“Is everything okay, sir?” asked Jon again.
“I...I need to lie down, I think.”
The representative was thinking he’d had too much of what he called alcohol last night, that he might have partied for a little too long with one of his female friends who was not his life mate. I wasn’t sure what partied was, but it certainly wasn’t what Tayle considered a party. The man’s idea of partying involved a lot of this alcohol consumption, and frolicking with his female friend. He thought these images were hallucinations, which, I gathered, was a sort of daydream inspired by artificial means.
“You are not hallucinating, Mr. Norris,” I said through Tayle. “You were shown images of the earth’s destruction. These images are the same images that were shown to me. The threat is real, and we need your help. The earth, in fact, needs your help.”
Norris stared at Tayle/me. His face, I noted, had gone from clownfish red to coral white.
“What I need,” he said, “is a drink.”
His idea of “drink” was more of this alcohol. He reached inside his desk and pulled open a drawer. As he did so, I noted with some interest that human words were coming faster to me, as my mind-link with Tayle grew more comfortable. I was able to quickly summon words and meanings from her mind. And it was more than just terms and definitions; I was able, through Tayle’s observation, to grasp what he was doing.
Within his “desk” there were several “drawers”. Such desks and drawers were there for convenience sake, to store things of value or out of necessity. I also understood from Tayle that the bigger the desk, the more important the man. The representative’s desk was quite large and polished. This denoted he was an important man. Tayle was familiar with desks, as she used them in her school learning, which I grasped immediately from her mind. But she was unaware of what was in the man’s drawers.
I, however, was aware. As Norris reached inside his desk, I knew he was looking for more of this alcohol, something that he considered a quick fix to his hallucination problem.
I said through Tayle, “Alcohol is not your answer, Mr. Norris. I would suggest you leave the flask in the drawer and listen to what I have to say.”
The representative stared at Tayle, and what color remained in his face seemed to have left it completely.
“How did you know about that, young lady?” he asked.
“Because I’m not a young lady. Or, rather, I’m not a young human lady.”
“What the devil are you talking about?” Amazingly, some of the color was returning to his face. Pink appeared in his cheeks. Boy, human faces were so expressive!
I thought it would be better to show him, then try to explain through Tayle. After all, I was almost at the far limit of my telepathic reach.
I impressed upon Norris the image of the giant squid, and relayed to him the leviathan’s message to me. I next sent him a mental picture of Tayle and myself coming together and sharing bodies.
When I was done, wondering just how much of my message had been transmitted and received, Norris looked at Tayle and her father, nodded once, and said, “You’re telepathic.”
“Yes.”
“A telepathic dolphin?”
“In a way. I’m telepathic only with the help of alien technology.”
“Do you know how crazy that sounds?”
“I do,” I said. “Do you doubt your sanity?”
“No. At least, not yet.”
I reached into his mind again. No, he didn’t doubt his sanity, but he was still wondering if this might be all an alcohol-induced dream. A part of his mind suspected he was out on his ship somewhere, dreaming all of this.
Again, how could I convince him that wasn’t a dream?
I had an idea, and asked Tayle to accommodate. She shrugged, walked around the desk. The representative watched her, perplexed, until she reached out and took some of the skin along his hairy forearms, and pinched hard.
“Ouch!”
Tayle gave him a sweet smile, and said in her own voice, “You see, Mr. Norris. You’re not dreaming.”
She came back around and stood next to her father while Norris rubbed his arm. He turned his confused eyes onto me. “And you’re really a telepathic dolphin?”
“Yes,” I said through Tayle.
“What am I thinking now?”
“About your yacht. You wish you were there now.”
His mouth dropped open. “And the earth is in great danger?”
“Yes,” I said. “You will lose more than just your precious yacht. But there is hope. We need your help, and others like you.”
“I see,” he said. “Hold on.”
Norris got up and crossed the room. As he did so, I reached into his mind, but it was a chaotic mess of confusion. And soon, he was out of my range.
Tayle’s father looked down at her, patted her shoulder, and said, “We did the right thing. He’s a good man, at heart. He’ll find us help.”
Behind us, the office door banged open, and I heard Norris shout, “There they are, officer. Arrest them!”
Chapter Sixteen
And there was what the humans called a policeman, a minion of their law. What had Norris told him, to make him think that Tayle and her father should be arrested? It couldn’t be the truth.
But Tayle’s father, Jon Davis, was ahead of Tayle and me in this respect. He had evidently encountered the police before. “Officer, what is the charge?” he demanded as the policeman approached.
“Trespassing and threatening the Representative, in his own office,” the policeman said. “You and the child both. I’ll have to take you in.”
“We came as constituents, and he agreed to see us,” Davis said evenly. “Suddenly that’s trespassing? You have to do better than that.”
The policeman hesitated. I took advantage of the opportunity to read his mind. It was the secretary who had called him, when she realized that we had somehow gotten past her, and Norris saw him arriving and made the wild charge.
