by S. S. Segran
“Dolphin,” Aari said immediately. “They’ve both got echolocation, so you can use that to find the compass, but a dolphin would have more maneuverability in a place like this. And they have incredible vision. They can look in two different directions at the same time.”
Kody cast a dubious eye at the deep cobalt water that stretched over a mile from one side of the cove to the other. “A tiny object, lost at the bottom of the bay for at least a couple thousand years, probably covered in layers of silt and stuff. Sure, okay.”
“Dolphins can detect prey under sediment,” Aari said. “The Navy even uses them to find mines.”
“Guess that settles it.” Tegan yanked up the zipper of her jacket. “Give me a few minutes to bring one over.”
“Hey,” Mariah said, “you’ve never mindlinked with any kind of sea creature before, have you?”
Tegan’s eyes flitted uneasily. “I did, once. At the beach in Santa Monica when we started getting our powers and memories back. But it wasn’t by choice.”
Aari turned to her in astonishment. “You never practiced on your own? Not even when we were home?”
“It wasn’t . . . I didn’t—I never thought to. I just worked with things that could walk or fly.”
A thought appeared to have occurred to Mariah. She started to open her arms out to the other girl. “Oh, Tegan.”
Tegan pulled back. “No! Please, no pitying looks. Just because I hate being underwater doesn’t mean I can’t do this.”
Aari sat back, watching as she returned to the novasphere. She’d been doing so well during excursions that took them near or on bodies of water, it was easy to forget her fear of it. I guess nearly drowning will leave its mark.
None of the friends had been there when it happened, and Tegan had never wanted to dwell on it. After almost twelve years, her discomfort about deep water had merely come to be one of her many facets.
Kody rose onto his knees to look over the railing. He grinned, extending a hand. “Hiya, Teegs.”
The others moved to join him. The smooth, slate-gray head of a bottlenose dolphin smiled up at them. It swam closer, bumping against Kody’s hand. Aari stretched down to pat its snout and his palm glided over the slippery skin.
“It kinda feels like the inside of a hardboiled egg,” Kody remarked.
“Of course you’d equate it to food,” Mariah said, stroking the creature’s flank. “Gosh, aren’t you the most adorable dolphin ever.”
Tegan spoke up from the back of the boat. “Guys, I have to say, it’s a little weird being mindlinked to it and feeling your hands all over me.”
The friends pulled back, stifling their mirth. Aari went over to Tegan and rubbed her shoulder. “You doing okay?”
“Using an animal that moves around underwater easily helps,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “Anyway, the bay’s pretty clear but it gets harder to see the deeper you go. You guys might want to get comfy, this is probably gonna take a while.”
“Use a search pattern,” Victor advised, lowering himself behind the wheel.
“Grid or quadrant?”
He looked surprised by her question but smoothed his expression back to one of cool neutrality. “Whichever works best with your biosonar.”
Aari couldn’t help but crow silently. It was no small feat to see the Sentry show any emotion that bordered on approval or admiration.
Tegan inclined her head, then stilled. The others settled back in their seats as the minutes trickled by, painfully slow. Aari slipped his hand into his pocket for his phone before remembering it would be pointless—the device had essentially become an expensive paperweight.
An urgent tapping on his knee made him look up. Kody leaned close. “I’ve got my hearing tuned in on Tegan. Her heart’s beating real fast.”
Aari glanced across the vessel. “Poor thing. She’s a brave one, though, facing her fears like that.”
It was over thirty minutes later when Tegan staggered to her feet, shaking out a leg. “Ow, ow, ow. I hate cramps.”
Aari watched her, not buying her huffy act entirely.
“Found anything?” asked Victor.
“Lots of rocks,” she grumbled, hobbling in a circle. “I’ve checked the northern half of the cove, gonna check the south in a bit.”
“Need a hand?” Kody offered. “My vision could be useful.”
“And I’ve been working on directing light instead of dispelling it,” Aari added.
