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 he 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.
“I don’t believe you!” Takkata-Jim spluttered, spraying water in all directions. “On Earth we were promisssed! Streaker is our ship!”
Gillian shrugged. “Ask your bridge crew if the battle controls work,” she offered. “Have someone try to leave through the outlock. Try to open the door to the armory.”
Takkata-Jim whirled and sped to a comm screen at the far end of the room. His guard stared at Gillian momentarily, then followed. His look conveyed a sense of betrayal.
Not all of the crew would feel that way, Gillian knew. Most would probably be delighted. But deep inside an implication would settle. One of the main purposes of Streaker’s mission, to build in the neo-fen a sense of independence and self-confidence, had been compromised.
Did I have any other choice? Is there anything else I might have tried first?
She shook her head, wishing Tom were here. Tom might have settled everything with one sarcastic little ditty in Trinary that put everybody to shame.
Oh, Tom, she thought. I should have gone instead of you.
“Gillian!”
Makanee’s flukes pounded the water and her harness whirred. With one metal arm she pointed up at the wounded dolphin floating in the gravity tank.
Creideiki was looking back at her!
“Joshua H. Bar—but you said his cortex was fried!” Metz stared.
An expression of profound concentration bore down on Creideiki’s features. He breathed heavily, then gave voice to a desperate cry.
“Out!:”
“It’sss not possible!” Makanee sighed. “His ssspeech centers …”
Creideiki frowned in effort.
* Out :
Creideiki!
* Swim :
Creideiki!
It was Trinary baby talk, but with a queer tone to it. And the dark eyes burned with intelligence. Gillian’s telempathic sense throbbed.
“Out!:” He whirled about in the tank and slammed his powerful flukes against the window with a loud boom. He repeated the Anglic word. The falling tone-slope was like a phrase in Primal.
“Out-t-t!:”
“Help him out-t!” Makanee commanded her assistants. “Gently! Quickly!”
Takkata-Jim was heading back from his comm screen at high speed, wrath on his face. But he stopped abruptly at the gravity tank, and stared at the bright eye of the captain.
It was the last straw.
He rolled back and forth, as if unable to decide on appropriate body language. Takkata-Jim turned to Gillian.
“What I’ve done was in what I believed to be the best interest of the ship, crew, and mission. I could make a very good case on Earth.”
Gillian shrugged: “Let’s hope you get the chance.”
Takkata-Jim laughed dryly. “Very well, we’ll hold this charade ship’sss council. I’ll call it for one hour from now. But let me warn you, don’t push too far, Dr. Baskin. I have powers ssstill. We must find a compromise. Try to pillory me and you will divide the ship.
“And then I will fight-t-t you,” he added, low.
Gillian nodded. She had achieved what she had to. Even if Takkata-Jim had done the worst things Makanee suspected of him, there was no proof, and it was a matter of compromise or lose the ship to civil war. The first officer had to be offered an out. “I’ll remember, Takkata-Jim. In one hour, then. I’ll he there.”
Takkata-Jim swirled about to leave, followed by his two loyal security guards.
Gillian saw Ignacio Metz staring after the dolphin lieutenant. “You lost control, didn’t you?” she asked dryly as she swam past him.
The geneticist’s head jerked. “What, Gillian? What do you mean?” But his face betrayed him. Like many others, Metz tended to overestimate her psychic powers. Now he must be wondering if she had read his mind.
“Never mind,” Gillian’s smile was narrow. “Let’s go and witness this miracle.”
She swam to where Makanee waited anxiously for the emerging Creideiki. Metz looked after her uncertainly, before following.
51
Thomas Orley
With trembling hands, he pulled vines away from the cave entrance. He crept out of his shelter and blinked at the hazy morning.
A thick layer of low clouds had gathered. There were no alien ships, yet, and that was just as well. He had feared they would arrive while he was helpless, struggling against the effects