Infinity's Shore

The other man was much larger. His uniform could still be recognized beneath the caked filth. Steely gray eyes drilled Tsh’t the moment she entered.

“How did you follow us to Jijo?”

That was what Gillian would surely ask the Danik voyager. It was the question Tsh’t feared most.

Calm down, she urged herself. The Rothen only know that someone sent a message from the Fractal System. They can’t know who.

Anyway, would they confide in their Danik servants? This poor fellow is probably just as bewildered as we are.

Yet Kunn’s steady gaze seemed to hold the same rock-solid faith she once saw in the Missionary … the disciple who long ago brought a shining message-of-truth to the small dolphin community of Bimini-Under, back when Tsh’t was still a child gliding in her mother’s slipstream wake.

“Humans are beloved patrons of the neo-dolphin race, it’s true,” the proselytizer explained, during one secret meeting, in a cave where scuba-diving tourists never ventured. “Yet, just a few centuries ago, primitive men in boats hunted cetaceans to the verge of extinction. They may act better today, but who can deny their new maturity is fragile, untested? Without meaning disloyalty, many neo-fins feel discomfort, wondering if there might not be something or somebody greater and wiser than humankind. Someone the entire clan can turn to, in dangerous times.”

“You mean God?” one of the attending dolphins asked. And the Missionary responded with a nod.

“In essence, yes. All the ancient legends about divine beings who intervene in Earth’s affairs … all the great teachers and prophets … can be shown to have their basis in one simple truth.

“Terra is not just an isolated forlorn world — home to bizarre wolflings and their crude clients. Rather, it is part of a wonderful experiment. Something I have come from afar to tell you about.

“We have been watched over for a very long time. Lovingly guarded throughout our long time of dreaming. But soon, quite soon, it will be time to waken.”

Kaa

MOPOL’S FEVER SHOWED NO SIGN OF RETURNING. In fact, he seemed quite high in spirits when he left the next morning, swimming east with Zhaki, resuming their reconnaissance of Wuphon Port.

“You see? All he needed was a stern talking-to,” Peepoe explained with evident pride. “Mopol just had to be reminded of his duty.”

Kaa sensed the implied rebuke in her words, but chose to ignore it.

“You have a persuasive bedside manner,” he replied. “No doubt they teach it in medical school.”

In fact, he was quite sure that Mopol’s recovery had little to do with Peepoe’s lecture. The half-stenos male had agreed too readily with everything the young nurse said, tossing his mottled gray head and chittering “Yessss!” repeatedly.

He and Zhaki are up to something, Kaa thought, as he watched the two swim off toward the coastal hoon settlement.

“I need to be heading back to the ship soon,” Peepoe said, causing Kaa to dip his narrow jaw.

“But I thought you’d stay a few days. You agreed to come see the volcano.”

Her expression seemed wary. “I don’t know.… When I left, there was talk of shifting Streaker to another hiding place. Searchers were getting too damned c-close.”

Not that moving the ship a few kilometers would make much difference, if Galactic fleets already had her pinned. Even hiding under a great pile of discarded starcraft would not help, once pursuers had the site narrowed down close enough to use chemical sniffers. Earthling DNA would lure them, like male moths to a female’s pheromones.

Kaa shrugged by twisting his flukes.

“Brookida will be disappointed. He was so looking forward to showing off his collection of dross from all six sooner races.”

Peepoe stared at Kaa, scanning him with penetrating sound till she found the wryness within.

Her blowhole sputtered laughter.

“Oh, all right. Let’s see this mountain of yours. Anyway, I’ve been aching for a swim.”

As usual, the water felt terrific. A little saltier than Earth sea, but with a fine mineral flavor and a gentle ionic oiliness that helped it glide over your skin. The air’s rich oxygen level made it seem as if you could keep going well past the horizon.

It was a far friendlier ocean than on Kithrup or Oakka, where the oceans tasted poisonously foul. Friendlier, that is, unless you counted the groaning sounds that occasionally drifted from the Midden, as if a tribe of mad whales lived down there, singing ballads without rhyme or reason.

According to Alvin’s Journal, their chief source on Jijo, some natives believed that ancient beings lived beyond the continental shelf, fierce and dangerous. Such hints prompted Gillian Baskin to order the spying continued.

So long as Streaker doesn’t need a pilot, I might as well play secret agent. Anyway, it’s a job Peepoe might respect.