 
# The Farpool: Union

### Published by Philip Bosshardt at Smashwords

### Copyright 2018 Philip Bosshardt

### Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Chapter 1

" _I have to see a thing a thousand times before I see it once."_

Thomas Wolfe

Muir City

Central Atlantic, near Bermuda

September 2, 2178

The small roam of Ponkti approached the city of Keenomsh'pont from the south, across the crumpled badlands of the Bermuda Platform, having come a very long way, days in transit, all the way from Ponkel'te in the far seas. The Humans called it the South China Sea. There were ten in all. One of them was an aging Tulcheah, now Metah of the Ponkti on Earth/Urku. She was accompanied by the half-breed Skeleemah and by others.

They had come to Keenomsh'pont to meet with the old academician Likteek of the Omtorish Academy. And with the _eekoti_ Chase, a desire communicated by long-range repeater from many beats away.

A formal assembly and roam had been requested. Formalities had been observed. Protocols and traditions had been followed exactly. The petition could not be refused, not without losing face, not without disturbing _Ke'shoo_ and _Ke'lee_. No self-respecting Seomish would ever do that.

Likteek had contacted Chase, who was a Sea Council delegate and had been in Muir City for several days on official business and put the Ponkti petition to him. Chase, replying on signaler, agreed to come down to Keenomsh'pont and meet the old scientist at the Academy's warren of caves.

There he encountered Tulcheah and Skeleemah.

Tulcheah nuzzled Chase in the Seomish way, while Skeleemah circled him and pulsed what he was all about.

"Many _mah_ ," Tulcheah was saying. "A long time we have not pulsed you, _eekoti_ Chase."

Chase agreed. "It has been a long time. What brings you to the city?"

Tulcheah had never been very good at hiding her feelings, not that introspection was common among Seomish people anyway. Not when they could pulse everything inside of you.

"Sadness," she admitted. She darted off around the cave, her tail flukes brushing against beatscopes and flasks of things that drifted off after she passed by, much to Likteek's annoyance. "Skeleemah and I have come to ask a favor. Something only you can grant, _eekoti_ Chase."

Chase didn't like the sound of that. He couldn't pulse them back; his amphib modifications had never given him the same sense, the soundbulb that all Seomish possessed. Still there was something in the way his echobulb translated all her chirps and clicks and whistles and squeaks...something melancholy, perhaps. A sense of loss, maybe.

"Let's roam...all of us. I think better in _vish'tu_."

Chase tried to protest. "I have duties topside, Tulcheah...I leave for New York tomorrow and—"

But Tulcheah always got her way and this time would be no different.

They left the small grotto, the four of them, and scooted off into the vast cloud of roamers that orbited the seamount in constant motion, for the Seomish were ever a restless people.

The official _vish'tu_ roam was a custom as old as the world...at least, the original world of Seome. Its origins were lost in the murky currents of the past, unclear and shrouded by the mythical tales of the ancient cave-dwellers. It was very much in the traditions of _Ke'shoo_ and _Ke'lee_ and _Shoo'kel_ , and typically involved two roamers, although custom did not dictate any set number. Entire em'kels, or even whole kels, were known to conduct their business in _vish'tu_ , on roams that might last from a few hours to a few days, and range over thousands of beats. The Seomish had never lost their love for it and the custom was surely one of the most important practices they had brought from Seome in the Exodus.

The beauty of the _vish'tu_ was that it encouraged great physical exertion. That was good in itself but it also helped unblock other channels of communication like scent and gave them a chance to work. Sharp disputes often arose on roams but the _vish'tu_ seemed to blunt them. Something happened to kelke who roamed in _vish'tu_ ; they were more congenial and flexible. It was the physical beauty of the landscape, in the opinion of many, that accounted for this. Others insisted that it was the muscular exertion involved—the body and the mind were one and sustained effort was needed to ease the roamer into a trance where he could merge his personality with his fellow roamers. More likely, the magic of _vish'tu_ was due simply to what was called _t'shoo_ , a feeling of sliding through the water, brushed by currents and tingling from beak to tail, spiritual orgasm it might be called. _Vish'tu_ was all these things.

Tulcheah led the way and Chase found it expedient to affix a pair of aquagenic jet feet to his shins to keep up, for the Ponkti females were strong swimmers. They had already made a trip of thousands of beats from the Ponkti settlement Ponkel'te, in the South China Sea. Their tails and flukes were honed to perfection and even with jet feet, Chase...and Likteek, found it hard to keep up.

Chase was sure this was exactly what Tulcheah had in mind.

It was customary for roams to begin with little or no talk, just the physical exertion of stroke after stroke, beating against the currents, sliding up and down the ravines and steep canyons that encircled the Muir seamount like so many concentric rings.

They headed southwest, toward the Bermuda Platform, through schools of darting fish, corkscrewing columns of hydrothermal vents and badlands dotted with twisted pancakes of lava hillocks, silent and tortured sentinels to the forces that had once shaped the seabed. The last of the tourist roamers fell behind and the quartet was alone, silently speeding cross-current into a broad fan-shaped valley.

Tulcheah spoke then what was on her mind.

" _Eekoti_ Chase, I have a favor to ask. A proposal for you."

"Somehow, I knew you would, Tulcheah. You've been leading up to some kind of big announcement."

Here, Tulcheah slowed down and let the currents carry her forward. She didn't look back but her words were heavy with a sort of glum resignation.

"Since we came to Urku—" Chase knew that the Seomish usually referred to Earth as 'Urku'---"our lives have been hard. We struggle and the waters are still unfamiliar to us."

Chase had been hearing rumbles of this same sentiment around Keenomsh'pont for months now. Something was brewing. Some force was growing among the older Sea People; he didn't understand it completely, but it was palpable. And getting stronger.

"At first, you struggled," he tried to sound optimistic. "But now the midlings—your children—they're adapting to life here okay. And many of them become amphibs...they can live here and in the Notwater."

"That's our point," Skeleemah said. "You know this, _eekoti_ Chase. Amphibs and Umans dominate this world. It's their world."

Tulcheah picked up the argument. "In another generation, all that is good and true about our way of life will be gone."

Chase knew there was truth in what the Metah said. After the Exodus, adjusting to life in unfamiliar waters had been difficult. Many Seomish, from every kel, longed for the old ways, longed to go back.

But that was no longer possible, wasn't it? Or so Chase thought, until Tulcheah brought up the real reason for her visit.

" _Eekoti_ Chase, help us go back."

Chase thought he had mis-heard Tulcheah. Maybe it was the echopod; sometimes, the translator needed tuning, or fixing. That had to be it.

"Go back? How do you mean? You can't go back."

Skeleemah came right to the heart of the matter. " _Eekoti_ Chase, nobody knows _pul'kel_...the Farpool...as you do. Every day, here and in our seas, people travel through the Farpool. It is a common thing, no?'

Tulcheah went on. "Help us return through the Farpool...back to Seome."

"Your world was destroyed," Chase reminded them. "The sun detonated...the Coethi destroyed everything. You know that."

"But the Farpool can take travelers to different times, can it not? I am asking...we are pleading with you, _eekoti_ Chase. Help us go back to Seome, in a different time, to the time before the End Time."

Chase's head was dizzy at the idea. "But the Coethi...we don't know how to defeat them. We don't have the means, or the weapons. Even the Umans of that time couldn't defeat them. They abandoned Seome, remember?"

Now Tulcheah and Skeleemah brought the roam to a complete stop. She circled them like a predator sizing up her catch. "Help us save Seome from destruction, Chase. Help us preserve it for all the kelke to come. There are so many...tu'kel'ke who wish to return to their home waters and build a new life in the traditional seas...to feel the P'omtor Current, hear the volcanoes, the ice floes scraping in the northern seas, taste scapet and tong'pod. Help us, Chase...before it's too late. Before we perish and the Seomish way is no more."

By the time the roam had resumed and the four of them turned about and headed back to Keenomsh'pont, Chase wished he were anywhere but here. To go back through the Farpool, to an earlier time, and confront the Coethi and somehow prevent the star-sun Sigma-Albeth B from its ultimate fate, this was beyond insane.

But even as he told himself that, Chase knew that Tulcheah would never let the matter drop.

They roamed about the city for a time, with Tulcheah and Skeleemah chattering away at knots of Ponkti midlings getting ready for their Circling, for the _ke'tuvish'tek_ was still done, though in different ways from the waters of old Seome. There were more challenges now, with the Umans and their fishing fleets, their seabed mining and drilling, their submarines and the strange life that populated the waters of Urku. Midlings had to be careful; there had always been an element of risk in the Circling but now....

Tulcheah offered the teenagers some unwanted advice and warnings.

There were five of them, three male and two female. The males were supple and muscular, their armfins and flukes bristling with energy. As they drifted closer, the Metah's prodsmen escorts intervened with a protective screen, brandishing their prods. One male snarled and earned an electric tap on his beak. He winced and backed off.

Tulcheah ignored the lack of respect; she had come to expect it from this generation, imbued with strange ideas about midlings and elders, ideas they had picked up from Urku people, humans and Amphibs.

"The _Ke'tuvish'tek_ is important," she told them. "It's our history. It's our tradition. In these strange waters, we have to hold on to something. Stay in your roam...stay true to the path the elders outlined for your circling. Don't veer off and go exploring. Urku waters are dangerous and not fully explored by our people."

The boisterous male, still smarting over his sting, barked out, "Affectionate Metah—" he said it with a sneer—" we know the path. The Kel'em made us memorize it."

"We just want to get on with it," added one of the females.

"I like your enthusiasm," Tulcheah admitted. "But sometimes enthusiasm can lead to trouble. Stay away from the humans. _Eekoti_ can't always be trusted—"

Here, Chase smiled inside. He figured her observation was true enough, if only part of the story.

Tulcheah went on. "Just get your samples and specimens and move on. The object of _Ke'tuvish'tek_ is to complete the circling and return to homewaters...wiser and more experienced—"

"And in one piece," said Skeleemah.

The midlings just clicked and buzzed back. They seemed to Tulcheah a headstrong, brash group and she feared for them. She was just about to add one final warning, when the waters were rent by a high wavering wail...hoots and clicks in quick succession. It came from...everywhere, all around them.

A repeater song, an alarm beat.

" _Muh'pul'te_ ," said Skeleemah. She felt her heart beat faster.

"The plague song," Tulcheah agreed. She sniffed and listened. The locus seemed to be many beats away, outside Keenomsh'pont, halfway to Bermuda. "Prodsmen, find the source. Pulse for it. I haven't heard that in many _mah_...we need to find it."

Chase listened. He couldn't pulse like the Seomish but he could listen. "It sounds like it's coming from southwest...toward Bermuda.'

"Let's go," Tulcheah ordered.

The convoy set off, passing through growing knots and groups of Seomish of all kels—Omtorish, Ponkti, Eep'kostic—gathering and assembling in worried, agitated bands.

Thirty kilometers southwest of Keenomsh'pont, the _Benthic Queen_ silently maneuvered to get a better read on the loose sedimentary soil that Big Tooth was about to drill into. The survey sub, pride of Nereus Corporation's little fleet, was manned by the twins, Jackie and Julie Merrick. Jackie twisted her joysticks and pulsed BQ's side thrusters to position the sub over a lumpy hillock of volcanic tuff, scant meters from the business end of the seismic drill head of Big Tooth.

On the other side of the drill head, two divers floated nearby, ready to make final positioning of Big Tooth before the sampling run began. Gus LaFleur and Jose Maricopa had been exchanging snide comments and insults with the twins for several minutes as they prepared to begin drilling core samples from the hillock, in preparation for foundation work that was already weeks behind schedule. Nereus had exclusive drilling rights to this little province of seabed, to core the soil and start building concrete forms for what the Corporation was already billing as "The Most Luxurious and Exclusive Seabed Resort in the Entire Atlantic Basin."

It was called _Tridentia_ and when it was completed, it would cover several hundred hectares of rolling seabed, smack dab in the bosom of two picturesque seamounts and only a few dozen kilometers from the pink sand beaches of northern Bermuda itself. An underwater bullet train was even planned that would give resort-goers a thrill ride not to be beaten anywhere.

The attack came without warning and _Benthic Queen_ and her divers were caught completely by surprise.

"Hey, Gus...what's that--?"

LaFleur had seen the disturbance out of the corner of his eye. Before either of them could react, the seamothers were on them. Materializing out of a maelstrom of foam and froth and bubbles, three Seomish _puk'lek_ had bolted from their Ponkti handlers a kilometer away and, enraged by the intermittent whir and whine of Big Tooth, had streaked for the site and fallen on the divers and the survey sub.

"My God...what the hell—"

" _Get out of here_!" yelled Maricopa. The divers both dove for a small embankment on the other side of the drill point, just as one seamother slammed into the drill rig at full speed. Her bony head buckled the rig and sent pieces drifting off in an explosion of metal and pipe and cabling, while the other seamothers streaked for Maricopa and LaFleur. The divers tried to burrow themselves deeper into the scarp of the embankment but it was no use.

Jackie Merrick saw what was happening. Instinctively, she joysticked _Queen_ left and ran up her props to max, bearing down on the beast, planning on butting her away from the divers. But before _Queen_ could reach them, the third seamother had changed course, enraged at the small sub and nosed her way in between.

_Benthic Queen_ and the seamother collided in a rending, shrieking, grating impact that buckled her hull plates and pierced the pressure hull, sending a high-pitched squeal of water right into the cockpit.

" _Back off!"_ yelled Julie. "Fall back...we've got problems!"

Jackie immediately put _Queen_ into all-back full, but it was too late. Her 'front porch' for drill samples torn off, two manipulator arms bent, and her pressure enclosure leaking fast, Jackie tried to steer away but the beast came at them again, this time from head on. Both women dove to the floor of the cockpit as the massive crested and horned head of the serpent slammed into their cockpit and the outer seams of the enclosure gave way in a deafening explosion of water.

_Queen_ began sinking immediately, careened on her side, kicked and swatted for good measure by the seamother's spiked tail, littering the seabed with pieces of hull, a hatch flange, a prop housing, furious columns of bubbles and a thickening stream of hydraulic fluid.

Beyond Big Tooth, LaFleur and Maricopa were already dead and two seamothers ripped angrily at their entrails and bloody viscera. The water was soon stained red and black, thick with hands, feet, heads and unrecognizable things.

Seconds after the seamothers had bolted, their Ponkti handlers had let fly the _muh'pulte'ke_ cry, which was immediately picked up by repeaters orbiting Keenomsh'pont, the traditional Seomish long-range communication net. The repeaters heard the Ponkti distress calls and immediately let fly their mournful, wavering and wailing notes, notes not heard among the Seomish for a very long time.

Now when Tulcheah and Skeleemah and Chase arrived at the drill site, their prodsmen escorts hustling to keep a protective screen around the Metah, they came across a grisly scene of devastation.

Two seamothers were still nosing about the detritus of the dead divers. One seamother circled the wounded _Benthic Queen_ , butting the wreckage cautiously, turning the sub end over end, trying to find anything worth attacking...or eating.

It was Chase who first saw movement inside the cockpit.

" _Look_! Two people...still alive...we've got to—"

Tulcheah had already sized up the situation. To her lead prodsmen: "Move those _puk'lek_ back...stun them...kill them if you have to...but get them away from that ship!"

Four prodsmen raced ahead, prods ready. They took up positions at one seamother's head and tail, and with practiced determination, stung and zapped the serpent until she shrieked and bellowed and moved off, licking her wounds. One prodsman followed, brandishing his weapon, just to keep her moving, herding her back toward her frantic Ponkti handlers.

While the other prodsmen occupied the remaining seamothers, Chase and Skeleemah dove for the sub and approached the smashed bubble of the pressure enclosure. Peering into the portholes, Chase could see two humans, female drivers, panicked as freezing water had nearly filled the cockpit. Their heads were barely above the surface, heaving in air as fast as they could, their faces washed and drowning in the rising water. They kicked and screamed and clawed at the portholes when they saw Chase's face.

"It's going to buckle...any second now!" Chase said. "The pressure hull's giving way--!"

Skeleemah checked over the outer fittings, found where the hull had been staved in by the seamother and tried to cover the seam with sediment from the seabed but it was hopeless.

"I can't stop it!" she cried.

"They'll die in there...we've got to get them up...to the surface. To the Notwater. Help me—here, pull on this stanchion--"

The two of them strained and shoved and banged the hull, but they couldn't budge _Benthic Queen_ from her perch. Tons of dense, cold water filled the cockpit faster than they could counter.

"If we don't get them to the surface fast—"

Soon, though, they had help. Three prodsmen had returned and seen what was happening. The Ponkti handlers arrived too. While one Ponkti took hold of the nearby seamother, tranquilizing her with k'orpuh from a small vial, the other Ponkti came in with an idea.

" _Puk'lek_ seek Notwater when they're hurt...see?...this one wants to go now. It's instinct." The serpent was already growing more manageable as the sedative worked its way through her bloodstream. "Help me lash this craft to her tail...she's got enough bulk to pull her up."

Chase had no better idea. The prodsmen helped, producing a string of _tchinting_ fiber from the handler's nets, and securing the aft props of _Benthic Queen_ to the seamother's spiked tail. The beast kicked and bucked a bit, but the Ponkti crooned and sang to her and she soon began a rhythmic stroke upwards. The lashings grew taut and took the weight. Bit by bit, slowly at first, the very same serpent that had nearly crushed the sub into wreckage, began stroking and pulling and twisting her way toward the surface, driven by her handler and by an inner primal instinct for Notwater.

Chase hovered nearby, rising with the pressure cockpit, keeping an eye on the two women inside. With the _Queen_ now in motion, they seemed less panicked though water continued to flow in at a high rate. A few centimeters of air remained at the top and it was into this gap that both women had stuck their noses, breathing hard, crying and coughing, trying to stay in the narrow pocket of air that remained. Looking closely, Chase saw how contorted and anguished their faces were and he wondered about the bends. He didn't know what kind of mixture they were breathing but whatever it was, it was all bollixed up now with the leaks and the water and their own frantic gulps for air.

_We got to get them up fast._ Chase well knew how painful, even deadly the nitrogen bubbles could be if pressure were lost and their mixture was wrong.

Skeleemah and Tulcheah rose with the sub and the seamother but halfway up, Skeleemah grabbed Chase by the arm and pulled him away from the sub.

"The Metah and I can't go any further, _eekoti_ Chase. "We're not human. We're not Amphib. We can't breathe notwater."

Chase had forgotten all about that. Even the Ponkti handler was having difficulty now and the Metah's prodsmen were already backing off, peeling away from the rising submarine and hovering dozens of meters below the surface.

He had to make a quick decision. "Everyone get away. Get back. Stay here...I'll handle _puk'lek."_

Even as he said it, Chase could hear Angie's voice in the back of his mind. _And just what do you think you know about handling serpents, Chase Meyer?_

He sniffed. That's what people said when they knew you as a beach bum selling T-shirts and boogie boards in his Dad's surf shack on Shelley Beach.

It didn't matter. It had to be done. Reluctantly but with grim determination, Chase took the vial of _k'orpuh_ and the reins that the Ponkti handler had been using to guide the seamother. He waved the rest of them away and went to work, coaxing, crooning as best he could, nudging and shoving and humming old Croc Boys tunes, all the while trying to keep the beast on course.

Only a little further. A few more meters.

They breached the surface into strong sunlight and gusty winds, waves washing over them as Chase struggled and cursed to release the seamother from her lashings. Once free, she bellowed forlornly, honked and splashed and was gone, diving into the waves somewhere south of them.

Meters away, bobbing like a smashed and bent cork, what was left of _Benthic Queen_ lolled on her side. Chase stroked over and wrestled with the top hatch, fearful of what he might find inside. He was straining and tugging with every ounce of strength of he had when a loud siren and sharp bleats from a marine horn startled him. He looked up and saw a huge ship rapidly bearing down on them, crewmen waving and gesturing at him from the rails. Some were armed and, in that moment, Chase felt the water peppered with small arms fire, as gunmen took aim, trying to drive him away.

Her forecastle said _Amazonia_.

With one last heave, the hatch squealed and opened and instantly, one of the women inside burst her head up, heaving in great gulps of salt air.

Their eyes met but Chase could do no more. More shots rang out. Rounds hissed and zinged through the water. Chase gestured at the woman— _she needs help fast_ , he yelled but no one was listening—then he dove headfirst into the waves and went below. He stroked down and was soon well below range of the guns.

He watched _Amazonia_ approach the wreckage and hoped the sub crew was getting the help it needed. Chase was about to surface one last time when an odd whumping noise beating the water caught his attention.

Then he heard the voice, nasal, distorted, barely audible over _Amazonia's_ prop beat. In the murk ahead, Chase saw the bulbous nose of the submarine just gliding into view, maybe two hundred meters away.

" _Back away from that ship...move away...or we will fire on you."_

An underwater telephone, Chase realized. It seemed that _Amazonia_ had a submerged companion. It sounded like a Navy UQC, heterodyned to a high pitch for better transmission through the water.

Chase froze where he was, then let the local current carry him a little closer to the dark gray vessel. Maybe it was a U.S. Navy boat...he knew they could often be found in the waters around Bermuda, entering or leaving port at the old Royal Navy dockyard west of Hamilton.

"I was just trying to help out...there are two women inside—"

But whoever was on the other end of the underwater telephone wasn't interested in explanations.

" _This is Commander Wade McCloskey, U.S.S. Albany...you are instructed to leave the area at once...I am charging my acoustic pulser...."_

The voice sounded like someone talking with a pinched nose. Chase thought it might have been funny but for the approaching bulk of the submarine, already positioning herself between the wreckage of the drill on the seabed and Chase. Her bow planes angled downward and the _Albany_ nosed forward, her bow maneuvering right at him.

"The crew was hurt...we have to get them to—" But Chase stopped when it became apparent that the submarine meant business. He flippered away from the area and descended through some small schools of fish to Tulcheah and Skeleemah below, still hovering just outside the perimeter of the drill site. Wreckage and pieces of pipe and cable drifted about like a slow-motion rain. The Ponkti handlers were still there, though one was still trying to corral a balky seamother in the distance.

Chase was disturbed by what had happened, more than he cared to admit. Not so much by the seamother attack, bad as that was but by the human response topside. "I was just trying to help," he told Tulcheah. "The crew in that little sub would have died."

Tulcheah nuzzled him in the Ponkti way, beak to face, until Chase shoved her away. He'd never gotten used to being kissed by a fish, amphib or not. "They don't like us," she said simply. "They care nothing for the kelke. We're pets to them. Or worse."

"Let's go back to the City," Skeleemah suggested.

And Chase had to admit she was probably right. It was more disturbing than he let on. Not for the first time did he feel alone, not accepted by humans in the world above, not fully accepted by Seomish kelke below. Reluctantly, deep in thought, even feeling a bit sorry for himself, he joined the convoy and they headed back to Keenomsh'pont.

Chase begged off a small feast Tulcheah was scheduled to attend, celebrating the start of this season's _Ke'tuvish'tek_. All the midlings would be there, dozens of them anxious to get going, nervous, talkative and full of energy. The Kel'em would be there too, all the elders of the kels, to give boring speeches and endless toasts. There would be songs, roams in every direction, contests, probably a few fights and scuffles, much drinking and many games.

Chase tried to be polite when he told Tulcheah and her privy councilor Lokeenah that he had family business in Muir City, above Keenomsh'pont. "Relatives are coming," he lied. "You know how it is...we have to entertain them, make them feel welcome. Ke'shoo and Ke'lee, as you say."

Tulcheah pulsed him and knew the truth in an instant. " _Eekoti_ Chase, you've never gotten the hang of hiding your insides, like true Seomish. The bubbles tell all, the echoes don't lie. Anybody can pulse you...you're just like a child."

Chase shrugged. "I know. But I _do_ have to go home. Angie's expecting me and Erika and her husband will be there. Plus Oostannah...she's my real love."

Tulcheah pulsed that and laughed. "At least, that is truthful...your bubbles say it. This child Oostannah...she gives you happy bubbles?"

"Very happy."

Now Tulcheah circled him with a few quick strokes. She had always been a strong swimmer. "I pulse something else, _eekoti_ Chase. Echoes of disappointment, perhaps. There is a melancholy tone there. You think of those who died...when _puk'lek_ attacked?"

Chase figured it was useless to try and hide it. "Some of that, yes..." he admitted, "but also something else, Tulcheah."

"Speak this echo that persists, _eekoti_ Chase."

"I think you're right," he said carefully. "I was trying to help the crew of that little sub, but the humans drove me away. Seomish and amphib and human...we really don't get along too well, do we? We don't trust each other."

Tulcheah stopped circling abruptly. She faced Chase. He could see she was serious. "Kelke don't belong here anymore. Urku isn't home. Seome...our homewaters are there. We have to go back...and face whatever Shooki has in store for us. It's the only way."

And in that moment, Chase could almost believe he could actually pulse the Metah himself, like a real Seomish male should.

He left the Metah's convoy, darted through boisterous crowds even now roaming toward the _Ke'tuvish'tek_ celebrations and found the public moonpool twenty stories above the seabed. Drying off and avoiding all others, he took a lift to his apartment, on an upper floor of Muir City.

Angie had made a sea bass fillet with extra garnishes from the Eep'kostic market in the Orkn'tel quarter of Keenomsh'pont, where she knew the growers particularly well and knew Chase loved the spicy tong'pod clams and shells. Chase set the table. When the door chimes rang, he opened the door and saw the broad mischievous smile of little Oostannah grinning right at him, buried shyly in her mother Erika's arms.

"Well, hello there, little girl," Chase took his granddaughter from Erika, gave Erika a quick peck and proceeded to pinch Oostannah's nose until her face wrinkled in disgust. She was all of eight years old now and disgusted with such acts.

"Grandy, _stop_! My nose'll come off!"

"Oh, I hardly think that, Oozie...so what if it does? I'll buy you a new one..."

Erika let her squirming daughter go and Oostannah darted off to Angie's waiting arms.

Chase shook hands with Kentrak, Erika's husband. They were all amphibs, and Kentrak's gill sacs flexed with pride and a little embarrassment as Oostannah cavorted about the apartment, picking up and discarding everything she could reach.

"Oostannah, stop—" Erika called after her. But Angie waved her off.

"It's okay...we child-proofed the place when she was much younger."

Moments later, they sat down to dinner. Oostannah looked fetching with her hair ribbons and scrunchie, her armfins gaily decorated with all manner of washable tattoos, which she proudly showed off to everybody.

"Her Majesty's new fashions," Erika offered. "Just got them today at a tattoo parlor down on the promenade deck. Little One likes the dolphin look today."

"Very nice," agreed Angie.

"She'll be the Queen before long," Chase decided.

" _Will_ be?" Kentrak laughed. "I think we've already got a little royalty right here—"he reached over and flicked her pert little nose again.

Oostannah beamed at all of them. "I want to be the Metah...of _everything_. When I get back from the Circling, I mean."

They all laughed at that. Erika gave her daughter a serious look. "Oostannah, you are _not_ going on a Circling. Amphibs don't do that. It's just for the Sea People...get that out of your head. I don't want to hear any more about it."

"But Pakto...he wants me to go...he _invited_ me!"

Erika's eyes went to the ceiling in exasperation. "Pakto's her boyfriend...today. Ponkti kid. Honey, I said no...got it?"

They all dove into their meals, ignoring the stern little pout that had formed on Oostannah's face.

Erika was now approaching fifty years of age. She'd been a supervisor in the City's Department of Planning and Surveys for a long time.

"I don't mind telling you," she said, between mouthfuls of her kelp and civacado salad, "that this project the Nereus people are planning is giving us fits."

"You mean _Tridentia_...the resort?" Chase asked.

"Exactly. I mean, they bought the seabed rights and everything. We're working with Bermuda on all the permits and clearances. But they're so damned arrogant...like they own the whole ocean. Just build what they want wherever they want and to hell—excuse me, to heck, with everybody else. They treat amphibs, sea people like animals."

Angie sipped at some wine. "So, what's unusual about that? No airbreather likes amphibs. And as for the Sea People themselves, the true Seomish, well—"

Chase described what had happened at the _Benthic Queen_ drill site that morning. "Two were killed by the seamothers. Somehow, they got loose from their handlers. I worked with Skeleemah and some Ponkti to get their survey sub to the surface...I think the crew'll be okay...but I couldn't stay with them. Ships drove me off." Chase put down his fork, re-arranged clam shells on his plate. "Honestly, it's getting worse. And it's not just little things either, you know? The looks, the snide remarks...that's been going on a long time. You heard about those gangs in New York? What they did...." Chase just shook his head.

Erika didn't want to talk about it. A week before, marauding gangs of toughs had swarmed a marine terminal near the Battery and injured dozens of ferry passengers arriving from a tour ship...most had been Amphibs, though there were a few Sea People in motorized lifesuits...mobilitors they were called.

Kentrak tore off some fish pieces and chewed angrily. "Thugs, all of them. They don't like anybody different from them."

Erika held up a hand. "Guys...not while Oostannah's here. Let me send Little Princess off to bed."

"I'll help," Angie offered.

Oostannah protested. "It's too early, Mama! I don't _want_ to go to bed. I _am_ eight years old, you know."

"Come on, Your Majesty—" Erika pulled her firmly out of her chair and she and Angie trooped off to get their daughter washed up and tucked in.

They came back ten minutes later, both giving a big sigh.

Angie sat down and finished off her own wine. "I'll glad _that's_ over."

Kentrak said, "Chase here was just telling me about what that Metah—what's her name?"

"Tulcheah," Chase said.

"Right...that she and a lot of Seomish wish they could go back to their home world...Seome, I guess. Wasn't it destroyed?"

"It was. Supernova. Thousands emigrated through the Farpool here...but millions didn't make it. Now, with what we understand about Farpool operations, there's a growing movement to go back to Seome, before the supernova, before the Emigration. Try to stop their sun from dying and make a life in their own seas."

Kentrak snorted. "A lot of people around here would be happy to help them go."

Angie wrapped her arms around her shoulders. "I've run into this feeling myself...some of my favorite acquaintances are Seomish...they say the same thing. They miss home. I guess I can understand that."

Erika was intrigued. "I hadn't heard about this. Is this for real...a reverse emigration? How strong is this feeling...is it a widely held feeling?"

Chase looked at Angie. "Just today, the Ponkti metah—Tulcheah—made a formal request to me...to take to the Sea Council. She wants our help organizing an expedition back to Seome, using the Farpool. To an earlier time stream."

Erika shook her head. "An earlier time stream...really? You know these old Ponkti and Omtorish sea people are just dinosaurs. They can't adapt. The young ones—the midlings—they're fitting in just fine."

"There's some truth to that," Chase admitted. "Anyway, it was a formal request, sealed by the Kel'em. I'm their Sea Council rep, so I've got to bring it up. I'm leaving for New York tomorrow, in fact."

Kentrak sat back, stuffed and wiped his mouth. "It's always like this with immigrants. The first generation struggles, misses the old country. Won't learn anything new, like language, customs, laws. The next generation starts adapting. After a while, families start marrying outside and before you know it, everybody's getting along."

Chase's face darkened. Kentrak was an engineer. He worked with machines. Machines did what they were programmed to do. "The Seomish have been here for sixty years, Kentrak. I haven't seen a lot of adapting...even of Amphibs. Try walking down any street in New York...or London or Moscow or Tokyo, for that matter. And you'd better duck your head when you do, or wear a mobilitor, so you don't get brained by all the stuff thrown at you."

Angie offered this. "The Sea People _are_ a little more different than previous immigrants. There are physical differences. Marine versus land. Lungs versus gills. Their whole history is underwater, Seome and here."

Erika was dismissive. "They don't even say Earth. What do they call us—Urku or something like that?"

Kentrak agreed. "At least we Amphibs are trying to fit in. Me...I say let 'em go back. We'll even help them."

Chase nodded. "There are a lot of questions about the feasibility of what Tulcheah's asking...and we don't know how many Seomish really feel this way. There will have to be studies, polls, surveys, designs...this isn't happening tomorrow,"

"Pity," Kentrak said. He scanned his wristpad, noted the time and waved it at Erika. "We'd better get going."

Erika said, "Oh, right...I forgot. We're roaming with friends tomorrow...Mama, you know Bella, don't you...and her darling little boy Zyman? We're all roaming together...to Bermuda."

Kentrak rolled his eyes, folding his own armfins over his chest. "And going ashore in Hamilton for some sightseeing."

Erika was already getting up, offering to help with the plates, but Angie waved her off. "Let Howie do it." She signaled the housebot to come over and the bot whirred and trundled obediently across the parquet floor and began methodically gathering and stacking dishes.

Erika smoothed out imaginary wrinkles in her tunic and dress. "It'll be a great day for Oostannah...and Zyman. They'll see that Amphibs are all over Bermuda now...they run Bermuda. Amphibs are the future...can't the Sea People see that?"

Kentrak gathered up a sleeping Oostannah from the bedroom, her head lolling on his shoulders, just a touch of drool in the corners of the mouth. Goodbyes were said and the visitors left to head back to their own quarters ten levels below, 08 Deck, below the surface.

Kentrak said, "We've got a lot of gear to get ready for tomorrow. Make lunches and snacks. Pack the sled. Pick out clothes. Choose the right toys and movies for our slates...it's a two- hour roam to Hamilton."

And then they were gone.

While Howie did the dishes, Angie and Chase sacked out on a glider outside, nestled in each other's arms, out on the veranda. Their quarters were near the summit of Muir City, 02 Level, facing south. Bermuda was a hundred kilometers away, over the horizon, but at night, a faint orange glow was still visible on the horizon, through the pylons of Muir City's satellite platforms that ringed the mid-Atlantic metropolis like so many concentric shells.

"You really have to go to New York tomorrow?" Angie murmured into Chase's shoulder. He'd taken off his shirt, and his pectoral fins brushed her face, tickling her nose. She smoothed them out.

He shrugged. "Tulcheah made a formal request. I have to represent her position to the Sea Council. It was signed and sealed by the Kel'em...that makes it official. In fact, I've got the echopod right here—" he fished the cylinder out of his pocket. He thumbed a small stud on the side and instantly, the veranda was filled with the cacophony of dozens of voices, first clicks and squeaks and grunts and honks, then, as the translation kicked in, recognizable voices, pleading and imploring Tulcheah to get moving on their idea.

Chase and Angie listened for a few minutes, then Chase shut it off. "You can tell how agitated they are. We'll have to listen to the whole thing at Sea Council tomorrow. This is how the Seomish do opinion polls...they let everybody speak at once and record it."

"You think the Sea Council will act on this...request...petition...whatever it is? Can the Sea People really go home? How many really want to?"

"I don't know. I do know this much though...the feeling is growing down below, down in Keenomsh'pont, at least. As for other camps and settlements, I don't know. But going back to old Seome...before the Emigration...it's not just idle talk or wishful thinking. Some em'kels are making real plans."

After Howie was done and the bot had retreated to its service port for recharging, the two of them made fitful love on the glider, below a half-moon and freshening winds out of the east. Later, when Angie had left to go shower and get ready for bed, he grabbed a cold drink and stood alone at the railing, watching air and sea traffic flit by; Muir City never slept and streams of jetcabs and quads and lifters swarmed about the apex of the City like moths around a light. Below, the seas were rough with whitecaps and two-meter breakers crashing over the jetties but such conditions rarely fazed the flock of sleds and skis and boats and other craft that seemed drawn to the City's bosom like pups to a mother.

Chase watched the ceaseless activity above and below him and couldn't help wondering whether this desire to return through the Farpool and 'save' old Seome wasn't just maybe an unrealizable dream of a dying race.

Sad but maybe Erika was right.

Still, he felt duty bound as Muir City delegate to the Sea Council to bring his constituents' concerns and desires to the Council.

After half an hour of standing at the railing, he finished his drink and having resolved nothing in his mind, Chase went to their bedroom and pulled out a suitcase. While Angie dried off in the bath, he started packing, trying out in his mind different phrases and words for his opening statement to the Sea Council.

He realized when he was all done and he had jumped into bed under the covers, that some part of him that wouldn't stay quiet really did want to dive into the Farpool, just like he and Angie had done so many years ago off Half-Moon Cove and see old Seome again.
Chapter 2

" _Lost time is never found again."_

Benjamin Franklin, _Poor Richard's Almanack_

United Nations Sea Council

New York City, the East River Pavilion

September 5, 2178

Dr. Keko Satsuyama looked on as final preparations were made to the floating pavilion just off the East River pier, a hundred meters out into the sluggish river, a canopied structure anchored to the riverbed twenty meters below, surrounded on all sides by partitions but open to the water and the elements.

Today, the first day of the quarterly Sea Council session, it was raining and the towers of Roosevelt Island were barely visible in the mist, along with the looming bulk of the Queensboro Bridge overhead.

Satsuyama blinked mist out of his eyes and cinched up his rain coat further. It was mild, but windy along the waterfront and he eyed Colonel Joleen Warner standing next to him on the pier, doing likewise.

Warner, the American delegate, shivered in the chill. "We use to call this weather something only the ducks would love."

Satsuyama smiled faintly. "Ducks and Seomish delegates. Hopefully, this will make them feel more at home...ah, look, isn't that one of their craft now, surfacing just beyond the pier?"

A rounded hump had appeared just off the pier. The Seomish _kip't_ circled the pier for a moment, while the UNISEA director communicated with Chase by signaler. It was a crude method but after some confusion, the _kip't_ maneuvered inside the floating pavilion and docked there. Satsuyama, Warner and the rest of the Sea Council then boarded small boats themselves for the short ride out to the conference pavilion.

The pavilion was closed on three sides with partitions and open to the sea on the fourth side. A tarpaulin-like ceiling covered the structure, creaking and ruffling in the breezes. Rows of benches with built-in desks lined the three closed sides. Chase brought the _kip't_ into the center of the inner pool, docked to a column there and popped the hatch. He climbed out, looking for all the world like a bad dream, a frog on steroids with an enlarged head. He was alone. Angie had accompanied him on the ride up from Muir City, and Chase had dropped her off at the Intrepid/Jumpship Majoris museum in lower Manhattan. She planned to spend the day sightseeing and shopping.

With Satsuyama presiding, the Sea Council took up the proposal Chase had brought. There were delegates from many nations and from water nations, too, including Nereus, Neptunia and Equatoria. The Equatorian delegate was a Ponkti Amphib, one Trokanah tu kel: Ponk'et. Chase had met her once at Reed Banks in the South China Sea, where the Equatorian sea-state usually cruised.

Satsuyama spoke first. "You've all read the Sea Peoples' proposal by now. What are your concerns and questions?"

Discussions erupted quickly. Many delegates were skeptical of supporting such a plan, a plan to use the Farpool to go back in time and save old Seome from the disaster that had occurred. They were skeptical about its technical feasibility and its political advisability.

Colonel Warner spoke for many when she said, "The real question is whether the humans of that time will even work with us. And can we work with them...can we even _understand_ them? We are talking about seven hundred years in the future."

Trokanah was annoyed with that. "No one minds if Seome is destroyed. No one here cares what happens to Seomish. My kel came through the _Kel'vishtu_ because we wanted to live. Here—" Trokanah shook her armfins at them "—we're treated like animals. Like your fish, hunted down for sport, confined to certain seas, penned up like criminals...we've done nothing...except try to survive. You would do the same."

The Russian delegate, Melekhin, objected. "Nobody asked you to come. You've taken over the richest areas of our oceans. You interfere with our fishing, our drilling, our exploring...just last month, a Russian ferry was attacked outside Vladivostok...your serpent beasts nearly capsized her."

Satsuyama held up a hand. "Delegates...delegates, please...let's be civil here. We're supposed to be a deliberative body."

More discussions ensued, with shouts, fists, one overturned desk, splashing into the water. Satsuyama found it expedient to organize votes, to focus their minds on the issue.

The Amphib delegates were divided. Neptunians supported the idea. Nerean delegates opposed it. The Americans supported it. The Russians opposed it. The Chinese delegate, Hu Guofeng was intrigued and offered few comments for the time being.

Throughout the debate, Chase offered little. He had brought the proposal to the Sea Council but his own feelings were conflicted. Erika was probably right. What Tulcheah was asking was probably impossible anyway and would only distract many Seomish from making the adaptation and adjustment that immigrants had to make all the time...and the proposal would give false hope to those who couldn't adjust.

On the other hand, Chase was sympathetic to Seomish who felt their world was disintegrating and would eventually disappear. They were a proud people, with a long history and many great traditions. It would be a shame, perhaps a tragedy, if it were all lost, submerged in the chaos of human concerns.

Many votes were taken. Favors were discussed and traded. Promises were made, retracted, modified. The proposal was debated, word for word...even the punctuation was examined. The echopod Chase had brought was played over and over again, its many sounds endlessly argued and disputed and examined, dissected for every nuance and inflection.

After several hours of back and forth discussion, the Sea Council had groped its way to an uneasy consensus, instructing Chase to travel (under Council imprimatur) to UNIFORCE Headquarters in Paris and consult with the experts there. Could the Farpool really be manipulated precisely enough to place an advance team on Seome in the proper time stream? Did we know enough about the Coethi, from their swarms contained in the South China Sea, from intel about previous encounters, to be able to successfully engage the mother swarm? Could we make alliance with Uman forces in the 28th century time streams sufficient to make this engagement work?

There were so many unknowns.

Armed with his orders and traveling with official Sea Council approval, Chase left the pavilion and drove the kip't south to Battery Park. Angie was there at the public terminal, several bags in her arms. She climbed aboard and Chase told her he would set the kip't for auto-maneuver, returning it to Muir City.

"You're not coming home?" she asked. "I can't drive this thing."

Chase told her about his mission for the Council. "They want advice from UNIFORCE. They want Paris to give them a technical okay. Basically, they want to cover their asses so if anything goes wrong, they can blame it on Paris."

"How will you get to Paris if I'm in the kip't?"

"There's a hyperloop station a few blocks from here. I can be at the Quartier-General in two hours, before you even make it home."

Angie took his face in her hands. "Tell me this is what Erika said: just wishful thinking. Old folks pining for the old days. They're not really going to try this, are they?"

Chase kissed her fingers gently. "I don't know. You've heard the sentiments around Muir and Keenomsh'pont, same as me. There are a lot of _kelke_ who want to try this...I think the feeling is spreading. If UNIFORCE says it's even a little feasible..." he shrugged.

Angie just shook her head, staring out of the cockpit at other subs scooting by them. The _kip't_ was still parked at a slip, but underwater traffic was thick and growing around the lower end of Manhattan.

"Why can't they just accept reality? When they came through the Emigration, they knew this could happen...cultures change all the time. People die. Habits and traditions change, fade away, new ideas grow. That's normal."

Chase was already unsealing the canopy and climbing out. "I don't know, Ang. I think it's more the way humans treat the Seomish...and Amphibs like us have the worst of it. Nobody likes us, in either world. Tulcheah and her generation think humans treat Seomish like dumb animals, inferior creatures, something to be swept aside and buried. There's a lot of truth to that."

"Well," Angie decided, "I'm praying that UNIFORCE will knock some sense into Tulcheah and her friends. Squash this idea for good...Chase, it's insane."

"I agree," Chase said. "But it's just the sort of wacky idea that UNIFORCE loves. They never pass up a chance to show the world what they can do...the impossible just takes a little longer."

Chase departed, watching Angie engage the _kip't's_ auto-maneuver and back out of its slip. The water was dark and choppy around the pier and the little sled soon disappeared from view. It was nearly eight hundred miles south by southeast to Muir City and Keenomsh'pont, a two-day ride by the normal undersea route. He wasn't concerned about the _kip't_ ; it's AI-enabled steering and maneuvering system was one area where human and Seomish technology had made a successful marriage.

The VACTRANS hyperloop terminal was two blocks north, along South Street, adjacent to a row of ferry terminals. Chase showed his Sea Council ID and was given a small compartment to himself in the second car. He climbed in, shut the door, turned out the lights and tried to get a little nap in.

The tube would put him five blocks from the Quartier-General in the 5th _arrondisement_ of Paris in slightly more than two hours.

UNFORCE Headquarters

The Quartier-General

Paris

September 8, 2178

It was misting when Chase left the VACTRANS terminal along the Rue de Montparnasse but he found he didn't mind. The damp air had a cool chill to it but when you were an Amphib, damp was okay...better for the skin, as Dr. Josey Holland had once said decades ago. Way better than the sterilized air inside the vactrain, which always had the antiseptic odor of a hospital. He walked the five blocks and, with his Sea Council ID, was shepherded through bio scans and gait checks by Security and then given an official escort—some too-energetic young Asian female lieutenant whose pasted-on smile reminded Chase of a dead person in rigor mortis. The lieutenant accompanied Chase to the office suite of UNSAC herself—Security Affairs Commissioner Angelika Kumar—and saluted him inside.

"Here you are, sir...just step up to the scanner, please."

Chase was just glad to be somewhere other than the vactrain.

The Security Affairs Commissioner stood at the window of her office on the 66th floor of the Quartier General and stared out at the early morning sun rising over a timeless Parisian cityscape. For a few moments, she did not acknowledge Chase's presence.

The Eiffel Tower dominated the northwest view, now covered with fixbots as it was nearing completion of the structural upgrades ordered by UNSAC a few months before. There was the Place Vendome and the low hill of Montmartre, thick with pedestrians and aircabs. UNIFORCE had been built sixty years before on the Rue des Jardins, at a busy intersection off the Luxembourg Gardens, deep in the heart of the 5th _arrondisement_. The mansard roofline of the Palais du Luxembourg filled her northeast windows.

Kumar was tall, blond hair tinged with gray and turning to white above her ears. She was nearly eighty years old, but Chase didn't know that. She did an abrupt about-face, spied Chase and wordlessly gestured for him to be seated at a long, mahogany table, strewn with all manner of tablets and screens.

That's when Chase saw two familiar forms in the near corner, not seated at the table.

Two Seomish figures stood unsteadily in the corner, clad in mobilitor suits, their artificial gill-lungs wheezing, dripping condensation on the thick beige carpet. Through the faceplates of their helmets, Chase saw that one was Tulcheah herself. The other was Likteek, the old scientist from the Academy. Chase was instantly mystified.

_How the hell did they get_ \--

"You're the final piece of this puzzle," UNSAC murmured. She bade him be seated. "Please...let's get this meeting underway."

Others were in attendance and Kumar quickly introduced CINCSPACE, General Mahmood Salaam. Salaam was the commanding officer of UNISPACE and Frontier Corps. Chase had dealt with the Corps during the Genesis mission many years before. Hovering just beyond CINCSPACE was a rather poor avatar-likeness of Dr. Satsuyama, from New York. The Sea Council director noticed Chase and smiled a faint pixelated smile back.

"Hello, Chase...I hope you had a good trip."

But before Chase could respond, UNSAC had already launched into her agenda.

"Sea Council...and Dr. Satsuyama here...has tasked us with studying and providing technical analysis of a new proposal. It's a proposal brought by our Sea People friends—" Kumar nodded in the direction of the two Seomish, whose mobilitors whirred and creaked in response. Chase thought they looked like statues about to topple over. "You've seen the details in the precis. Our mandate here is to study the proposal—informally, we're calling it _Home Plate_ —and advise Sea Council whether it's technically doable at all. To kick off the discussion, I've asked General Isfahan from UNIFORCE Engineering to vidcon into this briefing."

The 3-d pedestal at the center of the table erupted in a swirl of light, which quickly coagulated into a passable likeness of the General who was physically located at Muir City itself, inside the Farpool Ops command center. Isfahan had thick black hair and a rather cartoonish black moustache. Chase had never met the O-8 before.

Straight away, Isfahan launched into a description of the latest experiments with the Farpool, whose main landing zone occupied several square kilometers of ocean north of the City.

"We've managed to stabilize the main vortex quite well in recent years," Isfahan was saying. Additional thumbnail vids popped into the room like puffs of smoke, to illustrate his talking points. "We've done this by tweaking and adjusting the singularity engine at the core of the central funnel. It's located in a housing on the seabed below but we routinely conduct preventive and corrective maintenance on the engine and in doing this, we often try out upgrades to improve precision in our control and navigation sorties. We have been able recently to demonstrate transit accuracies through the Farpool to less than a standard year, now about eleven months."

A hoarse, slightly squeaky voice erupted from one of the mobilitors. It was Likteek, fumbling with the lifesuit's internal echopod translator, not always successfully. "Do you have...skreeeahh...zzzqqkkkll...-uracy to accomp...mission...zzzhhh--?"

Isfahan's avatar squinted, trying to make out the question. Kumar helped him out. Isfahan's eyes brightened as understanding finally came.

"We believe the necessary accuracy can be achieved. But test missions should be performed before anyone tries it. We are talking here about traversing a time stream to the extreme limits of our ability to effectively control a ship..." here Isfahan acknowledged Chase himself, "—excepting of course, the Genesis mission of Mr. Meyer here, many decades ago."

Chase smiled faintly. "I don't think any of us wants to go through that again, sir."

Genesis had taken Farpool Service ships to a time millions of years back in the standard T-001 timestream, back to the Late Carboniferous Period on Earth. Chase and his crew had barely made it back home.

UNSAC interjected a thought. "I have UNISEA's Pacific Forces commander, Admiral Samachar, on the line as well. Perhaps, if we believe such a temporal mission can be done with the requisite accuracy, we should be briefed on the nature of the likely adversary," Kumar swiped her hand at a gestural interface in mid-air and the 3-d pedestal image of Isfahan collapsed in an implosion of sparkles and flickering pops of light. It was quickly replaced by another image, this of Ravi Samachar, UNIPAC commanding officer. Samachar was aboard his command submarine somewhere below the South China Sea, cruising toward Mischief Reef and the Reed Banks Labs.

Samachar was Bengali by birth, possessed of a deep sunburned face and a broad smile filled with blindingly white teeth. His voice had an almost musical lilt to it.

"We are only hours away from Containment Site Alpha, I can report. Our Chinese hosts have made their latest intelligence available to us...the latest findings from their experiments with the bots they have contained."

Kumar nodded in Chase's direction. "Mr. Meyer, feel free to add whatever intel you can provide. You've also encountered these Bugs yourself, in the Genesis mission."

It was something Chase would rather have forgotten but he smiled back. "Yes, ma'am, of course."

Kumar swiped at her gestural interface again. "Let's start with the basics about the Coethi, what our intel shop, our Q2 people, have developed so far. This is a report made about a year ago by Dr. Wu Guilin, of the People's Nanobotics Lab in Haikou...Q2 was able to obtain a copy of the presentation through local sources...and some wizardry they don't like to talk about..."

A small circular window appeared in mid-air and inside it, a white-haired scientist was speaking to a small gathering, illustrating his points with a wand-like pointer that gave off texts, vids and pictures as he waved it about.

"...the _Xiao luzhing zhe_...our famous little travelers often known as the Coethi...are a true superswarm of vast proportions. In size and extent and connection density, it exceeds the complexity of all the human minds that have ever lived on Earth combined. It is a thinking sentience, whose true environment is now interstellar space..."

The Chinese scientist went on, detailing current intelligence about the Coethi. "At an individual element level, the Coethi are similar to our ANAD systems, that is to say, they are nano-robotic devices. They engage in some specialization to ensure that the overall swarm survives and is maintained. Bots can specialize in such tasks as logical processing, communication, maintenance, archiving and memory, internal transport, navigation, world-seeding, orientation and other activities. The Coethi swarm is organized as a vast logic array or processor, capable of quantum computation on a stupendous scale. Effectively, this could be considered some sort of _zhongyang shiti_...a kind of ' _Central Entity,_ you might say. IT people would call it a galactic scale CPU. But the truth is that the Coethi are a true collective entity whose behavior evolves from relatively simple rules applied to a vast congregation. Most sentience and observable behavior emanating from the Coethi is emergent from the complexity and scale of the nanobotic connections."

The avatar of Admiral Samachar collapsed the vid-cloud and resumed its own presentation, drifting slowly about the conference room like a wayward ghost. Chase found the movement disconcerting, even a little dizzying.

"We've learned a lot about these Bugs from our Chinese colleagues," Samachar was saying in his singsong lilt. Some of it they have communicated to us freely and some not." The Admiral offered a faint smile. "But it is true we are dealing with a very capable adversary, as I'm sure Mr. Meyer here will attest. Much of our oldest intel came from his Genesis 3 mission, so many years ago."

Chase offered a rueful smile back. _And I've been trying to forget it ever since_.

UNSAC held up a hand. "Admiral, you mentioned in your precis that recent tests at Reed Banks has given us better ideas on how to engage the Bugs."

"Ah, yes...the tests." Samachar waved a hand and another vid-cloud poofed into visibility.

_Jeez, this place is starting to look like a stormfront_ , Chase thought.

Samachar went on. "Let me show you a recent image we made at Reed Banks of a typical Coethi nanobot."

The vid-cloud morphed and roiled and soon enough dissolved into a clearer view of something that resembled an old Apollo Lunar Module.

"As you see, the basic structure is a multi-lobed casing." Gradually, the shape and size of the Coethi device became clearer. Bristling with effectors and arms, its head was a multi-lobed cluster of spheres and hexagons; inside the churning electron cloud dimmed out any detail.

Below the head was a cylindrical sheath, covered with pyramidal facets and undulating beads of proteins - the assembler's probes and effectors. Chase was frankly awed at the sight. CINCSPACE uttered a low whistle.

"Hell of a lot of gear for such a small bastard. Do you know what all these gizmos do?"

Samachar said, "We think we do. We've been designing and testing counter-measures for each element, as soon as we feel we understand it."

Indeed, the Coethi assembler seemed to be rigged out like a battleship, with devices for every conceivable mechanical or chemical action. A flatplane baseplate capped one end of the sheathed body. The tail structure was dense thicket of fibers, each tipped with penetrator clusters. The penetrators enabled the bot to attach to and enter any structure.

"This is what we have been dealing with. Individually, we feel our latest ANAD units, properly equipped and configured, can engage Coethi successfully. However, not all Coethi elements look like this and their true potential lies in how the swarm is configured and managed, at least on the stupendous scale that they normally operate at."

UNSAC stroked her chin thoughtfully. "Admiral, I'd like to know what has been done to counter these bastards."

Here, Samachar waved his hands like a magician and replaced the image of the Coethi bot with a late-model ANAD.

"Madame Commissioner, we've been tinkering under the hood and we've really added a lot more capability. The latest ANAD units from Quantum Corps have new-style carbene grabbers, stronger enzymatic knives, really kick-ass bond disrupters. Let me show you an engagement test we did about a week ago...this comes from Quantum Corps' Table Top base in the U.S., by the way."

The vid cloud shifted and dissolved once again. Imagery re-emerged showing an altogether different perspective.

Samachar narrated. "The nanotroopers call this view 'going small...going over the waterfall.' You're looking at an ANAD's-eye view of a tactical assault against a typical Coethi bot."

As ANAD sped forward, the Coethi bot grew and retracted appendages and surface structure with blazing speeds. The outer membrane of the mech seethed with motion, as atoms and clusters of atoms twisted, bonded, twisted again, re-bonded, broke apart, recombined, straightened, undulated and whirled.

The gap between them vanished and ANAD closed the distance, slamming and grappling with the mech.

The imager screen shook with the collision, then careened sideways.

Several minutes passed. The imager view vibrated with the ferocity of the attack. Chains of oxygen molecules, pressed into service as makeshift weapons, whipped across the screen. The water was soon choked with cellular debris. Coethi replicated several times, adding new molecule strings. It stripped off electrons to make an armor shield of highly reactive chlorine atoms. In seconds, ANAD was momentarily immobilized by the chlorine sheath.

"At this moment," Samachar was saying, "it looks bad for ANAD. But notice the faint seam at the mid-waist of the Coethi bot."

"Some kind of structural join?" CINCSPACE surmised.

"Exactly," Samachar said. "A weak point. We noticed this some months ago. Watch what happens when ANAD puts one of his enhanced bond disrupters on that seam."

As they watched, ANAD stung Coethi with its bond disrupter and the enemy bot flew apart in a bright flash of spinning atom parts. For several minutes, ANAD systematically dismantled Coethi, molecule by molecule. With ruthless efficiency, the ANAD mech whirred and chopped every device Coethi could generate. The Bug tried to counter, replicating probes, inserters, jaws, cilia, pumps, blowers--but it was no use.

ANAD had found its weak spot.

UNSAC was frankly awed by ANAD's combat capabilities. "Incredible," she whispered. "The perfect warrior. ANAD must have one hell of a processor."

"True enough," Samachar was proud of the vid. "But the real test will come when we engage the Bugs as a swarm. Like I said, Coethi has tactical configs that seem to outwit us in every engagement scenario we've tried. Feints, diversions, entrapments, ambushes, pulsing attacks...we've found that en masse, Coethi are hard to beat. Individually or in small groups, they're beatable. In swarm-scale engagements--?" The Samachar avatar seemed to shrug.

The vid cloud hung in the air, frozen in its final moments of ANAD's attack, a cloud of debris surrounding the plucky little bot like a halo.

Chase studied the reactions of Tulcheah and Likteek out of the corner of his eye. It was hard to get a read on the Seomish, encased as they were in their mobilitor suits. Neither offered any comments and Chase could tell that standing upright out of the water was beginning tire them. They would have to drop into a pool somewhere before long. But the very fact they had come to Paris to consult with UNSAC was significant.

_She really wants to go home_ , Chase realized. _And they both think this is the way to do it_.

UNSAC drummed her fingers on the table. "So, we have a small band of Bugs more or less in containment right now at Reed Banks."

Admiral Salaam added, "And we can beat them in small-scale engagements, if Samachar's tests are any indication."

"The real question is the Umans, as Mr. Meyer calls them, of this future timestream. We're talking about 28th century Man. What kind of people are they?"

Chase had met them once before. "They respected the Coethi, Madame Commissioner. They even feared them...they hadn't found a way to really defeat them when I was there on Seome."

Salaam was skeptical. "What makes us think we can do better? They have seven hundred years of technology and history on us."

Chase could see that Kumar was closely watching the Seomish. Her face, normally hard as glass, showed sympathy. "To put together a mission to engage the Coethi seven hundred years from, now with weapons and tactics we have now...it's probably a fool's mission. I'm not in the habit of authorizing fool's missions. I have to answer to the Secretary-General...and the Security Council."

Tulcheah's echopod crackled. "Shhkkreeah...these _m'jeete_...you say Bugs...destroy our home they...must fight...Ponkti fight all.... _tuk_ makes us war...."

Kumar listened closely. Maybe it was something in the timber of the Ponkti Metah's voice, filtered as it was through the echopod. Maybe it was a trick of the lighting, with the evident strain of standing upright out of water evident even through her mobilitor helmet. Maybe it was the way old Likteek held her up, supporting her, as she made the argument.

Angelika Kumar had just finished reading an account of how ancient Germanic tribes had once defeated superior Roman legions, using unconventional tactics, guile, cunning, grit and determination. In the battle of the Teutoburg Forest, Arminius had defeated three legions in a massive battle. It had been the year 9 C.E., twenty-one hundred years ago.

Improbable victories had happened before. Maybe they could happen again, seven hundred years from now.

Kumar made her decision. "I'll approve the mission our Sea People friends want. But I'm ordering that some test missions be performed first. To Admiral Salaam and to Samachar's avatar, she added, "And I want our proposals on this so-called alliance to be put into some kind of stored form, so we can communicate our intentions to the Umans of that timestream."

Chase felt his throat go dry with the implications of what UNSAC had just announced. He said nothing, but he saw Tulcheah stirring, ready to collapse in exhaustion. He knew she needed to be in the water and soon. He started to get up but Likteek waved him off.

Even coming through the echopod, Tulcheah's voice was weak.

"Shhkkreeah...Ponkti...can no test...we go through _pul'kel_...you say Farpool...ourselves...."

Chase understood what the Metah was trying to get out. "Madame Commissioner, the Metah says they're willing to forego the test mission...if it means they can go back to Seome earlier."

UNSAC frowned. "I can't approve that. It's too risky. Mr. Meyer, I know you've ridden the Farpool for great distances in time yourself but that was risky too...and you didn't exactly navigate with precision, did you."

"No, ma'am," Chase had to admit. "The Genesis missions did have navigation problems."

Admiral Salaam offered an alternative. "Perhaps we could condense the test phase down to one mission."

This idea was debated for awhile. Ultimately, UNSAC gave in a little, still wary of the number of things that could wrong. The story of her Germanic ancestors in the Teutoburg Forest kept popping into her mind. Nobody in his right mind would ever have advised the Teutonic commander Arminius that defeating three Roman legions was remotely possible either.

In time, a consensus decision was made, one that UNSAC felt she could 'sell' to the Secretary-General, a sort of CYA idea that gave everybody enough cover if things went south...which she fully expected they might.

There would be one test mission through the Farpool. It would be called _Far Alliance 1_. The test mission would need a volunteer to ride a jumpship into the correct timestream and exit at the right point in time, seven hundred years in the future and on a world hundreds of light-years away. The volunteer would then be required to make a detailed proposal to help the Uman forces of that time in defeating the Coethi enemy...all as a prelude to a sort of mass reverse-emigration back to old Seome, a world, it was devoutly hoped, that would now survive once the Coethi had been run off.

To Tulcheah and Likteek, UNSAC said, "We'll select a volunteer and let you know. Once we've worked out the details of the _Far Alliance 1_ mission, that is."

In the back of his mind, Chase saw himself volunteering for the mission but he said nothing for the moment. He knew perfectly well that Angie needed to hear all this and he was pretty sure he knew what she would say.

Tulcheah and Likteek were helped out of the conference room by a small squad of UNIFORCE security officers. On her way out, the Ponkti Metah paused before UNSAC and wobbled unsteadily, but stood determined to make a point.

"Shhkkreeah...Urku not us...we need homewaters...to feel zzzhhhqqkk Orkn't current in our blood...Ponk'et caves home...we die your waters."

The Seomish then departed for the Seine River marine terminal a few kilometers away. Chase decided to go with them. Tulcheah and Likteek had come in two kip'ts; her own prodsmen escorts had stayed with the sleds while docked at the terminal, just downstream of the Ile de la Cite.

Chase climbed into Tulcheah's kip't, while Likteek and the escorts manned the other ship. Moments later, they had cast off from their moorings at the Pont Neuf pier and submerged for the hour-long trek north to Le Havre and the Channel.

Once out into deeper waters, with Chase piloting, they turned west and headed back to Keenomsh'pont and Muir City.

Crossing the rough currents that signaled they had entered the deep waters of the Atlantic, Chase steered them below the thermocline and set auto-maneuver, letting the kip't home on the distant repeaters' songs that were broadcast from Keenomsh'pont at every hour of the day.

That's when he told Tulcheah that he wanted to be the volunteer for the _Far Alliance 1_ test mission.

Near Keenomsh'pont

The Mid-Atlantic

September 9, 2178

It was a place known only to Oostannah and Pakto, though the Ponkti midling had occasionally mentioned that others knew about the hollows and the dense stand of eel grass that covered them. Formed of limestone, riddled with labyrinths and caves and warrens and burrows and niches, covered in nearly impenetrable brush and thick grass, it was a perfect hiding place for midlings who wanted to get away from all things adult, as midlings liked to do.

Inside the upper burrows, Pakto turned to his amphib girlfriend Oostannah and they nuzzled in the Ponkti way, beak to mouth. Oostannah wrinkled her face in disgust. Kissing fish in the beak wasn't something she particularly enjoyed, but she did enjoy being with Pakto and his friends. They weren't afraid of anything and they would try just about anything, especially if the _tootenks—_ it meant something like 'calcified mountain' in the Ponkti dialect—didn't like it.

Pakto zipped up and down the length of the narrow cave, orbiting restlessly, idly scattering a small school of cutterfish with his beak. "Well, are you going or not? I need to know... _now_...today."

Oostannah had already made the decision in her mind. But to put it into words, that was—

She glared back at him, then grabbed a fluke as he shot by and pulled him closer. She looked into his eyes, black button eyes and saw what? Mostly herself, reflected back.

"So you want to go...on the Circling or what?"

"I do. I said I did and I will."

Pakto looked skeptical. "What about your parents?"

"Don't worry about them. I can handle them. What about the kel?"

This made Pakto think. He pulled free and began roaming about the burrow again, occasionally nosing up into the grass, sniffing, tasting what came drifting by.

"The kel doesn't let non-kelke do the _Ke'tuvish'tek_. It's custom. You know...tradition. There's a big ceremony before we leave. Everybody's there: the Kel'em elders, the Metah, her staff...everybody. You can't be there...you have to be Ponkti to be there. Sorry."

Oostannah snorted. "You're just as nervous about this as I am. So, what do we do? Where can we meet?"

Pakto had given that some thought. He dropped back down into the tiny burrow and faced her. "We'll have to meet somewhere else." His face lit up, a sly smile spreading across that mischievous beak. "You know that big construction platform in the harbor at Hamilton."

"The _Tridentia_ platform...yeah, what about it?"

"When the sun comes up tomorrow...be there. Below the platform, there are these intake ports. Be at the one furthest away from the docks. Just after the sun comes up."

Oostannah readily agreed. _I am so getting into big trouble over this_. "So, who else is coming?"

Pakto clicked in annoyance. "How should I know? The Kel'em assigns spots to whoever they want. Maybe one or two...you'll see."

Oostannah checked her wristpad. "I'd better go. Mom and Dad think I just went for a little swim. I've got to get back."

They nuzzled again and Oostannah felt her heart racing. This was for real now. Going on a Circling with a Ponkti boy—nobody would believe that at school. She'd have stories to tell that would fry their ears. Mom was so unfair about it...didn't she know you had to keep up, keep the stories coming, the wilder the better? If you only had lame stories to share, you were nobody. You were ignored, shunned, they laughed at you... _sandbox too big for you now, is that it, huh?_ The twerps. She hadn't been in a sandbox in years and what Amphib played in sandboxes anyway? Now, she'd show everybody. Circling the world sea with a Ponkti, now _that_ was a sandbox.

Pakto headed up and out through the eel grass and a decent interval later, Oostannah did the same. She wanted to get back to the City, take a shower, eat a good meal—Mom was doing fritters tonight and she was sure to miss those while she was circling. Then off to bed and waiting...waiting until everybody was asleep, Howie the housebot was recharging in safe mode and the apartment was all quiet.

Then would come the moment she'd been dreaming about for months. Imagine it: Oostannah... _me, little Oostannah!..._ on the _Ke'tuvish'tek_ , with a Ponkti boy!

The hours after dinner dragged by like eons. One by one, first Dad, then Mom said goodnight and retired to their quarters. She listened for Dad's snoring... _Jeez, he sounds like a seascooter dying..._ and the water running in the bathroom. That would be Mom washing her face, brushing her teeth, rubbing that godawful green gunk on her face and arms...some kind of moisturizer crap.

Howie had gone to his station. Oostannah listened for many minutes, shut her eyes, counted down from a thousand twice and then decided now was the time.

Every footstep had been meticulously planned, rehearsed and visualized in her mind. Opening her bedroom door. Padding down the hall, covering the swish of her armfins and leg thistles as well as she could...the trick was to go slow and time it to Dad's snoring.

She had her last remaining moneycard tucked away in a web belt around her waist. Quickly, she disarmed the alarm system and slipped out into the hall, shutting the door behind her. She re-armed it with her eye scan, then it was off to the lift, and six floors up to the transport deck. The highest place on Muir City.

It was well after midnight and the breezes were blowing stiff and strong, sending salt spray and wet air across the lifter pads. Oostannah bought a pass for the night lifter shuttle to Bermuda—Hamilton Harbor—and waited impatiently in the departure lounge. She didn't make eye contact with anybody and she was fully aware of people looking at her. She could almost read their thoughts anyway: _what's an eight-year old doing up here at a time like this?_

But nobody said anything and mostly her only company were the service bots and one half-asleep security officer.

She boarded the lifter and settled in. The flight lasted all of twenty minutes and Oostannah found herself departing into a small lounge with two construction workers already decked out in coveralls and tool belts.

_Hey, maybe they're working on the_ Tridentia _platform_ , she thought. She left the lift port and took stairs down to Front Street, the main thoroughfare for the city of Hamilton.

She walked many blocks, her head down and covered with a gray hoodie, hands jammed into her pockets.

Front Street was mostly deserted, though plenty of shops were still open, even at two a.m. Sailors and tourists were an ever-present sight in this part of the island, strolling the cobblestones, ogling anything female on two feet, leering at themselves in shop windows, and studying the latest gadgets in the storefronts. Opposite the stores were marinas, wharves and docks, and million-dollar yachts and boats, their masts clinking in the sea breezes. On occasion, a miniature pink bus went rumbling by down the street, usually with nobody onboard.

She still had several hours before sunup and she hadn't planned on all the walking and the salt air making her hungry.

She chanced upon a small Net café, still open at the corner of Front Street and Cobbler's Lane. Some kind of delicious smell came wafting out and Oostannah checked her pockets, measuring out her last money on the card face. Maybe it was enough. She could grab a snack, maybe log-in and play a few games.

She went inside.

At the counter, she ordered up some fritters and a soft drink, and with her last few bucks, bought an hour's time on a computer. She found an open one in the corner and logged in, then starting shooting up green-tentacled alien monsters with gleeful abandon. She snarfed down the fritters and the drink and starting racking up impressive scores on the gameboard, slimy reptilian scumbags littered all over the screen...maybe she could make Level 2 before her hour was up.

When she fell asleep, right at the keyboard, joystick still in her hands, she couldn't exactly say.

She was roughly awaked by an arm shaking her shoulders and found it was nearly 5 a.m. and the café was closing down for two hours.

"Maintenance, lady...and cleanup. Board of Health and all that. Come on, _out_...get up and get moving."

So, somebody big and in a greasy uniform rousted her out onto the street and Oostannah staggered down the street a while longer, still half-asleep and found another alley at the end of the block, around the corner. She folded up her arm fins, tucked her webbed feet in—and realized that somewhere, she'd lost one of those cute little boffins her Mom had bought for her a month ago, and fell asleep again, below the iron grate of a fire escape.

Just as the sun was peeking through all the yacht masts and buildings, she felt more than heard a loud throaty rumble, practically right on top of her, and opened her eyes just quick enough to scoot out of the way of a sweeperbot easing down the alley.

She darted out to Front Street again, aware that she probably looked like hell and, with the sun coming up, realized she needed to be at the harbor, like _right now_. She jogged several blocks and finally made it.

Oostannah found a marshaling yard full of cargo containers, and located one that she could force her way into. She figured the patrol drones circling overhead wouldn't like seeing an eight-year old Amphib girl wandering around the rows of containers at this hour of the morning. Pakto had said wait until the sun was fully up, then be at the _Tridentia_ platform's intake port farthest from the harbor. Just before ducking into the dank, smelly container, she checked the sun position. It wouldn't be long now.

That is if she could stand the smell of the piles of iced-down fish stacked all around her.

Oostannah waited a half hour, peeked out and saw the sun had now risen nearly to the top of the freighter masts and smoke stacks out in the harbor.

She decided she could wait no longer. If she waited any longer, she might lose what little nerve she had left. Maybe this wasn't such a great idea after all. Her stomach growled and she could almost taste the salted herring and chips and bacon and eggs her Mom often cooked in the morning.

Oozie Girl, better put that out of your mind.

She slipped out, timing her run to the pier to the movements of a nearby drone. Maybe it saw her, maybe it didn't. No matter.

With a joyous leap, Oostannah fled down to the end of the pier and flung herself into the water. It was cold and felt great and she realized then that, like any Amphib, she'd gone too long out of water, her skin was all shriveled up and dry and she hadn't brought any of that lotion along.

It didn't matter now.

She circled for a moment to get her bearings, shivering, feeling a delicious tingle on her skin, then headed off on what she hoped was the right heading, listening, sniffing. The water was dark, silty, murky and surface craft made swift, turbulent currents above her. She'd have to stay deep to avoid having her head chopped off by propellers or water jets.

Once she was near, it wasn't hard to find the _Tridentia_ platform... _jeez, the thing's like an island in itself._ Just ease on forward, stay deep, poke around and soon enough she found one intake port. Was it the right one? She left that one and crept along until she saw movement in the distance, through a small school of darting fish. Her heart leaped when she heard some familiar clicking and squeaking.

It was Pakto. And another boy.

"Took you long enough. We've been here an hour. I was just about to leave." Pakto nuzzled her and introduced her to his companion. "This is Tekot. We're in the same em'kel. He's doing _Ke'tuvish'tek_ too."

Oostannah and Tekot nuzzled. She thought he smelled like a sewer but it might have been wastewater the platform was discharging nearby.

"It would have been a lot better if we could have met at Keenomsh'pont, you know," she scolded him.

Pakto was gathering some gear and fixing his web belt. Both boys had serious-looking gear hanging from belts, suspenders, hooks and fins. Both were ritually scarred around their beaks; that was new and Oostannah made a mental note to ask about that.

"I told you that was impossible," Pakto said. "The kel won't allow it. There are departure ceremonies, a lot of boring speeches, dignitaries, even the Metah was there to send us off...and practically the whole Kel'em. You wouldn't have been allowed within ten beats of the place."

Oostannah found her courage coming back. Pakto did that to her. "So, what are we waiting for, grungefish?"

Pakto grinned. "Nothing. Let's go."

The three of them, two Ponkti boys and a single very nervous Amphib girl left the swirling waters of the platform parked in Hamilton Harbor and stroked out to deeper water.

They were soon gliding down the shallow slopes of the Bermuda Platform, feeling the cold dense waters pressing in on them as they headed south by southwest toward the steep ravines of the Challenger Bank and the abyssal plains beyond.

_Ke'tuvish'tek_...the great Circling...was underway.

Erika felt a panicked catch in the back of her throat. She padded down the hall, following Kentrak into Oostannah's bedroom.

"What do you mean you can't find her?"

Kentrak was tossing pillows and sheets aside. "I mean she's not here...go look in the bathroom."

A frenzied search throughout the apartment failed to turn up their daughter.

Erika was in tears. Her lips quivered. "What...where—"

Kentrak had a dark look. "I'll bet it's that Ponkti boy. She's with him. And wasn't he about to start his—"

Erika's eyes widened. "The Circling...where the midlings circum-navigate the world...no...surely not—"

Kentrak grabbed her armfin. "Come on...we're going down there."

"The Ponkti quarter...Ken...we can't just—"

"Oh, yes we can...and we will."

