Free Startide Rising by David Brin Page B

strange-looking, but its skull still had a very man-like grin.
    How old are you, Herbie? she asked in her thoughts. One billion years? Two?
    How is it your fleet of ancient hulks waited undiscovered by Galactic civilization for so long, waited until we came along … a bunch of wolfling humans and newly uplifted dolphins? Why were we the ones to find you?
    And why did one little hologram of you, beamed home to Earth, make half the patron-lines in the galaxy go crazy?
    Streaker’s micro-Library was no help. It refused to recognize Herbie at all. Maybe it was holding back. Or perhaps it was simply too small an archive to remember an obscure race so long extinct.
    Tom had asked the Niss machine look into it. So far the sarcastic Tymbrimi artifact had been unable to cozen out an answer.
    Meanwhile, between sick bay and her other duties, Gillian had to find a few hours a day to examine this relict non-destructively, and maybe figure out what was stirring up the Eatees so. If she didn’t do it, no one would.
    Somehow she would make it until tonight.
    Poor Tom, Gillian thought, smiling. He’ll be coming back from his engines, wiped out, and I’ll be feeling amorous. It’s a damned good thing he’s a sport.
    She picked up a pion microprobe.
    Okay Herbie, let’s see if we can find out what kind of a brain you had.
     

----
::: Metz
    « ^ »
    I ’m sorry, Dr. Metz. The captain is with Thomasss Orley in the weapons section. If there’s anything I can do …?”
    As usual, Vice-Captain Takkata-Jim was unfailingly polite. His Anglic, diction, even while breathing oxywater, was almost perfect. Ignacio Metz couldn’t help smiling in approval. He had a particular interest in Takkata-Jim.
    “No, Vice-Captain. I just stopped by the bridge to see if the survey party had reported in.”
    “They haven’t. We can only wait.”
    Metz tsked. He had already concluded that Hikahi’s party was destroyed.
    “Ah, well. I don’t suppose there has been any offer of negotiations by the Galactics yet?”
    Takkata-Jim shook his large, mottled-gray head left to right.
    “Regrettably, no sir. They appear to be more interested in slaughtering each other. Every few hours, it seems, yet another battle fleet enters Kthsemenee’s system to join in the free-for-all. It may be a while before anyone initiates diplomacy.”
    Dr. Metz frowned at the illogic of it. If the Galactics were rational, they’d let Streaker hand her discovery over to the Library Institute and have done with it! Then everyone would share equally!
    But Galactic civilization was unified more in the breach than in fact. And too many angry species had big ships and guns.
    Here we are, he thought, in the middle, with something they all want.
    It can’t just be that giant fleet of ancient ships. Something more must have set them off. Gillian Baskin and Tom Orley picked something up out there in the Shallow Cluster. I wonder what it was.
    “Will you be wanting me to join you for dinner this evening, Dr. Metz?”
    Metz blinked. What day was it? Ah, yes. Wednesday. “Of course, Vice-Captain. Your company and conversation would be appreciated, as usual. Shall we say sixish?”
    “Perhapsss nineteen-hundred hours would be better, sir. I get off duty then.”
    “Very well. Until then.”
    Takkata-Jim nodded. He turned and swam back to his duty station.
    Metz watched the fin appreciatively.
    He’s the best of my Stenos, Metz thought. He doesn’t know I’m his godfather … his gene-father—But I am proud nonetheless.
    All the dolphins aboard were of Tursiops amicus stock. But some had genetic grafts from Stenos bredanensis, the deep-water dolphin that had always been the closest to the bottlenose in intelligence.
    Wild bredanensis had a reputation for insatiable curiosity and reckless disregard for danger. Metz had led the effort to have DNA from that species added to the neo-fin gene pool. On Earth many of the new Stenos had turned out very well, showing streaks of initiative and