reasonable, now that escape’s become impossible.”
Takkata-Jim opened and closed his foodmouth diagonally, an emphatic nod.
“Yesss, Doctor Metz. Now even Creideiki must recognize that you were right. We’re cornered now, and the captain will have no choice but to listen to you.”
Metz nodded, gratified. “What about Hikahi’s team? Have they been told?”
“I’ve already ordered the prospecting party back. Even the sled might be too much of a risssk. If the Eatees are already in orbit they might have means to detect it.”
“Extraterrestrials …” Metz corrected, professorial. “The term ‘Eatee’ is hardly polite.”
Takkata-Jim kept an impassive face. He was in command of ship and crew while the captain was off watch. Yet the human treated him like a fresh-weaned pupil. It was irritating, but Takkata-Jim was careful never to let it show. “Yes, Dr. Metz.”
“Hikahi’s party should never have left the ship. I warned Tom Orley something like this might happen. Young Toshio’s out there … and all those crewfen, out of contact for so long. It would be terrible if anything happened to them!”
The human was probably thinking about how terrible it would be if any of Streaker’s crew got killed away from his sight … out where he was unable to judge how they behaved for his behavioral and genetic studies. “If only Creideiki had listened to you, sssir,” he repeated. “You always have so much to say.”
It was chancy, but if the human ever saw through Takkata-Jim’s respectful mask to the core of sarcasm, he never gave it away.
“Well, nice of you to say so, Takkata-Jim. I know you have things to do now, so I’ll find Creideiki and break the news that our pursuers have followed us to Kithrup.”
Takkata-Jim gave the human a deferential nod from high body stance. “That-t is kind of you, Doctor Metz.”
Metz patted the lieutenant on his rough flank, as if to reassure him. Takkata-Jim bore the patronizing gesture with outward calm, and watched as the human turned to swim away.
The bridge was a fluid-filled sphere which bulged slightly from the bow of the cylindrical ship. The main ports looked into a murky scene of ocean ridges, sediment, and drifting sea creatures.
The crew’s web-lined work stations were illuminated by small spotlights. Most of the chamber lay in quiet shadows, as elite bridge personnel carried out their tasks quickly and almost silently. The only sounds, other than the swish and fizz of recycling oxywater, were the intermittent click of sonar pulses and terse, professional comments from one operator to another.
Give Creideiki his due, Takkata-Jim told himself. He has crafted a finely tuned machine in this bridge crew.
Of course, dolphins were less consistent than humans. You couldn’t tell in advance what might cause a neo-fin to start unraveling until you saw him perform under stress. This bridge crew performed as well as any he had ever seen, but would it be enough?
If they had overlooked a single radiation or psi leak, the ETs would be down on them quicker than orcas upon harbor seals.
The fins out there in the prospecting team were safer than their comrades aboard ship, Takkata-Jim thought somewhat bitterly. Metz was a fool to worry about them. They were probably having a wonderful time!
Takkata-Jim tried to recall swimming free in an ocean, without a harness, and breathing natural air. He tried to recall diving in deep water, the deep water of the Stenos, where big-mouthed, smart-aleck, shore-hugging Tursiops were rare as dugongs.
“Akki,” he called to the E.L.F. radio operator, the young dolphin midshipman from Calafia. “Have you received confirmation from Hikahi? Did she get the recall?”
The colonial was a small Tursiops variant of yellowish-gray coloration. Akki replied with some hesitation. He still wasn’t used to breathing and speaking in oxywater. It required a very odd dialect of Underwater Anglic.
“I’m … sh-sorry, Vice-Captain, there’s no reply. I checked for a monopulse on all … ch-channels. There’s been nothing.”
Takkata-Jim tossed his head in irritation. Hikahi might have decided that even a monopulse reply would be too much risk. Still, confirmation would have taken from his back an unpleasant decision.
“Mm-m-m, sir?” Akki tipped his head down and lowered his tail in respect.
“Yess?”
“Ah … shouldn’t we repeat the message? There’s a chance they were distracted and missed it the firsh … first time …”
Like all dolphins from the colony planet Calafia, Akki was proud of his cultured Anglic. It apparently bothered him to have trouble with such simple sentences.
That suited the vice-captain fine. If there was one Anglic word that translated perfectly into Trinary, it was “smartass.”