Dammit! Why did he call Earth? Couldn't the report have waited until we'd gone home? Why let the whole eavesdropping galaxy know you'd found a Sargasso of ancient hulks in the middle of nowhere?

The Terragens Council had answered in code.

"Go into hiding. Await orders. Do not reply."

Creideiki obeyed, of course. But not before half the patron-lines in the galaxy had sent out their warships to find Streaker.

Toshio blinked.

Something. A resonance echo at last? Yes, the magnetic ore detector showed a faint echo toward the south. He concentrated on the receiver, relieved at last to have something to do. Self-pity was becoming a bore.

Yes. It would have to be a pretty fair deposit. Should he tell Hikahi? Naturally, the search for the missing crewfen came first, but…

A shadow fell across him. The party was skirting the edge of a massive metal-mound. The copper-colored mass was covered with thick tendrils of some green hanging growth.

"Don't go too close, Little Hands," Keepiru whistled from Toshio's left. Only Keepiru and the sled were this close to the mound. The other fins were giving it a wide berth.

"We know nothing of this flora," Keepiru continued. "And it'ss near here that Phip-pit was lost. You should stay safe within our convoy." Keepiru rolled lazily past Toshio, keeping up with languid fluke strokes. The neatly folded arms of his harness gleamed a coppery reflection from the metal-mound.

"Then it's all the more important to get samples, isn't it?" Toshio replied in irritation. "It's what we're out here for, anyway!" Without giving Keepiru time to react, Toshio banked the sled toward the shadowy mass of the mound.

Toshio dove into a region of darkness as the island blocked off the afternoon sunlight. A drifting school of silverbacked fish seemed to explode away from him as he drove at an angle along the thick, fibrous weed.

Keepiru squeaked in startlement behind him, an oath in Primal Dolphin, which showed the fin's distress. Toshio smiled.

The sled hummed cooperatively as the mound loomed like a mountain on his right. Toshio banked and grabbed at the nearest flash of green. There was a satisfying snapping sensation as his sample came free in his hand. No fin could do that! He flexed his fingers appreciatively, then twisted about to stuff the clump into a collection sack.

Toshio looked up and saw that the green mass, instead of receding, was closer than ever. Keepiru's squawling was louder.

Crybaby! Toshio thought. So I let the controls drift for a second. So what? I'll be back in your damned convoy before you finish making up a cuss-poem.

He steepened his leftward bank and simultaneously set his bow planes to rise. In a moment he realized it was a tactical mistake. For it slowed him down just enough for the cluster of pursuing tendrils to reach his sled.

There must have been larger sea creatures on Kithrup than the party had seen so far, for the tentacles that fell about Toshio were obviously meant to catch big prey.

"Oh, Koino-Anti! Now I've done it!" He pushed the throttle over to maximum and braced for the expected surge of power.

Power came… but not acceleration. The sled groaned, stretching the long, ropy strands. But forward movement was lost. Then the engine died. Toshio felt a slithery presence across his legs, then another. The tendrils began to tighten and pull.

Gasping, he managed to twist around onto his back, and groped for the knife sheathed at his thigh. The tendrils were sinuous and knotty. The knots clung to whatever they touched, and when one brushed against the back of Toshio's exposed left hand the boy cried out from the searing pain of contact.

The fins were crying out to each other, and there were sounds of vigorous movement not far away. But other than a brief hope that nobody else was caught, Toshio had little time to think of anything but the fight at hand.

The knife came free, gleaming like hope. And hope brought hope as two small strands parted under his slashing attack. Another, larger, one, took several seconds to saw through. It was replaced almost instantly by two more.

Then he saw the place to which he was being drawn.

A deep gash split the side of the metal-mound. Inside, a writhing mass of filaments awaited. Deep within, a dozen meters farther up, something sleek and gray lay already enmeshed in a forest of deceptively languid foliage.

Toshio felt open-mouthed steam fill his facemask. The reflection of his own eyes, dilated and stricken, was superimposed on the motionless figure of Ssassia. Gentle as her life had been, though not her death, the tide rocked her.

With a cry, Toshio resumed hacking. He wanted to call out to Hikahi-to let the party leader know of Ssassia's fate — but all that came out was a roar of loathing of the Kithrupan creeper. Leaves and fronds flew off through the churning water as he sliced out his hatred, but to little good, as the tendrils fell more numerous about him to draw him toward the gash.

Hikahi calling.

Above the churning of his struggle and the hoarseness of his breath, Toshio could hear the combat sounds of dolphin teamwork. Quick trills of Trinary, unslowed for human ears except for that one brief command, and the whining of their harnesses.

"Here! Here I am!" He slashed at a leafy vine that threatened his air hose, barely missing the hose itself. He licked his lips and tried to whistle in Trinary.

Lousy form and rhythm, but the fins would hear it better than they would a shout in Anglic. After only forty generations of sapience, they still thought better in an emergency when using whistle rhyme.

Toshio could hear the sounds of combat coming closer. But, as if hurried by the threat, the tentacles began drawing him back more rapidly, toward the gash. Suddenly a suckercovered strand wrapped itself around his right arm. Before he could shift his grip, one of the burning knots reached his hand. He screamed and tore the tendril away, but the knife was lost into the darkness.

Other filaments were falling all about him. At that moment Toshio became distantly aware that someone was talking to him slowly, and in Anglic!

"…says there are ships out there! Vice-Captain Takkata-Jim wants to know why Hikahi hasn't sent a monopulse confirmation…"

It was Akki's voice, calling from the ship! Toshio couldn't answer his friend. The switch for the sled radio was out of reach, and he was a bit preoccupied.

"Don't respond to this message," Akki went on obligingly. Toshio moaned at the irony as he tried to pry a tendril off his facemask without doing further insult to his hands. "Just transmit a monopulse and come on back-k, all of you. We think there's a space battle going on over Kithrup. Probably those crazy ETs followed us here and are fighting over the right to capture us, just like at Morgran.

"Gotta c-close up, now. Radio silence. Get back as soon as you can. Akki out."

Toshio felt a tendril seize hold of his air hose. A solid grip, this time.

"Sure, Akki, old friend," he grunted as he pulled at it. "I'll be going home just as soon as the universe lets me."

The air hose was crimped shut, and there was nothing he could do. Fog filled his facemask. As he felt himself blacking out, Toshio thought he saw the rescue party arrive, but he couldn't be sure if it was real or a hallucination. He wouldn't have expected Keepiru to lead the charge, for instance, or for that fin to have such a ferocious demeanor, heedless of the burning suckers.