The Dolphins of Altair

by Margaret St. Clair

  Lawrence sighed. “I’ll be back tomorrow about seven,” he said. “Good night.” “Good night.”

  He was gone, taking his little black satchel with him. But oddly enough, his refusal to stay with Sosa had increased our confidence in him. We felt that if he were planning to betray us again, he would make a greater show of devotion to her.

  We were hungry; we had had nothing to eat all day. One at a time we went out to get food for ourselves, leaving two of us always on guard near Sosa. We thought that if a Split tried to molest her, we might be able to scare him off.

  There are plenty of fish in San Francisco Bay, though not all of them are considered fit to eat by Splits. None of us had any difficulty getting a good meal. When I came back from my fishing, Ivry and Pettrus told me that Madelaine had asked for water once, but not urgently. “After she asked for water, she laughed,” Pettrus said. “And then she said, ‘It’s lovely here.’”

  “Lovely?” I was puzzled. “What do you think she meant by that? Is she delirious?”

  “I don’t think so. She sounded as if she were having pleasant dreams.”

  Though we were no longer really hungry, we did a good deal of fishing during the night. This was partly for exercise and diversion, and partly because the dirty water around the dock was a constant vexation to us. It was wonderfully refreshing to swim in clean water again.

  The two men came down to the boat quite early, while it was still dark, and cast off. About two hours later Dr. Lawrence appeared.

  He was wearing inconspicuous informal clothing—slacks, beach shirt and sandals—and he carried a large paper bag with his doctor’s satchel and street clothing inside. He said, “Good morning” to us curtly, and then went to where Sosa was.

  He gave her water from his flask and then, taking advantage of the improved light, examined her with some thoroughness. He finished by giving her another injection of penicillin.

  “How is she?” I asked when he came to where we were waiting.

  “Some better. Her fever’s down. She’s not as much better as she should be—I’ve given her a lot of penicillin. What I don’t understand is why she’s so comatose. I don’t find anything to account for it. Did she get a blow on the head?”

  “Not as far as we know,” I answered.

  He was silent. “You’ve got to let me get her out from under there,” he said finally. “It’s not only that I can’t take proper care of her—if I keep going under the dock, I’m sure to be noticed eventually, and then the fat will be in the fire. They’ll put Madelaine in the hospital, and the navy will pick me up again. You don’t want that to happen, do you?”

  “We don’t care much about what happens to you,” I told him frankly, “but we don’t want to be separated from her.”

  “Fair enough,” he replied. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve come up with an idea I think is pretty good.” He began to clamber up on the dock.

  “Where are you going?” Ivry quacked anxiously.

  Dr. Lawrence grinned, and for the first time since I had seen him, I felt a liking for him. “I’m going to buy a boat,” he said.

  He came back about noon, at the helm of an odd flat-bottomed craft. He made his purchase fast to the dock and then came down in the water where we were.

  “What do you think of the boat?” he asked. He sounded pleased with himself. “It’s called the Akbar. I can take care of Madelaine on board, and you won’t be separated from her.”

  “Fine,” Pettrus said. “What kind of a boat is it? I’ve never seen anything like that.”

  “You could call it a scaled-down houseboat. A doll’s houseboat. I’ve rented mooring space for it about a mile from here. You won’t object to my putting Maddy on board?”

  “No,” I said. “But you’re going to have trouble getting her on it.”

  This proved to be correct. It was obviously impossible for Lawrence, standing in the water, to lift Moonlight at arm’s length above his head and lower her over the side of the Akbar; and carrying her up on the dock and then putting her down on the Akbar’s deck was going to be almost as difficult. Madelaine was neither a tall nor heavy woman, put she was only semiconscious, and Lawrence was a smallish man.

  After some thought he dragged her down to the edge of the water, where he could stand upright, and picked her up in his arms. When he got around to the side of the dock, he shifted her so that she was lying across his shoulders, and he was holding her in place by her ankles and wrists, He wriggled her about until he could hold her opposite wrist and ankle in one hand, and then started up. He wobbled alarmingly. He was almost at the top when Madelaine began to stir, and he had to use both hands to keep her from falling off his back.