The two amphibs left Muir City via one of the public moonpools and dived deeper into the sea, skirting the flanks of the great seamount. It was dimly lit with drifting glowfish, cold, dense water with ceaseless movement of thousands of Seomish kelke bumping into them, glancing off them, muttering curses at them as they made their way down to the base of the mountain, for the Ponkti quarter was there, huddled against the bottomland, covered with hectares of _tchinting_ fiber net, increasingly hollowed into and through the guyot itself, a vast encampment of rippling net undulating with snorting, bellowing, honking life, but sheltered and isolated in the Ponkti way.

In the sixty-odd years since thousands of them had come through the Farpool during the Emigration, the Ponkti had tried to re-create in their quarter of Keenomsh'pont a land similar to their ancestral home of Ponk'et on old Seome. It was a stygian world riddled with caves and hollows, burrows and niches and holds dug and carved out of the very sides of the Muir seamount, re-creating in its crude way the vast caverns under the seabed that they had once called home.

At the base of the seamount, the Ponkti quarter was separated by screens of bubbles, odd scent fields and scores of surly prodsmen with electric wands and gruff demeanors.

Kentrak explained to one squad leader why they had come down to the Ponkti quarter. The prodsman seemed unmoved.

"Nonkelke aren't welcome here...turn back or I'll use the wand."

"But my daughter's in there...she's with a Ponkti boy."

"Is she Ponkti?"

Erika shook her head, spat bubbles at this pig-headed guard. "No, of course not, but—"

"Then you cannot enter. Be off."

They argued some more and Kentrak considered just rushing the guard but before he could act, a member of the Ponkti Kel'em, an elderly vizier of grizzled beak and mottled skin, came by.

"What's the problem here, prodsman?"

The squad leader explained and this prompted an emotional outpouring from Erika.

The vizier scrunched up his face with a look of pain. "She's in here, in the quarter?"

"We think so, sir," Kentrak admitted.

The vizier gave that some thought, his eyes closed tightly, as if he were in distress. "Then you may come with me. Prodsman, let them pass. I'll take them to the Privy Councilor."

The prodsman grumbled and bubbled sourly, but moved aside.

"Come," said the vizier. "And stay close."

Neither Kentrak nor Erika had ever been inside the Ponkti quarter before.

They slipped beneath the netting and through the bubble curtains and had traveled perhaps three beats or so when the sediment beds that had seemed initially unoccupied dropped away abruptly. They drifted out over a precipitous slope that fell below them into a deep canyon, buried under scores of beats of silt. Slowly, the vizier, Kentrak and Erika descended, the little convoy soon joined and shepherded along by more prodsmen, and Erika watched wide-eyed as the cliff inexorably gave way to a row of dim recesses in the rock face, cave mouths she presumed, all arranged in a ragged line across the cliff. All of this was out of sight beneath the vast netting above them.

The vizier bore all of them toward one of the openings, passing through schools of pollock and grubby, sideswiping a goliath grouper which grunted at them as it slid by. They reached the opening and it took a few minutes for Kentrak and Erika to adjust their eyes to the darkness and while they did, they both pulsed about the cave to learn more.

It was more of a narrow tunnel, they soon found out, roughly rounded at the ceiling and, not unexpectedly, filled with baffles, false chambers and row upon row of slender metal cones lining the walls. A stunning field, Kentrak surmised, to kill anything that got this far into the quarter.

The vizier shepherded them up to the edge of a long sloping ramp. An oval of pale amber light glowed at the foot of the ramp and Erika pulsed a very large cavern down there, beyond it.

The soldiers nudged them down the ramp and they came at last into the heart of the Ponkti quarter.

Erika's first impression was that they had somehow made a complete circle and returned to the open sea. Yet it couldn't be, for here was life in greater abundance than she had ever seen before. Dense, teeming, raucous and restless, more crowded even than Muir City on festival days.

The light was low and pulses were useless with so many people, but Erika could feel the size of the place. Even as crushing as the mass of life was, she could still sense the spacious dimensions. There had been rumors about this for a long time. Her mom Angie and her Dad Chase himself had told them once before that the Ponkti quarter was like a great _vishtu_ , a roam so large it boggled the mind. And Chase had also said there were cavernous chambers the size of small oceans here, dozens of them, buried under the seamount, all connected like the radii of a starfish. Pulsing as far as they could, Kentrak and Erika found that even Chase's description didn't do justice to the sight.

As the prodsmen took them deeper and deeper into the city, they passed through innumerable scent fields. The presence of the Amphibs aroused considerable curiosity and the soldiers had to fight to clear a path at times.

They were taken to the very bottom of the cavern. They drifted down through layer after layer of roaming citizens, through holds and berths made of sheer tissue that parted for their passage, then closed again, through squabbling em'kels and solemn lectures, prodigal feasts thick with the aroma of _tongpod_ and _ertleg_ , games of _kong'pelu_ and _tonkro_ , debates, sexual couplings, _tuk_ matches, a fight and myriad other scenes.

They followed the spine of a pillar that buttressed one wall, passing in their descent, hundreds of small, dark recesses, cavities, niches and hollows at every level, all of them full to bursting with _kelke_. Erika never grew tired of the extraordinary diversity of life in the Ponkti quarter, even though they traveled for what seemed an hour or so. Always, when she thought she had seen everything, another sight would replace it almost immediately and she would have to watch that too and study it. And there was no way they could take in the entire pageant at a single glance; it was far too complicated, shifting, much too spontaneous for that.

The vizier was bearing the convoy toward a group of canopies at the bottom, delicate pastel structures that seemed to drift slightly in the prevailing currents. As they approached, Erika could see that the canopies were attached by cords to flat stone foundations on the cavern floor. Hundreds of Ponkti streamed in and out from beneath them and the entire area seemed to be the focus of great attention.

Erika's first impression, confirmed with Kentrak who was nearby, was that it was a fight they were seeing, but a closer look showed that such was not the case. Though it was difficult to see through the swarming bodies that flitted in and out, Kentrak was able to see enough to realize that he was witnessing the ancient art of _tuk_ , the ritual dance discipline that was virtually unique to the Ponkti.

Erika started to ask the vizier about her daughter, but the prodsmen intervened and gestured with their weapons toward one of the canopies.

They were herded together, Erika and Kentrak, and conveyed toward the canopy where the _tuk_ match was still in progress. Ponkti swarmed around them as they approached but the prodsmen held them back. Erika noticed that most of the people seemed very correct in their actions and in complete control of themselves—perhaps it was the influence of arts like _tuk_ , but whatever the explanation, she was impressed with this feat of self-mastery. It was like pulsing an army of identical reflections. But where was Oostannah? She had to be around here.

In the center of the main canopy, the crowds were thickest, huddling around a large, blubbery female of medium-gray skin. Not surprisingly, the Privy Councilor Lokeenah, was the center of slavish affection—an unending stream of Ponkti filtered down from outside the cavern and paid their respects by nudging, kissing and stroking her. She was dining on stuffed pal'penk, from the aroma of it, while studying the _tuk_ match before her. A young servling brushed her tail flukes.

Erika and Kentrak watched as the vizier worked his way through the line of admirers and, reaching the Privy Councilor at last, told her of their captive visitors. She showed no reaction at all, but merely shooed the horde away. At her command, the vizier beckoned Kentrak and Erika to approach.

Right away, Erika noticed a radical difference. She wasn't that good at pulsing, especially in crowded waters like this, but she could easily pulse that Lokeenah was a fickle, nervous woman—her innards seethed without pause. She had heard from her father that the Ponkti would admire _shoo'kel_ more in their leaders, but either she was so popular that she could do as she pleased or the Ponkti held their leaders to different standards. In any case, she paid them little attention when they arrived; indeed, the presence of non-kelke worried her attendants more than her. They quickly erected a partition of sheer tissue around the Privy Councilor, then scattered to the corners of the pavilion and scowled at the visitors.

Erika was the first to speak. "We're from the City above...we've come looking for our daughter. Oostannah. We think she's with a Ponkti boy...possibly on a Circling."

Lokeenah seemed not to have heard and continued munching on a rib of palpenk. In front of them, one of the _tuk_ players scored a dramatic blow against his opponent, stunning him with a sharp tail-slap. The move brought forward a chorus of honks and cheers from the people around them.

At last, Lokeenah deigned to notice them. "You come here, to our quarter, looking for one of your own? How ridiculous. Ponk'et is for Ponkti. No one else."

"Our daughter is in love with this boy."

"This boy...he has a name, _eekoti_?"

"Pakto," offered Kentrak.

This caused Lokeenah to stop eating. She let the pal'penk scraps drift off while she conferred with another vizier nearby.

"My viziers tell me this Pakto klu is on _Ke'tuvish'tek_. You call it the Circling. They have just departed."

Erika felt a lump in her throat. "Then Oostannah's with him. You've got to get her back."

This brought a frown to Lokeenah's face. Her beak shook. "Once begun, the _Ke'tuvish'tek_ is not halted. We don't interrupt the Circling...to do this would violate one of Shooki's commands...and our traditions. Please respect our traditions."

Erika was frantic. "But Oostannah's not Ponkti. She's just a child...she doesn't belong here. She doesn't know what she's doing."

Again, Lokeenah conferred with her viziers, this time heatedly. "Even in our own quarter, Amphibs tell us what to do. No...not here. Not now. The Circling goes on. The midlings have their instructions."

Kentrak said, "Doesn't the presence of someone not Ponkti, nonkelke, contaminate the Circling? She could give assistance that's not allowed."

Lokeenah hadn't thought of that. "There can't be interference. It's not allowed."

"But it could happen, if Oostannah stays with your midlings on the Circling. Couldn't you just send a team, a search party, to meet them. Bring my daughter home."

Lokeenah bristled at the prospect. She had seen Pakto and Tekot off just a day before. The ceremonies had been perfect. The blessings profound, reverent. The Metah herself had been well pleased. Now, this...

"I will speak with the Metah at once. This is unacceptable interference in our traditions. It is so everywhere on this cursed world of Urku. We should never have come here."

"Then you'll help us?" Erika asked.

"Stay here. I will speak with the Metah. She will have to approve this interference in _Ke'tuvish'tek."_

With that, Lokeenah abruptly flippered off her pedestal, startling the viziers and the prodsmen, who hurried to keep up. The Privy Councilor stroked away and was gone, leaving Erika and Kentrak alone with the first vizier, and their prodsmen escorts.

The worried Amphib parents could only wait now...and wonder.
Chapter 3

" _The future is uncertain but the end is always near."_

Jim Morrison ( _The Doors_ )

Muir City

Farpool Operations Center

December 10, 2178

The test mission _Far Alliance 1_ was ready to commence. UNIFORCE and the Sea Council had decided not to send a human volunteer but rather a small robotic device called _Caesar_ to investigate and communicate with any humans on Seome in the timestream corresponding to the 28th century. Then _Caesar_ was programmed to return through the Farpool to its original time.

Launch day dawned at Muir City cloudy, breezy, humid and warm, with seas running at state three, mild whitecaps and two-meter surf crashing against the lower ramparts of the city and her jetties, wharves and breakwaters.

For launch, _Caesar_ had been moved in its launch cradle to a huge lockout outside the hangar bay, now fully exposed to the sea. The ship was a quarter-scale version of the larger manned jumpships, with propulsors at one end, flow vanes along its flanks and the general appearance of a fat seed. At launch, the little ship would travel just below the surface of the ocean to the outer vortex bands of the Farpool, transit the turbulent zone and be swallowed by the maw of the great whirlpool.

Chase Meyer watched last-minute preparations from behind shielded glass in the launch control center, a floor above the hangar bay. He stood quietly alongside Admiral Ashari Sumbowa, the Commander-in-Chief of Farpool Service (CINCFAR) and a Quantum Corps officer from Singapore base, one Major Hiro Tsukota. Tsukota was Q2, Chase had learned. Quantum Corps Intelligence, and reporting during this mission directly to Angelika Kumar, UNSAC herself. He was a stoic, black-haired Japanese officer, offering little but vague nods and grunts in Chase's direction.

The moment of launch came and _Caesar_ sprang out of its cradle and splashed into the ocean, submerging quickly.

A loudspeaker announced, " _Caesar_ away on internal propulsor...nominal launch. Tracking approach vector now...."

Sumbowa was an Indonesian O-9 and had been in charge of Farpool Service for the better part of four years now. He was short, stocky, possessed of olive skin and a drooping black moustache.

"Now we'll see what the labs have concocted," he said, mostly to himself. His hands were tucked behind his back, turning and flexing constantly.

_Nerves_ , Chase told himself. The Farpool did that to people. Chase knew the _Far Alliance_ mission was important to the Secretary-General. That made it important to CINCFAR too. Chase had no doubt the Indonesian was fully capable of biting off heads if anything went wrong.

But it didn't. Within a few moments, Tracking informed all hands that _Caesar_ had reached and transited the outer vortex bands successfully.

"Signals dropping out...intermittent contact...approaching main vortex..."

Then...there was nothing. For better or worse, the little ship had been snagged by the Farpool and was now on its way to times and places far away.

All they could do now was wait.

CINCFAR turned to Chase. "Mr. Meyer, you and Major Tsukota...in my office in half an hour." With that, Sumbowa turned about and stalked off.

Chase and Tsukota exchanged glances.

"Not much for small talk, is he?" Chase observed.

Tsukota smiled faintly. "You have no idea."

The two of them headed up to the command deck and found CINCFAR's office suite.

The overall mission, of which _Far Alliance_ was the first part, had been given the name of Operation _Temporal Hammer_.

CINCFAR did all the talking, illustrating his points with gestures and a 3-d pedestal that projected a stream of graphs, charts and images, all of them dancing in a vague resemblance to the traditional Javanese _Yogyakarta_ , of which the Admiral was obviously a fan. With a finger snap, Sumbowa brought the images into presentation order.

"It reminds me of my home in Surabaya," he explained, answering a question nobody had asked.

CINCFAR explained the mission details. "Mr. Meyer, you have previous command experience from the _Genesis_ missions, so you'll be in command of a diverse force here. Your team will have Omtorish, Ponkti and Amphib hybrids—they're being interviewed and screened as we speak. The basic objective is this: you and your team will travel in a modified jumpship— _Aquarius_ is being fitted and checked out now, right down there behind those partitions on the hangar deck. _Aquarius_ will transit the Farpool and achieve a successful 'landing' in what our Ops people calculate as timestream T-229...this should put you on or around the world known as Storm—Seome to our Sea People friends—in or around the year 2815 C.E. or as close as you can get to that. After this 'landing,' you will contact existing human forces and render all possible assistance in their efforts to engage and drive off any Coethi advances in that sector of human space. Toward that end, Ops and our technical branch has equipped _Aquarius_ and your team with weapons and equipment suitable for the environment as we understand it. Major Tsukota here has the latest intel from Q2. Major--?"

Tsukota cleared his throat, took the 'magic wand' from the Admiral so he could drive the displays and proceeded to run down the latest known intel on the Coethi.

"Mr. Meyer here has some experience with the Bugs and the efforts of human forces in T-229 to drive them away from human space. I've taken the liberty of using your echopod records from our archive to supplement this information."

Tsukota waved his wand and the sounds of a distant voice came through the pedestal, illustrated with more up-to-date animated graphics. Chase swallowed hard at the voice; it was his own voice from years before, detailing what the Umans based on Seome had told him about their enemy. Hearing his own decades-old words coming back at him gave Chase the creeps.

"The Coethi are (thought to be) a race of sentient semi-robotic aliens whose main weapon against Uman forces is something Umans called a starball. It is directed against the sun or star of a targeted Uman planetary system. The only known defense is a Time Twister. When a starball enters or is pulled into the twist field of a Twister, it is flung out of local space-time into the farthest reaches of the Universe.

"Umans and Coethi are contending for influence and territory in a region of the Milky Way known as the Galactic Halo.

"The main-sequence star Sigma-Albeth B is near the center of a key sector of the Halo. It has four planets, one of them Seome. Seome is an ideal site to build and operate a Time Twister to defend this sector, known to Humans as Halo-Alpha. The sector is above the plane of the galactic Orion Arm, in which most of Uman space is located, including the solar system.

"The Coethi originated in the Perseus Arm and view the Halo sectors as convenient ways to expand their territory and influence into the Orion and other arms in this quadrant of the galaxy. But the Umans are in the way.

"The Coethi are a distributed intelligence. They are a swarm of nanoscale robotic elements several light years in extent, drifting through space.

"The basic element of the Coethi is a nanobot. An autonomous, nanoscale assembler/disassembler of incredible sophistication and complexity.... "

Tsukota waved his wand again and the echopod sound and displays collapsed into nothing.

"With the Bugs we have in containment at Reed Banks in the South China Sea," the Q2 officer added, "ongoing research and investigation has given us a decent idea of what the enemy is capable of, at least in small-scale swarms. How this compares to what the humans, or Umans, as they call themselves, are facing seven hundred years from now is not as well known."

Chase had a question. "Do we know much about the Umans in this part of the timestream?"

CINCFAR interjected. "Not as much as we'd like to. For several years, we've had anthropologists analyzing the data and artifacts you brought back from Genesis 3 some years ago. We've also sent occasional unmanned survey ships through the Farpool to recon and map various timestreams. Results are mixed...Tsukota, you have the details?"

Tsukota nodded. " _Hai_...right here, sir." He waved the wand again and the pedestal erupted in a swirl of images. A projection of the Milky Way galaxy materialized out of an explosion of pixelated forms.

"What you're looking at is classified SCI-UNIFORCE PURPLE...not to leave this room, I might add. It's a compilation of what Q2 and Farpool Service have learned about the humans of T-229 from multiple survey ships and missions we've conducted over the last decade. One mission—last year...it was _Scout 12_ , I believe—actually was able to tap into some kind of official archive for awhile, before it was discovered and had to retreat. We got quite a haul from that one—"

Chase and CINCFAR looked on as Tsukota highlighted parts of the projection, zooming in on the Orion arm of the galaxy and eventually on the Sun itself and the Solar System.

"Many centuries from now," Tsukota was explaining, "There will be an organization called the Uman Alliance. The humans of this time period refer to themselves as Umans...apparently, in this age, there are all kinds of humans, half-humans, trans-humans, and pseudo-humans, kind of like our Sea People and Amphibs—"

Chase's mouth tightened at that and Tsukota cleared his throat. "Meaning so disrespect, sir—"

"Go on," CINCFAR said.

'Yes, well, _Scout 12_ found out this...."

The projection evolved into a ream of thumbnail images, arrayed in rows, snapshots of time and history from T-229. Tsukota narrated over the images.

"The Uman Alliance is an outgrowth of the old United Nations of Earth.

"The term 'Uman' is an outgrowth of the word Human and encompasses both natural human beings and post or transhumans, like cyborgs and androids and other AI entities. The UA hosts no real 'alien' races, as none have been discovered as of 2814 CE. All UA member states are human settlements, in one form or another.

"By this time, human beings and human-machine entities (cyborgs and androids) have created several dozen settlements among the nearer stars.

"A few of these settlements are Keaton's World (star-sun Sturdivant 2180); Gibbons' Grotto (same sun); Telitor (star-sun Delta Recursa); Poona-Peeona (star-sun Lalande 21185); Hapsh'm (star-sun Epsilon Eridani); Byrd's Draconis (star-sun Ross 154); and Landfall 4 (star-sun Gliese 876). There are sixteen human settlements in near-sun space, within about 25 lightyears of the home system.

"In the year 2775—the best we can determine from _Scout 12's_ data--, fourteen of these settlements formed the Uman Alliance, after a constitutional convention on Keaton's World. The founding date was Midtober 5, 2775 (T-001). We don't yet fully understand their timekeeping system. The Articles of Alliance were the founding documents. They read like an updated UN Charter. Two settlements, Gavrilon and Nanjiang, both of star-sun 40 Omicron 2, both elected to remain outside UA but cooperate closely with the Alliance.

"UA is organizationally a close analog of the UN. There is a General Assembly, a Secretariat and a Secretary-General, a Security Council, an Economic Council, a Court of Justice, UA Health Organization and various associated agencies and units.

"The Security Council has a War Department known more formally as UNIFORCE (also UmanForce or UA Force). Time Guard is part of the UA FORCE organization.

"Other parts of UA Force include UA Quantum Corps and UA Frontier Corps. We think this is an evolution of today's Quantum Corps. Time Guard has a mandate to deal with threats and adversaries that can manipulate time streams and that threaten Uman time streams.

"The putative capital of UA is Paris, France. There is an alternate capital complex on Keaton's World and this settlement is often considered to be the real home of the UA, as its founding convention was hammered out and signed there in 2775 AD.

"The current Secretary-General (S-G of UA) is Dr. Anika Steen-Dellarosa. Her primary office is Paris, with a satellite office at Keaton's World. By convention, the SG is an enhanced transhuman...."

CINCFAR rubbed his forehead. "That's all we have?"

Tsukota nodded. "We have other scraps. What I've shown you is compiled from literally hundreds of different pieces of data. Dozens of survey and recon missions...not all of them successful."

Chase pointed to one reference, still hanging in mid-air like a warning sign. "This Time Guard...that must be what those soldiers were part of. The ones who came to Seome to set up a weapon they called the Time Twister."

Tsukota agreed. "We think so too. It appears that there is, at the time of _Scout 12_ and this recon mission, an on-going conflict between these Umans and the Coethi...the Bugs...for quite some time, in fact. Sometime around three hundred years before _Scout 12_ appeared, new developments in temporal science and engineering led to new technological breakthroughs allowing Umans to travel through time for limited excursions without using the Farpool. Not long after these developments, Umans learned of a threat in the Inner Spiral and Lower Halo sectors of the galaxy. A race of machine-like swarm entities called the Coethi had also developed a means of conducting temporal operations and were beginning to alter time streams around outlying Uman settlements in such a way as to eliminate these Uman settlements from ever having been established...changing the very nature of space-time and the historical record. Umans had to counter this threat immediately. A new military force was set up, known as the Time Guard. We think that's when this military unit was formed."

Chase gave that some thought. "It begins to make sense to me now. When I was on Seome before, I didn't know any of this. Major, do we have more detailed information about the capabilities of these Bugs?"

Tsukota said, "We do, but it's not here at Muir City. Station Alpha has a contained specimen of them with a whole lab working on countermeasures."

Admiral Sumbowa said, "It's time you two made a trip. Station Alpha is jointly run by Farpool Service and the Chinese navy. We do research and tests on the Bugs we have contained there. Any countermeasures you take with you on _Temporal Hammer_ , any tactical maneuvers we develop, will have to come from there."

Chase eyed Sumbowa cautiously. "I don't want to land in the 28th century with stuff that doesn't work. The Umans of that time were having difficulties with the Coethi themselves. I'm not sure we can do any better. And if we can't—"

Sumbowa finished the thought. "Then it sounds like your impatient friends won't have a world to go back to. Get out there to Station Alpha and see what they're cooking up there."

Chase and Tsukota left CINCFAR's suite and made plans to rendezvous at Muir City's hyperloop station the next morning.

"It's about a four-hour ride," Tsukota was saying. "Thirteen thousand kilometers. Best routing takes us to London, Tel Aviv and Mumbai before we pull into Singapore. Quantum Corps has a base there. I'll arrange for a lifter sub to get us out to Station Alpha. With orders from CINCFAR, that shouldn't be a problem."

"I need to pack," Chase told him. "And check in with home command."

"Understood," Tsukota said. "Be at the station at 0600 hours tomorrow."

Chase took a lift up to his apartment and found Angie there, distraught, nervously pacing about the apartment.

"What's wrong?"

She just shook her head. "It's Oostannah. Erika called me a while ago. She's missing and they think she may have gone off with some Ponkti boys."

"Gone? Where?"

Angie just flapped her hands, not sure what to do with them. "On a Circling. You know, like used to be done on Seome. Apparently, the Ponkti still do that."

Chase held her in his arms for a minute, then walked the two of them out to the veranda. Outside, the sun was behind clouds, orange and lavender, heading for the western horizon. Breezes had picked up smartly.

"I thought that tradition had pretty much disappeared."

Angie shook her head against his shoulder. "The Ponkti cling to their traditions...you know that. The more the world presses in, the tighter they cling."

"Yeah, that's why Tulcheah wants to go back to Seome...whatever it takes. What are Erika...and Kentrak doing now?"

Angie explained how they had seen the Ponkti Privy Councilor. "She said the Kel'em would approve a mission to follow the Circling...I think there are several boys involved. But to interfere with _Ke'tuvish'tek_ , the Metah said that couldn't be done. I don't know what to do now. Isn't there anyway you could help...borrow a kip't...go sounding with some of your Omtorish friends...you might find them...before it's too late—" Angie started to sob again and Chase held her tight.

"I can't interfere, you know that. That would be like some Ponkti interrupting a human wedding. You just can't do that." He thought for a moment. "If Tulcheah's sending an escort mission, they'll keep track of the Circling. They won't let anything happen." He explained that he had to leave tomorrow morning. "Station Alpha. If we're going to confront the Bugs and stop them from destroying old Seome, we'd better know what we're up against. The latest research and tactics are at Station Alpha. Then I come back here, meet my crew for _Aquarius_ and we start crew and mission training."

Angie pulled free and leaned over the veranda railing, the breezes ruffling her page-boy hair. She pushed some errant locks out of her eyes, wiped some tears away. "This whole operation's just insane, Chase. Can't the Sea People see that? Can't they just adjust and make their lives here? Why do you have to go flitting through Time trying to fix things that shouldn't be messed with?"

What could he say to that? He had orders from CINCFAR and CINCFAR had a mandate from the Sea Council. If there was any way to make life on Earth easier for the Sea People, the Council wanted to explore it. The two races were stuck here and somehow, some way, they had to find a way to live together. Even if some future timestream could be altered and Seome itself saved from destruction, what effects would that have on today? Maybe the effort alone would be enough.

Angie curled up on a glider on the veranda, beneath a thin blanket, staring out to sea as the sun went down and the whitecaps rolled in ceaseless rhythm toward Muir City's jetties and wharves and breakwaters.

Inside the apartment, Chase packed a suitcase and bag in solemn silence. Now his own flesh and blood, his own granddaughter Oostannah, was caught up in the endless conflict between humans and Seomish, between the old and the new, between past and future.

There would be a lot to think about on the hyperloop ride out to Station Alpha.

As Hiro Tsukota had promised, the hyperloop took the two of them through stations in London, Tel Aviv (Chase had bought some falafel on the cart that rolled down the aisles between compartments there), then Mumbai and finally on to Singapore itself. The Changi Street Station disgorged its passengers and Tsukota expertly guided the two of them to a waiting escort from the local Quantum Corps base.

The escort was a Captain Mahjanga. The officer was an ex-pat from Madagascar and would drive the lifter from Singapore base to Station Alpha, twenty-five hundred kilometers across the South China Sea.

Mahjanga was thin and gawky, with faint braids in his hair but a beaming smile and brilliant white teeth, offsetting his khaki and burgundy uniform. "The trip should be very easy, very easy. _Tena mora_ , as we say in my hometown of Tananarive. My ship...she's a lifter sub. Maybe four hours more, plus we submerge at the end. We pack a lunch from the base, no? You sleep and I drive." Mahjanga laughed a hearty laugh and the three of them piled into an autocar and were off.

Singapore Base was a miniature replica of the Quantum Corps base at Table Top, in the U.S. itself, complete down to a Containment Facility, the Sim and Wargaming center, the Ops quadrangle and the lift pads. Only the snowy peaks of Idaho's Buffalo Ridge were missing, replaced with palm trees and mangrove stumps and the strong smell of salt air. The languid tropical waters of the Selatar River slapped wooden piers near the lift pads as the weary, bedraggled travelers dismounted. In the eastern sky, orange fingers of dawn sunlight probed puffy cumulus clouds.

They boarded Mahjanga's lifter sub and were off before dawn. With the drone of the lifter's jets buzzing in his ears, Chase promptly drifted off to a dreamless sleep. Hiro Tsukota stared pensively out at the sunlight glinting off the waves ten thousand meters below puffy cotton balls of clouds.

The water entry jarred both of them back to now. It was a controlled crash, with the ship plunging nose first right into the choppy turquoise waters. The little ship extended her diving planes and switched to hydro propulsors, then straightened out as Mahjanga trimmed her for cruise.

"Sorry about that," said Mahjanga from the cockpit. He turned around and grinned at them. "We submerge now and head for Station Alpha. Maybe half an hour. You eat, no? That's good stuff in those sacks. I've been smelling the _beef kway teow_ for an hour."

Chase decided the pilot was right and wolfed down the meal they had picked up at the base commissary.

Station Alpha was sited on the edge of a small underwater promontory near the Reed Banks, a few hundred kilometers west of the Philippine island of Luzon, at a depth of a hundred and fifty meters.

Run jointly by the Chinese navy and Farpool Service, the compound resembled a massive starfish nestled in the brow of a shallow ridge that overlooked steeply descending terraces to the south west. Containment Site Alpha, where the specimens of Bugs were hopefully well secured behind multiple nanobotic barriers and shields sat alone in a narrow ravine at the end of the terraces some three kilometers away, connected to the Station by thick ganglia of pipes and cables.

Beyond the containment site, the seabed sloped away precipitously to the Angeles Basin, bottoming out at four thousand meters below them.

Mahjanga expertly drove the lifter sub to a sub dock alongside what he referred to as _Gongying fangzei_. "The supply house here," he explained. "Dry and wet stores, supplies, all kinds of gear and equipment."

The three of them disembarked through pressure hatches and were immediately greeted by the Station Commander, a Peoples Liberation Army-Navy captain named Liu Kaichong.

Liu was small of stature, with thick gray-black hair and a rather wide flare of a nose.

"Welcome to Station Alpha, gentlemen. Admiral Sumbowa told me of your mission. Very courageous of you in this Operation _Temporal Hammer_. I'm sure we can help prepare you for the trip."

Liu introduced several others, including Dr. Fei Gaiju of the Beijing Institute of Nanobotics and Dr. Qing Yumen, Peoples Temporal Forces.

Chase noticed immediately that among the assembled crowd, there were no Amphibs, despite Farpool Service's stated policy of always employing Amphibs in undersea installations.

_Now's not the time to make trouble_ , he told himself. _These things take time._

After a quick light meal in the Station's galley in a pod called _Diaoyu Wu_ , the Fish House, Liu offered an observation.

"Admiral Sumbowa has explained some of the details of your mission. Perhaps the best way I can help you is to demonstrate the latest tactical maneuvers Dr. Fei has developed to counter the Coethi. Our own tiny warriors—"he smiled, calling them _Xiao zhanshi_ —"have shown themselves quite capable of giving a good account of themselves."

"We need the most effective weapons and tactics we can get against the Bugs," Chase admitted. "If you have new techniques and new designs for your nanobots, I'd like to see them. Major Tsukota here is from Q2 in Quantum Corps. He's got the latest intel on the Bugs."

Liu was already wiping his lips and rising from the table. "Come...we'll ride out to the Site in our little submersible _Gang dan_. We call her the Egg."

The Chinese sub did indeed look like an egg, with a small propulsor module at its rear and four articulating tele-robotic arms attached to its sides. Barely big enough for a four-person crew, the Egg motored off from the sub dock with Dr. Qing driving and Dr. Fei handling the arms. Chase and Tsukota were passengers.

The three kilometers to the containment site, known as Site Alpha, were mostly downhill, following the steeply pitched terraces that sloped away from Station Alpha. A blue-white glow was visible at the foot of the terraces. As Qing steered them closer, Chase could both see a blue-white spherical globe of light below them and feel the faint tug of the vortexes that surrounded the site, the result said Fei, of "our protective shielding...we've managed to contain the _Xiao zhanshi_ inside a cocoon of our own bots for years now. However, the little warriors are constantly evolving, constantly reconfiguring and adapting and so we have to keep up. It's a constant battle."

"You must have decades of data on their configs," said Tsukota. "We need to look at all these changes and study them...so we'll know what Coethi bots are capable of."

"And so you shall," Fei said, with a sideways glance at Qing. The Peoples Temporal Forces scientist was impassive, saying nothing, but his fingers whitened on the joystick as he drove the Egg closer.

At the lowest terrace level, Containment Site Alpha was enveloped in swarms of schooling pollock and grubby, frantically orbiting the light from the barrier bots. A flickering blue-white bubble of light pulsed in some kind of regular rhythm, attracting thousands of nearby fish.

Qing drove the Egg closer and Fei worked one of the remote arms. She expertly plucked a small capsule from the forward bench just outside their portholes.

"Our own little warriors," she explained. "Modified from your recent ANAD designs, Major," she told Tsukota.

The Japanese officer was mesmerized by the swirling bubble of light. "In Quantum Corps, we study and train for a variety of different tactics in dealing with swarms of nano-scale bots. Deception and concealment, feints, diversions, ambushes and entrapment, we've tried everything. You've got to have the right weapons and the right tactics to beat Bugs like these. It's a balancing act."

"The capsule at the end of the arm contains bots with our latest configs. We've had pretty good success in engaging the Coethi. Here, I'll show you—"

Fei tapped some keys on a nearby keyboard. "I'm de-tuning the barrier, just long enough to insert our little army."

Indeed, the blue-white bubble dimmed slightly just as Fei drove the arm forward, right through the barrier. It flashed around the penetration, but didn't kick the arm back out, as full-strength barrier bots might have.

Then Fei said, "Launching now—I'll cycle the discharge port and release our bots. Then I'll 'go small,' as you atomgrabbers put it, and bring up the acoustic image here." She indicated a small display with her elbow. "Here goes—"

Chase and Tsukota watched the display, which flickered into life as Fei withdrew the remote arm and the light bubble brightened again, back to full strength. For the time being, she parked the arm in a safe position, folded up against the side of the Egg.

Now inside the barrier, Fei toggled her config driver and set it to max rate. In seconds, a growing squad of replicants had appeared, like bees swarming to nectar, and were slamming atoms like frantic brick masons, quickly adding to the crowd. She felt better and better as the party grew.

That's when she first saw the enemy.

Long-range scan wasn't that helpful. Chase could tell from the acoustics that the enemy bots were arrayed as inverted pyramids, joined at their apexes. A ring of effectors and propulsors wrapped around the equator of the bots, like a girdle with a dozen arms and hands. Atom groups hung off the main structure like bunches of grapes, cleaving, folding, extending and retracting at blazing speed.

The Coethi swarm had filtered out from some distant hiding place like a malevolent fog and was already turning in her direction. Chase realized that one titanic collision was about to occur.

"Hope our guys are ready for the big dance," Tsukota muttered. He willed his hands and fingers to be still, then with disgust jammed them into his pockets.

The final distance was closed in less than five minutes. Fei drove her bots into the fight with bond disrupters sizzling.

Fei Gajiu and the _wunderkind_ at Beijing Lab had spent many a sleepless night devising new weapons and effectors to try out against the _Xiao zhanshi_. They'd even called in some atomgrabbers from Quantum Corps to work with the Lab on tactics. Fei was still getting used to working in this new environment of atoms and molecules, "still learning how to swim," was how she had put it. Now they were giving her torpedoes and spear guns and all kinds of doodads to carry while she was still trying to figure out which arm to use.

Fighting bots in the land of atoms was all about leverage. _Kind of like ballroom dancing, with fists_ , she had once remarked to Qing.

The first bot came up and Fei gave it a taste of her bond disrupters. The electron discharge snapped off a few effectors and sent the thing spinning off into the distance. But no sooner had she done that than a squadron of them fell on her and she found herself engulfed in no time.

Fei had learned a thing or two about effector tactics in the weeks since her last encounter with the bad bots. The secret was to keep your propulsors churning, keeping driving forward, keep your energy up. If she did that, she found she could slip out of almost any grapple and brain a bot with whatever effector was free. She particularly liked her carbene grabbers and she had developed a dance step that Tsukota had termed the _kiss and clobber_...she'd let herself be grappled, momentarily shut off her propulsors and almost relax. When the bad guy had retracted and moved in for the kill, she did a quick left-right spin, fired up her propulsors and slashed right across the bot's mid-section—where most of them had fewer effectors—knocking the bejeezus out of the thing and pulling free to pinch and slash some more.

It worked every time. Fei had in the meantime gone to max replication, at Tsukota's suggestion, and the melee was underway. All up and down the battle front, like a collision of bird flocks, the swarms engaged...twisting, slashing, grabbing, zapping. Slowly, using her new maneuvers, Fei was able to push back and contain the enemy swarms.

"It's working, Qing!" she exulted. "It's working! The _Xiao zhanshi_ are getting smacked and spanked like you wouldn't believe!"

Qing, focused on keeping the Egg in hover, was distant but reassuring. "I believe it...I believe it...I told you it would work. Just keep after them...I'm reading mass fluctuations at the margins...that means your guys are holding their own. Try your enzymatic knife when you get in close."

So, she did. Everything she tried worked. Maybe the enemy bots were slow. Maybe their configs were wrong. Whatever it was, Fei Gaiju found she was winning a battle she'd never dreamed she would have to fight. This wasn't half bad, this living like an atom. You had to watch your momentum and things stuck to each other like glue. Van der Waals and Brownian motions were a bitch, but it was the same for the enemy.

Leverage and momentum, that was the key.

Inside of half an hour, the battle seemed to be won. The fog that had drifted over the battle lines seemed to be lifting as the last few bots were swept up. Somehow, with a little luck and lot of smack, she'd been able to disperse the enemy bots and quarantine and isolate any stragglers.

Exultant, she withdrew the bot master, then gave the signal for all replicants to commit atomic seppuku, so the Coethi wouldn't be able to reconstitute using them. Once the master was back inside the capsule, she withdrew the arm and the barrier was in place again, an iridescent globe throbbing and beating to some inner rhythm.

Qing turned the Egg about and headed back up the terraced slopes to Station Alpha.

Chase thought about what he had seen. "I'll need all your configs and all your tactical reports from previous engagements. If Operation _Temporal Hammer_ is to have any chance of succeeding, we need every advantage we can get. The trouble is that the battlefield is seven hundred years in the future and a long way from here. We don't know, we really _can't_ know, what improvements Coethi will have made by then."

Tsukota said, "It's an old axiom that the best way to fight a swarm is with another swarm. However, a few extra weapons never hurt. I'm recommending your crew take HERF, magpulse and anything else that might work."

"Don't worry," Chase said. "I'll take a big stick if it works."

The Egg maneuvered into sub dock and the crew disembarked.

Chase and Tsukota spent the rest of the day reviewing Fei and Qing's nanobotic configurations and tactical results of engagements with the Coethi. Qing seemed less than forthcoming and it was only by constant persistence that Fei was able to convince him that the _Temporal Hammer_ team needed the latest Station Alpha could provide.

Chase figured anybody working for the Peoples' Temporal Force was naturally reticent about giving away secrets to someone else.

There had long been rumors around Farpool Service that the Chinese were working both sides of the street and developing countermeasures against the Coethi at the same time they were trying to use what they learned for their own purposes.

But Tsukota seemed satisfied and Chase trusted the Quantum Corps officer's judgment on what would and wouldn't work against the Bugs.

That night, over beef noodles and beer in the 'Fish House' galley, it was decided that Tsukota would stay on at Station Alpha and learn as much as he could, eventually forwarding the latest tactical maneuvers and config changes to Farpool Ops at Muir City. For his part, Chase had to return to the City to meet the _Aquarius_ crew and begin mission training.

He said his goodbyes the next morning and rode as the only passenger aboard the lifter sub back to Singapore base, only smiling and mumbling pleasantries back to the pilot when it was absolutely necessary.

From Singapore base, Chase bought a hyperloop ticket back to Muir City.

Six hours later, he was home.

That night, in the hangar bay alongside the nearly completed jumpship, Admiral Sumbowa introduced the crew of _Aquarius_ to their new commander.

They were a diverse but experienced lot and Chase knew several of them. He was pleased to see that aside from himself, the crew would have two other Amphibs. The Containment Systems tech (CS1) would be a Ponkti Amphib. Her name was Kasmeerah loh kel: Ponk'et and she seemed eager, even energetic to get on with the mission. The ship's QT1, Quantum Systems Tech, was El Kash kel: Om't, an Omtorish amphib who had just completed a Circling a few years ago and who still bore scars from an encounter with _Physeter macrocephalus_ , a sperm whale off Hawaii, from that ritual rite of passage.

_Aquarius'_ pilot/systems operator (PSO1) would be Jump Lieutenant Liz Levy, a young, red-haired cadet just out of Ops school and a gum-smacking fitness buff who seemed about to burst out of her tunic. She seemed to be forever preening and displaying muscles enough to shame any male in sight.

The ship's navigator would be Jump Lieutenant Noor Juba, a sun-burned Sudanese tracker from the Ogaden desert who had years of experience navigating local timestreams in FPS jumpships, including most recently with an archaeological mission to Bronze Age Siberia, a mission that had turned up startling new discoveries and genetic materials from the ancient Denisovan people.

Sumbowa went on. "You'll notice that _Aquarius_ seems a little fatter and longer than standard FPS ships. And you're correct, she does exceed normal dimensions. That's because she's carrying extra berthing spaces for additional crew. In addition to this crew, _Aquarius_ will be conveying three important officials from the Sea People to the timestream T-229...you'll be berthing the Metah of the Ponkti, Tulcheah kim kel: Ponk'et and one of her key advisors, named Golok klu. As well, our Omtorish friends are sending along one of their most esteemed scientists, Likteek klu kel: Om't, from their Academy. So, _Aquarius_ will have both military, tactical and diplomatic aspects to her mission. Any questions?"

Though he wasn't surprised at the announcement about their passengers, Chase wondered about accommodations.

"Admiral, these three are all water-breathers. They'll be in mobilitors. Can _Aquarius_ accommodate their physical needs?"

Sumbowa nodded. "That's all part of your crew and mission training, which begins tomorrow right here at 0700 hours. Special equipment and facilities will be loaded aboard to ensure your official guests can live comfortably, as comfortably as they can on an FPS jumpship going into combat, that is."

After a few more announcements, the briefing was concluded. Chase went home to his apartment, where he found Angie sound asleep on a sofa, wristpad clutched in her hands. She woke up as he came in.

"Anything more from Oostannah?" he asked. He began unpacking.

Angie was solemn and quiet. Her voice was a bit strained. Chase could see red in her eyes. "Erika was just here. The Ponkti have sent out an escort team to try to track down the midlings on Circling. They won't interfere with the Circling, unless they're in danger. I guess...Erika is just beside herself—I guess that's all they'll do. Chase, these Circlings...shouldn't they be banned? Aren't they dangerous? Even on Seome—"

He sat down on the sofa beside her and, after prying the wristpad out of her hands, held them to his face. "The Circling has been part of Seomish tradition for thousands of years. You know that. The _tu'kelke_ , the emigrants, are just trying to preserve what they can of the old ways. It's hard enough for them here on Urku as it is. Maybe we shouldn't judge them so harshly. I'm sure Oostannah'll be all right."

"I'm not," Angie said. "And I'm not happy about you going off on this mission either."

Chase looked hurt. "You know how important this mission is...to the Sea People."

Angie squeezed his hand and held it against her cheek. "Chase, I'm scared."

"Of what?"

"Of you not coming back." She bit her lip, looked up at him. "I want to go along. On the mission. I've been to Seome too, you know."

"Are you nuts? This is a military mission. There may be combat. We may not even get to Seome in time...it depends on navigating the Farpool accurately." Right away, he wished he hadn't said _that._

Angie closed her eyes. "If it's a military mission, why is Tulcheah going along? And Likteek? They're not soldiers."

Chase finally sat down on the arm of the sofa. He let go of her hand. "It's diplomatic. You know that. After all, it's Tulcheah's world we're trying to save."

Angie sniffed. "I don 't trust her...especially around you. And I heard that _Aquarius_ has extra seating."

"Ah, now it comes out. _Aquarius_ does have extra berths, that's true. But we can't take you...it's not safe."

Angie blinked up at him. "You mean you won't take me."

"I mean we have a specific mission and, well—" He didn't really want to say it but Angie would be extra baggage. "The whole crew has specific roles. We don't have room for—"

"Free riders...you might as well say it." Now she really had made up her mind. Chase did that to her sometimes. "I could work with the Seomish still there, maybe be a go-between. A liaison. An interpreter. There are lot of things I could do. And we're both Amphibs so that's not a problem. Wouldn't it be good for the mission to have to have an extra person with knowledge of Seome?"

"We do have Tulcheah and Likteek...some fellow named Golok too. I think he's the son or something of Loptoheen. You remember him? The great Ponkti _tuk_ master."

She just glared at him. In that moment, Chase knew he had already lost the argument. "I'll put the idea to Admiral Sumbowa. That's all I can do. It's his decision. And I don't mind telling you I think it's a really bad idea."

She squeezed his hands. "But you love me anyway."

Chase took a deep breath. "I do and that's why you should stay here. By the way, you wouldn't be having any ideas about using the Farpool to go back and keep Oostannah from meeting that Ponkti boy, would you? Not that anybody's ever tried that." He winked at her with a sly smile.

She made a little pouty face and stuck her lower lip out. "Chase, _honestly_ \---even on Seome, the females are strong....and in charge. You might learn something from this trip, you know."

"Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of."

From that, they found their way to the bedroom.

Chase and Angie both knew that any re-integration effort would be a huge challenge. Trying to blend original Seomish culture from an earlier timestream with modified amphibs and hybrid Seomish from 22nd century Earth was a task that seemed doomed to failure, yet Chase knew that Tulcheah's feelings were widely held and there were hundreds, maybe thousands of Seomish from all the kels who wished to return to their homewaters.

"We don't know what we'll find," Likteek had once admitted, "but we have to go and help our ancestors...or our ways will die out."

There was just one obstacle to this desirable state of affairs...the Coethi.

Could Chase and the _Aquarius_ team, alongside the Umans of that time, push the Coethi back, away from Seome and save that world from obliteration? Could the Farpool be navigated accurately enough to put the _Temporal Hammer_ team in the right timestream, with the right tactics and weapons to push the Coethi back? Would the Farpool hold up long enough for thousands of disenchanted Seomish _tu'kelke_ to emigrate back to their home?

Chase knew there were no easy answers here.

The next morning, in part to focus on something easier to get his head around, Chase was glad to meet his crew and finally begin mission training.

Mission and operational training lasted twelve days. In that time Chase learned a million things he never even knew he didn't know.

Some days were consumed with weapons training. The crew practiced and gained proficiency in HERF guns (High-energy radio frequency). _Aquarius_ ' CS1, the Ponkti amphib Kasmeerah loh had just spent a year TDY'ed with Quantum Corps and had come back with a lot of newly-won expertise in all things ANAD and swarm. She compared her notes with what Chase had learned at Station Alpha, then told the crew that "the best way to counter a swarm of bots is with another swarm. But if you don't happen to have one, these HERF guns can turn a swarm into a cloud of French fries in a heartbeat."

They practiced with magpulsers and coil guns, entangled themselves in MOB nets (Mobility Obstruction Barriers...swarms configured to capture and immobilize threats and persons of interest), camou-fog generators and even snap-launched dozens of SuperFly entomopters to learn how (and how not) to give the crew top cover in ground operations.

On other days, the _Temporal Hammer_ team practiced squad-level swarm tactics and ops, including clever forms of deception and concealment, feints and diversions, swarming mass attacks, dispersals and entrapment techniques.

Through it all, Chase found Kasmeerah's instructional approach both informative and lively. After one particularly arduous wargame, he told her, "You seem to have this stuff down pretty well, for a Ponkti female."

Most Ponkti would have bridled at the implied insult but the husky Amphib with the auburn hair just looked sadly at Chase, barely disguised scorn in her eyes.

"On this world, when you're Ponkti _and_ Amphib, you've already got two strikes against you. With all this gear and the ANAD swarms, I get a chance to do a little ass-kicking legally. Helps relieve the stress, you know."

Chase didn't bother Kasmeerah any more after that.

Finally, the day came when the training commander decreed that _Aquarius_ and her crew was ready to 'graduate.' That meant it was time to set a date for launch.

It was also time for Chase to buttonhole Admiral Sumbowa and ask about Angie. Five days before the launch, he found the Admiral deep in heated conversation with the test conductor Wilkes on the floor of the hangar bay.

Sumbowa looked up. "Captain Meyer...can I help you?"

Chase took a deep breath. "Yes, sir...there's an important matter I need to discuss with you."

The timber of Chase's voice immediately piqued Sumbowa. He waved off Wilkes and took Chase by the shoulder. The two of them slipped inside the ship through _Aquarius_ ' aft hatch and made their way to the command deck, where technicians were still pulling wire bundles. They sat down at the command console.

"What's on your mind, son? The mission? The ship...Wilkes says she'll be ready on time. I have no real concerns."

"No, sir...it's not about the ship or the mission."

"What is it then, son?"

Chase explained about Angie and how she wanted to be part of the mission. "Sir, I know this is pretty unusual—"

"Damn near theoretical, if you ask me. And why exactly should I allow your wife to join _Aquarius_?"

Chase had practiced his words, even written some down. "Sir, Angie knows Seome. She's been there, with me. She can help bridge the traditional Seomish culture with the culture of the emigrant Seomish, the ones here on Earth."

To say Sumbowa was skeptical was like saying he had a head with two eyes and a mouth. His eyes rolled. "In Indonesia, we have a saying: " _'Kasih hati, minta jantung_.' It means 'give them love and they take your heart.' Captain Meyer, you know this is a combat mission. We don't know what the Coethi have in this timestream, or what you'll be facing. Completely out of the question."

But Chase had anticipated all kinds of objections. "Sir, there is clearly a diplomatic aspect to this mission. We're taking Tulcheah, the Metah of the Ponkti, as well as two other Sea People. Our mission is more than just military...sir."

Sumbowa said, "That's different. The Sea People are the very reason for this mission. You know that. _Temporal Hammer_ is not a vacation cruise. _Aquarius_ is likely to be in combat conditions the whole time. Unnecessary civilians are not needed."

_Okay, that's not working_. Chase tried another tack. "Admiral, Angie has knowledge—intelligence information—about Seome and the Seomish that _Aquarius_ doesn't have." _Okay, so that's a stretch but it's worth a try._

Sumbowa was growing impatient with this whole line of questioning. "Captain Meyer, the Sea People already embarked on your crew can provide all necessary local intel." He cocked his head. "What's really behind this request anyway?"

Chase knew the request might well come to this. Now he figured to trot out his biggest weapon, the one irrefutable fact that couldn't be ignored...the _truth_.

"Sir...to be honest, Angie's worried. She's worried about the mission...that I may not come back. Or somehow, that I might just stay on Seome. I've tried to explain things to her but—"

Now Sumbowa seemed sympathetic. He held up a hand. "Say no more. I realize _Aquarius'_ mission is more than just military but you're working for Farpool Service here and sometimes soldiers don't come back. It's a risk we take. I know you volunteered for this mission but there are some things that I can't change. The parameters of the mission, the likely nature of the threat...these go with the territory. If I allow your wife to join this mission, without a solid military reason for it, UNIFORCE will have my head. They _should_ have my head. My goal is to accomplish the mission given to me by the Secretary-General and UNSAC and the Sea Council. To do that, I need capable people, good equipment, a solid mission plan...and maybe a little luck. Anything beyond that is superfluous. I can't justify including your wife on the crew in these terms."

"She has significant intelligence that could contribute to accomplishing the mission, Admiral. That's worth something."

"What kind of intelligence?"

Here, Chase knew he was bending logic and common sense but it was now time to throw up a prayer. "Intelligence on how the Seomish kels, their society, really work and what the emigrants have had to change to survive here. That would make any re-integration effort easier, sir. And re-integrating emigrants with locals is a big part of our mission, isn't it, Admiral?"

Sumbowa just glared at Chase sitting there in the PSO's seat like he was something prehistoric dredged up from the depths.

"I should have my head examined. Captain, this will have to be approved by UNSAC...you know that."

"Yes, sir."

"I can make a recommendation. That's all I can do."

"Sir, your recommendation carries a lot of weight."

Sumbowa sniffed. "That's what scares me. I'll approve this addition to the crew on these grounds: that Angie Gilliam-Meyer is listed as an intel asset for the crew of _Aquarius_ , with responsibility for humanitarian ops." He chuckled at the word humanitarian. "Even though half the crew is barely human. She has to work for her rations. You tell her that, Captain Meyer."

"I will, sir. She knows that."

Now Sumbowa was trying different official explanations out loud. "She'll have mission responsibility for prepping the target for possible social-cultural re-integration. Sort of a one-person interstellar 'country team,' if you get my thinking. A socio-cultural specialist. Helping the locals and the emigrants get along. That is definitely part of _Temporal Hammer_ , once we deal with the Coethi, that is."

"Sir, you won't regret this."

Sumbowa sniffed. "I already regret it. I'm going way out on a line for this, you understand, Captain. This blows up and my head will be just so much _kiyuva_. By the way, that's an Indonesian fruit, Captain. You'd love it...it's bitter and sweet at the same time. My real question is what will _Aquarius'_ Sea People crew...this Tulcheah and her kind...think of this late addition. I'd better schedule a briefing for the crew right away."

It was a good question and Chase pondered it for a moment. He figured Tulcheah would probably be opposed. Likteek would probably be in favor. Golok, the Ponkti _tuk_ master, would follow Tulcheah.

Chase thanked the Admiral profusely and Sumbowa waved him away. They crawled out of _Aquarius_ to let the hangar techs finish prepping her for launch, now only a few days away. Chase decided to head back to their apartment and tell Angie the good news...at least, he hoped it was good news.

There were still about a million things that could go wrong with this stunt.

***

Lined up in her launch cradle, jumpship _Aquarius_ resembled nothing so much as a plump seed ready to be shot out into the water. The _Temporal Hammer_ crew stood by their hatch ready to board when Admiral Sumbowa and UNSAC Angelika Komar appeared unannounced in the hangar bay with their staff entourage for a final pep talk.

Sumbowa was grim, looking like a big bushy tree about to fall over. "This mission is critical...I don't have to remind you. We're not sure who or what the Coethi are but you've got a mission to help our future descendants fight them and preserve old Seome from destruction. We need to strangle them at the source. I don't want heroes from Operation _Temporal Hammer_. I want results. Don't take needless chances. Just get the job done and get back. That is all."

With that, Sumbowa turned about and strode off. UNSAC stayed behind, conversing with the test conductor.

"So much for the stirring pep talk," muttered Kasmeerah to Noor Juba.

Juba nodded. "Yeah, he sounds like my Scout leader."

" _Dismissed_!" shouted the battalion chief, Jump Sergeant Bartles. "Commence boarding! Launch in thirty minutes!"

Chase hustled his crew onboard _Aquarius_ and settled into pre-launch checks.

"Singularity engine?"

"On line, twenty percent."

"Flow vanes?"

"Set for launch."

"Landing gear?"

"Retracted and stowed."

"All call...go or no go...PSO?"

Liz Levy came back. "Go."

"Navigator-Positioner?"

"Go here, Skipper."

And so it went. The crew of jumpship _Aquarius_ pronounced all systems ready and able.

Almost before they could think another thought, the command came down from the launch director in Ops. " _Launch_! Commence launch sequence!"

On command, the jump ship shot out from her launch bay into the blue-green waters above the seamount and settled into stable cruise, lining up as she approached the outer vortex fields of the Farpool.

"Picking up some vibrations," Levy announced. Her hands rested lightly on her controls, as Chase was maneuvering the ship to navigate the barrier of whirlpools surrounding the great vortex.

"QT1, singularity core to fifty percent," Chase said.

El Kash kel: Ponk'et was on E deck, at the Quantum Tech station. "Increasing to fifty percent. All green here, Skipper."

"We're in a slight roll...fifteen degrees per second," Levy announced. "Nulling out all other rates." She nudged her own joy sticks slightly, bending _Aquarius'_ course into the very heart of the whirlpool.

The spin had already started. By the time _Aquarius_ entered the main Farpool, she would be spinning like a bullet in a rifled gun barrel.

"Here we go," Chase announced. "Hang on!"

The strobing light outside picked up and flashed crazily outside their windows. Sea foam and bubble froth lashed the portholes; hissing and rumbling was soon buried in a crescendo of roaring thunder. Centrifugal force was now pinning all of them against their seat straps.

To Chase, trips through the Farpool reminded him of whitewater rafting on fast mountain rivers, without the raft. He'd never surfed the Big Cahunas on the north shore of Oahu, but he'd done a lot of body surfing off Scotland Beach.

You stick a toe out this way and zoom off in one direction. Push a few fingers out that way and you go careening off in another direction.

Controlling a jumpship in the crashing maelstrom of the Farpool was like that, he told himself. With the old Seomish _tchee'lum_ , it was all a matter of feel and intuition, some sixth sense telling him to push _here_ , press _there_ , in order to navigate the infinite rapids of time and space inside the wormhole.

Now, with _Aquarius_ , much of the steering was automated and he'd reluctantly learned to rely on her onboard systems to do a lot of the work. But that seemed to take all the fun out of the trip.

Like a tasty morsel being swallowed by a very big fish, _Aquarius_ spun and gyrated right down the middle of the gullet that was the Farpool.

"Flow vanes to ten percent!" Chase ordered. "Singularity to one hundred percent!" It was the singularity core that generated the entanglement field that kept the ship centered in the throat of the vortex.

Right away, Juba saw that was wrong. "Skipper...not ten per cent! Vanes should be at sixty percent! Time stream T-229...remember? We gotta pull real hard on the--"

"Do it! I know what I'm doing, NP! Ten percent!" Chase overrode his objections.

Liz Levy glanced over, straining against the centrifugal force, then she looked back at a horrified Juba and shrugged.

"Very well, flow vanes at ten percent."

Levy just shook her head. "That's not the mission, Commander! The book says sixty! If we—"

But Chase was too busy, letting the shimmying and shaking and shudders talk back to him through his stick. "Just keep us level, PSO! I'm changing the mission slightly...I'll explain when we get out of this!"

Levy took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Her only comfort was knowing that Commander Meyer had more experience inside the Farpool that the rest of _Temporal Hammer_ combined. Silently, she prayed to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and fingered a small worry bead around her neck.

The inevitable tunnel vision now closed over the crew of jumpship _Aquarius..._ Chase, Levy, Juba, Kasmeerah and El Kash along with their passengers back on E deck: Likteek, Tulcheah, Golok and one very scared Angie Gilliam...squeezing them hard, narrowing their focus and concentration to ever-smaller thimbles of vision...the normal gray-out that happened toward the end of the transit.

With his final wisps of thought and consciousness, Chase tweaked the stick one last time, jamming a few fingers into the big wave and in an instant, just at the right moment, just right _NOW!,_ the claws of time stream T-229 yanked them hard and violently. Like a cocked fist, T-229 grabbed them and yanked them out of the mainstream and into the midst of a million tomorrows, almost like a barely controlled crash and sent them hurtling at breakneck speed down an infinitely curving corridor through a blinding sleet of polygons and tetrahedrals and cubes and then....

Then...there was nothing.

Oostannah's Echopod Journal #1

Pakto and Tekot and I had been in a pretty serious discussion about what Ke'tuvish'tek really meant when we first heard the explosion.

We were somewhere off the coast of Brazil, it was deep and dark. Tekot did some exploratory pulsing and decided we were cruising over the Rio Grande Rise, just near the Pelotas Basin maybe two hundred kilometers from land. I couldn't see anything. I could sort of pulse—Pakto had showed me how but I was still having trouble sorting out all the echoes.

" _So why keep doing this Circling, Pakto?" I had asked. "Isn't that old school? Your ancestors did that on Seome. But this isn't Seome."_

Pakto was a great swimmer and I was having trouble keeping up with him. Whenever he stroked, you could just see all the muscles rippling, pulling, vibrating with all that energy. He was like a swimming machine.

" _Why do you still celebrate Christmas? Or New Year's?"_

I shrugged, a pretty useless gesture when you're roaming at two hundred meters depth in complete dark with two Ponkti midlings. "I don't know. Tradition, I guess. It's just something we do."

Pakto said back, "Same with us. For so many generations, the midlings in every kel traveled one complete circuit around our world. If we made it home, there was a great celebration. We were adults. We made it. Lord Shooki commands it. It's what we believe. Maybe it gives us a sense of what the world's like, all the seas, all the people. Makes us wiser and stronger, ready to be adults. That's what my em'kel says anyway."

Now I had another question. "Do you think a lot of Sea People will go home...if they can, that is? If that Temporal Hammer mission works out."

" _I don't know, Oostannah. I was born on Urku, here. My home is here. But sometimes, I feel kind of out of balance, like I have one arm here and one arm somewhere else, Seome probably. A lot of us feel that way. Like we don't fit in anywhere. Like we have to make our own identity."_

" _Yeah," I agreed. That made sense. "Amphibs are like that too. We're human, only not quite. And nobody likes people who are different."_

_The explosion, when it came, was a pounding, crushing_ whump _in the water, sending all three of us cartwheeling off course. It enveloped us like a fist, squeezing and shaking us like a dog with a bone. Tekot figured out the source when we'd finally recovered ourselves. The shock wave had slammed us right into a thick bed of drifting kelp fronds._

" _I think it came from the surface. Up there!" He indicated a diffuse light above us. "Come on...let's check it out!"_

We investigated closer to the surface, as close as Pakto and Tekot could go. Being Amphib, I could deal with Notwater, so I surfaced and that's when I saw it.

_An oil drilling platform was on fire, sending columns of thick black smoke into a cloudy sky. Flames were crawling up and around the structure and I could see people diving off the platform. I could just make out some lettering on the side:_ Espinoza 2 _. Later, we learned this was a jack-up rig owned by Petrobras and she'd suffered a catastrophic blow-out of her wellhead and well bay. The explosion had occurred at the surface but the well had blown away the piping at the seabed and now tons and tons of thick black oil was streaming out of the seabed like writhing black snakes, staining and thickening the waters around for hundreds of meters._

Worse, a small repair crew of divers had been at the wellhead when the explosion occurred. They were in a small submersible and the little ship had been holed in the shock wave and her pressure hull breached. The two-person crew of divers had barely escaped but now they were trapped by a rain of equipment falling down from the surface and the thickening envelope of oil.

Somebody had to help them.

Pakto yelled, "Come on!"

He streaked automatically downward, Tekot on his tail. There wasn't anything I could do at the surface so I went down too, pawing through the black gunk, groping through kelp and seagrass already coated with the stuff. Finally, I reached the stricken sub and her two divers, now pinned beneath some piping and mangled valves on the seabed.

The divers were in a bad way. One had a tank leak and was buddy breathing with the other. They were stuck beneath some fallen debris and more was coming down. The diver with good air had some kind of leg injury; blood was seeping out from a tear in his wet suit. I knew that wasn't good. It could attract the wrong kind of attention from local sea life.

Pakto and Tekot worked hard to move some piping fragments, rocking the pipe back and forth until the stricken divers were free. I could see they didn't know who or what we were and they were both visibly shaken, unwilling at first to come out.

I managed to coax them out and by that time, the oil globs were everywhere, coating everything. We all looked like creatures from a horror vid, but I continued coaxing the divers out and the three of us grabbed them and started ascending. I knew about the bends and I didn't know what they were breathing. I just knew we had to get them to the surface before the good tank ran out of air.

We went up and up and up, dodging still falling gear and thickening oil clouds until I could see the light above, the waters brightening. Straight away, Pakto and Tekot peeled off. I knew they weren't Amphib, so they couldn't do Notwater. They stopped a hundred meters below the surface.

From there, it was my job.

Somehow, I managed to wrestle both divers toward the surface. The one with the good tank helped with some kicks and strokes. When we breached the surface, it was daylight, but gusty and rainy. I let them both go and the diver with the holed tank tore off a mask. It was a woman, pretty dark hair cut short in a tight bun, now all plastered over her face. She gasped and heaved in huge gulps of air. Her partner tore off his mask and did the same, even with waves crashing and foaming over all of us.

I coughed and got air into my own lungs, flinging spray out of my eyes. That's when I saw the big ship bearing down on us. And the helicopters circling around not a hundred meters overhead.

Ah, good _, I thought..._ the rescue team's here _. But when I waved at the sailors lining the deck of the ship, I saw and heard gunfire from the deck and bullets started flying, zinging into the water. What the hell--?_

I waved more frantically then decided I'd better duck under. One of the rounds must have grazed my arm. I felt the sting instantly and saw a thin line of my own blood streaming after me. Pakto saw it or smelled it too and came up dangerously close to the surface. I knew the low pressure was a strain on him. He pulled me rapidly down deep and we headed through knots and blobs and curtains of black oil all the way down to the seabed.

Tekot found a small burrow underneath an overhang, fringed on top with dense sea grass and Pakto set to work treating me.

" _You're hit," he muttered._

" _I'm okay," I lied, for the truth was my arm was starting to go numb and the blood was still pumping._

Tekot grabbed a fistful of sea grass leaves while Pakto caked on gobs of mud to make a sort of seal of the flesh wound. It really wasn't that bad but it hurt like hell. With a few loops of twisted grass leaves, Pakto had somehow fashioned a decent tourniquet.

I was grateful. The bleeding had stopped. "I don't know what happened up there." Tekot had grabbed some kind of crab scuttling below the overhang and started tearing off legs and breaking them open. He fed me pieces and I slammed them down, hungry and thankful. "I was waving at the ship to come closer and pick up those divers. They just started shooting."

" _Bastards," muttered Tekot. "It's not unusual...we hear about things like this all the time. The repeaters sing about the assaults. They're everywhere. Humans treat us like animals. It's just a sport to them."_

_I just shook my head. I wanted to think they were startled by us. They didn't recognize us. They were afraid of us. When_ eekoti _are afraid or don't understand, they start shooting. That's the way it is on Urku. I don't know about Seome. Maybe it's different there...I'd like to find out some day._

_Just as we were about to gather our things and head off, I realized I had forgotten to turn off my echopod. The thing had recorded our whole adventure: the explosion, the oil spill, the divers, the shooting. I thought about trying to figure out how to erase it but then decided no. It's a good record of just how cruel_ eekoti _can be and how they treat Sea People. Hell, I'm Amphib and they were shooting at me._

Maybe there is something to this movement about going back to Seome.

Pakto made sure I was okay, I had eaten and the tourniquet was holding.

Then the three of us went on our way, continuing the Ke'tuvish'tek, heading by Tekot's pulsing off into deep and dark waters, veering around a rather large pod of right whales bellowing and squeaking at each other, and plowing ahead through the south Atlantic, following the slopes of the continental shelf.

That's it for now. I'm turning this echopod off, if I can figure the blasted thing out.

Up ahead, according to what I know, the seas become rougher and colder, flecked with ice and strange creatures. We were heading for Tierra del Fuego and Cape Horn, and from there out into the vast Pacific Ocean, places I'd never ever been before.

End Recording....
Chapter 4

" _The past is never dead. It's not even past."_

William Faulkner

Seome (Storm)

Kinlok Island

Timestream T-229

1st Time Displacement Battery

Decaterr 10017.65

It was foggy, misty, and wet when _Cygnus_ finally touched down on the world that all the time jumpers called Storm. The ship settled to a rattling landing on the edge of a rocky precipice, overlooking the ocean. Ice and sleet flecked the portholes. Wind gusts rocked the ship. Back on E deck, Alicia Yang looked over at Acth:On'e and just shook her head.

"Just another beautiful day in the neighborhood, Toonie."

The TM1 said nothing back, just focused on his console.

Jump Captain Monthan Dringoth's voice crackled over the 1MC. "Secure all vanes and planes. Rudder amidships and locked. Make sure the core's safe."

His second in command, Jump Commander Nathan Golich studied his board. "Singularity core at ten percent, just ticking over. Planes and vanes secure."

After all the vibrations had subsided, Dringoth checked with the TS1, Evelyn M'Bela.

"How close to our target coordinates, Evelyn?"

M'Bela, sitting behind the two command consoles, studied her board and its plots and displays. "Best I can make out, we're within a few decades of the temporal focus, based on your maneuvers and our physical landing point is here—" she pointed to a map. "Southeastern edge of this little rockpile of an island, about six hundred forty kilometers from the polar ice pack. _Cygnus_ will auto-confirm once she takes sky sightings." M'Bela peered out the porthole at the ice fog enveloping the ship. "If she can even take sightings in this crap."

Dringoth pronounced himself satisfied. "Okay, then, that's it." He got on the comm. "First Time Displacement Battery, get your asses in gear. We've got work to do."

_Cygnus_ had come to Storm with a critical mission, so said Time Guard and Battalion Ops. The planet was nothing but ocean, save for a scattering of islands. Scouted and mapped a decade ago by the Survey Service, Storm had been left alone until the enemy Coethi had begun to make a major move into this sector. Storm may have been a dreary backwater of a place, but she was strategically located right in the face of the Coethi advance. Newton's Jaw itself was behind Storm and her star-sun Sigma-Albeth B lay only a few light months away. The great lens of gravimetric instability was likely the Coethi's first target if their advance continued along this vector. That and the small system around 40 Omicron 2—Gavrilon and Nanjiang, principally—non-Alliance worlds but Uman nonetheless. The intel people at T2 had theorized that the Jaw would make a tempting target to the Coethi advance, owing to the fact that if a jumpship entered the zone, she could take shortcuts to whole bag of time streams, without having to risk popping into and out of voidtime.

Storm was right in the middle of a vast arc of space centered on Newton's Jaw. The dreary backwater was now a place of high, maybe even critical, strategic significance. And it was 1st TD's job to install and operate the Time Twister on this rockpile.

Dringoth gathered the entire crew in the wardroom on B deck.

"We'll do the job the way we trained. Acth, you and Golich will break out the skimmer and get going on the foundation and the main structure. Yang and M'Bela, unship all the chronotron pods and bag 'em up. Once the structure's solid, you'll be installing those. URME, you and me will stay with the ship for the time being. I want an all-sector scan up and operating at all times. Get with Alicia on that. The Bugs are nearby, I can feel it. They may be somewhere out there in voidtime, just waiting to pounce."

URME 101—the Unit Reserve Memory Entity—nodded and said, "Yes, sir. Copy that." The head of the para-human swarm entity nodded, just slightly out of phase. Everybody saw it—after days and days underway, they were used to it by now—and when Dringoth frowned at the roughness of the configuration—Yang straight away jumped in and said, "I've already got a patch for that config, Skipper. I can download it tonight...better tracking, for sure."

"Do that," Dringoth growled. "Every time URME shakes his head, I get dizzy."

The crew moved out, donned their hypersuits and, one by one, cycled through _Cygnus_ ' lockout on F deck.

The first order of business was to set up some kind of defensible perimeter around the ship, out to a distance of several hundred meters. This was done by Alicia Yang, the Defense and Protective Systems tech.

Yang plopped down through thin ice into the shallow lake they had landed in and was immediately brushed by a large lizard-like creature undulating its way across the surface. " _Cyclops_ doesn't even have a name for it." She adjusted her headgear slightly to get more annotation in her eyepiece. "Some kind of sauropsid reptile...probably can move at high speed land or water."

The rest of the team followed Yang across the shallow lake, sloshing their way up a low bank to drier ground. The DPS1 extracted a small capsule from her web belt and thumbed its control stud on top. Instantly, a fine mist issued from the capsule, flickering slightly over their heads. Yang waved it about her head in a circle.

"Launching ANAD sensorbots now," she announced.

The mist dispersed and vanished from view. But now, 1st TD had eyes and ears to probe their surroundings and warn them of approaching danger.

The Survey Service had named this little rockpile Kinlok Island. It was nothing but a big claw and tooth-shaped spit of rock and hills, barren except for a few forlorn and very prickly trees, and small swipe of beach along the southwest coast. Rough surf, driven by gale-force winds, smashed and hissed against the promontory below the ship. Spray and ice chips were everywhere, stinging faces not yet covered by hypersuit helmets.

"At least it's breathable," muttered Golich, twisting a handle to release the skimmer. The sled dropped down on its cradle, slid off onto the ground and began automatically unfolding into operating position. "Grab those bags and we'll load up."

"Smells like Telitorian eggs...that somebody left out too long." Acth:On'e opened a small compartment alongside one of _Cygnus_ ' landing gear and scooped up an armful of small containers. Each one contained a small replicant swarm, complete with master bot, configged when opened to begin assembling the seabed footings, foundations, support cables and upper dome of the Twister. Two kilometers in diameter when fully replicated and outfitted, the Twister would resemble an inverted dish, with its top surface studded by small polyps, the chronotron pods. Controls and processor gear stood at the apex of the dish, in a small housing that looked like puckered lips.

Golich sniffed, checking the skimmer for seaworthiness. "Oh, well, ours not to reason why—"

They slid the skimmer down a nearby slope, loaded her up and set off through heavy chop and spray for a position marked on their eyepieces, several kilometers out to sea. The Survey Service had identified the coordinates as just above a small trench in the seabed, some two hundred meters below. It would make for a good solid ground for the Twister's foundations.

Acth:On'e was content to let Golich do the steering, while he counted down the distance to the drop site. "How long do we have to stay here?" he wondered out loud. "Smells like a sewer I once fell into when I was a boy. It was outside Kasala, just before my V3. I had that memory wiped in the upload."

Golich shrugged, squinting through the sleet. "Wish I could do that. Wipe bad crap from my head. As to how long we're here, that's up to the Captain. Battalion says to get the Twister up and operating and then sit tight. T2 thinks the Bugs will make a move pretty soon."

Acth:On'e called bingo when his eyepiece said they had reached the coordinates. "Right here. Mark and anchor. Isn't this gadget the Mark I version? Untested and all? How do we even know it'll work like they say?"

"Hey, Toonie...when you're in the Guard, jolts like you and me don't get to actually _know_ anything. We just do things, like whatever the brass says. Get buttoned up. We've still got to go down there and find the right spot."

The two of them sealed their hypersuits, buddy-checked all fittings and seals and dropped overboard into the freezing water.

Once completed, the Time Twister itself would be moored to the seabed with stout anchors and surmounted with hemispherical caps, which were the chronotron pods. Fully operational, the entire apparatus would be linked by thick ganglia of cables to the island itself, for power and command and control. A hut, still to be erected, where most of the controls were located also would house tracking instruments.

Many skimmer trips would be needed to tow sections of the Twister's outer casing, the vast dish-shaped structure that rode along the surface like a breaching whale, partially exposed to the icy air and partially submerged. It was upon this huge dish that the chronotron pods would be mounted. And before that could happen, the dish would have to be made fast to her foundation, itself to be buried in the muck and ooze at the bottom of the trench.

Much work remained to be done.

After some discussion and perusing of survey results, the crew had decided to use a shallow valley just beyond the surf line of the island as a staging place for pods, foundation and main structure elements, and all the mooring, tensioning and cabling that held the entire assembly together.

