She stepped from her office onto a parapet above a large open chamber. Water filled the central part of the room up to two meters below the parapet. Bulky machines stuck out above the water. The upper half of the chamber, including Gillian's office, was inaccessible to dolphins unless they came riding a walker or spider.

Gillian didn't bother with the folded facemask at her belt. She looked below, then dove, plunging between two rows of dark autodocs. The large, oblong glassite containers were silent and empty.

All the waterways of sick bay were shallow to allow open breathing and dry surgery. She swam with long, strong strokes, gripped the corner of one machine to make a turn, and passed through a stripdoor into the trauma unit.

She surfaced, open-mouthed, for air, bobbed for a moment, then swam over to a wall of thick leaded glass. Two bandaged dolphins floated in a heavily shielded gravity tank.

One occupant, connected to a maze of tubing, had the dull-eyed look of heavy sedation. The other whistled cheerfully as Gillian approached.

"I greet you, Life-Cleaner! Your potions scour my veins, but it's this taste of weightlessness which liftsss my spacer's heart. Thank you!"

"You're welcome Hikahi." Gillian treaded water easily, not bothering with the curb and rail near the gravity tank. "Just don't get too used to the comfort. I'm afraid Makanee and I are going to kick you out soon, as penalty for having such an iron constitution."

"As opposed to one of bismuth or c-c-cadmium?" Hikahi spluttered a razzberry-like chuckle.

Gillian laughed. "Indeed. And being healthy will be your tough luck. We'll have you out of here, breathing bubbles and standing on your tail for the captain in no time."

Hikahi gave her small neo-fin smile. "You're certain this isn't too risky, turning on thisss gravity tank? I wouldn't want Satima and me to be responsible for giving the show away."

"Relax, fem-fin." Gillian shook her head. "We triple-checked. The leak-detection buoys aren't picking up a thing. Enjoy it and don't worry.

"Oh, and I hear the captain may be sending a small team back to your island to examine those pre-sentients you found. I figured you'd be interested. It's a sign he's not worried about Galactics in the short term. The space battle may last a long time, and we might be able to hide indefinitely."

"An indefinite stay on Kithrup's not my idea of paradise!" Hikahi opened her mouth in a grin of irony. "If that's meant as cheery news, please warn me when your message is depressing!"

Gillian laughed. "I will. Now you get some sleep. Shall I turn down the light?"

"Yess, please. And Gillian, thanks for the news. I do think it's very important we do something about the abos. I hope the expedition is a success.

"Tell Creideiki I'll be back on duty before he can open a can of tuna."

"I will. Pleasant dreams, dear." Gillian touched the dimmer switch and the lights gradually faded. Hikahi blinked several times, apparently settling into a seaman's nap.

Gillian headed for the outer clinic, where Makanee would be dealing with a line of complaining crewfen at sick call. Gillian would show the physician Charlie's isotope profiles and then go back to her own lab to work for a while longer.

Sleep called to her, but she knew it would be a long time coming. In this mood that had come upon her she felt reluctant.

Logic was the blessing and the curse of her upbringing. She knew that Tom was where he was supposed to be — out pursuing ways to save them all. He knew it as well. His departure had been hasty and necessary, and there simply hadn't been time to seek her out to say good-bye.

Gillian was aware of all of these considerations. She repeated them to herself as she swam. But they only seemed to disconnect the larger from the smaller of her problems, and rob of poignant consolation the unattractiveness of her empty bed.

19 ::: Creideiki

"Keneenk is a study of relationships," he told his audience. "That part comes from our dolphin heritage. Keneenk is also a study of strict comparisons. This second part we learn from our human patrons. Keneenk is a synthesis of two world-views, much as we ourselves are."

About thirty neo-dolphins floated across from him, bubbles rising slowly from their blowmouths, intermittent unconscious sonar clicks their only sound.

Since there were no humans present, Creideiki did not have to use the crisp consonants and long vowels of standard Anglic. But, transcribed onto paper, his words would have pleased any English grammarian.

"Consider reflections from the surface of the ocean, where the air meets the water," he suggested to his pupils. "What do the reflections tell us?"

He saw puzzled expressions.

"Reflections from which side of the water, you wonder? Do I speak of the reflections felt from below the interface or from above?

"Moreover, do I mean reflections of sound, or of light?"

He turned to one of the attentive dolphins. "Wattaceti, imagine yourself one of our ancestors. Which combination would occur to you?"

The engine room tech blinked. "Sound images, Captain. A pre-sentient dolphin would have thought of sound reflections in the water, bouncing against the surface from below"

The tech sounded tired, but Wattaceti still attended these sessions, in a fervent desire for self-improvement. It was for the morale of fen like Wattaceti that the busy captain made time to continue them.

Creideiki nodded. "Quite right. Now, what would be the first type of reflection thought of by a human?"

"The image of light from above," the mess chief, S'tat, answered promptly.

"Most probably, though we all know that even some of the 'big-ears' can eventually learn to hear."

There was a general skree of laughter at the harmless little put-down of the patron race. The laughter was a measure of crew morale, and he weighed it as he might test the mass of a fuel cell by hefting it between his jaws.

Creideiki noticed for the first time that Takkata-Jim and K'tha-Jon had swum up to join the group. Creideiki quashed a momentary concern. Takkata-Jim would have signaled if something had come up. He seemed to be here simply to listen.

If this was a sign the vice-captain was ending his long, unexplained sulk, Creideiki was glad. He had kept Takkata-Jim aboard, instead of sending him out to accompany Orley and the rescue party, because he wanted to keep his exec under his scrutiny. He had reluctantly begun to think that the time might have come to make some changes in the chain of command.

He waited for the snickering to die down. "Consider, now. How are a human's thoughts about these reflections from the surface of the water similar to our own?"

The students assumed expressions of concentration. This would be the next-to-last problem. With so much repair work to oversee, Creideiki had been tempted to cancel the sessions altogether. But so many in the crew wanted desperately to learn Keneenk.

At the beginning of the voyage almost all the fen had participated in the lectures, games, and athletic competitions that helped stave off spaceflight ennui. But since the frightening episode at the Shallow Cluster, when a dozen crewfen had been lost exploring the terrifying derelict fleet, some had begun to detach themselves from the community of the ship, to associate with their own little groups. Some even began exhibiting a strange atavism — increasing difficulty with Anglic and the sort of concentrated thought needed by a spacer.

Creideiki had been forced to juggle schedules to find replacements. He had given Takkata-Jim the task of finding jobs for the reverted ones. The task seemed to suit the vice-captain. With the aid of bosun K'tha-Jon he seemed to have found useful work for even the worst stricken.