Insistence of Vision

by David Brin

  Blessed silence was one added benefit of this culinary exploit. Peepoe had been doing a lot of diving lately.

  This time, however, the transition did more than spare her the sled’s noise for a brief time. It also brought forth a new sound. A distant rumble, channeled by the chilly stratum. With growing excitement, Peepoe recognized the murmur of an engine! Yet the rhythms struck her as unlike any she had heard on Earth or elsewhere.

  Puzzled, she kicked swiftly to the surface, filled her lungs with fresh air, and dived back down to listen again.

  This deep current offers an excellent sonic groove, she realized, focusing sound rather than diffusing it. Keeping the vibrations well-confined. Even the sled’s sensors may not pick it up for quite a while.

  Unfortunately, that also meant she couldn’t tell how far away the source was.

  If I had a breather unit... if it weren’t necessary to keep surfacing for air... I could swim a great distance masked by this thermal barrier. Otherwise it seems hopeless. They can use the sled’s monitors on long-range scan to detect me when I broach and exhale.

  Peepoe listened for a while longer, and decided.

  I think it’s getting closer... but slowly. The source must still be far away. If I make a dash now, I won’t get far before they catch me.

  And yet, she daren’t risk Mopol and Zhaki picking up the new sound. If she must wait, it meant keeping them distracted ‘til the time was right.

  There was just one way to accomplish that.

  Peepoe grimaced. Rising toward the surface, she expressed disgust with a vulgar Trinary demi-haiku.

  * May sun roast your backs,

  * And hard sand scrape your bottoms,

  * Til you itch madly... *

  * ... as if with a good case of the clap! *

  Makanee

  She sent a command over her neural link, ordering the tools of her harness to fold away into streamlined recesses, signaling that the inspection visit was over.

  The chief of the kiqui, a little male with purple gill-fringes surrounding a squat head, let himself drift a meter or so under the water’s surface, spreading all four webbed hands in a gesture of benediction and thanks. Then he thrashed around to lead his folk away, back toward the nearby island where they made their home. Makanee felt satisfaction as she watched the small formation of kicking amphibians, clutching their stone-tipped spears.

  Who would have thought that we dolphins, youngest registered sapient race in the Civilization of Five Galaxies, would become patrons ourselves, just a few centuries after humans started uplifting us.

  The Kiqui were doing pretty well on Jijo, all considered. Soon after being released onto a coral atoll, not far offshore, they started having babies.

  Under normal conditions, some elder race would find an excuse to take the Kiqui away from dolphins, fostering such a promising pre-sapient species into one of the rich, ancient family lines that ruled oxygen-breathing civilization in the Five Galaxies. But here on Jijo things were different. They were cut off from starfaring culture, a vast bewildering society of complex rituals and obligations that made the ancient Chinese Imperial court seem like a toddler’s sandbox, by comparison. There were advantages and disadvantages to being a castaway from all that.

  On the one hand, Makanee would no longer have to endure the constant tension of running away from huge oppressive battlefleets or aliens whose grudges went beyond Earthling comprehension.

  On the other hand, there would be no more performances of symphony, or opera, or bubble-dance for her to attend.

  Never again must she endure disparaging sneers from exalted patron-level beings, who considered dolphins little more than bright beasts.

  Nor would she spend another lazy Sunday in her snug apartment in cosmopolitan Melbourne-Under, with multicolored fish cruising the coral garden just outside her window while she munched salmon patties and watched an all-dolphin cast perform Twelfth Night on the tellie.

  Makanee was marooned, and would likely remain so for the rest of her life, caring for two small groups of sea-based colonists, hoping they could remain hidden from trouble until a new era came. An age when both might resume the path of uplift.

  Assuming some metal nutrient supplements could be arranged, the Kiqui had apparently transplanted well. Of course, they must be taught tribal taboos against over-hunting any one species of local fauna, so their presence would not become a curse on this world. But the clever little amphibians already showed some understanding, expressing the concept in their own, emphatic demi-speech.

