Manta's Gift

  It was dazzling. Far above him, the undersides of the Jovian clouds were a violent swirl of color, with hues stretching across a spectrum he'd never seen in any picture or video of Jupiter. Jupiter, hell—he couldn't recall seeing such a range and variety of colors even amid the lush landscape of Earth. The other Qanska gathered around him, far from being the drab brown-gray of the Skydiver's records, were patterned in brilliant stripes and spots of red, green, yellow, and blue that reminded him of exotic tropical fish. Even the wind flowing around him showed subtle colors, like the fluid sculptures he'd played with as a child.

  It would have been impressive enough just dropping into it from a probe or shuttle. Coming out of the total darkness and isolation of a Qanskan womb, it literally took his breath away.

  "Mr. Raimey? What's happening?"

  Raimey took a cautious breath. Then another, and another. His alien lungs and artificial life-support system both seemed to be working just fine now. "I'm clear," he called back, stretching out with his arms and legs.

  A stretch that instantly became an awkward flailing. His arms weren't arms at all, he remembered belatedly, but the pectoral, mantalike fins of a Qanska. What he'd been thinking of as his shoulders were the leading edges of those fins; and what he'd thought of as his legs were twitching around haphazardly as the long flukes of his split tail.

  He'd known all this going in. He'd studied Qanskan physiology and Qanskan structure, and he'd endured endless and usually boring speculations on what it might be like to become a Qanska.

  Not a single minute of it had prepared him for this.

  "Hell in buckets," he growled under his breath, trying to bring his body under control. He'd done a lot of swimming as a kid, but none of those movements were of the least bit of use here. For a moment his flailing turned him sideways to the prevailing westerly wind, and he winced at the sudden roar and pressure in his left ear. His momentum continued him on through the turn, and the roaring dropped to acceptable levels as he ended up facing into the wind.

  Spreading his fins wide, he tried to hold position, but succeeded only in overcompensating and spinning around the other way. He winced again as the wind roared into his right ear this time, and changed his goal to completing the turn and putting the wind at his back. But again, his unfamiliarity with his own muscles and joints betrayed him, and he wound up snout-down, belly-first to the wind like an upside-down kite. From somewhere nearby he heard a rolling rumbling sound, like punctuated thunder.

  And suddenly, a brightly colored object came out of nowhere to slam hard into his left side, spinning him off course like a wayward billiard ball.

  "Hey!" he yelled, fighting hard to regain his balance. The momentum of the impact had rolled him partially over onto his side, and he twisted his whole body as he tried to get a look at whoever this idiot was who was playing games with him—

  And as he did so, something big and dark and torpedo-shaped shot through the space he'd just vacated. There was another roll of punctuated thunder—

  "Raimey, get out of there!" Faraday snapped. "You've got a Vuuka on your tail!

  "Move it, or be lunch!"

  FOUR

  "A Vuuka?" Raimey gasped, twisting back around to look at the torpedo shape that had overshot him.

  It was a Vuuka, all right. A relatively small one, a detached part of his brain pointed out, no more than five meters long.

  Five meters' worth of predator, compared to about a meter's worth of Raimey. A single bite on the fly, like he'd been coming in for, and Raimey would have been ripped in half. Belatedly, he realized that the Qanska who had slammed into him so annoyingly had in fact saved his life.

  But that daring move wasn't going to be of any use whatsoever if Raimey didn't get his tail moving. Already the Vuuka was kicking up a small whirlpool of colored air as he braked and circled around for another try.

  Unfortunately, as Raimey had already noted, moving his tail was a hell of a lot easier said than done. Frantically, he began flailing his arms and legs again, trying to visualize and duplicate the smooth and effortless movements he'd seen on the vids they'd shown him.

  He was getting the hang of it—that much was clear. But he wasn't getting it fast enough. Not nearly fast enough. He didn't dare look around, but he could practically feel the Vuuka's eyes locking onto his back.

  Getting ready to charge, with nothing but distance between him and his prey...

  "Mr. Raimey, are you listening?" Faraday cut into his thoughts.