On their descent, just to satisfy his curiosity and keep Acth:On'e from pestering him with doubts, Nathan Golich pressed a button on his wristpad. Moments later, a sultry voice from Training began a theoretical explanation of this huge contraption they were assembling....

"... _The Time Twister contains a naked singularity at the core of its field. Over fifty terr ago, Uman engineers learned how to use existing stars and their extreme gravitational fields to compress matter enough to create such a singularity. The distorted space-time field around this singularity core of the Twister is known as a twist field._

" _Uman engineers developed a way of creating, maneuvering and regulating the effects of the twist field. This is done through a screening field and a series of buffers, known as twist buffers, or just T-buffers._

" _Like a nuclear power plant with its core always on, but regulated by control rods, the Twister is also always on. The singularity engine at the core, once created and activated, can't be turned off. But it can be regulated through a series of T-buffers. These moderate the twist field..."_

A chime sounded in Golich's helmet. The seabed came up fast and Acth:On'e said, "We're here, Commander. The index point."

Golich took a deep breath. "Let's get cracking and get the hell out of here. I don't like the looks of some of these creatures around here."

Back on the island, Evelyn M'Bela and Alicia Yang sorted out the chronotron pods on the beach. Once the Twister's foundation was laid, Golich and Acth:On'e would return in the skimmer and the four of them would set to work. On their eyepieces, both crewpersons studied the intricate diagrams instructing them how to activate and test the pods. M'Bela shook her head and wiped her helmet faceplate to clear a rime of sleet freezing on the front.

"Just another wonderful day in paradise," she muttered to herself. On her eyepiece, she saw the schematic of the entire Twister installation in varying animated stages of completion... the sections of the Twister laid out like so many pieces of a jigsaw puzzle on the seabed, slings and nets full of chronotron pods, mooring cables, foundation pads, all the parts that somehow, they had to put together.

Not to mention lifting the singularity engine out of its crate in _Cygnus'_ tailpod, the thing that powered the Twister. That was sure to be a lot of fun.

Straight away, the two of them set to work. Neither of them was particularly thrilled about being on this hellhole sewer of a planet.

Moments later, Yang's voice interrupted M'Bela's less than pleasant thoughts.

"Hey, Queenie...what the hell is that?"

"What's what?"

" _That._ "

Beyond the surf line off the tiny beach, a creature had just emerged from the waves, a seemingly bipedal creature, covered in what looked like armored plating, shuffling and trudging through the waves toward them. Behind it, a second creature, somewhat smaller, also had emerged and had joined the first one.

"Must be that dinner we had last night," said M'Bela. Her hands reached for the beamer on her web belt and she withdrew the weapon and flipped off the safety, automatically. Yang did the same.

"What the hell are they?"

M'Bela shrugged, a useless gesture in a hypersuit. "Beats me. But they need to stay back..."

The creatures reached the end of the water and struggled for footing in the loose sand. Their outer skin resembled suits of some kind. But their heads, if they had heads, were invisible behind the upper part of their suits.

" _Stay back_! Stay back...they're still coming— _get back there_!"

M'Bela crept forward, her gun still in firing position. The nearer creature was moving, it sounded like squeals or clicks or something, thrashing about in the sand and water, flinging up dirt as it writhed. The farther one was mostly in the water, smaller in size, but still--

Yang came up beside her. _What in the name of all the craters on the--_

The taller beast—for that was what she had started calling it in her mind—was not a dolphin. It wasn't a shark. It had legs and arms and what looked like armor plating. It had holes in the armor and water was spouting out of the holes. The beast squealed some more. And the smaller one down by the waterline actually seemed to be whimpering.

Yang heard the words first, muffled but distinguishable and nearly cried out. _God Almighty... the thing's talking!_ Accented, it sounded like a faucet running, but the damn thing was talking! She started forward but, in that moment, the taller creature withdrew a weapon of its own and opened fire.

The jolt knocked M'Bela and Yang flat on their backs. For what seemed like hours—time had congealed to a crawl—Yang couldn't feel anything. She couldn't hear anything. Nothing would move. She could breathe, more or less. But her legs and arms...nothing.

M'Bela was out cold.

Then a face appeared, sort of a face.

_I must be dreaming_ , figured Yang. The face was behind a helmet or shield of some type. She saw a beak. Like a dolphin's face, maybe wider. A mouth moving. But it was the eyes that caught her attention. Eyes of curiosity. Eyes of intelligence.

Then she passed out again.

In an eyeblink, everything inside _Aquarius_ seemed smeared out, blurred, as if they were still shaking violently, but no motion could really be felt. Then came the curving tunnel, like riding the water slide at Scotland Beach's Sea Jamboree, a narrow tube enfolded in a crazy, chaotic slideshow of imagery shifting and jumping way too fast to comprehend. They were all slipping and sliding and twisting and turning down that slide and, in an instant, they found themselves suddenly hurtling at breakneck speed down a long, curving corridor, a blur of polygons and triangles and cubes and tetrahedrals and exploding stars and things that made no sense sleeting past them until—

With a hard bump, Chase found his whole body jarred from the impact and when he opened his eyes, caught his breath and came to his senses, he was...where?

Somewhere.

He felt the landing as a gentle rocking of the ship, and he had a brief dream of lolling about in the bathtub waters off Half Moon Cove, fishing line between his toes, daydreaming and watching summer cloud puffs drifting by. It was a pleasant enough dream but from somewhere deep inside, he knew it couldn't be true.

Then he heard Kasmeerah's voice on the comm. "This can't be...it _can't_ be—" She was peering through a small porthole back on F deck.

Chase hauled himself up, went aft down the gangway and joined her next to the lockout chamber.

Outside the ship, he saw water, everywhere. They had 'landed' just off some kind of rocky shore alongside a vast ocean. Winds rocked the ship back and forth and above the ocean, heavy clouds scudded by, purple and swollen, with gusts of rain and flickers of lightning streaking the sky.

Kasmeerah sucked in her breath. Tulcheah had joined her outside the lockout. "Seome...we came to Seome—"

Chase stared in disbelief at the scene outside. It was all there, just like before—or perhaps it was some kind of consensual hallucination—the rocky shores. Kinlok Island. The heaving ocean. The storms. Lightning veining the sky, with muted thunder in the distance. On the horizon, glistening black humps, with veined crests for heads, spiked tails.

Even through his mobilitor helmet, Golok's disbelief was audible. "Shkkreeah... _puk'lek_! _M'tekel'te_...homewaters!"

" _Seamothers_..." Chase breathed. "We're here...we're here on Seome. It worked!"

But the Ponkti were overwhelmed by the vision outside. Already, Tulcheah was wriggling into a mobilitor, helped by Golok and they were cycling the hatch, pulling at the edges, trying to get outside. "I have to see this! Ponkel...the sea...even the ice drifts...did you see them?"

Before Chase could stop them, Golok had managed to wrestle the hatch open. Tulcheah nearly fell outside, landing face first onto the pebbly beach. She got up, then immediately waded out into the freezing water, flapping her arms, yelling with joy, splashing and kicking water everywhere. She slogged her way back up toward the beach, Golok right behind her.

That's when Chase saw the Umans on a small rise below the precipice. Before he could react, the Umans were approaching. Golok saw them too.

Golok fired his suppressor and the Umans went down.

The Uman commander was a ruddy-cheeked man, with thick sideburns, sparse gray hair on top. He said his name was Dringoth...Ultrarch-Jump Captain Dringoth. UA Time Guard, 1st Time Displacement Battery and skipper of jumpship _Cygnus_. Dringoth glared at all of them with fierce blue eyes.

"Your people fired on my time jumpers. What the hell are you, Coethi spies?"

Chase looked around. Two different groups had assembled on top of the rocky precipice. _Aquarius'_ crew huddled close together, with Dringoth's time jumpers leveling their weapons at them. With the wind screaming and gusting, it was hard to hear anything.

"No, sir...we came through the Farpool to Seome, this world. We came to help you save this world...it's going to be destroyed...soon

Dringoth snorted. "We call this hellhole Storm." He peered skyward for a moment, shielding his face from the stinging sleet. "Don't know how long this sun'll hold up, though. She's already taken more than a few starballs. We came here because we were ordered to...it'll take a minor miracle to get the Twister up and running. Now, a Coethi fleet is bearing down on us as we speak, popping in and out of different timestreams...we can barely track the bastards."

Angie came up next to Chase as he tried to follow Dringoth's argument but it was hopeless. "What is this Twister...is it a weapon?"

Dringoth had trouble hearing them. The wind screamed across the beach, flinging sleet and salt spray in their faces. It was Golich who suggested they retreat to the hut on the ridge. The hut turned out to be filled with equipment, tracking gear for the Time Twister. It was barely big enough for the two jumpship crews.

"Sure, it's a weapon," the Ultrarch-Captain replied. He fixed himself a mug of something steaming hot to sip. "The Twister is what we use to keep Coethi from entering this sector of the Halo...Halo-Alpha. Keeps 'em from bollixing up timestreams from here to Sturdivant and back. That's our mission. You say you're all Uman?" Dringoth squinted, twiddled with a tuft of moustache, looked Chase up and down. "You don't look like anything I've ever seen." He indicated the Ponkti in their mobilitors, and Likteek. "What about these clowns? What's with the circus outfits?"

"Maybe something from Gibbons' Grotto," Golich suggested. "The Hollows and all that."

Chase assured the Captain that he and Angie were quite human. "We look like this because we went through a procedure--I can't pronounce it—to help us adapt to living here, in the sea. I'm from Florida. Earth."

"Me too," Angie chimed in. She wondered if they had somehow fallen into a sci-fi flick. "Greetings from Earth."

"Urth." Dringoth pronounced it slightly different. He had a faraway look on his face, pulled himself up a chair from underneath a small control station, turned it around and sat in it backward. "Hmmm. Never been there. Like I said, it was quarantined. Time Guard had to shut down all timestreams to keep Coethi from infecting the Heartland."

"So, what does this Time Twister do?" Chase asked. He examined some of the instruments and controls, until Acth:On'e intervened and politely shoved him away.

Dringoth shrugged. "Got a singularity engine at the core. It reaches out several parsecs from here and flings anything it finds out of local space-time. Sends it off to who knows where...other side of the galaxy. Maybe other side of the Universe. We don't understand it ourselves. Time Guard just gave us the basics. First Time Displacement Battery just operates and maintains the thing." He patted a rack of gear. "This baby keeps Halo space clean, free of Coethi and other nasties." His face darkened. "As long as you people don't damage it, that is."

"I've made skimmer trips out to Big Mama myself, plenty of times," Golich jumped in. "I've seen all those whirlpools. Twister does that. Leakage effects. We used to enjoy herding fish and whatnot into the vortexes and watch 'em being accelerated out of space time...lots of fun but it got old. Anything to pass the time on this hellhole. Never seen this Farpool you speak of, though."

Acth:On'e was openly skeptical. "It's pretty hard to believe one of these whirlpools could become a wormhole...I guess it's possible. But then I'm no scientist."

"Your weapon was destroying this world," Angie said. "The sound, the whirlpools—"

"—the vibrations and waves," Chase added. "Later...in a future worldline of this timestream. The Seomish brought us here to work with you. You've got to turn off the Time Twister...they actually call it the wavemaker. It's making...or will make rubble out of their cities—people will die...we came here to help you fight the Coethi."

Dringoth scoffed. "I don't believe any of it. Even if there were actual cities and whole civilizations under the sea here, it wouldn't matter. We have a mission and we have our orders. A Coethi fleet's been sighted in Halo space the last few days and is probably bearing down on us right now. They know we're here. They may have even more effective starballs. If the whiz kids at T2—Time Guard Intelligence—are even close to being right, the sun up there—Sigma Albeth B-- is doomed. So is this world, unless we can keep yanking Coethi ships into forever with the Twister." Dringoth's hard blue eyes bored in on Chase and Angie. "So, you see: if I really do what you want, you're dead. We're all dead. And Coethi occupies Halo Alpha and Uman settlements start going poof. We're planning on a better outcome."

Now Likteek spoke, through the echopod on his mobilitor. It startled everyone. "Shhkreeah...we can help...we have weapons zzhhh..."

Dringoth looked on skeptically. "This is some kind of trick, right? Who or what is this character?"

Chase explained about Tulcheah, Golok and Likteek. "Likteek is a scientist. From their Academy. He's a descendant of the people here, people under the sea." He tried explaining about the Farpool and the Emigration, but Dringoth waved him off. He began unpacking a small crate on the table.

"Believe me, we know all about navigating timestreams. "What you're describing never happened. It's not in any advisories or intel I've ever seen from Ops. I can't help you. We've got a mission and orders to get the Twister working. Now if you'll get out of here, my people can get to work."

Angie had an idea. "Sir...Captain, maybe if you could just take a trip. See for yourself. There really _is_ an entire civilization below the sea. Millions of people, just like these—" she pointed to Likteek and Tulcheah.

Now Tulcheah spoke for the first time, wobbling in her mobilitor. Her voice was scratchy, yet something in her tone brought Dringoth to a halt in mid-stride.

"Shhkreeah...we come back...no kkkzzzqqq home Urku..."

Golok shuffled over to her in his mobilitor and made some kind of adjustment on a keypad on her wrist. Chase figured it was an adjustment to her echopod. Now, her voice was clearer, stronger.

"Since we came to Urku—" Chase knew that the Seomish usually referred to Earth as 'Urku'---"our lives have been hard. We struggle and the waters are still unfamiliar to us."

"At first, they struggled," Chase tried to explain to Dringoth. "But now the midlings—their children—they're adapting to life on Earth okay. And many of them become amphibs...they can live in the sea and in the Notwater."

"That's our point," Golok said. "You know this, _eekoti_ Chase. Amphibs and Umans dominate Urku. It's their world."

Tulcheah picked up the argument. "In another generation, zzzhhh... all that is good and true about our way of life will be gone."

Dringoth stood transfixed by the spectacle of armored talking fish. "This is some kind of stunt, right? A circus trick."

" _Eekoti_ Chase will help us come back." Tulcheah's voice faltered and she seemed unsteady on her motorized legs. Golok helped her stay upright. "Ve...skort... sz'kel...homewaters...litor'kel—" Tulcheah's voice trailed off.

The Ponkti tukmaster, son of Loptoheen, elaborated. "Sir...come with us. See our world. See our kels, our _vish_...the great currents, the mountains. Feel ke'shoo and ke'lee in our waters—"

Dringoth glared at Chase, Angie, all of them, his eyes blazing from one to the other. "I don't have time for a sightseeing trip. First TD's not here on this rockpile for a vacation. We've got orders and a mission. And an enemy who's not stopping by to ask for directions." To Chase, he added, "You say you came here to help fight the Bugs. Well, then, help us. Help us get this equipment set up. That's the best way to save this sewer planet."

Angie had an idea. "Sir, maybe if you could send two of your people, they could see some of the reasons this world has to survive."

Dringoth was getting angrier. "I don't need reasons. I have orders. This so-called world survives if we can keep Coethi from infiltrating this sector."

Golich had an idea. "Captain, maybe these fish people can help us set up the Twister. It might not hurt to take them up on the offer...make a sort of temporary alliance."

Dringoth glared like an animal rousted from its nest. "Fine, Commander, _you_ go. Take Queenie with you. I'm getting the Twister up and operating. And don't be gone long...we've got seventy-two chronotron pods to install and get working. Plus, the rest of the casing, the tracking and fire control systems...we've got days of work ahead of us. I don't have time for this crap."

With that, Dringoth stormed out of the hut and worked his way down the slope to the beach. He started rummaging through crates and bags of gear, sorting parts on the beach. Two of _Cygnus'_ crewmen helped out.

Golich turned to Chase. "Okay, son, what have you got in mind? What is it you want to show me?"

Chase said, "I want to show you what this world is all about and why saving it is so important, not only to your Time Guard but to all of us. The Seomish can be great allies of humans...it's already happened on Earth, in my timestream. Don't you study your own history?"

Golich snorted. "I'm not paid to know history...just to do what the Captain says."

After some discussion, it was decided that _Aquarius_ would use some of her own feedstock and on-board plans to print a Seomish kip't. The process would take a day. This ship would have two compartments, one pressurized for air, for the humans and one pressurized with seawater. There would be four passengers: Chase and Tulcheah would occupy the water zone up front. Golich and _Cygnus_ crewperson Evelyn M'Bela would occupy the air zone in the rear.

When the ship was completed, Chase took the kip't out for a short test cruise and returned to the beach, pronouncing her seaworthy and ready. After answering some questions from Golich and M'Bela about how the sled worked, how it was propelled and steered and controlled, Chase went to Tulcheah, who had joined Golok and Likteek offshore, beyond the surf line, so they could discard their mobilitors and roam unencumbered, as true Ponkti should.

"Where should we take them, Metah?" Chase asked.

Tulcheah was stroking easily through the surf, twenty meters below the surface, nosing through clouds of silt and chunks of ice, just glad to be back in homewaters. She savored the taste of the _on'kelte_ water.

"Mmm...tastes like _ertleg_...very cold and strong, stings my eyes. You like _ertleg_ from these waters, _eekoti_ Chase?" She orbited around the jagged base of a small iceberg, playing hide and seek with Likteek and Golok. Presently, she came back and nuzzled Chase, who politely pushed her away.

It was Likteek who had the best idea. "The Pillars of Shooki are near. Maybe two hundred beats. Why not take them there?"

"Indeed," agreed Tulcheah. "The Pillars have Ponkti guards, ceremonial guards. I'm sure they'd love to see their Metah again."

Left unsaid by Golok was the understanding that Tulcheah was not Metah here, only among the Ponkti of Urku.

"Then it's settled," she decided, heading for the kip't. "We take these _eekoti_ to the Pillars. I haven't been there in many mah."

The ship departed an hour later, accompanied by glares and mutterings from Dringoth.

Halfway to the Pillars, the expedition was set upon by a scout force from Ponk'et, the ceremonial guardians of the shrine waters. The attack came on the second day, well within the holy waters of the Pillars of Shooki, and it came without warning, from a convoluted series of hills and ravines known as the T'kel Ridge that fronted the great shrine along the northern Ponk'el Sea.

Such violence inside the holy waters in the very shadow of the Pillars was considered the worst apostasy that could be imagined.

The Pillars of Shooki lay at the very top of the world. Surrounded by vast sheets of floating ice, far to the north of the Ponk'el Sea, the shrine sat at the edge of the polar ice cap itself. A swift but narrow current, the Pomt'or, rushed by some two hundred beats to the south, curving across the bleak Northern Hemisphere until it split apart near Kinlok Island.

The Pomt'or was the northern arm of the Pom'tel, and it was the only current that directly approached the Pillars. To get there meant a long tedious trip through the eastern Orkn'tel. The waters there were dense and sluggish, stagnant at the equator, and brimming with foul-tasting and dangerous _mah'jeet_ fields, so thick in patches that no kip't could get through without clogging its jets. But there was no quicker way to Kinlok Island.

The scout force consisted of twenty Ponkti prodsmen, in formation. They quickly surrounded the small kip't and closed in.

Tulcheah was both gladdened to see Ponkti prodsmen and incensed that they would assault pilgrims like this. Against Chase's better judgment, she left the kip't and confronted them.

"Do you not recognize your own Metah?"

The chief of the guard was a muscular soldier, with all manner of scars around his beak. He waved a prod at her.

"We guard the Pillars. Only pilgrims may pass. Who are these creatures with you?" He indicated Golich and M'Bela, who stared wide-eyed at the confrontation.

"I am Tulcheah kim kel: Ponk'et. Metah of all the Ponkti. Stand aside so we can pass. We are pilgrims here."

The guard was adamant and was soon joined by others, brandishing prods.

" _Eekoti_ cannot be pilgrims. This is well known. And as for the Metah, we follow the true Mother Lektereenah."

Tulcheah was startled. _Lektereenah_? But of course. This was a different time, a timestream before the Emigration.

"I will be the Metah. I order you and your prodsmen to stand aside."

Chase was never sure what precipitated the assault—perhaps something only Ponkti could sense. Maybe it was an angry, threatening echo inside one of the guards. Ponkti could see and smell and pulse things he could never know of.

Chase was already mostly out of the kip't when the Ponkti charged. He had to protect Tulcheah...she was not a young kelke, and she could easily wind up being—

Intent on putting himself between Tulcheah and the prodsmen, he closed the distance in seconds and the melee erupted in a shower of prod zaps and thrashing tails and swinging armfins. The water boiled with fury and combat, made worse by a steady rain of ice shards and chips drifting down from bergs and ice floes at the surface.

Chase found himself on the other side of a large stalactite of ice projecting down from above. An idea suddenly came to him: the ice itself. It was hard. It was sharp. If he could just break off a few pieces...they'd make great weapons themselves.

He tugged and pulled on the shards, until at last one broke off, jagged and cocked. Just in time, he swung around, backpedaling to avoid the Ponkti prod which flashed out and nearly swiped against him.

_Can't let that touch me_.

He lunged and managed to spear the side of the Ponkti attacker, drawing a stream of blood. The Ponkti withdrew, recoiled and came at Chase again.

They struggled for leverage. The Ponkti was bigger, quicker, more efficient at moving. But Chase was determined and for each slash of the prod, he managed to make a lunge and strike the larger attacker. Soon, the water was stained with blood and Chase was beginning to find more and more openings. Some of the schoolyard brawls he'd joined in at school came back to him.

Then there was a deafening explosion. The shock wave came like a slap in the head and punch to the gut. Chase reeled, stunned, and found himself momentarily drifting, his head spinning, his ears throbbing. He caught a glimpse of his Ponkti adversary and saw a huge gray mass, barely moving, equally dazed.

Moments later, both combatants had recovered enough to regain the fight. The Ponkti swiped and thrashed with the prod and once managed to brush Chase's scaly skin. The shock jolted him but somehow, he managed to recover. Just as he was about to lunge again, another explosion thundered in the water, slapping them both with fists of shock waves. Chase and his assailant both went reeling.

That's when Chase saw what he was sure was a dream...materializing out of the ice-choked debris. An apparition floated before them, tiny and serene, almost petite. Pure white skin and delicate fins that seemed more like tissue. Her beak was knobbed at the point and Chase sensed tingling again—like the k'orpuh, like the Ponkti prod, clearly, she carried voltage.

In her tiny hands, she held a small fist-shaped object, oval, with projections at each end. The apparition shook the object and another deafening explosion came, a boil of bubbles and froth and heaving shock waves that flattened Chase and drove him deeper. The Ponkti prodsman was nowhere in sight.

Tulcheah's voice came stuttering over his echopod.

" _Eekoti_ Chase...back away quickly! It's one of the priestesses. One of the _mekli_ —let go of your weapon--"

The Ponkti had already done likewise, warily drifting at the outer edge of visibility. Chase was dimly aware that the entire fight had stopped and all the fighters were coiled and poised, but no one made any movement.

From the rear compartment of the kip't, Golich and M'Bela stared on in open-mouthed amazement. The Survey Service had never mentioned Storm having anything like this.

Tulcheah drifted up beside him and physically dragged Chase away, relieving his fingers of the ice daggers he had fashioned.

His echopod chirped. "This is one of _mekli_ priestesses. We're inside the holy waters...the Pillars of Shooki. The _mekli_ won't let the fight continue...we've done a terrible thing."

Chase was still recovering his senses. His ears rang like a bell. "Didn't they start it?"

"It doesn't matter. Now the _mekli_ have put a stop to the fight. We'll have to accompany her...make recompense to Shooki. Look...they're all around us."

And Chase saw that she was right. Dozens of the whitish figures hovered above, below, all around them, each bearing the strange oval suppressors.

"They can detonate the water," Tulcheah explained. "It's a chemical reaction...closely guarded by the _mekli_. They enforce the _shoo'kel_ here. The _mekli_ will let nothing disturb these waters. Only the most serene are permitted."

"But why—" Chase had about a million questions. "The other guys attacked us—"

But the circle of _mekli_ was already closing in on them, herding both Ponkti, humans and Chase into a tighter group. Tulcheah didn't object. The Ponkti seemed resigned. Chase decided it was expedient to go along.

"Where are they taking us?" he asked Tulcheah.

The Metah who would be Metah seemed a bit nervous. Something came through Chase's echopod that didn't translate. Then: "Inside the Pillars, I think."

"What's going to happen to us?"

"I don't know."

And with that, the circle of _mekli_ priestesses, with their grenades and a line of fearsome-looking spearfish behind them, nudged their captives into motion. Above them, the ice floes groaned and screeched as the bergs bumped against each other. At the _mekli's_ direction, three prodsmen attached tow lines to the kip't, with Golich and M'Bela still inside. The priestess seemed to understand that the humans were airbreathers.

Chase found the pace easy enough to keep up with, despite his amphib scales and webbed feet. The ice pack played strange tricks with the light. It coalesced in patches, forming apparitions that frightened and confused them at the same time. Schools of scapet and tooket swirled in the twilight. Thick clouds of sediment rolled along the bottom, obscuring everything.

And the huge floes rained chunks of ice down on them from above.

The captives bore on for what seemed like hours. The sameness was monotony, agony, even misery. They seemed stuck on the same course, wedded by sheer exhausted numbness to a heading that never changed. Beat after beat of frozen tubegrass and ice mounds. Unending hail from above. Nothing living, save for themselves. Only ice and ice and more ice: ice kels, ice kip'ts, ice tillet, ice ompods. The image of it burned in their minds, searing their vision into a gray-white void. For a brief instant, Chase felt himself falling, as if a whirlpool had reached out and grabbed him. He welcomed the giddiness gladly—it was something he could still feel. It washed over him like the great currents themselves, strong, overwhelming, a wonderfully delicious feeling of helplessness.

From time to time, he checked on their human passengers with hand signals. M'Bela seemed in a daze. Golich signaled back that they were hungry and thirsty and the air was growing stale. _How long does this go on?_

Chase signed back to him. _I don't know._

And then, there it was.

The berg was so large that it blocked a clear view of anything beyond, refracting most of what little light there was off its chalky white slopes. But even with that, the presence of a vast structure, dense and hard, could be felt.

They slowed their approach and came into the holy waters of the Voice with hushed awe. Chase watched the reactions of the Ponkti. _Guess I'd better act the same way_. The Pillars rose up out of the silted bottomland like legs of rock. Cruising near the seafloor, the captives and their guards circled the Pillars completely, gulping in the scented waters voraciously. There seemed to be no way in. After several circuits, they halted and settled in a clump of tubegrass half a beat away.

The _mekli_ seemed to be waiting for something, perhaps a signal.

Then it came. High on the side of the nearest Pillar, a ring of bubbles swirled around the edge. The stream was emanating from a narrow elliptical crevice. One of the _mekli_ separated herself from their guard detail and poked her beak into the crevice.

In that moment, powered by some device Chase couldn't see, the entire side of the Pillar grated and groaned and started moving to one side. The _mekli_ entered. The captives were herded inside after her.

Tulcheah pulsed gently. She had never been here before. Inside, steep ramparts scattered echoes in all directions. Chase hung close by, watching the humans' amazed reaction. A complex network of chapels, crypts, cells, catacombs and other chambers would be dimly sensed. Above the ramparts, heavy bedrock foundations loomed like a crest, tapering out of sight as they extended upward into the Pillars. It was a tight and uncomfortable wriggle to get inside. Chase hesitated, then squeezed through.

They were in a tiny cave, sectioned by a post in the middle that seemed to have buckled. It was dark—the only light came from glowfish trained to float through the corridors in set patterns, casting their spectral copper light in diffuse ovals in the bare stone walls. They went half a beat or so, then came to an intersection. More corridors merged in the crossing, leading out in every direction, above, below, and beside them.

"Where are they taking us?" Chase whispered into his echopod.

Tulcheah's voice came back hushed, strained. "The Judging Chambers, I suppose. I've heard stories about this. Be quiet."

They could have taken any of the corridors, but the _mekli_ leading the convoy chose one passageway that angled off on the other side of the post. It was soon apparent that the corridor wasn't really a corridor at all, rather more like a tunnel, low and cramped. Chase could barely kick his legs. It was quite uncomfortable—he could hear someone behind, maybe one of the Ponkti, grumbling at the effort, hard even to get a full breath in such close confines, but the discomfort was alleviated somewhat by a savory blend of scents that filtered through the waters, an amalgam of smells that would have really been delightful if he had been able to breathe more deeply. Maneuvering the kip't through such tight turns proved to be a challenge.

Chase tried a pulse—it sounded more like a bad cough, earning a glare from several of the _mekli_ —and found that the tunnel widened a few beats ahead. There was more light too—glowfish he was sure, since the _mekli_ seemed to abhor anything artificial inside the Pillars. But it was pitch black in the tunnel. Almost like a burrow, hollowed out down through uncounted spans of time, the tunnel sides had been worn completely smooth, for which they were all thankful. Otherwise, they would have skinned themselves badly.

Chase heard one of the prodsmen's voice on his echopod. "The water is so still," he said.

Tulcheah agreed. "It must be the shape of the chamber...pulse how it damps out any currents." She thrashed an armfin to disturb the water. Sure enough, the waves died out in seconds. The chamber crossing was designed to maintain an imperturbable tranquility.

Indeed, the Pillars pulsed much like a womb. Tulcheah was the first to notice that and say it. All her life, she had heard stories from old pilgrims exiled to Urku about the serenity of the place, the warmth, the concord, the strong bond of _Ke'shoo_ that it made with all comers. Nothing was unaffected. That explained the constricted spaces and the pleasant scents: the _mekli_ had re-created the ancient womb of the cave cities here. Like Old Kengtoo, they had preserved in sharp redolence the scents of the first days, down to the most ethereal details. The Pillars mirrored and embodied the timeless aspirations of all Seomish: _Ke'shoo_ and _Ke'lee_ and _Shoo'kel_ , the inward eye blind to anything beyond the immediate concerns of family and kel.

Their _mekli_ guard detail herded them on, through one maze after another, indifferent to the discomforts of the trek. The lead priestess could be heard swooshing well ahead of them, leading them deeper and deeper into the Pillars, into the Quarter of Melodies, where the shape of the caves altered the quality of their sound. There seemed to Chase to be no meter to it, only the vaguest sort of melancholy, yet the water whispered with definite musical tones. _Wonder what the Croc Boys would make of this place as a venue_? he thought. The tunnels had now widened the deeper they went into the Pillars, making it easier for him to keep up with everybody else.

They traveled an endless and confusing course through the tunnels; all the time, it seemed to Chase, they were ascending. On occasion, the faintest, fleeting tinkle of notes rippled by them, like delicate chimes being gently tapped. There would be voices too, or what seemed like voices, whispers just beyond hearing, though Chase sometimes thought it was no more than the ever-present swish of the water. They were herded through fairly large caverns as they ascended, caverns dimly lit with glowfish and among the shadows, Chase could make out faces: forlorn, sepulchral, and weary.

"Pilgrims, resting after their journey here," Tulcheah told him.

Through narrow tunnels and rock-hewn chambers, the guards and the convoy followed the _mekli_. Chase had heard stories too and knew that the Pillars of Shooki did not stop at the surface; they extended well beyond, far into the Notwater. They were still ascending, traveling the convoluted labyrinth of corridors, occasionally coming upon larger caves and crypts, and he wondered. How far would they go? He glanced back at Golich and M'Bela. M'Bela had lapsed into unconsciousness. Golich looked weak and listless. They needed fresh air and soon.

Tradition had always said the Judging Chambers were near the pinnacle of the Pillars. Maybe there was an exit there.

The _mekli_ brought them to the edge of a cliff, at the end of one of the tunnels. Even as they approached, they could pulse through the opening that the cavern beyond was deep and wide, and filled with fast-rising columns of water. It was at the core of one of the Pillars, hollow from its bedrock foundations to its majestic pinnacle high above the surface.

The _mekli_ priestess then lunged from the cliff and caught one of the streams. It whisked her away from the opening and carried her upward. She soon vanished beyond an overhanging ledge.

Prodded by the guards, one by one, the Ponkti and the captives launched themselves into the midst of the currents. The little kip't banged and scraped as it fell through but it survived the plunge.

The water was both brisk and exhilarating. It carried them rapidly along, past other landings and portals, sweeping them toward the summit of the Pillar. Chase tried pulsing in the direction they were heading—seven full beats later, the first echoes returned. A tiny ring of white light capped the heights.

The _mekli_ was somewhere above them, no more than a blip in the pulse. Her tail was dimly silhouetted against the brighter background. Below them, the trunk of the cavern spread out into the vast hills from which the Pillars had been formed. The walls beneath the bottommost shelf of landings widened to an immense grotto, the floor of which was covered in exquisitely sculpted stalagmites.

But as they rose further, the radiance from the top washed out all other detail.

A blinding white blaze enveloped them. _The light of Notwater_ , Chase realized. _Fresh air!_ Painful, penetrating, it cascaded down and streaked the water with shafts of luminous blue-green. Tulcheah clutched at her eyes; Chase did likewise. They throbbed from the exposure and he found they were useless. Opening them, he saw only a shimmering glow.

He pulsed and found the top of the tower near, a beat or so away. Even as he tried to sort out the confusing echoes, the lifting current slacked off and they drifted aimlessly for a minute, barely touched by the fringe of the current. Other currents dispersed here too; it was a gathering point for entry to the Echopods.

He looked back and found that both Golich and M'Bela had passed out.

Another tunnel, this one smooth like a pipe, bent around in a wide sweeping curve. They were wriggling straight up and the waters murmured to them with a mischievous stealth. Voices, hushed and furtive, sprinkled the pauses in their own swishing. The tunnel straightened, leveled out and the _mekli_ slowed down, whispering for silence from the captives and guards. Now the voices were clearer, sharper. _The Echopods._ Distinct accents. Inflections. Someone trilling, arguing. A bass reply, deep and ponderous. An aria. A flurry of oratory, crisp and pointed.

The passageway widened abruptly and suddenly, the voices were everywhere, swelling in unison, falling away, crackling and whistling, a chorus softly floating. In the next moment, the chorus faded and the voices rose again in argument, thousands of them, strident yet gentle, firmly commanding, clashing, conflicting, filling the Chamber with incessant chatter. Tulcheah felt Chase bump her from behind. She opened her eyes, pushing Chase away, heedless of his gestures about the unconscious humans in the kip't.

The glow was dazzling, resplendent in shades of amber, gray and white. _It is Notwater_ , Tulcheah breathed. The light streamed into the Chamber from all sides, as if the water itself were ablaze. Despite the intensity, she held her eyes open to see and wonder.

The Chamber itself was oblong. Panels of some transparent substance wrapped the walls. The floor was arrayed with rows of cells, each of which contained one echopod. More cells lined the walls between the panels. Open holdpods swayed from the ceiling, their bowls carrying scentbulbs. _Om'pshoo_ was the scent predominating, aromatic and sweet. That brought a smile to Tulcheah. She had worked with this scent before. The waters were _litor'kel_ and _shoo'kel_ , and the Voice of the Echopods steadfast. Shooki's Voice. To be now in such homewaters, to bathe in it, breathe it, smell it.

But it was what she saw through the transparent walls that made Tulcheah tremble.

They were now above the surface, in this Chamber of Echopods, thrust like a sharp blade right into the very heart of the Notwater. Though the glow of the day was fierce, Tulcheah blinked in amazement at the view. Even Chase seemed speechless at the sight before them. Beside them, the Ponkti prodsmen stared in mute fascination.

All about the Pillars, the bleak and desolate white of the polar icecap stretched to infinity. A solid flat plate, littered with mounds and hillocks and wind-shaped edges, frozen and silent. Above, a hoary sheet of gray clouds scudded by. Tulcheah gasped at the sight while the prodsmen gouged at their eyes. Something moved. The hillocks had legs—a head—a spiked tail—

" _Puk'lek_ ," a prodsman whispered.

It was true. The entire convoy stared in wonder as hundreds of seamothers, half-buried in snow, reared themselves and shook the powder off their backs. As one, they marched past the Pillars, honking, bellowing loudly, heading for a fissure in the ice on the other side of the Pillars. It was half-hidden by the snow-dusted bulk of the towers, but even so, the beasts could be seen waddling into the frigid blue waters, wallowing for a few minutes, then submerging in a spray of foam.

There were now several _mekli_ in the Chamber, along with the guards. The _mekli_ were attending the Echopods, listening, arguing their interpretations of the Voice. All the pods seemed active together and the sayings, parables and utterances of _pak'to_ Shooki were at once both confusing and reassuring. Their own _mekli_ beckoned them deeper into the Chamber and slowly, prodded by the guards, they complied.

"This is the Judging Chamber," she told them. "Listen to the Voice. The Voice will soothe you. Let it enter you and fill you with the right _shoo'kel_. The waters of this Chamber are the standard. _Shoo'kel_ here is correct for all kelke, everywhere in the world. Now, speak the truth to me...why have you come to the Pillars and disturbed these waters with violence in your hearts?"

The chief Ponkti prodsman was called Poklu lin, a muscular fellow, with scars along his face and beak. " _Ke'mekli,_ I am free-bound to Loptoheen tu, _tuk_ master and _tekmetah_ to Lektereenah, Metah of Ponk'et. We have a simple mission: we were commanded to intercept any attempt by other kelke to negotiate and work with the Tailless...the Umans at Kinlok. We heard this group coming—" he indicated Tulcheah and the others "—so we engaged them. This one—" he pointed to Tulcheah again, "claims the right of Metah. But we are life-bonded to Lektereenah as our Metah. This one is a usurper."

Tulcheah spoke up, without permission. "We have a right to talk with who we want...these Umans have come to help us save our world... _ak'loosh_ is coming and you all know this," she emphasized, glaring back at Poklu.

Poklu was ready to respond, but the _mekli_ held up her hands. "Talk no more. Listen to the Voice, instead."

Poklu held his tongue. " _Ke'mekli_ , what does the Voice say? We can't hear it here." He glared at Tulcheah with scarcely disguised contempt. "There's too much noise."

"O' my _loo'sheen_ , the most wondrous things." The _mekli_ pulsed with radiance. "It speaks of love and _shoo'kel,_ the balance of all seas. Of _Ke'shoo_ and _Ke'lee_ and every virtue. The _Vish_ currents and destiny. The Dialogues. The reciting of charms and beatitudes. The _Be'shoo'keen_ of principal ecstasies. The Voice is profound and fluent, for truth is like Seome itself, inexhaustible and imperishable."

Tulcheah wanted to press home her point. "Seome is in danger, _ke'mekli_. Even Poklu can't deny that. We Ponkti even have a word for it: _akloosh_. This is what we face from the Tailless and their far enemy, the aliens, if we can't stop them."

Chase was aware that Golich and M'Bela needed fresh air, _right now_. "I must speak. My friends are Tailless. You see they're not moving. Like me, they're creatures of the Notwater. They must have Notwater to breathe...can we please move them outside, out there?" He pointed to the icy plain beyond the window. "They'll die here if we don't move them outside."

The _mekli_ priestess dipped a beak. She seemed sympathetic. "It is a sacrilege to bring non-kelke into the Pillars. You and your Tailless friends must leave now...show them." She directed a small squad of _mekli_ Chase hadn't even noticed to gather around the kip't, with its motionless bodies inside.

With hand signals, the _mekli_ prodded Chase to climb inside the cockpit of the sled, the forward cockpit. In the rear, Golich and M'Bela weren't moving. Chase was worried.

Beyond and below them, at the foot of the Pillar, seamothers trundled back and forth across the icescape, butting heads, bellowing and honking, feeding, sensing a meal. A light snow began to fall, softening the scene.

Chase hadn't seen it before, but the wall had a small hatch embedded in it. The guards positioned the kip't with Chase and the other humans inside. One of the _mekli_ came up and spoke to them.

" _Kesh, ke t'shoo'lee opmah...Tekmah puk'lek vish tchuk'te."_

Chase's echopod tried to translate. " _Shhkkrreah_...judgment is final...the seamother keeps our waters undisturbed."

With that, the seams of the hatch split apart and the hatch opened. Water flowed briskly into a small outchamber beyond the wall, almost like a pouch made of rock. The guards shoved the kip't with them inside through the hatch and into the outchamber. Then the hatch was closed. Tulcheah and the rest of the Ponkti contingent remained outside the chamber.

"What's happening?" Chase wondered. Still mystified, Chase watched as the _mekli_ stuck her beak into a round horn-like opening beside the hatch, whistling and clicking, issuing some kind of strange commands.

At that moment, the outchamber opened to the Notwater. The kip't plummeted from view and slid down the outside of the Pillar, rolling and tumbling and bouncing all the way down to the ice below, toward the gaping mouths and salivating jaws of the seamothers gathered there.

The seamothers flailed and thrashed and bellowed and churned almost as one in their efforts to consume this unexpected dinner. Chase shuddered at the sounds issuing up from the icecap...teeth clicking, claws slashing, cries and screams and then...silence.

By chance or by design, he was never sure which, the kip't bounced on the ice and slid off into a small lagoon between ice floes. The seamothers turned and began waddling toward them. But before they could reach the kip't, Chase had popped the canopy of both compartments. He started up the jets and the little ship wriggled between creaking ice rafts toward open water.

Behind him in the aft compartment, Golich and M'Bela began to stir, heaving in great gulps of the frigid air. Once they had made open water, he continued skimming along the surface, dodging small bergs, while behind them, seamothers bellowed at their lost dinner.

Chase was glad to see movement among the humans. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the air 'faces' flexing around the interior of their compartment. The flasks looked just like cheeks and puckered lips, each flask inhaling and blowing air like an eyeless, noseless face.

_That's what happened back there_ , he realized. The air 'faces' had run out of air. The compartment was designed for one. But there had been two breathers. The faces discharged all their oxygen.

Chase ascertained that the humans were okay. Golich's voice was weak.

"My head feels like it's in a vise. My skin's tingling too. But I think we'll live. What was that place?"

Chase decided answers would have to wait. "I'm closing up your compartment. Those membranes that look like faces have taken in air now. You should be able to breathe." Hearing splashing behind them, he saw several seamothers stroking and bellowing toward them. "We've got to get out of here right now."

M'Bela's eyes grew wide. "What are they...some kind of serpents?"

"Seamothers," Chase said. "The Seomish call them _puk'lek_. We don't want to be their next meal. Hang on—"

He drove the kip't below the surface and studied the sounder display, listening for the staccato echoes of icebergs and their underwater keels. He navigated carefully among them, following a zigzag course until the echoes died off, becoming softer, longer duration, then probed through dark waters until he heard a distant but firm echo. It had to be the mountain that formed Kinlok Island.

_Blast these sound controls_ , he muttered. Seomish kip't drivers didn't need eyes. They relied on listening to the sounder echoes to navigate. _I'll just have to do the same thing._

Bit by bit, listening carefully and adjusting their course, Chase was able to put the little craft on a course toward the island.

But he worried about those left behind, Tulcheah and Golok. What would happen to them now?

Alicia Yang had studied the thing for the better part of half an hour before Dringoth came gingerly down the slope and strode across the beach to see what the delay was. Acth:On'e was still out to sea with the skimmer, attaching chronotron pods and the weather was getting worse. Darkness was coming, the ice fog was thickening and they were way behind schedule.

Dringoth jammed his hands in his jacket.

"What's the holdup? Where's Toonie?"

Yang pointed to the object riding atop swells beyond the surf line. It looked like a small raft with an octagonal box on top. Antennae and panels stuck out like wings from both sides.

"What the hell's _that_? Something Toonie dropped?"

Dringoth went down to the water. It was freezing. He saw the skimmer appear on the horizon and got on the comm, telling Acth:On'e to head for the 'raft' bobbing on the waves and investigate.

Acth:On'e acknowledged. By the time the skimmer was finally beached, _Cygnus'_ chief engineer had grabbed the raft and hoisted it on board. With help from Dringoth and Yang, they wrestled the thing up onto a rock outcrop and studied it, wondering.

That's when Yang saw the lettering on the side.

It read: CAESAR.

Ten minutes later, the kip't bearing Golich, M'Bela and Chase surfaced beyond the breakers and eased its way landward through heavy chop.

Aboard _Cygnus_ , the crew assembled in B deck's wardroom. Golich was nursing a steaming mug of something that smelled like strong tea, while Evelyn M'Bela was swaddled in a robe and towels, shivering.

Chase recounted what happened. Golich just shook his head.

"It was incredible, Captain. Like a dream."

"Or a nightmare," said M'Bela. She gratefully accepted a mug for herself and sipped carefully, steam wreathing her face.

Dringoth had CAESAR up on a table. He poked and prodded at the device, peering into its ports and sensors. "So, what the hell is this thing...some kind of spy probe?"

Chase said, "Reconnaissance, actually. It was sent to gather data on the environment here. Now we know why it never came back."

Dringoth sniffed. "I'm not impressed. With this or with what your crew has been showing me. While you were away on your little joy ride, they demonstrated weapons and tactics you were planning to use here." He twiddled with the ends of his moustache, his eyes twinkling. "I think I remember reading about this stuff in History, when I was at the Academy. This is the sort of crap that belongs in a museum."

"Sir," Chase tried to explain, "our mission is just to offer any assistance we can, against the Coethi. In my time, we have Coethi scouts to study. All our weapons and tactics, the things Levy and Juba and the others showed you were tested against the Coethi scouts we had in containment."

"I'm sure. But I'm not staking the success of my mission or this command on rookies or 'dinosaurs' from the 22nd century. First Time Displacement's in a critical sector. You may not realize it but we're all that stands between the Coethi and most of the Lower Halo. 40 Omicron, our own Sun, Sturdivant, Delta Recursa, Lalande...they're all in danger if we can't hold this position."

Chase could see he was losing the discussion. "Sir, if that's so, I would think you'd want all the help you can get. Meaning no disrespect, sir, but we do have some weapons that we proved work against the Coethi, at least the ones in our own time."

Golich considered that. "He may have a point, Skipper. Queenie and I saw some pretty amazing stuff underwater."

M'Bela nodded, sipping more of her tea. "Captain, there really is some kind of civilization down there, a marine civilization...talking fish and all. We saw it with our own eyes."

Dringoth rubbed his jaw, stroking his chin. "The Coethi in your time and the Bugs we're fighting today are separated by at least six hundred years, over five hundred terr, of time. I'm sure they've advanced too. And just why do these talking fish mean so much to you anyway?"

Chase described the Umans he had met before, in a previous trip to Seome. He told the _Cygnus_ crew about encountering the Time Twister before, "...the Seomish referred to it as the wavemaker," how the Coethi had launched starballs at the sun Sigma Albeth B and how thousands of refugees had fled through the Farpool just before the sun went supernova. "In fact, you and I met before," he insisted.

Dringoth shook his head. "Must have been another time stream...or a tributary of this one. I don't remember. These fish...they're casualties of war. All wars have casualties."

Now Angie jumped in. "Sir, Chase and I have always loved the Seomish people. We have so many friends here. They're intelligent, sensitive, gregarious, inventive. You can't just let the Coethi destroy all this. Let us help you fight them off...let us help you save this world."

Chase looked at his wife and their eyes met. _Maybe you shouldn't have_...but the words were already out there.

Dringoth's eyes hardened. "This world means nothing to me...or the Alliance. Time Guard gave us orders to defend this sector and that means siting the Twister here, on this sewer of a world. Everything else is just collateral damage."

Chase decided to try another tack. "Captain, what is this Alliance you're speaking of?"

Dringoth said, "The Uman Alliance? UA? Collection of worlds, settlements—" he looked over at Golich. "What can I say?"

The TT1 had an idea. "We could show him a history vid—" Golich snapped a finger at URME. The para-human swarm entity had been hovering at the door to the wardroom. "URME, re-config to display mode. Pull up that old vid we got at the Academy on how UA came to be—"

At once, the Unit Reserve Memory Entity began decomposing, sloughing off bots to form a small display surface in mid-air, hovering like a disembodied screen. URME gathered files from his memory, impressed the data on loose photons and in seconds, a short instructional vid was unfolding before their eyes, narrated by an unseen voice....

" _UA is an outgrowth of the old United Nations of Earth...."_

After a few minutes, Dringoth waved URME to mute and pause the vid. "Let's just say I'm skeptical that anyone from your time stream can offer any tactical support to Time Guard today. That would be like someone, say Julius Caesar, coming to your timestream and offering help from his legions. It's laughable. It's absurd."

Now Acth:On'e had a suggestion. "Captain, perhaps the Bugs no longer have appropriate defenses against these older weapons. There could be scenarios where Julius Caesar's legions might still be effective. Unexpected tactics can sometimes surprise an unprepared adversary. I believe it was the Old Urth Uman Sun Tzu who once said, " _That general is skillful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend."_

"Thanks for the history lesson, Toonie," Dringoth muttered sourly. "Next, I suppose you'll remind me about Hapsh'm. Now that was a scrum if ever I saw one."

Chase realized the opening when he saw it. "Tell us, Captain. We'd like to hear about it." He didn't see both Golich and M'Bela rolling their eyes. _Old soldiers never die_...

Dringoth pulled up a chair, helped himself to some of M'Bela's tea and warmed to the story. "Oh, it was a doozy of a battle, that's for sure. Back in decaterr 888.359...let's see...that would be about 2766 CE by the way you troglodytes reckon time."

Golich was well schooled in the scene. He could recite the details word for word, from countless recollections and musings by Dringoth. "You were on a mission, sir, when one of you saw a small detachment of jumpships return to base and the base came under immediate attack from Coethi scouts who had hidden in the ships--morphed into human-like creatures--and returned with the Umans."

"Yes, indeed," chortled Dringoth, closing his eyes, sniffing the aroma of the tea. "Damn Bugs were tricky bastards, for sure. The Time Guard base at Hapsh'm was in a hell of a fight but Jump Master Oscar Keaton was able to rally a small force of mechanics, cooks, armorers, and office staff, including some bots, to counter-attack and destroy the Coethi, though some did escape back into another time stream. For this effort, Keaton was awarded a Distinguished Valor medal (DVM 3rd class with star clusters) and promoted to Jump Sergeant. Not long after that, he recommended me for Time Guard OCS and I was admitted on probation due to some, shall we say, academic deficits. The school was at the Time Guard base on Byrd's Draconis. That's how I got to know Keaton himself. Magnificent bastard, he was. I was just an engineer's mate at the time."

Chase figured now was the time to drive home the point. "You said it yourself, sir. The Bugs are tricky devils. Let us help you. We've got some tricks we can bring to the fight ourselves."

Dringoth's eyes popped open. His face hardened again as the memory faded. "How do I know you're not some Coethi plot, some spy sent to disarm us from inside? Like Hapsh'm...or other places. It's happened, you know. I know my Sun Tzu too...' _The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting....'"_

"Captain, just give us a chance. If we can't help you, if we're not helping you, then get rid of us. I'm just asking for a chance."

Golich said, "Skipper, we can limit what they have access to. Keep 'em away from the Twister. Make them like an auxiliary, TDY'ed to the Battery."

Dringoth finished off the tea and stood up abruptly. "I can see some tactical possibilities, but it doesn't matter anyway. It's not my decision. I'll have to run this by TACTRON and Commandstar."

Chase looked over at Angie with a faint smile and a nod. "Just tell us where you want us to deploy, sir."

"Where I want you is away from here, and out of my hair..." he felt his forehead and offered a wry smile. "—what's left of it. I'll get a message off to TACTRON. Go back to your own ship and make a list of every weapon in inventory. I want to see all the specs. Your tactical support systems as well. Go on, get out of here."

Chase gathered Angie and the rest of _Aquarius_ crew and left the control hut, staggering in fierce wind gusts as they picked their way across the top of the promontory.

Back inside _Cygnus_ , Dringoth told Golich, "I should have my head examined." He went up to the command deck, composing in his mind some kind of message to be fired off to Commandstar.

Later that day, just after a quiet dinner in the crew's mess, Commandstar replied. Dringoth swallowed hard when URME played it back.

TACTRON was coming to Seome. Commandstar was sending the Division commanding element itself to see what all the fuss was all about.

Dringoth sank back in his seat. Visions of his first field command crumbling danced before his eyes...fitness reports, sitreps, uncompleted maintenance orders. "Oh, this is just friggin' great. In effect, an inspection, right here in the boonies." He rang up Golich on the ship's 1MC. "XO, report to my quarters immediately. And bring the duty rosters with you. We've got about three days to get _Cygnus_ shipshape...before the shit hits the fan."
Chapter 5

" _Time is the longest distance between two places."_

Tennessee Williams

Seome (Storm)

Kinlok Island

Timestream T-229

1st Time Displacement Battery

Decaterr 10019.20

TACTRON emissaries arrived on Storm a week later, in a jumpship from Commandstar itself, materializing out of the salt spray and fog one murky morning to a rattling landing on the promontory alongside _Cygnus_. It was a three-person detail, consisting of one Major Mark Sturdivant and a Lieutenant Desmond Namib. The third entity was URME 115, a swarm version of the tactical program that ran Time Guard operations in this sector of Halo space and Dringoth's direct contact, whom he had never met before. Upon meeting URME 101, _Cygnus_ ' Temporal Fire Director, the TACTRON swarm flared briefly, then siphoned off a faint cloud of bots from his hand to engage with URME 101, the way a dog might lick a visitor's hand in greeting.

They came to meet the Umans from timestream T-001 and verify their bona fides.

Monthan Dringoth barely took a breath during the entire visit.

Chase, Likteek and Golok showed the TACTRON people their own jumpship _Aquarius_ , made a short visit in the kip't to the perimeter of the Farpool, some five kilometers out to sea, then demonstrated their own contained swarms of ANAD-style counter-nano systems, their HERF and magpulse and other weapons and reviewed tests and wargame results from the development phase of Operation _Temporal Hammer_.

The TACTRON people were mildly amused at the primitive nature of the weapons and it was Sturdivant who offered that the Bugs would make quick work of such 'toys.' He explained briefly, in response to questions from Golok and Chase, the history of the conflict with the Coethi, describing a few major engagements –"your Jump Captain here can fill you in on the 'Incident at Hap'shm' from first-hand experience, " and proceeded to detail the basic Commandstar strategy to resist Coethi expansion in this sector...which he admitted wasn't working very well.

"I need proof that you've truly come from Urth along timestream T-001," Sturdivant explained. "Convince me that this isn't some Coethi plot...that you're not some kind of angels or swarm beings done up to look like Umans...we know the Coethi can do this."

That gave Chase an idea. He invited the TACTRON people to stay with _Aquarius_ awhile longer, just a half a kilometer away on the other side of the island from _Cygnus_ and their own ship. "I can show you something, play something for you, that should convince you."

Intrigued, Sturdivant agreed. Namib went back to _Cygnus_ , to work with Dringoth on the latest intel and details of upcoming operations. URME 115 stayed behind with Sturdivant.

Chase and Angie led them to _Aquarius_ ' E deck. A 3-d printer sat on a work stand in the back of the machine shop.

"I did this the other day, when I was bored. Golok over there still can't believe it."

Sturdivant eyed the Ponkti, still clad in mobilitor suit and hissing with labored breathing, with wary caution.

"Some kind of bot?" he asked.

Chase explained about the Ponkti. "I'm amphib. I can breathe water and air. Golok isn't. He's truly a marine kind of guy. That mobilitor suit keeps him alive out of water. Golok's family is from here, from this world."

Sturdivant just shook his head. "Survey Service said Storm was not inhabited."

Chase shrugged, playing with the printer controls. "Don't believe everything you hear."

Sturdivant sized up the Ponkti, who towered over all of them, with studied amazement.

"Ah, here it comes now—" Chase let the printer tray slowly ratchet its way out of the device and then it stopped. Inside the tray was a strange instrument, a composite frame enclosing strings, pipes, holes, and other paraphernalia.

"It's called a _go-tone_ ," Chase explained. "It makes music."

"Music? It's an instrument?"

"Here, I'll show you." Chase extracted the _go-tone_ , air-dried it off and plucked out a few notes on the strings. Sturdivant winced at the sound. Chase apologized. "It needs a little tuning."

After a few minutes, Chase had the instrument sounding like he wanted. Almost automatically, he began fingering a well-known tune, adding in the pipes and chirps from the synthesizer. He closed his eyes and launched into the Croc Boys' greatest hit, _Lovin' in the Dark_. E deck was soon filled with the velvet chords of the _go-tone_ and Chase's plaintive, twangy voice popping on each word.

Sturdivant's eyebrows lifted.

Without thinking, Angie began swaying to the tune, murmuring out her own soft accompaniment.

Golok, wheezing nearby in his mobilitor, squeaked through his echopod translator, "Could anyone but a real Tailless do something like this?"

Sturdivant held up a hand. "Probably not. Enough, that's enough...I'm beginning to get the picture."

_Aquarius'_ PSO, Lieutenant Levy cleared her throat. She was at the Engineer's console. "Major, you should see this—" Levy had searched _Aquarius'_ data banks for historical records. Sturdivant came over. "The song he's playing was a minor hit in the early 22nd century...see?"

Sturdivant scanned the record, whistled. "Okay, I'm convinced."

Chase looked hurt. " _Minor_ hit? We packed all kinds of venues."

Angie shook her head. "Chase, most of them were high school auditoriums."

Chase reluctantly put the _go-tone_ down. "Still needs tuning," he decided. "Major, what do you think the Coethi will do next? Why the interest in this sector?"

The TACTRON major started to reply, then had an idea. He turned to URME 115. "URME, display mode. Show ecliptic projection Uman Alliance."

Instantly, the swarm entity that closely resembled a human being in shape, sloughed off some bots from its hand. The bots swirled and flickered until they had morphed into the shape of a display screen, hovering in mid-air. The screen pixelated and an image finally settled in. It showed two egg-shaped regions of space, rubbing against each other. The larger egg was the Alliance itself. The smaller egg was a projection of the suspected Coethi mother swarm. At the 5 o'clock angle, a small blip winked on and off.

Sturdivant explained. "Uman space and the Bugs. That light winking on and off is us...Sigma Albeth B and her planets and satellites, including this one."

Chase studied the display, laying his _go-tone_ aside. "Seome seems pretty close to the boundary."

Sturdivant agreed. "It is. This display is based on the latest intel summaries from T2...Time Guard intelligence. Based on recon probes, intercepts, past actions and engagements, T2 believes the Bugs have a four-pronged strategy. Mind you, all this is conjecture, but it has a solid intel basis."

Chase noticed a fuzzy tear in the egg, just beyond the winking light. "What's this...a crack in the egg?"

"You're not far off, son. That's Newton's Jaw. Instability zone, a sort of gravimetric lens. Lots of time streams come together in this ripple area. T2 thinks the Bugs are pushing in this sector to reach the Jaw. It would give them easy access to a boatload of time streams...and threaten Uman space across many sectors."

"And Seome is right in their path."

"Exactly. T2 thinks the Bugs plan to reach Newton's Jaw, push us away from the area and take control of the zone. Then, TACTRON has computed best probabilities of the Bugs moving across Alliance space along this vector—" Sturdivant ran a finger across the display from 5 o'clock to 10 o'clock—"effecting a split in the Alliance between here—Time's Peak and our own Sun—all the way to the Graveyard. That threatens Sturdivant 2180, Delta Recursa III and Lalande 21185 and all their worlds. Split the Alliance right in two and isolate Ross 154 and Gliese 876 here and then go after these pockets and try to defeat us piecemeal. Bollix up enough timestreams and Uman settlements start going poof...like they never existed."

"Can we stop them?" Chase asked.

Sturdivant's face hardened. "We have to. This is why Sigma Albeth B is so—" but he stopped in mid-sentence. The comm badge above his left breast pocket suddenly glowed bright orange and gave off a warbling sound. Sturdivant quickly tapped a key on his wristpad while URME collapsed the display in a dissolving puff of light. Another voice came through, patched in from the TACTRON ship. It was Lieutenant Namib.

"Major, it's a proximity alert. Disturbance in local voidtime...it tripped our baseline detectors. I'm doing a long-range scan now. Maybe a Bug probe—"

"Copy that," Sturdivant looked at Chase. "You...come with me. Bring someone you trust. We've got to get over to _Cygnus_ right now."

The major hustled out of E deck while Chase made a quick decision. Kasmeerah was _Aquarius's_ containment and swarm tactical specialist. She had trained with ANAD systems and knew counter-nano like the back of her webbed hands. "Let's go, Kas." The Ponkti amphib had been hanging at the hatch to E deck. She quickly joined Chase as they made their way aft through the gangway to the egress station one deck below.

"What about me?" Angie cried. "I can help."

"It's safer here. Just stay here."

Angie made a face as Chase and Kasmeerah disappeared through the hatch. They scrambled across a kilometer of slippery rock and hills, bent head down into the gusting wind and made _Cygnus_ in ten minutes.

Inside, Sturdivant and Namib were huddling with Dringoth and Golich on the command deck.

URME 101, _Cygnus's_ own Temporal Fire Director was saying, "Probability of a Coethi recon force moving through local voidtime now approaches eighty-five per cent. The enemy may emerge anywhere along this sector—" URME was pointing out something on the tactical display.

"At any moment too," Dringoth said.

"Captain, status of the Twister?"

Dringoth sucked in a deep breath, eyed Golich and Acth:On'e. "She won't be fully operational for two more days. Toonie--?"

Acth:On'e cleared his throat. "Sir, we still have ten more chronotron pods to install. Then we have to link them together, test the connections, enable all the buffers and—"

Sturdivant held up a hand. "I get the picture. Well, Captain...looks like we'll have to do this the hard way. Make _Cygnus_ ready for immediate departure. I want eyes and weapons up there along this sector of voidtime in case the Bugs pop out. Get your crew ready to go in two hours."

Dringoth met Sturdivant's eyes with a grim look. "Aye, sir."

Chase spoke up. "I want to go along, Major." He put a hand on Kasmeerah's shoulder. The Ponkti amphib was standing nearby, in the hatch. "And my CS1. She knows counter-nano well...top marks in our sims and wargames back home."

Sturdivant shook his head. "Not possible. You're both old school. T-001. Ancient history. The Bugs are way beyond anything you would have encountered."

Dringoth remembered Julius Caesar and his legions. "Major, I've seen what they can do. Yes, they're not from this timestream. But they've dealt with Coethi before, at least in their own time. They have tactical ideas that the Coethi may not recognize. Permission to bring these two along..., sir."

Sturdivant was about to object but some inner sense that Dringoth might be right overrode his concerns. His face was a confusing mixture of emotions. Finally, he relented. "Your call, Captain. Pick your crew and be ready to launch in two hours. I'll stay here with your engineer and get this blasted Twister up and running. TACTRON's counting on us to do our part."

Dringoth was quick to make his choices known. "Golich, you and Queenie and URME are with me. Meyer here and his lieutenant can come too. Toonie—" he motioned Acth:On'e over, "You and Yang stay with the Major and the rest of the _Aquarius_ crew. Get the Twister operational."

Acth:On'e and Yang both replied, "Yes, sir...we're on it."

_Cygnus_ was a hive of hurried activity for the next two hours, as preparations were made, weapons and magazines checked, supplies and gear for the Twister off loaded and a buddy-chain set up to convey materials over to the TACTRON ship and to _Aquarius_.

When all was ready, Dringoth got on the ship's 1MC and called, "Stations, everybody. Launch in two minutes."

Chase and Kasmeerah had been assigned to temporary acceleration seating on _Cygnus'_ E deck, adjacent to the Engineer console and the Defense Systems station. Kasmeerah found herself intensely interested in the setup.

"I'd keep my little webbed hands off that if I were you, Kas," Chase told her. "It's six hundred years of development after _Aquarius_."

"Just studying, sir...just studying." She ran her fingers along the front edge of the console lovingly, barely feeling the controls.

Up on the command deck, M'Bela was working the sensors and surveillance station. Now she announced, "Rift opening in local voidtime, Captain...sector C-212, looks like. Plus I've got indications they're powering weapons. Fusium levels spiking...could be a starball aimed at the sun."

Dringoth wasted no time. "Make ready for launch. Acth:On'e and Yang, egress now. Take a swarm of workbots and get that foundation finished and the pods installed. Give me reports every twelve hours. I'll take _Cygnus_ right into the teeth of that swarm and unleash hell. With any luck, we can buy you a few days."

Yang needed no more encouragement. She lurched out of her seat at the DPS station on E deck and nearly collided with Acth:On'e reaching the gangway. Together, they made the lockout and egressed in partial hypersuits, just as _Cygnus_ was finishing her abbreviated countdown. The DPS1 and the TM1 hunkered down below the rock overhang, a few meters above the beach, as the ship lit off her propulsors and vaulted into the sky, a spear of flame piercing low-hanging clouds, a fiery orange glow lingering for many minutes as the roar cascaded and reverberated off the surrounding headlands.

Acth:On'e and Yang lowered themselves down to the beach and stared silently at each other. Finally the Telitorian scuffed at some wet beach sand and said, "I guess we'd better get to work."

Yang agreed, peering out at heavy surf crashing onto the rocks beyond the surf line. "Right. Before Major Sturdivant shows up and messes up everything. Let's do a hut first, some place we can bivouac...I've got the capsule of workbots. I'll program the right config and get 'em started."

Acth:On'e shivered in spite of the hypersuit and flipped his helmet visor down, cocooning himself inside.

"What a god-forsaken place...I think I'd rather be marooned in voidtime." His mood was made worse by the sight of the TACTRON officers emerging from lingering smoke and steam left by _Cygnus_.

Somehow, some way, they had to get the Twister up and operating...and fast.

" _The Coethi are (thought to be) a race of sentient semi-robotic aliens whose main weapon against Uman forces is something called a starball. It is directed against the sun or star of a targeted planetary system. The only known defense is a Time Twister. When a starball enters or is pulled into the twist field of a Twister, it is flung out of local space-time into the farthest reaches of the Universe._

" _Umans and Coethi have been contending for influence and territory in a region of the Galaxy known as the Lower Halo since the first known direct encounter in the Incident at Hapsh'm (ca. 2766 CE)...."_

URME closed down the archival download he had been showing to Chase as Dringoth came through the gangway and made his way to the primary console.

"Anything on sensors yet, URME?"

URME checked his own board. "Just shadows, blips and hiccups, Captain. The force must still be in voidtime. All I get are reflections, bounces off the void interface. Nothing we can target."

"Put the scan on my console. You go aft. Help Queenie inventory weapons and magazines."

"Aye, sir." The Temporal Fire Director (TFD1) slid out of his station, pivoted about in pretty good synch and dropped into the gangway.

Dringoth was just glad URME was tracking better now. No more edge effects, no more blurring or doubling. _Yang must have finally done that config patch_ , he told himself.

URME headed aft to _Cygnus_ ' armory and engineering stations, all on E deck.

When she had departed Keaton's World to deploy the Twister, _Cygnus_ sported pods containing HERF guns, magnetic impulse emitters, high-power microwave emitters, and, for good measure, a coilgun and a magazine full of kinetic rounds. Now wedged into the weapons bay that surrounded E Deck, it was URME's job to make sure all the gadgets worked as designed.

For the next few hours, URME and Evelyn M'Bela checked out _Cygnus's_ weapons suite, with help from Chase and Kasmeerah, while Dringoth worked with Golich on C deck to prime and launch a series of sensor pods along _Cygnus's_ route. Each pod contained a few racks of instrumentation capable of detecting nanobotic signatures at extreme distance, tuned for known EM bands and thermal effects that bots most often used. Nobody really knew if the Coethi worked the same way. But then nobody had a better idea either.

When their entire complement of pods had been laid down and all systems synched, the pods would form a detector grid capable, through the magic of interferometry, of being able to detect normal nanobotic activity at great distances from the sun—Sigma Albeth B...some engineers even boasted the grid could read bot signatures up to a quarter light year from the star. Not everybody believed that and Monthan Dringoth didn't know what to believe...only that the grid had to be laid down in specific orbits and specific distances from each other, then linked with the Twister base on Storm for the whole contraption to work. It didn't hurt that the detector signals would also be multiplexed back to Time Guard Intelligence on Keaton's World as well.

Dringoth let Golich do his work and spent most of the day on E deck, checking in with URME and Queenie on the checkout of their weapons, answering Chase's incessant questions and watching, with growing unease, as the 'anomaly' they had detected grew larger with each passing hour. He spent hours with ISAAC, the ship's command AI, studying and massaging the data on the anomaly, trying to tease out some kind of indication that it was or was not a swarm.

Three hours from intercept, ISAAC upped the probability of the anomaly being a swarm to sixty two percent. A few moments later, Nathan Golich popped his head onto the command deck.

"All checked out, Skipper. Queenie fixed a few things...one of the HERF oscillators was installed backward. But everything works now. We're fully charged. All elements work. And the coilgun's loaded for bear. That fish lady Kasmeerah even had a few suggestions that made it work better."

Dringoth frowned at the display ISAAC had put up on their main screens. "Just in time, Commander. Look at the size of that mother...it's bigger than Storm itself...must be ten thousand kilometers wide at least."

Golich came in and took a seat at the main console. "Hell of a dust storm, if you ask me."

"ISAAC says it's no dust storm...it's one hell of a cloud of bots...and it sure as hell ain't one of ours. Probably just popped out of voidtime."

"Coethi?"

"Maybe advance scouts. I'm going to squirt this back to K-World and see what they think. We could be the first ones ever to see or engage the Coethi in this sector. Goldy...this may be first probe we're looking at, the probe T2's been expecting for so long."

"I don't suppose we can go around it."

"Not and lay down the grid where we're supposed to. ISAAC, what are we looking at here? How far to the anomaly?"

The ship's AI spoke in a measured tone. " _Estimating distance to formation leading edge at thirty thousand one hundred and fifty-five kilometers._ _The formation is in heliocentric orbit which will intersect our orbit in two hours ten minutes, present speed and course._

"ISAAC, can you resolve what this thing is...dust or bots or something else?"

" _Long-range scan indicates that the formation is a diffuse cluster of discrete elements of mean size approximately twenty-five nanometers main dimension...smaller than normal dust particles. Detecting increased energy levels in certain electromagnetic bands, consistent with assembler activity as we understand it. Probability that this formation is a swarm of nanobotic elements now approaching seventy four percent."_

"Swell," Dringoth muttered. "Commander, it looks like _Cygnus_ will have the dubious distinction of being the first Umans to engage the Coethi along this front. One for the history books. Let's make it a good one—enable HERF and magpulse weapons."

Golich strapped himself in and set about enabling the weapons systems from the main console.

"HERF cells now at full charge, primed and ready. I'm slaving the emitter array to ISAAC's coordinates for swarm centroid. Magnetic impulse battery also at full charge. All emitters on line and tracking. Targeting sensors have acquired—"

Dringoth studied the orbit plots of _Cygnus_ and the swarm, overlaid on his console display. "I wish Acth:On'e were here...I'm not Telitorian but I do know one thing...those Telitorians just have a native sense for this sort of thing. All those upgrades, I guess."

"I think we can jolt 'em pretty good with what we have," Golich decided.

_Cygnus_ steadily closed the distance toward the intersect point, even as she dispatched several sensor pods into position along the way. Dringoth was heartened as the pods were ejected from _Cygnus's_ C Deck canister and took up their positions exactly as programmed. Moments later, the pods had established a comm link and were sending back data on the nearby swarm, just as designed.

"At least the pods seem to work. Two down, a hundred and eighteen more to go. ISAAC, how far to the swarm centroid now?"

" _Twenty thousand four hundred and two kilometers. Coming within effective range of our main batteries."_

"Let's give them a taste of what we're about," Dringoth decided. "On my mark, max discharge pulse on HERF...maybe we can break up the cloud enough to clear a path for our next pod deploy—"

"HERF is ready—"Golich poised his finger over the button.

" _Five...four...three...two...one...mark_! Light 'em up!"

Golich pressed the button and a pulse of high-frequency radio waves shot out of the emitter array on top of _Cygnus's_ A Deck. The pulse traveled the remaining distance in a few seconds, slamming into the swarm, scattering, shredding and obliterating bots along the outer perimeter of the cloud.

"ISAAC, report...any effects?"

" _Scanning now...scanning...edge effects only...some reduction of EM activity, some drop-off in thermal effects...definite effects, there is a hole in the side of the formation, but it's filling rapidly...swarm is reconstituting, changing config...centroid is maneuvering...changing course to intercept...."_

Dringoth could see the story on his console. They had managed to bash the thing but it replicated fast and grew back. Now the swarm was turning, wheeling about to intercept _Cygnus_ directly, presenting itself front-on to their approach.

Golich was exultant. "We stung it, Skipper! Look how that front edge is scalloped and misshapen...we did something to it."

"I think we just made it mad, Commander. Fire away, three pulses HERF and mag! Set a twenty-degree spread."

_Cygnus_ rocked slightly as the pulses discharged and streaked toward their target. Through the forward screens, both men could see jagged flashes erupt in space, like slow-motion lightning bolts, where the radio waves and mag fields intersected the swarm. Atoms were ripped apart and bonds sheared off, liberating untold energies into the vacuum. A series of flashes and bolts lit up space ahead of them, still more than ten thousand kilometers distant.

"ISAAC, did we hurt 'em?"

" _Estimating swarm has been reduced by two-point one percent in frontal dimension...swarm is reconstituting...possible aspect change...detecting possible config change— "_

Months later, when the first moments of the Battle of Sigma Albeth B were replayed and analyzed, the report that ISAAC made indicating a 'possible aspect change' was considered to be the first known instance of quantum displacement effects seen in the encounter with the Coethi _._ Displacement effects had been observed before, in the Incident at Hapsh'm and the Battle of the Gauntlet. That encounter had produced evidence that the Coethi possessed the ability to displace themselves and nearby structures to different times and spaces by manipulating entangled quantum states...a technique far beyond anyone's ability to analyze or understand.

Now it seemed that the swarms approaching Storm and probing the outer reaches of the planetary system possessed the same ability.

It was ISAAC who first reported on the phenomena.

" _...detecting possible config change...all aspects have changed...swarm has...swarm has...re-calibrating...now re-analyzing...I have no explanation for this phenomenon...swarm has relocated to...analyzing sensor inputs for continuity..."_

Even ISAAC had trouble explaining what had happened. In the blink of an eye, the swarm had vanished and re-appeared hundreds of thousands of kilometers from its last position. Now, instead of following an intersecting orbit with _Cygnus_ , the entire swarm had jumped to a new trajectory _behind_ the ship, moving away on a diverging orbit inside of _Cygnus_...an orbit that looped inside of Storm's orbit, thousands of kilometers closer to the star.

Dringoth shook his head, rubbed his eyes. "What the hell just happened? ISAAC, can you explain this--?"

