‘I’ve never known anything except this ship.’
‘But you’re not a dolphin; you weren’t expecting oceans to swim in.’ Constanza had paused because one of the animals was swimming towards them. It had left its companions at the far end of the tank, huddled around what looked like a set of television screens showing different pictures. Now that it emerged into the volume of clear water immediately beyond the glass, it assumed a presence it had lacked a moment earlier; suddenly it was a large, potentially dangerous thing of muscle and bone, rather than something bordering on translucence. Sky had seen photos of dolphins in the nursery, and there was something not quite right about this creature: a network of surgically fine lines encased its skull, and there were geometric bumps and ridges around its eyes; evidence of hard metal and ceramic things buried just below the dolphin’s flesh.
‘Hello,’ Sky said, tapping the glass.
‘That’s Sleek,’ Constanza said. ‘I think so, anyway. Sleek’s one of the oldest ones.’
The dolphin looked at him, the sly curve of its jaw making the scrutiny appear both benign and demented. Then it whiplashed around so that it was face-on to him and Sky felt the glass reverberate with unheard vibration. Something formed in the water in front of Sleek, sketched in arcs of transient bubbles. At first the trails of bubbles were random — like an artist’s preliminary brush-strokes — but then they became more structured and deliberate, Sleek’s head jerking animatedly as if the creature was in the throes of electrocution. The display lasted for only a handful of seconds, but what the dolphin was shaping was unmistakably a face, rendered three-dimensionally. The form lacked any fine details, but Sky knew that it was more than just a suggestion that his subconscious was creating from a few random bubble-trails. It was too symmetric and well-proportioned for that. There was emotion there as well, though it was almost certainly horror or fear.
Sleek, his work done, departed with a contemptuous flick of his tail.
‘They hate us as well,’ Constanza said. ‘But you can’t really blame them for that, can you?’
‘Why did Sleek do that? How?’
‘There are machines in Sleek’s melon — that bump between its eyes. They’re implanted when they’re babies. The melon’s what they normally make sound with, but the machines let them focus the sound more precisely, so they can draw with bubbles. And there are little things in the water — micro-organisms — which light up when the sound hits them. The people who made the dolphins wanted to be able to communicate with them.’
‘You’d have thought the dolphins would be grateful.’
‘Maybe they would be — if they didn’t keep having to have operations. And if they had somewhere else to swim other than this horrible place.’
‘Yes, but when we reach Journey’s End…’
Constanza looked at him with sad eyes. ‘It’ll be too late, Sky. For these ones, anyway. They won’t be alive then. We’ll even be grown-up; our parents old or dead.’
The dolphin came back with another, slightly smaller companion and the two of them began to draw something in the water. It looked like a man being pulled apart by sharks, but Sky turned away before he could be certain.
Constanza continued, ‘And they’re too far gone anyway, Sky.’
Sky turned back to the tank. ‘I still like them. They’re still beautiful. Even Sleek.’
‘They’re bad, Sky. Psychotic, that’s the word my father uses.’ She said it with not-quite-convincing hesitation, as if slightly ashamed of her own fluency.
‘I don’t care. I’ll come back and see them again.’ He tapped the glass and spoke much louder. ‘I’ll come back, Sleek. I like you.’
Constanza, though she was only slightly taller than him, patted Sky maternally on the shoulder. ‘It won’t make any difference.’
‘I’ll still come.’
The promise, as much to himself as to Constanza, had been sincere. He did want to understand the dolphins, to communicate with them and in some way alleviate their misery. He imagined the bright, wide oceans of Journey’s End — Clown, his friend in the nursery, had told him that there would be oceans — and imagined the dolphins suddenly freed from this dark, dismal place. He pictured them swimming with people; creating joyous sound-pictures in the water; the memory of the time aboard the Santiago fading like a claustrophobic dream.
‘C’mon,’ Constanza said. ‘We’d better be going, Sky.’
‘You’ll bring me back, won’t you?’
‘Of course, if that’s what you want.’
And they had left the dolphinarium and commenced the intricate return trip, the two of them working their way through the Santiago’s dark interstices; children trying to find their way through an enchanted forest. Once or twice they passed adults, but Constanza’s demeanour was so confident that they were never questioned — not until they were well within the small part of the ship which Sky considered familiar territory.
It was there that his father had found them.
Titus Haussmann was a stern but kindly figure amongst the Santiago’s living; a man whose authority had been earned through respect rather than fear. He towered over the two of them, but Sky felt no real anger emanate from him; only relief.
‘Your mother’s been worried sick,’ his father said. ‘Constanza — I’m deeply disappointed in you. I always had you down as the sensible one.’
‘He only wanted to see the dolphins.’
‘Oh, the dolphins, was it?’ His father sounded surprised, as if this was not quite the answer he had been expecting. ‘I thought it was the dead that interested you, Sky — our beloved momios.’
True enough, Sky thought — but one thing at a time.
‘And now you’re sorry,’ his father continued. ‘Because they weren’t what you were expecting, were they? I’m sorry, too. Sleek and the others are sick in the head. The kindest thing we could do would be to put them all to sleep, but they keep being allowed to raise young, and each generation’s more…’
‘Psychotic,’ Sky said.
‘… yes.’ His father regarded him strangely. ‘More psychotic than the last. Well, now that your vocabulary’s showing such tremendous growth, it would be a shame to stifle it, don’t you think? A shame to deny you the potential to enlarge it?’ He ruffled Sky’s hair. ‘I’m talking about the nursery, young man. A spell in it, where you can’t come into any harm.’
It was not that he hated the nursery, or even especially disliked it. But when he was banished there it could not help but feel like a punishment.
‘I want to see my mother.’
‘Your mother’s outside the ship, Sky, so there’s no use running to her for a second opinion. And you know if you did she’d say exactly the same thing. You’ve disobeyed us and you need to be taught a lesson.’ He turned to Constanza, shaking his head. ‘As for you, young madam, I think it might be for the best if you and Sky were not to play together for a period of time, don’t you think?’
‘We don’t play,’ Constanza said with a scowl. ‘We talk, and explore.’
‘Yes,’ Titus said, with a long-suffering sigh, ‘and visit parts of the ship you’re expressly not allowed to go to. That, I’m afraid, can’t go unpunished.’ He softened his voice now, as he always did when he was about to discuss something of genuine importance. ‘This ship is our home — our only real home — and we have to feel like we live here. That means feeling safe in the places where it’s right to do so — and knowing where it isn’t safe to go. Not because there are monsters or anything silly like that, but because there are dangers — adult dangers. Machinery and power systems. Robots and drop shafts. Believe me, I’ve seen what happens when people go into places they’re not meant to go, and it usually isn’t very pleasant.’