Again Heidi’s mind clarified it for me. The cold equations: extremely unyielding reality, painful regardless of the manner handled.
“Yes,” Joe agreed reluctantly.
“Brutal,” Heidi said, and I agreed.
“We are not unmindful of your situation,” Joe said. “But our resources are severely depleted by the loss of our home planet. We can’t afford to waste them, or to expend them in a manner that will not materially benefit our own kind. Our survival as a species is at stake.”
“It makes sense,” Kevin said. “We’d do the same.”
“I am gratified that you understand.”
“As I see it, we need three things,” Kevin said. “Science, politics, and money. You folk—what do you call yourselves, Joe?”
“We are the Millennia.”
“The Millennia,” Kevin agreed. “For your vision and your legs, no? You Millennia will provide the science, and we humans will provide the local labor. The challenge will be the politics; without political approval we’ll never get the money to start work. I think our best approach is to persuade a leading science establishment, the kind that Brad and Heidi belong to, which will then help us persuade our political leaders, who will in turn set the wheels or whatever in motion. Straightforward, no?”
“I sense that you are being ironic.”
“Oh, yes! Scientists can be prejudiced, and politicians are necessary evils. We’d get farther faster if we simply bribed them.”
“Bribe,” Joe repeated, fathoming the unfamiliar concept. “To make an illicit payment to a key official, to facilitate necessary progress.”
Kevin smiled. “You got it. But even if we had to go that route, we don’t have that kind of money. We’re going to the politicians to get money, not to spend it.”
“Money,” Joe said, doing more fathoming. “Your system of resource distribution. We are in a position to facilitate the recovery of some of the wealth of the seas. Would this be worthwhile?”
Kevin nodded. So did Brad and Heidi. I explored the concept: minerals, shipwrecks, crystallized energy—the wealth of the seas was fabulous.
“Oh, it would,” Kevin said. “But using it for bribes would be dishonest. Let’s see if we can save the world honestly, before having to save it dishonestly. Let’s at least try to persuade a leading science organization and leading politicians of the truth. The problem there is, how? When the dolphin tried to persuade a local politician, he freaked out.”
Azael, Hrump, and Joe fathomed further, assimilating “freaking out.” It was accurate.
“Part of the problem was trying it indirectly,” Joe said. “Dolphins and ordinary humans are not equipped for this sort of thing. We need to establish a more immediate connection. I must contact the key human minds directly. I could persuade them logically and telepathically.”
“But you can’t leave the deepest depths,” Kevin said. “That’s why you established the chain.”
“That chain was necessary to bring you here. Now it can become significantly closer.”
“Joe, are you thinking what I am thinking?”
“Yes. My mind needs to ride your mind, as the dolphins are riding your two companions’ minds. This is not possession, merely piggy backing with the informed consent of the host body. If you are amenable.”
“True,” Heidi said. “It is sharing, not dominating.”
Kevin laughed. “Joe, I thought you’d never ask! I’d love to have immediate access to a sapient alien mind. I’ll be honored to take you to my leaders.”
“I appreciate that. However, I can’t just join you now, as my host body is a quarter of the way around your planet. This is not incidental telepathy or holography, it is a temporary personality transfer. To accomplish it, our two bodies need to be physically adjacent, at least within a few hundred feet. I must travel to join you, or you must travel to join me.”
“Consider it a challenge,” Kevin said, smiling.
I realized that this adventure was about to become considerably more interesting.
Chapter Twenty-five
We were back in the submarine, in the alien craft’s airlock, while the massive room began filling with water.
As the water rose around us, Brad was speaking, “Joe has quite the challenge on his—or its—hands. How will he convince the world’s governments to agree to his help?”
“And do we have enough time?” added Heidi.
“The Pulse is still two years away,” said Kevin. “If I understood correctly.”
“True,” said Brad, “which is why Joe gave us enough information to begin building the shield.”
“And what if he and Kevin cannot convince the world leaders to help?” asked Heidi.
“Then the shield won’t be completed. Undoubtedly they will depart to greener pastures, or deeper waters, leaving the earth to fry.” Brad looked at her, and his face was grim. “His hands are tied, as he said. The technology cannot be given without consent.”
“Consent by whom? A few random, elected officials. Royal families who are oblivious to the plight of their own people? Who determined when and how the consent is given?”
“My guess,” said Kevin the director, as he reached over and turned on the electric motors once the water levels had risen high enough, “is the United Nations. There, the world governments can be properly represented, and Joe can plead his case. Let’s hope the world listens, and consents. We’ll see.”
“So, our plan is clear then?” said Brad. “Heidi and I and our team will begin building the shield...”
“And my team will head out to meet Joe and the mother ship.”
It looks like your job is done, Azael, thought Heidi. Thank you for leading us to Levy. Cross your fingers—or flippers—that we succeed.
Indeed, the thought of resuming my mundane life, swimming in the open seas, perhaps now with Hrump, was appealing, although I doubted I could relax and enjoy my time with my new friend until after the month was over.
I think I’ll stick around, I thought. With Tayle and her father.
