Stark looked around the bridge, waiting to see if anyone else thought this was a democracy, in which they were entitled to a vote. She almost wished they would—sometimes two lessons, one after another, worked better than one. But all around the bridge, eyes that had been raised to watch what Pollack would do were now hastily lowered again to instrument panels. Stark didn't bother to smile. No spirit, she thought. A pity to have to work with such poor material...
She went back to her pacing for a moment or two, letting the bridge go back to normal around her. After a few moments, Stark said casually to Maxwell, "What's the population of the power station?"
He didn't have to check a readout: he knew, which was just as well for him. "Fifty-nine workers. And their families. One hundred and twenty-seven men, women and children all together."
She nodded. "Perfect. Set a new heading and disengage silent running."
Then she waited, for there was a sort of pleading look in Maxwell's eye. Stark had seen it once or twice before, and had tolerated it... as long as it didn't grow into anything like insubordination. This was the problem of having even one really good man on the boat, of course: the good were too often weak. They bent under stress, and broke at the test, in unpredictable directions. She watched Maxwell, now, to see which way he would break.
"Captain," he said, "if we resume normal power, seaQuest will know we're here."
She looked at him. "Before we're done," she said, "the whole world will know we're here."
He drew near, near enough so that only she could hear him. "Are you sure this is the only way, Captain?" he said, very softly, and the plea was in his voice now, too. "Maybe we could—"
"No," she said, quickly—before he could say something that would bring her to wonder whether he was any more use to her, really, than Pollack. "In war there are no innocents."
Silent now, his face unmoving, Maxwell turned away and went back to his duties. Stark looked after him, for just a moment, with the slightest regret that he really couldn't see it by himself: that he had to be told they were at war. It was the great difference, and always would be, between an officer like him, and a commander like her.
Stark paced in the dimness, thinking, waiting for the moment to act.
* * *
The bridge was hopping when he got there: twice as many crewmen seemed to be in it as had seemed to be there at any earlier time, and Nathan was glad once again of the roominess... for otherwise the place would have been a zoo. There was no thinking straight when other people were getting in one another's way and stepping on your corns while getting to and from their stations.
He looked around and saw Ford and Hitchcock at the communications bay. O'Neill was seated before the console, monitoring his headset intently while the two senior officers hung over him and watched.
Nathan joined them, nodding to each. "You wanted to see me, Mr. Ford?"
Ford glanced sideways only briefly, unwilling to take his eyes off the board for long. "We've got a distress call coming in."
"Why are you telling me?"
Ford looked at him. "UEO regulations require me to inform the ranking officer aboard of any emergency situations. That would be you—"
He went back to what he had been doing, with an air of a man disposing of an unnecessary chore. Bridger hesitated—then his curiosity got the better of him: he moved to follow Ford to O'Neill's station. "What's the source of the call?"
Ford looked over at him, then said, "Gedrick Power Station. It's apparently under some kind of attack. Aggressor unknown."
"The signal is weakening," O'Neill said, his eyes narrowing with concern. "From the sound of it, the station's defenses—what minimal defenses they've got—have been blown to hell. They're reporting numerous casualties, sir. And the attack is still going on."
Hitchcock looked over at Ford. "This could be the seaQuest's first engagement under UEO command. Maybe you should contact Pearl for specific orders before—"
O'Neill shook his head. "No can do, Lieutenant. We're too deep for rapid direct communication, sir."
"How far to the nearest comms repeater buoy?" said Ford.
O'Neill checked his instruments, frowned, and Nathan heard the comms chief swear softly under his breath. "Almost five hundred kilometers in the opposite direction. It's a long detour."
Bridger leaned in to have a look at the readouts on the comms panel, much more interested in their implications than in the political situation. "What's our proximity to the station?" he said.
O'Neill glanced at Ford; Ford nodded at him. He said, "It's on a border—part of the Gedrick Territory. Distance, forty-eight kilometers—depth, forty-nine hundred."
