Arthur C Clarke - Dolphin Island

by Dolphin Island(lit)

  There were hundreds of them, making their easy, effortless way across the sea. When the Flying Fish came to rest, they crowded around her as if they had been expecting such a visit; perhaps, indeed, they had.

  The crane was brought into action, and Einar was lowered over the side. But only Einar, for, as the Professor explained, "There'll be a good many boisterous males down there, and we don't want any trouble while Einar's scouting around for us." Peggy was indignant, but there was nothing she could do about it except splash everyone who came within range.

  This, thought Johnny, must be one of the strangest conferences that has ever taken place. He stood with Mick on the foredeck, leaning over the side and looking down at the sleek, dark-gray bodies gathered round Einar. What were they saying? Could Einar fully understand the language of his deep-sea cousins-and could the Professor understand Einar?

  Whatever the outcome of this meeting, Johnny felt a deep gratitude toward these friendly, graceful creatures. He hoped that Professor Kazan could help them, as they had helped him.

  After half an hour, Einar swam back into the sling and was hoisted aboard, to Peggy's great relief-as well as to the Professor's.

  "I hope most of that was just gossip," he remarked. "Thirty minutes of solid Dolphin talk means a week's work, even with all the help the computer can give me."

  Below deck, the engines of the Flying Fish roared into life, and once again the ship lifted slowly out of the water.

  The dolphins kept up with it for a few hundred yards, but they were soon hopelessly outpaced. This was one speed contest in which they could not compete. The last that Johnny saw of them was a frieze of distant, dark bodies, leaping against the skyline, and already miles astern.

  Chapter 10

  Johnny began his skin-diving lessons at the edge of the jetty, among the anchored fishing boats. The water was crystal clear, and as it was only four or five feet deep, he could make all his beginner's mistakes in perfect safety while he learned the use of flippers and face mask.

  Mick was not a very good teacher. He had been able to swim and dive all his life, and could no longer remember his early troubles. To him it seemed incredible that anyone could fail to go effortlessly down to the sea bed, or could not remain there in complete comfort for two or three minutes. So he grew quite impatient when his pupil remained bobbing about on the surface like a cork, with his legs kicking up in the air, unable to submerge more than a few inches.

  Before long, however, Johnny got the right idea. He learned not to fill his lungs before a dive; that turned him into a balloon and gave him so much buoyancy that he simply couldn't go under. Next, he found that if he threw his legs clear out of the water, their unsupported weight drove him straight down. Then, once his feet were well below the surface, he could start kicking with his flippers, and they would drive him easily in any direction.

  After a few hours of practice, he lost his initial clumsiness. He discovered the delights of swooping and gliding in a weightless world, like a spaceman in orbit. He could do loops and rolls, or hover motionless at any depth. But he could not stay under for even half as long as Mick; like everything that was worth doing, that would take time and practice.

  He knew now that he had the time. Professor Kazan, although mild-mannered, was a person who wielded a great deal of influence, and he had seen to that. Wires had been pulled, forms had been filled in, and Johnny was now officially on the island establishment. His aunt had been only too eager to agree and had gladly forwarded the few belongings he valued. Now that he was on the other side of the world and could look back at his past life with more detachment, Johnny wondered if some of the fault might have been his. Had he really tried to fit into the household that had adopted him? He knew that his widowed aunt had not had an easy time. When he was older, he might understand her problems better, and perhaps they could be friends. But whatever happened, he did not for one moment regret that he had run away.

  It was as if a new chapter had opened in his life-one that had no connection with anything that had gone before. He realized that until now he had merely existed; he had not really lived. Having lost those he loved while he was so young, he had been scared of making fresh attachments; worse than that, he had become suspicious and self-centered. But now he was changing as the warm communal life of the island swept away the barriers of his reserve.

  The fisherfolk were friendly, good-natured, and not too hard-working. There was no need for hard work, in a place where it was never cold and one had only to reach into the sea to draw out food. Every night, it seemed, there would be a dance or a movie show or a barbecue on the beach. And when it rained-as it sometimes did, at the rate of several inches an hour-there was always television. Thanks to the relay satellites, Dolphin Island was less than half a second from any city on Earth. The islanders could see everything that the rest of the world had to offer, while still being comfortably detached from it. They had most of the advantages of civilization and few of its defects.

  But it was not all play for Johnny by any means. Like every other islander under twenty (and many of them over that age), he had to spend several hours a day at school.

  Professor Kazan was keen on education, and the island had twelve teachers-two human, ten electronic. This was about the usual proportion, since the invention of teaching machines in the middle of the twentieth century had at last put education on a scientific basis.

  All the machines were coupled to OSCAR, the big computer which did the Professor's translating, handled most of the island's administration and bookkeeping, and could play championship chess on demand. Soon after Johnny's arrival, OSCAR had given him a thorough quiz to discover his level of education, then had prepared suitable instruction tapes and printed a training program for him. Now he spent at least three hours a day at the keyboard of a teaching machine, typing out his responses to the information and questions flashed on the screen. He could choose his own time for his classes, but he knew better than to skip them. If he did so, OSCAR reported it at once to the Professor-or, worse still, to Dr. Keith.

