The Dolphins of Altair

by Margaret St. Clair

  “Yes,” said the old man. He was growing more expansive. “I saw it on television. The waves were fifty feet high, coming up from the harbor, and they were full of bodies and pieces of wrecks. Nobody on the East Coast believed the warning, you see, and so nobody got out ahead of time.”

  “There was a warning?” Sven asked.

  “Yes, so I heard. The Secretary of Welfare went on the air and told everybody to get out of lowlying areas. But in the middle of a sentence he was cut off, and the announcer said a mistake had been made. It would have been better if people had believed him. I’ve heard that two-thirds of the people who lived in New York City are believed to be dead.”

  “I don’t understand why so many died,” Sven said thoughtfully. “Even if the water was fifty feet deep in the streets, weren’t people safe in the upper stories of buildings? For a while, I mean.”

  “I guess they would have been. But all the power was off, and none of the elevators was working. People clustered just above the water, on cornices and looking out of windows. When the earthquake came-“

  “Earthquake?” Madelaine said. “In New York?”

  “Yes. There’ve been earthquakes all over the world, not to mention cyclones and hurricanes. But as I was saying, when the earthquake came, the tall buildings shook like—like straws. Like the tines on a tuning fork. People began to fall out of the buildings. I saw them falling like ‘cots off the trees in a high wind. Then the picture went off. Now the only news I can get is fifteen minutes a day, just at noon, over my battery-powered radio.

  “New York City is still under fifty feet of water. I guess it always will be. Mauna Loa, in Hawaii, is in eruption, and the whole state of Florida is submerged. So is a lot of Texas, and all the California coast. It’s like the end of the world.”

  “It’s the end of something, certainly,” Sven said. “What about foreign countries? The United States wasn’t the only one to suffer, was it?”

  “No, of course not. Well, they said the Netherlands was completely under—worse than Florida—and all the south part of England up to Scotland. Denmark is flooded, and parts of Germany and France—parts of Italy—Scandinavia—I don’t know what a ll. Southern India—the Chinese coast—most of Japan. They’ve had hurricanes everywhere, and terrible windstorms as well as the flood.

  “It’s the biggest disaster in human history. It’s so big it’s paralyzed people. The survivors don’t know where to begin. There’s no power, no gasoline, no safe water. There isn’t even any way to bury the dead.”

  “What caused the floods in the first place, do you know?” Sven asked.

  “They said the ice at the North Pole melted, almost overnight. But what caused that—my own idea is that a bunch of H-bombs got lost, maybe on one of these atomic subs under the ice, and started melting it. No country would admit to having caused all this.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Sven said. He looked at Madelaine, who, fed and warm for the first time in days, was dozing in her chair. “Come on, Maddy,” he said, starting to rise. “We’ll wash the dishes. And then we’ll be on our way, as Mr. Fletcher says.”

  Drowsy but obedient, Madelaine struggled to get to her feet. Fletcher frowned. “Wait,” he said, though not very graciously. “You and your girl can stay here tonight. She can have my bed, and you can sleep on the floor. I’ll sleep in my chair. But you must leave tomorrow. I insist on it.”

  Sven nodded. He. half-carried Madelaine into the tiny bedroom, and covered her up in the bed. Then he lay down on the floor with a blanket, near the stove, and was immediately asleep.

  Once or twice during the night his eyes were jerked open by the raw brilliance of lightning; the flashes were very close, and the deafening roar of thunder was only a second behind the flash. But even a thunderstorm could not keep him awake for long. With his arm over his eyes, he plunged back into sleep.

  Toward morning the storm retreated. Sven thought that once Fletcher rose from his chair and went to look out of the window. Then it was really daylight. The smell of coffee was in the air. Sven yawned and sat up. “Good morning,” he said to the old man.

  “Good morning. I’ve made coffee. Your girl’s still asleep. There was a plane wreck during the night. Come and see.”

  He led Sven over to the window and pointed. Seemingly four or five miles off, a column of heavy black smoke was still rising in the air. “I think it must have been caught in the storm,” Fletcher said. “I heard it going over, and went to the window to look. It was already on fire, burning all over, when it hit the ground.”

