Bethlehem and Others: Collected Stories

by Peter Watts

  How come it’s okay for sharks to kill baby seals? Because sharks aren’t moral agents. They can’t see the ethical implications of their actions.

  How come it’s not okay for people to kill baby seals? Because we can.

  Now orcas are moral agents too. They talk. They think. They reason. Not that that’s any surprise to Dipnet’s passengers, of course—they knew the truth way back when all those bozo scientists were insisting that orcas were basically chimps with fins. But sometimes, too much insight can lead to the wrong kind of questions, questions that distract one from the truth. Questions like:

  How come it’s okay for orcas to kill baby seals, but we can’t?

  If only those idiot scientists hadn’t barged in and proved everything. Now there’s no choice but to get the orcas to give up meat.

  The Residents have the greatest moral potential. At least they draw the line at fish. The Transients remain relentlessly bullheaded in their mammalvory, but perhaps the Residents can be brought to full enlightenment. Back on shore, one of the west coast’s best-known Kirlian nutritionists is working tirelessly on alternate ways to meet Orcinus’ dietary requirements. She’s already had some spectacular successes with her own cats. Not only is a vegan diet vastly more efficient than conventional pet foods—the cats eat only a fraction of what they used to—but the felines have so much more energy now that they’re always out on the prowl. You hardly ever see them at home any more.

  Not everything goes so well, of course. There’ve been setbacks. In hindsight, it may have been premature to dump that thousand heads of Romaine lettuce onto A4-Pod last summer during their spring migration. Not only did the Residents fail to convert to Veganism, but apparently they’d actually been considering certain exceptions to their eat-no-mammals policy. Fortunately, everyone on the boat had made it back okay.

  But that’s in the past. Live and learn. Today, it is enough to stand in solidarity with the Residents against the mammalphagous Transient foe, to add Human voices in peaceful protest for a just cause. The moral education can come later. Now it is time to make friends.

  The men and women of the Dipnet have the utmost faith in their abilities in this regard. They’re ready, they’re willing, they’re the best of the best.

  What else could they be? Every last one of them was handpicked by Anna-Marie Hamilton.

  • • •

  SHAMU SAILS PAST DOUG IN MID-AIR, his ivory belly a good two meters above water level. Their eyes meet. For all this talk about killer whale intelligence, it still looks like a big dumb fish to Doug.

  It belly-flops. A small tsunami climbs the splashguards. A few scattered voices go oooooh.

  “Now, Shamu is a Transient, so of course he’d never normally eat fish,” Ramona announces. This is not entirely true. Back before the Breakthrough, fish was all captive Transients ever got. A decent meal plan was one of the first things they negotiated when the language barrier fell. “So to feed him what he really wants, he knows he has to hide for a bit.”

  Ramona touches a control on her belt and speaks into the mike. What’s coming out of the speakers now isn’t English. It sounds more like fingernails on a blackboard.

  Shamu spits back a series of clicks and sinks below the surface. Waves surge back and forth across the tank, playing themselves out against the walls. Doug, standing on tiptoes, can just barely make out the black-and-white shape lurking near the bottom of the tank like a squad car at a radar trap.

  Peripheral movement. Doug glances up as a great chocolatecolored shape lumbers out onto the deck. It’s twice the size of the man who herds it onstage with a little help from an electric cattle prod.

  “Some of you may recognize this big bruiser.” Ramona’s switched back to English. “Yes, this is a Steller sea lion. When he was just a pup, scientists from the North Pacific Fishing Consortium—one of the aquarium’s proudest sponsors— rescued him and some of his friends from the wild. They were part of a research project that was intended to promote the conservation of sea lions in the North Pacific.”

  The sea lion darts its head back and forth, snorting like a horse. Its wet, brown eyes blink stupidly.

  “And not a moment too soon. As you may know from our everpopular Pinniped habitat, Stellers were declared extinct in the wild just five years ago. This is now one of the only places in the world where you can still see these magnificent creatures, and we take our responsibility to our charges very seriously. We go to great lengths to ensure that everything about their environment is as natural as possible.

  “Including…”

  Ramona pauses for effect.

  “…Predators.”

