EITHER SIDE OF THE STRAND A Stardancer Novel

M.C.A. Hogarth, 4/10/04

#1 

     Alysha twisted the sword, catching the glint of the overhead lights in its plastic edges. Her brows lifted. "Are you sure this is wise, Taylitha?"

     Across the room, the woman sitting on the bench laughed as she tied back her scarlet hair. "Wise?" she said. "I doubt it. Necessary, though... that I believe, sir." She stood and paced across the room, her slender shape shorter than Alysha's even at the tops of her pointed brown ears. There was only determination in her dark blue eyes, though, when she came to face her captain on the mat, plastic sword in hand. "Are you ready?"

     "I suppose," Alysha said, shaking back her hair and lifting her blade. "Though I'm telling you, I'm not going to need to win yet another sword fight crucial to the security and well-being of the Alliance any time soon."

     "But when you do, I'm not going to have to sit through a live broadcast of you getting cut up," Taylitha said. "Now, watch your guard!"

     Alysha let out a breath in something approaching a sigh and let Taylitha come for her. They exchanged blows--one, two, three--and Alysha's practice sword flew to the other side of the mat.

     Taylitha scowled at Alysha's hand blocking the edge of her blade. "I know it worked on Gledig Colony, sir, but that's the last time anyone's going to let you get away with that trick. Particularly since the footage of your duel with Dylan's been broadcast to every known corner of the universe."

     "Was it every known corner?" Alysha asked, amused. At Taylitha's renewed frown, she laughed and said, "You're right, of course. It's just habit."

     "If this had been a bastard sword, or An-forbid, a claymore, you wouldn't have any more fingers."

     "If that had been a claymore, arii, you wouldn't have been wielding it like a long sword."

     Taylitha leaned back and folded her arms, sword sticking out of the crook of one elbow. "Are you going to take this seriously or not? I have a vested interest, professional and personal, in seeing you in one piece, Alysha Forrest. It was a nightmare to me and every one of your senior personnel to have to watch Dylan Brushnie, sword-dancer worthy of Le Ceau Tournament, go after you in Daleth's crumbled courtyard while you tried to uphold the honor of the Alliance... and have him nearly take you to pieces."

     "It was only a few scratches," Alysha said.

     "A few scratches? Almost bisecting your quadriceps? What about your arm? Not to mention your hands after you caught his final downswing. I thought Laelkii was going to have a coronary."

     Alysha smiled, chagrined. "I survived, didn't I?"

     "Barely," Taylitha said, tail lashing. She sighed and chuckled. "And with far less style than is your wont. Look, like it or not, sword-fighting is still widespread in the Core and the colonies. It's accepted as the traditional dueling weapon. It's still used and taught at Fleet Academe. Swords are legal in places where palmers and other projectile weapons aren't. Would you rather walk into those places armed or naked?"

     Alysha rubbed her wrist. "I'm never without weapons, Taylitha."

     Taylitha paused, glanced at the taller woman's fingertips. "Maybe. But a little distance from your enemy is a useful thing."

     "Is it?"

     An exasperated sigh escaped Taylitha. "Everything's philosophy with you, sir. Put up your cursed sword and we'll talk about it while I beat some muscle memory into your arms."

     "Done," Alysha said, and jumped forward, sword swinging.

     Taylitha swayed backward, blade meeting hers with a dull thump. "So tell me again about your intimacy problems."

     "What?" Alysha said after a surprised laugh. She ducked her first commander's next thrust.

     "Don't waste so much motion. Time is blood." Taylitha stepped a few paces away, then tapped her blade a few times. "Your intimacy problems with weapons. Swords are just as intimate a weapon as hands... maybe more so."

     "More so?" Alysha arched a brow.

     "Watch my body, not the sword." Taylitha tossed her matted bangs off her forehead. "Because there's more elegance. It stresses the times you come close by contrast."

     "We're normally distant, Taylitha. Getting a little personal isn't a bad thing," Alysha said, transferring her attention from the woman's sword-tip to her arm. "I like to look into the eyes of a person I'm hurting. It makes me... more responsible."

     "More responsible, or more likely to frenzy?"

     Alysha hesitated, and grunted as Taylitha slapped her in the side with her plastic blade. "I suppose," she said, sidestepping the next swing, "That depends on the kind of person you are. I'm finding it hard to look into your eyes when I'm busy tracking your arm."

     "Why is it any different for sword fighting, sir? Watch my eyes."

     Alysha drew in a breath and pressed the offensive. Taylitha met her blade easily. "Because there's a stick on the end of your arm." When the smaller woman laughed, Alysha grinned and continued, "In all seriousness, a sword--any weapon--is a barrier. If you're going to be responsible for someone's pain, you should feel it yourself."

     "Don't you think that'll make you neurotic?" Taylitha tapped her on the shoulder. Her parries had the grace of a tournament champion, which Alysha wryly admired. "Face it, throughout history people have been objectifying the enemy. Otherwise, it becomes too difficult to kill him. And then there are mental problems--who can hold 'that which I must destroy' and 'him who has family and his own concerns' in her head at the same time and not go insane?"

     Alysha paused, and Taylitha waved the point of the sword at her. "Don't stop. You spent your entire bout with Dylan talking philosophy. If this is going to be a habit of yours, we might as well reproduce the conditions while practicing."

     "Taylitha, I am not a swordswoman."

     "Not yet. But I'm getting you there. You've stopped dodging so dramatically."

     "Dramatically!" Alysha chuckled. "I am not dramatic!"

     "You move like a dancer when you're not checking yourself," Taylitha said, cocking her head. "It's a little too much grace and a little too little econo--ah!"

     Alysha smacked her on the hip and thrust for her first commander's head. Taylitha's wild swing struck the plastic blade, which broke in two pieces with a piercing crack.

     They stared together at the hilt left in Alysha's hand.

     Taylitha said, "That was not in the plan."

     A faint smile curved Alysha's lips. "Swords do shatter."

     "I didn't think my parry was that hard!"

     They both glanced at Alysha's wrist, dented by the thin cords of ligaments that ran to muscle up her arm. Taylitha sighed and took the captain by the upper arm and led her off the mat. "You have to think less in terms of resistance and more in terms of flexibility. Respond only as forcefully as you need to in order to succeed. Anything more is wasted energy, wasted motion."

     "Wasted swords," Alysha added blithely. "What now?"

     "Now...," Taylitha tossed her plastic blade aside and grabbed a towel, "A beer."

     Alysha shook her head. "Am I so difficult that I drive you to drinking?"

     "Oh, no, no. I've always been a lush. You just exacerbate my problem."

     "Taylitha," Alysha said, letting a sober note touch her alto. The smaller woman glanced at her, one brown ear canted toward her. "I promise I'll take it seriously. Let's meet every other day here, before dawn shift."

     The first commander's mouth quirked into a smile. "Done. Come to the Fang with me?"

     "Sure."

     They left the gym for the corridors of the UAV Stardancer, a 400-person feminic battlecruiser in the Fleet of the United Alliance crewed only by females (and the occasionally neuter). Her complement had been weighted toward the felinesque races of the Alliance, Harat-Shar, Asanii and Karaka'An, but she had a smaller mix of others: the fox-based Tam-illee, and wolf-based Hinichi; the mix-and-matched Aera; the centauroid Glaseah... and of course, humans, now ubiquitous throughout Alliance space. Walking among the trees that helped comprise the Stardancer's naturalized oxygen-exchange system, Alysha and Taylitha passed double handfuls of women who nodded to them politely or waved.

     Their destination was open: the Fang bistro was always open. Restaurant, bar and cafe, it served all the Stardancer's shifts. The ship's designers had placed it, out of expedience or cruelty, within sight of the gym. Popular vote leaned toward 'cruelty'.

     "You'll be wanting your normal table, First Commander?" the slim Tam-illee foxine asked, ears pricking as they rounded the corner. "Oh, Captain! Good evening."

     "Good evening, Sashe. So she has a regular table, ah?"

     The foxine's lashes fluttered and she grinned. "Same as you do, when you come, sir."

     Taylitha covered her face in mock dismay. "The table, Sashe. Before she starts grilling me on my caloric intake."

     Sashe glanced at Alysha's enviable waist, then said, "Right away, Commander."

     Alysha glanced at Taylitha after they'd been seated in a corner with a window. "Your caloric intake?"

     Taylitha contrived an innocent expression. "A body wants tiramisu every once in a while. And beer."

     "Not together, I hope."

     Taylitha laughed. "No, not together."

     They gave their orders to an ensign and sat together in companionable silence, listening to the murmur of conversation. The Fang never lacked for patrons; besides events scheduled by the jazz band or the Happy Houris, there wasn't much to do off-duty except exercise, eat and (for the unlucky) catch up on paperwork.

     Their waitress slid a beer stein across the table along with Alysha's cup of coffee. "Anything else? We have a special today... apple dumplings. Real apples, too, from the new grafts on deck twelve."

     "Oh, sure," Taylitha said. "Bring a couple. Thanks, Ensign."

     Alysha shook her head, sipped her coffee.

     "Don't tell me you don't like apples."

     "They're good. I'll eat one, if that's what you're asking."

     Taylitha grinned. "I guess I am." She propped her bare feet up on one of the remaining chairs and leaned back. "I do wonder how you learned to dance when you move, sir."

     Alysha hesitated, put down her coffee. "I didn't think I was that--"

     "Dramatic?" Taylitha supplied.

     "Yes," Alysha said, then shook her head. "I suppose you learn to make the most of your body language when you're around those who understand bodies better than words."

     One of Taylitha's red brows rose. "Like...?"

     "Like Flitzbe. Naysha. Platyhelminthes."

     "Mmm," Taylitha said. "I haven't had much contact with any of the three, though I've talked to a few Naysha through an interpreter."

     Alysha nodded. "I bunked with a clod of Flitzbe as a lieutenant commander on the UAV ----------."

     "You... bunked with them?" Taylitha stared at her, not even glancing at the steaming dumplings deposited on the table.

     Alysha leaned over and speared one of them with a knife. She dropped it on the small plate provided with the dessert and separated a chunk of apple and dough with a fork. "They had limited cabin space for officers in my grade when I came aboard. I could take a lieutenant's bunk, or room with the Flitzbe, which they'd put in a commander's cabin with open walls to the water environment. I preferred the larger space, so I took it."

     "What was it like?" Taylitha asked, pulling the other dumpling over. "An, the things don't even eat."

     "It was actually quite pleasant," Alysha said. "They're interesting creatures. Some of them are as small as your hand... others are as large as a beach ball. The neural 'fur' is very soft, and has a slight grip. And they 'talk' by hooking together into piles and passing messages along the fur. They liked to clamber together on me... I think they were always a little disappointed that I couldn't share my thoughts the way they did among themselves." She chuckled. "But they didn't leave food around. They didn't shed. They didn't produce waste, or noise. And their idea of camaraderie with the large, silent biped was to curl up against me while I was sleeping or reading."

     Taylitha squinted. "Did you ever communicate with them, meaningfully?"

     "You could get sensations from them, if you pressed yourself to their fur . . . but they were rarely coherent, and never verbal. Images, maybe, recycled from your own memories and strung together to try and evoke some response."

     Taylitha shook her head. "I never had much call to work with them. People without a language concept . . . how do you handle that?"

     Alysha grinned. "Language isn't the only communication, arii. It might in fact be the youngest of the ways we convey meaning to one another."

     "Even so. It's the way I understand best."

     They watched the people passing in companionable silence, the remains of the dumplings on their plates. Taylitha finished off her beer and stretched. "I'm on-duty in ten minutes, so I guess I'll get moving."

     "Mmm. Make sure Alastar gets some rest if she looks tired," Alysha said. "I think she forgets she has a body when we get on these mapping expeditions."

     Taylitha chuckled. "I'll try. I won't make any promises, though, particularly if there's anything interesting in this new system we're on the cusp of."

     Alysha laughed. "Fair enough! I'll see you in a few hours."

     "Be well, sir."

     The first commander wove her way through the tables to the Fang's exit, brown tail waving behind her. Alysha smiled and sipped her coffee, content to listen to the talk of her crew. There was an area of quiet immediately around her table, and people walking through it nodded to her before quickly moving on. She found it difficult to gauge their reactions to her. The Stardancer had had other captains before her, and during the first six months the crew attitude had seemed cautious, deferent. After the incident on Gledig, the deference had become more marked. Alysha wasn't certain if she liked it or not, but she supposed it was not the job of the captain to be liked. Respect would have to do.

     Finishing her coffee, Alysha stood and strolled out of the Fang, heading toward her quarters beneath the fronds of the corridor's willowblend trees. Their current fact-finding assignment gave everyone time for relaxation, with the science databases receiving new data with each light year they covered. The engineering section had its own share of the fun: in charge of creating and deploying the Well booster relays the ship dropped behind it to facilitate real-time communications with the Alliance several quadrants away. There'd been a contest earlier to come up with the best design and decoration to preserve the utilitarian function of the buoy housing while still marking the Stardancer as its deploying ship; Alysha had dropped in to congratulate the contestants and examine the winning entry a few weeks back. The engineers had even managed to improve the repeater design in the bargain.

     Alysha stepped into her rooms, padding quietly to the bed in the back and dropping onto it. In the window beside the bed a star cast a brilliant yellowed light, its center masked by a dark gray film provided by the smart coating on the inside of the flexglass.

     "What star is that?"

     A name tagged the star in the window, written in blue sans serif letters: 'Theth-129.'

     "New data for this system?"

     Two more tags appeared, floating near the star. Alysha squinted, then chuckled. "A planet and a moon? Oh, Alastar won't be sleeping for days." The tags didn't display any supporting information: what kind of planet and moon, only orbital information in the orange that indicated uncertainty. They were probably too distant still to gather any of that information. It would be the sixth planet they'd cataloged on this journey so far.

     The tags slowly faded from the plexglass surface, leaving only the gray halo masking the star. Alysha folded her arms behind her back and stared out the window.

     She had been fortunate that Taylitha had accepted her explanation about the Flitzbe as the reason for her highly developed 'dramatics'. It wasn't an implausible reason, for all it wasn't the real one: the Flitzbe did not parse language at all, so telling them her intentions to move to the kitchen, to wake up, to use the bathing chamber had been in vain. Telegraphing her motions helped them roll out of her way.

     That cruise had been a pleasant one. Her studies in xenolinguistics had prepared her intellectually for communicating with other species, but nothing really taught like a protracted experience dealing with the realities of it. She wished she could contact the Flitzbe she'd become acquainted with; she was reasonably sure she could identify them as individuals, having sit with them enough to get a flavor of their sendings. But no one had yet constructed an interface for the Flitzbe to use communication systems . . . perhaps because no one knew if they wanted them.

     Alysha rolled onto her side, back to the window, brushing her dark hair off her neck. The Flitzbe were far more pleasant to consider than dancing, anyway.

#2

     "Captain to the bridge!"

     Alysha started awake to find the gray disk had darkened, become almost opaque and twice as large as it had been. "What is it, Alastar?"

     "We've found an anomaly on the planet in orbit around Theth-129."

     Alysha slid out of bed and ran a quick comb through her hair, straightened her uniform. "Chronolog," she murmured to her dresser. The time popped up on the mirror--she'd been asleep almost two hours. "What kind of anomaly?"

     "We think . . . they're ruins."

     "On my way."

     The captain's quarters had been positioned one deck below and almost beneath the bridge. Less than a minute later Alysha exited the lift onto the second level of the Stardancer's bridge. In the two-story holographic display a green and yellow planet rotated in serene silence, whorls of gray clouds uncurling slowly across its surface.

     "What do we have?" she asked.

     "It looks like ruins," Alastar said from the science station. The gray-brown Karaka'An turned from the display and pointed to a smaller projection over her board. It enlarged with dizzying speed until the image hung over what looked like an obelisk and several stones arranged around it, edges heavily sharpened by the computer's resolution-enhancing routines.

     "Margin of error is twenty percent on these images," Alastar said. "But even so, this is obviously a structure."

     "Agreed," Alysha said. "And twenty percent is reason enough to investigate further. What's the atmosphere like down there?"

     "Good for breathing. We're not picking up any pathogens, but I've had the Medplex and Engineering rig the standard remote sensor array to double-check."

     "Have them send it down," Alysha said, leaning over Alastar's shoulder and staring at the ruins.

     "Pad Room 1, this is the Bridge. Send down the array."

     "Aye, sir."

     A new window opened on Alastar's screen. She dragged it to the solidigraphic emitter and widened the resulting floating box as readings began to scroll through it in glowing blue. One by one, blue tags popped up beside it with floating discs indicating different areas.

     When all the tags connected and flashed, Alastar tapped them with a finger tip. "Medical and Science readings indicate everything clears. It'll be a little hot and dry for comfort, but not dangerously so."

     Alysha frowned at the medical read-outs, scanning them herself. "Have you assembled a team?"

     "Not yet."

     "I'd like you to go. Take some science people. At least one engineer. Also a healer and a few security people. We've had no signs of life at all?"

     "What looks like animals. We haven't been able to find any people that might be responsible for erecting something like this, nor any atmospheric signs of a manufacturing society. No orbital debris indicative of a space-faring civilization either. The indications are not favorable."

     "We might have come too late to meet these people," Alysha murmured.

     Alastar nodded, then stood. "I'll be in communication with you."

     "Make sure you follow both standard procedures, for possible first contact and possible archeological sites." Alysha smiled. "Doesn't hurt to be prepared, just in case."

     "Just in case," Alastar agreed, and stepped into the lift.

     With the second commander gone, Alysha walked to the railing and looked over the first level of the bridge. The walls were lined with interfaces into the Stardancer's powerful computers. A glimpse of fire-red hair revealed Taylitha, wandering through the quiet order to the stairs. The woman ascended.

     "You send Alastar down yet?"

     "Just now," Alysha said as Taylitha joined her.

     Taylitha nodded. "There's a lot of excitement down there, and some disappointment."

     "Disappointment?"

     "That we can't seem to find any signs of the people responsible for the possible ruins." Taylitha's ears canted sideways. "It's going to take us a day to scan the entire planet of the surface at the same resolution, though. Maybe we'll find something on the other side."

     "Maybe," Alysha said.

     Taylitha glanced at her. "What do you think, sir?"

     "I don't know what to think," Alysha said, grinning. "That's most of the fun."

     A chime drew both their gazes to the planet in the main display. A red dot appeared on its surface, then telescoped out to a small viseo of the obelisk, a few figures walking in front of it. Beneath the rectangle of blue, gray and sand, a number started counting upward; a second appeared beneath it, and a third, and two lines darted from the world. One connected to a swiftly drawn Well relay, and another to an equally quick-to-appear icon of the Stardancer in orbit.

     A second rectangle opened with a topographical map of the area, with glowing blue dots moving across it.

     "Following procedure to the letter, I see," Taylitha said. "Tagging everyone with an emitter? Pushing data to us and to . . . what, one of the central databases in the Core?"

     "With the packets twinning as soon as they hit a redundant relay," Alysha said.

     As more numbers appeared to indicate enough viseo recorders had been set up to start interleaving the 3deo feed the solidigraphic projectors most commonly used throughout the Stardancer, Taylitha glanced over at Alysha. "You want to go down there, don't you."

     Alysha watched a separate column pop up on the display as several of the people on the surface applied themselves to getting viseo stills of the area for archeological record-keeping. She chuckled. "Whatever gave you that notion?"

     "Maybe it was the way you're staring at the data. Like you want to eat it," Taylitha said, tapping her fingers against her folded arms.

     "At very least I probably wouldn't have to duel to settle the fate of the planet," Alysha said, grinning.

     Taylitha threw up her hands.

     The emitters next to the captain's chair chimed, and Alysha said, "Display."

     Alastar's body appeared next to the chair. "We're not reading any errors on this end, Captain." A pause, and another line connected the surface with the ship on the display. "And the redundant transceiver just went online. Ship-side confirms normal transmission error rate. Both transceivers are sending, standard encryption. There appear to be no problems with the simultaneous transmission to the data libraries in the Core. All crew-member transceivers have been activated, and all equipment has been tagged. The portable Pad station is in place and operating within normal tolerances. Viseo/3deo recorders are all online. Set-up procedure is complete."

     "Noted," Alysha said, waited for the chime, "And logged. Proceed with your investigation, Second Commander."

     "Aye, sir. Continuous updates as we take our readings. Virgil out."

     "It's not customary for captains to poke around on unexplored planets," Taylitha said.

     Alysha sat in the center chair, crossing her legs. "Nor is it against regulation." Taylitha's exasperated look elicited a chuckle. "You don't see me running to the Pad room this instant, do you? I won't go down until the survey team's had a chance to scout the area. But I will go down at some point."

     "After I look around."

     Alysha's brow lifted.

     "And if I say it's not dangerous." Taylitha's tail lashed. "I'd prefer we didn't have to get a new captain so soon."

     Alysha smiled, but her eyes were already lifting to the steady stream of data rolling down the side of the main display.

#3

     Alastar Virgil, Second Commander of the Stardancer and head of the science department, wiped her brow absently as she picked her way through the make-shift camp. She crouched beside the transceiver, watching the utilization curve on its multiple processors with satisfaction. Even dumping fifteen recorders' worth of sensor data through it and asking it to stream the results through an encryption gate to three simultaneous receivers, the new hardware barely noticed the load.

     Straightening, Alastar glanced around. The two guards had already agreed on patrol and sentry duties, and the healer assigned by the Medplex was running more granular tests on the soil and air. The science personnel were already examining the obelisk and the tumbled stones around it.

     Everyone was looking, but no one was seeing, Alastar thought. Their site rested on a flat sandy plain bordered in mountains, with an open march to the north and east--and beyond it, easily visible, its presence imprinted on the very air by the taste of salt, a vast sea of eye-watering blue. The heat gave the sky a piercing clarity, its few clouds strings of white sketched across a high bright ceiling.

     Alastar padded toward the obelisk, where Rochelle had hesitantly put aside her data tablet to rest her hands on its surface.

     "Ensign?"

     "Writing, sir."

     Alastar looked up at the obelisk's sides, could see the faint scratching spared by erosion. She frowned. "They do have a certain regularity," she said.

     "They repeat around the obelisk, but they're not the same kind of writing," Rochelle continued enthusiastically. She picked up the data tablet and stepped around the base of the obelisk. Alastar followed her. "Four different kinds, one for each side. No repetition at all."

     Alastar nodded. "Four writing styles for the same language? Four different languages?"

     "I don't know!" Rochelle shook her head, then sobered. "Commander, we have a lot less luck deciphering writing than we do learning verbal alien languages. Computer algorithms are only so much help when you have no knowledge at all of the actual sounds that comprise the spoken form."

     "If in fact it has a spoken form," Alastar said, ears flicking backward. "This is an intriguing puzzle."

     "I'd appreciate some help from the specialists on board," Rochelle said.

     "I will contact the ship and ask for them as soon as we complete our initial survey," Alastar said. "In the mean-time, collect as much data as you can." She squinted. "There are some figures on this side that are almost illegible."

     "Same thing on the other sides, I'm afraid. This is an old piece of stone."

     Alastar nodded. "Do your best."

     "Aye, sir."

     The second commander glanced up at the pinnacle of the obelisk, then joined the engineer and the other science personnel around one of the tumbled stones. The gray-yellow rock had been roughly rectangular in shape before its fall, but had lost half its bulk when it cracked in half, presumably on impact. Alastar ran her fingers over it. "Opinions?"

     "Not sure yet," one of the science personnel said. "It was certainly part of some greater structure."

     "Carefully created for it, even," the engineer said. "This is dressed stone, meant to fit into the grooves of the surrounding stones." She indicated the corner. "This is an exquisite angle here. Look how finely it was carved . . . there's almost no evidence at all of what tools they used to create it, except for these pock marks here," she pointed, "and here. Not at all a simple task."

     "So these people had a written language and used tools of some kind," Alastar said.

     "Likely. Also, look here." One of the lieutenants walked to the split block, crouching beside it. She pointed at a small circle, with two letters in it.

     "Initials?" Alastar asked.

     "Some kind of writing. Maybe it's the mason's initials, or some way of numbering the blocks so they could be assembled on-site. Maybe it's some kind of accounting information. An, it could even be an expiration date." The woman grinned, eyes sparkling. "We don't know."

     "Do you have any ideas what caused it to fall?" Alastar asked.

     The three women shook their heads.

     "Age?" one of them suggested.

     The engineer shook her head. "I'd vote against it, only if on instinct. The people who could carve rocks this way . . . I don't see their structures not lasting. There are pyramids and ziggurats on Earth built of similar materials that are still standing."

     "Try and find some evidence to support your hunch," Alastar said. "And see if we can't date the erection of this site somehow--maybe based on the erosion of the writing on the obelisk."

     "Yes, sir."

     "Ensign Mariledge, with me, please?"

     The tall snow-leopard-spotted Harat-Shar joined her. "Sir?"

     Alastar glanced around. "We have this site in the middle of an approach to the sea. One would think it likely that it was used by the natives."

     "A marker to the sea? A pilgrimage site?"

     "Something," Alastar said with a nod. "Let's walk a ways to the west and see if we find any evidence of travelers."

     The girl nodded and started off westward, data tablet out and scanning. Alastar allowed her to walk in front, feeling a brief moment of sympathy; as one of the snow pardines, the Ensign had a long coat of thick fur, no doubt already uncomfortable despite the breathing design of the uniform.

     If there had been a western march, its edges had long since blurred into the surrounding sand. Alastar drifted along, head lifted to taste the wind. The scent of brine and sand were only the foremost smells in the melange that made up any world. The second officer had found that worlds had a scent, much as people did, that rested beneath the more site-specific smells. This world's was somewhat acid-sweet. Complicated, as they all were.

     Alastar searched for tracks, for crumbled bits of what might have been a road: brick, or concrete. She sought anomalies, and found only a time-tired slope rising so gradually she couldn't see the incline.

     "How far do we want to go?" Mariledge asked, pausing some twenty minutes distant.

     Alastar stepped up beside her, ears pointed forward. She scanned the horizon, squinting against the glare of sun on the pale stones and sand. "I'm not sure," she said.

     "I'd like to keep looking, sir," Mariledge said.

     Alastar nodded, flicked her ear in the pattern that activated her telegem. "Virgil to on-site team. I need someone with Mariledge to explore the western march."

     "I'll come up, sir. I'm done with recording the obelisk for now," Rochelle said. "I have you both on the surface map."

     Alastar glanced at Mariledge's data tablet as the ensign brought up the surface map and tapped a few keys. A red circle highlighted the yellow dot moving in their direction. "Very good. I'm heading back toward the site; Mariledge will wait here for you to join her."

     "Aye, sir."

     Alastar touched Mariledge's shoulder and started back toward the site. Once she reached it, she picked up one of the spare data tablets and pocketed it before beginning her investigation of the eastern walk. The more obvious descent led her over a short hump and onto more sand. She saw no signs of an ancient road, nor did her data tablet pick up any with its more sensitive instruments. A gentle breeze came off the bright ocean, cooling the insides of her ears and her cheeks.

     Fifteen minutes brought her to the shore, foamy waves lapping at the edge of the world. Alastar crouched on the wet sand and stared out to sea, eyes watering, as the data tablet ran through water sample tests.

     It was beautiful. At first glance, only two colors defined the immediate vista: blue and yellow. But other hues softened the landscape, enriched it: the lavender shadows across the beach, the white crust of salt on the edges of the rocks, the green and purples marking the height and depth of the waves further out to sea. Even the sky had a faint violet cast at the horizon line.

     The data tablet chimed when it reached its final test results and Alastar glanced through them. Nothing she hadn't expected in terms of salinity and content. Only one chemical in the water struck her as peculiar, and she tagged it for later analysis before standing and stretching the kinks from her legs.

     On a whim, Alastar shucked her boots and draped them over an arm before strolling north along the beach. She hoped to spot some of the native wildlife: birds, maybe, or crabs. Seaside creatures. Thus far the landscape had been quiet, almost mournfully so. Ahead, the Karaka'An could see a few wheeling birds and she trotted that way, curious. The ocean's waters seemed to reach for her feet as she diverged from the wet strand.

     Not far down the coast, the slope concealed a dark, round hole leading into breadth of the hill. Alastar approached it, shells and sand crunching beneath her damp paw pads. The wind blew her thin braid over her shoulder, and she glanced at the ocean. A shiver ran down her body.

     Then she turned back to the hole and ducked into it, feet landing in a shallow puddle. With her body blocking the entrance, little light entered, but the senses remaining to her reported a small room, its air still and smelling of old salt. Alastar slid her thumb along the edge of her data tablet until she found the light switch. She pushed it to the broad ambient setting and lifted it before her like a lantern. Her mouth dried.

     The room before her was larger than her ears and nose had led her to believe: a hollowed cave some thirty feet in diameter, and roughly circular. Beneath her feet, the uneven floor showed water stains where the puddles had evaporated; a water line was sketched a few inches above its floor.

     Above this, paintings, in vivid blue and green and white. A touch here and there of a pale, vibrant orange. Painted sea creatures swam across the walls, long arms tangled together. Finned menaces surged through the lower levels of the walls, smudged black with violet highlights and smoldering orange eyes. Here and there, dragging like the waves against shore, were letters.

     Alastar stepped further into the cave and reached to touch one of the paintings. She laid hesitant fingers on them, in case they were delicate. When the color didn't smear or flake, she trailed her hand along the long body of a cephalopod, marveling at the subtle palette and the softness of the rendition. There was almost an intelligence in the gaze of the animals that engaged her.

     The Karaka'An pointed her data tablet at the drawings to record them, engrossed in the murals. She followed them from one end of the cave to the other until she turned to the entrance.

     The opening was gone.

     Alastar frowned, slowly rotated. The walls were solid. She put the data tablet on a rock and pressed her hands to the walls, making her way around the cave. Then she picked up the data tablet and ran tests. When no opening revealed itself, she sat on the floor, flicked her ear in the telegem's activation pattern.

     "Alastar to landing site. Does anyone read me?"

     No response.

     "Second Commander to the Stardancer. Do you read?"

     Again there was no answer. Alastar closed her eyes and pressed a hand to her chin, frowning. She must have missed something. The cave could not simply close up and swallow her. Had there been a rock-slide, she would have noticed a difference in the wall, had she somehow missed the noise of the falling stones. She could not have teleported into the cave. There had to be a rational explanation.

     When the sound and rhythm of the sea rushed into Alastar's ears, she turned onto her hands and knees, ears slowly canting. The sound came from every face of the cave, and she shivered.

     A dark stain at the edge of the cavern grew, and foam bubbles rode the top of it as it broadened into a stream of water. Alastar crawled to it and searched for any hole or imperfection in the wall, found the water rushing in from nowhere. Her ears flattened to her head.

     "This is not possible," she said. "Virgil to Stardancer, do you hear me? Can anybody hear me?" She sat back on her heels. When Alysha heard she'd left the landing site alone in direct violation of exploration safety protocols, she'd probably spend a month doing gym lifeguard duty.

     The water rushed in, hissing softly. Alastar stared at it and tried very hard to deny its existence. It pooled around her wrists and knees and continued to rise. She felt distinctly lightheaded and leaned against the rock, one hand on the data tablet.

     The images on the wall seemed to swim off them. Alastar lifted her head, eyes narrowed. The cephalopod came first, tentacles undulating in serene grace. Fish darted around it over her, and Alastar ducked, shielding her head.

     Then the dark leviathan pried itself from the wall, orange eye gleaming. It turned toward her, and Alastar jumped toward the opening, reaching for it. She hit the wall and slumped to the water, breathing it. Her heart accelerated even as her mind sank into the black.

#4

     "How far do you think we should go?" Rochelle asked, running her finger along the edge of her collar to separate it from her sweating neck. "It looks like sand for ages on."

     "It can't stay sand," Mariledge said, puzzled. "At some point one would imagine there would be vegetation of some kind, rock, something. That obelisk didn't erect itself."

     "No, but there've been plenty of cases where people mark distant sites with monuments. Places where historic battles occurred, religious landmarks, caerns and crypts . . . "

     The pardine frowned. "Hmm. That's something we didn't check--under the ground."

     Rochelle shook her head and kicked a small pebble. "I doubt it. This close to the ocean we'd be too far beneath sea level to build a stable basement." She drifted forward, eyes as much on her data tablet as on the ground.

     "Still worth checking, I think. We can't assume they didn't have the ability. Or, in fact, that they even cared that it might collapse." Mariledge trotted after her. "I think we should turn back for now."

     Rochelle nodded. "We probably won't find anything." She uncapped her canteen and sipped from the nozzle. A few drops spilled from her chin, dropping onto her boot and the sand beside it. Two of the drops vanished, sucked into the sand. The other remained, a dark blotch staining the ground.

     "That's odd," Mariledge said, crouching. "Look at that."

     Rochelle glanced over her shoulder. "What about it?"

     "It's not being absorbed the way the others were." The pardine brushed at the ground. "It has a different texture, too. Angels! Rochelle, help me."

     Puzzled, Rochelle dropped to a knee beside the other woman and began crumbling away the sand. She found the sharp edge of a stone by pricking her palm on it. "It's a big rock?"

     "Maybe," Mariledge said. "I've got a corner here, and it feels flat." She scraped the sand away from around the corner. "It's a built corner, Rochelle! Look!"

     Rochelle looked, then murmured an oath and set to her side of the stone.

     Fifteen minutes later they'd unearthed the back of a flat panel, rectangular, some two feet by one. Tiny writing scrawled across the bottom edge matched that on the north face of the obelisk.

     "Do you think we can turn it over?" Rochelle asked, hushed.

     "I don't know," Mariledge said, her voice similarly soft, as if in a museum. "We can try."

     Gently, they worked the panel back and forth until it began to slide with them, then they pulled it up.

     "Heavy!" Mariledge squeaked as she took its full weight on her arms. Rochelle grabbed the tips and they levered it down onto the ground again.

     Time and erosion had worked at the front of the panel, but clearly etched on it nonetheless was a relief. Slim people, clad in loin-cloths and veils and carrying spears, walked across it, leading six-legged beasts. Slender reeds broke the picture into measures, decorative blocks framed in more writing.

     "Oh, Iley," Rochelle whispered.

     Mariledge touched her telegem. "Mariledge to Commander Virgil." She waited, then frowned. "Commander Virgil, are you there?"

     "Maybe it's your gem," Rochelle said. She whistled her own on. "Obelisk team, this is Rochelle. Do you hear me?"

     "Aye, Rochelle. This is Engineer Steffis. What is it?"

     "We're trying to find Commander Virgil."

     "Commander Virgil? She came through half an hour ago and walked to the sea. Haven't seen her since. Why?"

     Mariledge reached for the data tablet she'd discarded to dig up the relief. She tabbed to the topographic map and chose Alastar's telegem. All the lights on the map winked out, leaving only the faded gray lines marking the landscape.

     "She's not on the map," Mariledge whispered to Rochelle, eyes wide.

     Rochelle's ears twitched. "Steffis, we have a problem. . . ."

#5

     "We've lost the commander, sir," Steffis said.

     Alysha's brows lifted. "Lost her, Lieutenant?"

     The engineer's ears were flushed, though Alysha couldn't tell whether from embarrassment or the heat. "She went to explore the seaward march on her own. She didn't request assistance and we were busy with the ruins."

     "So she left on her own and now no one knows where she is," Alysha said. At her left, Taylitha was working through the topographical map records while the computer crunched through the visual logs. Beneath them, the bridge personnel continued their duties without pause, no doubt noticing their seniors' running peculiar searches but not questioning their intent.

     "That's correct, sir." Steffis said. "I have the team in pairs now searching along the coast."

     "Keep me informed," Alysha said.

     "Aye, sir. We also unearthed an additional artifact, a stone tablet with a relief. Some writing, some pictures. We're hauling it back to the site now to be documented."

     "Excellent," Alysha said. "I'm looking forward to the visuals. Anything else?"

     "No, sir," Steffis said.

     Alysha nodded and terminated the connection. She glanced over at Taylitha. "Anything?"

     Taylitha shook her head. "We have her on visual record passing by the survey site . . . and then she vanishes. Off the maps, off the recordings. It's damn weird. Almost as weird as her going off alone like that."

     Alysha mmmed, sliding her fingers over the rim of her coffee mug as she stared at the planet rotating on the holographic screen.

     "You . . . do you think she's hurt?" Taylitha asked quietly.

     Alysha sighed. "I don't know. You're right--it's not like her to violate protocol that way. Remind me to ask her about that when we find her." She glanced at Taylitha. "We will find her."

     Taylitha squinted at her, then tilted her head. "Was that . . . a secret communication, sir?"

     "That was a suggestion," Alysha said mildly.

     "I'll organize a relief team for the obelisk site and get a few more search parties on-world," Taylitha said, standing.

     Alysha chuckled quietly. "We'll make a mind-reader of you yet, First Commander. Good luck, and try not to let them get lost looking for 'Star."

     "No, sir. That would defeat the purpose, sir." Taylitha grinned and strode off the bridge.

     Alysha returned to her scrutiny of the world. Alastar's disappearance nagged at her, almost enough to prompt a personal survey of the obelisk. Taylitha would be displeased if she appeared with one other officer already missing. She would wait.

#6

     One of the Stardancer's light craft soared past as Taylitha turned in place, ending with her face to the obelisk. A light breeze tousled her crimson hair as she studied it, resisted the urge to reach out and touch it. The Alliance had met new species before -- the Chatcaava came readily to mind, though there were others -- but the handful that had been truly alien, not the spore of discarded gengineering experiments, were rare despite the Alliance's aggressive exploration policies. To think that there might be a chance that the 'Dancer might find a new species . . . even a trace of a new species was more excitement than Taylitha had honestly expected on her tour of duty.

     Shaking herself, Taylitha turned to Steffis, who stood behind her with a determined look and squared shoulders. "So, tell me what direction she went in."

     "All we know is that she headed for the sea, alone," Steffis said.

     Taylitha nodded. "I'd like you to remain here to organize the relief team, Lieutenant. The rest of you," she said, nodding to the group of fifteen she'd brought with her with a grin, "pair up. It's a beautiful day to spend on the beach."

     Her own partner was human, an ensign with flyaway bronze hair, red-brown lipstick and round green eyes. Her name was Chelsey Ferroe, one of only six humans on the Stardancer. Taylitha started down the low slope toward the sea with the woman following her.

     "First Commander to the eagle. Report, please."

     "This is Rennagan, sir. We aren't seeing anything on sensors, or visual. This is our third sweep."

     "Nothing at all?" Taylitha asked, ears flicking back. She hadn't expected any help from the flybys, but she'd had hopes. "Broaden your range, and make sure you cover the sea."

     A pause. "Do you think she's in the water, sir?"

     "I don't know," Taylitha said. "That's the point of the investigation."

     "Aye, sir. Eagle out."

     Taylitha and Ferroe trotted down to the shore; farther down the beach, the First Commander could see her teams investigating. She glanced at the brilliant ocean, squinting even as her eyes watered, and frowned. The strong chop and the brisk wind pulling at her hair already suggested what she saw when she dropped her gaze to the beach. If there had been prints on the sand, they were long gone.

     A cry from further down the beach drew Taylitha's attention. "Come on," she said, and jogged that way, Ferroe at her heels. They joined another pair, and Taylitha frowned.

     "It's a cave," one of them reported, indicating a short hole in the slope, crusted over with sand and scree.

     "We didn't see any evidence of caves when we did our planet surveys," Taylitha said, taking out her data tablet.

     "We're still not seeing any evidence of them," said the junior. "Or at least, not from above. Their ceilings are too thick, and the metal veins in them are giving us all sorts of bounce-backs."

     "Damn!" Taylitha said. "How far back does this thing go?"

     "Not sure yet."

     Taylitha padded to the hole, ran her fingers softly around its edges. It was half her height and broad enough to admit her without much contortion. She stepped inside, paused as the swift transition from light to dark dizzied her. As her vision cleared, she swore again. The corridor continued several hundred feet, branching off several times before then and ending with a sharp turn. Taylitha lifted her data tablet; the complexity of the rock's composition and the thickness of the cave walls were enough to prohibit even line-of-sight connections between data tablets of moderate distance, much less the constant feed between it and the Stardancer's computers. When she whistled her telegem on, it couldn't even open a channel between herself and the three women standing a handful of feet away outside the cave mouth.

     Taylitha frowned, tuned the telegem to voice control and said, "Local mode."

     The telegem whispered into her ear, "Warning. Telegem has limited range while in local mode and will also require recharge after twelve hours use."

     "Yeah, yeah," Taylitha muttered. She tried the channel to the women outside again and got a decent reception from Ferroe's telegem. The First Commander sighed and stepped outside. "So, how much do you want to bet the Second Commander's somewhere in these caves, ladies?"

     "I wouldn't even stake my mother's fish on it, sir," Ferroe said. The other two shook their heads as well.

     "If she's not in there," the first one added, "Then she's in the water, or somewhere too far for the eagle to find her. And these caves are close to the digs . . ."

     "And would explain why we can't pick her up, thanks to the rock. She could be lost, hurt . . ." Taylitha shook her head. "Looks like we have more to do than I thought." She whistled her telegem off local mode. "First Commander to Captain."

     "Forrest here. I hope this is good news, Commander."

     Taylitha's ears sagged. "It's not bad news. We've discovered a network of caves hidden along the edge of the shore. They're riddled with conflicting metallic veins and they're too thick for overhead sensors."

     "Ah. Sounds promising."

     "I'm going to get a good mapping team and supplies down here. I have a strong suspicion that Alastar's somewhere in them."

     "Sounds like a plan. Keep me informed. Forrest out."

     Taylitha nodded, though Alysha couldn't see her. "Taylitha to search team. Regroup at this position. We have a lead."

#7

     "Are the ropes really necessary?" Felsha muttered.

     "I don't know," Darya said. "I kind of like them. They remind me of good times." The pantherine Harat-Shar grinned at her companion, who rolled her eyes. Beside them, Rochelle glanced uncertainly at the spool in her arms.

     "Don't let her unnerve you," Felsha said, smiling at the younger woman.

