Reaching up from the western horizon, almost to a point overhead, was an enormous pyramid of light. It was faint but perfectly distinct; one might have mistaken it for the glow of a far-off city. Yet there were no cities for a hundred miles in that direction-only empty sea.
"What on earth is that?" asked Johnny at last. Mick, who had gone on ahead while he was staring at the sky, did not realize for a moment what was puzzling him.
"Oh," he said, "you can see it almost every clear night when there's no Moon. It's something out in space, I think. Can't you see it from your country?"
"I've never noticed it, but we don't have nights as clear as this."
So the two boys stood gazing, flashlights extinguished for the moment, at a heavenly wonder that few men have seen since the glare and smoke of cities spread across the world and dimmed the splendor of the skies. It was the Zodiacal Light, which astronomers puzzled over for ages until they discovered that it was a vast halo of dust around the Sun.
Soon afterward, Mick caught his first crayfish. It was crawling across the bottom of a shallow pool, and the poor creature was so confused by the electric glare that it could do nothing to escape. Into Mick's sack it went; and soon it had company. Johnny decided that this was not a very sporting way to catch crays, but he would not let that spoil his enjoyment when he ate them later.
There were many other hunters foraging over the reef, for the beams of the flashlights revealed thousands of small crabs. Usually they would scuttle away as Johnny and Mick approached, but sometimes they would stand their ground and wave threatening claws at the two approaching monsters. Johnny wondered if they were brave or merely stupid.
Beautifully marked cowries and cone shells were also prowling over the coral; it was hard to realize that to the yet smaller creatures of the reef, even these slow-moving mollusks were deadly beasts of prey. All the wonderful and lovely world beneath Johnny's feet was a battlefield; every instant, countless murders and ambushes and assassinations were taking place in the silence around him.
They were now nearing the edge of the reef and were splashing through water a few inches deep. It was full of phosphorescence, so that with every step, stars burst out beneath their feet. Even when they stood still, the slightest movement sent sparkles of light rippling across the surface. Yet when they examined the water with the beams of their flashlights, it appeared to be completely empty. The creatures producing this display of luminescence were too tiny, or too transparent, to be seen.
Now the water was deepening, and in the darkness ahead of him, Johnny could hear the roar and thunder of waves beating against the edge of the reef. He moved slowly and cautiously, for though he must have been over this ground a dozen times by day, it seemed completely strange and unfamiliar in the narrow beams of the flashlights. He knew, however, that at any moment he might stumble into some deep pool or flooded valley.
Even so, he was taken by surprise when the coral suddenly fell away beneath his feet and he found himself standing at the very brink of a dark, mysterious pool. The beam of the torch seemed to penetrate only a few inches; though the water was crystal clear, the light was quickly lost in its depths.
"Sure to find some crays here," said Mick. He lowered himself into the pool with scarcely a splash, leaving Johnny standing above, half a mile from land, in the booming darkness of the reef.
There was no need for him to follow; if he wished, he could remain here until Mick had finished. The pool looked very sinister and uninviting, and it was easy to imagine all sorts of monsters lurking in its depths.
But this was ridiculous, Johnny told himself. He had probably dived in this very pool and had already met all its inhabitants. They would be much more scared of him than he would be of them.
He inspected his flashlight carefully and lowered it into the water to check that it continued shining when submerged. Then he adjusted his face mask, took half a dozen fast, deep breaths, and followed Mick.
The light from the torch was surprisingly powerful, now that both he and it were on the same side of the water barrier. But it revealed only the small patch of coral or sand upon which it fell; outside its narrow cone, everything was blackness-mystery-menace. In these initial seconds of Johnny's first night dive, panic was not far away. He had an almost irresistible impulse to look over his shoulder to see if anything was following him.
After a few minutes, however, he got control of his nerves. The sight of Mick's exploring beam of light, flashing and flickering through the submarine darkness a few yards away, reminded him that he was not alone. He began to enjoy peeping into caves and under ledges and coming face to face with startled fish. Once he met a beautifully patterned moray eel that snapped at him angrily from its hole in the rocks and waved its snakelike body in the water. Johnny did not care for those pointed teeth, but he knew that morays never attacked unless they were molested-and he had no intention of making enemies on this dive.
The pool was full of strange noises, as well as strange creatures. Every time Mick banged his spear against a rock, Johnny could hear the sound more loudly than if he had been in air. He could also hear-and sometimes feel through the water-the thudding of the waves against the edge of the reef only a few yards away.
Suddenly he became aware of the new sound, like the patter of tiny hailstones. It was faint, but very clear, and seemed to come from close at hand. At the same moment, he noticed that the beam of his flashlight was beginning to fill with swirling fog.
Millions of little creatures, most of them no larger than grains of sand, had been attracted by the light and were hurling themselves against the lens, like moths into a candle. Soon they were coming in such countless number that the beam was completely blocked; those that missed the flashlight made Johnny's exposed skin tingle as they battered against him. They were moving at such a speed that he could not be certain of their shapes, though he thought that some of them looked rather like tiny shrimps about the size of rice grains.
