by Larry Niven
“I’ll be damned. That’s fairly rare, isn’t it?”
“And sometimes troublesome, medically, but Larry never had any problems. We used to call it ‘that little extra something about him.’ Is this the kind of thing you’re after?”
“Sure.” Luke didn’t know. He remembered that the better he knew the man he was chasing, the more likely he was to catch him. It had worked when he was a cop, decades ago. It ought to work now. He let her talk, interrupting very rarely.
“I never noticed what a practical joker he was until after he began working with dolphins, but he’s told me some of the things he pulled at college. He must have been a real terror. He was terrible at team athletics, but he plays fair squash and demon tennis…” She needed no prompting now. Her life came out in a stream of words. Her life with Larry Greenberg.
“…must have known a lot of women before he met me. And vice versa, I might add. Neither of us has ever tried adultery. I mean, we have an arrangement that we can, but we’ve never used it.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.” Luke saw that she was. She was amused that he should have to ask.
“…It shocks him when I can make a prediction that accurate. I don’t think he really believes in prescience, so it scares him when I get a flash. He thinks it’s some sort of magic. I remember one day, we’d been married less than a year, and I’d gone out on a shopping spree. He saw me come in with a load of packages, and when I dumped them and went out and came back with the second load he said, ‘Honest to God, beautiful, you’re spending blue chips like the Last War was starting tomorrow!’ I didn’t say anything. I just gave him this brave little smile. He went absolutely white…”
Relevant or irrelevant, it was all coming out. Judy talked faster and faster. She was doing just what he’d told her to, but with an urgency that was puzzling.
“…Most of the couples we know never got married until someone was pregnant. When you pass the Fertility Board you hate to risk throwing it away by marrying a sterile partner, right? It’s too big a thing. But we decided to take the chance.” Judy rubbed her throat. She went on hoarsely. “Besides, the ’doc had okayed us both for parenthood. Then there was Jinx. We had to be sure neither of us got left behind.”
“By me that was good thinking, Mrs. Greenberg. I’ll quit now, while you’ve still got a voice. Thanks for the help.”
“I hope it did help.”
The speed at which she’d talked—the detail. Luke sent the elevator straight to the top. He knew now why she’d painted so complete a portrait of Larry Greenberg. Whether she knew it or not, she didn’t expect to see him again. She’d been trying to make him immortal in her memory.
* * *
The Jayhawk Hotel was the third tallest building in Topeka, and the rooftop bar had a magnificent view. As he left the elevator Luke met the usual continuous roar. He waited ten seconds while his ears “learned” to ignore it: an essential defense mechanism, learned by most children before they were three. The hostess was a tall redhead, nude but for double-spike shoes, her hair piled into a swirling, swooping confection which brought her height to an even eight feet. She led him to a tiny table against a window.
The occupant rose to meet him. “Mr. Garner.”
“Nice of you to do this for me, Dr. Snyder.”
“Call me Dale.”
Garner saw a dumpy man with an inch-wide strip of curly blond hair down the center of his scalp. Temporary skin substitute covered his forehead, cheeks and chin, leaving an X of unharmed skin across his eyes, nose, and the corners of his mouth. His hands were also bandaged.
“Then I’m Luke. What’s your latest word on the Sea Statue?”
“When the Arms woke me up yesterday afternoon to tell me Larry had turned alien. How is he?”
Avoiding details, Luke filled the psychologist in on the past twenty-four hours. “So now I’m doing what I can on the ground while they get me a ship that will beat Greenberg and the ET to Neptune.”
“Brother, that’s a mess. I never saw the statue, and if I had I’d never have noticed that button. What are you drinking?”
“I’d better grab a milk shake; I haven’t had lunch. Dale, why did you want us to bring the statue here?”
“I thought it would help if Larry saw it. There was a case once, long before I was born, where two patients who both thought they were Mary, Mother of God, showed up at the same institution. So the doctors put them both in the same room.”
“Wow. What happened?”
