by JC Ryan
It wasn’t in his nature to notice the breathtaking blue of the water, the magic of the sun sparkling off the ripples made by a slight breeze, or the blue sky above dotted with fluffy white clouds. He did notice the brisk temperature of the water, about seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit. But his body soon became accustomed to it as usual, and he started swimming on the surface after securing the bucket over one of the hand throttles on the Sea-Bob.
At first, he didn’t see the dolphin where it had stopped him the day before. Rather than drop the bucket, he decided to swim with it to the opening, and drag it inside with him in case he needed it on the way back to the yacht. But before he was halfway to the entrance from where he’d anchored the yacht, a swiftly-moving shape startled him, and he flinched back just in time to avoid being hit by the dolphin.
“Hey!” The sound of his protest seemed to catch the dolphin’s attention, and it came back for a more leisurely pass at him. He forced a smile and asked, “Want some fish?”
The dolphin ‘stood’ on its tail, revealing the two mammary slits that proclaimed her a female, and ‘nodded’ her assent to the treat, while emitting some whistles and squeaks. Ahab swam to the side, dangling the bucket enticingly. The dolphin followed. She took a quick trip to the surface for a breath, and Ahab noticed she seemed to trust him more today than yesterday. Within seconds, she was back, and he was confident she’d follow him far to the side, where he’d leave the bucket and hope he could beat her to the underwater opening that was his target.
He swam swiftly, traveling parallel to the shelf of the land that dropped off perhaps a hundred yards to his left as he led the dolphin away from the opening. When he’d gone an estimated mile, he dropped the bucket and watched as the dolphin tracked its descent, then returned to the surface for another breath.
He’d learned that dolphins swim at about seven or eight miles an hour. That would give him maybe six minutes to travel the mile back to the opening, unless his ruse didn’t work. While the dolphin was on the surface, Ahab turned and swam at his top speed, surpassing the sprinting speed of the world record holder. He reckoned he couldn’t outrace the dolphin, but he might beat her back to the opening if the fish distracted her for even a few minutes.
Unfortunately for him, Ahab had not read far enough. The dolphin was waiting for him when he reached the area near the opening. If he’d investigated further, he’d have discovered that when they’re in a hurry for some reason, dolphins could swim up to four times faster than their usual speed. Ahab stopped in surprise to see her there. Then he wondered if it was the same dolphin at all. But, as if she’d read his mind, she wagged back and forth in yesterday’s ‘no’ gesture. Ahab almost forgot himself and gasped at the implication.
Frustrated, he returned to the surface for his stun gun. Patented as a device to protect oneself from sharks, the stun gun was good for one shot before being serviced, because the tip of the electrical conducting spear had to be insulated from the water until used. It was bulky and unwieldy, but it should stun the dolphin long enough for him to pass.
He returned to confront her.
As soon as she saw him, though, the dolphin took the initiative away from him. Before he could aim the device, she charged him and hit him hard enough to make him drop it. Then she wagged ‘no’ again and swam in a circle to face him. Ahab was beginning to hate this dolphin. If it hadn’t been for the possibility of attracting sharks, he would have used his dive knife to give her the same treatment he liked to give his human victims, only much faster. A few swipes of his knife would flay her. But he couldn’t risk it.
He left the area without achieving his mission again that day, but as he motored away in the yacht, he vowed that the next day would be different.
11
CARMEN WATCHED THE land-human swim away and climb into his boat. Yesterday, he hadn’t seemed dangerous. Today, when he offered her fish, he hadn’t seemed dangerous. But when she returned for the fish, he was gone, and she raced back to her post, afraid she’d made a mistake by leaving her guard post.
The land-human had gone away when she told him no, but he came back with something bad. Carmen had never seen one of those things, but when he pointed it at her, she knew she must attack first. It went against her nature to attack any human, so she didn’t hit him as hard as she could have. She didn’t want to kill him.
Hitting him in the side made him drop the bad thing, and if he swam for it, she would stop him again. She didn’t understand why he could stay below the water’s surface longer than she could. He didn’t have the round things her mother called tanks on his back. She knew that’s what land-humans used to stay underwater a long time.
She was so busy trying to do her job and keep him away from the bad place that she didn’t think to contact Mother with these events, until the boat moved away from her post. Then she sent the images stored in her memory.
Mother, what is this? Seven hundred miles away, leading the pod to the Alboran site to visit with Carter, Merrybeth stopped suddenly as the image of an object that looked like the weapons land-humans used long ago to hunt whales entered her mind, along with her daughter’s question. It was long and straight, and one end had a sharp point. Dolphins had no need of tools, but they’d had centuries of observation of the land-humans to know about them, to know about weapons, and to know that what the land-humans called weapons were just specialized tools with which to kill.
It looks like a weapon. Where did you see it? Merrybeth’s alarm came across the miles.
A land-human pointed it at me, she answered. But I hit him, and he dropped it. Then he went away. She was proud of herself for recognizing the danger. But Mother was even more alarmed.
We’re coming, child, she signaled. Be very careful if he returns.