“Well, you two come on down to the station and we’ll sort it out,” the policeman said, slightly flustered.
“Coming to meet our representative is an arresting offense?” Jon demanded.
“No. Barging in and threatening him is.”
I reached into the policeman’s mind and touched a lower layer. THAT’S A LIE.
The policeman thought it was his own thought. He turned to Norris. “Are you sure about this, sir? It doesn’t make much sense to me.”
Meanwhile I checked the mind of the secretary, who had really started this. She had gotten suspicious when my imperative to her faded, and realized that she had been somehow duped. Her mindset was similar to that of her employer, so she had called the police. It was easier to make a wild charge than to acknowledge possible error on her own part. These humans were more complicated and more devious than dolphins!
“Of course I’m sure!” Norris blustered. “The girl physically attacked me!”
He meant that pinch. Tayle put on her most innocent little-girl look. “Me?”
Now the policeman was thoroughly uncertain. Norris did have a certain reputation. So he did what came naturally in that situation. “I don’t think there’s a case here, so I’m letting you all off with a warning. The two of you get out of here.” He turned and departed.
Jon and Tayle followed him out, realizing that nothing remained here for them.
But I was still exploring the mind of the secretary. There was something in that complex tapestry of personal threads that related to the sea. I traced it down, and discovered that there was a top government official, someone who really could investigate a threat to the world, without having to face any voters. He was in the secretary’s mind because he was vacationing in the area, and the Representative’s office tracked everyone who was anyone who came within range. He was going scuba diving. Diving! I fished around and caught his name: Brad Beamis.
But the secretary was also reacting to the departure of the policeman and fugitives, as she
saw them. “You have to arrest them!” she said angrily. “They barged in here with this weird story and threatened Rep Norris! They can’t just disappear!”
The two of them left the office, but the policeman was caught. “Now ma’am—” he was saying as the door closed between them.
“We’d better get away from here,” Jon said. “That bitch’s going to trump up more charges. Good thing we never gave our names.”
We went quickly to the car and drove away, becoming like a fish in the river of cars that flowed along the street. But I was watching the minds of Norris and the secretary, and they were ganging up on the policeman, persuading him to pursue us and arrest us after all. He was wavering, as the Representative had political clout. He was a kind of piranha among prey fish.
“They will follow us,” I said through Tayle’s mouth.
“And get our license tag number,” Jon said grimly. “Damn!”
Indeed, the policeman’s car was starting up. There were now several other cars between it and us, but it turned on a wailing siren and cleared them back. It was like a whale stunning its deep-sea prey with sonics, something I understood. “Take evasive action!” I said tersely.
Jon did, but there was only so much he could do in traffic, locked in the midst of tightly packed fish-like cars, and the predatory police car was bearing down on us. In a moment the policeman would be able to see our tag. “Can you divert him?” he asked. “Make him chase the wrong car?”
Ah. The car beside us was of a similar color and size. It was just turning off onto an intersecting street river. THAT ONE I projected to the policeman’s mind.
The police car turned off, pursuing the other car, siren sounding, getting its tag number.
“We make a good team!” Tayle said as we turned off onto a different street, becoming lost amidst its own school of cars. The police car would never find us. But what a disaster that visit to the Representative had been!
Then I shared the information I had gleaned from the secretary’s mind. “Brad Beamis,” I told Jon via Tayle’s voice. “High official, scuba diving near an offshore island with his girlfriend, Heidi Green. I can swim to them directly when they’re in the water, and talk to them with far more authority at close range.”
Jon smiled. “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody some good. We can sail to that island. I will do some spot research on the internet and get the address.”
“Thanks, dad,” Tayle said.
He reached across to tousle her hair, and I felt the good feeling between them. “Anything for you, kid. And I don’t mind if we save the world on the side.”
We reached their home, and I returned to my own host body at last, under the dock. I needed to rest a while in my own more comfortable environment; this out-of-water excursion had been mentally wearing. I knew that Tayle and Jon needed time for themselves also; they did have lives of their own. But we agreed to connect again in the morning.
Chapter Seventeen
I was alone again.
Clouds filled the night sky, blotting out the moon and stars, as I swam absently, flicking my tail and flukes. I was hungry but not in the mood for seeking out food. I was troubled by the cries of the creatures I ate. When hunger grew to be too great, I would feed on them again, and do my best to block out their panicked chatter.
As hunger gnawed at me, and as I listened to the distant hum of countless plankton—a hum that sounded more like a long, continuous, sad song, a song that I could hear now thanks to the alien device within me—I heard something else. Something much closer.
It was another voice singing, a voice that wasn’t being translated through the alien device. No, I could understand the voice clearly.
It was another dolphin.
I held my breath, closing my blowhole tightly, and remained motionless, floating on the surface. Was it another pod? Was I about to be chased off again by the aggressive males?
I didn’t know, but one thing was certain: the voice wasn’t female.
