The Paha tastefully ignored the fleet-mistress’s obvious wave of relief on hearing this. “It is too large to be the Earth ship. We have tentatively identified it as a crippled Thennanin, although…”
“Yes?” Krat asked archly.
The Paha hesitated. “It behaves strangely. It is inordinately massive, and its motors seem to have a quasi-Tymbrimi tone. It is already too far to read clearly.”
Krat grunted. “What is our status?”
“The Tandu parallel us, sniping at our flanks as we do theirs. We both chase the Earth scout. Both of us have ceased firing at the boat except when it gets too close to the other side.”
Krat growled. “This vessel leads us farther and farther from the planet—from the true quarry. Have you contemplated a scoutship whose very purpose may have been to accomplish this?” she snapped.
The Paha considered, then nodded. “Yes, Fleet-Mother. It would be just like a Tymbrimi or wolfling trick. What do you suggest?’ ”
Krat was filled with frustration. It had to be a trick! Yet she couldn’t abandon the chase, or the Tandu would capture the scoutship. And the longer the chase went on, the worse the attrition on both sides!
She threw the plum across the room. It splattered dead center on the rayed spiral glyph of the Library. A startled Pil jumped and squeaked in dismay, then glared at her insolently.
“Transmit Standard Truce Call Three,” Krat commanded with distaste. “Contact the Tandu Stalker. We must put an end to this farce and get back to the planet at once!”
The Tandu Stalker asked the Trainer one more time. “Can you arouse the Acceptor?”
The Trainer knelt before the Stalker, offering its own head. “I cannot. It has entered an orgasmic state. It is over-stimulated. Operant manipulation does not achieve success.”
“Then we have no meta-physical way to investigate the strange chase behind us?”
“We do not. We can only use physical means.”
The Stalker’s legs ratcheted. “Go and remove your head. With your last volition, place it in my trophy rack.”
The Trainer rasped assent.
“May the new one I grow serve you better.”
“Indeed. But first,” the Stalker suggested, “arrange to open a talk-line with the Soro. I shall sever the leg I use to talk with them, of course. But talk to them we now must.”
Buoult bit at his elbow spikes, then used them to preen his ridgecrest. He had guessed correctly! He had taken the last six Thennanin ships out of the battle between the Tandu and Soro, and arrived at the planet in time to join a long chase. Ten ragged ships were ahead of him, chasing an object that could only dimly be made out.
“More speed,” he urged. “The others are uncoordinated. While the Tandu and Soro chase a ruse, we are the only fair-sized squadron in the vicinity! We must chase!”
Far ahead of the Thennanin, a Gubru captain ruffled its feathers and cackled.
“We catch up! We catch up with the lumbering thing! And look! Now that we are near, look and see that its emanations are human! They fly inside a shell, but now we are near and can look and see and catch that which is inside that shell!
“Now we are near, and will catch them!”
Failure was still possible, of course. But total defeat would be unpermissible.
“If we cannot catch them,” it reminded itself, “then we must make certain to destroy them.”
T
he gas giant loomed ahead. The heavily laden Streaker lumbered toward it.
“They’ll expect us to dive in close for a tight hyperbolic,” Tsh’t commented. “It’s generally a good tactic when being chased in a planetary system. A quick thrusst while we’re swinging near the planet can translate into a major shift in direction.”
Gillian nodded. “That’s what they’ll expect, but that’s not what we’ll do.”
They watched the screens as three large blips grew and then took form as solid figures—ships with ugly battle-scars and uglier weapons.
The great bulk of the planet began to intrude even as the pursuing ships grew larger.
“Are all fen secured?”
“Yesss!”
“Then you choose the time, Lieutenant. You have a better feel for space battles than I. You know what we want to do.”
Tsh’t clapped her jaws together. “I do, Gillian.”
They dove toward the planet.
“Sssoon. Soon they’ll be committed…” Tsh’t’s eyes narrowed. She concentrated on sound images, transmitted by her neural link. The bridge was silent except for the nervous clicking of dolphin sonar. Gillian was reminded of tense situations on human ships, when half the crew would be whistling through their teeth without ever being aware of it.