ISAAC took a few moments to respond, uncharacteristically for the AI. " _Still computing new trajectory...still computing aspect change and config change...no data yet...."_

Nathan Golich gave up on their instrumentation and tried using his own Mark I eyeball, looking out the command deck's portholes. "Did that thing just move through space like I think it did...from over _here_ —"he pointed ahead, "-to over _there,_ like in a split second?"

"Yeah, I think so...I read reports from T2...General Keaton's trip to Gibbons Grotto ten years ago. That Keeper did the same thing...somehow, it could displace you in time and space if you got too close. Nobody could explain it then...some kind of weird quantum effect was what I heard...and now we're seeing something similar. ISAAC, best fix on the swarm's current position."

The AI crunched data for a few moments, then downloaded a new calculated position to their displays.

Golich sniffed. "Even ISAAC can't believe it. How the hell do we engage something that can do that?"

Dringoth noted another sensor pod deployment was coming up. "We don't. Maybe the Bugs don't want to fight. It's like they just went right around us."

"Then what are they doing here? Where'd they come from?"

"Beats me, Commander. All I know is we've got a job to do and the next deploy is two minutes away. Setting EJECT to Auto...interrogating pod command system...everything looks clean and green here...standby to launch—"

Two minutes later, _Cygnus_ deployed her second sensor pod.

"Looks like we're moving away from that swarm now," Dringoth noted. "If ISAAC's computed their position right."

"Yeah, but if they jump again, they could show up right in front of us. What's to keep them from doing that?"

"Nothing I suppose. Better keep weapons enabled and fully charged. The ship will remain at battle stations for the time being. ISAAC, we've got several hours before the next pod launch...you have the conn. I'm calling a briefing in the crew's mess...we have to figure out what we do next."

" _ISAAC assuming command_ ," the AI replied solemnly. All the display screens blinked and a red triangle appeared on the main display...indicating that ISAAC was in control. Dringoth and Golich left the command deck and gathered URME and M'Bela in the crew's mess one deck below. Chase and Kasmeerah were already there.

"We _did_ sting 'em, didn't we, Captain?" asked Chase. "I mean, we did hurt the bastards, didn't we?"

Dringoth ran down the results of the brief engagement. "The bottom line is this: we hurt the swarm, but I'm not sure how much. It moved off---maybe re-located is a better term—and I'm not sure we had anything to do with that. Right now—"he checked a report he'd brought from the command deck "the swarm's several hundred thousand kilometers _behind_ us. Don't ask me how that happened...I need URME...or somebody... to explain that. Even ISAAC has no explanation."

At that moment, ISAAC rang the master alarm.

" _Swarm in aspect change, Captain_ ," said the AI. "Probable temporal shift...swarm showing increased decoherence wake output, increased entanglement activity...recommend _Cygnus_ power up core to fifty percent."

"What the hell?" Golich said.

Dringoth gave the order. "They're getting ready to jump. ISAAC, full power to the singularity core. Queenie, get to your station and track 'em. Don't lose 'em. Maybe we can shred the swarm before they make the jump. The rest of you...buckle up at your seats."

Golich was right behind Dringoth as they scrambled up the gangway to the command deck. "If we can't, we'll have to track and try to follow."

Now ISAAC announced, " _Jump underway...temporal burst...massive flux along time stream interface...I am attempting to follow the track—"_

By the time Dringoth and Golich had made it to their consoles, M'Bela's voice crackled through the ship's 1MC.

"Captain, they just jumped, but they left a decent trail...like bread crumbs. Looks like T-668. Strong emissions...big flux along that heading."

"Okay, Queenie, give me a vector and start the count. All hands, prepare for a jump. This one's going to be rough...buckle up!"

Golich read off M'Bela's counter. "Three...two...one... _mark_!"

Dringoth twisted a keyed knob on his console.

And _Cygnus_ lurched violently into the river of time.

At URME's signal, Monthan Dringoth slammed _Cygnus_ ' flow vanes out full and punched the ship hard over, right into the faint, barely perceptible fingers of Time Stream T-668. Like a cocked fist, T-668 grabbed them and yanked them out of the mainstream and into the midst of a million yesterdays.

After that, he slumped back in his seat and let the black hole of the Zone-Out wash over him.

The jumpship shuddered and hurtled out of the time stream, in a flash of light, a roaring rush of deceleration, knocking Dringoth and Golich hard against their seat harnesses. Still trapped on the edge of the vortex, Dringoth struggled to regain consciousness and, by instinct and training, rammed the ship's rudder hard over, while firing her jets to counteract the residual force of the spin. For a moment, they were both pinned sideways against the cockpit, until the force of the jets shot them through the core of the vortex and out into calmer world of truetime.

Golich breathed hard, wiping his face with his hands. He checked the instruments.

"Sounding smoother flow, Captain...rough and turbulent, but visibility improving. I can pulse ahead...looks like we made it...to somewhere."

"And some when," Dringoth said. "Queenie, give me a hack. Where and when are we?"

M'Bela was still groggy but functional. Her fingers played over her board, checking their position and heading. "ChronoNav says we're where we're supposed to be...I read us as smack in the middle of T-668, sixty-two degrees down by thirty-four degrees left, drifting a bit off center. URME, do you concur? I really need to get topside and shoot some stars to know for sure."

URME was physically stationed at the engineering console on E deck. Chase watched in amazement as his hands played across the keyboard in a blur. "Analyzing now, sir...Captain, detecting massive decoherence wake, dead ahead, forty-two thousand one hundred and five kilometers. Could be the Coethi...lots of entanglement ripping spacetime around that heading."

"Is it the Coethi?"

"Can't determine yet, sir. I'm asking ISAAC for a full sensor sweep."

Dringoth studied his board. "Where exactly are we?"

M'Bela tapped a few keys. "ISAAC puts us still in heliocentric orbit about Sigma Albeth, but barely and way out...twenty-four billion kilometers at least."

Dringoth made his decision. Like they said at the Academy, when you're in command, command. "I'm bringing us closer to that disturbance. It has to be our target. ISAAC, can you resolve the target?"

The ship's AI said back, " _Long-range scan indicates that the formation is a diffuse cluster of discrete elements of mean size approximately twenty-five nanometers main dimension...smaller than normal dust particles. Detecting increased energy levels in certain electromagnetic bands, consistent with assembler activity as we understand it. Probability that this formation is a swarm of nanobotic elements now approaching eighty-four percent. Probable Coethi formation now at six point one billion, four hundred million kilometers, best range."_

"That's good enough for me," Dringoth decided. "URME, bring the collapser on line."

URME had come forward to the Temporal Fire Director console at the rear of the command deck. The TFD1 swarm, still in para-human config, brightened a moment, then noted, "May I remind the Captain that the collapser still has seven outstanding maintenance issues uncompleted. Perhaps a blast of HERF...modifications to the emitter frequency could—"

But Dringoth wasn't listening. "And I _did_ order those issues to be resolved, did I not? Get it online, URME. Bring it online now...the best way you can."

Golich looked over at the Captain. "You're thinking ' _flytrap_ '?"

Dringoth watched the target on his detectors grow larger as _Cygnus_ made her approach. "Exactly. Commander, we both had the same Temporal Ops instructor at the Academy. You remember old Jellicoe. I can hear his gruff old voice now: ' _Just pinch off a time stream upstream and downstream of the enemy's position, disrupt his singularity core, then slam the trapped adversary with overwhelming force. Time jumpers call this a 'Flytrap.' The trick to succeeding with this tactic is to be able to out-jump the enemy and fend off any defenses he may have up his temporal sleeve...like singularity disrupters, etc.'"_

Golich swallowed hard. "As long as it works...and the Bugs don't have something else up their sleeves."

The next few minutes saw _Cygnus_ maneuvering along a tangential approach, dropping lower and lower in Sigma Albeth's gravity well to gain speed, come up below the Coethi formation. The enemy swarm maintained a steady course and there was as yet no repetition of their displacement maneuver, where the Coethi could yank themselves to another place in an instant, just by manipulating quantum states.

Finally, _Cygnus_ was within range. URME had gone aft again to make sure the collapser controls on E deck were operating as well as possible. He knew they had had trouble with the weapon recently...misfires, misalignments, not fully pinching off a time stream (that had been an oscillator issue, URME had fixed it himself) and there were others.

" _This is a really bad idea_ ," URME muttered to himself. If there were any hiccups. URME knew of the Uman expression 'holding your breath'. He had never understood why withholding oxygen from one's lungs would lead to better outcomes, but it seemed appropriate, though he didn't consume oxygen the way Umans did. Chase tried to explain it to him but URME wasn't listening.

"Collapser on line, Captain," URME called up to the command deck. "Green across the board, however I must point out that power is fluctuating outside of operational limits. There may be oscillator anomalies in the circuit...we should take time to check this out."

"Not now," came Dringoth back. "Give me what you've got."

URME pressed SYSTEM ENABLE.

Now Dringoth fell back on his training. Using a temporal collapser was not for the faint of heart. As Nathan Golich himself once said, "There are about a million things that can go wrong with this stunt."

_Cygnus_ fired her collapser. At once, time stream T-668 shuddered like a coiled snake, jerking spasmodically, thrashing about enough to set _Cygnus_ into a slow roll. Golich counteracted the force immediately. Spacetime didn't like being snapped like a wet towel.

M'Bela saw the results immediately on her sensor panel. "Direct hit, Captain! You did it! You sliced and diced the time stream approximately two years earlier along the worldline."

Dringoth sucked in his breath and pursed his lips. "Now to get upstream...maybe two years out. Give me a hack to that end of the worldline, Queenie."

M'Bela was in the middle of wringing computations out of ISAAC when something slammed _Cygnus_...hard. Lights flashed on and off and the command deck went dark, with a faint hiss and burning smell thickening in the cabin, before backup power kicked in.

They were in a spin, increasing in rate and already the crew could feel centrifugal force building up.

"What the hell--!" Golich's hands swept across his board, re-setting systems, checking busses and breakers, following diagnostic prompts. ISAAC's silky voice was barely audible over the warning klaxons of the Master Alarm.

" _Displacer impact...I am assuming command per emergency protocol E-1...ship systems at degraded level...time stream interface approaching...contact in twelve seconds...eleven...ten...."_

Dringoth was out cold. URME had lost config control back on E deck and tried to gather himself back into some kind of recognizable form. M'Bela was nursing a slight head injury; the impact of whatever Coethi had slammed them with had sent her careening into a hull stanchion. Chase and Kasmeerah picked themselves up off the floor of E deck, looked at each other. The same thought occurred to both of them at the same time.

"Let's get up to the command deck!" Chase said. "They need help!"

Up front, Golich was conscious, barely, gritting his teeth against the centrifugal force.

_Got to get_ Cygnus _under control...got to swing her back into the stream...before we hit the barrier wall...._

Golich had been 1st TD's Temporal Ops guy, her TT1 and second-in-command for only a short time, but he knew a bad situation when he saw it. The ship had been hit by something—probably a Coethi displacer-- and was now adrift and heading toward the outer barrier of the time stream. If they hit, if they didn't have good control...

He didn't want to think about it.

If it had been a displacer round that had hit them—time jumpers called it a twist loop— _Cygnus_ had likely been thrown a long way in space and time from her last position, to another time and place in the time stream. They could easily be God knew where inside T-668. They could easily have been thrown completely out of T-668 to another time stream. Worse, if _Cygnus_ was near the edge of the time stream...oriented just the wrong way....

Nathan Golich heard M'Bela stirring behind him but he didn't have time to help her. He had to get _Cygnus_ under control... _NOW_...before she made contact with the outer wall of the time stream.

But contact came before the TT1 could bring the ship around.

In an instant, they were yanked out of the time stream, spinning, rolling and yawing liked a top. For Chase Meyer, working his way forward along the gangway, the first impulse was like a giant fist had grabbed him and started squeezing. He was whirling and spinning, dizzy, round and round, he could feel the force of the spin against his head, pressing, crushing him—

Chase lurched onto the command deck and had a fleeting glimpse of one of the crew—maybe it was M'Bela, maybe the Captain—and he nearly vomited at the sight. It was all wrong...the image was wrong and his mind refused to accept it—there was Queenie, with two heads, now three, now four, now eight heads, popping out of her shoulders like geraniums in a fast motion video, Queenie M'Bela with her head missing, distorted in a cracked mirror, and he closed his eyes, couldn't look at it anymore—

...and then it came. An image of geometric forms—icosahedrons, polygons, trapezoids—all compressed into a tunnel, a long curving corridor and he found himself hurtling at breakneck speed down this corridor, until—

With a hard bump, his whole body jarred from the impact and when he opened his eyes, caught his breath and came to his senses, he was...where?

His last surviving thought came unbidden, like bad news from a doctor.

They had called it voidtime.

Oostannah's Echopod Journal #2

Okay, so maybe I'm not the smartest girl on the planet when it comes to picking guys. But I do love Pakto and he loves me. I think. A lot of people raise their eyes when they see us together roaming around, me an amphib girl and Pakto, this big, honking Ponkti kid. I've heard the whispers and snide remarks: what good could possibly come from such an infernal liaison?

We were roaming on Ke'tuvish'tek—the Circling—somewhere in the southwest Pacific. I don't know where exactly. Tekot kept track of that sort of thing. It was dim and murky, like always. I think we were cruising over some underwater limestone hills, up and down, up and down, pretty boring.

I asked Pakto about some things I had never understood. About how the Sea People thought and particularly about three practices I knew of that I didn't fully grasp: ke'shoo, ke'lee and shoo'kel. The first two I sort of get. Ke'shoo and Ke'lee usually get translated as 'love' and 'life.' But shoo'kel?

Pakto said "Maybe the better translation is fertility and friendship. Seomish are kind of playful and gregarious, I guess. We get around. We have lots of friends. We couple a lot."

I said, "Yeah, I've noticed. I've been meaning to talk to you about that. Where I come from, that's called promiscuous."

Pakto didn't take the hint. "Ke'shoo and Ke'lee go back to the First Days, to Shooki and the First Daughters. Shooki impregnated the Daughters to fill the waters with life. Ke'shoo and Ke'lee are the two great currents that flow with us, even inside us."

" _So does this mean you get to hump everything that moves, everything that has a tail?"_

Pakto seemed hurt by that. "Oostannah, you don't understand."

" _No, I guess not. I thought we were a pair. You know, like together forever. Remember when you said we should get married in the Tailless way?"_

" _I remember—"_

That's when Tekot interrupted. "Hey, I think that was a school of pollock back there...I'll go grab us some dinner." He darted off and was gone for a few moments. Which was just as well.

" _Maybe I don't understand, Pakto. I just thought that when we said we loved each other...that meant only each other."_

Pakto seemed confused. "Tailless...I'm sorry Amphib ideas...they confuse me sometimes. This love...to you it means no other couplings?"

" _Yeah...that's what it means."_

Pakto shivered with disgust. I could see it in his tail flukes. "Shooki wouldn't approve. That's not ke'shoo and ke'lee. It's not the Seomish way."

But it is the Tailless...I mean, the Human way. I could see this was going to take some more time, so I changed the subject.

" _Okay, what about shoo'kel? That's some kind of inner calm or some such...that's the way I understand it."_

Pakto came to a complete stop and just circled aimlessly for a moment, right around me. "You know I can pulse everything about you. I can pulse that you're disturbed, for some reason...I can see the bubbles. They're not happy bubbles. I can pulse that piece of grubby you had for breakfast...still digesting. I've been trying to teach you this."

" _I know...I just can't read the echoes the way you can."_

" _Oostannah, shoo'kel is so much more. It's like you said...a kind of inner peace. When you can pulse everything going inside somebody, that person is supposed to maintain calm echoes. That's respectful. That's good manners. You might say peace. Serenity. Steadiness. To show off bad bubbles, angry echoes, turbulent insides, that's very impolite. It's disgusting. We don't like to pulse that at all. So shoo'kel is what you have to do to keep that inner peace. You pulse?"_

" _Not really. I can't control my insides like you can."_

" _You'll learn."_

Tekot came back with dinner and we snacked on pollock and seaweed for awhile. I could sort of pulse that Tekot was curious about what we had been talking about...but he said nothing. Maybe he already knew...pulsing said things, echoes and bubbles made statements even when words didn't. I don't know if I'll ever get the hang of it...or really understand Pakto.

It was Tekot who brought up this back-to-Seome movement at Keenomsh'pont. "I think they're all nuts," he said between big gulps of flesh and tail. We have to make our lives here, on Urku, not the old world. Accept new ways."

Pakto was more nuanced and thoughtful about it. "Oostannah and I speak of this often. Should we stay? Should we go back?"

Since he brought up the subject of us as a couple, I dived right in. "We both want to get married...in the Tailless way. Raise kids—midlings—right here on Urku."

Pakto said nothing to that. What I could pulse of Tekot's reaction was something like amusement, mixed with a little scorn...maybe I didn't read the echoes right, but I think I really did. It bothered me, more than I care to admit.

Pakto and Tekot and I all felt the ocean heave at the same time, like a giant fist had slammed down on the water. The waves wouldn't stop, knocking us sideways, upside down, battering us all the way into a small underwater canyon. I didn't know exactly where we were, but Pakto picked up a repeater signal just before the quake and triangulated us to be somewhere near a place called Indonesia...the Banda Sea maybe a few kilometers beyond an island called Babar Moa.

Then the wave surged up toward the surface, a tsunami pushing right through the ocean, slamming and upending everything.

It was Tekot who remembered that the sea state Equatoria was nearby.

Moments later, the first debris from the platform came raining down on us. Rocks, streetlamps, cars and bodies...all of it drifting down like a blizzard. The worst of it was the wrenching, screeching sound of the waves tearing up the platform of Equatoria, for she was a floating community, not fixed in position like Muir City. That sound—I'll never forget it—was awful, agonizing.

" _We've got to help them!" I cried out and started up. But Pakto and Tekot just stayed where they were, unwilling to ascend. I knew that they couldn't do Notwater, but they could at least help some of these people before they drowned. "Come on, you two! Let's go!"_

Pakto just said, "I can't. Shoo'kel, Oostannah. It's shoo'kel. Serenity. We're on Ke'tuvish'tek...we can't touch them. It contaminates the Circling."

" _We helped those divers a few weeks ago. What's the difference? These people need help...can't you hear them?"_

But neither Pakto nor Tekot would budge. They dodged some of the debris for awhile, waiting out the worst of the falling wreckage by hunkering down below a rock overhang, then when it let up, they kicked off and resumed their roam. Nothing could get in the way of a Circling. I could see that now. Not even an earthquake or a tsunami. Or hundreds of people dying all around us.

" _Pakto! Pakto, stop--!"_

They didn't stop. I was in a quandary. I had to make a decision. Where did my loyalties really lie? With the humans drowning all around us? Or with Pakto and his people?

I fumed and swore and kicked at anything that moved around me.

Then I took a deep breath. Shoo'kel. Yeah. I needed to practice shoo'kel. Maybe the better word for it is indifference.

I roamed after them and finally caught up.

Damn you to hell and back, Pakto....

End Recording...
Chapter 6

" _You'll never find time for anything. If you want time, you must make it."_

Charles Buxton

Seome (Storm)

City of Ponk't

Time: 779.8, Epoch of Tekpotu

Tulcheah returned to Kinlok Island only a day after jumpship _Cygnus_ had departed to engage the Coethi, none the worse for wear after being detained at the Pillars by the _mekli_ priestesses.

She ate greedily from rations in _Aquarius'_ galley and conferred heatedly with Golok and Likteek as she ate. Angie occupied herself with helping Acth:On'e and Yang stage materials and gear outside for skimmer trips out to the Twister. They had orders to get the Battery and the Twister up and operating as fast as possible. Angie didn't want anyone, least of all Chase, to call her a shirker. And the Time Guard officers made sure they stayed on task.

Later, Tulcheah announced that she and Golok were taking the kip't.

"Where are you going?" Angie asked. They had all gathered in _Aquarius'_ galley and wardroom for late night snacks. Angie's shoulders and arms were sore from all the hauling and lifting. Plus her face was windburned from exposure. Her nose felt frostbitten too. The rest of _Aquarius_ ' crew hung nearby: Levy, Juba, El Kash. The Time Guard officers, Sturdivant and Namib, had retired to their own jumpship parked next to _Aquarius_.

"We're going to Ponk't," Tulcheah announced, in a tone of voice that brooked no dissent, even through her mobilitor and echopod translator. "Golok and I, with Likteek—though he is Omtorish—have business in the capital city."

Lieutenant Levy, _Aquarius'_ PSO—the pilot/systems officer—said, "Is that wise? We're under attack now...we should be sticking together. Captain Meyer and Captain Dringoth both said stay here and complete the Twister."

Tulcheah was in no mood to argue. "Ponk't is only two days from here, by the Pom'tel Current. There are matters I have to attend to."

Maybe it was the fact that they were under attack that gave Angie the idea. Chase had said stay put, stay with the landing party, at Kinlok. But damn it...this was Seome and the End Times hadn't come yet. Likteek had earlier held out the prospect of a little side trip to Omt'or, to the capital of that kel...the city of Omsh'pont. The prospect intrigued her. Maybe she could find old Longsee, Likteek's Academy mentor. Maybe she could even locate Kloosee and Pakma...wouldn't that be a hoot to catch up with old friends? Time travel in jumpships was confusing as hell but when you could hook up with old friends in an earlier time stream, why not? There was something she had always admired about the Seomish, at least the Omtorish tribe. Sure, they were haughty, proud, arrogant even. The Ponkti thought them snobs. But they were also majestic in their way, full of a kind of dignity yet just playful enough to avoid being snotty. And they all had that dolphin's bemused smile on their faces, smiles that said ' _I know what you're up to_...'

"I'd like to go with you," Angie found herself saying to Tulcheah. "If there's room."

The Ponkti monarch—though she was in reality only Metah of the Earth-bound Ponkti, the Urku Ponkti—was momentarily taken aback by the request. Her echopod made strange squeaking, clicking sounds, apparently untranslatable. Finally, recognizable words came out.

"Why would a Tailless female wish to come to Ponk't? There is nothing for you there."

That made Angie think for a moment. What could she say? "I want to see Seome before...you know—"

"Before the _ak'loosh_ ," said Golok. "Before it's all swept away. This we understand. But to bring Tailless, non-Ponkti, into the capital—"

Tulcheah held up a mobilitor-clad fin. "Wait. Maybe there _is_ useful reason here. Lektereenah is Metah here. The kelke will think me a usurper. But if I come with a special envoy, a representative from Urku, perhaps they will listen. _Eekoti_ Angie gives me an edge. It gives me the foreknowing of what is to come. It gives me Shooki's blessing." Now Tulcheah was warming to her little subterfuge. She came to Angie, a Ponkti monarch in full mobilitor, hissing and wheezing. " _Eekoti_ , you can come with me. But you must do as I say. As I direct. There will be conflict. There will be argument. Stay quiet and do only as I instruct."

"Of course. I'll be your guest. I can do that."

And so it was decided that room would be made in the kip't for four: Tulcheah, Golok, Likteek and Angie Gilliam.

"I've never been to Ponk't," Angie admitted. "When I was here before, it was only in Omsh'pont, mostly."

Golok sniffed. "The seas of Ponk'el are cold and salty to kelke like you. I hope your amphib ways do you well. Tulcheah is very determined. We will not be turning back."

Angie decided not to ask what _that_ meant.

A day later, after provisions had been laid in, they got underway.

The little kip't cruised off the shelf surrounding Kinlok Island and was soon lost to view.

Tulcheah was pensive and quiet as the four of them settled into a droning cruise south by southeast. That brought a faint smile to Golok who was driving, as he turned the kip't to its heading and felt along gingerly for the first faint tugs of the Sk'ork Current. They would have to negotiate that southward flowing river of water before they could transit the T'kel ridge and spill out into the broader Ponk'el Sea.

Golok knew perfectly well what Tulcheah was up to. He only hoped there wasn't too much blood spilled in the process. They were both glad beyond words to be back on Seome. But relying on Tulcheah to deal evenly with the local Ponkti, with _anybody_ really, was like kissing a pal'penk right in the mouth. You did it when you had to and you held your breath when you did. Too much had changed among the Urku Ponkti, they were too far removed in time and space from the Seomish Ponkti, to expect anything but conflict. Golok steeled himself for the encounter.

Golok settled in for the long first leg, the ride up to the T'kel. On the sled cockpit dashboard, he had placed a small scentbulb from his own em'kel...more Notwater reminders. They were going there and he was both glad and a little anxious about it. This would help get him in the mood.

Behind him, Likteek and Angie said nothing.

Likteek, the old Omtorish Kelktoo leader, was not amused. "You don't have to rub my nose in it," he muttered. "Turn that thing off. I've got work to do back here."

Golok chuckled quietly at that. _Omtorish slob_. Minutes later, Likteek was snoring, sound asleep.

They cruised for several days along the lip of the Ork'nt Divide, searching for some sign of Ponk't in the abyssal wastes but without success. Golok knew from the descriptions of the repeaters and from Tulcheah's insistent directions, that the Ponkti capital lay just over the edge of the plateau, where the broad tongue of land called the T'keltong'tee met the plain in an overthrust cliff. Somewhere in that junction lay the entrances, probably well hidden by thick beds of sediment and rock. Beneath the crust lay the vast underground caverns of Ponk't itself.

Golok had never been there. He was Urku Ponkti, born and raised in the seas of Earth.

Golok dropped the kip't down to a half beat above the mud, leaving a trail of silt behind him as he slowed for a closer look at a suspicious slump in the area. He had to dodge and weave through the silt clouds as best he could to avoid colliding with small hillocks which sometimes rose up suddenly out of the gloom, which led to great deal of grumbling but fortunately, no accidents. The city portals were supposed to be underneath a shelf which thrust out over the decline and which was nearly invisible even a few beats away. Finding it was going to be hard, Golok could see that already and Tulcheah, murmuring and dictating over the comm circuit, wasn't much help either. This was the way the Ponkti wanted things. Golok imagined that Ponkti kip'ts and repeaters had the benefit of knowing where exactly to pulse. Uninvited visitors weren't so fortunate.

"They have to know we're coming," Golok said, to himself, as much as anyone. "The city has to be somewhere along this ridge. Maybe we passed over it."

The comm crackled with Tulcheah's snarly voice. "If you'd listened to me, we would have turned at that last ridge and headed south."

Golok didn't answer. _If I listened to you, I'd be your third armfin._

Likteek was sullen, glowering out of the cockpit bubble at the bleak surroundings. The waters were murky with silt and the ooze seemed to extend forever in all directions. Not a single ting bush or weed broke the monotony. He shuddered.

"What a desolate wasteland. Can't you pulse through this stuff?"

"It's too deep," Golok told him. He let the kip't settle gingerly on top of the mud. It sank a bit before holding. "I think it would be better if I got out and did a little roaming. We must be near the city by now."

"A little roam would do all of us some good," Likteek said. "It's cramped back here,"

Golok helped Likteek lift the cockpit bubble and the four of them emerged from the sled. Angie did a few spins around, just to get the kinks out. She found the cold, salty water took a little getting used to; her gills felt stiff and sore after just a few minutes.

Golok wandered off, looking for some sign of the Ponkti city. He had traveled three beats away and had turned around to head back when he thought he saw something move, not far from the kip't. Angie was headed that way too...she hadn't seen it. When he pulsed more closely, the sediment moved again.

Golok pulsed around for a few seconds, finding only echoes from a distant mountain range, then he rushed over to the disturbance, wondering if it were a signal, or a door. He probed the upper layers with his hands. Curious, Angie drifted by and studied the scene.

"Find something?"

"I'm not—"

In an instant, they were on him, on both of them. Angie and Golok were both surrounded before Golok could pull his hand out, entangled in a sticky web of white tendrils, almost before they could take a breath. Likteek and Tulcheah had been caught too; through the tendrils, he saw them struggling furiously.

"K'orpuh!" Golok yelled. "Get back...get back--!"

"Golok..." it was Tulcheah, rushing up. "—get...away!"

Golok could feel their fuzzy skin brush his fins as they wove a cocoon around him, pulling the filaments tighter and tighter. A choking cloud of silt swirled around him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Angie fighting and flailing.

"Don't struggle!" he told her. "They'll just pull tighter—"

"What the— _ouch_!"

Even through the murk, he occasionally caught a quick glimpse of their snake-like bodies. They darted in and out of his vision like fat, mobile weeds, slick and gray as the silt itself. He knew they carried a fatal electric charge but so far, he had escaped any jolt. They could also extrude a tough fiber and encase a prey in seconds. That seemed to be their goal.

Golok heard Angie's voice, muffled but terrified, somewhere nearby. _She's going to be stung_ , he thought, crying out like that. He tested the cords encircling him and found them pliant but strong. There was nothing he could do for the others now. And with their stingers primed and ready, it would have been suicide for Tulcheah or Likteek to try to get him out.

They had blundered into a k'orpuh hold and had little choice for the moment. Soon enough, the snakes would finish wrapping them up. After that—

A few minutes later, almost on command, two of the k'orpuh slipped their tails through the cords and started to pull. The cocoon lifted from the floor and he was on his way—where he couldn't say. He saw the others in the same predicament and decided to settle down for the ride.  
_Better to wait for the right moment,_ he thought. He hoped Tulcheah understood that too.

He couldn't see where they were going and could only hope it wouldn't take long to get there. He pulsed other k'orpuh nearby, dragging their cocoons with them.

" _Eekoti_ Angie! Likteek! Are you hurt? Where are you?"

There was no reply; perhaps, they had only been stunned. Golok made himself believe that. With any luck, once in the hold, the k'orpuh would gnaw through the fibers and he would be able to escape and help them. He tried pulsing to see what was ahead but the k'orpuhs' motion broke up his echoes.

For a long time, there had been rumors and stories among the repeaters and kip't pilots among the Urku Ponkti that the Seomish Ponkti had found a way to train the k'orpuh to act as guard animals around Ponk't but Golok had always discounted those stories as unproven. The k'orpuh were notorious for being unreliable, not to mention deadly, much like the Ponkti themselves. The only known breeders were the Eep'kostic, who raised the snakes in the south polar waters for their skins and for sport purposes. It didn't seem likely they would trade their secrets to the Ponkti.

The cocoon bobbed along for awhile until Golok became fatigued. He should have been more careful...he should have known better—he had led the kip't right into a feeding ground of the snakes—but it was too late for that now.

Suddenly, he thought he saw shapes ahead of them, moving shapes, just beyond pulsing, headed their way. Golok struggled in the cocoon to find the leverage to probe the dim gray more carefully. He wasn't mistaken. Five bodies were approaching and each pulse made him more certain they were Seomish—in fact, probably fellow kelke from Ponk't. In a few minutes, they came into view.

They _were_ Ponkti soldiers—there was no question about that. Each of them wore heavy harnesses behind their dorsals. They were armed with prods. Two of them carried long metal prods as well, insulated at the grip, and they used these to poke the k'orpuh away from his sack. The k'orpuh buzzed and slithered around the ends of the prongs for awhile, but at last, they sulked off, burrowing beneath the sediment. Tulcheah tried to explain their mission to Ponk't --"we are Ponkti too...let us go...I am Tulcheah kim"--but it was clear the prodsmen were in no mood to listen. She said nothing further as one of the prong-carriers hooked his device through the cords of the sack and dragged them along, much as the k'orpuh had done. Through the veil of the sack, she saw Angie and Golok getting the same treatment.

The prodsmen would not be dissuaded from their duty. They had traveled perhaps ten beats or so when the sediment beds that had seemed to stretch to infinity dropped away abruptly. They drifted out over a precipitous slope that fell below them into a deep canyon, buried under scores of beats of silt. Slowly, they descended, the entire convoy now shepherded along by more prodsmen, and Golok watched wide-eyed as the cliff inexorably gave way to a row of dim recesses in the rock face, cave mouths he presumed, all arranged in a ragged line across the cliff.

He had heard tales of this from his days as a young midling.

The prodsmen bore all of them toward one of the openings. They reached it and the prodsmen pushed the sacks through ahead of them.

It took a few minutes for Golok to adjust his eyes to the darkness and while he did, he pulsed about the cave to learn more.

It was more of a narrow tunnel, he soon found out, roughly rounded at the ceiling and, not unexpectedly, filled with baffles, false chambers and row upon row of slender metal cones lining the walls. A stunning field, he surmised, to kill anything that got this far into the city.

The prodsmen dragged and pushed the k'orpuh sacks through several tortuous turns, then up to the edge of a long sloping ramp. An oval of pale amber light glowed at the foot of the ramp and Golok pulsed a very large cavern down there, beyond it.

The soldiers nudged the sack down the ramp, along with the others, and they came at last into the heart of the city of Ponk't.

As the prodsmen took them deeper and deeper into the city, they passed through innumerable scent fields. The presence of an Omtorish kelke like Likteek and a Tailless female like Angie aroused considerable curiosity and the soldiers had to fight to clear a path at times.

They were taken to the very bottom of the cavern. They drifted down through layer after layer of roaming citizens, through holds and berths made of sheer tissue that parted for their passage, then closed again, through squabbling em'kels and solemn lectures, prodigal feasts thick with the aroma of _tongpod_ and _ertleg_ , games of _kong'pelu_ and _tonkro_ , debates, sexual couplings, _tuk_ matches, a fight and myriad other scenes.

Golok realized he had seen all this before. The Ponkti quarter in Keenomsh'pont was in almost every way a duplicate of this very place...the old city replicated in most details in the very middle of the Atlantic Ocean, in Urku seas.

He could pulse the calculating bubbles building inside Tulcheah as well.

They were bearing the convoy toward a group of canopies at the bottom, delicate pastel structures that seemed to drift slightly in the prevailing currents.

His escorts let the k'orpuh sack hit the floor with a hard bump, then cut the fibers of the sack with stubby knives. While they sawed through the tough cords, Golok craned to see what was happening beneath the canopies.

His first impression, confirmed with Tulcheah who was nearby, was that it was a fight, but a closer look showed that such was not the case. Though it was difficult to see through the swarming bodies that flitted in and out, Golok was able to see enough to realize that he was witnessing the ancient art of _tuk_ , the ritual dance discipline that was virtually unique to the Ponkti.

When he was finally free at last from the sack, he saw Tulcheah hovering a short distance away, flexing her arms. Angie was there too. They spotted Golok and darted over.

"Are you all right?" Golok pulsed them both for injuries, until a burly prodsman separated them with an abrupt wave of his weapon.

Tulcheah backed away. "I'll live," he said. "What about you?"

Golok was rubbing a pinkish welt on his left arm. "Just a little sting—nothing serious. Where's Likteek?"

A partially muffled voice replied, "Over here."

They all turned and saw him helping a prodsman rip away the remnants of his cocoon. A head emerged and stared in amazement at the scenery around them.

"I have a feeling we're not in Keenomsh'pont anymore, eh Golok? Help me out."

Golok took him by the arms and brushed the last fibers off. He pulsed the old teacher and satisfied himself that Likteek was unhurt. He looked up, saw Tulcheah approaching the nearest soldier and went to her side.

"We've come from Urku..." Tulcheah was saying, "through the Great Farpool. We've come here to work with your _Kel'em_. I am Tulcheah kim, metah of the Urku Ponkti, rightful heir to the kel of all Ponkti. Take me to your Metah—"

The prodsman said nothing but gestured with his weapon toward one of the canopies. Tulcheah pulsed the soldier and found him remarkably quiet and well-disciplined inside. Unusually calm considering he had just handled one of the sea's deadliest creatures. She decided it would be prudent to respect these Ponkti soldiers.

They were herded together, the four of them, and conveyed toward the canopy where the _tuk_ match was still in progress. Ponkti swarmed around them as they approached but the prodsmen held them back.

In the center of the main canopy, the crowds were thickest, huddling around a large, blubbery female of medium-gray skin. Not surprisingly, the Metah Lektereenah kim, was the center of slavish affection.

Tulcheah bristled at the sight and Likteek and Angie watched as the prodsman worked his way through the line of admirers and, reaching the Metah at last, told her of their captive visitors. She showed no reaction at all, but merely shooed the horde away. At her command, the prodsman beckoned them all to approach.

Tulcheah was the first to speak. "I am Tulcheah kim, Affectionate Metah. Metah of all Urku Ponkti. I've come to assume my right as Metah of all Ponkti."

Lektereenah seemed not to have heard and continued munching on a rib of palpenk. In front of them, one of the _tuk_ players scored a dramatic blow against his opponent, stunning him with a sharp tail-slap. The move brought forward a chorus of honks and cheers from the people around them.

At last, Lektereenah deigned to notice them.

"I _have_ heard the ancient echopods, the story of the coming ak'loosh. I don't believe any of it. You're clearly an imposter. We Ponkti know how to deal with pretenders. But you are no doubt tired from a long journey. You will eat." It was not a request and Golok stood aside to let the Metah's words be carried out, subtly tugging on Tulcheah to give way. Almost instantly, the canopy was full of servants, grabbing them by the arms and tugging them toward a basin in front of the Metah, where pal'penk portions were piled high. But instead of leaving them to eat, the servants proceeded to clean and groom everyone in the convoy with their beaks and with fine brushes. Golok tried to smother a smile at Angie's reaction: already, she had stretched out and was directing the brushes to the sorest places.

"I could get used to this," she told them.

"It is a long ride from Kinlok, no?" Lektereenah said. "We have not had visitors from beyond for twenty-six _mah_. The attendants will help you to relax, unwind. Kip't traveling is so tiring, is it not? Such tiny craft. I'm not at all sure that we need them. There are better ways to travel."

Tulcheah tried to protest. "Affectionate Metah...we have so much to discuss...the Kel'em—"

But Lektereenah would hear none of it and turned away. The servants closed in and Tulcheah was soon enveloped in their capable hands.

_An interesting way to deal with a threat_ , Golok observed. _Smother them with love and kindness. Not like true Ponkti at all...._

Golok was pleasantly surprised to find that the brushes were coated with a narcotic relaxant. The odor was unfamiliar but the effect was most welcome. Even the beaks of the servlings seemed special. Each of them knew just where his muscles were knotted and just how much pressure to apply. He shivered with comfort, only dimly aware of Angie and the others.

Lektereenah went on, talking and chewing pal'penk at the same time. "Before the kip'ts, people used to roam from kel to kel, freely, with no machines to help them. Imagine that. Oh, of course, they sometimes rode tillets—you know, we still ride them around here—but even so, it's not the same. I suppose the Orketish don't breed them anymore." She studied her visitors out of the corner of her eye. Each was dazed and semi-conscious, mumbling inaudible things. The servling attending Golok drove her hands deep into his flesh, pinching him as she did so, uttering soothing nonsyllables, feeding him pal'penk. When she looked up at the Metah, Lektereenah nodded silently and she resumed her attentions.

"They are such gentle animals," Lektereenah went on. By now, her voice had settled into the same monotonous drone as her servants. All around them, kelke watched the entrancing with hushed fascination. Slowly, but surely, Golok, Likteek and Angie were losing control of themselves. Only Tulcheah was unaffected. She stared grimly at the entrancing, not daring to approach the Metah. Lektereenah ignored her.

"Reliable too. When I was only a midling—that was not so long ago—I was on a roam to T'kel'rok and got sick. Bad waters, you know; terribly _onkelte_ in there. And my tillet brought me back to Ponk't by itself, saved my life in fact. The most amazing thing. Do you know I took that tillet for a pet later; the breeder was going to slaughter it for food but I persuaded him to let me keep this one. They're cannibals in captivity, but you must know that already." She paused, staring at Tulcheah, her eyes hard.

Tulcheah wriggled free from the servlings and came toward Lektereenah. They pulsed each other deeply...furious bubbles, anxious echoes, distress, turbulence, it was all there mixing and frothing and churning.

"The kelke know that I am the Metah," Tulcheah insisted. "The Kel'em will pulse this. We left Ponk't in the great kel'vishtu...the End Days. We survived. We thrived. We built a great city on Urku and all kelke know these things. You can't stop ak'loosh."

Lektereenah spat out a piece of pal'penk. It drifted off, caught by a servling. "Kah! Ak'loosh is a myth. It's a story we tell midlings."

"Lektereenah, you hear the wavemaker sound as well as I do. The Tailless ruin our seas, our currents, our very lives. It's a great weapon they use, against a far enemy you know nothing of. On Urku, we call them 'm'jeete'...the Tailless call them ' _Coethi_.' It is the far enemy who will bring the real ak'loosh. This great wave will destroy everything. We left just in time, many mah ago. Many mah _after_ your time. I came back, through time, to stop ak'loosh. The Tailless even work with us to defeat the far enemy. Only I can do this, for only I know what is to come."

"You know nothing. I am the true Metah, descended of Ponkel's blood. Taste it, Tulcheah. You'll see it's true. You are nothing here. Nothing but trouble. The Kel'em said this would happen. The Sound has scrambled everybody's mind. Get away! Prodsmen—" Lektereenah waved them to approach. "Take her and restrain all of them. Put them in the k'orpuh hold—"

Without delay, a squad of prodsmen approached the pavilion and took the four of them into custody. They were escorted through jeering throngs of Ponkti, out of the pavilion, across the vast cavern and up higher along one wall. A grid of openings became visible, holds, burrows and niches carved right out of the limestone.

Likteek and Angie were shoved into one hold, Tulcheah and Golok into another. Two prodsmen attended to the process of securing the holds.

Each prodsman uncinched a ring of small sacks surrounding the openings. Instantly, the sacks disgorged several writhing k'orpuh snakes, each suspended from the sack but otherwise free to undulate freely in the waters. The snakes formed a nearly impenetrable barrier, entwining and entangling with each other, that no one could pass.

One prodsman remained on guard outside of each hold.

Angie started to cry, but the cold dense water made forming tears impossible. She sank back against the rock wall of the cell.

"It's a snake jail," she decided. "We'll never get out of here."

Likteek was sympathetic. "Perhaps you shouldn't have come on this journey."

Angie sobbed. "Oh, it's my fault...I wanted to come. I wanted to be with Chase. We both love the Seomish people, the whole world. It's—I don't know—it's hard to explain. When we first encountered Kloosee and Pakma off Scotland Beach, and they were shot by the police, and then nursed back to health...we went with them through the Farpool. So much of our lives have been lived here, with your people. And when the Emigration came, and we helped so many Seomish make homes in our seas on Earth...we became like a big family."

Likteek was thoughtful, drifting idly about the confines of the hold, inspecting each little crevice in the rock wall. "Even families have their disputes, _eekoti_ Angie. Here in Ponk't, it's not hard for me to pulse the difference between the kels here and the kels on Urku. The Ponkti here are like Ponkti have always been: aloof, militant, generally not trustworthy. When you pulse them, you get echoes of anger and skepticism. But the Urku Ponkti are easier to get along with. The effects of your seas, of being immigrants in strange waters, I suppose. It's the difference between Tulcheah and Lektereenah."

They watched outside the hold, through the screen of writhing k'orpuh, as hordes of jeering, honking bellowing Ponkti cruised by their cells. On occasion, their Ponkti guards jabbed out with their prods, earning rebukes and furious bubbles.

"We seem to be novelties," Likteek observed.

"Likteek, what'll happen to us? What will the Ponkti do to us?"

Likteek feared an honest answer, so he made something up. "They'll display us for the kelke for awhile, try to humiliate us. Then, if we're lucky, they'll drag us out of this cavern and send us off."

"And if we're not lucky?"

Likteek could pulse the turmoil inside the amphib girl. He had no wish to stir it up any further. "Let's focus on what we can see and control, for now."

The fact that she didn't get a direct answer made Angie feel even more miserable.

They ate perfunctorily, something like clams had been thrust into the hold at the end of long poles, and Angie was about to try to get some sleep in a corner when they both sensed a commotion outside, beyond their own hold. A small party had arrived outside Tulcheah and Golok's cell.

"It's Loptoheen tu, I think," Likteek announced. He edged up as close as he dared to the snakes and pulsed out.

"Who's that?" Angie lifted herself out of her makeshift bed of rock and drifted up beside the academician.

"The great Ponkti tukmaster, if I'm pulsing right. Shhh...listen...."

The party consisted of Loptoheen and several prodsmen. Tulcheah greeted the athlete across the snake barrier of her own hold. Golok hung back, eyeing Loptoheen with scorn, and not a little envy.

Loptoheen was nervous. "Why did you come here, Tulcheah? To make _mee'tor'kel_ waters...stir things up, I'm betting?"

Tulcheah had always been good at seducing males, especially Ponkti males. Feed their egos, stoke their bluster, that's all you had to do.

"Well, look at you," she teased, circling to inspect her visitor. "I never expected such a famous kelke to come nosing around like this...all sleek and shiny. And such happy bubbles, my word... _litorkel ge_ , old friend."

Loptoheen let her have her way. He ordered the prodsmen to stun the k'orpuh. One guard stung the snakes with the end of his prod, momentarily shocking them into paralysis. Loptoheen brushed by them and entered the hold. "Calmwaters to you too, Tulcheah. I just wanted to see you. Lektereenah and I are going up to the Pillars—"

Tulcheah stopped him with a playful poke in the sides. "I know that...nothing stays secret around here for long, you know that. How is Lektereenah...I hear she couples like a fat pal'penk."

Loptoheen knew it was best to let Tulcheah get all the ribbing and jealous sneers out of her system. You could pulse the envy inside her...no one could hide all those bubbles.

"I won't dignify that with an answer. Lektereenah's not stupid. She's smart, lots of stamina...I'd like to see you with the Kel'em, Tulcheah...you'd be plastered all over the chambers, screaming at them the whole time."

Tulcheah played at being hurt. "So try me. Believe it not, I am metah of the Urku Ponkti. I could be metah here as well."

"That's not why I came."

"I know why you came...it's written all over your insides. A blind tillet could see it halfway around the world. What makes you think I'm in the mood?" Tulcheah held up her scentbulbs; she had a tray of them and she was methodically opening and inhaling each one.

"For the love of _Shooki_...the whole place smells like a seamother herd...what do you think you're doing?"

Tulcheah sniffed indignantly at a bulb. "Pleasing myself with old odors...these are from childhood...remember when you used to chase me around the Torsh'pont, pinch my tail and belly?"

"I've got something better than old bulbs," he told her. Loptoheen swam up close and bumped her. "Look, I've got to get back to Tamarek's place...how about we—"

But she put a hand to his mouth, fondling his beak, the way she always did. "Loptoheen, you never change. Come with me, o' great and famous tukmaster. I'll show you things you never imagined—"And she slapped her tail at him, disappearing into a small cleft in the space, a narrow fold in the rock. It was dark, but the scents were strong. Loptoheen followed.

They made love for hours, under the watchful pulses of all the guards.

Afterwards, the two of them drifted lazily about the hold, ignoring Golok, who had feigned falling asleep.

"Why did you really come here, Tulcheah?"

"To stir you up, o' great tukmaster. It's been many mah...come...let's roam together."

"Don't patronize me, kelke. You didn't come to Ponk't to see the sights."

Tulcheah decided she'd pushed the tukmaster as far as she could. She told him about Operation _Temporal Hammer_ , the mission the Tailless had agreed to.

"Seome is doomed unless we can defeat the _m'jeete_ ," she explained. "The Coethi...the far enemy...even you can't defeat them. Ponk't will be swept away. The people of the Emigration, at least the older ones, are homesick, Loptoheen. We made alliance with the Umans to come back and save Seome, save the Ponkti from the terrible things to come. The ak'loosh is coming, Loptoheen. Believe me when I say this...I've seen it with my own eyes."

Loptoheen stared down a prodsman who was glaring at them from outside the hold. "Be on your rounds, guard! Leave us!"

The prodsman darted off.

"Lektereenah knows of this forecast. The Omtorish speak of little else. But she doesn't believe it. She thinks ak'loosh is an Omtorish plot to dominate all our seas."

"Then we must be rid of Lektereenah." Tulcheah said matter-of-factly. "She stands in the way of salvation."

Loptoheen stopped circling and unentangled himself from Tulcheah. "You really are the metah...of the Urku Ponkti?"

"It is a fact. Have I ever not been truthful with you, Loptoheen?"

That provoked an explosion of bubbles, mirth erupting in laughter. "Please, don't try me like that. I want to be rid of Lektereenah as well. She treats me like a pet, like a favorite pal'penk, worse than that sometimes."

"This I have heard from others," Tulcheah admitted.

Without any prompting, Loptoheen detailed many mah of insults and abuses and slights, treatment not befitting a great tukmaster.

"I lose _shoo'kel_ before her. I'm telling you I can't stand this any longer, Tulcheah. No one can keep proper balance before her...she's too fickle. Too emotional. Something must be done."

Tulcheah clicked sympathetically and they roamed together about the hold. Outside, the prodsman guards made themselves scarce.

As a rising midling, an early love interest for Loptoheen had occurred not long after first earning the title _tuk_ master. There was a female named Lektereenah kim, a member of the em'kel Teklo, whose main interest was in raising the industrial bacterium _terpoh_. Lektereenah had always been a boisterous, lively person and when she visited the _tuk_ match where Loptoheen won and was crowned _tuk_ master, she resolved to meet this famous and talented athlete.

At a gathering of all Ponkti kels, called the Kel'em, sometime later, Lektereenah found her chance. She actually thrashed and fought briefly with Loptoheen as a way of being noticed. Before long, Loptoheen and Lektereenah were spending a lot of time with each other, roaming and mating and dining together. One mah later, they were very close. Loptoheen didn't know it, but Lektereenah was distantly related to the current Metah Iltereedah and would one day succeed her as Metah.

Loptoheen liked Lektereenah because she was not shy. She was lively, feisty, outgoing, headstrong, ambitious and determined. Almost single-handedly, Lektereenah had made the Teklo em'kel prosperous and well regarded, not just in Ponk'et but throughout Seome. But she had bigger ambitions. Lektereenah was always a cunning, scheming, almost conniving person and she assiduously cultivated friendships in the Ponkti Kel'em.

When Iltereedah died suddenly two mah later, Lektereenah campaigned and cajoled and even bribed Kel'em members to elect her as Metah. Her efforts paid off and, after some controversy and discussion, she was elected Metah of Ponk'et in a near unanimous vote. The Kel'em soon knew or suspected they had tried to bottle a whirlwind. Iltereedah had been older, quieter, composed and deliberate in her decisions. Not so Lektereenah.

And when she became Metah, Loptoheen became enmeshed completely in kel politics as a visible and favorite consort of the Metah.

The relationship between them was like the great Ork'lat Current, always moving but sometimes fierce and turbulent and sometimes more placid and predictable. Loptoheen loved Lektereenah for her sexual prowess and her feisty personality but he didn't necessarily like her. The two of them were like potu pearl beds...irritants to each other that, given enough time, would produce something of great value. It was and always had been a hot and cold affair, with each side never knowing what would come next. For Loptoheen, loving Lektereenah was like a _tuk_ match with a skilled, wily and clever opponent...you had to watch your back at all times. You had to be fast, decisive, choose the right moment and strike with force. Lektereenah expected that and thought less of Loptoheen when he didn't challenge her. Her natural environment was 'hot water.' If there was no crisis to attend to, she would manufacture one.

"Lektereenah is happiest when she is dealing with a crisis. Relating to, loving and dealing with Lektereenah is like trying to grab a hold of the tail of the _kor'puh_. It stings and shocks, but the ride was always worth the effort." Loptoheen stopped roaming and studied Tulcheah carefully. "Now, this is no longer true. Lektereenah is bad for the Ponkti. She must be removed."

Tulcheah regarded him cautiously. "Then help me remove her. It can be done, you and me and the Kel'em...this can be done, I'm telling you."

Loptoheen seemed resigned. "Lektereenah has many allies in the Kel'em. She owns the Kel'em. I need a reason." A thought occurred to him. "You said you had seen the ak'loosh, you said you had been through the End Times. This is really true?"

"I'm not lying to you, Loptoheen. Pulse me if you think I lie."

"I have," he admitted. "I pulse no bubbles of deception. If this is all true, what you have told me, Tulcheah, we may have a way with the Kel'em. A way to great power and influence among the kelke. If I help you depose Lektereenah, I must know for sure you will sustain me as tukmaster."

"You're not so young anymore."

"True enough, but I've grown fond of the fruits of my success. Keep me as tukmaster and I'll set you free...all of you. Your friends too, though they must leave Ponk't immediately, if I do this."

"I'll do better, Loptoheen. You remain tukmaster and become vizier to the Metah. We have this on Urku. The vizier helps me with the Kel'em, helps me keep the old bags under control."

"I want to know all you know about ak'loosh," Loptoheen decided. "And I want us to be life-bonded."

"Don't push your luck, tukmaster. Just set us free and I'll put things in motion."

From the back of the hold, Golok had heard and pulsed most of what Loptoheen and Lektereenah discussed. He was a distant relative of Loptoheen, through a cousin called El Kash, though he was reasonably certain Loptoheen hadn't pulsed any of this. When the pact was sealed and the Metah and the _tuk_ master coupled once again, Golok silently made plans from the dark recess where he lay.

He knew that Lektereenah would pay handsomely to know what his ears had heard.

Less than a day later, Likteek and Angie were surprised to find themselves released from custody. They didn't know that Tulcheah was even then already loose in Ponk't, though still in hiding, making plans to raise a small militia of followers, wooing members of the Kel'em, giving small speeches in out-of-the way cafes about the coming ak'loosh...doing everything in her power to turn the people against their Metah.

Likteek pulsed all the agitation not long after their release and made this observation to Angie: "A great plot is underway," he told her. "I pulse it in the echoes. The waters are disturbed. There are forces opposed to Lektereenah, forces that Tulcheah and Loptoheen are trying to harness. I don't know if they will succeed. But I pulse that Lektereenah is in grave danger, more than she realizes. They will try to assassinate her."

"Assassinate her?" The very idea made Angie shiver, that and the damnably cold, dense waters of the Ponkti city. "Can they do that? What's going to happen?"

"I don't know, but it appears that a civil war may break out—we say _rot'oot'orkelte_...the waters are under very high pressure—a civil war between factions loyal to Lektereenah and those who want to serve Tulcheah."

"I don't like the sound of that, Likteek. I didn't sign up for any of this."

"I also want no part of this conflict."

As Loptoheen had promised, a small kip't and minimal provisions were made available to Angie and Likteek. The chief of the guard explained, as Loptoheen himself had instructed him.

"Hurry. You must leave Ponk't immediately. The Metah knows nothing of this. My prodsmen will escort you through the approaches. After that, you're at the mercy of the sea. Let's go."

And so, it was that less than a day after being released, Likteek klu and Angie Gilliam found themselves aboard a tiny, cramped Ponkti kip't bearing south by southwest, tacking back and forth across the Pom'tel Current, heading in the general direction of the vast Serpentine ridge and a notch in the mountains known to the Omtorish as the Gap.

"Once we make the Gap, if we can find it, we're in Omtorish seas. From there, we should be able to home on the repeater signals and head straight into Omsh'pont itself, the capital city. I shall be greatly heartened to hear those signals and sniff those waters."

Angie couldn't decide whether she felt the same way or not.

Maybe coming along on the Operation _Temporal Hammer_ mission wasn't such a great idea after all. She wondered how Chase and the Time Guard troopers were doing.
Chapter 7

" _The future came and went in that mildly discouraging way that futures do."_

Neil Gaiman

Seome (Storm)

City of Omsh'pont

Time: 780.9, Epoch of Tekpotu

Angie had been in a funk for several days but her mood lightened considerably when Likteek told her he would help her find old friends Kloosee and Pakma, "if they are in the city at all, we should be able to locate them."

Somehow, old Likteek had been able to find the narrow chasm through the Serpentines known as the Gap and navigate the treacherous cross currents without smashing the kip't into the steep walls. Their provisions were almost gone but Likteek was an eternal optimist.

"We'll be in Omsh'pont before the day is over," he bubbled.

Angie could only hope he was right.

Likteek was no kip't pilot but he had steered them deftly toward the huge V-shaped notch in the Serpentines. He slowed down and let the faint fingers of the Tchor current grab them, first shaking them like an angry fist, then hurling them through the decline. The kip't sounded ahead, tasting turbulence and the sled shuddered as it passed through the gorge. Steep craggy flanks surrounded them, not visible in the heavy silt and murk, but Likteek knew danger was near and he was careful with the controls, adding just a touch of rudder or jet as needed. Angie held her breath...one little eddy, one little bump, a few seconds drift in the wrong direction—

Only when the water calmed did both of them catch a breath. Likteek checked the sounder...clear ahead and the rocky seafloor was opening up and spreading out, giving onto a steep tongue of seafloor that led straight down to the Omme'tee, the vast abyssal plain that covered much of the central Omt'orkel Sea.

The seamounts of Omsh'pont were now less than two hundred beats away.

They both grew more and more excited as the echoes of the city became stronger and clearer. Presently, the towering seamounts of Omsh'pont sounded strong and sure and when the murk cleared, the great city finally lay before them. Likteek slowed the kip't down to approach speed and homed on the signals from the Kelktoo lab, occupying several domes and pavilions along the southwest ramparts of the central mesa of the city.

"Homewaters—"he breathed, taking in a big gulp. "Tulcheah was right...we needed to come back." He savored the scents and odors and whiffs and aromas of everything he had grown up with...the accumulated wisdom and noisy clamor and clashing pulses of the only place he had ever called home.

Omsh'pont...heart and soul, the _shoo'kel_ of life itself. Calm and clear waters everywhere you pulsed.

" _Litorkel ge_ ," he breathed.

Angie had to agree. It was a hoary old saying but it was comfortable too, one she had learned well in years of living with the Seomish, here and on Earth. " _Litorkel ge_ —"

They drifted toward the landing pads of the Kelktoo labs.

By sight, Omsh'pont could barely be seen in the silt and murk of the central sea of Omt'orkel, but even a cursory pulse would betray the outlines of a great city. The main axes were wedged in between towering seamounts, held, as it were, in the bosom of the mountains atop a flat mesa-like plateau in the middle.

Pulse in any direction and you would learn of domes and pavilions and floatways and more domes, interspersed with cylindrical structures and pyramids and cones, a geometric forest of cubes and humps and tent-like coverings, all of it crammed and pungent with noisy, honking, bellowing, clicking, snorting life...that was Omsh'pont, the city of Om't.

The Kelktoo was the largest and most influential of all the em'kels...the traditional house of learning with its academies and labs and observatories and institutes and societies and foundations and studios. The project leader was none other than Longsee loh kel: Om't, a name that evoked respect in every sea around the world. Likteek was anxious to meet the old scientist once again...he could hardly wait to pulse how Longsee would react...unexpected visitors from the future...or maybe it was the past...thinking of the Farpool always gave him a headache.

Likteek parked the kip't and supervised the surprised lab attendants as they secured the sled and steered it off to a nearby conservatory for initial inspections. The two of them headed for the floatway leading to the Lab itself, situated under an array of tents and canopies halfway up the outer flanks of the seamount T'or, the tallest sentinel in the city.

Longsee was studying something under a beatscope when they arrived. He looked up, pulsed them with a mixture of confusion and elation and soon they were all hugging like long lost friends.

Longsee was orbiting about the lab with excitement. To Likteek, he said, "I thought you were still at the Likte Gap, setting instruments, measuring the Sound. It's getting worse you know...already there are landslides on the other side of Meta'shpont...."

Likteek tried to explain their presence. This wasn't going to be easy. "You know _eekoti_ Angie, don't you?"

Longsee nuzzled her in the face, an Omtorish custom Angie had never liked...kissing talking fish, _really_. "Of course, the Tailless female...life-bonded to _eekoti_ Chase, I believe."

"Not exactly—" Angie started to say but Likteek waved her silent.

"Longsee, this isn't what it seems."

His voice caused Longsee to push the beatscope aside, and look up from his study of some odd rock. "How do you mean?"

Likteek tried to explain their presence, how they had come to be at Omsh'pont. He explained the trip through the Farpool, Operation _Temporal Hammer_ , the true nature of the threat.

Longsee held up a fin. One of his six fingers was missing, an accident many mah before in the north polar waters. "Yes, yes, the Sound, the wavemaker, that infernal Tailless machine...the Metah's already approved an expedition—"

"You don't understand," Likteek pleaded with the old scientist. "The wavemaker isn't the greatest threat. Beyond the Notwater is a greater threat. A far enemy, even the Tailless fear them. What we call the wavemaker is just a weapon the Tailless use to defend themselves. The sound it makes, all the acoustics and vibrations...those aren't the purpose of the machine."

Longsee wore a look of perplexity, his beak scrunching up in a way Angie found almost humorous. But there was nothing funny about any of this. "Then what is the function of this blasted device...it is damaging our kels and homes...you can't deny that...you've made the measurements yourself."

"No one argues that. The Tailless—the Umans—have a weapon they're using to defend the Notwater from this far enemy. We call them _m'jeete_...similar in some ways to our own mah'jeet. The Tailless call them the Coethi. Tiny, infinitesimal creatures that horde together in swarms...they attack everything, absorb everything. They can destroy all of Seome, everything...so say the Umans. The wavemaker defends us...we mustn't interfere with it, Longsee."

This news made the old scientist recoil as if he had eaten something sour. His face was a collision of looks: confusion, fear, distaste. He smacked the water inside the lab with his flukes, sending waves crashing into shelving along the walls. Instruments spilled out and drifted about.

"What you're telling me, Likteek, is that we must do nothing? Endure the Sound? Live with this distress, this agony? Nobody can expect Omt'or to do that...we have a right to—"

"Longsee, kah, will you listen to me? Pulse me. See if I don't tell the truth. We must not do anything to interfere with the wavemaker. _Eekoti_ Angie and I and many other kelke came back to Seome, back through the Farpool, to save our world. If we stop the Tailless from defending Seome, if we interfere with their wavemaker—they call it a Time Twister—the ak'loosh will come, as it is foretold. The End Times, Longsee. All will be destroyed. But the Tailless say they can defeat the _m'jeete_ , if we help them. If we don't interfere."

Longsee grudgingly seemed to accept what Likteek was telling him. "Likteek, you're a scientist, no? I have never known you to say things, even outrageous things, without evidence. If what you're telling me is true, then there is a problem."

"There are many problems, Longsee...that's why the Kelktoo has so many scientists."

"This is not a scientific problem. Not long before you arrived, the Metah approved an expedition to the Ponk'el Sea...all the kels are participating."

"An expedition."

"To Kinlok...where the wavemaker is located. The expedition is to erect a great shield in place around the wavemaker, to dampen the Sound, spread it out, weaken it, so we can live our lives as before."

"They must not interfere with the machine," Likteek insisted. "What if the shield doesn't work?"

Now Longsee looked truly pained. "The expedition is led by an Omtorish prodsman, Kekot le. He has orders from the Metah—all the kels have agreed to this—that if the shield doesn't work, they will assault the machine. Assault the Tailless base and destroy it."

Likteek looked at Angie. They both understood what this meant.

"If they destroy the Time Twister," Angie said, "the jumpships won't be able to engage the Coethi. Chase has told me this so many times, and that Captain Dringoth said the same thing: the Twister is all that protects this world. No Twister, no Seome. I think Captain Dringoth has orders to withdraw and abandon their base if they can't get the Twister to work."

Now Longsee seemed to fully understand the gravity of the situation. "I must meet with the Metah at once. The Kel'em needs to know this. Kekot's expedition must be signaled at once. The attack must be called off."

"Perhaps the repeaters can do this."

Longsee was now orbiting the lab frantically, his fins twitching with barely contained anxiety. "No, no, the repeaters can't sing for that great a distance with the Sound affecting the waters, the thermal layers. They're all ruined. No, the Metah must approve another expedition. Someone must follow Kekot with word, official orders from the Metah, to stop at once."

Angie felt a growing sense of foreboding about the whole thing. Maybe they were already too late. The attackers didn't know it but by destroying the Time Twister, they might have doomed Seome itself to Coethi attack.

Nothing, it seemed, could stop the great ak'loosh. The End Times would come, just like before.

The thought of it made her Angie beyond sad. Beyond desolate. There weren't even any words for what she felt now.

Kekot le had piloted the convoy of kip'ts for two days when the first direct pulses of the wavemaker and Kinlok Island came back, jumbled, mixed with the current and the scores of whirlpools that the wavemaker always spawned, but there nonetheless, higher pitched than the death beat of the Sound itself, but unmistakable. He planed upward, ascending toward the first faint tendrils of light of the Notwater and tried to sound ahead, sounding to discern their position and their rate of approach.

By the time they had risen some twenty beats, the shifting bottom currents had given way to a steady, brisk flow of warmer water from the surface—the first effects of the wavemaker. Here, the kip't pilots carrying the shield found that the shield wanted to sag badly and in order to avoid tearing it, Kekot directed that the kip'ts arrange themselves so as to approach the huge machine edge on. This was harder than he expected for the strong currents made maneuvering tricky—any movements were enormously magnified by it—and only the most cautious adjustments could be made.

After some discussion, they adopted a strategy that had Kekot and Habloo carrying the high side of the shield, with Ocynth and Yaktu at the rear. Kekot slacked off a bit and let the center of the shield drop down, to even out the top, then cut back the kip't jets to let Habloo do most of the lifting. The dangerous oscillations began to dampen out once they had settled into this attitude.

_Kipkeeor_ was live between them and Kekot listened to some of the comments on the communication channel.

"I hope this kip't is well sealed. Something's crinkling behind me." That was Habloo; an accomplished pilot, he'd never been anywhere near the surface.

Another voice came: "Throttle up a bit, Habloo. You're dropping behind."

"Kekot, I've got it on my sounder," Habloo said. There were a few muttered exclamations, then " _Kah, ket'alpe_. It's a huge beast, isn't it?"

"And all metal," said Kekot, recalling his own pulses.

"It's deafening," said Ocynth. "A constant explosion."

"Whirlpools around the edges," Kekot explained. He had to find a new comm channel to be heard over the thumping. "Don't get too close to those."

"Imagine what the sound would be like in the Ponk'el Sea."

"You're right about that," said the Ponkti pilot Ocynth. "Ponk'el is so cold and dense that it would be magnified many times. How have you stood it for so long?"

"Ponkti aren't the only ones with courage."

"Look!" cried Habloo. "Look above!"

The waters had lightened considerably, from a dark brown to a pallid gray-green and the surface was now visible as a hazy film above them. A large school of wing-walkers skittered across their view, thousands of silvery darts slicing first one way, then another. The buffeting of the wavemaker had picked up as well and the turbulence rocked the fleet of kip'ts as they approached.

"Incredible," someone breathed.

"Is the Farpool nearby?" asked someone.

"It is. My first impression, too," Kekot replied. Their kip't shuddered for a moment, as another wave washed through the formation; he steadied the craft with a careful but firm hand. "Notice there aren't any luminescent creatures around. That was the theory, that the light of day came from swarms of organisms at the surface and when they slept, night came."

" _Eekoti_ Chase has told me of tales about things called suns and stars," Habloo said.

"Some still believe the light comes from creatures in the Notwater," Kekot admitted.

The school of wing-walkers shot up out of the water in unison right in front of them and then re-entered in a cloud of bubbles. Several times they did this, each time in perfect formation, and when they splashed back into the water, it was like a giant hand plunging into the sea.

"Majestic," came Yaktu's voice. "I thought I had pulsed everything."

They were within fifty beats of the surface now and moving inexorably toward the wavemaker. The curvature of its vast surface was becoming apparent from the sounder echoes. Swift cross-currents brushed them and the shield reacted by bunching up its slack parts like a pleated hide. Kekot had them stop the ascent and start cruising in a wide circle toward the machine. They pounded through several fronts of waves.

Conversation fell off as the thumping grew stronger and became a reverberating boom. They entered a realm of bubbles, of cascading froth and lost sight of each other. Kekot had planned an approach from the side of the Shookengkloo Trench, to avoid being sucked into the whirlpools before they could emplace the shield. He hoped to come upon the wavemaker from the side, almost at the surface, before descending again to get into position. In that way, they would expose themselves to the hazardous whirlpools...and Uman suppressor fire...for the briefest period of time.

For the truth was, no one knew how the Umans, the Tailless People of the Notwater, would react.

Tense moments crawled by, with the thunder broken only by an occasional burst of static from _kipkeeor._ The sounders had become unreliable as they neared the surface and leveled out—the water was too turbulent for consistent pulses. Kekot waited for what felt like an eternity, while the noise grew ever more rattling, strengthening, gaining with each passing second, as if it were a living thing, a beast clawing, taking over, filling every space of the world, even taking hold of the mind and the heart and magnifying each tremble across a thousand beats of sea. He was waiting for a feeling, a notion that the wavemaker was just ahead, and when that feeling came, they would drop quickly and dart into the midst of the whirlpools, ready to throttle the machine for good.

"There it is!" someone cried.

And, sure enough, through a curtain of white foam, the bare face of the bowl loomed, it's hard, gray outlines softened by wave after wave of bubbles. Beyond and below, the whirlpools whirled madly, including the Farpool somewhere out there, black tubes twinkling with faint flashes of red and blue light. "Gateways to chaos," Kekot mumbled to himself. Curious, he trained a sounder on the region. No echo at all. Somehow, the whirlpools or whatever they were, absorbed every pulse. Yet they sparkled like the nightmarish beasts of the deep sea, hypnotic and deadly.

Kekot heard murmurs of awe from others but tore his attention from the whirlpools long enough to notice that the platform seemed bigger than on their first visit. Riding lower in the water, as if it had gained weight. An appalling thought occurred to him: was it possible the Tailless People had the power to consume all the water of the ocean? Longsee himself had long theorized about the machine, though the Tailless insisted it was a defensive weapon. _No, of course not_ , he told himself. Nothing could consume the ocean. That was the kind of thought you had after eating too much gisu. It was absurd. The world was the world. _Shoo'kel_ could not be flaunted, not even by the Tailless. The currents were unchanging.

It was the sound, it had to be. Now it was affecting his thinking. He had noticed it before, the last time they had approached the wavemaker. Odd little specks of thought, transient flashes that made no sense. The whirlpools distorted his ideas of time and space but he could fight that. Otherwise, the wavemaker had changed little; there was the same sense of massive bulk, of brutal forces at work, heedless, devastating and relentless.

"Let's go down," Kekot told the others.

They eased the shield through a bank of turbulence, giving it enough slack to keep it from tearing. As they descended again, Kekot kept a close watch on the guide cables connecting him to the shield. He didn't want the kip't to become entangled.

They found a level about thirty beats below the lowest of the whirlpools, where the kip'ts could hover in control. The shield was stretched to smooth out any folds. Only by running the jets at full power and keeping a good angle on their bow planes could they maintain their position in the powerful suction field.

Kekot detached his own craft from the guide cable and maneuvered around the edges of the shield, checking the adhesive pads by which he planned to attach the sides to the wavemaker. If all went well, the force of the suction would help keep the netting in place and if the pads held, the machine would be crippled.

Everything seemed in order. Kekot talked by hand signal with each pilot, making sure they knew what to do. Timing was critical; each pilot had to hold his end of the shield in place long enough for Kekot to get around and press the pad down. Any slippage and the whole shield might be lost, dragged into one of the whirlpools and them with it. Kekot had refused to describe the experience to any of them; only Longsee knew the story and he didn't fully believe all of it. That was just as well. If any of them really knew what the whirlpools could do, Longsee might never have convinced them to risk the attempt.

Kekot gave the order to rise. He stationed himself beneath the shield, ready to move when first contact came. Even through the _tchin'ting_ mesh, he could feel the suction pulling them upward and he knew that each pilot must be running his jets hard by now, just trying to keep the whole thing stable. Seeing the shield stretched by the suction for the first time, he wondered if the mesh would hold. The Ponkti had been adamant about doing the knitting in secret. He had no way of knowing if their methods, or even their motives, were sufficient.

The strain of the mission was telling on him and Kekot winced as a sharp pain stabbed in his side. A faint taste of _mah'jeet_ water startled him. There weren't any of the creatures around that he could pulse; they couldn't have survived among the whirlpools, so close to the wavemaker, anyway. Still, he intended to check the circulator when they got back to Omsh'pont. There did seem to be an oily taste to the water in the cockpit.

From time to time, Kekot would slip out underneath the shield, checking the accuracy of their approach. Only minor corrections were needed. There wasn't much chance they would stray from their course anyway—the whirlpools would make sure of that.

Their rate of ascent picked up steadily—they couldn't be more than ten beats below the first of the whirlpools. This was the trickiest part. Somehow, they had to maneuver the shield past the vortexes, without losing anyone, and put the corners in exactly the right spot, so that the netting would hang suspended beneath the wavemaker, stopping the intake of water and deadening the sound.

It was all incredibly risky, with no end of things that could go wrong, but it had to be done. Kekot held his breath, his mind throbbing from the annoyingly acid water filling the kip't, and gripped the controls tightly.

They raced on toward the wavemaker.

With the shield between his own kip't and the wavemaker, he was able to slow his ascent more successfully than the others, but even so, his maneuvering power was limited. And he could tell they were almost there by the taut bulge of the shield above him. He held his planes down as far as they could go and nudged the rudder. The move shot him out well to the side and nearly into the midst of a spinning whirlpool, just in time to see the impact.

It all happened so fast that it was only later that he could capture the memory of the moment. He had a clear view of one kip't, Habloo's as it turned out, when it momentarily disappeared into one of the cavities. He was horrified at the sight.

In a fraction of an eye blink, he saw Habloo's kip't disintegrate as it passed through the whirlpool. First the bow and the sounder dishes. Then the bubble of the cockpit and Habloo himself. Finally, the main body of the kip't—the rudders, jets, everything. Sucked into the void, spun into a burst of phosphorescence...then nothing. A few sparkles followed, revealing in silhouette the faint outlines of what had entered the whirlpool, then those too faded.

The shield on Habloo's side started to sag and buckle, but before he could even react, Kekot saw Habloo re-emerge from another whirlpool a few beats beyond. It was the same process, except in reverse. First, nothing. Then, a whorl of light, coalescing into solid matter. The prow of the kip't. Then the cockpit, the rudders, the jets. Habloo himself. All of it sliding out of the whirlpool as if from behind a veil.

The instant he was free, Kekot screamed into _kipkeeor_ , "Habloo! What happened? Are you all right?"

His reply was nearly drowned out by the Sound, but Habloo seemed to ask, "What are we doing back here again? We put the shield up yesterday."

Kekot had no time to puzzle out the question. Habloo was safe, or seemed to be. Meanwhile the shield was rapidly drifting askew in the suction field. In another minute—

"Habloo!" he yelled, to get the pilot's attention. When he had, he motioned furiously for him to grab the edge of the shield before it dragged them all into the whirlpool. Confused, Habloo hesitated. _He's stunned from the experience_. Kekot jetted over, skirting the fringes of a whirlpool that lashed out at him, and bumped Habloo's kip't with his own. The impact worked. Habloo shook himself and stared out in a daze at Kekot. After a few seconds of gesturing, Kekot made him understand the problem.

