by Tui Allen
Suddenly he remembered the School of the Astronomers and thought, I’d like to tell someone what I’ve seen tonight. But who? A strange dolphin in a school of strangers? I’d rather tell Alcyone or Maram.
He became almost still, holding himself in place by gently swirling his flippers.
The shark was very close now. Shall I live or shall I die? Cosmo breathed . . . and made his decision.
He swam erratically to attract the shark.
The tail-biter positioned for attack, all its senses focused on the prey. Cosmo slowed and drifted, twitching. The shark circled closer. Cosmo rolled belly up and spiralled slowly down towards it, his tail dangling, vulnerable and inviting.
This will be easy, he thought.
The shark moved away to gain space for acceleration. It turned towards the target, jaws gaping. The curving teeth protruded. It charged. Cosmo knew the pattern. One bite to sever the tail, then it could feed with ease. A moment before the strike, the eyes rolled back, blank and savage. It struck. Cosmo flipped – head down, tail up. The jaws snapped shut on empty water. Teeth sprayed outwards in the impact. Cosmo’s flukes slid along the top of its head; a gentle caress. He dived deep, spun round, rocketed upwards. Cosmo rammed its rib-less body at full speed behind the pectoral fin.
Whomp! He felt its liver pulping.
The shark limped away, hunger forgotten.
That felt good, thought Cosmo, and perhaps in future he’ll choose cold blood over warm. He swam on through the night and into the light of morning.
As the sun rose he saw gannets working to the north-east. Cosmo heard the whizz-bang of their high-speed dives and suddenly his hunger mattered. He altered course. The gannets had found a school of sprats, anchovies and pilchards. While they preyed on it from above large trevally preyed from below. Cosmo took some of the small fish as well as a couple of good-sized trevally. He continued northwards at an easier pace than before, while the new supply of calories enriched his bloodstream.
He travelled for two more days without further hunting, making do with what little crossed his path. Late on the second day he caught sight of other dolphins; some in pairs, some in groups. A few noticed him and he detected their thoughtstreams alerting the school that a stranger was approaching. He sensed that the ocean in his path held thousands of dolphins. He could catch glimpses of them far off, leaping and playing in the afternoon light. To the north-west the first of the Northern Islands appeared, like frozen whales on the horizon. A scout patrolling the southern borders of the main school picked up the alert messages. He approached Cosmo.
‘Who are you and why are you here?’
‘I’m Cosmo from the Southern Islands, here to speak with your astronomers.’
‘Delph has asked us to look out for you. I’ll take you to him.’
Cosmo followed the scout to the main school. Soon the ocean around him was thick with dolphins. He’d never seen so many. The scout led him through the school. Dolphins stared cold-eyed as he passed. Cosmo did not expect or even wish for friendly greetings and he didn’t receive any.
He followed the scout through the centre of the school where every dolphin belonged to a family, where mothers played with their children, where youngsters dashed about together, secure in groups of close-knit friends. They eyed him curiously, wondering why this lone stranger had suddenly appeared.
His eye slid to a misshapen male dolphin, covered with lumps of abnormal tissue that crawled and moved.
Is he deformed? Diseased? Cosmo slowed and stared. Stars of Dorado! He’s carrying a live octopus. He stared briefly into the eyes of the octopus. It returned his stare with an eerie vision that made him suspect that this half-deaf creature could gather more information using those eyes than a dolphin could with its penetrative hearing.
He heard a voice, from beside the one with the octopus.
‘Look mother. There’s a strange boy dolphin. Why’s he here?’
Cosmo turned to see who’d spoken – a dainty female his own age, emerald green in colour. There were two other young females; sisters perhaps. All three stared curiously at him while enjoying the comfort of one another and a lovely older female who must be their mother. Her opalescent colours reminded him of his moonlight rainbow.
‘Hush, Ripple. It’s bad manners to stare,’ said the mother. ‘He’s with one of our scouts so he must have a reason to be here.’
