influence now pushed their way to the front of the food lines and adopted dominant body postures, while others went about their duties with eyes downcast and flukes drooping. Rank and official position had little to do with it. Such things had always been informal aboard Streaker anyway. Dolphins were more apt to pay attention to subtle shifts in dominance than to formal authority.
Now even racism seemed to be a factor. A disproportionate number of the new figures of authority were of the Stenos sub-breed. It amounted to an informal coup. Officially, Takkata-Jim was acting on behalf of the unconscious Creideiki until a ship’s council could be convened. But Streaker’s water had the taste of a herd with a new dominant male. Those close to the old bull were on the out, and cronies of the new swam in the vanguard.
Akki found it all quite illogical and disgusting. It bothered him that even the highly selected fen of Streaker’s crew could submit to ancient patterns of behavior under stress. He now saw what the Galactics meant when they said three hundred years of uplift was too short for a race to fly starships.
The rude realization made Akki feel more like a client than he ever had in the mixed, egalitarian colony of Calafia. It gave a primitive satisfaction to his act of mutiny, abandoning the ship to make contact with Gillian Baskin against specific orders from the acting captain.
Now Akki felt he knew the truth; he was a member of a crew of imitation spacemen. There was no way, short of Creideiki miraculously recovering, that they were going to get out of this mess without intervention by their patrons.
He discounted the value of Ignacio Metz—or Emerson D’Anite or even Toshio, for that matter. He agreed with Makanee that their only hope lay in Dr. Baskin or Mr. Orley coming home. By now he had come to accept that Orley was lost. The rest of the crew believed this, and it was one more reason morale had gone to hell since Creideiki’s accident.
The comm line quietly sent a carrier tone directly to his stato-acoustic nerve, as Akki waited impatiently for Toshio to return with Gillian. The line was not being used for anything else, now that Charles Dart had signed off, but every second increased the chance that the comm operator aboard the ship would detect his tap. Akki had set it up to hide his conversation with Toshio, but even a dullard CommSec fin couldn’t miss the side effects, in time.
Where are they? he wondered. Surely they know I only have so much air? And this metal-rich water makes my skin itch!
Akki breathed slowly for calm. A teaching rhyme of Keneenk ran through his mind.
* “Past” is what once was—
A remnant that’s called memory …
* In it lie the “causes”—
Of what now is.
* “Future” is what will be—
Envisioned, seldom seen …
* In it lie “results”—
Of what now is.
* “Present” is that narrowness—
Passing, always flickering …
* Proof of the “joke”—
Of “what now is.”
Past, future and present were among the hardest ideas to express explicitly in Trinary. The rhyme was meant to teach causation as the human patrons, and most other sophonts, saw it, while keeping essential faith with the cetacean view of life.
It all seemed so simple to Akki. At times he wondered why some of these dolphins of Earth had so much trouble with such ideas. One thought, one imagined actions and their consequences, considered how the different results would taste and feel, then one acted! If the future was unclear, one did the best one could, and hoped.
It was how humans had muddled through during the ages of their horrible, orphaned ignorance. Akki saw no reason why it should be so hard for his people, especially when they were being shown the way.
“Akki? Toshio here. Gillian’s coming. She had to break away from something important, so I ran ahead. Are you all right?”
Akki sighed.
* In the depths—
With itching blowmouth
* I tread in wait—
At duty’s calling
* As the cycloid—
Rolls in …
“Hang on,” Toshio called, interrupting the rhyme. Akki grimaced. Toshio never would develop a sense of style.
“Here’s Gillian,” Toshio finished. “Take care of yourself, Akki!”
The line crackled with static.
* You, too—
Diving/flying partner *
“Akki?”
It was the voice of Gillian Baskin, made tinny by the weak connection, but almost infinitely gratifying to hear.
“What is it, dear? Can you tell me what’s going on on the ship? Why won’t Creideiki talk to me?”
That wasn’t what Akki had thought she would ask first. For