The whitehaired scientist clutched a stanchion, with his head thrust under a comm airdome to call Creideiki. When he finished he would probably want to hang around. The man was always hovering nearby, watching … always making him feel he was being tested.
“I need a human ally,” Takkata-Jim reminded himself. Dolphins were in command of Streaker, but the crew seemed to obey an officer more rapidly if he appeared to have the confidence of one of the patron race. Creideiki had Tom Orley. Hikahi had Gillian Baskin. Brookida’s human companion was the engineer, Suessi.
Metz would have to be Takkata-Jim’s human. Fortunately, the man could be manipulated.
The reports on the space battle were coming in faster on the data displays. It seemed to be turning into a real conflagration over the planet. At least five big fleets were involved.
Takkata-Jim resisted the sudden urge to turn and bite something, to lash out hard with his flukes. What he wanted was something to fight! Something palpable, instead of this hanging pall of dread!
After weeks of fleeing, Streaker was trapped at last. What new trick would Creideiki and Orley come up with to get them away this time?
What if they failed to come up with a plan? Or worse, what if they contrived some squid-brained scheme that could only get them all killed? What would he do then?
Takkata-Jim mulled over the problem to keep his mind busy while he waited for the captain to come and relieve him.
----
::: Creideiki
« ^ »
I t had been his first really restful sleep in weeks. Naturally, it had to be interrupted.
Creideiki was used to taking his rest in zero gee, suspended in moist air. But as long as they were in hiding, anti-gravity beds were banned, and sleeping in liquid was the only other way for a dolphin.
He had tried for a week to breathe oxywater all through his rest period. The results had been nightmares and exhausting dreams of suffocation.
The ship’s surgeon, Makanee, had suggested he try sleeping in the old-fashioned way, drifting at the surface of a pool of water.
Creideiki decided to try Makanee’s alternative. He made sure that there was a big air-gap at the top of his state-room. Then he verified three times that the redundant oxygen alarms were all in perfect order. Finally, he shrugged out of his harness, turned off the lights, rose to the surface and expelled the oxywater in his gill-lung.
That part was a relief. Still, at first he just lay at the air-gap near the overhead, his mind racing and his skin itching for the touch of his tool harness. It was an irrational itch, he knew. Pre-spaceflight humans, in their primitive, neurotic societies, must have felt the same way about nudity.
Poor Homo sapiens! Mankind’s histories showed such suffering during those awkward millennia of adolescence before Contact, when they were ignorant and cut off from Galactic society.
Meanwhile, Creideiki thought, dolphins had been in almost a state of grace, drifting in their corner of the Whale Dream. When men finally achieved a type of adulthood, and started lifting the higher creatures of Earth to join them, dolphins of the amicus strain moved fairly easily from one honorable condition to another.
We have our own problems, he reminded himself. He badly wanted to scratch the base of his amplifier socket, but there was no way to reach it without his harness.
He floated at the surface, in the dark, awaiting sleep. It was sort of restful, tiny wavelets lapping against the smooth skin above his eyes. And real air was definitely more relaxing to breathe than oxywater.
But he couldn’t escape a vague unease over sinking … as if it would harm him any to sink in oxywater … as if millions of other dolphins hadn’t slept this way all their lives.
Disconcerting was his spacer’s habit of looking up. The ceiling bulkhead was inches away from the tip of his dorsal fin. Even when he closed his eyes, sonar told him of the nearness of enclosure. He could no more sleep
“I need a human ally,” Takkata-Jim reminded himself. Dolphins were in command of Streaker, but the crew seemed to obey an officer more rapidly if he appeared to have the confidence of one of the patron race. Creideiki had Tom Orley. Hikahi had Gillian Baskin. Brookida’s human companion was the engineer, Suessi.
Metz would have to be Takkata-Jim’s human. Fortunately, the man could be manipulated.
The reports on the space battle were coming in faster on the data displays. It seemed to be turning into a real conflagration over the planet. At least five big fleets were involved.
Takkata-Jim resisted the sudden urge to turn and bite something, to lash out hard with his flukes. What he wanted was something to fight! Something palpable, instead of this hanging pall of dread!
After weeks of fleeing, Streaker was trapped at last. What new trick would Creideiki and Orley come up with to get them away this time?
What if they failed to come up with a plan? Or worse, what if they contrived some squid-brained scheme that could only get them all killed? What would he do then?
Takkata-Jim mulled over the problem to keep his mind busy while he waited for the captain to come and relieve him.
----
::: Creideiki
« ^ »
I t had been his first really restful sleep in weeks. Naturally, it had to be interrupted.
Creideiki was used to taking his rest in zero gee, suspended in moist air. But as long as they were in hiding, anti-gravity beds were banned, and sleeping in liquid was the only other way for a dolphin.
He had tried for a week to breathe oxywater all through his rest period. The results had been nightmares and exhausting dreams of suffocation.
The ship’s surgeon, Makanee, had suggested he try sleeping in the old-fashioned way, drifting at the surface of a pool of water.
Creideiki decided to try Makanee’s alternative. He made sure that there was a big air-gap at the top of his state-room. Then he verified three times that the redundant oxygen alarms were all in perfect order. Finally, he shrugged out of his harness, turned off the lights, rose to the surface and expelled the oxywater in his gill-lung.
That part was a relief. Still, at first he just lay at the air-gap near the overhead, his mind racing and his skin itching for the touch of his tool harness. It was an irrational itch, he knew. Pre-spaceflight humans, in their primitive, neurotic societies, must have felt the same way about nudity.
Poor Homo sapiens! Mankind’s histories showed such suffering during those awkward millennia of adolescence before Contact, when they were ignorant and cut off from Galactic society.
Meanwhile, Creideiki thought, dolphins had been in almost a state of grace, drifting in their corner of the Whale Dream. When men finally achieved a type of adulthood, and started lifting the higher creatures of Earth to join them, dolphins of the amicus strain moved fairly easily from one honorable condition to another.
We have our own problems, he reminded himself. He badly wanted to scratch the base of his amplifier socket, but there was no way to reach it without his harness.
He floated at the surface, in the dark, awaiting sleep. It was sort of restful, tiny wavelets lapping against the smooth skin above his eyes. And real air was definitely more relaxing to breathe than oxywater.
But he couldn’t escape a vague unease over sinking … as if it would harm him any to sink in oxywater … as if millions of other dolphins hadn’t slept this way all their lives.
Disconcerting was his spacer’s habit of looking up. The ceiling bulkhead was inches away from the tip of his dorsal fin. Even when he closed his eyes, sonar told him of the nearness of enclosure. He could no more sleep
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