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Authors: The Dolphins of Altair
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the horizon when we saw, coming across the water toward us from the north, a marvelous sight.
It was a flotilla of sea people, more than two hundred of them, and though they were coming very fast, they hardly seemed to move in the water so much as in the air. They leapt and tumbled, they turned head over tail in their exuberance, they seemed to frolic in the air like birds, free creatures in their free element. The light glinted from their glistening bodies. The surface of the water seemed to laugh.
“What is it?” Madelaine cried. She was leaning forward eagerly, shading her eyes from the rising sun with one hand. “Amtor, Amtor! Is it what I think?”
“Yes,” I told her. I was so excited I could hardly talk. It was a real effort for me to force my speech into the slow tempo and low pitch of human communication. “They’re free. I thi nk they’re all free, all the dolphins that were in DRAT training centers. They’re saying that the walls broke and crumbled, the walls fell into bits all along the coast. They swam away unhindered. They’re free.”
The fleet of dolphins was all about us now . I recognized many friends and kinsmen, and among them one who was not a kinsman and who was dearer to me than any friend could be —Blitta, my mate, who had been shut up in a DRAT station for more than two years. Even now, I feel much emotion at her name.
“It worked, then,” Madelaine said. Her voice was full of astonished fruition. “I didn’t really think it would. You stole the mine, Sven, Amtor dropped it, and now the sea people are free.”
She drew a deep breath. “Whatever happens, we can always rememb er this, the morning when the air seemed full of joy like the sound of singing voices. The morning when the sea people were set free.”
The sun was well up now, golden among clouds in the east. The first shock of delight had abated a little, and we began to swim northward more soberly. Sven looked around at the dolphins in the water.
“Isn’t that you, Pettrus?” he said. “What happened on Noonday Rock when the quakes came? Where is Doctor Lawrence?”
“Lawrence is all right,” Pettrus answered. “There were only two little shocks on the Rock, but there were a lot of waves. One big one swept almost over the Rock.
“When we knew the waves were coming, I had the doctor get on my back and I swam well out to sea with him. He stayed on my back for several hours. He never let go of his briefcase the whole time.” Pettrus made the grunting noise that indicates amusement with us.
“When the dolphins from the DRAT pens began to arrive on the Rock —oh, we were so excited!—he suggested that we should all go to meet you. I asked him to come with us, but he said he’d had enough of sitting on a dolphin’s back with his legs in the water. He said to leave him on the Rock.
“We were too excited to argue with him, and we didn’t think there would be any more waves. We were eager to meet you and let you see that the quake had broken down the walls and let our people escape. So we left him there, on the Rock.”
“Weren’t there more dolphins in the pens at the naval research stations than this?” Madelaine asked.
“Oh, of course. Only the ones from the northernmost station swam out to the Rock. The others made for the open sea. They must be many miles away from the coast by now.”
Madelaine did not ask how Pettrus knew this; and indeed, it would have been hard for him to give her an explanation she could understand. Our senses —even our extrasensory senses —are different from those of Splits. As we swam north our entourage of dolphins began to drop away from us. This was partly because we knew that such a large number of sea people wou ld be bound to attract attention, even under post-earthquake conditions, and partly because we knew there weren’t enough fish in these coastal waters to keep such a large group of dolphins fed. It takes a lot of fish to keep a full-grown dolphin adequatel
It was a flotilla of sea people, more than two hundred of them, and though they were coming very fast, they hardly seemed to move in the water so much as in the air. They leapt and tumbled, they turned head over tail in their exuberance, they seemed to frolic in the air like birds, free creatures in their free element. The light glinted from their glistening bodies. The surface of the water seemed to laugh.
“What is it?” Madelaine cried. She was leaning forward eagerly, shading her eyes from the rising sun with one hand. “Amtor, Amtor! Is it what I think?”
“Yes,” I told her. I was so excited I could hardly talk. It was a real effort for me to force my speech into the slow tempo and low pitch of human communication. “They’re free. I thi nk they’re all free, all the dolphins that were in DRAT training centers. They’re saying that the walls broke and crumbled, the walls fell into bits all along the coast. They swam away unhindered. They’re free.”
The fleet of dolphins was all about us now . I recognized many friends and kinsmen, and among them one who was not a kinsman and who was dearer to me than any friend could be —Blitta, my mate, who had been shut up in a DRAT station for more than two years. Even now, I feel much emotion at her name.
“It worked, then,” Madelaine said. Her voice was full of astonished fruition. “I didn’t really think it would. You stole the mine, Sven, Amtor dropped it, and now the sea people are free.”
She drew a deep breath. “Whatever happens, we can always rememb er this, the morning when the air seemed full of joy like the sound of singing voices. The morning when the sea people were set free.”
The sun was well up now, golden among clouds in the east. The first shock of delight had abated a little, and we began to swim northward more soberly. Sven looked around at the dolphins in the water.
“Isn’t that you, Pettrus?” he said. “What happened on Noonday Rock when the quakes came? Where is Doctor Lawrence?”
“Lawrence is all right,” Pettrus answered. “There were only two little shocks on the Rock, but there were a lot of waves. One big one swept almost over the Rock.
“When we knew the waves were coming, I had the doctor get on my back and I swam well out to sea with him. He stayed on my back for several hours. He never let go of his briefcase the whole time.” Pettrus made the grunting noise that indicates amusement with us.
“When the dolphins from the DRAT pens began to arrive on the Rock —oh, we were so excited!—he suggested that we should all go to meet you. I asked him to come with us, but he said he’d had enough of sitting on a dolphin’s back with his legs in the water. He said to leave him on the Rock.
“We were too excited to argue with him, and we didn’t think there would be any more waves. We were eager to meet you and let you see that the quake had broken down the walls and let our people escape. So we left him there, on the Rock.”
“Weren’t there more dolphins in the pens at the naval research stations than this?” Madelaine asked.
“Oh, of course. Only the ones from the northernmost station swam out to the Rock. The others made for the open sea. They must be many miles away from the coast by now.”
Madelaine did not ask how Pettrus knew this; and indeed, it would have been hard for him to give her an explanation she could understand. Our senses —even our extrasensory senses —are different from those of Splits. As we swam north our entourage of dolphins began to drop away from us. This was partly because we knew that such a large number of sea people wou ld be bound to attract attention, even under post-earthquake conditions, and partly because we knew there weren’t enough fish in these coastal waters to keep such a large group of dolphins fed. It takes a lot of fish to keep a full-grown dolphin adequatel
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