This was the one. She had never slain a dolphin; in fact she loved dolphins and was distressed when they got caught in the fish nets and died. I read the sorrow for that in her mind. She wished she could be friends with a dolphin.
That might happen.
“Girl!” I called mentally.
She looked up, startled. “What?”
“I called you with my mind. It is mind talk. Telepathy.”
She looked around, amazed. “I hear you but I don’t see you. Who are you?”
“I am Azael. Who are you?”
“I am Tayle. It’s short for Tallulah, but I don’t like it, so I go by Tayle.” She continued too look around. “Are you invisible?”
“Not exactly. I’m in the water.”
“All I see are waves.”
I swam to the surface and lifted my beak. “Here. I am a dolphin.”
“A dolfin!” she exclaimed, delighted. There was something faintly off about her thought, but I couldn’t place it. “Oh, let me hug you!” She jumped into the water beside me.
Now I was the amazed one. “But you’re not safe off the boat! There are sharks!”
“Oh, they don’t bother people. Pa would spear any who came close.” She splashed toward me. “You really, really are a dolfin! And you’re talking to me! This is some daydream!”
Daydream? I picked up the concept from her mind: a pleasant mental excursion, not a real happening. “I’m not a dream,” I protested.
“You have to be. Or maybe I have fallen asleep and am dreaming. Either way, I could never talk to a real dolfin. Now I’ll hug you. I couldn’t do that to a real one either.” She spread her arms wide, then wrapped them around me.
I had no idea how to react to this contact, so I just stayed still. I picked up from her mind that it was a friendly gesture. Indeed, the pleasure of the act in her mind spread across to me, and I liked it too.
“Tayle!” It was her father, who’d discovered her in the water.
“Over here, dad!” she called physically; I heard the sound coordinating with the meaning. “With Azael!”
He peered across the water. “A dolphin! Get away from it, girl! That’s no tame captive creature. That’s a wild one.”
“Azael’s my friend,” Tayle protested. “She wouldn’t hurt me.”
He was genuinely concerned. That was a side of the human I had not seen before. “That thing could catch you by the arm and drag you down to drown! Get over here!”
“Oh, dad,” Tayle said, disgusted.
It was time for me to clarify things. “I will not hurt her,” I projected to the man. “We are friends.” As though it were possible for a human and a dolphin ever to be friends! Yet at this moment, immersed in the genuine innocence and good spirit of the girl, I could almost believe it. And I needed the human contact.
“It talked!” he exclaimed, shaking his head. “Now I know I’m crazy!”
“You are not crazy,” I sent. “I am telepathic. It is essential that I get in touch with the human species.”
But he was locked in to his confusion. “Tayle, get back into the boat! We’re going home before anything worse happens.”
Reluctantly, the girl obeyed. “Gotta go now,” she said apologetically. “But can we meet again tomorrow? This is too good a dream to lose.”
He thought he was crazy; she thought she was dreaming. This was not a perfect start. It was better to back off and try again on the morrow. “Come out here again, and I will meet you,” I told her.
“Great!” She hugged me again, then splashed back to the boat and heaved herself over its railing. Its motor sounded, and it forged rapidly away.
Would tomorrow be better? I hoped so.
Chapter Nine
That night, while floating alone with a heavy heart, I dreamed of my pod and my mother. In my dream I swam safe and free and happy. So happy! My mother’s love poured over me, her watchful eye ever on me.
I awoke to the sound of distant thunder and the sizzling sound of raindrops hitting the ocean’s surface. I also awoke weeping, wondering if I would be forever alone. Finally, as I rose and fell gently with the undulating ocean, as the rain was heavy on my thick skin, I thought of the girl Tayle, and her warm hug. No, her loving hug. I nearly smiled as I fell back to sleep.
* * *
When morning finally came, the sun was out and the storm had passed. Mercifully, I dreamed only of catching and eating fish, which wasn’t so heavy on my heart.
And catching fish is exactly what I did.
As I hunted among the dying coral, flushing out the tasty morsels, I did all I could to block out their fear and cries of anguish. I could see that the thought communicator was both beneficial and annoying.
Never before had I heard the cries of the mackerel or sardines or the other colorful fish that I eat. Now I do, and it was almost driving me to become one of those pitiful creatures who chews on kelp. Perhaps there was a way I could block out or drown out, or perhaps even turn off the device when I didn’t want to use it. If I ever met the giant squid again, I would ask.
For now, though, I heard each of their frightful pleas and their death cries as I bit into them.
Now, that was enough to make me lose my appetite!
When I was done feeding, wondering if I was any better than the human who preyed upon the oceans themselves, I swam back to the seaside village feeling guilty for the first time in my life.
I was, after all, a killer too.
Tayle was there, waiting for me, sitting on the prow of her small boat, scanning the ocean eagerly. She was eating something small and square and seemed to be enjoying it. It didn’t seem to look like a fish, which surprised me. Surely all humans, like dolphins ate fish? Perhaps not. There was much I needed to know.