“And I . . .” Mariah puckered her mouth. “. . . have nothing that would help.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Tegan said. “But I’d have to hop back and forth to link with both of you. It’ll still take us a while.”
Aari fidgeted with the pendant around his neck. “I know we’ve only tried combining our abilities two at a time and we’re still trying to figure out how to add more of us to the equation, but why don’t we give it another go now? It’s probably a long shot, but it might speed up the search if it works. If it doesn’t . . . guess you’ll have to continue by yourself.”
“Couldn’t hurt to try,” Tegan said. “Kody?”
Kody made space for her on the boat’s forward seats. “I’m in. See you guys in the novasphere.”
Aari closed his eyes and opened his mind. Unlike those who needed to sense other beings for telepathic communication or to take hold of animals through mindlink, he and Kody didn’t need to dwell deeply in the higher dimension much. As a result, he was still wobbly when it came to probing people’s consciousness and locating those he needed to connect with. Thanks to the group’s ability to combine powers, however, he was able to find Tegan right away.
He wafted over and knocked on her mind. A fiery jolt shot through his physical body but he forced himself to concentrate as her aura threatened to overwhelm him. She was a swirl of thunder and steel, but something tinged her presence: fear.
He automatically reached out to soothe it but a warning prickle along his arms stopped him at the last second. Reluctantly, he left the dark slit of her fear alone. He could sense Kody moored to her consciousness as well; his presence was a revitalizing summer breeze hinting of adventure, hearty and inviting. It made Aari wonder what his own presence felt like.
Okay, he thought. Looks like we’ve both managed to connect to her. Now comes the hard part—trying to connect to each other.
He tentatively prodded Kody’s consciousness but was thrust back. He attempted it a second time and was again denied. He ground his teeth. Don’t get frustrated. This always happens, you know that.
“Kody,” he said aloud. “How about instead of one of us trying to make contact, we both reach for each other at the same time?”
“Sorta like that Creation of Adam painting?” Kody asked; Aari could practically feel his amusement. “How intimate.”
“Kody, I am this close to—”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s worth a shot. But what if we just ran at each other? Like, full-on sprint through the novasphere.”
“That is an awful idea and it’s got migraines with our names on them,” Aari said. “Let’s do it.”
They extended their consciousnesses, two freight trains barreling down the same track toward one another. Aari braced for the impact and when it came, it was like taking a mallet to the head. An explosion of bright stars burst across his vision and he fell back in his seat. Faintly, he thought he felt his pendant lift upward but when he blindly reached for it, it was still hanging around his neck.
That absolutely did not work, he moaned inwardly.
Except, when the pain abated, he felt Kody’s presence closer, more acutely, without barriers. What in the name of—
“Yes!” Kody whooped. “Look who was right!”
“Nicely done!” Tegan praised, though it came out more like a groan. “I’ve got a secondhand headache from being linked with you guys, but it’s worth it.”
Aari opened his eyes, pressing a hand to his temple. “I can’t believe this. Brute force was all we needed?”
> “You know those old-timey TVs that you sometimes have to hit to get them to work?” Kody said. “Sort of the same idea.”
A guttural, strangled noise escaped Victor. “We still had those at the start of the millennium. They’re not that antiquated.”
“Sorry, not trying to make you feel old.”
“Is it my face? Is it making me look older than I am?”
“I think you hit a nerve,” Tegan said. “I’ve never seen him so offended about anything.” She pinched Aari and Kody by the ears and gave a small tug. “Now, how about we start looking for that compass?”
They re-established their links and Tegan dove back into the dolphin. Aari’s view morphed from the inside of his eyelids to the waters beneath the bay. He held his breath before realizing he didn’t need to, and it was only when he came down from his whirlwind of amazement that he noticed the dolphin was colorblind.
Tegan handled the creature with ease as it propelled itself toward the bottom, aided by its muscled tail. Air bubbles brushed past it—him? Them? What was the proper term? Aari could hardly compute the experience. A large-belled jellyfish sailed nearby, fifteen-foot-long tentacles trailing behind it. Tegan kept the dolphin well out of its path.
