The Dolphins of Altair Read online

  The Dolphins of Altair

  Margaret St. Clair

  BIRTH OF A HOLOCAUST

  “Dr. Lawrence,” Madelaine said steadily, “will you help us? We can’t have anybody knowing about us who isn’t on our side.”

  “That’s something I can’t answer until I know what you’re trying to do.”

  “We want to free the sea people who are in the research stations. That’s the first thing. Then we want to make sure that human beings will never molest them again.”

  “A large order,” Lawrence answered, unsmiling. “Yes, I’ll help you. But I’d like to point out that what you have said amounts to a declaration of war on the whole human race…”

  Before the dawn of man…

  …there was a covenant between the land and the sea people—a covenant long forgotten by those who stayed on shore, but indelibly etched in the minds of the others—the dolphins of Altair.

  Now the covenant had been broken. Dolphins were being wantonly sacrificed in the name of scientific research, their waters increasingly polluted, their number dangerously diminished. They had to find allies and strike back. Allies willing to sever their own earthly bonds for the sake of their sea brothers—willing, if necessary, to execute the destruction of the whole human race…

  Margaret St. Clair

  THE DOLPHINS OF ALTAIR

  Chapter 1

  The three human beings who helped us came to Noonday Rock by different ways. Madelaine came because we called her; Sven came because he could not help hearing the voice of our distress. But Dr. Lawrence was moved by nothing but his own curiosity, his unquenched thirst for marvels. We would never have pitched on him as an ally, and yet he was more crucial to what happened than any of the others. It was he who suggested— But I had better introduce myself. I am Amtor, a dolphin historian. I took an active part in most of what I am about to describe, and what I did not witness myself. I learned of from the actors. This is a reliable account of what happened when the world, as Madelaine put it—Madelaine always had a gift of words—when the world stood at the hinge of time.

  For tens of thousands of years we had not concerned ourselves with the land people. What the Splits, as we called them, did to each other was none of our business. We helped them when we could; we took no part in their quarrels. Then they beg an to invade what was ours by the terms of the covenant—the sea.

  The pollution of the waters was what affected us first. The fish on which we depended for food began to diminish, and our females gave birth to children who were more or less seriously deformed. I myself am one of those whose deformity was not so serious that it interfered with their survival—I have a rudimentary hand growing on the left side of my chest, but it does not interfere badly with my speed in swimming, though it tends to unbalance me.

  The contamination of our environment was bad enough, but we might have been able to adapt ourselves to it in time, if it had grown no worse. But then the Splits, particularly those who lived along the edge of the North American continent, began to capture us in numbers. They tested us for intelligence, and those who were recalcitrant, or whom they considered stupid, they killed. They used our flesh for food for their pets. The dolphins who were not killed were trained, by means of electrodes inserted in their brains, in tasks the Splits thought would be militarily useful to them. At the time Madelaine came to Noonday Rock, almost three hundred of our people were penned up, undergoing training, in the three big Naval Research Stations along the Pacific coast.

  We realized we were in danger. The covenant was being broken. We began to look about for allies.

  The first we got was Madelaine. Her full name was Madelaine Paxton. She worked as a secretary at the Naval Research Station at Half Moon Bay. And that was all she knew about herself.

  I mean that she could remember nothing of her past. Her present consciousness of herself had come to her one afternoon in March, about halfway through a letter she had been typing. What she had been doing before that—w ho her friends were, where she was living, where she had gone to school, even of how old she was—of none of these things had she any idea.

  She was badly frightened. She hunted through the handbag that was lying on the desk where she was sitting. She found a couple of bills and a receipt from a dentist, neither of which meant anything to her, but the driver’s license she found in the wallet was more helpful.

  From it she learned that she was twenty-three years old, unmarried, and living at an address in San Francisco. The license described her as ash blonde, with gray eyes, and the photograph on the license agreed with the description. Madelaine looked at the picture but felt no sense of identity with it.

