Cachalot

by Alan Dean Foster

  "And they're either openly friendly," Mataroreva continued, "or indifferent to us, as I explained before. Unless they're bothered, and then their reactions have always been direct and personal. They've shown no interest one way or the other in the towns. They go after the togluts and the large teleosts.

  "While they travel in herds, the catodons, largest of the toothed whales, have nothing resembling military guile. They've no experience in organized warfare—there are simply too many factors against it." He added an afterthought, "I suppose you have to consider every possibility. That's what you're here for. I just don't think the whales fit the requirements we've established for our mysterious cause."

  He leaned back in his chair and toyed with his own second helping of dessert, uncomfortably aware of the reaction his initial outburst had produced.

  Cora pushed back her chair, delicately dabbed at her lips with a napkin, and forced a smile as she spoke request to Hwoshien. "Thanks for the delicious meal. We'll start work in a couple of days, as soon as we've had a chance to become a bit more acclimated."

  "Very well." Hwoshien rose and shook hands with her. "I bid you all a good evening."

  Mataroreva escorted them out of the mess.

  "Isn't there some other way to return to our quarters without going through all these corridors?" Cora asked.

  "You mean, Cora-doors?" She winced. They turned right, exited the structure.

  The door deposited them onto a path paved with jewels, wilder in hue, richer in extent, than any ancient prince from Haroun al-Rashid on down could have dreamed of. They had started dinner before sundown. Now the stars shone on glass sands, making of them an echo of the distant Milky Way.

  They trod cold fires. Buildings and trees became mere cutouts from a child's games, toy silhouettes against the night. Merced and Rachael had fallen well behind.

  "How did you happen to get into peaceforcer work?" Cora asked Sam curiously. "You don't strike me as the type."

  "Meaning I fit the mold physically but not mentally?" He grinned at her discomfort.

  "I didn't mean…"

  "Forget it. I'm used to it. I just drifted into it, I guess. Why do people become what they become? Life twists and turns on picayune events."

  "Well, I always wanted to be a marine biologist."

  "And I always wanted to have it easy and be happy," he countered. "Not very elevated career goals, but satisfying ones. I was born and raised here on Cachalot. Didn't have the aptitude for science, and fishing, gathering, and mining were too much work. That left some kind of administrative post.

  "I wasn't much good with tapework, so when the request was made for local peaceforcers, I joined up. Hwoshien believes strongly in compromise. Well, if I have any talent, it seems to be the ability to get others to do just that. Which is another way of saying I'm very good at stopping fights before they get started.

  "I guess I've reached my present position because I did my job, didn't offend anyone or make too many mistakes. I also happen to be good at what's necessary after compromise has failed."

  "I know," Cora said. "I could tell that from the way you reacted to that toglut by the pier."

  "Oh, a toglut is nothing." He spoke in an off-handed way that indicated he wasn't boasting. "As I explained, they're slow and generally inoffensive. Wait till we're out on the open ocean. Away from Mou'anui. Cachalot's predators have evolved in the most extensive oceanic environment in the Commonwealth. A mallost would have togluts for breakfast."

  "I can't wait," she told him honestly.

  They had almost reached the looming shadow of the administrative dormitory. A few lights were visible within the structure, moth-eyes in the night. Somewhere the somnolent hum of storage batteries taking over from the now useless photovoltaics sounded a counterpoint to the steady slapping of small waves against the distant beach.

  "Wait a second," Sam said.

  Oh, oh… Cora readied herself. What sort of line would he try? She doubted it would be very original. Bless his gentle boyish soul, Sam didn't seem the type. But it would be a line nonetheless. Years had enabled her to assemble a formidable arsenal of disarming responses. Because she liked him, she would opt for one of the milder disclaimers.

  Instead of reaching for her with words or hands he knelt. One hand held a palmful of sand, the other worked at his utility belt. "Have a look." A small light winked on, ultraviolet. He thumbed a switch on the side of the generator. The beam broadened slightly. He turned it on the sand he held.

  It was as if he had dipped his hand into the treasure chest of some ancient mogul or pirate. Under the ultraviolet beam the hexalate grains fluoresced brilliantly in a hundred shades, sawdust shaved from a rainbow. The glow did not have the blinding prismatic harshness created by sunlight. Instead, the colors were soft and rich, gentle on the eyes.

  The light winked out, but to her delight the colors remained. The phosphorescence faded slowly, reluctantly. As it did so, he turned his hand and let the ribbon of tiny suns dribble from his palm.

  "Oh, how beautiful, Sam! I expected a fairyland world, but not in such variety."

  "Remember the predators." He chuckled. "Some of those 'fairies' will gobble you down quick."

  They moved on, stopped outside the dormitory. She turned, looked up at him. "I enjoyed walking back with you."

  "Thanks for letting me. You really couldn't have gotten lost. You can't do that on land on Cachalot."

  She was waiting for the kiss, wondering if she would object, wondering if she would let him and like it, when he startled her by touching her on the nose with one finger.

  "Good night, Cora Xamantina. See you ananahi 'ia po'ipo'i. Tomorrow morning."