  "Listening to what?" Raimey demanded.

  "The other Qanska," Faraday said. "They're talking to you. Your Qanskan language lessons, remember?"

  Raimey frowned. They were talking to him?

  Then, suddenly, he got it. The punctuated thunder sounds he'd been hearing were Qanskan speech.

  Only one small problem. Like his vision, his hearing was also all screwed up. The rolling thunder didn't sound the least bit like the tonal dictionary and grammar they'd drilled him on back on Earth. It was richer and fuller, with nuances and shadings that either the human microphones or his own formerly human ears hadn't been able to pick up. All that memorization, all that sweat and toil, was going to be good for exactly nothing.

  But that was more explanation than he had time for right now. "I can't swim and translate at the same time," he snapped instead. "What do they want?"

  "They're telling you to dive," Faraday said. "As fast as you can, as deep as you can."

  "And how the hell do they suggest I do that?" he bit back, trying to bend forward for the sort of surface dive he could have done in a swimming pool at home.

  Here, it didn't work nearly so well. But even as he struggled with it, he accidentally rolled onto his side again; and this time he found himself slipping into a sharp downward angle.

  "Never mind, I've got it," he said, putting some muscle into it. This, at least, was a familiar sensation from his childhood: the effort to push himself deeper than natural buoyancy would normally allow him to go. Pushing hard with fins and tails, he forced his way downward.

  It was a good ten seconds before the utter stupidity of this maneuver suddenly struck him. A five-meter-long Vuuka was considerably heavier than a Qanskan newborn. It had to be paddling like crazy just to stay up this high. Diving into deeper and denser atmosphere, into the levels where a predator that size would normally live, was playing straight into its hands.

  Or rather, into its mouth.

  "Faraday, this is nuts," he called.

  "Just keep going," Faraday said tersely. "You're doing okay right now. Some of the Qanska are harassing him, trying to slow him down."

  Raimey's new head wasn't really built for turning, but as he tried to look over his back he discovered his eyes could do an amazing amount of swiveling. Another of those half-rolls, and the Vuuka was in sight again.

  There were several Qanska swarming around it, all right, slamming into its sides with the bony protrusions of their foreheads. Even as he watched, one of them darted straight past the predator's snout.

  "That's the one who shoved you out of the way," Faraday identified the daredevil. "I swear he's going to get his tails bitten off if he's not careful."

  "Never mind that," Raimey snarled, rolling back forward again. The last thing he cared about right now was someone else's tails. "Where the hell are the—" he searched for the word "—the Protectors? Aren't they supposed to be up here guarding the babies?"

  "They're coming," Faraday assured him. "If you can just—What?"

  He broke off. There was some low conversation in the background, but with the blood pounding through his brain Raimey couldn't make it out. "What's the trouble?" he shouted. "Faraday?"

  "No trouble," Faraday said. "Cut to your left. The Qanska have arranged a surprise."

  Swearing to himself, Raimey waddled his body into a leftward curve. He could see nothing there: no Protectors, no Breeders, nothing. He continued his curve a few more degrees—

  And caught his breath. Rising ponde
rously through the swirling air beneath and beside him was another Qanska.

  But not the ten-meter-long Protector he'd been hoping desperately to see. Not the young adult, strong and fast, that he needed to take on the Vuuka and get him out of this mess. This thing was more the size of a small neighborhood convenience store, its pectoral fins spanning at least twenty meters. Its colors were faded, like the paint on an old house, its entire surface distorted by lumps and bulges until it was almost unrecognizable as a Qanska.

  "You wanted a Protector," Faraday said, his voice sounding relieved nearly to the point of smugness. "How about a full-fledged Counselor instead?"

  Terrific, Raimey thought bitterly. Yes, the newcomer was big, all right. Much bigger than the attacking Vuuka, and impressive as hell.

  But size was hardly the important ledger entry here. The predator was young, fast, and aggressive; and there was something distinctly decrepit about the way the Counselor tentatively flapped its huge fins. Just terrific. I need a Wall Street wizard. So what do they send me? A Trade Commission bureaucrat.