Nathan did the math in his head, twice to be sure. "With these currents, we could be there in twenty minutes."
Ford took a deep breath, so loud—at least to Nathan beside him—that it was more like a gasp than anything else; but still Ford's face kept itself quite calm and still. He turned toward Nathan, standing curiously straight, a formal pose. "Captain," he said, "I'm prepared to offer you command of the seaQuest at this time."
"What...?" Bridger heard the edge in Hitchcock's voice, and saw the hastily concealed expression that crossed her face—serious doubt, mostly, tinged with unease for Ford's sake. He did his best to ignore it, at least for the moment, and straightened up from his examination of the readouts, also ignoring O'Neill's shocked look as he came by it on the way up.
"Come again?" he said.
Ford hesitated slightly. "I was just wondering if the Captain would care to assume command at this time?" the man repeated.
The whole bridge was looking at them now, waiting to see what happened. What must it cost a man to make such an offer, Nathan thought, either willingly or unwillingly? For a moment he was busy again with thoughts of what he was going to do to Noyce when he got off this forsaken tub: something lingering, with molten lead or boiling oil. But that can wait. Meanwhile, I'm not going to impair Ford's efficiency with his people, not when he's trained with them, worked with them so long...
He did the only thing he could think of to relieve the tension: he began to laugh. Shocked expressions were exchanged: plainly no one on the bridge had expected that reaction. "I'm sorry," he said. "You caught me by surprise." He eyed Ford for a moment, then said, "You don't strike me as the kind of officer to turn tail at the first need for a command decision, Commander." He made a wry face. "I think I know whose orders you're operating under. And if he were standing here right now, I'd punch his headlights out—for both of us."
It wasn't enough: everyone in the bridge was still standing too quiet, and they had no time now for such distractions. "The answer is no, Commander," Nathan said, more audibly. "I'm just along for the ride. You're the man in charge."
The small shifting sounds from all over the bridge, of people letting out held breaths, were noticeable. Bridger let out one of his own as he watched Ford's face. His feelings were horribly complex: out of the corner of his eye, he could see Crocker looking at him, disappointed. The look hurt him a little, but he could not afford to let it bother him. To command again... But not under circumstances like these. To take a youngster's first command off him just because Bill Noyce thought it might massage my ego—no way.
Ford hadn't yet looked away; he seemed to be studying Nathan's face for something. Nathan let him have his moment, wondering what Ford was looking for. Cowardice? A hard word, but possible. He understood how a man might suspect such in another who had run away from the "real world" for six years and had suddenly been pressured back into it. Unwillingness he might certainly expect to see. Fear would not surprise him either—and Nathan wouldn't deny it.
Ford turned away, toward O'Neill. "Feed spatial coordinates of the power station to Navigation," he said. "Navigation, plot a new course, direct bearing! Helm and all other stations: prepare for incoming change of course and speed!"
Crewpeople started going about their business in the bridge at some speed, almost as if they welcome
d the relief of those few moments of tension, or the new sense of urgency. Bridger watched it all and found himself feeling slightly wistful: every one of them with a job to do, every one of them doing it, as they'd clearly done it before, separately, and now together. As if they need you, said the back of his mind to him, scornful, but pleased. He had plainly done the right thing. The crew hadn't needed him yesterday to do their jobs, and they didn't need him today. Any more than I need them, he thought.
But somehow, the thought didn't make Nathan feel any better.
The boat began to lean into her turn, changing course in a hurry. Nathan took himself out of the bridge, and was not surprised when, looking back from the doorway, he saw that no one had noticed.
* * *
On the sea deck, the water was sloshing around to port, splashing up past the moon-pool coping and over the floors. Nathan stood watching this, soothed out of thought for the moment by the soft repetitive noise of it.
After a few sloshes, Darwin appeared in the pool, broke surface and tail-balanced upward and out of it, looking at Nathan. He chattered, and in an interested tone of voice, the computer said, "What—happening?"