  ## Rare is precious! ##

  ## Not eat-or-hurt rare/precious things/fishes/beasts! ##

  ## Only eat/hunt many-of-a-kind! ##

  She felt a personal stake in this. Two years ago, when Streaker was about to depart poisonous Kithrup, masked inside the hulk of a crashed Thennanin warship, Makanee had taken it upon herself to beckon a passing tribe of Kiqui with some of their own recorded calls, attracting the curious group into Streaker’s main airlock just before the surrounding water boiled with exhaust from revving engines. What then seemed an act of simple pity turned into a kind of love affair, as the friendly little amphibians became favorites of the crew. Perhaps now their race might flourish in a kinder place than unhappy Kithrup. It felt good to know Streaker had accomplished at least one good thing out of its poignant, tragic mission.

  As for dolphins, how could anyone doubt their welcome in Jijo’s warm sea? Once you learned which fishoids were edible and which to avoid, life became a matter of snatching whatever you wanted to eat, then splashing and lolling about. True, she missed her holoson unit, with its booming renditions of whale chants and baroque chorales. But here she could take pleasure by listening to an ocean whose sonic purity was almost as fine as its vibrant texture.

  Almost...

  Reacting to a faint sensation, Makanee swung her sound-sensitive jaw around, casting right and left.

  There! She heard it again. A distant rumbling that might have escaped notice amid the underwater cacophony on Earth. But here it seemed to stand out from the normal swish of current and tide.

  Her patients – the several dozen dolphins whose stress atavism had reduced them to infantile innocence – called such infrequent noises boojums. Or else they used a worried upward trill in Primal Delphin – one that stood for strange monsters of the deep. Occasionally the far off grumbles did seem to hint at some huge, living entity, rumbling with basso-profundo pride, complacently assured that it owned the entire vast sea. Or else it might be just frustrated engine noise from some remnant derelict machine, wandering aimlessly in the ocean’s immensity.

  Leaving the kiqui atoll behind, Makanee swam back toward the underwater dome where she and Brookida, plus a few still-sapient nurses, maintained a small base to keep watch over their charges. It would be good to get out of the weather for a while. Last night she had roughed it, keeping an eye on her patients during a rain squall. An unpleasant, wearying experience.

  We modern neo-fins are spoiled. It will take us years to get used to living in the elements, accepting whatever nature sends our way, without complaining or making ambitious plans to change the way things are.

  That human side of us must be allowed to fade away.

  Peepoe

  She made her break around mid-morning the next day.

  Zhaki was sleeping off a hangover near a big mat of driftweed, and Mopol was using the sled to harass some unlucky penguin-like sea birds, who were trying to feed their young by fishing near the island’s lee shore. It seemed a good chance to slip away, but Peepoe’s biggest reason for choosing this moment was simple. Diving deep below the thermal layer, she found that the distant rumble had peaked, and appeared to have turned away, diminishing with each passing hour.

  It was now or never.

  Peepoe had hoped to steal something from the sled first. A utensil harness perhaps, or a breather tube, and not just for practical reasons. In normal life, few neo-dolphins spent a single day without using cyborg
tools, controlled by cable links to the brain’s temporal lobes. But for months now her two would-be “husbands” hadn’t let her connect to anything at all! The neural tap behind her left eye ached from disuse.

  Unfortunately, Mopol nearly always slept on the sled’s saddle, barely ever leaving except to eat and defecate.

  He’ll be desolated when the speeder finally breaks down, she thought, taking some solace from that.

  So the decision was made, and Ifni’s dice were cast. She set out with all the gifts and equipment nature provided – completely naked – into an uncharted sea.

  For Peepoe, escaping captivity began unlike any human novel or fantasholo. In such stories, the heroine’s hardest task was normally the first part, sneaking away. But here Peepoe faced no walls, locked rooms, dogs or barbed wire. Her “guards” let her come and go as she pleased. In this case, the problem wasn’t getting started, but winning a big enough head start before Zhaki and Mopol realized she was gone.