  More puzzled than disappointed, she watched him lumber off into the night. Unlike the sands, he did not glow in the dark, though she felt that with the right kind of stimulus, he might.

  Thoughts drifting, she made two wrong turns in the building before finding her room.

  Her chamber was Spartan but impeccably clean, although bits of hexalate sand glittered in spots. She suspected one could be completely free of that substance only on the open sea. The room contained a bed, a small clothes closet, a couple of chairs woven from some local sea plant, and a matching mat of emerald-green growth and intricate handwork: off to one side was a small sanitary annex with amenities for cleaning and washing.

  In one corner were three neatly placed cases, two large and one small. The seamless plastic responded to her electronically encoded key when she pressed it to the exterior of the seal-lock. From the second case she carefully removed her diving suit. Her second skin, really, considering the amount of time she had spent inside it. It consisted of a double layer of virtually untearable plastic alloy colored a watery blue-green. Between the two incredibly thin layers was a special thermosensitive gel that would keep the body warm to a depth of a hundred meters at one gravity.

  She laid the suit neatly across one of the chairs. It was unharmed, as always, but that never prevented her from going through the ritual check.

  Next she withdrew the special face mask that covered her entire head and sealed itself to the body of the suit. In addition to examining the curved glass-alloy faceplate that permitted excellent peripheral vision, she checked the regulator on the gillsystem. The backpack unit took oxygen directly from the water and mixed it in proper proportion with nitro-helium from a second small tank.

  The tiny container of concentrated liquid rations that would rest behind her left ear was full. She hooked it to the head mask, made sure the spigot feed inside the faceplate was clear. A spigot entering from the other side provided desalinated seawater for drinking.

  Weighing very little, the complete ensemble permitted a human to exist underwater for several weeks without having to surface for food, water, or air. She set the mask alongside the suit, brought out the last item, which was not vital for survival but which made working underwater considerably more enjoyable.

  The belt contained packets that held a
pressure-sensitive, liquid metal alloy. It was at its heaviest now, out of water, at one atmosphere. But as the diver wearing it descended, the weight of the metal decreased until, at a depth of ninety meters, well below normal diving limits, it achieved negative buoyancy. The diver could not descend farther without dropping the belt.

  The check completed, Cora walked into the sanitary chamber and took a rapid shower. Then she retired, fell almost instantly into a dreamless sleep as soon as she decided what had been troubling her. There were no wave sounds.

  Chapter VI

  Cora had neutralized the window glass so that when the sun rose, it would not automatically be compensated for. The light woke her.

  Joints aching, she crawled from the bed. Her neck hurt from having slept in a single position too long. She wondered why she hadn't slept more easily.

  Rachael was in the hallway, greeted her with a cheery "Good morning, Mother."

  "Morning. Got everything?" Rachael displayed a case dangling from each hand. Cora carried only a single container. "Don't forget to put on your goggles."

  The photosensitive lenses could not completely dampen the electrifying brilliance of sunrise on Mou'anui. It took a few minutes for their eyes to adjust before they left the confines of the dormitory.

  Anchored at the end of the main pier was a much larger vessel than the skimmer Core had expected to see. It was a broad-beamed, aerodynamic shape of gray metal with a crimson stripe running around it just above the waterline and with the imprint of the Commonwealth stamped on each side of the bow. Two small beams emerged from the side of the craft facing them and disappeared into the water. A four-foil craft, she reflected.

  There was a single, large, above-deck cabin and an enclosed bridge near the bow. The entire craft was coated with photovoltaic elements, which would produce plenty of power for the electric engine.

  No need to wonder why Sam had chosen such a vessel over a large skimmer. It would be slower, but they were likely to be out on Cachalot's ocean for some time. A skimmer could not hover forever, because it required a type of engine more powerful than anything the sun could fuel. The suprafoil could sit powerless on the water and act like a boat, whereas a skimmer would be helpless, or worse, would sink. Cora knew from experience that even large skimmers had trouble maneuvering in rough weather. A powerless foil could ride out a storm that would sink a skimmer in a minute. And on a long journey a foil's spaciousness would be more than welcome; it would be vital. No aircraft could provide such comfort, even if Cachalot could afford such expensive luxuries, which it could not.

  Mataroreva appeared from below, moved to the dock to help them with their luggage. "E aha te huru —how y'all doing?"

  Cora mumbled something about their being ready to go.

  "Not a bad ship," he said buoyantly. "I angled for the largest one possible."

  "It's more than big enough," Cora agreed, stepping aboard.

  "We each have a private cabin," he went on. "Nothing like research in style. They let the requisition pass because this is such important business. And because I told them that you work better when relaxed." He chuckled. "So they let us have the Caribe without so much as a question."

  "How nice." Cora noticed that Rachel was bent over one of her cases. It was open. Without surprise she saw that her daughter was carefully inspecting her neurophon.

  "Don't worry. I'm not going to play anything."

  "Then we're ready to leave—except," she said to Mataroreva, "for Merced." She tugged at the bodice of her suit netting, studied the shore. "Here he comes."