  At five o’clock one of the other secretaries, whose name seemed to be Frances, came up to remind her that she, Frances, was driving the car back to the city today. Frances added that they could wait for Eleanor at the car.

  The three girls got in the Peugeot. Frances and Eleanor talked a good deal on the drive to San Francisco, and Madelaine listened avidly to their chatter, trying to fill in her background for herself. Once Frances said, “What’s the matter, Maddy? Cat got your tongue?” and Madelaine answered that she was just tired.

  When they let her out in front of her apartment, Frances said, “Don’t forget, Maddy, you’re picking me up tomorrow at the corner of Geary and Judah,” and Madelaine, after asking, “At what time, exactly?” said that she wouldn’t forget.

  Madelaine got through the next two days without making any bad mistakes. The other girls in the secretary pool kidded her about her absentmindedness, and told her she must be in love. She might have got used to her situation—once or twice she seemed to be remembering things, and this encouraged her—except that she began to hear voices. (They were, of course, the voices of our distress. We dolphins have a certain psychic reach that we can exert, if we choose; and we were, as I said, looking about for allies.) The voices were too much for Madelaine’s equanimity. She looked up the name of the station’s staff psychologist in the Employee’s Handbook—her fingers were shaking so much she could hardly turn the pages—and made an appointment for herself with him.

  Dr. Lawrence was the staff psychologist. He was a shortish man with a handsome, inexpressive face and languid dark eyes. Ordinarily Madelaine would have had trouble in confiding in him, but she was too frightened to be cautious. She poured out her symptoms in a rush, weeping and trembling and twisting her fingers as she sat opposite Dr. Lawrence in a brown armchair.

  “What do the voices say?” Lawrence asked when she seemed to have finished.

  “Just words. ‘Help,’ and ‘They’re hurting us,’ and sometimes, ‘the covenant’.’”

  “Urn. Well, of course, it’s always possible that you really are picking up somebody’s thinking. But I can see it would be disconcerting.

  “As to the amnesia, that’s usually the result of an acute conflict. I imagine we can uncover what it is. Would you like me to see you on Mondays, at eight in the morning? We can see if a little therapy helps you.”

  Madelaine, a little calmer now, blew her nose and told Lawrence yes, she’d be glad to see him on Mondays.

  She met with him twice. Lawrence had looked up her record in personnel, and tried to prod her memory with facts from it, but it did no good. On the third Monday morning she woke early, before her alarm clock could go off.

  She had been having a whale dream. She lay flat on her back, remembering it.

  She had been standing on an islet in the midst of roaring water. She had not known what time of day it was. The yellowish air was full of spray, and the wind drove salt in her mouth. Even in her dream she could taste the salt. She had felt a desolate surprise at being where she was. In this waste of driven wat
ers, was she expected to live?

  Then the dream changed. She stood knee-deep, waist-deep, breast-deep in the tingling waters, while the sweet sea beasts crowded around her. Her hands were under her breasts, supporting them, and there were rainbows around her nipples. Her breasts were the bridge between worlds.

  Worlds upon worlds. Her breasts spanned them; she was the nursing mother of the archangelic whales. Glory, said her dream, glory, glory, glory to Madelaine, the mother of all the whales. She had waked from her dream with the word “glory” ringing in her ears like the noise of a vast bell.

  What an odd dream! She must be sure to tell it to Dr. Lawrence when she saw him this morning.

  Madelaine was abruptly seized with a feeling of urgency. She jumped out of bed, bathed quickly, and hurried into her clothes. The thought of food repelled her. She would leave early, while the highway was still uncrowded, and perhaps, if she were lucky, Dr. Lawrence would be in his office when she got there. For today was surely the day when she would remember, when she would realize who she was and what she was hunting for.

  The research station’s parking lot was nearly empty when she drove in. Early as it was, Dr. Lawrence was in his office; he opened the door to her knock.