  That left him badly unbalanced, with no point of contact width the dock timbers except his feet. We were sure he was going over backward into the water. But he took a long step upward with his right foot, into the next crotch in the dock timbering, and at the same time threw himself forward onto the surface of the dock. He landed on the planking on both knees, with two bruised sh ins.

  “Made it,” he said, looking down at us. He got to his feet, moved Moonlight around in front of him, and carried her over, limping, to the Akbar. It was easy enough to put per down on the boat’s small deck.

  We waited. He carried her into the deckhouse. About an hour later he came out. “I undressed her, gave her a bath, and put her to bed,” he told us. “She ought to do better, now she’s comfortable and dry. Her fever’s down.”

  “How is her shoulder?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Healing. Not much use in sewing it up now. But it’s going to leave a scar. What I don’t understand is that she’s unconscious so much.

  “Well, I’d better be moving the Akbar to her new location. I hope nobody saw me climbing about with Madelaine, If they did, I’ll get a visit from the police.”

  He cast off the Akbar’s moorings, started up her engine, and was soon putt-putting over the turbid water to the new anchorage. We followed discreetly. We were all relieved that Madelaine was better. He r unconsciousness did not seem so odd to us as it did to Lawrence, since we were not familiar with the physiology of Splits.

  The Akbar’s new location was a pleasant place. Trees were growing in a sort of park behind the little jetty that ran out into the water, and the only sign of damage from the quake was some floating planks from what might have been a rowboat. Another craft, also a houseboat, but at least twice as big as the Akbar, was tied up at the jetty. Except for that, no other boats were anchored there.

  The girl on the deck of the bigger craft looked up and waved as Lawrence brought the Akbar in. Lawrence nodded unsmilingly. It was plain he did not want to encourage a potentially inquisitive friendliness.

  He tied the Akbar up at the landward end of the jetty, as far away from the other houseboat as he could get. Then he went ashore. He couldn’t, of course, tell us where he was going, while the woman on the other craft was watching, but we supposed he was going after food.

  Floating side by side in the shadow of the Akbar, under the jetty, we held a consultation. I think I have said before that we sea people ordinarily communicate with each other in frequencies that are outside the range of human hearing. It seemed to us both unnecessary and undesirable that all three of us should remain near the houseboat during the day. One dolphin can usually escape notice, especially in turbid water, but three is a different matter. We decided that one of us should stay near the Akbar during the daylight hours, while the other two tried to pick up some trace of Djuna.

  Djuna might, of course, have been so severely wounded as to be dead, but we thought not. Our “telepathic” communication with each other (this is not Udra, though somewhat re lated to it) is somewhat more reliable than the ESP of Splits and, even though it is far from perfect, we thought we would have been aware of such a serious psychic event as her death.

  Ivry and Pettrus then went off on their scouting trip and I was left behind, on watch near the Akbar. I
was restless and bored. It seemed to me that Dr. Lawrence might have chosen a better anchorage for the Akbar than this one, where we were constantly under scrutiny from another boat and it would be difficult for him to communicate with us. He obviously couldn’t sit on the railing of the Akbar during the daytime, talking to a dolphin; and at night, even if he waited until the people on the bigger houseboat were in bed, we would all have to speak softly, since sound carries so well over water. I wondered whether he had done it on purpose, with the ultimate aim of detaching us from Madelaine.

  I may say here that our anger for the attack on Noonday Rock was directed not so much toward the navy as toward Lawrence. If one declares war on the human race, one may expect the human race to retaliate. But we had trusted Dr. Lawrence, despite my doubts about him—he had instigated us to try to trigger an earthquake—and this lent a particular bitterness to our feelings toward him.

  Lawrence came back after a while, carrying a bag of groceries, a bag from a department store, and another, smaller parcel that I couldn’t identify. He went into the Akbar’s deckhouse, and in a little while I smelled food cooking.

