In short, nothing.
Except, of course, we dolphins had the upper flipper. The humans needed us to save them, and the world.
This fact had not escaped me, or Hrump, or any of my fellow dolphins. Despite what humans might think, dolphins are smart. Perhaps smarter than many humans. Either way, we saw an opportunity here, and we were discussing our options now.
The human scientists were impatient. In fact, the whole world was impatient. They were all ready for the “Big Event” as the media had come to call it. Through Tayle’s eyes, I had seen much of this media circus, as had Hrump. All programming was now focused on the Pulse. Mostly, it now centered on us dolphins. Word had gotten out that we could control the deflector beam and the humans were putting their hope in us.
“They put their hope in the very creatures they slaughter,” said Papi, an old dolphin missing one eye. “I am willing to bet they regret doing so now!” He slapped his tale for emphasis, and swam in a short tight circle, which was what Papi was best at.
It was late evening, and the arching sky above was afire. Indeed, the color of the night sky had begun to turn with the coming of the Pulse. Its approach, although unseen by physical eyes, could be witnessed in the heavens. It would have been beautiful if it hadn’t been so deadly. With the beautiful, iridescent light, came death.
“I have no doubt the humans regret their actions now,” I said. I could feel the little one within me move ever-so-slightly. Would my babe see the light of day? As of yet, I did not know, and this saddened me beyond words.
“And so we are expected to help them?” asked Rory, a young dolphin of exceptional size, so big that had someone painted him black and added white spots, he might have been confused for our orca cousins.
“We help ourselves, Rory,” said Hrump, keeping close to me. He kept closer than usual once he realized I was with child. Sometimes he kept a little too close! My life was a far cry different from those early days when I wandered the oceans alone, my songs of sadness going unanswered.
“And once we save them, Hrump, then they will thank us by killing us again, rounding us up in coves and slaughtering us by the dozens,” said Dart, a fast little guy that could catch anything in the sea. His pod had vanished when he was very young, too young to even remember his own name. Dart suited him, and we all accepted it, and him.
“Perhaps not,” said Hrump.
I glanced at my scarred mate, battle tested and fierce, who held the respect of all in attendance. “What do you mean?”
“I called you here for a reason,” said Hrump, winking at me, then glancing at my slightly rotund belly. I sensed his deep love for me, and for his babe. “I have a proposal.”
The churning sea of dolphins, many of whom had become my friends over the past few weeks and months, quieted and listened.
Hrump eased away from me, and swam before them. “We demand that the humans stop the slaughter of dolphins, and our brothers and sisters, the whales.”
“They will never agree,” said a voice from the crowd.
“They must,” said Hrump, “or it will be the last decision they will make.”
“But that would mean the death of us all,” said Papi.
“Death by the Pulse,” said Hrump. “Or death by their nets? Which would you prefer?”
That silenced everyone. They were all thinking, and hard. Hrump and I had already discussed this approach, and I had approved wholeheartedly. Yes, I would rather die by the Pulse, than suffer what I had seen my pod suffer through.
“But how do we make the humans keep their word?” asked a young female who’d just recently lost her pod. Apparently, the human fishermen were continuing their dastardly efforts even as the final days approached. I had spent some time comforting her just the night before.
“That is our challenge,” answered Hrump. “But we have most of humanity on our side, not to mention Joe and the Millenia, who are now quite proficient in the handling of the various human governments. I am confident mankind will concede and new laws will be put into place. But before I approach the humans, I must have your consent. We must all be in agreement, and we must band together.”
A great amount of discussion ensued. Many were concerned with the other creatures of the seas, the beautiful tuna and marlin, who were hunted for sport. The sharks who were hunted for their fins. Hrump addressed their concerns. “First things first, my friends,” he said, coming back to me and slipping a fluke under my belly. “We will first demand the protection of dolphins and whales everywhere. Once done, and once we have the assurance of the world’s government that they will do all they can to protects us, we will next seek protection for our friends.”
And so we had a vote, which seemed a very human thing to do, but was effective. To a dolphin, we all voted to stand together, united.
The humans must meet our demands.
Or we would all die.
Chapter Thirty-two
“Wait,” Hrump sang. “The human Jon has asked to join with me. He is on our side, as most humans actually are. He has been silent until this, but now he speaks. He says no agreement is binding without enforcement. He says that we can make the humans agree, but we can’t stop them from reneging once the threat has been abated. Even if they make it against their law to kill dolphins, and enforce it, there will still be criminals who do it anyway, as they do in killing elephants for their ivory tusks.” He paused. “Elephants are big land creatures with very long noses and huge projecting teeth that form into tusks. They are becoming extinct because of poaching: the illicit killing by criminals. We need a law, yes, but we also need enforcement, or we are lost anyway.”
He’s right, Tayle thought. She was now riding with me. Humans are like that.
“And how to we get enforcement?” Dart demanded. “That has been my concern all along.” There was a singing murmur of agreement among the dolphins.
“I have an idea,” I sang, to my surprise. Tayle was with me, and she was as concerned about this as her father was. “I think.”
