The Dolphins of Altair Read online

  Sven’s face turned red. “Of course not. I stole it, didn’t I? I only wish we didn’t have to use it, that’s all.”

  Dr. Lawrence turned his attention to the girl. “How about you, Madelaine? You were willing to declare war on the whole human race. Do you have qualms about it now?”

  Moonlight got to her feet, rubbing the round red dents the pebbles had made in her knees. “Qualms, of course. But it must be done,” she said.

  “Good, I’m glad we agree about that,” Lawrence answered.

  “Yes. How long will it be after the mine is exploded before the earthquake occurs?”

  Sven and the doctor looked at each other. “I have no idea,” Lawrence said. “Amtor, can you make a guess?”

  I blew Water for a moment. “It depends on a series of things. We sea people are familiar with underwater disturbances, of course, but we’re not geologists. I think—between four and twelve hours. Certainly not more than twelve hours.”

  “And how long will it take us to get from here to Monterey?” Madelaine asked.

  “Carrying you? About ten hours. We could make it in three hours, by ourselves.”

  “So, if we detonate the mine at six tomorrow evening, the quake should occur between ten o’clock at night and six in the morning. I suppose that’s as accurate as we can get,” Madelaine said.

  “Yes. Well, I think that will do,” Lawrence replied. “Pettrus, you, Ivry and Djuna will leave tomorrow morning about eight, taking Sven on your backs. When you get to the proper spot, which you can ascertain by diving, Sven will pull the knob and drop the mine.

  “Madelaine and I will wait here on the Rock. If it looks as if the Rock were going to be inundated by a tidal wave, we’ll ride the quake out on the backs of a couple of the dolphins.”

  “No, that won’t do,” Madelaine said. She faced the doctor, looking directly into his eyes. She was a little shorter than he, so she had to look up to do it, but her gaze was unwavering. After a moment, Lawrence’s eyes dropped.

  “Amtor must go with Djuna and Ivry—not Pettrus, because he has lost too much skin—and I must go with them,” Madelaine went on. “It will be better that way.”

  “Why Amtor?” Lawrence asked with a frown. “He can’t swim as fast as the others.”

  “I know. But it must be Amtor, because he has a usable hand.

  “If Sven drops the activated mine from the surface, it will be difficult to control where it explodes. There are too many currents to take into account. But if Amtor dives with the mine in his mouth, he can use his hand to pull out the knob when he is as deep as he can go. Then he can drop the mine at the best spot. You could do that, couldn’t you, Amtor?”

  “Yes, I think so,” I answered. “I have no thumb, but I can catch the knob between two of my fingers and pull on it. I can pull fairly hard with my fingers. I can pull the fins off a fish with them.”

  “Why can’t Djuna dive with the activated mine in her mouth?” Lawrence demanded critically.

  “It would cut down her escape time too much. When the dolphins go down their maximum depth, they have to do it slowly. No, Amtor is the one.”

  Moonlight was obviously right. “Very well,” Lawrence agreed stiffly. “But why must you go with them, Madelaine? One person riding a dolphin can escape observation more easily than two can. Your going with them doubles the risk.”

  “Oh, yes. But I had better go with them. I feel sure of it.”

  “Precognition?” the doctor asked keenly, forgetting his annoyance.

  “I suppose so. Anyhow, I’d better go with them.”

  “Very well,” Dr. Lawrence repeated. “Since Amtor is going with you, you had better start a little early, say about seven o’clock.”

  He seemed to think that Madelaine would object to this suggestion also, but she nodded agreeably. “All right. Sven, have we enough canned food for supper? I’m getting hungry.”

  “I don’t remember what we have. Let’s go see.” Sven picked up the mine from the sand and put it inside his jacket. He and Madelaine walked away together.

  It was time for us sea people to be thinking about supper, too. The others were already swimming away from Noonday Rock. As I started after them, I turned to look at Dr. Lawrence. I could not see his expression. His head was, inclined thoughtfully. He was still holding his briefcase by the handle.