     "I don't think it's her, sir. It's these caves."

     Felsha nodded, pausing to let Darya notate the map they were creating. Rochelle took the tape-gun and attached the length of bright neon red cord, no thicker than her smallest finger, to the wall beside them. The green cord they'd been running theirs alongside had diverged from theirs at the last fork, indicating they'd started mapping new territory.

     The silence was broken only by their voices, echoing faintly on the calf-deep water they sloshed through on their way deeper into the caverns. With only their data tablet lamps to core out the darkness, the silence and their echoes helped create the illusion that they were completely alone.

     The cords helped. Even if they had left the green one behind, and the clusters of other colors and stripes used by the other exploratory teams. They suggested continuity, a cave mouth they'd left at least three hours before.

     "Do you think they go on forever?" Rochelle asked.

     Darya snorted. "I hope not. They stink, and I'm tired of the dark. I want to go back to the ship and take a nice, luxurious, hot bath . . . ."

     "More water," Rochelle muttered.

     Felsha grinned, then squinted and stopped. "There's a fork here. Pay out the line, Rochelle."

     Rochelle spooled some of the cord and handed the excess to Felsha, who held it up to the wall. "We can turn or--hey, this is odd. Shine your data tablet over here?"

     Darya obliged, and they gasped. A red fish had been drawn cavorting on the wall, the color almost as vibrant as their cord. When they played the light over the rest of the wall, they found similar sketches.

     "Rennagan to First Commander." Felsha's telegem paused, then whispered, "Out of range." Felsha's ears flattened. "Rennagan to team. Is anyone in range?"

     A burst of static, and then, "This is Ferroe."

     "Chelsey, we found some drawings down here. Some sort of cave paintings. We're going to follow them."

     "We are?" Rochelle whispered.

     Darya shrugged, then grinned, white teeth bright against the ambient black.

     "You might want to send some people this way to get more detailed recordings."

     "Hold on, Lieutenant, I'm relaying." A pause. "The First Commander's curious. She's bringing a few teams down your way. You're on red cord, correct?"

     "That's right."

     "They're on their way. Looks like the closest to you is . . . about an hour at a quick clip."

     "All right. We'll mark this area and keep going. Rennagan out."

     "We're going down this way?" Darya asked after Felsha lost the unfocused look.

     "It makes sense. If the Second Commander did get this far into the caves, she would have been interested in the drawings. We should go where they lead." Felsha rummaged in her belt pouch, came up with a stick-light. She peeled the back off and affixed it to the rock face, then turned on the light so the following parties would know when they were near the checkpoint. "Come on."

     Darya shrugged and fell into step beside Felsha as the woman entered the fork. Behind them, Rochelle paid out the cord. The water sloshed against their high boots, stirring up a stale odor.

     The wall paintings not only continued but grew larger and more elaborate, more colorful. Bizarre sea creatures danced on the edges of vertical oceans, joining fins to the hands of multi-armed creatures that reminded Felsha of the draconic Chatcaava. Darya paid little attention to the walls, concentrating on the map she built as they walked, leaving Rochelle to stare at the drawings.

     "Do you think they're still alive?" Darya asked in the silence.

     "If they are, where are they?" Felsha said, tail lashing once.

     "And why would they want to live here?" Rochelle said emphatically.

     "Maybe the caves weren't so ugly when they were first made. They might not have had so much water in them, for one. Whatever the case, it's still . . . ," Felsha paused, then drew in a breath and nodded. "It's still amazing."

     "But it would have been better had they been alive. Can you imagine being on a ship that made first contact?" Darya tapped a claw against her data tablet, actually stopping to look at the paintings. A strange squid-like creature stared at her with an orange eye. "What a great thing to get on your record!" She licked her lips. "You know, this thing looks tasty."

     "I don't like this one," Rochelle said, pointing at one of the drawings: a leviathan pricked from the stone of the walls with only sparing swathes of violet paint, with an eye that seemed to burn the stone beneath it with its incandescent yellow regard.

     "Ugh! It looks like a shark," Felsha said, wrinkling her nose.

     Darya's ears flicked. She held out a hand.

     After a few minutes of stillness, Felsha whispered, "What is it?"

     "Listen," Darya said. The other two pricked their ears forward.

     "The echo pattern has changed," Rochelle said.

     "Come on," Darya said, striding forward. Water splashed as the two jumped to catch up with her and almost ran into her back when she stopped a few steps later.

     A cavern opened before them, its walls obscured by a complicated and vast mural. As Felsha and Rochelle stared, Darya's eyes scanned the floor and saw the figure slumped against a rock. "Felsha! It's the Commander!"

     As Darya and Rochelle ran toward Alastar's body, Felsha hung back and tried the telegem.

     "Rennagan to search team."

     "This is the First Commander. We're on our way, Felsha. What can we do for you?"

     "We've found her, sir!"
     A pause, the hiss of static, then, "How is she?"

     "Unconscious," Felsha said, paused and glanced at Darya and Rochelle. The younger woman looked faint, and the pantherine lifted her head and made a fluttering motion with her hand. "Not in great shape."

     "Can you carry her?"

     "Between the three of us, I think so."

     "Come back up the cord with her, then. We need to get her to a working Pad as soon as possible."

     "Understood. Sir, I'll leave a stick-light here. The chamber is incredible."

     "Sounds like a promising find. Good job. Basil out."

     "Felsha!" Darya hissed.

     Felsha sloshed over and kneeled beside them. She followed Darya's gaze and her mouth dropped open.

     A thin gap in the cave wall revealed a shaft of late afternoon sunlight. Through it, a glimpse of the sky and sand. They had come in a long arc all the way back to the front of the caverns.

     "Why didn't she just walk out?" Darya asked.

#8

     Alysha tossed her data tablet onto the bed and shook her hair back from her face. Her shift had seemed twice as long while waiting for news about the Second Commander, and stripping her uniform from her body was an unalloyed pleasure.

     "Hot shower, directional," she said to the bathing chamber, scratching her stomach with idle fingers. A chime sounded, followed by the smell of steam and the patter of the water. She walked into the chamber, stood so that the diagonal fall struck her back.

     "External mail check," she said, scooping a handful of scratchy soap sand from the jar in the corner.

     "Four new messages," the computer told her, its voice a cultured, androgynous tenor.

     "Give me a visual," Alysha said. She sat on the floor of the chamber. With one foot on her knee, she massaged the webbing between her toes, careful to avoid the pinprick fineness of the claws that inched from their beds at the stimulus. She looked up when four boxes in glowing purple rose from the steam. The tag on the top two were green -- journals sent to broad lists. "Is that the Xenolinguistics Monthly?"

     "Confirmed. Second new message is the New Anthropology Journal."

     Perfect reading to accompany the world they orbited. Alysha looked forward to perusing them later, after Alastar had been recovered and things returned to some semblance of normalcy. She scrubbed the pads on the bottom of her feet. "What's the sender and header on that blue tag?"

     "Perihelion. Monthly Statement."

     Her investments. She could look at that later. Her eyes kept straying to the final message. The bright red tag marked it as originating from Fleet Central.

     "The buoys have caught up with us," Alysha murmured. She stared at the message but did not open it. Flat messages from Fleet Central rarely arrived without prompting.

     She had to read it, whatever her misgivings. "Open--"

     "Medplex to Captain."

     Alysha sat up, the water hissing softly against her head and back. "Captain here."

     "You should come down here, Alysha."

     "On my way." She stood and walked out, shaking the water off her body. "Shower off. Close mailbox." She barely heard the double-chime as she dried herself off, dressed, and strode out of her quarters for the nearest lift.

     Chief of Medical Laelkii Takara was awaiting her when she arrived at the Medplex. The older Asanii woman wore an uncharacteristically guarded expression that darkened her brown eyes and drew attention to the wrinkles drawn across her forehead and around her mouth. Even her expressive hands were hidden behind her back.

     "It's bad," Laelkii said before Alysha could even ask. The C-med walked deeper into the Medplex, past the tanks of fish that added a note of serenity to the decor. They turned into the ward, where only one bed of the ten was occupied by a slumped figure in a blanket. The haloarch was active from the steady light at the base of the bed.

     Alysha drew near, studied the face of her officer and friend. No spirit animated the quiet Second Commander's face. Her breathing barely registered to Alysha's sensitive ears, trained on the woman's body. Alysha glanced at the monitors, but could not read enough to discern what ailed the woman.

     "She's in a coma," Laelkii said. "For the life of me I don't know why. She shows no signs of obvious injury. No trauma. There's just one thing. Her brain activity reminds me of someone who had one hell of a hallucinogenic trip."

     Alysha frowned, touched Alastar's exposed shoulder through the field. "Can she hear us?"

     "I believe so," Laelkii said. "She might not be able to process it until she wakes up, but somewhere in that head she's working on something. She doesn't have the normal coma profile." Laelkii shook her head. "I have no idea when she'll wake up. The best I can do is keep her on monitor and make sure her vitals don't drift." The woman glanced at Alysha. "It would help to know what happened to her."

     "You know more than I do," Alysha said. "Where's Taylitha?"

     "Here, sir," Taylitha said, padding in from behind them.

     Alysha twisted to look at Taylitha. She had circles beneath her eyes that ill became the usually cheerful First Commander, and her hair had somehow fallen partially out of the bun she'd pinned it into with stasis combs. Her uniform had smudges and wet stains.

     "You need a shower and some rest," Alysha observed.

     "That's what I told her, but see how she listens to me," Laelkii muttered.

     Taylitha tucked a strand of hair behind one ear. "I wanted to talk to the ladies who found 'Star," she said. She joined them at Alastar's side. The weariness already reflected in her face grew more pronounced. "They had some peculiar things to report. Besides the fact that they found her in a cave painted almost top to bottom."

     "Cave paintings," Alysha said quietly.

     "Beautiful and bizarre. But Captain, the cave chamber was open to the outside. She must have just walked in and then . . . what? It was a few steps back out. Something happened to her, but there aren't any obvious clues. We searched the chamber. It's got water, a few rocks, and the wall paintings. That's it."

     "Maybe the wall paint is toxic to the touch," Laelkii said. "Or it could be out-gassing something toxic . . . or hallucinatory." She glanced at Alastar.

     "I guess that's an idea," Taylitha said. "You'd think it would be noticeable for it to fill a room with an opening large enough for someone to walk through. I'll have them check tomorrow." She grimaced. "Morale is jumbled. People want to be excited over the discovery, but they're all worried about 'Star. I don't want anyone wandering through those caves at night, where the dark can make them feel even less confident."

     Alysha nodded. "What about the obelisk site?"

     "That'll be manned through the night. The people working there are too caught up in it to come back for the night. They want to sleep there, under strange stars." Taylitha grinned. "The relief shift is awake, though. They'll keep working."

     "Mysteries on mysteries," Alysha said, looking at Alastar again.

     "We're working on answers," Taylitha said.

     Laelkii looked from one to the other, then said, "I hope not personally, Commander Basil, because you need a wash and eight hours sleep."

     Taylitha's ears flagged. "Snowhide--"

     "No arguments. Go rest."

     Taylitha glanced hopefully at Alysha, but the captain, smiling a little, shook her head. Taylitha sighed. "All right. I'll talk to you both later."

     Alysha turned back to the Second Commander, leaned close and said to one brown ear, "Wake up soon, Alastar. We have much to discuss, not the least of which is what possessed you to violate landing protocols so flagrantly."

     Laelkii snorted as Alysha straightened. "Yeah, that's going to make her want to come out of it sooner."

     Alysha grinned at Laelkii. "Take care of her, Snowhide."

     "Always, arii."

     With a nod, Alysha walked out of the Medplex. With her hands folded behind her, she strolled through the corridors to the nearest lift. A ten minute walk brought her to one of the Pad rooms, where the technician there nodded to her as she walked across one and onto the planet at the archeological site.

     There she stopped to tilt her head back, close her eyes and simply breathe. Every ship had its own scent, and the Stardancer's had become familiar enough that she no longer noticed it.

     On the wind it came: sea-salt, sand, heat and spice. Alysha opened her eyes and smiled. A brilliant dark blue with scattered stars, the sky stretched out over a black horizon. Yellow lights illuminating the obelisk and the translucent yellow-gray of the surrounding tents provided the only brightness besides the starlight.

     "Sir! We weren't expecting you!"

     Alysha drew her attention away from the sky and to the ensign who'd leaped up at her arrival, an Asanii, one of the more humanoid-looking felines, with soft charcoal-dark hair and large amber eyes. "At ease," she said, hiding her amusement at the consternation of the girl. "I didn't call ahead. I just felt like having a look at our little mystery."

     "Of course," the girl said, ears sweeping sideways. She looked torn between nervousness and pride. "Should I tell Steffis you're here?"

     Alysha shook her head. "Let her sleep. She is sleeping, I presume?"

     The ensign nodded.

     "I'll be fine, thank you. I'm just going to have a look around."

     The girl nodded again, then hesitated. When Alysha canted her head, the ensign said, "Commander Basil instructed us not to allow anyone off-site without escort, Captain."

     Alysha chuckled. "That's well-done of her. I'll keep that in mind."

     The girl's relief was palpable, which only made it harder for Alysha to keep from smiling. She probably hadn't been serving long enough to know that acknowledgement of orders didn't necessarily mean compliance.

     Alysha moved on, nodding to the night shift when they noticed her but not stopping to speak with any of them. She paused at the base of the obelisk and craned her neck to gaze at the full length of it. The images sent up to the 'Dancer were of extremely high quality, but nothing compared with the experience of standing before something, sensing its presence, its displacement of the air, its age and scent and form. Though she wanted to she didn't touch it, seeing the effect of age and wind on its surface.

     The relief was propped against a stone near the obelisk, and Alysha bent to examine it. In the steady light of the lamps the edges of the carvings cast only the threadiest of ocher-gold shadows. They seemed frozen there, the people leading their strange beasts among the reeds.

     No doubt someone noticed her leaving; her people were aware of her presence, and none of them relaxed enough to lose track of her. No one tried to stop her. Alysha padded down the seaward march, following the whispers of the mystery. The lithe creatures of the relief seemed born of sun and land; why then the ocean caves, painted with their lush underwater scenes?

     The smell of the sea pulled her down to its shores, and Alysha stood on the sand and watched the starlight ride the waves to the strand. On a whim she pulled off her boots and let the water rush over her toes.

     With her boots folded over an arm, Alysha walked through the water toward the cave Alastar had found. Her unease about the Second Commander lived badly with the sensations of being on a planet after months on ship; the sense of freedom, of the unbounded vastness of the atmosphere exhilarated her.

     The landing team had marked the entrance to Alastar's cave with dim sticklights. Alysha ran her hand over the sharp edge of the opening, then stepped into the still shallow water. Several more sticklights had been distributed throughout the cave, placed in areas without paint and aimed so that they would shed light on the most dramatically illustrated sections of the mural. Alysha found the stone Alastar had been slumped against and sat on it, her bare feet spread over the silt and stone beneath the water.

     She lifted her head and waited. And closed her eyes.

     Something breathed to her of danger, but Alysha ignored it. She was ready for the dark, and yet it never engulfed her. As she wooed it, patient but perplexed, it remained a wan gray veil in the back of her mind. Something had come for Alastar--something had overwhelmed her. This weak thing could not be it, could it?

     "Sir?"

     Rising through the dark took effort. Alysha stretched, torn between irritation and surprise. She stood. "Yes, ensign?"

     The Asanii from the dig site said, "The C-Med's on the line for you. You can't be reached inside the cave, of course."

     "Of course," Alysha said. She stepped outside into a brilliant morning and needed a few moments to re-orient. She hadn't been in the cave that long--had she?

     "Alysha!"

     "Yes, Snowhide?" Alysha said, drawn back to the present.

     "I think you should come up here."

     "Alastar?"

     "No, something else. Something we found in the water."

     "On my way," Alysha said. She flicked her telegem off and glanced at the girl.

     "Just happened to find me, Ensign?"

     "No, sir," the girl said. "I followed you, as per Commander Basil's orders."

     "Direct orders?" Alysha asked, brows lifting.

     The ensign flinched, but didn't look away. In the sunlight she had a creamy pelt with the faintest suggestion of gray spots around the edges of her face. "No, sir. She said no one was to leave the dig site unaccompanied. I discussed it with the shift leader, and she agreed that I should follow you at a respectful distance, to ensure there would be someone in case of... difficulty."

     "I see," Alysha said. She chuckled. "Well done, Ensign. What's your name?"

     "Skutterby, sir. Kethy. I apologize if I've offended, but my department reports directly to Commander Basil. I hate to disappoint her."

     Alysha laughed. "No harm done, Ensign. You'll walk me to the pad, I hope."

     "If it's no trouble."

     Alysha shook her head, still grinning.

#9

     Upstairs, Alysha walked past the fish tanks and turned the corner into the Medplex's labs. Laelkii was waiting for her with a cup of coffee.

     "You didn't tell anyone you'd gone down," she said.

     Alysha smiled. "I didn't have to. There were people everywhere, you know."

     Laelkii sighed. "Still. If Taylitha had known, she would have had an apoplectic fit. Did you even eat breakfast?"

     "Later," Alysha said, and sipped from the mug. "What have you got?"

     "Well, I was looking over the sample data from the site and Alastar had marked a chemical for examination. It was in the sea water. I went ahead and ran the analysis and... well, this is going to sound strange. It's very similar to some of our neurotransmitters."

     "How similar?" Alysha asked, brows lifted.

     "Similar enough to make me suspicious," Laelkii said. "It looks a lot like serotonin... a transmitter used by our brains for mood regulation and sensory perception."

     "What an odd thing to find in sea water," Alysha murmured.

     Laelkii nodded. "I'd say so. I've asked the landing team to get me a few more samples. I want to know if this is something out of the ordinary or the ocean is full of it."

     "Could it explain Alastar's condition?" Alysha asked.

     Laelkii shrugged. "Possibly. I need more information."

     "No change, then," Alysha surmised.

     Laelkii's ears flattened. "No. Stable but not present."

     Alysha nodded. "Tell me if you find anything interesting in your new samples, then. I'll find Taylitha."

     The doctor returned to the lab, her white curl kinked and twitching. Alysha shook her head and exited the Medplex via Alastar's bed, pausing to rest a hand beside the woman's face.

#10

     Taylitha had been awake an hour and was working on her second cup of coffee when the door chime sounded. She didn't lift her head. "Come in."

     "You look a busy woman, Commander."

     Taylitha sat up, ears flicking back. "Captain. I wasn't expecting you. Sit down, please."

     "Heading down soon?" Alysha asked, sitting across from her.

     Taylitha poured her a cup of coffee. "In about half an hour. I was going to check on Alastar--"

     "No change," Alysha said.

     Taylitha sighed. It was hard not to miss Alastar on any given day; harder still on a science mission, when the second commander's analytical skills would have supplemented the information being sifted.

     "Laelkii's doing some preliminary studies on the water. She's asked for more samples. That might help her help the commander."

     "I hope so," Taylitha said. "This is not turning out the way I'd thought. Discovering artifacts on a planet is supposed to be exciting. And it's supposed to come with aliens. Living ones. Instead we've got a dead planet, a handful of ruins and a coma-inducing set of caves. Not very friendly stuff."

     "Not everything is going to work out the way we plan," Alysha said.

     Taylitha eyed her. "Has anything ever?"

     Alysha grinned. "Don't ask too much. The universe might give it to you." She tapped a finger on her mug. "Are we sparring today?"

     "Not unless you want to do that now."

     Taylitha glanced at the data tablet. She'd been working on relief teams for the crew on-world, but it could wait. "Some exercise would be just about right. Let's go."

     Alysha rose and followed her to the gym. They stripped to their spare exercise suits. Taylitha tossed a hilt to the captain, who caught it.

     "Real swords?" the woman asked, brows lifting.

     Taylitha flicked on her own holoblade. "They can be set very bluntly. Keep it on the purple setting. Length long sword... that's the fourth."

     "Right."

     Taylitha waited for Alysha to move onto the mat, then jumped to engage her. She was aware she wasn't holding back, but Alysha seemed unperturbed, so she allowed her frustrations to ride her body.

     Yet the sight of the other woman at arm's length only angered her further. She set her own blade's length shorter and shorter until Alysha was parrying her dagger-sized blade with far too long a sword. Taylitha swiped for the woman's middle, found herself shoved violently aside.

     After that, Alysha didn't seem to hold back either, and augmented her poor sword skills with street-fighting Taylitha had never learned. They fought one another to a battered standstill.

     When Taylitha staggered away and bent over, panting, Alysha said, "Now, talk to me."

     "It's nothing," Taylitha said, ignoring the sweat matting her forehead. And added, "I'm sorry."

     Alysha turned off the holoblade and stood beside her, her air one of imperturbable patience.

     "It's just... too close. Dead natives. Alastar in a coma. I don't want them to be related."

     "There's no reason to think so," Alysha said. "There are plenty of ways people can die without hallucinogenic caves. Besides, there's hardly enough cave for an entire species."

     "I have the same rational thoughts. They don't work very well," Taylitha said, ears flipping back. "I don't want anything to happen to her, or anyone one else working for me."

     Alysha rested a hand on Taylitha's shoulder. "Laelkii's working on her part. You have your own to hold up."

     "Right," Taylitha said with a sigh. She glanced sheepishly at Alysha. "I'm sorry about that. I didn't mean to go so hard on you so quickly."

     "You needed it," Alysha said, grabbing a towel off a nearby rack and mopping her face. She draped the towel around her neck and hung the holoblade back in place.

     Taylitha wrinkled her nose. "You look peaked. Did you sleep well?"

     "Not much," Alysha said with a grin. "But now I'll sleep quite well. Catch a shower and get downstairs, Commander. I expect a report in a few hours when I wake up."

     "Aye, sir."

     Alysha left the gym; Taylitha watched her go, realizing as the door slid shut that she was blushing. She rubbed her cheeks, ears flattening, and took a quick shower of her own. Trying to beat up one's own captain was a poor way to deal with one's feelings. And in a public place! When Taylitha peeked out of the shower room, the few crew who'd been using the facility had all found conspicuously normal activities of their own. No doubt the incident would be all over the ship by alpha lunch. Taylitha sighed, dressed and headed to the Pad.

#11

     "What are we looking for again?" Darya asked, fingers tapping lightly on the sensor pad. The solidigraphic views spread across the left-hand side of her console displayed various angles on the ocean of sand and shrubs their eagle was overflying.

     "Anything unusual," Felsha repeated, ears flipping back against her honey-blonde curls. "And you should know that by now because you keep asking every fifteen minutes."

     "I like teasing you," Darya said. "And I'm bored. There's nothing out here but rocks and plants. Ugly plants at that."

     Felsha tried a quelling glance on Darya, but the look bounced off the Harat-Shar pantherine without even denting the mischievous smile. With a sigh, Felsha continued her own scans, running on an auxiliary panel while she piloted the eagle.

     "You really think we're going to find aliens, don't you?" Darya said, and from her tone it was the first serious thing she'd asked. Because of that, Felsha ignored the incredulous note and answered.

     "I'm hoping."

     "It's highly unlikely," Darya said. "We would have found them by now."

     "Not necessarily," Felsha said. "Our orbital scanners aren't perfect, and it's not like we've flown the entire world over, looking. For all we know they might be in plastic bubbles on the ocean floor."

     "We would have picked up some sort of energy signature from something that size," Darya said dismissively, eyes flicking from one solidigraph to the next.

     "The point is to have a good look," Felsha said. "Especially since finding the aliens means we might be able to ask them what's wrong with Commander Virgil."

     "Ah, so that's what it's about," Darya said.

     Felsha shrugged, tail curling.

     "Can't say I blame you then," Darya said. "I don't like her lying up there any better than you do." She squinted. "I seriously doubt we're going to find any natives, Felsha-arii. But would some artifacts suffice?"
     Felsha glanced past Darya's shoulder at the solidigraphs and yanked the eagle to a hovering halt. "Sungod!"

     Darya traced the glint of reflected light that had caught her eye with the point of one nail. "You called it."

     They set down a few feet from the artifact and disembarked, armed with two of the science department's archeology kits. Darya started delineating the edges of the artifact while Felsha paced the surrounding area, scanning for more.

     "This is strange," Darya said, whisking away some of the sand. "It's a hemisphere of silver."

     "How big is it?" Felsha said, squinting at a strange pattern in the sand. There was no reply for several minutes. She turned around. "Darya?"

     "Still going," Darya said, wielding the blower and brush.

     Felsha returned to her own survey and found another peculiar depression twenty feet away. Using her own whisk she found another piece of something and tagged it with a blue flag. As she walked a spiral away from Darya's location, more and more of her blue flags dotted the ground over the tips of carved blocks.

     "I think this is big," Felsha called to Darya.

     The pantherine stood, brushing off her uniform tunic. "I'll say. Come look at this."

     Felsha jogged over and joined Darya at the shining disk, which had become a shallow sloping dome. The pantherine had whisked smooth a five foot long stretch with no signs of an end. She'd stopped at a round hole carefully etched into a circular design, then cut a handful of feet to either side until she'd found another.

     "Look through that," Darya said.

     Felsha put her eye to one of the holes and gasped. The other hole let in a spear of sunlight that fell at least twenty feet before petering out. As she struggled with vertigo, she heard Darya's voice.

     "First Commander? This is Eagle One. You'd better relocate the archeology team, sir . . . we've found a building."

#12

     Taylitha stood beneath the awning, her gaze fixed on the intense activity forty feet away. The science teams had discarded the uniform tunics that had been deemed inappropriate in the heat and were mostly dressed in sleeveless white blouses tucked into their uniform pants. They had transformed Darya and Felsha's site from a sandy plain into a stair-stepped excavation. Chunks of the earth had been removed, and the depression was getting deeper as she watched. Flags and ropes cordoned off the site, bright white fabric reflecting the sunlight.

     And in the middle of this, not just one building, but at least three, columns and domes rising out of the earth.

     Taylitha's eyes re-focused on the figure of the captain, skirting the edges of the dig and occasionally stopping to talk with one of the scientists. Alysha had adopted the team's mode of dress and had even pulled her hair back in a loose braid, a style that accentuated the stark angles of her face and the length of her neck. She looked composed in the heat; Taylitha observed her talking at some length with several people and never once wiping her brow as the others did. She wondered if she would ever have that poise, that depth of control.

     She wondered if that depth of control was as beneficial as it seemed, her mind wandering to their sparring sessions.

     Taylitha glanced outside again and noted the captain heading back. She poured a glass of water and had it ready for Alysha when the other ducked into the shade.

     "Amazing," Alysha said, shaking her head. "This is a simply astounding find. Between the caves and these buildings . . ."

     Taylitha nodded. "Some history we're making."

     "I wasn't expecting anything this big." Alysha sipped from the glass, her eyes returning to the dig. "We might not even be able to stay."

     "You think Fleet will send a bigger team?" Taylitha asked, ears flattening. "That will disappoint the crew."

     "I wouldn't blame them for the feeling," Alysha said. "But an excavation of this size could take months, and Fleet Central might want us to move on before that. I'll find out when I make my next report." She frowned, a faint crease above her eyes and a thinning of her lips. "Although Alastar might buy us some time. They may not want to move us until we find out what happened to her."

     "Or they might want us to leave her here," Taylitha pointed out.

     Alysha's glance mingled humor and irony. "Playing devil's advocate, Taylitha?"    

     "I am your first commander," Taylitha said, folding her arms. "And you know Fleet isn't likely to hold up an entire ship on behalf of a single officer, no matter how far up the chain she is."

     "They make exceptions," Alysha said, "but you're right."

     Taylitha studied the captain's face, still in profile to hers, trying to decide what the other woman was thinking.

     "It might behoove me to delay my latest report for a while," Alysha said.

     "How?" Taylitha asked.

     Alysha grinned, a sudden flash of white teeth. "Any number of things can prevent a captain from issuing her encounter reports, Commander. Crises of any kind. I could get lost, hurt--"

     "I would prefer the captain didn't!" Taylitha exclaimed.

     "--I could even have a stomach flu," Alysha continued, unperturbed. "I'm sure Laelkii could arrange something if I can't find some other way to keep busy." She finished off her water and handed the glass to Taylitha. "In fact, I think I'll start on that right now. Are there any personnel left at the obelisk site?"

     "A few," Taylitha replied warily.

     "Then I'll join them and get my hands dirty," Alysha said. "It's been a while since I exercised my linguistics background on something this immediate. We can use all the help we can get, ah?"

     "That would be helpful," Taylitha admitted. "We're short-handed in that department."

     "Perfect," Alysha said. "You're in charge of the dig sites, arii. Keep everyone in one piece while I'm hunting for minimal pairs."

     Taylitha nodded, recognizing her orders. "Of course, sir." She cleared her throat. "The captain won't do anything untoward while she's getting her hands dirty, will she? I would hate to have to assign a security detail to your safety."

     One of Alysha's brows quirked, matching the edge of her mouth. "A little risk is implicit in life, Commander."

     "A little risk," Taylitha allowed. "Not unnecessary risk. Alastar is already out of action. The rest of us can't afford to be found in a similar state."

     Alysha inclined her head. "Point made. I'll take care of myself." She threw a towel around her shoulders and headed for the Pads the team had set up near the dig. The woman had vanished before Taylitha wondered if Alysha had actually agreed to be careful or if she was asserting that she was capable of handling herself and any other situation that might come her way.

     Taylitha rubbed her forehead and suppressed a sigh.

#13

     Alysha stepped out of the Pad tunnel onto the Stardancer's fixed Pad station near the bridge. Taylitha's comment had made her want to check on Alastar, and the impulse had carried her to the ship before she curbed it. Laelkii would have called had 'Star's condition changed, and hovering over Snowhide would only make the medical staff doubt the captain's faith in their C-med.

     Changing course, Alysha stopped instead in her quarters to pick up some lighter clothing. The white blouse helped with the heat, but the uniform's black fabric transformed the pants into a furnace. Alysha exchanged them for a pair of taupe exercise shorts, her rank braid running the length of their side seams, and shucked her boots altogether. The digitigrade races of the Alliance, like the Seersa and Karaka'A like Alysha, did not require footwear on most terrain, having inherited the thick pads and paw-like feet of their genetic forebears.

     Her feet would need some conditioning before long use, though. Alysha grabbed a jar of paste-like lotion and began rubbing it into her toes and feet. She was about to switch legs when the priority mail chime sounded.

     Startled, Alysha called, "Open mail. Holographic, please."

     Her mailbox popped into view a few feet in front of her, hovering between her and the bureau. A red-flagged item headed the list, even the letters glowing in brilliant neon. From FC, like the one before it that she hadn't read. Was it really so important? Why send it flat, then, and not through the priority channels?

     "Open message four-two-two," Alysha said.

     A new window opened, and in it a text message asking for Alysha's immediate response to the previous invitation.

     Truly perplexed now, Alysha said, "Backtrack to the last Fleet flat message. Open."

     Your presence is requested at the biennial Fleet captain's retreat on [insert date] at [insert planet]. Please reply immediately with mission status and location so you can be scheduled appropriately.

     The jar in her hands slid through numb fingers to the carpeted floor. She'd been privileged to work for many fascinating captains in her swift rise to the Stardancer's seat, and all of them had brought back horror stories about the mandatory retreats. The Fleet scheduled them to correspond with the ship builder's suggested maintenance periods. While the crews oversaw refits and tune-ups, their captains were forced into the hands of psychologists and counselors. Ostensibly the retreats familiarized a captain with her peers and give her an opportunity to discuss any issues she might have found troublesome. In reality, the counselors who ran such retreats were more interested in making more work for themselves by jamming open old wounds, or mediating stirred-up arguments. The only peace at such gatherings was created by the core of senior-level officers who were present at the time, for admirals were often invited to preside over some of the "team-building" exercises.

     There was no escaping such a summons. The mental health of its senior staff concerned the Fleet brass immensely, particularly given its civilian oversight and primarily non-military mission. For all its pride in its motto, Fleet did less Protecting and Preserving and more expanding and exploring, and as long as it remained that way, the counselors and psychologists would have free rein with the high-level officers.

     Reluctance pregnant in her lifted hand, Alysha reached for the window with a paste-covered fingertip. The display altered to solidigraph mode, using its magnetic fields to present the illusion of resistance. Her touch activated the reply and a new window opened. She entered their location and hesitated over sending it.

     Her finger tapped the 'pause' button and the window darkened into standby. With a sigh, Alysha leaned over her knees, smearing lotion on her calves. She thought of Taylitha's sharp eyesight. If her First Commander could see her past in her movements, psychologists eager to find fault with her would never miss it. The last thing she needed--wanted--was to be investigated. Nor did she particularly want anyone else's part in her affairs uncovered. But despite all her personal misgivings, she had other reasons for trying to postpone her reply. The Fleet didn't need another reason to drag the Stardancer away from the planet prematurely, before Alastar's condition could be resolved.

     Frustrated, Alysha rose and paced. If she stayed in her rooms, she'd have fewer and fewer reasons to avoid her responsibility to the Personnel office. Eventually, her sense of duty would drive her to answer the communiqué. She had to get out--but where to go?

     Where were the answers? No . . . that was not the right question. A vision of 'Star, lying wan and listless in the haloarch's invisible embrace, flashed in her mind's eye. How would she wrest the answers free?

Alysha strode from her rooms to the nearest Pad, stopping only to raid the nearest locker for what she wanted. The tunnel emitted her near the digs, but no one dared near her when she exited. She was not conscious of being impolite, but the aura that flowed behind her did not invite the usual respectful hails and well-mets.

     To the sea, she walked, and stood on its banks. She paced there, staring toward the horizon. The waters lapped the shore with a hush-hush that sounded like an admonition about keeping secrets, but somewhere in those waters was an answer for Alastar.

     Alysha dropped the contents of her duffel and changed into the slimsuit that could work for either short EVAs or diving. The goggles she hung around her neck, but the oxygen exchange nose guard she clipped between her nostrils. Her telegem, already waterproof, remained glued to the inside of her ear . . . but just in case, she hooked a kit around her waist.

     She waded into the ocean.

     The waters enveloped her without kindness. The salt weighed heavily on the fur exposed at her neck, and the waves rolled swiftly, one after the next, aggressive and capped with cold white foam. Alysha gave up swimming and floated, relaxing her body while staring into the cloudless sky. While she had no definitive plan, she was also not in immediate danger . . . save that which awaited her on shore when Taylitha discovered how she'd spent her afternoon.

     The waters had taken 'Star. Perhaps floating in them would provide some answers. Alysha closed her eyes and willed them to come.

     What came instead was a significant chill, brushing over her face and lips. When Alysha opened her eyes a purple dusk had chased the sun over the horizon. The shore had receded to a violet line. She slipped the goggles on and righted herself, letting them adjust to the low lighting while she paddled.

     The water had not suggested anything. She hadn't even felt the faintest brush of the wan veil she'd experienced in the cave. Disappointment was more bitter than salt. She decided to swim the distance to shore and ducked her head beneath water.

     A tentacle was blocking her path.

     With a gasp, Alysha bolted above the surface. She remained very still, barely paddling. Slowly she lowered her head until her eyes broke the surface. The tentacle was still there. Nor was it the only one. She was surrounded by them, beneath her, to the sides. The thickest ones were easily the width of her body.

     They were obviously surrounding her, but just as obviously not attempting to grasp at her. Steeling herself, Alysha rotated and sank beneath the water.

     The giant eye studying her still came as a complete surprise.

#14

     Taylitha wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and squinted into the uncertain light. When had dusk fallen? The hole in the ground now gaped deep and broad, gathering all the shadows of the twilight and condensing them, hiding the treasures the crew had been unearthing.

     Felsha joined her on the high ground, her stained shirt clinging to her body. "Good evening, sir."

     "Felsha," Taylitha said, trying to see the silhouettes as they moved around the lip of the dig. "Are those lights they're setting up?"

     The younger Asanii nodded. "The work crews are planning to keep going. There's no reason not to. With enough light, they should be able to keep from making any mistakes. When they're done, it'll be brighter than day."

     "As long as they sleep," Taylitha says. "The lights won't matter if some sleep-mazed person puts a shovel through the last cache of alien books on the planet."

     Felsha's ears flattened to the back of her head in horror.

     "I'm just jesting, arii," Taylitha said with a tired laugh, then sobered. "Well, mostly. I'm not about getting rest. The work crews are on rotation, aren't they?"

     Felsha nodded. "Yes, sir." She paused, ears hesitantly rising again. "Except . . . "

     "Except?" Taylitha asked.

     "Except you, sir," Felsha finished, casting her eyes down.

     "Me? What do you--oh, I see." Taylitha laughed. "I'm not going to cuff you for telling me to follow my own advice, Felsha. I know I'm past the point where another cup of coffee is going to help me any . . . if I could stand to drink something so hot." She rubbed the small of her back, trying not to make a face when her uniform stuck to the fur there. "I'll take a last look around and then head upstairs. Who's in charge of the night crew? I haven't looked at the rotations since I okayed them this morning. Was it Rashiveil?"

     Felsha nodded. "She's very awake."

     "She usually has night shift," Taylitha said. "Don't forget to seek your own bunk, eh, lieutenant?"

     "On my way, sir," Felsha said with a smile, and headed toward the tents that hid the Pads to the 'Dancer. Taylitha watched her go with a fond smile. She had no doubt Felsha was good first commander material, wanting only seasoning. With enough experience, any number of ships would take her in a breath-pause, if Felsha decided to leave. And really, it was the decision that was hardest. Jobs aboard a starship were just that: jobs. Increases in rank offered more responsibilities than the commensurate raise in pay suggested. Most people were perfectly content to remain in the departments they'd chosen, doing the work they'd specialized in, on the ship they'd been assigned to. Promotions within departments usually kept you on your assigned berth . . . but move outside of it, and Fleet would attempt to assign you to wherever your new rank and specialty was needed. One need not accept. Esprit de corps was held in high esteem by Fleet Central's Personnel Office, or so they constantly told her in the literature they sent all the first commanders in Fleet. As the Stardancer's first commander, Taylitha was all too acquainted with FC's opinions on personnel; personnel management was one of her prime duties.

     Taylitha bound her sweat-tangled mane up behind her ears and began her walk around the perimeters of the dig site and the tents.

     Eventually she would be offered a promotion, and would have to choose between them. The intimacies of being a first commander, aware of all the minutia of her vessel -- how much material it needed on re-supply, which departments were short manpower or overrunning their budgets, how efficient the atmospherics were and which corridors were giving Engineering conniptions -- or the responsibilities of being a captain, ultimate liaison between her tiny world and the Fleet, making the final decisions and taking the sword on behalf of those who messed up in her name.

     Taylitha suddenly thought it strange that Alysha wanted to close the distance between herself and her enemies. Wasn't being captain about setting oneself apart?

     She had walked farther from the edge of the camp than she wanted, to an area where the land rumpled into a few ridges. Ascending one of them, Taylitha found herself with an excellent view of the dig. Lieutenant Commander Rashiveil had flooded part of the hole with high intensity lights, and several more fluttered online as Taylitha watched. All this effort to uncover what remained of a civilization they'd come too late to see before the sand had claimed it. Perhaps there was already enough distance in life without adding more to it? Taylitha sat on the ground and put her chin in her hand, watching the activity below, with only her glum thoughts to keep her company.

     "No, it can't be that easy," she told the camp. "There's never a single answer, right?"

     The wind whistled a low response.

     "Of course not," Taylitha muttered. She thought of her captain on the gym floor, the practice swords. Was it as easy as Alysha made it look, to pass from such intimacy into distance and back again? Did you have to, in order to succeed?

     Taylitha's thoughts wandered back to the eventful canoe trip that had introduced her to then Ensign Forrest. She remembered the disarming combination of reserve and easy intimacy that had set the strange Karaka'An apart then and shook her head. "No . . . definitely not a single answer, or more people would be like that." Taylitha chuckled faintly. "I suppose I'll have to find my own answer, as usual. Right?"

     The wind hissed back. Taylitha stretched, inviting it to ruffle her sweat-tangled hair . . . and paused. Why wasn't it cooling her? Maybe the ridge was protecting her from the breeze. She glanced upward to see if it was brushing the sand above her head.

     A dark shape blocked her view of the sky and hissed at her.

     Taylitha jumped away onto her hands and knees. The creature on the ridge peered over it at her.

     "Some kind of animal," Taylitha whispered to herself, but the "animal" was staring at her with large, dark eyes, too intent for her comfort. And then it raised an arm . . . no, two arms. Four. Four arms, and one of them held what was unmistakably a spear pointed at her.

     "Wait," Taylitha said, "I don't mean you any harm!" She tried to keep her voice low and stretch the words out. "See, here are my hands. They're empty. No weapons. No rocks."

     The creature leaned forward. It had a pointed head, but she couldn't see much more detail in the deepening dark, only the glint of the camp's faraway lights in its eyes and tracing the edge of its so-sharp spear.

     Where, oh where, was Alysha? Taylitha hadn't bothered to read the full First Contact manual; First Contacts were supposed to be handled by the ship's captain, and for some reason Fleet had assumed that their officers would always have set the situation up to their advantage, that it would entail at most some decorum and certainly at least five or six people. Though she'd only skimmed the pages, Taylitha was sure there were no sections for first commanders who had accidentally tripped over an alien in the dark, alone. For a wild instant, Taylitha thought about turning around and going to find Alysha.

     The creature whistled at her, bringing her abruptly back from her reverie.

     "I know you don't understand anything I'm saying," Taylitha said cautiously. "But if you'll just come with me to the camp, we can get some linguists on the matter. We mean you no harm, really."

     It only continued studying her, its gaze implacable and unreadable.

     "Okay, let's start with little things first, then," Taylitha said. "Let me just get up? Here, I'm going to very slowly stand . . . ." She suited actions to words, rolling onto her knees and then back onto her foot pads. As she stood, the creature canted its head, then backed away.

     "No, wait!" Taylitha said, standing fully and reaching out a hand.

     With a peep, the creature skittered sideways, then leaped off the ridge and into the shadows behind it. Taylitha lunged after it, but it was already running through the shadows.