“There was a godawful argument. Finally one of the women gave up and decided she must be Mary’s mother. She was the one they eventually cured.”
“You thought Greenberg would decide he was Greenberg if you showed him he wasn’t the Sea Statue.”
“Right. I gather it didn’t work. You say they can use my help at Menninger’s?”
“Probably, but I need it first. I told you what I think Greenberg and the Sea Statue are after. I’ve got to chase them down before they get to it.”
“How can I help?”
“Tell me everything you can about Larry Greenberg. The man on his way to Neptune has an extraterrestrial’s memories, but his reflexes are Greenberg’s. He proved that by driving a car. I want to know what I can count on from the Greenberg side of him.”
“Very little, I’d say. Count on something from the Greenberg side of him and you’d likely wind up naked on the Moon. But I see your point. Let’s suppose the, uh, Sea Statue civilization had a law against picking pockets. Most countries had such laws, you know, before we got so crowded the cops couldn’t enforce them.”
“I remember.”
Snyder’s eyes widened. “You do? Yes, I suppose you do. Well, suppose Larry in his present state found someone picking his pocket. His impulse would be to stop him, but not to yell for a policeman. He’d have to make a conscious decision to do that. This would be unlikely until after the fight was over and he’d had time to think.”
“If I caught him by surprise I could count on his human reflexes.”
“Yes, but don’t confuse reflexes with motivations. You don’t know what his motivations are now.”
“Go on.”
Snyder leaned back and folded his hands behind his head. A waiter glided up and produced drinks from a well in its torso. Garner paid it and shooed it away.
Abruptly Snyder was talking. “You know what he looks like: five feet seven inches tall, dark and fairly, handsome. His parents were Orthodox, but they weren’t millionaires, they couldn’t afford a fully kosher diet. He’s very well adjusted, and he has enormous resilience, which is why he was able to take up contact telepathy.
“He does have some feelings about his height, but nothing we need bother about. They are partly compensated by what he calls ‘that little extra something about me.’”
“Mrs. Greenberg told me.”
“Partly he means his telepathy. Partly it’s the medical anomaly I assume Judy mentioned. But he’s in dead earnest in regarding himself as something special.
“You might also remember that he’s been reading minds for years, human and dolphin minds. This gives him an accumulation of useful data. I doubt if the dolphins are important, but there were physics professors, math students, and psychologists among the volunteers who let Larry read their minds by contact. You could call him superbly educated.” Snyder straightened. “Remember this, when you go out after him. You don’t know the Sea Statue’s intelligence, but Larry has his own intelligence and nobody else’s. He’s clever, and adaptable, and unusually sure of himself. He’s suspicious of superstition, but genuinely religious. His reflexes are excellent. I know. I’ve played tennis with him: Judy and I against him alone, with Larry guarding the singles court.”
“Then I’d better stay alert.”
“Absolutely.”
“Suppose his religion was threatened. How would he react?”
“You mean Orthodox Judaism?”
“No, I mean any religion he
now happens to hold. Wait, I’ll expand that. How would he react to a threat against something he’s believed in all his life?”
“It would make him angry, of course. But he’s not a fanatic. Challenge him and he’d be willing to argue. But to make him change his mind about something basic, you’d have to offer real proof. You couldn’t just cast doubts. If you see what I mean.”
On the great white screen in the Space Traffic Control Center, two dark blobs hung almost motionless. Halley Johnson swung his phone camera around so Garner could see it.
“The military ship is going just a teeny bit faster than the honeymooner. If they’re really going all the way to Neptune they’ll pass each other.”
“Where else could they be going?”
“A number of asteroids. I have a list.”
“Let’s hear it.”
Johnson read off the names of fourteen minor Greek deities. “A lot more have been crossed off,” he added. “When the ship passes turnover point and keeps accelerating, we mark it out.”
“Okay. Keep me posted. How ’bout my ship?”
“Be here at twenty. You’ll be in orbit by twenty-one.”