To get her attention, I first dove down, skimming the shallow, silt-covered sand just off shore, then kicked my tail hard and aimed for the surface—and exploded out of the water.
I breached as high as I could, arching, as water sparkled all around me, and for a brief moment I was airborne, and it was wonderful.
As I reached the apex of my arch, I sent out a shout to Tayle, who clapped her hands and stood and waved, rocking her boat dangerously.
Fully exposed and free of the sea, I had a taste for what it might be like to be out of water...a small taste of what it would be like to be a true land dweller.
After all, I knew that was part of my mission, too.
I had to convince a land dweller to change places with me, albeit briefly, but giving me enough time to complete my mission. Would young Tayle be that land dweller?
I didn’t know, but I sure liked her.
I splashed down none too gracefully, hitting the surface hard enough to cause a massive splash. I laughed and heard Tayle laughing, too, and hers was a sound I was growing to love.
I kicked my tail and aimed my fins to her little boat. It was time to see if Tayle could aid me in my mission.
Chapter Ten
“I’m so glad you came!” Tayle exclaimed mentally and physically. “I was afraid you wouldn’t.”
This was curious. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“You’re a dolfin. My people have been killing your people. Oh, they’re not supposed to, but they do, because the nets catch everything. Once a dolfin is dead, there’s nothing to do but process the meat. No sense giving it to the sharks. But if your people were killing my people, I’d want nothing to do with you.”
And this was an interesting perspective. So the humans weren’t really trying to kill dolphins, they were just sloppy with the nets. But the effect was the same. “I don’t want anything to do with you,” I agreed. “Or I didn’t, before I met you. But I have a very important mission, and I have to talk with the human pod leader. Can you bring him here?”
Tayle laughed. “I’m just a wee girl. I’m not even sure how to spell ‘doll-fin.’ Not that I’m stupid; there’s no correlation between spelling and smarts, at least that’s what my teachers all say. I’
m still not really sure what ‘correlation’ means, but I like that word. It kinda rolls off the tongue funny. Anyway, children don’t count. I couldn’t even bring my father here, if he wasn’t curious about my meeting a talking dolfin. I can’t help you.”
“But I have to meet with the pod leader! Or the world will end.”
She thought about that, as her little boat rose and fell on the gentle swells. Her long hair fluttered about her face. I’m glad dolphins don’t have hair. What an annoyance!
She said, “Well, I guess that’s pretty serious.”
“It is! But it’s complicated to explain.”
“Maybe you better try explaining it to pa. He knows more about government. He’s always complaining about our mayor, but he’s a nice enough guy. The mayor, I mean.”
I remembered her pa. He was loud. Plus, he was a fisherman. A professional hunter. “But I’d rather talk with you. You’re nice. You’re not killing dolphins.”
“Azael, I’d have to know a lot more about dolfins, and I think you’d need to know a lot more about humans. I don’t think it can work, with just the two of us. I don’t even know how we can mind talk together. My father says there’s no such thing as telepathy; it’s just junk movie stuff.”
I got an idea. “Maybe we could switch places, and I could explain it to your father with your voice.”
“You mean, put your mind in my body, and mine in yours? I wouldn’t even know how to swim in yours, and I’m not sure you could even walk in mine. We don’t have the same reflexes.”
I realized that she was right. We couldn’t make it in each other’s bodies. Not without a great deal more preparation. Yet the need to reach a human leader, and do it without much delay, was urgent. What could we do? I had no idea, yet knew I had to find one. “What do you suggest?”
Tayle focused. “What’s this about the world ending?”
“It’s complicated,” I repeated. “I don’t properly understand the concept, but I know it’s authentic.”
“Try me.”
“It’s a big magnetic bubble in space, heading for Earth. It’s been traveling between stars for a billion years, but now it will strike this region. When it hits, it will disrupt Earth’s magnetic field and let the sun’s rays through to scorch the surface. All surface life will end. We can’t see it because it’s invisible, and it has no mass. It’s just a flux in space. But it will wipe us out.”
“Like a sci-fi movie! Instead of a big meteor, an invisible menace. So how do we stop it?”
“We have to build a super magnetic repulser to fend it off. The aliens know the technology and will share it, once they have a responsive contact with machine-building humans. It can be done, if it is started in time.”
“Wow. I never even imagined such things before.”
“It’s the telepathy. It can do amazing things. I’m still finding them out. It put this big mass of technical knowledge in my mind, and I can put it in another mind. But it really needs a trained recipient.”
“I guess so. I know it’s true, because that’s part of what you’re sending me. But I also know that I’m understanding only a little part of it, because I don’t have the science or the math or the training. I could tell someone that there’s a big threat, but that’s about all, and they wouldn’t believe a child.”
“If I could get close to a machine-proficient human, I could send him the technical details. But first I have to reach him, then convince him. I’m not sure how to do that.”
“Neither am I. But maybe if we get to know each other better we can figure something out. I don’t think we can safely switch minds, but maybe we could piggy-back minds and get somewhere.”
Piggy-back. I did not know what a pig was, exactly, but got the meaning: one mind carrying the other. Tayle might be able to carry my mind to the right human person, and then I could dump the key information on him. It might work.