He watched as Habloo shot over to the falling shield and scooped up one edge with his kip't's claws. He rammed his side of the shield up against the wavemaker, pinning it against the metal. Yaktu and Ocynth followed and the shield was soon draped under the bowl, billowing out as it settled.

Kekot hesitated only a moment, then closed his throttle and went to work.

He had the most trouble with Habloo's end. Habloo hadn't caught enough of the netting to get all of his pad onto the metal—half of it had torn away when he had snagged it and the _tchinting_ was unraveling around the pad. Kekot swore at the Ponkti weavers. _Stubborn 'penks. What did they really know about weaving tchinting anyway?_ He did what he could and, after the pad was pressed firmly down, he prayed it would hold. He couldn't spend any more time with this corner; there was no telling how long the others could hold their ends.

In turn, he came to Ocynth and Yaktu, helping each secure the adhesive pads and pressing them firmly against the netting, which seemed to hold.

There was still one more corner to go, but Kekot had no choice. He signaled his intentions to Yaktu, who acknowledged, and then moved in perilously close to a slender, fluctuating whirlpool spiraling off the wavemaker. This one whipped about like an angry serpent and Kekot slid gingerly around it.

He got the final corner secured in no time and as he turned the kip't about, he felt faint and dizzy, but happy. The wavemaker groaned a bit, then the whine died down to a low drone. _Tchinting_ absorbed the sound well. If only the shield would last.

They had done it. They had beaten the sound and overcome the technology of the Tailless. There was a comforting hush in the waters around them, despite the murmur of the machine. And before another minute had passed, the murmur was overwhelmed by a steadily rising chorus of clicks and whistles: the sea's children coming home again. Kekot drank deeply of the racket and let the fatigue of the last few days wash over him.

" _Kah_ , the silence is deafening," Yaktu said at last. "That shield makes quite a difference."

"It's a great day for all of us," Kekot admitted. He signaled the other kip'ts to rendezvous at a previously agreed upon point, a stubby seamount ten beats south. He wanted to go over final details of the installation and set up an inspection schedule. Kekot turned the kip't about and headed for the site.

After the meeting, the expedition crews celebrated. They dined on gisu and tong'pod, ertleg and clams. Stories were told, wild stories and lies, followed by drinks and much laughter, then even bigger lies. Couples paired off and mated in the shadows of the seamount.

And overhead, the small craft of the Tailless People sped back and forth at the surface, no doubt investigating, checking, trying to figure out what had happened to their machine.

Kekot pulsed the skimmers warily. Over a leg of tillet, he said, "It won't be long before they come down here. They'll figure out what happened."

Ocynth, the Ponkti pilot, offered to form a guard force. "I've got experience as a prodsman...I can fight the bastards."

"Sure," said Habloo, "you can fight their suppressors with your little prods...that would be like me trying to bite a seamother. We need a better plan."

That's when it was decided that Habloo would make a reconnaissance run around the perimeter of the wavemaker.

"See if the attachments are holding," Kekot advised him. "I don't want to risk too many of us when the Tailless are buzzing about like that. It's too dangerous. And see if the shield will hold. I don't want to head back to Omsh'pont—"he made a slight nod to Ocynth and the other Ponkti, "or to Ponk'et if the shield is damaged or in danger of failing. We have to be sure—"

So Habloo set out in his kip't alone, still a bit woozy from his encounter with the whirlpool. He covered the ten beats to the edge of the wavemaker in good time, noting just how much reduced the sound was now, and how many of the whirlpools had vanished too.

"Maybe the Umans turned their machine down," he muttered to himself. "I don't hear that much now...just clicks and whistles."

He cruised a few beats below the vast bowl of the wavemaker, noting how the shield stayed taut in most places, though a few ripples concerned him, especially at one corner.

"I should check that," he decided. He brought the kip't to a halt, nosing its bow into a small crevice at the peak of a low seamount, just below one edge of the shield. A small thatch of white, worm-like plants undulated in the swift crosscurrents. Above them, the water was light green and turbulent, waves and froth crashing back and forth through the gap between the machine and the seamount.

"I'd better go see," Habloo thought. "I want to see why those ripples are growing...we may have an edge or a corner that's come loose." He lifted the cockpit and scooted out. He left the bubble open as he disappeared upward.

He swam and kicked and pulled for a few minutes, tried pulsing to no avail—the wavemaker and the remaining whirlpools made that impossible—but got nothing.

The vast bowl of the wavemaker still dominated the waters. There was plenty of light topside—as much as there ever was on Seome—and Habloo knew the surface was only a short distance up. _It'd be great to see the surface_ , he told himself. _The waves, the sky, a little land._ He had always wanted to, more than he realized. He could tell looking up that the surface was rough and choppy, though how much of that was the machine, he couldn't say. The Uman Time Twister was a vast structure, with effects everywhere.

He considered surfacing, just for a moment, but movement ahead caught his eye. He tried pulsing again— _just can't seem to get the hang of that_ —but his eyes caught movement and he veered off. Something near the shield. Two figures...not Uman, but Seomish.

He stopped short. It was Klintona. And one of the Ponkti weavers...Kepmet, he seemed to remember.

Klintona and Kepmet each carried small pouches. They were extracting something from their pouches and fixing it to the shield netting, to a series of knots along one fiber weave.

Klintona heard him approaching and stopped.

" _Habloo_...I recognize the echo...you sound confused, worried, anxious...can I help?"

Habloo greeted Kepmet, who backed away and disappeared from view, around a bend in the shield.

"I was inspecting the seals around our shield, making sure they're holding."

Klintona came right up to Habloo, nuzzled his face with her beak. Her armfins stroked his arms.

"How diligent...you're always following orders, aren't you...but don't get too close...that's good, isn't it, Habloo. You and I...we can be alone...don't worry about Kepmet...he'll go about his business, he won't bother us. There is a small hollow near here...others won't bother us, they're all off mating...we can—"

Habloo politely pushed her away, noting the pouch she held contained something alive. It was wiggling and kicking inside. "Klintona...don't, okay? I like you...I mean...well, just don't. And anyway, what's in that pouch?"

Klintona stopped her nuzzling and with a quick tail snap, circled Habloo in a tight orbit and came back to face him. She was disappointed. Even Habloo could tell that. "To refuse _Ke'shoo_ and _Ke'lee_... Habloo, surely you know I'm offended. This pouch—"she held it out for Habloo to look inside, "is full of _ter'poh_. See how they squirm...just as you squirm."

Inside, the pouch was filled with small plankton-like creatures, all shapes and sizes, all of them oozing some kind of black jelly-like substance.

"What are they?"

Klintona sort of laughed, cinched up the pouch and slung it on a web belt she was wearing. "Kepmet and I are also inspecting...we're fixing a knot. The _ter'poh_ help solidify and strengthen weak joints and seams." She studied him with big curious black eyes, pulsing him. "I don't understand you, Habloo. I am Ponkti. You are Omtorish. Yet you show me interest—I can pulse the echoes right inside you—yet you pull away. Very confusing."

Habloo turned away. "Klintona, can I hide nothing from you? You have an advantage with all your pulsing. I don't have time for this right now."

Just then, Klintona turned sharply and peered off into the distance. She had heard or sensed something. A form materialized, growing larger. Someone was coming. Klintona stiffened, tucked her pouch further out of sight.

It was Kekot himself.

"I saw movement over here-" he told them. "I thought...Habloo—" Then he realized Habloo wasn't alone. He recognized Klintona. "Oh, it's _you_...."

Kekot clucked in ways the Ponkti couldn't translate. Habloo knew it was some kind of old Omtorish expletive.

"I was beginning my inspection, as you ordered, when I ran into these two."

Kekot pulsed Klintona and Kepmet suspiciously, but didn't pursue the matter, though it was easy to pulse that both were nervous, anxious...something was clearly bothering them. Perhaps, an argument...they had a lot to learn about _shoo'kel_...he'd have to spend some time teaching these stupid Ponkti how to keep their insides under control, like any good Omtorish would already know.

"The expedition is preparing to move out," Kekot announced. "There are last minute inspections going on...as soon as those are completed, we'll depart. It's a long trip back to Omt'or...or in some cases, to Ponk'et."

So Klintona and Kepmet helped out, gathering equipment and loading it aboard their kip't. For good measure, Kekot and Habloo roamed a few beats up and down their side of the shield, which hung in a billowing wave below the vast Uman machine.

"It seems to be holding," Kekot explained. He nosed along the woven seams, picking and checking knots and seams every few beats. "I'd never be able to get this close to the wavemaker without the shield. There are many more whirlpools...get too close and you vanish forever. It almost happened to you."

Habloo was intrigued. "You told me this big mother is some kind of weapon for the Umans."

Kekot acknowledged that. "They say they are fighting an enemy far beyond the Notwater...another world. I don't know that much about it. And I don't believe it anyway. We had our orders to put up the shield and now we've done that."

Habloo wanted badly to surface...just to see the sky and land once. "Can I go up? To the surface...I kind of miss it."

Kekot pulsed that the _kip't_ driver was being truthful. "Only for a moment. I'll continue checking along this weave. When I come back, be here. We have to leave soon."

"You got a deal." With that, Habloo kicked his way upward, toward the light. Clearly, it was daytime and he was heartened as the light brightened with each stroke. But the surface was further away than he realized.

He breached at last and found himself pounded about in rough surf, rolling waves crashing and frothing over his head as he bobbed about, kicking just enough to stay up. He was exhilarated at the sound and the spray and, for no good, reason, yelled out at the top of his voice, ignoring the painful bubbles building inside his gut from the low pressure. There was a light fog but the sun shone through it...Sigma Albeth B's warmth apparent even this far north. He could see the curve of the great dome that was the Uman machine, the wavemaker, arcing into the mist above, disappearing like a planet of its own. Beyond the curve of the dome, a brown spit of land was barely visible. Kinlok Island, he figured.

They had been there only a short time ago and he wondered if the Umans were even aware of the big shield that had been secured to their machine. He saw no boats, no aircraft, no hoverships or skimmers, no activity that would indicate awareness. It was like the wavemaker existed for its own purposes.

Habloo bobbed and stroked around at the surface for awhile longer.

Then he decided he'd better get back. When he submerged and began stroking and pulling his way toward the kip't, his ears were suddenly pounded by a loud booming pulse of sound.

The wavemaker... _something had happened_...the shield—

He was momentarily stunned, losing all sense of where he was. The sound was a painful throb, a blast wave that knocked him sideways, then cartwheeling end for end, like a giant hand slap. It pulsed and boomed and throbbed and droned.

What the hell--?

Gradually, with effort, Habloo stabilized himself and recovered enough to claw his way through the water back to the kip't. There was chaos everywhere, bodies and kip'ts thrashing about, colliding, entangling.

Through it all, he could see that just ahead of them, the shield was slowly unraveling, unspooling from the wavemaker. It was coming apart, splitting along its seams, as if some giant scissors were cutting the fibers.

Kekot shouted over the din. " _Get in the kip't!_ We've got to get away from here, put some distance between us and the machine!"

The boom of the wavemaker, now becoming uncovered, was a hundred times worse than that.

Habloo squeezed into the kip't, and Kekot secured the bubble cover and fired up the jets. Other kip'ts were nearby and as a single formation, they cruised deeper and south from the wavemaker, until twenty or thirty beats had passed by. Kekot found a small iceberg, just calved off the ice pack, which had drifted south. He nosed around its jagged underwater stalactites of ice and parked the kip't in a broad crevice opposite the wavemaker, so that the berg partially blocked the throbbing din and crash of the sound.

"The shield is rupturing," he said grimly. "It's separating from the machine...we've got to get back there and fix it." He got on the _kipkeeor_ , the comm circuit, and talked with Ocynth, who was in a nearby kip't.

Ocynth's voice came back strained, almost hoarse. "It's too dangerous. With the shield coming down, the whirlpools are back, many _opuh'te_ , too many. You could be caught in a vortex. Maybe the Umans have done something."

The next hour was chaotic and confusing, as Omtorish and Ponkti accused each other of failing in their duties. Several kip'ts bumped and collided and Kekot wondered if the collisions were really accidents. Most of the expedition had gathered in the lee of the iceberg. Taunts and threats and warnings flew back and forth, across _kipkeeor_ , even in person, as workers tussled and fought each other. Keenok, head of the Ponkti contingent, had to intervene several times.

Kekot was the expedition leader and he struggled for a long time to regain order among the expedition crews, finally separating Omtorish and Ponkti members completely. It seemed the only way.

"Our natural suspicions are coming out," he told Habloo. "This is bad. Ponkti and Omtorish don't need much to start a fight."

"Why do we fight so much?" Habloo asked.

"Enmity goes back a long way," Kekot told him. He had anchored their kip't to the iceberg by wedging the nose into a small crevice. The stern of the sled waggled in the currents. "All the kels argue over territory, origins, food and resources, access to currents, everything. It seldom breaks down into actual combat...we're too much alike for that, but still we argue. I just wonder what happened to the shield...why did it rupture?"

Habloo remembered that he had come across Klintona and a Ponkti weaver at the netting a short time ago. He mentioned this to Kekot, who was instantly intrigued.

"What were they doing?"

Habloo said, "I don't really know...Klintona was there with another Ponkti —I didn't know him—and they were putting something, some kind of black jelly-like substance, on several knots of the netting."

Kekot questioned Habloo closely. "Describe exactly what you saw."

Habloo did. Kekot considered what he had said. "I'd better let Keenok know what you saw. There were inspections going on at several sites around the shield, but this doesn't sound like an inspection to me." The other kels had their own supervisors: Orklat for the Eep'kostic and Tulko for the Skortish. With Keenok, the four chiefs more or less managed their parts of the expedition.

So Kekot used another _kipkeeor_ channel, a different frequency, to discuss the matter with Keenok. Presently, the Ponkti supervisor's kip't hove into view, having quietly maneuvered closer to them. It was clear from the sound of his voice that Keenok considered the news very grave.

The Ponkti left his own kip't and came over. Kekot opened the bubble cockpit. "This is a serious matter. I want to inspect the shield the best way we can, while we're still here. Make up a team of Ponkti."

Keenok decided right then. "Kepmet will head a team of Ponkti weavers. We've got to find out what happened, see if it can be repaired. The sound's worse than ever. If this goes on, everything, all the kels will suffer, even Ponk'et."

"There will have to be a meeting," Kekot said finally. "We found _ter'poh_ residue on several knots of the shield. It ate through the knots, dissolved them. It had to be put there deliberately. _Ter'poh_ isn't found in these waters—too cold."

"So, what are you saying?" Keenok asked.

"That it looks like sabotage," Kekot said. "A deliberate action. Someone wanted the shield to fail. It was inevitable once the _ter'poh_ was in place. They secrete a solvent, very thick, black in color. _Ter'poh_ are often used as solvents in our work."

Keenok bristled at the accusation. "My inspectors will find out what really happened. No Ponkti would do such a thing. These accusations serve no purpose, except to make Omt'or seem blameless in everything."

After each kel had inspected and re-inspected its own work, the supervisors decided to hold a hearing. Rather than roam in _vish'tu_ , as would be normal, the expedition leaders created a space for the hearing by using several kip'ts to carve a small opening in the underside of the iceberg, a sort of niche into which a small gathering of people could fit and which was relatively protected from the worst effects of the wavemaker.

The light of the Notwater was failing overhead and darkness crept over the waves as the hearing got underway. Klintona and Kepmet were both present. Two Ponkti prodsmen and two Omtorish craftsmen secured the hearing from any unwanted visitors. Arktet em was one of the Omtorish guards. He was well regarded by all, having been a key designer of the lifesuits that Seomish explorers had worn when they first started traveling to Earth.

They all eyed each other suspiciously. Kekot led the Omtorish contingent. Keenok headed the Ponkti side. The two of them glared at each other.

"We have no Metah here," Kekot said. "This hearing is not official."

"And no _tekne'en_ drugs," Keenok complained. "How can we be sure of anyone's memory without _tekne'en_?"

"We have Klintona...the accused. She can speak," another chief reminded them.

"But can we believe her?" Kekot replied.

"What evidence do you have, that of an Omtorish kip't driver...what good is that? This is just a poorly disguised attempt to smear Ponk'et, to keep us from working with the Umans, learning about your precious Farpool. You can't monopolize the Farpool forever. The day will come when Ponkti explorers will enter the Farpool as well."

Kekot could well pulse a rising tide of anger around them. "Habloo can tell us what he saw. The knots failed because of _ter'poh_...that much has been established."

There were snickers and chuckles among the Ponkti over that.

So Habloo described how he had left his kip't and came across Klintona and another Ponkti, how they had been applying some substance to the netting, what it looked like.

"I don't know what it was," he told them. Habloo looked around. He was surrounded by Omtorish and Ponkti people, arrayed in concentric circles, all of them clicking and squeaking and whistling and grunting, sounding so fast he couldn't keep up. It was a cacophony that rose and fell, trilled and shrank to a whisper, almost in unison. "But that's what I saw."

Keenok was abrupt. "Klintona didn't explain what she was doing?"

"She said she was strengthening the knots in that section of the net."

Here, Keenok snapped about in triumph. "You see? This is a normal practice."

Kekot would have none of it. " _Ter'poh_ aren't used to strengthen fibers...we know at least that much."

"And what, really, do you know about Ponkti weaving techniques? For ten thousand metamah, we've been working with tchin'ting fiber."

And so, it went, back and forth, argument after argument. The prodsmen circled nervously, trying to keep order.

Finally, to maintain _shoo'kel_ , to keep the kels from fighting each other in the presence of the Tailless, to keep the expedition from tearing itself apart over mutual suspicions, Kekot was forced to fall back on the Omtorish Metah Mokleeoh's own words:

You must not fail. Stop the Sound. Put up a shield. If it doesn't work, attack. Just don't fail.

After discussions with the other leaders Orklat and Tulko, it was agreed that an assault would have to be made.

"Put out a pod call to _puk'lek_. They're in these waters. We'll use the seamothers to attack the wavemaker itself."

"And what of the Tailless themselves?" asked Keenok. "We can't leave them to re-build this infernal machine."

Kekot considered his options. "Keenok, you will head up the assault. You have prodsmen here...we all pulse how ferocious Ponkti prodsmen are. Take prodsmen and warriors from each kel, according to their abilities. Attack the Tailless base in the Notwater. Destroy them."

"We must end this assault on our kels," agreed Tulko, the Skortish chief.

After that, the kels fell eagerly to planning and equipping the attackers.

Kekot heard Mokleeoh's words again and again in his mind. He was free-bonded to do this....to rid the world of the blasted sound and damage from the Tailless machine.

_You must not fail_.
Chapter 8

"How did it get so late so soon? It's night before it's afternoon. December is here before it's June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?" Dr. Seuss

Keaton's World

Halo Alpha, Sector 7

Time Stream T-487

After emerging from voidtime none the worse for wear, jumpship _Cygnus_ found herself smack in the middle of a battle with leading elements of the Coethi mother swarm. Surrounded by a squadron of jumpships from Operation _Temporal Hammer_ , Monthan Dringoth set condition 1TQ aboard the ship and issued a call to battle stations.

_Cygnus_ bore into the melee with all her weapons primed and enabled and her counter-nano swarms configged and ready to go.

The first encounter came at the outer edge of the Sturdivant 2180 system, of which Keaton's World was the real prize.

_Cygnus_ was not alone in the Sturdivant system. Time Guard had assembled a small fleet of five jumpships in heliocentric orbit about Sturdivant 2180, including Dringoth's crew: jumpships _Leo, Majoris, Libra_ and _Gemini_ would also prosecute the defense of K-World. The squadron commander was one Ultrarch Admiral Mahmoud Tosun, using _Majoris_ as his flag ship. Tosun's balding, hard-edged face appeared on _Cygnus's_ primary console display on B deck, as well as every other ship in the force, with operational orders for Phase 1.

" _Cygnus_ will move at flank speed sunward, to a position at sixty a.u. from K-World, Dringoth."

"Yes, sir."

"Once you're in engagement range, launch and replicate your ANAD swarms...I'll send the right configs. _Leo_ and _Gemini_ will support you with HERF and mag fire, along this particular vector. At the same time, _Majoris_ and _Libra_ will deploy displacers and collapsers to keep the Bugs from jumping to another time stream. If this works, we'll trap the forward edge of the Bugs in a pincers and defeat them in detail. But _Cygnus_ has to engage frontally to make this work."

Dringoth acknowledged. "Understood, sir. We're moving at flank speed to launch position now."

"One more thing, Dringoth."

"Yes, sir?"

"T2 says the Bugs like to re-config fast. And they've got that displacement ability...they can appear in one place for an instant, then appear in another an instant later. If _Cygnus_ gets in a bind, or an ambush, get the hell out of there, any way you can. The Guard's got combat search and rescue forces in all local time streams, even along the edge of voidtime. Don't let the bastards catch you with your pants down."

"No, sir...we'll keep our pants on."

"Very well... _Majoris_ , out."

With that, Dringoth got on the ship's 1MC. "CS1's, get ANAD ready to launch on my command. _Cygnus'll_ be in position in about two hours."

From aft on the ship's D deck, Chase Meyer and Kasmeerah loh, the Ponkti amphib, were hard at work readying the ANAD master for its big show. Both were functioning as Containment Systems techs on this impromptu mission.

Chase studied the imager showing the master nanobot quivering on its scaffolding inside containment vault A.

"Little guy looks ready to go."

Kasmeerah was methodically checking off prep items on her checklist. "Best way to defeat a swarm is with another swarm."

"No kidding. Learn that in Quantum Corps school, did you?"

Kasmeerah didn't react to the jibe. "Swarm tactics 101. Let's see: help me out with sensors and actuators. Pyridine probes, carbene grabbers, enzymatic knife...."

"Check, check and check."

"...bond disrupters, ribosomal systems, photon lens?"

"Primed and enabled."

"Main platform and actuator mast?"

"Retracted in launch position."

"Now the comm circuits...acoustic, EM, ELF, quantum and voice synthesizer?"

"All perking along, Kas."

"Super. Config buffers?"

"Enabled and ready."

Kasmeerah rang up the command deck. "Captain, ANAD master ready for action. Presets loaded."

Dringoth's voice came back. "Very well, CS1. Standby..."

The launch order finally came ten minutes later. From a small blister on _Cygnus'_ side hull, a faint sparkling mist issued out into space. The ship had ridden her heliocentric intercept course to approach one edge of the Coethi swarm along a tangential path...now less than ten thousand kilometers distant.

"ANAD away, sir, on picowatt propulsors. Maximum thrust...estimating intercept in forty- two minutes. Give me a vector to establish approach position."

From the command deck, URME scanned his sensors and did a few quick calculations.

"Long-range scan indicates that the formation ahead is a diffuse cluster of discrete elements of mean size approximately twenty-five nanometers main dimension. Detecting increased energy levels in certain electromagnetic bands, consistent with assembler activity as we understand it. Probability that this formation is a swarm of nanobotic elements now approaching ninety-four percent. Porting vector to your station...."

Kasmeerah saw the numbers come up on her display. She tapped a key and squirted the heading out into space, which the ANAD master bot received and processed into steering commands. "Starting reps now. Max rate."

Now thousands of kilometers distant from _Cygnus_ , the master bot began slamming atoms to build out its assault swarm, building structure like some frantic brick mason. Kasmeerah then activated ANAD's photon lens, allow the swelling cloud of bots to gather whatever loose photons it could find and form a grainy picture on their imager. With a quick key tap, the Ponkti amphib could cycle between macroscale visuals and imagery from the infinitesimally tiny world of atoms and molecules. Quantum Corps troopers had long called it 'going small."

"Not quite like fighting off Omtorish scum with prods," she announced, with some satisfaction. "Ponkti troops could have used this stuff when we had to defend the Pillars of Shooki."

Chase recalled the episode ruefully. "A lot of blood was spilled needlessly, in that conflict." It wasn't one of the finer periods of inter-kel history on Seome."

"I just hope the _kel'vish'tu_ who want to come back to Seome and stop the End Times can bring a little wisdom back with them, knowing what they know, knowing what could come if we don't succeed here."

"I guess that's why we fight the Bugs," Chase agreed. "To give them a chance. Where's ANAD now?"

Kasmeerah checked, then went 'small.'

"Verify config change, Chase...I don't want any surprises from ANAD, not today."

"Verifying now..." Chase's fingers flew over his keypad, interrogating the swarm master bot, making sure it had received the config and was grabbing atoms to change structure and assume assault formation. "Verifying...handshake is good, check parameters all look good...I'm seeing bond breaking and all the profiles look right on the money...ANAD now altering config to C-22...everything seems to check out—"

Kasmeerah studied the scene cautiously. She tuned her eyepiece scope for maximum magnification and scanned the faint line of sparkles and pops, set against the backdrop of stars and galaxies from deep space, all of it partially washed out by the glare of the star-sun Sturdivant 2180. Zeroing in on the right freqs, she soon saw a faint line of flickering and flashing, like a slow-motion bolt of lightning whipping and seesawing through the sky.

That has to be the line of engagement. Time to get small—

Kasmeerah switched through the coupler link and went 'over the waterfall', shaking off the dizziness you always got when diving headfirst into the world of atoms and molecules and Brownian motion.

Right away, long-range scans showed what ANAD was facing.

Straight ahead, at a distance of maybe a few thousand microns, was the front line of the enemy bots, like a fleet of warships on the horizon maneuvering for attack. She debated going to direct-pilot, but decided against it for the moment. _That's something most atom jockeys would do_. Better to let ANAD engage the enemy on his own.

They jetted forward on picowatt propulsors and the distance closed rapidly. Kasmeerah felt like she was riding a runaway freight train, whipping one way, then another way, as ANAD maneuvered for advantage.

The enemy bots came into view and she saw they were double-lobed barbell structures, festooned with effectors top and bottom, and with multiple rings of propulsors girdling their equatorial sections.

_Should be maneuverable as hell...what's he got for weapons?_...they closed and engaged and she quickly found out...a frontal array of bond breakers fanned out and discharged almost right into her face...the bot she had been 'riding' whirled and spun off and shook itself to recover....

Ouch...better try another angle to engage that one—

The first battle lasted only a few minutes. ANAD had a few tricks up its nanobotic sleeves, even some Kasmeerah hadn't considered. With the right vector, it became possible for ANAD to engage the enemy bots off-angle, where it found a zone of approach that the enemy's disrupters couldn't reach. _Yeah...sting the bastard there, zap him there, do the hokey-pokey and turn yourself around..._ Kasmeerah found herself cheering and pumping her fists, in spite of her cumbersome amphib arms and hands.

Chase reported the news to Dringoth. "ANAD reports the assault is working...he's driving the Bugs back...away from the main line...swarm centroid has moved nearly fifteen meters and density is dropping rapidly—EMs down forty-five percent--"

Nathan Golich was on the command deck next to Dringoth. He was exultant. "We're smashing them good—"

There were muted cheers over the crewnet circuit as the rest of _Cygnus'_ crew heard what was happening.

"— _smoke 'em_ , ANAD..."

"Kick butt!"

"...fry the bastards!"

Beyond the first point of engagement, jumpships _Leo_ and _Gemini_ proceeded to let fly a dense barrage of High-Energy Radio Frequency fire. Along with magpulse volleys, the effect of ANAD's frontal assault and suppressing fire from another vector had the effect of mashing in the forward edge of the Bug swarm into a misshapen lobe of atomic debris, speckled with sporadic flickers of light like a trillion fireflies going off all at once.

"It's working!" Dringoth said. "Send tactical to the Admiral. CS1, keep battering 'em!"

Kasmeerah intended to do just that. Any Ponkti worth her flippers would die for a chance to kick ass like this.

Fighting bots in the land of atoms was all about leverage. _Kind of like ballroom dancing, with fists_ , one Quantum Corps instructor had told her. Kasmeerah had no idea what he was talking about.

Another bot from the Bug swarm came up and Kasmeerah gave it a taste of her bond disrupters. The electron discharge snapped off a few effectors and sent the thing spinning off into the distance. But no sooner had she done that than a squadron of them fell on her and she found herself engulfed in no time.

"Watch out for your left!" Chase warned her.

Kasmeerah had learned a thing or two about her effectors in the weeks since her last encounter with Bug bots in training. The secret was to keep your propulsors churning, keeping driving forward, keep your energy up. If she did that, she found she could slip out of almost any grapple and brain a bot with whatever effector was free. She particularly liked her carbene grabbers and she had developed a sort-of dance step her Molecular Ops instructor liked to call the _kiss and clobber_...she'd let herself be grappled, momentarily shut off her propulsors and almost relax. When the bad guy had retracted and moved in for the kill, she did a quick left-right spin, fired up her propulsors and slashed right across the bot's mid-section—where most of them had fewer effectors—knocking the bejeezus out of the thing and pulling free to pinch and slash some more.

It worked every time. Kasmeerah had in the meantime gone to max replication, at Chase's suggestion, and another melee was underway. All up and down the frontal edge of the battlefield, like a collision of bird flocks, the swarms engaged...twisting, slashing, grabbing, zapping. Slowly, using her new maneuvers, Kasmeerah was able to push back and contain the enemy swarms.

"It's working!" she exulted over her coupler link back to the command deck. "It's really working! These bozos are getting smacked and spanked like you wouldn't believe!"

Golich came back, his voice distant but reassuring. "I believe it...I believe it...I told you it would work, Kas. Just keep after 'em...I'm reading mass fluctuations at the margins...that means your guys are holding their own. Try your enzymatic knife when you get in close."

So, she did. Everything she tried worked. Maybe the enemy bots were slow. Maybe their configs were all wrong. Whatever it was, Kasmeerah found she was winning a battle she'd never dreamed she would have to fight. This wasn't half bad, this living like an atom. You had to watch your momentum and things stuck to each other like glue. Van der Waals and Brownian motions were a bitch, but it was the same for the enemy.

Leverage and momentum, that was the key.

Inside of half an hour, the battle seemed to be turning in their favor.

Dringoth studied the tactical display that _Majoris_ had just sent to all ships. "URME, report...any effects?"

"Scanning now...scanning...edge effects only...some reduction of EM activity, some drop-off in thermal effects...definite effects, there is a hole in the side of the formation, but it's filling rapidly...swarm is reconstituting, changing config...centroid is maneuvering...changing course to intercept...."

Dringoth could see the story on his console. They had managed to bash the thing but it replicated fast and seemed to growing back. Now the swarm was turning, wheeling about to intercept _Cygnus_ directly, presenting itself front-on to their approach.

Golich was exultant. "We slammed it, Skipper! Look how that front edge is scalloped and misshapen...we did something to it."

"I think we just made it mad, Commander. Fire away, three pulses HERF and mag! Set a twenty-degree spread."

_Cygnus_ rocked slightly as the pulses discharged and streaked toward their target. Through the forward screens, both men could see jagged flashes erupting in space, like slow-motion lightning bolts, where the radio waves and mag fields intersected the swarm. Atoms were ripped apart and bonds sheared off, liberating untold energies into the vacuum. A series of flashes and bolts lit up space ahead of them, still more than ten thousand kilometers distant.

"URME, did we hurt 'em?"

"Estimating swarm has been reduced by two-point one percent in frontal dimension...swarm is reconstituting...possible aspect change...detecting possible config change— "

That's when _Majoris_ called in with news that no one wanted to hear. Golich read the message with dismay.

"Captain, _Majoris_ sends ' _possible time jump in progress...detecting singularity effects, quantum effects, worldlines converging'_..."

"I see it, I see it," Dringoth said. "So, what does _Majoris_ want us to do? Hold this attack or execute a jump?"

The answer wasn't long in coming. _Majoris_ followed up her advisory with more. "It's from the Admiral. ' _Handoff attack to_ Libra _and_ Gemini _...initiate pursuit Coethi element in jump status...don't allow time stream disruption at all costs...Tosun sends.'_

Dringoth swore. "We have the Bugs on the run here...if I hand off to _Libra_ now—" But he swallowed his disgust with the orders. "Okay, URME...status on outer bands of Coethi element. Are they preparing to jump?"

" _Swarm in aspect change, Captain_ ," said URME. "Probable temporal shift...swarm showing increased decoherence wake output, increased entanglement activity...recommend _Cygnus_ power up core to fifty percent."

"There's our answer," Golich said.

Dringoth gave the order. "They're preparing to jump. URME, full power to the singularity core. Queenie, get to your station and track 'em. Don't lose 'em. Maybe we can shred the swarm before they make the jump."

Golich studied the sensor display, confirming URME. "If we can't, we'll have to track and try to follow."

Now URME announced, " _Jump commencing...temporal flare...massive flux along time stream interface...I am attempting to follow the track—"_

By the time Dringoth and Golich could react, Evelyn M'Bela's voice crackled through the ship's 1MC.

"Captain, they just jumped, but they left a trail. Looks like T-487. Strong emissions...big flux along that heading."

"Okay, Queenie, give me a vector and start the count. All hands, prepare for a jump. This one's going to be rough...buckle up!"

Golich read off M'Bela's counter. "Three...two...one... _mark_!"

Dringoth twisted a keyed knob on his console.

And _Cygnus_ heaved herself once again into the river of time.

At URME's signal, Monthan Dringoth slammed _Cygnus_ ' flow vanes out full and punched the ship hard over, right into the faint, barely perceptible fingers of Time Stream T-487. Like a cocked fist, T-487 grabbed them and yanked them out of the mainstream and into the midst of a million yesterdays.

After that, he slumped back in his seat and let the black hole of the Zone-Out wash over him.

And back on F deck, Chase and Kasmeerah on hung to a nearby stanchion on as _Cygnus_ rolled violently into a tight spin.

Nine months before his very first trip in a jumpship, Monthan Dringoth had been riding his turbobike along the Gibbstown Highway on K-World, coming back from a visit with his recovering Dad at the hospital, when the bike hit a pothole in the highway. Dringoth lost control and somersaulted over the handlebars. When he thought about this later, he realized just how much time had slowed down in those few airborne seconds. Like his Dad always said: " _It's not the fall that hurts, it's the sudden stop at the end."_

So he had been airborne and basically weightless for a few seconds—not uncomfortably so—then his tumbling body had slammed into the ground inside a culvert adjoining the highway.

Days later, when he talked about the experience, Dringoth mentioned that going through a time jump was like that: moments of peaceful weightlessness, almost a dreamlike quality, except for the bright strobing lights outside the porthole and then the sudden stop.

It was like having a horse kick the crap out of you. Or maybe driving your bike headfirst into a brick wall at eighty miles an hour.

Three years later, he would find himself a raw-faced jolt at the Time Guard Academy, prepping for his first jump.

The jumpship shuddered and hurtled out of the time stream, in a flash of light, a roaring rush of deceleration, knocking Dringoth and Golich hard against their seat harnesses.

Golich breathed hard, wiping his face with his hands. He checked the instruments.

"Sounding smoother flow, Captain...rough and turbulent, but visibility improving. I can pulse ahead...looks like we made it...somewhere."

"And some when," Dringoth said. "Queenie, do your thing. Where and when are we?"

M'Bela was still groggy but functional. Her fingers played over her board, checking their position and heading. "ChronoNav says we're where we're supposed to be...I read us as smack in the middle of T-487, seventy-two degrees down by forty-four degrees left, drifting a bit off center. URME, do you concur? I really need to get topside and shoot some stars to know for sure."

URME was at the engineering console on E deck. "Analyzing now, sir...Captain, detecting massive decoherence wake, dead ahead, forty-two thousand one hundred and five kilometers. Could be the Coethi...lots of entanglement ripping spacetime around that heading."

"Is it the Coethi?"

"Can't determine yet, sir. I'm asking ISAAC for a full sensor sweep."

Dringoth studied his board. "So where exactly are we?"

M'Bela tapped a few keys. "ISAAC puts us still in heliocentric orbit about Sturdivant 2180, but barely and way out...thirty billion kilometers at least."

Dringoth made his decision. Like they said at the Academy, when you're in command, command. "I'm bringing us closer to that disturbance. It has to be our target. ISAAC, can you resolve the target?"

The ship's AI said back, " _Long-range scan indicates that the formation is a diffuse cluster of discrete elements of mean size approximately twenty-five nanometers main dimension...smaller than normal dust particles. Probable Coethi formation now at six point one billion, four hundred million kilometers, best range."_

"That's good enough for me," Dringoth decided. "URME, bring the collapser on line."

Golich looked over at the Captain. "You're thinking ' _flytrap_ ' again?"

Dringoth watched the target grow larger as _Cygnus_ made her approach. "Exactly. Commander."

Golich swallowed hard. "As long as it works...and the Bugs don't have more tricks up their sleeves."

The next few minutes saw _Cygnus_ maneuvering along a tangential approach, dropping lower and lower in Sturdivant's gravity well to gain speed, to come up below the Coethi formation. The enemy swarm maintained a steady course and there was as yet no repetition of their displacement maneuver.

Finally, _Cygnus_ was within range. URME had gone aft to make sure the collapser controls on E deck were operating as well as possible.

"Collapser on line, Captain," URME called up to the command deck. He was glad he had taken time to fix the collapser's maintenance issues when the ship had been on the ground at Storm.

"Let 'er rip," came Dringoth back. "Give me what you've got."

URME pressed SYSTEM ENABLE.

_Cygnus_ fired her collapser. At once, time stream T-487 shuddered like a coiled snake, jerking spasmodically, thrashing about enough to set _Cygnus_ into a slow roll. Golich counteracted the force immediately. Spacetime didn't like being snapped like a wet towel.

M'Bela saw the results immediately on her sensor panel. "Direct hit, Captain! You did it! You sliced and diced the time stream approximately two years earlier along the worldline."

Dringoth sucked in his breath and pursed his lips. "Now to get upstream...maybe two years out. Give me a hack to that end of the worldline, Queenie."

M'Bela was in the middle of wringing computations out of ISAAC when something slammed _Cygnus_...hard. Lights flashed on and off and the command deck went dark, with a faint hiss and burning smell thickening in the cabin, before backup power kicked in.

They were in a spin, increasing in rate and already the crew could feel centrifugal force building up.

"What the hell--!" Golich's hands swept across his board, re-setting systems, checking busses and breakers, following diagnostic prompts. ISAAC's silky voice was barely audible over the warning klaxons of the Master Alarm.

" _Displacer impact...I am assuming command per emergency protocol E-1...ship systems at degraded level...time stream interface approaching...contact in twelve seconds...eleven...ten...."_

Dringoth had been knocked out cold. URME had lost config control back on E deck and tried to gather himself back into some kind of recognizable form. M'Bela was nursing a slight head injury; the impact of whatever Coethi had slammed them with had sent her careening into a hull stanchion.

Up front, Golich was conscious, barely, gritting his teeth against the centrifugal force.

_Got to get_ Cygnus _under control...got to swing her back into the stream...before we hit the barrier wall...._

From F deck, Chase sensed something terribly wrong. He told Kasmeerah, "Stay here! Maybe there's something I can do—I did this before." Before the Ponkti amphib could object, he was already out in the gangway, careening and crawling forward to the command deck. He passed URME on the way. The crewman was heading aft to Engineering.

If it had been a displacer round that had hit them—time jumpers called it a twist loop— _Cygnus_ had likely been thrown a long way in space and time from her last position, to another time and place in the time stream. They could easily be God knew where inside T-487. They could easily have been thrown completely out of T-487 to another time stream. Worse, if _Cygnus_ was near the edge of the time stream...oriented just the wrong way....

Nathan Golich heard M'Bela stirring behind him but he didn't have time to help her. He had to get _Cygnus_ under control... _NOW_...before she contacted the outer wall of the time stream.

Chase finally made it to the command deck. He took in a scene of tense desperation, saw Golich wrestling with the controls.

"Commander! Anything I can do?"

Golich spied him out of the corner of his eye. "I'm trying to keep us from crashing into the time stream wall...we're headed into voidtime, if I don't! Get to Queenie's station...scan around...tell me what's out there!"

Chase scrambled to the Sensor station and buckled himself in, after pulling M'Bela out of the seat and laying her down on the deck. She was barely conscious, her forehead lacerated with multiple cuts, blood everywhere.

"What am I looking for?" Chase yelled.

"Main display...do you have a heading for any Bugs...Coethi elements? Center display...give me a bearing!"

Chase studied the console for a moment. The center display showed multiple displays. One highlighted a blob-shaped return to the side of center grid. "I've got something, Commander. Must be Coethi...scale shows two, make it three hash marks off center."

Golich seemed to be slowly but surely bringing _Cygnus_ back under control. Her violent roll had slowed considerably.

"The numbers below center grid...what do they say? That's range and range rate to the centroid."

Chase read the numbers. "Six, almost seven point one. Error bar says point two."

Golich wrestled with the joystick a moment more, finally bringing the ship to a stable position, nulling rates in all axes. "That has to be our target." He got on the 1MC. "URME, core status. Do we have power for a few displacer shots of our own?"

URME's voice came back over the crewnet. "Barely, Commander. Core output down ten percent. Plus I've got multiple system outages...main bus A and B undervolt...flow vanes offline, rudder gone, power plant at twenty-two percent. Maybe enough for one or two shots. After that—"

"I get the picture," Golich grimaced. He took a deep breath and looked around the deck. It wasn't pretty. "Captain's out cold. Chase, what about Queenie?"

Chase had done what he could. "Head injury, Commander. Maybe a concussion. She's alive, but not responsive." M'Bela was limp and barely moving on the deck near his feet.

"Okay, here's what we're going to do. I have to do everything I can to keep the Bugs from messing up this time stream. We'll have one shot from our displacers, maybe two. If we miss, the Bugs will trash T-487 and all our settlements and villages go poof, from here to K-World and back, like they never existed. We have to prevent that, try to kick the bastards out of this time stream."

"Anything I can do to help, Commander?"

Golich was reluctant to leave his console. "I've got to keep my hands on the controls here or this will never work. Slide over to the next console. That's Temporal Fire Control. Strap yourself in, too."

Chase did as Golich had ordered.

"Between you and me, we're going to go hunt down some Bugs. See the main screen in the middle?"

"I see it."

"Use the Menu controls and scroll up or down until the display reads _Displacer."_

Chase did that. When he had located the right screen, he said, "Got it, sir. What's a displacer?"

"That's what the Bugs hit us with. Generates twist loops...balls of entangled quantum states that can kick a jumpship to another time stream...or right into voidtime. That's what we're going to do. I want you to power up the system." Bit by bit, Golich talked Chase through the procedure. Several times, warning flags came up, indicating missteps or system inhibits. Golich called URME. "Switch everything you can to the displacers, URME." When the system was fully powered up, Golich said, "Find the SYSTEM TRACK button."

"I got it."

"Press it."

Chase pressed SYSTEM TRACK and a series of tones sounded.

"You've just told the Displacer Control System to slave itself to the temporal sensors. Once it locates that blob of Bugs out there, it should lock on. Then it'll flash some lights."

"They're flashing now, Commander."

"Super. Just hold on a minute, while I work us in a little closer...." Golich swore under his breath, fighting the controls as _Cygnus_ maneuvered closer to her target. "Freakin' damaged flow vanes...this is like maneuvering a whale. It's a miracle they haven't finished us off yet...we're sitting ducks here."

After a few minutes' effort with whatever control he could manage, Golich trimmed out _Cygnus'_ approach. "Give me best range to target centroid...those numbers again."

Chase read off from the display.

"That's about as good as we can do." Golich silently counted down, wrestling with the ship to keep her steady on course. "When I say fire, you hit the button that says DISCHARGE."

Chase's finger was poised over the button. The wait seemed forever.

"Now... _fire_!"

Chase stabbed he button.

Instantly, _Cygnus_ rocked with recoil as her displacers discharged twist loops into the vacuum of space. Moments later, millions of kilometers distant, the leading edge of the Coethi swarm glowed in their viewscreens like a second sun, momentarily blotting out even the glare from the sun Sturdivant 2180.

" _Got em_!" Golich exulted. "We got the bastards!"

Chase pumped a fist. He was about to leave his seat and tend to M'Bela who was stirring groggily on the deck, but Golich waved him back. "Get back over to the first console...do a long-range scan. Put Sensors on Z-band Wide and take a look."

Golich talked Chase through the procedure. After a few minutes' fumbling, it became apparent that the bulk of the Coethi swarm was gone from view, no longer detectable by any of _Cygnus'_ sensors.

"We either kicked them into voidtime or blasted the sonsofbitches to the ass-end of the Galaxy. Maybe Toonie finally got the Twister working. Usually, one displacer shot wouldn't do that."

Just to be sure, Golich swept the ship up and down the time stream as far as their worldline would let them. They were still in the Sturdivant system, but in another time. Yet all her worlds were still there, K-World, Gibbons' Grotto, Halifax, Tabora, Songland...all the settlements that should have been there, that were there in T-001, seemed to still be there.

"We were lucky," Golich announced.

Evelyn M'Bela agreed, holding a compress and medpatch to her face as she sunk back into her own seat at TS-1, where Chase had just been. "I'll bet Toonie and Yang finally got the Twister up and operating. Yanked the Bugs to the other side of the Universe."

"You may be right." To Chase, he said, "Good work, son. We'll make a jolt out of you yet...Time Guard's looking for a few good amphibs."

M'Bela went to Dringoth's side, checked the Captain. "Bad head injury, Commander. We'd better get him to sick bay. URME may have to do an insert...there could be intercranial damage."

"You and Chase take him back there. Call me when you're done. I'll set up _Cygnus_ for a jump back to T-001. URME, core status?"

The para-human swarm entity was still manning the TM1 console on E deck, Engineering.

"Core still down to twenty-two percent but holding. Probable buffer and loop field damage, Commander. I am scanning available configs for repair...I may be able to jerry-rig something, enough to get us back home."

"Do that. I'll be in sick bay with the Captain. Call me when you're ready...I want to get _Cygnus_ out of this time stream as soon as possible."

"Copy that, sir."

Golich enabled ISAAC, the ship's AI and told it to hold _Cygnus_ on this heading. Then he went back to sick bay, which was really just a corner of the galley on B deck.

Golich looked over Dringoth's battered and bruised body. "I hope he's going to be all- right—"

Chase and Kasmeerah were there as well, looking on grimly.

M'Bela had already hooked up IVs and tubes. Two medbots purred around the makeshift gurney, making last minute adjustments, attaching probes and catheters, drawing blood, scanning. M'Bela perused the results on a nearby screen. "Mmm...looks like a broken hip...broken right ankle...no obvious internal bleeding, but there's evidence of a concussion—see those EEGs? I'm sure he's in shock, so we'll have to work on building up his fluids. And then there's _that..._ see the shadows around his lower cerebrum?"

Golich saw them. "A tumor?"

"Maybe. More likely, from the signature, it's internal swelling around the skull. One of these bots has a program for hemicraniectomy...we may have to do that pretty soon—"

Golich bent down, bringing his face closer to Dringoth's purplish cheeks and whispered.

"Be tough, Skipper. We'll have you patched up and back in shape in no time."

M'Bela waved him back. "Step over there, Commander. I'm bringing up a biostatic field...these buggers will bite if you stay inside." She pressed a few buttons and the swarm launched from a port on the side of the gurney. In seconds, it had expanded to a light, flickering fog, enveloping Dringoth and his gurney, cocooning him in a sterile wrap of static nanobots. "I'm prepping an insert too...put a few bots into his skull and see what's causing that swelling."

"Thanks," Golich murmured. A hard swallow caught in the back of his throat. Then his comm badge warbled. It was URME.

"Core stable now, Commander. I've run a patch across two loop field arrays. Buffers are cleared, ready to handle overloads. Entangler circuits stable too. This is about as good as I can give you for now, until we get _Cygnus_ back home. She needs to be drydocked for a month at least."

"Understood. Queenie, stay here with the Skipper. You two—" he indicated Chase and Kasmeerah, "come with me."

Golich took the CC1 console on the command deck. Chase was assigned to Golich's old spot directly across from him, Temporal Ops. Kas was ordered to strap herself into the Sensor station aft of them.

"Don't touch anything unless I say so," Golich ordered brusquely.

Chase' eyes grew wide. "I wouldn't dream of it."

Golich got on the ship's crewnet. "Okay, time jumpers, we're going home. Jump in sixty seconds. Secure everything you can. This one's going to be a bit bumpy."

In the last few seconds of ISAAC's bland auto-voice counting down to ENABLE, Chase remembered something one of his fellow Croc Boys had once said when the band had been tuning up for a gig at some high school.

" _All you gotta do, man, is hit a few chords right...your go-tone will fill in the rest...hell, the audience don't care...they're all stoned out of their brains anyway...."_

The jump, when it came, was like slamming into a wall at eighty miles an hour.

Straight away, once _Cygnus_ had tumbled across worldlines and crashed into her target time stream and settled down and ISAAC had trimmed her flow vanes for stable flight in T-001, Golich could tell something was wrong.

Terribly wrong.

He went aft to Kasmeerah, just to see the sensor display himself. As he scanned the tactical display, his face went white and his heart skipped about five beats.

The situation at this end of T-001 was completely different from when they had left. Golich checked their emergence point.

_Just a few days off...pretty good temporal accuracy_ , _considering..._ he told himself. He shoved Kasmeerah out of the seat and sat himself down.

"This can't be—"

Warning flags and caution lights lit up the tactical display like a Christmas tree. Golich muttered under his breath...Majoris _swarmed, wide and growing field of debris, squadron scattered, K-World wide open and the Coethi mother swarm swollen...my God, it's huge...it's the whole damned system, all of Sturdivant's worlds—_

Only one explanation could exist for such a state of affairs. Golich fought off the words but they came into his mind anyway, unbidden, like a raging river....

"The Twister was never operational. They didn't get it working...."

Seome

Kinlok Island

Time: 781.4, Epoch of Tekpotu

The assault on the Uman base began just at dawn, in driving sleet-flecked wind, with an icy fog enveloping the entire island. Keenok led the Ponkti contingent. At his direction, a pair of kip'ts circled the Time Twister laying down a thin stream of pal'penk blood in a circle around the machine. After the scents had been laid, an echopod was deposited in the water and activated. Immediately, the pod calls of the puk'lek issued out into the water from the device, calling seamothers to the area.

They weren't long in arriving. In less than an hour, a dozen enraged serpents had swarmed to the Twister, cracked its outer casing, tore scores of tensioning cables from their seabed anchors and damaged most of the chronotron pods, tearing the blisters from the upper dome and smashing them into pieces.

The pounding vibration, acoustic waves and deafening noise of the Twister died off into nothing.

Keenok pronounced himself satisfied with the destruction. "Now the Sound will irritate us no more." He gave orders for the land assault to begin immediately, organized into two waves, one to make landfall on the northeastern shore, along a small spit of beach, and smash the Tailless gear and structures there. The second wave would approach from the west, ascend a shallow slope and make quick work of the Tailless vessels—the two jumpships—which were parked at a landing spot on a flat ridge.

Keenok's troops unleashed their assault seamothers and prodded them away. Honking and bellowing, curious about their strange surroundings, the puk'lek bounded eagerly toward the surface, breaching the waters in an explosion of foam and froth, just beyond the surfline at the northeast beach.

Time jumpers Acth:On'e and Alicia Yang were assembling test gear when they both witnessed the sudden appearance of the seamothers.

Shouts erupted immediately. Yang dropped an entire set of calipers into the beach sand.

"My God...Holy Father... _Tian na!_...sea serpents!"

"Look at that... _get back_!" Acth:On'e yelled. "Get back!"

The beasts had surfaced just off the beach where the skimmer was tied up. There were two. One after another, the creatures climbed rocks and stood for a few moments, nosing around, sniffing, tasting things. One seamother careened toward an array of tents where the Umans had staged gear for skimmer trips out to the Twister.

Both beasts stalked off toward the rocky escarpment, crashing through some brush.

While the seamothers rampaged across the hill, the TACTRON officers Sturdivant and Namib scrambled to locate their weapons. Skortish and Ponkti kip'ts gathered beneath the same hill, nosing up onto the beach. The Skortish prodsmen, led by Yaktu, were first to emerge, followed quickly by several squads of Ponkti, led by Keenok himself. One after another, the prodsmen lit off their mobilitors, rose to the top of the hill and had cut off any chance to reach the materials shed or the control hut.

The Skortish were first to react.

"Stunners...open fire!" commanded Yaktu.

The entire beach and hill area were bathed in a blinding white light, followed by the concussive _BOOMS!_ of sound grenades. Equipment shattered and pieces of debris flew in all directions. The sound and light pulses scattered the Umans and created an opening for the Ponkti to advance.

Under Keenok, a squad of Ponkti prodsmen waddled toward the same gap the seamothers had taken. Kasmik, Telspo and Potop each emerged into the open, paused momentarily to get their bearings, pulsing vainly up and down the hill for targets, then under the _tuk_ master's direction, they split apart and clambered awkwardly along a ridge to get behind the Umans.

"We're cut off!" Sturdivant realized. "Back to the ship—that way!"

The two TACTRON officers scrambled and stumbled among boulders, prickly brush and slippery rock, as they made their way east toward their own jumpship. They ran into _Aquarius'_ crew coming their way, to escape the assault wave from that direction.

"Get back to the ships!" Sturdivant ordered. "We'll have to abandon the base! Those damned crazy fish are attacking back there!"

Liz Levy, _Aquarius_ ' PSO, grabbed Sturdivant by the arm. "You'll never make it. There are more coming up the hill from the sea...both ships are damaged...we'll have to find a place we can defend...."

Namib spotted a small cave opening below them. "How about that? If it's big enough."

The Umans slipped and slid their way down to the cave, found it just barely large to hold them all. Levy, Juba, and El Kash, from _Aquarius_ , huddled inside, while Sturdivant and Namib moved small boulders around to form up a barrier, give themselves better fields of fire.

"Fort Apache it ain't," Sturdivant muttered, flinging sleet out of his eyes.

"She'll have to do," said Namib.

But the Umans were unprepared for what came next.

At a signal from Keenok, who led the Ponkti barely twenty meters behind one of the seamothers, a Ponkti soldier named Kasmik released the first of the _mah'jeet_ sacs. The toxic bloom of deadly micro-organisms burst out of containment and was caught up in winds coming up from the beach, swelling rapidly into a faintly iridescent cloud that drifted along the ridge and the top of the mesa and soon enveloped the TACTRON officers.

Namib crumpled almost immediately, clutching at his throat, his suppressor rifle clattering to the rocks as he twisted and pitched heavily to the ground, slowly stung and asphyxiated by the organisms. Sturdivant was next, staggering to his knees just outside the cave opening, and he was still twitching when the Ponkti approached. Both officers were quickly dispatched by bursts of electric prods, while more blinders were lit off ahead of the Ponkti advance.

To add to the confusion, Keenok ordered scentbulbs to be set off. Telspo and Potop did the honors, one on each side of the cave. The bulbs were opened and a powerful stench soon permeated the upper reaches of the island, all the way down to its caldera at the southern end.

Inside the cave, the remaining Umans gagged in the smell, then crumpled to the ground, choking, coughing and vomiting as the overpowering odors clung to everything and thickened in the breezes.

Liz Levy had taken refuge in the deepest recesses of the cave, watching in horror as her crewmates, all well trained and dedicated jumpers, were cut down piecemeal by the intruders. Those not shocked into unconsciousness by the prods, asphyxiated into convulsions by the _mah'jeet_ and incapacitated by the scentbulbs were forced to retreat deeper into the cave, eventually taking cover behind a screen of stalactites that formed a fragile barrier.

Kinlok Island was under assault by something unearthly, something from a child's nightmare, something they had no defenses for.

Huddled with El Kash and Juba, Levy swallowed hard, finding no saliva in her throat at all, as she re-charged her suppressor.

From one end of Kinlok to the other, the results of the Ponkti and Skortish advance created similar results. The scenario was much the same in every direction. Seamothers took the lead as four-legged shock troops, sweeping the hills of any remaining resistance, followed up by stunner and blinder volleys to lay down a deadly field of force and light that seemed impermeable to all human sensors. Unlucky crewmen were knocked flat by _mah'jeet_ swarms or otherwise convulsed by strong toxins and incapacitating agents from Skortish scentbulbs.

A spreading wave of death, dismemberment and terror surged outward and there seemed nothing able to stop the onslaught.

Juba grabbed Levy by her elbow, just as the PSO was starting to creep forward to the cave opening, to reconnoiter the situation.

"What if both ships are destroyed?" he asked.

Levy hissed, "Then we're stuck here. The hut's gone. The sheds are piles of rubble. This is our little corner of the universe now and I aim to blast the sonsabitches if they try to come in here."

"We'll make fish sticks out of these bastards if they stick their beaks in here," agreed Juba.

A thought came to Levy. She wanted it to go away but it wouldn't. There might still be a chance... _maybe they're not just crazy fish...maybe they're actually pretty intelligent...._

She pushed past El Kash and Juba, heading for the opening.

"Just where do you think you're going?"

Levy slipped out of Juba's grasp. "I've got an idea. Maybe I can talk to them—"

"Don't be absurd...you'll be fried in seconds. Or swallowed by one of those serpents. Get back—"

"No, honestly...I have to try. It may be our only hope."

Levy crawled on her hands and knees right to the cave opening and stuck her head out.

Two Ponkti prodsmen in mobilitors spotted her right away.

They scrambled forward, prods sparking and crackling.
Chapter 9

"The strongest of all warriors are these two—Time and Patience."

Leo Tolstoy

Seome

Kinlok Island and Omsh'pont

Time: 781.8, Epoch of Tekpotu (Time stream T-229)

Just barely had jumpship _Cygnus_ escaped the Coethi mother swarm enveloping the Sturdivant system and made it back to time stream T-229. Approaching Kinlok Island for a landing, Dringoth was sobered by the scale of destruction they could all see below them. He ordered Golich to set the ship down as close to the ruins of the control hut as he could.

Just after landing, Dringoth and Golich exited _Cygnus'_ lockout and were immediately startled by a bedraggled pair of survivors clambering awkwardly over the rocks, all that remained of the Uman contingent on the island.

It was Liz Levy and Noor Juba. The story they told Dringoth defied belief.

"Incredible," was all Evelyn M'Bela could say. "I saw some of their civilization earlier. They seemed mostly peaceful. I would never have expected something like this."

All about them, equipment had been smashed, scattered, fried and torn to pieces. On the horizon, the Twister casing was canted down into the ocean at a sickening angle, barely afloat.

Golich shook his head. "That explains what happened in T-487, at Sturdivant. The Twister was a pile of floating debris."

Dringoth was furious, after hearing Levy's story.

"I tried to fight back, defend the base," she said, "but they were in a frenzy, bent on destroying everything...we lost several from _Aquarius_."

"And those TACTRON officers...they never made it to their ship. Both ships were damaged...hopeless...they didn't have a chance," added Levy.

Dringoth ordered the survivors inside _Cygnus_. "Queenie, take them to sick bay. They can use my stuff...I'm okay now. Look 'em over, put the medbots on it. And see if there's anything URME can do for them."

"Aye, sir," M'Bela said. Gently, she escorted Levy and Juba into _Cygnus_ ' airlock.

Dringoth kicked at some debris. "Don't those stupid fish realize what they've done? The whole place is in ruins. That pack of serpents or whatever they are destroyed everything, leveled the whole platform. Eighty percent of the displacement nodes are beyond any kind of repair."

Golich agreed. He hoisted a heavy satchel of gear out of the rubble and slung it angrily toward the ship. "Even if we had a full terr, it wouldn't be enough to make the Twister operational again. It's hopeless."

"I'll have to contact Commandstar directly...see what our orders are."

Dringoth, Golich and Acth:On'e started combing the debris for anything intact. Piles of smashed equipment attested to the wrath of the seamothers. Chase just stared out through the ice fog at the Twister, and from there out to sea. Suddenly an idea came to him.

"Captain, I have a request."

Dringoth was annoyed. "I'm busy, Chase. Can't you see that? The Twister's gone and we have to get the hell out of here in a hurry. I'm looking for any file-crystals that may have survived this holocaust. We can't leave anything behind for the Coethi to study. The Twister's the only way we can push them out of the Halo."

"Captain Dringoth, I have a request to make."

Dringoth was kicking through each pile as he came to it. "I only hope the destruct pack wasn't crushed. Commandstar will have my neck if I let the Twister fall into Coethi's little metallic hands. What is it you want, son?"

Chase spied a crystal half hidden under some broken wall partitions. He stooped down and snatched it up, handing it to Dringoth. The Ultrarch-Captain turned it end of end, frowning before putting it in a bag.

"I would like to request permission to stay behind, sir."

Dringoth halted in mid-step and wore a puzzled look as he surveyed his face. Beside him, Acth:On'e could only shake his head.

"Stay behind? Are you ill? What's the matter with you? Of course, you can't stay behind. Go over there and search through that pile."

"Please, Ultrarch-Captain, I have a reason."

Dringoth paid him no attention. He plowed through a mound of rubble with his boot, swearing to himself. "What a mess. Of all the luck, we have to pick a planet like this, with dragons as big as jumpships. I never did like this hellhole of a place; the base was doomed from the beginning. Now I'll have to explain to Timejump how I let a herd of demented reptiles demolish the one operational weapon that might have stopped the Coethi expansion. Got any ideas, Acth?"

"Ultrarch-Captain, _please!"_

Dringoth said, "All right, Chase, what is it? Why do you want to stay behind? So, you can be blasted into voidtime again?"

"Sir, if the matter compiler on _Aquarius_ is still intact, I can print myself a Seomish kip't, one of their sleds. We have the files already. I want to make a trip...to Omt'or. It's one of the kels. I want to find out what happened, why they did this?"

Dringoth snorted. "No, and that's final. It doesn't matter why they did this. Once I get orders from Commandstar, we'll likely be ordered to abandon this hellhole and get _Cygnus_ back into the fight. You saw what the Bugs did to Sturdivant, to K-World and all those settlements. Get this place out of your head and get back inside...that's an order."

Chase was about to object but stopped in mid-sentence when Golich yelled.

"Hey...look there...is that one of those serpents?"

They all looked beyond the surf line, through thickening fog. Something had surfaced, breaching the waves in an explosion of foam and froth.

"It's a kip't!" Chase said.

Both Dringoth and Golich had withdrawn their weapons and were training them on the small craft as it nosed through the surf toward the beach. It ran up onto the pebbly ledge and the canopy opened. Two figures emerged at first, both in mobilitors.

"Don't shoot!" Chase pleaded. "Let me—" Against orders, he scrambled down the slope toward the beach, and jogged up to the water's edge. Something about one of them—

The voice came through an echopod, slurred, crackling with static, pops and whistles, but in that moment, Chase was sure he recognized the visitors.

It was Likteek.

" _Litorkel ge_ , old friend," Chase said.

Likteek wasn't accustomed to being inside a mobilitor, in Notwater, and he swayed unsteadily, until Chase caught him and steadied him.

"And to you, _eekoti_ Chase." Likteek turned about and surveyed the damage, the debris, the startled Umans brandishing weapons on the ridge above. "I fear we have come too late."

That's when two others emerged from the kip't. One, unknown to Chase, was clearly Seomish, clad in a mobilitor.

The other was Angie Gilliam.

Chase's heart leapt with joy and he ran splashing through the waves right into her arms. They hugged tightly for a few moments. Behind them, another mobilitor came waddling across the beach, wheezing and hissing. Likteek called him Koboh.

Likteek explained. "Shkreeeah...the Metah sent us...to stop Kekot and the warriors. They...kkkzzzhhh...were to create shield—"

"That explains the water intake drop-off," Golich surmised. "We were about to take a skimmer out and see what the problem was...Twister wasn't being cooled properly—"

Likteek went on. "They...sshhzzhh...not attack unless shield fail." The Seomish scientist looked around at the ruins. "They may...exceed orders."

Dringoth swore. "Do you stupid fish have any idea what you've done? You've doomed your own world. The Twister was the only thing keeping the Bugs away."

Golich added, "Now there's a strategic disaster developing in the Sturdivant system. We're cut off here...we don't know what's going on."

Chase extricated himself from Angie's arms. She clung to his hand, wouldn't let that go. "Captain, _Temporal Hammer_ came here to help out. Help drive the Coethi back and save this world."

"Looks like the results are the complete opposite." Dringoth kicked at some debris. "I'll have to let Commandstar know what's happened. In the meantime, we'll be packing up. Commander—" he said to Golich—" take the skimmer. You and Queenie get out there to the Twister. Save what you can. Destroy the rest. That can't fall into the Bugs' greedy little claws."

Likteek voiced something that gave Chase chills. "Shkreeah...it seems we have _mee'tor'kel_..."

"Rough waters," Chase translated what the echopod couldn't.

"Yes...the time stream plays out as before...like the Omt'chor Current...it can't be stopped."

"I hope you're wrong," Chase said. Dringoth and his crew departed. Chase and Angie took Golich up on his offer of a hot meal in _Cygnus'_ galley and went to the ship. Likteek and Koboh returned to their kip't and submerged just offshore, to be more comfortable under the sea, where they could shed their mobilitors.

Inside _Cygnus_ ' cramped galley, Chase wolfed down a fabricated meal and slammed down some mushy protein drink on top of that. He dialed up a second helping, while Angie picked at her own meal, shoving scraps around on the plate.

She looked up at Chase with a dejected set to her face. "You think they'll really abandon this base?"

Chase's face was stuffed. He tried to force words out around the casserole-thing in his mouth, but pieces dribbled into his lap. "Depends...on their orders, I guess. What we saw in T-487 wasn't pretty. When we jumped back to that stream, the Bugs had already swarmed half the worlds in the system. They'd reduced the command ship to floating debris and the main swarm was moving on Keaton's World. Dringoth got orders to get out of there, get back here and find out why the Twister didn't stop the Bugs." He swallowed audibly, wiped his mouth. "Now we know."

Angie slowly shook her head. "Maybe Likteek's right...the time stream will play out like it did before. Maybe it's fixed, maybe it's inevitable. The Umans leave, the Bugs move in, starball the sun and everything goes ka-blooey. Chase, we just can't let that happen, can we?"

"Not if I can do something about it."

"What can you...what can _we_ —do?"

Chase had given that some thought. "What I really want is for Dringoth to hold off abandoning the base. Give me and Likteek a chance to get back to Omt'or."

"Me too," Angie insisted.

"Sure, you should come too. Give us a chance to organize a repair expedition. I know the Seomish—at least the Omtorish—are smart enough to be able to help. With enough time, people and resources, the Twister could be repaired. _Cygnus_ has the files. The Omtorish can help make parts, help with clearing the damage away, and help with re-building. Hell, we did this before, last time we faced this. It is part of the original time stream. We ought to be able to do it again." Chase's face darkened. "But I have to convince Dringoth. I have to convince him to look beyond the immediate wording of his orders, to the big picture. The strategy, I guess."

Nathan Golich popped into the galley. He had a small cube in his hand. The Jump Commander sat down across the table from Chase and Angie.

"Thought you might like to see this. It just came in."

"What is it?"

"After action report from TACTRON...their URME sent it. _Cygnus_ picked it up on Z-band...I'm not sure if it's officially authorized comms from Time Guard, but...well...take a look."

Chase popped the cube into a player on the counter. Text and images materialized in mid-air...jumbled, pixelated, confused at first, then settling down into something recognizable.

Dispatch #12.175.222

HQS. War Staff Timejump Command

Transto: Ult.-Capt. Dringoth, CDR 1st Time Displacement Battery

Coded

Commandstar was briefly attacked by a Coethi jumpswarm six milliterr ago and partially disabled. TACTRON has assigned me to damage analysis and I must tell you, Dringoth, it is extensive. Coethi was able to momentarily displace the ship back to a time when it was still under construction. TACTRON countered with a shift in voidtime to another timestream but not before the destruction had spread. I don't have to describe to you the explosive effects of such instantaneous displacement.

The result is that Commandstar is unable to provide any assistance in drawing Coethi vessels or swarms into your range. We are currently shifting through voidtime at a very slow rate that makes us extremely vulnerable to another attack, while repairs are being made. We may even have to re-enter truetime for awhile. TACTRON's war programming prohibits the unnecessary risking of Commandstar, so for the time being, you will have to rely on your own scanning for protection. I realize what a burden that puts on your system but it cannot be helped, believe me. We are barely functional here. I even lost approximately 3% of my own core data, which is uncomfortable, in case you were wondering.

The fact that Coethi was able to match our random timejump sequence and make such an attack has caused great disruption here. TACTRON has assigned some URMEs to compute the probability of recurrence but unfortunately, entropy prevails in the information flow, so analysis is impossible. I know of some URMEs who are refusing to submit to TACTRON's dictatorship (calculating that TACTRON's obsession with the timejump sequence prevented it from analyzing more productive defense strategies—like the Time Twister) and many are expending valuable processing time on the formation of pseudo-organic emotional structures. This, of course, is fruitless and I have not succumbed to the temptation. We have much more important uses for that information.

But it would be inaccurate of me to describe the summation of morale as anything but desperate panic. TACTRON has suspended engineering work on all additional Time Twisters, pending the completion of repairs to Commandstar. You are on your own, Dringoth. The base at Storm is the only effective defense in this part of the Halo and TACTRON is ordering all jumpships and chasers to assemble in the protected zone around Sigma Albeth B. Even with the Twister non-operational, the protected zone will have to serve as our main redoubt until Commandstar is functional again. Until then, Coethi will be able to roam the rest of the Halo at will.

It is a tremendous gamble, Dringoth. Many URMEs are not certain that TACTRON has correctly computed the probability of our survival, with only one Time Twister for defense. I need not remind you how imperative it is that the Twister not fall into Coethi's hands. Any failure to secure the base could be catastrophic to the Uman cause.

TACTRON computes P = 1 that Coethi will unleash a barrage of starballs once our strategy becomes obvious.

There will be no further dispatches from me until Commandstar is within your displacement perimeter.

URME 001 (Unit Reserve Memory Entity)

Endtrans

End Code.

The imagery dissolved into nothing. Golich popped the cube out and pocketed it.

"This URME fellow...is he like your own URME here?"

Golich nodded. "Command version, higher up in the hierarchy. TACTRON uses URME systems to handle tactical planning, logistics, op details, you name it. Our URME grabbed this off the receiver and brought it to me and the Captain. He's got queries off to Battalion now, asking what they want us to do. We're hoping to get orders today or tomorrow. In the meantime, I've got my own orders: clean up this mess, save what we can, and destroy the rest. Your fish friends made a giant rubble pile of pretty much everything,"

"They had their reasons, I'm sure."

Golich shrugged, got up. "It's really academic. With what happened at Sturdivant and what URME 001's saying, we'll probably have to fall back from this part of the Halo, maybe all the way to Epsilon Eridani and Time's Peak. Probably even concede Newton's Jaw. That's not going to go over well at the Alliance. By swarming Sturdivant from one end and pushing toward this outpost from another, the Bugs are forcing us to contract our defensive perimeter. If we can't get an area weapon like the Twister up somewhere along this sector and bring it to bear on the enemy, this whole end of Alliance space is as good as gone."

Golich left his words hanging and then left the galley. Chase said nothing, but finished his meal, then went in search of Dringoth.

The Captain was visible outside, even in the falling snow, picking through the ruins of the control hut with M'Bela...Queenie to the _Cygnus_ crew. Chase intended to go out and visit the Captain, but URME prevented him from approaching the lockout.

"Captain's orders, sir," the para-human swarm entity said. URME had changed config to a sort of fuzzy blob, hovering around the entrance to the airlock. His—or its—extremities buzzed and sparked and Chase had no intention of testing URME's defensive abilities. "You and female Angie Gilliam are to remain on board at all times."

"Why is that, URME?"

"In case the ship receives orders to depart quickly, the Captain wants all crew to be within five minutes' travel time back to the ship. He left specific orders that you and Ms. Gilliam should remain inside."

There was no arguing with a swarm entity like URME so Chase and Angie both retired to their makeshift quarters on E deck, the ship's engineering spaces. Chase fell into his bedding alongside a lathe in the machine shop and was asleep in minutes.

Several hours later, he was roughly awakened by Golich himself.

"Captain's called an all-hands briefing in the crews' mess. Right now—"

Startled, still groggy, Chase mumbled something, rubbed sleep from weary eyes and got up.

The crews' mess was one partition over from the galley on B deck.

"...as I expected," Dringoth was saying, when Chase and Angie showed up. "TACTRON's given us three days to break down or save what we can of the Twister, destroy the rest and abandon the base. We have orders to rendezvous with _Libra_ on the other side of Newton's Jaw. Full recon sweep of all time streams between the Jaw and the Terran Sun, maybe Time's Peak too."

Chase's heart sank when he heard the news. He listened a while, as Dringoth parceled out tasks and assignments for the next few days, then raised a hand.

"Yes, son, what is it? And to answer your question, since your own ship's been damaged and beyond repair here, you're TDY'd to _Cygnus_ for the duration...until we can get all of you to a Time Guard base. You'll be part of this crew...we're not leaving anybody behind."

"That wasn't my question, sir," Chase came back. "I'm just asking if we can't hold off abandoning the base...for a while."

Dringoth's face looked like he had indigestion. His eyebrows crinkled. "The short answer to that is no...we have firm orders from TACTRON. I don't expect you to understand that or even agree with it. But it doesn't matter."

Now Chase was almost begging. "Captain, there's no reason to abandon the Twister and the base."

"You mean despite the fact the Twister's a pile of rubble and we're pretty much defenseless here?"

"Sir, I know how critical this base and this sector is to the Alliance. I was with you at K-World, I saw it. All I'm saying is let the Seomish people here help out. They have the ability, the technology to help you re-build the Twister."

Golich scoffed at the very idea. "You've got to be kidding. Talking fish, repairing a Mark I Twister...give me a break."

"They can help," Chase insisted. "Jumpmaster M'Bela...Queenie here...she's seen their world, she knows what they can do."

M'Bela didn't disagree. "He's got a point, Captain. There really is a whole civilization beneath the waves here. Cities, armies, tools and really weird craft. They seem to have a real grasp on how to use marine species as tools...in ways I never would have thought possible."

Chase continued. "Captain, the time streams don't lie. It hasn't happened yet in this one, but once before, when you had orders to abandon Seome, you gave us the schematics to re-build the Twister. That was so the Farpool could be re-created, so the Seomish would still have a way of emigrating to Earth if they needed it...which they did when the Coethi starballed their sun."

Acth:On'e said, "This farpool you speak of...you are referring to the vortexes the Twister creates in the seas? Those are just side effects."

