"Better that than to wander homeless and hungry until some pod deigns to let us swim with them! Please, Mother, go back. I'll be fine here. We will touch again soon."
Squeak's mother hesitated, her echolocation beam probing first Squeak and then the two Songless whales. "May the Grandfathers keep you safe," she said at last and with a splash she was gone.
Squeak listened as the sound of her mother's tail-strokes receded into the chorus of the sea. All this time she had wanted nothing more than to feel her mother's touch again, yet the first chance she got she had sent her away. Why? Did she truly believe the Grandfathers foresaw some place for her with the Songless? No, it was what Hammerhead had said to her: Bad enough for your mother that you were born. Squeak's mother had never shown any sign that she resented her role as caregiver for a defective calf. And yet how could Squeak be sure? Tailspinner loved her calf, there was no doubt about that, and a loving mother might sing a false song over her suffering. Once this fear had been planted in Squeak's mind, it was difficult to dismiss. And she would rather face the blindness of the empty ocean alone than cause her mother needless hardship.
Fortunately for her, she did not need to face it wholly alone. Her two friends called plaintively to her. Like the first faltering attempts of a nursling, there were no words in the cry, but its meaning was easy to guess. Squeak followed them back to their pod.
The little band of wild whales hugged the slope of the escarpment, following the lazy current as it wound its way among the ridges and furrows. Here they nosed about the stones, while above them sighed the echoless vastness of the open sea. The creatures were remarkably placid compared to the orcas that Squeak had known, who were always playing or gossiping or engaging in lying contests. These whales barely disturbed the water with their tail-strokes, gliding gracefully with a minimal expenditure of energy. They spoke rarely and made sparing use of echolocation. She even found that they calmed a little of her anxiety at being separated from her mother and chased into unknown waters by killer orcas.
The peace was broken only by the occasional advances of the two amorous males. On and off they would call to her, and sometimes one of them would brush against her as he swam by. Squeak did not want to encourage them, but at the same time was afraid to anger them in case they responded by driving her away. So she ignored them, hoping that was best.
****
By the time the tide turned, hunger became an issue-and with it, the uncomfortable question of diet. Orcas sometimes sampled Europan organisms to add variety to their diet of bredfish, but it was not possible to obtain adequate nourishment from this alien fare. Despite the occasional wild bredfish, Songless whales lived in a state of chronic hunger and malnutrition. Squeak would face the same conditions as long as she swam with them.
When the pod came upon a patch of wavetails-Europan crustaceans which clung to the rock and spread wide "tails" to filter the water-Squeak's hunger was urgent enough that she gobbled one down. She crushed its shell between her jaws and its pungent, pulpy meat squirted into her mouth. It tasted like bredfish shit and the choking fumes from the hydrothermal vent. She hoped it would not make her ill.
The calves continued to display interest in Squeak and their mothers allowed them to spend more time with her. She soon learned to differentiate between them through voice, touch, and the way they broke the water. Three of them were nurslings; two were recently weaned. Without the benefit of sonar, she could not determine their gender, but the one who first inspected her she judged to be male by his size and aggressiveness. And she decided one of the nurslings must be female because she was so quick and clever.
Squeak sang to them, the way her mother had sung to her. Simple rhymes, like: Swish, swish, tasty fish/Crunch, crunch, thanks a bunch. They would listen raptly, milling about her like a mob of admiring males, then suddenly dart away squealing to play hide-and-hunt among the rocks. Sometimes they tried to imitate her. Most of the time they managed only amusing warbling, but two of them-the curious male she had decided to call Nosey and the clever female she thought of as Posey-were surprisingly good at it. Good enough that Squeak tried teaching them a few words. "Eat," she said and mouthed chewing. "Eat, eat." They repeated after her: "Eat, eat."
She continued the game with several other words as they foraged among the ridges and furrows. Nosey and Posey tried, with varying levels of success, to imitate her. But the other three juveniles didn't seem to grasp the idea at all. The contrast between these two and the others was so striking that one conclusion seemed inescapable: they were not Songless whales!
Was it possible that they were orphans who had found a home among the wild whales, much as Squeak had? But Songless whales ate calves, didn't they? And Posey was a nursling, too young to survive away from her mother. Could it be that Songless whales sometimes bore non-defective offspring? The implications were staggering. If this was so, then who knew how many orcas were being cheated of their sapience by being reared by animals?
Squeak was suddenly certain that this was what the Grandfather had been talking about. Some never get the chance to find their song. But if the Grandfathers knew about these calves, why had they not told anyone before now? Or if they had shared the knowledge with orcas in the past, why had Squeak never heard of it? She could ask them, of course, but to do so would risk giving herself away to the tail-biters. And dare she presume that the Grandfathers would answer her call twice in as many tides? No, Squeak decided to wait and discuss it with her mother when she returned.
In the meantime, she threw her energies into continuing the language lessons. Eventually her charges' enthusiasm waned and they returned to their mothers to feed.
****
Finally Squeak's own mother returned. They rubbed cheeks and Tailspinner started to say something, but Squeak interrupted her, "Mother, I have the most amazing news!"