  * * *

  We left the Rock a little before seven Sunday morning. Dr. Lawrence held up his hand to us in salute as we left. The eternal briefcase was still in his other hand.

  It was a fine morning. I think we all were happy. Madelaine was radiant, and Sven looked almost as happy as she did. As for us sea people, if we hadn’t been carrying passengers, we would have leaped from the water in our joy over and over again.

  Madelaine was riding Ivry, a cousin of mine, and Sven sat on Djuna’s back. I carried nobody, but of course it was planned that I should take my turn when the other two got tired. Sven had a package of food inside his jacket, next to the mine, and Moonlight was wearing Dr. Lawrence’s canteen on a strap around her neck. It was rather slender equipment for people who were setting out to produce a major ea r thquake, but we hoped it would be enough.

  As the morning wore on, Madelaine’s euphoria seemed to wane. I thought at first that she was getting tired”—the Splits say that riding one of us for more than a few hours is exhausting, because they cannot change position—and then that she must be depressed by the thought of all the destruction we were going to cause. She told me later that it was neither of these, but a cloud of foreboding that had settled over her. Some peril lay ahead of us, and she could not guess what it might be.

  We were swimming well out from shore, to avoid being seen, but about noon we put in to a little cove, quite deserted, and let our passengers off to stretch their legs and eat the food they had brought with them. Then we resumed our journey down the coast.

  We got to Benthis Canyon about five. This was good; it meant I would have time for an exploratory dive before I went down with the bomb.

  We sea people are good divers. We can go down almost as far as a Split can in a diving suit, and of course we can descend and come up considerably more quickly. The sun was low, but I thought I should be able to see as much as was necessary. Our vision is excellent—I have heard a Split who dissected a number of us say that the dolphin eye was “an anatomical marvel”—and we have other quasi-visual senses besides.

  I dived. There is no use in my trying to describe what a dolphin sees when it dives. The sea people know what it is like already, and Splits are not yet ready to understand. But when I came up to the surface again, a few minutes later, I was puzzled by what I had seen and sensed. The light was poor, it was true, and I had been almost at my maximum depth. But there was something odd about the bottom. It was other than I had remembered it, though I couldn’t be sure what the difference was. Still, the currents seemed unchanged. If I dropped the mine where I had planned to, it should drift downward with the current to the right spot.

  “All OK?” Sven asked. He seemed aware of my puzzlement.

  “I think so. I think it’s all right to drop the bomb.”

  “Good.” He got the heavy little object out of his windbreaker and stripped the plastic covering from it. “See the knob on the side? Pull it out as far as it will go, about six inches. You won’t have any trouble pulling it while the mine is in your mouth?”

  “I don’t think so. But, Sven, the sea people must start swimming north with you and Moonlight before I go down. You must be at least a mile away when I pull the knob. There is no use in having the rest of you run any extra risk.”

  “All right.” He gave me the bomb.

  Ivry and Djuna began swimming away northward with their passengers. I saw Madelaine looking at me anxiously, her hands pressed to her breast. I went under again.

  I was a little nervous, I do not mind admitting it. Sven was familiar with high explosives, but I had never carried such a thing in my mouth before. I kept wo
ndering what I would do if the knob stuck when it was only a little way out. My descent was necessarily rather slow, and I had time to have a good many unpleasant ideas. Then I was at the point where I would have to release the activated mine.

  I bent my head forward and found the knob on the mine with my fingers. Yes, that was it. Now. I gave a good hard pull.

  The thing in my mouth had begun to tick. The knob seemed to be pulled out about six inches—anyhow, it wouldn’t go any farther. I let it fall.

  Again I had the sense of something different about the bottom. Too late now to worry about it. I began to swim toward the surface in a long upward slant.

  There was no sign from the depths behind me. I reached the surface, breathed deeply and gratefully, and looked about for the others.

  There was still a little red in the west. I had no difficulty at all in finding the Splits and the dolphins against the smooth, reflecting surface of the sea.