But first we had to get experience doing it. I thought the telepathy could accomplish it, but wasn’t sure. “Maybe we could take turns piggy-backing,” I said. “I could carry you down into the sea, so you’d know how it works, then you could carry me onto the land.”
Tayle clapped. “Great! Let’s do it!”
“But if we do, the one who is riding won’t be conscious of her own body during that time. That would not be safe.”
“I’ll lie down. We can try it for like, ten minutes and see how it works.”
“That may be feasible.”
Tayle went under the cover of the ship’s cabin where her father was working. “I gotta lie down a while, dad,” she said. “Okay?”
“Okay,” he agreed. “But if you’re not feeling well, we should go home.”
“I’m well. Just got some heavy thinking to do.” She lay on the narrow bunk. Ready, she thought, closing her eyes.
Then I extended my mind in the way the telepathy allowed. I took hold of Tayle’s mind and gently drew it in to mine. The girl, I sensed, now occupied what she thought of as a mental passenger seat. She could see, hear, and feel what I did, but did not control the body. This would be interesting.
“Wow!” Tayle repeated. “I’m a dolfin!”
I flipped my flukes and forged down below the surface. This was a guided tour. Would it accomplish its purpose?
Chapter Eleven
I gave her the ride of her life.
We dove deep, swimming rapidly over the ocean floor, skimming over barnacle-encrusted sunken vessels, and bursting through kelp that waved much like Tayle’s long hair.
Tayle’s laughter was infectious, and I was reminded of when I was a pup, and swimming with reckless abandon with my mother nearby. I remembered, in particular, diving deep for the first time. I had trailed behind my mother, as worry and concern quickly turned to awe and wonder. We went deeper and deeper, and despite the pressure I had felt inside my head, and despite the fact that I knew I must breathe soon, I knew that something magical had happened that day. Other than the deepest depths of the ocean, surely where no dolphin belonged, I realized at a young age that I could venture far and wide. I realized then that the ocean was my home, my playground. Even my thick hide kept out the icy water.
And so I gave Tayle that same experience. I breached the ocean, sucked a great lungful of air through my blowhole, and then dove down rapidly, kicking my tail furiously, as deeper I went. Deeper and deeper while Tayle squealed with delight inside my head, which was a very unusual experience, albeit one I was rapidly getting used to.
Before us was a slow moving shadow, one that I immediately recognized. Its wingspan looked similar to that of the sails atop the many boats docked near Tayle’s seaside home. The great creature paid us no mind as it literally glided through the depths, at peace and unconcerned.
It was a great manta ray, and he was, to my surprise, humming a gentle song: “The southern seas sing to me, the northern swells call to me, the eastern storms follow me, the western depths are my home.”
“He has a very nice voice,” said Tayle in my ear.
“I suppose he does,” I said.
The great manta ray’s sweeping wing strokes faltered a bit, and it ducked its flat head down to peer behind it. I could see its curved mouth quiver with what I thought might be confusion. “Who said that?”
“I did, sir,” I said. I hadn’t realized that my conversation with Tayle could be heard by anyone nearby as well. I had thought falsely the conversation had been only going on in my head. The giant squid, Levy, short for Leviathan, had also taught me how to focus my thoughts so others could not hear. I would have to be more careful.
“Well, how is it that a dolphin can speak to me?” asked the great manta ray.
“It is an alien communication device,” I said.
“Sounds alien to me,” said the manta ray. “Now where was I?”
“You were singing about the western depths,” I said.
“Yes, yes, right, right...the western depths are home to me...” sang the great flying beast as it sailed o
ff into the ocean.
I banked hard right, and returned to the ship, knowing that I had pushed the length of our agreed time limit. Time was still something I was getting used to, as dolphins had no use for it. But it seemed important to Tayle, and I could feel her awareness of it. In this deeply connected state, what concerned her, seemed to concern me. And I suspected vice versa.
“You suspect correct,” giggled Tayle in my ear. “For some reason, I’m hungry for fish—raw fish! Eew!”
We both laughed as I cruised up below her ship. There, I paused and, as I had earlier drawn her mind toward mine, this time I withdrew it just as gently. This was all new to me, and surely to Tayle, and I suspected the more careful we were about it, the less problems we would have. Turns out we were both naturals. I sensed Tayle waking up in bed and sitting forward.
“Okay, Azael,” she said. “Your turn!”
Chapter Twelve
Tayle came to the side of the boat and looked down at me. “Come on in.”
Suddenly it seemed more complicated. She had ridden along with me; I had been in control. Now I would be leaving my body, something I had never really thought seriously of until now, let alone actually done. “First I need a safe place to wait, because I think my body will be unconscious,” I said. “I have not done this before.”
“Can you split your attention? When I’m walking to the dock I’m on auto-pilot. My feet do the work while I’m thinking of other things, but I’d know if I was about to bump into something.”
I considered. “Maybe I can do that,” I agreed. It was similar when I was cruising the sea; my body handled the swimming while my mind ranged elsewhere.