Bonding with the human girl was also a sweet thought. She and her father were a pod of a very different type, but the feelings of warmth were still there, not dissimilar to the warmth I’d felt with my own pod. More important, I did not relish the thought of leaving Tayle so quickly, especially with the future of our world still uncertain.
“And we have blast off,” said Kevin.
Indeed, the floor beneath us irised open and we dropped down beneath the long, undulating alien ship. Kevin worked the controls and soon we were moving forward and upward at a good clip.
As the giant squid swam a great circle around us, his long legs trailing behind him for many dozens of feet, I was looking forward again to being within my body. Watching Levy swim majestically reminded me of the freedom of the open water...freedom I could experience with Hrump.
You like him, don’t you? asked Heidi, giving me a mental wink.
I was about to answer, shyly no doubt, when frantic words erupted in my head. It was Tayle. Hurry Azael! They have Hrump! And they’re coming for you next!
I don’t understand—
They have guns, but some of them are scientists too. Daddy says they were sent by that mean councilman. They want to study you and Hrump and the alien ship.
Tayle screamed, and Brad, who’d been hosting Hrump, jerked violently and gasped. “He’s gone. Hrump left me. He’s back with his body.”
I shifted my attention to my dolphin self on the surface above, where I had been gliding idly next to the director’s research vessel. There was my inert body, existing simply as it waited for me to join it again. But something was happening on the choppy seas around me, something I was not fully aware of until Tayle’s shout of alarm.
There was another boat nearby, a bigger boat—and they had just cast a net around Hrump.
My brave friend fought wildly, fiercely, thrashing his tail and slapping his flukes, but his efforts were futile. The netting only cut deep
into his hide as he was finally lifted from the water.
“Go to him!” shouted Heidi, who could see and hear what I could see and hear. “Hurry!”
And I did, leaping from her body and back fully into my own dolphin self. What I would do, I didn’t know, but I had to do something, and fast.
Chapter Twenty-six
It was chaos.
Tayle was on the deck of the research ship, screaming. Beside it was the attacking vessel, with the sailors hauling on the net. The net that had caught Hrump. But there was one notable difference between this netting and the ones the fishermen used: it was being consciously used to catch the dolphin, not drown him. The upper section extended above the water, so that Hrump could surface and breathe. It was connected to the ship by an extended boom. They were lowering the net to dip the dolphin in the water while they organized a tank on the ship. So Hrump was scraped but not in danger of death.
Still, this was formidable mischief. We couldn’t let them capture Hrump or me, because they surely had no interest in saving the world, just in getting profitable information. But how could we save the dolphin from the net?
I needed the direct help of a human mind. So I jumped to Tayle.
“Azael!” she exclaimed aloud. “You’re back!”
How can we stop them? I thought.
“I don’t know!” she wailed hysterically.
Jon came to join her. “Is that Azael?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered though Tayle’s mouth. “What can we do?”
“That’s Norris’s yacht, the Naughty Girl! It’s way too big and fast for the research vessel to stop. But maybe with your telepathy, you know, touch the mind of the captain, make him let the dolphin go...”
Great idea! “I’ll try,” I said. I vacated Tayle, returned to my own body, and swam vigorously toward the yacht.
I hugged the hull where the sailors couldn’t see me unless they really looked. I reached out with my mind, trying to sort through a jumble of unfamiliar minds, seeking the captain. But there were so many minds, so many thoughts, all overlapping each other, that I couldn’t make sense of it. This wasn’t working.
Then I thought of another tack. Heidi, back in the returning submersible, might have a better notion. She was more mature and educated than Tayle, less likely to go hysteric. I’d ask her.
I swam away from the yacht a safe distance, then returned to Heidi’s mind, which I could do at this distance because it was familiar.
“Azael!” she said aloud, just as Tayle had.
I rapidly updated her on the scene on the surface. So I can’t find the captain’s mind, I concluded.
“And if you did, his second in command would simply take over,” she said, grasping the situation with scientific precision. “We’re going to need more than that.” Then she updated Brad and Kevin.
“I’ve got a wicked idea,” Kevin said. “Straight out of a wildly improbable movie. Let’s see if I can work with Joe on this. I’m still in touch with him.”
“But Joe’s seven thousand miles away!” she protested. “You’re going to sail there to meet him.”
“But there may be something I can do now, with his telepathic support.”
“But if Azael couldn’t touch the captain’s mind from up close, how could Joe do it from around the world?” Now she was sounding a bit hysterical herself.
“There are ways and ways,” Kevin said mysteriously. “Shut up and let me focus.” He closed his eyes, concentrating.
Nettled, Heidi shut up.
Brad touched her hand. “Oh ye of little faith,” he murmured.
Her anger flared. “You can just take that faith and shove it—”
I intercepted her mouth and shut it for her. We have to trust them.
“We do,” she muttered grimly. But there was a tide of mayhem in her mind. She didn’t like being patronized.
Kevin opened his eyes. “It’s feasible,” he announced. “Levy will guide the craft, at least as far as he can. We can’t keep the pace in the sub.” He glanced at Heidi. “Azael, tell them help is coming.”