"We're making a turn," Bridger said.
Darwin slipped down into the water again, eyeing Nathan. "We—turn? Don't understand."
"The ship—this cave we're in..." He took a breath, wondering how to start making it clear. Propulsion systems, shipbuilding, underwater research, peacekeeping—but where do you begin with a creature that has always—literally—shifted for itself? It would have been easier if he'd asked me "What is truth?": then I could have gone off and washed my hands... "I'll explain it later," Nathan said, feeling extremely lame.
"Much to explain later," Darwin said. There was a definite sound of amusement to the voice: Nathan suspected Darwin knew how confused he was, and was enjoying the shift of roles.
"Yeah," Nathan said. "Much..." And the sooner he started, he thought, the better—for Darwin's future life, it seemed, was going to be much fuller than his life had been up until now. Darwin play here, the dolphin had said. What would Darwin do when Nathan told him that this was only a twenty- four-hour ride, that he was going back to the island now, and said, Come on, Darwin, let's go home?
Surely he would want to stay here—and Nathan's heart ached a little at that, but he couldn't imagine any other outcome at the moment. If a friend of his had suddenly caused him to be introduced to a fascinating alien culture, full of advanced technology—including a technology that made real communications with another species possible—and then, a day later, after letting him taste the wonders of the new world, said, Come on, let's go home—Bridger knew perfectly well what he would have said, friend or no friend.
How could it be otherwise for Darwin? For this place plainly fascinated him, and Nathan couldn't let his own wishes interfere with what Darwin would certainly want, and what would in the long run be better for him. He had always known that the dolphin was extremely intelligent, but the relationship had always been a sort of more complex man-and-dog relationship, Nathan taking the lead, suggesting courses of action, and Darwin cooperating. Now, thanks to the translator technology, the fin was on the other foot, as it were. Or flipper. Darwin could nfiake his own wishes known—and had. Why should he want to go back to being a "dog," responding to hand signals, fetching rock samples and listening to Nathan's monologues, when he could have this life—answering and asking, finding things out?
Something else to give Bill Noyce hell about, Nathan thought sadly: the end of a beautiful friendship. He looked at the pool again: Darwin was leaning his head on the coping, gazing thoughtfully at Nathan.
"Darwin," he said.
Something went splat in the water, near them, spraying Nathan slightly: he and Darwin looked over at it in joint confusion. It was a brightly colored, many-sided water toy, an inflatable floating geodesic, made of the kind of durable plastic that suggested its designer knew it would be played with by members of a species with sharp teeth. "Hey, fish breath!"
Darwin and Bridger looked up together. Lucas was standing there by the pool, now with a jacket over his flannel shirt, a jacket over-blazoned with a noisily clashing collection of mission patches, some of them well-loved and much-used antiques, by the smudged and ragged look of them—among others, Bridger recognized the original Challenger patch, without the black band, and next to it, an ancient Soviet Frontal Aviation patch. It was a bizarre conjunction at best. What looked like an equally much-used portable notebook computer was slung over the boy's shoulder by a strap. Darwin chattered loudly at the sight of him, and the computer translator said, delightedly, "Lucas!"
The boy grinned with equal delight. "I brought you that to mess around with. A gift."
"Gift?" The dolphin slipped down into the water and smacked the surface of it with his chin, a gesture Nathan had occasionally seen him use to indicate confusion.
Lucas's eyebrows went up. "Yeah. You don't understand gift? You should: it ought to be in the database..." He unslung the portable computer, went over to one of the many instrument consoles around the sides of the room, plugged the computer into it and began tapping briefly at the portable's keyboard. "How about that," he said, "it's not in there. Wonder where it went? Well, hang on: I can fix it." He went on typing, frowning occasionally, his face relaxing afterward, as if a problem were being solved to his satisfaction. After a minute or so of this, when the boy looked up for a moment to let the computer do some piece of processing work, Nathan's presence in the room apparently fully registered itself: the boy looked up and nodded to him. "How's it goin?"