  Looking awkward with his burden of cases, the little oceanographer was jogging hurriedly toward them. He ran down the dock, tossed the containers up to the waiting Mataroreva with evident disregard for their contents. Cora winced, preferred to think they held no delicate apparatus.

  In a second he had clambered monkeylike over the side and was standing on deck clad only in a thin swimsuit. His muscular body was slightly darker than Sam's, though nowhere near the deep chocolate of her own or Rachael's. A thick mat of black hair covered his chest.

  "That's all of us, then," Rachael said brightly.

  "Not quite," Mataroreva corrected her. "There'll be two more joining us."

  Cora frowned at him. "I thought that we three constituted all the imported help."

  "You do, but we'll be assisted by a couple of local specialists."

  Cora was so upset she failed to notice his wink. "What is this? Hwoshien told us they were all tied up with other projects and didn't have any more time to devote to this problem, or that they'd exhausted their own ideas."

  "Not these two." He grinned at her. "Don't worry, Cora. They won't intrude on your work. They're coming along more to help me than to help you."

  More security people, she thought. Yet Hwoshien had told them Sam would be their only escort. She looked down the gangway into the bowels of the ship.

  "Where are they, then?"

  "Waiting for us outside the reef." Before she could question him further, he had turned and bounded up toward the bridge.

  "Nice day, Ms. Xamantina." Merced was standing next to her.

  "So far," she replied noncommittally. "Listen, you might as well call me Cora. We're going to be living and working in first-name proximity to each other, so we might as well identify each other the same way."

  No point in offending this man, she was thinking. After all, he was a colleague, though of unproven ability. Like it or not, she was going to be working with him.

  "Sure thing… Cora." He strolled over to Rachael.

  Cora moved forward, away from them. If she remained she would overhear their conversation, something she preferred to avoid.

  A waking noise was coming from inside the stern. The suprafoil slipped free of the anchorage. Once out in the lagoon, they turned to port. The waking sound became a steady, rich growl. The wind blew Cora's hair back free of her shoulders and the salt air commenced its gentle massage.

  Raised out of the water on four foils, the Caribe was skating across the surface at sixty kilometers an hour, heading northwest. Cora walked to within a couple of meters of the bow, enjoying the smooth ride while at the same time mentally decrying the wastefulness. They could have managed efficiently with a ship half the size. She had to admit, though, that having her own cabin would be nice.

  The foil was traveling too fast for her to make out anything beneath the blurred surface. A small cloud of icthyorniths, their water-holding sacs fully distended, shot out of the water ahead and curved away to starboard. Following them, her gaze was intercepted by the sight of Sam standing alone up in the enclosed bridge, his huge shoulders blocking out any view of the overhead instruments, pareu rippling in the slight breeze, eyes straight ahead.

  For the first time since she had touched down on Cachalot, she felt the cold kiss of fear. It occurred to her that whatever had obliterated four entire towns could probably dispose of a single boat and its occupants as easily as she could stifle a sneeze. She forced the worry aside. There was no point in wasting her time thinking about such a possibility. Death was merely a physiochronological abstraction she would have to deal with sooner or later.

  Even at the Caribe's speed, it was many minutes before they had crossed the gigantic lagoon of Mou'anui and the first of the small outlying motus, or islands, came into view. No tall transplanted palms waved acknowledgment of their presence. They were almost on top of the low, sandy piles when she finally noticed them.

  Mataroreva had slowed their pace. While the passage through the reef was reasonably wide, he took his time guiding the Caribe through. A thick accumulation of transparent hexalate could not harm the duralloy hull but might do damage to the more delicate, flexible foils.

  Only a slightly increased swell met the craft as it slipped free of the lagoon. No thunderous breakers to ride out here, except during a storm.

  They were well clear of the exterior motus, and Mataroreva still held their speed down as he turned farther to the we
st. Cora watched interestedly as they approached a small atoll, a miniature version of Mou'anui complete with two glassy islets whose crowns barely broke the surface. Sam was leaning out of the bridge enclosure, hunting for something even the slight distortion caused by the transparent glassalloy chamber might hide.

  Cora looked in the same direction, but strain as she did, she could not find a boat, a raft, or anyone on the islets. If they were supposed to meet their additional assistants here, she couldn't… What she did finally espy, and what broke her train of thought, were two huge dorsal fins moving straight for the Caribe. They were black with white markings. Orcas—killer whales!

  "Rachael—Rachael!"

  Her daughter joined her, her expression anxious. "Mother, what's.?…"

  Cora was pointing excitedly over the side. Rachael and then Merced noticed the approaching fins of a pair of Cachalot's true colonists.

  Cora called up to the bridge. "Sam!" He glanced down at her. "Can't you pull over for a better look?"

  "Not necessary," he shouted down to her. "You'll meet them in a moment. They're the two other experts I told you about."

  He pressed several switches inside the transparent bridge, climbed down to join the others. In one hand he held several ear-and-mouthpiece sets. The other held a thick black box—the heart of the ship, with which he could control most of the Caribe's movements and actions.

  "Here," he said, handing the headsets around. "These are analogs of the speaker-receiver units in your gelsuits. If you want to listen in or join the conversation, you'll need one of these." He was wearing one already.