  A ragged cheer rises up from the bleachers. Spooked, the sea lion bobs its head like a fat furry metronome. The animal wheels around the way it came, but the guy with the prod is blocking its way.

  “Please try not to make any loud noises or sudden moves,” Ramona smiles belatedly.

  With a few final nudges from the cattle prod, the sea lion slides into the water. It dives immediately, finally curious about its big new home.

  Apparently it discovers all it wants to in about half a second, after which it shoots from the center of the pool like a Polaris missile. It doesn’t quite achieve escape velocity and hits the water running, lunging for the edge as fast as its flippers can churn.

  Shamu rises up like Shiva. One effortless chomp and the Steller explodes like a big wet piñata. A curtain of blood drenches the plexi barriers. Streamers of intestine fly through the air like shiny pink firehoses.

  The audience goes wild. This is the kind of award-winning educational display they can relate to.

  Shamu surges back and forth, mopping up leftover sea lion. It takes less than a minute. By the time he’s finished, Ramona has the harpoon set up on the gangway.

  • • •

  TWO KILOMETERS OUT, one of the Chosen hears a blow and alerts the others. The pilgrims again fall expectantly silent, undaunted by the fact that the first three times turned out to be the first mate blowing his nose.

  To be honest, nobody here has ever heard a real orca blow, not first-hand. No civilized human being would ever patronize a whalejail, and whale-watching tours have been banned for years— they said it was a harassment issue, but everyone knows it was just Bob Finch and his aquarium industry cronies out to eliminate the competition.

  The passengers huddle quietly in the fog, straining to hear above Dipnet’s diesel cough.

  Whoosh.

  “There! I knew it!” And sure enough, something rolls across a fog-free patch of surface a few meters to port. “There! See?” Whoosh. Whoosh.

  Two more to starboard. Leviathan has come to greet them; her very breath seems to dispel the fog. A pale patch of tissue-paper sun lightens the sky.

  There is much rejoicing. One or two people close their eyes, choosing to commune with the orcas telepathically; no truly enlightened soul would resort to crass, earth-raping technology to make contact. Several others bring out dog-eared editions of Bigg’s Guide to the Genealogy and Natural History of Killer Whales. Anna Marie has told them they’ll be meeting L1, a southern Resident pod. Hungry eyes alternately scan the pages and the rolling black flanks for telltale nicks and markings.

  “Look, is that L55? See that pointy bit on the saddle patch?”

  “No, it’s L2. Of course it’s L2.”

  One of the telepaths speaks up. “You shouldn’t call them by their Human names. They might find it offensive.”

  Chastened silence fall over the acolytes. After a moment, someone clears her throat. “Er, what should we call them then?”

  The telepath looks about quickly. “Um, this one,” she points to the fin nearest the boat, “tells me she’s called, um, Sister Stargazer.”

  The others ooh in unison. Their hands fly to the crystals nestled beneath their rain ponchos.

  “Six-foot dorsal,” mutters the first mate. “Male.”

  No one notices. “Oh, look at that big one! I think that’s the
Matriarch!”

  “Are you sure this is even L-Pod?” someone else asks uncertainly. “There aren’t very many of them—isn’t L1 supposed to be a big pod? And I thought I saw… that is, wasn’t that big one P-28?”

  That stops everyone cold. “P-28 is Transient,” says a fortyish woman with periwinkle shells braided into her long, graying hair. “L1 is a Resident pod.” The accusation is clear. Is this man calling Anna Marie Hamilton a liar?

  The heretic falters in the stony silence. “Well, that’s what the Guide says.” He holds the document out like a protective amulet.

  “Give me that.” Periwinkle snatches the book away, riffles through the pages. “This is the old edition.” She waves the copyright page. “This was printed back in the nineteen-eighties, for Goddess’ sake! You’re supposed to have the new edition, the one Anna Marie approved. This is definitely L1.” Periwinkle throws the discredited volume over the side. “Bob Finch had a hand in all those old guides until ‘02. You can’t trust anything from before then.”

