by Tui Allen
There was a time when Rigel would have laughed to remember the day of Delph’s rebuke, and a more recent time when it would have given him a stab of pain. But Aroha had ministered to all her family by this time and he was almost whole again. He looked Ripple over.
‘It’s good to see you recovered so well from that dark winter.’
‘You too, Father. I still miss Mother but I’m enjoying my life on Azure once more. Rikoriko and Aroha have revived us all.’
Rigel sighed. ‘Daughters, daughters, and now grand-daughters! What would I do without them? But why are there so few males? It’s splendid news that Rev has finally dedicated himself to a worthwhile vocation. Strange to think of my only son becoming a substance adept – a specialist in the inks of rare octopuses! He never showed the slightest interest in following my vocation, which disappointed me. But now I’m well-pleased that my youngest daughters look likely to bring two of the best young astronomers on the planet into the family. Any grandchildren you both produce will have more than their share of astronomers’ blood.’
Pleased at these words of approval for Cosmo and Rush, she performed a high-flying corkscrew spiral back-flip she’d invented herself. He had never seen anything like it but he copied and the sensation tickled him until he laughed as he used to when Pearl was alive.
‘You’re refreshing company after those serious astronomers. But I see fear within you still, and it’s a barrier. That fear may need to be faced.’
He did not explain further. She continued swimming while puzzling over his prediction until a rumour of food nearby arrived in their minds by wide-range thoughtstream.
Father and daughter dashed off to the location given. Cosmo arrived to join in the hunt, as did several other hungry dolphins. It was squid, large, lazy and sweet, rising towards them in streams, a gift from the abyss. The dolphins fed until the juice of the meat drenched their blood with fresh energy.
~~~
Read on, or if desired . . .
Return to Table of Contents
Chapter 24: I Know You’re Out There
Maths became Ripple’s focus. She soaked up everything in class and sometimes requested extra help. She only once worked with the astronomy class and that was to create a ‘maths’ song. She hoped one day to deliver it to Axis. In her free time she applied what she had learnt. Little by little the descriptions of the music came together. At last a day came when she was ready to take a piece of music to Axis for the data compression process.
They worked together for several evenings. First, he showed her the processes used by mathematicians and astronomers to compress navigation data and they modified it to suit Ripple’s data. Then he taught her how to apply it to her own material, and finally how to create, transmit and activate a numerical unlock key.
She made sure she was alone for the first test. She cleared her mind and centred the compressed ‘bullet’ in her consciousness. She breathed, relaxed and applied the unlock key. The music played.
~~~
‘What’s that new cacophony she’s made?’ Sterne asked.
‘More noise she has cobbled together.’ I replied, ‘Hmmm; it seems not quite as bad as the usual bedlam.’
~~~
Ripple was disappointed. The music played but the new process had distorted it horribly. This was nothing like her true creations; it was chaos in comparison.
Chaos? That’s the word everyone uses. Now I begin to understand. If this is like what they’ve been hearing, no wonder they thought I was mad. Poor Mother.
She forced herself to listen again.
Yes, it’s awful. But faintly recognisable in places. Enough for hope?
She told Axis.
‘Refine your mathematical descriptions; improve their accuracy,’ he advised.
Ripple worked on, calculating her songs, week after week, her head full of music and numbers. She hunted little and rarely socialised.
At last she was ready to compress and unlock for the second test. She listened carefully to the result. It was still not perfect, but suddenly she knew!
I need only keep at it to succeed. Father was right. Mathematics! My perfect solution all along.
That night she hunted with Echo, Rush and Cosmo and told them of the progress. Cosmo swam alone with her afterwards.
‘Ripple, we both know how much your music has alarmed me but I’m curious to have it clarified at last.’
‘I’ve not forgotten my promise to give the first song to the one who inspired it.’
She was amused to hear him wondering what a ‘song’ was.
~~~
Ripple immersed herself in her task through days and nights.
‘Strange’ she thought, ‘how I can do this work alone and remain perfectly aware of the ocean and any dangers it might hold. Mathematics is far safer than creating music.’
One or two hungry sharks took an interest in her when they sensed her solitude but she evaded the danger.
Measuring, quantifying, organising, calculating; I watched with sister Sterne as Ripple worked on, hour after hour, stopping only for the bare minimum of hunting. For a dolphin who didn’t like mathematics, she’d come a long way.
When the work was complete, she decided for her third test she’d use a different piece of music, start from the beginning and go through the whole process.
She started at first light on a morning at the height of summer. The piece she chose was about three minutes long. It was one of her earliest songs; a song of hope inspired by sky-colours she’d seen one misty pre-dawn, shortly after her discovery of music.
Using her new processes it took about an hour to create and calculate the mathematical description of the song. She applied the compression and the resulting thought ‘bullet’ was ready to communicate by thoughtstream. That would be an instantaneous action. She created an unlock key, cleared her mind and applied the key, just as the sun was rising.
There were other dolphins in the vicinity and mindful of her promise to Cosmo, she veiled her mind while the song played.
~~~
We of the Hereafter could have listened but we chose to respect her barricades.
