The Dolphins of Altair Read online

  Dazed and half-drowned as he was, Sven felt a thrill run down his spine. It must be the night watchman, attracted by the sound of his splashing. But the voice had seemed to come from below him.

  He drew in air pantingly. When he could talk, he said, “Who are you? Where are you speaking from?”

  “I’m in the water,” the voice answered. “My name is Djuna. I was following you.”

  “Following? But—”

  “Can you hold on now?” said the voice. “Lean forward and put your hands under my flukes. You’ll be better balanced that way.”

  Sven obeyed. The flukes must be those triangular fleshy flaps, and that meant—“Why, you’re a dolphin!” he said. He did not know why the realization should please him so much.

  “Yesss. We call ourselves the sea people, though.”

  “You can talk!”

  “Yes. The navy was training me. But I managed to get away.”

  The dolphin had turned around, noiselessly and effortlessly, and was swimming out through the slip into the bay. “Where are you taking me?” Sven asked.

  “Where do you want to go?” Djuna replied.

  “To Fisherman’s Wharf, I guess. I think I could climb up on the pier there. Or—where are you going?”

  “To the Farallons, to meet some—” The animal was moving more slowly now. “I know quite a lot about you,” it said in what seemed to be a thoughtful tone. “When you were playing darts in the bar, I was helping you.”

  “You were? Well, I’m not surprised. I didn’t think I could throw that well by myself. But I don’t know how you did it.”

  “It’s called Udra,” Djuna answered. “We can do it with people sometimes, the right kind of people. You don’t like human beings very much, do you?”

  “No. Whatever we do, it always seems to end up in hurting somebody. With the best motives, of course. But I’m sick of it.”

  “If you only hurt other human beings, Splits, it wouldn’t matter.” Djuna was swimming even more slowly now.

  Abruptly the animal seemed to have made up its—her?—mind. “Look here, would you like to come with me?” it said. “We won’t hurt anybody if we can possibly help it But the sea people are in danger. We need allies.”

  For a moment Sven hesitated. He didn’t know what he might be letting himself in for, and—then his caution was washed out by an irresistible attraction. “Yes, I’d like to go with you,” he said. “I’ll help you all I can. Yes.”

  They got to Noonday Rock about four, when the late-rising moon was filling the sky with light. Djuna had been unable to make her accustomed speed with Sven on her back, and she had had to make wide detours around shipping for fear he might be seen.

  “Here we are,” she said in her high, somewhat gobbling voice. “This is Noonday Rock. Nobody comes here, ordinarily.” Sven felt sand under his feet. He put his legs down, and Djuna slid out from under him. “Is there anybody else here now?” he asked the animal as he regarded the rock’s black, steep bulk.

  “Lots of sea people. Only one other Split. Here she comes now.”

  A girl was coming toward him. She wore a white dress; her pale hair was loose about he r shoulders; in the moonlight she seemed made of silver.

  “Hello,” she said. “Djuna brought you?”

  “Yes. My name is Sven Erickson.”

  “You’ll help us? My name is Madelaine. The world is at the hinge of time, I think.”

  * * *

  Dr. Lawrence’s case was the strangest of the three. When it became plain that Madelaine Paxton had disappeared (she did not show up for work at the research station, she was not at her apartment, and her car had been found abandoned at Drake’s Bay), the navy assigned an investigator to try to find out what had become of her. This was not because Madelaine’s work had brought her into contact with anything in the least secret—the investigation was routine, part of a general navy policy.

  The investigator, after talking to Madelaine’s friends in the office, had an interview with Dr. Lawrence.

  “I see by her record that you were giving her psychiatric treatment,” the investigator said.

  “Yes. She was suffering from acute amnesia at first. Then she began to hear voices.”

  “What does that indicate?”

  “Amnesia, when it’s genuine, is usually the result of a serious psychic conflict. As to the voices, I am inclined to think they were nothing more than a projection onto the external world of Miss Paxton’s thoughts.