“I will,” I agreed via Heidi’s mouth, and reverted to my own body. I knew that Kevin would explain to the others what was happening, but I couldn’t wait on that.
I swam close to the dreaded net, knowing it couldn’t be deployed to catch me without letting Hrump go. “Help is coming!” I sang to him.
“That’s a relief,” he sang back.
Then I swam to the research vessel and rejoined Tayle. Help is coming.
She grasped at that as if drowning. “I hope it’s fast!”
I hoped so too. What did Kevin and the alien, Joe, have in mind?
We waited interminable minutes as the hoist brought Hrump close to the yacht and hauled him back into the air, swinging him to the tank. They dropped him in with a splash. They knew what they were doing. Did we?
Now the net, emptied, was ready to be deployed again. And the sailors knew where I was. I had either to flee the vicinity immediately, or run the risk of capture. I did not like either alternative.
Then something weird happened. The yacht seemed to jump in the water. Sailors cried out with alarm, grabbing the railing to keep from falling.
“Look at that!” Jon called from the other ship. Tayle stood beside him, open-mouthed.
Then I saw it: huge green jaws projected from the water, clamping onto the stern of the yacht.
Green?
I ducked down and saw the rest of it, under the water. It was the alien life craft! The pig snout had been replaced by a toothed mouth, and it was biting the yacht.
The mouth twisted, and the yacht tilted sharply. The dolphin tank slid across the deck, crashed through the rail, and dropped into the sea. Hrump vaulted out with a mighty heave of his flukes, and splashed into the water. He was free!
But not the yacht. The jaws still held it fast.
Then the hairlike legs vibrated, and the craft accelerated backward, hauling the yacht helplessly along. The aliens were taking it out to sea.
I watched with mixed emotions. I had had no idea the aliens were capable of such a thing. This was the rescue that Kevin and Joe had worked out: to use the life craft itself. It could travel where neither Levy nor Joe could go. No telepathy, no magic, just an ocean predator biting its prey.
They won’t hurt the yacht, Heidi’s thought came. Just take it out to sea and leave it, as a warning, Kevin told me.
But what if they tell what happened? I thought back.
Who will believe them?
That seemed like an excellent question. Meanwhile Hrump was swimming toward me. “You told me help was coming,” he sang. “Thank you.”
“You are welcome,” I sang back, as if I’d known all along.
Chapter Twenty-seven
The next few months went by in a blur.
Kevin and Joe and a very advanced submarine journeyed deep into the Mariana Trench, far enough down that even the giant squids were uncomfortable. There, the director and his small team photographed an amazing site...a structure that spanned many human miles and camouflaged perfectly with its surroundings. Indeed, the surface of the spaceship even mimicked the smoke stacks and vents that covered the surface of the deep trench.
The whole scene was filmed for the world’s benefit—after all, Joe and Kevin were even now pleading their case to the human representatives. A shame that dolphins didn’t have a say in this. We would have quickly seen the benefit of such technology. But from the reports provided by Jon, and as I watched the humans’ fascinating TV through Tayle’s eyes, I saw the many conflicting reports on their various news channels. Yes, all of this was a lot to take in for a dolphin, but I was, at this point, firmly embedded in the human culture. Indeed, Jon had even built a pond for me, complete with a protective fence and covered roof. I could venture into it at any time, lock it behind me with a flick of my bony beak, and then mind-link instantly with Tayle.
Once the initial images of the UFO had been confirmed as re
al and not a hoax, panic gripped the earth. There were riots and skirmishes. Whole cities shut down as the humans fled to and fro. Water and food quickly became scarce.
This lasted for many weeks, although the shortages did not affect Jon and Tayle. He fished from the sea, and had his own well. He was also handy with a rifle, and kept looters at bay.
Weeks later, when the humans realized they were not under attack, the world picked up its pieces and resumed again, albeit at a cautious pace.
Still, there was much suspicion and negativity surrounding the aliens. Whole groups formed to protest them and demand their removal from earth. Other groups formed to protect them. And still others didn’t seem to care at all. Many questioned the validity of the reports of the Pulse, until scientist after scientist came forward to assure the world that the threat was real.
It wasn’t until Levy and his fellow giant squid began hauling vast riches upon the ocean shores did people really begin to perk up. Especially the big businesses, as Jon put it. Apparently, money spoke loudly—louder than even common sense. As the money flowed and the ocean was mined, those who could help came forward, providing materials necessary to build the Deflector, as it came to be known. A machine of gigantic proportions that could only be built at the bottom of the sea. Already, many humans had lost their lives in its construction, furthering the outcry against the aliens.
I would have gladly watched most humans perish in a fiery blaze—humans were, after all, the reason I was motherless and podless—but their demise meant my demise, too. And Tayle and Jon’s. Some humans weren’t so bad, but most left a bad taste in my mouth, which was a common human idiom, one that was quite accurate in this situation.
At times, I wondered if I was becoming more human than dolphin, but then I needed only to slip back into my body and find Hrump, and would spend the evenings hunting and feeding, and doing our best to block out the cries of prey.
Yes, our lives were weird, but it was our reality.