     "An curse it all," Taylitha swore, and whistled her telegem on. She realized just as suddenly that the sound wasn't unlike the one the creature had used on her and cursed again. What if that's what its language usually sounded like? Curse it all, she wasn't a linguist!

     "Ummm . . . you said something, Commander Basil?" Lieutenant Rashiveil's uncertain voice hummed in her ear, since the telegem opened to the last channel she'd been using.

     "Rashiveil, get some people up here, immediately. I've found what looks like a native, but it's running away from me. I'm in pursuit--"

     "A native!" Rashiveil exclaimed, then continued quickly, "Of course, Commander, we're on it."

     Taylitha nodded, though no one could see her, and ran after the creature.

#15

     Alysha held herself very still beneath the water's surface, clearing her mind. The giant eye hadn't moved, nor had the tentacles. It did much as she was doing . . . did it know what she was doing?

Never far from the surface of her own soul's ocean, the old fascinations rose and lent her eyes their own glimmer. New creatures, new peoples, new cultures, new languages: it was hard not to love them all. Alysha took a breath and drifted closer, trusting to the whispers in the back of her mind. True espers were unusual in the Alliance, clustered in only a few races, and Alysha was not one of them. But Sensitivity was not unusual, and she had a touch of it, enough to suspect the octopus would not hurt her.

The giant eye tracked her motion, but besides that and the sea-current flutter of its limbs, it did not move. Alysha floated next to its eye and stared into that pupil.

     It was looking at her. More than that, it knew she knew.

     Help me, she thought. Help me help Alastar. Tell me what it is I need to know.

     A long limb uncoiled in front of her, dragging with it a long membrane she hadn't noticed that attached all along the length of the tentacle. It joined to the one beside it like a skirt, and when the creature lifted it her breath caught in her throat. It scintillated, colors sublime and swift, running like lightning from limb to limb as the membrane shifted. She'd never seen anything like it.

     "Beautiful," she whispered into the water, tasting the salt and tang of it in her mouth. The oxygen exchange clip in her nose complained with a chirp, and she shut her mouth again.

     Another tentacle uncurled on the other side of her, and then the whole canopy tilted so that some of it broke the surface of the water above them. Alysha glanced up at it, then back at the eye, and finally at the hole in the water it seemed to suggest . . . as if the creature were trying to block her movements and roll her against the current.

     That way, she thought, and swam. Behind her the water roiled and then pushed against her, and for a moment a fear older than sentience leaped from the pit of her body: something followed her. Something larger than her.

     Alysha ignored it and paddled on. Behind her, the octopus crawled along. Occasionally it sent a few tentacles in front of her to block other prospective routes. As the waters darkened, the creature's skin grew paler, until it was giving off enough light for her to see by without the aid of the goggles. Schools of fish darted away at their approach; larger creatures Alysha couldn't name swerved out of their way. They were drawing close to the coast.

     Surely this wasn't a friendly escort to shore? But no, the creature banked and with a surprising grace for something its size rippled away toward what looked like a coral bank. Alysha followed.

     Not coral, but the hard rock of the caves near the coast, she decided as she came to a halt beside a round hole in the rock. The surface of the water was only a few feet above her, too shallow for the entirety of her guide to fit. The end of one tentacle hung in the water beside her, and trusting instinct Alysha rested her slimsuit-gloved hand on it.

     So now what? She wondered.

     The end of the tentacle didn't terminate in a point, but rather a spray of tinier tentacles and one thicker one. The thicker one reached out and traced the hole, then withdrew. Alysha glanced back at the eye, deeper in the water, then at the hole.

     Not too far below the water level, she thought. She checked her kit and brought out the light she hadn't needed while swimming within the canopy of the octopus's arms. She shone it into the hole . . . up it. It led to the surface.

     Alysha stroked the thicker tentacle, the one the size of her wrist, and swam up the tunnel. A few minutes later, after a few twists, she breached the surface of the water . . .

     And found herself in the cavern where they'd discovered Alastar. Startled, she sloshed over to the mouth of the cavern and stared out at the ocean, but the only sign of her guide was a faint luminescence beneath the surface of the water.

     "Why here?" she asked. "There's nothing here!"

     The cavern mouth closed.

#16

     "We think we've cornered it, sir," said Rashiveil over the telegem. "Just ahead of you. We'll wait for you before we net it."

     "Be careful, Lieutenant. We don't want to scare it," Taylitha said, panting. She got the Fleet-mandated amount of exercise a week, but chasing aliens with extra legs across an alien landscape in the dark after having spent the entire day on her feet was enough to wind anyone. Or so she consoled herself. It didn't help that the countryside gave the appearance of becoming more and more mountainous. She gave herself a moment to catch her breath, then walked the rest of the way at a brisk pace.

     Five women were arrayed around the mouth of a gully. If Taylitha strained her eyes, she could see the dark shape pressed against its far wall.

     "The only way it can come is out," Rashiveil said, standing behind the other four, who had a net stretched between them. The lieutenant had a shock staff in her hand.

     Taylitha eyed the gully's sheer wall, some thirty feet up. "Are you sure--nah." She shook her head. "All right. Let me go in."

     "Take this," Rashiveil said, offering the staff.

     Taylitha started to shake her head again, but Rashiveil kept her hand outstretched.

     "Please, sir. If it can have a spear, why can't you have a staff?"

     "This is a little more dangerous than that spear, Lieutenant."

     Rashiveil snorted. "All due respect, Commander, but that spear will rip open a hole in your body, or slash your throat, or pierce a vital organ. The staff will just knock it out."

     "We hope," Taylitha said. "If its biology agrees with ours." She sighed and took the staff. "But just in case."

     Rashiveil nodded in approval. "You can always use it without the shock-field on."

     "Right," Taylitha muttered, and walked to the others. She ducked under the net's silken edge and walked toward the end of the gully on light feet, trying neither to make too much noise nor to be too secretive in her approach. Slowly, deliberately. She stopped twenty feet away.

     The creature was facing her, standing nearly fully upright on powerful haunches. Its spear remained pointed at her, and its entire attitude suggested aggression. Wariness. Was she reading it right?
     "I have a staff now too," Taylitha said, trying to keep her voice soft. "So now we're even. I imagine that doesn't make you feel any better, but I'm really not here to hurt you."

     It hissed at her.

     "Oh, right," Taylitha said under her breath. "You don't speak Universal." She licked her lips, then pursed them and tried a low, flute's breath sound.

     The creature leaned so far toward her she had no idea how it remained upright. Its entire body described a curve in the air, as if it had no bones to interfere. She supposed its arms, flung backward, helped keep it in that unlikely position, but the realization didn't calm her nerves. It took her several tries to get the next sound out, and instead of the tightly controlled melody she fumbled into a high-pitched *twee* instead.

     It slammed back against the wall, wagging its head. Twisting in a way Taylitha couldn't imagine would spare its spine several fractures, it threw itself against the wall and scrabbled up it.

     Taylitha stared up at the tiny punctures its claws left in the rock, still spilling bits of scree.

     "Angels!" Rashiveil said. "How on the Fields did it do that? Around, go around! Follow it!"

     "Right," Taylitha said to the wall, chagrined. "No more whistling." With a sigh, she turned to run after the others, then stumbled to a halt and whistled her telegem on. "Rashiveil, enough. This is crazy. One of us is going to break a leg running over unfamiliar terrain in the dark."

     "We can get night goggles down here--"

     "Fast enough to find it?" Taylitha said. She sat on the ground at the mouth of the gully, rubbing a cramped calf and wincing. "We're just going to have to try in the morning."

     "But sir!"

     "Enough, Lieutenant. Where there's one of these creatures, there have to be more. Now that we know what we're looking for . . . "

     Rashiveil's silence was eloquent. The Stardancer was equipped with all the Alliance Fleet's latest technology and its feats sometimes had the air of miracles, but finding natives where they hadn't before was beyond the scope of its powers.

     "This is our mission," Rashiveil said after a moment, hesitant.

     What would Alysha do? Come to think of it, why not just ask? Taylitha chirped a channel change to the command line. "Captain?"

     No response. She could be sleeping; it was night shift. Taylitha switched channels again to the Stardancer's interface. "Computer, wake up the captain."

     "The captain is not aboard," the ship responded.

     Taylitha stopped, mouth ajar.

     "Commander?" Rashiveil said.

     The decision was hers. The 'Dancer's mission was to explore, to learn, to bring back the fruits of unknown space to the Alliance. In the Fleet's motto, "To Discover" came first, not "To Preserve."

     "Continue the--"

     The creature's eyes blinked out of the dark at her.

     "Commander?"

     "Belay that," Taylitha said on her breath out. Why did the thing have to catch her flat on her backside with muscle cramps that would have given an athlete pause? "I found him."

     "On our way, sir!"

     "Now," Taylitha said. "If I can just get you to stay still until the cavalry arrives . . . "

     It crept out of the dark toward her on six legs, the spear scraping against the soil as it drew closer. When it was only ten feet away, the wind brought its peculiar scent to Taylitha's nose, like warm pepper.

     "Okay, that's close enough," Taylitha said, leaning away.

     The creature stopped. It trilled at her, and for some reason she thought of a melancholy wind though she could read no expression on its face, make no sense of its eyes and mouth in the dark.

     "Sorry," Taylitha whispered. "I don't understand."

     It whistled the same flutter at her again, lifting its head. When she did nothing, it drew in its breath in a backwards whistle and then crumpled against the sands.

     "An!" Taylitha exclaimed, jumping to catch it and missing. Her cramped legs complained and she fell awkwardly back into the ground. "Rashiveil!"

     "Here, sir," the woman said, appearing out of the dark with the other women.

     "Change of plans," Taylitha said, waving the net-holders over. "We're taking it to the Medplex."

#17

     Alysha stared at the wall of stone that barred the view, ignoring the drops of water that fell from her body and splashed against the ankle-deep pool.

     "This is not here," she said, reaching with a single hand. Her fingertips met rock, pebbly and solid. She rested her palm against it and pushed with all her might, but she did not stumble back out onto the beach. She could try her diver's knife on it, but she doubted it would help.

     Of course, she had natural armament.

     Closing her eyes, Alysha placed both hands on the rock wall and let her claws slip loose from their sheathes. They sliced open her claw beds on the way out; it had been too short a time since she'd last used them, and the scabs hadn't had time to toughen again. The scent of blood stabbed the air.

     Gently, Alysha dug the tips of her claws into the stone. The scratching noise irritated her ears, but worse, she couldn't feel any give beneath her fingers. Her synthetic claws were made of breathnache, a material that could cut through starship bulkheads. They gave her no end of trouble, despite being sharpened only at the tips and along part of the curving edge, but she'd kept them because they'd saved her life more than once. They should have sliced into the rock like a hot knife through butter. Gritting her teeth, Alysha let them slide back into her fingers. There was no point in trying to force the issue; she would only tear up her own hands.

     "I suppose this is why you didn't walk out, 'Star," Alysha murmured, fighting her rising anger. The ocean was just outside that wall. Why had the octopus led her here? Restless, she paced the perimeter of the cavern, looking at the glowing paintings. Fish . . . she'd seen them in her swim. Some of the odder-looking larger creatures too.

     The first depiction of the octopus, though, made her pause. It glowed in serene beauty on the wall, rendered in a greenish white with long strands of deeper blue, violet and green to connect its tentacles, and a glowing orange eye. Writing curved near its head, two tiers of it in tiny blue letters.

     Alysha studied it and the writing, then slowed her pace as she scanned the walls. She found more of the cephalopods, with more of the writing . . . always two tiers, and similar characters. Intrigued, she began hunting for other creatures with writing around them.

     Lower on the wall, a tiny incandescent eye burning with yellow fury caught her gaze. Attached to a long, slim body almost shark-like in its sleek purpose, it too had banks of words. Different from the octopuses, though. Alysha traced the length of the creature, three times as large as the largest octopus depicted on the wall, and wondered if it was to scale, and how the artist had managed to convey its silent menace. Perhaps to them it represented something else? Other aliens in the Alliance had developed drawing styles that failed to translate their emotions--they were based on their people's different ways of expressing them. Once you know the one, the other came.

     These could be the first aliens to be different. But there was no use complicating it from the outset without more data. Sometimes things were just as they seemed; the similarities in the peoples they'd discovered had outnumbered the differences.

     Alysha sat on a slice of rock that jutted above the waterline and stared at the drawings. She leaned back on her hands and let her gaze travel the entirety of the cavern. Why had the octopus sent her here? To look at the drawings? Why trap her inside?

     Unless there was more to this than she thought. Alastar had been found here insensate. Laelkii had said something about the water having an unusual chemical addition. A neurotransmitter. One that had probably given 'Star hallucinations.

     Hallucinations . . . or something else?

     Alysha dropped her hands into the water and wiggled her fingers. She waited, but nothing happened. Maybe it needed more? She unzipped the top of her slimsuit and tugged an arm out of its tight grip. She slipped her arm into the water.

     After a few moments, the drawings on the walls seemed to lose focus. Waiting longer didn't change the effect.

     With a growl, Alysha shucked off the slimsuit entirely and then the abbreviated bodysuit that served most officers for underwear. She stretched out completely in the water and floated.

     There were paintings on the ceiling. She hadn't noticed them. Octopuses, dancing, arms spread to reveal their beautiful silky canopies, emblazoned with orange and pale blue paint. They were beautiful. The tiny little creatures beside them took longer to separate from the rock canvas, painted in darker violet with orange eyes, little four-armed things barely the size of the smallest octopus's eye.

     They were all dancing together then. Alysha floated in the shallow pool and watched them. Surely there was no mistaking their happiness. She had always guarded herself against anthropomorphizing new species before she understood them, but the paintings spoke for themselves. Particularly when they moved, leaving little splashes of paint in their wakes. Most peculiar, that part.

     The giant that finned around the edge of the ceiling took her by surprise. Without thought, Alysha unsheathed her claws and waited with clenched jaw. The black swatch of paint spiraled into the celebration and one by one, the celebrants vanished, folded into darkness that dripped from the ceiling. At last, nothing remained but the leviathan, drifting in the center and staring down at her with an angry yellow eye.

     Alysha flipped over on her way to her feet so she could swipe her hand over the ceiling. She had only risen to her knees when the wall behind her melted away.

     "But the rest of the caverns . . . ," she said. Yet the rest of the caverns weren't there: the ocean was. The ocean that was supposed to be behind her. Her voice didn't even echo, as if someone had peeled the walls of the cave away.

     And why not? They'd sealed her in before. If any of this was real, she had to investigate. And if it wasn't, there was nothing she could do but trust someone to find her body and deliver it to Laelkii.

     In the between time, there was work to do. Alysha searched for her discarded slimsuit and hesitated. If contact with the water facilitated the hallucinations, should she seal away her skin? The water had already worked its way past her very short fur, and she would be no good to anyone if hypothermia stole her mind from her.

     Standing unsteadily in the cavern, trying to ignore the very real sensation of the tide rushing in past her ankles, Alysha realized she was debating whether to dress for a swim in a hallucinogenic ocean. Laughing, she left the slimsuit folded on the rock and took only her utility belt and kit. The oxygen-exchange clip she couldn't quite leave; she left it wedged on and turned to the ocean. Perhaps it was the effect of the cave, of the waters, but she couldn't quite rid herself of the impression that it was beckoning.

     "All right, then," Alysha said, amused. She splashed to the edge of the cave, then dove cleanly into the dark waters.

#18

     "Coming through," Taylitha said, and stopped just inside the doors to the Medplex to allow the net-holders to carry the alien in. Past their shoulders, she called, "Snowhide!"

     Laelkii appeared in the antechamber's opposite arch, toweling off her hands. "Oh no! Not another one! Why didn't you bring her on a--Sun and stars, Taylitha, what is that thing?"

     "A native," Taylitha said. "He collapsed . . . we'd been chasing him a while. Is it exhaustion? You have to help."

     "Of course, I'll try, but . . . I thought we'd looked for natives and not found any," Laelkii said as the women placed the alien on one of the beds. She followed them in and waved them away before studying the bed's read-outs.

     "Well, this one found me," Taylitha said, standing on the other side of the bed. She couldn't understand the displays, so she transferred her attention to the creature. Flooded in the Medplex's clear lights, she could at last see that it had skin, a leathery soft skin that stretched taut over its long limbs. It seemed to have a skeleton similar to theirs, though how those multiple arms connected Taylitha couldn't imagine even with the lights to give her clues.

     "Is it a reptile?" Taylitha asked.

     "No," Laelkii said. "At least, not that I can tell from a quick look. I'll need more time." She grimaced. "I don't suppose you found more than one of these people down there? Say, one that isn't unconscious and possibly injured?"

     Taylitha shook her head, chagrined. "I'm sorry, Laelkii. It's the only alien we've run into so far. You can help it, right?"

     "I don't know," Laelkii said. "Depends on what's wrong with it." She reached over the body and touched Taylitha's wrist. "But arii, don't get your hopes up too high, ah? Even if I do bring it back, there's no guarantee it will know how to help Alastar."

     "Or that it will lead us to the rest of its people?" Taylitha finished, and laughed a little. "I'll try not to hope too much. But An above, Snowhide, there are so many questions lying around that we're bound to step on some of the answers, right?"

     "Right," Laelkii said. "Now go take a bath and eat and sleep. No, eat and then bathe and then sleep, or you might miss your supper. You look tired enough to drop."

     "As soon as I find Alysha," Taylitha said. "Then I'll rest."

     "And if she sees you looking like this, she might tackle you and drag you to your bed, herself," Laelkii said tartly.

     "At least I'll know she's still alive to tackle me," Taylitha said, and sucked in a breath the moment the words left her.

     Laelkii's dark eyes fastened on her. Without breaking her gaze, she waved a few doctors over and said, "Keep an eye on this critter." Then she took Taylitha by the elbow and dragged her to a corner. "What was that supposed to mean?"

     Taylitha's ears drooped. "I misspoke--"

     "You did not. What happened?"

     "I don't know!" Taylitha said. "It's just that the ship said she wasn't aboard, and she hasn't been answering her comm hails."

     "Maybe she's meditating. Or exercising," Laelkii said, rolling her lower lip between her teeth and worrying at it.

     "Comm-silent? That's not like her," Taylitha said. "Is it?"

     Laelkii shook her head. "Not usually. Maybe Alastar's condition has her worried, though."

     "Well, that makes two of us," Taylitha said. "I'm going to find her before I sleep. You have an alien to take care of, Doctor. Let me take care of Alysha."

     Laelkii snorted. "You should know better than to think I'll just take your word for it. I've known her longer than you. I'm not going to stop worrying just because you tell me." She held up a hand to forestall the other woman's protest. "Don't tell me that I need to go handle the critter. I will. But call me when you find out where she's gone, okay? I know she's fine, but it would help me sleep better."

     Taylitha nodded, then paused. "You're not usually night shift, Snowhide."

     Laelkii shrugged. "I've been waking up at irregular intervals to check on 'Star. And no, I don't need any flak from you about that, young thing. I know I need my rest. Go to your duty and I'll go to mine."

     Taylitha recognized the stubborn set of Laelkii's brow; arguing with her wasn't going to change her mind. It wouldn't have changed Tayl's either, so she could hardly blame the doctor. "All right. I'll call you when I find anything."

     "Thanks."

     "And tell me when the native wakes up."

     "Shall do."

     Taylitha nodded and left the Medplex with only one backward glance for the brown and bony lump on the bed. Alysha first. Then rest. Then the alien. An help her, but she hoped they arrived in that order.

     Taylitha checked the gym first, knowing the captain's penchant for pounding her frustrations out on the mat. She walked it from the locker rooms to the swimming pool, but found no sign of Forrest. Nor did the few crewmembers who were using the facility so late report having seen her. She headed for the small chapels on the mid-deck. The Cat's Fang. The bridge. She even stopped at Alysha's quarters and chimed for entrance, to no avail. On her way down the hall, Taylitha whistled her telegem on and asked the computer again where the captain was.

     "The captain is not on the ship," the computer said.

     The thought of dragging her bones back down to the dig-site brought a groan from Taylitha's lips. She went to her quarters instead for a private conversation with the computer. When she approached her desk, it opened to her last saved workspace, which included all the current sensor data from the site. Taylitha dropped into her chair and consulted the tagged sensor map of the surface. On the black contour map, dozens of tiny yellow dots milled near the dig site, and another dozen at the obelisk. A paltry few moved slowly but steadily between the two.

     "Computer, display Captain Forrest's tag in red, please," Taylitha said to it.

     No red tag appeared.

     "Computer, repeat my last order to me."

     "You requested that Captain Forrest's tag be rendered in red," the computer replied.

     "Why haven't you complied?" Taylitha asked.

     "The captain's telegem is not responding. We cannot place her on the map."

     Taylitha rested her arm on the desk and her head on her arm. She gave herself a few moments to compose herself and then straightened. "Computer, search the area for the captain. Not her telegem."

     The computer chimed and then fell silent. Taylitha sat back and waited. The 'Dancer had a powerful sensor array and thousands of procedures for scanning for any one object. It would surely find the captain with one of them.

     The second chime jerked her out of a sound sleep. She'd been in it for seven minutes or so, if the chronolog in the corner of her workspace was correct.

     "Computer?"

     "Unable to locate the captain."

     Taylitha stared. "An curse it all," she said. "She'd better not be in those caves."

#19

     Alysha drifted beneath the surface of waters so dark she could hardly see her hand in front of her face. Her delicate ears were little more use. Instead, she knew the ocean by its touch, cold and dense, a hand of silt-soft fingers that combed through her loose hair. And by its smell, for the clip did not completely destroy all the compounds that passed through it: a perfume of brine and something else, something musky. The occasional high note punctuated the mix, reminding her of lemongrass.

     She floated, limbs outstretched. Swimming nude was not one of her habits, and nothing in a shower chamber could have prepared her for the sea's strong currents, pushing her fur this way and that, tugging, almost a massage. She let her useless eyes close and relaxed into it. The rhythm of the currents also suggested movements to her body, coiling and uncoiling as the water flowed around it, and she let herself dance, like the dancers on the ceiling of the cave.

     One could grow to love the sea.

     Alysha knew the tentacle by the compression of the water between herself and the next current. She reached for it and grasped it with a hand, interrupting the cadence. Beneath her, a thin floor rose, and a tentacle on the other side. She could not see, but felt the cradle of the two arms with their colorful, adjoining membrane.

     Had Alastar's hallucination been this peaceful? Would she also be found insensate?

     A sense of a question wafted, dim and low, through her mind: Alastar?

     Her second commander, of course. Brown-coated, serenely centered Alastar, with her interest in the workings of the universe and her unlikely curiosity about Terran wars and their relics, strange, terrifying weapons that destroyed more than they needed to, left wounds more horrible than necessary. Alastar, whose steadiness gave her entire command crew a core to revolve around. Alastar, enmeshed in the research gathered by an entire ship on its journeys, hand forgotten on a mug of coffee while her mind ranged the breadth of an unexplored universe.

     Ship?

     Alysha breathed in the high scent of lemongrass. No, it had changed now. Cinnamon? Cardamom? Why couldn't she differentiate? They were layered and yet distinct. Yes, the ship. Her ship. The Stardancer, gleaming metal infused with purpose and crewed by the brilliant, stalwart, good-hearted folk that were hers to caretake, just as the Alliance was hers to guard. Let Alastar explore; let Laelkii mother and Taylitha tick over all the details . . . but the Alliance's safety was her charge. No Tiells would come to bully the Alliance.

     Tiell? Bullies?

     But Alysha shied from those, and after a moment the waters offered, Alliance?

     How to answer that? For it was an answer, wasn't it? These questions weren't hers, or if they were, she was further gone into the drug-laced waters than she believed. She thought of all the peoples, starting with those engineered by humans long ago before the Pelted had made space livable and as safe as space could be. And the precious few aliens they'd encountered, like the Chatcaava shape-shifters and the inscrutable Flitzbe . . . and of course, the humans, perhaps most alien of all, fallible creators come late to their children's empire.

     Aliens!

     Yes, aliens, Alysha thought. Creatures not like us. Creatures with origins that don't intertwine with ours. She paused, letting her eyes open as awareness edged the fuzziness in her mind. The dark had not lifted, and without the currents to play her fur and hair she felt enclosed, hugged . . . unborn. She twisted around to face the center of the octopus, feeling it by the orientation of the tentacles and the slow rise of the membrane. Like you. Creatures whose differences might only prove the power of our similarities. New friends. Delight in the newness.

     A rush of rosemary-scented pleasure, so green and enlivening, an affirmative so vast it seemed to flow out on a wave of water . . . which perhaps it did. Perhaps it was talking to her with the chemicals in the sea? Perhaps it had overwhelmed Alastar in its eagerness?

     But the wave hadn't stopped with the affirmation. On its crest came thoughts that seemed words: We too had such friends. We too knew that newness.

     Tell me! Alysha thought.

#20

     To alarm the crew, or not to alarm the crew. Taylitha rubbed her eyes with the base of her hands. Her uniform felt plastered to her body, her hair matted and tangled. Her eyes hurt. All her bones wanted to sink into a bed, and worse, her own fur stank. She was in no condition to make any useful decisions.

     "All right," she said aloud. "The alien's in the Medplex. Laelkii's taking care of that. Alysha . . . is somewhere mysterious. Probably the caves. Not responding to hails. If she's in the caves, she'll need to be rescued. If she's not . . . we need to know about it anyway. So . . . send someone to investigate the caves."

     Talking it out made it make sense, at least. Who to send? Blearily, Taylitha brought up the on-planet duty roster. Someone close to the obelisk site, rather than the city. Someone awake. Who had assigned Darya to the night shift at the obelisk site? Or had Darya just added herself? Darya would do. And someone to accompany her. Steffis needed a chance to redeem herself after losing Alastar. She would send Steffis.

     "Basil to Steffis."

     "Steffis here."

     The lieutenant sounded perplexed -- no, distracted. "Sorry to tear you away, Lieutenant, but I have an assignment for you."

     "Of course, sir. How can I help?"

     "I need you and Darya to go investigate the cave where Alastar was found. Just the two of you, please. You can tell your peers where you're going, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't say why."

     Steffis did not ask the obvious, flippant question, for which Taylitha gave the lieutenant points. And herself, while she was awarding them; had she contacted Darya instead, she would have had to work around the pantherine's attitude.

     "What am I to look for, sir?"

     "You're looking for the captain, lieutenant," Taylitha said. "She was working on an independent investigation; I was to send a team at intervals."

     A note of hope crept into Steffis's voice as she said, "Something to do with the second commander, sir?"

     "Just so, Steffis, just so. Go get Darya and check. Be discreet."

     "Of course!"

     "And if she's not there, don't worry . . . she probably returned to the ship early. Basil out."

     Fast work for someone nearly asleep on her feet. Taylitha congratulated herself with a long stretch, then hefted herself out of her chair. If Steffis and Darya found Alysha awake, then their explanation would no doubt tell the captain why they'd been sent. If they didn't find Alysha, they'd report, but presume nothing was wrong.

     The third alternative Taylitha would worry about if it happened. A shower long enough to peel her uniform off her begrimed body would be just enough time to get the news . . . then she could sleep, or not. She turned that way and began the interminable process of dragging her feet, one step at time, toward the water.

     The priority chime sounded.

     Her heart clenched. Had they found the captain already? Unconscious... worse, dead? No, surely not. Taylitha ran back to her desk and hit the activation panel. Her workspace popped up again with a view of the night shift comm officer, Felsha's third.

     "Ensign?" Taylitha asked.

     "Sorry to bother you, sir," the girl said. "We have a priority message, realtime, from Fleet Central's Personnel Office. They're asking for the captain, but I can't seem to locate her. Will you take the call?"

     Taylitha gawked. FC Personnel calling the captain? Why was the ensign on her doorstep? "Did you tell them she's indisposed?"

     "Yes, sir, but they wanted to talk to someone now."

     Wildly, Taylitha thought of her haggard appearance and wondered if Personnel would recommend her for an evaluation. She could hardly toggle her visuals off for a realtime call! A quick tap on the screen did at least blank out the room behind and replace it with an Alliance seal. "Put them through, ensign."

     "Aye, sir."

     A moment later, her workspace opened a new window on a sunny office in Terracentrus, Selnor's summer capital and home to most of Fleet Central. An impeccably groomed Seersa male with tall, silky ears stared with stern grace at her, his uniform crisp and the gleaming braid of an admiral shining on his shoulder. When the connection bar at the bottom border of the image ran to the end of the screen, his face "woke" and studied her imperiously.

     "First Commander Basil? Where is Captain Forrest?"
     "She's indisposed, sir. I apologize for inconveniencing you, but it is night shift for us."

     "Inconveniencing me? She's done that already. It's highly irregular not to respond to Personnel scheduling mail, especially when it's flagged priority first. I strongly suggest you wake her, First Commander."

     "I'm . . . afraid I can't do that," Taylitha said, flexing her fingers against the chair's back, out of view. "We're involved in a very important mission here, Admiral . . . "

     "Canby," he said with a glower. "Admiral Canby." Even his ears dipped a notch backwards. Did he truly expect her to read his name off his name-tag? Then again, it was visible if one squinted. "I assure you, First Commander, my concerns are priority first, and very few things carry that weight."

     "Of course not, sir," Taylitha said. "But you see, the captain is very busy--"

     "Stonewalling the Personnel division. What can possibly be so important, First Commander?"

     "We've discovered an alien on this planet," Taylitha blurted.

     "Rispa's grace!" the Admiral exclaimed. "Why haven't you filed an official report yet?"

     "We've only just discovered them," Taylitha said quickly. "We're still compiling information, the report is almost finished, the captain's working on it right now--"

     The man's frown deepened. "As important as a new species is, Captain Forrest has to know that the mental health of the head of a Fleet vessel is of paramount importance to the safety of the Alliance. I expect her to send her availability information the moment she finishes that report which is--how close to completion?"

     "Days--"

     "Days!"

     "--Hours!" Taylitha exclaimed, then took a deep breath and said, "I'm sure it'll be completed next shift, sir."

     "Very well, then. I'll alert the proper authorities that you have a situation, and in the mean, I'll be waiting for Captain Forrest's communication."

     "I'll tell her as soon as she's free, sir," Taylitha said.

     "Indeed. Good--night, is it?" The admiral canted a brow ridge at her. "And while you're at it, Ms. Basil, I suggest you report to the Medplex. Just because you're not as important as the captain doesn't give you license to ignore your own health."

     "I'll go right away," Taylitha said.

     "Good. Good night, Commander."

     "Good night, sir."

     The bar sank back to the leftmost edge, then vanished with the connection loss. Admiral Canby's stern face went with it.

     Taylitha stared at the blank screen, shaking. Had she just promised to deliver Alysha to Personnel by mid-shift tomorrow? Worse, had she actually just told Fleet Central that there were aliens here? After the discussion she'd had with Alysha about how Fleet might be tempted to re-assign them before they could find a solution for Alastar? How was she going to keep them from sending the 'Dancer away before Laelkii found a cure for 'Star's condition?

     Of course, if she couldn't find the captain by that time, they could hardly send the ship away. But she'd have other problems then.

     With a groan, Taylitha dropped her head into her hands again. She didn't even know what this scheduling bit was about and why in the midnight hells it was so important!

     Another chime dropped from the ceiling, this one the two-tone beat of one of her monitors.

     "What now?" Taylitha asked.

     "There has been a security alert reported from the Medplex," the computer said.

     "Alastar? Or the native?" But of course, the computer didn't know; it only offered the information that had set off one of the triggers Taylitha had set up to keep herself informed of shipboard events that might require investigation later. Taylitha looked from the shower to her darkened workspace to the ceiling, then decided figuring out what to do about admirals could wait. She left her rooms for the Medplex at a pace ill-suited to the dignity of a command officer.

#21

     Tell me, Alysha thought again, trying to hold her place in the water.

     But the waves brought no response to that. Instead, the tentacles withdrew, letting the currents return. They tugged at her body, but they didn't bring the same peace they had in the beginning. Frustrated, Alysha propelled herself toward her memory of the surface of the ocean, though she'd long since become confused over her orientation.

     She breached the waters beneath a sky gone a deep violet, streaked darker by clouds and scattered with white and red stars. She hadn't prepared for the beauty of it and forgot, for a few breathless moments, her worries about Alastar, her concerns about putting Personnel on hold, her puzzlement over communication with the octopus. Paddling in the water, Alysha tilted her chin back as far as she could in an effort to encompass the entirety of the vista. From horizon to horizon, nothing but stars and sky and darkness. No other creature like her breathed or stirred for as far as she could see. She was alone.

     Almost.

     The water beside her parted for the end of a tentacle. She reached for it, smoothed her palm over its end and let its string-like ends coil around her wrist. Once the strings had settled, she pulled herself to the tentacle and used it as an anchor so she could stare at the sky without having to tread water.

     She had always loved the sky. In grammar school her teachers had assumed it was the explorer's love, the need to know new things, to see what was around the next corner, and while she'd disagreed she hadn't known any better words to explain it. All her life, she'd been happy to lie on her back in the grass and stare up at the dark.

     Some find the dark fearful, came the feeling.

     Alysha laughed aloud. What's to fear about the dark? Darkness is kind. It asks no questions. Gives you a respite from the needs of sight: clarity, consideration, swift decision.

     Then smothering. The strands across her wrist squeezed, then released the pressure and tickled her with their stroking. Some find the dark smothering.

     Who could ever find such vastness smothering? Alysha thought in wonderment. She rested her hand in the grip of the larger digits on the end of the tentacle, then floated on her back and rested her eyes on the stars.

     Then the vastness.

     And there was truth in that, for the vastness of the sky could be fearsome. A blue sky could conceal from the determined the implied space that surrounded a planet. But when darkness fell and the stars crept out to speckle the firmament, the near infinity of space could not be avoided.

     That is why I love the stars, Alysha told the tentacle wistfully. Not because I want to know what's hiding behind every corner, but because it's comforting to know there will always be a place to go. You don't need to know all that is possible to be glad that you won't run out of possibilities before you die.

     The waves thought it curious that she took comfort in the fact that the universe was larger than she.

     Alysha thought it equally curious to deny the fact, and distasteful to fear it. There will always be something bigger than you, something better. Someone brighter. Something more glorious. Then you have the joy of knowing there are other wonderful things besides you. You will never run out of joy.

     Another tentacle surfaced near her, and then the octopus's head rose over the water. Its gleaming orange eye seemed connected somehow to the redder stars. Alysha twisted onto her stomach and paddled, looking at the eye.

     "Do you know such things?" she asked. "Do you know pleasure at the vastness of the universe?"

     Pleasure, yes. Did she also know the bittersweetness of the universe's turning?

     Alysha frowned, dipping one arm further under water. "Say again?" she murmured, hoping having more of herself submerged would help.

     All things have two sides. You know joy. Sorrow?

     The sorrow had a flavor as well as a smell, one she'd associated with the word 'bittersweet' in the first sending but seemed more complex in the second. In her mind, she saw a larger fish devouring a smaller one.

     The inevitable? No, that wasn't right either. Alysha closed her eyes. More like the order of things. The pattern. Things die. People die. You ask if I see the sorrows of the same vastness that encompasses the joy of people's accomplishments?

     The waves agreed. The octopus's unwavering eye remained on her.

     "I do," Alysha said. She thought of a woman with wings, a child with too-knowing eyes and grimaced. She didn't always like it, though.

     You don't always let it stand unchallenged.

     No, Alysha said. She twirled onto her back again and drifted beside the tentacle. Sometimes it is my work to put myself between the inevitable and the innocent.

     The innocent only?

     With chagrin, Alysha thought, Well, the needy.

     And if they do not want to be turned from their end in the vastness?
     Alysha's ears flipped backward, their tips into the ocean's weight. Then I have no leave to enter, do I?

     Do you?

     She tried to remember all the times she'd ever intervened and couldn't. Had she always bowed to the wishes of those she sought to help? Had she always even known their wishes? And yet, the principle felt true to her, true enough that it had seen her through the most difficult, most traumatic years of her life, when every day had been horror and anger. She had saved Rispa and Angel, but she'd left the Harem Rose to the life she had chosen.

     No, I do not, Alysha said. I hold out my hand only when help is asked for. One man's hell is another man's paradise.

     Rispa? Angel?

     Alysha floated, holding serenity as close as she could. That is a long telling, and not a pleasant one.

     It sounds similar to ours.

     From the wash of the waves, Alysha felt more in 'similarity' than she would expect from the word: not a similarity in the surface of the tale, but a similarity in its emotional resonance. Sorrow is part of the vastness, she said. Not quite comforting, nor commiserating, but something between the two.

     Sorrow has been part of our vastness, particularly. But we did not expect small ones who could hold that with equanimity.

     Small ones? Alysha thought.

     An image of thin creatures with four arms, long tails and wedge-shaped heads with horns appeared: the creatures from the murals. Small ones. A pause, then, and sorrowfully: our small ones, long taken by their own smallness.

#22

     Taylitha walked into the Medplex and dodged as a woman with a shock staff sprinted past. Flattening herself against the window-wall, the first commander craned her head around the corner into the ward. Laelkii was under one of the beds, tail lashing in frustration; around her, three women wearing light armor vests were attempting to hem in the alien--

     --the alien! Awake and apparently spry, straddling the bed with a foot on either of the haloarch emitters. He had uncoiled his full length, both sets of arms spread wide and fingers curved like claws. He hissed at the approaching women with their shock staffs and net. The officer who'd dove past Taylitha joined them, trying to close the semi-circle and push the alien against the wall.

     "Would you hurry up and get him back onto that bed?" Laelkii said testily.

     "We're trying, doctor," one of the women answered without taking her eyes off their quarry. One of the shock staffs lowered toward the creature's tail, and Taylitha held her breath.

     With a snarl, the alien leapt over their heads and landed awkwardly on one foot. He twisted around before they could grab him and bounded for Alastar's bed.

     "Stop him!" Laelkii shouted, and the women jumped to follow.

     "WAIT!" Taylitha cried, running from the entrance and skidding to a halt over Alastar. She flung her arms over the unconscious woman, her body supported a foot off 'Star's chest by the invisible haloarch.

     The alien stopped abruptly on the other side of Alastar. He looked at her, cocking his head to one side like a bird.

     "Remember me?" Taylitha asked breathlessly. She licked her lips, caught her breath, and continued more calmly. "I'm sure you do, since I haven't bathed or changed since you saw me last. I probably still stink the same, even."

     He leaned toward her, and though Taylitha couldn't read his expression his body had a tentative, almost skeptical tension, as if he was ready to bolt.

     Taylitha pointed to Alastar. "She's sick. You can't climb on her. See? She's unconscious."

     The creature glanced at Alastar, then paused, brow knitting. It took a step closer and leaned over her.

     "Taylitha," Laelkii said in a low, urgent voice.

     "It's okay," Taylitha said. "He's just looking." She rolled her lip between her teeth as the alien's face drew closer to Alastar's. She almost said something when he sniffed at her mouth and nose, but held her peace. The creature's body had relaxed, grown just slack enough for her to believe he meant no harm.

     "Do you know what's wrong with her? Do you recognize it?" Taylitha asked softly. "If we figure out how to talk to you . . . will you tell us how to help her?"

     The creature completed his inspection and lifted his face to look at Taylitha askance. He peeped.

     Taylitha sighed and propped up her face with a hand. The haloarch's field tickled her elbow, but she leaned on it anyway.

     "Peep? What does that mean?" Laelkii asked. She crawled out of her refuge and walked a wide circle around Alastar's bed to stand next to Taylitha.

     "Your guess is as good as mine," Taylitha said. To the security team, she said, "I think we'll only need one of you, just in case. The rest of you can go."

     "Aye, sir."

     The creature hissed and stepped toward the wall as the team filed out, but when they didn't return, he continued looking at Alastar.

     "So have you learned anything about him?" Taylitha asked.

     Laelkii said, "Muscloskeletal system isn't amazingly dissimilar from ours. And thought I couldn't tell you what most of them do yet, he does seem to have organs in most of the right places. I was looking at his brain when he sprang out of bed." She looked with chagrin at her uniform sleeve, nearly in two pieces. "Used my arm as a lever on the way up. Thank sun and stars for fur or I'd have a handful of pretty welts to go with the new uniform order. He's got talons."

     "Is he a he?" Taylitha asked.

     "I can't tell either way," Laelkii said. "I found no sexual characteristics, primary or secondary. He has spaces that look like they're meant to accommodate what I assume are sexual organs, but the tissue there isn't differentiated. My best guess is he's immature."

     "Or he buds, like a Flitzbe," Taylitha said, and finally laughed. The sound startled the alien into staring at her intently.

     "Sorry," Taylitha said to him, then leaned to the wall and touched one of the panels on it. The computer's soft chime startled the alien a second time, and as Taylitha leaned toward the panel in weariness he arched his body over the bed to peer at the panel.

     "Taylitha to obelisk site."

     "McCrearty here."

     "Are all the staff linguists on site?"

     "Aye, sir. Three on night shift, four on day."

     "Send a couple of them up here." Taylitha looked at the alien. "Ask for the ones who are good at singing or whistling."

     The woman sounded puzzled, but she answered, "Aye, sir. I'll have them up immediately."

     "Thanks. Basil out." Taylitha turned to Laelkii. "Did you figure out what was wrong with him, anyway?"

     "He was dehydrated and malnourished," Laelkii said. "At least, that's as far as I got. I fed him some simple sugars in solution."

     "Right," Taylitha said, turning to look at the alien. He straightened and returned her regard. "Well, we can't talk to him until the linguists arrive--"

     "--arrive and figure out how he talks," Laelkii said. "That might take a while."

     "And in the mean, we need to do something with him. Suggestions?"

     "You could shower and sleep," Laelkii said, studying the creature with too distinct an air of innocence.

     Taylitha scowled at her. "I meant with the alien. I know I need a shower and a nap, and that's what I was about to do when Admiral what's-his-name interrupted me and demanded to know what Alysha had done with his extra-special mail. As if I knew!"

     "What did you tell him?" Laelkii asked, ears perked with interest.

