"Yes, sir. I'll get on it right away." Toshio wasn't even sure what Dart had just asked him to do, but he covered his ass.

"And don't worry, sir. The robot will be monitored day and night. Keepiru and Sah'ot have orders from Takkata-Jim to stay plugged into it at turns when I'm unavailable. They'll call me or wake me if there's any change in its condition."

Wouldn't that satisfy the chimp? The fen hadn't taken well at all to that order from Streakers exec, but they would obey, even if it slowed Sah'ot's work with the Kiqui.

Miracle of miracles, Charlie seemed to agree. "Yeah, that's nice of them," he muttered. "Be sure to thank 'em for me.

"And say! Maybe, while Keepiru's plugged in, can he trace that intermittent static we keep getting from the robot? I don't like it, and it's getting worse."

"Yes, sir. I'll ask him."

The chimpanzee rubbed his right eye with the back of a furry hand, and yawned.

"Listen, Toshio," he said. "I'm sorry, but I really need a break. Would you mind if we put off finishing this until just a little bit later? I'll ring you back after supper and answer all your questions then, hmmm? OK bye, then, for now!" Charlie reached forward and the holo image disappeared.

Toshio stared at the empty space for a moment, slightly stunned. Mind? Would I mind? Why, no, sir, I don't believe I'd mind at all! I'll just wait here patiently, until either you call back or the sky falls down on my head!

He snorted. Would I mind.

Toshio stood up, his joints crackling from sitting cross-legged too long.

I thought I was too young for that. Ah, well. A midshipman is supposed to experience everything.

He looked toward the forest. Dennie was hard at work with the Kiqui. Should I bother Gillian, I wonder? She's probably worried about Tom, and who could blame her? We were supposed to have heard from him early yesterday.

But maybe she wants company.

Lately he had started having fantasies about Gillian. It was only natural, of course. She was a beautiful older woman — at least thirty — and by most standards quite a bit more alluring than Dennie Sudman.

Not that Dennie wasn't attractive in her own way, but Toshio didn't want to think about Dennie much any more. Her implicit rejection, by effectively overlooking him when the two of them were alone and so much alike, was painful.

Not that Dennie had said or done anything offensive, but she had become moody lately. Toshio suspected she sensed his attraction to her, and was overreacting by turning cold to him. He told himself that was an immature response on her part. But that didn't keep it from hurting…

Fantasizing about Gillian was another matter. He'd had shameful but very compelling daydreams about being there when she needed a man helping her overcome her loss…

She probably knew how he felt, but didn't let it change her behavior toward him at all. It was a comforting forgiveness, and it made her a safe object of semi-secret adoration.

It could simply be that I'm very confused, of course, Toshio thought. I'm trying to be analytical in an area where I have almost no experience, and my own feelings keep getting in the way.

I wish I wasn't just an awkward kid, and were more like Mr. Orley, instead.

An uneven electronic tone behind him interrupted his fantasy — the comm coming back to life.

"Oh, no!" Toshio groaned. "Not already!"

The unit spat static as the tuner sought to bring in an erratic carrier wave. Toshio had a wild desire to run over and kick the thing into the bottomless murk of the drill-tree shaft.

Suddenly, a crackling, noise-shrouded whistle broke out.

"Akki!" Toshio hurried over to kneel in front of the comm.

"Do I? Ifni! I wish we were home doing that now! What's happening? Are you having equipment trouble on the bridge? I'm getting no visual, and there's a lot of static. I thought you were taken off comm duty. And why the Trinary?"

Toshio's lips pursed as he repeated the message to himself silently. "…soft High Patron." There were few humans given titles like that by fins. Only one candidate was here on the island right now.

"You want to talk to Gillian?"

Toshio blinked, then he said, "I'll get her right away, Akki! You hold on!"

He turned and ran into the forest, calling Gillian's name at the top of his lungs.

The monofilament cable was almost invisible against the rubble and ooze of the sea floor. Even in the light from Akki's harness lamp, it barely reflected a spiderweb's glimmer here and there amidst the rock and sediments atop this jagged ridgeline.

The cable had been designed to be hard to detect; it was the only certain way Streaker could communicate with her two outlying work parties without giving away her location. Akki had been forced to search for over an hour, using the best instruments at his disposal and knowing where to look, before finding the line to the island. By the time he had clipped his neural tap into the line, more than half of the oxygen in his breather was gone.

A lot of time had been spent just getting away from the ship. And Akki wasn't even sure his departure had gone unnoticed. The taciturn electrician's mate in charge of the equipment locker shouldn't have questioned orders when Akki asked for breathing gear. Another fin, an off-duty engine room rating, had followed him from a distance after he had left the equipment locker, and Akki had to dodge through the outlock to shake the Stenos off his tail.

In less than two days a subtle change had come over the crew of Streaker. A new alignment of power had been set up. Crew members who had formerly been of little influence now pushed their way to the front of the food lines and adopted dominant body postures, while others went about their duties with eyes downcast and flukes drooping.

Rank and official position had little to do with it. Such things had always been informal aboard Streaker anyway. Dolphins were more apt to pay attention to subtle shifts in dominance than to formal authority.

Now even racism seemed to be a factor. A disproportionate number of the new figures of authority were of the Stenos sub-breed.

It amounted to an informal coup. Officially, Takkata-Jim was acting on behalf of the unconscious Creideiki until a ship's council could be convened. But Streaker's water had the taste of a herd with a new dominant male. Those close to the old bull were on the out, and the cronies of the new swam in the vanguard.

Akki found it all quite illogical and a bit disgusting. It brought home to him that even the highly selected fen of Streaker's crew could submit to ancient patterns of behavior under stress. He now saw what the Galactics meant when they said that three hundred years of uplift was too short a time for a race to be ready for starships.