Startide Rising by David Brin Page A

and more, Toshio was coming to dislike being here. He wished he was home, where the dangers were simple, and easily handled—kelp Wingers and island turtles and the like—and where there were no ETs.
    “Are you all right?” Hikahi asked as she came by. The dolphin lieutenant radiated calm.
    “I’m fine,” he grumped. “It’s a good thing I didn’t wait any longer to tell you about Akki’s message, though. You have every reason to be mad at me.”
    “Don’t be silly. Now we head back. Brookida is fatigued, so I’ve lashed him under an airdome. You will forge ahead with the scouts. We’ll follow. Now’t-take off!”
    “Aye, sir.” Toshio took his bearings and pushed the throttle. The thrusters hummed as the sled accelerated. Several of the stronger swimmers maintained pace alongside, as the mound slowly receded on the right.
    It had taken them five minutes or so to get started. They were barely under way before the tsunami hit.
     
    It was not a huge wave, merely the first of a series of ripples spreading from a point where a pebble had plunked into the sea. The pebble happened to be a space ship half a kilometer long. It had plunked, at supersonic speed, a mere fifty kilometers away.
    The wave jerked the sled upward and sideways, almost shaking the boy off. A cloud of sea debris, torn-up plants, and dead and living fish whirled about him like clods in a cyclone. The roar was deafening.
    Toshio clutched the controls desperately. Somehow, against incredible momentum, he managed slowly to drive the prow of the sled up and away from the wave front. Just in time, he thrust out of the curling, downward circulation and sent the tiny craft flying along the direction the current wanted to go. Eastward.
    An ash-gray form speared past him on his left. In a flash he recognized Keepiru, struggling to keep control in the churning waters. The fin squeaked something indecipherable in Trinary, then was gone.
    Some instinct guided Toshio, or perhaps it was the sonar screen, now a mess of jumbled snow, but still bearing the faint, fading traces of the terrain map it had shown only moments before. Toshio forced the sled to bear to the left as hard as possible.
    The emergency-power roar of the engines changed to a scream as he suddenly slewed hard to port in desperation. The huge, dark bulk of a metal-mound loomed ahead! Already he could feel undertow as the wave began to form breakers to his right, curling as the cycloid rode up the sloping shore of the island.
    Toshio wanted to cry out, but the struggle took all of his breath. He clenched his teeth and counted as the terrible seconds passed.
    The sled drove past the cliff-like northern shore amid a cloud of bubbles. Though he was still underwater, he could look downward a dozen meters to his right, and see the lower beach plants of the island. He was riding in the center of a tall mound of water.
    Then he was past! The sea opened up and one of the deep oceanic rills lay beneath him, dark and seemingly bottomless. Toshio slammed the bow planes forward and vented his tanks. The sled plummeted faster than he had ever dived before.
    His stern pulled forward precariously. Toshio passed clouds of falling debris. The darkness and cold came up at him, and he sought the chill as a refuge.
    The valley sloped below him as he brought the sled to a quiet depth. He could sense the tsunami rolling by above him. The sea plants all around waved in an obviously unaccustomed manner. A slow rain of falling rubbish drifted down on all sides, but at least the water wasn’t trying to beat him to death anymore. Toshio flattened out his dive and headed toward the valley center, away from everything. Then he let himself sag in an agony of bruised muscles and adrenalin reaction.
    He blessed the tiny, man-designed symbiotes that were right now scavenging his blood of excess nitrogen, preventing narcosis raptures at this depth.
    Toshio cranked the engines down to one-quarter, and they sighed, sounding