     "That I'd get back to him," Taylitha said. "But that's neither here nor there. About the alien!"

     "Right," Laelkii said. "I can put him in an isolation ward, but I can't imagine that being very pleasant for him. On the other hand, leaving him in a room is probably a bad idea too. He might get in trouble with most of the appliances. The brig's definitely depressing . . . "

     Taylitha tried to think around her developing headache. "The gardens. Let's put him in the gardens."

     Laelkii's ears sagged. "Hydroponics is pretty big. He could get lost in there."

     "We'll cordon off an area. Do you have any better suggestions?"

     Laelkii shook her head. "Just let me assign a healer with the security team. I'm not sure if he's in the best of health yet. He might have problems I haven't had time to identify, and I could use additional data."

     "Right," Taylitha said, before turning to the woman left by the security team.

#23

     "Well, at least it's a beautiful night," Darya said with a yawn. She wiggled her bare toes in the sand and turned from her appraisal of the horizon to find Steffis sliding a knife into a belt sheath and picking up a shock staff. "Angels on the field, Steffis! Are we heading into a war zone?"

     The striped engineer tied her hair back into a tail and looked at Darya with a grim face. "We already lost one officer in those caverns. I'm not letting another one go without a fight."

     "That's presuming the captain's lost," Darya said. "Somehow she doesn't strike me as the type."

     "Yeah, well, neither did Commander Virgil," Steffis said. "A more level-headed woman I haven't met. So better safe, right, Lieutenant Darteriov?"

     "Riiight," Darya said. "And it's Darya. I don't know any homeworld-bred Harat-Shar who go by their train names."

     "Darya, then," Steffis said. She checked her kit one more time, then glanced over her shoulder at the camp. Her second waved to her casually. "Shall we?"

     "To the caves," Darya said cheerfully, and set off across the sands. "So what's your first name, Lieutenant?"

     "Julien," Steffis said warily.

     Darya squinted. "Like the man's name?"

     "No, that's Julian with an 'a'."

     "Oh. Then like the vegetables?"

     "No, that's julienne, accent on the second syllable. My name is Julien. Julien Steffis."

     "So can I call you Julien?" Darya asked. "All this rank and surname bit is so confining."

     Steffis eyed her. "I've heard about you Harat-Shar."

     "Only heard?" Darya said with a grin.

     "Well, there aren't any Harat-Shar in engineering," Steffis said.

     "--And let me guess, you don't get out much," Darya said. She chuckled at Steffis's glower. "Oh, I'm not going to tease you about it. Much. Unless it'll get you to relax." She glanced at Steffis's white-knuckled grip on the shock staff.

     "I'll relax once the captain's checked in," Steffis said, tail lashing.

     "But according to the first commander, if she's not there she's already gone back to the 'Dancer."

     Steffis's ears flattened. "Or maybe she's vanished somewhere and Commander Basil doesn't want us to know."

     "Now that's paranoia," Darya said. "I like gossip about superior officers as much as the next girl, but let's not borrow trouble unless it's fun."

     When Steffis didn't reply, Darya sighed and let the conversation founder. The purple of the night sky was too new and too beautiful to waste if the engineer wasn't going to loosen up enough for interesting talk. The woman hadn't even changed into a more comfortable uniform. Almost every other person working downstairs had defaulted to sleeveless blouses and khakis and most were barefoot. Steffis was still in full shipboard regalia, from her boots to her stiff collared tunic.

     They'd walked all the way to the end of the seaward march and turned toward the north when Steffis finally broke the silence. "Is that . . . water?"

     Darya squinted toward the caves. "I thought that was the shore."

     "It's reflecting the light, though. And moving. Stars, I think the cave's flooded!" Steffis launched from the sands and sprinted for the cave, leaving Darya to scramble after. The pantherine arrived on Steffis's heels to find the ocean's waves slapping into the cave, foaming starlit silver at its rocky edges. Darya scanned the sands, wondering what had inspired the tide to rise so high, and caught a glint of light on skin.

     "The captain!" Steffis exclaimed, lunging for the cave.

     "Wait!" Darya shouted, grabbing for Steffis's arm and missing.

     A giant tentacle whipped up before them and slammed into the sand in front of the engineer, who skidded to a halt with a squawk and leapt in the opposite direction, landing in Darya's arms.

     "Sun-and-stars-and-oh-gods-what-is-that!"

     Darya pulled Steffis away and stepped back herself as a giant eye surfaced from the waters by the sand and an octopus crawled toward them. One tentacle extended into the cave's mouth as the water sloshed around it. The others wove along the strand as the creature eased to a halt, barring the way to the cavern.

     "Whatever it is, it's between us and the cave," Darya said.

     Steffis stared, horrified. "Stars, the captain!"

     "She might not even be in there," Darya said. "Let's find out first, okay?" She clicked her tongue in the back of her mouth to activate her telegem, which chimed in her rounded black ear.

     "Computer, is the captain aboard?"

     A pause, then, "Captain Forrest is not on the Stardancer."

     Steffis shot her a wild glance, and Darya restrained her urge to shake the engineer. Or the computer. Either would do, though the one would be easier than the other. "Are you sure she's just not available?"

     "The captain is not aboard the ship."

     "Fine," Darya said, watching the octopus. It hadn't moved. "She must be on planet then."

     "The captain is not on the planet."

     Darya paused. "Are you sure?"

     "The captain is not on the planet."

     "Or on the ship."

     "The captain is not on the ship."

     Steffis grabbed Darya's wrist. "Look, she's in the cave! I'm telling you! It's the only place the computer couldn't find her telegem!"

     "Well, maybe she's in some other part of the network," Darya said. "We mapped a whole lot of tunnels next to Alastar's cave."

     "If she's in some other part of it, why is this animal sitting on the entrance? Maybe it's decided that it's found its next meal!"

     "I don't think octopuses eat Pelted," Darya said.

     "That's not an octopus," Steffis said, irritated. "It has more than eight legs, and it's on an alien planet. Who knows what it eats?"

     "Good point," Darya said. "At least it doesn't seem hostile."

     "To us!" Steffis said.

     "To us," Darya allowed. She sighed. "What I know about octopuses--"

     "--aliens," Steffis said, reaching up to the end of her shock staff.

     "--aliens," Darya said without skipping a beat, "could fit into a claw paring. We should get someone to help us remove the octo--alien . . . Julien, what are you doing?"

     The engineer's hand unlocked the barrier cap on the end of the shock staff and slid it down to the collar, exposing the spear tip. "I am going to move that animal."

     Darya grabbed the shock staff. "You can't just go knifing it! What if it's intelligent?"

     "It's an animal!"

     "Even if it is an animal," Darya said. "It's a very big animal. Animals get violent when injured. And what if it's brooding? Injured mother animals are even worse. We can't just stick a spear in it and hope it'll die."

     "So what do you propose we do?" Steffis asked. "Let it eat the captain?"

     "If the captain is in there, and if she's in danger, we'll save her," Darya said firmly. "But not by inciting something twice our size to violence. Why don't we find someone who knows something about octopi and ask about their behavior?"

     "Octopuses," Steffis said. "And it's not an octopus. Count the arms." She sighed. "Fine. Let's wake up one of the biologists. But if it makes one move toward the cave . . . "

     Darya decided that calling attention back to the arm already inside the cave was a bad idea and clicked her way back to the on-board computer. "Biology lab."

     After a few moments, a sharp contralto answered. "Biology lab, this is Tara Demier. How can I help you?"

     "This is Lieutenant Darya, on the surface of the planet. We have a minor emergency, and we're looking for a marine biologist. Is anyone available?"

     "A minor emergency?" The voice sounded concerned. "What kind of minor emergency?"

     "Some pesky sealife," Darya said, ignoring Steffis's pained expression. "We could really use some help on how to remove a critter that doesn't want to be removed. Could you get me someone?"

     "Hang on," the voice said. "We've only got a couple marine biologists, but one of them should be awake. She's a night-owl. Okay . . . patching you through." A moment later, a husky alto answered. "This is Ensign Perralta. How can I help?"

     Steffis had gone back to watching the creature. Darya tried to split her attention between the engineer and the alien. "This is Lieutenant Darya. Sorry to bother you, ensign, but you wouldn't happen to know anything about octopuses, would you?"

     "Octopuses? The Terran sea creature? A little, though that wasn't my planet of study and it's been a while since I've crammed for exams. Hang on, let me page through some references . . . why the interest, sir?"

     "Darya will do. We have an octopus-like creature on the shore that's in our way, ensign. We want to know why it's in our way and how we can suggest that it move."

     "If you have a net you should be able to pick it up and move it without hurting it."

     Darya tried not to laugh. "I'm not sure we have a net that could do the job. Do you think prodding it with a shock staff would get it to move?"

     "If you want to move it by killing it, maybe," Perralta said. "How big is this thing, Darya?"

     "Oh... hmmm. I'd say about seven feet tall?" Darya squinted. "The arms look about twice that. Maybe a little under."

     "What! And that's in your way?"

     "Absolutely," Darya said.

     "This I've got to see. I'll be right down!"

     "Err, ensign--" But the telegem cheeped a closed connection and Darya covered her eyes.

     "So what did she say?" Steffis asked.

     "She's on her way to assess the situation," Darya said. "At least the creature's not moving."

     Steffis flexed her hand on the shock spear.

#24

     Your small ones are gone, Alysha thought, holding onto the tentacle. What happened? How did their smallness hurt them?

     They did not like the order of things. The wavelets gently brushed her fur. They did not like how we responded to the order of things. Like you, they preferred to put themselves between others and what awaited them.

     You preferred the natural order, Alysha said.

     Yes.

     The response held so much more than a simple affirmative that Alysha let herself drift in the water in silence, trying to absorb it. The bittersweetness. The regret. Currents of pain and argument. A 'yes' that held several 'no's.

     You handle this well, little one.

     This? Alysha asked. The talking?

     The talking. Our small ones could not sense the layers in the waters. And the other small one, who came just before you did . . . she did not have your discipline.

     Alysha's muscles tightened. "The other small one? Alastar?"

     The waters seemed warm with the waves that followed, as if the alien was trying to draw the images from her mind. Alysha held on to her mental picture of Alastar, still awake and healthy.

     Yes, that one. She could not keep the layers separate from her own mind's.

     Alysha's fingers flexed on the arm. I see. And I can.

     So it seems.

     She will wake?

     One presumes. For all our senses, even we cannot push so much into the water that it does not eventually fade. Everything fades.

     "I see," Alysha murmured aloud. Some of her worry for Alastar eased. "So your small ones disagreed with some of your choices. What choice did you make that they disliked?"

     They do not understand our way of life. It was very different. There is only so much space for us here, in these oceans.

     Alysha glanced at the vast glittering waters.

     By your thoughts, you seem to think elsewise. But not physical space.

     Flashes of sea bottoms, encrusted with coral. Creatures flooded on tides. Memories of biology books discussing the balance of species needed for the health of an ecosystem. Alysha touched a hand to her forehead and closed her eyes, re-ordering the memories. An issue of the order of things, she said at last. Too many of you cause an imbalance in the lives of others?

     Just so.

     And you . . . choose not to overpopulate.

     It was not a difficult decision. Not long after the egg-layers of our species drop their young, they die. If they withhold their eggs, they live longer lives.

     Alysha glanced at the orange eye. "There's more to this than the decision not to reproduce."

     Yes. The destroyers.

     A flash of black menace with glowing yellow eyes and bloodstained teeth.

     "The leviathans from the cave paintings," Alysha murmured.

     Predators, the octopus said. They come for us. Age makes us slow. Our egg-layers died quickly.

     Alysha watched teeth rip into mottled flesh and controlled her wince. Looking past the first images, she felt the subtext on the waters. "You do not resist."

     It is part of the natural order of things.

     If it's part of the natural order of things, then you wouldn't have to worry about not reproducing, Alysha said. The destroyers would keep your numbers down.

     So the small ones said. They urged us to fight the destroyers. To let them help us destroy them. But the destroyers are part of the order of things. Their absence would rip apart this tapestry.

     Just as yours would, Alysha said.

     The tentacle curled around her waist, furling the soft membrane around her hips and legs, almost an embrace. Just so. But we had not counted on the effect of the small ones on the egg-layers. The small ones convinced the egg-layers to live, rather than to lay.

     Alysha paused. "Some would say that living is preferable to dying," she said.

     But that was not the question. The question was which was of more value: long life, or the pleasure of bearing young. Have you born young?

     No, Alysha said.

     Do you plan to?

     Alysha's ears flattened. "I hadn't really thought about it," she said. "Among my kind, child-rearing is a commitment of many years and social custom requires you engage a suitable mate to help you with the duty."

     Very different. Almost too different . . . can you still understand how child-bearing can be a value of its own?

     I think, Alysha said. She thought of Laelkii. At very least, most of the mothers I've known would not trade their children for longer lives.

     Part of being one of us is knowing that bearing young is a value greater than a long but fruitless life. The small ones could not understand that for us the chain of life is worth more than an individual's contribution to it.

     Sudden understanding gripped her mind. "So they wanted you to not reproduce as much to save your lives, and in order to keep your numbers high to fight the leviathans off. Is that it?"

     A complete reversal of who we are. They would have us at war with the order of things, denying our natures in order to maintain an existence contrary to ourselves.

     Alysha shivered; the wavelets bringing that message were layers deep with horror and wrongness. "So what happened?"

     We withdrew from our relationships with the small ones.

     "And?" Alysha asked.

     They met their own end . . . fighting amongst one another for reasons we could not understand. They'd had such conflicts before, but had never gone far down those paths while they walked the shores. But then they moved away from the waters, and they died.

     And you? Alysha asked, reading the sorrow.

     We have drifted. Our friendship with the small ones gave us a greater sense of the order of things. When it was severed, so too was some part of our pleasure in our lives. We dwindle.

     "You're lonely," Alysha said.

     The eye stared at her. Just so.

     But now we're here, Alysha said, stroking the top of the arm. If you like, we could keep you company and remind you of the greater order of things by our presence. We would like that very much . . . we thrive when we add new knowledge to our own. We live to reach for other beings.

     And you may bring to us the same destruction the others did.

     Alysha shook her head. "No."

     You are so certain?

     "Yes," Alysha said, and more urgently, "I'm completely sure that we're better than your deaths."

     There are worse things than death. We do not want to become what we're not.

     "That's not why we're here!" Alysha exclaimed. "We want to know what is different from us, not impose our sameness on others!"

     And you are completely sure that all your others feel the same as you do. They are as careful about the feelings and wishes of others as you are. They are as sensitive.

     Alysha's ears flipped back.

     You are not. And yet you would have us take this risk.

     She composed herself, then nodded. Yes. There is worth in knowing us.

     The tentacle released her. You must take your case then. You will come with me?

     Of course, Alysha said, then thought to ask. Where are we going?

     To see the eldest. To the last egg-layer alive.

#25

     Taylitha returned to her quarters without allowing herself to stop anywhere, and once she entered them she steadfastly ignored her workspace and plodded into the shower cube. She didn't even shuck her uniform off first. Hot water pelted her from above, and as it soaked her hair and worked its way into her sleeves, she sighed and let the tension in her shoulders ease. She unfastened the uniform collar at the back of her neck and worked the tunic over her head, tossing it in the corner of the cube; the uniform's stretchsuit followed, the rank braid dyed into its hems refusing to darken even as the water poured onto it.

     Like most Karaka'A, Taylitha had short, coarse fur, almost felt-short in places . . . but spending too long in her uniform had worked it into strange patterns, trapped against the grain by dried sweat. Her crimson hair was in little better condition, and Taylitha didn't even bother trying to work the knots out before washing it.

     "I have got to get more sleep. And keep cleaner," she muttered. "And coffee . . . no, too late for coffee, I'll get jittery. Tea, maybe. Tea, and some relaxing music, and then sleep." She suddenly remembered the report Alysha was supposed to write for the Admiralty, a thought that led to the realization that Darya and Steffis hadn't called her. It had been over an hour!

     Taylitha hurried through the rest of her shower and jumped out, grabbing a towel instead of staying through the cube's long dry cycle. Leaving paw-sized puddles behind her, she called, "Computer. Patch me to Steffis."

     The computer sang its one-note attention signal, then the arpeggio that indicated the open channel.

     "Steffis here."

     Taylitha did not like the tense sound of the woman's voice. "Lieutenant . . . what's your status?"

     "Darya and I have been detained at the cave mouth, Commander."

     "Detained?" Taylitha asked, the pool of water around her growing. "Detained how? By whom?"

     "By a giant sea creature, Commander. It's blocking the cave mouth. We've asked one of the biologists to come help us move it."

     "Giant sea creatures?" Taylitha asked.

     "Yes, sir. Something with tentacles."

     "Tentacles!" For a moment, Taylitha couldn't even visualize it, so unexpected had the reply been. Then she saw the charcoal softness of the painted cave walls on the planet. "The octopuses in the pictures?"

     "The pictures? You mean the cave paintings, sir?" A pause, then, "We hadn't thought of it, but yes, you're right. Just like that."

     "What is going on here?" Taylitha muttered. Louder, "How soon are you going to have that creature moved, Lieutenant?"

     "Sir, the biologist is due in a few minutes. We'll work it out. I'm sure the captain is fine in there. The creature hasn't moved at all."

     Taylitha covered her face and tried not to let her worry into her voice. "Right. Keep me informed, Lieutenant, no matter how long it takes. In fact, get back to me in fifteen minutes."

     "Aye, sir. Steffis out."

     Taylitha stood on the wet carpet, shivering. The captain trapped in a cavern with a giant octopus guarding the way in? She could be unconscious. Or hurt. Or fine, but not on board to write that report she'd promised to the Admiralty on Alysha's behalf. Should she write it and send it off? Or try to find some new excuse to explain Alysha's absence?

     Laelkii would kill her if the C-med found her standing naked and wet in the middle of a room, trying to depress her immune system and ruin the carpet in the bargain. With a sigh, Taylitha took herself back into the shower cube to dry off. She stepped out a few minutes later and donned a bathrobe, trying not to weave on her way to the bed; somehow being clean emphasized how exhausted she was. She had one knee on the mattress when the bridge comm line chimed.

     With a groan, Taylitha dragged herself back to her desk. "First Commander here."

     A window opened for the ensign who'd beleaguered her earlier. The woman had the grace to look rueful as she said, "I'm sorry to disturb you again, sir, but we still can't find the captain and there's another call for her. An Admiral Beson."

     "Who?" Taylitha said. "I thought the Admiralty already called us. Don't they know it's the middle of the night here?"

     "Actually, it's getting on to morning," the ensign said, still wearing that chagrined smile. "Shall I put him through?"

     Taylitha looked at her bathrobe, decided it was better than being naked, and sighed. "Go ahead, ensign."

     A new window opened for the latest addition to Taylitha's troubles, a human man with aggressively black hair despite the lines on his caramel-colored face. His small dark eyes gleamed like pebbles. As she stared at him, waiting for the Well connection to stabilize, a discreet window opened alongside his face, scrolling names and affiliations in highlighted blue until it settled on 'Jamais Beson, Office of Exploration.' Silently, Taylitha blessed the ensign just as the man woke on her screen.

     "Commander Basil. I admit I was expecting the captain."

     "I'm sorry, sir, she's indisposed," Taylitha said, trying for a modest tone. "Writing a report for your office, I believe."

     "Then I'm sure she has the time to talk to me," the admiral said.

     Taylitha cleared her throat. "Actually sir, it's quite late here. If she wants any sleep at all, she shouldn't be interrupted."

     "She's the captain," Beson said, waving a dark hand. "I'm sure she can sleep through the next shift."

     "She has . . . a meeting with the aliens tomorrow," Taylitha said, extemporizing on a brain foggy with weariness. "She needs her rest. I'm sorry to importune you, Admiral, but the captain won't be available until tomorrow."

     "But I'll have the report before then?" he asked, and she wondered if she was misreading the childlike hope in his face.

     "That's our plan," Taylitha said. "Barring any mishap."

     The man leaned forward in his chair. "Can you tell me just a little bit about them, Commander?" He ran a hand over his hair, seeming for all the world embarrassed. Taylitha stared at him. "You know how rare true aliens have been. It seems like almost all the known species were engineered--no offense--"

     "--None taken," Taylitha murmured, bemused.

     "--and to finally discover another new species! Something like the Flitzbe, or the Chatcaava! You can imagine how pleased we were when Personnel passed on the information."

     Personnel had passed it on? Oh yes. Her interview with Admiral what's-his-name, the Seersa with the stern ears. "I can imagine," Taylitha said, and summoned up her own sense of wonder from where her fatigue had beaten it into submission. "Well, they're small, sir. Very thin, very nimble. They have horns, and four arms . . . "

     "But they're not Chatcaava, correct?" Beson asked, worried.

     "No, no, not Chatcaava," Taylitha said. "Our C-med couldn't match them biologically. And they don't speak the same language. It's some system of whistles."

     "Whistles! How strange. And you've discovered how to talk with them already?"

     "We have?" Taylitha said, then remembered the captain's fictitious meeting with the aliens in the morning. "Oh yes. Well, the captain is . . . mmm . . . a very capable linguist."

     "She figured it out on her own? Amazing!"

     "No, not quite," Taylitha said, panicked, trying to keep her ears perked despite the conversation's slipping out of her control. "She had the help of the linguists on board but we're under-complement on linguists."

     "You are? That can be fixed--"

     "That's not necessary!" Taylitha squeaked, then calmed down and said, "We've taken on personnel in other departments to compensate and would hate to lose them. I'm sorry if I sound scattered, Admiral. It's just . . . very late. Almost four mark in the morning."

     "Oh! Apologies, Commander. I'll just have to wait for the report, I guess," Beson said. He smiled at her. "But thanks for the preview. It's much appreciated."

     "No problem, sir. You'll have it shortly."

     "Thanks. Give Forrest our regards, and congratulations on your find. Good night."

     "Good night," Taylitha said weakly to the window as it froze and the connection bar snapped. With a groan she dropped her head into her arms. Personnel and Exploration nipping at her heels, a single alien when she'd promised the Admiralty a race whose language they somehow already understood and Alysha very likely trapped unconscious in a cave guarded by a giant octopus.

     "That's enough trouble for the night," she said. "Workspace off." The room darkened. With one last heave, Taylitha pushed herself to her feet and tottered to her bed, where she dropped on top of the covers. Tomorrow could wait.

#26

     Ensign Perralta proved to be a rounded Asanii taller than Darya thought from the curvy edges of her distant silhouette. As the biologist approached, the starlight picked out her creamy skin and its coppery dots, the tufted ears and curls ruddy as a terra cotta pot. Darya wanted to hug her just to see what if she was as soft as she looked, but the ensign had no sooner come within earshot than she shouted, "WOW, look at that octopus!"

     "It's not an octopus!" Steffis called back, irritated. "It has more than eight arms!"

     "Wow, look at that cephalopod!" Perralta said, her enthusiasm unquenched. "Do you suppose it has a pen, or has it done away altogether with its shell? It seems to have a rather stiff structure for an octopus--"

     "It's not--"

     "But then again, I've never read about any octopus that big," Perralta finished. "How exciting!" She pointed her data tablet at the creature. "Do you think I could get a skin sample? I'd like to know if it has the same mucus covering Terran and Tamleyian cephalopods have."

     "That creature might be blocking our way to the captain," Steffis said. "I don't think we want to sidle over and clip off a piece of its body."

     "True, true," Perralta said. "They say some cephalopods are highly intelligent, though. It might not mind. I won't!" she added in response to Steffis's glare. "Really, I won't."

     "All research aside," Darya said, "how do you propose we move the thing, arii? We have to get into that cave."

     "Have you tried just walking in?" Perralta asked.

     Steffis pointed at the arm barring their way. "Do you want to tangle with that?"

     "Hmmm," Peralta said. She crouched next to it, ignoring the tip which lifted to arch toward her. "It put this in front of you when you tried to go into the cave? Interesting. Hey, that tickles--oh, my." She stared at the finger-like strands that were tugging on her hair. "Has it done this to either of you?"

     "No," Steffis said, frozen with the shock-staff pointed at the arm.

     "It must like you," Darya said with a tentative laugh.

     Peralta stroked the tentacle with a finger. "Slick," she said to herself. "I wonder how similar it is to other cephalopods? It certainly seems friendly!"

     "Well, maybe you can lead it away?" Steffis suggested. "We haven't tried that, but it didn't seem as interested in our opinions."

     Peralta nodded and stood, then tried a few steps up the beach. Another of the creature's arms lifted and followed her. With a puzzled look, Peralta kept walking, and the arm extended until it reached its full length, then stopped. The cephalopod didn't follow.

     "That's interesting," Peralta said.

     "What?" Darya asked, ears perking.

     "Look at that membrane connecting the arms," Peralta said. "I've never seen anything like it." She opened her kit and pulled out the flashlight, then shone it on the membrane. "Just look at those colors! I wonder what they look like in sunlight? Or underwater! Do they change? Why did it evolve it? Maybe it helps with propulsion. Or it's some sort of sexual characteristic, making it more attractive to mates?"

     Steffis eyed Darya. "I thought the biologist was supposed to help us with our problem."

     "You can't just expect her to know exactly how to treat an alien species the moment she encounters it, no matter how similar it is to other species she's worked with," Darya said, though she was beginning to wonder herself. Peralta was petting the extended arm and the leading edge of the membrane, talking to herself or the cephalopod or her data tablet or all three.

     "Well, maybe she's providing sufficient distraction for us to sneak past," Steffis said. She turned to the cave and began walking.

     The tentacle in their way lifted and poked Steffis in the stomach.

     "Guess not," Darya said, putting a hand on Steffis before the engineer could lift her staff and retaliate. "Peralta is keeping it busy, though. If we were to try some other way? We could go through the caves, maybe?"

     Steffis touched her stomach and glared at the tentacle, then nodded. "Yes, I suppose. As long as we walked for a while in the opposite direction, so that it looked like we were leaving. Hey, Peralta!"

     The biologist looked up. "Oh! Yes?"

     "Any bright ideas on how to get this thing to move?"

     "Not yet," Peralta says. "A net might be our best bet, but I'd like to collect as much information on its physiology as possible. We might be able to safely stun it."

     "Right. You just keep... um...."

     "Petting," Darya suggested.

     "Petting it," Steffis said. "We're going to try working our way to the cave through one of the other entrances."

     "Right," Peralta said.

     "Come on," Steffis said. "It's going to be dawn soon. Stars know what's happened to the captain by this time."

     Darya nodded and jogged behind the engineer. By now, she couldn't blame the woman for her rigidly held back and tight shoulders. Fifteen minutes had long since passed and they hadn't reported to the First Commander . . . but neither had that worthy called for a status update. She wondered if something had happened.

     They doubled back to one of the entrances the exploration teams had tagged and stopped to call up their maps.

     "She'll be fine," Darya said.

     Steffis only glanced at her before ducking into the dark of the tunnel. With a sigh, the pantherine followed, envying the engineer her boots for the first time since they set off for the cave. Wandering around with the sand in your toes and the surf rushing over your feet was one thing . . . sloshing through ankle-deep water in the dark was another.

     Stick-lights and cords made the caves friendlier places than they had been during Darya's first jaunt through them. A moment's consultation with the maps told them to follow the bright red cord, and though the cave walls seemed to squeeze the air out of the tunnels and the wan light from their data tablets only exacerbated the claustrophobia, the scarlet cord was there at every turn. Darya imagined the women who had splashed through the cave before her.

     Finding Alastar's cave wasn't difficult, but it took them time, and the more minutes that passed, the tenser Steffis became. By the time their corridor opened on the domed chamber, Darya could see the other woman's ears trembling. She hoped for both their sakes that the captain was sitting in the middle of the cavern, studying the cave paintings.

     "What the hell?"

     . . . but of course nothing was that easy. Darya looked past Steffis's shoulder and frowned. "Is that a slimsuit?"

     The engineer strode to the rock near the center of the cave and picked up the discarded suit. She spread it to display its side seams and the captain's braid that ran the length of the programmable fabric. Steffis's face was grim.

     "That's strange," Darya said, joining her at the rock and touching the suit. "Was she wearing it, or did she just initialize it?"

     "No way of knowing," Steffis said. "And the fabric doesn't reset for a full day after being doffed, so we won't be able to tell how long it's been since she's had it on, if she put it on at all. But if she was going for a swim, why would she leave it behind?"

     "And if she wasn't, why did she take it with her?" Darya frowned, ran her hand over the fabric. "Is there anything else around?"

     Steffis glanced at the rock. "Maybe in the water?"

     Darya put the suit down and Steffis leaned her shock staff against the cave wall. The two of them began feeling around the base of the rock.

     Wait.

     Darya jerked upright and scanned the chamber. She looked over at Steffis. "Julien . . . did you hear that?"

     "Hear what?" Steffis asked, sitting up.

     Small ones. You will wait here.

     "Angels!" Darya exclaimed. "Someone's talking to me."

     "How? Is it the captain? Why can't I hear it?"

     Darya waved a hand. "I don't know. The words are just appearing in my head. It's not the captain."

     "Telepathy?" Steffis murmured. "Are you an esper?"

     Darya shook her head.

     The engineer frowned. "Well, what is it saying?"

     "That we need to wait. But not why."

     Your role will be decided. But you should be prepared to move.

     "Move where?" Darya asked.

     To the sea.

     "What's going on?" Steffis asked.

     "The voice says we need to prepare to head out to sea, and that our role is to be decided. Whatever that means."

     Steffis threw up her hands. "Right. Mystical claptrap. At least you gave me some useful information." She stood and sloshed to the cave entrance, staring down at the tentacle arm lying across the threshold. "Do you think . . . "

     "That it's the octo--um, alien talking?" Darya said. She shrugged. "Who knows. Where are you going?"

     "To get us slimsuits. The thing says we should prepare to head to sea, right?"

     "If that's where the captain is," Darya said, "she didn't need a slimsuit."

     "Yeah, well, maybe she didn't know. Maybe she wishes she'd taken hers. How are we supposed to know? Ask your friend."

     "Where's the captain?" Darya asked the tentacle, not expecting an answer.

     Prepare, small ones.

     "It won't say," Darya said. "If you're going to call up for slimsuits, would you ask Felsha for them? She's probably about to wake up, and if she notices I'm not in my bunk she'll worry."

     Steffis shot her an irritated look, then stepped out of the cave.

     With a sigh, Darya set her back to the rock and wondered out loud, "If she's not here, why did you work so hard to keep us out?"

     It is not yet time for questions.

     "Right," Darya muttered.

#27

     "Where are we going?" Alysha asked, holding onto the arm near the octopus's head. She tried to frame the question with images that suggested place, rather than purpose.

     Away from the shore. We need space. A sense of vast openness, so intense that for the first time a quiver ran down Alysha's back at the thought of being so far from anything.

     Then the realization coalesced. "I'm not dreaming this."

     No. You have left the speaker's cave, as so many other small ones have before you.

     "But that opening . . . it wasn't there," Alysha said. "How did I pass through?"

     You saw an opening. You reached the sea. You are in the sea. How were your perceptions impossible, if your body has done what your mind tells you it has done?

      Alysha shook herself. "I'm not equipped to dive," she said. "Not at any significant depth. I'm not prepared for any extremes of temperature either."

     We will compensate. Are you afraid? We have dealt with the frailties of small ones before, just as they have helped us when we visited them.

     "You can walk on land?" Alysha asked, ears splaying.

     We are not comfortable there, and we need to remain moist. But while we are young and small, we can walk the shores, just as the small ones can skim the sea. When our peoples were more deeply entwined, we welcomed each other as visitors regularly, and knew how to see to each other's comfort.

     "Amazing." Alysha watched the limbs around the creature's head as they propelled them through the water. She glanced back at their wake and stared at the glimmering lilac trail on the water. "Is that . . . light?"

     It is the right time.

     She squinted toward the east and the fading darkness there. "I had no idea so much time was passing."

     Does it matter?

     "I'm afraid so," Alysha said. "My people will be worried."

     Perhaps you can speak with them after you talk to the eldest.

     Though they were plowing so quickly through the sea that the water barely had time to touch her, Alysha could still sense the command in that suggestion.

     "Is there a particular reason why?" she asked, trying to gentle it with her concern.

     The eldest will decide whether we will have congress with you. If she decides against it, we will not welcome your knowledge of our kind. It may be removed.

     Strange how she hadn't felt the cold until now despite having the wind of their passage blowing against her wet fur. Alysha glanced up at the glowing orange eye nearest her.

     "Removal of knowledge is something you do often?" she asked carefully.

     We abhor it. But it has been necessary in the past, on occasion. It is not always effective.

     "And when it's not?" Alysha asked, flexing her fingers on the arm of the alien.

     We have not had cause for such worries yet. But the fewer of your people we will have to affect, the better.

     "Right," Alysha said softly. She watched the perturbation of the waves against the octopus's arms, and how the rise of the sun began to gild the currents, revealing them. "Whatever you decide, the universe would be poorer for the forgetting of your people."

     Perhaps. The eye turned toward her, though the alien did not pause in his movement. You love knowledge, small one?

     "No," Alysha said. "I love people."

     You see no value in knowledge?

     Alysha laughed. "Of course I do. But that's not why I think the universe would be poorer if you were forgotten."

     But you do not love knowledge.

     "I thought I did, when I was young," Alysha said quietly. "But that fire doesn't burn in me." She smiled. "I protect the people who love knowledge. That is my passion."

     The eye continued to study her. The eldest will find you interesting.

     "I certainly hope so," Alysha said, and fell silent. She studied the sky, wondering where the Stardancer was, and how Taylitha was handling her absence. And Laelkii . . . Laelkii would worry, not out of fear for her life, but because she'd seen Alysha come back from too many of these expeditions with broken bones or bloody holes. At least Alastar would probably be awake soon; she had a calming effect on the others, one that went beyond the rationality of her approach to life. Alysha valued every member of her senior staff, but the team they made together surprised even her. She'd known all of them before the Stardancer, and some of them had met one another, but she had no reason to expect they'd gel so well.

     Not a single one of them liked her propensity for dealing personally with situations that affected someone under her care. All this time in the Fleet, and she still felt, deep in her heart, that she walked alone. She accepted help whenever it was offered, but the more years she saw the more the burden of her responsibilities seemed to draw people out of her reach. Laelkii saw her reticence and reacted by trying to pull her into more social activities. Alastar saw it and respected it. Taylitha saw it and challenged it.

     She needed them all.

     How could she love people so when she couldn't tell whether her shivers at the isolation of the vista around her were of fear . . . or pleasure?

     Here, the waters murmured against her skin. She looked up and saw nothing in all directions. With the ocean carrying the octopus's speech into her mind, the air felt empty of everything but light, the dazzling light of a rising white sun. Alysha squinted.

     Hold on, small one, whispered the wavelets. She grasped the arm more firmly and forced her eyes open. Tears crept over her lower lashes, but she witnessed the rise of the eldest from the water. All the ache of the sunlight on the ocean's rippled surface was worth it for the moment the waves broke for the head of the egg-layer, a head that blocked out the sun.

     The eldest was monstrous. She did not surface entirely from the water, but the visible half of her eye towered thirty feet above Alysha and her guide, and the knotted limb that lifted before them was thicker than the pylons that supported the Stardancer's Well drives.

     Alysha had floated outside the Stardancer during drills. She had space-walked outside starbases and dove through mazes of cargo bins strung onto spindles of vast interstellar barges. She'd thought she'd known the feeling of being dwarfed, but looking on the eldest she suddenly realized the difference between being smaller than a building or conveyance . . . and being smaller than a living being. In awe, she stared up at the octopus.

     So, love of knowledge is not entirely outside your grasp, came a new sending, one so deeply layered with colors and smells that Alysha flexed her hand on the arm that held her up to ground herself.

     "Pardon?" she asked, breathless.

     You feel joy at the sight of me because I am something new to you. Bells clanging. Tinier whispers of sounds like zills.

     Alysha bowed her head, allowed a tiny smile before she looked again at the eldest. "Yes." She let enough time pass to clear the water and said, "I am Captain Alysha Forrest of the UAV Stardancer, a vessel in the service of the United Alliance. In their name I greet you with peace in my heart."

     Welcome, Alysha Forrest. I am the eldest of my people, those who sail the waters near the shore. We have seen you touch ground from the sky and watched you walk our beaches. We have seen you in the speakers's caverns. You have made us very curious indeed. Why have you come?

     It was difficult not to be dizzied by the density of the eldest's sendings. The words were clear, but the undertones! Curiosity sharp as broken coral, authority heavy as salt, images of herself and the people of the Stardancer wandering the ocean's shores, of the ship's eagle leaving contrails over a silent and melancholy sea. But this . . . this was the question she'd been waiting for. Alysha looked up at the towering eyes. "We've come to meet the people who live on this world, and if they're amenable, to learn from them and be learned from. Befriend and be befriended. Trade and be traded with."

     An interesting order of things. Did you put them so intentionally?

     Alysha said, "That's usually the order it happens in. But if there's importance in the order, then yes, I put it so intentionally. First you learn of a person, then you ally, and then you develop other beneficial relationships."

     Thus you are here. To learn. That is why your people dog our shores, wander our caverns.

     The tenor of the sending had changed: a tiny hiss like an irritable wind among all the other sounds. Alysha couldn't interpret the eldest's dominant mood. "You seemed glad that I was glad of knowledge," she said. "Do you find find blame with curiosity?"

     Something like a laugh then, fringed with golden foam. No, Alysha Forrest. But our small ones too began with curiosity, and they had far less obedient tools with which to wreak their destructions, and ours.

     "We are not here to destroy you or ourselves," Alysha said. "My people have been friends and allies for many centuries. We've had time to unmake all that we've wrought, but we've chosen the stronger path of peace and civilization. We have befriended dozens of races and made many planets safe for life and living. Our ways are not violent." She took a breath and continued, "I've heard some of your history with the previous species here, and I grieve for the choice they encouraged your people to make over the one you preferred. We are not here to tell you how to live your lives. Only to offer our friendship to you for the duration of them."

     You speak so carefully. Alysha hadn't noticed until the eldest that the eyes of the octopi didn't move. She wondered if they were eyes at all. But small ones all seem to possess soft hearts, caring more for individual lives than for the choices of those who live those lives. You say you would respect our choices, but when the hour comes, you will interfere. It has happened before.

     "What happens before need not happen again," Alysha said. "We are not the people who grew up with you on these shores. We're older. We have learned something. Give us the benefit of that doubt."

     So you say. But there were those among the shore folk who spoke as you do now. Their words held little sway with the other small ones. Do you truly speak for all those who now wander our world?

     "I do," Alysha said.

     The eldest seemed to stare at her, and so long did the silence last that all the feelings leeched from the waters, leaving Alysha feeling for once profoundly alone, though she hung in the arms of her guide.

     This is not a matter to be decided lightly, the eldest said at last, pine-sharp and pooled shadows. You will be escorted to a place to wait while I gather the rest of our people to discuss the friendship you propose.

     "I thank you," Alysha said. "If I may . . . must I remain incommunicado? My people will worry at my absence."

     We have never erased memories from people such as you. We would prefer not to discover the effects, should we decide to do so. A flash of Alastar, lying slumped in the cave. Do not fear, Alysha Forrest. You will have company during your people's trial.    

     There was no mistaking the undertones to the word 'trial.' Alysha bowed her head to the eldest and said, "I understand."

     The eldest sank beneath the waters, leaving its surface broken only by Alysha and her guide. Still she couldn't help but wonder how much of the giant octopus was beneath her now, vast tentacles uncoiling beneath the waters.

     We go, said her guide. The eldest will soon send out many summons, and you should not be in the waters for that.

     "I imagine not," Alysha said, and held on.

     They swam together in silence for long enough that she dozed off. She woke up when a cold wave sloshed over her sun-warmed head and found herself held gently in one of the octopus's pockets, folded in the membrane between two arms. Before her was a small rocky crag not even the length of an admiral's phoenix.

     A place for you to stay while I meet those who have your companions and accompany them here, the guide said.

     "My companions?" Alysha asked, startled.

     The eldest promised you company while awaiting your decision. You shall have it. Wait here.

     Alysha climbed out of the octopus's embrace and onto the rock. Separated from the water, she had no way to bid the guide farewell. She stood in the flood of sunlight and watched him vanish beneath the waves before turning to explore her waiting-place: not even sixty feet long, she judged, with a small flat beach beneath an overhang that offered the best shade. A shallow pool beneath the overhang looked artificial; Alysha sought and traced the gouges left by chisels around the edges and wondered how many small ones before her had been left here to await the octopi.

     Once her data tablet had been stripped from its shielded pocket, it judged the water of the pool fresh enough to drink. Alysha slaked her thirst and splashed her face clean of salt, then squinted up at the overhang. It was short enough for an easy hop, and then a few long strides brought her to its edge and a smooth, hot surface perfect to lie on. She'd been in the water far too long. She could worry about Taylitha and the Stardancer, or wonder how long it would take for the octopi to gather--and those things deserved her consideration--but she was tired, and the sun was overhead, unfettered by clouds that might delay her fur from drying. Later she would need the strength and warmth a nap would supply. Alysha unbelted the pouch, plucked the clip from her nose and stored it in the pack, and then stretched out on her back to doze.

#28

     "Darya?" A soft, furry voice.

     Steffis's lower alto roused Darya from her drowse. "Your roomie's here."

     Darya stretched and sat up. "Felsha? Over here, on Alastar's rock."

     The golden Asanii sloshed through the cave, staring uncertainly at the tentacle still coiled along one edge of the wall. Over her shoulders draped the slack slimsuits Steffis and Darya had requested. "What's this all about, Darya? I thought you were back on-board!"

     "But this is where all the excitement is," Darya said. "Those three slimsuits checked?"

     "By the chief engineer herself last week, and there are four of them," Felsha said. "I'm not letting you get into trouble alone."

     Darya grinned. "I wasn't hoping you'd say that, but only because I didn't want to be disappointed. Come on, sit."

     Felsha sat next to her. "So what's going on?"
     "Hey!" Perralta said, suddenly appearing at the cave mouth. "I thought you all couldn't get in the usual way. How did she--hey, how am I getting in the usual way?"

