Infinity's Shore

It brought to mind the last time she had felt Tom’s touch — one final night together on a metal island, set amid a poison sea. The night before he flew away on a solarpowered glider, determined to mislead great battle fleets, thwart mighty foes, and make an opening for Streaker to get away. Gillian’s left thigh still tingled, from time to time … the site of his last loving squeeze as he lay prone on the flimsy little aircraft, grinning before taking off.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” Tom said — a metaphysically strange expression, when you thought about it. And she often had.

Then he was gone, winging north, barely skimming the waves, just above the contrary tides of Kithrup.

I should never have let him go. Sometimes you have to tell a hero that enough is enough.

Let someone else save the world.

As Gillian made ready to leave the conference room, she saw Alvin, the young hoon, trying to collect both noors. The female was his longtime pet, to all appearances a bright nonsapient being, probably derived from natural tytlal rootstock, dating from before their species’ uplift. The Tymbrimi must have stockpiled a gene pool of their beloved clients here on Jijo, as insurance in case the worst happened to their clan. A wise precaution, given the number of enemies they’ve made.

As for the other one, Mudfoot, Dwer’s bane and traveling companion across half a continent, scans of his brain showed uplift traces throughout.

A race hidden within a race, retaining all the traits the Tymbrimi worked hard to foster in their clients.

In other words, the tytlal were true sooners, another wave of illegal settlers, but guarded by added layers of camouflage. So disguised, they might even escape whatever ruin lay in store for the relatives of Alvin, Huck, Urronn, and Pincer.

But that can’t be the whole story. Caution isn’t a paramount trait in Tymbrimi, or their clients. They wouldn’t go to so much trouble just to hide. Not unless it was part of something bigger.

Alvin had trouble gathering Mudfoot, who ignored the boy’s umble calls while wandering across the conference table, poking a whiskered nose into debris from the meeting. Finally, the tytlal stood up on his hind legs to peer at the frozen projection last sent by Kaa’s probe, the image of a privacy wasp. Mudfoot purred with curiosity.

“Niss,” Gillian said in a low voice.

With an audible pop, the pattern of whirling, shifting lines came into being nearby.

“Yes, Dr. Baskin? Have you changed your mind about hearing my tentative conjectures about Uriel’s intricate device of spinning disks?”

“Later,” she said, and gestured at Mudfoot. Gillian now realized the tytlal was peering past the blurry display of the privacy wasp, at something in the scene beyond.

“I’d like you to do some enhancements. Find out what that little devil is looking at.”

She did not add that she had detected something on her own. Something only a psi-sensitive would notice. For the second time, a faint presence could be felt — vague and ephemeral — floating ever so briefly above Mudfoot’s agitated cranial spines. She could not be sure, but whatever it was had a distinctly familiar flavor.

Call it Essence of Tymbrimi.

Kaa

THERE WAS NO MORE TO ACCOMPLISH IN THE CAVE. The probe appeared to be dead.

Even if it came back to life, any conversation with the natives would be handled from Streaker’s end. Meanwhile, it was past time to return to the habitat. Kaa had a team he had not seen in days.

A human couple might have paused before exiting the little grotto, looking around to imprint the site of their first lovemaking. But not dolphins. Neo-fins experienced nostalgia, just like their human patrons, but they could store sonar place images in ways humans had to mimic with recording devices. Streaking outside, joining Peepoe under bright sunshine, Kaa knew the two of them could revisit the cave anytime they chose, simply by bringing their arched foreheads together — re-creating its unique echoes in that ancient gulf of memory some called the Whale Dream.

It felt good to dash across the wide sea again, with Peepoe’s lithe body sharing every kick and leap in perfect unison. Motion equaled joy after any long confinement to machinery and closed spaces.

On the outward trip, their swim had been exquisite, but tempered by a taut, sexual tension. Now there were no secrets, no conflicting desires. Most of the return journey was spent in silent bliss — like a simple mated pair from presapient days, free of the gifts and burdens of uplift.

Finally, with the habitat drawing near, Kaa felt his mind slip reluctantly back into Anglic-using rhythms. Compelled to speak, he used the informal click-squeal dialect fins preferred while swimming.

“Well, here it comes,” he sonar-cast during the underwater phase of their next splash-and-surge cycle. “Back to home and family … such as they are.”

“Family?” she replied skeptically. “Brookida, perhaps. As for Mopol and Zhaki, wouldn’t you rather be related to a penguin?”