  They were moving northward at a fair speed. I exerted myself, and was soon almost up with them. I would have nuzzled Djuna’s side in a moment, when Madelaine, turning toward me, cried loudly and imperatively, “Swim! As fast as you can! All of you! Quick! Swim! Swim!”

  It never entered any of our heads to question or disobey her. Djuna and Ivry shot through the water, and I, though my acceleration is poor, kept up with them. If we ever slowed down, Madelaine screamed at us to swim faster. Her voice was harsh with fear.

  There came a confused roar from behind. “Hurry, hurry!” Madelaine cried. None of us looked back.

  A pulsation in the water struck our bodies. It was not strong enough to be dangerous, and I wondered why Madelaine was so frightened. I may have slowed down a little, for Moonlight cried anxiously, “Hurry! We’re not safe yet!”

  The water around us was full of small particles. We were almost at our limit of endurance; we would have to slacken speed soon. Madelaine must have known this, for she said encouragingly, “Only a little farther… All right. You can go slower now.”

  It wasn’t any too soon. For a while we were all silent, except for the noises of our breathing. The sunset glow had left the sky, and the moon had not come up. Then Sven said, “What was the danger, Maddy? Why did they have to swim so fast?”

  “Because—Amtor, when you dived in the canyon, did you notice anything unusual about the bottom?”

  “Yes.” I was still out of breath. “Thought so. Not sure.”

  “Could what you noticed have been a number of big metal drums?”

  “Yes.”

  “Metal drums? What was in them?” Sven asked.

  “Radioactive wastes from nuclear reactors,” Madelaine answered. “I expect the canyon seemed a safe place to dispose of them.”

  Sven drew in his breath. Madelaine went on, “Just before I called to the dolphins to swim as fast as they could, I saw a—a picture of the mine exploding against a big metal drum. I didn’t know what it was. It frightened me. Then the drum broke, and I saw a fountain of deadliness shooting up from it. I knew then what it was. That was when I cried out.

  “We’re safe now, I think. Only the fringe of it brushed us.”

  We were swimming quite slowly now. We sea people have great endurance—we can keep pace with a ship for days—but we were carrying passengers, and we had had to draw on our reserves of energy in a way that was unusual even for an emergency. Also, we were beginning to get hungry, and of course we couldn’t hunt fish while we were carrying Sven and Moonlight.

  Sven said, “I suppose the magnet in the mine attracted it to the drum. But if the force of the mine was expended against the drum, will there be an earthquake? We hadn’t calculated on the explosion happening that way.”

  “I don’t know. Amtor might.”

  “Makes no difference,” I answered. “Lateral force is the same. There will be a quake.”

  “When?” the young man asked.

  “I don’t know. Before we get back to the Rock.”

  “Will we know when it happens?” Madelaine asked.

  “I don’t think you will,” Djuna replied. “We’ll stay well out at sea. We Will. The water feels different to us.”

  Sven said, “Are you hungry, Madelaine? There’s lots more corned beef.”

  “Why—yes, I guess I am. Perhaps the dolphins would like some of it, too.”

  Sven broke a piece of meat from the slices he was carrying. He reached over and held it to Djuna’s nose. She sniffed at it.

  “We can’t eat it,” she said. “It is too salty for us to handle. But you Splits might as well eat.”

  “All right.” Sven and the girl ate the meat and washed it down with water from the canteen.

  Madelaine bent over Ivry’s back and dabbled her fingers in the sea water to clean them. “I’m getting sleepy,” she said, straightening up. “Ivry, when do you sea people sleep?”

  “While we are going through the water,” he answered her. “I slept a little just now. That is how we can swim such distances.”

  “You mustn’t go to sleep, Moonlight,” I said. “Talk to Sven. We can listen. Talking will help both of you to stay awake.”

  “All right,” Sven said. “When you were washing your hands just now, Maddy, I noticed you were feeling your feet. Are they cold?”

  “Cold!” She laughed. “They’re so cold they don’t seem to be my feet any more. They might belong to somebody else. They’re swollen, too, and I ache all over from sitting in one position for so long. And yet I’m happy. I’m always happy when I’m with the people of the sea. Do you know what I mean, Sven?”

