A Bone From a Dry Sea

by Peter Dickinson

  Goor had appeared beside her. She made a Be-still sign and then they waited, rising to the surface only when they needed air. Li knew the dolphins were still nearby because of the sounds they made, their wailing whistles and clicks, call and answer, filling the sea around her. Shadowy shapes loomed, neared, took shape, came close, circled until she could stroke the long flanks as they passed, and returned to caress themselves against her body.

  Then they swam together, dolphins and people, through the greeny-golden sea-world, not in a wild dance full of rush and foam but in a slow, close, gentle weaving of bodies in the friendly water, while the dolphins’ song went on and on, filling the sea like the wavering sunlight. Li understood it to be song because the only sound she knew at all like it was the song of the tribe waking in the morning to greet the returning day.

  The dolphins left without a signal, but the song continued in the water, dwindling as they went, until they rounded a headland and it was lost. Li and Goor waited a long while, hoping, but they didn’t come back.

  Gulls had gathered screaming for a share of the fish, but Ma-ma, Hooa and Rawi had by now carried almost all that was left to the back of the cave, where it was cooler and the meat might last a little longer before it stank (though the tribe had strong stomachs, and needed them). Li took one to eat and rested in the blood-warm shallows. Thoughts drifted through her mind – the hunt, the dance, the song. These things had a meaning, a pattern she could almost see. It didn’t cross her mind that it might be part of the dolphins’ hunting technique to harry a shoal towards the shore and pen them in some inlet to catch them there, and that they’d never meant to chase this one into the bay, where they couldn’t get at it. If there hadn’t been helpers in the bay to force the shoal back again they’d have had a poor hunt. To her it was obvious that the dolphins had come because she needed them, because she was hungry and they were her friends. They were so much wiser than she was. They knew where the sun was born.

  A few days later the dolphins came again, nine or ten of them and herding a large shoal. Goor saw them first and called Come-help. The others were racing to the bar when the shoal swept through on a wave-surge. They chased it out, and this time, as the tide was lower than before and the water at the bar shallower, the fish had to thresh across in a packed mass where they were almost as easy to pick out as anchored mussels. The dolphins drove them in again, but were less lucky with the wave and half the shoal jibbed at the bar and broke free. Next time the rest escaped, but by then the shelving rocks beside the bar were covered with silver bodies, and Li and Goor could fling plenty out to the cruising dolphins, leaving masses still to be carried back to the cave. The dolphins didn’t stay, but as soon as they’d fed enough flipped on their sides and swam off.

  That evening in babble and clamour the tribe arrived. They were hungry. Tong and Kerif were still disputing the leadership, with three other males joining in temporary alliances which stopped anything being settled. The tribe’s journey to the shrimping beach and back had been governed not by whether they’d stripped all they could from a feeding-ground but by one of the contenders trying to enhance his prestige by getting the tribe to move against the other’s will. So the tribe had come to the shrimping beach in separate groups and found poor harvesting there, with the sea not calm and the high tide less than usual. By the time they reached the bay with the water-caves their stomachs were rumbling with hunger.

  It was Kerif’s fault, and Tong’s. When times were good, leaders accepted the prestige, but when times were bad the blame was all on them. It was in this mood that the tribe streamed into the bay and saw Presh sitting by a cave mouth in the evening shadow, chewing the back-muscles out of a succulent fish.

  He rose, supporting himself against the rock but managing to look as if he had expected their return. His leg was still too weak to bear his weight, but Li had decided only that morning that it would be safe to take the splint off. The bone had set crooked above the ankle, and the calf muscles were shrunken, but otherwise Presh was in fine fettle. He had eaten well, drunk fresh water, rested in the healing sea, been cosseted by females and slept untroubled in the cave. His muscles moved easily under the blue-black skin and his mane was glossy with health.