  Still, maybe he could at least hide behind it. Leaning into the thickening air, he pushed his fins for all they were worth. The big Qanska was coming up fast—

  "Duck!" Faraday snapped.

  Startled, Raimey momentarily faltered. But the result was basically the one desired. The sudden loss of motive power combined with the overly dense air around him sent him popping upward like a cork. Ducking, sort of, only in reverse.

  And once again, the sudden change in direction was just in time. The Vuuka shot past beneath him, coming close enough for its fins to scratch briefly across his underside.

  And continued on to slam full-tilt into the upper left fin of the rising Counselor.

  The predator gave a sort of elephantine howl as it bounced off the Qanska, staggering in midair like a bird that had flown into a window. It started to sink, and for a moment Raimey thought it was simply going to disappear into the depths where it had come from. On the Qanska, at the point of the predator's impact, he could see bright yellow-orange blood beginning to seep out onto the faded color scheme.

  But then the Vuuka's flukes twitched and began to beat the air again. The howl cut off, and the Vuuka drove back up toward the Counselor like a Doberman charging a rhino. It opened its mouth wide as it curved around, giving Raimey a glimpse of several rows of awesomely intimidating teeth.

  And zeroing in on the yellow blood, it slammed teeth-first into the Counselor's fin.

  Raimey winced in sympathetic pain. The initial trickle of blood became a wide mustard-colored stream running down the Qanska's side as the Vuuka began to chew its way into the skin. Some of the blood spattered into the air around the Vuuka's head in the fury of its attack, like a paint sprayer gone mad.

  "Mr. Raimey?" Faraday called anxiously. "Are you all right?"

  "I am, yeah," Raimey called back. The Counselor was still rising, and he could see now that it was being lifted on the backs of a half dozen smaller Qanska. Maybe that was why there hadn't been any Protectors around to defend him, he thought with a flash of bitterness. Maybe everyone in the area had been pressed into luggage-cart duty.

  If so, the Counselor was certainly paying for that decision. The Vuuka was going at his prey like a boring machine, with no sign of slowing down. Already his head had nearly vanished from sight below the level of the skin. "This big lumpy help the Qanska sent is in big trouble, though," he added to Faraday. "The Vuuka's going at him like a worm into a rotten tomato...."

  He paused, frowning. Something was wrong here. The Vuuka was still eating into the Counselor's side, but it was digging in far too fast. Even as Raimey had been speaking its head had disappeared entirely from sight, and it was moving almost visibly into its self-dug tunnel.

  No. The Vuuka wasn't digging down. The Qanska's skin was moving up. Moving up along the predator's body like multicolored tar, oozing up as it enveloped the Vuuka's body.

  What the hell?

  And then he remembered. The dark and extremely muddy vid Chippawa and Faraday had taken from their Skydiver bathyscaph...

  "You were saying?" Faraday asked.

  "Never mind," Raimey murmured. "I think the Counselor's got it under control."

  The punctuated thunder had come back. "They're talking to me again," he told Faraday.

  "What are they saying?"

  Raimey tried to shrug. The movement merely threatened to flip him over on his side again. "How should I know?"

  "You've had the same language lessons I have," Faraday reminded him.

  "Yeah, but I don't have a computer down here to help me," Raimey retorted. "Besides, nothing sounds the way it did in the lessons."

  "Well, you'd better get used to it," Faraday said. "That's what you're going to be listening to the rest of your life."

  You bastard, Raimey thought up at him, clenching his teeth. At least he still had teeth he could clench with.

  But the Counselor was still rumbling; and for the moment, hating Faraday wasn't going to do him any good. Forcing back his anger, Raimey concentrated on the sounds.

  It wasn't as bad as he'd first thought. As he'd already noted, the tonal pattern sounded more varied to Qanskan ears than to the human equivalent. But now that he could focus his full attention on them, he was able to hear the core sounds that he'd been taught. He still had no idea what all the extra harmonics and other stuff meant, but for now he should be able to get by.

  Greetings to you, child of the humans, the Counselor was saying. I am Latranesto, Counselor of the Qanska. In the name of the Counselors, and the Leaders, and the Wise, I welcome you to our world.