Sterne even banished the seraphim to the far side of the universe to ensure Ripple’s privacy.
‘Don’t come back for an hour,’ she warned.
They were back in ten minutes but by then the test was over.
~~~
Ripple lay drifting in a daze of unveiled thoughts.
Not a note too high or low. Not a note too long or short. Every pause, perfectly timed. The melody, the chords, every beat, every trill, every subtle vibrato, every sweeping glissando, exactly as I intended.
Ripple streamed a thought to her niece playing far off beside Aroha in the main school.
Rikoriko, you’ll need to work hard at your maths if ever you wish to make music.
Ripple allowed herself to be hypnotised by the surface patterns around her, light glancing through water, tilting this way and that, ranges of miniature peaks linked by shining curves. She pressed her tail gently against the muscle of the sea, propelling herself forward; lacy patterns of bubbles brushing her eyes; the water parting cleanly around her body.
She drifted down, then looked at the surface glimmering above. Shafts of sunlight spread gradients of colour from deep royal to light jade-green through the sea. She released diamond pebbles of air and followed them to the surface where she breathed and still carrying this strange calm within her, cruised towards the main school.
Ripple knew she was approaching a turning point in her life, but somehow it did not delight her to know her secret would soon be out.
It’s been my own for so long. Do I really want to share it? Do I want to hear others talk about my songs as they talk about weather and hunting?
She sought Delph and asked after Cosmo and the boys.
‘They’re away on a mission,’ he said, ‘and unlikely to return before late tomorrow.’
A reprieve.
Ripple spen
t the rest of the day close to the main school, processing and compressing song after song, stacking the song-bullets neatly in her mind until many of her favourites were ready to share. Her efficiency grew as she worked, so that each song was processed quicker than the one before. She visited Aroha and told Rikoriko that she had a big surprise for her soon.
Rikoriko turned many cartwheels. Ripple joined in pretending she couldn’t help being sucked into lopsided acrobatics by the tiny slipstream. Aroha stayed out of their nonsense and kept her poise, laughing at them all the same.
‘So,’ said Aroha, once their antics had calmed, ‘I gather from your mood, you’ve solved your problem.’
‘Yes. Father recommended mathematics. It was the right advice.’
‘When do we get to experience music then?’
‘I’ve promised Cosmo he’s to be first, but he’s away, so you must wait.’
‘You seem calm. Is it hard to be patient?’
‘I can hardly wait to share it, especially with Rikoriko. But a part of me is sad to unveil something which has been private for so long. Perhaps Rikoriko will become my first apprentice musician. Will you mind?’
‘That’s difficult to answer without knowing what it is she is choosing. But I think she would want your vocation even if you were a bubble counter. She’s mad on maths at your suggestion.’
Ripple laughed, ‘Counting bubbles does come into music occasionally.’ The afternoon passed and night drew on.
Ripple sought solitude to enjoy her music while it was still hers alone, perhaps for the last time.
‘I know you’re out there,’ she whispered, as she gazed at the stars and played music of starlight. She listened with half her mind while the other half monitored her surroundings, but nothing disturbed the peace of her ocean that night.
The next day dawned overcast and gloomy. Cosmo’s team was due back late afternoon. Ripple made herself busy. She prepared a few more songs for communication by thoughtstream. She attended a mathematics class and informed Axis that her project had reached a successful outcome and that she’d demonstrate it shortly. He congratulated her. She spent time with Aroha’s family, hunting a little and playing with Rikoriko. It rained. The sadness of the seeping rain made them swim slower and closer together. They compared the sharp empty taste of the raindrops to the rich salt of the seawater. Around them, the ocean lay eerily muffled beneath a thickening blanket of cloud.
In the afternoon Ripple attended a poetry class with Tercet.
Two boys misbehaved during the lesson. They hadn’t learnt the poems, the discussion was beyond them and they became bored. They interrupted and tried to distract other students. Tercet ordered them to stay behind after class. Ripple overheard him muttering.
‘Why is it that there are always some who don’t respond to poetry the way others do?’
Ripple thought she had swum too close to an iceberg.
Always some who do not respond to poetry? Will music be like that too? Why should Cosmo care about a bunch of sounds I’ve arranged?
Tentacles of fear squirmed in her mind like shadows of true madness.
~~~
Read on, or if desired . . .
Return to Table of Contents
Chapter 25: The Universe Changes
As the afternoon drew on, Ripple moved towards deeper water to find the astronomy team. Raindrops patterned the smooth swells and ripples arrowing from her dorsal fin complicated the pattern. By the time she reached the team the rain had stopped but the cloud remained, colouring the sea silver-green.
Delph arrived from the opposite direction. The five empty bodies lolled in the water with the more active shapes of the minders close by.
‘We’re expecting them back shortly,’ said Hadar.
Only a few minutes later the five bodies leapt to life as the travellers returned. Ripple thoughtstreamed Echo to let her know Rush was back.
The boys calmed a little then gave Delph an outline of their mission. They’d visited a planet partially covered with flame and had met fire-sprites, a strange life-form which had evolved at high temperatures.
