The Dolphins of Altair

by Margaret St. Clair

  I looked at the gauges. Erickson’s pulse, respiration and temperature were normal for the stage of intrauterine development he was currently at. The contractions were coming about every twenty minutes. It was time to step them up a bit.

  My hand went out to the dial that controlled the frequency of the synthi-womb’s contractions. And somehow—I don’t understand what happened, even now—my fingers turned the valve that determined the oxygen-content of the air my patient was breathing as he floated in the simulated amniotic fluid. It was as if some other will than my own had taken charge of my hand.

  Oh, dear. This would never do. Too much oxygen at this stage would make Erickson restless and promote premature cerebral activity. He wasn’t sup posed to have any real consciousness of his surroundings until after he had been born.

  Hastily I turned the valve back to normal, but I felt shaken. Slowly and carefully I reached out to the contraction dial and moved it forward. The frequency of the con tractions increased.

  I drew a deep breath. Perhaps it was going to be all right. After all, the events of a simulated labor, like those of a real one, cannot be perfectly standardized.

  I have heard physicians argue that simulated gestation and delivery are effective with patients subjected to them, for purely symbolic reasons. I don’t think this is true. The patient actually relives, though in a much shorter space of time, the original events of intrauterine life, and when he is born, he is literally reborn.

  I looked critically at Erickson. His head was beginning to come down forcefully against the big dilatable plastic cervix. The impact was carefully cushioned, of course—his was not the relatively compressible skull of an infant, and I had no desire to cause damage to Erickson’s brain.

  Suddenly he began to move his arms strongly and kick out with his legs. The plastic womb rocked from side to side with the violence of his struggles. The extra oxygen must have made him restless. But if he kept on like this, he’d either rupture the tough material of the synthi-womb, or break an arm or leg.

  Hurriedly I touched the jet that would let a little nitrous oxide into my patient’s air supply. The anesthetic was almost immediately effective. Erickson’s threshing ceased, his limbs relaxed, and he lay quietly in the fetal position again.

  The simulated labor continued. The contractions of the synthi-womb were much more frequent and forcible now. Dr. Aidans, my superior, came in to check Erickson’s condition, and left the laboratory again. It was time for the second stage of labor to begin.

  Carefully I removed the complex of tubes and pumps that had handled my patient’s nutrition and excretion. I put out my hand to touch the lever that would release the amniotic fluid from the plastic womb, thus simulating the traditional “breaking of the waters,” and then drew it back. I’d better check Erickson’s pulse, blood pressure and body temperature first. Yes, it was all in order. Once more I extended my hand.

  My hand went to the contraction dial and turned it to maximum. I hadn’t touched the lever I meant to touch.

  How had it happened? What had made me do that? I had no time to speculate on causation. The synthi-womb, activated to maximum, gave a tremendous grinding contraction, and Erickson was propelled rapidly through it onto the receiving area. He was born.

  I was trembling. But it might still be all right. The last part of a genuine labor is sometimes very abrupt. I moved shakily toward where he was lying, like a new-born child, to give him the symbolic slap on the buttocks that should start his extrauterine respiration.

  I was never more dismayed and disconcerted in my life than when my patient sat up in the receiving area and spoke to me.

  “Where am I?” he demanded in a normal adult voice. “What’s been happening?”

  I had no answer to make. Obviously the simulated gestation and labor had been completely ineffective with him; it seemed incredible. The days of preprocessing, the weeks in the synthi-womb—all entirely without result? Where had he got the strength to remain so perfectly his former self?

  Erickson swung his legs off the receiving area and stood up. I was still staring at him, immobilized with dismay. He drew his fist back, and I saw he was going to hit me between the eyes. Only at the last moment did I have sense enough to try to dodge.

  When I came to, I was lying on the lab floor, naked as a jay bird, and tied up with yards and yards of gauze bandages. Obviously, Erickson had taken my clothes and departed. But it was not until long afterward that I learned what finally happened to him.

  Chapter 15

  There was not much light in the cavern where we had taken refuge. Madelaine and Lawrence had to talk in whispers, for the navy sub was still snuffling industriously around the underwater entrance to the cavern, and there was always the chance that the sub might have sensitive sound detection devices. There was not much room for the two Splits to sit down either; they were perched precariously on a shallow rock ledge above the water. We sea people were more comfortable than they, for the cavern was large enough to let us swim comfortably.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Lawrence said softly.

  Madelaine made no reply. He had said this several times before, and I suppose she thought there was really no answer to be made.

  “Fortunately,” he went on, “we’ve still got the ahln.” He pulled it out of the front of his jacket and set it down on the rock between himself and Moonlight. It was a gadgety-looking device about a foot square, with the copper wire, the lead prism, and the platinum helix that Moonlight had indicated in her original drawing. A crystal of smoky amethyst quartz had been added. The crystal was the power source—or, more accurately, the power conduit—that she and I had learned about when our joined minds had made contact with Altair. The components were mounted in a sort of aluminum cradle, so that the ahln would float.

  “Yes, you saved that,” Madelaine answered.

  “That, and my medical bag. And you slung the flask around your neck before you went over the side. That was quick thinking, Maddy. Otherwise, we’d be considerably thirstier than we are.”

