She quickly stripped and stepped into the swimsuit. Then she stopped in front of a mirror and tugged at the strings until the bikini was comfortable. Dennie knew she was attractively built. At least the mels she knew had told her so often enough. Still, slightly broad shoulders gave her an excuse for the self-reproach she always seemed to be looking for.

She tested the mirror with a smile. The image was instantly transformed. Strong white teeth brilliantly balanced her dark brown eyes.

She let it lapse. Dimples made her look younger, an effect to be avoided at all cost. She sighed and carefully pushed her jet black hair into a rubber diving cap.

Well, let's get this over with.

She checked the seals on her notecase and entered the lock. When she closed the inner hatch, fizzing saline water began flooding into the chamber from vents around the floor.

Dennie avoided looking down. She fumbled with her Batteau breather mask, making it snug over her face. The transparent membrane felt tough, but it passed air in and out freely as she took rapid, deep breaths. Numerous flexible plates around its rim would help pull enough air from supercharged oxywater. At the corners of her vision, the mask was equipped with small sonar displays, which were supposed to help make up for a human's substantial deafness underwater.

Warm bubbling wetness climbed her legs. Dennie readjusted her facemask several times. Her elbow pressed the notecase close against her side. When the fluid had almost reached her shoulders, she immersed her head and breathed hard with her eyes closed.

The mask worked. Of course, it always did. It felt like inhaling in a thick ocean mist, but there was enough air. A bit sheepish over her fearful little ritual, she stood up straight and waited for the water to rise over her head.

At last the door opened, and Dennie swam out into a large chamber where spiders, "walkers," and other dolphin gear lay neatly folded in recesses. Tucked into orderly shelves were racks of the small water jetpacks that the dolphins used to move about in the ship in weightlessness. The jets made amazing acrobatics possible in free fall, but on a planet, with most of the ship flooded, they were useless.

Usually one or two fen were in this outer dressing room, wriggling into or out of equipment. Puzzled by the emptiness, Dennie swam to the opening at the far end of the chamber and looked out into the central bay.

The great cylinder was only twenty meters across. The vista wasn't as impressive as the view from the hub of one of the space cities of Sol's asteroid belts. Still, whenever she entered the central bay, her first impression was one of vast and busy space. Long radial shafts stretched out from spine to cylinder wall, holding the ship rigid and carrying power to the stasis flanges. Between these columns were dolphin work areas, arrayed on supports of resilient mesh.

Dolphins, even the Tursiops amicus, didn't like being cooped up any more than they had to be. In space, the crew worked in the weightless openness of the central bay, jetting about in humid air. But Creideiki had to land his damaged ship in an ocean. And this meant he had also had to flood the ship in order to enable his workers to reach their instruments.

The bay shimmered with a barely suppressed effervescence. Here and there tiny streams of bubbles rose toward the curving ceiling. The waters of Kithrup were carefully filtered, solvents added, and oxygen forced in to make oxywater. Neo-dolphins had been gene-crafted to be able to breathe it, though they didn't enjoy it much.

Dennie looked around, puzzled. Where was everyone?

Motion caught her eye. Above the five-meter span of the central spine, two dolphins and two humans swam rapidly toward the ship's bow. "Hey!" she shouted. "Wait for me!"

The facemask was supposed to focus and amplify the sound of her voice, but to Dennie it sounded as if the water swallowed her words.

The fen stopped at once. In unison they swooped about toward her. The two humans swam on for a few moments, then paused and looked about, moving their arms slowly. When they caught sight of Dennie, one of them waved.

"Hurry up, honored biologissst!" A large, charcoal-gray dolphin in heavy work harness swooped past Dennie. The other one circled about impatiently.

Dennie swam as hard as she could. "What's going on? Is the space battle over? Has someone found us?"

A stocky black man grinned as she approached. The other human, a tall, stately, blonde woman, impatiently turned to go as soon as Dennie had caught up.

"Now, wouldn't we have heard alarms, then, if there'd been ETs cumin'?" The black man kidded her as they swam above the spine. Why Emerson D'Anite, with his dark coloration, chose at times to affect a burr was a secret which Dennie had yet to pry out of him.

She was relieved to hear they weren't under attack, but if the Galactics weren't coming to get them yet, what was all the fuss?

"The prospecting party!" The fate of the lost patrol had completely slipped her mind, so caught up had she been in her own problems. "Gillian, have they come back? Have Toshio and Hikahi returned?"

The older woman swam with a reaching, long-limbed grace that Dennie envied. Her low, alto voice somehow carried well through the water. Her expression was grim.

"Yes Dennie, they're back. But at least four of them are dead."

Dennie gasped. She had to make an effort to keep up. "Dead? How… ? Who… ?"

Gillian Baskin didn't slacken her pace. She answered over her shoulder. "We aren't sure how… When Brookida made it back, he mentioned Phip-pit and Ssassia… and told the rescue party they'd probably find others beached or killed."

"Brookida… ?"

Emerson jogged her with his elbow. "And where have you been? It was announced when he got in, hours ago. Mr. Orley took old Hannes and twenty crewfen to find Hikahi and the others."

"I… I must have been asleep at the time." Dennie contemplated slowly taking apart a certain chimpanzee. Why didn't Charlie tell me when I came in for work? It probably slipped his mind entirely. One of these days that chimp's monomania will cause somebody to strangle him!

Dr. Baskin had already pulled ahead with the two dolphins. She was almost as fast a swimmer as Tom Orley, and none of the other five humans aboard could keep up with her when she hurried.

Dennie turned to D'Anite. "Tell me about it!"

Emerson quickly summarized the story Brookida had told — of a killer weed, of a burning, falling star cruiser, and of the savage waves that followed its crash, setting off the desperate cycle of rescue fever.

Dennie was stunned by the story, especially young Toshio's role. That didn't sound like Toshio Iwashika at all. He had been the one person aboard Streaker who seemed younger and lonelier than she. She liked the middie, of course, and hoped he hadn't lost his life trying to be a hero.

Emerson then told her the most recent rumors — about an island rescue during a midnight storm, and aboriginal tool users.

This time Dennie stopped in midstroke. "Abos? You're sure? Native pre-sentients?" She tread water, staring at the black engineer.

They now were only ten meters from a great open hatch at the bow end of the central bay. Through it came a cacophony of high squeakings and chitterings.

Emerson shrugged. The action shook a coating of bubbles from his shoulders and the rim-plates of his facemask. "Dennie, why don't we go in and find out? So far all we have is gossip. They must be through decontamination by now"

From ahead there came a sudden, high-pitched whine of engines; then three white power sleds sped from the outlock hatch, single-file. They veered, one by one, around Dennie and D'Anite before either of them could move, leaving fizzing trails of supercritical bubbles in their wakes.