“Get-t ready,” Tsh’t told the engineering crew by intercom.
The pursuing ships disappeared briefly behind the planet’s limb.
“Now!” she cried for Suessi to hear. “Open the rear locks! Activate all pumps!” She swung to the pilot. “Launch that decoy probe! Hard lateral acceleration! Apply stasis to compensate all but one g rearward! Repeat, allow one gravity rearward in the ship!”
Half the control boards in the bridge sprouted red light. Forewarned, the crew overrode safeguards as the contents of Streaker’s central bay flew out behind her into the vacuum of open space.
The Gubru captain was concerned with a Pthaca ship encroaching on its lead. The commander contemplated maneuvers to destroy the Pthaca, but the master computer suddenly squawked frantically for attention.
“They have not done that!” the captain chanted as it stared in disbelief at the display. “They cannot have done such a thing. They cannot have found such a devilish trap. They cannot have…”
It watched the Pthaca ship collide at a large fraction of light speed with a barrier that had not been there minutes before.
It was only a diffuse stream of gas particles, drifting in their path. But, unexpected, it met the Pthaca warship’s screens like a solid wall. At a fair fraction of light speed, any barrier was deadly.
“Veer off!” the Gubru commanded. “Fire all weapons on the quarry!”
Fiery energy lanced out, but the beams stuck an intangible wall between the Gubru and the rapidly turning Earth ship.
“Water!” it shrieked as it read the spectral report. “A barrier of water vapor! A civilized race could not have found such a trick in the Library! A civilized race could not have stooped so low! A civilized race would not have…”
It screamed as the Gubru ship hit a cloud of drifting snowflakes.
Lightened by megatonnes, Streaker screamed about in an arc far tighter than she could have managed minutes before. Her locks closed, and the ship slowly refilled with air. Internal anti-gravity was reapplied. Her spacesuited crewfen flew back to their duty stations from the hull rooms where they had taken refuge.
In the still water-filled bridge, Gillian watched the annihilation of the first two pursuing vessels. The crew cheered as the third battered cruiser swerved desperately, then suffered a malfunction at the last moment, and collided disastrously with the diffuse cloud. It dissolved into a flat ball of plasma.
“The rest of them are still out of sight beyond the gas giant,” Gillian said. “After the chase from Kithrup, they’ll think they know our dynamic, and never guess we could turn around like this!”
Tsh’t looked less certain. “Perhapsss. We did fire off a decoy probe along our old flight path, mimicking our radiation. They may chase it.
“At least I’d be willing to bet they’ll come in on a tight and fast hyperbolic-c.”
“And we’ll pick ‘em off as they come!” Gillian felt a little giddy. There was just a chance they might be able to do it cleanly, so cleanly that they might be able to lie low, to wait a little longer for Hikahi and Creideiki. For another miracle.
Streaker groaned as she fought to change direction.
“Suessi says the wall braces are under stresss,” Lucky Kaa reported. “He asks if you’re going to be turning off stasis again, or pulling any other … uh, he calls them ‘wild, crazy, female maneuvers.’ His words, sssir!”
Gillian gave no answer. Suessi certainly didn’t expect one.
Streaker completed her sharp turn and sped back the way she had come, just as two more battle cruisers came into view around the limb of the gas giant.
“Get ‘em, Tsh’t,” Gillian told the dolphin officer. An outrage she had not allowed to show in weeks of frustration came out in her voice. “Use your own tactics. But get them!”
“Yesss!” Tsh’t noted Gillian’s balled fists. She felt it too. “Now!”
She whirled and called to the crew.
* Patiently,
We took the insults—
* Patiently,
Evil intent—
* Now we stop,
Patient no longer—
* Dream and logic,
Join in combat !!
The bridge crew cheered. Streaker dove toward the surprised foe.
T
he voice of the Soro matriarch growled out of the communications web. “Then we are in agreement to stop this chase and join our forces?”
The Tandu Stalker promised itself it would remove two legs, not one, for the shame of making this agreement.
“Yes,” it replied. “If we continue in the present manner, we will only erode ourselves down to nothing. You Soro fight well, for vermin. Let us unite and end it.”