By the time they got to the floor of the cove eighty feet below, the light barely reached them. Communicating verbally to coordinate, Kody brightened their combined vision as much as he could while Aari expanded his consciousness toward the rays. The patterns of light shimmered as they were redirected together and aimed at the sediment. He was astonished at the number of wrecks there were, not just ships but a tank as well, a relic from a bygone war.
The dolphin swam onward. Though Aari wasn’t connected directly to it, its playful, curious nature wiggled through him. He smiled. There are so many stories of them keeping people safe. To be working with one this closely . . . man, what a privilege. And that the bottlenose dolphin’s emotional intelligence in particular is second only to us says something.
More wrecks appeared but nothing of interest turned up. Aari assiduously directed the light as best he could, though there was less to work with than he’d have liked.
I hate this so much.
Aari just about leapt out of his shoes. The voice in his head was most definitely not his.
I hate water, I hate water, I hate water . . .
He dared not breathe. Was he imagining things? Was that Tegan he was hearing?
Now that he wasn’t as distracted by his surroundings, he could feel her anxiety and her abhorrence for the depths. Gingerly, as though everything would shatter if he so much as twitched, he opened his mind further. Teegs?
AH! she yelped.
AH! yelped Kody.
AH! yelped Aari. Kody?!
Aari?!
You can hear each other? Tegan demanded.
Yes! they chorused.
Finally! Took you long enough. Welcome to the telepathy club, boys!
Kody hooted. We’ve been breaking boundaries today, huh?
Aari was on cloud nine. This is nuts! It’s such random timing. Well, maybe not random. The three of us combined abilities for the first time, then this? Maybe when we—
Hey, Kody interjected. I thought telepathy only allowed us to talk to each other one at a time. This is more like a conference call, isn’t it?
There was a moment of silence as the realization sank in.
You’re right, Aari breathed. The Elders said this wasn’t possible.
And yet, here we are. Tegan’s pride was tangible. Now that you two have caught up, we can coordinate without speaking out loud. Kody, I need your eyes and ears over by that big patch of kelp over there. Aari, keep shining the light if you can. Thank you both kindly.
They tackled their task with redoubled enthusiasm, mapping the terrain as Tegan used the dolphin to send out high-frequency clicks. A skeleton image formed in their minds, highlighting a couple of small shipwrecks partially decayed and buried in the sediment.
Aari, Tegan called. Our friend should be able to move those boats, right?
I think so, he said. Dolphins use their rostrum to kill sharks by ramming into them over and over, so this should be a walk in the park.
That’s metal, said Kody. Also, we should give it a name. What about Tank?
Because we passed a tank earlier? Tegan guessed.
Absolutely.
Why not. Tank it is.
With another flap of its tail, Tegan brought the dolphin over to the remains of smaller vessels and began turning them over. Sediment flew up in ballooning clouds and they waited impatiently for it to clear. By this time, the rain had settled into a steady beat above water. It wasn’t heavy or cold enough for them to move under the boat’s hardtop, and Aari found himself savoring the pattering against his skin.
I’m not seeing anything, Kody reported.
And the only feedback I’m getting from the sonar is rocks and some prey, Tegan said. Let’s keep going.
But after an hour of searching—and surfacing every ten or so minutes for the dolphin to replenish its air supply—they’d turned up nothing. Aari was far less ecstatic than when they’d first started out. So much for combining abilities.
Tegan sounded equally depleted. Yeah, I’m tempted to call it quits at this point.
Hold up a second, Kody said. Can we go back to the last quadrant? I thought I was getting weird feedback off the sonar and I wanna make sure there isn’t something more to it.
Tegan guided the dolphin to an old fishing trawler they’d seen at the end of their search. It was probably a few decades old, its paintjob eaten away by time. The dolphin’s vision zoomed in and Kody tweaked its—their?—hearing. The sonar pinged off the trawler and a different image formed in their minds, displaying irregularities around the vessel.
