Humanx - Cachalot Part 18

80.

CACHALOT.

and within it. We will watch over you for our friend Sammm, for such is whatt we wish to do."

"Whatt we wish to do," Latehoht echoed.

Another fountain of water spurted as Wenkosee- mansa rolled onto his side and slapped the surface with his flukes. "Timmme to swim, time to go. Time to kill a little more thp parasite impatience, the gerrrm of boredom, beneath a fairr upper sky. Where go we to, friend Sam?"

"To where I told you seven days ago," Mataroreva replied. "To the place of my people last dying, to the town on the waters that is no more. Toward the non- scarred side of the sun."

"To the placcce of deathhh," Latehoht said som- berly. "To the where of sudden screamming and the realms of the vanished men, to theme we go." The great head ducked out of sight as she and her mate turned to the northwest.

"Wait!" Cora yelled, the high-pitched screech from her headset speaker almost deafening her. The two whales paused. "Do you know what caused the death place? Do you have any idea what might be respon- sible for the vanished men?"

"Would that we knew," Wenkoseemansa bemoaned.

"Would that we had the rhyme or reason of it, so that youu would not hawe to be herre. Would thatt it had not happened."

"Swim with uss, Samm!" Latehoht cried in an en- tirely different voice.

"Yes, swwim with us!" her mate added.

"I can't," he told them, looking over the railing. "I have to guide the boat."

"Poorr humans," Wenkoseemansa observed sadly.

"Poorr people of the airr. A thin environment makes for narroww people. Narroww people make forr nar- roww thoughts. And narroww thoughts make for too much worryy to the nonscarred side of the sunn." He ducked his ma.s.sive head and started westward.

81.

"Nonscarred side of the sunn." Latehoht performed one final prodigious leap, again drenching the unpre- pared pa.s.sengers on the foil, then joined her mate, vanishing to the west. In a moment even the two towering dorsal fins had disappeared and nothing could be seen breaking the gentle blue swells ahead.

"You'll lose them, Sam!" Cora called to him.

He shook his head. "We're headed in the same di- rection, for the same destination. They'll always know where we are."

"They'll stay within range?" she asked uncertainly.

"Of our sonar as well as theirs, yes." He started back up toward the bridge as the Caribe began to ac- celerate.

Cora knew that, of all the cetaceans, the orcas were the ones who found the company of mankind con- genial and that they thought more like humans than did any of their relatives. But she suspected from what she had just observed that these two had a more than merely tolerant relationship with Sam. They were more than a.s.sistants and advisers; they were friends.

Spray stung her cheek and eyes. In the absence of hexalate sands they had no need of the protective goggles. The glare off the water was no worse than on the seas of other worlds.

She leaned over the railing and looked sternward.

Distant flashes of light, green and pink and yellow, were fading behind their rear horizon. They were the last signals of Mou'anui's sands and the subsidiary motus that surrounded the great atoll.

Then there was just ocean. Ocean, air, and sun.

They were surrounded by Cachalot. She decided she was hungry.

There was no rocking motion to the Caribe, only the steady, soft vibration which transferred itself from the foils to the hull. From the hull to the mattress of her bed the vibration dimmed still more. It was too

82 .

much sleep that finally awakened her, groggy and

cotton-mouthed.

The small port was covered, shutting out any ex- tenor light. A glance at the chronometer indicated she had been asleep for nearly twelve hours. She hadn't thought she was particularly tired, but in this case it

seemed her body^ad disagreed with her brain.

She put her face back together; then, feeling no less

than fifty percent human, she made her way up to the

deck.

They were cruising at a slightly slower speed now.

So as not, she suspected, to exhaust even the muscular orcas. Rachael was sunbathing on the rear deck. Mer- ced was nowhere to be seen this new morning, and Sam was on the deck above the central cabin, be- hind the bridge.

The master control lay nearby. To her surprise Sam

was reading a book. A real book, not a tape or disc.

"la ora na-morning," he greeted her. "It's not often I have the pleasure of meeting someone who lives in

reverse."

"Fm still half asleep, Sam," she told him with only

a touch of irritation. "Don't play games. What are you

talking about?"

"Only that you get younger and more beautiful each

day."

"That's nice." She turned, scanned the endless

ocean, the view no different from the day before, that she knew would be no different tomorrow. "When I

regress all the way back to an egg, I'm yours."

"Fried, poached, scrambled, diced, or in an omelet?"

"Hard-boiled," she responded, not missing a beat, She eyed the empty bridge. "Master remote or no, shouldn't you be up there checking other instruments?"

"For instance? You worry too much, Cora." He eased back into the lounge. The material cooled his back, kept him from perspiring too much. "The Com- monwealth's been overtechnologized tor centuries. If

83.