     Steffis was leaning against the inside of the cave, staring at the paintings on the opposite wall. Her shock-staff rested next to her. "Darya says the critter's talking to her."

     Darya's ears folded back. "The critter did talk to me. We're about to take a sea-born adventure." She held out her hands. "In the deepest night on a deserted alien planet, we are about to embark on a mission to rescue the captain!"

     "Rescue the captain!" Felsha squeaked.

     Darya held up the discarded slimsuit with its damning rank braid. "She was here. Now she's not."

     "The cephalopod was talking to you?" All of Perralta's ebullience vanished, her demeanor suddenly hard and curious. "How?"

     Darya splashed her naked feet. "Through the water."

     Perralta crouched, data tablet in hand. "Intere--woah!"

     The arm inside the cavern withdrew so abruptly it sent a small wave through the chamber. All four women peered out to find their guard face--head? to-head with another of its kind, larger, its body too dark to be judged for color in the uncertain haze. Only its startling crimson eyes cut through the night.

     "Wow," Felsha said.

     The smaller creature withdrew a few waves away, and the larger turned in the water toward them.

     Don your protective clothing now, came the words, stronger and deeper than the "voice" Darya had heard before. It is time. It will be sunrise soon, and we have great distances to travel.

     "It says we're to get dressed now," Darya said.

     You, darkest one.

     Darya's ears pricked. "Yes?"

     It is through our water's contact with your skin that we speak with you. We are told you do not require your protective garments in order to swim. Will you leave off enough so we may talk?

     An excuse to skinny-dip? The octopus had to be kidding. She was Harat-Shariin! "Oh no, I don't mind at all."

     "Mind what?" Felsha asked warily, tugging the leg of the suit up her foot while leaning on the rock.

     "They talk through the water, but we have to leave our skin available," Darya said. "It just wanted to know if I would continue to serve as your interpreter."

     "Right," Perralta said, laughing. "Like asking a fish to swim, asking a Harat-Shar to get naked."

     "I see at least someone's been listening to the stories," Darya said cheerfully, leering at Steffis. The engineer scowled. Darya ignored her and stripped off her pants and shirt.

     "You were doing just fine with your feet uncovered!" Steffis complained.

     "I might be missing who knows how many nuances!" Darya said. "If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it right."

     Perralta giggled.

     Felsha picked up the captain's slimsuit. "Should we bring this with us?"

     "Yes," Steffis said, eyeing Darya with disapproval. "The captain's not Harat-Shar."

     "No, she's not, but she doesn't have a body-modesty issue. I've seen her nude," Darya said. "You, on the other hand are armed. That's far more offensive to a lot more species."

     "That's the plan," Steffis said. "You charm them, I zap them. And when did you see the captain naked?"

     "At the funeral for ensign Kharoush," Darya said, ears slicking back. She did not need to be sharp to silence them all.

     Felsha zipped her slimsuit closed at the collar and cleared her throat. "Well, we should get going. The octopus is waiting."

     "Cephalopod," Steffis and Perralta said in unison.

     "Right," Felsha said. She handed out the oxygen-exchange clips.

     Darya fitted hers to her nose, strapped the utility belt on and turned to the two octopi. "We're ready."

     Let us waste no time. One more thing, dark one.

     "Yes?" Darya asked.

     We will suffer no communications between you and other small ones while you are with us. Indeed, there are some who say that one small one knowing of us is one too many without adding another four. Tell your companions you may speak only among yourselves, for you are on trial.

     Darya swallowed. "I see," she said.

     "That didn't sound good," Felsha said.

     "It's not good," Darya said. "And you're not going to like it."

#29

     Taylitha jumped awake, head swimming with admirals, aliens and images of Alysha and Alastar in identical, dripping comas. She shuddered in her blankets, then flopped over and stared at the glowing chronolog floating over her workspace. Barely after 6 mark. She'd only been asleep an hour and a half or so. Maybe two.

     "An in space," she said with a groan. "The report. Alysha!" She whistled open a channel.

     "Computer, patch me to Steffis."

     Silence. Taylitha used it to wonder how embarrassed she should be if in the intervening hours Steffis had left her a message that she'd failed to check before frantically calling. She'd decided on 'not embarrassed, but not demanding'--after all, they were supposed to have called her fifteen minutes after her first request, and they hadn't--when the computer answered.

     "Lieutenant Steffis is not responding."

     Taylitha dropped the blanket from enervated hands. "Excuse me?"

     "Lieutenant Steffis is n--"

     "Never mind that," Taylitha said, waving a clawed hand in the dark. "Get me Darya."

     "Lieutenant Darteriov is not responding."

     Taylitha gaped. "I guess it's too much to ask for the captain," she said in a small voice.

     "Alysha Forrest is not available."

     Taylitha buried her face in her hands. "Oh God in the sunlit heavens, oh God. No. Can't panic. Computer, can you locate Darya or Steffis?"

     "The transceivers in Lieutenant Steffis's and Lieutenant Darteriov's telegems are not responding."

     What had they said last time she'd talked to them? They'd located the captain in the caves, but there was an octopus in the way and they'd called a biologist to investigate. "Basil to the Biology Lab."

     "Tara Demier here. How can I help you sir?"

     "Good morning. Was a biologist sent downstairs earlier, Tara?" Taylitha asked.

     "Ah, yes. Ensign Perralta. She should still be on planet. Lieutenant Darya called her down."

     "That's all I needed to know," Taylitha said. "Thanks." She whistled that closed, then took a long breath and said, "Computer. Ensign Perralta please."

     "Ensign Perralta is not respo--"

     "--onding, right," Taylitha said. Had they even found the captain before succumbing to whatever it was that lurked in that cave? An unbidden image flashed before her eyes: an angry yellow eye. She shuddered. What could she do? Send more people after them? What if they got lost as well?

     Darya, Steffis, the biologist . . . surely they were capable, just like the captain. Still, she couldn't trust that they'd come back on their own. Taylitha whistled the computer to the main channel being used for command traffic for the digs.

     "This is Basil."

     Two "Good mornings," greeted her, the two officers currently overseeing both sites. No doubt several score more were listening in, though they were barred from adding to the traffic.

     "If any of you see Steffis, tell her I'm looking for her," Taylitha said, doing her best to sound like a slightly irascible, underslept commander and not a frantically worried one left in command of the starship. "She and Darya had an assignment last night and they seem to have gotten lost."

     A long pause, then one of the women said, "We'll keep an ear out for them, Commander."

     "Thanks," Taylitha said, and added for good measure, "I can't imagine what they could be doing. Basil out."

     The line chimed its close, leaving what she hoped was harmless and raunchy speculation about what could have distracted someone who'd gone off alone with a Harat-Shar from making a report. Now the women downstairs would be looking for the missing people without, Taylitha hoped, too much alarm.

     She had problems of her own . . . like getting out the report she promised to Exploration on Alysha's behalf, or finding a plausible excuse. Report-writing was nothing new to Taylitha, but linguistics wasn't her specialty. If the linguists hadn't done something with the native in the hours Taylitha had been fretting over Alysha's safety, there was no way she'd be able to fake a report, no matter how much practice she'd had writing sweet nothings for Personnel.

     Of course, she could say that Alysha was still in negotiations with the natives, and that the captain had asked Taylitha to prepare a preliminary report in her absence. Never mind that it was a lie: if Alysha had been on board, she surely would have been doing just that, closeted with the native until they could understand one another. In such a circumstance, Alysha would of course ask for her aid in the paperwork. Taylitha was good with paperwork. The excuse would fly. She just had to come up with enough useful information to write something.

     So, to the Medplex. Taylitha stepped out of bed and stumbled, catching herself on the edge of the night-table. She stared at her trembling leg and then dropped her ears in chagrin. Of course, she'd barely slept and not well. She'd have to have coffee. Didn't the captain have coffee every morning? Taylitha tried to remember ever seeing Alysha exhausted and failed. With a sigh, she tied her hair back and got dressed, moving slowly.

     The Medplex was extremely quiet when Taylitha entered, stopping uncertainly by the fish tanks in the antechamber. Before she could step through to triage, a slim woman took her by the arm and drew her back into the antechamber.

     "Sssh," she said, one finger to her lips. "We finally got her to sleep, and she'll have any excuse to pop awake again. I'm Chloe, head Healer's-assist. What can I do for you, commander?"

     Taylitha peeked past Chloe.

     "Other way," Chloe said, grinning.

     The antechamber had two entrances to triage, one larger than the other. Taylitha glanced through the latter and saw Alastar still resting beneath her halo-arch and, beside her on a bed with a retracted arch, Laelkii sprawled untidily, covered in a Medplex-issue blue blanket.

     "Well, at least someone's sleeping," Taylitha said. "Any word on the native?"

     "Speaking of not sleeping," Chloe said, shaking her head. "He's in Firebird Garden with the linguists and Thandry, one of our psychologists. Last I heard they were frustrated in the extreme. They should still be there."

     "Frustrated in the extreme?" Taylitha grimaced. "That doesn't sound good."

     "They could use some encouragement," Chloe said. "Are you well, sir? Can I get you something before you go? A danish, a cup of coffee?"

     Cream cheese icing first thing in the morning sounded far too rich. But, "Do you have anything good in the outpatient basket? That and the cup of coffee would be great."

     "We have Curlew apples from down the hall," Chloe said. "They're the perfect texture for eating. I'll be right back."

     Taylitha peeked again at Alastar and Laelkii. The former looked no worse than she had before, but the lines beneath Laelkii's eyes were deeper. She worried too much, did Snowhide. Perhaps that was part of being a doctor, part of why they'd put the wall of fish up for people to stare at. Perhaps that was part of being alive, worrying. Alastar would say that everything would happen as it should.

     Taylitha thanked Chloe for the apple and the coffee and ate on the way down the hall. The gardens were vital to the health of the occupants on the ship: not just for the revitalization of the oxygen, but for fresh food and psychological well-being. For that reason, the gardens extended up every level of the ship. Some corridors in the Stardancer were lined with additional flora, but the full seasonal-lighting and planting upgrades hadn't yet been made available to the ship.

     Taylitha passed beneath the large arch into the gardens on the Medplex's level, named for the firebird trumpets Maintenance had planted at the request of the healers. The fitness division of the Medplex synthesized hormone complexes for the Karaka'A in the crew from the buds, but Taylitha knew that only because hers was the second-to-last signature on the medical stores requisition. Everyone else onboard appreciated the trumpets for their brilliant scarlet hue and the icy white throats of their blossoms.

     A section of the garden had been cordoned off near the back. Taylitha tossed her apple core in the compost chute and approached it quietly out of respect for the slumped backs of the two women standing just outside the flexglass walls.

     "Good morning," she said once she was in earshot.

     "Commander," a short woman replied. She was plain-coated with tufted ears and clear purple eyes surrounded by bloodshot whites. "Good morning."

     Taylitha looked into the enclosure. A weary Karaka'An stood inside, trying to talk to the native, who had climbed one of the lerugee trees. "Any luck?"

     "None," the woman said. Her uniform had a lieutenant's stripe, her badge the medical division's aquamarine dots. According to the badge, she was Jewel Thandry. "Or so close to none it might as well be none. We got him inside and he just stopped communicating. No whistles, no cheeping, nothing. The linguists can't work without data. I can't work without stimulus. It's a mess."

     "So he's just . . . sleeping?" Taylitha asked.

     Thandry shook her head. "No. Catatonic, or he was for the first few hours. He just curled up in a ball and didn't move or respond to anything. I was monitoring his vitals, but I didn't see anything obviously wrong. Then a little while ago, he made for the tree and he's been there since."

     "Catatonic?" Taylitha asked.

     "Or close," Thandry said. She sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. "It's been a long night."

     "It's safe to go in, I assume," Taylitha said.

     "Be my guest, sir."

     Taylitha nodded and let herself into the enclosure. She smiled at the Karaka'An and looked up into the tree. The native had curled himself into a rough ball and wedged himself between trunk and branch with his back to the room, only his tail hanging down.

     "You seemed a little feistier earlier," Taylitha said to the tail. "What happened? Do you not like the gardens?"

     The native lifted his head and bent it at a truly astonishing angle to peer over his multiple sets of shoulder blades. Beside Taylitha, the Karaka'An fumbled at her data tablet.

     "Peep?"

     "Yes, it's me," Taylitha said. "I'm actually washed this time, though. And mostly fed." She saluted him with her coffee cup. "I hear you have been giving these ladies the cold shoulder? Are the accommodations too . . . well, too cage-like?" Taylitha looked around.

     The creature uncurled, both sets of hands clasping the tree limb as it looked down at her. It whistled, a low breathy sound that reminded Taylitha of the shakuhachi someone had played at the last ship's recital. She couldn't shake the melancholy that the sound suggested. Was she imagining it because the song the ensign had played had sounded so lonely, like broken reeds beside a leaden river?

     "I'm sorry," Taylitha said. "Could you say that again?"

     The creature canted his head and stared at her with inscrutable black eyes. It leaned toward her and made a similar sound, low in volume, breathy, uncertain.

     Taylitha set her coffee cup on the ground and stretched out both hands, trying to beckon him down. After a few moments of watching her fingers wiggle, the native climbed down the tree head-first. He sat on its roots in front of her, his lower hands resting on his knees and his upper arms held limp between them. He chirped.

     "This is the most activity we've seen from the native in hours!" the woman beside her whispered.

     "Does that mean I can leave now?" Taylitha asked with a grin.

     "Now that he's awake, we should be fine," the woman said.

     Taylitha nodded and picked up her coffee cup. She said to the native, "Please, be kind to these poor women and talk to them? They're eager to make your acquaintance, and we won't be able to make introductions until you've talked enough for us to figure out what you mean when you do. Okay?"

     The native canted his head.

     Taylitha walked toward the door and heard the lonely shakuhachi sound again. She turned and found the native staring at her, both mid-hands lifted.

     "I think he wants you to stay," the woman said, ears drooping.

     Taylitha blinked a few times. Stare as she could, she could find no emotion in those solid black eyes to explain the sudden surge of melancholy she felt sure the alien was trying to express. Why her?

     Why not her?

     If he wouldn't "talk" to anyone else . . .

     "Well, if one of you could find me a data tablet," Taylitha said with a faint smile, "there's no reason I can't do my report here."

     The alien's black gaze remained fixed on her.

#30

     Alysha woke an hour later, by the data tablet's time-keeping. She rolled onto her stomach and stretched her shoulders, enjoying the prickle of the sun on her still-damp back. The rock was just getting uncomfortable, so after a few minutes she slipped off it and extracted a ration flat from the inside flap of her kit. She sat on the beach and stared out over the ocean while eating. Honey, oats and some kind of dried fruit, she thought. Cherries. No, rooderberries.

     The reflection off the water made it too difficult to pierce its depths, but its surface was marred by ripples: no simple ocean current, but unusual perturbations. Alysha finished off the bar and leaned forward, touching a fingertip to the water, then submerging her whole hand.

     A barrage of whispers: clarions played by distant trumpets, the hiss of a storm-wind through pines, the flame-scent of fresh-chopped cinnamon bark. Alysha settled on her stomach with one hand in the water to 'listen.' The guide had been correct--she wouldn't want to be in the water during this conversation--but she did want to have some idea of how it was going.

     She rested there, cheek pressed to the rock, hand drifting in the water, and did not feel time pass though she remained aware of the sun's angle changing, slanting light slowly across her back. The octopi talked, more individuals than she could distinguish, their speech tangled with images of cave-painted creatures and deepening sunsets and falling stars. It would have reminded her of her conversations with the Flitzbe she'd bunked with, but the Flitzbe had never sounded so agitated about anything.

     A slick hand smoothed over hers, and Alysha cracked her eyes open.

     You dare much to listen so. Are all your kind so brave?

     A hand did not seem dangerous, Alysha said. And as for bravery . . . She grinned. It depends on who you ask.

     You have some idea of how the debate goes, then.

     A little, Alysha said. She curled her fingers around her guide's hand beneath the waters. They are in turmoil, or so it sounds.

     Greater turmoil we haven't seen since the last of the small ones departed from our shores, the octopus agreed. You may be called again soon to speak before the eldest and all the rest.

     I'm ready.

     There is no guarantee of your safety, small one. The others will be told not to speak out-of-turn, but still you may be overwhelmed.

     I have faith in myself, Alysha said. All will work out as it should.

     The sound of broken shells touched intimately in her ears. For a moment, she thought it was one of the water-sendings. Then the octopus said, Your companions have arrived.

     She nodded. Should I stay in the water?

     I will wave when we must go. You may remain dry for the time being.

     Alysha squeezed the hand, then rolled to her feet and looked around. The sun had grown fat and orange since she'd seen it last and was now balanced on the horizon, dying the ocean purple and red. Her guide remained nearby, the tip of his head protruding from the water, and two other octopi were retreating from the other side of the island. Four women, drenched but in good spirits, had spotted her and were heading her way.

     "Look!" Darya said, laughing. "I told you we'd rescue her."

     "Rescue me?" Alysha asked with a grin. "Was I lost?"

     "Absolutely," Darya said. "The First Commander was worried."

     Of course she was, Alysha thought fondly, and watched the women join Darya one by one. She knew them all by name, though only Darya and Felsha better for their rotations on the bridge's weapons and navigation stations. Perralta had answered a question or two when she'd run into biology findings in the latest anthropology journals, which she inevitably didn't get to until late at night. And Steffis -- Alysha didn't know who'd decided Steffis should be on a mission to recover her, but it was a wise choice.

     "What was the last thing you told the First Commander?" Alysha asked.

     Steffis said, "We told her we were investigating the chamber where we'd found Alastar, but that it was blocked by a creature." Her ears drooped. "That was the last time we talked to her. We should have left a message."

     "You didn't know I was there," Alysha said. "The First Commander will be fine."

     "Captain . . . these people . . . they weren't very talkative, and they only thing they did tell us was a little disturbing," Felsha said. "Could you tell us what's going on?"

     "And we brought your slimsuit," Steffis added, drawing it from her shoulder and setting it on the rock.

     Strange that all this time she hadn't noticed her nudity. From the twitch of her people's ears, only Darya didn't care about her lack of clothes, but no one was looking at Darya either. Social mores varied more wildly from place to place than from race to race, but it was still safe to assume that more Asanii were uncomfortable with nudity than Harat-Shar.

     For her part, Alysha had made her peace with such things. She'd be going back into the water soon. "Thanks, Lieutenant," Alysha said. "Though as you've perhaps discovered, the only useful way to talk with these beings is by going without. Set it on the rock, there? I'm not sure we'll be here long enough to get comfortable." She sat next to the freshwater pool and waited for them to arrange themselves around it. Darya started to wring her hair--Felsha gently pushed her hands to the side so that the seawater wouldn't run into the pool.

     "What did they tell you?" Alysha asked.

     Felsha's ears flattened. "That we were on trial, and that we weren't allowed to talk to anyone until it was done. But sir, what did we do?"

     Alysha smiled. "We didn't do anything, arii. We just present a situation to the octopi that they have no contingency plan for. Long ago, the people who lived on land, whom they counted as friends, asked them to betray their own beliefs. Since then they haven't had the heart to befriend anyone else. They're trying to decide now if we're worth that effort."

     The women were exchanging uncertain looks. Alysha arched a brow, and finally Darya said, "Umm... how long ago, sir?"

     "They didn't say," Alysha answered.

     "Can't have been that long," Perralta said. "Since he's still alive." When she noticed Alysha's canted head, she blushed. "The native we found, sir. The night before last. The First Commander and a bunch of others found him in the wild."

     "One native?" Alysha asked, startled. "No others?"

     "No others," Steffis said. "Not for want of searching. We'd detached four details to looking once we found him, but there's just no sign of any others."

     "Maybe he's the last," Felsha volunteered. "Or close to it."

     Alysha nodded. "They did say that they'd warred to death. Maybe a few escaped the wars."

     "If this is all so secret," Darya said suddenly, "why did the octopi bring us all this way? They kept saying the fewer small ones that knew about them the better, but they didn't have to show themselves to us."

     "I'm not sure," Alysha said. "Maybe they needed a bigger representative sample of what we're like to come to a decision."

     They looked at one another, and Alysha grinned at their consternation.

     "It doesn't get too much different than us," Felsha said, chagrined. "I'm not sure we make a good sample."

     "We're alike in more ways than we're different," Alysha said. "Whatever the case, I'm supposed to offer additional information to the eldest and the others soon. Hopefully we'll have a decision and we can rejoin the others."

     "You mean "we," right?" Darya said. "The critters didn't bring us all this way just to leave us on the shore while you go swim around with them, I hope."

     Alysha paused. "There's an element of risk, Lieutenant."

     "There is in everything," Darya said.

     "She's right, sir," Steffis said, and Alysha was not the only one to look at her with surprise. Skirting insubordination was expected from the libertines in the Alliance, not the Steffises of the worlds. "We can't protect you if we're stranded here."

     "I don't anticipate requiring protection," Alysha said. "These are not violent people. The very opposite, I'd say."

     "Still," Steffis said. "You never know what might come up."

     "And think of all the data I'd be missing!" Perralta said. "An alien cephalopod moot! You'd have to knock me out to keep me away!"

     Darya added, "If it's the talking you're worried about, they can stay clothed and I don't have any problems with it."

     Curious, Alysha said, "You have experience with non-standard communication styles?"

     "Besides the obvious ones?" Darya replied with a grin. "But yes, sir. In a way. People would have you believe that our way of life gives us no strengths, but you learn very quickly how to embrace new things on the homeworld. It's fighting against something you don't understand that gives it an opportunity to damage you, you know?"

     "In some cases," Alysha murmured, then chuckled. "Very well, then. While we're waiting, tell me about this native you found."

     They didn't know much, but what they did they explained in great detail, interrupting one another to clarify events during the chase, or to speculate on biology and the likelihood of there being only one such creature remaining.

     "Then again," Perralta said, "If the species is going to die, someone has to be the last."

     "Not if they all go at once," Steffis said. "A bomb or catastrophic nature event."

     "They don't look up to bombs technologically," Perralta said.

     "How horrible," Darya said softly. "To be the only person left in the world." She shivered.

     The water near their beach rippled, then parted for a long arm. Alysha stood, ignoring the goosebumps Darya's words had lifted along her spine. "I think it's time, ladies."

     They scrambled to their feet and prepared. Alysha strapped her belt and pouch back on, slipped the oxygen-exchange clip onto her nose, then studied them. In the twilight, their silhouettes with their straightened shoulders said the same things: pride, discipline, courage. They were more alike than they thought. Alysha smiled and walked into the water. As the others splashed in behind her, the octopus said, You are bringing your companions?

     Your eldest wanted to know if I speak for all my people, and if my people are all like me, Alysha said. Let her see for herself. We are of one mien. We will not interfere with your lives.

     Very well, he said. Let us go.

#31

 

     " . . . The linguists are currently using the data from the obelisk--"

     Taylitha paused and tapped on the glass until she caught the attention of one of the women standing outside. "Are you using the obelisk to help figure out the language?"

     The woman monitoring the alien outside the cage wasn't visible, but her voice whispered through Taylitha's telegem. "Yes, sir?"

     "--in order to help unlock the mysteries of this new species' language," Taylitha continued, then pursed her lips. "Because this species is unlike any other we've met--no, no, any the Alliance has encountered--that sounds better, doesn't it?--progress has been steady but slow on deciphering . . . um, decoding their native tongue." She looked down at the alien. "What do you think?"

     It looked up at her, a subtlety she noticed only because the highlights on its eyes rose with its black eyelids. She'd been seated on this rock since Thandry had fetched her a tablet, and once she'd settled there the native had crawled over to join her, draping its seemingly boneless body over the stone. It occasionally chirped or peeped at her when she prompted, but her presence hadn't prompted any grand soliloquies. The linguists at the pen had speculated that their presence was impeding progress and removed themselves, darkening the window behind which they hid, recording, puzzling, pattern-matching.

     "I guess I should add more," Taylitha said with a sigh. "But I'm running out of things to say, and you're not exactly helping by being so reserved." She scratched the creature's eye ridge, staring at the data tablet.

     The alien bumped his head against her hand. She blinked, then realized she'd been petting it, like an animal. Her ears blushed bright red and she snatched her hand back. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to--"

     He was staring at her, head lifted off the rock. A few moments of silence passed, and then he wiggled his body closer to hers and rested his head on her leg. Taylitha stared at it without moving, both arms lifted away.

     "Commander? Are you all right?" a voice whispered in her telegem.

     Taylitha tried to speak and ended up squeaking.

     The native whistled back.

     "Do that again!" the voice in her ear said, with just a touch of desperation.

     Taylitha swallowed, and tried to squeak on purpose. This time nothing came out. She covered her eyes and whined.

     The native struggled upright and bumped his head against her arm, which delivered a sock to her jaw. She wobbled, the creature wobbled, they both fell. Despite its layer of soil and grass, the ground didn't give much beneath her shoulder.

     "Commander!"

     "No--it's all right!" Taylitha said, touching her jaw gingerly. The alien was sitting on his haunches above her, examining her. His fingers mimicked hers, a few inches above her knuckles. She held her breath and lowered her hand.

     He stroked her face with a feather-light touch, and his breathy whistle carried all the concern that his face seemed too rigid to convey.

     "I'm okay," Taylitha said, trying to put as much information into her voice as he did, but realizing she sounded less soothing and more frantic. "Really, I'm okay, it's just a bump."

     The alien whined, almost exactly as she had, then added a querulous note.

     "I'm fine," Taylitha said again, this time not even paying attention to the words. She tried to smooth all the edges off the sounds. "I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine."

     This time he believed her--she thought. He pressed his head against her shoulder. Bewildered, Taylitha gently rested her hands on his shoulders. "Did I do that right?" she whispered to the women listening.

     "We think so," was the reply, and attuned to the sound of the words, Taylitha heard their reined excitement.

     She smiled at the alien and said, "See? No harm done. And maybe some good, too."

     He glanced at her and she tried her best reassuring smile, remembering a few moments' later that he probably couldn't read her expression. She thought back to contented naps curled up with all her sisters and brothers and tried a low, soft thrum.

     The native instantly relaxed.

     "Commander," the telegem whispered. "We're getting an urgent message from Comm for you, real-time Well-fed. We're patching it to your data tablet."

     "Not now!" Taylitha exclaimed, startling the creature, but by then a window had opened on her data tablet and filled with the face and silky ears of Admiral Canby from Personnel.

     "May I help you?" Taylitha asked, without taking into account the connection bar. The admiral started breathing somewhere around 'help.' Taylitha repeated her question quickly, and tacked on a 'sir' for good measure.

     "This is most irregular, Commander," the admiral said, clipping the ends of his words. "Where is the captain?"

     "She's still involved with the aliens," Taylitha said, trying not to glance at the single alien a few feet away who was staring at her, body tense and tail curled. What did that mean? "I have a preliminary report here ready to be filed--"

     "--then file it already, Commander!" Canby exclaimed. "I'm not interested in the report. I want your captain's sign on the priority mail Personnel sent!"

     "Is there any way I can oblige the admiral?" Taylitha asked, alarmed at the red suffusing the skin inside Canby's ears. She somehow doubted he was embarrassed. "Was it information you needed? Authorization for something?"

     "We need your mission status. Your location. And your planned itinerary between now and [insert date] so we can schedule Captain Forrest for the biennial retreat."

     "Oh!" Taylitha exclaimed. "Refits! I'd completely forgotten that we're due!"

     Canby sighed. "Commander. I appreciate that you and Captain Forrest are currently engaged in an . . . unusual situation. Normally I'd require Forrest to respond to the priority mail with some proof of authentication as well as the information. In this case I'll settle for a message from you with the same kind of proof. Mail it to Personnel with your location and mission status and schedule, please."

     "Of course, sir," Taylitha said. "I'll do that right away."

     "The moment I disconnect," Canby said, eyeing her.

     "Yes," Taylitha said. "Of course, sir. Immediately."

     He nodded and the connection bar broke. Without pausing to breathe, Taylitha spread a new message. She hurriedly dropped in the required information, voice-printed it and encrypted it, and sent it away. Then she flopped onto her back beneath the tree.

     "Peep?" the alien asked, creeping back over.

     "An save it all," Taylitha said. "All that over a stupid refit session?" She suddenly remembered her silent observers and slapped a hand over her eyes. "You people didn't hear me say that."

     Nothing, then: "Say what, sir?" "Not a word, sir." "We would never listen to your private communications with an admiral, sir--"

     Taylitha laughed, then thought to look for the native. He had sealed himself to the ground, flat and trembling. Startled, she crawled over to him.

     "What's wrong?" she said, trying to soften her voice.

     The native mewled.

     "That's not good enough," Taylitha said, putting as much wheedling concern as she could into her voice. "I'm sorry if I scared you. What did I do?"

     The creature lifted his head just high enough to clear the ground, then let loose a fluting series of notes and sounds before pressing his cheek to the soil again. Taylitha thought again of the shakuhachi and found her lashes wet.

     "What is it?" she asked, though she wasn't sure if she was asking the women outside or the alien. "What's wrong with him?"

#32

     "We're off, we're off to the cephalopod moot! It's sure to be amazing and cute! And we'll drift there and stare, as long as we dare, to . . . umm. Hmm."

     "She's stopped singing," Steffis said. "Stars be thanked, she's stopped singing."

     "I'm just looking for a last line," Perralta said, ears flipping back. "And I don't sing all that badly. You should hear my bunkie."

     "Can you imagine what the aliens are thinking?" Steffis asked.

     "They think it's amusing," Darya piped in.

     A close enough translation, Alysha thought, amused herself. They were all clinging to an arm of a guide, being towed out to the location of the octopi gathering. And while the waves were breaking the words almost as quickly as they were being formed, still she'd caught hints of laughter and ease. Singing was something the octopi remembered fondly.

     "What rhymes with moot?" Perralta asked.

     "Loot. Hoot. Root," Darya offered.

     "Newt?" Felsha said, tentative.

     "Mute," Steffis muttered.

     Alysha hid her grin.

     These are your people? her guide asked. Their wakes cross.

     Alysha would have liked a little more water to sink into that metaphor, but context supplied what the water's layers couldn't. They are more alike than they think they are. They grew up beneath distant stars, in different cultures. They are all the same substance, but molded differently.

     Does that not make them different?

     Alysha shook her head.

     How not?

     She glanced over at them: Darya and Felsha were sharing a cephalopod, hanging onto a tentacle on either side of its head. They were grinning over at Perralta, who was smiling innocently at a scowling Steffis. The engineer's shock staff was strapped to her back, and cut a deeper swath in the water than her body.

     I don't know if I could find the words, Alysha said. But it's truth.

     Do you sense-share it then, as we do in one another?

     Startled, Alysha glanced at the orange eye of her guide. Even with the speed of their passage disrupting the impressions the octopi emitted, she could still feel the depth of that word, its manifold layers. I'm not sure I know what you mean, she said.

     The guide's body quivered. Trading waters. Sharing waters. Sharing minds in the waters. Getting a sense of another's mind in the sharing. A true sense.

     Each layer built an image before the currents swept it away, and tinged it with the sharp cinnamon scent of excitement, a cool breeze of complete trust. Alysha renewed her grip on her guide's arm. She should have expected something of the sort . . . their form of communication seemed to lend itself to such mingling. Still, the depth of the word intrigued and unsettled her. I have nothing like that, she said.

     Nothing? the octopi sounded as disturbed as she'd felt at the idea of having it. None of you can share so?

     Oh, some of us can, Alysha said. But one has to be born with the ability, and it is only common among certain races. None of us here could share that way.

     The octopi's distress deepened so much she sensed the attention of their two escorts. Then how can you know the people you are with?

     Well, Alysha said, struggling for words, by watching them. By listening to what they say. By observing what they do. By actions and words we know one another. Most of us have become so good at matching the words and the actions of others together that we no longer focus on them: the gestalt gives us the sense of a person's spirit, and we can predict their feelings.

     How inefficient! her guide exclaimed. How . . . dark! A sense then of drowning in waters on a moonless night. You are blind, and yet you seem so confident.

     We are not blind, Alysha said. We just use different senses to arrive at the same information. It would be disorienting to most of us -- powerfully so -- to suddenly be endowed with the ability you possess. It would be hard for us to separate ourselves from one another, the way the first of my people, Alastar, had trouble keeping the layers of your sendings separate from her own.

     And yet you do not have that problem, her guide said. Would you then be capable of sense-sharing?

     I . . . I don't know, Alysha said, ears flipping back. Some part of her reported the banter of her crew, splashing one another, laughing, having moved on from the song to other topics. What would it be like to know their minds as espers did? She'd known espers, and worked with them, but she'd never coveted their abilities. Her own small Sensitivity had always been a surprise on the rare occasions when it woke; when it did she used it only to confirm what training and her long years closely observing the behavior of those around her told her. Too, she had her own secrets, and salving the wounds left by bitter experience on the souls of others had taught her to respect the dark places no one wanted revealed.

     You are uncertain of the value of it, her guide surmised, with surprise permeating so many layers of his sending that it reached her despite their ruffled wake. Even our small ones knew the value of sense-sharing.

     They could do it? Alysha asked.

     Among each other, yes, and with us. They shared with one another to talk, to live. Their sharing with us was for pleasure, for greater understanding.

     And yet, Alysha said, they still failed to understand you enough to allow you to live your lives as you chose.

     Her guide did not immediately respond, but Alysha could sense his consternation. She stroked his skin and said, I can see the possibilities of it.

     Can you? The sending seemed subdued.

     Alysha banished the darkness that surrounded the thought of burdening others with all the things she'd seen and experienced; she put aside her unwillingness to discomfort people by shining light into their shadowed corners. She thought instead of touching the best in another person, sharing it directly, of allowing others to hide beneath the wings she had in her heart and experiencing the flame of their minds. The idea seemed as unreal as a storybook, but it appealed. Surely a world where everyone mingled so would be utopia.

     And yet, the octopi and their small ones had disagreed despite their abilities. And the small ones, who had used sense-sharing to communicate among one another, had warred to their graves.

     I can see the possibilities of it, Alysha said again.

     But you are uncertain, her guide said, and then wrapped the sending in subdued tones, like suffocating seaweed, and perhaps you have cause.

     That bled away and left a new sensation, sharper edged and brine-scented. But? Alysha said.

     But I have had your mien all this time through the waters, the guide said. Since the moment I found you in the waters off the coast and guided you to the Speaker's cave, I have been sense-sharing with you. I would not have dared what I did had I not been able to feel what you are.

     And all of me? You feel that? Alysha asked, startled and unnerved.

     Not all of you, the creature said. But you are strongly carried in your speech.

     I see, Alysha said softly. She looked past her shoulder at her crew. And the other with us? Is she also strongly carried on her speech?

     Not so much as you are, but her flavor is there, the guide said.

     When Alysha did not reply, the tentacle beneath her hand rippled. You are distressed. Why?

     There are things within every person they would prefer not to share.

     Why?

     Alysha stared at the smoldering eye of the octopi. The aliens wanting to die within the natural order of things somehow seemed more explicable than this. For . . . many reasons, she said finally.

     I hope they are good enough to please the Eldest, the guide said, because we are here, and she will want to know them.

     The other two aliens had ceased their swimming and now floated in still waters.

     "Are we here?" Perralta asked in a small voice. "It's so quiet."

     The octopi began to rise from the waters.

#33

     "Snowhide!" Taylitha stopped just inside the Medplex, cradling the alien in her arms. Her chest felt hot and tight. "Snowhide!"

     Laelkii appeared in the arch leading to the ward. "Tayl--oh, sun and stars. Get him on a bed. What happened?"

     Taylitha padded in, the security guards a few footfalls behind her. They'd allowed her to carry the alien, but they'd remained very close all the way to the Medplex. She set the alien on one of the beds and stepped away as Laelkii waved the diagnostics on, scowling all the while.

     "We're not sure," Taylitha said. "One minute he was fine, the next minute . . . oh, hell, Snowhide! What's wrong with him?"

     "I'm not sure," Laelkii said. "His metabolic functions are slow and I'm getting weak electrical signals in his nervous system. Damned if I know what's causing it." She activated the halo arch with another wave of her hand. A few minutes later, she said absently, "Computer, get me . . . curse it, who's the biochemist on duty? And the neurologist. Hea Lisette, get me a medimage cart."

     Taylitha backed away as people and equipment swarmed the bed. Words began to float from the growing crowd: "Deterioration," and "atrophy" and something about some particles in the bloodstream. They sounded at their most doctorly, acquiring the detachment level of the truly concerned. Taylitha wanted badly to ask what was wrong, but she suspected that they didn't know themselves yet, "deterioration" and "atrophy" notwithstanding.

     Instead of interrupting their conference, she wandered, dispirited, to Alastar's bedside. The second officer was still deep in her coma-like sleep, face blank. Taylitha drew up a stool and sat next to her, resting her arms and face on the invisible arch generated by the bed.

     "Anytime now, 'Star," Taylitha murmured. "Really. I could use your help. . . ."

     Whether it was the barely audible thrum of the halo-arch or the steady cadence of Alastar's breath, Taylitha slid into sleep against the bed. She dreamed of drowning in a pond in the middle of a dark desert, and the shadows passing her did not stop to save her.

     The insistent arpeggio of her telegem jarred her awake. Startled, Taylitha pressed her hand to her heart, hoping to make it stop racing, and managed to whistle the channel open.

     "First Commander here."

     "Sir, we've lost the contact team."

     "Say again?" Taylitha said, instantly tense.

     "The team you sent to the caves? Darya and Steffis? They're not responding. Neither is Lieutenant Rennagan."

     "Are they in the caves?" Taylitha asked.

     "We made a cursory check immediately and didn't find them. We're doing a more thorough search now."

     An on high, Taylitha thought, I've lost them too! "Call me when you're done," she said.

     "Will do, sir." A pause. "Should we be looking somewhere else?"

     "I don't know," Taylitha answered, puzzled by the question. "Is there a problem . . . Kelsey, isn't it?"

     "Yes, sir. Just that you made it sound like you don't expect us to find them. Did they go where the captain went?"

     Taylitha gaped at the Medplex wall. She resisted the urge to grab her ears. "I wasn't aware," she said, improvising, "that anyone knew about the captain's mission."

     "Well, there were some rumors flying around when Darya and Steffis left, and since no one had heard from the captain in a while--"

     "It's likely they've joined the captain," Taylitha said. "But just in case, we should make sure."

     "Sounds good, sir. We'll keep looking. Kelsey away."

     The channel closed, but before Taylitha could draw breath, it chimed again. Her shoulders bunched, but she reopened it. "Basil here."

     "Sir, you have a priority flat from FC."

     Taylitha looked around for the nearest screen and found it on the other side of Alastar's bed. She scooted the stool to that side. "Right. Thank you, ensign."

     A quick tap brought up her mailbox with the red flash of the message. Taylitha spread it and started reading. Every succeeding line filled her with more foreboding. FC's Exploration Office had received her report and read with interest about the two dig sites. However, given the paucity of material in the report, and taking into consideration Stardancer's need to report back to Alliance Core in time for scheduled refits, FC was sending two more vessels to take the 'Dancer's place. Once they arrived, the Stardancer was to break off at once and return to the Core.

     "Oh . . . my . . . damn it to the twenty midnight hells!" Her palm slammed the wall beside the screen, and head head drooped against it. "How am I going to stop them from re-assigning us?"

     "You could try consulting the procedures for site authority."

     Taylitha whirled around, almost sending the stool into a spin. Alastar was watching her out of one dark blue eye, a small smile on her lips. Her voice had been weak and slow, but definitive.

     "'Star!" Taylitha cried, and pounced her. Her arms slid off the halo-arch, but the other woman's head was free and Taylitha hugged that instead.

     "Gently!" Alastar croaked, then laughed, a low, whispery thing. "I'm still not sure this body works."

     "SNOWHIDE!" Taylitha hollered.

     Laelkii came bounding over, braid flapping on her back. "Stars alive, Taylitha, don't yell in my ward--Alastar!" She glanced at the diagnostics, then said, "You look good." A few healers-assist stopped mid-motion when they noticed Laelkii at the bed already, then went back to their duties when the C-med waved them away. "How are you feeling?"

     "Shaky, but awake," Alastar said. "Can I get up?"

     Laelkii squinted. "That might not be a good idea. You look like all you need is a good day's kidney flush and some food, but you could relapse. I don't even know why you were under so long."

     "Let her up, please," Taylitha said. Her ears flipped back when Laelkii turned narrowed eyes to her. "I really need her help, Laelkii."

     "Let me guess," Laelkii said. "No one else will do."

     Taylitha shook her head.

     "I have information that needs to be disseminated," Alastar whispered. "Give me something to eat and drink and a little time to orient myself and I should be fine."

     "I just don't know if--"

     "Laelkii," Alastar said, louder, hoarse, "I know what happened to me. It won't happen again."

     Laelkii threw up her hands. "Fine. But you," pointing at Taylitha with a white finger, "leave and come back in two hours. I want her under observation at least that long, and not with you hanging over her shoulder plying her with questions. Understand?" 

     "We might not have two hours," Taylitha said. "Please, Snowhide. They're going to try to replace us here, and we've lost the captain, Darya, Felsha, Perralta and Steffis!"

     "One hour," Laelkii said. "Get out."

     Taylitha clenched her fists, then nodded. As she was stepping into the antechamber, Laelkii called, "Go get some exercise before you break your hands!"

#34

     "Angels!" Darya exclaimed. Felsha squeaked. Steffis and Perralta were silent.

     Alysha watched as concentric rings of octopi surfaced around them: one ring, two, five. She stopped counting individuals at forty, and when they finally stopped popping to the top of the water she estimated their numbers in excess of two hundred. The circle they formed had a huge gap in its center, and as she waited, the eldest broke the waves last. She could sense the consternation of her crew in their sudden stillness. Even Darya had nothing to say at the sight of that final, gargantuan individual.

     "Eldest," Alysha said aloud for the benefit of Felsha, Perralta and Steffis. "I greet you. I hope your deliberations were fruitful."