  I listened, but couldn’t tell whether or not he was feeding Madelaine. Neither of them said anything. Once or twice I heard her moving in her bunk.

  He washed a few dishes. Then I heard a click, and the squawk of a radio. A radio—that must have been what was in the smaller parcel he had brought back.

  He seemed to be listening to the news. After a while he shut the radio off, and seemed to be doing something near Madelaine. Then he came on deck with a bag of scraps and trash, which he took on shore and dropped in a big tr ash can.

  I noticed all these details so sharply because I really had not much else to notice. I did not want to start thinking about Blitta again. Once or twice, as the afternoon drew on, I tried to use Udra, but I was too restless to have any success with it.

  Darkness fell. The doctor cooked some sort of meal. It sounded as if he took something to Madelaine. At last, about three hours after dark, Ivry and Pettrus came back.

  They had been a long way, down the coast to Point Sur and back, but they had found no sign of Djuna. They had talked to two or three other sea people, too. But when they were near Benthis Canyon, the spot off Monterey where I dropped Sven’s stolen mine, they had seen a number of navy ships at anchor.

  “They had men out in boats,” Ivry said agitatedly. “They seemed to be taking samples of the water. They had two men in diving suits, too.”

  None of us said anything. It was perfectly plain that the navy was trying to get some objective corroboration of Dr. Lawrence’s story. The water over Benthis Canyon was probably still abnormally radioactive, but they might not draw the proper conclusion from this. Dr. Lawrence couldn’t have told them about Sven’s mine breaking the drums of radioactive wastes, since he hadn’t known about it. He had left Noonday Rock before we returned from our mission.

  People began to walk along the jetty and get aboard the bigger houseboat. We heard the sound of laughter and talking. Somebody started to play the guitar and sing, and other voices joined in the mus ic.

  About ten-thirty Dr. Lawrence came out on deck and whistled softly.

  “Are you there?” he said in a low voice. “I think it’s all right for us to talk now. They’re having a party on board the Diamond Lil, and won’t notice anything.

  “The Diamond Lil?” I asked. “Is that the name of the other houseboat?”

  “Yes. Can’t you read?”

  “Only a little,” I answered, feeling rather ashamed. “Books go to pieces in the water, you see, and we haven’t any way of turning the pages.”

  “You needn’t apologize,” Dr. Lawrence answered. “That a dolphin can read at all is so extraordinary that—well, never mind. I came out to tell you the news.

  “In the first place, Madelaine is better. Her shoulder is healing nicely, and her temperature is almost normal. But she is still comatose most of the time. She rouses a little when I feed and bathe her and so on, but she goes back again into her coma, if that’s what it is.

  “If she isn’t better soon, I’m going to call another doctor. I’m a psychiatrist, not a general practitioner.

  “The other piece of news is that, though I listened a good deal to the radio today, I didn’t hear anything about the navy making a disclosure about the cause of the earthquake. There was still plenty about the quake, of course, but it was the ordinary stuff one would expect—statistics about losses and damages.”

  “That’s good,” Ivry said.

  “Yes-s-s. Actually, I’m not so sure. This feels like the lull before the storm. I don’t think my rear admiral would give up so easily.”

  “We went down to Point Sur today,” Ivry said. He went on to tell Lawrence what he and Pettrus had seen.

  “H’um,” the doctor said when he had finished. “Let’s hope they don’t find anything. A piece of the casing of the mine that was dropped would be pretty good evidence, but they’re not very likely to find such a piece.”

  We dolphins were silent. We saw no point in telling Lawrence about the radioactivity the explosion of the mine had released into the water. It was always possible Lawrence might defect from us again, and he knew too much already.

  “By the way, Doctor,” I said, “what happened after you got past the marine who was stationed in front of your office? You didn’t tell us about that.”

  Lawrence laughed a little wryly. “You still don’t trust me, do you?” he said. “Well, I have no objection to telling you.

