Exile-and Glory

by Jerry Pournelle

  It took a little while for our eyes to get accustomed to the light down that far, and I was surprised to see just how much filtered through to twenty fathoms. There weren't many reds or yellows, of course; water absorbs that end of the spectrum so that down that deep everything seems to be different shades of blues and greens.

  We took the sled out to the edges of the great colored patches of diatoms and plankton that surrounded the upwelling cold water with its nutrients. There weren't any structures out here, and it was officially not part of Dansworth at all, but Hank wanted to show me the color changes. We were up to about sixty feet now, but we'd been down a couple of hours. On the way the dolphins played their game with the sled, darting ahead and then racing back to do a couple of tight turns around us, urging Hank to get up more speed.

  Finally I asked Hank about decompression.

  "No problem," he said. "Judy'll have the whole apartment pressurized when we get back. We'll go in and let the system take care of gradual decompression—or leave it pressurized if you want to go out tomorrow. That's one of the big advantages at Dansworth, the deep-water boys can get saturated and stay at pressure as long as they want."

  "What do you do if you want to get down really deep?" I asked. As we'd cruised through the last of the experimental kelp farms a couple of miles back, I'd seen the winking lights of the mining operations far below, down at the top of the Seamount itself.

  "Have to use special gas mixtures," Hank said. "Expensive. Helium's gone out of sight. We use rebreather systems so we won't waste it."

  "I want to try that. The editors insist on coverage of the deep mines."

  "Better to use the crabs," Hank said. "Little subs. The outside gear takes a lot of training."

  "I've been down with Navy gear," I told him. "And out into space for that matter. It can't be all that different."

  "It is, though. Well, OK, maybe next week. Can't bring the boy."

  Hose-nose mumbled disappointment. He'd seen all this before, although he said he hadn't been this far from the Station itself before, and he wanted to see the mines.

  We swam around the edges of color patches. The cold water spreading out to here made distinct layered patches in the warm tropic waters, each layer edging downward away from the upwelling point. There were different critters in each layer, and the layers were separated by twenty or thirty feet of water. The scene was fascinating.

  We were about ready to turn back when we heard a shrill whistle and loud scream. I looked around, scared stiff, then decided it was the dolphins playing games on us.

  Hank had his box out and played a series of clucks and gobbles on it. One of the dolphins answered. "Quick!" Hank shouted. "Into the sled! Shark!"

  Hose-nose moved toward the sled fast. I was confused, not knowing what to do for a second, and stayed with Hank. We swam toward the sled, and then, just beyond it, I saw the thing.

  It was a big blue shark, over twenty feet anyway, and it was charging toward little Sarah while Jill tried to stay between the shark and her daughter. I didn't see Jumbo at all.

  The shark was beautiful. It raced through the deep water, a blue deadly torpedo, straight toward the baby dolphin. Jill would have had no trouble keeping away from it if she hadn't been worried about Sarah, but now she was right in its path.

  Even from forty feet away I could hear the underwater crunch as the shark hit the big dolphin. Jill whirled away, tumbling and twirling, and the shark headed for the baby.

  It was like watching a bad movie, all in slow motion it seemed, although nothing was moving slowly at all. We were kicking hard to get to the sled, and the shark took another tight turn and came back at the little dolphin and Hose-nose was screaming something and we couldn't get to the sled in time and even if we could I didn't know what to do—

  Jumbo came from nowhere and struck the shark just behind its gills. He had come on at full tilt, seven-hundred pounds of dolphin moving at twenty-five knots, and the impact was terrific.

  It didn't seem to affect the shark at all. The deadly blue shape was knocked off course and missed Sarah but that was all. It started another tight turn, while Jumbo whirled with it, trying to get up speed and at the same time keep the shark off the baby.

  Sarah was making screaming clicks and kept trying to get to her usual station behind and below her mother, but Jill was tumbling out of control and I was sure she was dead.

  We reached the sled and Hank took a long lance with a slender ice-pick tip from a rack along the sides. There were other lances there and I grabbed one and followed.

  "Stay with the sled!" Hank shouted. "Button her up!"

  "Yeah, do that!" I told Hose-nose. I kept right with Hank. He looked back for just a glance to see I was with him, a twisted look of pain and rage and thanks all at the same time.

  We got to the two dolphins and took up positions on each side, lances held out toward the shark. Once we were there, Jumbo streaked off to get up momentum.

  The shark didn't like the situation now. I don't know just how conscious these things are, but it had three functional enemies, none as big as it was, but all acting aggressively.

  On the other hand, there was a faint trail of blood from Jill and that attracted the shark. I saw that Jill wasn't dead, but she wasn't under control either. The impact had done something to her, knocked her unconscious perhaps.

  The shark circled. Jumbo flashed at it, and the shark dodged in a tight turn above us, then when he was past made up its mind and started straight toward me. I kept the lance pointed out at it. It seemed that I had plenty of time, although the whole battle hadn't lasted more than a minute.

  The shark was moving fast and I didn't know if I could hit it straight on. Just before it got into range of the lance, Jumbo was there again, wham!, striking the shark at the same place, just aft of the gills, and diverting it. As it passed overhead I rammed the lance deep into its belly.