The Struldbrugs’ Club is not the only club with a lower age limit on its members. (Consider the Senate.) It is the only club whose age limit rises one year for every two that passes. In 2106 every member was at least one hundred and forty-nine years old. Naturally the Struldbrugs’ autodocs were the best in the world.
But the treatment tanks still looked like oversized coffins.
Luke pulled himself out of the tank and read the itemized bill. It was a long one. The ’doc had hooked by induction into his spine and done deep knee bends to build up muscle tone; recharged the tiny battery in his heart; and added hormones and more esoteric substances to his bloodstream. Localized ultrasonic pulses had applied the Ch’ien treatment; Luke could feel the ache from the base of his skull all the way down his spine, to where sensation almost disappeared in the small of his back. A manicure and pedicure had finished the checkup.
Luke used his Arm ident to punch for a six months’ supply of the hormones, antiallergens, selective pest killers, and general rejuvenators which kept him alive and healthy. What came out of the slot was a hypodermic the size of a beer can, with instructions all down the sides in fine print. Luke tightened his lips at the sight of the needle; but you can’t use a spray hypo when you’ve got to hit the vein. He told the ’doc where to send the bill.
One more chore and he could take a cat nap.
Because of the decrepit state of many Struldbrugs, the club phone booths had been made large enough for travel chairs—barely. Already Luke had the air translucent with cigarette smoke. “How do you talk to a dolphin?” he asked, feeling unaccountably diffident.
Fred Torrance said, “Just the way you would have talked to Larry. But Charley will answer in dolphinese, and I’ll translate. You couldn’t make out his English over the phone.”
“Okay. Charley, my name’s Lucas Garner. I’m with the Arms. Do you know what’s happened to Larry?”
Grunts, chortles, whistles, squeals, and squeaks! Only once had Luke heard the like of it. Eighteen years ago he had been a witness at a murder trial. Three other witnesses—and the victim, who of course was not present—had been dolphins.
Torrance translated: “He knows Larry’s lost his sense of identity. Dr. Jansky called and told us all about it.”
“Well, yesterday Larry got away from us and took off in a stolen ship. I’m going after him. I want to know everything Charley can tell us about him.”
Dolphin language. Torrance said, “Charley wants a favor in return.”
“Oh, really? What?” Luke braced himself. Since the cracking of the swimmer-dolphin language barrier, the dolphins had proved very able bargainers. Fortunately or not, the dolphins’ rigid, complex moral code had adapted easily to the walker concept of trade.
“He wants to talk to you about the possibility of dolphins taking part in the seeding of the stars.”
Of the three present, Torrance the seadoc had the clearest understanding of what was being said. Charley was speaking slowly and clearly, staying well below the ultrasonic range, but even so Torrance often had trouble translating. To him the bilingual conversation went like this:
“I’ll be damned in writing,” said Garner. “Charley, is this a new idea? I’ve never heard of a dolphin wanting to go starhopping.”
“Not…brand new. The question has been discussed on the abstract level, and many are in favor of it, if only from the fear that swimmers will be left out of something. But I, myself, never felt the urge until three days ago.”
“Greenberg. He had the space bug bad, did he?”
“Please use the present tense. Yes, he has the bug all right. I’ve had a couple of days to get used to Larry in my head. I won’t say I quite understand this urge to reach Jinx, but I can explain a little of it.
“I dislike using an outmoded term, but part of it is”—Charley used the English words—“’anifesst desstinee. Part is the fact that on Jinx he could have as many children as he wants, four or five even, and nobody would complain. Partly it is the same urge I sometimes get in this tank. No room to swim. Larrry wants to walk down a street without the slightest fear of stepping on someone’s toes, having his pocket picked, or getting caught in a pedestrian traffic jam and being carried six blocks the wrong way. Notice that I’ve put considerably more thought into analyzing this than Larrry ever did.”
“And how do you feel about it? You’re a dolphin. You probably never looked at the stars—”
“Missterr ’Arrnerr, I assure you that we swimmers know what the stars look like. There are many astronomy and astrophysics tapes in the illustrated texts your agents sold us. And, after all, we do have to come up for air sometimes!”
