“And they’re motorized!” Jai grinned. “How come I didn’t know you were so brilliant before?”
How should she take that comment? It didn’t matter. Getting to Jonathon mattered. She followed Jai up-rope to a glassoleum bubble dotted with emergency symbols. Directions for opening the bubble were painted on the shell. Jai pulled a lever and water and air began changing places just like in the locks, the tempo of the exchange exact so that no pressure differences were introduced.
The sled was a simple backboard cupped to hold the injured worker, straps, an air tube and spare helmet, and handholds. She was strapped in moments later, feeling foolish but grateful for any way to get to Jonathon.
She clutched the translator to her as they traveled, excruciatingly slowly, toward the brilliant light of Downbelow Dome, their own small findme light illuminating just a few feet of water in front of them. She lay down in the sled, keeping it as aerodynamic as possible, while Jai trailed his long body behind her and the sled. Every once in a while, she heard the swish of his fins behind her as he added his strength to the tiny motor. The sea floor spun by slowly, seven meters or so below them, rocky and full of waving sea-trees and sponges specially adapted to use the human-provided light to grow unusually large at this depth.
As they came closer, the whales’ dark bodies and lighter bellies began to resolve below the harness lights. When the sled was halfway there, she flipped on the come lever again, watching the whales for any sign they heard her. The translator ball in her hand glowed a soft orange. Proximity?
One of the lights began to grow bigger. A whale was coming toward them. She wanted to crow in relief, but held her tongue, listening. The translator would surely tell her what the whales were saying. If they said anything.
The other two whales stayed by Downbelow Dome.
The translator glowed brighter. Was it trying to talk to her? How would it? She searched the little ball, somehow pressing something that sent the whale song thrumming through her speakers. Then English—translated whale: “Turn it off!”
Oh. Oh! She thumbed off the lever. It must have been like yelling at them. She tried speaking at it. “Thank you.” The ball stayed quiet. The whale kept coming, larger than she thought from this angle. Fast. She leaned toward it, unafraid, the sheer beauty of the behemoth making her want to sing. She squeezed the translator tight to her and a voice spoke in her ear, and she nearly dropped the ball. “The whale expresses confusion.”
It must respond to pressure. She squeezed the ball. “Confusion?” she asked.
“The dome is not responding to it. It needs to drop its cargo.”
“So I don’t need these levers? I can just talk to you?”
“They’re handy if you need to give an emergency command.”
All right. “How can I help it know what to do?”
The translator apparently wasn’t smart enough to answer her question the way she’d phrased it. “What does the whale need?”
“Go to the docks. Help them drop their cargo. Then they’ll leave.”
The whale turned slowly away from her, making a circle. Waiting. Three bulging nets hung from its harness. “I need the whales to help me.”
Jai stayed silent, keeping them on course, letting her work it out. But their com was open. Surely he heard the conversation. She made sure to hold the ball loosely and safely between her fingers. “Jai? Do you have any idea how to get the whales to help the city breathe? If we just help them unload, they’ll leave. I don’t know how to make them stay.”
“Maybe we can find something to attach the whales to the girder. I need to see the damage.”
“They’ll stay together.” The dome loomed up now, more than twice as big as it had looked from the shift-station. They were over halfway there. She squeezed the ball. “Ask the whales to wait for me by the dome.”
Sound belled out from the ball, filling her helmet and the sea around them. The whale she had been talking to (she had been talking to a whale!) beat them to the docks by at least ten minutes. As the dome loomed large and silent and bright above them, Kitha said, “Doesn’t it feel like we’re visiting an artifact?”
Jai grunted. “Like an archeological dig.” She heard the fear in his voice, and wondered if she sounded as bad. Who did he love that was inside, silent, hopefully alive?
The whales bunched, never still. Their harnesses provided air, so they didn’t need to breach to breathe, but breaching was instinct, and every migratory and work path allowed for trips to the surface. Surely their time was running out.