"Squeak, this isn't like you," her mother admonished her and Squeak lowered her head. "I was able to get a message through to my sister Swims-in-the-Reaches. She thinks her pod will be willing to accept us! But we have to leave now. I think I may have been followed."
"That's wonderful, mother," Squeak cried. "But I have to tell you something too! The calves here, some of them can speak!"
"What do you mean, they can speak? They're Songless whales."
"That's just it-they aren't Songless! They're like us. Come, let me show you-" Squeak started to turn but then a stunning blast of sound struck her full in the face.
The next few moments were a confused jumble of noises for Squeak. There was her mother's roar of rage, the thrashing of embattled water, and Hammerhead's voice shouting about lies and punishment. Somehow she found the presence of mind to move somewhere, anywhere, just as a snarling form surged through the water toward her. Teeth that would have torn her open scraped her side instead.
"Stop! Please stop!" she cried. "This isn't important any more! There are calves here, real calves, and they need our help!"
But the tail-biters didn't listen. Two sonar beams homed in on Squeak. She twisted, attempting to elude them-and then there was an explosive impact as another orca swept in from behind her to collide with one of her attackers. It gave a shrill, wordless cry and Squeak knew who it was immediately. A similar cry came from above, and the second of Squeak's two suitors joined the fray. Soon the water was filled by an impenetrable cacophony of bow waves, tail shocks, and dueling echolocation beams.
Moments later Hammerhead called a retreat and the violence ceased. "I see you've found a home among the other genetic refuse," he taunted. "We'll have to come back later and exterminate the lot of you." And then there was only the sound of their vanishing tail-strokes.
Immediately, Squeak's mother was swimming around her, running her sonar beam all over her calf. "Are you hurt?"
"No," Squeak said distractedly. "Why didn't they listen?"
"What about this?" Squeak's mother indicated where one of the brothers had caught her.
"It's nothing." Squeak waved her
jaw about, listening for her two suitors. The taste of blood filled the water. "What about those two orcas that helped us?"
Tailspinner scanned the area and Squeak caught a pair of reflections hovering nearby. "They seem okay. As soon as the tail-biters realized they were in a fair fight, they turned tail. Who are those two?"
"They're-they're from this pod. Listen, mother, we have to go back. We have to tell everyone that there are sapient orcas here!"
"Oh, bitesize, what would be the point of that? Even if they believed you, what could they do?"
"Teach them to speak. Teach them to understand the Song. Teach them how to be orcas!"
My love, Squeak's mother sang. "A fine ambition, but how? Kill their mothers and abduct them? Do you think they'll understand?"
Squeak had not thought that far ahead. "No, I guess not." Her head was still a little muddled from the stunning blast. "But-but I could stay."
"You could what? Stay? What do you mean?"
"I could stay and teach them." Squeak spoke slowly, as the thought gradually coalesced in her mind. Of course. Even a defect can be perfect. . . . These calves needed someone to teach them and who better than an otherwise useless defective like Squeak? "They accept me. I know it'll be hard, but I'm certain this is what the Grandfather meant when he told me about finding my song."
"Squeak, enough about the Grandfathers! We can't stay! We have a new home to go to. And the Grabjaws might return. You heard what they said!"
"I'm not afraid of the Grabjaws! They can't fight the whole pod, and if they try we'll just run away! Mother, I can do something here. For the first time I can be more than just an overgrown calf."
Squeak's mother clapped her jaw in impatience. "Squeak, you're speaking like a calf right now. Do you want to live like these pitiful, half-starved creatures? We are orcas! We have our own course to swim. Now let's go!"
"Mother, please . . ."
"Do as I say!" A beam of sound struck Squeak in the face. It took a moment for her to realize it was from her mother.
"Go," choked Squeak. "You can go and I'll stay. You don't have to take care of me any more."
Her mother was silent for a long moment. Then she cried: "Oh, Squeak, is that what this is about? You are all the sea to me. I could never leave you."
"Then stay! Stay with me and help me save these orcas!" Please.
Her mother hesitated. "Squeak, please. Don't ask me to give up everything we have left."
"Everything we have left!" Squeak cried. "What do we have left?"
"We have what we are. Without a pod-a real pod-we are nothing!"
"I've always been nothing," Squeak moaned. Nothing. " This is my chance to be . . . something else."
"Don't say that, Squeak," her mother said quietly. "You're not nothing."
"Mother, I'm staying here. You can go if that's what you want."
Squeak's mother was silent for a long time, running her sonar beam over her calf. At last she said: "The Tailspinner pod. That has a nice ring to it."
"What?" Squeak was startled by the change in subject.
"If we're going to found our own pod of orcas with these calves, it needs a name. And it should be named for the matriarch, don't you think?"
"Yes! Of course!" Squeak let out a long whistle of relief. "Come on, you can meet the nurslings. . . ."
Squeak and her mother swam toward their new home. She didn't know how the Songless whales would react to her mother or how well the two of them would fare on their new diet of wavetails and bottom lice, but she refused to worry. The Grandfathers had entrusted a task to her and she was determined to see it through.
"Thank you. . . ." Squeak whispered.
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Grantville Gazette 36 gg-36 Page 25
