Manta's Gift

With a final flip of his tails, he stretched out his buoyancy sacs and headed up. "Manta?" Drusni called after him. "Wait a pulse."

He ignored her, pushing hard against the air with his fins to put as much distance as he could between them. He had, he knew, begun his life on Jupiter as a royal pain in the tails to everyone around him. Lately, he'd tried to turn that around, to serve his friends and his people as best he could.

Trying to make up for all the pain and frustration and anger he'd caused. Trying to return something good to them for this gift of life he'd been given.

Had he succeeded in bringing the scales back into balance? He didn't know. For that matter, he didn't know if they ever truly could be balanced. How could anyone sweep away an unkind word, or a vicious thought, or an unfair rumor?

Or the death of a loved one's unborn child?

No, there was no balance possible. All he could do was serve them all as best he could, and hope that the past could somehow be put aside.

And now, here at the end, he had one last act of service to perform. One last gift to offer his people.

He continued upward, heading for the spot where the humans would soon be lowering their weapon.

Away to the east, the sunlight was begi

THIRTY-ONE

"Tether ship reporting in," McCollum a

"Tell them to stand by," Faraday said. "Mr. Milligan, you getting anything on any of the probes?"

"Everything seems clear," Milligan said. "Looks like we're good to go."

"Good," Faraday said, glancing one last time over the status displays. All did, indeed, seem to be ready. "Ms. McCollum, order the tether ship to proceed."

"Yes, sir," McCollum said. She repeated the order into her microphone, then leaned over her displays. "Tether ship has begun lowering the package," she reported after a minute. "Time to top of Level One, approximately five minutes."

Faraday nodded, and a taut silence descended on the room. The tether ship crew was the most experienced one on the station, with probably a hundred similar maneuvers under their belts. They knew what they were doing.

On the other hand, they'd never done it with a live half-gigaton nuclear weapon before. This would not be a good time for random mistakes to start creeping in.

"Payload's entering the upper atmosphere," Milligan reported. "No bouncing or instabilities yet."

"Wind is holding within acceptable limits," Sprenkle added. "We've got a storm developing a few kilometers to the northwest, but the projected track shows it staying well clear."

Faraday began to breathe again. Apart from the turbulence layers lurking down around Level Eight, this was the part everyone had worried about the most. Even under the best of conditions, the relatively sudden transition from vacuum to high-speed atmosphere could be a tricky one to handle.

With the weight and bulk of the pressure shielding they'd had to build around the nuke, this was not the best of conditions.

"I'm getting something on Probe Four," Milligan said suddenly. "One Qanska, moving up fast toward the package."

"Who is it?" Faraday asked. "Anyone we know?"

"It's Manta," Beach murmured under his breath.

"It is?" Faraday said, frowning at him. With all the frantic activity of the past week and a half, it suddenly occurred to him that he'd never gotten around to asking Beach about the odd expression he'd seen on him back during that pivotal confrontation between Liadof and Counselor Latranesto.

"How do you know?"

"It's Manta, all right," Milligan confirmed before Beach could reply. "What in the world is he doing here?"

"Maybe he's helping make sure the area's clear," McCollum suggested.

"Or he's here for some other reason," Faraday said, still looking at Beach. That same odd expression was back. "Mr. Beach, do you know something we don't?"

Beach shook his head. "Not really," he said. "It's just a... a feeling, I guess. Something Manta said, back when Arbiter Liadof was trying to bludgeon the stargate's location out of Counselor Latranesto."

"What was it?" Faraday asked.

"That's the problem: I don't know," Beach said. "Maybe it wasn't something he said, exactly, but the way he was talking. Something in his voice, or the way he was using the tonals."

"Yes," Sprenkle spoke up slowly. "Now that you mention it, I remember noticing something in his voice, too."

"Well, what was it?" Faraday asked again. "Come on; between the two of you, you know as much about the way Manta talks and thinks as any ten other people in the System. Was he mad at Liadof for what she was doing? Mad at the rest of us for letting her do it?"

"I don't think it was anger," Sprenkle said. "Not exactly."

"I agree," Beach said. "It was—" He groped for words.

"Keep working on it," Faraday said tightly. "Mr. Milligan, what's he doing? Is he bothering the weapon?"

"Not at all," Milligan said. "He just seems to be riding down along with it."

"Where is it now?"

"Near the top of Level Two," Milligan said. "And unless we do something, we're going to be losing sight of it pretty soon, too. You want me to drop Four to keep an eye on it?"

Faraday hesitated, studying the locator display. "Nothing new on Seven's status, I take it?"

"Nope," Milligan said. "The thing's still doing lazy circles down on Level Three. Whatever went wrong with its rudder and control system is still wrong."

Faraday made a face. Murphy's Law in action. The one day they needed every single probe was naturally the day one of them would choose to go out of commission. Already their probes were spread too thin across the region, scattered strategically around to help Latranesto and the other Qanska make sure no one accidentally wandered into the blast zone. With Probe Seven making useless donuts in the air, leaving Probe Four where it was would mean the nuke would be out of their sight until it got near Probe Twelve, way down on Level Five. "And Manta's staying with the package?"

"Like he was glued there," Milligan said. "Maybe he's just giving it an escort."

Faraday pursed his lips. Still, what could happen to the weapon between Levels One and Five?

"You'd better leave Four where it is," he decided. "It's the only one we've got that can cover that part of Level One. If Pranlo suddenly finds there's someone missing from the gathering point, we may need it available to do a fast search."

"Right," Milligan said. "Package is falling out of view... there goes Manta with it."

Faraday nodded. "Any headway, Mr. Beach?"

"It had to do with Liadof," Beach said. "You were right about that. But it wasn't just anger. It was something deeper. Like his world view had just gotten altered or something."

"And you're getting all this just from the tonals?"

Beach waved a hand helplessly. "I know it sounds crazy," he admitted. "But I know Qanskan tonals, and I know Manta. I know what I heard; I just can't put it into words."

Faraday grimaced. "This isn't getting us anywhere," he said. "Dr. Sprenkle, get on the computer and pull up the record of that conversation. We need something more than vague recollections of what Manta might have been feeling about whatever was sort of being said."

"I remember something," McCollum said suddenly. "We were talking about how the blast itself might stimulate the trigger genes and bring about a surge of alternate life forms. But I remember thinking that he wasn't really listening."

"Right," Beach said, snapping his fingers. "He was still back on how we were going to deploy the nuke. He wanted to know if we were going to use a tether on it."

"And he made some other comment," McCollum said. thing I remember really wondering about."