  “Of course. I feel it, too. The halves are made whole with them.”

  “That’s because you remember the covenant,” I said.

  “What do you mean by that?” Sven asked.

  “It’s a little difficult to explain. I—excuse me a moment, please.” I had perceived that a fish, large and meaty, was swimming along unconcernedly a few feet away from me.

  I was after it in a flash. It took alarm, but of course I was much faster than it, and I caught it with no difficulty at all.

  Where there is one fish there are apt to be others, so I gave half my catch to Djuna and the other half to Ivry, and went after another for myself. They were good fish, with plenty of firm fat meat, and we all felt better after the snack.

  “When you say you ‘saw a picture’, what do you mean?” Sven was saying when I began listening again. “Do you see a real picture of something happening?”

  “No. Not exactly. Sometimes it’s just words. When Amtor was trying to get in touch with me, I heard words. But when I saw the mine exploding, I did see a picture. It was a picture on a black background, with the detail done in faint glowing lines, something like a photographic negative.”

  “Do you think the mine and the metal drums really looked like the picture you saw?”

  “No, they wouldn’t have been luminous. I don’t suppose there was any light at all at that depth.

  “You sound like Dr. Lawrence, Sven. He always wants to know how it is when I see things.”

  Sven laughed. “Did you have foreknowledge of it? You were sure we’d need you when we exploded the mine.”

  “I guess so. I’m not trying to be mysterious, Sven. I really don’t know.”

  “How do you feel about the quake? The dolphins seem sure there’s going to be one.”

  “Oh, something is going to happen. I feel anxious a bout it. I said I was happy, but there’s a cloud of fear. Trouble is coming.”

  “And after the trouble?” Sven pressed her.

  “I can’t see that far. But we’re with the sea people. I feel happy now.”

  “I wonder what time it is,” Sven said.

  “About ten,” I told him. “We can tell from the tide.”

  “Out at sea like this?” he said.

  “Oh, yes-s-s. The stars help us, too.”

  Now that we had eaten and rested, we were swimming faster. Madelaine looked up at the sky. “Look, the pointers of the Dipper
are pointing straight down at Polaris. How odd that such an insignificant star should be the pivot of our heavens.”

  “I’ve heard it’s a compound star,” Sven answered.

  “Is it? That must be Vega, coming up in the northeast, but I don’t see Altair. It must be too early for it yet.” She yawned and shivered.

  “Would you like my jacket, Maddy?” Sven said.

  “No, thank you. Being cold helps me to stay awake.”

  About ten-thirty I took Sven on my back to let Djuna rest. He made the transfer awkwardly, and I realized that his joints were stiff with cold.

  Time passed. A little after eleven, Djuna said, “Do you Splits feel any difference in the water on your legs?”

  “No,” Madelaine answered, “but my legs are so cold I doubt I could feel anything. How about you, Sven?”

  “I don’t notice anything. Is it—?”

  “Yes-s,” Djuna answered. “There’s been an earthquake shock.”

  Madelaine let out her breath. “I think we’ve all been waiting for it. Now it’s come. Will there be more shocks?”

  I “Of course. A lot of pressure had built up in the earth.” “I’m sorry we had to do it,” Madelaine said soberly, “but I don’t regret having done it. How about Noonday Rock? Will the quake be felt there?”

  “I don’t think so,” I told her. “It’s not on the San Andreas Rift. There might be heavy waves sweeping over the Rock. Don’t worry about Dr. Lawrence, Moonlight. If there is any danger, one of our people will have taken the doctor on his back and gone out to open sea with him.”

  “Oh, I’m not worried about him.” She laughed. “The doctor impresses me as a person who would always take good care of himself.”

  From then on, as we swam up the coast, there was a quake every few minutes, and we reported each of them to our passengers. Out at sea as we were, the only gross sign of the series of earthquakes was the choppy surface of the water, but it must have been a night of increasing terror on land.