Betina Krahn (37 page)

As they dumped it into the wheelbarrow waiting outside, he managed to gulp a few breaths of fresh air and swallow his panic.

“You all right, Perfesser?” The grizzled old tar frowned at him.

“Fine. Never better.” He straightened fiercely. “If you’ll carry the next specimen inside, I’ll be there in a moment.”

But, moments later, as he strode back into the operating theater, dread settled over him like a blanket. His heart pounded heavily and his mouth was dry. He told himself he was going to pick up a scalpel and cut open the specimen
just as he had done a thousand times before. And he was going to complete the dissection this time … find a few “parts” to preserve. Eyeballs were always good. He should be certain to get the eyeballs …

He was so busy pulling on his large rubber gloves and selecting a sharp knife that he didn’t see what lay on the table before him until he started to make the first cut. He froze.

Gray, with a silvery white underbelly. A curved dorsal fin and a bottle-shaped beak, it was a dolphin. Small. Probably fairly young. It looked almost identical to little—

He couldn’t move, could scarcely breathe. He stood there, his gaze blurring, his chest aching, his whole body beginning to tremble.

His mind somehow superimposed the image of baby Titan over the dead dolphin … his vibrant little body, so smooth and quick, his eyes that seemed to twinkle with mischief. Titus felt as if he’d been dealt a blow to the solar plexus, dropped his knife on the floor, and bent over, trying to draw in air.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself looking down into a bucket of entrails … parts of a living thing … that he had pronounced “nothing worthwhile.”
Parts is parts
… it had never occurred to him that a shark’s entrails might look the same as a man’s. Were a man’s guts, his inner workings, not worthwhile?

He whirled and stared at the jars of alcohol nearby, remembering his precious preserved specimens, with their drooping fins, bleached bodies, and flat, lifeless eyes. They were all just hunks of dead tissue that bore little relation to the living things they had been at one time. Equally shocking was the fact that until just over a month ago, that was what he had thought the creatures really looked like—would have argued with anyone claiming otherwise.

He had spent his entire adult life up to his elbows in the bellies of dead animals, and everyone in the academic world, especially him, had called it
science
.

He ripped off his thick gloves and apron and grappled
with his rubber boots, while trying desperately to remain upright. He hadn’t a clue what was “worthwhile” or what wasn’t. How could he? He’d been stuck away in a laboratory for half of his life, sorting through fish guts … telling himself he was searching for the key to understanding the workings of life! The raw truth of it was that he didn’t know the first thing about
life
… not even his own.

He grabbed his coat and blew from the operating room with his soul on fire. How could he have been so narrow-minded as to believe that his laboratory contained the truth about life? He thought of his colleagues on the Cardinal College staff, of the way they had encouraged him to get out of the lab and do field studies, and of the defensive way he had rejected their advice. Each time it came up, he returned to his laboratory with renewed intensity, packing a little bit more of himself in each of those jars along with his specimens.

He stalked along the streets, heedless of the pedestrians who had to step out of his way or the vehicles that had to pull up to keep from hitting him.

He hadn’t chosen the laboratory; he had fled into it. Since he was offered the chair in ichthyology, he had lived in dread of having to confront those painful memories of seeing his father drown before his eyes. He had grown up loathing the water, had arranged his education, his work, his whole world, to avoid all contact with it. And if that wasn’t enough, he had developed a whole philosophy of science to defend his fear-spawned research technique, to defend himself against risk and hurt and passion and discovery … against living … against life itself.

Something intruded powerfully on his thoughts and he halted, looking around to discover where he was and what had jangled his senses. Just down the street he spotted the trademark green awnings of Harrods and—

“Dolphins—come an’ see real o-cean dolphins—li—i—ive—in the flesh!”

See dolphins? He felt a powerful surge of longing in his
chest. Hell, yes, he wanted to see dolphins—he was absolutely desperate to see them again!

Locating the source of that cry—a boy in knee breeches and a ragged cap, not far away, handing out flyers—he hurried over and took one.

LIVE DOLPHINS
! was printed in huge, hastily inked letters, followed by smaller lettering: “If you have wanted to see the
LADY MERMAID’S DOLPHINS
, come and see these magnificent creatures of the sea! Admission £1.”

