Startide Rising (34 page)

With both shaking hands, he drew his needler. The few Kiqui in sight weren’t heading this way, but squealing as they rushed the pool and dove in.

It’s not their doing, he realized dimly.

He recognized the “sound” of a thousand fingernails scraping across a blackboard.

A psi attack! We have to hide! Water might cushion the assault. We should dive in, like the abos did!

His head roared as he crawled toward the pool. Then he stopped.

I can’t drag Dennie in there, and we can’t put on our breathing gear while shaking like this!

He reversed direction until he reached a pool-side tree. He sat up, with his back against the bole. He tried to concentrate, in spite of the crashing in his brain.

Remember what Mr. Orley taught you, middie! Think about your mind, and go within. SEE the enemy’s illusions … listen lightly to his lies … use the Yin and the Yang … the twin salvations … logic to pierce Mara’s veil … and faith to sustain …

Dennie moaned and rolled in the dust a few meters away. Toshio laid the needler on his lap, to have it ready when the enemy came. He called to Dennie, shouting over the screaming noise.

“Dennie! Listen to your heartbeat! Listen to each breath! They’re real sounds! This isn’t!”

He saw her turn slightly toward his voice, agony in her eyes as she pressed white bloodless hands over her ears. The shrieking intensified.

“Count your heartbeats, Dennie! They’re … they’re like the ocean, like the surf! Dennie!” He shouted. “Have you ever heard any sound that can overcome the surf? Can … can anything or anybody scream loud enough to keep the tide from laughing back?”

She stared at him, trying. He could see her inhaling deeply, mouthing slowly as she counted.

“Yes! Count, Dennie! Breaths and heartbeats! Is there any sound the tide of your heartbeat can’t laugh at?”

She locked onto his eyes, as he anchored himself to hers.

Slowly, as the howling within his head reached its crescendo, Toshio saw her nod faintly and give a faint grateful smile.

Sah’ot felt it too. And even as the psychic wave rolled over him, the pool was suddenly afroth with panicky Kiqui. Sah’ot was inundated by a babel of noise from all around and within. It was worse than being blinded by a searchlight.

He wanted to dive away from the cacophony. Biting back panic, he forced himself to lie still.

He tried to separate the noise into parts, the human contribution first. Dennie and Toshio seemed in worse shape than he. Perhaps they were more sensitive to the assault. There would be no help from them!

The Kiqui were in terror, squawling as they crashed into the pool.

:?: Flee! Flight …

from the sad great things

:?: Somebody Help

the great sad hurt things!

Out of the mouths of babes … When he concentrated on it, the “psi attack” did feel a bit like a call for help. It hurt like the hell of the deeps, but he faced it and tried to pin it down.

He thought he was making progress—certainly he was coping—when still another voice joined in, this one over his neural link! The song from below, that he had spent all night unable to decipher, had awakened. From the bowels of Kithrup it bellowed. Its simplicity commanded understanding.

+ WHO CALLS? -

- WHO DARES BOTHER +

Sah’ot moaned as he tore the robot link free. Three screaming noises, all at different levels of mind, were quite enough. Any more and he would go insane!

Buoult of the Thennanin was afraid, though an officer in the service of the Great Ghosts thought nothing of death or of living enemies.

The shuttle cycled through the lock of his flagship, Quegsfire. The giant doors, comfortingly massive and enduring, swung shut behind them. The shuttle pilot plotted a course to the Tandu flagship.

Tandu.

Buoult flexed his ridge crest as a display of confidence. He would lose heat from the sail of nerves and blood vessels in the frigid atmosphere of the Tandu ship, but it was absolutely necessary to maintain appearances.

It might have been slightly less distasteful to make an alliance with the Soro instead. At least the Soro were more Thennaninoid than the arthropod Tandu, and lived at a decent temperature. Also, the Soro’s clients were interesting folk, the sort Buoult’s people might have liked to uplift themselves.

Better for them if we had, he thought. For we are kind patrons.

If the leathern Soro were meddlesome and callous, the spindly Tandu were horrifying beings. Their clients were weird creatures that set off twitches at the base of Buoult’s tail when he thought of them.

