Ripple

by Tui Allen

  Ripple could hardly bring herself to reply – it was the closest Pearl had ever come to chastising her.

  ‘I . . . I hope I didn’t hurt Rev too much’.

  ‘I’m more concerned for you than I am for Rev. I believe you intended to hurt him even more. Dolphins might behave like that towards a shark which was threatening us, but not towards our own kind.’

  Ripple apologised to her mother and her brother. For a time after that, she ceased eating, ceased all play and laughter and spent time staring into the black depths. In the end Pearl chastised her again.

  ‘Snap out of it dear. You’ve only had one little telling off. Every young dolphin gets told off at times. You must now begin to think of happy things again. Look up at the stars, catch some fish and taste their juicy sweetness, rejoice in leaping. Think less about yourself and more about the beauty that surrounds you.’

  Ripple wished to please her mother so she obeyed. By an effort of will she turned her thinking away from her shame and concentrated on the glories of Azure. Within a few hours she was leaping, listening, hunting, eating and searching, as joyfully as ever.

  Pearl thought, even when she is joyful she is more so than the rest of us, but I won’t reproach her for that.

  ~~~

  Echo called Ripple ‘Jellyfish’ because of her fears. Rev called her ‘Tiger-shark’ because of her rages. Even Aroha, the mind adept, noticed her youngest sister’s oddness. She spoke of it to Pearl one day during a visit with Matangi.

  ‘Ripple’s unsettled,’ Aroha said, ‘I read anxiety in her mind, so Mother you must let me know immediately if you think she needs my help.’

  ‘I will,’ said Pearl.

  There was a short silence. Pearl consciously switched the focus to Aroha and Matangi.

  ‘It’d be lovely to see more of you two,’ she said, ‘I know you’re both busy with your work, but perhaps there’ll soon be a baby you may need my help with.’

  ‘That’s the plan,’ Matangi replied. ‘We hope it won’t be too long before Ripple is an aunty.’

  ‘And it might be useful’ said Aroha, ‘for me to be closer to my birth family if Ripple should worsen.’