Krat made it explicit. “We swear by Pact Number One, the oldest and most binding to be found in the Library, to capture the Earthlings together, to extract the information together, and to seek out together the emissaries of our ancestors, to let them be the judges of our dispute.”
“Agreed,” the Tandu assented. “Now let us finish here and turn about together to seize the prize.”
H
e now understood what humans meant by a “Nantucket sleighride.”
Takkata-Jim was tired. He had fled for what seemed like hours. Every time he tried to make the boat drift to one side, so he could surrender to one party, the other side fired salvos between him and his goal, forcing him back.
Then, some time ago, he detected a long chain of ships leaving Kithrup in the other direction. It didn’t take much to figure out that Streaker was making her move.
It’s over, then, he thought. I tried to do my duty as I saw it, and save my own life at the same time. Now the die is cast. My plan is lost.
I’m lost. There’s nothing I can do except, maybe, buy Streaker a few minutes.
Some time ago the two fleets had stopped tearing at each other as they chased him. Takkata-Jim realized they were coming to an agreement.
Suddenly his receiver buzzed with a basic contact code in Galactic One. The message was simple … stop and surrender to the combined Tandu-Soro fleet.
Takkata-Jim, clapped his jaws together. He hadn’t a transmitter, so he couldn’t respond. But if he stopped dead in space they would probably take that as a surrender.
He delayed until the message had been repeated three times. Then he began decreasing speed … but slowly. Very slowly, drawing out the time.
When the Galactics had drawn close, and their threats began to sound final, Takkata-Jim sighed and turned the longboat’s fire-control computers back on.
The boat bucked as small missiles leaped away. He applied full thrust again.
When both flotillas simultaneously fired volleys of missiles at him, he tried to evade, of course. It would be unsporting to give up.
But he didn’t have the heart for a major effort. Instead, while he waited, he worked on a poem.
* The saddest of things
To a dolphin—even me—
Is to die alone… *
T
he ambush at the gas giant was unexpected. The enemy came in close, using the great planet’s gravity to swing about in a tight hyperbolic turn. They were unprepared for an attack on their flanks.
Compared with their breakneck dive, Streaker was almost motionless. She fell upon the pair of cruisers as they passed, lacing a web-like tracery of antimatter in their paths.
One of the battleships blossomed into a fireball before Streaker’s computers could even identify it. Its screens were probably already damaged after weeks of battle.
The other cruiser was in better shape. Its screens flashed an ominous violet, and thin lines of exploding metal brightened its hull. But it passed through the trap and began decelerating furiously.
“It’ll misss our mines, worse luck,” Tsh’t announced. “There wasn’t time to lay a perfect pattern.”
“We can’t have everything,” Gillian replied. “You handled that brilliantly. He’ll be some time getting back to us.” Tsh’t peered at the screen and listened to her neural link. “He may be very tardy, if his engines keep missssing. He’s on a collision spiral with the planet!”
“Goody. Let’s leave him and see about the others.”
Streaker’s motion was taking her away from the giant planet, toward another group of five onrushing cruisers. Having witnessed part of the ambush, these were all adjusting course furiously.
“Now we see how well the Trojan Seahorse works,” Gillian said. “The first bunch was close enough to read our engines and know we’re Earth-made. But these guys were too far back. Has Suessi altered our power output along Thennanin lines, as planned?”
Wattaceti whistled confirmation. “It’s done. Suesssi says it’ll cut efficiency, though. He reminds you that our engines aren’t Thennanin.”
“Thank him for me. Now, for all our lives, what happens next depends on whether they’re an unimaginative lot, as Tom guessed they’d be.
“Full power to the psi shields!”
“Aye, sssir!”
Energy detectors lit up as the oncoming ships swept them with probe-beams. The motley assortment of approaching ET vessels seemed to hesitate, then diverged.
“Numbers one, four, and five are accelerating to pass us by!” Tsh’t announced. The bridge was filled with chattering dolphin applause.
“What about the others?”
Tsh’t’s manipulator arm pointed to two dots in the holotank. “Decelerating and preparing for battle! We’re picking up a beam-cast in Galactic Ten! It’s a ritual challenge!”