  “Joan of Arc, for example, claimed to hear voices. Most historians think that she expressed her own sense of her historic mission by speaking of it in this way.”

  “I don’t quite understand you.”

  “Well, if I feel an impulse to steal something, and my super-ego forbids me to, I may say, ‘My conscience told me not to.’ With most people that’s just a way of speaking. But with certain individuals there may actually be an impression of a voice coming from outside.” This was not quite what Dr. Lawrence had said to Madelaine herself about the voices; but, since he was fairly certain his office wasn’t bugged, he saw no reason to strain for consistency.

  “Um. You know her car was found abandoned at Drake’s Bay?”

  “So I’ve been informed.”

  “What do you think happened to her? Do you think she has committed suicide?”

  “It’s possible. She didn’t seem suicidal to me the last time I saw her, on the morning of the 26th. She left the office saying that she’d remembered what she had to do, which could mean just about anything.”

  “Don’t most suicides leave notes?”

  “Yes. It’s possible that she decided to go swimming, went out too far, and drowned.”

  “No normal person would go swimming in March at Drake’s Bay.”

  “I didn’t say she was normal,” Dr. Lawrence replied, scoring a minor point. “I said I didn’t think she was suicidal the last time I saw her.”

  The investigator moved uneasily in his chair. “But what do you think has happened, Dr. Lawrence? I mean, what’s your best guess?”

  “I think she was on the point of remembering what the conflict was that had caused her amnesia. Perhaps the conflict was too painful for her to handle, and she became amnesiac again. In that case, she may have wandered out on the highway, hitched a ride with somebody, and might be anywhere by now.”

  The investigator was silent. Perhaps he was reflecting that the fact that Madelaine’s shoes and stockings had been found in her car made it unlikely that she had walked very far. At last he said, “Well, thank you, Doctor. If you think of anything that might be helpful, you’ll let me know, won’t you?”

  “Yes, of course. I’m sorry I wasn’t of more use. Goodbye.”

  On his way home next evening—he lived in San Bruno—Dr. Lawrence stopped at a pay telephone and called a local number. As I said before, he was a man with an unslaked thirst for marvels, and outside of office hours he knew some unusual people.

  Over the telephone he was told to bring something the person he was interested in had handled. An appointment was made for eight the next night.

  Next evening, Dr. Lawrence was punctual. He handed Mrs. Casson, the psychometrist, a sheet of paper. “This is the best I could do,” he said. “It’s a drawing the person I’m interested in made when I asked her to draw a picture of herself. I didn’t have access to anything that had belonged to her, like a comb or a piece of jewelry.”

  “The picture will do nicely,” Mrs. Casson answered. She was a plump, soft woman who wore her graying hair in two heavy braids down her back. “You haven’t sat with me before, have you, Doctor?”

  “No, I haven’t had that pleasure,” Dr. Lawrence replied.

  “It’s quite simple. We sit opposite each other, and I hold to my forehead whatever my sitter has brought. Sometimes nothing happens, sometimes I go into a light trance, sometimes I can give information in my normal state. Sit down there, Doctor, and I’ll light some incense. It establishes the atmosphere.”


  The incense was lit. It smelled, Dr. Lawrence thought, better than he had expected. Coils of smoke began to roll between him and Mrs. Casson.

  They sat in silence. Once or twice Mrs. Casson cleared her throat. She was sitting, as far as he could see in the dull light, with her elbows on the arms of her chair and her forehead resting on the sheet of paper she held in her hands.

  The moments passed. Dr. Lawrence began to wonder when Mrs. Casson would say that she was sorry, but she couldn’t get anything. Then he became aware that she was humming a tune.

  What was it? Oh, yes, “Sailing, Sailing, Over the Bounding Main.” Yes, he thought that was it.

  She began to speak. Her voice was considerably deeper than it had been earlier. “There’s a ship, an old, old ship with sails.