  Sven nodded. There was obviously nothing to be done for the people in the plane, and hadn’t been before Fletcher had seen it crash.

  Madelaine came out of the bedroom. She said, “Good morning,” washed her face at the sink, and then baked more biscuits on top of the stove.

  “Good-bye, sir,” Sven said when they had eaten and washed the dishes. “Which way is it to the refugee camp?”

  “It’s about fifteen miles from here, at a town called O’Brien. If you cut across the hills, toward the plane wreck, you can save yourself a good deal of walking. You should pick up the road about a quarter of a mile beyond the plane. Go northeast.”

  He went with them to the door of the cabin. “Some of the biscuits your girl cooked,” he said, handing them a parcel. “And I put in a box of matches, in a plastic bag. You might want to make a fire.”

  “Thank you,” Sven said. And then, on impulse, “Wouldn’t you like to come with us? If there’s another flood—”

  The old man laughed. “I’ll take the chance. It would have to be considerably worse than the first one to bother me on such high ground. No, I’ll stay here.”

  This was true, and Sven did not press him. “Good-bye, sir.”

  “Good-bye. Good luck.”

  As they walked along over the hills, orienting themselves by the smoke of the wrecked plane, Madelaine said, “Sven, do you notice a certain lack of—of buoyancy?”

  “I’m still tired, if that’s what you mean,” he answered. “A night of sleeping on the floor isn’t very restful.”

  “No, I don’t mean that. But when we were with the dolphins, I felt—more than myself. Lighter. There was a sort of inner buoyancy.”

  “Um. Yes, I think I know what you mean. I miss them surprisingly. I feel as if I’d lost part of myself.”

  “Yes. And then, while we were with them, anything could happen. We moved in a world of wonders. We talked to dolphins, trigger ed earthquakes, and communicated with distant stars. Now we’re back in the ordinary world, the world where, if remarkable things happen, they are usually unfortunate.”

  Sven laughed. “But Maddy, I’ve been thinking, we’ve accomplished what we set out to do. The radioactivity of the world’s oceans is greatly diluted, and the sea people ought to be safe for, oh, the next fifty years. It ought to take that long, at least, for people to get back to where they were before the floods. They’ll be too busy for a long time to bother the dolphins, and if they become dangerous again, the sea people can use Udra in the new way to defend themselves.”

  “The only danger now would be if somebody connected the dolphins with the melting of the ice,” Madelaine said thoughtfully. “If Splits get the idea the dolphins are responsible, they’ll start to hunt them down as soon as the worst part of the floods is over.”

  “Why should anybody suspect a connection?” Sven asked. He slapped at a hovering insect. “Damn, that was a mosquito. There never used to be mosquitos here.”

  “It’s warmer than it used to be, I think.”

  “Yes. But as I was saying, nobody will connect them with the floods. Lawrence is dead, and you heard what Fletcher said. He thinks the ice cap was melted by some sort of atomic foul-up. It’s what most people will think. There’s nothing to worry about. The sea people are safe for the next fifty years.”

  They passed the wreckage of the plane. It was still burning fiercely, and the air was full of ugly smells. Beyond it, their way led dow
nhill. They could see the two-lane highway ahead.

  They had almost reached the road when they heard the sound of a ’copter in the sky. They both looked up. The pilot leaned out and waved at them.

  He came lower. “Hi!” he yelled through a megaphone. “Are you refugees?”

  “Yes!” Sven shouted back through cupped hands.

  “Good! I’ll come down for you.”

  He set the ’copter down beside the road. “Get in,” he told them. “I was making a last search of the hills, to be sure we hadn’t missed anybody. I’ll take you to the camp.”

  The ’copter had had the letters “U.S.N.” on the underside; Sven looked at the pilot thoughtfully. But he was sure he had never seen him before, and Madelaine, from her silence, didn’t know him either. (Dr. Lawrence would have recognized him, I think, but Lawrence was dead.) Sven and Madelaine got in. The ’copter rose up and then began to fly above the road. “How come I missed you before?” the pilot asked. “I thought I had everybody.”

  “We were at sea in a small boat during the flood,” Sven replied. “We didn’t know anything was wrong until we tried to land.”

