The bay was alive with small and medium-sized craft, and as we passed under the Gate Bridge we saw the reason: the big bridge was still closed to traffic. Then we were through the gate and out into the open sea.
It had been arranged that Moonlight and the doctor should stand four-hour tricks at the Naomi’s helm, with Lawrence taking the first trick. But as we emerged into the turbulent off-coast water, the Naomi bobbed about like a cork. Lawrence turned pale green. He had to relinquish the helm to Madelaine, and he hurried into the tiny cabin to dose himself with neo-dramamine from his medical bag.
This was fortunate, for when a navy ’copter flew low over the Naomi, the pilot saw a laughing girl at the helm of a smart cruiser, who smiled and waved at him. If Lawrence had been steering, it might have been different. Even swimming in the Naomi’s shadow, we dolphins were visible enough from the air. But human females can distract human males.
It took us about three days to get down to Baja California. The days were getting longer, and at night the half-full moon lit up the sky. We knew when we passed Los Angeles: even out at sea, the haze of bluish smog marked the city’s site. There were occasional flurries of rain.
We were getting near to the place where we could start looking for Kendry when a strange dolphin joined us. He was a half-grown male, rather lighter than we usually are, and we soon found out that, though he could hear what we said to him, he couldn’t talk.
“Who’s that?” Sosa (she was steering ) asked.
“He can’t tell us his name,” I answered. “I think he’s a mutant. There’s something wrong with his tongue.”
We swam along companionably with the new dolphin for a while. We were glad to have him; we sea people are always glad to be with our kind. Then Madelaine said, “What are those scars on his head?”
“Scars? I don’t see any.” We were swimming somewhat ahead of the Naomi.
“Where his head bulges, above his eyes,” she called to us.
“Oh. I expect he had a run-in with a shark,” I answered.
“Um. Ask him whether he was ever in one of the DRAT pens,” she said. “He must be able to grunt, or something, when he means yes.”
I didn’t see any particular point in the question; a lot of us had been kept at the Naval Research Stations. But I did as she asked, telling the new dolphin to make a noise in his throat if he’d ever been in the pens.
His eyes flickered. His lips writhed. He seemed to be struggling to speak, but no noise came out of his throat. I don’t know, even now, whether he would have co me out with a grunt if he’d had time to make one. The next moment Sosa shouted at us, in that vibrant, imperative voice we had heard her use twice before, “Jump! Out of the water, all of you! High! Jump!”
The strange dolphin may or may not have understood her; at any rate, he didn’t obey. But Ivry and Pettrus and I acted instantly, making our best and highest jumps. When we were at the top of our springs, we saw the space under us suddenly full of flying red gobbets and churned-up spray. The strange dolphin had disappeared.
When we came down, Madelaine was clinging to the wheel for. support. She looked ready to faint. Her white dress was stained with blood, and bits of flesh and bone had been spattered all over her. Dr. Lawrence had come running out of the cabin and was shaking her arm.
“What’s the matter?” he cried. “What’s happened? Are you hurt?”
“No, not hurt. The dolphin—he exploded. The navy must have…” Her voice was faint.
Lawrence couldn’t make much sense of this, but he got his medical bag and broke an ampule from it under her nose.
“There, that’s better,” he said. “What happened? I thought we’d struck a rock, at first. I was almost thrown off the settee.”
She drew a deep breath. “The navy sent out a dolphin,” she said. “There were electrodes in his brain, so he couldn’t disobey, and a charge of explosive somewhere in his body cavity. He was supposed to seek out his own kind, and then the explosive would detonate.”
“You mean—the navy knows where we are?” Lawrence asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.” Her color was coming back. “I think it was a time bomb, set to go off after a certain length of time.
“Poor thing, he couldn’t help himself. They cut out his tongue, so he couldn’t give a warning, even if he’d dared.”
She started to cover her eyes with her hands, but the touch of her skin, sticky with blood, made her lower them again. “I’m covered with his blood and flesh,” she said. “Oh, poor thing, poor thing!”
She was trembling violently. Lawrence said nothing, but he brought her some medicine in a glass and made her drink it.
“How about you?” he asked, looking over the side at where we were floating. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. Sosa saved us again. She warned us in time.”
“Good. The Naomi seems to be all right. She’s no lower in the water than she was.” He went to the helm. He turned the wheel, but, though the ship still had some weight on, she did not respond. The explosion seemed to have damaged her steering gear.
Lawrence leaned over the bow. “The link’s broken,” he said. “I can probably fix it up, but—Amtor, how far are we from where you think Kendry is?”
“Not so very far,” I answered. “About two hours, if we take you in on our backs. We’d have to take you in part of the way, anyhow. The water around the rocks is too shallow for a boat.”
“In that case, I think we might leave the repairs to the Naomi until later. We can anchor her here as well as anywhere else. And I’m anxious to try to see Kendry before anything else happens. Maddy, what do you think?”
She had taken off her dress and slip and was dipping them up and down in the water over the stern of the ship, trying to clean the blood and flesh from the cloth. “It’s no use,” she said, straightening. “The blood won’t come out.” She let the garments float away in the water. “Go to see Kendry? All right. We’d better hurry, though. All that blood in the water may draw sharks.”
While Madelaine was putting on another dress, Lawrence let down the Naomi’s anchor and got canteens and food parcels for himself and the girl. I dove to check the security of the anchoring. When I came back up, Lawrence had put on a life jacket and was slipping a hunting knife on his belt.
“Maddy, you’d better put on a life jacket,” he told her.
“It isn’t necessary now. Later, it may be. Let’s get into the water. Kendry will be expecting us.”
She stepped over the Naomi’s rail and let herself down into the water. She did this with aplomb, though she was still trembling a little from the recent danger—she always liked riding with us. But the doctor hesitated an instant before following her, and I perceived that he not only did not trust us completely, but also that he was afraid of the water.
We began to swim away from the ship. Madelaine was silent. I knew she was thinking of the other time she had ridden with us on a dubious project of Lawrence’s. Sven had been with her then. Now the doctor was her companion, and Sven—“What makes you think Kendry will be expecting us?” Lawrence asked her. “ESP?”
“No, she’ll have smelled the traces the sea people leave in the water. Perhaps the blood, too. The currents around her rock will take the smell to her.—You’ve brought something to write with, haven’t you, Doctor?”
“Yes, in my breast pocket. I didn’t want to trust what we might learn about the ahln to memory.”