Jai must have felt the same. He was all business as soon as they rounded the huge bright arch of the dome and began to approach the lungs, and the mess that lay on top of them. Kitha though he might leave the sled on the seafloor and set her free to swim, but he kept her in it, strapped in, and they glided through tumbled bars and floors of steel that had once been a strong structure that stored transports and materials, the goods brought and sent by whales, and the underwater ships of visiting dignitaries. In a way, she liked still being on the sled. It somehow made the tangled landscape seem more like it belonged to a dream. This close, shadows and movement from inside touched the Dome’s surface even though the glassoleum had been dialed to its most opaque setting to keep warmth inside the dome. People lived in there.
Kitha clutched the translator. “Tell them thank you. Ask them to wait for longer. We will need them.”
It pulsed in her hand, and then sang. The low mournful notes seemed a perfect backdrop to the destruction they saw. Glassoleum and plastic had all weathered the quake well; metal had snapped and fallen.
The lungs were the size of the biggest whale, slightly squatter. They peeled disassociated oxygen from the water and fed it carbon dioxide, breathing the water like mammals so they could be plants in the dome itself, where they exhaled oxygen and inhaled carbon dioxide. They were grouped in two sets of three to minimize damage. A dome could live in lockdown on three lungs for days. The domes were safe. Everyone said so.
Her boy was in there.
A long squared metal post lay across three of the lungs, holding them down. The lungs lay quiescent under it, undoubtedly turned off. Shreds of one lung covering floated around one end of the pole, but the other two looked whole and undamaged.
Now that they were here, it was easy to see what they had to do—get the whales to help them lift the large square metal pole that kept the lungs down. But how to do it? Kitha glanced up at the milling whales. They would have to be willing helpers. Psychology, she mused. There was no way to use food. Blue whales sieved the sea for plankton, which was more of a problem than a solution. Surely they were hungry by now, left on-shift past their time. The only thing she knew they wanted was to get rid of their burdens and get free—go eat and breach and play and be whales done with their hard work.
She asked Jai, “Do you see anything we can tie to a harness?”
He was silent for a moment. She thought with him, wracking her brain. “What about the harnesses themselves? If we get one off, will it be long enough?”
“You’d have to get the whale right down next to the metal. There wouldn’t be enough torque. It might get hurt.”
Well, that was no good. “What about the lines that hold the lights up?”
“Maybe. But they’re attached directly to the dome.”
“Isn’t there some kind of failsafe?” she mused. “What if a whale ran into them? Or a transport?”
“Some kind of quick-release?” he asked. “I don’t know. I don’t have any idea how to trigger it.”
She didn’t have any other ideas. “We’ll just have to go look.” Her hands clenched in sudden anger. “Why won’t the damn city talk to us? Surely they can see we’re out here.” Her voice had an edge.
He waved a hand at the communication antenna that had been destroyed, as if to say “they just can’t,” but before he could get a verbal answer out, the translator spoke. “I can talk to the city—if anyone in there is using a transla
tor. Someone may have thought of it.”
Wow. “Can you?” she asked, stuttering.
“Would you like me to?”
Damn all literal devices to hell. Her answer came out through clenched teeth. “Yes. Please.” And before she could formulate another question, a tinny, machine-voice sounded in her helmet. “This is the emergency whale communications system. Hold on.”
She waited. Minutes passed. Shadowy movement passed between the lights inside the dome and the shell.
The whales circled faster, as if trying to tell her something.
“Whale trainer Jerzy Hu here. Great idea. We have you on-camera.”
She glanced at Jai. A broad smile showed through his helmet and he lifted one hand as if in benediction. She grinned and blushed. Luck, mostly, and the fact that she’d even tried. She’d never met Jerzy, but she was ready to make the woman her new best friend.
“Can anyone come out and help us free the lungs?” Surely they could see what needed to be done.