  “At sea? You must have been through some terrible weather. It’s a wonder you’re alive. By the way, what did you say your names were?”

  There seemed to be no reason for concealment. “My name is Erickson,” Sven answered, “and she’s Madelaine Paxton. It’s good of you to take us in. It would have been a long walk.”

  “Think nothing of it,” the pilot answered. His tone was remote and preoccupied. After a moment the ’copter, which had been following the road, changed course and began to fly due east.

  “Where are we going?” Sven asked after a moment. He was not so much suspicious as merely inquiring. “I heard the camp was at O’Brien.”

  “That one’s—full,” the pilot said. “I’m taking you to another one.” He sent the ’copter higher. The speed increased.

  Sven felt a thrill of alarm. He glanced at Madelaine and saw that her eyes had narrowed and her lips were tight. Still, he wanted to be sure. “What’s the name of this other camp?” he asked.

  “Uhn, it’s at Agness.”

  At Agness? But Agness, if Sven remembered his Oregon geography, was almost straight north. Why should the ’copter be flying east?

  Madelaine nudged him. Carefully, turning her head slowly so the pilot would not notice the movement, she put her lips against Sven’s ear. “We must make him land the plane,” she breathed.

  Sven gave a tiny nod. They would have to use Udra, new style, to get motor control of the pilot, and it wasn’t going to be easy. One of the drawbacks of Udra has always been that it is difficult to get into the Udra-state when one is excited or upset. But it had to be done. He and Maddy couldn’t risk having the pilot take them to some unknown destination, to be confronted with unknown inquisitors.

  Madelaine’s mind was already reaching out to him. They could help each other get into Udra. The first thing to do was be calm and open his mind to hers.

  This time, rather oddly, their minds merged before either of them was well into the Udra-state. It was a shock to both of them, I think, because always before in their closer psychic contacts with each other, a dolphin intelligence had been present. The dolphin mind, with all its strangeness, had acted as a mediator. But this immediate Split-to-Split contact had the advantage that there were no depths in each other that frightened them. It made possible a closer unity.

  The pilot coughed. “Why are you so quiet back there?” he asked, half turning round.

  Sven couldn’t have answered if his life had depended on it. His mind was bent on one thing only, focused on a single point: getting the pilot’s motor activity under his and Madelaine’s control.

  “What—” the pilot said, and stopped. A look of amazement spread over his face as he found himself unable to spe ak. Madelaine and Sven had taken command of his conscious bodily acts.

  So far, so good. The next thing was to get him to land the ’copter. Neither Sven nor the girl knew, of course, what motions the pilot should make to land; but he did. The command went out.

  Slowly and reluctantly the pilot’s hands moved on the controls. The ’copter began to descend.

  It was not a good landing, but it was a landing. The pilot shut the motor off. He sat motionless for an instant. Then, stiffly, he rose from his seat and jumped to the ground.

  It was hard for the two to keep control of the pilot and yet be able to move freely themselves. To engage in bodily activity while one is in the Udra-state is self-contradictory. So it took Sven and Madelaine almost ten minutes to get out of the ’copter and walk to where the pilot stood.

  The pilot’s hands kept twitching. Sven did not dare to relax his psychic grip on him. But there was a gun in the holster on the pilot’s hip. Slowly, with many hesitations and much watchfulness, Sven drew the gun from its place and covered the pilot with it.

  “All right,” he said. “Put up your hands.”

  The man’s arms went up. “What are you—” he said.

  “Shut up,” Sven told him. “Now, Maddy, search him. Find his papers and look at them. I want to know who he is. Be careful, don’t put yourself in the way of the gun.”

  The girl obeyed. In the breast pocket of the pilot’s whipcord jacket she found a wallet, a notebook, a pen, and a flat leather folder.

  “His name is Nicholl Trott,” she said, looking in the wallet. “He’s thirty-four years old, and he lives in San Francisco. It’s an interstate driver’s license.”

  “Look in the leather folder,” Sven said, still covering the pilot with the gun.

  “Oh. These are his credentials, Sven. They identify him as a naval intelligence agent.”