"True enough, but one of them is deep enough, strong enough, to function as a wormhole to other times and places. If this time stream plays out, the Seomish will use the Farpool to make trips to Earth, reconnoiter the oceans and establish contact with humans. It hasn't happened yet in this time stream...but it will...if we let it."

M'Bela snapped her fingers, her rings and bracelets clinking as she did so. "Captain, didn't we see a vid on that before we left K-World, before we came here?"

Dringoth mulled the conversation over. He rubbed his chin. The lines on his forehead seemed to converge down to the bridge of his nose; once before, M'Bela had said that meant a decision was coming.

"I'd love to be able to tell TACTRON we think we can repair the Twister," he admitted. "But we don't have much time. Can your people...these talking fish...give us the materials, the manpower, to get the Twister up and operating in a week?"

Chase had to admit he didn't really know. "Hard to say, sir. All I'm asking is for you to give them a chance. If the Coethi continue to starball the sun here, it'll go supernova. The time stream says this happened...before. Seome was destroyed. Some emigrated but most of the race died out. But with the Twister up and operating, earlier in the time stream where we are now, we have a chance to save this world, save the Seomish and defend this sector all at the same time."

"The kid's got a point," Golich admitted. "Although, those damned serpents did so much damage that I can't imagine how we could ever get the Twister up and operating in a week."

Dringoth took a deep breath. "I should have my head examined for this, but like old Jellicoe always said at the Academy, when you're in command, command. I am so getting cashiered over this. Mr. Meyer, what do you need from us?"

"Unpack all your gear. Stage it out so it can be re-installed. Repair what you can."

"Some of the chronotron pods can't be repaired. They're gone," noted M'Bela. "Can we operate with less than a full complement?"

Golich did some figuring on his wristpad. "Full complement is seventy-two. If I'm figuring right, we can get eighty-five percent twist field coverage with just sixty-five, maybe sixty."

"Let me go with Likteek back to Omt'or," said Chase. "I'm sure the Metah will approve an expedition. Likteek can help organize it. We can have a hundred Omtorish scientists and engineers and craftsmen here in maybe four days. All they need to know is what you want done."

Dringoth pulled nervously on the ends of his white moustache. "I _could_ reply to TACTRON with something like 'previous transmission garbled...please re-send.' There _are_ interference effects from the Bugs in this sector. How long I can hold them off—" the Captain shrugged.

"Toonie and I can get the pods uncrated," Alicia Yang offered. "Stage 'em in rows on the beach, if this crappy weather will just let up."

"I can make a list of necessary repairs and put it in sequence," Acth:On'e said.

Golich joined in. "We haven't stowed the skimmer yet. That'll help get materials out to the site."

Dringoth's forehead knotted. "Don't your fish friends find the Twister operation annoying, or damaging? The sound, the whirlpools and all that."

"They already have designs for a shield," Chase said. "It didn't work before but that was because it was sabotaged. We could make a shield part of the re-build."

"As long as it doesn't compromise the Twister," Dringoth warned. "Commander—"

Golich understood what was being asked. "Show me the shield design...we'll decide if it can work."

The Captain glared right at Chase. "Well, what are you waiting for? Get lost...go talk with your fish friends. We haven't got all day, you know."

"Yes, sir, at once, sir—" Chase bounded out of the crew's mess and ran right into Angie.

She held Chase's hands. "I'm going too, you dope. If you're going back to Omt'or with Likteek, I need to come along. I'm not letting you do this alone...you're still just a beach bum, you know." She sort of half-smiled at him.

"Yeah, waiting for the Big Cahuna wave...come on. Likteek's out there just below the waves."

The two of them left _Cygnus_ and made their way down the icy slopes of the hill to the beach. One after another, they plunged into the frigid waves and were gone. Likteek's kip't was nearby, wedged into a rock crevice just offshore, still in the surf zone. Chase told the scientist what had been decided; he was so excited that Likteek had to tune and adjust the echopod to make sense of it.

Moments later, the kip't backed out of its hole and came about, sniffing for the first faint fingers of the P'omtor Current. Koboh, one of Likteek's technicians, drove the sled south by southwest, heading on a speed course for the Gap and the turbulent zone of the northern Serpentines. By this route, Omsh'pont, capital city of the Omtorish, was less than two days away.

Chase filled Likteek in on what the Umans would need. They were both sobered by the magnitude of the task ahead. Both knew that the Metah Mokleeoh was the key. If the Omtorish, possibly with help from other kels, wouldn't or couldn't help rebuild the Twister, the world was doomed...just as it had happened before.

Likteek understood the situation with painful clarity. "There is a real link, a sort of union, between our worlds now, between Urku and Seome. The fate of our world is linked to the fate of yours."

Chase didn't disagree with that at all.

Chapter 10

"Time is a created thing. To say 'I don't have time,' is like saying, 'I don't want to."

Lao Tzu

Seome

Omsh'pont, capital of kel: Om't

Time: 782.1, Epoch of Tekpotu (Time stream T-229)

When Likteek piloted the kip't into the heart of the great city, Chase and Angie were impressed by the continuing vitality and energy of the residents. The waters of Omsh'pont, always turbid and silt-laden in the past, were now thick with roaming citizens, great pods of them orbiting the floatways and spires and domes and pavilions like clouds around a hurricane. The city was a vast plain of dizzying complexity, structures of every conceivable shape, wedged in between two seamounts, the Tor'shpont and the Meta'shpont.

Somehow, by scent and sound, Likteek found his way to the Kelktoo and found the place in its usual uproar. The Kelktoo was the largest and most influential of all the em'kels...the traditional house of learning with its academies and labs and observatories and institutes and societies and foundations and studios. Likteek had broadcast the details of their mission across the repeater network on approaching Omsh'pont and word had come to the Academy. Now, the em'kel and its denizens were a blur of frenzied activity.

Longsee loh met Likteek and the others when they arrived. Straight away, all took off on a short roam about the upper slopes of the Metah'shpont. Chase and Angie were given 'jet feet' by one of the technicians, to better keep up...no human could ever keep up with a traditional Omtorish roam.

"We have an audience with the Metah in an hour," Longsee was saying. "I begged and bribed the vizier with extra ertleg crab—he loves ertleg."

They roamed about the vast city for some time, Longsee and Likteek leading the way.

They set off across the open valley between the seamounts and straight away, Chase noticed evidence of mudslides along the flanks of the T'orshpont.

"The Tailless machine...the wavemaker," Longsee explained. "It's silent now, for several mah, we had the slides. Many died, buried under the silt. It will take a long time to re-build."

Chase tried to explain what had happened at Kinlok Island, how the assault had damaged the wavemaker but opened the entire world to greater devastation later. "The machine has to be rebuilt. We...you... have to help them, otherwise Seome is doomed."

"The Metah has given provisional approval to equip an expedition for this," Longsee admitted. "We heard the reports from the repeaters. But there are many in the Kel'em who oppose helping the Tailless."

"They don't understand," Likteek said. "The Tailless here are friends. Allies. They fight the far enemy—we've seen them on Urku. They're called _m'jeete_. These _m'jeete_ can destroy whole worlds."

Chase described what he had encountered with Dringoth's crew and ship at Sturdivant 2180. It was clear that Longsee was having difficulty believing any of it.

"These other worlds, these other seas...they are like Seome? They have seamothers, go roaming, as we do?"

Chase said, "I don't know about all that. I think most of them are Tailless worlds. Places of Notwater."

Longsee made a face. "Not fit for habitation, if you ask me."

Chase was about to describe what he had seen of the Coethi when their roam was intercepted by several other kelke. There was commotion, some flailing and collisions, then Chase realized who had shown up.

It was Kloosee ank and Pakma luk't...friends from times past, friends he and Angie hadn't seen in a long time.

Angie was overjoyed. She nuzzled with Pakma, beak to nose, while Pakma held her out at arm's length and examined Angie head to toe.

"Ke'shoo and ke'lee, my shoo'lee!"

Chase and Kloosee embraced hard, hugging in the human way. Kloosee tried to nuzzle Chase, but he'd never bought into that custom and they separated laughing and poking at each other.

Kloosee explained. "We heard on the repeater net that visitors were coming. I knew from the descriptions...how many Tailless do we know? You are well? _Litor'kel ge_ , old friend."

" _Litor'kel ge_ ," Chase replied. "You seem healthy enough for a big fish."

"Come," insisted Longsee. "No time for coupling...there's work to be done. The roam continues."

So Kloosee and Pakma, who had come to Earth so long ago and been befriended by Chase and Angie, joined the _vish'tu_ and the foursome sprinted on about the city with Longsee.

As they orbited about the city, flitting between floatways, buzzing canopies and domes and open pavilions, Chase tried to explain why he and Angie had come.

Kloosee was puzzled. "I don't understand. The wavemaker's silent now. Isn't that a good thing?"

"Not really," Chase said. He told them of the 1st Time Displacement Battery, not sure of just where they really were in this time stream. He'd have to be careful not to upset the worldline beyond repair. Broken worldlines were like cracks in a kip't canopy. Once started, they propagated and could veer off who knew where?

Chase continued. "The whole world's in mortal danger. If this worldline continues, the sun will be severely damaged by the _m'jeete_ —the Coethi—and a great emigration will have to happen. It'll be called _kel'vish'tu."_

Longsee scoffed. "That's just a myth from the First Days. No one has seen ak'loosh, the great wave. It's a story we tell midlings to keep them quiet."

Chase understood now the true conundrum of traveling back and forth through the Farpool, messing with time and worldlines the way they did.

They roamed on for awhile, darting in and among the crowds and the domes of the city. It felt like all of Omsh'pont was out in _vish'tu_ today.

"Maybe I can explain it this way," Chase offered. "The world has many currents, doesn't it?"

"Many," Longsee agreed. "We use the Omt'chor and the Pomt'or Currents to make travel easier."

"Okay, so no one can stop the currents, right?"

"No one. Only Lord Shooki causes the currents to change...this he has not done in many mah,"

"But what if there is a tremor, a seaquake, and a big boulder is torn off a mountain and taken up by the current. If nothing is done, won't the boulder cause damage?"

"It might, this is true. Such things have happened and we hear them, we detect them. Then we deflect the boulder. Or put up a shield."

"Exactly. My team, the _Temporal Hammer_ team, has also traveled in a kind of current. Once we enter the Farpool, we travel in currents of time. What if you knew that a boulder might be torn off the mountain...it hadn't happened yet, but you thought it might. What would you do?"

Longsee thought about that for a moment. "We know nothing of such things. If the boulder comes to us by current, we respond as we must. We protect ourselves. But to stop the boulder, stop the tremors that cause the boulder—" Longsee seemed perplexed. "I am a scientist, _eekoti_ Chase. I have an open mind, but I need evidence. Shooki would not permit us to know such things."

Chase realized that the worldview of Longsee was truly different from his own. "If Shooki granted you this knowledge and you knew you could stop the boulder from falling into the current, wouldn't you do this?"

"I suppose, but such thinking is sure to disturb _ke'shoo_ and _ke'lee_ , change the way things are. We might act as you describe but there would have to be discussions, many roams, the kel'em—"

"But you could act ahead of time to stop the boulder. Longsee, this is what we have done, we _eekoti_. We've come back through the currents of time to a point where the boulder has not yet been torn away. It _will_ tear away, we know this because it's already happened. By helping the Tailless rebuild their machine, we prevent the great ak'loosh from ever happening...at least, we think we can. We prevent the boulder from being torn away and being caught in the current. I'm trying to put this in a way you can understand."

"And yet I understand only dimly, _eekoti_ Chase. Perhaps I am too old...ah, here we are." He made an abrupt turn, with Kloosee and Pakma right behind. Chase had to bank hard right, and plowed right into Angie.

"Ouch,..hey, watch out!"

"Come, follow...the Metah's pavilion is below. We're expected."

The roamers descended through hundreds of other roams until they came to a bubble curtain surrounding a small rise in the seabed. Multiple pavilions dotted the rise; one was larger, with an elaborate canopy resembling a huge shell and dominated the setting. This was the chambers of the Metah of Omt'or, Mokleeoh loh kel: Om't.

The Metah was a vigorous older female of nearly two hundred _mah_ , arthritic and stiff in places but much loved and respected by all. She had many questions for Longsee and his entourage.

"These are the _eekoti_ you spoke of...you say they resemble the Umans at Kinlok? Can they help us with the Umans...speak with them...convince them to move the wavemaker?"

Longsee tried to keep _shoo'kel_. You didn't go before the Metah with your insides bubbling like a steam vent...calm and cool, that was the answer.

"Honorable _Metashook'let_ , the travelers tell me this." With help from Longsee, Chase tried to describe something of their mission on Seome.

When Mokleeoh seemed puzzled, Longsee tried to explain. "This Farpool takes them to our world but back in time, many _metamah_ back, so that the _eekoti_ we meet are like ancestors, perhaps like our Five Daughters with Shooki." It was protocol to address the _Metah_ in highly stilted, formal language...Longsee had to think about the forms and what to say and how to say them. "Thanks to Kekot, the wavemaker of the Tailless is silent but _eekoti_ Chase says we must help the Tailless repair and rebuild."

Mokleeoh scoffed at that. "And bring the sound and the devastation back...this must never happen."

Longsee went on to describe the threat posed by the Coethi with Chase's analogy of the boulder and the currents.

Mokleeoh considered that, methodically pulsing Longsee and his assistants from the lab, one by one, seeking deceit, other purposes, the telltale bubbles of doubt. She found none.

"These words pulse true, Longsee. I read no echoes of deceit in any of you." To one of her servlings, Mokleeoh said, "Send for the vizier. We must call the Kel'em into session to discuss this."

Chase tried to impress the Metah with the urgency of the moment. Longsee helped him with the words and phrases. "Affectionate Metah, time is short. The far enemy—your emigrants from Urku call them _m'jeete_ —are coming and they're planning to attack. There are tremors in the currents of time. Eventually, your sun—" here Longsee paraphrased 'sun' as the 'great light of the Notwater,' earning a curious squint from Mokleeoh—"will be destroyed. The world will be destroyed. Some will escape to Urku through the Farpool but millions will die. If the Umans, the _eekoti_ , don't rebuild their machine, all this will happen. It has already happened, but in a different part of the currents of time, later, downstream. But, as Longsee has explained, we think it's possible to stop the tremors, keep the boulder from being caught up in the current."

Mokleeoh now circled Chase and Angie and pulsed them deeply, sizing them up as a predator might study its prey. "Strange words come from your mouth, _eekoti_. Words that make no sense. Yet, I pulse no deceit. No doubt. How is this possible?"

Longsee jumped in. "Because they speak the truth, Metah. I'm sure of it."

Mokleeoh then stopped her circling. "This expedition you desire—it would have many kelke. You ask for craftsmen, weavers, builders, handlers, many people. If the Kel'em approves, such an expedition will take time to put together. And the Kel'em must still approve."

"There isn't much time left, Affectionate Metah," Chase blurted out, oblivious to the shudders of nearby servlings that the Metah should be addressed so bluntly. "Maybe a few days, a few cycles at most."

Mokleeoh seemed increasingly convinced. "Then the Kel'em must act quickly. Go. Leave us and I will lay before the Kel'em your pulses." A servling produced a small echopod, which she handed to the Metah. "All our words are here. All you have said, and my pulses, are recorded here. The Kel'em will study this...and the scentbulbs we've made. From the words, the pulses, and the scents, they will decide what is true and what is not."

With that, Longsee and his entourage were dismissed.

They traveled a full beat above the Metah's chambers before anyone spoke. Then Pakma had an idea.

"Perhaps _eekoti_ Angie would like to come to my _em'kel_. It's called Ot'lum Tek'ek. We make scents for the kelke. Very popular."

Intrigued, Angie said, "I would like that."

Kloosee then decided Chase would accompany him. "Let's visit Tuk'lek. It's an _em'kel_ on the outskirts of the city. There's an old craftsman there—Tamerek, I think. He'll have some ideas on what _eekoti_ Chase's expedition might need...he's been up to the Notwater himself."

The group then divided. Longsee warned them to return to the Academy soon, half a day at most. "We should be available for the Metah's audience. The Kel'em's decision could come at any time."

They all agreed with that.

Chase then accompanied Kloosee to the _em'kel_ Tuk'lek, on the far side of the city, to meet the master craftsman Tamarek lu. It was a sobering excursion through Omsh'pont, through the floating spheres and domes and platforms and canopies, all stayed with guidewire and cable to the seamount, a three-dimensional lattice of enclosures and domiciles and shops and berthing spaces and restaurants, now slowly emptying of the usually gregarious roamings of the people. The water was _m'eetor'kelte_ , rough and turbid today, not good for strolling around.

So, the citizens stayed away, roaming in the lee of the seamounts and beyond, seeking calmer water.

Tuk'lek was a small _em'kel_ , the shop tucked in the folds of the seamount Meta'shpont, a small cave-like place dimly lit with luminescent bulbs drifting like seaweed. Tamarek lu ran the place with a small force of interns and apprentices, hovering over his charges like a stern father, never pleased, barking at their mistakes, offering faint praise for jobs well done.

He and Kloosee nosed each other and pulsed formally. Tamarek scrunched up his face at what he got back.

"Kloosee, you're upset. Or excited, maybe. I see it. Look at all that commotion inside you...what's got you so riled up?"

Kloosee explained what had happened, the Metah's provisional approval of a new expedition, the gathering of the Kel'em to make a final decision, the equipment that would be needed for the expedition.

"These creatures, Tamarek...we're calling them _eekoti_ for lack of a better word...they breathe Not-Water. Hard to believe, but it's true. Chase here, and Pakma, came through the Farpool not long ago to help us. And they're going back. They're trying to stop something terrible from happening, like the great ak'loosh."

Tamarek chewed on that for a moment. "Yes? I'll believe that when I see it. Umans are like _k'orpuh_ , only not quite as long and slimy. But they'll sting you given half a chance. You want to talk Notwater gear, eh? Let's see what we can do—"

Half a beat away, Pakma approached her own _em'kel_ with Angie in tow. She described how she had come to form the _em'kel._ "It came because of what happened on my Circling," she explained.

The time for the Circling came when Pakma was about 10 mah in age, about 20 years to a Uman. The _ketu'vishtek_ was a circum-navigation of the world, collecting specimens, encountering predators and returning (hopefully) to the home kel alive. Lokeesh would be Pakma's tutor, advisor and counselor for this trip.

Pakma's Circling would take her in a clockwise voyage north to the Serpentine ridge, then east to the T'kel ridge, south into and through Sk'ortish waters, then west to Klatko Trench and back to Om't. She was just ten mah in age when the big day came.

It was only in Ponkti waters to the east that Pakma ran into major difficulties. They came when Pakma, following the T'kel ridgeline, ventured too close to the whirlpools known as Opuh'te. She found herself sucked into one whirlpool, thrown dozens of miles away and seriously injured in the process. She couldn't swim more than short distance and had to hole up in a cave complex near the Tchoote, a confusing labyrinth west of the T'kel. Here she nursed her wounds, scraped enough food together to survive, and occupied her healing time with songs and scentbulb designs.

Faced with stressful situations, it had always been customary for Pakma to revert to her love of creating and enjoying scents. She had an artist's temperament and she liked to experiment. That's why she went into the seamother waters to gather their scents in ways nobody had ever done before. That's why she used this time of injury to gather scents related not only to the local caves and T'kel but her own scent response to this time of injury. Her bulbs would later become very inspirational and popular as other Seomish used them to help them through times of stress. Pakma called these bulbs " _Opuh'tee Kek'ot_ ," which meant literally "my whirlpool mind."

While she was nursing herself back to health, Pakma was visited by a small clan of Ponkti traders cruising nearby waters. For a few days, she was effectively a hostage, but she was able to trade some of her new bulbs for food and medicine, which enabled her to recover faster. She was not to use any sort of vehicle or animal in her Circling, even though an old broken down tillet was offered. Pakma did take the tillet and rode the animal out of Ponkti waters, naming it "Ak'luk puh," which means "strong, foul, smell." Pakma and Akluk became very close but she knew she could not be detected riding a tillet during her formal Circling. She and Akluk parted company crossing the Shook'engkloo Trench in the southeast. It was a painful separation and she could hardly bare to watch the forlorn look on Akluk's face, as it hovered over the edge of the trench as she swam away. She believes Akluk gave up living after that and drifted down into the cold, deadly waters of the trench and died there. It brings both pain and happiness to Pakma when she recalls this time. She devoted several bulbs to remembering his pungent scent and their friendship.

The rest of the Circling went without incident. Pakma returned somewhat delayed but mostly recovered from her injuries and with some new bulbs to share with her Kelktoo em'kel. She was celebrated and Lokeesh declared her full adult. Pakma was now a citizen of Om't with full rights and responsibilities.

The first thing she did was found a new em'kel, called _Ot'lum Tek'ek_ , which means "Scent Memories." This em'kel would be devoted to making, enjoying and distributing scentbulbs throughout Seome.

For several mah, Pakma concentrated on her work and efforts inside Ot'lum Tek'ek. In less than a mah, she had attracted quite a following and the em'kel boasted twenty full time members. One of Pakma's new friends who joined the em'kel was a male named Kloosee ank, also of kel: Om't.

Thus, began a tempestuous relationship with a guy who would take Pakma to places and times she never dreamed possible.

Kloosee had no particular talents in bulb design or manufacture. He was as well attuned to scents as any Seomish, but his real interest, which he would later admit, was in Pakma herself.

Kloosee was attracted to Pakma, so he always liked to say, because she was so sure of herself. She was gifted, and she knew it. She was strong willed and he liked that too. He particularly enjoyed sparring with Pakma, physically and intellectually, though Kloosee was no great intellect.

By the time, the em'kel _Ot'lum Tek'ek_ was two mah old, Kloosee was a committed member, with just enough talent at designing scent bulbs to keep Pakma interested in helping him.

Pakma found Kloosee fascinating as a sort of improvement project. Kloosee was skilled at feigning just enough incompetence and helplessness to triggering mothering and helping behaviors in Pakma. This became particularly evident in the first 'graduation' exercise in the em'kel, where members had to design and present their new scentbulb designs for consideration by other members. It is called the _Metashoo'le_ , meaning debut, leave-taking, or graduation.

Kloosee's bulb was poorly done and Pakma didn't want him to be embarrassed before the rest of the em'kel. She worked with Kloosee very closely and generally did most of the work, creating a new scentbulb that conveyed smells and scents from the Tchin'ting Forest, near Om't. And he appreciated her help. The bulb was well received, but Kloosee got the credit, and Pakma never enlightened the rest of the kel. It was their little secret.

Not long afterward, they had their first coupling.

Kloosee was always interested in exploring and was always headstrong and a bit impulsive. Though Pakma was also strong-willed (and they butted heads often), she was not quite so impulsive. Yet she admired Kloosee for that trait and secretly wished she could be more like him. Some of that desire came out in her scentbulb art, where she often chose subjects and themes that would shock well-mannered Seomish society.

She found herself more and more drawn to Kloosee because he seemed willing to take risks she would like to take but could not.

Angie smiled at Pakma as they sniffed an entire shelf of the scentbulbs. "Sounds like me and Chase when we are dating. On again, off again. I liked Chase—I mean, now we're just an old married couple, but back then, I could have killed him about a hundred times. Chase is a beach bum at heart. He's pretty adventurous. He'll really try anything, but he doesn't think about what he's doing. I always—"here, Angie struggled to find the right words, "I guess I'm like you. I felt like Chase could be so much more. I mean, maybe you can't really change a person, but when we were younger, that didn't stop me from trying."

Pakma was sympathetic. "I pulse many bubbles now in you, _eekoti_ Angie...bubbles of pain and distress."

"Yeah, I do still get indigestion when I think about it sometimes."

" _Eekoti_ Angie, this terrible thing that _eekoti_ Chase speaks of...you believe this will happen?"

Angie said, "Pakma, trust me. Pulse me. It will happen. All of this will be destroyed...and soon, if we don't help the Umans."

Pakma was about to offer another scentbulb to Angie, but she stopped short, a strange look on her face, eyes closed, like she was concentrating.

"What is it, Pakma? Are you hurt?"

"No, no—" she held up an armfin. "I hear repeater song...it's a summons. Immediate call...we must go now—"

"Where? Where are we going?"

"To the Metah's chambers. I think the Kel'em has made a decision."

Seome

Ponk't, capital of kel: Ponk'et

Time: 782.3, Epoch of Tekpotu (Time stream T-229)

Loptoheen had chosen the place carefully, making sure they would be unobserved, that they could hide from any pulses, that no nosy prodsmen or stunners would ever stumble on such a tiny niche for Lektereenah had eyes and ears and noses everywhere inside the city. The little burrow was thus outside Ponk't, beneath a small patch of eelgrass in waters choked with ice and the incessant scraping of bergs and calves above them.

No one would ever think to pulse here.

Tulcheah showed up as she had promised and they nuzzled and half-coupled before Tulcheah pushed the _tuk_ master aside with a grunt.

"Not now. There's work to be done."

"That's not the way to keep _ke'shoo_ and _ke'lee_ ," Loptoheen complained. "You've been on Urku too long. You've gotten into all kinds of bad habits...Tailless habits, I'll bet. Someone will have to teach you better manners."

"It won't be you, _klek_...not like this."

Tulcheah huddled in a corner, wedging herself in between rock seams. "Your message said you had something important to tell me."

Loptoheen backed off and sighed. "Tulcheah, whatever will I do with you? Yes...I learned just this morning—one of the servlings told me—Lektereenah's planning an assault, a campaign."

"A campaign? What kind of campaign?"

"She plans to stage an attack on Kinlok Island, on the Tailless base and occupy the island. She's fed up with the Omtorish dominating the Farpool. She wants to take control of the Farpool—once the whirlpool returns—and use it for the Ponkti."

Tulcheah snorted. "Insane. It's a plan that will fail."

"Kah, you're so sure of that. Listen, pulse me, Lektereenah's determined. She can make this work."

Tulcheah was thoughtful, her beak scrunching up and her eyes closed. "Then we must stop her. You will lead this attack?"

"No," Loptoheen admitted. "Thankfully, it'll be someone younger. Lektereenah believes by doing this, she can strengthen her support in the Kel'em. You're a threat to her, an outsider with strange ideas. Some in the Kel'em want change. Some don't. Lektereenah wants Ponk'et to control the Farpool so the glory will be hers. Then she can control the change...and keep her restless councilors in line. She does this to make it harder for you to sway opinions inside the Kel'em."

"This must not happen."

Loptoheen laughed. "You pulse the obvious, Tulcheah. The only way she will lose influence in the Kel'em and become vulnerable is if the attack on Kinlok fails; the assault must be sabotaged."

"I assume you have some ideas?"

Loptoheen poked his head above the burrow, hearing something. He stuck his beak out of the eelgrass. But it was only a distant repeater, singing his daily chant across the sea.

"Lektereenah has given me the job of training the warriors. There will be twenty in all, all tuk experts, stunners, blinders and prodsmen. Behind them will be Ponkti weavers, handlers, builders and craftsmen. Once the Tailless are gone, they have to repair the machine, get it working again."

Tulcheah sniffed. "From what I heard, Kekot and that multi-kel expedition did a lot of damage at Kinlok."

"Yes...Lektereenah was very angry at what happened. This time will be different."

Tulcheah was deep in thought. "This expedition must fail. Can you sabotage the equipment, perhaps feed bad ertleg clams to the craftsmen...anything to stop them?"

"Better than that. I know a repeater...he's nearby now...I just heard him."

"I thought the Metah owned all the repeaters around here."

Loptoheen extracted a small pouch from a belt. He uncinched the draw and poured out the contents...a handful of shining potu pearls. "Not all of them. Every Ponkti has a price. I've promised a nice reward to one repeater...if he sends a certain message."

"What kind of message?"

"Details of the campaign. How many, what equipment, the time they will strike." Loptoheen's eyes narrowed, with a crafty squint and a sly smile. "Our friends in Omt'or would think such a reward nothing for what they might learn. The Skorts and the Eep'kos as well."

Tulcheah was skeptical. "You can't know how the Omtorish will react."

"I have a pretty good idea. Mokleeoh doesn't want to cede control of the Farpool to anybody."

Now it was Tulcheah's turn to seem crafty. Devious bubbles churned inside of her; she didn't bother to hide them.

"If Lektereenah's little war fails, she'll lose favor in the Kel'em. Already there are factions that grow tired of her tirades, her threats. When the warriors return to Ponk't in disgrace, that's when I can enter the picture."

Loptoheen probed under her beak with an affectionate nuzzle. This time, she didn't shove him away.

"You came back to Seome for this moment."

Tulcheah frowned. "I came back to be in my homewaters again. When I pulsed what Lektereenah was doing to the Ponkti—she's a fat pal'penk, she cares for nothing but herself—I knew it was my duty to act. On Urku, we have many kels, many races...amphib, Seomish, Uman, cetacean...we get along because we must. Here on Seome, the kels fight all the time. The Ponkti need a Metah who understands the situation...that we must work together or we will surely die together."

Loptoheen held up a small echopod. "This has all the details of Lektereenah's little war inside...and my repeater friend is nearby."

Tulcheah drew him closer and let him bury his beak and face into her bosom. "Send your message, Loptoheen. Give it to the repeater. Tell him to sing the details of Lektereenah's treachery far and wide, loud and clear. Every note of his song will be another prod stab in her side."

Loptoheen's face was buried in her midst. His words came out in a mumble.

"But before the singing, my clever little _shoo'lee,_ there will be a dance...."

They coupled violently for many minutes. Above the burrow, the eelgrass shook and quivered as though the world itself was trembling.

Loptoheen's message was given to his repeater friend that very day. Cruising along the Pomt'or Current in an endless loop between icebergs and dense schools of _vrack_ , the repeater chanted and sang out the details of the Metah's planned campaign against Kinlok Island.

The songs were picked up by other repeaters around the world, passed from one voice to another across the thermocline in the same way it had always been done. Several hours later, repeaters in the Omt'orkel Sea received the message and passed it on, adding their own notes and chords and harmonies to the song.

And before the day was out, the Metah of Omt'or had beaten her own Kel'em into submission and authorized an Omtorish expedition to race northward across the Serpentines, taking a speed course across the top of the world, to intercept the Ponkti and prevent the catastrophe from happening.

Over Angie's strenuous objections, Chase petitioned the Metah to be part of the Omtorish force. Longsee approved the idea and the Metah ordered it to be made so. Kloosee was also made part of the effort, driving the kip't that Chase would ride in.

Six kip'ts set out from Omsh'pont the next morning, bound for the Tailless base at Kinlok.

Kloosee closed and sealed the kip't cockpit. He waved at the assembled crowd, then fired up the sled's jets and rose on the current, climbing swiftly through the domes and floats of Omt'or, past the Torsh'pont until they felt the first tugs of the Omt'chor Current.

They would have to tack and beat against that current to reach the Ponk'el Sea and the Farpool.

The trip would take three days and there was no guarantee they would get to their objective in time, for the Ponkti were much closer and excellent kip't drivers themselves.

Kloosee and Chase were both grim and silent as Kloosee steered them past the seamounts and set course for Ommetee and the abyssal plains to the north. He tried to occupy his mind with more pleasant things: the smell and taste of Pakma luk't, the gisu and tongpod he'd gorged on the evening before, the swoosh of the water against the kip't cockpit.

But he was troubled and he couldn't say why. Just a feeling. Maybe a foreboding sense that this would be a different kind of journey. And the knowledge of how much Omt'or was depending on them...that was a lot of responsibility to put on someone the kelke called an outsider, a loner, a _tchuk'te_ who liked licking icebergs more than pulsing his own family.

That hurt. But it was probably true. Kloosee shook himself out the funk and tried concentrating on his instruments, on the tug of the current, on the echoes that gave him their course.

Three days to the Farpool. He knew he would do a lot of thinking in that time. Chase too. For his part, Chase kept hearing Angie's parting words, echoing in the back of his mind.

"You dope, you don't have to do this, you know. You can't save a whole world all by yourself."

Maybe that was true, maybe it wasn't. But of one thing, Chase Meyer was certain: _it sure beat the hell out of selling T-shirts on the beach._

Oostannah's Echopod Journal #3

_Okay, so I think I'm beginning to get the hang of how this blasted echopod thing works. Me and Pakto and Tekot, all just swimming right along, oblivious to everything around us. Pakto says that's how the Circling is supposed to be. You make one gigantic circuit of the world, have all kinds of adventures, get hurt, gain a little wisdom, maybe and when you come back,_ if _you come back, you're an adult._

Yawn.

The thing with Pakto is he's really different from me. Yeah, he's Seomish and I'm human amphib, but it goes beyond that. We think differently. He can pulse what's inside people, he knows everything about you, you can't hide anything. Me, I hear the echoes and I can sort of read them, but it's really a different language, all this sound, and I'm just not very good at it.

I was really pissed at Pakto for running away from all those people drowning when the tsunami swept over Equatoria. It's just sick, unconscionable, cruel even. How can you call yourself civilized when all that dying is staring you right in the face and you do nothing? How can you live with yourself?

It made me see that Pakto and I really do have a lot of differences. Stuff I hadn't seen before. Can we get over this? Can we bridge this gap? It's like the very same differences that seem to divide humans and sea people are present in our relationship too, like we're a mirror of all that's wrong with the world.

I don't like it. At all. It makes me feel...what's the word, jeez, I can't even speak my own language—kind of like there's a big weight in my heart. Pulling it down. I wonder if Pakto can pulse that—

Tekot said we had crossed into the Indian Ocean basin the day before. I must say, I like it better. We've been in some beautiful seas lately, turquoise waters, clear as glass, fantastic coral formations in red and blue and white and green, silvery fish thicker than stew—we made stew of some of them last night—shipwrecks here and there that we nosed into. Now, we're heading out of paradise into deeper and darker waters and Tekot thinks he's pulsing something really big, really massive on the bottom up ahead...we're heading that way now. This Circling is kind of like one hell of a camping and hiking trip, all underwater. It does take some stamina and discipline...I'm beginning to see why the sea people cling to this tradition...a lot of their traditions are fading away now but this one's pretty cool. I hope they keep it.

The big mass ahead turned out to be a submarine of some kind. Maybe Indian Navy, suggested Pakto. Tekot figured it was bottomed on a narrow shelf along the Carlsberg Ridge, just southwest of India itself, maybe six hundred meters down. Long, dark gray, issuing a few bubbles in a stream from its aft end, just sitting there like it was trying to hatch something.

Pakto is nothing if not impulsive. "Hey, watch this—"

Before me or Tekot could react, he dove toward the submarine, and began darting in and around its huge six-bladed propeller. He tried tapping on the hull with his beak, just to be a jerk and cause some consternation inside, when the prop started up, started spinning. Pakto wasn't clear, he wasn't watching what he was doing—

The prop caught him and nearly sliced his head off.

Right away, Tekot and I headed down. The water with thick with bloody froth and Pakto was thrashing wildly about, trying to get free, his flukes and arms flailing, streaming blood and tissue in all directions.

We managed to extricate him and we all limped off to a small clump of seagrass and brain coral, where I managed to keep Pakto still while Tekot examined him. He was hurt, bad, bleeding freely from multiple lacerations along his tail flukes. We had to stop the bleeding.

" _Cut off some of that grass," Tekot ordered. "We'll make a tourniquet. After that, dig out some of the mud from beneath that coral."_

I did as Tekot said, scared and shaking. I was feeling...what can you say? Frightened. Terrified. Panicked. My hands would barely work, I couldn't control them and I kept nicking myself on the coral. Finally, I got the strips of grass set.

Tekot caked on the mud everywhere Pakto had been cut. He showed me how to do it too and I managed to see enough through all the blood to apply the bandages. Finally, after what seemed like forever, the bleeding had slowed down to just a trickle. But I could see Pakto was weak, pale. Tekot said he might be going into shock. We tried fastening Pakto to a makeshift litter formed from rotted-out timbers that we laid on top of the coral—you had to be careful because that stuff is razor-sharp. Keeping his tail flukes elevated, trying to keep blood flowing to the right places. But he had really lost a lot of blood.

The next few hours, we tried everything. I could see Tekot was growing quietly more and more desperate. That made me nervous.

We just can't lose Pakto. We can't. It's not fair. We've had our differences but I really love him...at least, I think I do. I'm pretty sure. The possibility he might not make it...I just get the shivers when I think about, so I put it out of my mind, help Tekot where I can, grab stuff like crabs and shrimp for us to eat and wait.

I want to cry.

But amphibs can't cry—and that doesn't seem fair either.

End Recording....
Chapter 11

"Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently."

Henry Ford

Seome

Kinlok Island and the City of Ponk't

Time: 782.9, Epoch of Tekpotu (Time stream T-229)

When Chase and Kloosee and the Omtorish fleet arrived at Kinlok, they found they were too late. Kloosee surfaced the kip't just offshore, just beyond the surf line, and he and Chase studied the scene before them.

It was twilight, near sunset, and several Ponkti sleds had been dragged up onto the small spit of land that served as the island's only beach, the one the Umans had begun to call Skimmer Beach.

A small squad of Ponkti in mobilitors waddled around the beach—there were more above them on the rocky headland overlooking the beach, and before long, Kloosee found they were surrounded below the water by a menacing armada of Ponkti kip'ts closing fast on their position.

The Omtorish commander was a husky male named Rikto. The commander got on the squawker and ordered the Omtorish fleet to come about and prepare to engage the Ponkti directly. Moments later, the water was thick and noisy with prod zaps, the wrenching sound of craft colliding, shouts, honks and flashes of light, all punctuated by booms of sound grenades going off, sending everything and everyone tumbling in strong shock waves.

"Let's get out of here!" Chase yelled.

Kloosee didn't have to be told twice. By instinct, and because there was nowhere else for them do escape to, he drove the kip't at speed up onto the beach. Kloosee had no mobilitor, so he would have to stay inside. Once they had beached, Chase popped the canopy and clambered out, falling flat on to his face in the pebbly sand.

He felt something sharp poking around his head and shoulders.

It was a Ponkti prodsmen, towering over him in a mobilitor suit, looking like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, or worse.

Cautiously, Chase got to his feet, the Ponkti prod never very far from his chest. Chase knew the weapons fired a serious shock so he held his hands out and kept his distance, and his eyes on the business end of the thing.

He looked back at Kloosee, even now imprisoned in the cockpit as other Ponkti dragged the sled off the beach and back into the water.

Chase was marched up the rock-strewn hill behind the beach to a small camp atop the summit...the ruins of the Uman control hut had been shrouded over with some kind of tarpaulin and sealed to make a watertight enclosure. Inside, he felt like he had just dived into a pool. The water was cold, pressurized and just salty enough to make the average Ponkti feel right at home.

Several prodsmen orbited the enclosure with powerful kicks of their tails.

Chase as born into the middle of the pen and quickly surrounded by guards. One of them, bearing ritual scars along his face and a commander's belt, approached, stopping beak to nose, scant inches from Chase's face.

"You trespass in Ponkti waters now. Who are you? _Kah_ , why have you come?"

Chase found adjusting his gills to the cold water a bit of a challenge and had to close his eyes and squeeze really hard to force words out.

"What you're doing is wrong. It's suicide. Where are the Umans...the Tailless?"

The commander spat. "You're in no position to demand an answer, _eekoti._ "

"And my crew...the crews of the ships...they're alright?"

The Ponkti took a small pouch from one of the circling prodsmen and began uncinching the draw. "The Tailless are in the city of Ponk't. _Kah_ , you also will be there too...soon enough." With that, the commander extracted a small snake—a _k'orpuh_ , Chase realized—in fact several of the reptiles came out of the pouch, writhing and twisting in his hands.

_This doesn't look good_ , Chase thought.

The Ponkti draped all of the snakes around Chase, who froze, not daring to move. One twitch could be deadly for the _k'orpuh_ carried serious voltage and a single sting would be enough to kill anyone.

For several minutes, while Chase held still, the snakes wove a mesh-like cocoon around him, tightening the grid with each pass. When they were done, the commander barked an order and a nearby prodsman zapped the snakes into a stupor, sliced off their tails with a knife and thrust the lifeless tissue away.

With that, the enclosure was quickly drained and Chase carried off roughly by two Ponkti in mobilitors, suspended from a pole like tonight's dinner, down the slope to the beach. The cocoon was tied by line to Ponkti sled offshore and the small craft backed out into the surf. It submerged and joined a small convoy of similar craft.

The trip to Ponk't took two days.

Chase awoke from a light doze when he realized the convoy was slowing down. They had traveled perhaps a thousand beats or so when the sediment beds that had seemed to stretch to infinity dropped away abruptly. They drifted out over a precipitous slope that fell below them into a deep canyon, buried under scores of beats of silt. Slowly, they descended, the entire convoy now shepherded along by more prodsmen, and Chase watched wide-eyed as the cliff inexorably gave way to a row of dim recesses in the rock face, cave mouths he presumed, all arranged in a ragged line across the cliff.

He had been here before. Up ahead, more cocoons were bobbing, just far enough away so he couldn't tell who was imprisoned.

The prodsmen bore all of them toward one of the openings. They reached it and the prodsmen pushed the sacks through ahead of them.

It took a few minutes for Chase to adjust his eyes to the darkness and while he did, he pulsed about the cave to learn more. Then he tried just looking, seeing what materialized out of the darkness with each turn.

It was more of a narrow tunnel, he soon found out, roughly rounded at the ceiling and, not unexpectedly, filled with baffles, false chambers and row upon row of slender metal cones lining the walls. A stunning field, he had always figured, to kill anything that got this far into the city.

The prodsmen dragged and pushed the k'orpuh sacks through several tortuous turns, then up to the edge of a long sloping ramp. An oval of pale amber light glowed at the foot of the ramp and Chase sensed a very large cavern down there beyond it.

The soldiers nudged the sack down the ramp, along with the others, and they came at last into the heart of the city of Ponk't.

The light was low and pulses were useless with so many people, but Chase could feel the size of the place. Even as crushing as the mass of life was, he could still sense the spacious dimensions.

Chase then saw something he was sure he had seen before, in Omsh'pont, a long time ago.

The floor of the cavern was dotted with what looked like mushrooms. _Notwater pods_ , Chase realized. Palm-shaped pads with 'fingers' rising on all sides. And sure enough, Chase's cocoon was deposited right into the midst of one of the pads. As if triggered by the landing, the fingers began to close, squeezing inward. The prodsmen left the pod and withdrew.

By experimentally touching the snakes, Chase found there was no longer any voltage present. He pushed harder, kicked and scratched and finally was able to force his way out, where he fell face first into the soft, spongy tissue of the pad. All around him, the fingers had closed and interlocked, forming a sort of cell, still being squeezed tighter and tighter, like a fist closing.

In time, the water inside the cell began to subside and Chase realized the fingers were slowly forcing the water out through pores between the fingers. He waited patiently, sitting on the pad, while the water level dropped. When it was below his waist, the rate declined and then stopped, leaving a small lake several centimeters high inside.

But at least there was air...breathable air...stale, with the burned smell he had come to associate with this world, but nonetheless _air_.... He sucked in the air loudly, coughed and spat and tried to get his lungs working again.

Grateful, he stood up shivering and drenched in the palm of the great hand, standing on some kind of soft, tissue-like floor inside the Notwater pod.

That's when Chase realized the fingers that had closed around him were translucent. He could barely make out lights outside. And eyes. Armfins and flukes, dozens, scores of them.

He had an audience, staring in at him.

"It's like a zoo cage," Chase muttered. _Or an aquarium in reverse._

There was some kind of commotion along the side. The fingers were moving again, almost twisting and water began spraying into his cell once more. But the water rose only a half meter or so and, in that time, the fingers had extruded several bodies right into the pod with him, three in fact. They were humans and each fell heavily into the spongy, pulpy floor.

Chase recognized Monthan Dringoth, Nathan Golich and Liz Levy, from _Aquarius_. Groggy and coughing, all got to their knees. Levy threw up. Golich helped her to her feet. Dringoth stood wobbly at first, then grasped one of the fingers, which quivered until he let go. Chase caught him by the arm.

" _Captain_! Captain...are you all right?"

Dringoth mumbled something. "Damned fish...they came to the island and stormed the base. Dozens of them, scores—"

"Hundreds," said Levy, who was still kneeling.

"We didn't have a chance," Golich told him. "They had some kind of stunners, electric prods. Sound grenades. And that mist—"

Dringoth rubbed week-old stubble on his chin. "The mist...it knocked us out."

"Mah'jeet field," surmised Chase. "I've seen it before."

"Stupid fish...we were just trying to get the Twister working."

"Now," Dringoth swore, "all they've done is sign their death sentences. And I still don't know where Acth:On'e and M'Bela are...or the rest of my crew."

Chase went to the fingers and peered out through the filmy cell walls at the chaos swirling around them.

"It looks like war out there. Ponkti fighting Ponkti."

A shadow crossed right in front of his face and Chase backed away from the wall, just in time. The fingers hummed, quivered and throbbed, as another form began to be extruded through. It was another body, and once the fingers had squeezed it inside, it fell heavily to the floor.

It was Kasmeerah, from the _Aquarius_ crew.

"Kas--!" Chase helped the Ponkti amphib up. Her face was cut, her neck and arms lacerated. "Kas...what happened?"

Bit by bit, the _Aquarius'_ containment tech spat out her story. "I was taken with the rest of them," she got out, coughing to get air into her lungs. "But I was separated. Maybe because I'm part Ponkti...there were questions. Lots of questions. They thought I was a spy."

"Where did they take you?" Golich asked.

"I don't know exactly...some kind of small cave up high along the walls. For a day, I was questioned. They tried something called _tekne'en_ , some kind of drug. Knocks you out and you feel like crap. I don't know what I might have said." She shivered, until Golich undid his tunic and wrapped it around her shoulders. "But I heard stuff."

"What kind of stuff?" Chase asked. "What's going on?"

Kasmeerah shrugged. "Some kind of civil war, from what I gathered. There are all kinds of factions fighting each other. Like a war of succession...something like that."

Chase said, "I know what's happening. It's Tulcheah, I'm sure of it. She was Urku Metah, on Earth."

"She has been Metah for a long time," Kasmeerah said. "All the Ponkti—the Urku Ponkti—recognize her."

"But here on Seome," Chase went on, "it's different. Tulcheah's Urku, not native to Seome. She wants to be Metah here as well...but there already _is_ a Metah here. Lektereenah. The Ponkti are fighting over who will be Metah of all Ponkti."

Kasmeerah allowed as how Chase's theory made sense. "I'm not sure where that leaves amphibs like me...I'm part Ponkti and part Uman. Like you, Chase...you're not completely human either."

"No," Chase admitted. "You're right...they think of us as half-breeds...or freaks. Both here and on Earth."

"What a mess," Golich decided.

Dringoth was growing angrier by the moment. "They'd better release us so we can re-build the Twister. Or get the hell off this hellhole. Coethi could blow Sigma Albeth into atom fluff at any moment. Don't these stupid fish realize that? We're all that stands between them and the Coethi."

The wall fingers began humming and quivering again. More water poured in while a long snake-like projection squeezed through the opening. It flicked about the enclosure, momentarily 'tasting' each of them, nosing its way up and down their faces and necks.

When the projection, which looked like a tail, came to Chase, it wrapped itself around his chest and torso and dragged him toward the slit in the wall.

"Hey—hey, what the--!" He tried to wriggle free and Golich and Kasmeerah came to help. But the tail carried voltage in tiny hairs on its surface and it stung them back.

The tail carried Chase out of the Notwater pod completely and deposited him once again inside a _k'orpuh_ cocoon. Burly prodsmen then secured the sack to lines about their belts and off they went.

Dringoth, Golich and the rest could only stare through the translucent walls with growing dread.

"Where are they taking him now?" asked Kasmeerah, of no one in particular.

"No telling," Golich decided. "Maybe he'll be someone's dinner."

No one thought that very funny at all.

They were bearing the cocoon toward a group of canopies at the bottom, delicate pastel structures that seemed to drift slightly in the prevailing currents.

His escorts let the _k'orpuh_ sack hit the floor with a hard bump, then cut the fibers of the sack with stubby knives. While they sawed through the tough cords, Chase craned to see what was happening beneath the canopies.

His first impression was that it was a fight, but a closer look showed that such was not the case. Though it was difficult to see through the swarming bodies that flitted in and out, Chase was able to see enough to realize that he was witnessing the ancient art of _tuk_ , the ritual dance discipline that was virtually unique to the Ponkti.

In the center of the main canopy, the crowds were thickest, huddling around a large female of medium-gray skin. It was the Metah, Lektereenah kim.

Cautiously, eyeing the nearby prodsmen, Chase asked, "Why am I here? Why are my crews here? We're trying to prevent the destruction of your world."

Lektereenah seemed not to have heard and continued munching on a rib of palpenk. In front of them, one of the _tuk_ players scored a dramatic blow against his opponent, stunning him with a sharp tail-slap. The move brought forward a chorus of honks and cheers from the people around them.

At last, Lektereenah deigned to notice him.

"I _have_ heard the ancient echopods, the story of the coming ak'loosh. I don't believe any of it. You're clearly an imposter. We Ponkti know how to deal with pretenders. As you can see, _eekoti,_ we Ponkti are disturbed. We fight over who will be Metah. You brought a pretender into our midst and now the waters are _m'eetor'kel_... agitated. This must stop now."

Chase thought. _I didn't come here to get involved in a civil war. Tulcheah only said she wanted to go home._

"Affectionate Metah, your world is in danger. There is an enemy—a far enemy—that the Umans are fighting. You have to release my people, so they can rebuild the base. Repair the weapon we call the Time Twister. If we don't, that far enemy will destroy this world. It's already happened...in the future."

It was clear that Lektereenah was having none of this. "What is this future you speak of? Is it not more waves and currents? Lord Shooki commands all the seas. They do his bidding. You come here with your strange people and strange ideas and upset _shoo'kel_ in Ponk't...look at us. We fight each other now. We kill each other. And over what? Who will be Metah of the Ponkti? The Kel'em decides who will be Metah."

"Affectionate Metah, please...release my people. It's the only way—"

Lektereenah spat bubbles and shooed off her servlings. She turned and sized up Chase, as a predator would measure her prey. "We Ponkti have one way to settle disputes...it is _tuk_. The great contest of warriors. As you can see all around us—" she raised an armfin at a commotion outside the canopy, where a melee had developed—"this is our life. Now, you bring Tulcheah into our midst, that Urku imposter, with her strange notions of what Ponkti should be, amphibs and all the kels living together in one great city...it's preposterous."

"If you mean Keenomsh'pont, it's true. When the refugees came to Earth, they were in strange and foreign seas. They had to band together. Over time, they learned—more or less—how to live together. It hasn't been easy."

"Kah," Lektereenah brushed away more _ertleg_ from a well-meaning servling—"now we are partitioned into armed camps—Ponkti against Ponkti, confusion, chaos, fights everywhere, and not just _tuk_ , _eekoti_ , but killing fights. We are tearing ourselves apart."

"I think Tulcheah just wanted to come home, Affectionate Metah. Roam in her old seas again. There are a lot of sea people on Earth—Urku--who want that. What goes on among the Ponkti is for you and your people to decide. But none of this matters if we can't protect Seome...if our people aren't released to repair the Twister."

Now Lektereenah seemed to have made a decision. Her eyes narrowed to slits. "I know of only one way to settle this matter...the traditional Ponkti way. With the _tuk_."

Chase didn't like the sound of that. "Pardon me, Metah, but how is this—"

Lektereenah waved him quiet. She beckoned her vizier to approach. The advisor was an older, slightly arthritic male, with many scars along his beak and face. He bore bands and pearls on his armfins, signifying his position as chief advisor to the Metah.

"Yes, Honorable One?"

"Take the _eekoti_ to his pod. See that _tuk_ instructors appear before the day is out." She pulsed Chase carefully. "Yes, he should do well, once he knows _tuk_. Teach him well."

"Metah," Chase said, "I don't understand...I'm not Ponkti. I don't know this _tuk_ at all."

"You will, _eekoti_ ," the Metah said sharply. "It is already decided. An envoy meets this very moment with Tulcheah and her people. If she agrees, there will be a great _tuk_ match among the Ponkti, a match for the ages. You will perform _tuk_ against a selected opponent. If you defeat the Ponkti, if Tulcheah agrees, there will be a truce. Your people will be released, all of them. We keep our word."

Chase had a sinking feeling about what he was hearing. "And if I lose?"

Lektereenah said, "Then you and all Tailless will be captives of the Ponkti and you will serve the kel forever, as life-bonded ones."

Chase adjusted his echopod slightly, trying to catch the real meaning of what the Metah had just said. It came back the same way every time: _slaves, vassals, servants_ , other words he couldn't even pronounce.

He gulped.

With a faint toss of her head, Lektereenah ordered her prodsmen to move in. Chase was roughly stuffed into his cocoon again and taken back to the Notwater pod. Once he had been 'extruded' through, he fell heavily to the spongy floor and turned over to find a surprise, a face he never expected to see.

It was Angie. She bent down and took Chase's head in her hands.

"Are you alright? Are you hurt?" She clucked over him up and down, checking everything.

Once he had recovered from the shock, he gently peeled her arms away.

"Yeah, I'm fine...I'm fine, really. A little shaken...what are you doing here? How did you--?"

It was a long story. Angie sat down cross-legged and placed her chin on top of folded hands. She and Pakma had set out from Omsh'pont, intending on reaching Kinlok Island—"just to be with you, you dope, you know. To see if we could help." But they had blundered off course and run into a Ponkti patrol. The two of them had been brought into the capital city.

"I don't know where Pakma is," Angie insisted. "I hope she's all right...it wasn't her fault...us getting lost. The repeater songs were faint. The currents were crazy, unfamiliar." Angie stared up at him, a few tears in her eyes. "We just wanted to be here, I mean _there_ , I mean---Chase—"

He stooped down and hugged her some more.

Monthan Dringoth was as crusty as ever. "Enough of this sob story. What can we do to get out of this plant jail?"

That's when Chase told him about Lektereenah's plan.

Angie was shocked. "You don't know anything about this _tuk_."

"Hey, no kidding. The Metah said she would send an instructor. But look at me...I'm human. Amphib. How am I going to fight off an experienced _tuk_ fighter?"

Kasmeerah spoke up. "I know a little about _tuk_. I did some when I was a midling, much younger."

Dringoth eyed Golich and Liz Levy. "Now I'm confused. What the hell is this _tuk_...is it something I can eat? I'm starving, by the way."

Kasmeerah tried to explain. "There's really no equivalent for humans. Tailless people. I'm part Ponkti. I was raised in the tradition. _Tuk_ is a kind of dance combat. Highly formal and highly stylized."

"Like karate...or judo?"

"Not exactly, if I understand what you're saying," Kasmeerah tried to demonstrate, with her webbed feet. "Tail slaps. Quick punches. Body thrusts, which have to be done precisely, or you'll be penalized. Sharp turns, left and right, up and down. _Tuk_ is three-dimensional, unlike your martial arts moves. And all the moves must come in a precise sequence. Out of sequence, you get penalized too. It's not enough to stun your opponent into submission. You must be precise, follow the rules and the sequences exactly. Anything less and you will lose and probably die in the process."

"Great." Chase sank back in despair, lying on the floor, hands behind his head. "I'll never be able to learn all that. How can an air-breathing, land-dwelling human ever hope match a Ponkti tukmaster in water this deep and cold? I mean, I had some underwater combat training when Dad was teaching me deep water scuba...how to rip off a mask, cut an air hose, get and keep leverage, but nothing like this."

Angie was concerned. "Isn't there another way? Maybe you could talk the Metah some more. Maybe there's something we could offer."

"Yeah, like what? I think the time for talking is over. Ang, this is how the Ponkti resolve differences. And right now, with Tulcheah gathering her supporters and the whole kel divided over the succession question, Lektereenah thinks this big match is a perfect diversion."

Dringoth was thoughtful. "You think she'll honor her words...let us go? Assuming you KO your opponent, that is."

Chase sat up and shrugged. "I don't know. From my experience, the Ponkti aren't all that dependable."

Kasmeerah snorted. "I resent that."

"No, Kas, I didn't mean it like that. I meant—"

"Forget it," said Dringoth. "I guess we'd better get you into training, son. You've got a big match coming up."

"With a lot riding on the outcome," Golich added.

Just then, the pod walls began to hum and quiver. All turned to watch, backing away from the snake-like projection that slid inside. The tube hovered in mid-air like a tentacle, tasting the air, rubbing tentatively against each person. When the snake came to Chase, it tensed and wrapped itself around his waist, Chase didn't resist.

"Guess I'm someone's dinner," he half joked. He didn't struggle when the snake began pulling him toward the tiny slit in the wall. Water poured from the slit in a narrow stream.

Kasmeerah said, "Sir, I think it's taking you off for instruction."

Chase was rolled this way and that, as the snake prepped him to exit the pod through the slit. "I guess training day begins... _right now_!" With his last words, he was extruded back through the wall and was gone. The slit squeezed shut and the stream of water slowed to a trickle, puddling on the soft, pulpy floor.

From the back of the cell came a choked-off sob.

Angie swore she would just not do this now, _she would not cry_. But she couldn't help it.

No one came to her side.

For Chase, _tuk_ training lasted nearly a week, the best he could figure the time. Most days were similar. The snake-tube came to their cell and pulled him through the wall, wrapping him in its clutches as he was born off to a small canopied pavilion near the bottom of the cave, a place at once isolated with jagged rock walls yet exposed to the ever-present flow of people above, with all their fights and insults and scraps.

_Jeez, the Ponkti are just like New Yorkers on a subway_ , he told himself. Always bumping, jostling, griping and snapping at each other.

The _tuk_ pen was a shallow bowl-shaped depression under the canopies. He had numerous instructors, but one husky Ponkti male seemed to be in charge. Chase had to make several adjustments to his echopod to communicate, so thick was his dialect and accent.

Best he could figure, his principal instructor was named Delak.

The first few days were devoted to what Chase assumed were basic moves: thrusts, kicks, punches, turns and dives. Delak and his assistants concentrated on Chase's technique, making sure he could precisely perform each move...and there seemed to be dozens, maybe scores of them.

A stuffed artificial Ponkti was used as a sort of punching bag and Chase soon grew more and more adept at the steps involved. Delak was meticulous—in fact, a pretty good instructor, patient when he had to be, arch and fiery when he needed to be, when he saw Chase becoming frustrated or tired.

After a few days' mastering the basic moves, Delak's next attention was turned to teaching Chase how to string multiple steps and moves together. In each case, he was shown and then practiced, how to use the leverage of his position from a previous move to create maximum force and effect for the next one. With his swimming background, Chase eventually caught on and by the third day, was beginning to anticipate what Delak was trying to do. Delak was appreciative of his efforts and soon the trainer-trainee relationship became noticeably smoother.

By the fifth day, Chase was ready to put together a short repertoire of moves and steps. He had realized by this point that _tuk_ was as much dance as combat, with moves at once graceful yet forceful embedded in each sequence.

_Man, this is like figure skating_ , he told himself, with its own choreography of jumps and lifts and turns and spins, then had to laugh as he explained what figure skating was to Delak. The echopod failed miserably at translation and both of them collapsed in an explosion of mirth and bubbles.

Throughout the training period, Delak worked tirelessly to improve Chase's strength and force in his punches. He explained that it was imperative that each punch and kick land solidly and exert maximum effect, for his opponent would surely do the same and part of _tuk_ was learning how to shift and parry his opponent's thrusts.

Chase took each lesson and point that Delak made to heart.

When each training day was done, Chase would be fed from the training table a rich diet of clams and shrimp and other delicacies, most of it delicious, then returned by his snake-arm transporter to the pod. Once back with the others, he would try to recount what Delak had taught him that day, then collapse from exhaustion into a deep dreamless sleep.

And the next day would come.

On the sixth day, Delak told Chase he was now ready for a practice bout with a live Ponkti opponent. Chase started to object but Delak reported that the decision had been made. The bout would come the very next day, in a small arena near the training field. The Metah herself would be there and she had agreed to relocate the Notwater pod with Chase's friends to a place nearby, so they could watch.

Chase didn't sleep well at all that night.

Chapter 12

"We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they're called memories. Some take us forward, they're called dreams."

Jeremy Irons

Seome

Kinlok Island

Time: 784.5, Epoch of Tekpotu (Time stream T-229)

The only humans left on Kinlok Island were Acth:On'e and Evelyn M'Bela, known to their crewmates aboard _Cygnus_ as Toonie and Queenie. For several days, after the Ponkti force had come ashore, wrecked the base and the Time Twister and removed their crewmates, the two of them lived hand to mouth darting from one cave to another, one rocky hollow and crevice to another, barely two steps of the invaders.

One night, buried nearly on top of one another in a limestone fissure just below the summit where _Cygnus_ had landed, Queenie just shook her head.

"You'd think they'd give up looking for us after awhile. Maybe they don't know we're here."

Toonie wasn't so sanguine. "They know. They've got those sniffer bird things out all day. They can probably smell and hear us."

"We've got to get to _Cygnus_ somehow. Get back to TACTRON, tell 'em what's happened."

Toonie rolled out from beneath Queenie, wishing she would just ditch the cowrie shell necklace and those bone earrings. The tinkling noise had nearly given away their position several times before. But he didn't ask. He didn't want to get punched in the face for the hundredth time.

"I'm open to suggestions. The fish people seem to be everywhere, all over the island."

M'Bela poked her head above the rock shelf. It was twilight and the wind was fierce, flinging sleet and ice into her face. Out to see, she spied several humps cruising just off-shore.

"Toonie, there's two more of them out there, just beyond the surf."

"More what?"

"Those serpent creatures, the ones that flattened _Cygnus_ and everything else. The fish people use 'em like tanks."

Acth:On'e spat into the dirt. "Reminds of those arachtyls I once saw on K-World. What about them? They're pretty much impervious to our beamers."

"I have an idea."

"Really? About time—"

She kicked him in the shin. "Telitorian dirtbag...really, what I mean is do you think those beasts are attracted by blood?"

"How the hell should I know."

"If they are and we found us one of those fishy types alone, maybe we could kill it or stun it enough to draw some blood. Then shove the bastard out into the water. If those serpents are drawn to blood, they might come running."

"What good would that do?"

"It might scatter the fishies far enough for us to get back to _Cygnus_ and contact TACTRON, advise them what's happened."

Acth:On'e sat up and banged his head on an overhanging limestone protrusion. "Ouch...hey, that might work. We just need to find us some poor fishy slob and knock him out."

M'Bela half expected to hear the Telitorian congratulate her for such a great idea but she said nothing, just got to her knees to reconnoiter the area.

"You're welcome," she said to no one in particular.

Then the two of them slid and scrambled below the summit, darting from outcrop to boulder to crevice, as they worked their way south, along the lower slopes of what seemed to be a volcanic caldera.

"Stay low," Acth:On'e advised. "Don't silhouette yourself."

"You really _are_ a friggin' genius, Toonie, you know that."

"Shhh...I hear something."

They both dropped to their stomach and peered out from a narrow defile, down to a sliver of beach below. M'Bela spied movement along the water's edge; it was one of the fishies, seemingly alone, working on his small sub as it bobbed in the shallow waves. A cold ice fog enveloped everything.

"There...let's see if we can work our way down closer."

The two time jumpers slipped and skidded, huddling against rock outcrops that dotted the base of the headland until they had reached the bottom. The fishy was less than thirty meters away, half in the water, working with some kind of tool on the outer hull of his sub craft.

M'Bela crept forward crab-style, lying prone on her stomach, when the fishy sensed something and turned around. Their presence was masked visually by the fog but who knew what kind of senses the creatures had?

She silently withdrew her beamer, set the thing for max output. Toonie dropped to the ground right next to her. They looked at each.

Toonie dialed up the same power setting. "Original recipe or extra crispy?"

"Fry the bastard," M'Bela seethed. She counted down from three.

"Three...two...one... _light 'em up_!"

They both fired at the same time.

A pulse of blue-white light erupted out of the fog as the beams found their mark. The fishy froze in mid-position, torqued his body awkwardly and crumpled into the water.

"He's got some kind of suit on," Acth:On'e said. "I don't know how much protection it offers."

But M'Bela wasn't waiting to find out. "Come on...." She scrambled to her feet and loped down to the water.

The fishy was indeed clad in a mobilitor suit. The creature in its suit was easily almost three meters long. It lolled and scraped and rubbed against the pebbly beach in a rising tide.

"Help me out...I need something to cut through this armor—"

By judicious use of their beamers and utility knives, the two of them were able to slice a small incision in the mobilitor shell.

"Jeez, it's like a gigantic sea shell."

Acth:On'e tried to block the body from being dragged further out to sea, by straddling it with his legs. "Some kind of keratin-like material, I would guess."

M'Bela grunted and swore with the effort. Finally, she had an opening. She stood up for a moment. "It really _is_ some kind of fish, Toonie. How the hell do fish create a civilization that can make this craft, or those weapons?"

"I don't know and I don't care. Can you draw blood?"

"I can try." She held the fishy tightly and drew her utility knife across its exposed skin. Yellowish blood oozed out, then began pumping out more freely. "Maybe I hit an artery. Here, help me make a mess."

Acth:On'e put his weight against the skin and more blood flowed out, pooling in pockets inside the mobilitor. Soon, it began overflowing out onto the beach, staining the dirt a dingy yellow-orange color.

"Yuck...that should be enough. Toonie, help me push this slob back out into the water. We've got to get it beyond those breakers."

They shoved and heaved and slowly managed to nudge the Ponkti prodsman out into deeper waters. Once past the surf line, the currents grabbed the body and carried it further out. M'Bela and Acth:On'e slogged and splashed their way back and climbed to a more protected defilade position halfway up the caldera slopes, burrowing themselves into a crevice. They watched the bloody form of the Ponkti prodsman drift steadily out to sea, until it was lost to view.

M'Bela was fiddling with her necklace of cowrie shells again. "How long you think we'll have to wait?"

Acth:On'e had spied some kind of movement around the bend of the headland. "There's your answer."

Though they were barely visible in the mist, the seamothers were clearly closing fast on the bobbing corpse. Even as they watched, one of the serpents raised its crested head clear of the water and bellowed a bone-rattling cry. It was soon joined by two others.

Two of the beasts tore at the carcass with mindless frenzy, fighting and snapping at each other as they devoured the Ponkti prodsman, mobilitor suit and all. The third seamother paddled herself inshore and lumbered up onto the beach, crested head and spiked tail and all. Easily thirty to forty meters in length, she bellowed, then splashed and thrashed through the surf, sniffing the distant smells of a Ponkti camp nearby.

The beast scrambled off into the distance and began clawing her way up the slope to the encampment, near where _Cygnus_ had landed.

Once she had reached the summit and stomped toward the camp, the Ponkti force scattered in terror, discharging their prods and stunners and sound grenades in a last desperate attempt to divert the beast. But it was useless for the seamother was frenzied with the taste of Ponkti blood and quickly rampaged through the camp.

The Ponkti fled off the summit as fast they could waddle in their mobilitors, with the enraged seamother lumbering after them.

"Impressive," Acth:On'e noted. "Amphibious serpents—"

But M'Bela didn't plan on waiting any longer.

" _Come on_! Now's our chance!"

The time jumpers emerged from their redoubt and scrambled as fast as they could toward the summit and their ship, hoping and praying that _Cygnus_ hadn't been too badly damaged in the assault.

Somehow, some way, they had to get off a message to TACTRON.

Chapter 13

"Time flies over us but leaves its shadow behind."

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Seome

City of Ponk't

Time: 785.5, Epoch of Tekpotu (Time stream T-229)

There was excitement bordering on frenzy throughout the capital city of the Ponkti for none had seen anything like it before. The day of the great _tuk_ match was approaching.

Monthan Dringoth stared through the sides of the Notwater pod, trying to see what all the commotion was about. Nathan Golich was next to him.

"Lots of motion out there," Dringoth observed. "These walls are sort of translucent but I can't really see anything clearly...just a lot of movement, scurrying and flitting about." He realized at that moment he was staring right at a Ponkti face, which was staring right back at him from the other side.

"Ugh...it's like we're in a zoo...hey, come check out all the human freaks we found."

"This stuff's like skin," Dringoth muttered, rubbing his fingers around the panels. "Like skin cells stitched together."

"Probably organic structures," Chase said. "I've been in these pods before." He saw Angie sitting morosely on the soft spongy floor, arms wrapped around her knees. "We both have."

Dringoth had a determined set to his mouth, beneath his Black Forest moustache. "Somehow we've got to find a way out of here."

"With thousands of tons of seawater just outside...how are you going to do that?" Chase asked.

Dringoth glared at him. "I was hoping you'd help us find a way."

Chase came to sit next to Angie, intentionally leaning over to press against her knees. "I think this _tuk_ match may be the only way. Only, I don't know if I can do it."

Angie murmured into her arms. "You have to. It's our only way out, Chase."

"I've been training hard, really I have. Delak thinks I'm ready for a practice match, a live opponent. Me...I'm not so sure. Sometimes, I just wonder—"

"About what?" Kasmeerah asked. The Ponkti amphib had been occupying herself by making faces at their visitors on the other side of the wall.

"About all this, Kas. What were we thinking...coming through the Farpool with homesick Seomish looking to return to their world? Now, unless I can somehow win this match, help get the Time Twister repaired and re-en gage the Coethi with Captain Dringoth and the Uman forces, the fate of Seome will play out again in this time stream, just like it did before."

"All the more reason to help us get out of this sewer," said Dringoth. "You have the contacts, son. You know how to do this."

"Maybe I can help," Kasmeerah suggested. "I did some _tuk_ when I was a midling. All Ponkti go through _tuk_ training from a young age. I could teach you what I know, add to what Delak's showing you."

Chase brightened at the idea. "That may help, Kas. Could you show me some of your moves? I think I have the basic kicks and thrusts down okay. But it's the sequence I keep messing up. _Tuk_ requires certain moves and slaps and thrusts in a specific sequence. That's what I don't get."

Kas came over. "True enough. Even a winning kick can lose the match if it's out of sequence. If it's any help, think of it like this: the sequences of _tuk_ came from ancient Ponkti history. The moves re-capitulate key moments in Ponkti history, sort of in symbolic form. It's like we Ponkti are replaying our history every time we fight."

Chase was intrigued. "That kind of makes sense. Maybe you could put all that together for me, sort of a capsule history of the Ponkti and how these key events relate to specific moves and specific sequences."

"I can try," said Kasmeerah. "Here, let's get started...."

For the rest of the day, Kasmeerah hammered home important points in Ponkti history...hammered them home with a dizzying variety of kicks and thrusts, slaps and lunges, each one designed to accentuate critical moments in the history of the kel: the arrival of Lord Shooki, the Five Daughters, especially Ponk'el, for whom the great sea was named, the First Mortals, the emergence of the great current Pom'tel, the tremors, the kel retreating to deep caves off the T'kel'rok Cut, the Collapse and the Rebuilding, the agreement with the _mekli_ to patrol the Pillars of Shooki.

Chase eventually realized that the underlying structure of _tuk_ was to symbolize each key moment in time and accentuate it with a specific kick or thrust.

"No wonder _tuk_ is second nature to Ponkti," he said once. "Once you know Ponkti history—"

"—you know the right moves and when to execute them," Kasmeerah said. "Come on, let's try another sequence again."

For the better part of the day—it had been designated a day of rest by Delak, so the snake-arm didn't come looking for Chase—Chase listened carefully and practiced each segment of moves as Kasmeerah both narrated Ponkti history and corrected his technique. Ponkti history interpreted in a martial arts match—that's what _tuk_ really was. Once he understood this, and memorized the history as Kasmeerah told it, Chase felt he had a better grounding in what _tuk_ was all about.

"Now," Kasmeerah decided toward the end of the day, while Dringoth and the others sat around the perimeter of the pod munching on crab and shrimp dinners—"let's put all this together, from the opening spins and slashes to the end...remember Shooki and how I described him, how he came to be in the seas."

Dringoth wiped crab juice from his chin and moustache and observed sourly, "Meyer, you're a real diva now...soon, you'll be wanting your own dressing room and flowers every day."

Chase ran through the entire series, sparring with Kasmeerah, parrying her thrusts and kicks, while delivering good ones of his own. Golich and Dringoth hooted from the audience, while Angie and Liz Levy offered sporadic applause for each move. When they were done and Chase was drenched in sweat, Kasmeerah breathing hard, the Ponkti amphib offered this:

"Not bad for a Tailless male," she said. She wiped her face down with a handkerchief someone offered. "Maybe you can surprise Delak when training resumes."

"That would be a first. Hey, maybe I can convince Delak to let you come along, help me in training." He resolved to ask that question the very next day.

It turned out that Delak was agreeable to the request.

The day of the practice round came shortly afterward. The snake-arm transporter took Chase to the training pavilion alone. With Delak's approval, the Umans imprisoned in the Notwater pod would be allowed to witness Chase's round themselves. Not long after Chase was taken away, Angie, Dringoth and the rest were startled when the entire pod began to move. Golich peered outside.

"They're towing us," he announced. "Looks like a squadron of those little subs...they've attached lines to this pod and they're hauling us somewhere."

"Hopefully to the training place," Angie said.

The night before the practice round, she and Chase had huddled together in a corner of the pod, while the others slept, or pretended to sleep.

"Chase, are we ever going to get out of here?"

"Yeah, if I can win the big match. This practice round is supposed to see if I'm ready."

Angie sighed. "Maybe this wasn't such a great idea, huh? Flying off to other times and places to save a world for the Sea People. All this comes down to a sporting event. I still can't believe it. And I can't help wondering about Erika and Kentrak...and Oostannah...how they're doing."

"Me too," Chase admitted. "Some days I just sort of long for the simplicity of being a beach bum. Playing my go-tone with the Croc Boys, counting T-shirts at Dad's surf shack on Scotland Beach. I used to complain about that when I was younger."

Angie nodded. "Me too. I knew you could be so much more than a beach bum. And now here we are...prisoners of these talking fish, awaiting a big sports match. Do you think the Ponkti—Lektereenah—will stick to her word. If you win, I mean. Let us go?"

Chase just shook his head. "I don't know. You know how trustworthy the Ponkti are. I guess we're about to find out."

Someone had stirred from across the pod. It was Dringoth. The Captain came over and plopped down beside them.

"If they don't let us go, this world's doomed. We all know that," he said. He picked at some bits of crab leg from a small stand that resembled a giant polyp, a sort of table that grew right out of the spongy floor.

