The screen showed a picture sent back by the robot — a hollow cylindrical excavation through the foamy metal. Broken stumps were all that remained of the anchor bearings that had held the drill-tree shaft in place. Bits of debris drifted down past the camera as they watched.

As the robot rose, the light from above slowly grew brighter through a thin haze of bubbles.

"Think it's wide enough to pass a sled?" Toshio asked. Keepiru whistled that the passage looked navigable.

The robot surfaced into a pool several meters wide. Its camera panned the rim, transmitting images of blue sky and thick green foliage. The high trunk of the drill-tree had crashed into the forest. The slope of the pool made it hard to see the damage this had done, but Toshio was sure it hadn't fallen in the direction of the abo village.

They had worried that blasting a way to the interior of the island might panic the hunter-gatherers. They took the risk anyway, because routinely trying to scale the treacherous island walls in the open surf would have been dangerous, and a foolish exposure to Galactic spy satellites. The apparently random falling of a tree on an island would hardly be noted by anyone watching from above.

"Uh oh." Toshio pointed.

Dennie moved closer to look at the screen. "What is it, Tosh? Is there a problem?"

Keepiru stopped the camera as it was about to finish its scan. "There," Toshio said. "That jagged crop of coral is hanging over the pool. It looks about to fall."

"Well can you have the robot wedge something under to prevent it?"

"I don't know. What do you think, Keepiru?"

* Some scheme may work -

If fate buys it

* We'll make a gamble -

And simply try it

Keepiru eyed his twin screens and concentrated. Toshio knew the pilot was listening to a complex pattern of sound-images, transmitted over his neural link. Under Keepiru's command the robot moved to the edge of the pool. Its claw arms grabbed the spongy metal of the rim to pull forward. There was a small rain of pebbles as it brought its treads to bear.

"Watch out!" Toshio called.

The jagged rock tipped forward. The camera showed it tottering ominously. Dennie cringed back from the screen. Then the rock toppled over and crashed into the robot.

There followed a swirl of spinning images. Dennie continued watching the screen, but Toshio and Keepiru shifted their gaze to the bottom of the shaft. Suddenly a rain of objects fell from the gap, tumbling into the darkness below. The debris sparkled in the sled's beams as it dropped into the abyss.

After a long silence Keepiru spoke.

* The probe is down there — lungs unbreathing

* I was spared — the cutoff false-death

* It still whistles — stranded echoes *

Keepiru meant that the probe still sent him messages from whatever murky ledge had finally stopped it. Its tiny brain and transmitter hadn't been destroyed, and Keepiru had not suffered the jolt that a sudden cutoff could send to a connected nervous system.

But the robot's flotation tanks had been ruined. It was down there for good.

* That must be — the last obstruction

* I shall go then -

carefully,

testing -

* Dennie, take the sled — and watch me! *

Before Keepiru or Toshio could stop him, Sah'ot was off his sled and away. He fluked mightily and disappeared into the shaft. Keepiru and Toshio looked at each other, sharing a malign thought about crazy civilians.

At least, Toshio thought, he could have taken a camera with him! But then, if Sah'ot had waited, Toshio would have had a chance to insist on the dubious privilege of scouting the passage.

He looked at Dennie. She watched the robot probe screen, as if it might deliver some token about what was happening to Sah'ot. She had to be reminded, before she swam over and took control of the other sled.

Toshio had always thought of Dennie Sudman as one more adult scientist, friendly but enigmatic. Now he saw that she was not an awful lot more mature than he. And while she had the honor and status of a full professional, she lacked the eclecticism his officer training was giving him. She would never encounter the range of people, things, and situations he would, in the course of his career.

He looked again to the shaft entrance. Keepiru blew nervous bubbles. They would have to decide soon what to do if Sah'ot did not reappear.

Sah'ot was obviously a genetic experiment, in which the gene-crafters were pushing a set of traits toward a calculated optimum. If judged successful, the traits would be grafted back into the main pool of the neo-dolphin species. The process imitated, on a vastly quicker scale, the segregation and mixing that worked in nature.

Such experiments sometimes resulted in things not planned, though.

Toshio wasn't sure he trusted Sah'ot. The fin's obscurity wasn't like the inscrutability of Creideiki- — deep and thoughtful. It grated, like the dissembling of some humans he had known.

Also, there was this sexual game between Sah'ot and Dennie. Not that he was a prude. Such hobbies weren't exactly forbidden, but they had been known to cause problems.

Apparently Dennie wasn't even aware of the subtle ways in which she was encouraging Sah'ot. Toshio wondered if he had the nerve to tell her — or if it was any of his business.

Another tense minute passed. Then, just as Toshio was about to go himself, Sah'ot shot down out of the shaft and swooped toward them.

* The way is clear -

I'll lead you airward! *

Keepiru jetted his sled over to the dolphin anthropologist, and squawked something pitched so high that Toshio couldn't quite catch it, even with his Calafian sensitivity.

Sah'ot's mouth twisted and closed into a reluctant attitude of submission. Still, there was something defiant in his eye. He cast a look at Dennie, even as he rolled over to offer one of his ventral fins to Keepiru's mouth.

The pilot took a token nip, then turned back to the others.

* The way is clear -

I do believe him

* Now let us go -

and drop these breathers

* To talk like Earthmen -

about our work

* And to meet our future -

pilot brothers *

The sled moved under the drill-tree shaft, then rose in a cloud of bubbles. The others followed.

22 ::: Creideiki

The briefing had gone on far too long.

Creideiki regretted ever letting Charles Dart attend via holoscreen. The chimp planetologist would certainly have been less long-winded if he were here in the fizzing oxywater of the central bay, wet and wearing a facemask.

Dart lounged in his own laboratory, projecting his image to the conference area in Streaker's cylindrical bay. He seemed oblivious to the chafing of his listeners. Breathing oxywater in front of a console for two hours was highly uncomfortable to a neo-fin.

"Naturally, Captain," the chimp's scratchy baritone projected into the water. "When you chose to land us near a major tectonic boundary, I approved wholeheartedly. Nowhere else could I have had access to so much information in one spot. Still, I think I've made a convincing case for six or seven more sampling sites distributed about Kithrup, to verify some of the extremely interesting discoveries we've made here."

Creideiki was mildly surprised at the use of the first person plural. It was the first modest thing Charlie had said.

He glanced at Brookida, floating nearby. The metallurgist had been working with Charles Dart, his skills not currently required by the repair team. He had been largely silent for the last hour, letting the chimp pour out a tide of technical jargon which had left Creideiki dizzy.