The one called Ripple leapt. Her slender body curved through the air, and the setting sun sent liquid gold spinning from her fins and flukes. He received a thoughtstream from her while she was aloft; a message of welcome and reassurance. Among these hundreds of dolphins, all regarding him coldly, this one female had greeted him with warmth. Why? Did she think she knew him? Weird. He did not respond.
Cosmo shook off the image of the leaping girl and swam on behind the scout, preparing himself to meet those who could become an important part of his world. He screened every corner of his fighter’s psyche. Fighters, he knew, were valued in any school. But he was here to travel the skies, not to fight. The stars were appearing above him, strengthening his resolve, when the scout brought him at last to Delph.
Delph had just finished teaching a group of young male dolphins. He hadn’t dismissed them so they looked on curiously.
‘You’re Cosmo?’ said Delph.
‘How do you know me?’
‘Once long ago I worked with your teacher, Zenith. Four days ago, he sent me a message telling me to look out for you. Things might not have gone so smoothly for you approaching our borders if he hadn’t contacted me. I shall now reassure him of your arrival.’
‘I come hoping to study practical astronomy. In the Southern School we have no astronomy teacher above Zenith.’
‘And he teaches only the lore of astronomy,’ said Delph, ‘not the practical arts.’
Cosmo was aware of the young dolphins. Some were sniggering.
‘You’re young,’ said Delph, ‘How do your parents feel about your decision to come so far from home?’
‘My parents are dead.’
There was silence and Cosmo knew Delph was measuring his mind, seeking insight. He kept his fighting zones barricaded, but made no effort to hide anything else, knowing Delph would find little beyond hunger and weariness.
‘Tomorrow I teach the lore of astronomy to dolphins your age. You’re welcome to join them. I’ll also arrange for you to attend classes in other subjects required of all aspiring practical astronomers. If it’s the practical that most interests you then you must work hard to earn the right. Not every youngster who aspires, succeeds.’
Delph dismissed his class and departed to hunt with his family.
Two or three of the boys hung back near Cosmo.
‘A Southern astronomer?’ they sneered. ‘We heard you Southerners hardly know the meaning of the word.’
Cosmo said nothing.
‘Why couldn’t they have sent us one of their famous fighters?’
I wouldn’t mind taking a jab at you right now, thought Cosmo privately.
The sun sat low on the western horizon partially hidden by cloud, but now Azure herself rolled up between the dolphins and the last blazing speck of Sol’s uppermost rim. The young males left Cosmo, a stranger among a thousand suspicious dolphins. One final squall chose that moment to blast the ocean and Cosmo welcomed it for making him less visible. The light faded quickly, providing even more cover. He rested for an hour, then hunted, among dolphins who ignored him. Then he rested again, letting the power from the food flow into his bloodstream and flesh where it set to work repairing the tired fibres of his muscles.
He wished he were alone as he’d been during his journey. The company was better then.
As he rested, a picture came to him. The family with the octopus, the shimmering mother, and the leaping emerald female flinging her burning water-trail above the setting sun
~~~
Ripple watched as Cosmo swam by.
A dolphin we’ve never seen, she thought,
has arrived out of nowhere.
He’s my age, but seems to have lived too many seasons already. Perhaps his weariness makes it seem that way. How lonely he is! Why’s he left his family to come among strangers?
She imagined herself swimming alone into a school of unknown dolphins and shivered. She surveyed his mind and found it veiled but sensed a resilience she’d never seen in a young male and rarely in any male, except perhaps her father.
The sight of him detonated a ‘sound’ in her mind, like something falling from the sky, deep into the sea within her, sending ripples that spread out from her core. The sound stayed inside her, ringing softly.
Everyone he passes stares at him coldly, she thought.
No-one welcomes him . . . I shall welcome him.
She sank in the water, then thrust powerfully with her tail, shooting herself skywards. The movement caught his eye. She flew higher and his eye followed her flight. From the height of her leap she looked back at him and streamed her message.
‘Welcome stranger,’ she said. ‘We are kind. Do not fear us.’ She descended in a smooth curve and re-entered with hardly a splash.