These creatures, Johnny knew, must be the larger and more active of the plankton animals, the basic food of almost all the fish in the sea. He was forced to switch off his light until they had dispersed and he could no longer hear-or feel-the patter of their myriad bodies. As he waited for the living fog to drift away, he wondered if any larger creatures might be attracted by his light-sharks, for example. He was quite prepared to face them in the daytime, but it was a very different matter after sunset.
When Mick started to climb out of the pool, he was glad to follow. Yet he would not have missed this experience for anything; it had shown him another of the sea's many faces. Night could transform the world below the waves, as it transformed the world above. No one knew the sea who explored it only by daylight.
Indeed, only a small part of the sea ever knew daylight Most of it was a realm of eternal darkness, for the rays of the sun could reach only a few hundred feet into its depths before being utterly absorbed. No light ever shone in the abyss-except the cold luminescence of the nightmare creatures who lived there, in a world without sun or seasons.
"What have you caught?" Johnny asked Mick when they had both clambered out of the pool.
"Six crayfish, two tiger cowries, three spider shells, and a volute I've never seen before. Not a bad haul-though there was a big cray I couldn't reach. I could see his feelers, but he backed into a cave."
They started to walk homeward across the great plateau of living coral, using the beacon on the radio mast as their guide. That bright red star seemed miles away in the darkness, and Johnny was uncomfortably aware that the water through which he was wading had become much deeper while they had been exploring the pool. The tide was returning; it would be very unpleasant to be caught here, so far from land, while the sea went pouring in ahead of them.
But there was no danger of that; Mick had planned the excursion carefully. He had also, quite deliberately, used it to test his new friend, and Johnny had passed with flying colors.
There were some people whose nerves w
ould never allow them to dive at night, when they could see only the tiny oval of a flashlight beam and could imagine anything in the remaining darkness. Johnny must have felt scared, as everyone did for the first time, but he had conquered his fears.
Soon he would be ready to leave these safe and sheltered pools and to do some real diving off the edge of the reef, in the ever-changing, unpredictable waters of the open sea.
Chapter 12
It was two weeks before anyone on the island saw the first of the Professor's ideas in action. There were, of course, many rumors, for as soon as the details of the dolphins' request were released, everyone had his own theories about what should be done.
The scientists of the research station were, as might be expected, actively pro-dolphin. Dr. Keith summed up their views when he remarked, "Even if killer whales do turn out to be the more intelligent of the two, I'll back the dolphins. They're much nicer people, and you don't choose your friends for their brains." When Johnny heard this, he was quite surprised, as he still did not care for Dr. Keith's patronizing attitude and regarded him as a cold fish with few human emotions. However, he must have some good qualities for Professor Kazan to have made him his assistant; by this time, anything that the Professor did was, as far as Johnny was concerned, beyond criticism.
The fishermen were divided. They, too, liked dolphins, but recognized them as competitors, for they knew at first hand the arguments that Dr. Hirsch had put forward. There were times when dolphins had torn holes in their nets, stolen most of their catch, and made them say things about his friends that Professor Kazan would have been very unhappy to hear. If killer whales kept the dolphin population from getting too large, then good luck to them.
Johnny listened to these discussions with interest, but he had already made up his mind; no mere facts were going to make him change it. When someone has saved your life, that settles the matter; nothing that anyone else can say will turn you against him.
By this time, Johnny had become quite a skillful diver, though he knew that he would never be as good as Mick. He had mastered the use of flippers, face mask, and snorkel, and could now stay underwater for periods that would have astonished him only a few weeks ago. Though the healthy, open-air life was making him bigger and stronger, this was only part of the story. The first times he had dived he had been nervous, but now he felt as much at home undersea as on the land. He had learned to move smoothly and effortlessly through the water, and so could make a single lungful of air last much longer than when he had started his lessons. Whenever he felt like it, he could stay underwater for a full minute without straining himself.
He was doing all this for fun, and because diving was a skill worth acquiring for its own sake. Not until Professor Kazan called for him one afternoon did he learn how quickly his hobby would be of use.
The Professor looked tired but cheerful, as if he had been working night and day on some project that was going well. "Johnny," he said, "I've a job for you, which I'm sure you'll enjoy. Take a look at this."
The piece of apparatus he pushed across his desk was something like a very small adding machine, with twenty-five buttons arranged in five rows of five each. It was only about three inches square, with a curved, sponge-rubber base, and was fitted with straps and buckles. Obviously, it was intended to be worn on the forearm, like an overgrown wrist watch.
Some studs were blank, but most of them carried a single word engraved in large, clear letters. As he ran his eye across the face of the little keyboard, Johnny began to understand the purpose of the device.