Jerzy’s voice in her ear. “The dome is closed. It’s automatic. It won’t let us out. We’ve been trying. It seems to think even one lockfull of lost air will kill us all.”
There were a thousand things she wanted to ask. “Is everyone okay in there?”
“Almost everyone. A building fell. Three people died and we have about twenty injured.”
Jonathon. “My son. Jonathon Horner. Is he okay?”
A laugh. “He’s been a pest ever since the dome closed with you outside it. He’s okay.”
Kitha wanted to talk to him so badly it hurt. But the whales! “Jerzy. How do I get the whales to help us? We need rope or chain or something, and then maybe they can help us lift this.”
“We’ve been working on that ever since you called that whale. That was Kiley, by the way. The other two are Penelope and Lisa.”
She’d never thought to ask the translator the whale’s names. “Thanks, Jerzy. Did you come up with any ideas?”
“The trick will be getting them not to take off. Kiley’s the key—he leads that pod. But you have to get him to like you.”
“I like him. I love him. What do I do?”
“Swim up to him. You’ll have to guide the whole thing. Send Jai down to the communications building. We know it’s a wreck, but there should be wires used to move the antenna around when we need to work on it. At least one will be attached to the antenna.”
Jai was already directing the sled down. “Okay. But what do I do to make a whale like me?”
“Be yourself,” Jerzy said. “He’ll bond with you or he won’t. Whales make up their own minds about who they’ll accept as a trainer.”
Great. The sled bottomed out and Jai’s hands began to unstrap her, clumsy in his big pressure gloves.
“Oh . . . and don’t be afraid of him,” Jerzy added. “Be positive. Whales like the positive.”
She floated free of the sled. Jai was already heading for the wreck of the dome’s communications equipment.
“Jerzy, I’m going.”
The woman’s voice was warm and encouraging. “Good luck.”
Kitha kicked upward. Should she ask Kiley to come to her? The whale wasn’t far away. Maybe she’d start by just coming near and then waiting. Her stomach had gone to water. She had to succeed.
About halfway up the tall curve of the dome, Kitha kicked a little bit away, holding the translator ball in two hands so she wouldn’t drop it, being careful not to squeeze it. Who knew how much power it had?
She treaded water, her right leg working harder than her left, watching the three whales. She picked out Kiley as much from the shape of the bundles attached to his harness as from anything else.
She watched him, willing him to come to her.
The whales milled. The smallest one started to break up and away, toward the surface, but Kiley called out to it, a short sweet sound that turned the beast back down. He circled her, keeping his distance.
She squeezed the ball. “Jerzy. What do I do?” Her voice shook.
“I can’t help you. He doesn’t like me.”
Kitha groaned. What would she want? Heck, what did that matter? She didn’t think like a whale. She was a kelp-farmer. The lowest of the low, except maybe the janitors. “Jerzy, do they like you to come to them?”
“Trust yourself.”
Okay. She’d stay put. Show respect.
Kiley circled her again, a little closer, then he turned away, his great tail undulating through the water, lit from the underside by the city’s own interior brightness.
Had she failed? She held her breath, willing him to turn and come back.
The other two whales began to follow him.
She pressed the come button, surrounding herself with sound. And turned it off. She remembered the last time.
The three whales turned in unison, as if responding to some unspoken command. A water ballet of big blue creatures. Kitha drew in a breath at the sheer beauty of their coordination. Kiley flicked his tail and moved to the front, swimming so closely by her that she saw the barnacles lining his mouth. She transferred the ball to her left hand, flicked her own tail—her fins—pain shooting up her right thigh. Kitha grabbed a handle on the harness with her right hand. Kiley pulled her gently along. “Tell him thank you,” she said.
Sound belled out from her hand, a long gentle noise, softer by far than the come signal.
She looked down. Jai was attaching something to the big girder down below. He’d found a line.