‘Why on Azure did you do that Ripple?’ said Echo, as soon as he was out of range.
‘He was lonely. I was sorry for him.’
‘Lonely? He was hungry and tired,’ said Echo. ‘There wasn’t so much as a sprat in his belly. I’d say he’s travelled far and eaten little.’
‘He carries dreadful scars for one so young,’ said Pearl.
There was eerie silence from Aroha. Ripple glanced at her eldest sister who had suddenly frozen, staring at the fading wake of the scout and the stranger.
‘What’s the matter Aroha?’ she asked.
‘We shouldn’t trust that dolphin,’ said Aroha, ‘He reeked of anguish. Was he hiding violence? How could that scout allow such darkness to come among us?’
‘Perhaps the stranger was expected,’ said Pearl.
Rev and Squelch drifted alongside. Another squall whitened the surface and spray hissed.
‘I must warn the elders,’ said Aroha, beginning to swim away.
Squelch shot a tentacle around her caudal peduncle pulling her backwards.
‘Don’t go!’ he said.
‘It’s my duty to warn the school.’
‘The coming of that dolphin is a good thing for this school.’
Ripple said, ‘Squelch knows things Aroha. I’d believe him.’
Aroha looked into the mind of the octopus and saw only truth. The squall passed; rays of sunlight touched the waves, reviving their blueness.
Aroha stayed.
Ripple was silent but deep inside her the sound she’d heard was still ringing and the secret was all around her; everywhere.
~~~
Delph introduced the newcomer in Ripple’s astronomy class.
Cosmo, she thought, Cosmo . . . Cosmo. That’s his name. Why was Aroha so bothered by him?
Delph asked Cosmo to describe his journey to the group.
Cosmo seemed reluctant. ‘It wasn’t too hard. It took five days. I swam as fast as I could.’
‘Did you see any sharks?’ asked one of the boys.
‘I saw only one but it didn’t harm me. And I saw a moonlight rainbow on the second night.’
‘You were fortunate indeed,’ said Delph. ‘Few have had that privilege. I myself have seen one only once.’
Cosmo passed his memory of the rainbow to all of them.
Some had never heard of such a thing. Now they envied him his experience.
Ripple saw the picture of it glowing in her mind and immediately recognised it as a clue for her search. She mingled the picture with sounds just as she’d done in poetry class. But this time she noticed the other dolphins looking at her. She understood that her thoughts were unsettling them so she pushed the rainbow picture to the back of her mind.
‘Your moonlight rainbow,’ said Delph to Cosmo, ‘is better than the one I saw. Yours is the complete arc. You’ve shared a great gift. Thank-you.’
He slapped the surface with his tail as a signal to begin applauding. Ripple applauded louder than the others. For them Cosmo was too mysterious to trust no matter how dazzling a vision he shared. There was a sudden flurry of questions.
‘How’d you get the big scars?’
‘A shark. I was just a baby. Some fighters stopped it killing me.’
‘Did they kill it?’
‘Not that day, but later they killed it.’
‘Is it true they have good fighters in the southern school?’
‘It’s true. The Southern School is small so we train our fighters from a young age.’
‘Are you a fighter?’
‘I hope to follow astronomy.’ He submerged.
He wants us to leave him alone, thought Ripple.
Delph then required them to resume their studies of the stars of Scorpius. He put the dolphins into debating teams and gave each pair of teams a referee and a Scorpius related topic. He did not place Cosmo in a team.
Once the teams were absorbed in their work, Ripple noticed Delph and Cosmo working quietly together. Delph is finding out how much he knows, she thought.
Later, Delph called the referees to report on the debates. Then he re-introduced a topic they’d discussed the day before, the Butterfly Star Cluster in Scorpius. He asked if anyone was familiar with the fuzzy object near it. No-one responded.
‘Cosmo will describe it for us,’ said Delph.
She glanced at Cosmo and saw him recover from the shock of being singled out.
‘The Sister of the Butterfly? Its stars are mostly blue, like the Cluster itself. It’s thought to be about 200 million years old and is 1000 light-years away from Azure. It has 100 stars including seven with inhabited planets in orbit.’