“Sorry. But the point remains: you’ve got plenty of elbow room, you’ve never had your toes stepped on, and nothing but a killer whale could possibly be interested in picking your pocket. So what’s in it for you?”
“Perhaps adventure. Perhaps the forming of a new civilization. You know that there has been only one swimmer civilization for many thousands of years. The seas are not isolated, as are the continents. If there is a better way of doing things, the way for us to find out is to build many communities on many worlds. Is this logical?”
“Yes!” There was no mistaking the emphasis in Garner’s voice. “But it may not be as easy as you think. We’d certainly have to design you an entirely new ship, because we’d have to include swimming water. And water is heavy, dammit. I’ll bet shipping a dolphin would cost ten times as much as shipping a man.”
“You use water for reaction mass for the landing motors. Could you put lights in the water tanks?”
“Yes, and we could fill them only two-thirds full, and we could install filters to remove the fish and the algae and so on before the water reaches the motors. We could even install small tanks somewhere that you could ride in while the tanks were being emptied during landing. Charley, are you beginning to get some picture of the cost of all this?”
“Beginning to, yes. Money is complex.”
“You know it. But you couldn’t possibly buy your way on, not with what the dolphins produce. Oh, you could get a pair to Wonderland, but how could two dolphins stay sane alone? What would they live on? Seeding an ocean isn’t like planting a wheat field, even when you have to make the topsoil yourself. Fish swim away! Seeding an ocean has to be done all at once!
“Hmm. You can’t even claim it’s your right to be on a starship. Dolphins don’t pay UN taxes…hmm,” said Luke, and scratched his scalp. “Charley, just how many dolphins could be persuaded to leave their oceans forever?”
“As many as we need. Selected by lot, if necessary. The Law permits such selection in cases of extreme need. Of the hundreds of swimmers who took part in early walker experiments to prove us intelligent, and of the twenty or thirty who died as a result, nearly all had been so selected.”
“Oh…really? And nobody ever guessed.” Torrance wondered at Garner’s peculiar expression. Almost a look of horror. It had been so long ago; why should he be so shocked? Garner said, “Let it pass. How many genuine volunteers?”
“They would all be genuine. But you want to know how many would volunteer without the lots? No more than fifty to a hundred, I would think, out of all the oceans.”
“All right. Now what we’ll have to start with is a massive advertising campaign. The dolphins will have to contribute a share of the cost of a dolphin spaceship. Just a gesture. It would be nominal compared to the final cost, but to you it will be expensive. Then we’ll have to convince most of the walker world that a planet without dolphins isn’t worth living on. Needless to say, I already believe this.”
“Thank you. Thank you for all of us. Would swimmers be taking part in this advertising?”
“Not directly. We’d want pronouncements, statements from prominent swimmers like the one the newspapers call the Lawyer. You know who I mean?”
“Yes.”
“Understand that I’m just guessing. We’ll have to hire a ‘public opinions consultant,’ a publicity agent, and let him do the work. And it might be all for nothing.”
“Could we lower the cost by shipping swimmers in Doctor Jansskee’s time retarder field?”
Garner looked utterly astonished. Torrance grinned, recognizing the reaction: Is This A Dolphin Talking? “Yes,” said Garner, nodding to himself. “Right. We won’t even need tanks. Let the humans do the crew work, and keep you frozen until they can find and seed a small sea, like the Mediterranean…”
It went on and on.
“…So it’s settled,” said Garner, a long time later. “Talk it over with the dolphins, especially the ones with power, but don’t make a move until I get back. I want to pick a publicity agent. The right publicity agent.”
“I hate to remind you, but isn’t there a chance you won’t come back?”
“Holy Hannah! I completely forgot.” Garner glanced down at his wrist. “There goes my cat nap. Quick, Charley, start talking about Greenberg. What’s your opinion of him?”
