Cachalot

by Alan Dean Foster

  "You say the pack will not intercede for us. Then we'll have to take our chances. Dammit, people, it's time to take chances!" This was the first time Cora had heard Yu Hwoshien raise his voice.

  "Could we outrun an attacking whale?" Rachael wondered, nervously running fingers over the strings and switches of her neurophon. The projectors were silent. Only aural music floated across the deck.

  "Depends on its nearness at the moment of attack and on the type of whale," Mataroreva informed her. "A humpback, certainly. Probably a blue. A fin— that I can't say for certain. Over a short distance it would be a near thing. I agree with Hwoshien, though. It's a risk we have to take."

  Chapter XIV

  Peaceforcers and prisoners, catcherfoil and factory ship, all were soon cruising back toward Mou'anui and a distant justice. Hwoshien and the others boarded the peaceforcer suprafoil and followed in the wake of the searching pack.

  Several days and nights of beautiful weather and dull sailing ensued. Working in tandem with the sophisticated tracking equipment on board, the orcas located first one solitary whale, then a second. The first turned out to be a humpback, the other a minke. Neither knew (or claimed to know) anything about the attacks on the floating towns. They were allowed to depart before they grew aware they had been restrained.

  On the sixth day Wenkoseemansa split the water in his haste to report that half the pack had encircled another baleen and urged it to the surface. Their reluctant quarry was already confused and irritable. It would be best for all concerned if the humans were to hurry.

  As Mataroreva and his companions checked out their translating equipment, the suprafoil swung around and sped toward the section of ocean specified by Wenkoseemansa.

  Before very long the gentle rise of a small island broke the horizon. As they drew nearer, the island developed a modest geyser, whereupon it was clear to all on the slowing ship that the island was solid without being land.

  Over thirty-five meters in length and weighing well over a hundred tons, the sulfur-bottom, or blue whale, lay at the surface and considered his unprecedented situation. He looked quite massive enough to Cora to fight off all fifty orcas, even if for some reason they elected to contest such a battle. A nervous twitch of that enormous tail would make a metal patty of the ship.

  He was barely moving in the water. While Cora couldn't make out the tiny eye through distance and sea, she supposed it to be rapidly scanning its surroundings with considerable unease. The encirclement by the orca pack could only be interpreted by the creature as a potentially threatening gesture. It was up to Cora and her companions to obtain the answers to their questions before the solitary bull decided the threat was anything other than potential.

  When the suprafoil coasted alongside, taking care to approach the living mountain from near the head and not the dangerous tail, he shifted with ponderous uncertainty. Initial conversation was opened by the orcas. The cetacean-to-cetacean conversation was strange to Cora's ears, even in translation. In comparison with the rapid speech of the orcas, the blue's was turgid and slow.

  Wenkoseemansa asked most of the questions, swimming right up to the gigantic, striated jaw, which dwarfed his entire sleek body.

  Meanwhile, Cora fiddled with her translator, struggling to bring sense out of cetacean chaos. Each species had its own whistles, its private clicks and colloquial howls. The translators converted the blue's chatter into a kind of stupefied pidgin that sounded unintentionally comical.

  "You Great Brother know attacks on human-town, on human-people?" Wenkoseemansa seemed to be asking. "All human-people their-kind killed and gone away. Great Brother savvy?"

  There was no response. Hwoshien spoke around the pickup of his own translator. "Another blank. Is it possible all the whales who participated in the attack on Vai'oire have already fled this region?"

  "Gone to another town, maybe?" Merced wondered worriedly. No one felt like commenting on that ominous possibility.

  But the baleen finally answered. The reply was made with assurance, though with typically maddening slowness. "This One Great Brother savvy Little Cousin query. This One Great Brother aware muchly of attack on human-towns. This One Great Brother much sad at death of human-people, yes, muchly much."

  "You One participate in attack?" Wenkoseemansa inquired carefully, his muscles tensed in expectation. "You One help kill?"

