Heaven's Reach (25 page)

I've seen no sign that anyone has connected me to the dead humans.

Nevertheless, Tsh't worried as she sent her walker stomping down one of
Streaker's
main corridors. The hallway felt deserted, emptied by attrition after three years on the run.

Of course it's always possible that Gillian picked up something with that psi talent of hers. She may suspect the demise of Kunn and Jass was no case of double suicide.

Tsh't fought to suppress the disturbing image of those two human corpses. She quelled a nervous tremor that coursed her dorsal nerves, making the moist skin shiver and her flukes thrash on the rear portion of the walker's soft suspension hammock.

How badly she yearned for a real swim! But nearly all the water had been flushed out to lighten
Streaker
's frantic breakout from Jijo. Dragging a heavy coat of carbon soot from smoldering Izmunuti, the Earth vessel needed every bit of agility, so nearly all the residence and recreation areas were now bone-dry. Soon, long queues would form at sick bay, as neo-dolphins reported skin sores and bruised ribs. After too much time spent lying prone atop jarring machines, even the softest field-effect cushion made you feel like you had been beached and stranded on a shore covered with sharp pebbles.

Now Dr. Makanee is gone, along with three nurses
—
left behind to take care of the Jijo colonists—and I'm the one who has to figure out how to stretch our remaining med staff and cover the inevitable complaints. Somehow, despite everything, team efficiency and morale have got to be kept up. That's what the high and mighty Dr. Baskin leaves to me—all the grungy details of running a ship and crew—while she ponders vast issues of policy and destiny, leading us hither and yon across the Five Galaxies, trying this and then trying that, fleeing from one disaster to the next.

The bitterness was not unmixed with affection. Tsh't
genuinely loved Gillian, whose skill at getting
Streaker out
of jams had proved nearly as impressive as her affinity for getting into them. Nor did Tsh't resent human beings as patrons. Without their awkward, well-meaning efforts at genetic engineering, the Tursiops race might never have taken the final step from bright, innocent animals to promising starfarers … and Tsh't would not have seen the Starbow, or Hercules Arch—or the Shallow Cluster.

Terragens culture granted neo-fins more rights and respect than a new client race normally received in the Civilization of Five Galaxies. Most clients spent a hundred millennia in servitude to their patrons. Humans were doing about as well as they could, under the circumstances.

But there are limits to what you can expect from wolflings
, she thought, entering a double airlock to pass into
Streaker
's Dry Wheel.

The latest pathetic episode proved this point. Just hours after arriving inside the Fractal World, Gillian Baskin had decided to see whether they were prisoners or guests. Waiting till the Zang seemed preoccupied—supervising a swarm of machine entities doing repair work—she had ordered Kaa to gently nudge
Streaker
's engines, easing the ship through the opening toward a beckoning glitter of starlight.

The Zang dropped what it was doing, scattering robot attendants, racing with astonishing agility to cut off the Earthlings' escape.

Still covered with several meters of star soot,
Streaker
could not outrun the giant globule. Gillian acquiesced, turning the ship back into the immense habitat. She then ordered a general stand-down. Except for watch crew, everyone was told to get some rest. The Zang vessel returned to work, without evident rancor. And yet Tsh't felt a hard-won lesson was reinforced.

Humans were sapient for only a few thousand years longer than us dolphins—a mere eyeblink in the story of life in the universe. It's not their fault they are ignorant and clumsy.

That only means they need help. Even if they are too obstinate to ask for it.

An elevator ride took her to the rim of the wide centrifugal wheel, where rooms lined a long hallway that seemed to curve up and away in both directions. The great hoop straddled
Streaker
halfway along its length and could be spun up to provide weight on those occasions when the crew needed to turn off floor gravity for some reason—if they were doing sensor scans in deep space, for instance … or evading fleets of pursuers by hiding in an asteroid belt. There was a drawback, though. Whenever they had to land on a planet's surface—as happened at Kithrup, Oakka, and Jijo—most of the Dry Wheel's rooms were out of reach.

