Free Startide Rising by David Brin Page A

of the ancients! You would bring us down to the level of the heretics!”
    The dais shook with the high priest’s anger.
    “My rings decide! My rings are those of priesthood! My rings…”
    The oration-peak of the pyramidal high priest erupted in a geyser of hot, multi-hued sap. The explosion spewed sticky amber liquor across the bridge of the Jophur flagship.
    “Continue fighting.” The chief of staff waved the crew back to work with its sidearm. “Call the Quartermaster of Religiosity. Have it send up rings to make up a new priest. Continue fighting while we prepare to perform the rituals of betrayal.”
    The chief of staff bowed to the staring section chiefs. “We shall appease the ancestors of the Thennanin before we turn on them.
    “But remember to make certain the Thennanin themselves do not sense our intentions!”
     

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::: From The Journal of Gillian Baskin
    « ^ »
    I t’s been some time since I’ve been able to make an entry in this personal log. Since the Shallow Cluster it seems we’ve constantly been in frantic motion … making the discovery of the millennia, getting ambushed at Morgran, and fighting for our lives from then on. I hardly ever see Tom any more. He’s always down in the engine or weapons pods. I’m either here in the lab or helping out in sick bay.
    Ship’s surgeon Makanee has a mouthful of problems. Fen have always had a talent for hypochondria. A fifth of the crew shows up every sick call with psychosomatic complaints. You can’t just tell them it’s all in their heads, so we stroke them and tell them what brave fellows they are, and that everything’s going to be all right.
    I think if it weren’t for the captain, half of this crew would be hysterical by now. To many of them he seems almost like a hero out of the Whale Dream. Creideiki moves about the ship, watching the repairs and giving little lessons in Keneenk logic. The fen seem to buck up whenever he’s nearby.
    Still, reports keep coming in about the space battle. Instead of tapering off, it’s only getting thicker and heavier!
    And we’re all getting more than a little worried about Hikahi’s party.
     
    Gillian put down her stylus. From the small circle of her desk lamp, the rest of the laboratory appeared dark and gloomy. The only other light came from the far end of the room. Silhouetted against the spots was a vaguely humanoid shape, a mysterious shadow, lying on a stasis table.
    “Hikahi,” she sighed. “Where in Ifni’s name are you?”
    That Hikahi’s survey party hadn’t even sent back a monopulse confirmation of the recall order was now of great concern. Streaker couldn’t afford to lose those crewfen. For all of his frequent unreliability outside the bridge, Keepiru was their best pilot. Even Toshio Iwashika had a lot of promise.
    But most of all, the loss of Hikahi would hurt. Without her, how could Creideiki manage?
    Hikahi was Gillian’s best dolphin friend, at least as close to her as Tom was to Creideiki or Tsh’t. Gillian wondered why Takkata-Jim had been appointed vice-captain instead of Hikahi. It made no sense. She could only imagine that politics was behind it. Takkata-Jim was a Stenos. Perhaps Ignacio Metz had had a hand in choosing the complement for this mission. Metz was a passionate advocate of certain dolphin racial types back on Earth.
    Gillian didn’t write these thoughts down. They were idle speculations, and she didn’t have time for speculation.
    Anyway, it’s time I got back to Herbie.
    She closed her journal and got up to walk over to the stasis table, where a dry, desiccated figure floated in a heavily shielded field of suspended time.
    The ancient cadaver grinned back at her through the glass.
    It wasn’t human. There hadn’t even been multi-cellular creatures on Earth when this thing had lived and breathed and flown spaceships. Yet it looked eerily humanoid. It had straight arms and legs, and a very man-like head and neck. Its jaw and eye orbits were