Nothing in the shape of a compass here, Kody said, but I think there might be another boat or something under this one.
Using the dolphin’s rostrum, Tegan pushed the trawler onto its side. Debris shook loose as she steadied it against a rock. Silt flew in all directions but she worked through the mess, sending out another ping that produced an updated image. Kody sifted through the data, narrating his finds. Rock, rock, fishing hook, rock, old boot, rock, anchor . . . and something very round and very hard.
Rocks are hard, and they can be round, Aari said.
The silt settled. A rotted length of what might have been wood was pressed into the sediment. There were extended breaks in it but, from what Aari could see, it was about thirty feet long.
You know what this kind of reminds me of? he said. The spine on the underside of a boat. What’s it called . . . Ah, right, a keel.
So the trawler was sitting keel-to-keel with another ship? Kody asked. Weird odds.
By the look of it, they’d been fused together by the silt. Where did you say the thing was?
We’ve got about five minutes left before we need to get Tank up for air, Tegan said. Let’s be quick.
Kody directed them toward a section of the sea floor closest to the vessel they’d flipped. Using Tank’s tail, Tegan got to work sweeping away the sand and creating waves that bucked against the trawler. It was no small task when she couldn’t even turn the creature’s head around to see where she was doing. She’d stop at intervals to reorient and take stock of what had been uncovered.
The third time she did, Kody yelled out. There it is!
Eager eyes searched for the object. Aari funneled the light around them and it bounced off something white and gold. Kody’s right! he hollered. That’s definitely not a rock!
The dolphin dove for it. Its jaws parted, ready to snap up their prize, and none of the friends paid any mind to the shadow that moved above them as the trawler, dislodged by the waves, began to roll back into its original position with the dolphin right under it.
The pain from the blow hurled Aari back into his body. He fell on his side, gasping, arms wrapped around himself. The bowrider rocked viciously, spurred by churning swells and sweeping
winds. Across from him, Kody had also been wrenched out of the dolphin, blinking hard, the back of his hand pressed against his mouth. They stared at one another, then looked at Tegan. She was inert and pallid.
Kody took her face in his hands. “Tegan! Let go of it!”
“It’s trapped under the boat,” she said raggedly, eyes unfocused as she remained mindlinked. “We were supposed to head up for air. Tank’s going to drown if I don’t get it out.”
The boys looked at each other, then closed their eyes and rejoined her in the novasphere. The dolphin was pinned firmly between the trawler and the seabed, thrashing wildly, its body contracting as it suffocated. It pained Aari to know that Tegan was experiencing the creature’s slow death firsthand.
Kody adjusted their shared vision as Tegan coaxed Tank to look around. I’m not seeing a way out of this, he said. We’ll need our big guns.
“’Riah!” Aari yelled. “We need you!”
He felt Mariah brush up against his side. “You think all four of us can combine our abilities?” She sounded uncertain.
“Do what we did,” Kody said. “Meteor your way in as we reach out to each other.”
The second Mariah entered the novasphere, the friends set off on a four-way collision course. The psychic slam sent another searing headache through Aari’s skull. This is an incredibly painful and ridiculous way to combine abilities, he thought as tears leaked out of his eyes. We really need to figure out something better.
Ow! Mariah exclaimed inside his head. Did it work?
Yes! Aari should have been more excited about such an unprecedented accomplishment, but Tank had stopped moving entirely. We gotta lift the boat!
On it!
Turbulence roiled the water as the trawler slid off its axis. The dolphin fluttered its fins ever so slightly as it felt the weight begin to ease off.
Keep going! shouted Kody.
The vessel creaked and groaned as Mariah tried to raise it further. Aari balked. Gentle!
There was a muffled crack and the trawler split, the bow and stern rising as the midsection fell back onto the dolphin. It screamed weakly, but to Aari it almost sounded like a child crying. Mariah!