  The wheelhouse hatch swings open. Dipnet’s captain, a gangly old salt whose ears look as though they’ve been attached upsidedown, clears his throat. “Got a message coming in,” he announces over the growl of the engine. “I’ll put it on the speakers.” The hatch swings shut.

  A message! Of course, Dipnet has all the technology, the hydrophones, the computers, everything it needs for the unenlightened to communicate with both species. There’s a speaker mounted on the roof of the cabin, pointing down at the rear deck. It burps static for a moment, then:

  “Sisters. Hurry.” A squeal of feedback. “Grandmother. Says. Hello.”

  Count on crass western technology to turn a beautiful alien tongue into pidgin English.

  “Ooh,” says someone at the gunwales. “Look.” The orcas are pacing Dipnet on either side, rolling and breathing in perfect synch. “They want us to follow them,” Periwinkle says excitedly.

  “Yes, they do,” intones one of the telepaths. “I can feel it.”

  The orcas are so close to the boat they’re almost touching the hull. Dipnet plows straight ahead. Just as well. The whales aren’t leaving enough room for course changes anyway.

  • • •

  THE CHAIR ON THE GANGWAY is obviously not meant for children. Ramona fusses with the straps, cranks the cross-hairs down to child-height. She offers patient instruction in the use of the harpoon. Papa-san hollers up instructions of his own in Japanese. Conflicting ones, apparently; Tetsuo, bouncing excitedly in the harness, gives nothing but grief. Herschel continues his cheerful instigation: Hey, lady, we pay ten grand for this, we do it our way thank you so much. He doesn’t seem to have noticed that Ramona’s smile shows more teeth than usual.

  This looks very promising. Doug glances back over his shoulder; the route’s still clear. Fifty-five seconds… Shamu rolls past on the other side of the plexi.

  The crowd laughs. Doug turns back to center stage. Ramona’s had enough; she’s jumped down from Tetsuo’s perch and is barking at Herschel in Japanese. Or maybe in sea lion. Herschel backs away, hands held up placatingly against Ramona’s advance. It’s entertaining enough, but Doug keeps his eyes on Tetsuo. The kid is the key. Adult squabbles don’t interest a ten-year-old, he’s strapped in at the controls of the best bloody video game since the parents’ groups came down on Nintendo. If it’s going to happen at all, Doug knows, it’s going to happen— Tetsuo squeezes the trigger.

  —Now.

  Ramona turns just in time to see the harpoon strike home. The crowd cheers. Tetsuo shrieks in delight. Shamu just shrieks, thrashing. A pink cloud puffs from his blowhole.

  Doug is already half-turned, one foot raised to motor. He checks himself: Wait for it, it still might be clean…

  “Shit! You were supposed to wait!” Ramona’s mike is off-line but it doesn’t matter; you could hear that yell all the way over in the Arctic Exhibit. She brings her translator online, barks syllables. The ringside speakers chirp and whistle. Shamu whistles back, spasming as though electrocuted. His flukes churn the water into pink froth.

  “His lung’s punctured,” Ramona calls over to the guy with the cattle prod. Prodmeister disappears backstage. Ramona wheels on Tetsuo. “You were supposed to wait until I told him to hold still!

  Do you want him to suffer? It’ll take days to die from a hit like that!”

  That’s it. Go.

  He knows what’s coming. Herschel, out his ten thousand dollars, will demand that his son get another chance. The Aquarium will stand firm; ten grand buys one shot, not one kill. No, sir, you can’t try again unless you’re willing to pay.

  Herschel’s own shrieks will go ultrasonic. Prodmeister will come back with another harpoon, a bigger, no-nonsense harpoon this time. Perhaps the Guests will try and wrestle it away. That’s resulted in an unfortunate accident or two.

  Doesn’t matter. Doug’s not going to be around for any of it, he’s already halfway out of the amphitheater. From the corner of his eye he can see his competition, caught flat-footed, just starting to rise from the bleachers. Some of them, closer to the main theater entrance, would still have a chance to beat him if he was going the usual route. He’s not. Doug Largha may be the first person in recorded history to have actually read the award-winning educational displays in the underwater gallery, and that gives him all the edge he needs. That’s where he’s headed now, at top speed.