  Okay, Raimey thought to himself. Step one completed: He'd understood what they were saying. Now came the tricky part: trying to talk back. The words he was supposed to say had been pre-chosen by his instructors back on Earth. It was up to him, though, to hear the alien tonal words in his head and then try to recreate them. "I greet—"

  He broke off, startled by the sounds that had emanated from somewhere in his throat and chest.

  Yes? Latranesto said. Please continue.

  Raimey took a deep breath, feeling the strange sensation of cool hydrogen gas whistling in along his new body's twin throats as he did so. Clearly, talking Qanskan was going to be a lot easier than anyone had expected, now that he had a set of genuine Qanskan vocal cords to work with. A hell of a lot easier, apparently, than relearning how to swim. "I greet you and your people, Counselor Latranesto," he started over. "I am honored in turn to be here."

  There was a ripple of a new sound, something like fingernails scratching on a piece of flat slate. A sound of respect or greeting? A ritual noise of greeting that they hadn't thought to mention to their human contacts up in Jupiter Prime?

  Or were they just laughing at his accent?

  You are welcome among us, Latranesto said. If I may remember in your presence, it has been a long time since my first meeting with your kind.

  Raimey frowned. Could this possibly be...?

  No, he realized. Latranesto couldn't possibly be the Qanska who had rescued Chippawa and Faraday and their crippled bathyscaph. That one had looked at least twice this size in the Skydiver's vid, probably even bigger. Besides, that had been twenty years ago. "I do not understand," he said, trying to match the other's tone and to pick up some of the nuances he was hearing. It would be nice if he was getting some of the words right, too. "When before have you met other humans?"

  When before have you met other humans, you mean to say, the big Qanska said.

  A correction, obviously. Only Raimey had no idea how the Counselor's version differed from his. So much for this communication stuff being easy. Salesman's cockiness, they'd called this in business school, and warned against it. The encounter was long ago, and very brief, Latranesto went on. I was the Baby who foolishly collided with the machine's cord.

  Ah—so that was it. He'd been the baby Qanska who had bounced off the Skydiver's tether line. "I see," he said.
>
  It was my fault that those humans inside neared death. Latranesto said. I left a taste of my blood on the cord, which was what drew the Vuuka to attack.

  Raimey looked over at Latranesto's fin. Only the Vuuka's tail flukes remained uncovered by the Qanska's spreading skin, and they had long since ceased to beat at the air.

  And Latranesto had a new surface lump for his already impressive collection. "So that was why it attacked you," he said. "A Qanska four times its size. It was attracted by your blood."

  By blood, and by movement, Latranesto said. That was what drew it to you. By movement and blood do Vuuka hunt.

  Raimey grimaced, remembering all that flailing around as he tried to get his new muscles to cooperate. "You could have said something," he said accusingly.

  Your words have no clear meaning.

  "I mean you should have warned us there would be a predator on my tail the minute I was born," Raimey said. "You should have had a Protector waiting, too."

  From one of the Qanska under Latranesto's wide belly came a noise that sounded suspiciously like a harrumph. There is normally no need for a Protector, Latranesto rumbled. Qanskan babies are born still and quiet, and do not attract the Vuuka.

  "Damn and a half," Faraday's voice murmured in the back of Raimey's brain.

  Raimey felt his whole body twitch. To hear a human voice suddenly interjected into the rumbles of Qanskan conversation was startling. It felt very... alien. "What?" Raimey demanded.

  "The atrophying umbilical cord," Faraday said. "That makes Qanskan babies slightly air-starved before birth so that they'll go to sleep."

  Another voice, female-sounding, said something unintelligible in the background. "What was that?" Raimey demanded.

  There was a click of another microphone opening up. "I said, and then they're shot like a torpedo out of the birth canal," the voice repeated. Probably McCollum, the Qanskan expert, Raimey guessed. "That gets it far enough away from the mother that any predators zeroing in on her movement or any blood from her afterbirth probably won't even notice the kid. Cool."