Buoult grimaced in disgust. Politics made for strange gene transfers. The Soro were now strongest among the survivors. The Thennanin were weakest of the major powers. Although the Tandu philosophy was the most repulsive of those in opposition to the Abdicator Creed, they were now all that stood in the way of a Soro triumph. The Thennanin must ally with them, for now.

Should the Tandu seem about to prevail, there would be another chance to switch sides. It had happened a number of times already, and would happen again.

Buoult steeled himself for the meeting ahead. He was determined not to let show any of his dread of stepping aboard a Tandu ship!

The Tandu didn’t seem to care what chances they took with their crazy, poorly understood probability drive. The insane reality manipulations of their Episiarch clients often let them move about more quickly than their opponents. But sometimes the resulting alterations of spacetime swallowed whole groups of ships, impartially snatching the Tandu and their enemies from the universe forever! It was madness!

Just let them not use their perverted drives while I am aboard, Buoult’s organs-of-prayer subvocalized. Let us make our battle plans and be done.

The Tandu ships came into sight, crazy, stilt-like structures that disdained armor for wild speed and power.

Of course even these unusual ships were mere variations of ancient Library designs. The Tandu were daring, but they did not add to their crimes the gaucherie of originality.

Earthlings were in many ways more unconventional than the Tandu. Their sloppy gimmickry was a vulgar habit that came from a poor upbringing.

Buoult wondered what the “dolphins” were doing right now. Pity the poor creatures if the Tandu, or even the Soro got hold of them! Even these primitive sea mammals, clients of a coarse and hairy wolfling race, deserved to be protected, if possible.

Of course there were priorities. They mustn’t be allowed to hoard the data they held!

Buoult noticed that his finger-claws had unsheathed in his agitation. He pulled them back and cultivated serenity as the shuttle drew near the Tandu squadron.

Buoult’s musing was split by a sudden chill that made his crest tremble … a disturbance on a psi band.

“Operator!” he snapped. “Contact the flagship! See if they verify that call!”

“Immediately, General-Protector!”

Buoult controlled his excitement. The psychic energies he felt could be a ruse. Still, they felt right. They bore the image of Krondorsfire, which none of them had hoped to see again!

Determination filled him. In the negotiations ahead, he would ask one more favor. The Tandu must provide one added cooperation in exchange for the help of the Thennanin.

“Confirmed, sir. It is battleship Krondorsfire,” the pilot said, his voice raspy with emotion. Buoult’s crest stood erect in acknowledgment. He stared ahead at the looming metal mantis shapes, steeling himself for the confrontation, the negotiations, and the waiting.

Beie Chohooan was listening to whale songs—rare and expensive copies which had cost her a month’s pay some time ago—when her detectors picked up the beacon. Reluctantly, she put down her headphones and noted the direction and intensity. There were so many signals … bombs and blasts and traps. It was one of the little wazoon that pointed out to her that this particular beacon emanated from the waterworld itself.

Beie groomed her whiskers and considered.

“I believe this will change things, my pretty little ones. Shall we leave this belt of unborn rubble in space and move in a bit closer to the action? Is it time to let the Earthlings know that someone is out here who is a friend?”

The wazoon chittered back that policy was her business. According to union rules, they were spies, not strategists.

Beie approved of their sarcasm. It was very tasty.

“Very well,” she said. “Let us try to move closer.”

Hikahi hurriedly queried the skiff’s battle computer.

“It’s a psi weapon of some sort,” she announced via hydrophone to the crew working in the alien wreck. Her Anglic was calm and precise, accentuated with the cool overtones of Keneenk. “I detect no other signs of attack, so I believe we’re feeling a fringe of the space-battle. We’ve felt othersss before, if not this intense.

“We’re deep underwater, partly shielded from psi-waves. Grit your teeth, Streakers. Try to ignore it. Go about your duties in tropic-clear logic.”

She switched off the speakers. Hikahi knew Tsh’t was even now moving among the workers out there, joking and keeping morale high.

The psi-noise was like a nagging itch, but an itch with a weird rhythm. It pulsed as if in some code she couldn’t quite get her jaws around.

She looked at Hannes Suessi, who sat on a wall rail nearby, looking very tired. He had been about to turn in for a few hours’ sleep, but the psionic assault apparently affected him even worse than it did the dolphins. He had compared it to fingernails scratching on a blackboard.