  "This One participate," the blue said with appalling coldness, not to mention an obvious indifference to whatever the little knot of listening humans might choose to do. But while the whale's tone as conveyed by the translator contained no empathy, neither was it bellicose. Some of the crew shifted nervously at their stations. The helmsman's fingers tightened around Scanning screens on the suprafoil showed the tiny dots the controls.

  Yet the blue did not move, remained peacefully if uncomfortably in the center of the hemisphere of orcas. He's so calm, Cora thought in admiration. Does he know we could kill or severely wound him? The energy cannon at the bow was purposely not aimed at the baleen, but it was manned. It could be adjusted to fire over and down in an instant.

  Maybe he has even now sent out a distress call to the hundreds of others who participated in the attack on Vai'oire, Cora thought. That's absurd, she corrected herself. Any such call would have been intercepted and reported by the orcas, if not by the detection equipment on the ship.

  "What for, Great Brother, you kill human-people?" Mataroreva asked, taking over the process of questioning from Wenkoseemansa. "Human-people Great One's friends. No attack, no threaten, Great One's self or children. What for Great One and Cousins do such terrible-bad thing?"

  Slowly, with unexpected pain, the sulfur-bottom replied, "This Great One don't know. Subject hard to consider."

  The orcas could not frown, but Cora received the same impression from the puzzled chatter that circulated among them.

  "But you did participate?"

  "This One did."

  "Did kill?"

  "Did kill," the blue agonized. "Don't know why. This One no know. No inner-savvy why This One attack. Hard think-back."

  "Something-someone convince you attack?" Mataroreva pressed. "What say?"

  "No savvy."

  "Great One attack-kill human-people, what cause Great One do so? Who tell Great Ones do so? Try savvy." Mataroreva stared over the railing as if he could will the great whale to answer.

  "Savvy… hard is. Hard think-back. Dark waters. No can straight savvy." He shook his head slightly. Sudden swells rocked the suprafoil, and those on board grabbed for support. "Hard think-back. Mind hurt bad. No sense makes." Again the head twitched and the entire body shuddered, throwing water over the low deck of the nearby ship. Clearly the immense creature was becoming frustrated and upset. "Who can remember!"

  The whale spun and the foil threatened to capsize In the water the orcas fought hard to hold their positions against the powerful swell. Cora hung on tight to the rail with one arm and wrestled to reduce the volume on her translator. The blue's voice was growing deafening.

  "Attack—kill—no like! No choice but. Had to do. Ordered to do. Think-back hurts! Leave now This One!"

  Up went the great flukes, like some huge gray bird. Down went the head as the whale arched his back, of the orcas sprinting out of the way as the multiton bull plunged rapidly and unhesitatingly for the silence of the depths.

  Gradually the water calmed. The ship ceased rocking. Cora slipped her translator back on her head. "So the whales are apparently not responsible. Someone is directing them."

  "Whoever it is can compel them to attack a town," Merced murmured thoughtfully, "but we can't compel a single one to explain his actions."

  "I still don't see how you can compel something that weighs a hundred tons," Rachael insisted. "Let alone dozens of them."

  Cora snapped at her without meaning to. "Thoughts don't weigh much. I think it's pretty clear we're up against some kind of mind control. Something that can force the cetaceans, but not people. Otherwise whoever
's behind this could simply direct the inhabitants of each town to blow themselves up. The Commonwealth watches anything having to do with central-nervous-system or mental-modulation research very tightly. But as isolated as the cetaceans have been in their mental development here, by their own choice —that would make them a perfect subject for anyone wishing to try out such a control system."

  "Not only doesn't it affect humans," Merced observed, "I would guess it doesn't affect the toothed whales, either. Certainly not the orcas and the porpoises, probably not the catodons and their relatives."

  "Not yet it doesn't," Cora said grimly. "Maybe it's not perfected yet. Maybe the catodons will be the next subjects, together with the orcas—and then us. We can't break this precious Covenant, can't even chance it, but I can think of some that ought to be ready to risk it, for their own sakes."

  "We can't," Mataroreva protested immediately. "We tried it once and got nowhere."

  "We know more now. I should think the catodons would be interested. They ought to be, if they know what's good for them."