  “So that’s it,” Sven said. “No wonder he recognized our names.”

  The pilot found his tongue. “Why do you assume I’m hostile to you?” he asked. “Yes, I recognized your names. Yes, I was taking you to Agness. But—”

  “But what?” Sven asked.

  “You wouldn’t have been hurt. Or your dolphin friends, for that matter.” Trott’s hands were still raised. “I’m one of the Splits, as you call them, who remember what you talked about so much when they had you under the influence of the truth serum.”

  “What do you know about that?” Sven asked. “You weren’t there when they were questioning me.”

  “No, but I’ve studied the case. Don’t you see, Erickson? I’m sympathetic to you. I—remember the covenant.”

  It is painful to feel one’s self always surrounded by enemies. Even Splits, with their chronic hostility toward each other, find hostility ultimately painful. Trott’s story was not absolutely unbelievable; but Sven tended to believe him because he wanted to believe.

  “I helped you get away,” Trott went on. “Why do you think there weren’t any guards where the dolphin was waiting for you?”

  “But if—”

  “Watch out!” Madelaine yelled. “He’s got another gun!”

  It was too late. The gun from the shoulder holster, small but wicked, was trained on Madelaine.

  “It’s a stand-off,” Trott said with grinning satisfaction, “If you shoot me, she goes, too. I won’t hesitate. Drop your gun.”

  Slowly and reluctantly, Sven obeyed. The chance that Trott meant what he said was too great to risk Madelaine’s life on it.

  “Now,” said Trott, “get back in the ’copter. No, wait. I’m not going to have you repeat what you did to me before, whatever it was. I’d better tie you up and knock you out.”

  Trott backed toward the ’copter, still keeping the gun on Madelaine. She was standing quite still, her hands, with Trott’s wallet in them, clasped in front of her, but her lips were moving. “Help me, Amtor! Djuna, help me!” she said under her breath. It must have been about this time that Djuna and I, swimming with our frien ds in the now cool South Pacific, had the sensation of being desperately drawn upon.

  Still keeping the gun on Madelaine, Trott groped behin
d him on the floor of the ’copter and came out with a length of rope. He seemed uncertain what to do. Then his face cleared. He tossed the rope along the grass to Madelaine.

  “Tie him up,” he ordered. “Make good knots—I’ll be watching. Don’t try anything. I’ve no real objection to killing both of you. I consider you traitors to the human race.”

  Slowly Madelaine bent to pick up the rope. Her mind was clamoring to us. “Hurry up,” Trott said impatiently. “Can’t you move faster than that? You, Erickson, turn your back and put your hands behind you. Yes. Now, Paxton, tie his hands together.”

  Reluctantly, Madelaine did as she was told. As the knots were made, Trott seemed to relax. “You know, this is going to change a lot of people’s minds,” he said conversationally. “After that fink Lawrence killed himself, everybody thought I was a nut and that we’d killed a lot of dolphins for nothing. The most they’d admit was that some human beings had been riding around with dolphins, and they thought the sub had killed the people, and the dolphins with them, before it sank.

  “Even the floods didn’t convince them. They said it was just coincidence that Lawrence had predicted trouble before he died. Yes, they thought I was a sort of nut to blame a bunch of fish for the floods. A nut! I was the one sane man.”

  Sven’s hands were tied. Trott had Madelaine bring the ends of the rope around his ankles and tie them, too. “And now,” he said, “I guess the best thing would be to shoot you and Erickson in the shoulder. That ought to keep you from any more tricks.”

  He raised the gun to sight accurately. The gun moved to eye level, and then on up. “What—” he said, and then was silent. An amazed and exasperated look came over his face. The struggle for control of his nervous system had begun.

  Madelaine turned to face him, dropping the ends of the rope. The gun moved toward Trott’s head inch by inch, in a series of jerks. His mouth was open, and he was breathing hard.

  The muzzle of the gun came to rest against his right temple. Trott’s eyes were wild. Twice his finger jerked on the trigger, and he managed to pull it away. Madelaine had her doubts about what the four of us were trying to make him do, and this helped him to resist for a while. But the third time his finger drew the trigger all the way back. The bullet went into his head.