Infinity's Shore

For a brief time both airlock doors were closed, and she knew guards must be examining her with instruments. Prob’ly checkin’ my innards, to see if I’m smugglin’ a laser or something. Rety took a breath and exhaled deeply, washing away her body’s instinctive panic over confinement in a cramped metal space. It’ll pass … it’ll pass.…

That trick had helped her endure years of frustration in her feral tribe, whenever defeat and brutality seemed to press in from all sides.

Don’t react like a savage. If others can stand living in boxes, you can, too … for a little while.

The second hatch opened at last, showing Rety a ramp that dropped steeply to a chamber that was flooded, chesthigh, with water.

Ugh.

She disliked the mixed compartments making up a large part of this weird vessel — half-immersed rooms that were spanned above by dry catwalks, allowing access to both striding and swimming beings. The liquid felt warm as Rety sloshed downslope, reminding her of volcanic springs back home in the Gray Hills, but with an added fizzy quality that left trails of tiny bubbles wherever she moved. Feigning relaxed confidence, Rety approached the guard station, where two sentries were assisted by a globular robot whose whirring antennae watched her acutely. One of the dolphins rode a six-legged walker unit — without the bug-eyed body armor — enabling it to stride about dry areas of the ship. The other “fin” wore just a tool harness, using languid motions of his flippers to face a set of monitor displays.

“May we help you, missss?” the latter one asked, with a tail splash added for punctuation.

“Yeh. I came to question Kunn an’ Jass again. I figure I’ll get more out of ’em if I try it alone.”

The guard focused one eye back at her with a dubious expression. The first attempt had not gone well, when Rety accompanied Lieutenant Tsh’t to interrogate the human prisoners. They had been groggy and unhelpful, still wearing bandages and medic pacs for their various injuries. While the dolphin officer tried grilling Kunn about matters back in the Five Galaxies, Rety endured a hot glare of hatred from her cousin Jass, who murmured the word traitor and spat on the floor.

Who’d you figure I betrayed, Jass? she had wondered, eyeing him coldly until his stare broke first. The Daniks? Even Kunn isn’t surprised I switched sides, after the way he treated me.

Or do you mean I’ve turned against our home clan? The band of grubby savages that birthed me, then never showed me a day’s kindness since?

Before looking away, his eyes showed it was personal. She had arranged for Jass to be seized, tormented, and pressed into service as Kunn’s guide. His being locked in this metal cage was also her doing.

That thought cheered her up a bit. You gotta admit, Jass, I finally made an impression on you.

But soon things are gonna get even worse.

I’m gonna make you grateful.

Meanwhile, Kunn told Tsh’t that the siege of Earth went on, though eased somewhat by a strange alliance with the Thennanin.

“But to answer your chief question, there has been no amnesty call by the Institutes. Several great star clans have blocked a safe-conduct decree to let your ship come home.”

Rety wasn’t sure what that meant, but clearly the news was bitter to the dolphins.

Then a new voice intruded from thin air, where a spinning abstract figure suddenly whirled.

“Lieutenant, please recall instructions. Have the prisoner explain how his vessel tracked us to this world.”

Rety recalled seeing a tremor course down the dolphin’s sleek gray flank, perhaps from irritation over the machine’s snide tone. But Tsh’t snapped her jaw in a gesture of submission, and sent her walker unit looming closer to Kunn’s bunk. The human star voyager had nowhere to retreat as her machine pressed close, threateningly. Rety recalled sweat popping out on the Danik warrior’s brow, giving lie to his false air of calm. Having watched him intimidate others, she was pleased to see the tables turned.

Then it happened. Some piece of equipment failed, or else the lieutenant’s walker took a misstep. The right front ankle abruptly snapped, sending the dolphin’s great mass crashing forward.

Only lightning reflexes enabled Kunn to scramble out of the way and avoid being crushed. By the time guards arrived to help Tsh’t untangle herself, the dolphin officer was bruised, angry, and in no humor to continue the interview.

But I’m ready now, Rety thought later, as one of the brig wardens prepared to escort her down a narrow passage with numbers etched on every hatch. I’ve got a plan … and this time Kunn and Jass better do as I say.

“Are you sure you want-t to do this now, miss?” the guard asked. “It’s night cycle and the prisoners are asleep.”

“That’s just how I want ’em. Groggy an’ logy. They may blab more.”

In fact, Rety hardly cared if Kunn named the admirals of all the fleets in the Five Galaxies. Her questions would only serve as cover for communication on another level.