  At the moment, the two scientists had much more important matters to bother about. After twenty-four hours of continuous work, Professor Kazan had translated the message that Einar had brought back-and it had placed him fairly and squarely on the horns of a dilemma. The Professor was a man of peace. If there was one phrase that summed him up, it was "kindhearted." And now, to his great distress, he was being asked to take sides in a war.

  He glared at the message that OSCAR had typed out, as if hoping that it would go away. But he had only himself to blame; after all, he was the one who had insisted on going after it.

  "Well, Professor," asked Dr. Keith who, tired and unshaven, was slumped over the tape-control desk, "now what are we going to do?"

  "I haven't the faintest idea," said Professor Kazan. Like most good scientists, and very few bad ones, he was never ashamed to admit when he was baffled. "What would you suggest?"

  "It seems to me that this is where our Advisory Committee would be useful. Why not talk it over with a couple of the members?"

  "That's not a bad idea," said the Professor. "Let's see who we can contact at this time of day." He pulled a list of names out of a drawer and started running his finger down the columns.

  "Not the Americans-they'll all be sleeping. Ditto most of the Europeans. That leaves-let's see-Saha in Delhi, Hirsch in Tel Aviv, Abdullah in---"

  "That's enough!" interrupted Dr. Keith. "I've never known a conference-call do anything useful with more than five people in it."

  "Right-we'll see if we can get these."

  A quarter of an hour later, five men scattered over half the globe were talking to each other as if they were all in the same room. Professor Kazan had not asked for vision, though that could have been provided, if necessary. Sound was quite sufficient for the exchange of views he wanted.

  "Gentlemen," he began, after the initial greetings, "we have a problem. It will have to go to the whole Committee
before long-and perhaps much higher than that-but I'd like your unofficial opinions first."

  "Ha!" said Dr. Hassim Abdullah, the great Pakistani biochemist, from his laboratory in Karachi. "You must have asked me for at least a dozen 'unofficial opinions' by now, and I don't recall that you took the slightest notice of any of them."

  "This time I may," answered the Professor. The solemnity in his tone warned his listeners that this was no ordinary discussion.

  Quickly he outlined the events leading up to Johnny's arrival on the island. They were already familiar to his audience, for this strange rescue had received world-wide publicity. Then he described the sequel-the voyage of the Flying Fish and Einar's parley with the deep-sea dolphins.

  "That may go down in the history books," he said, "as the first conference between Man and an alien species. I'm sure it won't be the last, so what we do now may help to shape the future-in space, as well as on Earth.

  "Some of you, I know, think I've overestimated the intelligence of dolphins. Well, now you can judge for yourselves. They've come to us, asking for help against the most ruthless of their enemies. There are only two creatures in the sea that normally attack them. The shark, of course, is one, but he's not a serious danger to a school of adult dolphins; they can kill him by ramming him in the gills. Because he's only a stupid fish-stupid even for a fish-they have nothing but contempt and hatred for him.

  "The other enemy is a different matter altogether because he's their cousin, the killer whale, Orcinus Orca. It's not far wrong to say that Orca is a giant dolphin who's turned cannibal. He grows up to thirty feet in length, and specimens have been found with twenty dolphins in their stomachs. Think of that-an appetite that needs twenty dolphins at a time to satisfy it!

  "No wonder that they've appealed to us for protection. They know that we've got powers they can't match-our ships have been proof of that for centuries. Perhaps, during all these ages, their friendliness to us has been an attempt to make contact, to ask for our help in their continual war-and only now have we had the intelligence to understand them. If that's true, I feel ashamed of myself- and my species."

  "Just a minute, Professor," interrupted Dr. Saha, the Indian physiologist. "This is all very interesting, but are you quite certain that your interpretation is correct? Don't get upset, but we all know your affection for dolphins, which most of us share. Are you sure you haven't put your own ideas into their mouths?"

  Some men might have been annoyed by this, even though Dr. Saha had spoken as tactfully as possible. But Professor Kazan replied mildly enough.

  "There's no doubt-ask Keith."

  "That's correct," Dr. Keith confirmed. "I can't translate Dolphin as well as the Professor, but I'd stake my reputation on this."

  "Anyway," continued Professor Kazan. "My next point should prove that I'm not hopelessly pro-dolphin, however fond of them I happen to be. I'm not a zoologist, but I know something about the balance of nature. Even if we could help them, should we? Dr. Hirsch, you may have some ideas on that."

  The Director of the Tel-Aviv Zoo took his time in answering; he was still a little sleepy, for it was not yet dawn in Israel.

  "This is a hot potato you've handed us," he grumbled. "And I doubt if you've thought of all the complications. In the natural state, all animals have enemies-predators- and it would be disastrous for them if they didn't. Look at Africa, for example, where you've got lions and antelopes sharing the same territory. Suppose you shot all the lions- what would happen then? I'll tell you: the antelopes would multiply until they stripped all the food, and then they'd starve.