He was here twice already. I will be careful.
MERRYBETH THOUGHT QUICKLY. At their top speed, she and those with her would take nearly an entire sun and dark to reach the area.
She heard no more from her daughter after that, and she urged the pod to swim faster, even though it hurt. Soon only she and her best friends, those whose young played with hers, and who she confided in and trusted to support her when her leadership was challenged, were swimming together. One friend had stayed back to lead the stragglers, while she and three other females sliced through the water. She sent an urgent message to two of her sons to meet her.
Merrybeth’s heart turned over when they reached the entrance to the cave. Never since the beginning of their watch had the mouth of the cave been left unguarded. She felt it was her fault. She’d wanted to begin to groom her daughter for leadership. Maybe Carmen had been too young.
She kept on sending messages to Carmen, but there was no reply. The other dolphins in her pod fine-combed the area for miles around, while all of them kept on sending ansible messages to Carmen.
Hours later Merrybeth was mourning her daughter and worried about the secret they guarded. She knew there was only one way to get help now.
Sunhead.
Sunhead would help, she knew. But her pod was exhausted – at least the ones who’d kept up with her were. And the others would be confused and maybe angry if she reversed their direction again.
There was only one choice. Leaving her trusted friends to guard the site and watch for her daughter, she turned again and started for the Alboran dig. There she could talk to land-humans and let Sunhead know she needed help.
12
THE VETERINARIAN WAS nervous, she could tell. He was really too tender-hearted for this work, but Mackenzie liked him. So did Keeva, who had approved this new friend by letting him meet her pups. The Tala crew liked him, too. He regularly gave the wolves under training at Tala checkups.
The implantation surgery of the new respirocyte generators for the rats was about to begin when Mackenzie’s administrative assistant came into the observation room to tell her there was an urgent message from the Alboran dig site.
Carter? she thought, a surge of adrenaline spiking.
Then she recalled he wasn’t at the site. He was still in London. What could it be? That’s not my bailiwick.
There was no choice but to follow her assistant back to her office and take the call. She slipped away without letting the vet know. He was nervous enough without knowing he was working alone.
A moment later, she sat down in front of the computer, where the anxious face of the dig supervisor awaited her. “Hi. What can I do for you?” she asked.
“It’s that dolphin, Mrs. Devereux,” he said, his English accented. He was a local, recruited from Spain to oversee the work when Carter wasn’t present. Mackenzie didn’t bother to correct him about her title.
“Which dolphin, Sandro?”
“You call her Merrybeth, I think. She is here, and very upset. The translator can’t keep up with her. Do you think you can calm her?”
“All I can do is try. How will this work?”
“We have a link to the monitor at the pier,” he said. “I’ll patch you through.”
No more than a couple of seconds later, Mackenzie’s monitor showed the beautiful Mediterranean in the background, a sliver of the pier in the foreground, and Merrybeth, standing out of the water on her tail and whistling constantly. Even through the camera, Mackenzie could tell she was indeed agitated.
“Merrybeth,” she said clearly. “It’s Makenzie. Sunhead. I’m here.”
Merrybeth stopped whistling and swam toward the pier. Mackenzie could tell the moment she spotted the monitor, which she assumed showed Merrybeth her own visage.
“What is it, my friend?” Like an echo, she heard the translation device whistle and squeak. The dolphin looked directly into the monitor.
“My daughter,” she whistled, using Carmen’s signature to specify which offspring. “She is missing, and we need your help.”
“Tell me more,” Mackenzie urged. Her heart hurt for her friend, but she didn’t have enough information to help, yet. “How long has it been since you saw her? Where was she then?”
Merrybeth dipped below the water for a moment, and then was back. “Three suns ago, she showed me a bad man with a weapon. She said he pointed it at her. When we got to the place where she was, she was gone.”
“Oh, no, Merrybeth. I understand. I’ll see what I can do. Where was she?”
Merrybeth dipped again. Mackenzie thought it was strange. She’d never done that before when they were conversing. Maybe it was because she was upset. She waited, a bit longer this time, before the dolphin surfaced.
“I’m sorry, Mackenzie. I needed to find out if anyone knew what you call the place. I don’t know how to tell you where it is, but I can lead someone there. It will take almost two suns to get there.”
Two days! “Merrybeth, is it toward where the sun rises, or where it sets?”
“Toward where it rises.”
Mackenzie did a swift calculation. Assuming the dolphin was swimming at top speed, it could be anywhere from nine-hundred to fifteen-hundred miles to the east of the Alboran. She pulled up a map on her second monitor. Somewhere between Sicily and Crete.
“Merrybeth, do you know the place where the sea is the narrowest in that direction?” It was frustrating, not being able to tell the dolphin the name of the place.
“Yes.”
“Start toward there. I will ask the people where you are to follow you in a boat, and to stay in touch with me. I’ll send a message when I find some help for you.”
“Thank you, Sunhead.”