  “Thank you,” the girl answered a little wryly.

  The navy plane, appearing abruptly out of the night sky, had first machine-gunned the Naomi, and then come back to drop a bomb on the little craft. Luckily, the plane hadn’t been equipped with infrared sensing devices, and we sea people had been able to rescue the two Splits from the sinking ship. Even so, we would all have been dead before morning, except that we had met a fleeing dolphin who had told us of the cavern with its underwater entrance. He told us that many, many more of the sea people had been killed.

  “It’s hard to get used to,” the girl continued. “One minute we were on the deck of the Naomi, with our only real problem deciding whether we should use the ahln at full power, or try for a gradual melting of the polar ice.

  “We’d overcome the difficulties of making and powering the ahln. We’d thought we might have trouble finding platinum wire for it, but the jeweler in Ensenada sold us a piece without any fuss, and we’d found the quartz crystals at a curio dealer’s. Le ad for the prism and aluminum for the float had been easy to locate. We had the pilot model assembled, and we’d found that it worked. There seemed to be nothing but green lights ahead.

  “The next minute the bullets were coming down and the ship was sinking under us. It all happened so quick! I haven’t got used to it yet.”

  “Yes, it’s difficult to adjust to change sometimes,” Lawrence replied absently. “But we do have the ahln, and I think we could use it to get out of here. Maddy, would you have your usual high-minded objections to our trying to make things hot, literally speaking, for that sub that we know is outside!”

  “Make things hot? How could you do that?”

  “Would the ahln work under water?” he retorted. “I don’t understand how it works above water, for that matter. You said it taps the nucleon-producing potential of space, but I’ve never been able to believe in the continuous creation of hydrogen anyhow. And that a thing li
ke this, two coils of wire and an amethyst quartz crystal”—he tapped the pl a tinum helix lightly with one finger—“should produce enormous quantities of heat is as unreasonable as hitching up two bread sticks and a sugar bowl, and calling it an H-bomb.”

  “It does work, though,” Madelaine answered. “You mustn’t be misled by its look ing so simple. The quartz crystal acts as a conduit for the energy of empty space that would otherwise be used in giving birth to a nucleon. The platinum helix converts the energy into heat.”

  “Then why isn’t the helix melted?” Lawrence asked. “And how can the crystal act as a conduit for the nucleon-producing potential of empty space? How does the crystal make contact with it?”

  “The helix isn’t melted because its atoms aren’t excited. I don’t know how the crystal makes its contact. Perhaps the lead pr ism—I’m not sure. It may be that the ahln device warps space. You remember the mirages that formed around the prism when we were testing the ahln.”

  “Yes, I remember. Oh, I concede that it works, though I don’t understand why. But as I was saying, will it still work under water?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “Would you dolphins be able to swim up close to the sub with the ahln?” Lawrence asked, turning his attention to us in the water.

  “I suppose so,” I answered in a laborious whisper. Whispering is difficult for a dolphin, and besides, I felt no enthusiasm for Lawrence’s idea. I was afraid we’d be seen as we swam up with the ahln—the sub must have some sort of underwater sensing device—and almost more afraid that we’d be boiled alive before we could get out of range of the heat. The ahln, even at low power, makes an almost unbelievable amount of heat.

  “Good,” Lawrence said. “Then I can set the ahln to low, have Amtor swim in with it, drop it under the sub, and get back here before the water heats up. Perhaps I can adjust it for a time lag in starting. It takes a little time for the ahln to get working, anyhow. We know that.”

  “We know how hard it is to shut off once it’s started,” Madelaine answered. “The first time we tried it, we blistered the paint on the Naomi before we could manage to jar the prism out of alignment and reduce the output of heat.

  “But leaving that aside, do you think the submarine will just stay there quietly while the water gets hot around it?” Madelaine wanted to know.

  “There’s a fan chance of it,” the doctor answered. “They wouldn’t realize at first what was happening.”

  Moonlight shook her head. “You’ll accuse me again of being soft-hearted,” she said. “But even if your plan worked, what would happen when the sub stopped making radio contact with headquarters? They’d send out a whole flotilla, and when they found the sub with the men dead inside, they’d plaster all this part of the coast with bombs. Don’t forget, we’re awfully conspicuous riding on the backs of the sea people.” “We could separate and meet later.”

  Once more Madelaine shook her head. I could hear water dripping somewhere from the shadowy roof of the cavern. “It’s too risky,” she said. “Besides, they’d probably find the ahln. Do you want it to fall into the hands of our enemies?”

  “We could try to retrieve it. I think that platinum helix can be used as a way of making the ahln shut off after a while.”

  “It’s too much to risk.”

  “Well, what do you suggest?” Lawrence demanded. His underlying irritability, which was in such contrast to what Madelaine called his “therapeutic impassivity,” was coming to the top.

  There was a short silence. I heard the slow drip of water from the roof. Then Madelaine said, “Do you remember that I told you Amtor and I had learned something, as a sort of side product, while we were in contact with the minds of the inhabitants of the planet of Altair? It’s a new way of using Udra. We might be able to make the sub commander give orders for the sub to look for us somewhere else. It’s worth trying, anyhow.”