The pod oriented on me respectfully. “What is it?” Dart asked.
“It’s the telepathy,” I said. “You know how we feel the pain of the fish we eat? I hate that, and I try to dull it down, but I still have to eat.”
“We all feel that pain,” Papi said. “I would be happy to be rid of the telepathy, and after this mission has been accomplished I hope to shit out the pack and be done with it.” There was another murmur of agreement.
“But that’s the key,” I said. “Suppose the telepathy were so strong that when you killed a fish, you died too? Because of the linkage?”
Oooh, wow! Tayle knew what was in my mind.
“We’d all shit out our packs,” Rory said. “And go on eating.”
“Suppose I kept my pack and swam near you when you fed,” I argued. “Suppose I linked your mind to that of the fish, so that you both died together?”
“We’d swim away from you,” Dart said. “You couldn’t stay that near all of us all the time.”
“Suppose I swam in the school of fish, so that you couldn’t feed without entering my telepathic field? And other dolphins swam in other schools, protecting them similarly?”
“We’d drive you off,” Rory said. “We have to eat.”
“Suppose you couldn’t drive me off?” I persisted. “So you couldn’t eat without dying yourself?”
“Where are you going with this?” Papi asked.
“Suppose a telepathic dolphin swam under a human boat, where they couldn’t see her, and linked the human minds to the dolphin minds? So that when they killed a dolphin, they’d all die? And the boat would be left floating with a dead crew?”
“They’d get the message pretty fast,” Hrump said. “The killing would stop. There wouldn’t even need to be a law.”
“Let’s get the law anyway,” Papi said. “So they are warned. But can we do it?”
“I think we need to talk with the Millennia,” I said. “To see if they can do it.”
r />
The pod agreed. We would make our demand to the humans for a law, but we would also go to the Millennia for the enforcement.
Hrump and Jon went with Kevin to present the ultimatum to the legal humans: outlaw the killing of dolphins. Meanwhile Tayle and I went with Heidi to talk with the Millennia. It was odd having two human minds with me, but feasible; the telepathy allowed it. We swam down to meet Levy the giant squid, and he dived deeper than we could go to contact Joe. But Levy had one stipulation: include big squid in the ban on killing. We had to agree, both because it was the right thing, and because we needed him to reach Joe.
In due course the alien life craft swam up to join us, and for the first time I entered it in my own body. I swam into the lock, and it set the water pressure for my physical comfort. Then I remained in the water as the Joe image entered the chamber.
Wow! Tayle thought. She had not been here before, and was in a state of wonder.
“Hello, Tayle,” Joe thought in a simulation of speech. Then he assumed the likeness of a human boy about her own age, so as to communicate with her more comfortably. “You are a pretty girl.”
Tayle was mute for the moment, unable to formulate a quick response. She knew Joe was an alien creature like a centipede, and that she was at the moment in the mind of a pregnant “dolfin” but she was still flattered by the compliment. Heidi smiled mentally; the change in appearance did make a difference. Joe was good at getting along with people.
We presented our case, which was accomplished efficiently because of the telepathy we already had. It was my idea, but Heidi had a better mind for the details. Would the Millennia agree with it, and if they did, could they provide the enhanced telepathy?
“We do agree, and we can do it,” Joe said. “We will provide you with more powerful communication units for this purpose. But a caution: you will have to turn them to a low setting when you feed, lest you kill yourself.”
That was a good point. We promised to be careful.
Joe tossed a pack into the water, and I swallowed it. I felt its power immediately. What I had before was like a minnow; this was more like a tuna. Then he had me practice with it, making sure I could properly tune it with my mind. I would have to train other dolphins with similar units, because they were dangerous. The trickiest thing was to link two other minds together without tying my own mind in, lest I die when they did. Only when he was sure I had it mastered did he relax.
“Levy will bring up a hundred of these,” Joe said. “Do not give them out carelessly.”
“Never!” I agreed. “Just to trained dolphins, and our allies, such as the whales, the squid, and the seals. The slaughter will stop.”
Then Joe reverted to centipede form, and we swam into the lock, and were processed out. Our mission had been accomplished.
I wish I had a boyfriend like that, Tayle thought wistfully. I mean, mentally. The boys I know are so immature.
You could get a human boyfriend your age, and have Joe ride in his mind, Heidi suggested.
That notion intrigued all three of us, perhaps for different reasons.
Chapter Thirty-three
Two days before the arrival of the Pulse, Tayle and I were swimming together.
“I miss you, Azael,” said Tayle. “You’ve been so busy.”
“A dolphin’s job is never done,” I thought, having, at this point, nearly fully assimilated her English language and idioms and common phrases, even the jokes. Tayle and I had, of course, been mind-linked now for a few years. I had watched her grow from a curious girl who loved dolphins—or dolfins, as she still preferred to call us—to a young lady who was facing an uncertain future.
We were, of course, all facing an uncertain future.
Now, we were just a girl and her dolphin, swimming the mostly-open seas. We weren’t far from the circle of ships, now known as the Floating City. After all, I couldn’t venture too far, or Tayle and I would lose our connection.