  Swimming under the thermocline helped mask her movements at first. It left her vulnerable to detection only when she went up for air. But she could not keep it up for long. The Tursiops genus of dolphins weren’t deep divers by nature, and her speed at depth was only a third what it would be skimming near the surface.

  So, while the island was still above the horizon behind her, Peepoe stopped slinking along silently below and instead began her dash for freedom in earnest – racing toward the sun with an endless series of powerful back archings and fluke-strokes, going deep only occasionally to check her bearings against the far-off droning sound.

  It felt exhilarating to slice through the wavetops, flexing her body for all it was worth. Peepoe remembered the last time she had raced along this way – with Kaa by her side – when Jijo’s waters had seemed warm, sweet, and filled with possibilities.

  Although she kept low-frequency sonar clickings to a minimum, she did allow herself some short-range bursts, checking ahead for obstacles and toying with the surrounding water, bouncing reflections off patches of sun-driven convection, letting echoes wrap themselves around her like rippling memories. Peepoe’s sonic transmissions remained soft and close – no louder than the vibrations given off by her kicking tail – but the patterns grew more complex as her mind settled into the rhythms of movement. Before long, returning wavelets of her own sound meshed with those of current and tide, overlapping to make phantom sonar images.

  Most of these were vague shapes, like the sort that one felt swarming at the edges of a dream. But in time several fell together, merging into something larger. The composite echo seemed to bend and thrust when she did – as if a spectral companion now swam nearby, where her squinting eye saw only sunbeams in an empty sea.

  Kaa, she thought, recognizing a certain unique zest whenever the wraith’s bottlenose flicked through the waves.

  Among dolphins, you did not have to die in order to come back as a ghost... though it helped.

  Sometimes the only thing required was vividness of spirit – and Kaa surely was, or had been, vivid.

  Or perhaps the nearby sound-effigy fruited solely from Peepoe’s eager imagination.

  In fact, dolphin logic perceived no contradiction between those two explanations. Kaa’s essence might be there – and not be – at the same time. Whether real or mirage, she was glad to have her lover back where he belonged – by her side.

  I’ve missed you, she thought.

  Anglic wasn’t a good language for phantoms. No human grammar was. Perhaps that explained why the poor bipeds so seldom communed with their beloved lost.

  Peepoe’s visitor answered in a more ambiguous, innately delphin style.

  * ’Til the seaweed’s flower

  * Shoots forth petals made of moonbeams

  * I will swim with you *

  Peepoe was content with that. For some unmeasured time, it seemed as if a real companion, her mate, swam alongside, encouraging her efforts, sharing the grueling pace. The water divided before her, caressing her flanks like a real lover.

  Then, abruptly, a new sound intruded. A distant, grating whine that threatened to shatter all illusions.

  Reluctantly, she made herself clamp down, silencing the resonant chambers surrounding her blowhole. As her own sonar vibrations ceased, so did the complex echoes, and her phantom comrade vanished. The waters ahead seemed to go black as Peepoe concentrated, listening intently.

  There it was.

  Coming from behind her. Another engine vibration, this one all-too familiar, approaching swiftly as it skimmed across the surface of the sea.

  They know, she realized. Zhaki and Mopol know I’m gone, and they’re coming after me.

  Peepoe wasted no more time. She bore down with her flukes, racing through the waves faster than ever. Stealth no longer mattered. Now it was a contest of speed, endurance, and luck.

  Tkett

  It took him most of a day and the next night to get near the source of the mysterious disturbance, pushing his power sled as fast as he dared. Makanee had ordered Tkett not to over-strain the engine, since there would be no replacements when it wore out.

  “Just be careful out there,” the elderly dolphin physician had urged, giving permission for this expedition. “Find out what it is... whether it’s one of the derelict spacecraft that Suessi and the engineers brought back to life as decoys. If so, don’t mess with it! Just come back and report. We’ll discuss where to go from there.”

  Tkett did not have disobedience in mind. At least not explicitly. But if it really was a starship making the low, uneven grumbling noise, a host of possibilities presented themselves. What if it proved possible to board the machine and take over the makeshift controls that Streaker’s crew had put in place?

