Thought of the bosun sent chills down Akki's spine. What kind of creature was he? It wasn't just the irrationality of this death-chase; there was something else as well, something in the way K'tha-Jon hunted. The giant's sonar sweeps contained something malevolent that made Akki want to curl up in a ball.

Of course, Stenos gene-grafts might account for some of his size and irritability. But in K'tha-Jon there was more. Something very different must have gone into the bosun's gene splice. Something terrifying. Something Akki, raised on Calafia, had never encountered.

Akki swam close to the edge of the coral mound and stuck his jaw out beyond the northern verge. There were only the natural sounds of the Kithrup sea.

He hopped up on his tail and scanned visually. To go west, or north? To Hikahi, or Toshio?

Better north. This chain of mounds might extend to the one where the encampment lay. It might provide cover.

He dashed across the quarter-kilometer gap to the next island, then listened quietly. There was no change. Breathing a little more easily, he crossed the next channel, then the next, swimming quick bursts, then listening, then resuming his cautious passage.

Once he heard a strange, complex chatter to his right. He lay motionless until he realized that it couldn't be K'tha-Jon. He detoured slightly to take a look.

It was an underwater skirmish line of balloon-like creatures, with distended air bladders and lively blue faces. They carried crude implements and nets filled with thrashing prey. Except for a few holos sent back by Dennie Sudman and Sah'ot, this was Akki's first glimpse of the Kithrup natives, the Kiqui. He watched, fascinated, then swam toward them. He had thought himself still far south of Toshio, but if this group was the same…

As soon as they caught sight of him the hunters squeaked in panic. Dropping their nets, they scrambled up the vine covered face of a nearby island. Akki realized that he must have encountered a different tribe, one which had never seen dolphins before.

Still, seeing them was something. He watched the last one climb out of sight. Then he turned northward once more.

But when he passed the northern shore of the next mound, a sharp beam of sound passed over him.

Akki quailed. How! Had K'tha-Jon duplicated his logic about an island chain? Or had some demon instinct told him where to hunt his prey?

The eerie call passed over him once more. It had mutated further during the night into a piercing, falling cry that set Akki shivering.

The cry pealed again, nearer, and Akki knew he couldn't hide. That cry would seek him out in any cleft or cranny, until the panic took hold. He had to make a break for it, while he still had control over his mind!

67 ::: Keepiru

The fight had begun in the predawn darkness.

A few hours ago Keepiru realized that his pursuer's sled was showing no sign of failing. The engine screamed, but it would not die. Keepiru notched his own upward well beyond the red line, but it was too late. A short time later, he heard the whine of a torpedo homing in on him from behind. He zigged leftward and down, blowing ballast to leave a cloud of noisy bubbles in his wake.

The torpedo streaked past him and into the gloom beyond. An amplified squawk of disappointment and indignation echoed amongst the rills and seamounts. Keepiru was used to hearing Primal obscenities from his pursuer.

He had almost reached the line of metal-mounds behind which the two swimming dolphins had disappeared a few hours back. As he had drawn nearer, Keepiru had listened to the distant hunt cries, and been chilled by a gnawing association that he couldn't bring himself yet to believe. It made him dread for Akki.

Now Keepiru had his own problems. He wished Akki luck holding out until he could get rid of this idiot on his own tail.

It was growing light overhead. Keepiru dove his sled behind a lumpy ridge, then throttled the engine back and waited.

Moki cursed as the tiny torpedo failed to detonate.

# Teeth, teeth are — are -

Better, better than -

# Things! #

He swung his jaw left and right. He had abandoned the sled's sensors, and was controlling the machine purely by habit.

Where was the smart-aleck! Let him come out and get it over with!

Moki was tired and cranky and unutterably bored. He had never imagined that being a Great Bull could be so tedious. Moki wanted the hot, almost orgasmic rage back. He tried to call up the bloodlust again, but kept thinking about killing fish, not dolphins.

If only he could emulate the savagery he had heard in K'tha-Jon's hunt-cry! Moki no longer hated the frightening bosun. He had begun to think of the giant as a spirit creature of pure and evil nature. He would kill this smart-aleck Tursiops and bring its head to K'tha-Jon as proof of his worthiness as a disciple. Then he, too, would become elemental, a terror that none would ever dare thwart.

Moki brought the machine about in a circle, keeping close to the seafloor to take advantage of shadows of sound. The Tursiops had turned left at high speed. His turn had to be wider than Moki's, so all Moki had to do was hunt in the correct arc.

Moki had been on guard duty when this chase began, so his sled had torpedoes. He was sure the smartass didn't have any. He whistled in eager anticipation of an end to the tedious chase.

A sound! He turned so quickly he banged his snout against the plastic bubble-dome. Moki gunned the sled forward, readying another torpedo. This one would finish his enemy off.

A sheer drop opened into a broad ocean canyon. Moki took ballast and fell, hugging the wall. He throttled back and stopped.

Minutes passed as the sound of muffled engines grew louder from his left. The oncoming sled was staying close to the cliff face, at a greater depth.

Suddenly, it was below him! Moki chose not to fire right away. This was too easy! Let the smart-aleck hear death suddenly fall upon him from behind, too close to evade. Let him writhe in panic before Moki's torpedo tore his body into pieces!

His sled growled, then dropped in pursuit. His victim could never turn in time! Moki crowed,

# A herd bull is! -is!

# A Great Bull… #

Moki interrupted his chant. Why wasn't the smart-aleck fleeing?

He had been relying entirely upon sound. Only now did he turn his eye on his intended victim.

The other sled was empty! It drove along slowly, unpiloted. But then where… ?

* Hunting ears

Can make a bull -

*But eyes

And brains

Make spacefen — *

The voice was above him! Moki cried out, trying to turn the sled and fire a torpedo at the same time. With a despairing wail the engines screamed and then died. His neural link went dead just as he came about into sight of a sleek, gray Tursiops dolphin, two meters above him, white teeth shining in the light from the surface.

* And fools

Make only

Corpses — *

Moki screamed as the cutting torch on the pilot's harness exploded into laser-blue brilliance.