  “It sounds like the old way of using Udra to me,” Lawrence said.

  “No, it’s not,” Moonlight said, smiling a little. “Only dolphins could use that, and only certain Splits—a very few, really—would respond to it. This new way is more general. A Split could use it toward a Split, and quite a few Splits are capable of responding to it.”

  “Go ahead and try it, then,” the doctor said. He still sounded annoyed.

  “Amtor,” Sosa called very softly, “do you want to see what we can do?”

  “Of course,” I whispered back. “You know that.”

  There was no place for her to lie down—she was still perched insecurely on the ledge, with the tide lapping at her ankles—but I was floating in the water and could get into the first part of the Udra-state easily. We were no longer as afraid of the gulfs in each other as we had been, and I thought I could help Sosa with her necessary withdrawal and concentration.

  We were all silent. The sound of water dripping seemed to get more and more remote. Madelaine’s mind and mine were beginning to grow coterminous. Something in her mind seemed a little unusual to me, but I did not find it really disturbing.

  Ivry was watching me, but Pettrus’ attention was fixed on the two Splits sitting on the rock. He said that Madelaine’s eyes closed gradually and then, without any warning, her head dropped forward on her breast and she started to slide off the rock. If Dr. Lawrence hadn’t caught her, she would have fallen into the water.

  It wasn’t the usual Udra-state, nor even an ordinary fainting fit, but a deeper unconsciousness. Dr. Lawrence, even with the help of his medical bag, had to work over her for almost half an hour before she came to herself.

  “What happened?” she whispered when she could talk again.

  “You know better than I do,” he answered. “What did it feel like?”

  “Like being hit on the back of my skull. That didn’t really happen, did it?”

  “No.”

  “I guess I’m just tired. Trying the new way to use Udra was too much. I’ve been tired ever since Amtor and I found out how to power the ahln. Or—Ted, you weren’t trying to use Udra, too, were you?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Somebody might have been using it. It might have been another human mind that touched me. Anyhow, I’d better not try it again for a while. I expect I’d only pass out once more.”

  “Very likely. You know better how you feel than I do. Do you have any ideas about what we should do now?”

  “About all we can do just now is wait. The sub may get tired of hunting us and decide we went on up the coast.”

  “Um. When we get out of here, Maddy, are you still going to insist that the ahln be used at low power? We could make two or three more of the things, encase them in lightweight metal for protection, and float them to the poles.

  “There’d be no difficulty about that—the dolphins have told us they know where to release the devices so the ocean currents would take them straight to the poles. Amtor even located the best places on the map when I showed him a hydrographic chart of the Pacific coast. But if we set the ahln at low power, it will take fifty years to melt the ice. I’m in favor of doing it overnight.”

  “What’s the use in discussing that now?” the girl whispered wearily. “We’re prisoners. Wait until we get out.”

  “We ought to look ahead,” the doctor insisted. “When we get out, we may not have much time for discussion. Would you still insist on using the ahln at low power?”

  “I—yes, I probably would.”

  “Are you really serious?” Lawrence asked in an angry whisper. “If we get out of here, you’ll still refuse to use our one weapon for all it’s worth? Or are you putting up your usual high-minded resistance, so I can look like a villain when I finally persuade you to do what has to be done?

  “I suppose you’re hesitating because of the loss of human life. Well, in my forty years or so, millions of human beings have died agonizing deaths through the agency of other human beings. They’ve died in concentration camps, in fire raids, of napalm burns or from the direct
or delayed effects of nuclear explosives. Drowning’s a relatively painless form of death. It’s a more humane extinction than people usually inflict on each other.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And what about the dolphins? At least half of those that were at the first meeting on the Rock have been killed. Don’t they have any right to survive, compared with human beings? For somebody who was willing to declare war upon the human race, Madelaine, you have too damned many scruples. Or aren’t you really serious?”

  Before she could answer, I said, “Why don’t you ask us what we think, Dr. Lawrence? We have a more vital interest in how the ahln is used than you do, or even Madelaine.”

  “You think I haven’t a vital interest?” he said. “I’ve given up my profession, my future, all the things human beings live for, in order to help you. But it’s true, you dolphins do have the strongest immediate interest of any of us. Well, then, what do you say about how the ahln should be used?”

  “Even a gradual melting of the ice at the poles ought to provide the Splits with plenty to keep them busy,” I said. “A quick melting has some advantages, but one disadvantage is that it would change the salt content of ocean water overnight. We could adjust to it, but it would be annoying. On the whole, then—what was that noise?”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Lawrence said.

  “It’s coming nearer, a kind of splashing. Don’t you hear it, really?”

  We all listened. The splashing stopped; we felt a ripple in the water. And now we saw a darker outline against the dimly illuminated walls of the cavern, the silhouette of a man. Somebody had got past the watchful submarine, and he did not need to speak for us to know who he was.

  Madelaine had jumped to her feet. “Sven!” she cried. Even in her excitement she remembered to speak softly. “Is it really you? And Djuna with you? Oh, how glad I am! What all’s been happening? How did you get past the submarine?”