  "Whatever the antelopes think about it, the lions are very good for them. Besides preventing them from outrunning their food supplies, they keep them fit, by eliminating the weaker specimens. That's Nature's way; it's cruel by our standards, but effective."

  "In this case the analogy breaks down," said Professor Kazan. "We're not dealing with wild animals but with intelligent people. They're not human people, but they're still people. So the correct analogy would be with a tribe of peaceable farmers who are continuously ravaged by cannibals. Would you say that the cannibals are good for the farmers-or would you try to reform the cannibals?"

  Hirsch chuckled.

  "Your point is well taken, though I'm not sure how you propose to reform killer whales."

  "Just a minute," said Dr. Abdullah. "You're getting outside my territory. How bright are killer whales? Unless they really are as intelligent as dolphins, the analogy between human tribes breaks down, and there's no moral problem."

  "They're intelligent enough," Professor Kazan answered unhappily. "The few studies that have been made suggest that they're at least as intelligent as the other dolphins."

  "I suppose you know that famous story about the killers who tried to catch the Antarctic explorers?" said Dr. Hirsch. The others admitted ignorance, so he continued: "It happened back at the beginning of the last century, on one of the early expeditions to the South Pole-Scott's, I think. Anyway, a group of the explorers were on the edge of an ice floe, watching some killer whales in the water. It never occurred to them that they were in any danger-until suddenly the ice beneath them started to shatter. The beasts were ramming it from underneath, and the men were lucky to jump to safety before they broke right through the ice. It was about three feet thick, too."

  "So they'll eat men if they have the chance," said someone. "You can count my vote against them."

  "Well, one theory was that they mistook the fur-clad explorers for penguins, but I'd hate to put it to the test. In any case, we're fairly sure that several skin-divers have been taken by them."

  There was a short silence while everyone digested this information. Then Dr. Saha started the ball rolling again.

  "Obviously, we need more facts before we come to any decisions. Someone will have to catch a few killer whales and make a careful study of them. Do you suppose you could make contact with them, Nickolai, as you have with dolphins?"

  "Probably, though it might take years."

  "We're getting away from the point," said Dr. Hirsch impatiently. "We've still got to decide what we should do, not how we do it. And I'm afraid there's another thundering big argument in favor of killer whales and against our dolphin friends."

  "I know what it is," said Professor Kazan, "but go ahead."

  "We get a substantial percentage of our food from the sea-about a hundred million tons of fish per annum. Dolphins are our direct competitors: what they eat is lost to us. You say there's a war between the killer whales and the dolphins, but there's also a war between dolphins and fishermen, who get their nets broken and their catches stolen. In this war, the killer whales are our allies. If they didn't keep the dolphin population under control, there might be no fish for us."

  Oddly enough, this did not seem to discourage the Professor. Indeed, he sounded positively pleased.

  "Thank you, Mordecai-you've given me an idea. You know, of course, that dolphins have sometimes helped men to round up schools of fish, sharing the catch afterward? It used to happen with the aborigines here in Queensland, two hundred years ago."

  "Yes, I know about that. Do you want to bring the custom up to date?"

  "Among other ideas. Thank you very much, gentlemen; I'm extremely grateful to you. As soon as I've carried out a few experiments, I'll send a memorandum to the whole Committee and we'll have a full-scale meeting."

  "You might give us a few clues, after waking us up at this time in the morning."

  "Not yet, if you don't mind-until I know which ideas are utterly insane and which ones are merely crazy. Give me a couple of weeks, and meanwhile, you might inquire if anyone has a killer whale that I can borrow. Preferably one that won't eat more than a thousand pounds of food a day."

  Chapter 11

  Johnny's first trip across the reef at night was an experience he remembered all his life. The tide was out, there was no Moon, and the stars were brilliant in a cloudless sky when he and Mick set off from the beach,
equipped with waterproof flashlights, spears, face masks, gloves, and sacks, which they hoped to fill with crayfish. Many of the reef's inhabitants left their hiding places only after dark, and Mick was particularly anxious to find some rare and beautiful shells which never appeared in the daytime. He made a good deal of money selling these to mainland collectors-quite illegally, as the island fauna was supposed to be protected under the Queensland Fisheries Act.

  They crunched across the exposed coral, with their flashlights throwing pools of lights ahead of them-pools that seemed very tiny in the enormous darkness of the reef. The night was so black that by the time they had gone a hundred yards there was no sign of the island; luckily, a red warning beacon on one of the radio masts served as a landmark. Without this to give them their bearings, they would have been hopelessly lost. Even the stars were not a safe guide, for they swung across much of the sky in the time it took to reach the edge of the reef and to return.

  In any event, Johnny had to concentrate so hard on picking a way across the brittle, shadowy coral world, that he had little time to look at the stars. But when he did glance up, he was struck by something so strange that for a moment he could only stare at it in amazement.