon as a disguise, we'll have all the maneuverability of a Calafian mud-gleaner. And even fooling the Galactics might not be so good an idea. They want to capture Streaker, but they won't hold back their fire if they see a defeated enemy climbing back up for another round. There still have to be Thennanin around, if the scheme is to work.
But we can't just sit here waiting, can we? If we do, the Galactics will learn that they can push Earthlings around. We just can't afford to let anyone profit from chasing one of our survey ships.
Dennie seemed worried. Toshio changed the subject. "How's your report coming?"
"Oh, all right, I guess. It's clear the Kiqui are fully pre-sentient. They've been fallow a very long time. In fact, some Darwinist heretics might think they were just getting ripe to bootstrap themselves. They show some signs."
Some iconoclast humans still pushed the idea that a pre-sentient race could make the leap to spacefaring intelligence by evolution alone, without the intervention of a patron. Most Galactics thought the idea absurd and strange, but the failure to find humanity's missing benefactor had gained the theory a few adherents.
"What about the metal-mound?" Toshio asked about Dennie's other research, begun at Charlie Dart's behest when the chimp had been given top priority, but pursued now out of interest.
Dennie shrugged. "Oh, the mound's alive. The professional biologist in me would give her left arm to be able to stay a year on this island, with full laboratory equipment to study it!
"The metal-eating pseudo-coral, the drill-tree, the living core of the island, are all symbiots. In effect, they're organs in one giant entity! If I could only write it up at home I'd be famous… if anyone believed me."
"They'll believe you," Toshio assured her. "And you'll be famous."
He motioned that they should start heading back to camp. They only had a little time after second supper to walk and talk. Now that he was in command, he had to make sure that timetables were kept.
Dennie held his arm as they turned to return to the encampment. Over the rushing rustle of the wind through the foliage came the intermittent squeaks of the natives, rousing from their siesta to prepare for the evening hunt.
They walked in silence along the narrow trail.
58 ::: Galactics
Krat licked slowly at her mating claw, studiously ignoring the creatures who scurried to clean up the bloody mess in the corner.
There would be trouble over this. The Pilan High Council would protest.
Of course she was within her rights, as grand admiral, to deal with any member of the fleet as she saw fit. But that did not traditionally cover the skewering of a senior Librarian simply because he was the bearer of bad news.
I am getting old, she realized. And the daughter I had hoped would soon be strong enough to pull me down is now dead. Who now will do me the honors, before I grow erratic and become a hazard to the clan?
The small, furry body was hauled away, and a sturdy Paha mopped up the bloody mess. The other Pila looked at her.
Let them stare. When we capture the Earthlings it won't matter. I shall be famous, and this incident will be ignored by all, especially the Pila.
If we are the first ones to approach the Progenitors with an offering, the Law won't matter any more. The Pila will not simply be our adult liege-clients. They will be ours again, to meddle with, to redesign, to shape once more.
"Back to work! All!" She snapped her mating claw. The twang sent the bridge crew scuttling off to their stations, some to repair the smoking damage from a near miss in the most recent battle with the Tandu.
Think now, Soro mother. Can you spare ships to send once more to the planet? To that hellish volcano where every fleet has already sent a party to fight and die?
There weren't supposed to be any Gubru left here! But a battered Gubru scout had shown up at the place where the distress call came from. It had gone to smoky ruin along with a Tandu destroyer, Pritil's ship number sixteen, and two other vessels even her battle computers could not identify. Perhaps one was a surviving spearship of the Brothers of the Night which had hidden on one of Kithrup's moons.
Meanwhile, out here, the "final" battle with the Tandu's unholy alliance had turned into a bloody draw. The Soro still had a slim advantage, so the remaining Thennanin stayed by their Tandu allies.
Should she risk all in the next encounter? For the Tandu to win would be horrible. They would, if they gained the Power, destroy so many beautiful species that the Soro might someday own.
If it came down to a choice, she guessed the Thennanin would switch sides one more time.
"Strategy section!" she snapped.
"Fleet-Mother?" A Paha warrior approached, but stopped just out of arm-reach. It eyed her cautiously.
Given a chance, she would breed respect into the Paha genes so deeply nothing would ever eradicate it.
The Paha stepped back involuntarily as her claw stretched. "Find out which ships are now most expendable. Organize them into a small squadron. We're going to investigate the planet again:"
The Paha saluted and returned to its station quickly. Krat settled deeper into the vletoor cushion.
We shall need a distraction, she thought. Perhaps another expedition to that volcano would make the Thennanin nervous and let the Tandu think we know something.
Of course, she reminded herself, the Tandu themselves may know what we do not.
59 ::: Creideiki
Far Away
They Call
The Giants,
The Spirits of OCEAN,
The Leviathans
Creideiki begins to understand — does, does, begin -
The old gods are part figment, part racial memory, part ghost… and part something else… something an engineer could never have allowed his ears to hear, or eyes to see…
Far Away
They Call
Leviathans…
Not yet. Not yet, not. Creideiki has a duty to perform yet, does have a duty.