  “After I left my office, I drove to the house of a friend of mine, an astrologer, and spent the night with him. Next morning I went to the bank and drew out all the money that was in my account. I was afraid the navy might be watching for a withdrawal, but I don’t think they were.

  “Then I drove my car to a used-ca r dealer and sold it. I telephoned the clairvoyant I told you about, made an appointment with her, and took the bus to her house. After she and I made contact with you dolphins, I used public transportation to get to Sausalito. Is that all clear? I hope you’re satisfied.”

  Before we could answer, there were footsteps coming along the jetty from the Diamond Lil. We swam under the planking of the jetty and floated quietly.

  “Good evening,” a male voice said. “Nice weather for this time of year.”

  “Yes, it is,” Lawrence agreed. He stood up, yawning. “Makes me sleepy. I think I’ll turn in.”

  “Oh. Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  * * *

  Next morning Lawrence went ashore again for food. While he was gone, a man walked out on the jetty to the Akbar, jumped down on he r deck, and knocked on the door of the deckhouse.

  Neither Pettrus nor I was on guard. We had gone north together, still trying to pick up a trace of Djuna, and Ivry had been left behind to watch over Madelaine. When Ivry tried to tell us what happened, he got excited and was difficult to understand.

  The man knocked again on the deckhouse. Ivry, who was listening intently, thought he heard somebody (it could only have been Madelaine) moving about inside the cabin. The visitor waited for a while, and then knocked for the third time.

  There was another wait, and Ivry wondered if the man was going away. But the door opened, and Ivry, though he could not hear very well, heard the man introduce himself, say he was from (mumble) intelligence agency, and that he was making inquiries in regard to a Dr. Edward Lawrence (Ivry got the name clearly enough).

  Madelaine answered something. She seemed to be asking the visitor inside. At any rate, they both went into the deck house. Here, for some reason, Ivry could hear them rather more plainly.

  “No, I don’t know any Dr. Lawrence,” Madelaine was saying. “We’ve only just bought this boat and come here. We don’t know many people in Sausalito anyway.”

  “We?” the visitor asked.

  “My brother and I. I’ve had the flu, and he’s been taking care of me.”

  “I see. Do
you mind telling me your brother’s name, Miss—?”

  “Oh, no, not at all. It’s Gordon. My brother’s first name is Bill.”

  “Thank you. Is he employed locally?”

  “Not exactly. He’s an artist—I mean, he wants to be an artist. He does odd jobs, and I work as a part-time secretary. You know, I fill in when somebody’s sick or they need extra help. I haven’t been working lately. We get by.”

  “I see. Well, thank you very much, Miss Gordon. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

  “Oh, that’s all right.”

  The visitor left the Akbar. Ivry heard him walking on down the jetty and going aboard the Diamond Lil, where he presumably asked the same questions. A few minutes later he left the jetty, and didn’t come back. He missed encountering Lawrence, returning from his shopping, by about half an hour.

  Ivry had plenty of time to think about the meaning of what he had heard. Obviously the navy was still looking for Lawrence, but whether they had actually traced him to Sausalito or were merely checking through all the coastal communities was impossible to say. When Pettrus and I got back from our trip up north—we had been as far as Point Arena, but had not learned anything of Djuna—Ivry gave us an excited account of what had occurred.

  We didn’t like it. The intelligence man hadn’t seemed suspicious, but that didn’t mean he was satisfied with what Madelaine had said. One thing was certain, that it had been exceedingly fortunate Madelaine had answered his knock. Otherwise he would have waited until Lawrence came back, and the ambiguous doctor would by now be in naval custody again.

  The Diamond Lil’s owners went to bed early that night. As soon as the bigger houseboat’s lights were out, Lawrence came out on the Akbar’s deck and whistled to us.

  “What’s been happening?” he asked without preamble. “Has Madelaine been out of bed? I found my medical bag under her bunk, and the dressing gown I bought her has been worn.”

  “Yes,” Ivry said. He related the incident.