David Brin - Infinity's Shore

Unfortunately, those qualified ones were gone — Captain Creideiki, Tom Orley, Lieutenant Hikahi, and even the young midshipman Toshio — all used up in that costly escape from Kithrup.

I guess someone had to fill in after that, Hannes conceded.

In fact, Emerson pulled off one daring coup on Oakka, the green world, when the Obeyer Alliance sprang a trap while Gillian tried to negotiate a peaceful surrender to officials of the Navigation Institute.

Not even the suspicious Niss Machine reckoned that neutral Galactic bureaucrats might betray their oaths and violate Streaker’s truce pennant. It wasn’t supposed to be possible. If not for Emerson’s daring trek across Oakka’s jungle, taking out a Jophur field-emitter station, Streaker would have fallen into the clutches of a single fanatic clan — the one thing the Terragens Council said must not occur, at any cost.

But you let one success go to your head, eh? What were you thinking? That you were another Tom Orley?

A few months later you pulled that crazy stunt, veering a jury-rigged Thennanin fighter through the Fractal System, firing recklessly to “cover” our escape. What did that accomplish, except getting yourself killed?

He recalled the view from Streaker’s bridge, looking across the inner cavity of a vast, frosty structure the size of a solar system, built of condensed primal matter. A jagged, frothy structure with a pale star in its heart. Emerson’s fighter swerved amid the spiky reaches of that enormous artifact, spraying bright but useless rays while claws of hydrogen ice converged around it.

Foolish heroism. The Old Ones could have stopped Streaker just as easily as they stopped you, if they really wanted to.

They meant to let us get away.

He winced, recalling how Emerson’s brave, futile “diversion” ended in a burst of painful light, a flicker against the immense, luminous fractal dome. Then Streaker fled down a tunnel between dimensions, thread-gliding all the way to forbidden Galaxy Four. Once there, her twisty path skirted the trade winds of a hydrogen-breathing civilization, then plunged past a sooty supergiant whose eruption might at last cover the Earthship’s trail.

Others came to Jijo in secret before us, letting Izmunuti erase their tracks.

It should have worked for us, too.

But Hannes knew what was different, this time.

Those others didn’t already have a huge price on their heads. You could buy half a spiral arm with the bounty that’s been offered for Streaker, by several rich, terrified patron lines.

Hannes sighed. The recent depth-charge attack had been imprecise, so the hunters only suspected a general area of sea bottom. But the chase was on again. And Hannes had work to do.

At least I have an excuse to avoid another damned meeting of the ship’s council. It’s a farce, anyway, since we always wind up doing whatever Gillian decides. We’d be crazy not to.

Karkaett signaled that the motivator array was aligned. Hannes used a cyborg arm to adjust calibration dials on the master control, trying to imitate Emerson’s deft touch. The biomechanical extensions that replaced his hands were marvelous gifts, extending both ability and life span — though he still missed the tactile pleasure of fingertips.

The Old Ones were generous … then they robbed us and drove us out. They gave life and took it. They might have betrayed us for the reward … or else sheltered us in their measureless world. Yet they did neither.

Their agenda ran deeper than mere humans could fathom. Perhaps everything that happened afterward was part of some enigmatic plan.

Sometimes I think humanity would’ve been better off just staying in bed.

Tsh’t

SHE TOLD GILLIAN BASKIN WHAT SHE THOUGHT OF the decision.

“I still do not agree with bringing those young sooners back here.”

The blond woman looked back at Tsh’t with tired eyes. Soft lines at the corners had not been there when Streaker started this voyage. It was easy to age during a mission like this.

“Exile did seem best, for their own good. But they may be more useful here.”

“Yesss … assuming they’re telling the truth about hoons and Jophur sitting around with humans and urs, reading paper books and quoting Mark Twain!”

Gillian nodded. “Farfetched, I know. But—”

“Think of the coincidence! No sooner does our scout sub find an old urrish cache than these so-called kids and their toy bathysphere drop in.”

“They would have died, if the Hikahi didn’t snatch them up,” pointed out the ship’s physician, Makanee.

“Perhaps. But consider, not long after they arrived here, we sensed gravitic motors headed straight for this rift canyon. Then someone started bombing the abyssss! Was that a fluke? Or did spies lead them here?”

“Calling bombs down on their own heads?” The dolphin surgeon blew a raspberry. “A simpler explanation is that one of our explorer robots got caught, and was traced to this general area.”

In fact, Tsh’t knew the four sooner children hadn’t brought Galactics to the Rift. They had nothing to do with it. She was herself responsible.

Back when Streaker was preparing to flee the Fractal System, heading off on another of Gillian’s brilliant, desperate ploys, Tsh’t had impulsively sent a secret message. A plea for help from the one source she felt sure of, revealing the ship’s destination and arranging a rendezvous at Jijo.

Gillian will thank me later, she had thought at the time. When our Rothen lords come to take care of us.

Only now, images from shore made clear how badly things went wrong.

Two small sky ships, crashed in a swamp … the larger revealing fierce, implacable Jophur.

Tsh’t wondered how her well-meant plan could go so badly. Did the Rothen allow themselves to be followed? Or was my message intercepted?

Worry and guilt gnawed her gut.

Another voice entered the discussion. Mellifluous. Emanating from a spiral of rotating lines that glowed at one end of the conference table.

“So Alvin’s bluff played no role in your decision, Dr. Baskin?”

“Is he bluffing? These kids grew up reading Melville and Bickerton. Maybe he recognized dolphin shapes under those bulky exo-suits. Or we may have let hints slip, during conversation.”

“Only the Niss spoke to them directly,” Tsh’t pointed out, thrusting her jaw toward the whirling hologram.

It replied with unusual contrition.

“Going over recordings, I concede having used terms such as kilometer and hour… out of shipboard habit. Alvin and his friends might have correlated this with their extensive knowledge of Anglic, since Galactics would not use wolfling measurements.”

“You mean a Tymbrimi computer ccan make mistakesss?” Tsh’t asked, tauntingly.

The spinning motif emitted a low humm they all now recognized as the philosophical umbling sound of a reflective hoon.

“Flexible beings exhibit an ability to learn new ways,” the Niss explained. “My creators donated me to serve aboard this ship for that reason. It is why the Tymbrimi befriended you Earthling rapscallions, in the first place.”

The remark was relatively gentle teasing, compared with the machine’s normal, biting wit.

“Anyway,” Gillian continued, “it wasn’t Alvin’s bluff that swayed me.”

“Then what-t?” Makanee asked.

The Niss hologram whirled with flashing speckles, and answered for Gillian.

“It is the small matter of the tytlal … the noor beast who speaks. It has proved uncooperative and uninformative, despite our urgent need to understand its presence here.

“Dr. Baskin and I now agree.

“We need the children for that reason. Alvin, above all.

“To help persuade it to talk to us.”