# Sorry! Sorry!

# Patron forgive!

# Forgive! #

Toshio stumbled forward. "Forgiven," he managed to say as he hurried past. He couldn't deal with the fin's schizoid conversion. "Come this way if you can!" he called back, as he tried to make it to the shore. The noise in his head was like an earthquake. Somehow Toshio managed to stay on his feet and stumble through the forest.

When he reached the edge of the mound the sea was a froth below. Toshio looked right and left and saw no place that looked any better.

At that moment, a scream of engines pealed forth. He looked back to see a tornado of broken vegetation fly up from a spot only a hundred meters away. The gun-metal gray longboat rose above the rapidly tilting forest. It was surrounded by a glowing nimbus of ionization. Toshio's hackles rose as the island was swept by the throbbing antigravity field. The boat turned slowly and seemed to hesitate. Then, with a thunderclap, it speared into the eastern sky.

Toshio crouched as the boom whipped at him, tugging at his clothes.

There was no time to delay. Either Charles Dart had got away or he hadn't. Toshio pulled his mask up over his face, held it with one hand, and leapt.

"Ifni's boss…" he prayed. And he fell into the stormy waters.

101 ::: Galactics

Above the planet small flotillas of battered warships paused suddenly in their multi-sided butchery.

They had left hiding places on Kithrup's tiny moons, gambling all on the chance that the strange radio broadcasts from the planet's northern hemisphere were, indeed, of human origin. On their way down to Kithrup, the tiny alliances sniped at each other with their waning strength, until a sudden wave of psychic noise hit the entire motley ensemble. It rose from the planet with a power none could have expected, overwhelming psi-shields and striking the crews temporarily motionless.

The ships continued to plunge toward the planet, but their living crews blinked limply, unable to fire their weapons or guide their vessels.

If it had been a weapon, the psychic shout would have cleansed half of the ships of their crews. As it was, the mental scream of anger and rejection reverberated within their brains, driving a few of the least flexible completely mad.

For long moments the cruisers drifted out of formation, uncontrolled, downward into the upper fringes of the atmosphere.

Finally, the psi-scream began to fade. The grating anger growled and diminished, leaving burning after-images as the numb crews slowly came to their senses.

The Xatinni and their clients, having drifted away from the others, looked about and discovered that they had lost their appetite for further fighting. They decided to accept the pointed invitation to depart. Their four ragged ships left Kthsemenee's system as quickly as their laboring engines could manage.

The J'8lek were slow coming around. After succumbing to the numbing mind-scream, they drifted in amongst the ships of the Brothers of the Night. The Brothers awakened sooner, and used the J'8lek for target practice.

Sophisticated autopilots brought two Jophur warships to land on the slope of a steaming mountain, far to the south of their original destination. Automatic weapons kept watch for enemies while the Jophur struggled with their confusion. Finally, as the stunning psychic noise subsided, the crews began to revive and retake control of their grounded ships.

The Jophur were almost ready to lift off again, and head north to rejoin the fray, when the entire top of their mountain blew away in a column of superheated steam.

Gillian stared, slack jawed, until the grating "sounds" finally began to fade. She swallowed. Her ears popped, and she shook her head to clear away the numb feeling. Then she saw that the dolphins were staring at her.

"That was awful!" she stated. "Is everybody all right?"

Tsh't looked relieved. "We're all fine, Gillian. We detected an extremely powerful psi-explosion a few moments ago. It easily pierced our shields, and seems to have dazed you for a few minutes. But except for some momentary discomfort, we hardly felt it!"

Gillian rubbed her temples. "It must be my esper sensitivity that made me susceptible. Let's just hope the Eatees don't follow that attack up with another even closer…" She stopped. Tsh't was shaking her head.

"Gillian, I don't think it was the Eatees. Or if it was, they weren't aiming for us. Instruments indicate that that burst came from very close nearby, and was almost perfectly tuned not to be received by cetaceans! Your brain is similar to ours, so you only felt it a little. Suessi reports hardly feeling a thing.

"But I imagine some of the Galactics had a rough t-time weathering that psi-storm!"

Gillian shook her head a second time. "I don't understand."

"That makes two of usss. But I don't suppose we have to understand. All I can tell you is thisss — at almost the same rime that psi-burst went off, there was an intense ground tremor not two hundred klicks from here. The crustal waves are only now starting to arrive."

Gillian swam over to Tsh't's station in the glassy sphere of Streaker's bridge. The dolphin lieutenant pointed with her jaw toward a globe model of the planet.

Not far from Streakers position on the globe, a small cluster of flashing red symbols was displayed.

"That's Toshio's island!" Gillian said. "Then Charlie did have a spare bomb after all!"

"Beg p-pardon?" Tsh't looked confused. "But I thought Takkata-Jim had confiscated…"

"Ship rising!" A detection officer announced. "Anti-g and stasis — from the same site as the crust tremors, one hundred and fifty klicks from here. Tracking… tracking… Ship is now heading off at Mach two, due east!"

Gillian looked at Tsh't. They shared the same thought.

Takkata-Jim.

Gillian saw the question in the dolphin officer's eye. "We may face a decision shortly. Have his blip followed to see where he's headed. And we'd better start awakening the rest of the off duty crew"

"Aye, sir. Those that managed to remain asleep through the last few minutes." Tsh't turned and relayed the command. A few minutes later the battle computer began to chatter.

"What now?" Gillian asked.

Bright yellow pinpoints began to glow up and down a long jagged streak on the globe of Kithrup, starting from the site of Toshio's island.

"Detonations of some sort," Tsh't commented. "The computer's interpreting them as bombings, but we've detected no missiles! And why this scattered pattern? The detonations are only occurring along thisss narrow stripe of longitude!"

"More psi disturbances!" an operator announced. "Strong! And from numerous sources, all on the planet!"

Gillian frowned. "Those detonations aren't bombings. I remember seeing that pattern before. That's the boundary of this planetary crustal plate. Those disturbances may be volcanoes.

"I'd say it's the locals' way of showing they're unhappy"

"?" Tsh't queried confusedly.

Gillian's expression was thoughtful, as if she was looking at something very far away. "I think I'm starting to understand what's been going on. We can thank Creideiki for the fact that the psi-disturbances don't affect dolphins, for instance."

The dolphins stared at her. Gillian smiled and patted Tsh't's flank.

"Not to worry, fem-fin. It's a long story, but I'll explain if we have time. I expect the biggest effect all this will have on us is crustquakes. We should be getting some shortly. Will we be able to ride them out down here?"

The dolphin lieutenant frowned. The way humans could change mental tracks midstride was beyond her comprehension.