  “Hello,” he greeted her, “is something wrong? You’re almost an hour before your time. But come on in.”

  The girl obeyed. “It seemed important,” she said when she had sat down opposite him. “I had such a strange dream. I dreamed…”

  “What was the emotional tone of the dream?” Lawrence asked when she had finished.

  “Distress, at first. But after the whales came, I felt—more than human. Uplifted. Glorified.”

  “A sort of goddess?” Lawrence inquired, covering his mouth to hide a yawn.

  “I suppose so. I certainly wasn’t human, in the dream.”

  “Have you heard lately the voices that you mentioned?” Lawrence asked.

  “No, not for more than a week.”

  “If you did hear them, what do you think they’d say?”

  Madelaine’s body grew rigid. She shot a startled glance at Lawrence, who was contemplating a hangnail on his thumb. Then she got up from her chair.

  “Let me out, please,” she said. She moved toward the door.

  “Did I say something to offend you?” Lawrence asked. “Your time’s not nearly up.”

  “No. But I’ve remembered.”

  “Who you are, you mean?”

  “Oh, that!” She laughed. “I’m Madelaine Paxton, and I think I went to high school in east Oakland. That’s enough. No, I mean I’ve remembered what I have to do. Please let me out.”

  Silently Dr. Lawrence rose and unlatched the office door for her. He watched her with a slight frown as she hurried down the corridor.

  She walked across the parking lot and got back into her car. The guard at the gate gave her a startled look as she drove out.

  She headed up the peninsula, toward San Francisco, and crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. In Marin County, she turned west. Once she stopped for gas. Road signs she, ignored. Her actions were as unhesitating as those of a sleepwalker.

  She stopped the car at Drake’s Bay. The beach, at that hour on a weekday, was completely deserted.

  Madelaine took off her shoes and stockings and left them on the seat of the car. Her purse she left beside them, but she buttoned her wallet carefully into the pocket of her white linen dress. Then she walked slowly across the sand and out into the water. She was shivering a little. The water was tinglingly cold.

  When she was out about waist-deep, she paused and looked about her. I think in a moment she would have tried to call us, but there was no need. The three of us were already swimming toward where she stood.

  When she saw us coming, her face cleared. “My darlings, my beautiful darlings!” she cried joyfully. “I was sure you would be here!”

  So we knew she remembered the covenant.

  * * *

  We did not call Sven to us personally. He was sensitive to the voices of our distress, and they added to his already existing disquiet and disillusionment. But it took a series, of accidents to bring him to us.

  That night he was drinking, and playing darts for the drinks, with a friend in a nondescript bar at the end of Fisherman’s Wharf. Sven was in his late twenties, with excellent coordination, but he had never been able to master the knack of dart throwing—which, I suppose, is why he played the game so persistently.

  He and Frank had already had a good deal to drink. They were playing the simplified form of darts in which each player throws four darts and the player with the highest total score wins. Frank, who was pretty good at the game, had just made a score of three hundred and twenty-five.

  Sven picked up one of his darts and balanced it. He positioned his feet and tested the distribution of his weight. Once more he balanced the dart. Then he let fly.

  The dart struck dead in the center of the board and stuck there, quivering.

  “Pretty good,” said Frank.

  “Just a fluke,” Sven answered. “Wait’ll you see what I do next time.”

  He threw the second dart. It joined its brother unerringly in the center of the board.

  “Keep it up,” Frank said approvingly. “If I can.”

  Sven threw the last two darts. Both went in the bull’s-eye to make him the maximum possible score, four hundred points.

  “Pretty good, old pal, old pal,” Frank said. “I didn’t know you could throw like that.”

  “Neither did I. I don’t understand it. It’s the first time they’ve ever gone where I wanted them to.” He frowned, and looked down at his right hand. It seemed to him that his will, and not his hand, had propelled the darts to their home in the target, and he had an exhilarating sense of having stepped momentarily from the real world, where the will is powerless, into the sphere where the will governs everything.