MERRYBETH WAITED UNTIL the land-humans got into the boat and brought it near her. She couldn’t swim as fast on the surface, but they had a solution. She allowed them to fit her with a waterproof GPS tracker, and as soon as it was in place, she started back toward the bad place.
Sunhead would help, but Merrybeth was worried. She hadn’t told Sunhead everything. Would they still be friends after Sunhead and her mate knew the truth?
The whole time she swam eastward, she thought about the secret her kind had carried for so many suns they had lost count. Could she trust any land-human, even Sunhead, to guard it? She thought she could trust Sunhead, but what about the others. Merrybeth knew Sunhead was many suns away, and would not be able to help in person. Besides, she could not go inside the bad place. It was too far, and her ‘tanks’ would not give her enough air. Not even dolphins could go inside.
That’s what terrified her about her daughter. Had the bad man taken her there? Was she dead?
Sadness overwhelmed Merrybeth, and she surfaced early to whistle her grief. The land-humans in the boat shouted in response. They didn’t have the translation device with them, so they didn’t know her sound meant sad.
They called back to her, “We’re here.”
She had to take whatever comfort she could that they were following her. How strange, after so many suns, when her kind rescued land-humans whenever they could, while bad land-humans caught her kind in nets sometimes, that it was land-humans who now must help her. She only hoped they could.
At Freydis, Mackenzie paced. Her call to Carter had gone unanswered. That was unusual. He usually at least answered long enough to tell her he was busy. More often, he could take a break to talk with her for a few minutes. Now she had two things to worry about.
Rationally, she knew if Carter were in trouble, she’d have heard before now. Most likely he was just involved in something important, or maybe even out of signal range. She considered calling the satphone instead, but told herself it could wait. It would take Merrybeth two days to get to the spot where her daughter had disappeared. There was plenty of time to send someone to help if Carter couldn’t go himself.
More likely, she thought sadly, time for the young one had already run out. If a man had pointed a ‘weapon’ at her, something bad must have already happened, especially since it had taken Merrybeth two days to get word to her.
Helpless to do anything more for the crisis, she decided that they must make a push to have translation devices placed within a few hours of any spot on earth. She’d have to calculate how many that would be – thousands, no doubt. The more she thought about it, the more excited she became. It would serve so many great uses!
With that thought, she remembered the surgery going on in the veterinary lab, and went to check on the progress.
13
TWO DAYS LATER, Mackenzie still hadn’t heard from Carter and she was beginning to seriously worry. She’d called Irene and asked for information, only to be told that Carter was fine, just busy. But not hearing from him in forty-eight hours was uncharacteristic.
Moreover, she’d had word from the security people from the Alboran site that they’d reached a spot just a few miles off Crete, and Merrybeth was swimming in circles. They assumed this was where she wanted to lead them. What now?
Mackenzie felt helpless. They hadn’t taken the translation device, because it was needed at the dig. Without it, she could talk to Merrybeth, but Merrybeth couldn’t talk to her. It was infuriating, frustrating, and it was causing her quite a bit of anxiety.
Then, Carter called, and her world settled back into its normal rotation around the sun. “Carter! Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick!”
“I’m sorry, Mackie. We found evidence that at least some of these murders had to have been the work of an archaeologist. I’ve been underground for the past couple of days, doing what I could to identify the bastard from the way he worked. Seems strange that a guy who’s willing to cut up people like nothing more than a chicken or something would then use proper site technique when he hides the bodies, but there you are.”
Mackenzie was barely listening. “Honey, we have to help Merrybeth. Her daughter’s gone missing.”
“What? When?”
“Four days ago.” She rapidly gave him what she knew, including her frustration that she couldn’t talk to her friend. “I’m so afraid her daughter has been killed.”
“Mackie, I’m sorry. Listen, I think I can get away, now. I’ll fly to the site and pick up the translati
on device, then fly to Crete. But you know you’re probably right, don’t you? It’s probably too late for – which daughter?”
“Carmen. She’s the youngest, barely an adult, more like an eighteen-year-old in our terms. Merrybeth is devastated.”
“I’ll be in touch. Let me see if they can spare me for a couple of days.”
CARTER LEFT AS soon as he cleared it with the lead investigator. They wanted him back, but had nothing he could help with for now. He’d done what he could to narrow down the killer’s work, but all he’d been able to tell them was that the work looked like the technique that a certain professor at the University College of London taught. Until they’d narrowed down the hundreds of students he’d taught, there wasn’t much more Carter could do. In fact, he wasn’t sure what more he could do even then.
As he’d promised, Carter flew to the Alboran site to borrow the translation device. Mackie had told him her idea to place the devices all over the world, and he liked the idea. They could have saved him hours and the environment a flight’s worth of pollution if there’d been one on Crete.
He landed at the nearest airport to the location his security team had given, near Chania. Chartering a boat to take him to the exact location took an hour, but he was with the team just before sunset. He hailed Merrybeth, who rose to the surface immediately.
She started whistling as soon as she recognized him, and because he’d anticipated she would, the device was ready. But what she was saying came out garbled.
“Slow down, Merrybeth. You’re going too fast for the device.”