  "I keep telling you," he said tightly, "they don't think the way we do. No matter what we've learned, regardless of what we might say, they'll see it first and foremost as another attack on their privacy, on their thinking time. We might try another pod—"

  Cora shook her head. "It has to be the same one we talked to before. We can't take the time to establish a relationship with a new pod, even assuming we could locate another one, and we can't take the time to go over old ground again. It has to be Lumpjaw's pod."

  "They could consider a second attempt a provocation," he warned her. "They as much as told us so."

  "Do you have a better idea?"

  "No, I don't have a better one!" he shouted angrily at her. "But I don't have any as dangerous, either!"

  Legally they were now subject to local administrative directives. So the question was formally put to Hwoshien.

  "Let us try it," he finally told them. "It offers us the best chance of obtaining a solution fast."

  "It also offers the best chance of eliminating our now experienced research team," Mataroreva argued. "If we get in among the herd and they then decide on a unified attack, we won't have a prayer of getting out alive."

  "I am willing to trust the Covenant," Hwoshien replied. "I do not think they will break it this time merely to protect their right to privacy. And our new information may indeed, as Ms. Xamantina says, intrigue them."

  "There's no telling," Mataroreva muttered. "You know people, Yu. I know cetaceans. A group of people wouldn't react violently to the mild intrusion we plan, but we're dealing with different moral standards, with a different scale of values. I'm certain of nothing except the catodon's unpredictability. Maybe it's the smartest of the Cetacea, but it's also the most volatile."

  "I have an obligation to protect the living," Hwoshien said firmly. "We not only require a solution to this, we require one now. I cannot risk another town in the name of caution." He adjusted his own translator and walked to the railing.

  "Wenkoseemansa—Latehoht—pack leader." Two familiar shapes instantly flanked the ship. They were soon joined by a larger third: Kinehahtoh. Hwoshien explained what they wished of the orca's. When he had finished, Kinehahtoh spun distress in the water.

  "Bad thhing is thhis, a woefful prroposal you makke. Not at all goood. "Tis bitter to thhe taste of the packk.

  "Like we not the catodons overrmuch, like they us still less, and saltted is theirr imitation with contemmpt. But theirr dislike of us is as swweet schools of golden madandrra to the taste comparred with theirr dislike of hummans. Dangerrous, woefful dangerrous is this idea." He stopped spinning and splashing, gazed up at the humans lining the low rail.

  "Knoww you thhat if the catodons choose to vent theirr discontent, wwe cannot prrotect you. Know you thhis well! Even did wwe wish to, wwe could not Arre firrst among the Cetacea the catodons, whho alone in the sea arre strronger than the orrcas."

  "We understand your position," Cora said, "but we have no choice. We've come to a dead end."

  " 'Deadd end'?" a puzzled Kinehahtoh echoed.

  "A place that cannot be swum through, like the bottom of the sea," Mataroreva explained helpfully.

  "Awwwh. Underrstand wwe noww yourr positionnn."

  "Can you find them, then?" Mataroreva asked expectantly. "The large pod we conversed with so many days ago?"

  "Can find prrobably, cann overrtaaaake."

  "Then do only that much for us," Hwoshien put in, "and the orcas are released at the moment of contact from any obligation to us." Mataroreva whirled on him, gaping.

  "This Kinehahtoh has already restated their position, Sam. Close your mouth. There's no point in asking them to risk their precious interspecies Covenant. As he told us, the orcas couldn't protect us even if they wanted to. I don't want them holding any bad feelings against us if this doesn't work out." He turned back to the water.

  "Take us to them. That will be sufficient. We will do our own talking."

  "Fooolish thhing is thhis," Wenkoseemansa said, leaping clear of the surface and landing with a tremendous splash. "Fooolish. Arre therre not otherr ways, otherr means, to learrn the answwerrs you requirre?"

  But no one could think of any, though all tried as best they could as the suprafoil sped northwestward, following the pack of coursing black and white shapes.

  By spreading out, the orcas were able to search a tremendous volume of ocean, backed by the long-ranging sonarizer of the suprafoil. Even so, they located the pod sooner than even Hwoshien might have hoped. The catodons could be leisurely travelers, often following schools of food rather than any straight course. Also, they were hindered by the presence of many calves, which the hunting orca pack had left safely behind.