"Lektereenah doesn't believe any of that. These people know nothing about what's above the surface. Most of them think of Notwater like we think of heaven---or hell...a place that may or not be real but it's useful for scaring children into behaving."

"I know one thing," Dringoth went on. "We're breaking out of this jail as soon as we can."

Chase found that preposterous. "And just how do you propose to do that? We're hundreds of meters below the surface. The pressure's something like eighty bars—eighty atmospheres. That's twelve hundred pounds force on every square inch. And you don't breathe water. I'm amphib, and I have trouble with water this cold and dense."

Dringoth lowered his voice. He checked the others across the pod. They were all asleep, or pretending to be. "Golich and I have a plan. But we need your help. I need to know, right here and now, if you'll help us. I know you have a thing for these fishies, but even you know what's going to happen if we don't get out of here. I've got orders from TACTRON to abandon the base. Coethi's here and it won't be long before they gut-kick that sun up there into a supernova. If we don't get out of here, everybody dies. It's as simple as that. So, I'll ask again: are you in or not?"

Chase closed his eyes. Maybe it was the density of the water outside. Maybe it was the responsibility of the _tuk_ match, and the lives that hung in the balance. Maybe it was the realization that Angie might be right and Lektereenah would never let them go, as long as they were useful pawns in the eternal conflict between the kels.

"What do you have in mind, Captain?"

Dringoth sat back with a satisfied smirk on his face. "I'll take that for a 'yes'. Golich and I...we're perfectly aware we couldn't survive outside this pod. We need a vehicle, one of those little subs, to take us up to the surface, take us back to base on that island."

"I doubt the Ponkti will willingly provide one."

"I agree. That's where you come in." Dringoth leaned in closer. Angie smelled crab and shrimp bits on his breath, made a face and backed away. "Golich over there is going to become real sick pretty soon. Let's call it some kind of pressure sickness. Or the air mixture in this little jail cell is bad. Whatever, you get your fishy friends over here and inform them that if Golich and I aren't taken back to the surface, back to the island, we'll die. If they let us leave in one of their little subs, we'll overpower the tuna-head who's driving and take control. Then we can drive the sub back to the island, and get the hell off this sewer of a planet."

Chase tried hard to stifle a few snickers. "With all due respects, Captain, that's the stupidest plan I've ever heard."

Dringoth stiffened. "I suppose you have a better idea?"

"First of all, there's no guarantee the Ponkti will even believe you. These people aren't just talking fish. They have medicine and they can examine you and see you're lying, despite what you or I may say. Secondly, you know nothing about driving a kip't. That's what those little subs are called. I've had some experience with then and I don't know if _I_ could do what you're describing."

Dringoth watched Golich stir himself awake and crawl on his hands and knees around the others to join them.

"That's why we need you, son. You've got to help us. We both know what will happen if you don't. The time stream's already set. Golich and I are time jumpers. We know what it's like to flit in and out of voidtime, following worldlines and trying to outmaneuver an enemy who can do the same thing. This world's an ash-heap if we don't get that Twister up and operating somewhere in this sector. Where are your loyalties, son? To the fishies or to your own Uman brothers and sisters? Or to those slimy bots that we call Coethi?"

Chase took a deep breath. "I need to think about this...crap, I've got enough to think about as it is. All the _tuk_ moves, the right sequence, the history of the Ponkti and how that gets worked into the sequence. Now this. I don't know, Captain," he admitted. "I just don't know."

Dringoth leveled an even gaze at Chase. "We're doing this, one way or another. With you or without you, we're getting out of this deep-sea prison."

Chase said nothing.

Now the Notwater pod had been towed to a position just beyond the training pavilion and anchored there. All the Umans: Dringoth, Golich, Levy, Kasmeerah and Angie, pressed up against the translucent walls as close as they could, trying to see out.

"It's too dark," Levy complained.

"Too murky," Kasmeerah agreed. "The Ponkti always loved darkness. They—we-- live in the shadows."

The pavilion was a small platform perched on a small rise in the seabed. The platform was shielded overhead by undulating canopies of some kind of mesh, flapping in the currents. Hundreds of kelke zoomed by, flitting back and forth around the circumference of the stage, shooed away by a score of prodsmen, who pressed back against the surging, growing crowd. The waters swirled and sparkled everywhere, and the din of honking, clicking, bellowing and grunting spectators was nearly overwhelming.

It seemed that all of Ponk't knew of the training match and many had come to see the spectacle for themselves: a Tailless amphib named Chase in combat with an accomplished _tuk_ master. Bets were made and bags of potu pearls swapped back and forth as onlookers urged their favorites to destroy the opponent.

Chase knew little of his opponent, only that Delak had said his name was Lekor.

"He is fifth-level _tuk_ ," Delak explained as Chase was ritually prepared for the contest. Warm-up moves and exercises were completed, according to a well-rehearsed routine. Delak's coaches and attendants moved Chase's arms and legs just so to ensure maximum flexibility. His gills were saturated with cold dense water to adjust his breathing to the coming exertion. "Lekor is strong in close...and he knows the sequence well. He'll score points with precision and timing. But he tires easily. Lekor is getting on in years and his thrusts and kicks and tail slaps don't have the sting they used to."

"You're saying I can whip his ass if I can just absorb the early blows and outlast him."

"Don't underestimate Lekor," Delak warned. "He knows _tuk_ and how points are scored. What he lacks in power he more than makes up in cunning and guile. He'll go for big points early on. But if you can hold on, he should tire easily. Then he makes mistakes."

Chase blinked. " _Should_?"

Delak backed away from the platform. "Stand ready, Tailless fighter. When the bubbles are released, it begins."

And with that, Chase was alone with Lekor. The two of them had the stage entirely to themselves.

Before he could think another thought, a stream of bubbles streamed upward, all around the perimeter of the stage.

The signal to begin.

Quick as an eyeblink, Lekor darted across the stage and stung Chase hard with a tail slap right in the face. He reeled back, staggered and images swam in his eyes as he recovered. By instinct, he somehow ducked a second slap and dropped to the platform floor, seeking with his hands to slam Lekor in the belly.

_There!_ He connected with something, heard an audible grunt and saw the shadow of his opponent backing away.

Score one for the beach bum.

The next few minutes were a period of wary circling, lunging, feints and quick jabs, and in his mind's eye, Chase remembered what Delak had drummed into his head: _the sequence, eekoti Chase...the sequence. Remember the sequence...it begins with Lord Shooki mating with the First Daughters...._

_Okay_ , he told himself. _That sounds like this_ —he waited for the right moment, lunged at Lekor and managed to bear-hug the guy, grappling him with his arms and legs, pinning his tail down, then belly-thrusting at Lekor's midsection.

_Like ballroom dancing with fists_ , Golich had once said, after Chase had first demonstrated the move.

I don't know if this is right, but it feels like violent coupling to me. Maybe Lord Shooki did it this way.

He heard a series of shrill honks somewhere in the background and remembered Delak had said the scorers would honk in this way when he managed to make the proper move in sequence. Like an audible scoreboard, he realized.

The honks gave him a little shred of confidence. But that didn't last long for a second later, he took another blow to the head and his vision clouded for a few moments, while Lekor circled and probed for more weaknesses.

_I'm guessing Lord Shooki didn't do_ that.

For several minutes, Chase tried to remember what the sequence called for next and then it hit him like a bolt of lightning.

This is like surfing. Chase had done his fair share of board and belly surfing off Scotland Beach over the years. Every surfer knew you had to time the wave, keep a low center of gravity, plan your next static turn and watch your foot position. Was it really so different here?

A few more tail slaps to his head convinced Chase he'd better start counter-punching. The next time Lekor came close, he was ready.

He partially deflected the next slap and struck back with a fist, something he could make that a Ponkti fighter really couldn't. He landed a few blows right into Lekor's beak, momentarily stunning his opponent.

_That'll teach you_...

Now Lekor was more cautious, circling and endlessly probing for more avenues of attack. The next time he came close enough, Chase tried a kick of his own, but just grazed Lekor's belly. He quickly realized there was no way he could maneuver his legs as fast or as powerfully as a Ponkti male. He'd have to compensate.

But what he lacked in leg power he could make up for in arm reach, for Lekor's arms were short and stubby and, though like all Seomish, he had six fingers on each hand, he didn't have Chase's reach.

_That's my advantage_ , Chase realized.

As the match went on, despite what Delak had promised, Lekor showed no signs of fatigue or wearing down. On the contrary, it was Chase who found himself growing winded and sluggish as more blows were launched and landed. For each kick and punch he could throw at Lekor, his opponent landed several tail slaps and thrusts. Chase's ribs had begun to take a beating and after a time, it was all he could do just to fend off the blows and lunge back with weak counters.

Completing the prescribed sequence of moves and blows before your opponent was the key to victory in _tuk_ and Chase knew that. But in the end, Lekor proved faster, nimbler, with enough power and smarts to land winning blows in just the right places, while Chase grew increasingly weary and numb from the hail of slashes, punches, slaps and thrusts. By the time, the end-of-round-bubbles streamed upward, Chase was little more than a listless bag of aching bones and muscles.

Cheers and honks and clicks and squeals sounded in his ears as the crowd responded to Lekor's victory. Delak was finally allowed onto the platform, pushing his way through thickening onlookers and gingerly shepherded Chase off to the Notwater pod. Before he was thrust into the pod, Delak beckoned some trainers to come over. A trio of Ponkti massage artists began stroking Chase's arms and legs, applying salves and ointments to his bruises and plying him with tong'pod and crab bites, while he slurped greedily at a bulb of juice.

"Now you will rest," Delak promised, getting right in Chase's face, a look of concern tilting his eyes. "Among your own people you will find respite. We speak tomorrow...and resume training. The principle match comes in three days. You will meet Golok, son of Loptoheen, in the _tuk_."

Because he was numb with fatigue, the name Golok didn't at first register with Chase. Delak and the trainers guided him back to the Notwater pod and 'fed' him into the fingers that formed the pod walls. Moments later, he was extruded through and fell heavily to the floor.

He felt hands pulling and carrying him deeper into the pod, saw blurry faces leering down at him with frowns and mutters of concern, but he couldn't focus on anything. It was like his entire body would no longer respond to commands from his mind. He was only a limp bag of bones and aching muscles.

Golok. _Golok?_ His last sliver of thought conjured up an image of someone named Golok and, just before he slipped into a hard, deep, dreamless sleep, he remembered:

Golok was Urku Ponkti. From Earth. Golok had come with the _Temporal Hammer_ crew aboard _Aquarius_ to Seome, along with Tulcheah, to see old Seome and try to save her from destruction. Golok was one of his own crew members.

Before he could figure out what that might mean, Chase Meyer slipped into unconsciousness and slept the sleep of the dead.

"Well, I could probably have done as well as you," Nathan Golich said. "You simply got your ass kicked...that's the only way to describe it."

Chase felt like about a million bricks were pressing down on his chest and head. He had bruised ribs and every breath he took was agony.

Angie's face appeared, swimming into his blurry field of vision. "Are you going to be all right, Chase?"

Chase wanted to smile back but it hurt too much. "Every molecule in my body aches."

From across the pod, Dringoth muttered sourly, "Yeah, you gave a real good account of yourself, didn't you, son?"

Angie tried applying some salves and creams the Ponkti trainer had left. "Delak said to try these—" She spent the next few minutes rubbing them into bruises and lacerations from Chase's face to his feet.

"I guess I look like crap, huh?"

"Same as always," Angie smiled at him. "Just a little banged up."

"I've got a lot more to learn about _tuk_."

Kasmeerah was sympathetic. "No one picks up the tradition just like that. But you _do_ have a big match in three days. We have a lot of work to do."

Chase saw in his blurred vision Dringoth and Golich conversing quietly in the background, across the pod. He drew Angie closer.

"They're still planning on trying this escape attempt. It's suicide, Angie. It'll never work."

Angie finished off with the cream and put the bulb away. "They want your help."

"I know. I don't really know what to do."

"Are you going to help them?"

Chase shrugged and winced from the pain. "Dringoth's probably right. The Ponkti may never let us go. But if someone doesn't get the Twister up and working, Seome's doomed. I should help. But if I do, the Ponkti—" he wasn't sure how to finish. "I don't know what they might do. We're caught in some kind of inter-kel conflict, and we could wind up making it worse."

Angie put a finger to his lips. "Shhh. Just rest now. Chase, they all look up to you. The Seomish always have. Whatever you decide, they'll follow you. Don't ask me to explain it but I just have a feeling that you're the right person for the moment, that you'll know how to bring the kels together and make them see what they have to do."

"I wish I felt the same way," Chase murmured. Then he drifted off to sleep again.

But in his last moments of consciousness, it came to him what had to be done.

When he awoke, he heard the moaning and sat up abruptly, thinking it was Angie. But it was only Captain Dringoth, on his side near the wall, twisting and turning in evident agony.

Golich kneeled over him trying to comfort the Captain.

That's when Chase realized it was all part of an act.

Dringoth's plan had already started.

Golich's eyes met Chase's. They said _you know what to do_. No words were spoken. But Chase knew Dringoth's way was the only way.

He located the echopod and put out a call for help. Several messages in quick succession were sent, with Chase pressing the pod up against the wall.

Presently, faces appeared beyond the translucent barrier. His echopod squeaked and chirped. The voice came through, an unfamiliar voice, perhaps Delak or even one of the prodsmen.

"Shhhkreeah...pain hear...problem to...ekshplain...."

Chase lied into the echopod. "One of the Umans...one of the Tailless is in distress. He has breathing problems. He needs Notwater or he'll die. Others the same. Take us to the Notwater."

There was some commotion among the faces, streams of squeaks and honks, some thrashing about, then nothing. The walls were silent for many minutes.

Then Chase heard Delak's words coming out of the echobulb.

" _Eekoti_ Chase...you explain." Delak's voice sounded strained.

Chase made up more lies. "Two of the Tailless have breathing difficulties. Maybe it's the mixture or the pressure. We have to get them to the surface, soon, to the Notwater. They'll die if we don't."

Delak seemed confused about what to do, and Chase had anticipated this. He was all ready with some suggestions.

"Make a kip't available, Delak. Bring it right up to the walls here. Two Tailless from here and a driver, in mobilitor suit. That's all we need."

Delak was noncommittal, unsure what to do next, what was permitted. "Shhkreeah...kkkqqqlll...I speak vizier---you wait—"

Delak left and returned half an hour later. With no warning, the snake-arm squeezed through the walls. Chase had always been impressed that the Ponkti could do that without breaching the enclosure enough to let in even a drop of water, with tons of sea pressure outside them.

"There is a kip't," Delak's voice, now firmer, came back. "Each kelke comes...you must stay."

"Is there a driver for the kip't?" Chase asked.

"A driver...and a guard."

Chase motioned for Dringoth and Golich. "I did my part, Captain. Now it's your turn. They won't let me come along, not with the big match coming up."

Dringoth eyed the snake arm dubiously, with its sucker lips flexing and squeezing like a hungry mouth.

"You're sure this will work?"

"Captain, I'm not sure of anything around here. I didn't think the Ponkti would believe me, or do this much. This is the best I can do. I just hope you know what you're doing."

Dringoth inched forward, lightly touched the end of the snake arm and was startled when it suddenly lunged forward and grabbed him, wrapping him tightly in its embrace.

He shook his head. "This must be why we joined Time Guard, Golich." Then the arm withdrew, pulling the Captain right through the 'fingers' outside the pod and he was gone, with barely enough time for an _oomph_.

Nathan Golich swallowed hard. "I guess I'm next."

Chase handed him the echopod. "I think you'll need this. It's a combination translator and kind of encyclopedia. Don't lose it."

Golich took the device just as the snake-arm reappeared. He tucked it under his arm and moved into the snake's embrace, which coiled itself tightly around him and dragged him through the finger-like walls.

His last words were, " _Semper in tempore_ \---" And he was gone.

Chase just shook his head. Angie hung on his shoulders.

"What did he say?"

Chase had heard the motto before. "It's the Time Guard motto...'always on time.'

"I hope they know what they're doing."

Chase nodded. "They don't. But they have to try this. It's the worldline, Angie. If they don't try, if they don't get the Twister working, this time stream will play out just like before. We're stuck here in a big cage a thousand meters below the sea....and I've got a fight in three days."

Angie buried her face in his chest. "Chase, this can't be happening—"

There wasn't much he could say to that.

The kip't had room for four persons. As Delak had promised, there was a driver and a guard, a scowling Ponkti prodsman armed with a fearsome spear-like thing that sizzled whenever the guard brought it close to them. Both fishies wore their armored suits. Chase had called them mobilitors.

"Serious voltage, Captain," Golich warned.

"Just don't make any sudden moves," Dringoth agreed. "Until we can assess the situation."

The kip't maneuvered through a series of tunnels and corridors, until it emerged from the vast cavern of the Ponkti capital and picked up speed through a steep gorge surrounded by steeper mountains. Past the gorge, they entered a dense stand of seagrass, then angled upward for a while, until a swift current caught them. The driver seemed well schooled in navigating into the current and soon the sled was scooting along at a respectable twenty knots, toward the surface and the base island, Dringoth devoutly hoped.

For a long time, Golich and Dringoth said nothing. Both studied their surroundings and were impressed at the level of technology and piloting skills the fishies seemed to possess. The water was cold and dark, punctuated only occasionally by the sudden flash appearance of gaping mouths and razor teeth as the kip't plowed through unseen life at the depths.

After a time, Dringoth whispered into Golich's ear— _Cygnus'_ Jump Officer was sitting just ahead of the Captain, with the guard behind them and the driver ahead.

"This guard's got one badass weapon, so we'll have to deal with him first. When I give you a nudge in the back, start moaning again like you're sick."

Golich spoke low over his shoulder. "Then what?"

"I'm hoping the guard will move forward to investigate...when he does, I'm going to try and shove that spear prod-thing to the side, without getting zapped. When I do, reach back and try to open his helmet. If I'm right...if Chase is right...that'll cause a big problem. I don't think they can breathe this air."

"You could get fried, Captain."

Dringoth snorted. "Hopefully, no more than singed."

Golich took a deep breath. "I'm ready."

"Here goes." Dringoth gave his Jump Officer a nudge. Right away, Golich let out a series of wails. Instant consternation erupted in the cockpit.

The echopod crackled with hoots and squeaks and clicks. The guard moved to see around Dringoth's shoulder. The Captain sensed the fishy's position, silently counted a few seconds, then twisted violently to his right, throwing his full weight against the prod and the guard's stubby little arms.

He felt a light tingle then saw the prod drop suddenly to the floor.

"Now, Golich... _NOW_!"

Ahead of him, Golich twisted the other way and came face to face with the Ponkti prodsman in full mobilitor suit. Through the faceplate, he saw the beak, the mirthful eyes and the beginnings of what could only be described as abject terror as the Jump Officer reached back, firmly grasped the neck dam of the helmet and twisted as hard as he could.

A pop and a hiss came and the helmet slid partly off its ring. Cold water poured out into the cockpit from inside the mobilitor. At that same moment, the guard began thrashing and squealing in terror, convulsing as its life-giving water envelope drained away. The prod came free and dropped completely to the floor.

To help the situation, Dringoth twisted further and yanked on the helmet as well. With a strong tug, it lurched completely off the top of the suit, fully exposing the guard to air inside the kip't, as more water drained out.

The Ponkti guard's eyes bulged with terror and it began thrashing and convulsing and shaking and jerking spasmodically, trying to grab for the helmet, trying to hold its water inside.

In moments, the guard lay still, blue splotches and bruises swelling along the sides of its face.

Cautiously, Dringoth kicked at the back end of the prod to move it out of the way.

Golich realized the driver was now fully alarmed. The kip't was still caught in some kind of strong current, but by instinct, the driver had begun a shallow descent to take them back to safer waters, back to Ponk't.

"Not so fast, pal," Golich growled into the echopod. He didn't know if the damned thing could translate his words or not. To make sure the driver, also clad in mobilitor, understood his meaning, he gingerly picked up the prod and waved it at face of the driver.

The Ponkti pilot seemed to understand.

Dringoth took the echopod and issued new directions.

"Keep on course. Take us up. To the surface. To the Notwater." Dringoth mimed an upward motion with his hands.

The pilot turned back around, honked and clicked at his sonic controls, now resigned to whatever these crazy Tailless had in mind, and steered the kip't on an ascending course, heading for lighter, choppy, ice-flecked waters above, heading for the surface.

Oostannah's Echopod Journal #4

We'd been dragging Pakto along on his makeshift litter for what seemed like forever when, all of a sudden, the big lout just up and rolled off the litter. It caught me and Tekot completely by surprise and we stopped, right where we were, and asked him if he was alright...could he move, could he swim and stroke, did he want something to eat?

Pakto said yes to all that, so we stopped for awhile and Tekot took some bearings to find out where we were. The best I could make out, Tekot believed we had just passed over an underwater ridge called the Walvis Ridge, off the southwest coast of Africa. Back in the Atlantic now, a few thousand beats away from Keenomsh'pont...and home.

That was the best news I'd heard in weeks.

We dined on longcomb sawfish and bullray...a bit tough for my taste, and bland too—but it was good to see Pakto mending rapidly from his encounter with the submarine propeller.

I think our relationship has changed. Pakto is—I don't know quite how to describe it—more self-centered. More focused...and not on me anymore. I don't like that. There were times, before we set out on this Circling, when we talked of getting married in some way, having kids, a family, a home. I'd like that. Pakto, I'm not so sure. He talks about forming his own em'kel; Sea People can do that once they've done the Circling. The way I understand em'kel...it's kind of like a club. Or a fraternity. Pakto says he wants to start an em'kel that assists other Sea People in starting their own communities. Build stuff, like cities, like Keenomsh'pont.

Sometimes I think the gulf between us is just too great. I'm human amphib. Pakto's full Ponkti, Urku Ponkti. Maybe it's too great a difference to make any kind of union work.

The last week of the Circling took us across the Atlantic Ocean, the smoking vents of the mid-Atlantic rise and straight into Keenomsh'pont, all without incident. I, for one, was glad to be home. I thought there might be cheering crowds and speeches and celebrations but there was nothing. We were ignored, like it was just perfectly normal for a bunch of teenagers to circle the world and come home again.

We crossed the outer repeater zone and the blowhards sang about our appearance and I had visions of huge schools of Seomish surrounding us, urging us on like it was a marathon or something. And there were large roams going about their business as we entered the denser parts of the city. It was good to see Muir seamount again, covered as it was now with all manner of homes and shops and structures, like some huge underwater anthill always in motion. The waters were thick with people flitting about; nothing unusual about that.

In fact, we had to push and shove our way through just to get to the seamount itself. The Seomish like to say you come back from the Circling a changed person. You grow up and you're ready to be an adult. I not sure about that but there was one change in myself I noticed. Out in the oceans I had become used to wide open seas, hundreds of kilometers with nothing but us and the local life. Back in Keenomsh'pont, it was all crowds again and I didn't much care for that. Sea People live like ants, beak to tail, always in close proximity to each other...a little too close for my taste.

Inside the repeater zone, Pakto and Tekot said we had to separate. Ponkti custom. Inside the Ponkti quarter, there would be debriefings, a few ceremonies, some kind of ritual scarring on their bodies to symbolize completing the Ke'toovish'tek. I wasn't allowed in, not being Ponkti.

So Pakto and I cuddled, nosed goodbye to each other and it was really just perfunctory, I must say, no passion at all, like something we had to do, we were expected to do and let's just get on with it so we can be on our ways.

It made me sad as I sniffed out a path through the crowds, found the public moonpool, dried off and took a lift up to our place on Level 07.

All the time we had spent together, all the things we had done together, seemed to mean so little to Pakto. The oil rig disaster off Brazil, the quake and tsunami that half destroyed Equatoria, Pakto getting hurt by that submarine propeller, just a series of incidents and experiences that added up to some weird body tattoos and finally being recognized as a Ponkti adult. And me? I was just another one of those 'incidents.' A means to an end. How sad.

I thought Mom and Dad would crush me to death when I let myself in to the apartment.

" _Oostannah...Oostannah...we couldn't sleep...we were so worried—"_

" _\---don't you ever do that again...the idea...going off with Ponkti boys like that...the whole world, I mean...really!—"_

"— _young amphib ladies like you shouldn't be hanging around with Ponkti boys...what will your grandmother say...and the neighbors...they already stare at us like we're freaks—"_

"— _you're grounded for the rest of the year...no more Sea People friends for you...you're going to study and get good grades and act like an amphib girl should act—"_

We had a quiet supper late—it tasted like snapper filet or something—and I went to my room to finish this journal. I know they were worried. I know they love me. I know they were glad to see me.

But no more hanging around with Sea People for the rest of the year? Jeez. I'll probably just curl up and die.

Some nights, I think about Pakto and Tekot and all we went through. I'm glad I did it. I'm sorry I hurt Mom and Dad by going with Pakto on the Circling. But I thought, if we're ever going to get along, people like me have to take a chance and get to know the Sea People better. What better way than to go on a Circling with them?

The Sea People say everybody comes back from the Circling a changed person, wiser and ready to be an adult. They really believe that. I'm not sure what I believe anymore. I think about it a lot. Have I changed?

Maybe just in this way: before Pakto and Tekot and I set out on the Circling, I saw myself as a friend and a lover and maybe someday a companion to Pakto. I thought I saw a way for a human amphib girl and a Ponkti boy to come together and make something bigger than themselves, show others that such a union was possible...that it was possible for two people to overcome all their differences and become one.

Now, after the Circling, I'm not so sure.

End Recording

Chapter 14

"You can't have a better tomorrow if you're thinking about yesterday all the time."

Charles Kettering

Seome

City of Ponk't

Time: 787.2, Epoch of Tekpotu (Time stream T-229)

Finally, the day of the _tuk_ match had come. Ponk't was seething with excitement. _The eekoti will fight Golok. The eekoti will fight Golok, son of the great Loptoheen_...the words pinged-ponged around the city like old repeater songs and no one could talk or think of anything else.

The caverns of Ponk't swarmed with life, simmering, heaving, boiling life, and the kelke of the Ponkti capital were too thick to stir as they descended by the thousands on the platform atop a small hill that dominated one quarter of the city, near the cavern walls. Above the platform, for as far as one could pulse, the walls seemed alive with motion, thousands upon thousands jostling and kicking and shoving to secure prime positions to watch the tournament.

The pavilion was a small platform perched on the seabed. The platform was shielded overhead by undulating canopies of some kind of mesh, flapping in the currents. Thousands of kelke zoomed by, flitting back and forth around the circumference of the stage, shooed away by a score of prodsmen, who pressed back against the surging, growing crowd. The waters swirled and sparkled everywhere, and the din of honking, clicking, bellowing and grunting spectators was nearly overwhelming.

As before, the Notwater pod with Angie, Liz Levy and the others had been towed into position for them to watch the match through the translucent walls.

Angie had last minute encouragement for Chase.

"You're ready, Chase...I can feel it. It's just like a big track meet."

Chase closed his eyes. "I was never on the track team, remember? That was you and...whatever her name was."

"Gwen, and it doesn't matter. Delak says you know how to do this. You know _tuk_ well enough to win this one."

"Maybe. But this is Golok...how does an _Aquarius_ crewmember become my opponent in a _tuk_ match in the city of the Ponkti?"

"Because he's Ponkti himself, and they say he's the son of Loptoheen."

"I thought I knew the guy...jeez, we went through jumpship training together. Farpool Service and all that." Chase decided, "Someone must be paying him."

Liz Levy had once been _Aquarius'_ PSO (Positioning and Systems Officer). It seemed like a long time ago. "Skipper, just stay calm, okay? Golok's not invincible. He's got weaknesses, same as any opponent."

"Not many, if he's got Loptoheen's blood," Chase reminded them. "I'm going to get my ass kicked today...I can feel it."

"That's my hand on your butt you're feeling," Angie said. "Do like I did in track. Visualize. Follow the race...or the match and all the moves—in your mind. Like surfing. You always talked about 'becoming the wave.' Become your fists and your legs and feet. Visualize them kicking the crap out of Golok."

Chase smiled. He knew what they were trying to do. "Hey, anybody wondering how Dringoth's little caper is going?"

"Will you focus, you idiot?" Angie commanded.

After that, Chase was quiet. He tried concentrating on his hands and feet, just like they were telling him. But all he could see was the bruises that still darkened his arms after the training match.

He knew the time had come when the snake-arm punched through the pod walls and opened its fingers up next to him, like an expectant mouth.

"Guess that's my cue," he joked. "Wish me luck."

The arm wrapped him up and pulled him through the walls and Chase was gone. Angie went to the walls to try and see out. Everything was blurry.

She prayed silently. _Chase, don't try to be a hero_. _Give it your best...and kick ass, you big dope._ Then she sat down, wrapped her arms around her shoulders and closed her eyes, trying to visualize what he was about to go through.

The cold, dense cold water of Ponk't seemed especially cold and dense to Chase as he was carried into the arena. _Maybe I'm just scared_. It was like those last moments before he and the Croc Boys took the stage, right before a gig, didn't matter where it was. He forced himself to relax, to breathe regularly, to focus on what Delak and Kasmeerah had taught him.

It didn't help that he fully understood what was at stake. If Lektereenah didn't let the Umans go soon, the Twister would lie silent and wrecked at the surface above them and the Coethi would make ashes of the whole world.

The arena was surrounded by thin streams of bubbles, a sort of bubble curtain fronted by serious Ponkti prodsmen. Chase didn't bother trying to size up the crowd as the snake-arm thrust him onto the arena stage. There had to be thousands surrounding the platform for the cacophony and the chaos was overwhelming and incessant shrieks and honks and bellows and clicks and shouts filled the water, like city traffic at midday.

Moments after he had been roughly shoved onto the platform, Golok appeared. It was the first time Chase had seen the Ponkti since _Aquarius_ had landed on Seome, the first time he had seen the young male without a mobilitor suit, for he and Tulcheah had made the trip clad in just such protective gear.

Golok was larger than Chase realized, fully three meters beak to tail flukes. He was muscular, supple, young and ritually scarred around his beak and eyes, in the Ponkti way. Golok glared back at him with thinly disguised contempt. Was that some sort of smirk? He drifted about the platform with the currents, propelled by seemingly indifferent snaps of his tail, sizing Chase up.

Chase swallowed hard. It was like the Ponkti didn't even recognize him, as if he were drugged.

Delak had warned Chase there would be no statements or announcements or ceremonies to begin the _tuk_ match.

When the bubble curtains fired massive streams of water upward, hissing and foaming, all around the stage, he knew that was the signal to begin.

And Golok was in his face almost immediately, circling, kicking and thrashing the water with several powerful tail slaps. One caught Chase broadside and he spun away, momentarily stunned.

He gave up any notion of trying to reason with his old crewmate and reacted automatically with a counter-lunge, managing to bury a fist right into Golok's face. The blow stunned him and Golok backed off, circling warily.

The match was on.

To Chase, the hardest part of _tuk_ wasn't the physical part, the blows, counter-blows, punches, kicks, jabs, thrusts, pokes, slaps and prods. It was the requirement that each move carry part of a narrative, reprising the history of the Ponkti people. You could land some serious blows, even bludgeon your opponent into a stupor and still lose the match, for the sequence was everything: this kick before that slap, this thrust before that punch and every move had to be done precisely, as a figure-skater choreographed her moves, precise not only in execution but in force applied, landing the hit just so. Of course, your opponent was also trying to do the same thing, so that the entire match was one of martial dance and gymnastic steps, punch and counterpunch, punctuated with brain-spinning blows building to the crescendo of the Ponkti story, for the story was as much a part of the match as the combat itself.

Chase tried to remember what he knew of Ponkti history—Lord Shooki and the time of the Beginning, the Five Daughters, the First Mortals, the forming of the kel, the early quakes and volcanoes, hollowing out the caverns, the entire tableau of Ponkti history encapsulated in rhythmic movement and gesture. But he knew he was at a disadvantage to Golok, for even though his opponent was of Earth—Urku Ponkti—he was still Ponkti and the currents of the

Ponk'el Sea coursed in his veins.

Again, and again, when he concentrated on his sequence, Chase found his thoughts interrupted by vicious head blows and tail slaps and he would counter without thinking, often landing successful return blows which stunned Golok momentarily but which would also throw Chase out of sequence once again and he had to go over in his mind where he was.

Golok had a distinct advantage in size and agility. Once he got himself back into the proper part of his sequence, Chase found his most effective tactic was to grapple with the Ponkti when he got too close and pummel his opponent in the face. This usually flustered Golok and he squirmed and thrashed to back away from the pounding.

_Not sure if that move's approved but at least it draws blood._ And indeed, after several such close encounters, Golok's beak was issuing a thin stream of blood.

Still the match went on and the crescendo of honking and bellowing around them reached frenzied levels.

To Chase, time seemed to stop. He wasn't sure how the match was scored, only that he had to counter Golok's blows and try to keep to the script. After a time, he found it was pointless to try to think too much about the sequence; in the end, he gave that up and concentrated on landing effective blows and then punishing Golok every time the Ponkti came too close.

_Maybe I can change his strategy_ , Chase thought. _If he has to land certain blows at certain times, maybe I can frustrate that_. So, he made that his strategy. Play not to win, but to keep the other guy from winning. It was a defensive strategy to be sure but it became one that Chase was increasingly comfortable with.

Beyond the bubble curtains and the frenzied crowd, the Notwater pod was surrounded by a squad of prodsmen. Inside, all eyes were pressed against the walls.

"Can you see _anything_?" Angie asked. "I can't see a thing. Water's too silty. Too many people."

Kasmeerah listened closely. "I can hear some of the blows, above the crowd. It doesn't sound good."

Liz Levy pressed her face harder into the translucent 'skin' of the wall, earning a few scratches in the process, for the walls had sharp barbs buried under its outer epidermis. "Ouch! It all looks like a blur to me. Blobs darting around. Lots of honks and hoots. I can sense the crowd getting worked up. But those bubbles make it hard to see."

Angie was resigned. "He's losing, isn't he? I can feel it."

Levy was skeptical. "You can't feel any such thing. Don't be ridiculous. We'll just have to wait and see."

But inside the _tuk_ arena, Chase knew he was losing. He was able to land some blows, but so was Golok. Stung and dizzy from the Ponkti's increasingly effective slaps and thrusts, sure he was way off sequence, all Chase could do was react, lash out, thrash and grapple and make Golok pay when he came in too close.

Chase's thoughts began to wander and in wandering, landed on something Angie had once said about winning a big track meet.

"It's all about managing your breathing," she had once told him. "Sometimes there's a wall and you swear you'll never get over it. Focus on each breath. Focus on what you can control. In and out, in and out. Controlled short breaths. Don't worry about anyone else. Stay with your own breathing and listen. Make it smooth and even. Shut out everything else but that sound. Focus on that."

Chase was sure there was no way track could offer anything for him now. This wasn't track. This wasn't the 880-meter at Apalachee High School. This was Seome, city of Ponk't and he was in the fight of his life against a bigger, stronger, faster opponent. But there was something to what Angie said. It was something the Seomish, all Seomish, believed in.

_Shoo'kel._ Balance. Poise. Equilibrium. Stability. Keeping your insides even, keeping the bubbles and the echoes on a level keel. Focusing on that inner core that could never be disturbed. It was something every Seomish child learned from a young age.

Angie was saying the same thing and that seemed weird to Chase...that a human female track star—one with great legs and a cute butt, by the way—and a Seomish child should have the same understanding of life and what it took to overcome adversity.

Maybe there _was_ something he could do to pull this match out....

Seome

Kinlok Island

Time: 787.8, Epoch of Tekpotu (Time stream T-229)

Once the rocky slopes of the island came into view, Dringoth poked the Ponkti pilot with the business end of the prod, sending a quick zap into the side of his mobilitor. It sparked and got the pilot's attention pretty quickly.

Dringoth spoke into the echopod, not sure if the driver could really understand his words, but figuring that if he didn't, the prod itself could do the translating.

"Beach this boat. Over there." He pointed over the driver's shoulder to the narrow spit of land just below the headland that looked like some giant's jaw sticking out into the mist.

The Ponkti steered them up onto the beach. Dringoth and Golich got out and as soon as they were clear of the craft, the pilot zoomed back into the water and hastily submerged.

Golich shrugged. "Can't say I'm surprised he did that."

Dringoth agreed. "Poor clod probably pee'ed in his suit. Come on. Let's get up to the ship and see what's working."

They climbed the slope and entered _Cygnus_ through the F deck lockout. Inside, they found Acth: On'e and Evelyn M'Bela, going over schematics.

The four of them greeted each other with salutes and hugs.

"I thought we'd never see you again, Captain," M'Bela was saying. "After the fishies came—"

Dringoth explained what had happened. "We were hostages. Underwater. Incredible place. You were right, Queenie. The fishies have a whole civilization down there...and they're savages." He explained about the civil war and the _tuk_ match. "They claim they'll release everybody if Chase Meyer wins the match. It's insane. I think Alicia's still being held. Where's URME?"

"Scattered to the winds," Acth: On'e said. "But we can regenerate a swarm entity like URME anytime. Alicia—" he shrugged. "I don't know...we need her skills as DPS tech. She could really help with this." He indicated the schematics.

"Any more word from TACTRON?" Dringoth asked.

Acth: On'e shook his head. "Nada. Queenie and I were going over Twister details, trying to figure out what we have and don't have, what works and what could be fixed."

"Half the chronotron pods are missing," M'Bela added. "Plus, there's major damage to the buffers, the focuser, the emitter."

"Last orders we had were to abandon the base," Dringoth said. "Chase wants to use the fishies to help re-build the Twister, but if TACTRON's orders are the same, it won't matter."

"Why does he care?' M'Bela asked.

"He says he and his crew came from T-001, Urth mid-22nd century, to help change the worldline in this time stream, prevent the sun up there from going kablooey, save the fishies' world."

"It's not worth it," Golich said. "I say we pack up and leave like TACTRON ordered."

Dringoth made a decision. "Okay, here's what we do. I want to wait awhile and try to get Alicia Yang back. We need her. Golich, you try to contact TACTRON. Use a low-freq coupler band, with max entanglement too. Get our orders verified. Queenie, you and Toonie and I will see what we can salvage of the Twister. Is there any realistic hope of getting the thing working again? Tonight, after the sun's down, we'll work on re-generating a new URME. I want a full crew onboard before we jump out of here."

M'Bela had an idea. "Maybe we should ask TACTRON for backup. Some kind of repair crew."

"Yeah, like that'll happen," Golich scoffed.

"No, really, think about it. We all know how important Storm and this base is to defending this sector. If we abandon base, the Lower Halo's wide open all the way to Newton's Jaw, maybe even Time's Peak and the Sun. If we could get the Twister up and operating, even at a minimal level, the Bugs would at least have to respect us and take care entering this sector. The Twister, even at half power, can put a real hurt on the Bugs a long way out from here...and they know that."

"Put that in your request," Dringoth ordered Golich. "For my taste, the sooner we can get Alicia back, URME regenerated and _Cygnus_ out of here, the better."

With that, the crew scattered to their tasks. Outside with M'Bela and Acth: On'e, Dringoth noticed a pronounced darkening in the cloudy skies overhead. He checked the time.

"Sunset comes earlier than I remember...we may just have an hour or so left today."

"That's not sunset," Acth: One said. "It's another starball. Third one in the last few days. It's still midday here, best we can determine."

Dringoth squinted up in the wind through icy sleet and snow. Clouds scudded by, low and swollen, and sleet swirled in the gale. "Coethi's nearby. They mean to blow this whole sector up. We need to get out of here, soon as TACTRON gives the word."

"Sir, with all due respects, that's why we shouldn't spend too much time on the Twister. That sun's going to blow any time here. If she does—"

He didn't have to finish the thought.

Dringoth kicked at some rubble on the ground. "Where's the skimmer?"

"That's part of it you're stepping on, Captain. The fishies made about a million pieces of it."

Dringoth wrapped arms around his shoulders to ward off the cold. Out to sea, ice calves and bergs dotted the ocean surface. "Okay, we do what we can for the Twister, until TACTRON says otherwise. Call up Golich and M'Bela. If the printer's working, print us a new skimmer...it'll take about a day. We've got to inventory what we've got. And I want to recon the Twister site itself and see for myself."

The crew of _Cygnus_ grimly set to work. Her 3-D printer was installed on E deck, in a corner of the machine shop. Ten hours after loading the machine with feedstock, the skeleton of a new skimmer was emerging from the output tray, folded for stowage but otherwise ready for use.

Acth: On'e and the Captain hauled it outside and unfolded it. A few quick plunges into and through the surf below the promontory and she was pronounced more or less seaworthy.

Acth: On'e and Dringoth rode the skimmer through heavy chop and gusty winds out to the Twister site. Ice rime caked much of the outer casing.

"The skin seems intact," Dringoth said. They circled the huge dish-shaped structure. "We can repair those cracks readily enough, as long as she'll support the pods and the forces they generate."

"We have no signal from the Twister to the control hut," Acth: On'e reminded him. "There could be extensive damage to the buffers and the focuser."

Dringoth had the Telitorian drive the skimmer right up onto the lower casing and beach it there. He got out and climbed to the apex of the Twister, clinging precariously in stiff squalls as they blasted across the deck. He checked several ports and projections, then eased himself back down and returned to the skimmer.

"Emitter's functional but needs to be tested. But we really do need to locate as many missing pods as we can. Twister'll work with about sixty, but seventy-two is better."

"I'm pinging pod-shaped returns on the seabed below now, Captain. Maybe ten or twelve. If we could retrieve those and get them into the shop, we'd have a better idea."

"Agreed. Get back to the ship. You and I have a date with our hypersuits."

While they were suiting up on _Cygnus'_ F deck, Golich came in with word from TACTRON.

"Finally got through on low-band coupler, Captain. TACTRON's orders are the same: render the Twister inoperable, remove critical Class A gear, and abandon base. We're ordered to jump to the Sturdivant system. Some kind of major fleet action is being planned there...soon."

Dringoth frowned. "I don't have my full crew back together. Damn this place. And the fishies too. Reply to TACTRON: effecting repairs on _Cygnus_. Organizing rescue effort for crew. Send it!"

Golich saluted and headed off to the command deck.

To no one in particular, the Captain explained his reasoning, perhaps as much to himself as anyone else. "There's just a chance we can get this piece of crap working while we get Alicia Yang back."

"Sir, TACTRON's orders were to render the Twister inoperable," said M'Bela.

"I think TACTRON's orders were actually garbled in transmission, Queenie. Have Golich take his time responding. I'll probably be court-martialed out of the Guard, but Chase Meyer's right. Storm may be a hellhole but the fishies are intelligent and deserve some protection. If we have to abandon this place, the least we can do is give them a fighting chance against the Bugs."

Seome

City of Ponk't

Time: 788.1, Epoch of Tekpotu (Time stream T-229)

Maybe Angie was right. Maybe it was all about the breathing.

Chase closed his eyes for a moment to center himself, even as he took a few more slaps and kicks from Golok.

He didn't know beans about Ponkti history but he did know how to surf the big ones off Scotland Beach, when and if any big ones came. You became one with the board, and felt the movements of the wave with your toes and your board position. A little lift here, a little shift there, press hard right _there_ and lean forward. Watch your balance. Don't get too far forward. Don't lean too far back. Let the waves talk to you. Let the wave tickle your feet and tell you where to go.

Armed with this insight, Chase found himself better equipped to deal with Golok. It was almost better with his eyes closed. With his sight shut off, he was better able to sense the pressure waves of Golok approaching. Feel the waves. Golok was big. He was fast and agile. But he also moved a lot of water when he thrashed forward. Chase was soon very closely attuned any pressure waves when Golok moved and learned to slide sideways at that exact moment, most of the time avoiding the worst effects of Golok's lunges.

It was a defensive strategy but he soon supplemented it with a new insight. Right after the pressure wave of Golok's motion passed, Chase found a low-pressure zone enveloping him and quickly realized this was Golok recoiling for another thrust. In that exact moment, he learned to strike out, _hard_ , and more often than not, he was able to connect, sometimes with devastating effect.

_Let Golok be the guide_ , he told himself. Follow the pressure waves he generated. Sidestep the big wave because that meant a blow was coming. Strike back when the waves fell off, for Golok was vulnerable then.

It was working, better than he dreamed.

For many minutes, Chase followed this approach and he was rewarded by an odd change in the crowd noise around him. Once, the waters had been filled with raucous honking, squeaking and bellowing but now an uneasy murmur filled his ears and a steady din of a subdued concern, apprehension, even alarm swelled around him. That gave him even more encouragement.

_I must be doing something right_.

The match went on for what seemed like an hour. Then, a loud shriek sounded. Chase opened his eyes.

The match had been stopped.

He looked across the platform and found his opponent drifting listlessly, attended by nurses and orderlies. Multiple streams of blood issued from wounds along Golok's side. Slowly, Golok was being steered off the platform and into the buzzing crowd.

The shriek had come from Oncolenia, vizier to the Metah. It got everybody's attention.

The vizier was an older female, somewhat arthritic, mottled with a slightly bent beak, surrounded by gray whiskers.

" _Silence! Have shoo'kel! Show respect... for the Metah comes!"_

Delak eased himself through the crowd and came to Chase, offering drink and something to eat. Chase was thirsty and sucked at the bulb greedily. "What's happening? What's going on?"

Delak was attending to a few bruises on Chase's face and chest. "Be quiet. Lektereenah's here. She stopped the match."

"She stopped the—"

But before he could finish the thought, a burly squad of prodsmen bulled their way through the crowd and pushed back an opening for the Metah to approach.

Lektereenah drifted into the center of the platform, barely a twitch of her tail flukes moving her to float before Chase. Her eyes blazed.

" _Eekoti_ Chase, the _tuk_ is over." Her words were immediately followed by a restless buzz rippling through the crowd. Prodsmen shoved and zapped unruly onlookers. "Your opponent, Golok klu kel: Ponk'et, free-bred of Loptoheen tu, can't go on. You have won the match. Your kelke will be released and you are free to go."

Chase was confused. "What happened?" He saw orderlies bearing Golok's motionless body away. "Did I do that? What did I do?"

Lektereenah glared into his eyes, pulsed the _eekoti_ deeply and found genuine confusion. She swam away, swishing about the platform. "Golok is injured. One of your blows struck a vital area. He is finished."

Chase was immediately concerned. "He's one of my crew, part of the _Aquarius_ crew. Can I see him?"

Lektereenah turned to stare back at Chase. "It is enough that you humiliate us, _eekoti_. Seek out your Omtorish friends and be off. The Ponkti will be rid of all of you."

With that, Lektereenah disappeared into the crowd and was gone.

Delak explained. " _Eekoti_ Chase, you performed _tuk_ moves no one had ever seen before. You didn't follow the right sequence, but it didn't matter. You kept stunning Golok with your kicks and punches and finally you injured him, perhaps fatally. The Metah stopped the match. She declared you the victor."

"That's great, but I'm worried about Golok. He's Urku Ponkti. He came here with us. He doesn't belong here."

Delak helped Chase back to the Notwater pod, hovering just beyond the crowd. "He has Ponkti blood, as free-bred of Loptoheen. And he will probably not survive the night. The Metah is embarrassed, _eekoti_ Chase. She chose your opponent personally, and you vanquished him completely. Now she feels shame. The kelke are already saying, ' _Tulcheah should be Metah._ ' There may be a war of succession here...you must gather your friends and leave at once."

"Speaking of my friends, where are they?"

As if in answer, Delak turned Chase over to the snake-arm and it wrapped itself around him and then shoved him roughly through the translucent walls of the Notwater pod, where he fell unsteadily to the spongy floor.

Angie's face was the first thing he recognized.

"Are you all right...you're not hurt?" She clucked and fussed over him for a few moments. Kasmeerah and Liz Levy hovered behind.

"No, really, I'm—" he forced himself to sit up, spun with dizziness for a second..."—okay, I think. A few bruises, that's all."

"What happened out there?" asked Kasmeerah. "It looked like you won the _tuk_ match."

Chase's head swam but he found sitting up helped. He accepted a bulb of something to drink from Levy. "I don't know. I remember hitting Golok a pretty good blow, then the match was stopped. Delak showed up and said I had been declared winner. Golok was injured. But I don't think I did it." He counted off the faces staring back at him. "Hey, where is everybody?"

Angie sat down beside him. "Captain Dringoth and Mr. Golich aren't here. They were trying to escape. We don't know what happened to them. Chase, do you think we'll ever—"

But her words were interrupted by a cackle from the echopod at Chase's shoulder. He snatched it down, did a little tuning, then....

"Shhkkreeah... _eekoti_ Chase...qqqzzkklllqq...come us...you--"

Chase and Angie looked at each other.

"I knew I was in trouble...I did something to Golok, now—"

"Look!"

The snake arm had extruded itself back inside the pod and was groping through the air toward Chase, as if it could somehow sense him.

"I think I'm wanted." He stood up unsteadily and let the snout-face of the arm locate him, then roughly wrap itself around him. He was tugged through the seams of the wall and back into the cold water of Ponk't. The pod was still anchored to the seabed near the arena. There were still thousands of Ponkti roaming and flitting about above him. But where before, the city had been suffused with the din of thousands gliding past, now a preternatural calm pervaded the vast cavern. Ponkti roamers still murmured but without the normal cacophony that seemed a natural background to the city. Now, an unusual hush had fallen over the city.

A small convoy of prodsmen awaited him. Nothing was said. Chase understood that he was to be escorted by the prodsmen...escorted somewhere. He looked back at the blurred faces peering through the wall of the pod—there was Angie, Levy, Kasmeerah, looking like funhouse distortions from a circus. Then he took up a position in the middle of the convoy, after the snake-arm had released him, and they were off.

He found the convoy was bearing him toward a narrow opening in the sheer vertical cliffs of the nearer cavern walls. Inside, the prodsmen conveyed him through one tunnel after another, through twisting side branches and channels and burrows and small dens, until they came at last to an elongated cut deep inside the mountain. The cut was itself a small grotto barely lit from within by several drifting glowfish.

Inside was Tulcheah...and Loptoheen tu, along with several assistants.

Chase was both surprised and somewhat comforted by the sight of familiar beaks.

Tulcheah wasted no time in nuzzling him, rubbing her beak along his sides. The prodsmen had retreated to the opening and made themselves nearly invisible. The rubbing brought back memories of couplings past. But Chase was sure that wasn't in the cards.

"I didn't expect to find you," he said. "I heard—my trainer Delak said—there was a sort of revolt going on. That I should leave Ponk't."

That brought a sharp blast of laughing bubbles from Tulcheah. Even Loptoheen smirked.

"Delak speaks the truth," Tulcheah said. "In a few hours, the Ke'lem will begin a great roam. They visit every part of the city."

"I did notice how quiet it is across the city. Ponkti aren't usually that quiet on roams."

Tulcheah found this also amusing. She continued her probing around Chase's face and shoulders, sniffing, tasting, poking until Chase backed away. This seemed to hurt her feelings. Tulcheah stopped abruptly and retreated to a corner of the grotto, partially hiding behind some weird pink-red stalactite.

"You noticed that. That means the Ponkti are thinking. When the Kel'em finish their roam, there will be a new Metah in the city." She leered at him with twinkling eyes and a faint smirk on her face. "The times are changing. The epoch of Tekpotu will end soon. A new epoch begins."

Now Loptoheen cut in. "The Epoch of Tulcheah, yes? New ways are coming."

"What happened to Golok? Lektereenah made a promise...if I won, she would release all the Umans, all the Tailless."

Tulcheah's bemused face mutated into something sterner and more menacing. "What Lektereenah promised no longer matters. The _tuk_ was stopped. Golok suffered an injury."

"I hope I didn't do that. I mean... I wanted to win. But I didn't hit him that hard."

"Don't flatter yourself, _eekoti_ Chase. You may have commanded a jumpship...indeed, Golok and I were both aboard. But the injury comes from many mah ago, on Urku. An earlier match...yes, even among the Urku Ponkti, even among the Ponkti of Keenomsh'pont, there is still _tuk_. Lektereenah stopped the match to save Golok. Loptoheen here—"she indicated the old _tuk_ master beside her, "was worried. Lektereenah didn't want Golok to suffer. But she did not know that Loptoheen's loyalties were elsewhere."

"Is there going to be a war here?" Chase asked.

Tulcheah broke off a piece of the stalactite and sniffed it. "Lektereenah has many followers. But the Kel'em will decide. After they have roamed, the decision will be easy. The Ponkti are ready for a change. I will be Metah of the Ponkti, as it was even on Urku."

Now Chase saw something in the Ponkti woman he had never seen before. "I see what this expedition is about now. You remember coming to me in Keenomsh'pont? 'Our ways are fading. There will be no more Seomish after another generation...help us go back and save our world.' It was all just a story, wasn't it? This was always about coming back and getting rid of Lektereenah. This was about becoming Metah of all Ponkti."

Loptoheen bristled and came at Chase, but Tulcheah grabbed his tail and held him back. "No, not here. Not now, Loptoheen. The Kel'em—"

"But Affectionate One, he insults you."

"They will be gone soon enough. No, _eekoti_ Chase, of course I remember coming to you. I even have recorded what was said—" she made a gesture and Loptoheen produced an echopod from his web belt, which he manipulated to start 'speaking' its recorded words....

Tulcheah spoke then what was on her mind.

" _Eekoti Chase, I have a favor to ask. A proposal for you."_

" _Somehow I knew you would, Tulcheah. You've been leading up to some kind of big announcement."_

Here, Tulcheah slowed down and let the currents carry her forward. She didn't look back but her words were heavy with a sort of glum resignation.

" _Since we came to Urku—" Chase knew that the Seomish usually referred to Earth as 'Urku'---"our lives have been hard. We struggle and the waters are still unfamiliar to us."_

Chase had been hearing rumbles of this same sentiment around Keenomsh'pont for months now. Something was brewing. Some force was growing among the older Sea People; he didn't understand it completely, but it was palpable. And getting stronger.

" _At first, you struggled," he tried to sound optimistic. "But now the midlings—your children—they're adapting to life here okay. And many of them become amphibs...they can live here and in the Notwater."_

" _That's our point," Skeleemah said. "You know this, eekoti Chase. Amphibs and Umans dominate this world. It's their world."_

Tulcheah picked up the argument. "In another generation, all that is good and true about our way of life will be gone."

Chase knew there was truth in what the Metah said. After the Exodus, adjusting to life in unfamiliar waters had been difficult. Many Seomish, from every kel, longed for the old ways, longed to go back.

But that was no longer possible, wasn't it? Or so Chase thought, until Tulcheah brought up the real reason for her visit.

" _Eekoti Chase, help us go back."_

Chase thought he had mis-heard Tulcheah. Maybe it was the echopod; sometimes, the translator needed tuning, or fixing. That had to be it.

" _Go back? How do you mean? You can't go back."_

Skeleemah came right to the heart of the matter. "Eekoti Chase, nobody knows pul'kel...the Farpool...as you do. Every day, here and in our seas, people travel through the Farpool. It is a common thing, no?'

Tulcheah went on. "Help us return through the Farpool...back to Seome."

" _Your world was destroyed," Chase reminded them. "The sun detonated...the Coethi destroyed everything. You know that."_

" _But the Farpool can take travelers to different times, can it not? I am asking...we are pleading with you, eekoti Chase. Help us go back to Seome, in a different time, to the time before the End Time."_

Chase's head was dizzy at the idea. "But the Coethi...we don't know how to defeat them. We don't have the means, or the weapons. Even the Umans of that time couldn't defeat them. They abandoned Seome, remember?"

Now Tulcheah and Skeleemah brought the roam to a complete stop. She circled them like a predator sizing up her catch. "Help us save Seome from destruction, Chase. Help us preserve it for all the kelke to come. There are so many...tu'kel'ke who wish to return to their home waters and build a new life in the traditional seas...to feel the P'omtor Current, hear the volcanoes, the ice floes scraping in the northern seas, taste scapet and tong'pod. Help us, Chase...before it's too late. Before we perish and the Seomish way is no more."

Loptoheen clicked the echopod off. Tulcheah let go of the stalactite piece, no longer brandishing it like a weapon. "You see, no Ponkti can be other than what they are. As for me, as for this—" she spread her hands to encompass the grotto and what lay beyond—"the _mekli_ have made a decree. The Epoch of Tekpotu must end. And new epoch begins, here and now."

"And you will become Metah of the Ponkti."

She smirked at him, not bothering to hide the bubbles of satisfaction gurgling in her midsection. "If the Kel'em so decides—"

Chase tried to ignore the strong feeling he had been used, all of them had, even the Farpool Service. "What about my people? You know as well as I do where this worldline, where this time stream, winds up. Unless we can repair the Twister, you will be Metah of a world about to be obliterated."

" _Eekoti_ Chase, I do pulse mistaken echoes inside of you. I am not so stupid about these things as Lektereenah. Remember who you address. I have been Metah of the Urku Ponkti for a long time. You and your people will be released at once. I will order the Notwater pod towed out of Ponk't and taken to the surface. Kip'ts will be provided for you."

"We have to get back to Kinlok Island as fast as possible. I'll need directions, some kind of guidance."

Here Tulcheah's face broke into a broad smile. "You will not need such guidance for you will be following many kip'ts. I have already ordered a fleet to be made available. Our Ponkti engineers and craftsmen and handlers and weavers will be with you. Follow them to Kinlok. They will help you repair the Twister. It shall not be said that, in the new Epoch of Tulcheah, that the Ponkti are found wanting. I know the Twister is needed. The far enemy will be defeated because the Ponkti will defeat them. And when this is done—"she glanced at Loptoheen, who picked up the story, as if it were a well-rehearsed refrain.

"—all of Seome will praise Tulcheah, Metah of the Ponkti...and all the kels will submit to her as we do." Loptoheen's eyed blazed with fierce determination.

The words chilled Chase but he didn't have time to ponder it for at a signal, the prodsmen reappeared and Chase was escorted out of the grotto, through many tunnels and back to the Notwater pod. There, thrust inside by the snake-arm, he described what had happened, and what was to come.

Angie was incensed at Tulcheah's ambition, even treachery. "She planned this all along. She used us, all of us."

Chase shrugged. "Probably. We both know there were plenty of Seomish, from every kel at Keenomsh'pont, who wanted to go home. I think Tulcheah used that homesickness for her own purposes."

"And Farpool Service bought into it."

"On my recommendation," Chase admitted. "I went to bat for her in the Sea Council and with the Service."

"Hey—" Kasmeerah's voice was alarmed. "Hey, we're moving—"

Kas was right. There came a series of lurches and shakings, then it became clear the pod was in motion.

"They're towing us," Chase told them. "Just as Tulcheah said."

They all sat down to keep from being knocked over and settled in for what proved to be a lengthy tow operation, for the pod had to be maneuvered out of the city's main cavern, through twisting and turning tunnels under the mountain and out into open water. Angie fell asleep, Kas occupied herself with the echopod and Chase lay on his side, just staring at the shifting colors, shapes and forms sliding beyond the walls.

_How could I have been so blind_? he asked himself. Angie was right. The Urku Ponkti female had used them. Even their couplings had a purpose and that was galling enough as it was.

Soon, it was apparent the pod was being towed upward. The forms and shapes disappeared from the walls and, after a time, the black of the deep Ponk'el Sea gave way to a dim purple twilight, then more and more light, until the pod breached the surface of the sea and bobbed about like a cork.

One of the prodsmen had given Chase a small vial on being escorted from Tulcheah's grotto.

"K'orpuh blood," the soldier had explained, with a sly wink. "Throw it on the wall fibers when you reach Notwater. They'll retract and shrink. You can leave the pod that way."

"Okay," Chase held up the vial, with its dark red blood inside, "here goes." He thumbed off the cap on top and tossed the contents against the walls.

Instantly, like muscles contracting, the wall fibers seemed to squeal and began tightening, shrinking, squeezing themselves into a narrow radius. Cold, icy water from the sea poured in.

"I hope the kip'ts are nearby!" Chase yelled, over the roar the water. "Come on...squeeze through and start swimming."

Yuck!" Angie said. She made a face, waited for Liz Levy to slam her own body against the walls—she disappeared into the ocean water almost immediately-- then held her breath and did the same, jogging and throwing her full weight against the shrieking fibers.

Then she was underwater and the cold stabbed her like a million knives.

Angie thrashed and flailed for what seemed like hours, though it was only a few seconds. Strong hands grabbed her ankles and she initially tried to kick them away, then realized it had to be Chase and gave in. Moments later, she felt the hard sides of the kip't shoving against her rib cage and let herself be pulled inside.

Chase was in front of her, struggling to slam the canopy down over them. Finally, with a loud grunt and a few expletives, he managed to secure the kip't, though there was still a deep pool of icy water up to her thighs inside.

He twisted around, fired up the kip't controls and yelled, "Here we go! Hang on!"

He submerged the kip't, then threw up his hands, still puzzled over how to work the sonic controls of the sled but it didn't matter for the craft's maneuvers had already been programmed in. The kip't had a mind of its own and after descending a few meters into somewhat calmer waters, turned about, rocking in the currents, and headed north by northwest.

Outside, just barely visible in the foam and froth of the surface scant meters above them, Chase and Angie could just make out the shape of nearby kip'ts; there seemed to a dozen of them, sliding in and out of view.

"Tulcheah made good on her word," he told Angie. "There's a whole fleet around us. Must be a dozen or more."

"I don't care," Angie decided. "I just want to go home. Or at least to someplace dry, where there's air and people and family—" she wanted to cry, wondering whether her granddaughter Oostannah had ever made it home herself. But _no_ , she wouldn't succumb to tears, not here, not now, not this time.

There was still work to be done at Kinlok Island.
Chapter 15

"Success consists not in never mistaking mistakes but in never making the same one a second time."

George Bernard Shaw

Seome

Kinlok Island

Time: 012.2, Epoch of Tulcheah (Time stream T-229)

Working furiously and feverishly, the Umans made critical repairs to the Time Twister, assisted by a throng of Ponkti, Omtorish and Skortish engineers, craftsmen and weavers. The remaining chronotron pods, the ones that could be found and salvaged, were repaired and re-installed. The outer casing of the Twister was sealed with tchin'ting fiber and netting woven by the Ponkti. The Skortish, with their intimate knowledge of volcanic materials and fires, shored up the Twister's foundations on the seabed, adding new tensioning and stabilizing cables sewn by even more Ponkti weavers.

Chase had been made _tekmetah_ to the Metah of Ponk'et, now a free-bound, credentialed subject of Her Majesty Tulcheah, sworn by the Kel'em, and given the mission of helping repair the Twister and saving the whole planet. It was a job he didn't ask for. It was like when his Dad had told him he was going to be doing inventory every Sunday afternoon at the shop. Chase hated doing inventory. Sunday afternoons were for beach-combing. Diving. Swimming. Flirting. Anything but inventory.

They had a big machine to put back together. And nobody knew, least of all Chase Meyer or the Umans, if the damn thing would work or not.

It was kind of like doing a set with the Croc-Boys. You started a number, you finished it. No halfway stuff. The _go-tone_ only made music if you plucked it, if you stayed with it. Even when your fingers were cut and bleeding and your wrists ached from all the practice, you stayed with it.

Chase had to talk himself into his new role as chief engineer, project manager, head kelke and General of the Army. He knew he wasn't up to any of those roles. But you stayed with it. That's what the Croc-Boys always did.

Every kel had sent an expedition to Kinlok. Now, as Chase's kip't nosed over the edge of the chasm of Likte Trench, he saw the sections of the Twister laid out like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle on the seabed, slings and nets full of chronotron pods, mooring cables, foundation pads, all the parts that somehow, they had to put back together.

Not to mention re-connecting the singularity engine and testing it to see if the thing would do what it was supposed to again.

Straight away, under guidance from Dringoth's people, the force set to work.

For many days, they worked long hours. Chase was everywhere, using the memory tab Commander Golich had given him, to guide the process... _put this here, attach that there, plug this into that and I think these fit like this_...only when fatigue set in and he could no longer keep his eyes open, did Chase relent and rest. He slept every night, fitfully, in the back of his kip't. But never more than a few hours and when he could no longer sit still, driven by the knowledge that so many kelke, indeed the Metah herself, and probably the whole planet and all its kels, were depending on him, he left the kip't and sometimes roamed alone about the worksite, just watching.

Seome had become a gigantic Turtle Key Surf and Board Shop and he was now the manager. He didn't know if he liked it or not but he'd discovered more about himself in these days than for his whole life before. Reserves of strength and stamina, reserves of resourcefulness, a well of determination and pure grit that no one, least of all Chase Meyer, ever knew was there.

First came the foundation pads, buried deeply in the seabed and supported by rock and anchors securing them to the hard limestone of the Likte plain. After the foundation pads were in place, anchors for mooring cables were set in place. Then the broken but now repaired sections of the Twister's outer shell and casing were towed by kip'ts and attached to the cables. Fasteners were a puzzle. The Umans had some and could print more but the Seomish didn't like them or understand them. Instead, a paste mixed of k'orpuh blood and sand was used to secure the casing sections to the mooring cables.

"Very strong," insisted one Sk'ortish engineer. "Flexible and tough...we use them for pal'penk trains...the animals can still maneuver but it gives them enough room to move with the currents."

Chase had little choice to but to let the kelke with the real knowledge do their jobs. _Chase's First Rule of Management:_ get good people and get out of the way. He figured if he ever got back to Keenomsh'pont, he'd lay all this management knowledge on the local authorities and get everything humming like his old Suzuki bike.

After the casing sections had been towed into place and fastened to their moorings, the sections had to be joined together. More k'orpuh blood paste. Then came the chronotron pods, rounded up from their holding nets and positioned on top of the Twister, the part that rose above the surface. Here Chase, a creature of the Notwater, did much of the precision work, working with M'Bela and Golich and Acth:On'e, shoving and heaving the pods into their mounts and securing them with k'orpuh paste and an odd Orketish joint called seamother's teeth. Not actually teeth, though Chase wondered, but composite hinged claws and grabbers that clenched opposing sides of a structure just like a mouth filled with teeth clenched its prey.

After many days of exhausting work, it was time for a brave crew to dive into the deepest part of the Likte Trench and retrieve the singularity engine, which had been removed from the Twister for safe keeping.

It was a ticklish operation, fraught with danger and Dringoth decided that Golich would lead the crew. To help him, he chose Chase and two others: a Ponkti weaver named Kuktor and a Sk'ortish technician named Yaktu. And right away, Chase saw that there would be problems. Kuktor and Yaktu couldn't get along.

It started when the crew was staging a vast sling and float device. The sling was woven of tchinting fiber, Kuktor's specialty. The Ponkti weaver was very protective, even defensive, of his work. Yaktu struggled with the fiber, trying to bend it far enough to form a knot of sorts, something to cinch up two ends and close a loop so the sling could be fastened to a float. The plan was to attach the sling ends to the singularity engine pallet and float it out of the trench, indeed all the way to the surface. There, Chase and Golich, clad in hypersuits, would climb up onto the Twister deck, drag the pallet to the central core tube of the Twister and deposit the engine in its bay there.

"This blasted fiber's too tough," Yaktu complained. "The weave's too tight...I can't bend it. If you'd done your job right, this wouldn't be happening."

"If you knew anything about tchin'ting," retorted Kuktor, "you'd know where to make your bend. Nothing wrong with the fiber...it's the joiner who doesn't get it!"

The argument had been flaring for hours, until Yaktu couldn't take it anymore. He dropped his end and went right at Kuktor and a full-fledged brawl ensued. Before Chase heard it and came as fast as he could, more had joined in. A cat fight of tumbling, slashing, stabbing bodies flashed before him. Grabbing several others, Chase waded in to the tussle, got a beak in the face, and was slapped silly by someone's tail. It took Ponkti prods, strong words, curses and determined referees from Eep'kos and Sk'ort to finally break the fight up.

The battling kelke separated reluctantly and hovered nearby, glaring at each other. Chase stayed in the middle.

"That's enough! _Enough_ of this...all you guys do is bicker and argue and fight." He hoped his echopod was conveying his disgust with the whole situation. "You want to come with me to the Notwater and see with your own eyes why we're here? Your world's falling apart. That sun up there's dying. The water's getting colder, saltier. Stop this bitching and moaning and jabbing at each other...you guys aren't enemies. The real enemy's up there—" he pointed toward the Notwater. "The real enemy's the assholes who slammed your sun. Don't you get it...no sun, no Seome. How about a little shoo'kel, for once, huh?" He didn't even know if he'd used _that_ word right, but at least no one was snickering. "Now, let's get back to work and get this job done."

Little escapades like this happened every day. But in time, under Dringoth's relentless hounding and the pressure of time, the work crews bent to their task and disputes became fewer.

The singularity engine was gingerly floated out of the trench and rose like a fistful of whirlpools up toward the surface. Chase and Golich, along with Yaktu and Kuktor, helped guide the ascent, pulling and manipulating on steering cables, to keep the thing straight. Still fastened to its pallet, the engine couldn't actually be seen for all the foam and froth its currents generated. Rising steadily, the engine looked like a big mobile water drain, currents and waves and white-hot steam bubbling in a stewpot of turbulence. It seemed to be sucking in all the water around them and Chase ordered all non-essential kelke to back off a good distance.

When the pallet broke the surface, it vented and hissed and crackled like a lightning bolt, churning the seas around it for dozens of meters. Yaktu had designed a hoist arrangement to haul the crate up onto the Twister deck and across its outer shell to the core tube at the apex of the huge dish-shaped structure. The maneuver took several hours but when the singularity engine was unhooked and slid off its pallet into the tube, Chase, Golich and Yaktu all cheered, though their cheers were muffled from within their suits.

The wormhole generator slid down roughly into its tube, still crackling, venting and hissing and was gone.

_Now, to hook it all up,_ Golich told them, _and flip the ON switch_.

While precariously perched on the slope of the Twister deck, some twenty meters above the surface, Chase took a moment to study his surroundings.

It was clear, in comparison to his last trip topside, that the light level had dropped off considerably. Seome was always cloudy but this was more like twilight. The winds howled and the surf was rough, throwing ten-meter waves over the edge of the Twister deck. Chase couldn't see Seome's sun through the gray scud but, if this was midday—and there was no way to tell, really—then the amount of light trickling through had fallen off. He knew what Golich and the Umans had told him...that the Coethi enemy had done something to the sun and it might not survive long. The Coethi starball weapon knocked stars off their normal sequence, sending them to their deaths, often by supernova if they were big enough.

And the effects of the damaged star-sun Sigma Albeth B on Seome were already well apparent to everyone.

Chase was both surprised and gratified that the conflicts among the kels did not ultimately affect the tight schedule Captain Dringoth had set for them. "Maybe Tulcheah's right," he told Angie late one day, watching another skimmer loaded with gear make its run out to the Twister site. "There really is a new epoch on Seome."

Angie agreed. "I don't think I've ever seen humans and Seomish cooperate like this. It certainly doesn't happen on Earth, not in our time. It took some doing, but now—"

"This _is_ a different time...you know, we've already seriously affected the worldline. But you're right...this kind of cooperation is unheard of. It's like there's some kind of union between Earth and Seome now."

"It won't last long if the Twister doesn't work," said Nathan Golich, who had just climbed down the precipice to stand on the beach next to them. "We'll be making our first all-up test tomorrow. You need to be in the control hut with the rest of us."

"I want one of the Seomish there with me," Chase said.

Golich watched as the skimmer was beached for a few moments, and peered up at the twilight sky. "Captain just got new orders from TACTRON...they're requesting reasons for why we haven't left this place and jumped to Sturdivant 2180...to the frontlines. There's some kind of major fleet action being planned in that sector."

Chase asked, "How did the Captain respond?"

Golich took a deep breath. "TACTRON ordered us to render the Twister useless to an enemy and to abandon this base. We've done pretty much the exact opposite...repaired it and now we're leaving a functional Mark I displacement weapon in the hands of you and a race of talking fish." He chuckled. "It's a good thing we got URME regenerated. URME's helping Captain with the wording of our reply now...I can't wait to see that."

Chase eyed the pale daub of light that was Sigma Albeth B. "You think the sun'll hold out?"

Golich shrugged, pulled his jacket tighter against the icy wind. "Hard to say. It depends on what Coethi does. We're already tracking a disturbance in local voidtime...probably another recon by the Bugs. If the Twister doesn't test out properly tomorrow, maybe against that recon force if it shows up, your sun up there can't last much longer. Bugs'll pump a few more starballs into her and then---kablooey! You don't want to be around when that happens."

Chase blinked. "I already was...once...in a different worldline of this time stream."

"Go get your Seomish friend...the one you want to learn how the Twister operates. Dringoth wants to conduct a little class tomorrow...time displacement 101."

Test day dawned dim and windy, with the usual sleet and ice fog permeating Kinlok Island. Inside the control hut, the entire crew of _Cygnus_ had assembled, along with Kasmeerah and others from _Aquarius_.

Dringoth was the instructor. "Overnight, as we expected, Coethi jumped out of voidtime at the outer edge of this star system. Maybe a couple hundred billion kilometers out. It's a small force, probably probing and recon. They know we're here but they don't really know what we've got. URME's tracking them now."

The Unit Reserve Memory Entity had been regenerated and hovered over a small console in the back of the hut, its swarm config somewhat loose and blurry but no one cared now. "Still bearing on our position, Captain. Long-range scan indicates that the formation is a diffuse cluster of discrete elements of mean size approximately twenty-five nanometers main dimension. Probability that this formation is a swarm of nanobotic elements now approaching ninety-four percent."

Dringoth frowned. "Swell. The Bugs are about to get a serious lesson in time displacement physics. With this panel—" he waved his hand over a small circular bump and the gesture was immediately interpreted by the system controller, "I am enabling the singularity core. Now the Twister is powered up and the twist buffers are filling. Once URME gives me a valid tracking solution, I'll lock the solution into the controller and tell the system what threshold has to be met for the Twister to discharge the buffers."

"Then, _poof_ ," said Golich, standing nearby. "Bugs vanish...yanked to the other side of the galaxy we hope...maybe the other side of the Universe. Nobody really knows how it works."

Kasmeerah and Chase looked on as Dringoth continued his explanations. "We just know that the Mark I Twister works. But it's not a play toy. And if Time Guard ever finds out I've left a functioning Time Twister in the hands of a bunch of talking fish---there's goes my commission...probably my head too. URME--?"

URME hovered over his tracking console. "Valid target, Captain. Dimensions unchanged. Bearing unchanged. Based on pulse rate and voidtime disturbance pattern, I have locked target solution in."