  ~~~

  Sister Sterne hoped that by choosing Rigel and Pearl as parents she had increased Ripple’s chances of succeeding in her spirit’s mission. To see how this would work out, we observed the relationship between Pearl and Ripple with interest. It was easy to see how much the child puzzled her mother.

  ~~~

  Pearl noticed Ripple swishing the surface with her fins and passing her head back and forth through the bubbles in a rhythmical movement at varying speeds.

  ‘Why are you doing that Ripple?’

  ‘Listening to the bubbles.’

  Pearl perceived contentment and absorption in her daughter’s mind, but she also saw an unfamiliar kind of thought pattern. Even we deities were mystified. It was like nothing we or Pearl had ever detected in another dolphin. Because it didn’t seem negative, Pearl considered it harmless, an attitude that pleased Sterne. However, Pearl did wonder what other dolphins would think when they noticed.

  Such a dreamy child she thought, but there are worse faults, and she swam away to discourage Rev from amusing himself by spoiling Echo’s hunting on purpose just because he was not hungry and he knew she was.

  Pearl cruised back later and watched Ripple nosing in close to an island coastline. There were neither fish nor any other reason for such a close approach to land. When Ripple had spent many hours there, Pearl asked, ‘Why did you stay so long? You know there is tide danger in shallow water.’

  ‘I was listening to the shellfish under the mud.’

  ‘Why? We don’t eat shellfish!’

  ‘I hear the mud oozing round them. See the ones that swim above the mud? They whistle as they swim; a pretty sound if you listen to their heartbeats at the same time. But don’t worry Mother; I listen to the tides too. Such noise they make, roaring in my brain. How could I not heed them?’

  She likes shellfish, thought Pearl, for the noises they make?

  Another time, Pearl noticed Ripple holding herself upright in the water; head as still as possible above the surface. Her gently swirling flippers and tail balanced her body for a long time in one spot. Ripple again said she was ‘listening’ so Pearl listened with her. All she noticed were the usual sounds of the sea: the rushing of the water at the surface, the heartbeats and movements of a school of fish, the distant passage of a family of whales, the swoosh of a diving gannet, her own and Ripple’s heartbeats and breathing and the slow pulse of the swells. Nothing that could cause alarm or excite curiosity.

  ‘Why keep still?’ she asked, ‘when there’s nothing you can’t hear while you’re swimming around like the rest of us?’

  ‘Sounds are clearer when you’re still,’ Ripple explained.

  Pearl understood that Ripple had some reason of her own for her unusual activities. She again explored her child’s brainwaves by ultra-sound, looking for a clue, but saw no pain alarms, no emotional confusion – only a mild anxiety and that same intellectual ‘disturbance’ as she began to think of it. She tried to get Ripple to explain for herself.

  ‘Ripple, there’s something in your thinking that doesn’t fit the normal patterns. Other dolphins may think there’s something wrong with your mind.’

  ‘Mother, remember before I was born, I told you I was trying to find something?’

  ‘What more could anyone want to find here on Azure, that we don’t already have?’

  There was silence for a long moment.

  ‘I need to find it!’

  ‘Find what?’

  Gannets dived. Fish jumped. Sunlight glittered on swells that heaved like the flanks of sleeping animals, tons of water rising and falling, driven by the whims of distant storms. Mother and daughter swam on together through sea and sky that glowed every shade of blue from palest dawn to deepest midnight. No comments passed between them for a time. As they swam, Pearl made a private resolve to keep a close watch over Ripple and to discuss her concerns with Rigel, if Ripple’s disturbed thinking continued.

  Pearl broke the stalemate.

  ‘Darling, I think you should play with your friends more and just let sounds tell you what you need them to tell you. Dolphins don’t play with sounds – we use them to help us live in the world.’

  ‘For me, there is more to sound than that Mother. Sometimes I feel that all the audible treasure of Azure is surrounding me, throbbing at me, and I’m wasting it . . . wasting it! Something hidden in those sounds is calling me to set it free; it calls from deep inside me, and from far beyond the stars!’

  Pearl saw a vast longing in Ripple, an emptiness awaiting fulfilment. ‘Something is calling her? A voice calling? A vocation?’

  Pearl knew, almost as well as we deities do, that not all creatures shared the dolphin’s ability to understand the world around them by using their hearing, building pictures in the brain by analysing sound as you humans do with your eyes.

  Perhaps, thought Pearl, it’s Ripple’s task to bring order to her own confusion.

  ~~~

  Sterne responded to that thought.

  ‘You see?’ she said, ‘I chose exactly the right mother!’

  ~~~

  Another swarm of seraphim had gathered around us. They buzzed and glittered and they too had watched the exchange between Pearl and Ripple. They cheered at Sterne’s statement, as though it mattered to them. Their numbers had continued increasing among the constellations of Koru, especially within Sol’s planetary system.

  A group of seraphim entertained themselves by unravelling my aura into tentacles of light and parading them around the galaxy like streamers. I put up with such frivolity, though I considered it undignified for someone of my standing. Sterne swatted them aside ruthlessly when they tried the same thing on her. It didn’t bother them. They rolled over backwards laughing like nincompoops. (At least words like that allow me to have some fun with your bothersom
e human languages.)

  ‘Why must we put up with these confounded seraphim?’ muttered Sterne, batting aside another which had encroached on her aura.

  She turned her attention back to Pearl.

  ~~~

  Pearl found it hard to worry about a daughter so normal and healthy in every other respect. She knew that Ripple was among the best tumblers in her school. Pearl had seen her playing for hours with the other young dolphins, spinning, speeding, leaping, twisting, diving, chasing, racing. Ripple had even invented new moves and they copied her, though most of them were older. Recognition by older playmates was an honour and Pearl knew it.

  ~~~

  Read on, or if desired . . .

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  Chapter 8: The Fighter

  Alcyone’s memories of his parents became Cosmo’s weapon against loneliness. He spent many hours running over them, observing the way his parents had lived.

  Sometimes he created new scenes to weave through the memories; scenes where he spoke to Mimosa or Kismet and they responded exactly the way he saw live parents speaking to their children every day in the school around him.

  ‘What’s it like out there in the stars?’ he asked his father one day.

  ‘Beautiful,’ whispered the memory of Kismet. ‘Mysterious . . . but dangerous. Take care Cosmo. Don’t follow us too soon . . . too soon,’ and the whisper faded back into the sky.