“Do you think we’ll make it?” asked Tayle, as I sped through the water as fast as I could, although certainly not as fast as I was capable. Being burdened with a child slowed me down.
“The dolphins will do our part,” I said. Sometimes I forgot when I thought the words, or when I sang them. Sometimes I did both. With Tayle and I mind-linked, either method worked, as the communication device translated thoughts and words equally.
“I guess we can’t ask much more than that. I hope we make it, Azael. I want to get married like you and Hrump.”
“We are not married,” I said. “We are life mates.”
Tayle giggled in my head. “Then I can’t wait to find my own life mate! I just want to grow up, go to college, meet my dream man, and have children of my own. Is that too much to ask for?”
I knew all of these concepts by now, although I could see, via Tayle’s own projected image, her version of each thought. She was not asking for much, no. Just what humans considered the happy basics.
“I hope you can someday have everything you want, Tayle,” I said.
“And I hope to someday swim with you, Hrump and your little one.”
I gave her a mental smile, since that was the best dolphins could do. Next, I dove deep, swimming in and out of a long-forgotten shipwreck, while Tayle clapped and squealed in my thoughts. She loved exploring the deep sea with me.
Shortly, I shot up through the water again, and launched as high as I dared to launch. I arched gracefully enough and splashed down cleanly.
“I love you, Azael,” said Tayle.
“I love you, too,” I said, and as I thought those words another thought reached out to me. It was from Hrump. With our enhanced communications units, the dolphins were able to communicate with each other across great distances.
“It’s time, Azael. We need you here.”
And with that, I banked hard to starboard, and turned my beak to the Floating City.
As the humans say, it was showtime.
Chapter Thirty-four
Everything was ready, and we couldn’t wait any longer to tackle the Pulse. But there was one not inconsequential detail. “Have they outlawed the slaughter?” I asked. Because that was an essential part of the deal.
Jon answered. “They have not officially done that, yet, but they have agreed in the principle, and will make a good-faith effort to make it law.”
Was that good enough? “I don’t trust that,” Tayle said. She remained with me, by her choice, just as Jon was with Hrump. “There’s always a bad faith joker to mess it up.”
“The units are in place,” Hrump said.
The special high-power telepathy units the Millennia had provided, with dolphin proctors to use them. That meant that enforcement was ready, though unofficial. That would have to do, as we were out of time. Only a portion of the pod was engaged in this aspect; others were on other business, such as tracking fishing boats.
I entered my sphere. As I did so the wall surrounding me became a picture of the region of space between Earth and the Pulse. Spaced out all around me were other spheres, containing other dolphins, for this was a joint effort.
Hrump took charge from his sphere. “Are we ready?” he sang. “Signify by blinking your sphere.”
All around us, in three dimensions, the spheres flashed, briefly illuminating their operators. Most were dolphins we had trained for this. But two—
“We had two late recruits, for whom we made special larger control spheres,” Jon explained. “There may be aspects that will benefit from a slightly different perspective.”
“Greeting, dolphin tidbit,” the orca I had encountered long ago said from his larger sphere. “This time you have something that interests me.”
“Thank you,” I said, discovering that I really appreciated this support from the whales, whom we had included in the killing ban.
“And I am along as host to Joe Millennium,” Levy the giant squid said from his sphere. “We are observing, and will not interfere unless requested.”
“Thank you,
too,” I said, taken aback but reassured, because Joe knew more about the equipment than any dolphin did. If there were a problem, he would best know how to handle it. Neither Joe nor Levy could handle shallow water, but their sphere was in deep water, only seeming to be close to the others. The magic of communication put us all into deep space as a fleet of spheres.
“Move out,” Hrump directed. We surged forward at light speed, as we could do in simulation while our spheres remained where they were. It was the beams we controlled that counted, not our physical presence.
And there was the Pulse, highlighted by simulation, but all too real in its onslaught. It resembled a monster purple jellyfish with a thousand burning red eyes cruising through it, each looking small but actually larger than a star.
“Orient on your targets,” Hrump said. “We must repel together, so that it maintains cohesion.” We had been over this in training: you could not repulse a jellyfish with a needle, for it would just poke harmlessly through. But several score dull needles poking together could be a different matter.
We oriented, singing our songs. I fixed on the eye closest to me. It almost seemed to be staring at me, though I knew this was imagination; the Pulse was not alive, and in any event, could not see us in our far-away sea spheres. My song surrounded it, so that I knew exactly where it was. It was not exactly echolocation, but was allied; neither was it exactly sight.
“Fire!”
The green beams lanced out together, each striking a different eye. And the eyes seemed to blink and retreat. They were magnetic, and the magnetic beams were disrupting them. They drifted to the sides, but the beams followed them, still painfully poking. It was tricky staying oriented on mine, but I had the reflexes to do it, as humans did not.
“The Pulse is moving!” Levy cried. “Deflecting!”
We were doing it! All we needed was to angle it a little bit so that it missed our solar system.