The words he read were: NO, YES, UP, DOWN, FRIEND, RIGHT, LEFT, FAST, SLOW, STOP, GO, FOLLOW, COME, DANGER! and HELP! They were arranged logically over the face of the keyboard: thus UP and DOWN were at top and bottom respectively; LEFT and RIGHT actually on the left and right. Opposing words like NO and YES or STOP and GO were as far apart as possible so that the wrong stud could not be pressed by mistake. The studs marked DANGER! and HELP! were covered by guards that had to be slipped aside before they could be operated.
"There's a lot of neat solid-state electronics inside that," explained the Professor, "and a battery good for fifty hours' operation. When you press one of those buttons, you won't hear anything except a faint buzz. A dolphin, however, will hear the word which is printed on the button, but in its own language-at least, we hope it will. What happens then is what we want to find out.
"If you're wondering about the blank studs, we've kept them until we decide what other words we need. Now, I want you to take this gadget-we'll call it a Mark I Communicator-and practice swimming and diving with it until it seems part of you. Get to know which stud is which, until you can find the one you want with your eyes shut. Then come back here, and we'll move on to the next experiment."
Johnny was so excited that he sat up most of the night pressing buttons and memorizing the layout of the keyboard. When he presented himself to the Professor immediately after breakfast, the scientist looked pleased but not surprised.
"Get your flippers and face mask," he said, "and meet me at the pool."
"Can I bring Mick?" asked Johnny.
"Of course, as long as he keeps quiet and doesn't make a nuisance of himself."
Mick was intrigued by the communicator, but not too happy that it had been entrusted to Johnny.
"I don't see why he's given it to you to try out," he said.
"That's obvious," Johnny answered very smugly. "Dolphins like me."
"Then they're not as intelligent as the Professor thinks," retorted Mick. Normally, this would have started a quarrel, though not a fight, for the simple reason that Mick was almost twice as heavy as Johnny and more than twice as strong.
By a coincidence that was not particularly odd, Professor Kazan and Dr. Keith were discussing the same problem as they walked down to the pool, heavily laden with equipment.
"Sputnik's behavior toward Johnny," said the Professor, "is right in line with the cases in the history books. When a wild dolphin makes friends with a human being, it's almost always with a child."
"And Johnny's exceptionally small for his age," added Dr. Keith. "I suppose they feel happier with children than with adults because grownups are big and possibly dangerous. A child, on the other hand, is just about the same size as a young dolphin."
"Exactly," said the Professor. "And the dolphins who make friends with bathers at seaside resorts are probably females who've lost their young. A human child may be a kind of substitute."
"Here comes our Dolphin-boy," said Dr. Keith, "looking very pleased with himself."
"Which is more than one can say for Mick. I'm afraid I've hurt his feelings. But Sputnik's definitely scared of him. I let him go swimming in the pool once, and even Susie wasn't happy. You can keep him busy, helping you with the movie camera."
A moment later the boys had caught up with the scientists, and Professor Kazan gave them his instructions. "I want complete silence when we're at the pool," he said. "Any talking may ruin the experiment. Dr. Keith and Mick will set up the camera on the east side, with the sun behind them. I'll go to the other side while you get into the water and swim to the middle. I expect Susie and Sputnik will follow you, but whatever happens, stay there until I wave you to go somewhere else. Understand?"
"Yes sir," answered Johnny, very proud of himself.
The Professor was carrying a stack of large, white cards, bearing the same words as the studs on the communicator.
"I'll hold up each of these in turn," he said. "When I do so, you press the right button-and make sure it is the right button. If I hold up two cards at once, press the button for the top card first, then the button for the lower one immediately afterward. Is that clear?"
Johnny nodded.
"At the very end, I want to try something drastic. We'll give the DANGER! signal first, then the HELP! one a few seconds later. When you press that, I want you to splash around as if you're drowning, and sink slowly to the bottom. Now, repeat all that to me."
; When Johnny had finished doing this, they had reached the wire-net fence around the pool, and all conversation ceased. But there was still plenty of noise, for Susie and Sputnik welcomed them with loud squeaks and splashings.
Professor Kazan gave Susie her usual titbit, but Sputnik kept his distance and refused to be tempted. Then Johnny slipped into the water and swam slowly to the center of the pool.
The two dolphins followed, keeping about twenty feet away. When Johnny looked back, with his head below the surface, he was able to appreciate for the first time the graceful way in which their rubbery bodies flexed up and down as their flukes propelled them through the water.
He floated in mid-pool, one eye on the Professor, the other on the dolphins, waiting for the cards to go up. The first was FRIEND.
There was no doubt that the dolphins heard that, for they became quite excited. Even to Johnny's ears, the buzzing of the communicator was clear enough, though he knew that he could hear only the low-frequency sounds that it was making, not the ultrasonic noise that conveyed most of the meaning to the dolphins.
Arthur C Clarke - Dolphin Island Page 7
