"Gone where?"

"Back-k-k out-t-t!" Suppeh wailed. His command of Anglic was rapidly dissolving. Takkata-Jim took advantage of what composure the purser had left.

"Have Heurka-pete awaken Doctor Metz. Have Metz meet me at sick bay with three guards. You are to go to the dry-wheel dressing room, with Sawtoot, and let-t no one enter! Understood?"

Suppeh nodded vigorously, and his image vanished.

Takkata-Jim prayed that Heurka-pete would have the sense to recall Moki and Haoke and send them after Keepiru. Together, between Haoke's brains and Moki's feral ruthlessness, they might be able to cut the pilot off before he reached the Thennanin wreck.

Why isn't K'tha-Jon back yet? I chose him to go after that middie in order to get him out of the ship for a while. I was afraid he was becoming dangerous even to me. I wanted some time to organize without him around. But now the Baskin woman's returned sooner than I expected. Maybe I should have kept K'tha-Jon around. The giant's talents might be useful about now.

Takkata-Jim whistled the door open and swam out into the hall. He faced a confrontation he had hoped to put off for at least another forty hours, if not indefinitely.

Should I have seen to Creideiki before this? It would have been easy… a power failure in his gravity tank, a switched catheter… Metz would not approve, but there was already much of which Metz did not know. Much that Takkata-Jim wished he didn't know.

He swam hard for the intrahull lift.

Maybe I won't need K'tha-Jon in order to deal with Gillian Baskin, he thought. After all, what can one human female do?

49 ::: The Psi-Bomb

The mound of partly dried weeds formed a dome on the sea of vines. Tom had propped up a low roof using salvaged bits of strutting from his sledge, making a rude cave. He sat in the entrance, waiting in the pre-dawn dimness, and munched on one of his scarce foodbars.

His wounds were cleaned as well as possible, and coated with hardening dabs of medicinal foam. With food in his stomach and some of the pain put down, he almost felt human again.

He examined his small osmotic still. The upper part, a clear bag with a filtered spout at one end, held a thick layer of saltwater and sludge. Below the filter, one of his canteens sat almost filled.

Tom looked at his watch. Only five minutes remained. There was no time to dip for another load of scummy water to feed the still. He wouldn't even be able to clean the filters before the bomb went off.

He picked up the canteen, screwed its cap tight, and slipped it into a thigh pouch. He popped the filter out of its frame and shook most of the sludge out before folding it tightly and tucking it under his belt. The filter probably didn't take out all the dissolved metal salts in the water. It hadn't been designed with Kithrup in mind. Nonetheless, the little package was probably his most valuable possession.

Three minutes, the glowing numbers on his watch told him.

Tom looked up at the sky. There was a vague brightening in the east, and the stars were starting to fade. It would be a clear morning, and therefore bitterly cold. He shivered and zipped the wetsuit tight. He pulled in his knees.

One minute.

When it came it would be like the loudest sound he had ever heard. Like the brightest light. There would be no keeping it out.

He wanted to cover his ears and eyes, as if against a real explosion. Instead, he stared at a point on the horizon and counted, pacing each breath. Deliberately he let himself slide into a trance.

" . . seven… eight… nine… ten…" A lightness filled his chest. The feeling spread outward, numbing and soothing.

Light from the few stars in the west diffracted spiderweb rays through his barely separated eyelashes as he awaited a soundless explosion.

"Sah'ot, I said I'm ready to take over now!"

Sah'ot squirmed and looked up at Toshio. "Just-t another few minutess, OK? I'm listening to ssssomething!"

Toshio frowned. This was not what he had expected from Sah'ot! He had come to relieve the dolphin linguist early because Sah'ot hated working with the robot probe!

"What's going on, Tosh?"

Dennie sat up in her sleeping bag, rubbing her eyes and peering in the pre-dawn dark.

"I don't know, Dennie. I offered to take over the robot, so Sah'ot wouldn't have to deal with Charlie when he calls. But he refuses to let go."

Dennie shrugged. "Then I'd say that's his business. What do you care, anyway?"

Toshio felt a sharp answer rise to his lips, but he kept them locked and turned away. He would ignore Dennie until she awakened fully and decided to behave civilly.

Dennie had surprised him after Gillian and Keepiru left, by taking his new command without complaint. For the last two days, she hadn't seemed much interested in anything but her microscopes and samples, ignoring even Sah'ot's desultory sexual innuendo, and answering questions in monosyllables.

Toshio knelt by the comm unit attached by cable to Sah'ot's sled. He tapped out a query on the monitor and frowned at the result.

"Sah'ot!" he said severely. "Get over here!"

"In a ssssec…" The dolphin sounded distracted.

Toshio pursed his lips.

* NOW, you will to HERE

Ingather

* Or shortly cease ALL

Listening further! *

He heard Dennie gasp behind him. She probably didn't understand the Trinary burst in detail, but she got the basic idea. Toshio felt justified. This was a test. He wasn't able to be as subtle as Gillian Baskin, but he had to get obedience or he would be useless as an officer.

Sah'ot stared up at him, blinking dazedly. Then the fin sighed and moved over to the side of the pool.

"Sah'ot, you haven't taken any geological readings in four hours! Yet in that time you've dropped the probe two hundred meters! What's got into you!"

The Stenos rolled from side to side uncertainly. Finally, he spoke softly. "I'm get-tting a sssong…

The last word faded before Toshio could be sure of it. He looked at the neo-fin civilian, unable to believe his ears. "You're getting a what?"

"A ssssong… ?"

Toshio lifted his hands and dropped them to his sides. He's finally cracked, he thought. First Dennie, now Sah'ot. I've been left in charge of two mental cases!

He sensed Dennie approach the pool. "Listen, Sah'ot," Toshio said. "Dr. Dart will be calling soon. What do you think he's going to say when…"

"I'll take care of Charlie when he calls," Dennie said quietly.

"You?" Dennie had spent the last forty hours cursing over the drill-tree problem she had been assigned, at Takkata-Jim's order and Charles Dart's request. It had almost completely superseded her work with the Kiqui. Toshio couldn't imagine her wanting to talk with the chimpanzee.

"Yes, me. What I have to tell him may make him forget all about the robot, so you just lay off Sah'ot. If he says he heard singing, well, maybe he's heard singing."

Toshio stared at her, then shrugged. Fine. My job is to protect these two, not to correct their scientific blunders. I just hope Gillian straightens things out back at the ship so I can report what's going on here.

Dennie knelt down by the water to talk to Sah'ot. She spoke slowly and earnestly, patient with the Anglic slowness he suffered after his long seance with the robot.

Dennie wanted to dive to look at the core of the metal-mound. Sah'ot agreed to accompany her if she would wait until he had transcribed some more of his "music." Dennie assented, apparently completely unafraid of going into the water with Sah'ot.

Toshio sat down and waited for the inevitable buzz of the comm line from the ship. People were changing overnight, and he hadn't the slightest idea why!