  The tribe had half-forgotten, during the separation, that Presh existed, but now they remembered and scampered up the rocks with cries of greeting. They fawned on him, inspected his leg and wheedled for his fish. At this point Hooa came out of the cave with a fish of her own and stood in baffled happiness, staring at the newcomers. Presh took her fish and passed it to Kerif with a lordly I give, and the same for Tong with the one he’d been eating. He barked Fetch to Hooa, meaning her to get him another one, but by then the tribe, eager for fresh water, were pressing into the caves, jostling to reach the thin sweet trickles down the rocks.

  They found the fish by smell in the dark and squabbled over them till they realized that there were enough for even the weakest to get a share, so they finished the day feasting on the spits by the mouth of the bay, where the rocks still held the warmth of the sun. It was obvious to all of them that Presh had arranged this feast as a reward for their return to his unquestionable leadership. He accepted their fawnings and touchings with great good humour. His prestige was immense.

  Prestige is like food. It must be frequently given and taken or its effect dwindles away. A full stomach will see people through a day and a night, and maybe another day, but by the second evening they were hungry again. Prestige lasts longer, but not very long among people with empty stomachs. Next morning Li came as usual to inspect Presh’s leg, to stroke and feel it and wonder what might be happening to the bone inside. She felt ill at ease. Alone with her small group, life had seemed straightforward. Presh had been leader, but he was hurt so he and the others had simply accepted that Li knew what should be done. And when they were hungry she would arrange for the dolphins to bring them fish.

  The tribe knew nothing of that. They had almost forgotten that Li might be in some way different. She was a child like other children, to be ignored unless she got in their way. Not that she wanted prestige for herself, but she was no longer certain how she fitted in, and that made her anxious.

  Tong came to pay his morning respects. Presh should have risen, allowing Tong to dip his own head and shoulders as a signal of acceptance of Presh’s superiority, but Presh stayed seated, looking lordly and confident. Puzzled, Tong peered into his eyes, then remembered about the leg and bent to inspect it. Presh had already tried it out and realized from the pain that it wouldn’t yet bear his weight, but he didn’t wish to have to hunker ignobly down to the sea in front of the whole tribe. Now he seized his chance. As Tong rose, Presh put his arm round his shoulder and used him to help himself to his feet. His free hand grabbed Li’s shoulder. Between them he hobbled down to the water, demonstrating that even a senior male must do what he, Presh, wanted.

  Once in the sea he was mobile enough, paddling with his hands and kicking with his good leg. He visited the families as usual, and set a shark-watch so that the tribe could scatter along the outer shore to forage. There was never a lot of food there, but they’d fed well the previous night and didn’t complain.

  Next day, though, stomachs were empty. People had drunk the fresh water they needed and the shore was picked bare. It was time to move, but the next good feeding-ground was a long swim north and included a land-trip across the neck of a headland whose sheer cliffs gave swimmers nowhere to climb to if sharks were sighted. Presh knew his leg wasn’t yet up to it and gave no signal for a move. By noon the tribe were restless and by evening they were angry. If there’d been a single alternative leader he’d have taken the chance to confront Presh, who’d have had no answer, and the tribe would have started north whether he wanted to or not. Tong and Kerif began a series of challenge and counter-challenge, but night came before they could settle the matter one way or the other.

  Li slept badly. Her anxiety had increased with the tension in the tribe. She felt herself
to be bound to Presh, as leader, by ties like those which bound her to Ma-ma. To the others in the tribe his weakness, and Kerif’s confrontation with Tong, and the almost inevitable change of leadership, were simply events to be accepted as they accepted most things within their experience, like a poor tide at the shrimping beach, something beyond their power to alter. But Li, just as she had at the shark-hunt, could see what needed to be done. The one possible solution was clear in her mind. The dolphins must bring another shoal of fish.

  She lay in the dark, calling to them in her mind, silent Come heres and Helps. And then, still thinking these calls, she tried to make them in the way the dolphins would understand, their own calls which she’d heard when she danced with them in the water. In silence she re-made their song, the long wailings that died and recovered and wavered, and the clicks, and the pauses which were like the ghosts of sounds. She filled her inward dark with the song of the dolphins until the cave around her seemed to whisper it aloud. She cried to them for help. Without words she prayed to them.