To anyone except a biped who's a skilled climber, that is.

Tsh't strode past the sealed door to Dr. Baskin's office, where layers of security devices guarded Creideiki's treasure—the relics responsible for so much grief. This part of the Dry Wheel was always “bottom,” whenever
Streaker
lay grounded. Dolphins routinely used nearby suites and workshops, but those on the opposite side were often inaccessible. In fact, the crew seldom thought of them at all.

That's where I'd hide something, if I were Gillian.

The Wheel was spinning right now, so Tsh't had no trouble striding around its wide circumference, passing laboratories once used by scientists like Ignacio Metz, Dennie Sudman, and the neo-chimpanzee geologist Charles Dart. She kept lifting her jaw to listen, as if nervously expecting to hear ghost footsteps of the bright young Calafian midshipman Toshio Iwashika … or the strong, confident gait of Gillian's lost Tom Orley.

But they were gone. All of them, along with Creideiki and Hikahi. Dead, or else abandoned on poisonous Kithrup—which was almost the same as being dead.

They were the best of us, taken away before our trials really began. How much would have been different if the captain and the others were still aboard? Instead command fell to Gillian and me … a physician-healer and the ship's most junior lieutenant … who
never imagined we'd have to carry such a burden, year after dreary year.

Fatigue wore at Tsh't. During sleep shifts she would cast her clicking sonar song toward the Whale Dream, praying for someone to come take away the hardship, the responsibility.

We Streakers are in way over our heads. All of Earthclan is! Gillian was right about one thing. We need help and advice. But we won't get it from eatees. Not from the Great Institutes, or the Old Ones.

She's forgotten one of life's great truths, known by almost every human and dolphin from childhood. When you're in real bad trouble, the place to turn is your own family.

Using her neural tap, Tsh't called up the ship's maintenance system and ordered a trace of atmospheric pollutants, concentrating room by room on the section of the Dry Wheel directly opposite from Dr. Baskin's office—the sector routinely left on “top” when
Streaker
lay on a planet's surface. The part that dolphins were likely to ignore, even when it was accessible.

Aha! Just as I thought. An elevated profile of carbon dioxide, plus several ketones, a touch of methane, and a strange pair of alcohols. Sure signs of respiration by an oxygen-breathing life-form … though clearly not an Earthling.

And it's all centered … here.

She made her walker halt before a door labeled
HAZARDOUS ORGANIC MATERIALS
—and chuckled at Gillian's little joke.

A slight nudge of volition caused a work-arm to swing forward from her tool harness, aiming a slim drill at the door, near the jamb, where a hole might not be noticed right away. A fine whirring was the only sound. Her cutter penetrated, vaporized, and vac-disposed debris as it moved ahead.

Tsh't mused on how she was now compounding her own felony. Her growing record of treason. It all started the last time
Streaker
visited the Fractal World, when everyone grew aware that the Old Ones were going to disappoint them. As crew morale sank, Tsh't decided it
was time to act on her own. To send a message, contacting the one source whose help could be relied on.

Fortunately, the Fractal World had regular commercial mail taps. Even while Gillian parried increasing threats and imprecations from various factions of the Retired Order, Tsh't found it fairly simple to dispatch a secret message packet, programmed to go bouncing across the Five Galaxies, paranoically covering its own tracks and randomly rerouting before heading for its final destination—a time-drop capsule whose coordinates she had memorized as a youth, long ago. One tuned to respond to just one species in the universe.

By then, Gillian had already decided to flee the cris-well structure and try the “sooner option”—absconding through forbidden Galaxy Four, sneaking past a blaring giant star, then taking shelter on a proscribed world called Jijo.

A clandestine rendezvous seemed easy enough for Tsh't to arrange …

The drill bit broke through. She commanded the arm back and sent a fiber communicator snaking through the hole, rearing like a cobra inside the sealed room.

It scanned left and right until a lanky bipedal figure came into view, seated on a bench before a small table.