  ~~~

  Though he charged ahead in the fighting-related subjects, Cosmo’s favourite class was astronomy. He absorbed all available knowledge including the names of every constellation and every star whose magnitude or significance had earned it a name.

  One night after his astronomy lesson, Cosmo spoke to his teacher, Zenith.

  ‘How can I defeat gravity and reach the stars?’

  The ocean jostled around them, its small waves slapping at their fins in the westerly. The waves were sharply black, but flickering with spears of light reflected from moon and stars.

  ‘I wondered when you’d ask that,’ replied Zenith.

  He dived and re-surfaced with a small squid, which he swallowed neatly.

  ‘It can be done using the power of the mind. But here we have no teachers skilled in the techniques. We call it Practical Astronomy because it involves actual travel in space among distant worlds. We had a practical astronomer here in the Southern School once. He departed Azure well before his time, about a year before your birth.’

  ‘What killed him?’

  ‘A blackfin took him while he worked. It’s not safe to separate mind from body. But that’s exactly how the practical astronomers work.’

  Cosmo recalled the warning from the memory of his father.

  ‘Is that why so few pursue it?’

  ‘Yes. But there are other schools of dolphins, elsewhere in our ocean, with many specialists in the art. They’ve developed methods of protecting their astronomers from most of the dangers of the vocation.’

  ‘I wish there were practical astronomers in our school, but perhaps they serve no useful purpose since we survive without them.’

  Both dolphins paused to forage among a tempting array of sweet transparent creatures that welled up around them. The deep water had released its spoils.

  ‘It’s not true, Cosmo, to think practical astronomers serve no useful purpose. Most schools could survive without poetry, mathematics and history but it doesn’t make those vocations worthless.’

  ‘Our history teacher told us of the spiritual Hereafter. Has that knowledge come from the practical astronomers?’

  ‘No, our spiritual knowledge comes from the whales. They have past life memory and have shared their knowledge of the Hereafter with us to alleviate our natural Azuran fear of death. But astronomers have returned from space with other knowledge of much value.’

  ‘What kinds?’

  ‘Some has been of purely intellectual interest. Some is of such practical use that those who discover it make sure to share it widely. It’s truly an honoured vocation.’

  Cosmo stared at the blazing stars riding the misty veil of the galactic arm. He tried to imagine communicating with a creature from a world out there.

  Zenith continued. ‘They have also brought back thoughts, ideas and information about arts on distant worlds which we cetaceans of Azure can barely comprehend. We have our own arts of course. But have you heard of visual art, Cosmo?’

  ‘No. What is it?’

  ‘It’s when artists manipulate materials in their environment to create representations of their world in order to express creative ideas.’

  While trying to work it out, Cosmo did two forward somersaults and three backward ones.

  Zenith laughed.

  ‘Imagine I took a block of rock and somehow gave it the shape of an octopus in pain, because I wanted to show how intensely octopuses feel pain. That idea could remain there for centuries, permanent in the rock, long after the artist was dead. That’s visual art.’

  ‘Impossible! I might be able to break a soft rock with my tail or teeth, but how could anyone change a rock to an octopus shape?’

  ‘We on Azure do not create visual art, since we cannot manipulate materials in this way. But because of the practical astronomers there are historians in some schools whose entire vocations consist of memorising images of art from other worlds.’

  ‘Do the astronomers give anything in exchange for what they receive from those worlds?’

  ‘Certainly, though not always to those they received from. They may receive from one world and give back to another. Azurans have shared much of their own culture with others in the universe. Some of the arts of war, developed right here in our own Southern School, are admired and copied by aliens. They too must sometimes defend themselves from attack by other species.’

