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— WE REJECT +

+ THE UNIVERSE -

— GO AWAY! +

Creideiki's head rang with the powerful dismissal. Still, the potency of the psi was encouraging.

What Streakers crew had needed all along was an ally, any ally. They had to have some help, at least a distraction, if Thomas Orley's clever plan of deception and disguise stood a chance of success. As alien and bitter as these underground creatures were, they had once been starfarers. Perhaps they would take some satisfaction in helping other victims of Galactic civilization.

He persisted.

: Look! : Listen! : Your World Is Surrounded By Gene-Meddlers : They Seek Us : And Small Ones Who Share This Planet With You : They Wish To Warp Us : As They Did You : They Will Invade Your Private Agony :

He crafted a sonic image of great fleets of ships, embellished with gaping jaws. He painted over them an impression of malicious intent.

His picture was shattered by a thundering response.

+ WE ARE NOT INVOLVED! -

Creideiki shook his head and concentrated.

: They May Seek You Out, As Well :

+ THEY HAVE NO USE FOR US! -

— IT IS YOU THEY SEEK! +

+ NOT US! -

The reply dazed him. Creideiki only had strength for one more question. He tried to ask what the Karrank% would do if they were attacked.

Before he finished, he was answered by a gnashing that could not be parsed even in the sense-glyphs of the ancient gods. It was more a roar of defiance than anything decipherable. Then, in an instant, the sound and mental echoes cut off. He was left there, drifting with his head ringing from their anger.

He had done his best. Now what?

With nothing better to do, he closed his eyes and meditated. He clicked out sonar spirals and wove the echoes of the surrounding ridges into patterns. His disappointment subsided as he sensed Nukapai take shape alongside him, her body a complex matting of his own sounds and those of the sea. She seemed to rub along his side and Creideiki thought he could almost feel her. He felt a brief sexual thrill.

: Not Nice People : she commented.

Creideiki smiled sadly.

: No, Not Nice : But They Hurt : I Would Not Bother Such Hermits But For The Need :

He sighed.

: The World-Song Seems To Say They Will Not Help :

Nukapai grinned at his pessimism. She changed tempo and whistled softly in an amused tone.

* Go below

And hear tomorrow's weather

* Go below

Prescience, prescience… *

Creideiki concentrated to understand her. Why did she speak Trinary, a language almost as difficult for him now as Anglic? There was another speech, subtle and powerful, that they could share now. Why did she remind him of his disability?

He shook his head, confused. Nukapai was a figment of his own mind… or at least she was limited to whatever sounds his own voice could create. So how was it she could talk in Trinary at all?

There were mysteries still. The deeper he went the more mysteries there seemed to be.

* Go below

Deep night-diver

* Go below

Prescience, prescience — *

He repeated the message to himself. Did she mean that something could be read from the future? That something inevitable was fated to bring the Karrank% out of their isolation?

He was still trying to puzzle out the riddle when he heard the sound of engines. Creideiki listened for a few moments. But he didn't need to turn on the sled's hydrophones to recognize the pattern of those motors.

Cautiously, tentatively, a tiny spacecraft nosed into the canyon. Sonar swept slowly from one end to another. A searchlight took in the scars in the sea-bed that the departing Streaker had left behind. They scanned bits and pieces of abandoned equipment, and finally came to rest on the little boxy relay, and his sled.

Creideiki blinked in the bright beam. He opened his jaws wide in a smile of greeting. But his voice froze. For the first time in several days he felt bashful, unable to speak for fear of choking over even the simplest words and seeming a fool.

The ship's speakers amplified a single happy sigh, elegantly simple.

* Creideiki! *

With a warm pleasure he recognized that voice. He turned on the sled's motors and cast loose from the relay. As he sped toward the skiff's opening hatch he called out careful words in Anglic, one at a time.

"Hikahi… Nice… to hear… your… voice… again…"

91 ::: Tom Orley

Fog swirled over the sea of weeds. That was good, up to a point. It made stealth easier. But it also made it hard to look for traps.

Tom searched carefully as he crawled across the last stretch of weeds before the open end of the wrecked cruiser. This patch couldn't be taken underwater, and he didn't doubt those who had taken shelter within the hulk had set upward.

He found the device only a few meters from the gaping opening. Thin wires were strung from one small hump of vines to the next. Tom inspected the arrangement, then carefully dug below the tripwire and slithered underneath. When he was clear, he scrambled quietly to the edge of the floating ship and rested against the pitted hull.

The weed beasties had taken cover during the fighting. They were out again, now that almost all of the combatants were dead. Their frog-like croaks refracted eerily in the noisome vapor. Distantly, Tom heard the rumble of the volcano. His empty stomach growled. It sounded loud enough to rouse the Progenitors.

He checked his weapon. The needler had only a few shots left. He had better be right about the number of ETs that had taken shelter aboard this vessel.

I'd better be right about a number of things, he reminded himself. I've staked a lot on there being food here, as well as the information I need.

He closed his eyes in brief meditation, then turned to crouch below the opening. He peeked one eye just past the ragged edge.

Three bird-like Gubru huddled around a motley array of equipment on the smoke-stained, canted deck. A tiny, inadequate heater held the attention of two, who warmed slenderboned arms over it. The third sat before a battered portable console and squeaked in Galactic Four, a language popular among many avian species.

"No sign of humans or their clients," the creature peeped. "We have lost our deep-search equipment, so we cannot be certain. But we find no sign of Earthlings. We cannot achieve anything more. Come for us!"

The radio sputtered. "Impossible to come out of hiding. Impossible to squander last resources at this time. You must maintain. You must lie low. You must wait."

"Wait? We shelter in a hull whose food supply is radioactive. We shelter in a hull whose equipment is ruined. Yet this hull we shelter in is the best still afloat! You must come for us!"

Tom cursed silently at the news. So much for eating.

The radio operator maintained its protests. The other two Gubru listened shifting their weight impatiently. One of them stamped its clawed feet and turned around suddenly as if to interrupt the radio operator. Its gaze swept past the gap in the hull. Before Tom could duck back, the creature's eyes went wide. It began to point.

"A human! Quickly…"

Tom shot it in the thorax. Without bothering to watch it fall, he dove through the opening and rolled behind a tilted console. He scuttled to the other end and snapped off two quick shots just as the second standing Gubru tried to fire. A thin flame spat out of a small handgun, searing the already scarred ceiling as the alien shrieked and toppled backward.