Hikahi. May Ifni’s boss watch over you.”
“The sssame to both of you,” Hikahi took Suessi’s hand gently between her jaws, then did the same with Tsh’t’s left pectoral fin.
Tsh’t and Suessi left through the skiff’s small airlock. They backed their sled toward the yawning opening in the sunken alien battleship.
A low whine spread from the skiff as power came on. The sound echoed back to them from the mammoth sea-cliff that towered over the crash site.
The tiny space vessel began to move slowly eastward, picking up speed underwater. Hikahi had chosen a roundabout route, taking her far out before swinging back in an arc to Streaker’s hiding place. This would keep her out of touch for as long as a couple of days, but it would also mean that her point of origin could not be traced, if an enemy lay in wait where Streaker had been.
They watched until the boat disappeared into the gloom. Long after Suessi ceased hearing anything, Tsh’t waved her jaw slowly back and forth, following the diminishing sound.
Two hours later, as Hannes was lying down for his first nap in his new dry-quarters, the makeshift intercom by his pallet squawked.
Not more bad news. He sighed.
Lying in the darkness with one arm over his eyes, he touched the comm. “What?” he said simply.
It was Lucky Kaa, the young electronics tech and junior pilot. His voice fizzed with excitement. “Sir! Tsh’t says you should come quickly! It’sss the ship!”
Suessi rolled over onto one elbow.
“Streaker?”
“Yesss! The line just re-opened! They want to talk to Hikahi right away!”
All of the strength went out of Suessi’s arms. He slumped back and groaned. Oh, frabjous day! By now she’s well out of sonar-speak range!
At times like these I wish I talked dolphin jabber like Tom Orley. Maybe Trinary could express something properly ironic and vulgar about the way the universe works.
62
Exiles
The longboat slid smoothly through the port and out into the twilight blue of Kithrup’s ocean.
“You’re going the wrong way,” Ignacio Metz said, after the iris closed behind them. Instead of turning east, the boat spiraled upward.
“Just a small detour, Dr. Metz,” Takkata-Jim soothed. “Sneekah-jo, tell Streaker I’m adjusting the trim.”
The dolphin on the co-pilot’s ramp began whistling to his counterpart on the ship. The sonar-speak squawked back angrily. Streaker, also, had noticed the change in course.
Metz’s seat was above and behind Takkata-Jim’s. The water level came up to his waist. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“Jusst getting used to the controls …”
“Well, watch out! You’re headed straight for the detection buoys!”
Metz watched, amazed, as the craft sped toward the crew of dolphins dismantling the listening devices. The workfen scattered out of the way, cursing shrilly as the boat crashed into the tethered buoys. Metal smithereens clattered along its prow and fell into blackness.
The sonar-speak squawked. Dr. Metz blushed. Good fin-persons shouldn’t use language like that. Takkata-Jim seemed oblivious. He calmly turned the small ship around and piloted it at a sedate pace eastward, toward their island destination. The longboat drove down a narrow canyon, leaving the brightly lit subsea vale and Streaker behind it.
“Tell them it was an accident-t,” Takkata-Jim told his co-pilot. “The trim was out of line, but now we’ve got it under control. We’re proceeding underwater to the island, as ordered.”
“Accident, my hairy uncle Fred’s scrotum!”
The words were followed by a sniggering laugh from the back of the control room. “You know, I kinda figured you wouldn’t leave without destroying the incriminatin’ evidence first, Takkata-Jim.”
Dr. Metz struggled with his straps to turn around. He stared. “Charles Dart! What are you doing here?”
Perched on a shelf in a storage locker—whose door was now open—a spacesuited chimpanzee grinned back at him. “Why, exercisin’ a teeny tiny bit of initiative, Dr. Metz! Now you be sure and note that in your records. I wanna be given credit for it.” He broke into a shrieking giggle, amplified by his suit speaker.
Takkata-Jim twisted about on his ramp to regard the chimp for a moment. He snorted and turned back to his piloting.
Charlie visibly screwed up his nerve to slide out of the cabinet into the water, even though none of it could touch him through the spacesuit. He floundered in the liquid up to his helmet-ring.
“But how …?” Metz started to ask.
Charlie hefted a large, heavy waterproof sack from the locker to a man-seat next to Metz. “I used deductive reasoning,” he said as he climbed up. “I figured Gillian’s boys’d only be watching out for misbehavin’ by a few grumbling Stenos.