It drew closer, and the words reached me now, clearly:
“’Tis a vast sea, that calls to me,
To distant shores and cold harbors.
’Tis a vast sea, that swallows me.
Into its depths with sunken ships.”
I remained motionless on the surface, and soon saw the spray of what appeared to be a lone dolphin. The spray glowed briefly white, then dispersed, as the dolphin dove below the silent sea. He was, I noted, on a direct path to me. I also suspected, he wasn’t paying much attention to where he was going.
“I always pay attention to where I’m going and I spotted you a mile away.”
Oops, I had forgotten he could hear my thoughts. Evidently, he had been unaware that I had “thought” those words and not actually spoken them.
He was bigger than myself. Long, white scars crisscrossed his back. He saw me looking at his scars, and heard my questioning thoughts, although I had yet to speak a word.
“A fisherman’s net. I was able to bite my way free. The others in my pod were not so lucky.”
“Those nets are strong,” I said, recalling my own attempt to free my mother.
“I was lucky, I guess,” he said, “There was a tear near me, and I was able to work it free, cutting myself badly in the process. One other escaped with me, a childhood friend. He died of blood loss from his own wounds.”
I noted the deep bite wounds along his back.
“I got lucky again,” he said, hearing my thoughts again. “The sharks came in droves. I was able to fight them off me and my friend, but one of them got a lucky bite in. He paid for it later, though. I drove my nose hard enough into his belly for him to cough blood. They finally went away, and my friend died in peace.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and looked again at the young dolphin before me, impressed. He was surely no older than me, but I couldn’t help but be amazed by his story. He fought off sharks?
“They are not so tough,” he said, reading my mind again. “You just have to stay away from their teeth. They’re kind of dumb, actually. What’s your name?”
“Azael.”
“That’s a nice name. I’m Hrump.”
“Your name is hard to say,” I said.
“That’s okay,” said Hrump. “Once you learn it, you’ll never forget it. Say, are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s your pod?”
For an answer, I gave him a peek at my own mother dying in similar nets, and as I did so, Hrump began circling me slowly.
“You didn’t say a word,” he said.
“No.”
“But I saw the images. In my mind. But they were not my images. They were your images.”
“Yes,” I said, and showed him more. I showed him Levy. I showed him the pictures of the earth’s demise. I showed him of our adventures the day before, driving in the metal boxes.
Hrump stopped swimming and looked at me long and hard. “That is some wild story.”
“I’m afraid it’s only going to get wilder.”
“You need help,” he said. “And I need a pod.”
“I’m hardly a pod. It’s just me.”
Hrump gave me a look and slapped me lightly with his tail. “It’s a start,” he said. “Say, are you hungry?”
Boy was I.
He read my mind, and kicked his tail, diving down fast. “Then follow me,” he called up to me. “I happen to be an expert hunter.”
I circled the surface, once, twice, grinned to myself, then dove down after him.
Chapter Eighteen
We found a school of sardines and eagerly snapped them up. But I did not gorge; I ate only what I needed to sustain me.
“You lack appetite?” Hrump inquired as we glided back toward the surface.
“I hear their anguish,” I explained. “I don’t like inflicting such pain on them.”
“That’s another side of this telepathy you acquired?”
“Yes. It changes me.”
“Maybe y
ou can learn to turn it off.”
“Maybe,” I agreed. “But I’d still know how prey species can feel and hurt.”
“Your life is more complicated than I realized.”
“It became complicated two days ago. If you don’t want your life complicated similarly, you should swim on now, because I’m committed.”
He considered as we reached the surface and breathed fresh air. “It wasn’t coincidence that I found you, Azael. I got news of another lone dolphin in this area, an immature female, somehow escaping sharks and an orca without fighting them, and I was curious. I don’t like being alone, but no pod will take me. A lone dolphin is better than none. So I looked for you, and finally found you. In time we might mature and begin to form our own pod. But I did not know about the telepathy.”
“I don’t like being alone either,” I agreed. “But when I met the giant squid, and got the telepathy, I just had to try to do what I can to save the world. So I can’t play with you, or even swim with you very long, because when daylight comes I must meet with my human girl and try to persuade a human diver of the danger. If you want to associate with me, I would like that, but you will have to help me.”
“And if I swim away, and you fail in your mission, and the world ends, what then of me?”
I almost laughed. “If the world ends, you will have more to worry about than one girl dolphin.”
“I mean if I knew the world might have been saved, had I helped. So my choice may be between helping and maybe not succeeding, and dying anyway if I don’t try.”
“It may be,” I agreed. “Not that anyone is forcing you. You surely have other things to do, sharks to fight, entertainments to pursue, fish to eat.”
He washed that off. “How may I help?”
“You’re serious? I think you would have to get a communicator similar to mine. Then you’d have trouble eating fish, and would have to associate with humans, and maybe share your body with one, or join a human to go on land. That might not be fun.”