The head lifted, as if reacting to a sound. When the creature turned halfway around, Tsh't gasped at the sight.

A slanted, narrow face with a jutting, chinless jaw and large, bared teeth.

Yet, the eyes and brow seemed uncannily human, squinting as they caught sight of the spy probe.

Hurriedly, the head turned away again. Shoulders hunched to block her view. Tsh't saw both arms grope for a box—a bio-support unit designed for maintaining small animals sampled from an ecosystem. Deft hands pulled out something squirmy. She couldn't follow what was happening, but it seemed as if the biped was
eating
the wriggly creature, or embracing it.

The shoulders relaxed, arms settling to the tall being's side as it stood up and gracefully turned around.

The face was transformed. Now it looked more noble
than human. More genially amused than a Tymbrimi. More patient and understanding than a god.

Well, well. It is him. The very one.

The Rothen's face quivered in a few places, where its mask-symbiont was still nestling in—a living creature crafted to become
part
of his features, providing fine cheekbones, a regal chin, and lips that both covered the teeth and drew a tender, gracious smile.

The Missionary.

Tsh't remembered his visit to Earth, long ago, when she was still half grown and barely able to speak. It was like yesterday, the image of him preaching in a hidden undersea grotto to a tiny gathering of dolphin converts.

“The universe is a lonely place,”
he had said then.
“But not as dangerous as it seems. The present government of Earth may consist of Darwinists and unbelievers, but that does not matter. Remember, despite the propaganda of those preaching wolfling pride, that you are not alone. We who crafted the genes of humanity in secret, guiding them toward a great destiny, remain steadfast to that dream. The same glorious goal. We still act behind the scenes, protecting, preserving, preparing for the Day.

“And as we love our human clients, so we also love you. For ours is a special clan, with a future more splendid than any other. Dolphins will play a great role when the time comes. Especially those of you who choose the Danik Way.”

It had felt singular to grow up as a member of an exclusive sect, knowing a great and reassuring Truth. Of course the Terragens Constitution promised religious freedom, but in practice it would only bring on ridicule to reveal too much, too soon. Most dolphins believed the myth that humans must have evolved sapience without intervention from above. An absurd notion, but too strong a current for dissenters to fight openly.

Even among humans and chimps, where Danikenite beliefs were more common, debates raged between conflicting cults. Many had their own candidates for the
secret patrons …
the mystery race said to have uplifted Homo sapiens long ago. Several Galactic races
were called “more likely” than the obscure, secretive Rothen.

So Tsh't had kept it to herself, through school, training, and early assignments for the TAASF. She bided her time through the disasters at Morgran, Kithrup, and Oakka. Until one day she realized humans just weren't up to the task. Gillian Baskin was among the best, and could do no more.

It was time to seek help higher up the family tree.

The Rothen would know what to do.

Now her emotions roiled with conflict, complexity, and confusion. She had come here uncertain what to expect.

I knew about the symbiont. The Jijoans saw a Rothen unmasked. It's all in the reports. And yet, to see that bared face for myself—

The glimpse of Ro-kenn's natural features had been shocking. And yet, Tsh't now felt warmed by the same reassuring smile she recalled from childhood.

I can understand the need for a mask. It isn't necessarily dishonest. Not if it helps them do their work better, guiding Earthlings toward our destiny.

It's what's inside that counts.

“Well?” Ro-kenn said, taking a step toward the door. He brought both hands together, his long arms sticking out from the sleeves of a bathrobe made for a tall human. The captive must have been sent in secret by the Sages of Jijo, after capturing him in the highland place they called Festival Glade—perhaps the sole survivor of a mixed Rothen-human expedition that had met treachery and disaster, first from the Six Races and then the crew of the Jophur battleship.

Everything came together in Tsh't's heart. The longing she had carried since childhood. The frustration of three horrible years. The guilt over having acted against Gillian's wishes. The far larger guilt of assassinating two humans—even if it was in the interest of a greater cause.

She had come here intending to confront Ro-kenn. To demand an explanation of what had happened.