The name at the bottom of the paper startled him.
P. T. Bentley, Impresario
. Dolphins? P. T. Bentley an “impresario”? He thought immediately of Celeste, but as he hailed a cab and ordered it to the address in Covent Garden, he quickly discounted the idea that she would be there, or have anything to do with such an exhibition. The wording of the handbill was cannily ambiguous. It was possible that Bentley had gotten his hands on a dolphin or two and was trying to exploit both the beasts and Celeste’s fame … the little weasel.

In a quarter of an hour, he disembarked beside a shabby market building just west of Covent Garden, in one of the areas of London where livestock exchanges and livery stables still flourished. The aged brick structure was emblazoned with a large banner in red and white advertising it to be the home of: “Dolphins! Like the Lady Mermaid Rides!” Titus shook his head in puzzlement.

The line of customers extended outside the front doors and all the way to the nearest cross street. When he approached the door, a number of those who were waiting shouted irritably for him to go to the back of the line. A pair of beefy fellows at the door pointedly ignored his assertion that he was a “friend” of P. T. Bentley’s, and he found himself trudging back down the length of that line and waiting his turn to buy an overpriced ticket. He was sure it would be some pathetic ruse: “dolphins” one would have to view via mirrors or through glass so uneven that it distorted the image. He had seen plenty of fraudulent exhibits in his
time and wouldn’t put it past Bentley to have hatched just such a scheme.

Half an hour passed before Titus was able to purchase his ticket and file into what surely must have been a livestock auction at one time … the smells of that trade lingered strongly in the place. To accommodate more visitors at a time, a catwalk had been built along the top of two large metal tanks, and a window had been installed on the lower level of each tank, so that some could view from the bottom, while others viewed from the top.

Leery of the rickety steps and walkway, Titus chose to stay on the ground and was eventually able to get close enough to the leaky window not only to hear the gasps of surprise and curious comments of the other patrons, but to see the creature inside the tank for himself.

He stared at a long, gray body suspended in water that looked a bit rusted and brackish. The creature inside was swimming restlessly back and forth, surprising spectators by banging into the side of the tank near the window. Each time it did this, the crowd gasped and backed away, allowing Titus to squeeze in closer, to get a better look at what was clearly the silhouette of a dolphin.

When the creature banged into the tank wall again, and then swam frantically up to the surface, Titus caught a clear glimpse of its head.

To his shock he saw what looked like a fresh gash on the dolphin’s beak, along with evidence of an old wound on the dolphin’s lower jaw. That and the rake marks on the beast’s head made it look just like …

He began knocking frantically on the window, trying to get the dolphin’s attention. Desperate for a better look, he rushed up the steps and squeezed his way past the people on them, apologizing profusely along the way. At the top, a single board formed a railing along the edge of the round tanks, and he burrowed and “pardoned” his way over to it.

He knelt as close to the edge as he could, hanging on to the plank that formed the railing and stretching down with
his other hand to try to feel the side of the tank. He couldn’t reach and had to let go of the board and crouch on all fours at the platform’s edge. He couldn’t see what was beneath the platform, but he could feel the metal wall of the tank. He began to rap on it with his knuckles …

… five raps in sequence, a pause, then a single rap …

He did it several times, ignoring the protests of his fellow patrons.

Suddenly, the dolphin shot to and through the surface, rising up half out of the water, sending water and squeals of horror flying. A few of the more skittish patrons scrambled down the steps.

“Prospero? Prospero, is that you?” Titus called, wiping the water from his face and leaning as far over the tank as he dared. The dolphin seemed dazed. Titus was horrified to see the cut on his beak wasn’t his only injury. There were fresh rake marks on his skin and what appeared to be dark bruises on his pale underside and around one of his eyes.

“Prospero!” Titus cried, recognizing the battered visage with its scarred jaw as clearly as he would any human face. “It’s me, old boy … your old friend.”

Titus stretched out a hand and managed to hit the surface of the water. Prospero headed for the sound. A moment later, Titus lay cantilevered out over the edge of the platform, running his hand over the dolphin’s scarred head.