     I have spoken with my people, the eldest replied. We have come to an impasse. We require more information from you.

     "If it is within my power to give, I am happy to provide you with anything you need to know," Alysha said.

     We have gathered several more of your kind in order to understand your position better, the eldest continued. Are you satisfied with these four?

     "I am," Alysha said. A chill touched her back. That the eldest's sendings had absolutely no flavor, no smells or visuals associated with them unnerved her. Though she struggled not to anthropomorphize these very alien creatures, it still felt as if the eldest was tightly controlling her responses. Why?

     Very well, the eldest said. We would like to invite you to share-walk with us.

     Now, finally, an image: the five of them diving deeply with the octopi into a purple ocean lit by an underwater sun. Birds and fish shared the skies. It felt unreal . . . no, surreal. It felt like dreaming.

     "I'm afraid I don't quite understand, Eldest," Alysha said.

     Share-walk, the eldest reiterated. It is to share selves and embark together on a quest through the tides of subconscious thought. The others will enter with only one hand . . . I will put all my limbs in it. We will guide the thing together, and they will see through my eyes what your souls would speak. Only in that way will we be able to gauge whether you truly pose a threat to our way of living.

     The chill crystallized into dread. Alysha glanced at the four hanging off the arms of their guides: Felsha and Steffis bewildered, Perralta entranced and Darya wearing a moue of concentration. She trusted each and every member of her crew to do her work, to keep the Stardancer's best interests in mind, to pull in tandem with all the other women to get the job done. She had absolutely no doubt they were people of integrity.

     She did not want to share the murk of her subconscious with them.

     She would not . . . could never . . . let them know that.

     Alysha looked up at the Eldest. "Show us the means, Eldest, and we will follow."

     It is simplicity. It requires only that you allow your guides to cradle you, and to sleep. I will weave the trail and draw you onto it in the twilight place between sleep and wakefulness.

     "Give me a moment to explain this to my people?"

     Of course.

     Feeling the eyes of over two hundred watchers on her, Alysha turned to her crew. "We've just agreed to a dream quest," she said.

     "A what?" Steffis asked.

     "We're going to float here and fall mostly asleep, and then we're going to have a long talk with the octopi in that state," Alysha said. "From what I gather, they'll be able to find out everything they need to know about us from our behavior then."

     "I'll say!" Perralta exclaimed. "I'm not sure my dreams make good public displays, sir!"

     "I know hers won't," Steffis added, pointing at Darya. The pantherine sniggered.

     Timidly, Felsha said, "Sir, are they sure they want to know the kind of things we dream about? It doesn't seem like the easiest way to put our best foot forward."

     "No, it doesn't," Alysha said. "But I suspect they're not interested in our best foot, Lieutenant. They want to see the worst we can offer. That's what they fear, so that's what they seek to understand."

     "Oh, this doesn't sound like a good idea at all," Steffis said, covering her forehead.

     "Is it the only way?" Felsha asked.

     "It's the only way they'll consent to letting us continue our talks," Alysha said. "If we don't do this . . . " She paused, floating, one hand on the smooth skin of her guide. She wondered what he would think of her words, or if he was even listening. "I strongly suspect that they're going to go quietly to their extinction. The Eldest is the last of the egg-layers. Their loneliness is a deep source of depression for them, but they've forgotten how to trust."

     Into the silence that followed, Darya said, "Where do we curl up, sir? And do they have pillows?"

     Alysha chuckled softly and looked at the others. Felsha glanced at Darya, then smiled and said, "Count me in."

     Perralta nodded. "Me too."

     They all looked at Steffis, who threw up her hands. "Fine, I'll go. But do we have to go naked?"

     Yes, her guide said.

     That at least answered the question of whether he was listening. "I'm afraid so."

     "Damn it all," Steffis said. "I should have known better than to allow someone to assign me to tail a Harat-Shar."

     "We always know where the best parties are," Darya said with a smug smile.

     Alysha turned back to the eldest. We are willing.

     Her large eyes bore down on them. Then settle into the arms of your guides. We will help you sleep.

     As she curled up on the membrane between her guide's arms, Alysha wondered just how much she would regret this decision.

#35

     With a rapier in one hand and a long dagger in the other, Taylitha threw herself through the fencing forms of the Donneret School. Throughout her academic education, Taylitha had consoled herself with these formal exercises; her large family had not prepared her to live alone on a world deep in the Alliance Core, and the sound of her feet scuffing the practice mat had banished the vast silence that had given her nightmares.

     Her bare toes struck the mat in the Stardancer's gym with a reassuring thump. Her hastily braided hair smacked her shoulders and spine. Her breath whistled through her nostrils.

     It wasn't working.

     Taylitha stopped, twisted sword and dagger point down and switched grips with a quick toss. She closed her eyes and ignored the oily sweat matting her pelt. She could ask the computer to create a solidigraphic opponent for her, and it would distract her for a while . . . but she would find no peace in that oblivion either.

     She wanted a real person on the other end. A real person to answer the questions asked by her sword . . . a real person to ask questions of their own. A good bout was like a conversation, with give and take, with communication between the two. It wove you closer to the person on the other end, until by the time someone called a halt the other person was expecting it. It was that deep a communion.

     Taylitha forced herself off the mat before she slumped onto a bench, blades still in her hands, pointing down: sword on one side of her knees, dagger on the other. She wanted more than illusions. Laelkii's recommendation that she tire her body was probably good advice, but she couldn't afford to be tired. Too many things were waiting to explode into utter disasters. With a sigh, she headed for the gym showers and then to the Medplex.

     Alastar was sitting in one of the rooms off the ward, watching the fish drift through the wall; the tank abutted most of the rooms in the Medplex, allowing views through windows, walls and the occasional free-standing corridor. The smell of cinnamon and cream rose from her mug of kerinne. Blue shadows played over the Second Commander's face, but they did not quite distract Taylitha from the circles beneath 'Star's eyes.

     Then again, she's sure she wasn't looking any fresher. With a little sigh, she sat next to Alastar on the padded bench.

     "It's a mess," she said. "Alysha's lost on planet somewhere, along with Felsha, Darya, one of the engineers and one of the biologists. We've found a city we're trying to dig out. Everyone's teetering between elation over the find and worry over the missing personnel. Then there's this alien we found . . . he's in a coma? We're not sure. Four arms, little guy. And Fleet wants to drag us off this mission and send us back for our refits early. I'm holding the fort, 'Star, but I've only got one sword-hand free. There's only so long I can work with the other tied behind my back. I need help!"

     'Star touched her arm. "One thing at a time, Taylitha. The water in that cave . . . it's their way of communicating with land-bound races."

     "Their way? Communicating? You mean the little aliens we found?" Taylitha asked.

     Alastar shook her head. "Not them. The aliens in the ocean."

     "Alie--ocean--what aliens in the ocean?" Taylitha asked. Her fur stood on end. "Have they got the captain?"

     "I don't know," Alastar said. "I'm not even sure if they're still around, or if the water in that cave is left over from some time ago. I assume it's fresh, but I really need to have someone run tests on it, see how fast its active ingredients decompose." She ran a hand over her face. "I got the impression of great age from the sendings. I honestly wasn't expecting to find anything but ruins."

     Taylitha scanned 'Star's face, hoping to find something in her eyes that would un-riddle the mess. "Why don't you tell me everything you know first?"

     "I went into that cave to investigate the wall paintings," Alastar said. "And then I felt as if the cave opening had closed. I fell into the water, and . . . I'd call it a dream except it wasn't one." She took a long breath, blew it out through her nose. "Two civilizations, Taylitha, one on land, one in water, in an amicable relationship. Except they disagreed on something fundamental and parted ways. And then the ones on land passed into shadows, and so did the ones in the water. There was . . . great sorrow in the water."

     "Two civilizations!" Taylitha murmured. "What a find this would have been if either of them had been alive! But all we've got is one alien in a coma and a lot of ruins."

     "Only one of the land aliens?" 'Star said. "Are you sure?"

     "Only one," Taylitha said. "We've been looking for others, but he seems to be it. And he's not too healthy. Besides being in a coma, I mean. He was malnourished. And young--Snowhide thinks he's an immature specimen."

     "If there's only one, there's already a problem," Alastar said. "They need to communicate with like-minded people to stay healthy."

     "I've been trying to talk to him--"

     "Not talk, Taylitha." Alastar tapped her temple. "They communicate primarily mind-to-mind. Without a tapestry of minds to link to, they waste away."

     Taylitha's ears paled. "Then he could die."

     'Star nodded, looking grim.

     "Maybe we could get the Sensitives on board together . . . " Taylitha said. "It might work, even if we're not of the same species."

     "It might," 'Star said. "They certainly seemed to be able to talk with the ocean aliens, and species-wise it doesn’t get too much more different. You can't find the captain? Where was she last seen?"

     "In your cave," Taylitha said.

     "Then maybe the aliens have her," Alastar said. "Or more accurately, maybe she's talking with them."

     "And the others?"

     Alastar shook her head. "I can't be sure. My impressions of the aliens don’t indicate any hostility, though. They were certainly attached to the creatures on shore."

     "We need to find them," Taylitha said. "The crew, I mean. Fleet is breathing down my back . . . and we can't let the land-creature die, either."

     "Why don't you call the Sensitives together?" 'Star said. "I'll look up the regulations that will give us recourse to our re-assignment. That will have the useful side effect of keeping me in bed, which will make Laelkii happy."

     Taylitha nodded, then impulsively threw her arms around the other. "Thank An and Her Partner you're awake, 'Star. I was about to go crazy."

     "You look a little peaked," Alastar agreed with a hoarse chuckle. "Don't worry. We'll keep this thing going until we can find Alysha."

     Taylitha took a long breath and stood. "Right. We'll hold it together."

#36

     Alysha rolled into a purple ocean dense with sparkling sunlight and squinted into the vivid currents. She had no doubt she’d passed over into the octopi’s guided dream-realm, though she didn’t at all recognize the visual style that dominated the waters. While the purple was a smooth gradient, the waters had waving golden lines etched through them, moving, growing thick as a cord and then thin as a hair and sometimes breaking into spirals. The lack of any potent scent disappointed her. She hadn’t realized how much of her communion with the octopi had been based on smell.

     "Felsha? Darya!"

     "Here, sir . . . " Faintly, up and to the left. Alysha twisted and glided that way, surprised by the ease with which the water parted for her. She came to a halt next to a cocoon of the golden threads, loosely tied around a plum-dark silhouette. With the sword she hadn't noted until then, she severed enough of them to allow Felsha to wiggle free.

     The young lieutenant's curls had the same spiral definition as the waves. Alysha wondered if Felsha was the source of their environment's peculiar look. What she said was, "Darya?"

     "I heard her below me," Felsha said.

     Together they swam down until they reached the ocean floor, each grain of its golden sands seeming defined on its own. Darya was lying flat on her back, her black pelt turned violet. Her purrs cut the water around her face into little shivers.

     "Isn't it beautiful?" she said dreamily. "It's just like the painting on my mother's wall."

     Alysha laughed. "It's lovely, Lieutenant. But we're still missing Steffis and Perralta. Have either of you heard from them?"

     Darya shook her head. Felsha's ears drooped amid the rising billows of her golden hair.

     "Well, let's go look," Alysha said. "We can't leave them hanging out there alone."

     "Should we separate?" Felsha asked.

     "We shouldn't have to," Darya said. She pulled one of the golden stripes from a current, then another, and started braiding them together. As Alysha and Felsha watched, she wove a long cord, then tested it with a hard yank. When it held, she offered the knotted end to Alysha, who shook her head.

     "Let's not go far, still," Alysha said. "I haven't seen our hosts around or any other creatures, but that doesn't mean they aren't here."

     "Actually, in dreams, I bet they're all here, even the darkest ones. Just hiding," Darya said, still braiding. Felsha had gathered strands to help.

     "Comforting thought," Alysha said with a wry smile. She wrapped her cord around her waist. "When you're done searching, tug on the line. We'll meet back here."

     They nodded, and she turned from them and sailed upward, toward the lightened gradient where the lines of gold faded into drifting sparkles. Halfway there, with no sensation of being wet and no worry over how she was breathing, a sudden giddiness almost stopped her. She was flying: she could feel her own weight, and the ever-so-slight drag of her body, but it was joy, it was ease. Was this the ocean, or a purple sunset? Those sparkles could be the edges of clouds as well as currents.

     How she'd always envied the few species with true wings. The reclusive Akubi, giant horned and furred birds, their wingspan six times Alysha's height . . . she'd imagined what it would be like to fly those giant wings on the heavy, cloud-dense sky of their world, mustaches streaming back to tickle her breastbone. Or the tall and fragile Phoenixae with their metallic plumage and broad, decorative tails; she'd visited their world briefly and resorted to climbing the long poles that led to their demenses while her hosts glided past, lifted by the light gravity of their world.

     Even the Chatcaava, as ambivalent as she was toward the Alliance's uneasy neighbor: their sleek athleticism, their taut and leathery vanes extended; she'd seen footage of them falling from their impossibly high towers, to catch an updraft over their cliffside homes against exquisite orange sunrises.

     How she'd always loved the notion of flying. Her flying dreams were some of her favorites, so perhaps it wasn't so strange that even in this not-quite-dream, she was flying, and with a sword to boot. She'd never told Taylitha for fear her First Commander would crow a victory, but most of her dreams usually involved a sword, a staff, a spear, something she inevitably used on behalf of the people passing through. Her claws served well enough for defensive purposes, but on the offense, some part of her required the symbol.

     The surface of the water drew close, but when Alysha touched it, she could not break through the barrier. Experimentally she pressed, then leaned, but it allowed no egress. She drifted down and stared at the sun seen through the translucence, a yellow circle outlined in several coppery-red lines. They looked stronger than the currents, so Alysha tried plucking them free. They drifted loose and wrapped around her fingers, then slid down her arm, across her back, and up the other arm to the sword. She wove them into a quick scabbard and darted back downward. Steffis and Perralta . . . Perralta would probably be fine, but she worried about the engineer.

     Skimming just below the surface, Alysha headed away from the violet dark with her golden tether falling behind her. Somewhere beneath the wings of her arms her people were lost, and she would find them.

     The waters darkened from the aquamarine and copper of the sun against the surface to an abrupt and surprising murky green. The waves did not enter it, but broke into tiny pieces near the clouds of green. It had an unwholesome look. Alysha stopped outside the first few tendrils of the color and drifted, trying to peer into the depths. She could see nothing.

     "Eldest?" she called, but felt no answering call. Perhaps the octopi would remain hidden for the duration of their dreams. "Steffis?" No response. "Perralta?"

     Something drew the fur along the back of her neck upright. Perralta was in that malevolent-feeling cloud? Surely not. With a frown, Alysha sent herself sailing into the dark. It surprised her by swallowing her in a dense closeness; unlike the waters outside, she felt smothered. The line tied around her waist glimmered, its feeble light the only sign of which direction led out.

     "Perralta!" Alysha called. She scrounged in memory for the ensign's first name and added, "Janny, where are you?"

     There--the tiniest mew. And much louder, from somewhere else, the low rumble of a growl. Alysha loosed her sword from its scabbard and pressed on into the hard green dark, and the further she swam the denser the water seemed and the darker the color. That this was a dream kept Alysha from feeling as if she was in imminent danger of suffocating.

     "Janny!"

     Another mew, maybe off to the right? Alysha dove that way and struggled on. How long would it take to reach the ensign? And just how much cord had Darya and Felsha woven her, anyway? She hoped it wouldn't break. Another growl sounded from behind her, and then droplets, falling one by one in an echoing chamber, a noise that jarred against what little visual information the hard density of the waves offered. Alysha stopped to listen and remained where she floated, disoriented by the noises.

     Then she closed her eyes, and the sounds snapped into place; she was in a cavern with a frightening far-off creature growling and the plangent drip of nearby water condensing off the uneven ceiling. The mewling she'd heard before now had a sensible location, somewhere in front of her and around a corner. With her eyes tightly sealed against the lie of the dreamlike waves, Alysha followed the imaginary cavern around the bend before sliding to a stop. The sword in her hand felt familiar, reassuring.

     "Janny?"

     "Captain?"

     Alysha opened her eyes, but the ensign wasn't there. "Where are you?"

     "I'm . . . I'm stuck. Again."

     The woman sounded chagrined, but her voice broke on the last word with the fear that had charged this place.

     "Keep talking, Ensign," Alysha said. "Hearing you is the surest way to find you in this murk."

     "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't intend--I mean, I thought this would happen but I was hoping otherwise."

     It would be impolite to pry, but Alysha could hear the terror Perralta was suppressing. She crept forward toward the sound of the woman's voice until she bumped into a wall. Feeling her way down it, Alysha said, "This being a dream you have often?"

     "A nightmare," Perralta said. "It's why I didn't ask to be assigned to the first parties that came down to the caves with the paintings."

     "But you did come down," Alysha said.

     "Later," Perralta said, and Alysha could almost see her ears fall from the dejection in her voice. "When I could reap the benefits of being on the team without having to face the caverns. I . . . well, I'm a coward, sir."

     "Ensign--"

     "Please, sir, don't try to tell me otherwise. It's why we're here, isn't it? My fear is bigger than me and that's how the aliens found it. They want the worst of us . . . well, here's the worst of me. My fears own my life, and me bolting up in the middle of the night, crying is proof."

     The snarling echoed in the cavern, closer this time. Alysha pressed herself against the wall, frustrated that she couldn't find its edge. "Ensign, what's in the cave with us?"

     "With me," Perralta said, her voice desolate. "It's the family dog." Quieter, almost child-like. "He got sick."

     The wall didn't seem to have an end, a circumstance Alysha found unacceptable as the low growls became louder and Perralta began to cry, tiny muffled sounds completely at odds with the woman's typical ebullience. Alysha sheathed the sword and spread her fingers against the stone, pressing her cheek to it.

     "Janny," she said, pitching her voice low and letting all her calm intensity flow through it, shape it. "Listen to me."

     Silence, save for the growling, coming closer.

     "This is not the nightmare you have every night," Alysha said.

     "The growling," Perralta said, almost a whisper. "The water dropping, dropping--"

     "That part perhaps. But I'm here," Alysha said.

     "On the other side of a wall. You can't get to me, Captain."

     Now the dog was close enough for its snarling to be constant, a bone-chilling sound full of menace. Perralta's voice faltered, then the woman whispered, "Is that you, Chief? Chief? Don't you know me? It's Janny, it's me, boy. Chief . . . Chief, don't look at me like that. Chief, please--"

     Against the rising noise of desperation, of pleading, of frenzied barking Alysha closed her eyes. This was Perralta's nightmare, a nightmare she relived over and over on the Stardancer without bodily harm, a nightmare that would do no harm to her here, for Alysha couldn't believe the octopi would allow such a thing. But she could not, would not bear helpless witness to her ensign's distress. She calmed herself, hands pressed against the wall, and remembered other walls that had seemed equally unyielding.

     She took a deep breath and sank forward, and one of her hands led into the stone and through it to the other side.

     Alysha opened her eyes and found herself in a cavern of stylized stone. A black shape, sleek with menace and growling deep in its throat, had its teeth around Perralta's arm. The young woman was sobbing and beating at its back.

     How small the cavern seemed. How sorrowful this scene of betrayal and abject fear. How long it had imprisoned the young woman, who had been powerless to move past it. The thoughts were not Alysha's and yet she felt them, and feeling them she knew something had gone wrong. She set them aside and grabbed the dog by the ruff, pulling it away from the ensign.

     "Enough," she said to the silent watcher. "If this is a failure, then end the test. Letting it continue is cruelty."

     Golden lines inched into the scene, outlining the walls, smoothing them into the waves. The barking dog pulling at Alysha's hold smeared into the dark. Soon the purple returned with its serene and lovely curliques of gold, leaving only Alysha and Perralta, who remained tucked into a ball, weeping.

     One of the golden lines seemed to form the shape of a tentacle, one that reached for Perralta. Alysha stood in its way.

     We will take her back to the surface, something whispered.

     Alysha said, "Not before I speak with her."

     As you will.

     Alysha crouched in front of the young woman, touched her arms. "Ensign . . . Janny. Look at me, please."

     Perralta lifted her tear-stained face. Alysha touched thumbs to the tracks and gently wiped the Asanii's cheeks. "Ssh," Alysha said. "The dream is over."

     "I loved him," Perralta said. Her eyes were wounded, resigned. "It wasn't his fault. He got sick."

     "I know," Alysha said. "Janny, I need you to do something for me."

     The woman wiped at her nose. "Yes, sir, anything."

     "I need you to go back and tell Commander Basil everything's okay. That she mustn't interrupt what's going on, but that we're all safe."

     "Yes, sir," Perralta said, eyes downcast.

     "Ensign," Alysha said. When Perralta didn't look up, Alysha bent so she could see into the girl's green eyes.

     "Sir, I'm so sorry," Perralta said. "I messed up everything with a pathetic girl's dream. . . . "

     "Janny, there's nothing pathetic about your nightmare," Alysha said. "You were young and a terrible thing happened to you. Why are you surprised that it still haunts you?"

     "I thought I should just get over it," Perralta said. "It was so long ago. I thought I was weak."

     "You thought to overcome something like that alone?" Alysha said, gentling her voice. "It's no shame to ask for help, Janny."

     Perralta looked at her. "Have you?"

     "Asked for help?" Alysha said. She smiled faintly and said, "It's how I met Laelkii. Collapsing on her doorstep. I still do that sometimes."

     "You? You never collapse . . . "

     "Everyone collapses, Janny."

     She could see in the ensign's eyes that Perralta did not believe her. Alysha touched the woman's cheek. "Go to the Commander. The message is important."

     "Yes, sir."

     "And get counseling, please, Ensign," Alysha said. She tried for gentle humor and said, "There's a lot to be said for uninterrupted sleep."

     Perralta smiled weakly. "Yes, sir."

     Alysha stepped away and said, You may take her back now.

     The golden lines curled around Perralta's body. As Alysha watched, the girl was reduced to coppery lines herself until she faded from view.

     You are grieved, the waters said.

     "Yes," Alysha said. She rechecked her braided line and headed back the way she'd come. Perhaps Darya and Felsha had had better luck with Steffis.

#37

     Taylitha returned to the privacy of her quarters to search through the 'Dancer's personnel records for people to assign to the project of saving their alien. Her initial query, based on Sensitivity, brought up over three hundred people. The baseline requirements for Sensitivity in the Alliance were so low most of the population could claim it; all it took was having a creepy feeling when entering a room or being able to tell when other people were sad by looking at their faces and you'd get at least a basic score in Sensitivity.

     People on the high end of the Sensitivity scale, however, could talk to one another without speaking, could sense the feelings of people in other cities, or had the ability to sense patterns so abstract it approached precognition. They could do things that sounded like magic to Taylitha, and well they should, for she'd never met someone who could do them. Only two species in the Alliance regularly produced people of such high Sensitivity they could claim esper status, the Glaseah and the Eldritch. Of the two the Glaseah were few in number and dwindling, victims of their own suppressed reproductive drive, and the Eldritch were xenophobes so extreme that they refused to share information as basic as the name of their own homeworld with the Alliance.

     The Bayer scale of Sensitivity wasn't all that useful in ascertaining just where between these two extremes a person fell. The granularity of the testing was so gross people tended to dismiss it entirely. Either one was an esper with provable talents in telepathy, empathy or pattern-sensing or one was a normal person. Everything else was ego-stroking.

     Fleet had quietly done away with the Bayer scale, though a person's Bayer Sensitivity Rating remained stamped in one's personnel records. Somewhere at the bottom of the file, Taylitha thought. What was marked at the top instead was the officer's Stanley-Kerrileu Xenophilia Average, a score that measured a person's ability to connect with other races and other species. The more easily a person established a rapport with someone of another species, the higher their SKXA, and the more kinds of aliens an officer maintained connections with, the better. The best part of the SKXA to Taylitha's mind was that it remained in flux throughout the career of the officer; one's superiors were in charge of altering it based on observation, and the score could not only rise but also fall based on whether a person seemed to withdraw from their abilities.

     Over three-quarters of the Stardancer crew claimed Sensitivity. But only twenty or thirty people had above-average SKXAs. It did not surprise Taylitha that the senior staff appeared in the search; one did not earn braids without a personality that reached out to the unknown. Once she excluded the personnel at the top she had a pool of ten people.

     It suddenly seemed too small a group to keep such a fragile-looking being alive.

     With a sigh, Taylitha sent away an urgent meeting request to the ten with tagged notes warning their supervisors. She had enough time for a cup of coffee and a wash before she headed to the conference room. One of the ensigns she'd called for had already arrived and was setting out food and drink.

     "May I refill your cup, sir?"

     "Please," Taylitha said, holding it out. She'd been planning to set out the food herself but wouldn't object to being served. It had been that long a day, and she didn't anticipate sleeping. She could hear that mournful trill in her ears when she let herself relax too much.

     The last of her ten recruits came in a minute early. She'd expected their faces and their solemn interest, but not that they hadn't even stopped to avail themselves of the food and drink. They knew, somehow. Perhaps she was responsible for divulging the urgency of their mission . . . she couldn't imagine that her haggard face and squared shoulders hid any part of her exhaustion. Perhaps Laelkii was right. Perhaps she needed more rest.

     "Thank you for coming so promptly," Taylitha said. "I know some of you were on your sleep shifts and the rest of you were in the middle of something. Your absence has been cleared with your supervisors. This assignment is voluntary, but I hope you'll volunteer anyway." She was getting things backwards, starting with the end first. Taylitha tried to concentrate. "Most of you are aware that we found a solitary native on the planet's surface, which we brought to the ship to treat for an unknown ailment. We appear to have pinpointed the cause of this ailment. The alien requires mental contact to remain healthy, but as you're aware we haven't been able to find any others of his people to help keep him awake. We're hoping that enough of us will be able to stabilize him."

     Taylitha examined the concerned faces turned to hers, women of several different departments and ages. "The ten of you were chosen for your exceptional ability to connect with people of other races and species. We're hoping that your abilities will extend to helping this single alien. Questions?"

     "What do we have to do?" one of them asked.

     "Stay near him," Taylitha said. "Talk to him or just stay nearby. We're not exactly sure how this works. I'd like at least two of you to be present for each shift; you can sign up for them according to your existing sleep schedule."

     "How long will we be detached to this duty?"

     "Until we figure out how to halt the mental deterioration he's undergoing," Taylitha said. "I can't give you a specific time."

     They glanced at one another. Finally, the woman furthest from Taylitha said, "Where do we sign up?"

     With a breath of relief, Taylitha pushed a data tablet over. "Here's the duty roster. Choose your time slots. I'd like all of you to accompany me to the Medplex to meet the alien; after that, those of you on evening duty can remain and the rest of you are free to go."

     While they clustered over the schedule, murmuring, Taylitha refilled her cup again. She hadn't remembered draining it, but then she hadn't remembered most of the day either. She recognized that it was evening shift but couldn't recall sleeping, except for that nap on top of Alastar's halo-arch. Come to think of it, her neck and shoulders felt out-of-alignment. Her entire body was none-too-pleased with her.

     "We're ready, sir," the eldest of the group said, offering her the data tablet. Taylitha glanced over the roster and nodded.

     The group was unusually silent behind her as she led them to the Medplex. Once they reached the alien's bed, they stood in a lose semi-circle around it. As they studied the alien, Taylitha found Laelkii.

     "Do you think--is he any better?"

     Laelkii looked at her. "Worse, I'm afraid." When Taylitha turned, the doctor caught her arm. "Taylitha, I assume there's good cause for the audience."

     "We're hoping if we can get some of the shipboard Sensitives to spend time with him, that'll help stop him from losing whatever it is he's losing," Taylitha said. "It was 'Star's suggestion."

     "Not a bad one, at that," Laelkii said. "I won't move him out of the Medplex, though. His condition's too critical."

     "We only have two to three people assigned per shift," Taylitha said.

     "Still a tight squeeze," Laelkii said. "Particularly if we bring in furniture for them to sit. Maybe I can have him moved to one of the waiting rooms off the ward. Close enough to monitor but someplace people can lie down if they get tired, or pull some chairs around."

     "One of the ones with the fish," Taylitha said.

     Laelkii glanced at her, then said, "Right."

     Taylitha remained out of the way as Laelkii supervised the move. The better part of her group had left already, leaving only the new evening-shift watchers who helped the medical personnel. The body of the alien already seemed dead, an awkward collection of arms and legs barely covered in lackluster skin. Taylitha's heart contracted at the sight. Once they settled in the room, she stood at the door and watched the women arrange themselves around the alien, who didn't move. After whispered counsel with Laelkii, the women gently stroked the alien's limbs, murmuring to him. He did not wake.

     Taylitha turned to go and almost fell at the sound of a breathy whistle, urgent and weak. She whirled to find the startled women holding their hands away from the alien, who'd lifted his head just far enough from the ground to look at her. His expressionless black eyes looked sunken and hopeless, somehow.

     "Oh, no," Laelkii said, grabbing her arm. "You are not going back in there. You need rest and food. And you stink of coffee. You should know better than to go high on the stimulants when you're this tired, Tayl."

     Taylitha said wearily, "He needs me, Snowhide. Me and the rest of them. I can sleep in there."

     Laelkii reluctantly released her arm. "As long as you promise to sleep and not stay up staring at the ceiling worrying."

     "I'll sleep. And if I don't, the girls can come tell you."

     Laelkii scowled, but stepped away. Taylitha slipped past her into the room and crumpled onto the ground near the alien's head.

     "I thought you were sick," she teased him, just a little.

     The alien fluted a solemn response.

     "Well I'm half-asleep on my feet," Taylitha said. "I'm not going to go anywhere, so you don't have to feel unsafe . . . but you must get to know these fine ladies who've offered to make your acquaintance."

     He said nothing. With a sigh, Taylitha stretched out on the ground on her side. After a moment, the alien rested his head on her thigh. He felt so light. It was not a good moment for tears, but Taylitha might have shed a few had she had the energy. As it was she'd no sooner closed her eyes when the world fell away.

#38

     The braided cord led Alysha back into the friendly purple waters with their gilded arabesques, past a surprising school of flat turquoise fish expressed against the backdrop as a few swatches of color and a defining silver edge here and there. They swerved around her and fled, leaving a blooming cloud of lavender bubbles that tickled on their way toward the surface. She glided past them, one hand on the plait near her waist.

     Her path took her out of the purple waters and into a wash of bright gold, so bright it faded the defining lines to something closer to the color of bronze. Squinting against the glare, Alysha waded deeper into what became a glittering cave. She heard laughter, rich and melodious, and followed it into a den stacked with pillows. There were bodies in it, bright purple bodies, but so intertwined Alysha couldn't tell how many there were.

     She had a good idea what they were doing, though.

     "Lieutenant?"

     It took several giggles and purrs for Darya to extricate herself from her fellows. She brushed off her purple fur and said, "Yes, Captain?"

     "Where's Rennagan? And did you find Steffis?"

     "Felsha's looking for Julien. My dream came and found me so I thought I'd enjoy it," Darya said.

     Alysha glanced at the dream, which had resolved into a patchwork room of sunlight and sisters with purple fur. Everything was soft: carpets on the floors, the furniture, plush pillows, rounded curves. "It looks worth enjoying," she said.

     "Stay, Captain?"

     Alysha chuckled. "Not until I find out what happened to Steffis. But thank you for the invitation."

     "Okay," Darya said and slipped back into the pile. Alysha watched their languorous cuddle for a few moments, struggling to ignore the sudden sense that trouble awaited them all. She turned to go, realized her waist was still yoked to something.

     "Darya?"

     "Mmmmm . . . yes, sir?"

     "What did you anchor this rope to?"

     "Me," Darya said. The tip of her tail flicked into view, wearing a jeweled ring. Alysha nodded. "I'll be back, Lieutenant."

     The gold waters faded as Alysha swam out of them into tunnels that seemed the color of faded bronze filigreed with golden tendrils. Perhaps Darya's mind was feeding their entire venture, from the art style that looked like her remembered paintings to the weakness of the vision where it intersected other people's nightmares. She wondered if the octopi had arranged it so based on Darya's being the first to decide in favor of the share-walk.

     The caves that adjoined Darya's dream remained solid. Alysha hoped for an easy solution and called, "Steffis?"

     "Here, sir!"

     Small mercies . . . the woman wasn't far. Alysha headed that way, turned a corner and ended up floating above a pit. Beneath her feet Steffis was barely visible, the crown of her head glowing in the darkness of the obliette.

     "Lieutenant?" Alysha asked, perplexed.

     "Captain! Finally. I've been looking for a way out of here. I wasn't looking forward to pulling the pins out of my collar and using them as pitons."

     "We're floating in water, Lieutenant."

     "You may be floating in water, Captain, but I'm in the dark down here and there's not a drop of water to be found. Could you throw me a rope?"

     The forboding that had seeped into her spirit in Darya's room blossomed just a touch further. Alysha unwrapped the plait from around her waist and dropped it into the hole. It grew taut, and soon Steffis appeared on the wall, heading toward her. Alysha watched until the engineer crested the top of the pit, then she helped Steffis out.

     "Thanks, Captain."

     "Have you seen Rennagan, Lieutenant?"

     "I haven't, sorry," Steffis said. "I was trying to get my bearings when this tunnel system appeared, and then I fell into that hole." She scratched her nose. "Funny thing. Reminds me of some of my dreams. I guess that makes sense given where we are."

     "I'm going to find Rennagan," Alysha said. "I'd prefer it if we all remained in one place. That rope will lead you back to Darya."

     Steffis grimaced. "Can't I wait elsewhere, sir?"

     Alysha didn't reply.

     With a sigh, Steffis said, "Yes, sir." She straightened her uniform tunic and began walking with determination back up the corridor. Her feet met the ground, boot-heels scraping stone.

     Alysha watched until she vanished, then turned and swam out of the stone halls and onto a surprising beach at night. Two silvery moons glowed in the black sky, and the sands reflected their light, gray with glimmers of cool white. The rush of the surf broke against ten large bodies and the silhouettes of much smaller ones milling around each.

     Felsha was sitting on a hill, hugging her knees with hands casually linked at her shins. Alysha joined her.

     "We managed to get them back into the water," Felsha said.

     Alysha looked again at the shore.

     "And then, a week later, they were back," Felsha said. "We did it again. And again the following week. They didn't come back after that. For a while I wore a special shirt to school: Velvet Whale Watch, it said. A black shirt with a spiny cartoon whale on it the color of a roasted almond. Someone complained that they hadn't gotten the color right, that the whales were more a shiny gold in the right light. I was pretty proud." Felsha stroked the fur on her knee against the grain. "I guess this is the first thing I thought about when we fell asleep. Maybe we'll get Alien Octopi Watch shirts. Do you think?"

     "I don't know," Alysha said, thinking of the natural order of things. "If we do, I somehow doubt they'll get the colors right."

     "Maybe if they put some of those iridescent dyes," Felsha mused.

     "It wouldn't be as beautiful as the real thing," Alysha said.

     "Probably not," Felsha said. She stood up. "I guess I didn't do a great job of finding Steffis, wandering away and getting all caught up in my own memories."

     "We're here to dream, Lieutenant," Alysha said, rising. She looked out over the great lumps stranded on the strand and felt the whisper of desperation, of wariness, of unease. "Does anyone know why they beached themselves?"

     Felsha shook her head. "We assumed they got trapped by the currents. That's what the biologists said."

     "Not a sapient species," Alysha said.

     "No," Felsha said. "At least, no one said anything about them being self-aware."

     And so they'd been shipped back to their waters. Had their second and third trips to the sands been unintentional . . . or had they been trying to die? The wind off the beach was cold.

     "Let's get back to Darya," Alysha said. "Maybe once we're all together we'll be able to develop a plan."

     They walked back toward the caves, the sand giving beneath their feet as they continued up the small mound.

     "Strange how even in the dreams we're still around the ocean with caves and beaches," Felsha said.

     "Wait until you see what Darya's made of it all," Alysha said with a chuckle.

     "I'm sure it's opulent. She's shown me pictures from home, though, sir, and her train lives underground too. Not deeply... just beneath the surface, where it's cooler."

     "I suppose that makes sense," Alysha said as they trudged into the cave. She could no longer float and wondered if that meant anything.

     "Do you hear something, sir?"

     Faintly, raised voices. Then a definite crash. Alysha broke into a run with Felsha at her heels. They ran all the way up the cavern, following the shouts, the wails, the sound of breaking glass and wood, until they found themselves at the arch into Darya's cozy room, which was no longer so cozy. Darya's sisters were huddled behind her, alternately spitting, hissing or wailing. Steffis and Darya stood on opposite ends of the room with the wreckage between them.

     "What's going on here?" Alysha asked.

     "She started it," Darya said. "She's got a knife!"

     Steffis didn't bother to hide the blade in her hand. "I did not start it. Her sisters did by coming near me."

     "They were just trying to include you so you wouldn't be so lonely!" Darya said.

     "I was fine where I was," Steffis said. "If I'd wanted company, I would have asked!"

     "Would you have?" Darya said, lip curling. "Or would you have just sat in the corner and tried to make a virtue out of your loneliness? Brave Julien Steffis who doesn't need anyone! Don't touch her, girls, she bites!"

     "Enough!" Alysha said.

     "I knew I shouldn't have come here," Steffis said to Alysha. "You should have had me wait somewhere else."

     "I trusted that both of you could handle yourselves as responsible adults," Alysha said. "I don't think breaking furniture counts."

     "They were -fondling- me," Steffis said. "You have no idea what it's like--"

     "Enough," Alysha said, and this time the disapproval in her voice sharpened it so fine it cut through a few of the gold curls in the room. "Darya, I require your answer as a Fleet lieutenant trained to deal with the cultures of other worlds and people. Did your sisters cross a line?"

     Darya's tail flicked once. "One of them petted the lieutenant's shoulder. Another stroked her knee. I have done the same to Felsha without causing her to throw a lamp at me."

     "It's my knee. My shoulder. My personal space!" Steffis said. "I didn't give permission!"

     "We didn't mean any harm!" Darya said.

     "Steffis, why the lamp?"

     "They were too close." Steffis's ears were flat to her head. "They were petting me. If I hadn't stopped them, they would have done something untoward."

     "How can you say that!" Darya exclaimed, hands curled into fists. "Everyone knows ours is a culture of consent. We aren't turned on by people who don't want to play!"

     "Right," Steffis said. "So that's why you tease and flirt with everyone whether they like that kind of thing or not."

     "I see I made a mistake in assuming you would conduct yourselves in this place the way you would outside it," Alysha said. "But I'm not going to tolerate violence. Darya, I'm not entirely pleased you didn't instruct your sisters to stay clear of Lieutenant Steffis. Many people might assume your permissiveness is equivalent to stupidity, but I am not one of them. You know the lieutenant was unwilling and no amount of friendly invitation will change her mind."

     Darya deflated. Alysha turned to Steffis, "But you, lieutenant... I would have thought better."

     The engineer remained stiffly defiant, arms crossed over her breast.

     "You're going back to the surface," Alysha said. "We don't solve our problems with our fists . . . or our knives. Find Perralta and go with her to the First Commander."

     "It's not right, sir," Steffis said. "I have the right to protect myself."

     "You have the right to action in proportion to the offense and the offenders," Alysha said. "Draw steel on a man who's about to throw you down and rape you . . . not on a group of Harat-Shariin girls who just want to help you relax."

     "You would do the same--"

     "I wouldn't," Alysha said, her voice hardening, "And I haven't. Get out of here, Lieutenant, before I make a note on your record for insubordination . . . subconsciously offered or not."

     The faint outline of the tentacle appeared behind Steffis as if summoned; perhaps it had been. Steffis turned into it and became diffuse, a few strokes of copper and gold that still somehow conveyed her anger.

     "If anyone needs relaxing, it's her," Darya said.

     "Be quiet, Lieutenant," Alysha said. "I'm not all that pleased with you either right now."

     The broken furniture remained, but tendrils of darkness began to creep onto the walls, blotting out the windows. The golden shadows in the room dulled to brass, then became completely black.

     "I don't like this," Felsha said, standing near the door as the wallpaper next to her began to peel, a gaudy red velvet unevenly applied.

     Neither did Alysha, though she recognized the place. She knew the ugly walls, the furniture, the tired yellow cast of the fake candlelight sconces. She knew the stink.

     She knew that cursing Steffis for bringing the scene on would be unfair, but still she wanted to do it. This would have come to her anyway. From the moment she'd told her guide that she would allow no Tiells to bully the Alliance, she'd known somehow that she would have to explain herself, that it wouldn't be enough to simply say she knew when to save the afflicted and when to let them choose their own fates.

     "Captain?" Darya asked, unease quelling her usual enthusiasm. "Where are we?"

     "It's my turn," Alysha said.

#39

     "Taylitha? Are you awake?"

     No, she was not awake. She was dreaming 'Star's insistent voice out of a deep desire for 'Star to be all right.

     Someone shook her shoulder once. "Taylitha!" And then, "No, don't move!"

     Taylitha opened her eyes and tried to think through a groggy haze. Someone's knees were next to her face. "Where am I?"

     "On the floor in one of the Medplex waiting rooms," Alastar said. "You've been asleep a good three hours."

     That explained the unforgiving aches on her shoulder and along her sides. The one on her hip hurt so much it felt like a bruise. "Can I wipe the sleep from my eyes, at least?"

     "Yes. Just don't move your leg. The alien's asleep on it."

     Which explained the sore knee. Taylitha glanced down at the wedge-shaped head and exclaimed, "An! Is he--"

     "He's worse," Alastar said, ears falling. "The shift changed once and he didn't move, though he watched them. He seems to prefer First Commanders for his couches."

     "Picky, isn't he?" Taylitha asked, trying for humor and feeling nothing but numb exhaustion. "Why'd you wake me, 'Star?"

     "I think I know how you can fend off the approaching ships." The second commander sat beside her more comfortably. She was the only other person in the room; apparently she'd sent the rest of the women out. "It's a legal loophole, but it should work."

