“What?” Roman snapped.
“Plasma discharge from the net,” Marlowe said, sounding stunned. “Absolutely massive. Must have had a thousand amps and at least that many volts on it.”
“That got the barrier open, all right,” Kennedy said. “Second missile going straight through the hole. Shark’s telekening it to the side—must think it’s another net missile—”
And an instant later the center of the screen went black as sunscreens kicked in.
“Sub-nuke explosion, Captain,” Marlowe said. “Shaped blast, about a twentymegaton rating, triggered approximately fifty kilometers out from the shark.”
Roman hissed between his teeth. Even at Amity’s distance… “Ferrol, call down to Tenzing’s people and have them put a real-time monitor on the radiation,” Roman ordered. “And have the Tampies watch for signs of stress in Sleipnir. We should be well clear of any trouble, but there’s no point in taking chances.”
“Yes, sir,” Ferrol said, and turned to his intercom. On the scope screen the black dot was shrinking and fading—
And the shark was still moving. Sluggish, but clearly alive.
Roman shook his head in wonderment… in wonderment, and with the first stirrings of real fear. Even at fifty kilometers away a blast that size should have delivered a thunderclap of heat and particle radiation directly into the shark’s surface and sensory clusters. If it could shrug off something that powerful—
“Missile away,” Kennedy announced into his thoughts; clenching his teeth, Roman shifted his attention back to the ships. A flare had appeared beside the Atlantis; and beside the Starseeker, and beside the Jnana, and beside the Atlantis again—“Correction: barrage away,” Kennedy amended. “Looks like they’re throwing everything they have at it.” The first missile flare erupted in a dim pinprick of light—
“They’ve gone to chemical warheads,” Marlowe said, sounding stunned.
“Must be trying to kill it without excessive damage,” Kennedy suggested.
“Probably figured the first sub-nuke had taken enough of the fight out of it.”
“Damn fool risky,” Marlowe muttered. “There it goes, though. Turning around and… wait a minute. What the hell—
The shark had veered ponderously away from the incoming missiles; but instead of turning a full 180 degrees and running, it preceded to trace out a convoluted path that seemed to be part helix, part spiral, and part random. Through it all the pinpricks of exploding warheads continued to flare across the middle of the display, looking for all the world like some strange space-going species of firefly.
And then, even as the task force launched a fresh barrage of missiles, the shark finally turned tail and fled.
“Only pulling about two gees,” Kennedy reported. “It’s hurt, all right.”
“Hurt, and gone crazy both,” Ferrol snorted gently. “What the hell was that, anyway?—the dying-swan version of a mating dance?”
“Or else an attempt at evasive maneuvers,” Marlowe offered. “It was still doing a fair job of telekening those missiles away from it the whole time, even though they were getting closer there at the end.”
“It’s slowing down,” Kennedy said, peering intently at her helm display.
“Acceleration dropping toward zero… make that at zero.”
Roman held his breath. Again the firefly flashes dotted the screen—
But this time, directly against the shark’s surface.
“They’ve got it,” Kennedy grunted. “—There go the lasers again.”
“Ion beams, too,” Marlowe reported. “And they’re getting through—the explosions must have scattered the vultures. God, those lasers are actually cutting into the shark’s hide. Cutting deep into it.”
Between the lasers, ion beams, and warheads the light show went on for another twenty minutes… and when it was finally over, there was no doubt whatsoever that the shark was dead.
Or, to be more precise, what was left of the shark was dead.
“Well,” Marlowe said to no one in particular, “that’ll certainly give them a head start on dissecting the thing.”
With an effort, Roman unclamped his jaw. “A head start, and then some.” He reached for the comm laser control, set for tracking. The indicator flashed—“Amity to Atlantis,” he called. “Come in, Atlantis.”
“Atlantis; Captain Lekander,” the reply came a few seconds later. “You enjoy the show, Amity?”
“It’s just nice to know the things can be killed,” Roman told him dryly. “We’d had our doubts.”
“Anything alive can be killed,” Lekander countered. “It’s just a matter of having the right tools for the job.”
“I imagine. So what happens now?”
“We’ll give the area a few hours to cool off, then send a team over to do some dissection,” Lekander said. “Assuming there’s enough of it left by then—I don’t know if you can see it from there, but the vultures have gone ahead and started lunch already. So much for honor among thieves, I guess.”
“Um.” Roman’s helm display changed to show Kennedy’s projection of the shark’s drift. “How much time were you planning to spend studying the carcass, Captain?”
he asked.
“That’s fairly open-ended,” Lekander said. “Why?”
“Our projection shows you’ll be passing within a few hundred thousand kilometers of our current position.”
Roman explained. “We could rendezvous out there with you and take the whole carcass back with us.”
“That’s tempting, but no,” the other said. “Like I said, you’re supposed to sit there where we left you and not get involved.”
Roman nodded. “Understood. Just thought I’d ask.”
“Rro-maa?”
Roman jumped at the voice; he hadn’t realized anyone from the Tampy section was listening. “Yes?”
“May we ask Lle-kann if the missing space horse has been located?”
Roman’s face warmed with embarrassment. Concentrating on the shark, he’d totally forgotten the ship they’d come here to rescue in the first place. “Good question,” he agreed. “How about it, Captain?”
“There’s no sign of either the ship or the space horse,” Lekander said, his tone just a shade too casual. “But I wouldn’t worry too much about that. My guess is that they spotted the shark, dropped their beacon, and got out before the vultures could catch them.”
Roman stared at the intercom, a nasty suspicion beginning to knot his stomach.
“You told me they were six hours overdue at port,” he reminded Lekander. “Even if they had had to Jump to a different star first, it wouldn’t have taken them an extra six hours to find their way home.”
“Maybe they had mechanical difficulty,” Lekander said tartly. “Or stopped to calve or something.”
“Or maybe they got home fine,” Roman countered, “and all this rush was just to get out here before the shark left?”
“I don’t really see,” Lekander said, a noticeable edge to his voice, “how any of this could possibly matter.”
Roman grimaced. No, Lekander probably didn’t see. But someone above him surely had… and that someone had apparently realized that persuading Tampies to participate in a rescue mission would be a hell of a lot easier than talking them into joining a shark hunt.
And that same someone had obviously decided that keeping Roman in the dark would help sell the story.
“Rro-maa?”
Roman braced himself. “Yes, Rrin-saa?”
“Is it true that there was no one in danger here?”
He hesitated. “I don’t know, Rrin-saa,” he told the alien truthfully. “I really don’t.”
For a long moment the Tampy was silent. “We are not predators, Rro-maa,” he said at last. “We do not kill without reason, nor interfere with the patterns of nature without cause.”
“Rrin-saa, it’s necessary that we learn as much about these sharks as we can,”
Roman said, cursing whoever the mallet-head was who’d put him in the middle like this. “As much for your benefit as for ours. If there are sharks moving into this region, your space horses will be in danger.”
“When it becomes necessary, we will do what we can to protect them,” Rrin-saa said. “You have lied to us, Rro-maa.”
“The lie was to both of us, Rrin-saa,” Roman said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
“I am sorry, too,” the Tampy said. “The Amity experiment has been built on trust.