“I can think of two possibilities, Hikahi. One would be very good news. The other’s about as bad as could be.”

She nodded her sleek head. “We’ve repeatedly rechecked our circuitsss, sent three couriers back with messages, and yet there’s only silence from the ship. I must assume the worst.”

“That Streaker’s been taken,” Suessi closed his eyes.

“Yess. This psi havoc comes from somewhere on the surface of the planet. The Galactics may even now be fighting over her—or—what’s left of her.”

Hikahi decided. “I’m returning to Streaker in this boat. I’ll delay until you’ve sealed quarters for the work-crew inside the hulk. You need power from the skiff to recharge the Thennanin accumulators.”

Suessi nodded. Hikahi was clearly anxious to depart as soon as possible. “I’ll go outside and help, then.”

“You just got off duty. I cannot permit it.”

Suessi shook his head. “Look, Hikahi, when we’ve got that refuge inside the battleship set up, we can pump in filtered fizzywater for the fen and they’ll be able to rest properly. The wreck is well shielded from this psychic screeching, too. And most important, I’ll have a room of my own, one that’s dry, without a crowd of squeaking, practical-joking children goosing me from behind whenever I turn the other way!” His eyes were gently ironic.

Hikahi’s jaw made a gentle curve. “Wait a minute, then, Maker of Wonderful Toys. I’ll come out and join you. Work will distract usss from the scratching of ET fingernails.”

The Soro, Krat, felt no grating tremors. Her ship was girded against psychic annoyances. She first learned of the disturbance from her staff: She took the data scroll from the Pila Cullalberra with mild interest.

They had detected many such signals in the course of the battle. But none yet had emanated from the planet. Only a few skirmishes had taken the war down to Kithrup itself.

Normally she would have simply ordered a homing torpedo dispatched and forgotten the matter. The expected Tandu-Thennanin alliance against the Soro was forming up near the gas-giant world, and she had plans to make. But something about this signal intrigued her.

“Determine the exact origin of this signal on a planetary map,” she told the Pila. “Include locations of all known landfalls by enemy ships.”

“There would be doz-ens by now, and the pos-itions very vague,” the Pil statistician barked. Its voice was high and sharp. Its mouth popped open for each syllable, and hairy cilia waved above its small, black eyes.

Krat did not dignify it with a look. “When the Soro intervened to end Pilan indenture to the Kisa,” she hissed, “it was not to make you Grand Elders. Am I to be questioned, like a human who pampers his chimpanzee?”

Cullalberra shivered and bowed quickly. The stocky Pila scuttled away to its data center.

Krat purred happily. Yes, the Pila were so close to perfect. Arrogant and domineering with their own clients and neighbors, they scurried to serve the Soro’s every whim. How wonderful it was to be a Grand Elder!

She owed the humans something, at that. In a few centuries they had almost replaced the Tymbrimi as the bogeymen to use on recalcitrant clients. They symbolized all that was wrong with Uplift Liberalism. When Terra was finally humbled, and humans were “adopted” into a proper client status, some other bad example would have to serve instead.

Krat opened a private communication line. The display lit up with the image of the Soro Pritil, the young commander of one of the ships in her flotilla.

“Yes, fleet-mother,” Pritil bowed slowly and shallowly. “I listen.”

Krat’s tongues flickered at the young female’s insolence. “Ship number sixteen was slow in the last skirmish, Pritil.”

“One opinion.” Pritil examined her mating claw. She cleaned it in front of the screen, an indelicacy designed to show indifference.

Younger females seldom understood that a real insult should be subtle and require time for the victim to discover it. Krat decided she would teach Pritil this lesson.

“You need a rest for repairs. In the next battle, ship number sixteen would be next to useless. There is, however, a way in which she might win honor, and perhaps the prey, as well.”

Pritil looked up, her interest piqued.

“Yes, fleet-mother?”

“We have picked up a call that pretends to be one thing, perhaps an enemy pleading for succor. I suspect it may be something else.”

The flavor of intrigue obviously tempted Pritil. “I choose to listen, group-mother.”

Krat sighed at the predictability. She knew the younger captains secretly believed all of the legends about Krat’s hunches. She had known Pritil would come around.