“It is you—I knew it!” Titus said, feeling a sudden constriction in his throat. “It’s me, Titus! Don’t you remember me?”

Prospero managed to spit a small stream of water at him.

“You old devil, it is you,” Titus said, aching with wonder as he wiped his face. “How did you get here? In this awful place?” He glanced at the other tank, where he could just glimpse another gray beak in the foul water. “And who is that with you? One of your friends?”

He raised his hand to get the dolphin’s attention and then smacked the water a few times, the way he had seen Celeste do it. Prospero rolled onto his side and waggled a flipper
weakly in response. There was yet another bloody gash on that waving appendage. Prospero sank back into the water and lay floating on his side as if exhausted … his injured eye visible … staring …

“Dear God—what have they done to you?” He could scarcely breathe.

“Out o’ the way—comin’ through!” The pair of toughs that had been posted by the door came barreling through the crowd and spotted Titus lying on the platform. “Here—what the hell d’you think yer doin’? We don’t allow no triflin’ wi’ the fish.”

“I’m not ‘trifling.’ I know this dolphin, and it doesn’t belong here,” Titus declared. “I insist upon seeing Bentley—the owner!”

Before he could move, he was grabbed by the legs and pulled back up onto the platform. “Stop—-wait—” he demanded as they wrenched him to his feet. Above the noise of their orders and the patrons’ gasps and murmurs, he heard Prospero calling. He gave a violent twist and freed himself long enough to grab the railing and spot Prospero. The dolphin was lying limply in the water, calling to him.

Ti … ti … ti … elp … elp … help … Tita … help … Tita help …

Titus held the railing in a viselike grip, staring frantically at Prospero, hearing, within those pathetic cries, unmistakable words. A spoken plea.

Help, Titus. Help
.

Shock loosened his grasp on the rail and in a moment he was being dragged down the steps. “Stop—you don’t understand—I know that dolphin—it belongs to Celeste Ashton!”

“Won’t have no troublemakers in ’ere, Jack-o,” one declared.

“I’m not a troublemaker, I’m a professor from Cardinal College and a member of the Royal Oceanographic Society—” He resisted, but he couldn’t get solid footing on the stairs, and was thrust forcefully along until he reached the ground. There, he was propelled straight to the door and
shoved out into the street. He managed to keep his feet and whirled, furious now. “Bloody mindless oafs—I want to see Bentley—your ‘impresario.’ Where is he?”

“Oafs is we?” the other said through the gaps in his rotted teeth.

They both came at him at once. He reacted with an instinct he hadn’t known he possessed, landing a blow before they wrestled him around the corner, out of the view of the other customers. There, they each landed a blow or two before turning him loose and returning to their posts.

He leaned against the wall to clear his vision. There was a nasty pain in his jaw and side, and he wondered if this was what broken ribs felt like. Taking a deep breath, he got his feet under him, and looked around for his hat … which hadn’t made it out the door with him.

“Bentley.” He had to see the wretch.

He made his way around front, where the line was even longer than before, and went straight to the ticket seller. “I’ve got to see P. T. Bentley—the proprietor. Where can I find him?”

The man selling tickets shrugged and remained sullen and silent. Then the exhibit’s muscular security system appeared at the door and spotted him, and he was forced to beat a hasty retreat.

He turned back to look at that garish red and white banner. The dolphins weren’t “just like” the Lady Mermaid’s; they
were
the Lady Mermaid’s!

Celeste. He felt her presence stirring powerfully in his memory and thought of how devastated she would be to see her beloved dolphins cooped up in tanks, abused and injured. He came to attention. In fact, she must know Prospero was missing; she was probably frantic.

On his way back to Covent Garden and the nearest cab stand, Titus felt an increasing anxiety for Prospero and the other dolphin. How long would they last in those dirty, confining tanks, injured and getting banged about and cut and bruised?

Celeste. He had to let her know what had happened to Prospero, had to be with her … see her … touch her. A smothering wave of longing engulfed him and he stumbled into the nearest cab and sank back in the seat. He felt as if he were drowning in emotions. In his mind that voice came again … “just relax and breathe and let it wash over you.” He took one labored breath, then another, and another.