Murmuring sounds of angry sophonts squawked from the speaker. The noises bounced around the chamber and scattered like bitter droplets. After the terrible beauty of DOWN, he felt repelled. He forced himself to listen, to seek a way — some humble way to help Streaker and his crew.

Need swelled within him as he concentrated. He sought a center, a focus in the chaotic sounds.

* Rancor

Turbid

In the rip-tide

* Ignoring

Sharks!

Internecine struggle…

*Inviting

Sharks!

Foolish opportunism…

Against his will, he felt himself begin to click aloud. He tried to stop, knowing where it would lead, but the clicks emerged involuntarily from his brow, soon joined by a series of low moans.

The sounds of the argument in sick bay drifted away as his own soft singing wove a thicker and thicker web around him. The humming, crackling echoes caused the walls to fade as a new reality took shape all around. A dark presence slowly grew next to him.

Without words, he told it to go away.

: No : We Are Back : You Have More To Learn :

For all I know, you're a delirium of mine! None of you ever make a sound of your own! You always speak in reflections from my own sonar!

: Have Your Echoes Ever Been So Complex? :

Who knows what my unconscious could do? In my memory are more strange sounds than any other living cetacean has heard! I've been where living clouds whistled to tame hurricanes! I've heard the doom-booms of black holes and listened to the songs of stars!

: All The More Reason You Are The One We Want : The One We Need :

I am needed here!

: Indeed.

Come,

Creideiki. :

The old god, K-K-Kph-kree, moved closer. Its sonically translucent form glistened. Its sharp teeth flashed. Figment or not, the great thing began to move, carrying him along, as before, helpless to resist.

: DOWN :

Then, just as resignation washed over Creideiki, he heard a sound. Miraculously, it wasn't one of his own making, diffracted against the insane dream. It came from somewhere else, powerful and urgent!

: Pay No Heed : Come :

Creideiki's mind leaped after it as if it were a school of mullet, even as the noise swelled to deafening volume.

: You Are Sensitized : You Have Psi You Had Not Known Before : You Know Not Yet Its Use : Relinquish Quick Rewards : Come The Hard Way… :

Creideiki laughed, and opened himself to the noise from the outside. It crashed in, dissolving the shining blackness of the old god into sonic specks that shimmered and then slowly disappeared.

: That Way Is Gone For You :

: Creideiki… :

Then the great-browed god was gone. Creideiki laughed at his release from the cruel illusion, grateful for the new sound that had freed him.

But the noise kept growing. Victory went to panic as it swelled and became a pressure within his head, pushing against the walls of his skull, hammering urgently to get out. The world became a whirling groaning alien cry for help.

Creideiki let out a warbling whistle of despair as he tried to ride the crashing tide.

50 ::: Streaker

The waves of pseudo-sound were fading at last.

"Creideiki!" Makanee cried and swam to the captain's tank. The others turned also, just noticing the injured dolphin's distress.

"What's the matter with him?" Gillian swam up next to Makanee. She could see the captain struggle feebly, giving off a slowly diminishing series of low. moans.

"I don't know. No one was watching him as the psi-bomb hit its peak! Just now I saw he was disturbed."

The large, dark gray form within the tank seemed calmer now. The muscles along Creideiki's back twitched. slowly, as he let out a low, warbling cry.

Ignacio Metz swam up alongside Gillian.

"Ah, Gillian…" he began, "I want you to know that I'm very glad Tom is alive, although this tardiness bodes poorly. I'd still stake my life that this Trojan Seahorse plan of his is ill conceived."

"We'll have to discuss that at ship's council, then, won't we, Dr. Metz?" she said coolly.

Metz cleared his throat. "I'm not sure the acting captain will permit…" He subsided under her gaze and looked away.

She glanced at Takkata-Jim. If he did anything rash, it could be the last straw that broke Streaker's morale. Gillian had to convince Takkata-Jim that he would lose if he contested with her. And he had to be offered a way out, or there might still be civil war aboard the ship.

Takkata-Jim looked back at her with a mixture of pure hostility and calculation. She saw the sound-sensitive tip of his jaw swing toward each of the fen in turn, gauging their reaction. The news that Thomas Orley still lived would go through the ship like a clarion. Already one of the armed Stenos guards, presumably carefully picked by the vicecaptain, looked mutinously jubilant and chattered hopefully with Wattaceti.

I've got to act fast, Gillian realized. He's desperate.

She swam toward Takkata-Jim, smiling. He backed away, a loyal Stenos glaring at her from his side.

Gillian spoke softly, so the others could not hear.

"Don't even think it, Takkata-Jim. The fen aboard this ship have Tom Orley fresh on their minds now. If you thought you could harm me before this, even you know better now."

Takkata-Jim's eyes widened, and Gillian knew she had struck on target, capitalizing on the legend of her psi ability. "Besides, I'm going to stick close to Ignacio Metz. He's gullible, but if he witnesses me being harmed, you'll lose him. You need a token man, don't you? Without at least one, even your Stenos will melt away."

Takkata-Jim clapped his jaw loudly.

"Don't try to bully me! I don't have to harm you. I am the legal authority on this ship. I can have you confined to quartersss!"

Gillian looked at her fingernails. "Are you so sure?"

"You would incite the crew to disobey the legal ship's master?" Takkata-Jim sounded genuinely shocked. He must know that many, perhaps most of the Tursiops would follow her, whatever the law said. But that would be mutiny, and tear the crew apart.

"I have the law on my side!" he hissed.

Gillian sighed. The hand must be played out, for all the damage this would do if the dolphins of Earth found out. She whispered the two words she had not wanted to utter.

"Secret orders," she said.

Takkata-Jim stared at her, then let out a keening cry. He stood on his tail and did a back flip while his guard blinked in confusion. Gillian turned and saw Metz and Wattaceti staring at them.

"I don't believe you!" Takkata-Jim spluttered, spraying water in all directions. "On Earth we were promisssed! Streaker is our ship!"

Gillian shrugged. "Ask your bridge crew if the battle controls work," she offered. "Have someone try to leave through the outlock. Try to open the door to the armory"

Takkata-Jim whirled and sped to a comm screen at the far end of the room. His guard stared at Gillian momentarily, then followed. His look conveyed a sense of betrayal.

Not all of the crew would feel that way, Gillian knew. Most would probably be delighted. But deep inside an implication would settle. One of the main purposes of Streakers mission, to build in the neo-fen a sense of independence and self-confidence, had been compromised.

Did I have any other choice? Is there anything else I might have tried first?

She shook her head, wishing Tom were here. Tom might have settled everything with one sarcastic little ditty in Trinary that put everybody to shame.

Oh, Tom, she thought. I should have gone instead of you.

"Gillian!"

Makanee's flukes pounded the water and her harness whirred. With one metal arm she pointed up at the wounded dolphin floating in the gravity tank.