  No answer came, but at first light she swam to the bar and peered through the dazzle of the rising sun for dark backs arching from the sea. She lowered herself into the water and listened, but heard only the slap and slither of ripple on rock. She climbed up to stare out to sea, saw nothing and dipped again below to listen for the first whisper of the song.

  So in, so out, as the sun climbed. Tong and Kerif were starting their struggle in the bay, but she didn’t look round, only glancing at times to check that Presh was still nearby, lolling in the water and pretending not to have noticed the confrontation, though if he’d had his full strength he’d long ago have intervened to suppress such impertinence.

  She heard them first, but waited till she was sure that the sound was coming nearer. Then she climbed and stood tiptoe on the rocks, gazing east. Dark flecks rose from the long slope of a wave. She turned, plunged into the bay and swam to Presh and tugged at his arm, calling Come. He stared at her. For a child, even Li, to try to command the leader . . . Come she called and tugged harder, and now, knowing his need of her, he allowed himself to be persuaded up on to the rocks where he sat and looked along the line of her pointing arm.

  The dolphins were nearing now, spread into their hunting formation. The driven shoal puckered the water before them. Presh knew these signs – he’d seen two hunts from the cave mouth. He grabbed Li’s shoulder, almost forcing her to her knees as he hauled himself up to stand on his good leg. He bellowed to the tribe over his shoulder. A few heads turned, but before anyone had time to react the fore-runners of the shoal came streaming over the bar.

  Only Rawi, who was always hanging around somewhere near Presh, both understood what was happening and had time to get to the bar and grab a couple of fish, and then the whole shoal had swept through and the bay was full of people trying to catch them, keeping them at the pitch of panic, breaking the shoal into scattered groups which rushed to and fro until a group found the gap again and headed out. By then Presh, still using Li for support, bellowing and gesturing to force his authority through the tumult, had organized a dozen adults to be waiting ready in the shallows.

  They found it easy hunting. The whole tribe saw the silver bodies arching through the air to flop on to the rocks. Now they understood what was needed they spread out across the bay, rounded up the rest of the shoal and drove it all together to the entrance, where it met the earlier group which the waiting dolphins had already headed back. The shallows frothed with fish and people. Fish streamed through the air. The cliffs echoed with hunt-yells.

  There was a pause while the shoal broke free until the dolphins rounded them up and headed them back again, and Presh took the chance to organize a ring of people inside the bar, others poised on the rocks ready to grab the harvest from the shallows, and yet others to dive in outside and help the dolphins block the escape. The shoal came. He bellowed for action. The tribe screamed. The water all around the bar was white foam and shining dark bodies, people and dolphins together, while the children rushed squealing round the rocks, dodging the hail of fish.

  Then it was over, and the rocks were silvered with shining bodies. The haul was immense, beyond experience. Presh stood punching the air with his free hand, bellowing and triumphing, lord of the hunt, until Li managed to attract his attention. His first thought was to lift her high to share in the triumph, but as soon as he let go of her shoulder he staggered and half fell. She helped him down, and when he tried to rise again she backed away and called Come, and pointed seaward. He looked puzzled. She picked up a fish and threw it to a passing dolphin. Come-help, she called.

  Now he understood and hunkered across, picking up a fish as he came. A dolphin came cruising through the clear water and he tossed the fish to it, then laughed with triumph as it rose and took the gift. Kerif was standing close by, chewing meat he’d bitten from the fish in his hand. Presh gestured to him and barked Do it, but Kerif stood baffled till another dolphin swam by and Presh barked and gestured again. Reluctantly Kerif threw the fish to it, but his feelings seemed to change as the dolphin rose and took it, and he too laughed and spread his arms wide and punched the air.

  These signals made sense. Though the people often squabbled over small prey, when a hunter found something large enough to be shared he increased his prestige by doling out bits of it to allies and rivals. This was a vital part of the pattern of gestures and calls which kept the tribe whole and orderly, understanding each other’s needs, helping each other survive. Now the other seniors lined the rock to give back a proper share of this immense treasure of food, and the dolphins thronged below to take it. Li watched for a while, laughing and triumphing with the others. Then she took Presh by the arm and persuaded him down into the water and out to wait until the dolphins had had their fill, making signs to him to keep still when she saw them turning from the rock.