  Herschel and his ten grand. Tetsuo and his lousy aim. Doug could kiss them both. When a guest makes a kill, they get to keep the carcass.

  But when they fuck up, it’s whale steaks in the gift shop.

  • • •

  WELL, no one expected the whales to be such assholes.

  Certainly not Anna Marie Hamilton and her army of whalehuggers. The Gospel according to Anna Marie said that orcas (you never called them “killer whales”) were gentle, intelligent creatures who lived in harmonious matriarchal societies. Humans were ethically bound to respect their cultural autonomy. Kidnapping these creatures from the wild, tearing them from their nurturing female-centered family units and selling them into bondage for barbaric human entertainment—this went beyond mere animal abuse. This was slavery, pure and simple.

  That was all before the Breakthrough, of course. These days, it’s kind of hard to rail against the enslavement of orcas when every schoolkid knows that all orca society, Resident or Transient, is based on slavery. Always has been. The matriarchs aren’t kindly nurturing feminist grandmas, they’re eight-ton black-andwhite Mommie Dearests with really big teeth. And their children aren’t treasured guardians of the next generation, either. They’re genetic commodities, a common currency for trade between pods, and who knew what uses they got put to? It’s a scientific fact that almost half of all killer whales die before reaching their first birthday.

  That infant-mortality stat has been a godsend to the aquarium industry ever since it was derived in the nineteen-seventies—Well of course it’s tragic that another calf died here in our habitat but you know, even in the wild killer whales just aren’t very good parents— but even the whalejailers were taken aback to be proven so utterly right. It didn’t take them long to recover from the shock, though. To embrace the irrefutable evidence of this kindred intelligence. To see the error of their ways. To reach out across that immense interspecies gulf with a business proposition.

  And what do you know. The Matriarchs were more than happy to cut a deal.

  • • •

  SLAVERS OF THE SEVEN SEAS, a wall-sized viewscreen shouts in capital letters. Beside it, smaller screens run looped footage already seen a million times in every living room on the continent: priests and politicians and longliners and whalehuggers, riding the Friendship Flotilla out into history to sign the first formal agreement with the Matriarch of J-Pod.

  On the other side of the gallery, past two-inch plexi, the pinkness in the water is already starting to fade.

  Doug skids to a halt in front of an orca family tree, no less boring for i
ts catchy backlit-pastel-on-black color scheme. He scans the headings:

  There. Between G27 and G33. Evidently, municipal building codes require an emergency exit here. For some reason the aquarium has incorporated it into the Orca Family Tree, right there in plain sight as the law requires, but subtle, unobtrusive. In fact, damn near invisible to anyone who hasn’t actually read the genealogies line-by-line.

  This is Doug’s secret passage. He’s done his homework; the blueprints are on file at City Hall, accessible to anyone who cares to look. On the other side of this invisible door, backstage corridors run off in three separate directions, each servicing a different gallery. All of them, eventually, end up outside. One of them opens into the gift shop.

  Doug pushes at a spot on the wall. It swings open. Behind him, a muffled poomf filters through from the main tank, followed by an inhuman squeal. Doug dives through the doorway without looking back.

  Turn right. Run. Backstage, the gallery displays are ugly constructions of fiberglass and PVC. Every object gurgles or hums. Salt crusts everything. Doug’s foot slips in a puddle. He starts to go over, grabs at the nearest handhold. A rack of hip waders topples in his stead. Left. Run. A row of filter pumps tears by on one side, a bank of holding tanks on the other. A dozen species of quarantined fish eye his transit with glassy indifference.

  He rounds a corner. An unexpected barrier catches his shin. Doug sprawls across a stack of loose plywood. Splinters bury themselves in the balls of his hands.

  “Fuck!” He scrambles to his feet, ignoring the pain. There are worse things than pain. There’s the wrath of Alice if he comes home empty-handed.

  Right there: a wood-paneled door. Not one of the crappy green metal doors that are good enough for the fishfeeders and janitors, but a nice oak job with a brass handle. That’s got to be the entrance into the gift shop. He’s almost there, and it’s even opening for him, it’s opening from the other side and he dives straight through, right into the waiting bosom of the woman coming from the other direction.