  Even if it can’t fly, it’s cruising around the ocean. I could use it as a submersible and visit the Great Midden.

  That vast undersea trench – where the Buyur had dumped most of the dross of their mighty civilization, when it came time for them to abandon Jijo and return its surface to fallow status. After packing up to leave, the last authorized residents of this planet used titanic machines to scrape away their cities, then sent all their buildings and other works tumbling into an abyss where the slow grinding of tectonic plates would draw the rubble inward, melting and reshaping new ores to be used by others, in some future era, when Jijo was opened for legal settlement once again.

  To an archaeologist, the Midden seemed the opportunity of a lifetime.

  I’d learn so much about the Buyur! We might examine whole classes of tools that no Earthling has ever seen. The Buyur were rich and powerful. They could afford the very best in the Civilization of Five Galaxies, while we Terran newcomers can only buy dregs. Even stuff the Buyur threw away – their toys and broken trinkets – could provide valuable data for the Terragens Council.

  Tkett wasn’t a complete fool. He knew what Makanee and Brookida thought of him.

  They consider me crazy to be optimistic about going home. To believe any of us will see Earth again, or let the industrial tang of its waters roll through our open jaws, or once more surf the rip tides of Ranga Roa.

  Or give a university lecture. Or dive through the richness of a worldwide data network, sharing ideas with a fecund civilization at light-speed. Or hold challenging conversations with others who share your intellectual passions.

  He had signed aboard Streaker to accompany Captain Creideiki and a neo-dolphin intellectual elite in the greatest mental and physical adventure any group of cetaceans ever faced – the ultimate test of their new sapient race. Only now Creideiki was gone, presumed dead, and Tkett had been ejected by Streaker’s new commander, exiled from the ship at its worst moment of crisis. Makanee might feel complacent over being put ashore as “non-essential” personnel, but it churned Tkett’s guts to be spilled into a warm, disgustingly placid sea while his crewmates were still out there, facing untold dangers among the bleeding stars.

  A voice broke in from the outside, before his thoughts could spi
ral any further toward self-pity.

  # give me give me GIVE ME

  # snout-smacking pleasure

  # of a good fight! #

  That shrill chatter came from the sled’s rear compartment, causing Tkett’s flukes to thrash in brief startlement. It was easy to forget about his quiet passenger for long stretches of time. Chississ spoke seldom, and then only in the throwback proto-language, Primal Delphin.

  Tkett quashed his initial irritation. After all, Chissis was unwell. Like several dozen other members of the crew, her modern mind had crumpled under the pressure of Streaker’s long ordeal, taking refuge in older ways of thought. One had to make allowances, even though Tkett could not imagine how it was possible for anyone to abandon the pleasures of rationality, no matter how insistently one heard the call of the Whale Dream.

  After a moment, Tkett realized that her comment had been more than just useless chatter. Chissis must have sensed some meaning from his sonar clicks. Apparently she understood and shared his resentment over Gillian Baskin’s decision to leave them behind on Jijo.

  “You’d rather be back in space right now, wouldn’t you?” He asked. “Even though you can’t read an instrument panel anymore? Even with Jophur battleships and other nasties snorting down Streaker’s neck, closing in for the kill?”

  His words were in Underwater Anglic. Most of the reverted could barely comprehend it anymore. But Chissis squawled from the platform behind Tkett, throwing a sound burst that sang like the sled’s engine, thrusting ever-forward, obstinately defiant.

  # smack the jophur! smack the sharks!

  # SMACK THEM! #

  Accompanying her eager-repetitive message squeal, there came a sonar image crafted by the fatty layers of her brow, casting a brief veil of illusion around Tkett. He briefly visualized Chissis, joyfully ensconced in the bubble nose of a lamprey class torpedo, personally piloting it on course toward a huge alien cruiser, penetrating all of the cyber-disruptive fields that Galactic spacecraft used to stave off digital guidance systems, zeroing in on her target with all the instinct and native agility that dolphins inherited from their ancestors.