  ‘Practical astronomy is the greatest vocation on Azure! Surely it must be!’

  ‘However, it’s not available to you here in this school. It’s far too risky and likely to kill you before you get beyond our own moon.’

  Cosmo glanced at the moon. It commanded him to soar beyond it. The wave he rode at that moment lifted him bodily. He shot upwards from its peak and rocketed towards the moon. But as always, gravity defeated him.

  ‘I must find a way!’ he cried and crashed back into the sea.

  The westerly strengthened; a squall whipped the crests into flying spray.

  ‘To do that, you’ll need to leave this school and find a teacher who provides better for your educational needs.’

  As though in agreement with the squall, a chill current from the deep arose and surrounded them.

  ‘I could never leave friends like Maram and Alcyone to go among strangers.’

  ‘You’ve chosen no easy calling Cosmo.’

  ~~~

  A group of about forty dolphins hunted south-east of the main school. Three tiger sharks swam in the area but it was safe for the dolphins because the sharks viewed a large group as more trouble than it was worth. However, some of the dolphins, having eaten their fill, peeled away, singly or in small groups, to head back to the main school. The remaining dolphins, still feeding hungrily, failed to notice how quickly their group was diminishing.

  The sharks now took an interest.

  The dolphin group included some youngsters, who would certainly be the sharks’ first targets. The eldest male dolphin recognised the danger and immediately thought-streamed the main school for help. Then he and the other adults herded the youngsters into the centre and circled them closely and rapidly. A shark glided closer. A fast male dolphin left the circling group, for just long enough to dive deep, rise swiftly, and strike the predator hard from below. It bought time. The sharks withdrew temporarily but did not depart. The dolphins continued circling their young ones.

  ~~~

  Back in the main school, Cosmo accepted his first call to action.

  He controlled the flow of adrenaline that charged into his bloodstream; then raced into position at the tail of t
he squad of fourteen picked fighters. Maram swam nearer the front.

  Other dolphins called out as they passed.

  ‘There go the fighters!’

  ‘Bring back our friends.’

  ‘Bring back my son!’

  ‘Stay alive out there.’

  If I stay alive, we’ll win, thought Cosmo. If I’m killed, I’ll go to the stars. I can’t lose.

  They swam out at top speed in V formation, regularly exchanging the lead for energy-economy. On arrival, they darted deftly between, above or below the sharks, out-manoeuvring them to join the circling dolphins. Moments later more sharks arrived. The enemy now outnumbered the fighter dolphins and most of the predators were larger than the biggest of the dolphins.

  But time had run out; the sharks were ready to feed.

  The fighters began their work calmly, with most remaining on guard in the defensive circle. Two or three at a time darted from the circle to attack where they could. They struck at the enemy in short bursts, returning to the circle to let others take a turn. Cosmo glanced inwards at the frightened young dolphins – friends he swam with daily. He looked outwards to the shadowy monsters who cared nothing for the warm hearts and clever minds among them, seeing them only as sweet, warm flesh to rip apart and gorge upon.

  Unspeakable memories stirred within Cosmo and his scars glowed red. The red mist of his anger drew in from the edges of his mind. He recognised that mist, welcoming it as a familiar weapon.

  He relaxed every muscle in his body, using techniques and patterns Alcyone had taught him. He breathed just once, swiftly, efficiently. He focused on his heart and lungs, relaxing even those deeper areas of his body, allowing all tension to exit like vapour through his skin. A deadly calm deepened over him. But still his anger grew, inside the calm. He let it build, but fluidly, dangerously, as pliable as his own muscles, fins, and flukes. As he watched the predators threatening his friends, he honed the weapon he had created within himself from the red mist.

  He cruised the circle watching and waiting while the enemy circled closer. He saw Maram take his turn in attack, deflecting a shark with a heavy blow just as it lunged, open-jawed, at the old dolphin who’d called for help. Cosmo’s flame intensified into a bolt of physical and spiritual energy, poised for the strike.