Infinity's Shore

They spent another day spying on the local sooners. The hoonish seaport, Wuphon, seemed to match the descriptions in Alvin’s journal … though more crude and shabby in the eyes of beings who had seen the sky towers of Tanith and bright cities on Earth’s moon. The hoons appeared to pour more lavish attention on their boats than their homes. The graceful sailing ships bore delicate carving work, down to proud figureheads shaped like garish deities.

When a vessel swept past Kaa, he overheard the deep, rumbling sounds of singing, as the sailors boomed evident joy across the whitecaps.

It’s hard to believe these are the same folk Brookida described as passionless prigs. Maybe there are two races that look alike, and have similar-sounding names. Kaa made a mental note to send an inquiry in tonight’s report.

Hoons weren’t alone on deck. He peered at smaller creatures, scrambling nimbly over the rigging, but when he tried using a portable camera, the image swept by too fast to catch much more than a blur.

Streaker also wanted better images of the volcano, which apparently was a center of industrial activity among the sooner races. Gillian and Tsh’t were considering sending another independent robot ashore, though earlier drones had been lost. Kaa got spectral readings of the mountain’s steaming emissions, and discovered the trace of a slender tramway, camouflaged against the rocky slopes.

He checked frequently on Zhaki and Mopol, who seemed to be behaving for a change, sticking close to their assigned task of eavesdropping on the red qheuen colony.

But later, when all three of them were on their way back to base, Mopol lagged sluggishly behind.

“It must-t have been something I ate,” the blue dolphin murmured, as unpleasant gurglings erupted within his abdomen.

Oh great, Kaa thought. I warned him a hundred times not to sample local critters before Brookida had a chance to test them!

Mopol swore it was nothing. But as the water surrounding their shelter dimmed with the setting sun, he started moaning again. Brookida used their tiny med scanner, but was at a loss to tell what had gone wrong.

Tsh’t

NOMINALLY, SHE COMMANDED EARTH’S MOST FAMOUS spaceship — a beauty almost new by Galactic standards, just nine hundred years old when the Terragens Council purchased it from a Puntictin used-vessel dealer, then altered and renamed it Streaker to show off the skills of neodolphin voyagers.

Alas, the bedraggled craft seemed unlikely ever again to cruise the great spiral ways. Burdened by a thick coat of refractory Stardust — and now trapped deep underwater while pursuers probed the abyss with sonic bombs — to all outward appearances, it seemed doomed to join the surrounding great pile of ghost ships, sinking in the slowly devouring mud of an oceanic ravine.

Gone was the excitement that first led Tsh’t into the service. The thrill of flight. The exhilaration. Nor was there much relish in “authority,” since she did not make policies or crucial decisions. Gillian Baskin had that role.

What remained was handling ten thousand details … like when a disgruntled cook accosted her in a water-filled hallway, wheedling for permission to go up to the realm of light.

“It’ssss too dark and c-cold to go fishing down here!” complained Bulla-jo, whose job it was to help provide meals for a hundred finicky dolphins. “My harvesst team can hardly move, wearing all that pressure armor. And have you seen the so-called fish we catch in our nets? Weird things, all sspiky and glowing!”

Tsh’t replied, “Dr. Makanee has passed at least forty common varieties of local sea life as both tasty and nutritious, so long as we sssupplement with the right additives.”

Still, Bulla-jo groused.

“Everyone favors the samples we got earlier, from the upper world of waves and open air. There are great schools of lovely things swimming around up-p there.”

Then Bulla-jo lapsed into Trinary.

Where perfect sunshine

Makes lively prey fish glitter

As they flee from us!

He concluded, “If you want fresh f-food, let us go to the surface, like you p-promised!”

Tsh’t quashed an exasperated sigh over Bulla-jo’s forget-fulness. In this early stage of their Uplift, neodolphins often perceived whatever they chose, ignoring contradictions.

I do it myself now and then.

She tried cultivating patience, as Creideiki used to teach.

“Dr. Baskin canceled plans to send more parties to the sunlit surface,” she told Bulla-jo, whose speckled flanks and short beak revealed ancestry from the stenos dolphin line. “Did it escape your notice that gravitic emissions have been detected, cruising above this deep fissure? Or that someone has been dropping sonic charges, seeking to find usss?”

Bulla-jo lowered his rostrum in an attitude of obstinate insolence. “We can g-go naked … carry no tools the eatees could detect-ct.”

Tsh’t marveled at such single-minded thinking.