Infinity's Shore

“Back doing what we were told,” Zhaki said. “Watching how the red crabs interact with hoonsss. So far we’ve seen ’em pulling two sledge loads toward the port, filled with harvested ssseaweed. They came back with cargoes of wood. You know. ch-chopped tree trunks.” Kaa nodded. “So they do trade, as we suspected. Hoons and qheuens, living together on a forbidden world. I wonder what it means?” “Who knows? If they weren’t mysterious, they wouldn’t be eateesss. C-can I go back to Mopol now?” Kaa had few illusions about what was going on between the two young spacers. It probably interfered in their work, but if he raised the issue, Zhaki would accuse him of being a prude, or worse, “jealous.” If only I were a real leader, Kaa thought. The lieutenant should never have left me in charge.

“Yes, go back now,” he said. “But only to fetch Mopol and return to the shelter. It’s getting late.” Zhaki lifted his body high, perched on a thrashing tail.

Yes, oh exalted!

Your command shall be obeyed,

As all tides heed moons.

With that, the young dolphin did a flip and dived back into the sea. Soon his dorsal fin was all Kaa saw, glinting as it sliced through choppy swell.

Kaa pondered the ambiguous insolence of Zhaki’s last Trinary burst.

In human terms — by the cause-and-effect logic the patron race taught its dolphin clients — the ocean bulged and shifted in response to the gravitational pull of sun and moon. But there were more ancient ways of thinking, used by cetacean ancestors long before humans meddled in their genes. In those days, there had never been any question that tides were the most powerful of forces. In the old, primal religion, tides controlled the moon, not vice versa.

In other words, Zhaki’s Trinary statement was sassy, verging on insubordination.

Tsh’t made a mistake, Kaa mused bitterly, as he swam toward the shelter. We should never have been left here by ourselves.

Along the way, he experienced the chief threat to his mission. Not hoonish spears or qheuen claws, or even alien battlecruisers, but Jijo itself.

One could fall in love with this place.

The ocean’s flavor called to him, as did the velvety texture of the water. It beckoned in the way fishlike creatures paid him respect by fleeing, but not too quick to catch, if he cared to.

Most seductive of all, at night throbbing echoes penetrated their outpost walls — distant rhythms, almost too low to hear. Eerie, yet reminiscent of the whale songs of home.

Unlike Oakka, the green-green world — or terrible Kithrup — this planet appeared to have a reverent sea. One where a dolphin might swim at peace.

And possibly forget.

Brookida was waiting when Kaa cycled through the tiny airlock, barely large enough for one dolphin at a time to pass into the shelter — an inflated bubble, half-filled with water and anchored to the ocean floor. Against one wall, a lab had been set up for the metallurgist geologist, an elderly dolphin whose frailty had grown as Streaker fled ever farther from home.

Brookida’s samples had been taken when the Hikahi followed a hoonish sailboat beyond the continental shelf, to a plunging abyssal trench, where the ship had proceeded to dump its cargo overboard! As casks, barrels, and chests fell into the murk, a few were snagged by the submarine’s gaping maw, then left here for analysis as the Hikahi returned to base.

Brookida had already found what he called “anomalies,” but something else now had the aged scientist excited.

“We got a message while you were out. Tsh’t picked up something amazing on her way to Streaker!” Kaa nodded. “I was here when she reported, remember? They found an ancient cache, left by illegal settlers when—” “That’s nothing.” The old dolphin was more animated than Kaa had seen Brookida in a long time.

“Tsh’t called again later to say they rescued a bunch of kids who were about to drown.” Kaa blinked.

“Kids? You don’t mean—”

“Not human or fin. But wait till you hear who they are … and how they came to be d-down there, under the sea.”

Sooners

Alvin

A FEW SCANT DURAS BEFORE IMPACT, PART OF THE wall of debris ahead of us began to move. A craggy slab, consisting of pitted starship hulls, magically slipped aside, offering the phuvnthu craft a long, narrow cavity.

Into it we plummeted, jagged walls looming near the glass, passing in a blur, cutting off the searchlight beam and leaving us in shadows. The motors picked up their frantic backward roar … then fell away to silence.

A series of metallic clangs jarred the hull. Moments later the door to our chamber opened. A clawed arm motioned us outside.

Several phuvnthus waited — insectoid-looking creatures with long, metal-cased torsos and huge, glassy-black eyes. Our mysterious saviors, benefactors, captors.

My friends tried to help me, but I begged them off.

“Come on, guys. It’s hard enough managing these crutches without you all crowding around. Go on. I’ll be right behind.”