  “There’s a mast in the middle. Now it’s beginning to sprout leaves. The vines are spreading out from it, there are leaves all over the ship. And the god—the god in the middle—the god—” Her voice faltered, and then strengthened. “The pirates threw him into the water. But the sweet sea beasts bore him up. He played the lyre and rode safe on their backs to Corinth.” Mrs. Casson breathed deeply. Then, almost in a shriek, she said, “Madelaine!”

  She was still sitting with her head resting on her fingers. Very softly the doc tor ventured a question. “Where did they take her? Is it far?”

  “No, not far. Out—outside the Gate. To the Rock.” Mrs. Casson exhaled deeply. Her body slowly collapsed to the right. Her hands dropped to her sides. Her head lolled back.

  Dr. Lawrence did not know whether he ought to try to revive her. But after a moment she sat up and yawned. “I went into trance then,” she said. “Did I say anything?” “Yes, quite a bit.”

  “Was it what you wanted?”

  “I think so. I can’t be sure.”

  “Good. I think I told you what my fee is. If you want to sit with me again, I’ll be glad—”

  “I’ll keep you in mind, indeed,” the doctor said. He put a bill in her hand. “Thank you very much for your help.”

  Lawrence drove home slowly, pondering. The stuff about the ship sprouting vines sounded like something from Greek mythology—Dionysus, he rather thought. Mrs. Casson seemed to have fused it with another story, that of Arion and the dolphin. Well. If Madelaine had been taken away from Drake’s Bay by a dolphin, or dolphins—well, where would she have gone?

  Mrs. Casson had said, “Not far.”

  “The Rock,” to anybody who lived near San Francisco bay, would mean Alcatraz, the former site of a Federal prison. But, apart from the fact that the Rock was under continual observation by bay shipping, and hence was an unsuitable place for anyone who wanted not to be seen, it was inside the Gate, since it was within San Francisco Bay. Was there any place that was “not far” from the bay area and outside the Golden Gate that was called “the Rock”?

  When he got home, the doctor looked long and thoughtfully at a large-scale map of the central California coast.

  Early next morning Lawrence called his secretary at the station and told her that he had been unexpectedly called to Los Angeles. An uncle of his was dying. He would be gone at least a week, perhaps more. He was sorry. He’d be back as soon as he could.

  He drove to San Francisco, taking care never to exceed the legal speed limit. He didn’t want to be stopped by a highway patrolman. In the city, he left his car at a public garage in Union Square, and took the cable car to Fisherman’s Wharf.

  Since it was almost the middle of the morning, almost all of the boats that took fishing parties out to fish had already gone. Only two were still at their moorings. Dr. Lawrence went up to the nearer of them.

  “Could you take me out to the Farallons?” he said to the skipper.

  “The Farallons? What do you want to go there for?”

  “Sorry,” Lawrence said. He walked on to where the other boat was moored. Here he repeated his question.

  “The Farallons? There are twelve of them, mister. There’s the Northwest Farallons, and—would you be wanting any special one of them?”

  “I want to go to Noonday Rock. Do you know it?”

  “Oh, yes, I know the Rock.” The man—his name was probably Ben, since the sign over his berth said “Ben’s Private Fishing Trips”—nodded slowly. “It’s nothing but a rock, though. Straight up and down, about a third of a mile across.”

  “Yes, I know. Can your boat take me there?”

  “I think so,” Ben answered a little doubtfully. “It’s a good deal farther out than I usually go. It would take about three hours. Be an expensive trip.”

  “How much?” Lawrence asked.

  Ben named a sum. The doctor shifted his polished briefcase to his left hand and got out his wallet. He took out two bills and handed them to the skipper. “Half now, the rest when we get there.”

  “Would you be wanting to stay long, mister?” Ben asked, folding up the bills and putting them in his purse. He looked doubtfully at the doctor—a small, neatly dressed man holding a briefcase, while the wind flapped his sharply creased trousers around his legs. “I’d have to get back before dark.”

  “You won’t have to wait for me at all,” Lawrence answered. “I want you to leave me there.” And then, before the skipper could say anything, “I’m working for the government.”