Nathan nodded back and sat watching. He was still dealing with his own reaction to the boy's smugness, and with some slight jealousy: but at the same time, a kind of creeping fascination was growing in him. Here was a fifteen year old who had managed something that Nathan hadn't after years of research. There might be something to be learned from him...
He watched Lucas work. Whatever else he might be, the boy was a demon typist, never once glancing at the keyboard, only at the screen above the input keys. Nathan felt an uncharacteristic twinge of envy: every time he had approached anything like even half that speed, it always seemed that his fingers got terminally confused and started making a mess of whatever he was doing. But Lucas was having no such problems.
"Must have missed something in the last noun-syntax load," he muttered, seemingly oblivious of Nathan's curiosity. "Or else there was some kind of conflict with the irregular adverb-batching utility when that last vocabulary load went in. It happens... "After a few seconds more, he finished his inputting with a conscious flourish like a concert pianist's. Then he looked over his shoulder at the pool, and at Darwin, who was watching him.
"Okay, Darwin," Lucas said. "The word is gift. That toy is my gift to you."
The dolphin listened to his side of the computer's translation. "Gift," he said after a moment. "Okay. Thing given—nothing expected back." Darwin flirted his tail, spinning himself to lie upside down near the surface. "Darwin—play it now?"
"Play with it."
"With," Darwin said, slapping his tail on the water with impatience.
Lucas grinned. "Yeah—go crazy."
The dolphin eyed him. "'Go crazy?'"
"Play. Go play."
Darwin swam off in a burst of pleased speed, nosed the toy up from underneath, flipped it, caught it, then took it underwater with him. Lucas watched for a moment, satisfied, then turned to pop his portable's access plug out of the console.
He's awful friendly with my dolphin, Nathan thought—then took back that thought in embarrassment, having guilt pangs about having called Darwin "his" once today already, even in protective mode. Darwin was another intelligence: Nathan would no more want to own him than he would want to own another human being. And he was beginning to suspect that Darwin would have his own ideas about the subject... which he definitely wanted time to discuss with him in detail before they had to part company.
Natha
n sorted through a couple of possible openings, and then settled for the most innocent one. "How long did that program take you?"
Lucas looked at him, somewhat surprised, then grinned. "I'm not done with it yet. You saw."
"The core code, I mean."
"About a year... The self-sampling part was the hardest. Six months for that alone."
"How many lines?"
"Ninety-thousand odd. Haven't counted lately." Lucas got a sudden wry expression. "Not all error free..."
"Is a program ever?" Nathan said. He could remember his frustration with his own routines.
"Nope." Lucas finished packing up his console. "But worth it, I guess..." He gestured with his head at Darwin, playing with his new toy, and the wry expression turned suddenly gentle. "It helps havin' someone to talk to who doesn't ride me all the time. 'Clean yourself up,' " he mimicked sarcastically, "'get a haircut, take your nose out of that book, stand up straight'—"
Nathan lifted one eyebrow a notch and said mildly, "The haircut might not be a bad idea."
Lucas snorted and eyed him with derision. "Get one yourself first," he said, and hand signaled, See ya round!—then whisked out of the room, looking insufferably pleased with himself.
"Talking dolphins," Nathan said softly. Darwin, perhaps thinking that he had been addressed, put his head up out of the water; then finding that he had not, he took himself and his toy off under the surface again. "Kids. What else is going to turn up here...?"
Something moved by the hatchway into the room, quite low down: something pink. Bridger looked at it in surprise. At first he thought it was another toy—some kind of fuzzy plaything for someone's, as far as he knew, three-year-old. Then he saw that the fuzzy pink thing was looking back at him, out of two beady black little eyes. The pink thing—a teacup-sized poodle, he now saw with complete shock—started barking at him, or yipping, rather: an interminable string of noisy, high-pitched yipping that ratcheted and echoed around the pool room fit to wake the dead.