‘Do you happen to know its estimated size?’ asked Delph.
‘We think it’s about 25 light years across.’
‘Thank-you Cosmo,’ said Delph. ‘Zenith has taught you well.’
~~~
Read on, or if desired . . .
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Chapter 12: Point Savage
Cosmo arrived a little early at the designated spot. The last daylight had faded and the sky was clear. Why had Delph summoned him? Delph arrived and wasted no time explaining.
‘I’m preparing a small group of dolphins about your age for the early stages of practical astronomy. I’ve decided to allow you some trial sessions among them, but your astral travel will be restricted to zones within Azure’s gravity. Are you happy to accept the limits?’
‘I am,’ Cosmo said, and Alpha Centauri seemed suddenly brighter above him. This was hardly the interstellar travel he dreamed of, but any out-of-body travel was a step towards it.
‘I know no other young astronomer who would leave his home, swim for five days alone and face a thousand strangers for the slim chance of learning a vocation. You shared a shining memory, but surrounding your moonlight rainbow there were darker visions which you withheld.’ Delph paused.
He hopes I’ll respond, thought Cosmo, but he doesn’t expect it.
Delph gave him times and locations of the sessions and Cosmo hunted with extra appetite that night.
~~~
Cosmo swam hard, into a powerful headwind pushing a short, steep chop. It was past midnight and thickly overcast; sea and sky were coal-black, nothing to see but blinding flashes of phosphorescence flying by.
They were all boys as was usual with practical astronomy classes. Delph was in the lead; Cosmo swam to his left and slightly behind him; the youngest, a dolphin called Flip, in similar formation on Cosmo’s left. The three others in the class, Quin, Rush and Givan, had arranged themselves on Delph’s right. Together they formed a V formation like a flock of birds in flight and for the same reason; to take advantage of the lift from the slipstream of the ones in front. They navigated the darkness by sonar alone.
‘Hold formation when I accelerate,’ ordered Delph, as he drove a
head.
Cosmo breathed out-and-in in a fraction of a second, pushed up to speed and held position. He kept the tip of Delph’s left flipper in front of him and was aware of Delph’s flukes thrusting strongly alongside.
They smacked forward into the chop.
Breathe. Smash! Smash! Smash! Breathe.
The minutes passed. Cosmo wondered how long they could keep up such speed. His muscles burned with the effort.
He must ease up soon, he thought, but Delph accelerated. Top speed was not enough. Something beyond was required. Cosmo breathed again. Alcyone had taught him how to relax his spirit for combat. He did it now, knowing that a widening gap meant failure. Nothing existed except the fin before him, waving effortlessly, goading him. The acceleration continued; he found new limits of speed and pain. When it became more than he could bear, he deepened his inner relaxation. His mind began sliding away, separating itself from his body, lifting him beyond pain. Cosmo swam until the acids seared his straining flesh, the microscopic fibres of his muscles tearing and ripping under the strain.
Delph slowed at last. It was minutes before Cosmo’s mind gathered its homing instinct and drifted back to his gasping body, like a feather falling from storm-cloud and settling on a ruffled sea. He was alone with Delph. They had out-swum the others.
‘You’re young’ said Delph. ‘But your mind and body are strong. You could be great one day.’
They swam back side by side.
‘Interstellar journeys,’ Delph explained, ‘are not unlike what you’ve just experienced: the blackness, the speckles of light flying by, the sense of speed, and the same separation of mind and body. I saw that you achieved separation tonight. It often happens for the first time during supreme physical effort. You’ve done well to reach that stage so quickly. Soon you’ll learn to separate without so much as a swish of a pectoral.’
Rush, the fastest of the others, was the first they met on the way back, then Givan, Quin and Flip. Delph allowed each of them to turn and swim back with them. Rush had the grace to congratulate Cosmo on his fine swimming, in spite of his own surprise at being beaten. Givan was quiet for a time and Cosmo thought he had more difficulty in adjusting to the idea of Rush being thrashed than Rush himself did.