     "Anything, as long as it keeps us here," Taylitha said.

     "The regulation for authority hand-offs during missions-in-progress require the captain or senior commander in orbit to do the actual transfer. You're neither of those people, so you can't do the hand-off."

     "I thought in the absence of the captain, authority automatically falls to the next-most-senior commander?" Taylitha said.

     "It does . . . if the captain is missing in action."

     "Alysha is missing in action," Taylitha said dryly.

     "Or maybe she's just in conference with the natives," Alastar said. "Whatever the case, short of declaring this a medical quarantine situation--which any ship captain is going to disbelieve once he comes close enough to notice us continuing to interact with the people on the surface--this is your best bet."

     "I'm tired of sort-of lying," Taylitha said. "I've been sort of lying to all the admirals who've come calling. I've been sort of lying to the crew about the crew disappearances. I've been sort of lying to myself about all this coming out okay. Isn't there some way I can tell the truth and have it be enough?"

     "And if we found the captain and she told you this was the case?"

     "Then it would all be okay, because she'd be here and I could go back to hiding in my quarters doing personnel reports," Taylitha said, aggrieved.

     'Star said nothing, and in the silence Taylitha realized how her voice had sounded. Her ears colored. "I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't be complaining. I guess I just never expected to command a ship in circumstances like this."

     "You've considered whether to take a promotion?" 'Star asked.

     Taylitha said, "Oh, I thought I had. I figured it would be some easy thing. That I'd like it." She stared at the fish as they drifted past in the wall tank. "When I was an ensign, I had a leadership retreat--did you?" At 'Star's nod, Taylitha continued, "Well, on that retreat I thought to myself that I didn't ever want to be a captain, that I was happiest as a supporting strut in the organization. But then I started climbing the ranks and getting more and more responsibility and liking it more and more, and I figured, well, what did I know about what it takes to be a captain? I'd never been one. I'd liked being a lieutenant, and a commander, and a first commander . . . maybe I should aim as high as I could. For a long time now that was my unspoken goal. Advancement until I ran out of ranks to advance to."

     "And now?" 'Star asked when Taylitha ran out of words.

     "Now," Taylitha said, "now I think I had it right in the beginning."

     "Commanding a ship won't always be like this," Alastar said.

     "No," Taylitha said. "Sometimes it will be worse."

#40

     "Steffis! You're awake!"

     Steffis shook herself and sat up, supported by the taut membrane between two tentacles. As she blinked the saltwater crust from her eyes she saw Perralta, mostly back in her wetsuit.

     "I was just getting ready to go back to report to the First Commander," Perralta said. "I wasn't expecting anyone to be awake to come with me."

     "I wasn't expecting to be awake to go with you," Steffis said, chastened. She looked at the shock staff still cradled in her arms and put it aside to start shrugging into her own wetsuit. "It seems like we've been asleep a long time, but I suppose we can't have been, if you're not even done dressing from waking up. Do you know which way's the shore?"

     I will take you, said one of the guides. Its eye focused on her. I can be spared.

     Beneath that steady, unblinking regard, Steffis's ears turned pink. She dressed in haste and stared at her staff uncomfortably.

     "Perralta . . . "

     "Yeah?"

     "Do you have a diver's knife?"

     "In the kit, same as yours."

     Steffis rolled the staff in her hands for a while longer. Its slim barrel, finished with a matte coating for an easy grip, had always felt comfortable to her until now. She flicked her ears back, then set it on the pile with Darya's things.

     "You sure you want to leave that?" Perralta asked.

     Steffis shrugged. "We'll be safe enough with the guide. Right?" she asked the octopi.

     I will see you to the shore.

     Steffis nodded and said to Perralta, "Let's go."

#41

     This was no dream. This was reality--her reality. It would be her reality for the rest of her days, or so it seemed on the endless nights she spent on-stage and in the back rooms, pleasing Tiell's impossible customers. If she hadn't needed the money she wouldn't have bothered with the back rooms.

     If she hadn't needed the money, she wouldn't have bothered with Tiell either.

     But she did need the money, and more money than she could have made working any legal job. The Fleet Academe at Terracentrus required tuition commensurate with the destination of its students, and only a lucky few won scholarships that paid in full for its stratospheric costs. Alysha wasn't one of them, and so she scrounged for work, for any work that would allow her onto the carefully manicured grounds beneath the eagle-and-crescent pennant.

     She found the Phantasies night club, which offered services not legal anywhere on Selnor, much less in Terracentrus, summer capital of the Alliance.

     "Is your costume coming apart again, Steel?" Honey asked.

     Alysha plucked at one of the plastic threads she was using to stitch together the sagging remnants of her jeweled halter top. "Yes."

     "No surprise there," the Harem Rose said.

     Honey clucked her tongue at the Tam-illee foxine. "Be nice, Rose."

     Which of course, Rose was no longer capable of. Her years at Phantasies had drained all her passions from her, good and bad. Alysha had only ever heard that same tone of voice from her since she'd started working, that dry husk of a voice, wandering, distracted . . . empty.

     Honey sat next to her. "Here, let me see that." Alysha released it to her more capable hands. "This is quite a rip. Don't tell me you're overselling your black key."

     "It's not exactly my choice which key I sell," Alysha said.

     "Not yet," Honey said. "But once you've been here a while Tiell will give you a little more freedom."

     This earned a bark of a laugh from Cinnamon, who now stood at the door, still panting from her performance on stage. "Freedom! Make me laugh again, Honey. I like it."

     "If you don't like it so, you can leave," Honey said, wrinkling her nose.

     That only made Cinnamon laugh harder.

     What is this place? Felsha asked.

     It's a brothel, Darya replied.

     I thought prostitution was illegal on the capital, Felsha said.

     They are, Darya replied.

     A pause. What are we doing here, Darya?

     I wish I knew.

     "You're up next, Steel," Cinnamon said. "After the break."

     "I know," Alysha said. She took the mended top from Honey and thanked her for the help. The Harat-Shar helped her shrug the top half of her costume on. There were so few strands in it that even a single broken one stood out. Wearing it, Alysha looked more naked than she did when unclothed.

     "At least the collar's in good shape," Honey said.

     "Yes," Alysha said. She was not in the habit of speaking much while at work. Or at school, for that matter. At night she gave strangers so many liberties with her body that she hated to give them a similar insight into her mind. At school she simply feared revealing her work. She had to sneak off campus to make her tuition; she couldn't imagine what would happen to her if it was discovered how she paid for the Academe, but she somehow didn't think they'd let her return if they found out.

     So she fitted the most galling part of the costume around her neck, the golden metal band with its cheap lock, the one that irritated the back of her neck by bouncing against the vertebra at her nape. Her ears were weighed down with rings, as were her hands and toes. Her arms and legs were decorated with bands of metal heavy enough that only she of all the women there, with the weight training she did at the Academe gym, could actually use them. She had her top and bottom of fake gems.

     None of it made her feel as cheap as the collar.

     She was on her way out now, to the stage, when a winged woman appeared in the door.

     Alysha had grown to hate touch since joining Phantasies, but this woman she reached for, rested her fingers on soft shoulders. She asked the question with her eyes.

     "I'm okay," Angel said. "I only had a couple of white keys to fill."

     Alysha said, "Good." And then, "Don't wait up for me," even though that was a useless thing to ask.

     Angel just touched her hand with a flutter of fingers.

     I take it back, Darya said. I don't want to know why we're here. I just want to leave.

     Me too, Felsha said. Where are the octopi? Octopi! Octopi!

     Let us out! Darya said.

     No. Quiet but strong. This is important. We will all remain.

     The stage lights shone in her eyes; Alysha was never certain whether it was carelessness on the part of the stage hands or if Tiell had arranged it on purpose so that her eyes would look particularly pale.

     "Here she is, the girl you've been waiting for, her heart's as cold as ice and she'll fight you all the way: Steel!"

     A thousand times she'd heard variations of the same tired introduction. It wasn't even true; any single one of them could buy her body for the night and she would have to bear them. Tiell wouldn't allow a single stripe on a customer. They couldn't complain of course, since doing so would require them to admit they'd been buying sex illegally, but they wouldn't come back, either. Bad for business. Bad for Tiell.

     Still, he liked his intro. He liked the way it dovetailed with her dancing, which while graceful was poisoned with her contempt for the people watching. He wanted to inspire the worst of the throng to pay for her, knowing they would pay well and extra to have someone unwilling forced to do whatever they wanted. That's why she sold more black keys than any other dancer in the club; more people wanted to unlock her door with the guarantee that they could do whatever they pleased with her, so long as there was no "permanent damage."

     The music began, more beat than melody, and she danced. She danced her hatred. She danced her disgust. Her cold rage infused her every movement, fueled by the cheers and calls from the audience. The beads and chains and fake gems on her costume clicked and swung against her body. The sounds outside her ears fused into a mass of white noise. She pushed them out, along with the smell of her own sweat and the places she had to put her hands.

     It didn't end soon enough, but it ended. Alysha disappeared backstage and stopped to lean against one of the walls, trying to find her center again. She had only just gotten her fingers into it when a girl skipped up to her.

     "Steel, Steel, how do I look?"

     The world shattered again, because it could not, simply could not hold a twelve-year-old girl in the garb of a prostitute. Tiny twinkling chains did not belong on a new body. Collars and thin girlish necks could not exist in the same space.

     "Steel?"

     Alysha dropped to a knee in front of the girl. "Rispa, what are you doing in that?"

     "Tiell said I should. I'm going to start dancing tomorrow night!"

     "I thought Tiell said you wouldn't dance until you were old enough," Alysha said.

     "I guess I'm old enough, then," Rispa said. The girl's ears drooped. "You don't like it."
     "No," Alysha said. "I don't."

     Rispa looked down. Her hands played with one of the beads on her waist-chain. "I don't really like it either. At least, I don't think so. I like to dance, but I'm not sure I want to dance in front of so many people."

     "You don't," Alysha said. "And I won't let you."

     Rispa looked up again, startled. "Really? But Tiell--"

     "I'll take care of it," Alysha said, cupping the girl's cheeks. "You won't have to dance in front of anyone, unless you want to . . . and never wearing things like this."

     "I don't seem to fit into them," Rispa said, one ear flopping, the other upright.

     "No," Alysha said with a brief laugh. "Not yet, at least. Go take that off, arii, before someone wonders what you're about."

     "Okay," Rispa said.

     Alysha lifted burning eyes toward Tiell's office at the end of the hall. He wouldn't be in it yet, not so soon after her dance . . . nor would he get to it before her first client showed up at the entrance to the back rooms with a key to her room and a license to beat her black. The only recourse would be to find him on the floor.

     She stopped in the main dressing room long enough to pull down a black silk cloak and donned it on her way out. At the gate onto the floor, the bouncer glanced at her, perplexed.

     "I need to talk to Tiell," she said.

     "Aren't you supposed to--"

     "I won't be long," Alysha said and brushed past him. With the hood over her head and the fabric pulled over her body, she faded into the smokey darkness of the club's interior. She kept her head modestly bowed as she padded through the throng, ignoring the dancers tied to the columns near the tables. No one bothered her; her cold and purposeful demeanor encouraged people to keep their distance, even in the crowded spaces on the floor.

     Tiell was standing near the key sales desk, chatting with a few clients--his word for it. They didn't have customers, they had clients. How she hated his lanky body, which she knew too intimately, and his knowing sneer, which never left his mouth. His eyes were the worst of all, flickering here and there, never remaining any place for long.

     Alysha stopped behind him and said, "I have to talk to you."

     "What . . . who--Steel! What are you doing here?"

     "That's Steel?" one of the men beside Tiell said. "Damn, she's a lot taller than I thought!"

     "Much nicer up close," the other said.

     Alysha ignored them. "Tiell, now."

     "I'm busy with clients, Steel," Tiell said, lifting his chin. "You should be backstage getting ready for your work."

     "Mmm, yeah," said the first man. "Flat on her back."

     "Legs wide--"

     "This can't wait," Alysha said.

     "Yes, it can," Tiell said.

     Alysha grabbed his elbow and pinched it so hard the manager squeaked. "Now."

     "Ooohhh! We see who's wearing the pants here!"

     The second man jabbed Tiell in the side. "Do you let her whip you in the back-room after hours? Is she good with the crop?"

     "She's good at anything she does," Tiell said with a flat smile. "But she's much better on her hands and knees, apologizing for her cheek with her lips."

     "Sounds good to me."

     Alysha ignored them and tugged Tiell.

     "Let me see what the girl wants so badly," Tiell said with a wink.

     "Shouldn't take long!" one of the men said. The other snickered.

     Alysha pulled the manager back beyond the gate, where he rounded on her and shoved her against the wall. He wasn't a strong man but his grip on her shoulder hurt anyway.

     "What the hell's so rhacking important?"

     "Rispa won't dance."

     "She'll do what I tell her to do," Tiell said.

     "You don't understand," Alysha said. "I won't let her dance."

     He stared at her face, his focus twitching from one of her eyes to the other. Then his lip curled back. "And how exactly are you going to make that happen, Steel?"

     "I'm sure there's something you'd prefer doing to me that I haven't allowed yet," Alysha said.

     He laughed. "So you want to trade? What could you possibly give me that I haven't let people take from you already? Something as valuable as Rispa's little body on stage for the first time?"

     "Money," Alysha said, her mind racing only a few words ahead of her tongue. "I'm worth more than Rispa is."

     "A girl that young? You could be the meanest whore in Terracentrus and you'd never get the money that a little girl would."

     "Rispa will only be a virgin once," Alysha said. "After that, she'll be useless to you. Too broken to get any useful money. Do you want to raise another Harem Rose?"

     That stopped him. The Harem Rose brought in almost no money, even on her highest priced keys. No one wanted her to dance for them. No one wanted to pay to bed her. Her limp body and dull eyes attracted only a small, strange niche audience, and they could find plenty of similarly broken women elsewhere for as little as they paid at Phantasies. They had no incentive to spend more.

     "I'll give you more instead," Alysha said. "I bring in more money than everyone else combined."

     "You're an arrogant snot. How could you possibly do that?" he asked, but he had become distant, thoughtful.

     "Sell my key to groups," Alysha said.

     Tiell let go of her and stepped back. "Groups."

Was the man stupid, or did he just want to hear her spell it out? "More than one person at a time," she said. "One hour to three people. Four. Five. Whatever."

His face remained wary. "I've tried that before with the other girls. It was bad for business. They could only handle one or two like that and then they'd be useless the rest of the night."

     "I won't be," Alysha said. "I'm harder than all of them. Try it for a few nights. Try my black key with groups." She bared her teeth. "No one can break me, Tiell. One night and one group with my black key will make you more money than Rispa would make in a year."

     It was an exaggeration . . . but it convinced him. She loathed the naked greed on his face. "All right," he said. "But if it doesn't pan out--"

     "It will," she said.

     "We'll try it," he said. "Tonight. I'll tell the front desk." He grinned at her, eyes narrowing. "We'll see how long this lasts."

     She watched him pass through the curtain and back onto the floor. On quiet feet she retreated to the room that would soon become her prison for the night's remainder. Inside it she allowed herself a moment to shake with relief. Rispa . . . Rispa was safe.

     Now she had only herself to worry about.

     Groups. What had she been thinking?

     She could take it. She would take it, because the thought of Rispa on that wooden stage was too much to bear.

     Did you save her? A tentacle curled, just a suggestion of one nearby.

     Yes, Alysha said.

     Angels, Captain, Darya said. You were an exotic dancer?

     No, Lieutenant, Alysha said, staring straight ahead. I was a prostitute.

     That little girl, Felsha whispered.

     Safe now, Alysha said.

     We are not done, said the octopi.

#42

     "You have a message incoming, First Commander."

     "Can't this wait?" Taylitha said, waving a cloud of steam from in front of her face.

     The voice floating from above her said, "I'm afraid not, sir. It's from an approaching vessel."

     "I suppose they want visuals," Taylitha said.

     "The signal is a viseo, I'm afraid."

     "Right," Taylitha said. "I'll just--" and she stopped. Curse it all, if she was in charge, why did she have to hop out of her bath every time some two-bit colleague wanted a piece of her?

     "Sir? Shall I put them on hold?"

     "No, put it through, Ensign. Audio only."

     A pause, then, "Patching."

     At the two-chime channel switch, Taylitha squirted a palmful of soap into her hand and said, "This is First Commander Taylitha Basil. How can I help you?"

     "First Commander, is there something wrong with your equipment?" a male voice asked. He sounded like someone used to knowing what was going on and not at all accustomed to being perplexed.

     "Nope," Taylitha said. "I'm just in the shower. This is the first shower I've had in far too long and I'm not even half-done with it. Whom do I have the pleasure of talking to while I soap up my hair?"

     She grinned all the way through the resulting pause and applied the soap to her head, eyes tightly shut as foam and bubbles slid down her forehead and over her scarlet brows. When the voice resumed, the puzzlement had become bemusement. Taylitha found herself liking the voice's owner.

     "Well then. This is Captain Dimitri Everen of the UAV Sunshield."

     "Sunshield!" Taylitha exclaimed. "You're a warcruiser?"

     "One of the few, Commander," the voice said. "Pleased to be of service. We're here to relieve you."

     Taylitha stopped soaping up her hair to scratch her temple. "I'm confused. They sent a warcruiser to do an archeological dig?"

     "The thinking is something like our crew complement is over twice yours."

     "Plus if the natives get uppity you can blow them to tiny bits?" Taylitha asked. "I don't like the sound of this, Captain Everen."

     "Dimitri, please. And we're not planning to destroy any of your natives, truly."

     "Did anyone at Fleet Central stop to think what sending a warcruiser would look like to the planet's people?" Taylitha asked, folding her arms and scowling. "How am I supposed to explain that we mean no one any harm when FC sends one of the only capital ships in our fleet?"

     "Have you explained that we come in peace?" the man said.

     "Yes, but saying one thing and doing another doesn't make us look very good," Taylitha said. She went back to scrubbing. "Besides, you might as well turn around and go back. I can't hand off authority to you. Captain Forrest hasn't given it to me."

     "You're in charge?"

     "I'm holding the fort in her absence. She's busy."

     "Then may I speak with her?"

     "Nope," Taylitha said, ducking under the water to rinse her hair. She sputtered coming out of the spray, licked her lips and said, "She's not available."

     "So . . . she's missing in action?"

     "No," Taylitha said. "Just not available."

     A long pause then. Taylitha combed her hair back and reached for the back scrubber.

     "So you're not legally in command, but I can't get in contact with the person who is to formally take command of the system," Everen said.

     "Exactly," Taylitha said, and applied the brush to her back. She might have started humming.

     "So," Everen said after a while, "you've arranged things so that the Stardancer can't leave."

     "I suppose it might look that way from the outside," Taylitha said. She could almost imagine him standing outside the bathroom, frowning and looking just a little lost. What race was he, she wondered? One of the Pelted? Human? He spoke without an accent, so he probably wasn't one of the very few aliens or Pelted with created languages.

     "We're on the same side here, Commander. You know that, right?"

     He sounded almost wistful. "I believe you," she said. "But there's too much going on for me to casually let you take over. I hope you understand."

     "I don't, but I'm not the one you have to answer to. If FC lets you stay then I guess we'll both be here, wasting cycles."

     The fact that she'd have to confront Fleet Central once they tried to reassign the ship did not comfort her at all. They were very likely to take her to task for insubordination at best; at worst, they could decide her actions required a court martial. Taylitha lost her cheer abruptly.

     "Commander? You've stopped scrubbing."

     She blinked, then laughed. "You can hear that?"

     "Of course." He was grinning, she thought. "Look, if there's any way I can help . . . "

     "I'll be sure to contact you," Taylitha said.

     "At least put us to work," Everen said. "We have a lot of science personnel here eager to help with the digs. And everyone wants to meet the aliens."

     Taylitha put the brush down completely and leaned against the shower compartment corner. By nature she liked to trust people, but too much, too much rested on this. She had to know more about Everen before she could reveal the extent of the mysteries of the sea-washed world below. "How about dinner, Captain?"

     "Dimitri."

     "Dimitri. Here on the Stardancer tonight. We can talk over food."

     "Sounds great. Mark 8?"

     "I'll tell the Pad personnel to expect you," Taylitha said. "See you then."

     "I look forward to it. Enjoy your shower, Commander. Sunshield away."

     She barely had time to wash between her toes when one of the priority chimes she used only for calls from senior staff sounded. Taylitha thought about abandoning her shower entirely. "Taylitha here."

     "We've found the captain," 'Star said.

     Taylitha straightened so fast she pulled a muscle in her back. Grabbing it and hopping around in the steam, she said through clenched teeth, "Great! Where is she? Is she on her way?"

     "You need to be here."

     "I'm on my way," Taylitha said, splashing out of the compartment, shedding soap bubbles and making puddles on the carpet again. Standing upright and lifting her arms made her wince, so she didn't bother to dry her hair. Her body received a cursory swipe with a towel, then Taylitha pulled on a bathrobe before rushing out the door. She was halfway to the Medplex when she realized she had no idea where Alastar was.

     "Ack! Computer! Location of Alastar Virgil!"

     The telegem hummed in her ear, then offered, "Conference Room adjacent to Pad Room B."

     That was next to one of the Pad Rooms servicing the lower bridge. Taylitha reversed direction and raced back the way she'd come. The crew she passed in the hall politely didn't notice her haste or informal garb. She showed up in the conference room panting to find 'Star sharing the long conference table with two other women . . . Steffis and Perralta, two of her lost women. Disheveled and exhausted, they slumped in their seats in front of the grand panoramic windows overlooking the planet.

     "Where's the captain?" Taylitha asked.

     "She's in the ocean," Perralta said. "Being tested by the octopi."

     "Octopuses," Steffis muttered.

     It made so little sense that Taylitha repeated their words to herself twice before she trusted she'd even heard them right. "When is she coming back? Can we talk to her? And what's this about the octopi? I thought they were extinct."

     "They are most definitely not extinct," Steffis said.

     "The captain's in the ocean with them and Darya and Felsha," Perralta said. "The octopi are testing them to see if they want to be friends with us. We don't know when they'll be back. Whenever they think we've passed or failed, I guess." Her ears colored. "Steffis and I got booted early."

     "We're not allowed to talk with them until the octopi decide what they want to do," Steffis added. "They're unconscious. Doing some sort of drug-induced group dream."

     "I see," Taylitha said. "But she and the others are safe?"

     "Yes, sir," Steffis said. "Just not allowed to communicate with us."

     "So there are aliens in the oceans," Taylitha said. "Living ones. A race of them, not just one. You saw them?"

     "Yes!" Perralta exclaimed. "They're amazing, Commander, really amazing, so colorful and definitely intelligent. But they have only one egg-layer left, and she's trying to decide whether their race should die out or not. That's what the testing's all about."

     "And they've chosen the captain as their measure of us," Taylitha said.

     "Along with a Harat-Shar," Steffis said.

     "Darya and Felsha. They were both still with her when we left, sir," Perralta said.

     Neither of which mattered so long as Alysha was there. Recovering her aplomb, Taylitha said, "I'm sure things will work out fine. Why don't the two of you clean up and get a good meal? You look tired. You can write me a report once you've had a chance to catch your breath."

     "Thanks, sir," the two said and left.

     "How about that," Taylitha said, dropping into one of the chairs. "The octopi are still around, 'Star! We might end up having a living alien race to make alliance with after all."

     "Yes," 'Star said. "I'm curious about this group dream Steffis mentioned. More chemicals in the water like the ones I encountered, no doubt."

     "No doubt," Taylitha said. "At least now we know your jury-rig of our reason for staying in orbit is true! Happy accident, that, especially with a warcruiser in orbit. Did you see it?" She stood and walked to the window, squinting out it.

     Alastar joined her. "They're a little far for unassisted vision." She tapped the window three times, activating the smart coating. "Close-up on the Sunshield." The window drew a box around a speck in the corner, then magnified it several times until the warcruiser's sleek and deadly mass popped out against the black field.

     "A warcruiser," Taylitha said, shaking her head. "Why would they send something like that? There are only . . . what, five, six of them?"

     "Twelve," 'Star said. "It does seem a strange choice."

     "At least the captain seems nice enough. He's coming for dinner, by the way."

     "Do you need me there?"

     Taylitha shook her head, eyes remaining on the cruiser on the window panel. "No . . . I'd like to keep it informal. I want to get a feel for him. It was more important before I knew that Alysha was fine . . . still, we don't know when she'll get back. It will be good to know just what kind of man we're sharing circles with." She rubbed the back of her neck. "I should get dressed and get to the Medplex. Is our resident--"

     "Unchanged," Alastar said.

          Even the thought of an ocean full of natives didn't make Taylitha feel better about that. She sighed. "Well, as soon as I've dried off and dressed, you know where to find me."

     "You can't spend all your waking hours with him," Alastar said.

     "No," Taylitha said. "I need to eat and bathe. But by An and her partner, 'Star, if we can keep him from dying don't we have a duty?"

     "And if we never find any of his people? What if he truly is the last?" 'Star asked.

     "There's still the octopi," Taylitha said.

     "Poor company," Alastar said.

     "And us," Taylitha continued, stubborn. When Alastar didn't say anything, she said, "We'll make it work, 'Star. We have to."

     The other woman inclined her head in acquiescence. Taylitha nodded and left. She still had most of the day before she had to tidy up for the visit from Captain Everen. She would try more singing.

#43

     "Oh, Steel," Angel said, hands fluttering. "Sit, sit here."

     Alysha dragged herself to the couch in the dressing room and gingerly lit on its edge. Her entire skin felt like a contiguous bruise, but the worst of it was on her back, where she could feel but not touch the torn flesh. The night had advanced past the stamina of the final few clients at the club, and most of the girls had departed or secreted themselves in their small rooms to sleep. Alysha had no such luxury. She had to be back over the wall and in her bunk by reveille or her entire future might vanish beneath her desperate hands.

     The cushion under her creased as Angel sat at her back and turned it towards her. The girl hissed. "What did they do to you?"

     "I don't remember much of it," Alysha said. "Something with a bottle."

     "Glass," Angel said. "Stay. I'll get the kit."

     As if the meager kit Tiell provided them could address anything more than the most superficial of injuries. What Alysha really needed was to get to Laelkii and Nathan, but it was already too late. She didn't have enough time to make the trip all the way to the clinic and back to the Academe campus.

     Angel rejoined her and began to pick shards of glass out of her upper back. Alysha gripped her knees to keep from flinching and though her body didn't move under Angel's care her eyelids kept twitching. One shard. Two. Six. Ten.

     "Rispa tells me she's not going to dance after all."

     "Good," Alysha said.

     Twelve. Fifteen. Twenty.

     "You had something to do with that, didn't you."

     Twenty-four. "What makes you say that?"

     "Oh, Steel," Angel said with a broken little laugh. "Who else?"

     She said nothing. It seemed wiser than speech. How much glass would Angel have to pull out of her muscle?

     "How did you pay for it?"

     At last, the sting of disinfectant spray. "Pardon?" Alysha asked in a voice that felt rusty.

     "He must have made you pay for it," Angel said. "Tiell. What did he do to you?"

     "He didn't do anything to me," Alysha said after the girl moved on to the hole underneath the first gash. "We made a bargain. He doesn't make Rispa dance. He gets to sell my key to groups."

     "Are you crazy?" Angel asked, almost breathless, suspending her ministrations. The soft press of the girl's hands against her lower back sent spiral sunbursts across Alysha's field of view, but she didn't allow herself to tremble as Angel began to pet her. "Steel, that's a good way to die."

     "They're not allowed to hurt me that much."

     "And this isn't hurt much?" Angel asked with the first hint of asperity Alysha had yet heard. The girl sighed and resumed picking the second wound clean. After a while, she whispered, "You know it's no use, arii. We're going to rot and die here."

     "Not if I can help it," Alysha said, ears flattening. Her hard body, bent beneath Angel's hands, did not quiver despite the pain.

     Did you? the octopi asked.

     Help it? Alysha replied. Yes. I saved Rispa. I saved Angel too. I sent them away.

     And this one? the octopi asked.

     "Steel!" Honey grabbed her by the elbow. "Have you seen Rose?"

     Alysha shook her head, ignoring the pounding headache that twisting her wrenched neck exacerbated. "I've been in the back rooms all night. Isn't she working her keys?"

     "She didn't sell any tonight," Honey said. "She's not in her room. I saw her in the dressing room just before but not after."

     "Have you looked in everyone else's room? Maybe Tiell sold two people to a single customer."

     "I looked, but she's not anywhere," Honey said, ears flattening. "I'm worried about her, Steel."

     They all were. Except Cinnamon, who worried about no one but herself. "Did you check outside?"

     Honey shuddered. "She's not supposed to wander outside. The alleys aren't safe."

     An understatement. Phantasies wasn't exactly located in the finest part of town. "Let's go," Alysha said, and started for the hall leading to the back door. Once again Honey caught her arm.

     "It's dangerous," Honey said, amber eyes wide.

     "I'll keep us safe," Alysha said. "Come on. I only have half an hour before my last key arrives."

     Honey nodded once, her tail flicking nervously. Alysha led the way out of the club and into the dingy alleys behind it. The tigraine refused to split off for their search, so together they began canvassing the nearest streets and corners. They didn't have to go far.

     "Angels!" Honey said, rushing toward the body sprawled at the end of the alley. "Oh, Steel, oh Steel she's half-dead!"

     Alysha crouched beside the Harem Rose's limp body and touched fingers to the girl's thin neck. The pulse fluttered there, weak but present, but Alysha didn't like the pasty color inside her ears or the shallow breaths that barely lifted the thin ribcage. Sliding her arms beneath the girl's shoulders and hips, she pulled the Harem Rose off the garbage and into her arms.

     "Yack!" Honey said, waving a hand in front of her face. "She could have picked a nicer place to collapse."

     "She was looking for a place to vomit," Alysha said. "I'm going to get her to the clinic, Honey. Go back and re-schedule my key."

     "How long a delay?" Honey asked.

     Getting to the clinic would take time, but once she arrived she would be able to leave the Harem Rose with Laelkii's husband. "An hour, I'd say."

     "Okay," Honey said. She touched the Rose's forehead, smoothing back the matted hair there, then said, "Thank you Steel."

     "Go," Alysha said.

     Honey dashed back toward the club, leaving Alysha to carry the Rose to the Lifeweaves' clinic.

     Did she survive? Darya asked, floating alongside.

     Yes, Alysha said.

     Did you save her? Felsha asked.

     The answer came out of her, unbidden, unwilling. Succinct, as all her pain came couched. No.

     The octopi said nothing for a while. Then, Would you go back and save her today if you could?

     Yes, Alysha said. Yes.

     The club began to recede. Floating beyond it, Alysha could almost believe the ordeal had ended.

     You would have saved them all, the octopi said. They were back in Darya's room, this time devoid of its purple-furred occupants.

     "Yes," Alysha said.

     They did not ask for your help.

     "They needed it," Alysha said. "And they had forgotten how to ask."

     They seemed to have strong opinions.

     "Under duress," Alysha said.

     They were not competent. Not able to make their own choices.

     "No one should be held to what they ask for under duress," Alysha said.

     Some would say it is only under strain that we show our true selves.

     "Sometimes," Alysha said. Her throat felt too thick, and which she touched it she felt metal.

     "I don't want to go back there," Darya said.

     We are not done. Explain this to me.

     "Steel!"

     Alysha had never heard so much passion in the Harem Rose's voice. Curious, she turned to the Tam-illee and found her whole, with color restored to her ears and the rims of her eyes. Nathan had done good work for her.

     "You took me there last night," the Rose said.

     Alysha nodded.

     The girl said nothing for several minutes, then burst out, "Why didn't you leave me to die?"

     "How could I do that?" Alysha replied. "It would be a waste."

     "A waste! A waste is what I am now. A waste is living here, eating Tiell's leftovers and letting every pervert in the city into my body. I wanted to die. You should have let me die."

     "Wanted to die?" Alysha asked, voice growing gentler. "So have you changed your mind?"

     The Rose hugged her shoulders, ears drooping. "No," she said, hoarse. "I just don't want to try that way again. I hate throwing up."

     "Rose, there's a way out of here," Alysha said. "Just hold on."

     "Think what you want," the Rose said. "My life ended when my womb died." She turned and drifted away.

     Why did you not let her die, as she asked?

     "At the time I didn't know that was her wish," Alysha said.

     And if you had known?

     Alysha said nothing.

     You would have changed nothing.

     "No," Alysha said.

     Yet you presume to tell us you would treat with us differently.

     "You are not one of us," Alysha said. "I can't apply my people's rules to you."

     So you say. But here we find you under duress extreme, and you do not act as you say you would now.

     "I was young," Alysha said softly.

     And now that you are older you know better?
     Alysha closed her eyes.

     "These aren't fair questions," Darya said, twisting in the water. "Even I would have tried to shut that place down, and prostitution is legal where I come from."

     So you too would have taken their choices from them.

     "What choices?" Darya demanded. "I didn't notice anyone asking those girls if they wanted to sell their bodies. They obviously weren't enjoying it."

     Would you have let the sallow one die, then? That was her choice.

     "It was only her choice because she was in a place she didn't want to be," Felsha said softly.

     "Eldest," Alysha said, "you spoke of your life cycle, of the natural order of things. For you, the natural order of things is to die when death comes for you. To bear young when the time is right. To grow and fall back like the tides, in accordance with the environment that supports you. Yes?"

     Yes.

     Alysha turned her eyes back to the hazy scene in the night club, now so smeared she could barely see it. The waves superimposed a golden line here and there, covering it. "We too have a natural order of things. Everything that happened in that place . . . every single thing . . . violated that order."

     There was no response. No chemical agreement; no proffered debate. When Alysha looked over her shoulder, the tentacle's coil had vanished.

     "Do . . . do you think we offended them?" Felsha asked.

     "I don't know," Alysha said.

     Darya rolled her lip between her teeth, then licked them and said, "Captain . . . "

     "It's not important," Alysha said. It was the first lie she'd told, consciously, purposefully, in a long time. It had a sour taste.

#44

     An afternoon of cradling the little alien's unresponsive body to her stomach had destroyed what small good mood Taylitha'd managed to cultivate on hearing about Alysha. When she presented herself at one of the command level pad rooms to receive the incoming guest, she had to struggle to smile. She couldn't even coax just a little mirth at the thought that she was about to meet someone whose first impression of her had been of a naked woman in her shower, covered in bubbles.

     The Pad sang a rising note as it activated and began weaving the pinprick hole that would allow this minor defiance of physical space. When it locked and opened the tunnel, it sang a triumphal chord. Taylitha usually loved that trumpet fanfare and the way it heralded every person, no matter his rank, with the exclamation of a king. Tonight she only watched and waited for the man to whom Fleet had entrusted one of its few and precious capital ships.

     From the nothingness above the Pad stepped a human of average height and a limber, lean body. She noticed his hair first, a head of silky black lined from temple nearly to the peak of his forehead with unlikely corkscrews of coarse silver. It reminded Taylitha of some exotic tabby pattern, curly silver on black.

     After pulling her gaze down to her eyes, she forgot his hair. What in the twenty midnight Hells was it with her and humans?

     "Commander Basil?" he said, extending a hand. "I'm Dimitri Everen."

     "Pleased to put a face to your voice, Captain," Taylitha said, grasping his hand and shaking it.

     He laughed. "Me too. But please, call me Dimitri. If you 'Captain' me through dinner I might have to pay the bill."

     "Call me Taylitha, then," she said. "I'll buy the first round if you buy the second."

     "Sounds like a deal to me," he said. "Lead the way."

     On the way to the Cat's Fang Taylitha pointed out the areas of interest and chatted personnel issues, allowing herself the luxury of satiating her personal curiosity on how a ship with over eight hundred people functioned from day to day. By the time Sashe showed them to the private room at the top of the stairs, Taylitha had relaxed enough that the candlelit intimacy of the room, augmented by the fine linen, gleaming china and single rose blossom only startled her. On other days she might have turned around and marched back down to the front desk and demanded to know what Sashe was up to.

     "Not what you were expecting?" Everen asked.

     "Usually this is a beer-and-peanuts kind of place," Taylitha said. "I haven't requested the officer's suite for a while, but last time I was up here it was a little more homey."

     "Perhaps they're hoping to help you impress me," Everen said.

     "Maybe," Taylitha replied.

     Neither of them moved from the spot near the door. After a moment, Everen said wistfully, "Can we still have the beer?"

     Taylitha laughed.

     From then on it was easy. Sashe's four course meal flew past and Taylitha remembered it not at all. She told him about their mapping mission, about the archeological digs, rambled about Alysha. They reminisced about men and women they'd served under, the ships they'd served in and the strange situations that service had sometimes landed them in. Minute by minute the tension seeped from her bones.

     Dessert involved apples, as was inevitable with the trees bearing. No humble dumplings these, though, but a steaming, flaky apple pie worthy of its vanilla-and-honey ice cream, whipped cream and caramel glaze. She had just put her fork through the point of the wedge when Everen said, "So, are you going to tell me about it?"

     "Pardon?"

     "The hard parts," he said. "The things you've been avoiding."

     Taylitha almost set her fork down. She didn't welcome the return of her stress, but three beers made her far more philosophical about her situation. "There were two alien races down there, Dimitri. One of them's still alive, floating in the ocean. Alysha's with them, along with a couple of our bridge staff, negotiating. I heard back from two of the people I sent to make sure she still didn't need anything."

     "A new species," Everen said in wonder. "Who would have thought . . . "

     "I know," Taylitha said, but couldn't linger long in that place. Her worry was too great. Clearing her throat, she said, "The second race seems to be extinct, except for a single individual. And he's dying."

     Saying it made it real, somehow, this thing she'd been denying.

     "You're certain," Everen said.

     Taylitha nodded.

     He sighed and rested his hands on his coffee mug.

     "Your help at the digs would be appreciated," Taylitha said when the silence drew on too long. "Probably more than appreciated, to be honest. Sometimes the ladies get tired of looking at one another . . . a little interaction with the opposite sex usually cheers them up a lot."

     He chuckled softly. "I hope they do a better job of it than I did."

     "Oh, you helped!" Taylitha exclaimed. "Please, don't think you didn't. It's just . . . this alien, I found him and he sort of . . . well, attached to me. He responds better to me than to anyone else. I know I should be a little more distant but . . . well, he doesn't have anyone else. What am I supposed to do?"

     "Exactly what you're doing now," he said. Did he have to have those eyes? They were wonderful eyes, a rich clear brown, so friendly.

     "And when he dies?" Taylitha asked.

     "Then you'll mourn him," he said. He reached across the table and touched her wrist. "I'm sorry. Am I keeping you? I can go back."

     "No . . . no, it's okay," Taylitha said. "This is what I'm supposed to be doing, anyway. Alysha's not here to welcome you in-system, so it's my duty to do. Not that you're so unpleasant that it's really a duty." She sighed, then offered him a fragile smile. "Look at me fumbling through this . . . you've been such excellent company and here I am depressing you! We've discovered evidence of a great civilization on a new planet, we've met an entirely new species of aliens and I'm moping."

     "It is overwhelming," Everen said. "I'm having trouble with it myself and I just got here."

     He'd taken his hand back. She wished he hadn't. She warred with her conscience. Protocol and courtesy demanded her presence here, but her heart longed to be at the side of the alien. What if an extra hour or two would extend his life? And if it didn't, didn't he still deserve her presence in his final hours? "How do you do it, Dimitri? How do you be a captain? How do you keep everything at arm's length?"

     "I'm not sure," he admitted. "Practice, probably." He studied her for a few moments, then stood. "I should let you get back. And you look like you need rest."

     "It's okay," Taylitha said. "I sleep with the alien anyway."

     "He's on the ship, then?" Everen asked.

     "In one of the Medplex chambers," Taylitha said. "I'd take you to see him, but he's in fragile condition."

     "I wouldn't want to disturb him," Everen said. "I guess he's not aware enough to be troubled by being someplace different."

     One of Taylitha's ears slowly rose. "He's aware some of the time . . . "

     "And you managed to get across to him where he was?" Everen asked. "Most people I know are a little disoriented by their first trip shipboard, and all of them are aware of space and what a ship is and how it travels--"

     "--Bast and An!" Taylitha said. "You're right! All this time--" She leaped to her feet. "We have to get him home!"

     "Taylitha?"

     "Come on!"

     She didn't stop to see if he was following her, and the gods only knew what the rest of the Cat's Fang's denizens thought at the sight of their First Commander sprinting down the stairs with Everen giving chase. Of course, if they hadn't yet gotten used to her dashing around half-clothed, wet and in a frenzy they might as well. Alysha never dashed anywhere, but surely Taylitha was allowed her own eccentric command style.

     The Medplex wasn't too far from the Fang. Taylitha banged an elbow on the doors that didn't open fast enough for her. "Snowhide!"

     "Taylitha?"

     "We need to get him to the surface," she said. "This place, this isn't his place, Laelkii. It's not right. He's confused on top of being alone."

     Laelkii glanced at Everen behind her, then at her. "That's a kindness," she said after a hesitation.

     "Snowhide?" Taylitha asked, but the older woman's face answered that question. "Oh, no. But I've only been gone a few hours!"

     "He took a turn for the worse," Laelkii said. She touched Taylitha's arm. "Why don't you get him down to the surface and stay with him?"

     "How much longer?" Taylitha asked.

     The doctor shrugged. "I can't be certain. No more than a day, certainly."

     Taylitha walked to the room adjacent to the ward in a daze. She didn't see the little native at first, surrounded as he was by all the women she'd asked to help. One by one they looked up as she came near, scooting out of her way as she crouched next to the body.

     She'd seen corpses before. She'd even been present as some very sick people had gradually become them, and the process wasn't new to her. She could recognize it in the alien, in the drawn and hollow look to his body, the flat and brittle look to his strange skin. His eyes were open, strangely. She'd expected them to be closed, or at least listless and dull, but they gleamed like polished jet.

     Gently she gathered him into her arms. When she turned, Everen was between her and the door. The human's gaze had dropped to the frail limbs of her charge, and she grimly noted the shock on his face.