‘The fire-sprites pitied us when we described our watery home,’ explained Rush. ‘To them Azure is a kind of hell. They didn’t believe us when we said water even falls out of the sky.’
‘You need to hunt now,’ Delph said, ‘Tomorrow you transfer your material in full to historians for storage. I’ll attend that meeting and learn more of your voyage then.’
The team was free to go. Ripple swam with them to nearby feeding grounds and Echo romped in from the south. By the time they’d eaten their fill it was night, the cloud was breaking up letting a few stars shine through. Ripple and Cosmo headed out alone. She gave him her slipstream in recognition of his tiredness. She told him of her success with the song bullets.
‘Have you tested it yet?’ he asked.
‘Only on myself.’
‘Ripple, will you show it to me now?’
Her stomach twisted. Live tentacles coiled inside her.
‘You’re tired,’ she said. ‘We could leave it until tomorrow.’
‘I don’t wish to leave it one second longer.’
She began swimming erratically, trying to fight off the clutch of the tentacles and to hide them from him. But he’d seen.
‘Stars of Dorado Ripple! What’s the matter? Is that music?’
‘It’s fear.’
‘I won’t ridicule you even if it’s still chaos.’
‘I’ll give you the first song now.’
She tried to thoughtstream the song bullet but the tentacles strangled its flight. She tried again. The same thing happened.
~~~
I turned and spoke to Sister Sterne.
‘This is a dark moment, as though all the flowers of the Fragrant Planet have locked their perfumes away from the morning wind at the moment of greatest need.’
Sterne did not respond, so intent was she on the events below us in the ocean.
~~~
Ripple turned from Cosmo and the awful silence surrounding them. She sought a deeper silence she could wrestle with. Cosmo followed her, though she was hardly aware of him.
This is the fear father warned me of.
She stopped moving forward and sank below the surface. Deep into the dark.
Cosmo stayed alongside, saying nothing. He brushed a flipper along her body, a calming gesture. She tensed a little at his first touch then her muscles relaxed. She drifted. The tentacles inside her released their grip slightly. She swam up, surfaced and breathed the midnight air. At the surface, he stroked her again. She felt a picture slide from his mind into hers; the moonlight rainbow. She knew it had helped him in his own time of crisis. Now it shimmered for her – a vision of hope and reassurance. She calmed until her mind was clear enough to recognise the tentacles for what they were: the last vestiges of Erishkigal’s poison.
She asked him not to follow and swam away carrying the rainbow with her. Alone over deep water she conjured a picture of the monster so real she could smell its stench and hear its teeth grinding. She stared for a long time into the evil eyes glowing in her brain. Their lust would have defeated her, had it not been for Cosmo’s rainbow shining beyond. Then at last, although the monster was nowhere near, Ripple cried out;
‘Erishkigal - Shadow Queen
Vipa, Venga, Malevine,
Lucifina, Sadistine,
Fera, Lashette and Clawdine,
Go down now!
The ocean was her mother, whose silken caress enfolded every particle of her skin. She looked up. Last wisps of cloud were dissolving, revealing a blaze of stars and the arm of the galaxy candescent above her. Azure’s sweet atmosphere moved softly on the ocean. It carried a faint perfume tonight.
Land-flowers, she thought.
The tentacles evaporated.
She returned to Cosmo’s side and effortlessly streamed the song-bullet to him. Cosmo felt it thunk into his head.
It feels exactly like a naviga
tion data bullet coming in from Delph, he thought.
Next he received a number from her; the unlock key.
‘I’ll trigger it for both of us when we’re ready,’ she said.
Strangely, he was the nervous one now.
‘I’m no longer afraid,’ she said, ‘but the fact remains, you may not respond to music. Understanding may develop later, or not.’
It must be something obscure and difficult, he thought privately, since she’s worked on it alone all her life. I’m tired but I must try to understand no matter how murky it seems. It must help her to offload this burden. A mathematical description of sound, she says? I hope I grasp it. I don’t want her to think I’m stupid.
Later he was glad he’d veiled those thoughts.
He moved into her slipstream and prepared his tired brain for an intellectual effort. They swam slowly forward. She whispered in his mind.
‘Are you ready Cosmo?’
He tossed his beak to signal assent.
‘Then we’ll breathe together now, so we won’t need to breathe again until the song is well started; it starts very softly so we need to listen carefully at first.’
They both breathed. She triggered the unlock.
The music began, lilting gently; feathers of sound brushing the waves, but building slowly; its power mounted, until the chords swept over Cosmo like the wind and the lyrics rode on the wings of the melody.
Under a moonlit rainbow
Through the flying spray
Who did you leave behind
When you came my way?
The dolphins breathed and the music continued.
She danced. He followed. His tiredness vanished as he spun and spiralled after her across the surface of Azure with the stars of Koru blazing above. The first love song ever was playing right here on his own planet. Cosmo could hardly believe this was happening to him. Nothing in all his travels had prepared him for the experience.
‘My life will never be the same. No dolphin’s life will ever be the same. The universe has changed forever. Lonely little Ripple, my Ripple, has done this for all of us. How blind and deaf we’ve been!’