“Ask Kiley to swim over clear ground.” She tucked the translator into her pocket, and then twisted to look at the nets. The latches that held the cargo nets in place were easy to see. She waited while the great whale swam a few meters past the dome, then lifted the latches, scrunching close against the whale’s body as the nets fell free, tumbling to the ground, bouncing once, twice, and then resting. She should have had Kiley go slower and lower. Hell, she was learning. Now that he was free of the nets, she slid up on Kiley’s back. She laughed, suddenly deliriously happy. She, Kitha, rode a whale! She must have bumped it, because the translator seemed to laugh with her for a moment. Kiley sped up, taking her up and around the dome, fast, a big circle. She freed a hand and grabbed the translator. “We have to wait,” she said. “Ask him to go down.”
Sound. And instant compliance. Kiley liked her. She wanted to lean down and pet him, but one hand held the translator and the other held fast to the harness. She leaned down and kissed him.
If she was specific, the whale did what she asked. She got Kiley positioned so Jai could tie the free end of the rope to the harness, and then turned the whale. She had to be sure she didn’t damage the lungs or the dome.
Or the whale?
Kiley seemed to understand. He bunched under her, gathering himself, and then he whipped his tail up and down so powerfully that the backlash in the water pushed Jai away. The metal bar rose easily, upending and landing with a puff on empty seafloor.
The lungs lay still and quiet. “Are they broken?” Kitha asked Jai.
Jerzy answered. “You were magnificent. And no. They’ll come on all by themselves. At least the two that aren’t torn. They’ll need to finish running diagnostics.”
“All right. What’s the smallest whale’s name?”
“Penelope.”
Kitha stripped Penelope and then Lisa of their cargo, being more careful to drop it carefully. The whales immediately took off, swimming in unison again, their great tails moving up and down to the same beat. Kitha thought she might never have seen anything more beautiful.
Jai swam up next to her and took her hand, waiting with her until the whales had disappeared from sight.
Behind them, the city drew a deep breath.
She squeezed Jai’s hand and headed toward the dome. Locks were already disgorging people and machinery to finish what she and Jai had started.
Just inside the lock, Jonathon waited beside a tall smiling red-haired woman who must be Jerzy. He raced into her arms, warm
and wriggly. “I’m so proud of you, Mommy!”
A tear dripped down her cheek as she held her son close.
STAR of HUMANITY
A gust of wind jerked the hood of Tanya Paul’s sweatshirt off of her blond hair. She glanced up at the dark clouds above her and then back down at the dirty sidewalk. Maybe she should find shelter. She had come to downtown Kirkland to meet her classmate, Jennie, only to receive a text cancelling the meeting just after she coasted into a parking place. Her homework had to be done whether she had someone to study with or not. Bad enough that one in five new students with teaching degrees had a chance in hell at actually teaching. Which she was going to figure out how to do. Somehow.
Sheets of rain fell from clouds halfway across the lake, the wind driving the whole mess her way. She pulled off one cheap purple glove with her teeth so she could swipe at her phone and look for deals. She touched the button for food, and offerings filled the screen.
Greek. Italian. Three Mexican choices. Maybe one of them had a bar she could sit in and spread out. A coffee place with food would be better. There. Gusto Beans and Bakery. Two blocks ahead of her on the right. A yellow coupon bubble sprang to life. Free specialty coffee with dinner. She popped the menu open. They had her favorite drink (Half-caf soy latte with real caramel drizzle) and a list of sandwiches. Okay. Whatever they offered for food would do. Damn Jennie anyway for abandoning her.
She made it inside the doorway just as raindrops started pinging on the metal overhang. It was largely empty, which explained the coupon. There was even an open table near a cheerful little fireplace. She headed straight for it, shrugged her backpack off, and sat down with a sigh. The barista looked up and smiled but hurried into the back on a mission. Tanya still had her phone in hand, so she decided to pick a sandwich. The menu was still on the screen. Ham and cheese on focaccia. Butternut squash and asparagus on an open-faced bun.
Cracking the Sky Page 11