  It was a charged lance, and it should have injected a full bottle of CO2 into the shark. I cursed when nothing happened and realized I hadn't pulled the goddam safety pin out. All I'd done was give the shark a tiny puncture wound, nothing that would hurt it at all.

  It did the job, though. The shark flinched in surprise and turned slightly. Hank was right there with his lance, and he hadn't forgotten. The needle went in and there was a loud whooshing sound. The shark wriggled for a second, then started floating upward, fast, its insides blown up and compressed and great bubbles of bloody gas coming from its mouth and gill slits. Jumbo came screaming around in another tight circle and rammed it amidships, forcing out more blood, but the monster was dead and headed topside, buoyed up by the gas injected into its innards.

  Hank was still shouting. He was under the unconscious dolphin, pushing it upward toward the surface, kicking hard. Jill had neutral buoyancy; she wasn't heavy, but she was very massive, and it was slow work. I swam alongside and kicked upward, pushing at that great heavy body. She felt warm and hard, almost rigid. Sarah kept swimming around us, screaming plaintively. Then Jumbo was there pushing upward as well.

  "Get back down!" Hank ordered. "You'll have the bends."

  "So will you." I kept shoving upward. It seemed to take forever, but the light was getting brighter.

  He didn't say anything else, and after a long time we broke surface. I had managed to keep the pressures equalized and breathe out steadily on the way up, only taking in a few breaths at intervals. It would be a while before we felt anything, I decided. We didn't have any embolism problems. Or if we did, I didn't feel anything. Yet.

  When we got the blow-hole above water, Jill let out a long whistle of breath and started breathing again. She was thrashing around feebly, unable to keep herself above water without help. The only blood I could see was from an irregular tear just below her fin, whether shark-bite or just abrasion from the sandpaper sides of the blue shark I couldn't tell.

  Hank played another tune on his call-box and Jumbo darted away from us, swimming in a big circle that kept wideni
ng before coming back and making clicking grunts. "No more sharks in sight," Hank translated. He stuck his helmet down below the surface and shouted. "Hose-nose!"

  "Yes, sir." The kid's voice was faint but we could hear it. I couldn't make out any expression in it, but I could imagine what the boy was thinking. He was well-trained, to stay down there while his father brought his friend—Jill was certainly more than a pet—up to the surface.

  "Go get help. Jumbo will stay with us."

  "Yes, sir." There was a pause. "Is Jill all right?"

  "She's alive. Get going."

  "Yes, sir."

  I heard the sled motor start up, a high-pitched whine, and then it receded. We were alone up there, saturated with nitrogen and holding up a bleeding dolphin, while more sharks might come around at any moment. I thought I remembered that blues hunt alone. I also remembered that sharks can smell blood for miles.

  "All right, get back down to forty feet," Hank ordered. "Jumbo and I'll hold her up. Stay five minutes and then come up and relieve me. Your lance is still armed, isn't it?"

  "Yes. OK." I let air out of the buoyancy compensator and sank slowly. It didn't need two to hold up the dolphin. At least not two men; Jumbo was doing most of the work anyway, but he couldn't quite hold Jill alone. It took someone on the other side to do that, to keep her from rotating and falling away.

  The five minutes took forever, then I surfaced again. Hank made more noises on his call-box, sending Jumbo on another long patrol out around us. When the dolphin returned, Hank gave me his place. He seemed a bit grey and sweaty under his faceplate and I thought he had a touch of the bends, or an embolism, or both. The only thing we could do for that was to get him down again, and I pointed emphatically. He nodded.

  "Thanks," he said. Then he sank out of sight, and I was alone on the surface.

  Not really alone, I decided. There was Jumbo on the other side of our burden, and Sarah just under us, still clicking and whistling but not so plaintively now. Jumbo clicked at her, and she was quiet. There were swells, about five feet high, with tiny whitecaps on them, and it was hard to hold the dolphin upright so the blow-hole was above water. I kept getting salt water into my mask and it was hard to clear. I was still on tanks; a snorkel would have been flooded. The sun was hot, but the water was only warm, friendly, comfortable except for the waves. I cursed them.

  We floated there, Jumbo and I, holding up the wounded dolphin, and I thought about Hank Shields. We'd worked well together, and the only mistake had been mine. A stupid one at that. Shields had been a good man. He was doing a good job here at Dansworth. He wasn't hurting anyone. He and the work at Dansworth were helping make life better for people in the States.

  That wasn't a profitable way of thinking. Shields was a goddam traitor. He'd run out on the team. Maybe what he was doing now was more important, but that wasn't my decision.

  Jumbo made more sounds at me, but I couldn't understand them. "No comprende," I said, then laughed at myself. For some reason I'd used a language foreign to me, thinking Jumbo might know that. Of course he wouldn't understand any language I knew. Except perhaps English. "I don't understand," I said as clearly as I could.

  "OK," the dolphin replied. It was quite clear and distinct. He began nudging Jill, and she responded a bit, moving her tail about to help keep herself above water. She breathed noisily. After a while she could hold herself up with only a little help. I pointed out toward the sea and made a big circular movement with my arm. "Sharks?" I called.