Dringoth smiled a mirthless smile. "Twist buffers are now full, focuser online, emitter trained in. Here goes..." The Captain uncovered another circular bump, snapping open the clear cover that shielded it from accidental touch. He then waved a hand slowly over the bump.

Outside the hut, a tremendous shudder shook the entire hill and island. The already dim twilight abruptly went dark for a second, then slowly returned, as if the heavens had blinked above them. Moment by moment, the twilight returned.

Golich explained. "That was round one. The twist buffers discharged and sent an emission cone of twist field out into space."

URME tracked their target. "No signal, Captain. I'm not seeing anything now. Element cluster has been dispersed...no valid signal return at his time."

Evelyn M'Bela pumped a fist. " _Yes_! First TD kicks ass again!"

Dringoth went to stand beside URME. "Looks like whatever was left skedaddled back into voidtime. We seemed to have taught the Bugs a painful lesson."

"Don't come around here messing with First Time Displacement Battery," M'Bela exulted.

"I don't know how long they'll stay away," Dringoth went on. "And now they know what we have on Storm. The Bugs have been probing this sector for some time because it's a gateway to the Lower Halo...and Newton's Jaw. Now they know we mean to defend it...or rather you'll be defending it." His eyes met Chase with meaning.

Chase swallowed hard. "I think Kas and I understand how the Twister works."

"Sure," Kasmeerah said, "we can operate this thing."

They glanced at each other with sucked-up courage they didn't really feel.

"Your biggest problem," Dringoth added, "is that sun up there. Sigma's taken a few starball hits already. I don't know if she's been knocked off her main sequence yet or not...or how close she is to imploding. It's a safe bet she can't take too many more starballs."

Chase drew in a deep breath. "It's already happened in another worldline. And millions died on this world. Kas and I, all of the Seomish here, aim to change that worldline and keep it from happening again."

Dringoth seemed ready to wash his hands of the whole affair. "Then you're on your own. Good luck, son. You'll need it. _Cygnus_ is already packed up and checked out. We leave tomorrow at dawn...or what passes for dawn around here. At least, you have your own ship to get away, if you have to."

Now Alicia Yang, _Cygnus'_ Defense Systems tech, cleared her throat. "Captain--?"

Dringoth snapped a finger. "Ah, yes, I almost forgot. Last night, my crew and I met to go over preparations for the jump. Jumpmaster Yang here has volunteered to stay behind for awhile, just to make sure you don't send yourselves off into oblivion. I'll work it out with TACTRON...URME's helped me fashion some reasonably believable explanations. For now, Jumpmaster Yang stays behind to 'oversee final teardown and safing of the Twister,' exactly according to TACTRON orders. They don't have to know the details. And, with any luck, we'll be back to pick her up after the engagement at Sturdivant."

Yang was a redhead, short bristly carrot hair under her service cap. "I'm looking forward to working with the Seomish and learning more about their world."

"That's it then. I'm ordering my crew to get some rest. Son, if I were you, I'd spend as much time in this hut as I could, as long as Yang's willing to teach you, and learn every circuit and switch in here. Nobody knows everything about the Twister and what you don't know can bite you."

"I will do that, sir," Chase said. He shook hands with Dringoth. "And thanks, Captain. I know you're taking a big risk leaving us with a working Twister. But it's vital. It's the only way Seome survives."

With that, the crew of _Cygnus_ left the hut, save for Yang and headed for their own ship. Briefings, a meal, and final prep awaited them for the next day's launch and jump.

Chase turned to Yang. "Just once more, Jumpmaster. Go over the enable and firing sequence again...and what all can go wrong."

"Surely," Yang said. Just promise me one thing."

"What's that?"

"When all this is done and we've pushed the Bugs out of this sector, take me down below the surface in one of your little subs. I want to see everything this world has to offer."

"It's a promise. And I'll even show you something called _em'took_."

"Em-what? What is it?"

"A little procedure the Seomish have perfected. You become kind of amphib, like me and Angie. You can live among the Seomish more easily."

Yang nodded. "I'd like to learn more. Maybe someday, when my Time Guard commission's up, I'll come back here and retire."

Chase and Angie awoke early the next morning and left _Aquarius_ to watch the Umans depart. They stood together, in each other's arms in the gusty wind, squinting through the sleet atop an icy escarpment overlooking the other ship. They heard the low whine of the jumpship and saw it disappear momentarily in a haze of whirling sand. On the ground, rockets were the rule. Displacement engines tended to drag whole planets into voidtime if they were used too near to them. A parabolic orbit was needed first, to take advantage of Sigma Albeth's enormous gravity well.

The jumpship rode a spear of flame into the heavens and soon vanished in the clouds. The thunder of her rockets pealed across the beach and echoed off the cliffs, resounding for several minutes afterward. Chase let the image settle in his mind.

The sea was rising in the bay and swept over the beach with scalding, hissing breakers, quickly erasing the last evidence of the Uman camp. Beyond the headlands, heavy swells boiled and dense hot mist soon blanketed everything. Even with the frigid blasts of wind, Angie found the water too hot to stand and climbed out onto the sand bank, itself slowly crumbling under the relentless assault of the surf. A dull red glow glinted off the rock cliffs behind her, diffusing in the mist like a false sunset.

Within the hour, they both knew the starball might well reduce Storm to molten slag. Already, it outshone the sun; in a quarter of the sky from which Sigma Albeth never gleamed, a broad swath of light burned a blinding radiance. Facing it, Chase and Angie felt the heat and radiation immediately. They turned away and cupped water over their eyes, heedless of the way their skin flushed in the heat. Angie fanned herself dry.

"The Bugs must have left that one on a delayed timer," Chase remarked. "The sun won't be able to take too many more of those."

"Let's back to camp, get Kas and everybody up," Angie suggested. "The Twister controls should be manned at all times."

Chase agreed and they trudged back across the pebbly ground to the other side of the hill, then carefully picked their way down the slope to _Aquarius_ to rouse the rest of the crew.

Near Keaton's World

Halo Alpha, Sector 7

Time Stream T-408

Time Stream T-229

The trip across Uman space from Sigma Albeth B to Sturdivant 2180 would take several weeks, following the best worldlines in T-408. Monthan Dringoth, with help from URME, had chosen a worldline course that would put them in the system sometime before Sturdivant had been swarmed.

One day, after a generally successful set of crew drills and exercises, Dringoth amused himself by going over some after-action reports in an informal history he had written years before. Umans had been in conflict with the Coethi for some time now...

2810 AD: Encounter at Gibbons Grotto. Eight years after the Battle of the Gauntlet, the Coethi decided to send a force recon element into the Sturdivant system, near the intersection of the Inner Spiral and Lower Halo, a contested region of space known colloquially as The Bulge. They made a covert penetration at Keaton's World, the fifth planet and began reconnoitering and systematically eliminating human settlements in the great underground ice labyrinth known as the Hollows, inside a satellite of Keaton's World called Gibbons' Grotto. This dwarf planet was hollow inside with thousands of kilometers of caves, caverns, grottoes, mazes and warrens. The Coethi force was eventually engaged by Time Guard forces commanded by (now) Ultrarch-Captain Dringoth, who had to fan out through thousands of kilometers of caves, tunnels and warrens, and systematically engage and eliminate the Coethi. It was a dirty, grinding, bloody and barbaric campaign (reminiscent of Iwo Jima in another time and place) ("Uncommon valor was a common virtue').

2812 AD: After Gibbons' Grotto, Time Guard decided to set up a new weapon to sweep certain critical sectors of disputed space clean of Coethi and resolutely defend these sectors. The new weapon was called a Time Twister. It was an area weapon. Installing and using the Time Twister was supposed to allow Time Guard to more efficiently patrol critical time streams with limited jumpship resources, while 'sanitizing' critical sectors of the Lower Halo.

During his recovery and rehab from the Grotto, Dringoth was approached by Time Guard senior leadership about receiving his first command: that of a Time Displacement Battery. A new defensive weapon had been developed in Time Corps labs. The Time Twister was designed to be installed and operated by a static crew on a given planet or satellite. The Battery would have primary defensive responsibilities and missions for a given sector of space.

Dringoth was hesitant at first ("I thought I was on a fast-track to flag rank....") but when a promotion of two grades, all the way to Ultrarch-Major, was dangled in front of him, he agreed. Here was a chance to really distinguish himself. Plus, he would have the honor of commanding the lead Time Twister battery in a new command. Dringoth figured he could almost write his own book.

He agreed. After some initial training and familiarization with Time Twister ops (he helped develop the CONOPS and wrote some of the doctrinal materials), he led his first Battery crew to a newly scouted world in the Sigma Albeth B system, an undistinguished and dreary backwater oceanic world known to Umans as Storm. The planet and the star system were strategically located in the Lower Halo region known as Halo-Alpha. It was a vital crossroads between Uman settlements in the Halo and the Inner Spiral.

So, it came to be that Ultrarch-Captain Monthan Dringoth and his crew of six, with a jumpship called Cygnus at their disposal and the Mark 1 version of the Time Twister, an untested weapon upon which much hope was being placed, settled onto a small island called Kinlok on this wet hellhole of a world aptly known as Storm.

It wasn't long before they realized they weren't alone.

Dringoth was about to dictate a new entry when Nathan Golich popped his head into the captain's stateroom on B deck.

"Just thought you'd like to know, Captain. We'll be dropping out of this worldline into the Sturdivant system in about an hour. Songland should be dead ahead, a day away at most. Still want a shadow orbit?"

Dringoth looked up from his tiny desk. "In close too, Commander. That's TACTRON's orders. Just to be sure, I want to sweep the ship up and down the time stream as far as this worldline will let us. We're heading into the Sturdivant system, but in another time, before she was swarmed by the Bugs. I just want to make sure all her worlds are still there: K-World, Gibbons' Grotto, Halifax, Tabora, Songland...all the settlements that should be there, that they're still there in T-001."

Golich acknowledged. "Understood, sir. TACTRON is still coming aboard for a briefing?"

Dringoth said, "That was the latest we received on encrypted Z-band. Check with URME, just to be sure. We have a rendezvous with TACTRON shuttle and her escorts at Songland...some kind of new base, new sentinel system being set up there."

"I just hope we have the firepower assembled to drive the Bugs off this time," Golich said.

"TACTRON has the latest intel from T2. He'll give us the word."

_Cygnus_ made heliocentric orbit around Sturdivant at the farthest reaches of her gravity well the next day, some forty billion kilometers from the orange-red Class K star and dropped smartly into what the strategists liked to call a shadow orbit around her most distant world...Songland. The icy rubble pile would soon host an ops center and control station for the now-building Sentinel system, designed to detect the approach of any Bug formations from a multitude of vectors in deep space.

As ordered, TACTRON's shuttle lifted off from the surface of the world and made rendezvous with _Cygnus_ hours later.

TACTRON came aboard and Dringoth saluted. The prospect of acknowledging officer-level respect to a para-human swarm entity, a sort of glorified URME, had never gone down well for Dringoth but TACTRON had the rank and the authority.

"Shall we adjourn to the wardroom, sir?" Dringoth inquired.

"Of course." TACTRON followed Dringoth down the gangway—flowed would be a better description for it was apparent that this configuration of TACTRON didn't have the smooth textured, edgeless appearance of URME's latest config. But Dringoth knew better than to say anything. It would have been like pointing out to your commander that his fly was unzipped.

In the wardroom, TACTRON waved a hand about the room and a small mist of bots sloughed off the end of his arm, forming an impenetrable nanobotic barrier along every seam and vent. The wardroom quickly became a cocoon inside B deck.

"What I have to say is sensitive and compartmented, Time Guard Ultra-Purple and for your eyes only, Captain."

"Of course." Dringoth didn't bother offering tea to the thing. Swarms seldom imbibed anything so mundane in such settings.

TACTRON waved his hands again, gathering and shaping a photon lens overhead, like a small screen enveloped in smoke. The display looked like a small cloud but images quickly formed within.

"The Sentinel system is almost complete," he launched into the briefing. "Operation _Sentinel_ is designed to reconnoiter the vicinity of the planetesimal Songland, and the space around it. Sentinel is designed to deploy a network of robotic sentries and stations in space around Songland and a large part of its orbital arc to provide warning of the approach of any swarms or anything unusual entering the outer solar system. The Sentinel Net is oriented to be particularly sensitive to any phenomena coming from the direction of 51 Pegasi, from the direction of the constellation Pegasus."

Dringoth already knew all this. "Does T2 expect any probes in this sector?"

"Statistical analysis of previous Coethi operations in this sector, this side of the Bulge and the Graveyard, indicates that likely probes and actions will assume forms and patterns common to Coethi's most recent movements."

" _Maskirovka_?"

"Exactly," said TACTRON. The swarm attempted to sit in a chair, not quite successfully, Dringoth noticed, rather flowing over and around the furniture. "Correlation and regression analysis show that the masquerade tactic is a common mode of operation for the Bugs. They like to appear suddenly, infiltrate a system as an innocent-looking dust cloud, then work their way in closer to a central star and spring the assault full-scale when our defenses are down. Sentinel's designed specifically to look for these dust clouds."

Dringoth knew all this too. Time jumpers had long had the ability to make relatively quick time stream changes. These temporal shifts allowed time jumpers to move to positions of greater advantage or leverage, depending on the tactical situation. For example: moving your jump squad to a temporal position further upstream (i.e. back into the past in the same time stream) could give you the advantage of preventing the enemy from ever appearing, even ever existing. This was the time jumper's version of the old sailor's adage of the 'wind gauge.' These shifts could provide a ready-made source of deceptive countermeasures for concealment, allowing a typical Time Guard unit to infiltrate and spring a surprise on even the most suspicious adversary. The Russians had once called this tactic _maskirovka_. And the Coethi had used this tactic a lot in recent engagements.

"What _Cygnus'_ role in all this, sir?"

Here, the TACTRON swarm brightened a bit—probably a swarm version of having a thought, Dringoth figured—then left its chair and drifted amorphously about the wardroom, as if the thing were restless.

"Commandstar wants _Cygnus_ to front a patrol op in this sector. Give us eyes and ears and sniffers along with Sentinel. You'll land a small crew at the control station down below and make regular and routine sweeps along the sectors I'll give you, making sure everything's working properly and Sentinel hasn't missed anything. Investigate anything that doesn't look like it belongs: an ice cloud, a few dust motes, increased thermal or EM activity where it shouldn't be, a stray rock, anything out of the ordinary.,"

Dringoth blinked. " _Cygnus_ is to function as a sentry out here, that's all? Sir, with all due respects, we're more than capable of contributing to any fleet actions closer to Sturdivant...or K-World."

"I know that, Captain," TACTRON said, "but Commandstar makes the rules and we all play our part. Now if you'll—"

But his words were suddenly interrupted by a warning klaxon sounding throughout the ship.

" _Contact is probable swarm in aspect change, Captain_ ," said ISAAC, the ship's AI. "Probable temporal shift...it just appeared from the other side of Songland, small-dimension swarm showing increased decoherence wake output, increased entanglement activity...recommend _Cygnus_ power up core to fifty percent."

Golich had been on duty on the command deck, running cyclical tests of ship systems. "What the hell?"

Over the 1MC, Dringoth gave the order. "Bugs surprised us...they must be getting ready to jump. ISAAC, full power to the singularity core. Queenie, get to your station and track 'em. Don't lose 'em. Maybe we can shred the swarm before they make the jump. The rest of you...buckle up at your seats."

Golich's fingers were flying over his console as Dringoth scrambled up the gangway to the command deck. The TACTRON swarm tried to follow. "If we can't, we'll have to track and try to follow."

Now ISAAC announced, " _Jump underway...temporal burst...massive flux along time stream interface...I am attempting to follow the track—"_

By the time Dringoth had made it to his console, M'Bela's voice crackled through the ship's 1MC.

"Captain, they just jumped, but they left a decent trail...just like bread crumbs. Looks like T-229. Strong emissions...big flux along that heading."

"Okay, Queenie, give me a vector and start the count. All hands, prepare for a jump. This one's going to be rough...buckle up!"

Golich read off M'Bela's counter. "Three...two...one... _mark_!"

Dringoth twisted a keyed knob on his console.

And _Cygnus_ lurched violently again into the river of time.

At URME's signal, Monthan Dringoth slammed _Cygnus_ ' flow vanes out full and punched the ship hard over, right into the faint, barely perceptible fingers of Time Stream T-229. Like a cocked fist, T-229 grabbed them and yanked them out of the mainstream and into the midst of a million yesterdays.

After that, he slumped back in his seat and let the black hole of the Zone-Out wash over him.

The jumpship shuddered and hurtled out of the time stream, in a flash of light, a roaring rush of deceleration, knocking Dringoth and Golich hard against their seat harnesses. Still trapped on the edge of the vortex, Dringoth struggled to regain consciousness and, by instinct and training, rammed the ship's rudder hard over, while firing her jets to counteract the residual force of the spin. For a moment, they were both pinned sideways against the cockpit, until the force of the jets shot them through the core of the vortex and out into calmer world of truetime.

"Sounding smoother flow, Captain...rough and turbulent, but visibility improving. I can pulse ahead...looks like we made it...to somewhere."

"And some when," Dringoth said. "Queenie, give me a hack. Where and when are we?"

M'Bela was still groggy but functional. Her fingers played over her board, checking their position and heading. "ChronoNav says we're where we're supposed to be...I read us as smack in the middle of T-229, sixty-two degrees down by thirty-four degrees left, drifting a bit off center. URME, do you concur? I really need to get topside and shoot some stars to know for sure."

URME was physically stationed at the engineering console on E deck. His hands played across the keyboard in a blur. "Analyzing now, sir...Captain, detecting massive decoherence wake, dead ahead, forty-two thousand one hundred and five kilometers. Could be the Coethi...lots of entanglement ripping spacetime around that heading."

"Is it the Coethi?"

"Can't determine yet, sir. I'm asking ISAAC for a full sensor sweep."

Dringoth studied his board. "Where exactly are we?"

M'Bela tapped a few keys. "ISAAC puts us still in heliocentric orbit about Sturdivant, but barely and way out...forty-four billion kilometers at least. Songland is way behind us now, seventeen billion kilometers, other side of her orbit."

Dringoth made his decision. "I'm bringing us closer to that disturbance. It has to be our target. ISAAC, can you resolve the target?"

The ship's AI said back, " _Long-range scan indicates that the formation is a diffuse cluster of discrete elements of mean size approximately twenty-five nanometers main dimension..."_

"I like it," Dringoth decided. "URME, bring the collapser on line."

The next few minutes saw _Cygnus_ maneuvering along a tangential approach, dropping lower and lower in Sturdivant's gravity well to gain speed, come up below the Coethi formation. The enemy swarm maintained a steady course and there was as yet no repetition of their displacement maneuver, where the Coethi could yank themselves to another place in an instant, just by manipulating quantum states.

Finally, _Cygnus_ was within range. URME had gone aft again to make sure the collapser controls on E deck were operating as well as possible.

The swarm entity pressed SYSTEM ENABLE.

M'Bela was in the middle of wringing computations out of ISAAC when something slammed _Cygnus_...hard. Lights flashed on and off and the command deck went dark, with a faint hiss and burning smell thickening in the cabin, before backup power kicked in.

They were in a spin, increasing in rate and already the crew could feel centrifugal force building up. Behind them, the TACTRON swarm was dispersing, fading out, as if it had been hit.

"What the hell--!" Golich's hands swept across his board, re-setting systems, checking busses and breakers, following diagnostic prompts. ISAAC's silky voice was barely audible over the warning klaxons of the Master Alarm.

" _Displacer impact...I am assuming command per emergency protocol E-1...ship systems at degraded level...time stream interface approaching...contact in twelve seconds...eleven...ten...."_

Dringoth was out cold. TACTRON was loose atoms. URME had lost config control and tried to gather himself back into some kind of recognizable form. M'Bela was nursing a slight head injury; the impact of whatever Coethi had slammed them with had sent her careening into a hull stanchion.

Up front, Golich was conscious, barely, gritting his teeth against the centrifugal force.

_Got to get_ Cygnus _under control...got to swing her back into the stream...before we hit the barrier wall...._

If it had been a displacer round that had hit them—time jumpers called it a twist loop— _Cygnus_ had likely been thrown a long way in space and time from her last position, to another time and place in the time stream. They could easily be God knew where inside T-229. They could easily have been thrown completely out of T-229 to another time stream. Worse, if _Cygnus_ was near the edge of the time stream...oriented just the wrong way....

Nathan Golich heard M'Bela stirring behind him but he didn't have time to help her. He had to get _Cygnus_ under control... _NOW_...before she made contact with the outer wall of the time stream.

But contact came before the TT1 could bring the ship around.

In an instant, they were yanked out of the time stream, spinning, rolling and yawing liked a top. For Nathan Golich, the first impulse was like a giant fist had grabbed him and started squeezing. He was whirling and spinning, dizzy, round and round, he could feel the force of the spin against his head, pressing, crushing him—

With a hard bump, his whole body jarred from the impact and when he opened his eyes, caught his breath and came to his senses, he was...where?

His last surviving thought came unbidden, like bad news from a doctor.

They called it voidtime.

_Cygnus_ and her crew were never heard from again.

Seome

Kinlok Island

Time: 013.5, Epoch of Tulcheah (Time stream T-229)

Chase and Angie had been watching the skimmer come and go from the Twister site, accompanied by all manner of kip'ts as the Seomish crews struggled to service and maintain the time displacement weapon. All afternoon, they had stationed themselves on the rocky escarpment overlooking the narrow spit of beach below to watch and supervise operations. Kasmeerah was with them, operating a signaler to communicate new instructions to the crew leaders out at sea.

Kas was the one who noticed Alicia Yang approaching from the hillside behind them. _Cygnus'_ defense tech had stayed behind when the jumpship departed, to help Chase and the Seomish keep up the Twister.

Her face was grim as she came up.

Angie saw her look of concern. "What is it? What's happened?"

Yang held out a small cube in her palm. "The last few days, I've been trying to grab anything I could off coupler Z-band, the encrypted circuit. Mostly I was getting nothing but scraps, whistles, echoes, snatches of signals. Until a short while ago—"

"What did you get?"

"This." The cube rolled around in the palm of her hand.

"What does it say?"

Yang sat down on the rocks and stared out to sea, watching all the activities below them. "There _was_ a major fleet engagement at Sturdivant. We suspected it was coming. Intel said the Bugs were likely to make a push in that sector."

"So how did it go?" Chase asked.

"We pushed them back...but there were casualties. A lot of casualties."

"How bad?" Angie didn't want to ask, but she forced herself to say the words.

"Well, the only world hit was Songland...the Bugs knew we had this Sentinel system. They went for that target straight away. And some ships were lost."

Angie felt her heart sink. "Which ships?"

"About half a dozen jumpships. One of them was _Cygnus_. She was apparently kicked into voidtime. Time Guard's got a search and rescue op going now but so far...nothing."

Chase felt a lump in his own throat. "That means _Cygnus_ may not be coming back."

Yang agreed. "Probably marooned in voidtime...or slammed into loose atoms if they're lucky." She looked up at Chase and Angie with a blank face, evolving slowly into shock. "And I guess I'm stuck here."

Nobody knew what to say, so nobody said anything for several moments. Kas climbed back to the control hut. Then Yang spoke up.

"Well, I did want to learn more about this world. I guess this is my chance."

"Can't you contact Time Guard?"

"Hey, you don't get it, do you? I'm a casualty. You know, solemn memorials, eulogies, that sort of thing. And who knows if the coupler will even work again."

"I'm sure someone will come back. You could come with us aboard _Aquarius."_

"Back where...to an Earth seven hundred years before I was born? That'll work out well."

Angie was about to offer more comforting platitudes when Chase interrupted.

"Look! There they are...a little late but finally—"

Yang looked out to sea. "What? You mean those little subs?"

Just beyond the surf line, two kip'ts had just appeared among the white foam and froth of the breakers. In tandem, each craft eased through the chop and beached itself below them.

From each craft, two Seomish emerged, four in all, all clad in mobilitor suits. They shuffled awkwardly to the bottom of the hill and then they noticed Chase, Angie and Yang up at the top of the cliff.

"We'd better go down there," Chase suggested. "They'll never be able to climb in those suits."

Two of the visitors were known to Chase. Mokleeoh loh, Metah of Omt'or and Tulcheah kim, Metah of Ponk'et, stood a bit stiff and wobbly, with their driver-escorts as the three Umans approached.

Tulcheah spoke first, her voice tinny and squawky coming through her echopod.

" _Shhkkrreah_...this is land...of the Notwater?"

"It is, Affectionate Metah. These are my Uman friends, Tailless friends. The Time Twister is out there. See how the kels cooperate in servicing the machine? You should be proud of them."

Tulcheah made some kind of hoarse bellow that didn't translate. Then: "It is well that... _zzzhhh_...wavemaker is shielded. The waters around are rough... _m't'kel_...agitated?"

Chase understood. "The soundshield blocks most of the waves and sound." He thought of the time he had spent in the city of Ponk't. "You came to see how the kels work together. Here, they don't fight."

Now Mokleeoh, not to be overlooked, said, " _Qqqzzkkllqq_... _eekoti_ Chase...is good the people have something else...to work on, no?"

"Very good. Keeps their minds occupied." Back to Tulcheah, who was shambling awkwardly about, testing her mobility on land. "You didn't bring Lektereenah."

Her answer created a squelch of clicks and whistles in the echopod. Finally, the translator spit out this: "Lektereenah was offered up to Lord Shooki."

Chase knew what that meant. The Ponkti, like all kels, sentenced troublemakers to exile in the Notwater, above the surface. Lektereenah was gone.

"There are other Tailless?" Mokleeoh asked.

"We're all that's left," Angie replied. She landed a hand on Alicia Yang's shoulder. "This one's stuck here. She stayed behind to help with the Twister."

"And her ship may have been lost...fighting the far enemy," Chase added. Yang tried a weak smile, but she was curious about this race of talking fish who wore walking suits to move about on land.

"Perhaps I could visit your cities," Yang suggested.

Mokleeoh seemed agreeable. " _Zzqqllkk_...she must have _em'took_. Better is this...to live among us."

Chase explained to Yang about the _em'took_ procedure. "It's part genetic, part microbial, part surgical. When it's over, you'll be like me and Angie, amphibs. You could live on land and in the water."

Yang figured she wasn't quite ready for that drastic a step. "I'll need some time...to decide."

Tulcheah seemed impatient. "We roam...see our kelke at work with each other."

"Yes," Chase agreed. "By all means...explore the installation. You'll be impressed with how well Ponkti work with Omtorish and Sk'ortish with Eep'kostic. It's really amazing."

Tulcheah said, "The _mekli_ have already blessed this undertaking...new echopods with Shooki's voice have been found among the ruins of the Pillars—"

Mokleeoh added, "Shooki favors us in this...more must be done to bring the _kel'vishtu_ home...to pulse what happens here. More immigrants will come back."

Tulcheah reached out awkwardly with her suited armfin and touched Chase on the face. "A long time ago, while we lived among the Urku, I came to _eekoti_ Chase and made a request."

Chase remembered, ignoring Angie's look of dismay that Tulcheah would be so familiar with her husband. "You wanted to come back here, to Seome, before it was destroyed. Before Seomish ways were lost on Urku. Now, here you are...with a functioning Twister to protect Seome from the far enemy."

"And the echopods of Lord Shooki have blessed all of this."

Mokleeoh was growing impatient. "Come, let's roam. See these wonders."

With that, Tulcheah, Mokleeoh and their escorts shambled back into the waves and shed their mobilitors. The foursome ducked under and flippered off to inspect the Twister installation and see the marvels of so many kels cooperating.

"Maybe they can apply to join the Alliance someday," Chase wondered out loud. "I'd be happy to sponsor them."

Yang just shook her head. "It would be a first, no doubt about it. Every other UA member is just Uman. A race of talking fish becoming members, even with the technology to survive on land? Keaton's World would never be the same...imagine the Assembly meetings."

"It would be like Sea Council meetings back on Earth," Chase decided. "Only bigger." He was thoughtful for a moment, watching the skimmer and all the other craft come and go servicing and repairing the Twister. "You know, I learned a new Seomish word when I was in Ponk't. My trainer, Delak, taught it to me."

Angie said, "Yeah? What is it?"

"It's _kel'tet_. The Ponkti are using it to describe the ones who came back, the Urku Ponkti. I think it means something like a 'new family,' new births into a family. My echopod sometimes translates it as 'union.' Like there's a new connection between Earth and Seome."

Angie shrugged. "Seems appropriate. They are changing, aren't they? The Seomish, I mean."

"And fast."

Angie hooked her arms inside Chase's as Yang ventured down closer to the shore, wading out into the icy water a few meters. She watched for a moment, then came back.

"You have hypersuits in _Aquarius_?

"We have five, lockers down on F deck, by the lockout chamber. Why?"

"I'd like to take a swim, see all this for myself. Since I'm stuck here anyway."

"Help yourself. The ship's not locked."

Yang climbed the hill and scampered off to the other jumpship.

After she was gone, Angie looked up at Chase. Their arms were still interlocked.

"The Seomish aren't all that's changed, you know."

Chase detected something in her voice. And there was a gleam in her eye. "What do you mean?"

"I wasn't sure before...but now...after my wristpad confirmed it, I am."

"Sure of--?"

"Being pregnant. I was going to wait until we got back to Earth, but now seems as good a time as any."

"Preg—" Chase swallowed the word. "I—when---I mean, we're not so young anymore."

She smiled. "Well, some things don't change, Chase Meyer. Even for us amphibs."

Chase hugged her, squeezed her hands in his. "We'll have to make a decision."

"Oh, there's lots of those to be made. Like should we return to Earth? Or stay here."

Chase took a deep breath. "Maybe we can do both."

"What do you mean? I'd like to have the child on Earth."

"Oh, we can do that. I just mean Seome has become like a second home to us. And now, with the Twister, we can drive off any Bugs that come calling. The Farpool's pretty stable. We understand that well enough."

"Sure," Angie said, though she wasn't sure at all. "I imagine we'll be traveling pretty regularly between the two worlds. It's just that I want my child to grow up on Earth."

"Agreed," said Chase. "But we'll come back here often. Visit all our friends."

"Yeah," Angie decided. "It'll be like having a second home, on the beach."

With that, they decided to follow Yang up the hill, across the island and head back to _Aquarius_.

END
Appendix

(also downloaded from Oostannah's Echopod Journal)

The Language

Seomish is designed phonetically to carry well in a water medium. Hard, clicking consonants are common. The 'p' or 'puh' sound, made by violent expulsion of air is also common. Modulation of the voice stream, particularly at high frequencies (sounding much like a human whistle) produces the characteristic "wheeee" sound, which is a root of many words. Translation from Seomish to human languages like English requires some inspired speculation, since so many Seomish phrases seem to be little more than grunts or groans, modulated in frequency and duration.

Most Seomish words are grouped according to several characteristics: (1) Who is speaking (the personal); (2) who is being spoken to (the indicative); (3) state of mind of the speaker (the conditional); (4) the kel-standing of the conversants (the intimant).

Each classification has a set of characteristic pre-consonants, to indicate the nature of the coming words, etc. Thus:

  1. k', kee, t'

  2. tch, g, j, oot

  3. m', p', puh' (both anger, dislike, distaste, etc), sh, sz (both joyful)

  4. each kel identifies itself with a unique set of capitalized consonants, like a vocal coat of arms. Example: t'milee, or CHE'oray...Seomish versus Timily or Chory...English.

The World

Seome is a planet somewhat smaller than Earth, 98% covered in water. There are approximately 30 islands that comprise the total land mass of the planet. Most of them are only a few kilometers wide but about ten exceed 50 square kilometers in size. Most of the islands are clustered near the equator, or branch out in chains or arcs from the cluster, often following the submerged ocean ridges that trisect the waters.

Seome is one of four planets, two large gas giants and two smaller terrestrial rock-core worlds, orbiting the star-sun Sigma Albeth B. The other planets are uninhabited.

Neither small planet has any natural satellite but both gas giants have literally scores of satellites in orbit about them.

Seome is about 11,500 kilometers in diameter and its gravity is slightly less than Earth's. Of particular note is the planet's perpetual cloud cover, permanent except for one location: the summit peak of the island of Ordeld in the northeastern sea, at certain times of the year.

Seome has two seasons: high storm and low storm, roughly corresponding to periods of greater and lesser storm activity. The planet rotates nearly twice as fast as Earth, so the "day" is only half as long. However, the low light level doesn't really reflect the speed of rotation. It is uniformly low.

The planet has a magnetic field and an iron core. Earthquakes are common, often creating tsunamis that dwarf anything seen on Earth.

The period of solar revolution is about 18 Earth months, 50% longer. In other words, one Earth year is 2/3 a Seome year. A Seome year is called a mah and it corresponds to one complete north-south-north migration cycle of the planktonic mah'jeet organisms.

Seomish Physiology

Although the Seomish resemble dolphins and porpoises externally, they are not mammals. They are fish, true marine creatures. They average about 3 meters in length and possess two forearms that have evolved from pectoral fins into prehensile limbs approximately ½ to ¾ meter in length, with five fingers and one opposing thumb at the end of each arm.

The Seomish breathe through gills, extracting oxygen from the water that is strained through gill slits on either side of the head, which is really only an extension of the main body trunk. The body is streamlined for speed (up to 20 km/hr for healthy males at maturity) which is generated by lateral undulations of the caudal, or tail fin. The peduncle is the muscle that moves this fin.

The Seomish have two dorsal fins, one over the midsection and one just forward of the peduncle. Along with a pair of anal fins (beneath the second dorsal), a small pair of vestigial pectoral fins attached to the forearms (above the wrist) provides anti-roll stability. The arms and the tail give maneuvering and braking power and the arms are tucked against the sides of speed.

The Seomish have evolved an internal gas bladder, dorsally located, to help them maintain buoyancy. The presence of this organ limits the depth and vertical range of their natural movement but technological developments can overcome these obstacles.

The Seomish have relatively poor eyesight, good vision not being essential in the often dark, murky waters of Seome. They have no tear ducts or eyelids.

The Seomish senses of smell and hearing are keen, however. A great deal of the standard Seomish language is concerned with scent information and is unconveyable by sight or sound. There is an olfactory vocabulary of chemical odors that are often captured and stored in scentbulbs, called ot'lum, in the spoken vernacular.

The Seomish can smell the difference not only in body odors but in various kinds of water, according to its salt, dirt, or nutrient content. They have words for all these. Because olfactory impressions tend to disperse slowly, the Seomish do not separate the past from the present as readily as humans. Instead, they view the past as living in the present, as a shadow or ghost or alternate spirit of the present.

The Seomish sense of hearing is acute and far-ranging. Just below the mouth, at the rear of the throat and forward of the gill cavity, is a small bag-like organ, called a soundsac, or _shkelt_. It is an echo-location system that emits low-frequency waves that can carry for upwards of thirty to fifty kilometers, depending on the location of the deep-level sound channel (the _ootkeeor_ , or "discovering water"). Much of the Seomish language consists of grunts, whistles and clicks, all sounds that travel well in water.

The Seomish also possess a pressure-sensitive lateral line organ. The organ functions as a true sixth sense and is sensitive to low-frequency vibrations. It is used for short-range guidance, collision avoidance and for determining the present state of the ambient water as well as local currents.

Seomish are heterosexual and reproduce by copulation, the female bearing live young after a gestation period of about one and a half _mah_.

Seomish males usually live to an average age of 150 _mah_ (see Seomish time-keeping) and females somewhat longer, 160 _mah_.

The Seomish have silvery-gray skin, smooth, non-scaly at maturity. They are born pinkish-white and aging gradually darkens the skin.

Average weight for a mature Seomish male is 230 kilograms. Females weigh somewhat less.

The Flora and Fauna of Seome: Some Examples

_Mah'jeet_ : a microscopic, plankton-like creature, shaped like filaments or sickles, that emit a toxic substance poisonous to most Seomish. Small concentrations of the toxin aren't fatal but the creature tends to horde and this increases the danger. The toxin is neurological in nature, causing convulsions, respiratory difficulties, heart attacks and finally death. So prevalent are the mah'jeet and so precise are their seasonal migrations that the Seomish regulate their calendar by them. Concentrated in a horde, they cause the water to take on a deep purple stain.

_Tillet:_ a pack animal, used mainly for transporting cargo. About ten to fifteen meters in length, black on top, white on the bottom, the tillet is a fairly docile beast, though occasionally cantankerous. Generations of genetic engineering have created a close, almost psychic relationship between the Seomish and the tillet. Some are so highly trained that they can travel thousands of kilometers completely untended, usually in herds of from thirty to fifty. The tillet is so valuable that all kels have mutually agreed to a ban on hunting them. They can carry upwards of 200 kilograms of cargo in three specially bred belly pouches, which open underneath broad pectoral fins (the Seomish are now working on a cybernetic tillet, a genetically engineered design with a computer-assisted brain).

_Stek'loo:_ a true, hybrid life form, the stek'loo is the result of generations of research and development in electronics, cybernetics, and genetics. It is a thinking fish, a living computer, whose nervous system is composed of logic elements and switching circuits and who feeds on electric current. The results of its internal computations are displayed on the swollen flanks of its side in bioluminescent numerals and light patterns. The stek'loo resembles a flounder in shape and size, flat and rounded. Information and program instructions may be entered through a power rod attached to its mouth, by feeding the stek'loo sequential electrical impulses. The handle of this rod is a binary key for controlling the impulses. The stek'loo is physically sluggish and is often kept in a transparent bowl.

_K'orpuh:_ a deadly, eel-like snake found mainly in polar waters 9and bred commercially by the Eepkostic). K'orpuh sometimes grow to 20 meters in length and are easily mistaken for plants and weeds. They carry an electric charge of up to a thousand volts, which is fatal to Seomish. In addition, the k'orpuh are able to lay down a sticky, web-like filament by quickly encircling their prey, enmeshing it in a cocoon and making escape impossible. The pelt skin and oils of the k'orpuh are valuable commodities, but the Eepkostic have a monopoly on this trade, as well as on the training of the snake for military and sport purposes.

_Pal'penk:_ a herd animal, huge and bloated, somewhat resembling a Terran sunfish. Growing to average lengths of ten meters and weights of a thousand kilograms, the 'penk is a staple food raised in vast grazing herd, desired mainly for its naturally spicy flesh. It is raised in temperate waters, largely by the Likti (an Omtorish ethnic group) and grazes on planktonic nutrients and spider-weed, called _mahp'te_ , among other things. A genetic variant of the 'penk =, somewhat smaller and able to graze in colder waters, is the pal'pod.

_Puk'lek_ : sometimes called the seamother, the Kelm'opuh (Destroyer of Nations) and mythologically, Keeshoovikt (The One Who Swims Against the Current or goes against God), the puk'lek is the most fearsome beast in the waters of Seome. The mythology of the race speaks eloquently of the mixture of fear, veneration and fascination the serpent holds. Occasionally reaching a hundred meters in length, with a powerful horned and spiked tail and a reptilian head with a broad veined crest, the puk'lek roams the seas of Seome unmolested, usually alone. It is carnivorous and easily provoked, usually preferring to feed of teng (a shark-like fish but longer) and various scapet (a tunnel-shaped fish with a colorful head stripe and water-jet escape mechanism. Puk'lek are known to prefer the continental slopes as feeding and spawning grounds and they occasionally leave the water altogether for several hours at a time. What happens to them on land is not known and has been the subject of mythology and speculation for ages. One theory has it that the puk'lek are not true sea-dwellers at all but some kind of hybrid land-sea dweller, and that they were punished by God long ago for the transgression of leaving the water by having to endure both environments in order to survive (in other words, amphibious.). There are myths that say the puk'lek fathered a new race of beings on the land and must leave the sea periodically to care for them. But there is no proof of this. From a distance, the puk'lek resembles a fat, scaly k'orpuh, but the puk'lek is silvery white and gray whereas the k'orpuh is very dark and mottled like seaweed.

_Tchin'ting:_ a long, stringy weed (like kelp) grown for food, mainly in temperate waters (tropical strains are oily-tasting). Tchin'ting is harvested after a growth period of one full _mah_ , when it is uprooted and processed into a meal that forms a staple of the Seomish diet. Tchin' meal is a waxy, pasty substance rich in protein and suitable for mixing in as a filler or extender with other foods, particularly flesh foods.

_Ter'poh:_ a planktonic creature unicellular algal in nature, that drifts in the upper reaches of the water by the uncountable trillion. Usually processed into meal paste.

_Tong'pod:_ a bottom-dwelling, shelled creature, similar to a clam, growly wildly in abundance only in tropical waters west of the Serpentines and nurtured artificially elsewhere. Sweet-tasting and slightly narcotic.

_Potah:_ an oyster-like creature that manufactures a small pearl, called a _potu,_ used as currency.

_Eelot:_ a deep-dwelling fish of dazzling radiance and delectable fin flesh.

_Eetleg:_ a crustacean, common to Omtorish waters, especially south of the Serpentines. Rare and considered a delicacy by the Omtorish.

**A Note on Cooking** : Cooking with fire is, of course, unknown on Seome. Many foods are processed into pastes however and used to garnish meats. Most plants are eaten raw or with very little preparation. The structure of the tong'pod has influenced the gastronomic arts on Seome by providing an easily obtainable (easily imitable) container for mixed, semi-solid foods. Indeed, the empty tong'pod shell was the preferred means of holding and consuming most non-whole foods right into contemporary times. About a thousand _mah_ ago, an artificial shell was developed, completely edible and often seasoned. It is known as an _om'pod_ , a "spicy shell" and is now the most popular way of holding and consuming meals. The most recent models of the om'pod even heat their contents biochemically.

Theology and First Things

The aquatic world of Seome is conventionally subdivided into five great seas ( _or'keln_ ), though there is in fact only one world ocean.

Each sea is the dominion of one of the five great nations, water-clans, or tribes (the meaning varies in context): these are the _kels_. The kels are both political and familial in nature. In Seomish mythology-history, each kel is descended from one female ancestor, countless millennia ago, who was impregnated by God ( _Shooki_ or _Schooke_ ) for the purpose of filling all the waters with life. The first females are known collectively as the Five Daughters, and all life on Seome is descended from them (they are revered as demi-gods.).

Each Daughter begat two offspring (after the creation of the lower orders), one male and one female. These were the First Mortals and each kel considers its F.M.s as the ultimate ancestors of everyone who has lived since, or will ever live. The F.M.s are the direct parents of the kel.

In Seomish theology, Shooki created and impregnated the Five Daughters because he was lonely and wished companionship. Accordingly, three extremely important religious-moral-ethical concepts in the culture are friendship, fertility (or appetite) and what could best be described as a kind of internal tranquility (see _Shoo'kel_ ). The Seomish are playful and gregarious by nature, generally promiscuous (within bounds) and pleasure-seeking. They are not psychologically disposed to dissatisfaction or self-sacrifice, normally. The universe was created by the confluence of three great currents, say the Seomish: _Ke'shoo_ , _Ke'lee_ , and _Shoo'kel_ , or figuratively, love, life and happiness. This view is applied to many things, especially kel ancestry, or specifically, which First Mortal most possessed which trait. It is a subject of endless debate.

**The Hierarchies:** _Kels_ **and** _Em'kels_

The organization of the kel is the most important hierarchy of all. Each kel differs slightly in certain details but major similarities remain. For simplicity's sake, the House of Omt'or will serve as a good example.

Omt'orkel claims a line of unbroken, uncontaminated descent from Omt'or, Daughter of Shooki and from its First Mortals, Kreedake and Pomel. Since descent is figured matrilineally, the eldest female of the kel is the nominal head of the family and thus chief of state, designated the _Metahshooklet_ , or _Metah_ (the One who lives in God). In most instances, the Metah designates a younger person to take responsibility for major decisions. In Omt'or, this choice is traditionally the eldest and most sexually productive female of the largest em'kel (see below).

Each em'kel selects one male and one female to represent its interests before the appointed chief, who is called the _Mektoo_. The combined assembly of em'kel representatives if called the _Kel'emtah_ , or _Kel'em_ (literally, the "family of the Mother"). It meets once every mah in each city of the kel and all kelke (citizens, members of the family) have the right to petition the Mektoo at these gatherings for redress of grievances.

In general, the Seomish are not a terribly political people. Since each member of the kel is nominally related to everyone else, questions of authority and patriotism seldom arise. The lines of power and command are clear and based on age and blood. Seomish law is officially codified in the mind and memory of the Metah, which the Seomish have learned to enhance through severe training and regular consumption of special substances designed to improve memory, called _tekn'een_. These are drugs devised by Seomish chemists that improve recall and recollection and permit the application of considerable information to legal and judicial problems. Only the Metah may take these drugs, which theoretically assure her infallibility.

Judicial proceedings against law-breakers are normally the responsibility of the Metah's staff. The theory is that since the Metah made the laws—and is in effect the Law herself—only she can determine if they have been broken. The most common form of punishment is exile; the moral and social theory behind this is suspect though because it is believed that the individual cannot really ever be severed from the kel—his blood relationship persists, even into exile. Another form of punishment is an officially sanctioned silence, called the _jee'ot_. On occasion, mutilation is permitted and in extreme cases, execution by live burial or floatation is practiced. But these are rare.

Practical enforcement of the laws is usually left to the em'kel, which is legally and morally responsible for its members. Although membership in any em'kel is voluntary and theoretically anyone not in an em'kel could be above the law, in practice, the Seomish are too gregarious to be loners. Legal offenses can be dealt with by group censure, usually effective, or by taking the matter to the Metah.

The em'kel is the basic subdivision of the Seomish kel. It is a difficult concept to define because it is so broad and flexible. Simply stated, an em'kel is _any_ sub-grouping that considers itself distinct from the kel at large.

Em'kels can be based on virtually any distinction: occupation, theological agreement, sexual compatibility, age, preferred roaming waters, mutual interests of all kinds. They form and dissolve constantly, gaining and losing members, but the underlying divisions by interest seem to persist through the ages. Like-minded people congregate in any culture. The durability of specific em'kels is remarkable. Many of them are thousands of _mah_ in age, having developed certain customs and traditions and possessing a collective heritage that ensures their continuance.

An individual's first exposure to the em'kel system is the mandatory five-mah membership in the oldest em'kel of all: the Kelk'too, or teachers' em'kel, in effect, an Academy of Learning. After leaving the Kelk'too, the Seomish child must select an em'kel to associate with, his first major decision. He soon learns that the em'kel is his family, and that he is responsible to them.

If he wants to become a legal adult, and have the right to form and found his own em'kel, the Seomish child must prepare himself for the arduous ritual of the Circling, to be attempted on the occasion of his twentieth birthday. Upon the successful completion of this rite of passage, most Seomish youth choose to change em'kels, to emphasize their new status.

Essentially, the em'kel is so organized that everyone is about equal in stature. It is customary to accord slightly more deference to the individual (or individuals) who founded the group. There are rarely any terms of membership and no penalties upon leaving. One may belong to as many em'kels as desired. Many people prefer to give their allegiance to one, however.

Behavior in the em'kel is based on the fact that all members are equal and deserve love and attention and respect. Personal problems, in matters of work, sex, health of whatever, are properly the concern of everyone and most em'kels hold regular meetings of the membership to air and discuss grievances. These are called _ke'teeoh_. Other topics that arise are items of discussion before the Kel'em and the Metah, matters of law enforcement and how to punish offenders, domestic matters of expenses, repairs, duties, disputes over the outcomes of games, blood relationships, roaming protocol and other projects and goals the em'kel has planned.

Most Seomish em'kels maintain a home chamber, called an _em'too_ , where the members live and spend time when not otherwise engaged. Often, the em'too is the place of work as well as sleeping, eating, etc. The average Seomish probably spends no more than 30-40% of his day in the em'too, preferring to get out and roam.

The Five Kels

The House of Omt'or

The House of Omt'or is the wealthiest, most populous and probably the most influential of all the Seomish kels. The domain of Omt'or is the great sea Omt'orkel, bounded by the currents of Tchor and the hills of the Serpentines in the east and south, by the currents of Pomt'or and the house of ice to the west and north. It occupies most of the northwest and north central regions on the map.

Omt'or is perhaps most distinguished for the calm detachment of its people and their grace and elaborate manners, a result, it is said, of the Great Daughter Omt'or's attempt to seduce the Father Shooki.

Omt'or has produced at least half of Seome's scientific advances, including the development of the _tekn'een_ drugs. However, the kel has not been as aggressive as others in applying its knowledge. In fact, other kels consider Omt'or to be somewhat arrogant and elitist. But the Omtorish seem content merely to accumulate and refine their ever-growing store of knowledge. Their cultural achievements, especially in the scent and echo arts, are widely copied.

The House of Sk'ort

The Sk'ortel is a warm, sluggish sea that occupies the southwest part of the map. The domain of the Sk'ort is principally encompassed by this sea. The eastern boundary is the lower Serpentines and the Sk'ork current. The western boundary is sometimes disputed with the Orketish but is usually taken to be a line extending directly north and south of the vast Klatko Trench in the equatorial zone.

Many of the other kels look down on the Skortish as lazy and indolent, though this opinion is unfair. The warm and occasionally hot, slow-moving waters of the sea contribute to this feeling of enervation. The Skortish roam less often and more slowly than any other kel, many preferring to simply float with the currents. To the others, this is laziness.

The Skortish subdivide themselves into two great branches: the Tostah and the Kekah. The Tostah are the smaller of the two, residing mainly in and around the city of Tostah, near the seething Sk'ortoo lava trench. Many of them make their living harvesting the valuable coral-like material _ting_ , which grows abundantly in the hot, mineral-rich waters. Their kel-mates, the Kekah, live hundreds of kilometers to the south among the angular ridges of Kekonk Tenk, where most of them are renowned as miners, working the immense veins of ore in the mountains and canyons that encircle that city.

The Skortish are generally indifferent to the opinions of their neighbors, particularly the Orketish. They feel that the other kels do not understand them or don't want to. The Skortish pride themselves as great thinkers (though they have produced few great thoughts) and as connoisseurs of an elegant way if life based on physical contact rather than roaming. This puts them at odds with much of Seome.

The House of Ponk'et

The great, ice-cold murky northeastern sea is called the Ponk'el and is home to the kel Ponk'et. Bounded to the north by the polar ice pack, to the east by the ridge T'kel, to the south by the ridge-chain Orkn't and to the west by the long sinuous Serpentine, the Ponkti are aloof, relatively militant in their outlook and generally untrustworthy. They usually keep to themselves preferring to refine their martial skills. The Ponkti are renowned as the originators and masters of the deadly dance of combat called _tuk_.

Because of their self-imposed isolation, little is known about the Ponkti and this adds to the climate of uncertainty and fear that has in the past led to disputes, misunderstandings, even military clashes. Despite this, the Ponkti do engage in some trade with the rest of Seome, out of necessity. Their principal economic activity is growing cultures of the industrial bacterium _terpoh_ , which flourish in the caves of the kel's only city, Ponk't (Seomish industry depends almost entirely on chemical and biological means of shaping, forming and molding materials, since fire is unknown to them).

The presence of the central religious shrine of Seome, the Pillars of Shooki, is another source of revenue. The Ponkti have negotiated a contract which remunerates them for maintaining this shrine. In return, they permit kel pilgrims from across Seome to travel unimpeded through Ponkti waters to and from the shrine. Further profit is made by serving and housing these pilgrims. It's a classic example of Ponkti hypocrisy: they are certain that Shooki ignores the prayers of the pilgrims and view the visitors as misguided but wealthy fools, ripe for the plucking.

The House of Eep'kos

This is the smallest kel and in many ways, the most puzzling. Physiologically similar to other Seomish, the Eepkostic are in fact breakaway cousins of the Skortish, but many generations of life in the frigid south polar waters have made them as different from their ancestors as they can be.

Why did the Eepkostic break from the Skortish and engineer themselves into a different people? The true answer is probably that there was a serious inter-family dispute but the evidence of it has been lost in the dense metaphors of mythical history which the Eepkostic have created about themselves and their past. Any recorded documentation of the dispute has been eradicated and only an apocryphal legend about a vast marine serpent thousands of kilometers long which cut off a branch of the Skortish from the main body of the family for centuries because it was so long and moved so slowly remains. The story states that the stranded cousins eventually gave up hope that they would ever see their homewaters again and started a new community under the icepack. This will have to suffice as history until more facts are known. Ever since this tale became popular, the Eepkostic consider themselves to have been singled out by God to endure ten thousand mah of punishment by isolation and that is why they live as they do. Note that both the Ponkti and the Eepkostic have formalized a system of beliefs that places each of them at the center of God's attention, either favorable or displeased. Each kel considers itself an elect people; the Eepkostic view themselves as collective martyrs for all Seomish.

The Eepkostic are fiercely independent and protective of their isolation, much like the Ponkti. To enforce this quarantine, they have engineered an eel-like snake, called a _k'orpuh,_ which is also raised commercially, for military and medical purposes. The chemical base of _tekn'een_ is an extract of the _k'orpuh's_ blood.

The Eepkostic are proud of their differences, both physical and cultural. They feel the distinctions are marks of superiority. They are especially contemptuous of their distant cousins the Skortish, seeing in them everything that is corrupt and decadent. The harsh polar environment makes the Eepkostic more aware of the struggle for survival—how it heightens and enriches life—something that most other Seomish have never faced. Thus, their civilization is not so elaborately mannered as others; their life is cleaner, simpler and more vivid. This makes them ideal candidates for extra-marine exploration.

The House of Ork'et

The domain of Ork'et is the sea Orkn'tel, bounded on the west by the lower Serpentine, on the north by the Orkn't ridge, on the south by the broad swift Current of Ork'lat and on the east by the agreed-upon boundary with Sk'ort.

Ork'et is known for its even-tempered, profit-minded traders and merchants. The fact that Seome's most important current, the Ork'lat, neatly bisects Orketish territory, ensures a commercial advantage that few kels possess. The Ork'lat flows halfway around the world across the southern hemisphere before disintegrating in the story inter-mountain region known as the Pulkel. The current gives the Orketish speedy access to all parts of the world and their _kip't_ pilots (see Glossary) are so skilled at navigating the treacherous Pulkel that they have secured a monopoly on transportation of goods there to the irritation of the Ponkti. Trans-Serpentine commerce is very much an Orketish business.

Another occupation virtually unique to Ork'et is the harvesting of the pearl-like _potu_ , which is used as a currency throughout Seome. It follows that finance and banking services, brokerage services, production organization and related activities are principal Orketish concerns. The kel is truly a hub for transport and commerce and its merchants have a reputation, well-deserved, for persistence and aggressiveness as well as seemingly endless patience. The Orketish are less enamored of the formal way of living so admired by the Omtorish. The main distinction between the two most important and influential kels is that Omtorish are, by nature, great theorists and the Orketish great doers. The Omtorish are more concerned with the ideal, the Orketish with the practical. The people of Ork'et see themselves as the only true practitioners of _Ke'shoo_ and _Ke'lee._ From this flows the rationale for their impeccable materialism.

Seomish Timekeeping

Time on Seome is defined by the period it takes for the vast hordes of planktonic _mah'jeet_ to complete one pole-to-pole migration cycle. This basic unit is called the _mah_ and is equivalent to about eighteen Terran months.

The mah is further subdivided into six parts, one for each of the Five Daughters and one for the Father Shooki. These subdivisions are called _emtemah_ and each is roughly equivalent to about three Terran months.

The Seomish have no astronomical concept of a "day" (having no knowledge of a sun or planetary bodies or motions) but they are aware of variations in light which penetrates the water. A day-night cycle to them means one cycle of light, then no light, then light again. The words are _puh'kel_ and _puh'tchoot._ The popular explanation for light is that the surface is full of floating luminescent creatures which shine their radiance into the depths to create the day and then sleep to create the night.

The Seomish call each one thousand mah period a _metamah_ , or epoch. These periods are usually named for the oldest Metah in the world at that time. The current epoch is 735 mah old and was given the designation Tekpotu, for the reigning Metah of Ork'et at that time.

The six emtemah are called, in order: Shookem, Omtorem, Skortem, Epkosem, Orketem and Ponketem.

The Seomish have two other words which they use to divide the year into halves. These words refer to the condition of the water at the time of the mah'jeet migration. They are _lit'kel_ (clear water) and _mah'kel_ (fiery water). Since mah'jeet can be dangerous, mah'kel is a time to remain in the cities.

In the Terran-Standard numbering system, the current Seomish mah would be written as follows: 735.5 Tk, meaning the fifth emtemah of the seven hundred thirty fifth mah in the epoch of Tekpotu.

Following is a brief timeline of major events in contemporary Seomish history.

Highlights of the Current Historical Epoch of Tekpotu

**Mah** **Event**

22.1 The Peace of Tekpotu...putting an end to a 30-mah long period of isolation and border disputes between Omt'or and Ponk'et.

105.6 Extraction, isolation and synthesis of the memory drug _tekn'een_ by Omtorish scientists

357-9 Metah of Sk'ort dies; Eepkostic plot charged; live k'orpuh released in Kekah--many deaths; Skortish retaliate by melting ice; truce comes

405.2 Berserk seamother kills pilgrims at Pillars of Shooki; extermination attempt fails when beast leaves water (first recorded case in current epoch)

622.1 Discovery of Unknown Relic in Opuhte of Ponk'el; disputes over custody; theory of ancient, unrecorded marine civilization

628.4 Ponkti restrict access to Pillars, leading to confrontation at Serpentine; sporadic clashes

629.6-630.5 Ponk'et agrees to discuss situation, leading to Shrine Treaty and Agreement of Puh't

649-651 Pal'penk herds decimated by disease, traced to new mutation in mah'jeet; Seomish deaths lead to antidote after Ponkti efforts to exterminate mah'jeet are blocked by Omt'or

700-705 Potu shortage as a result of Orketish kip't accident, spilling toxic wastes into potu beds; monetary panic ensues and inter-kel trade drops off until stocks increase

719.1 Death of Hildrah tu, Metah of Omt'or; succession of Iltereedah luk't

721.6 Student in _Ketuvishtek_ rite encounters seamother carcass south of Klatko Trench with strange, non-Seomish remains inside torn belly; theories abound

Highlights of the Current Historical Epoch of Tulcheah

**Mah** **Event**

02.1 Ascension of Tulcheah kim to become Metah of Ponk'et

02.8 Time Guard turns over operation of the Time Twister at Kinlok Island to consortium of Seomish engineers

Glossary

AK'LOOSH: The Ponkti doctrine that predicts the end of the world by a giant, globe-circling tidal wave. According to most interpretations, the Ponkti are chosen by Shooki to survive the catastrophe, by burying themselves underground, until the danger is passed, after which they will rule the world. Ak'loosh is the reason usually given as explanation for the tendency of the Ponkti to isolation.

ARCTOSS: A four-player game common to Omt'or in which the participants float at the corners of a square with three or more open cones in the middle. The object is too weighted balls into the cones in such a way as to amass the most points. Sometimes played with artificial current generators to stir things up.

AZHTU: In Seomish mythology, a terrible serpent granted dominion by Shooki over the Notwater, the Highwater and the Deepwater, in exchange for peace and tranquility in the Middlewater. More generally, any form of evil especially in unknown waters. There are legends of renegade kels roaming the Serpentines who worship Azhtu.

BEAT: An echo unit of distance.

EM'KEL: A basic subdivision of the kel, usually based on mutual interest, often enduring for hundreds of mah. Em'kels are egalitarian, communal groups, in effect, families since the kel itself is too large to provide much care.

EMTEMAH: A unit of time—one sixth of a mah (see MAH). About three Terran months.

EM'TOO: The berth space or home chamber of the em'kel. Usually a domicile not partitioned physically but by "curtains" of sound and/or scent. Em'kels often share the same housing pod or space including cooking, cleaning and other facilities but sleeping, meeting and work areas are always separate.

FREE-BOND: The act of spiritually binding any member of the kel to the will of the Metah for a specified period of time. Basically, a contractual relationship entered into for the purpose of doing something the Metah would rather not be associated with. Free-bonds can be used for anything but have come to be employed in espionage and intelligence work in modern times, thus a certain social stigma results from the public knowing a person is bound this way. Failure to carry out the stipulations requires the bound one to take his own life in shame. The bond is cemented by consuming a vial, called a _pot'l_ , of the Metah's blood. The incentives are many: loyalty, patriotism, special favors from the Metah.

GISU: A fruit plant, cultivated for its potent juice extract and tasty pulp. It can be eaten whole (the rind is slightly stimulating) but the popular way is to poke a hole and suck. The taste is tart and lingering.

HOLDPOD: Any synthetic pod, sac or drum used to hold personal items. Often made of plastic, these vessels are among the most common of domestic utensils and are also used as luggage on long trips. The true holdpod is a small, oval egg-shaped container that opens and closes like a clam shell.

JEE'OT: A form of punishment, practiced by the kel against an offender as designated by the Metah. Fairly serious, it is a period of time in which the offender is ignored, not spoken to and treated as if he didn't exist. The effect of this varies but it usually creates frustration at the very least and forces the recipient to examine his character in some detail.

KEK'OT: The warrior-select that each generation creates to do battle with Azhtu. A form of ritual sacrifice.

KEL: Any of the five, great nation-families—Omt'or, Ork'et, Ponk'et, Sk'ort or Eep'kos. Can also mean life itself, or water, comfort, home or any of several dozen other similar meanings. The root word "kel" is the most commonly used component of words in the Seomish language.

KEL'TET: A blood-bonding of the kels, resulting from interacting with Umans on Seome and with the _Kel'vish'tu_ Seomish who emigrated to Earth (Urku) and returned to their home world.

KE'LEE: One of the three most important moral-ethical doctrines in Seomish philosophy. It is usually defined as sexual productivity or fertility but has acquired the connotation of appetite and satisfaction in the abstract sense over the centuries. It is a ritualized form of honor, even a form of cannibalism that is invested with a great deal more meaning than merely eating. Simply put, the Seomish believe that when they consume one of their friends, they take on the best qualities of that friend. It is considered a high honor to be asked this, a way of merging personalities so that the friendship will last forever. There are other motives for Ke'lee involving shame and disgrace but this kind of love is the main one.

KEL'EM: The gathering of all chosen em'kel representatives once each mah. Their main task is to advise the Metah on the state of opinion. In Ork'et, the Kel'em also has the authority to consider any agreements made between Orketish em'kels or between Ork'et and other kels and pass judgment. Most kels restrict the Kel'em to an advisory capacity only. It exists in Omt'or mainly to ensure that all em'kels have an equal voice before the Metah and not just the older, more established groups.

KELKE: A citizen, resident, member of the kel, people in general.

KELKTOO: Normally the most influential em'kel in any kel. The function differs slightly from kel to kel, but in most cases, the Kelktoo is a grouping of the most learned scholars and teachers. In effect, a school or academy of learning, the Kelktoo is the only em'kel in which mandatory membership is the rule. This holds for all kelke, for at least a few mah. Some Kelktoo also hold responsibility for research activities.

KEPIDAH: A genetically engineered crustacean hat extrudes a soft, waxy substance that hardens over time. Used as a building material, the kepidah is one of many bioforming agents that can be programmed to create any desired structural pattern.

KE'SHOO: The second most important moral-ethical principle. Commonly taken to mean friendship, fraternity, caring, concern for others, companionship. Ke'shoo is the glue of the em'kel and great effort is expended on nurturing and preserving relationships, with all the intensity and enthusiasm possible. Seomish sit in instant judgment of each other's attitudes and emotions (easy enough to do with an echo-location sense that can penetrate the body and "read" feelings and reactions) and consider it a duty to know each other in as much detail as they can. The affection and emotional well-being of a friend, according to the dictates of his doctrine, transcend all personal concerns, except where there is obvious conflict with Ke'lee or Shoo'kel. Resolving these conflicts have occupied Seomish philosophers for centuries.

KE'TEEOH: The normal gatherings of the em'kel to air grievances, discuss plans, assign duties, etc. Often loud and boisterous, even when conducted in one of the many formal argumentative disciplines (see SHKEKTOO).

KETUVISHTEK: The ritual of the globe circling, a rite of passage that confirms Seomish midlings as adults. It occurs on or near the 20th mah birthday. The midling must circumnavigate the world, collecting rock and plant specimens as proof and return safely before he considered fully mature enough to form his own em'kel.

KIP'T: A small, electrically powered sled, often used for transport within the kel and occasionally, for long-distance travel. Usually enclosed, with minimal comforts.

KONG'PELU: A rigorous game, native to Eep'kos, but popular throughout Seome. Often played by teams of twenty or more, it involves the use of long blunt poles to score and defend. The object is to snap a weighted sack over the head of as many opponents as possible. Used by the Eep'kostic as a form of combat training.

MAH: The basic unit of time on Seome, a year. It lasts from the beginning of one mah'jeet migration cycle to the beginning of the next. Comparable to about 18 Terran months.

MEKLI: One of the Shookian priestesses, usually quartered at the Pillars of Shooki. Although the Pillars are in Ponkti territory, the Mekli owe their allegiance to no kel. Their stations are hereditary and so they are considered to be a separate, holy family, although not large enough to be termed a kel. The Mekli claim to be descended from the Shkulee, an extinct species of fish that legend says Shooki created to provide the ancient Seomish with omens and portents of what was to come. The skin of the shkulee was often marked in bright, colorful spiral patterns, which were studied for clues to the future.

MEKTOO: Usually the eldest and most sexual productive female of the largest em'kel. The Mektoo is the Kel'em's voice before the Metah and is often granted considerable decision-making authority in day-to-day matters. Much of her work consists of arbitrating em'kel disputes and arguments.

METAMAH: A thousand mah, an epoch.

METAH: The eldest female of the entire kel and nominal head of the family. Her full title is Metashooklet (The One Who Lives in God) and she is always the moral and spiritual leader of the kel. Some Metahs involve themselves in kel politics more than others. The Metah is considered to embody the essence of the kel and her death is a time for great mourning.

OOTKEEOR: The deep-lying thermal, sound-reflecting layer that channels messages around the world. Repeating stations are strategically located to boost the signal as it bounces along. Depending on conditions, sounds can travel upwards of 50 kilometers unamplified in parts of Seome.

OOTSTEK: Also known as a repeater, the ootstek form one of the most important of all em'kels. Their work is lonely and demanding, requiring them to back up the automatic functioning of the ootkeeor. Repeaters roam on station in the boundary waters between the kels and, when the ootkeeor is not working properly, it is their duty to listen for and repeat any and all messages that come through. Repeaters are traditionally possessed of magnificent voices as well as acute hearing.

OPUH'TE: A whirlpool, a vortex.

OT'LUM: Also called a scentbulb. The ot'lum is a device that captures and holds any kind of scent for periods that can extend into centuries. A small, plastic sphere, the ot'lum carries coded olfactory information which can be used and re-used many times before losing its potency. It is a primary means of storing information as well as a major art form.

P'TEK: (also P'TCHOOT) The unknown, the frontier, any sea that is unexplored or unmapped.

PAK'OH: A commodity agent or anyone who organizes the production of a commodity for sale. The principal work of the pak'oh is in contracting for work done by manufacturing or service em'kels and seeing that the product or service is distributed to where it is needed. Most Seomish industry is organized along craft lines so extra-em'kel agents are needed to bring production and consumption of goods together. Pak'oh also organizes themselves into em'kels and it is these groups that function as rudimentary corporations.

PUL'KE: Death, the end, finality, a state or condition of no water or that same feeling.

SCENTBULB: See OT'LUM.

SHAME-BOND: The act of binding any individual to any other for the purpose of humiliating him. Shame-bound have usually committed a serious breach of etiquette or custom, thus injuring the dignity of a person or group of persons. It is customary for the individual who has been injured to require some humiliating task of his shame-bound, the theory being that by suffering the contempt of his peers, the offender will learn the value of proper manners and the importance of personal dignity. Some kels frown on this practice.

SHOO'KEL: The desirable state of keeping one's inner fluids in balance so that any pulse of you is clean and regular. Any other state is vulgar or obscene. This is the third great moral principle that is important to the Seomish. A form of personal honor and dignity. Control of excessive emotion is necessary to efficient and accurate pulsing. Also used in a general or universal sense to mean tranquility, peace, the natural order of things, stability, etc.

SHKEKTOO: One of several argumentative disciplines employed in em'kel gatherings or even in more formal assemblies. Rhetoric is a highly respected art on Seome and shkektoo is one of the higher and more respected forms of it. Seomish employ these techniques of exchange for many reasons, among them are a great love for words and talk and a desire to keep all arguments and verbal confrontations within the bounds of propriety, thus preserving dignity. In the case of shkektoo, the exchange proceeds along a line of rhetorical questions and interrogative suppositions, according to an ancient technique of particularizing from universal first principles.

SHOOKI: The Great Father, God, the Creator of the Ocean. Also an archaic expression for clear, calm water. Shoo'ke means literally "The Loving One."

SH'PONT: A truncated, flat-topped seamount (guyot) often used by kels as extra storage or living space, as well as for observation, communication, and kip't handling. In ancient times, most kels lived underground in caves and tunnels beneath the sh'pont and as they expanded in size, gradually moved out into the open sea and built larger, free-standing cities. However, ancestral ties to the sh'pont are still strong and the seamounts are almost always the center of life for most kels.

TEKMA: A special envoy, hired for the purpose of conveying a message of great importance. Tekma are one of the most elite of all em'kels, and one of the most demanding. The couriers must be of the utmost integrity and character, as they are usually entrusted with dispatches too critical to be sent by ootkeeor. The word comes from tekmetah, meaning "Arm of the Metah."

TEKN'EEN: The memory drug, given most often to the Metah, for the purpose of improving and enhancing her recall of facts. Extracted from the blood of the k'orpuh.

THOUGHT-BOND: The act of mentally binding two minds so that thought may be shared. Attitudes about this vary among the kels.

T'ING: A valuable, coral-like material that is native to the waters of Sk'ort. Useful as an electrical material and as decorative ornamentation.

TONKRO: An 8-player Omtorish game that involves the assembly of a complicated, open-frame pyramid structure in as short a time as possible.

T'SHOO: The feel of water flowing across one's skin; a kind of ecstasy.

TUK: The Ponkti martial dance believed to have originated in the days before spoken language, as a means of telling stories and teaching children. Over the ages, it has become stylized and ritualized into both an art and a combat discipline, as well as a sport. It consists of an exceedingly complex series of body movements, including kicks, tail whips and punches, that must be performed from memory in exactly the right sequence, with grace and style, in order to win.

TU'LE: The practice (from the word _metor'tule_ ) of doing favors and giving extravagant gifts to friends and guests. Discretion, taste and expense are the canons of judgment in these ritual gestures of affection and indulgence. The root word means "frenzied waters."

VIK'T: A verb form meaning "to go against the current."

VISH: A verb form meaning "to go with the current."

VISHTU: One of the oldest customs of the Seomish, the vishtu or companionship roam, is very much in the traditions of Ke'shoo and typically involves two people although there is no set number. Roams can last anywhere from a few minutes to a few days, even longer, with the average being a few hours. Debate and talk are usually discouraged during the roam in order to let the physical beauty of the landscape work its magic. Often a prelude to some intense, emotionally draining activity, such as sexual intercourse, the fine points and protocol of a roam are learned by Seomish at an early age.

Key Words Denoting Important Water Conditions

EEKOOT'ORKELTE: Water of minimum pressure for life

EET'ORKELTE: Water with salt content too low for comfort or safety

LITOR'KEL: Calm water, usually temperate

MEETOR'KEL: Water of rough, mixing currents, but good visibility

M'TKELTE: Rough, mixing water with poor visibility

MUH'PULTE: Water infested with mah'jeet. Also called M'JEET.

OM'ORKEL: Water of moderate turbidity, otherwise calm

ONK'KELTE: Water with salt content too high for comfort or safety

P'OMORTE: Water of high turbidity

P'RHUMORKEL: Water of moderate turbulence

ROT'OOT'ORKELTE: Water under extremely high pressure

SHOO'KEL: Clear, calm water (archaic form)

SKOR'KELTE: Fiery hot but calm water

TCHOR'KELTE: Ice cold, numbing but calm water

VISHM'TEL: Smoothly flowing, fast current
**A few words about my new, upcoming series called** _Time Jumpers_ **....**

  1. Time Jumpers is a series of 20,000-30,000-word episodes detailing the adventures of Ultrarch-Jump Captain Monthan Dringoth and his crew and their experiences as time jumpers with the Time Guard.

  2. Each episode will be about 40-60 pages, approximately 25,000 words in length.

  3. A new episode will be available and uploaded every 4 weeks.

  4. There will be 12 episodes. The story will be completely serialized in about 12 months.

  5. Each episode is a stand-alone story but will advance the greater theme and plot of the story arc.

  6. The main plotline: Time Guard must defeat the enemy Coethi and stop their efforts to disrupt or eliminate Uman settlements in the Galactic Inner Spiral and Lower Halo sectors of Uman space.

  7. Uploads will be made to www.smashwords.com on approximately the schedule below:

Episode # Title Approximate Upload Date

One 'Marooned in Voidtime' February 1, 2019

Two 'Keaton's World' March 1, 2019

Three 'A Small Navigation Error' April 15, 2019

Four 'Cygnus Rift' May 3, 2019

Five 'The Time Guard' May 31, 2019

Six 'First Light Corridor June 28, 2019

Seven 'Hapsh'm and the First Coethi Encounter' August 2, 2019

Eight 'Operation Galactic Hammer' August 30, 2019

Nine 'Byrd's Draconis' September 27, 2019

Ten 'First Jump Squadron' November 1, 2019

Eleven 'Planck Time' November 29, 2019

Twelve 'The Time Twister' January 3, 2020

**About the Author**

Philip Bosshardt is a native of Atlanta, Georgia. He worked most recently for a large company that makes products everyone uses...just check out the drinks aisle at your grocery store. He's been happily married for over 27 years. He's also a Georgia Tech graduate in Industrial Engineering. He loves water sports in any form and swims 3 miles a week in anything resembling water. He and his wife have no children.

For technical and background details on his series _Tales of the Quantum Corps_ , visit his blog _Quantum Corps Times_ at http://qcorpstimes.blogspot.com. For details on other books in this series, visit his website at <http://philbosshardt.wix.com/philip-bosshardt> or learn about other books by Philip Bosshardt by visiting www.smashwords.com.

To get a peek at Philip Bosshardt's notes and the backstory on how _The Farpool Stories_ were created, recent reviews, excerpts from his upcoming series _Time Jumpers_ (due out in winter 2019) and general updates on the writing life, visit his blog _The Word Shed_ at: http://thewdshed.blogspot.com.