  Cora, Hwoshien, Mataroreva, and Dawn moved to the bow of the ship as they neared the herd. Cora found herself wishing the other, younger woman had remained behind. She still had not accepted Dawn's insistent claim that she had no permanent designs on Sam, less so that Sam held no interest in her. Cora had too graphic a proof of the latter.

  A call came to them from inside the cabin. 'Twelve kilometers and closing."

  "Thank you, Mr. Asamwe," Hwoshien replied crisply. His attention was also directed forward. "Yes, I can see the spouts." Cora strained, could make out nothing against the sea and sky. Whatever Hwoshien's age, there was nothing old about his eyes. "I don't see them."

  He pointed. "There…" and then he frowned slightly. "No, I don't see them any more, either. I thought they might do this."

  Sure enough, the report soon confirmed the truth. "Reporting again, sir. The pod is sounding."

  "All of them? Calves included?"

  "It shows here," the crewman said. Hwoshien did not reply, continued to stare over the bow, his back as straight as an iron bar and his stare as cold.

  "Well, they can't stay down for much more than twenty minutes," Cora murmured. "Not with calves." She turned and surreptitiously eyed Mataroreva. The big man was tense, obvious worry creasing his usually rotund, jovial face.

  "They'll come up a damnsight sooner than that, once they've decided we're not going to leave them alone."

  He's worried, she thought. Worried but not frightened. Never frightened. Morally innocent, but an admirable man nonetheless. One of the few. She might be just the one to cure him.

  Wenkoseemansa was back paralleling the ship, leaping to confirm what the sonarizer had already reported.

  "Why bother to sound?" Cora wondered. "Surely they know we're aware of their location. They can't lose us."

  "Could be several reasons." Mataroreva studied the horizon. "They might be showing their displeasure and just incidentally giving us the chance to change our course—and our minds. Or they might not care one way or the other, since we haven't actually disturbed their activities with our presence yet. It might be a normal feeding dive." Now he smiled slightly. "It would be just like them to surface all around us and ignore our presence entirely, not to m
ention our questions."

  Minutes later the helmsman reported, with admirable calm, "We're right over them, sir."

  "Hold just aft of the pod, as near as you can."

  "Yes, sir."

  The suprafoil slowed. They cruised just behind then-submerged quarry for another fifteen minutes before detection reported again. "They're coming up, sir."

  "Good," Hwoshien said into the nearby com. "Keep us posted, please."

  "Still rising." A pause, then, "Shouldn't we move a little farther aft of them, sir?"

  "No. Hold your position and speed."

  "Changing course, sir—they're going to come up all around us." Still no panic in the crewman's voice, though the words poured out a bit hastily, Cora thought. Impassive, Hwoshien said nothing, continued to stare interestedly over the bow.

  "Twenty meters. Fifteen." The engine raced.

  "Hold your position," Hwoshien ordered firmly. "Show them we're not concerned. They know they're not surprising us. Don't show them otherwise. Besides," he told Cora, "it's too late to do anything anyway."

  "Five… four…" the technician counted down. "Three… two…"

  Calm sea, tolerant sun, a few white clouds conversing in a sky as blue as a blade of azurite, made up the momentary universe. Then it was filled with a sight few humans had ever been privileged to witness.

  With intelligence bad come more than thought. It brought with it an aesthetic sense, coupled with a unique unity of purpose. The entire pod, some two or three hundred adult, adolescent, and juvenile cetaceans, breached simultaneously. One moment the sea was calm and the air deserted. The next, it was filled with two hundred thousand tons and more of gray-brown flesh.

  The pod hung suspended in the air for a second no onlooker would ever lose track of, before falling convulsively back into the sea. Wet thunder shook the somnolent sky. The displacement of air was enough to knock everyone off his feet. Only the fact that the pod was now evenly distributed around the ship kept it from being capsized. Still, all the silent efforts of automatic stabilizers and gyroscopic compensators were required to hold the suprafoil level on the surface.