  They came nosing past close enough for her to stroke a flank, and she thought that was all, but they wheeled and returned and the dance began.

  Presh didn’t try to swim with them, but stayed still and became a fixed point in the dolphins’ to-and-fro weavings, letting them slide past him with long caressing movements while the broken sunlight rippled off their backs and the sea was full of their song. The tribe were in the water now, shadowy watchers, but when some of the males swam nearer Presh gestured Go away and they retreated, obedient as children. Still he didn’t question Li’s right to be there, joining as best she could in the pattern the dolphins made and sharing as she did so in his glory. He knew what she had done. He was a wise leader. While Kerif and Tong had been confronting each other in the bay and he’d been pretending not to notice, he had all the time been aware of Li, out on the rocks, waiting, staring seaward. The triumph was his, indisputable, but he knew it was Li who had caused it to happen. She was the one who could call the dolphins.

  NOW: TUESDAY AFTERNOON

  BY LUNCHTIME THERE was a large awning erected at the bottom of the hill, and a little one a few yards along from where Dad was working, to shade a second trench. By now it was too hot for work out in the open, so after lunch everyone rested. Dad made Vinny go and lie down while he wrote up his notes. She’d never have believed she could sleep in that heat, but she did, for nearly two hours. When she woke it was still roastingly hot, but she looked out of the tent and saw that the others were up on the hill again, so she climbed slowly up to see if she could still help. The moment she arrived she realized that Dad was in a bad mood, deep in one of his silences. It didn’t take her long to find out why.

  Dr Wessler had (typically, Vinny guessed) got out of doing the heavy preliminary work of opening up the second trench, and he and the Hamiskas and anyone else who could be spared were spread out surveying the rest of the outcrop for possible further sites. Meanwhile, Watson Azikwe and Michael Haddu were hacking out the soil above the fossil-layer and carting it down to the tip. They were both Africans. Michael was a grizzled, roly-poly man who (Dad had told her) had left school when
he was twelve. He’d been on a lot of expeditions like this in other countries, starting as a labourer but becoming interested, so that by now he knew more about field-work than a lot of highly-qualified experts.

  Watson was Dr Azikwe, but Vinny couldn’t think of him like that. He was quite young, for one thing, only twenty-something. He wore three gold chains under a gaudy open shirt. Vinny thought he was fun. She enjoyed his style, and the way he assumed that all the world was going to like him as much as he liked himself. The trouble was, Dad didn’t.

  It was Watson’s fault. While Michael was hacking out a fresh barrow-load of spoil, Watson squatted by Dad’s trench, chattering away about his time in Europe and America, and the well-known palaeontologists he’d met. Dad was crouched out of sight. Vinny heard one or two grunts – snorts, more like, to Vinny’s ears – but Watson treated them as encouragement to keep the conversation going. It wasn’t that Watson was shirking. As soon as Michael called to him he gangled himself up and wheeled the full barrow down the slope. Dad straightened in the trench, wiped his face with his shirt and took a swig of water from his bottle.

  ‘I’ve had about as much of that chap as I can stand,’ he muttered.

  ‘Poor Dad. Do you want me to try and distract him?’

  ‘It would be like trying to distract the Victoria Falls.’

  ‘I’ll ask him to explain about something.’

  ‘Why not? Try him on these – he says he’s done some work on molluscs, and he seems to know his stuff, in spite of everything. Keep them with the H-layer material – that bag there.’

  He passed out his latest collection of shell-fragments. Vinny lashed her parasol to an awning-pole and laid out the pieces in its shade. By now Watson was doing his stint with the pick and shovel while Michael rested, so she had a bit of time. Most of the pieces were from something like a mussel, about the size of her thumb-joint, but there were three from a creature which must have been about as big as her palm. The H-layer was important – it was the one which had had the hominid fossils in it, immediately above the tuff. She sorted through the bag and found several more pieces of larger shell.