  “Oh!” Ben nodded, as if he had received a full and satisfying explanation. “Well, we’d better get started. I want to pick up an extra can of gasoline. Do you get sick?”

  “Not usually.”

  “Well, it’ll be a rough trip.”

  They talked little on the way out. Once Lawrence said, “If anybody comes asking for me, it might be better to say you didn’t see me,” and Ben replied, “OK.” Then the water grew rougher, and Lawrence had to concentrate on keeping his breakfast in place.

  They got to the Rock about noon. “This is it,” Ben said. “I can’t get in any nearer, but it’s only a couple of feet deep here.

  “You sure you’ll be all right? Wait, I’ll give you a canteen. There’s no water here at all.” He handed Lawrence a canvas-wrapped canteen.

  The doctor took it. He got out his wallet and paid the rest of his fare. “I think I’ll be OK, but come back for me in the morning—oh—five days from now.” He gave Ben two more bills, and let himself over the side.

  “All right. Good luck. I hope you know what you’re doing.” He started the engine, and the broad-beamed little boat moved off.

  Lawrence watched him go. He felt an instant of panic. Had he marooned himself on this barren rock with only the water in a quart canteen? Five days in this wild spot because a clairvoyant had said something that might mean the girl he was hunting might be here? Then a patch of white moved round the edge of the rock, and his heart steadied.

  “Hello,” he said when she was near enough. “I thought you’d be here.”

  “Dr. Lawrence! How did you know where to look for me?”

  “A clairvoyant told me,” he answered absently. “What do you do for water and food? There’s nothing at all here.”

  “Oh, we go over to the big island—the one with the automatic lighthouse—at night and bring back water and canned food. There’s a cistern there for rainwater, and a shed with lots of surplus canned stuff.”

  “Who’s ‘we’? Is there anybody here besides yourself?”

  “One man.” She looked at him steadily. “Dr. Lawrence, will you help us? We can’t have anybody knowing about us who isn’t on our side.”

  Lawrence bent over and began wringing water out of his pants cuffs. “That’s something I can’t answer until I know what you’re trying to do,” he said, straightening up.

  “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. “Yesss, I’ll help you. But I’d like to point out, young lady, that what you have said amounts to a declarat
ion of war on the whole human race.”

  “Does it? I’m sorry. But we can’t help that.”

  Chapter 2

  It was a gray day, with the sky lowering and dull and an oily swell on the slate-colored water. Sea gulls wheeled and banked endlessly over the heads of the three Splits who were sitting on the pebbly beach, as close as they could get to us in the water. We—at least a hundred sea people and the three who sat facing us—were holding a council of war.

  It had been going on since early morning. There was no disagreement about what we wanted to accomplish; as Madelaine had told Dr. Lawrence, the first thing was to free the imprisoned sea people. But there was much argument as to h ow we could accomplish it.

  The dolphin research and training project—DRAT—was top secret. From the land, only a handful of high-ranking navy officers had access to it, and even they had to pass check points and wait for the opening of locked doors. From the sea, a series of concrete walls and baffles cut our people off from contact with their free element. It was not going to be easy to break down those massive concrete walls.

  Madelaine listened to the discussion, her head propped on her hand. Dr. Lawrence sat on her left. His rolled-up trouser legs and sprouting beard gave him a raffish appearance, but he still carried the polished briefcase he had had when he came to the Rock.

  Sven sat at Madelaine’s right. I was not as used to the faces of Splits th en as I afterwards became, but I thought he looked much happier than he had when I first saw him, though he frowned from time to time at what the speakers said. His eyes were often fixed on the girl.

  Djuna had been speaking. She had been describing how armed guards were posted on the seaward parts of the walls. “Nobody could get close enough to the concrete to set off a bomb,” she told us positively. (The bomb had been a suggestion of Sven’s, made about half an hour earlier.) “There are searchlights, and the guards shoot at anything they see in the water. The navy has nets out, too, and an alarm rings if the mesh is broken. But the guards and the lights are the main trouble. They started stationing guards after a couple of us sea people got out of the pools at Capitola.”