  Jill clicked something that sounded scared. Sarah clicked back.

  "No. OK," Jumbo said. Again it was quite clear enough to understand. He darted away, leaving me to hold Jill with her help. He tore off in a big circle and stayed out there a long time. When he got back, he made clicking noises.

  "Another shark out there," I heard. "Probably a lot of them. They'll eat the dead one first." This wasn't from the dolphin but it took a moment to realize I was hearing Hank's voice from seventy feet down. "I can't come up, I'm afraid. Can you hold on?"

  "Sure!" I called. I wondered. But Jumbo was racing around us in a tight circle now, and I had my lance. I took the bright red ribbon hanging on the safety pin and pulled it out, then held the lance warily. The thing was as dangerous to humans and dolphins as it was to sharks.

  I thought about the sharks. Come to blood from miles away. Eat each other. Stupid, single-minded killers. I didn't like the thought.

  After a while I saw Hank rising from below. He hadn't given me any warning, and my lance was pointed slantingly downward, just where he'd come up, the point probably invisible because he'd be looking up at the bright surface and the lance was shadowed by the dolphin and her daughter . . . .

  It was simple. An accident, and no questions. He was swimming badly, and I was sure he was suffering, how bad I couldn't tell.

  An accident. No witnesses. Terminate with extreme prejudice. He was almost to the point of my lance now. A tiny movement and he'd be a closed file entry—

  No. He was a goddam traitor, but he'd fought to keep the dolphin alive. He'd earned that much. The sharks might come back, and I'd need him. The Job could come later. Right now, I wasn't risking the dolphin. It made an ironic joke, because my supervisor hates dolphins more than he hated Hank Shields.

  "Get your ass down there under pressure!" I shouted. "You're in no goddam condition to come to the top." I shifted the lance point so that it missed him. "And give me warning when you come up. You almost impaled yourself."

  He looked at me funny. It was a knowing look, and it said a lot. I frowned. "Get below!"

  He sank back down without a word. A Navy recovery boat with a compression chamber reached us about twenty minutes later, but it was only ten minutes before a whole school of angry dolphins was around us, looking for sharks to kill. They found two.

  They let Hank come home for dinner. He'd suffered a painful emphysema, but nothing permanent. We ate dinner in the Shield's apartment pressurized to fifty feet. It was a quiet dinner, and afterwards he sent the boy off to his room.

  "Thanks," he said. "Don't think I could have saved Jill by myself. The babies always die if they lose their mothers, and Sarah's the best prospect we've ever had. You did a good job of work today."

  "So did you."

  "I try. Maybe I'll earn my way back into the human race."

  Before I could say anything, Judy came back into the room. She looked at Hank sprawled out in a reclining chair and clucked at him. A bubble had formed inside his chest cavity, and another under the skin at his neck. Recompression forced them back into solution, and now we were paying the penalty by being confined while the pressure was slowly reduced. It wasn't really a problem, since large parts of Dansworth stay under pressure all the time.

  "Guess you can't take me diving tomorrow," I said.

  "No. Surgeon says it'll be a week. I expect you don't want to go without me," Hank said slowly. "Be no point to it. Right?"

  I looked up sharply. Judy was frowning, not really understanding. I couldn't keep from watching her. She reminded me of my sister, all right, but even more of the last girl I'd really been serious about. The one I'd driven away because of the Job. It would be easy to be in love with her, and she was going to be alone pretty soon.

  "We'll dive together next week," Hank said. "Can't put it off forever. If I don't take you, there'll be somebody else show up for the same dive. Right?"

  "Yes." So he understood. I wondered what had given me away.

  "We're pretty heavily insured here," Hank said slowly.

  "The Navy pays staggering premiums, but our families are well provided for if there's an accident." He saw Judy about to say something, and continued, "So if you haven't filled out the forms yet, you ought to. You'll be covered, be a pity if you haven't set things up properly. Morbid subject, of course. Let's change it."

  We did, talking about dolphins, and about sea farms and the power plants. And sharks.

  "They adapt," Hank said. "We've tried the lo
t. Electric signals, noises, chemicals—nothing stops them all. But most avoid this place. The dolphins hunt them. If sharks weren't so stupid, they wouldn't come around at all; but there're so many fish here, and the wastes from the processing plant can't be completely disposed of without getting some blood and guts in the water. We were upcurrent of that, and usually the sharks don't come there. I doubt it would have attacked us anyway, except for Sarah. Baby dolphin's a tasty dish to a shark."

  Judy shuddered. "I've never seen a shark attack," she said. "But Hank, you were out of your mind to take Albert out beyond the perimeter. Close to the Station we've always got plenty of dolphins on patrol, but out there with just Jumbo—I wish you wouldn't take the boy out that far again."

  "I won't," he said. He stood and put his arm lightly around her. "It's been a good five years," he said. He wasn't talking to anyone in particular. He kissed her. "I'm a little tired. Gideon, if you'll excuse me, I'm sure Judy can entertain you—"