  “It’s getting late,” Frank said. “Let’s have one more drink, and then go home. Want to play for it??”

  “Sure, why not?”

  This time Frank was more careful with his throws than usual. He scored three hundred and fifty. But again Sven’s four darts went dead to the center, for a total of four hundred points.

  “I don’t know why you say you can’t play darts,” Frank said, a little aggrieved.

  “I didn’t have anything to do with it,” Sven replied.

  They finished their drinks and left the bar. “The war seems to be hotting up,” Frank remarked, stopping to scan the headlines on the newspaper racks.

  “Yeah. You know, Frank, sometimes I hate people.”

  “I don’t like them very well myself. Good night, boy.”

  “Good night.”

  They parted. Sven started along the Embarcadero. He lived in a rooming house at the foot of Bay Street.

  The Embarcadero at two-thirty in the morning is not precisely unsafe, but it is not very well lighted. Sven did not anticipate any trouble. There was less than four dollars in his pockets, and he was dressed in dungarees, sneakers and a sweatshirt. He didn’t think anybody would bother him.

  He walked along steadily, his hands thrust in his pockets. He was thinking about his future. It didn’t look very good. What was he going to do with himself?

  Some six months ago, he had finished a hitch in the army, serving in the Middle East, the latest part of the world in which his country had seen fit to embroil itself militarily. Sven had been a demolitions expert. He had performed his duties conscientiously, but with an increasing distaste that ended being almost nausea. He had thought he would feel better after his discharge, once he was home again, but he hadn’t. Mildred had married somebody else while he was gone. Maybe he ought to get married himself. But he was afraid it wouldn’t help.

  The real trouble, as he had indicated to Frank, was that the army had made him feel he hated people. What good were they? All their pretensions ended in trying to inflict damage on one another. Maybe he was just drunk. But it seemed to him that
Homo sapiens was the only animal that was habitually merciless toward itself.

  His shadow kept pace with him steadily, disappearing when he entered a shadow and springing out again when he passed under a light.—Oh, the hell with it! Tomorrow he’d go down to the hiring hall and see about getting a work permit. Bethlehem was said to be hiring fitters now.

  Just as he passed Pier Nineteen, he caught a flicker of motion behind him. He turned his head quickly. His movement caused the blow that was aimed at him to go wild; instead of the sap falling hard on the back of Sven’s head, it struck the bulge behind his right temple, and only glancingly. Sven was dazed, but by no means knocked out.

  He turned to grapple with his attacker. The man—somewhat smaller than Sven, and dressed in black—made another attempt to hit him with the sap. Sven dodged and, remembering an old army lesson, levered the man’s arm over and out. There was a whimper. The sap fell on the pavement. The mugger regarded Sven loweringly for an instant, but when Sven moved toward him, he turned and ran. Sven was left alone in the street.

  He drew a deep breath. He felt sick and dizzy. In a minute, he realized, he was going to vomit.

  With some foggy idea of not fouling up the sidewalk, Sven walked wobblingly over to the edge of the dock. Much better, if one had to vomit, to do it in the water.

  There was a wooden railing, not quite waist-high, at the edge of the concrete. Sven leaned on it, waiting for the spasm to take him. He must have black ed out for a moment. The next thing he knew, he was struggling in the cold, filthy water of the slip.

  He got to the surface and gasped for air. He must have struck his head on a floating piece of wood; there was a sharp pain behind his ear, and he went under once more.

  He tried for the surface again, but couldn’t make it. A noise of roaring filled his ears. Impersonally, he decided that he was going to drown. The knowledge did not bother him. He felt objective and detached about the whole thing.

  Abruptly he was borne up from below. A broad smooth curving surface was between his legs. A voice—high-pitched, quick, and slightly gobbling—said, ‘Take it easy, now. You’re all right.”