     "Come on," she said to the alien. "Let's get you home."

#45

     "Are they coming back?" Felsha asked.

     "I'm not sure," Alysha said. "I would have assumed they would have ended the test had they learned all they wanted to know."

     "Maybe they're in conference?" Darya suggested.

     "Possibly," Alysha said.

     "I guess we should just . . . wait," Felsha said. "I wonder if Perralta and Steffis made it back?"

     "I'm sure they did," Alysha said.

     They talked because they knew the silence would be uncomfortable. As much as it grieved Alysha to see that truth, she knew better than to let the silence grow.

     "I hope the Second Commander's okay too," Felsha said.

     "Everyone's okay but us, arii," Darya said. "We're the ones stuck in the octopi dreamtime. They're probably all on shore waiting for us to hurry up and make friends with the natives so that we can have a big party."

     "A big party would be nice," Felsha said.

     A streak of black cut through their haven, shattering the purple waves and breaking the golden lines into tiny fragments.

     "Hey!" Darya exclaimed.

     From the black streak, darkness oozed into the waves.

     "Come on," Alysha said, remembering Perralta's suffocating nightmare. "Let's head someplace brighter."

     They swam upward, toward the remembered sun, and another spike of darkness slammed into their path. Alysha halted, floating in place.

     "Captain? What's going on? Did we fail?" Felsha asked.

     "If we failed, this is a lousy way of telling us," Darya said as another slash tore through the waves, penning them.

     "No," Alysha said, "They wouldn't tell us this way. Something's gone wrong."

     "Something with the 'Dancer?" Felsha asked, breathless.

     "No," Alysha said again. Something pressed her fur up against the grain where it was longest on her sides and flank. "We have to break out of this."

     "How do we do that?" Darya said. "We're hopped up on whatever they've been pouring into the water around us in the real world. We can't just decide that they should stop working."

     Suggesting such a course wouldn't help either of them realize that was precisely what they had to do. Instead, Alysha said, "Whatever's gone wrong is going to be distracting them, Lieutenant. I'd be surprised if they're paying any attention to us at all, much less attending to the task of maintaining our carefully orchestrated journey."

     "Just as long as they don't let us drown," Darya said.

     Felsha squeaked.

     "We won't drown," Alysha said. "Look into the dark. That's the first sign that things are falling apart. Reality should spread out from there."

     "I don't like it," Felsha said as the black ooze crept nearer. "It feels like there's no air there."

     "Maybe there isn't," Darya said. "Maybe that's us gasping for air."

     "Lieutenant," Alysha said in a quelling voice.

     They waited in silence, too tensely aware of the oncoming dark to notice the discomfort of that quiet. As the world bled to black, Alysha took a long breath. She wasn't sure what bothered her more, the exposure of her darkest niches to her crew or the realization that her behavior during the most difficult period of her life was now the turning point on which an entire alien species would base their decision to join the Alliance.

     The two years she'd spent working nights at Phantasies were now only the smallest portion of the years she'd lived . . . but in her memories they were the longest years of her life, packed with unresolved pain, unanswered questions and uncertain relationships. Even the shining star above the firmament of that blackest night, the man who had elevated her from that dismal pit and given her back the sky, had not escaped from those years unscathed by doubt and pain.

     Admiral Matthew Brighthaven, she wondered, eyes clouded with that memory, where are you tonight?

     "Something's changing," Darya said.

     Into the undifferentiated black swam a speck of light. It shimmered. The longer Alysha stared into it, the more color it acquired, until she realized it was her own eyes, filmed over with saltwater, and she was blinking them repeatedly. She rolled over and into confusion--giant splashes, thrashing limbs, the stink of blood and rot. Their guides had vanished, leaving them to paddle in the cold ocean surrounded by a ring of uninhabited water. All the octopi had sunk below the surface, and only their limbs broke it, here, there, in places unexpected and unplanned.

     "Captain!" Darya said, popping to the surface. "What's going on?"

     "Where's Felsha?" Alysha said.

     They revolved in place, searching. Behind them, Felsha's head broke the water with a sputter.

     "Thank angels," Darya said. "What happened to our guides?"

     Where are you? Alysha asked. What's going on?

     The reply came back broken, scattered, layered with a sting and the taste of blood. Not now, friend.

     She became aware, floating there, of a hundred conversations shattering against her body. Fear. Flight! Fight! Pain.

     "Captain," Darya said, uneasy.

     "I hear it," Alysha said.

     Then, like a gong, a deep voice penetrating to the core of her body: LEVIATHAN.

     The menace, the images, the feel of being ripped limb from limb, none of it required explanation. Within seconds Alysha knew everything she needed to know about the octopi's ancient enemy.

     "Sun and stars!" Felsha whispered. "That thing's in the water with us?"

     Apologies, apologies, the guide said, swimming into view. I have your things here. Don them and I will take you back to safety.

     "Safety!" Darya said. "But what about you?"

     We will die as we always have to preserve the order of things, the guide said. Or have you not been listening?

     Alysha slid her hand onto the guide's thick arm. Your right to die is your own. But there is only one egg-layer left. If she dies, you will have no choice on whether to live or die. The leviathan will choose for you. Is that what you want?

     The guide hovered, uncertain.

     Please, Alysha said. We can do so very little. Let us at least attend the Eldest.

     You plead for what you said you would grant us, the guide said. Your pleading is an influence that we have the right to be free of.

     Why was it that she always ended up arguing philosophy when fighting the shadow of death? I apologize, she said. I will withdraw if it is your wish.

     The guide's tentacles coiled under its body. Its sudden silence was immediately filled by the fragmented impressions of the others in the water. Blood. Pain. Sorrow. Strife.

     How would you protect her? the guide asked at last. You have so few weapons.

     I am always armed, Alysha said, flexing her fingers.

     You have no idea what you face, the guide said.

     Staring at the ruffled waters, at the ominous chaos in the spiral currents, Alysha said, No. But we will try on your behalf if you allow us.

     Your clothes, your items, the guide said. I have them here. If you are to make the attempt you will need them. He uncoiled again and in the pockets between arms their wetsuits and pouches hung alongside a surprising addition: Steffis's shock staff. Alysha plucked it from among the other items and extended it, uncapping the spear point edges.

     "Sir?" Felsha asked.

     Can you get them to the island? Alysha asked.

     Your people? Do you not want them to help you?

     No, Alysha said.

     Then I will try. That came with uncertainty tainting its edges.

     "Darya, Felsha, go with the guide. He's taking you to the island."

     "But sir, what about you?"

     "I'm staying," Alysha said.

     "Here? With that?" Darya said.

     "This is not a debate, Lieutenant," Alysha said. "Nor would I be so flippant about your own fate. To reach the island, you're going to need to get past the conflict. The guide has offered to tow you there but extends you no guarantees of safety. If he chooses to die, you must allow him, but I fully expect you both to arrive in one piece."

     "Sir--"

     "Once you're there," Alysha continued, "contact the Stardancer. The test is over. Either the Eldest will die and none of it will matter, or the Eldest will live and the octopi will decide. The dreaming has finished. Whichever the case, we'll need pick up. Talk to the First Commander and tell her our status, but don't allow anyone to interfere until I send word. Understood?"

     "Yes, sir," Felsha said, and tugged on Darya's elbow. "We won't let you down. Come on, Darya."

     "But--"

     "Come on, Darya," Felsha said again, and swam toward the guide. Alysha watched as the guide took both of their arms in one flexible hand, then bolted through the waters so fast his wake churned white with foam. Only when she could no longer see their heads clearly did she turn and dive beneath the surface.

     Pain. Blood. Fear. The miasma of rotting flesh, remembered from the small ones who'd walked on land and died there. Alarm bells ringing. The synesthetic cacophony disoriented her so powerfully that for a moment she couldn't feel which way was up.

     ELDEST! she cried into the water.

     Someone answered her, someone near but much much younger. Further. Come this way.

     She swam toward the sensation and pierced a veil of noise and panic. The octopi had withdrawn from the test to protect the Eldest themselves, and within the globe they'd drawn around her the waters were murky with their terrorized sendings. Alysha kicked for the surface and breached it, gasping for clarity as well as air.

     She was floating there when the fin breached the water. She allowed herself only a moment to assess its size and imagine the vast body beneath the water before she turned and dove under herself.

     Eldest!

     This way, small one, said someone else.

     She kicked herself after the voice until she saw a dim outline in the cold murk, the bulk of the Eldest's body.

     You should not be here, the Eldest said.

     Your own people protect you and guide me to your side, Alysha said. Are their actions also wrong?

     You are tiny, small one, the smallest speck of a thing alongside the creature that comes. You are a mote in my own eye, much less the eye of Leviathan. You propose to waste your life protecting mine?

     I make choices as well, Eldest, Alysha said.

     Do you come to me in penance for all those you could not save, then? A flash: the Harem Rose, other faces, too many faces.

     Alysha squeezed the staff and said, No. I come in their name.

     The people who are yours to protect will lose you if you stay.

     You are also mine to protect, Alysha said as the clamor of panic and terror grew denser, so dense she could see nothing at all beneath the water.

     It is as we feared, the Eldest said. You will not let us do as we please.

     And again you misunderstand, Alysha replied. I will grant you the right to choose your own destiny, Eldest. But I will stand between you and anything that forces you to make those choices under duress. Die if you wish when the Leviathan is gone . . . but I will not let it kill you.

     And how are we to accomplish this dying without the natural order of things?

     Death comes to all people, Alysha said. Even she who carries the last hope of her species. Decide for yourself, Eldest. But do not decide for all those whose lives you would end before they even begin, and all those who, without you, will live lives without meaning until they too, sleep that final slumber.

     A chorus of chemical screams smacked her flesh, broke over her with the currents.

     It comes, the Eldest said. Now truly you are tested, small one. Choose: will you defend me? Or will you defend the future of my people?

     Startled, Alysha twisted to face the Eldest, but could not see her.

     Choose, the Eldest said. Tell me your choice, for I will not live to see it.

     The wails of the individuals closest to her made it difficult to concentrate.

     Must it be one or the other? Alysha asked.

     Yes.

     Yet if I defend you, then I also defend the future of your people, Alysha said, and then caught her breath, a garbled choke beneath the waters that her nose clip had trouble processing. You mean to lay your eggs.

     It comes, the Eldest said again. If you would defend me you must follow. But if you would defend my people's future, you will remain above and aid in the distraction.

     As the Eldest sank below her, Alysha said, I have barely known you . . . but I am glad for that time.

     As am I. Look to yourself now, small one.

     Like a cloud passing over the sun, a shadow cut through the water. Rows of endless teeth and a tiny malevolent eye flashed past. A tentacle, limp and bleeding, dangled from a corner of a grotesquely smiling mouth. The creature was so large Alysha couldn't see all of it at once, but she could tell when it pointed its snout with interest at the descending figure of the Eldest.

     Leveling her spear at its angry orange eye, Alysha dove.

#46

     Taylitha stepped through the pad and into the cool shadow of the obelisk. For a moment she was struck mute and motionless, disoriented by the breeze and the scent of sand and distant brine, by sorrow and the obscene lightness of the body in her arms.

     "Where to?" Everen asked. She hadn't even noticed him following her downstairs, but now that he had she was glad of his company. Nor, she noted, was he her only tag-a-long; the native had acquired an honor guard of women from the Stardancer, each of them obviously worried but also obviously supportive.

     Taylitha looked down at her burden, noticed the weak flare of his nostrils. His eyes had closed both sets of lids. "All our evidence says these people were friends with the people in the sea," she said. "So I guess they would often share the shore. I think . . . yes. Let's go down there."

     So they set off down the seaward march, the one Alastar had gotten herself into so much trouble on. The feeling of coming full circle bothered Taylitha; she'd felt it so often in the past she couldn't count the number of times she'd wished for a real name for it, some single word to make sense of the devastating changes the feeling had always presaged in her life. It didn't seem right that something so important always hovered on the edge of her mind and that she would have to fumble to explain it to anyone asking.

     The rush and far-off roar of the sea acquired its tiny joyful hiss the closer they came, until at last they reached the golden strand that lined the ocean's edge. Taylitha chose a spot and dropped onto it, still hugging her slack-limbed burden. Behind her, the women who'd attended the alien arranged themselves in a rough semi-circle.

     Everen sat beside her, knees up, arms resting on them. How did he know she didn't want to talk?

     Taylitha looked down at the little native and stroked his wedge-shaped head. Time had taken her past the point where she cared that her treatment of him might seem pet-like. In her worst times, the caress of family or friends had been something to hold on to. Perhaps this was also true of the native, with his pebbled, lackluster skin.

     But he had also liked song, and so she sang. A hesitant lullaby first, something her mother had crooned over her cradle and the cradles of her infant sisters and brothers. Later someone had delegated that duty to her along with the responsibilities of child care, and so she'd sung to all her baby kin. Colonists had big families. She'd learned a lot of baby songs.

     The native didn't wake during that first song, or the next. Taylitha kept going, petting his side, his face, his arms.

     When her voice cracked and failed, the silence slammed into her ears like a wall. She cleared her aching throat, but it would not oblige her.

     And then a quiet bass beside her lifted in a nursery rhyme, so low and so soft it gave her goose-bumps. Taylitha flashed Everen a grateful look, but only the shortest of looks for fear he would see her watering eyes.

     She was not weeping. Not over this tiny collection of limbs and chirps and alien emotions in her lap. Not over her first contact. This was supposed to be Alysha's job. The captain's pain to bear. The captain's right to success, to failure, to something more than this dismal end on the shore as the sun lowered in the sky.

     Wake up, Taylitha pleaded with the alien. You're not alone. Wake up.

     And much later, when Everen's voice finally gave way and one of the women behind them took up the vigil, At least say something to me before you die. Anything. A whistle, a chirp, a peep. At least look at me before you die. Let us know you know we were here for you. Damn it, you're not supposed to die without some significant last connection with the people around you!

     He did not open his eyes again. As the second woman behind them lifted her voice in a Meredan lullaby, Taylitha became aware that the body in her arms no longer breathed. She bent her head to his chest and heard no heart beat, no gurgle of stomach or whisper of air. She remained curled up so, listening for some sign, far longer than she needed to.

     Her first sob surprised even herself. Bad enough that her first contact had died on her watch. But to cry about it in front of the gods and everyone?

     One of Everen's hands gripped her shoulder and turned her against his body. Taylitha freed one hand from the native's body to press it against the human's chest, and with her face hidden against his collarbone she sobbed, disconsolate.

     Behind her, a quivering soprano continued to sing.

#47

     Her first pass with the spear grazed leathery flesh without releasing even a gout of blood. Alysha tumbled away in the wake of the giant, one giant fin slamming the water above her with such force she flew to the surface. Gasping for air, she paddled in a circle, trying to find the fin.

     Small one! He dives for the Eldest!

     Help me! she replied, and ducked her head back beneath the waves. Seconds later a tentacle wrapped around her waist and pulled her hard below layers of shifting waves.

     I cannot go very far! she exclaimed.

     It is diving! If you want to help we must bring you there--

     No, Alysha said. I'll die. My body isn't built for depths like those.

     Then I will leave you here and attend to her. The tentacle loosed her waist and her companion vanished, deeper into the blue.

     She hung there, frustrated, the spear in her hand swaying with the currents. She'd never known a shark to ignore easy food, but she might be far too small a morsel even for its eye to spot.

     Perhaps for its eye . . . but not for its nose. Alysha turned the lance on herself and opened the back of her arm. A cloud of dark blood bloomed around her body. For good measure she poked a hole in her heel. White spots sprung in front of her eyes, shimmering, as the salt water stung the open wounds. Before she could clear them from view, the pressure changed beneath her feet. Alysha forced herself to focus between them and saw a gaping maw approaching, bordered with dozens of octopi.

     No time to dodge . . . so she grabbed for one of the giant teeth as it swept her toward its mouth and hung onto one of the serrations. The spines on the teeth were so large they didn't afford her any danger; a fine situation, she reflected wryly, when all she had to worry about was being swallowed whole.

     And now, to stop the monster, or at least distract it. Hanging onto the tooth with one straining arm, Alysha keyed the full charge on the staff and aimed for the tender flesh beneath the gum. She gritted her teeth and jammed the spear point into it, then discharged, grinding the metal as far into the flesh as she could.

     The heavy currents streaming into the mouth subsided. Alysha couldn't hear the octopi; the teeth broke the stream of their sendings. She could only assume her effort had had an effect, even a small one. She pulled the staff out with a wince and applied it again to a new gum, wedging it hard between tooth and skin.

     The creature opened its mouth wide enough for her to see the octopi with their gloriously colored aprons arrayed around them.

     Is it working? she sent.

     It has ceased to follow the Eldest, came the reply, tinged with wary puzzlement. But it is not wounded either. We think you have . . . confused it.

     That works, Alysha said. How can we make it leave altogether?

     It will leave when it is no longer hungry, came the reply.

     Or when it gets irritated enough? Alysha asked. The staff vibrated to signify its full charge and she leveled it upward this time, at the roof of the mouth. Let us see if we can irritate it more. She thrust the lance's point into the roof of the creature's mouth, pushing until it popped through the skin and slid nearly half its length into the leviathan.

     It's moving!

     Alysha twisted in place just as the jaws slammed shut completely, dropping her into an utter dark.

#48

     "First Commander?" One of the women was kneeling beside her, her voice low with respect.

     "What?" Taylitha asked, hoarse. Her nose burned and her eyes felt dry and caked. Worse, half her face felt as if it was stuck to Everen's shoulder.

     "It's the ship, sir. They're calling for you."

     She wanted to ask if it could wait, but of course it couldn't. The ship could never wait. Her first alien contact was dead in her lap and it couldn't wait. Taylitha forced herself to lift her head and pay attention to the chime she hadn't heard through the white noise in her head and over the sound of her sobs.

     It took her a few tries, but she managed to whistle the channel open. "First Commander here," she said, rubbing her throat with one finger.

     "First Commander! We have the captain's news. There's so much going on I don't know where to start!" Felsha's voice, very excited.

     "Well, I know. We could use a lift from this island, sir. Or at least back-up."

     "Back-up?" Taylitha said, sitting upright with an apologetic glance at Everen. She ran her hands through her mussed hair. "What's gone wrong?"

     "It's the octopi. Their test . . . well, the test is done because they're being attacked by a giant shark."

     A flash of a malevolent eye hovering on a long, sleek black body, painted in vibrant paint on the wall of a cave. Taylitha's limbs seemed to lock in place. "Do they need help? Where's the captain?"

     "She's in there with them and she's got a shock staff and that's the size of the thing," Darya said. "She told us not to interfere."

     "The hells she did!" Taylitha said, jumping to her feet. "We're not going to let her die out there!"

     "No, sir, please!" Felsha again. "This is very important to them! To the octopi, I mean. We aren't supposed to interfere because it was the interference of the land people that drove the octopi into isolation! The test was to see whether we would be willing to let them be themselves, and if we try to stop what's going on we'll confirm their worst fears!"

     "Isn't the captain already doing that by waving a shock staff at that thing?" Taylitha asked.

     "Begging your pardon, sir, but the captain's going to have about as much effect on that monster as an ant on one of us. Less, probably." The sardonic tone faltered. "We saw its dorsal fin go by. It's . . . not small, sir."

     "So, what, we just wait for the captain to get eaten by the thing?"

     "That's what she wants," Darya said.

     "She won't get eaten," Felsha said in a smaller voice. "She can't. She's so small . . . it wouldn't bother eating her. It would be like . . . well, I guess like an elephant going out of its way to eat a crumb."

     "And the octopi are larger meals," Taylitha said.

     "Something like that, sir."

     So of course, Alysha would do everything she could to send the monster away hungry. Taylitha shook her head. "Talk to the bridge," she said at last. "Tell them to get you their pick-up."

     "Aye, sir."

     The chime closed the channel, and Taylitha's ears drooped. She lifted her head and forced herself to scan the distant horizon. Somewhere in those waters Alysha was fighting for someone's life, just as she had fought for this one. She wished her captain better luck, fervently, desperately, with all her heart.

     "Taylitha?"

     The hesitation in his voice made her want to smile for him, so she did, even if her smile was tired and lopsided. "I guess the captain's doing her work. Which means I need to do mine. You still ready to help us out at the digs?"

     "Of course," Everen said, watching her with a solicitous gaze.

     "Could you arrange that?" Taylitha said. "I'm not sure when Alysha's going to be done, but it sounds like we'll be able to leave here sooner than I expected. When that happens, the more of your people are at the digs, the smoother the transition."

     "Sounds good," Everen said. "What about . . . " he looked at the body in her arms.

     She'd watered it with enough of her tears that its skin had seemed to regain some of its luster.

     "We should bury him, I guess," she said. She ran a finger along the edge of his nose. "Poor thing. Poor little thing."

     He nodded and stood. She looked up. "Dimitri, I . . . " She stopped, lost words, and waved a hand helplessly at his rumpled uniform tunic.

     He looked at it, then smiled. "You'll return the favor one day, I hope."

     She stared at his back as he turned and headed up the march, clicking his own telegem on and commencing a quiet talk with his ship.

#49

     Floating in the dark, holding onto the shock-staff, Alysha reflected that despite the many experiences she'd been privileged to pack into her years, she had not yet managed to have anything remotely similar to this happen to her yet. She couldn't find it in herself to panic over something so bizarre. Instead she gripped the shock-staff and waited while the leviathan decided whether or not her invasion justified response.

     Its mouth yawed open suddenly and a flood of water and fluid from within it tore her and the staff loose and set her shooting back out into the cold gray waters. Tumbling and disoriented, she couldn't see to stop herself from smacking into an octopi's colored membranes.

     That didn't work as I hoped, Alysha said after she blinked the dizziness away.

     What were you hoping? To kill such a thing with your spine of a weapon? Surely not.

     We have better weapons, Alysha said grimly. Weapons that are of a size with this one but that could easily tear the heart from Leviathan.

     But we do not want it dead. It too is part of the cycle of nature. There are not so many of them that even one can be casually destroyed.

     Murmurs now from others: The Eldest! The Eldest rises!

     Alysha looked between her feet and saw the giant head. She will be noticed now.

     Then perhaps that is what she wishes, came a deeper sending, layered with exhaustion, with satisfaction, with regret.

     Alysha rolled away from the alien who'd been cradling her and soared slowly down. You have done what you wished to do.

     The future is released, the Eldest said. It only awaits the males . . . which means it is time for me to give myself to the leviathan.

     She'd known, seeing the Eldest descend, that this course would lead them all to this moment. Floating in those cold and assertive currents, tasting the spice of sorrow in the water, Alysha closed her eyes and waited for the words that would begin and end the trial.

     You will not try to save me.

     No, Alysha said.

     Is it because you are too small to change what will happen next?

     No, Alysha said, wishing she didn't have to continue.

     Is it because you know that I will already die and so my sacrifice is convenient?

     No, Alysha said.

     Then is it because you would grant me the right to die as I wish to die?

     Yes, Alysha said, and then compelled by honesty, though I will grieve for your passing.

     There will be another Eldest, said that worthy as the waters grew darker behind her. Your kind will see her rise, I am sure.

     We will be glad to see it, Alysha said, even as we remember the first Eldest to embrace us, to win past fear and doubt to touch hands with the Other in friendship.

     Ah well, the Eldest said. It is a good thing, to be remembered.

     The shadow grew teeth, sprouted fins.

     I have missed the shore between sea and land, the Eldest sent, a mere whisper of wistful current. Alysha watched as the leviathan closed its jaws on the body of the Eldest and quivered.

     Come, small one, said a voice at her side. You need not witness this.

     I need not, Alysha said, but I can and so I shall.

     With the male hanging alongside, she kept brief vigil as the monster turned in a leisurely circle and sailed into the dark, trailing blood. It seemed too swift an end for such a vast life. How many years had the Eldest seen to grow so large? And now those years had passed away in a heartbeat's pause.

     Another presence joined her on her right side.

     Will you come? asked the guide.

     Yes, she said after a deep breath. She gave a hand to the tentacle and allowed the guide to tow her to the surface.

     Now what? she asked.

     Now we will attend to the eggs, the guide said.

     Alysha nodded.

     And then, the guide continued, we will come to the shore to meet your people, as the Eldest decided.

     That simple, Alysha said.

     It is as it should be, the guide replied as the island came into view. I shall return for you. You should come with us on that final journey out of isolation.

     I would like that, she said.

     Her first few steps onto land wobbled; her body felt heavier than it should, and at the same time lighter, less confined by pressure. Removing the nose plug, Alysha straightened and spread her arms, turning them to watch the sun's last feeble rays play over the water-slicked hair. The breeze that ruffled against her stomach and legs reminded her that she was naked and cold.

     Naked. The realization that lack of clothing had become nakedness again instead of mere nudity exhausted her.

     "Captain?"

     Against the twilight, two figures, one dark, one bright. Alysha sighed. "Didn't I tell the two of you to head back?"

     "You told us to talk to the First Commander, and we did that," Darya said. "We changed our minds about leaving."

     "Just when the shuttle arrived, too," Felsha added.

     "We thought someone should be here to greet you," Darya finished.

     Alysha chuckled.

     "We have food," Darya said.

     Felsha added, "And clothing. Are we waiting again, sir?"

     "Yes," Alysha said.

     "Can we talk to the shore while we wait?" Darya asked.

     "Yes," Alysha said again, then idly, "I could use the food and clothing. I feel bruised from the skin up." Which she became aware of as she said it: so long beneath the water, the currents constantly tugging at her pelage, and her skin did feel irritated.

     "Towel!" Felsha squeaked and ran back toward the rock.

     They brought her a towel and a full uniform and a small meal. She donned the abbreviated stretchsuit that went under the uniform but left the tunic, pants and boots folded together since she would not be leaving this island by eagle. The small meal she ate sparingly, and remembered not at all what it had encompassed once it was gone.

     With her eyes on the waves and her people wandering the island behind her, Alysha waited.

#50

     Working by firelight, the women smoothed the dirt with their hands until the mound they'd constructed seemed to flow into the surrounding land. Even so, Taylitha reflected that she could tell it was a grave. There was some quality to a grave that set it apart even before its tombstone had been set in place.

     The woman who placed the marker had carved it herself, using the uncovered reliefs as a guide to the decoration. The metal was stronger than stone, but it had been brushed matte to blend better with the other finds at the nearby sites. When that woman withdrew to join the others standing in a semi-circle around the grave, Taylitha cleared her throat, eyes focused on the small bonfire a few feet away.

     "I'm not sure what to say," she said. "Except that even with the best of intentions, sometimes there's nothing we can do. We all have to pass on through the gate to the next life, and all we can ask on that journey is each other's companionship. We came too late to extend the life of this individual . . . but we can hope we made the journey easier."

     "Amen," murmured the group.

     "That's it, I guess," Taylitha said.

     They broke up, some to sit beside the grave, others to wander, ears and tails flagging. Laelkii walked around the grave to stand beside Tayl.

     "Sometimes things don't work out the way we planned," Laelkii said.

     "Everything that matters should, though," Taylitha said.

     "And if they did, we'd only experience the things we wanted to experience," Laelkii said. "We'd get pretty set in our ways then, wouldn't we?"

     Taylitha eyed her with a grimace. "And what exactly have I learned here, Snowhide?"

     "I'm not sure," Laelkii said. "That you can love someone who can't speak? That you can bury someone and move on? That you can find help in unexpected places? That you can trust people to be what you need?"

     "That my best efforts sometimes come to nothing," Taylitha said. "That my resources aren't enough to save the day. That I can fumble my way through a mess of things and not be sure if I did good or bad. That I don't want to be captain yet, or maybe ever."

     "Those things too," Laelkii said.

     "I don't like these lessons," Taylitha said, folding her arms over her breast.

     "Who does?" the older woman said. She patted Taylitha's back and walked off, footsteps crunching in the sandy soil, until she was lost beyond the fire's short circle.

     Exasperated, Taylitha called after her, "That wasn't a useful answer!"

     Laelkii did not reply. With a sigh, Taylitha sat down across from the grave marker and stared at the soil. She did not want to think too hard about the previous few days; what few images her fuzzy memory relinquished embarrassed her. She'd lost her composure and her equilibrium, plus the first new alien they'd encountered on the planet. Looking back on it, she couldn't imagine doing anything differently . . . but surely something could have been changed. Something would have resulted in a healthy alien to greet Alysha on her return from negotiations in the sea.

     They could have looked harder for other aliens on the land. They could have asked the Sunshield's help to cover the available ground. They could have gotten together a group more quickly to help buoy up the alien's fragile mental state. Something would have worked. Something had to have.

     What had she done wrong?

     She didn't want to cry again, but the first few tears snuck past her defenses anyway. She was just beginning to sniffle when her telegem went off.

     "Yes?"

     "Sir, it's Admiral Beson from the Exploration Office."

     Just what she needed. "Put him through."

     "First Commander Basil? What exactly is going on?"

     "Sir?" Taylitha asked. Perhaps she'd get lucky and he'd be upset over something she could explain away.

     "We've sent the Sunshield but you haven't left yet, and your personnel inform me I still can't speak with the captain . . . which doesn't even address the paper-thinness of your last report to us. I repeat: what's going on?"

     Taylitha pressed her thumbs into the inside corners of her eyes. "We'll be on our way shortly, sir, we're just waiting for the captain to conclude negotiations with the aliens."

     "The Chatcaava-like beings?"

     "No . . . those are dead, sir. The aliens on this planet live in the ocean. They're shaped something like cephalopods."

     "There's another set of aliens on the planet?" Beson asked, incredulous.

     "There were," Taylitha said. "They're all gone now, sir."

     "I thought you said you were talking to them?"

     "We found one," Taylitha said. "But he was near death and we didn't succeed in keeping him alive."

     Silence. Then, "This is a different story you're telling me now, First Commander."

     "And the captain will explain it all in her report for your office, sir," Taylitha said. "I can only relay the bits of it I know, and I haven't known all of it for very long. In fact, I'm completely sure I still don't know the extent of it. But I'm doing my best to hold it together."

     Another pause. Did he hear the quiver in her voice, the one she'd tried so hard to suppress? "All right then," the man said. "We'll look forward to a complete explanation of what's gone on."

     "Me too," Taylitha said, but the admiral had already chirped out. With a sigh, she rested her head on her arms and blinked, over and over, clearing the water from her eyes.

#51

     "Forrest to Stardancer."

     "Alastar here. It's good to hear your voice, sir."

     "'Star? Where's Taylitha?"

     A hesitation so clear Alysha could see her second commander in her mind's eye, trapped between tact and speech. Then, "She's sleeping. She's had a rough time of it."

     "I can imagine," Alysha said. "I didn't intend to leave her in charge with so little notice." She let her lopsided grin touch the words. "Did she survive the experience?"

     "She did well," 'Star said firmly. "But it has been difficult."

     "I'll talk with her about it, then," Alysha said, her eyes resting on the placid waters, trying to worry them free from the dark horizon. They looked calmer than the conversations that filled them, communicated to her through her submerged feet. "Before I ask for a précis of events . . . you sound well. I trust you're feeling better?"

     "Much, thank you. I slept off the worst of the chemical effects, and the rest Laelkii took care of. I imagine you know what happened to me?"

     "Their attempt at communication? Yes, I know about it," Alysha said. "I'm glad to hear that Laelkii brushed you off and got you back on your feet. Tell me what's been happening since I've been in the sea."

     "We're sharing orbit with the Sunshield, sent to relieve us so we can return for refits," Alastar said. "They're currently working with us at the digs. Personnel ratio is 8 to 1 in favor of their people. Taylitha's discovery of the single native--you know about that?"

     "A little," Alysha said.

     "He required mental communication with like-minded others to survive, and we could find no others. He died yesterday."

     Alysha imagined Taylitha's state of mind and felt a surge of pity. "I'm sorry to hear that."

     "We buried him last night; now we're just waiting for you so we can leave. May I ask when you're coming back, sir?"

     The tingling excitement in the waters sent shivers up her spine. "Soon," Alysha said. "And I'm bringing the octopi with me. They've decided we're worth their friendship."

     "Then they'll join the Alliance?"

     "I don't think they'll leave this world," Alysha said, "But yes. I think they'll at very least welcome us as visitors and friends."

     "Then there's a happy ending to this after all."

     Alysha smiled. "I'll be there today, 'Star. If the Sunshield's here to take care of business, let our people come on holiday. They should be there to greet and celebrate."

     "I'll send word, sir."

     "I'll see you soon," Alysha said and closed the channel. Behind her Darya and Felsha remained asleep, oblivious to the rising energy level in the water. The sun would wake them soon enough if she didn't; she could just discern there at the corner of the sky the greenish haze that would later give way to full sunrise.

     The sun had bulged over the sea's far edge in golden glory when an alien hand stroked her foot. Alysha leaned down and grasped it with both hands, submerging her arms up to the elbow.

     Is it done? she asked.

     It is done! the guide replied. There will be more octopi within the season. We will live again, and thrive.

     Then I am well pleased with what has transpired, Alysha said. Shall we go to meet my people now?

     We shall!

     Let me wake those who kept vigil with me.

     She rose and walked over to the two girls sleeping on the rock. Felsha looked as if she was concentrating on something complex; Darya was curled in an economical shell of a shape, smiling in her sleep. She found that she did not want to touch them, but now was not the time to indulge in petty distastes, particularly those the product of events far gone.

     Gently Alysha shook their shoulders, first Felsha, then Darya. "Up, ladies. We're being offered a place in a triumphal procession."

     "What? Triumphal procession? There's a parade?" Darya asked, coming away with bleary eyes.

     "A parade through cold water to the golden strand between worlds," Alysha said with a laugh. "Of course, if you'd prefer you can stay here until we send someone to pick you up . . . "

     "We're up, sir, we're up!" Felsha said, starting out of her tangled position.

     Alysha laughed. "Into the water, ladies. We've come a long way to get to this place. Let's make the most of it."

     "Yes, sir!"

     They gathered their things and stowed them in packs before splashing into the water and grabbing the arm of a guide. Alysha followed at a more leisurely pace, and at the edge of the water stretched, reaching with her full length to the vault of the sky, now streaked with gold, ivory and tender peach. She did not look behind her before wading into the sea.

     You are gladsome, the guide said.

     If we cannot find happiness in new friendships, what will serve to bring us happiness? Alysha said.

     The guide sent a wave of fire-in-the-hearth amusement and began swimming back toward the shore. The wind ruffled her hair as the currents pulled the rest of her body back, and the spray in her face tasted cool and salty. Each new breath seemed to flood her body with energy and a sense of life, of living now.

     "Oh, Captain!" Felsha exclaimed. "Look behind us!"

     Alysha twisted back and found a row of heads trailing in their wake, several hundred individuals churning the waters. She would not be surprised if every single octopi in the waters had decided to come.

     Almost all, her guide said. We left a few to watch over the eggs.

     Alysha grinned.

     You laugh at the notion that now we do not leave something to the cycle of nature, the guide said.

     Perhaps a little, Alysha said. But it is a good-natured laugh, I promise, as I wish only safety for your children.

     So do we, the guide said. And that too is in the nature of things. Do you also look after your children until they are old enough to make their own choices?

     Of course, Alysha said.

     Then we are not so different,.

     Have I not said so all along? Alysha said.

#52

     "Are you sure she's coming?" Taylitha asked. "I would hate to have a party without the guests."

     "If she doesn't come, we'll eat the food and enjoy it by the sea," 'Star said. "But she is coming. I talked to her just before dawn, local-time. She ordered the party."

     And a party required food and laughter and the arrangement of shift schedules so everyone would have a chance to participate without leaving vital functions unstaffed upstairs. Taylitha hadn't even known about the party until an hour ago, but still she'd welcomed the chance to dive into work she understood, that she knew how to do and do well. Logistics she could handle. Everything else she'd give to Alysha when the captain arrived.

     The captain had certainly picked a perfect day for a celebration, warm with a cool breeze, with the sky nearly cloudless blue and the water hissing and rolling up the shore. The milling groups from the 'Dancer were mingling with a smaller group from the Sunshield that had also gotten leave. Though she wouldn't admit to having looked, Taylitha had not seen Everen among them.

     The crew seemed relaxed; the tragedy of the death of the native had muted everyone's enthusiasm, but word that the captain had contacted a still-viable species in the ocean had restored much of company morale. Combined with the opportunity to relax off-duty with the men of the Sunshield, the news had given the crew back their verve and interest in the digs and the planet's mysteries. It was too bad that they'd have to leave as soon as they completed the hand-off to the Sunshield's teams; everyone wanted to know what new answers would be unearthed with the city.

     A few of the woman began to point at the sea. As Taylitha turned to follow their interest, 'Star said, "Here they come."

     Bobbing beneath the waves with only their heads and luminous eyes in view came the Stardancer's first, living alien species. Taylitha's breath caught in her throat at the sight of their iridescent skin and present eyes. How often had she secretly dreamed of first contact? This was how those dreams had always ended . . . a successful friendship initiated, a new species suddenly a part of the colorful tapestry of the Alliance. This was the way things were supposed to go . . . and she was here to see it.

     Alysha walked out of the waters, dripping, her hair streaming. She should have looked ridiculous, like a water-logged cat . . . instead, she looked composed, fierce, alive and full of laughter. Taylitha waited for her to burst into that laughter, but she didn't. Instead, she turned as one of the octopi left the waters with her and arrayed itself on the shore by her side. The bright morning's sunlight shone off the iridescent apron connecting its tentacles as if it were made of gold.

     "Ladies," Alysha said simply, "Our newest friends."

     A wild cheer went up from the onlookers. From behind Alysha, two more figures trudged out of the waters. Darya said, "Well, what are you people waiting for? Come for a swim and say hello!"

 

#53

EPILOGUE

     "Sugar?" Alysha said from the sideboard.

     "No, thanks. I'll take it black today."

     Alysha nodded and brought two mugs with her back to the coffee table in the center of her quarters' receiving room. Taylitha was curled up on the sofa, her head propped up by her hands.

     "I've reviewed your report," Alysha said, offering her the mug. "You did an excellent job with a very difficult situation."

     "I don't feel like I did an excellent job," Taylitha said. She took the mug and cradled it in her hands, blocking the Alliance's moon-and-stars-and-pennant. "Someone died. On my watch."

     "Laelkii calls that an inevitability," Alysha said, sitting across from the other woman.

     "She's just trying to be nice," Taylitha said.

     Alysha chuckled softly. "Snowhide is a gentle and compassionate woman, arii, and that tends to make people forget that she's also a doctor. If she says your alien wasn't going to make it, she's not trying to coddle you, she's giving her medical opinion."

     Taylitha said nothing, staring into her mug.

     "You did what you could with what you had," Alysha said, gentling her voice, "and you kept things together. That's nothing to turn your face from."

     "I didn't do it with much grace," Taylitha said. "Running around the corridors, never getting enough sleep, ducking calls from admirals, crying into the shoulders of people I barely know--"

     "Sending reports, keeping people on track, caring for a dying individual, overseeing morale and relying on others so as not to squander your own strength," Alysha said. "Just because you didn't do it perfectly doesn't mean you didn't do it well. It was your first time handling a situation of this complexity, and while I have suggestions on how to make it easier I have no complaints. What needed to be done got done. What didn't, didn't."

     Taylitha said nothing, but her ears flushed.

     "And I wouldn't worry about Captain Everen," Alysha said. "He likes your style."

     "My style!" Taylitha blurted, then started laughing. "I think the only thing he saw me do was cry."

     "Actually, he saw you handle a difficult situation with strength and compassion," Alysha said, "and as for the crying . . . it's no flaw to release your own sorrow once you've taken care of everything that needed it."

     "And you do so much crying," Taylitha said, ears flattening.

     Alysha sipped from her mug and said, "What is it that's really bothering you, arii?"

     Taylitha looked away. "I just feel like . . . I let him get too close. I should have been more distant. Then I could have handled him dying better." She sniffled. "I'm still not handling him dying very well. I barely knew him!"

     "You knew him well enough," Alysha said. She sighed and put her mug on the table. "Can I tell you a secret, Taylitha?"

     Taylitha looked up.

     "I had to stand back and let the oldest member of an alien species commit suicide," Alysha said. "And I don't feel all that great about it."

     "The Eldest?" Taylitha said. "I thought that in laying her eggs she would have died anyway."

     "Yes," Alysha said. "But to give herself up to the leviathan -- I had to let her make that choice."

     "It's not like you could have done any differently," Taylitha said. "From the report, you barely made a dent in that thing. Even if you'd wanted to, you couldn't have protected her."

     "No," Alysha said, feeling a sudden wave of cold.

     "Oh, Bast and An," Taylitha said, ears flattening. "I'm so sorry, arii. I know that's one of those things with you. But . . . I really don't see how you could have done anything differently. And you're handling it a lot better than I'm handling my problem."

     "Am I?" Alysha said and sighed. "I ended up in the water, where I had to stand aside from someone and let them choose the way they spent their life. You ended up on land, where you had to give yourself entirely to someone without regard of the cost to yourself. I would have rathered it been the other way around."

     "Yeah," Taylitha said, then laughed. "Just like us and the swords."

     Alysha chuckled. "Just like."

     Taylitha drank, laced her fingers around the mug and stared out the window. Alysha could trace the lines that remained beneath the other woman's eyes from lack of sleep, but those would pass. Nothing in Taylitha's past had given her the fault lines that could prevent her from healing; that was one of her blessings. Hopefully the faults in Alysha's soul would mend, and she could shake off the faint unease that had resumed with the notion of touching other people, of having them know her.

     "I guess you have to have a little of both," Taylitha said. "The ability to be close to something or someone, no matter the cost . . . the ability to hold things apart from you when they need to be held apart. But how do you know which is the right time?"

     "You don't," Alysha said. "You just have to try to figure it out on a case by case basis."

     "Damned inefficient way to do things," Taylitha muttered.

     Alysha laughed. "I trust you'll figure out some way to better the process, then."

     Taylitha grinned. "I'll do my best." She lifted her mug. "To meeting in the middle, sir!"

     Alysha toasted her. "To the beautiful shore. Cheers."

 

 

END