Existence (41 page)

Not that he had any real complaints. Lacey would get excited about some new development and recruit the boys as willing—or sometimes grudging—subjects. When she learned that human beings could be taught
echolocation,
she sent her sons stumbling around in blindfolds, clicking their tongues
just so,
listening for reflected echoes off sofas and walls … even servants stationed around the room. It proved possible to navigate that way—with a lot of bumps and stumbles. Hacker even found the knack handy as a party trick, later in life.

But who would imagine I’d wind up using it in a place like this?

Even the dolphins seemed surprised by his crude ability. Several of them spent extra time with Hacker, patiently tutoring him, like a slow toddler learning to walk.

In return he helped by checking every member of the pod, from fluke to rostrum, using his ungloved hands to clean sores and remove parasites. Especially bothersome were drifting flecks of plastic, that neither sank nor biodegraded, but got caught in body crevices, even at the roots of every dolphin tooth. He found himself doing the chore daily—also carefully combing gunk out of the gill fronds that surrounded his helmet. But the stuff kept coming back. Sometimes swirling clouds of plastic bits and beads would turn the crystal waters hazy and bleak.

How can anything live in this?
he wondered while kicking along with his companions, over a seabed that was littered with manmade dross everywhere they went.

Yet, Hacker felt he was getting the hang of life out here. His early fear of drowning, or getting battered by harsh currents, faded in time, as did the claustrophobia of living encased by a survival suit. Once again, he made a mental note to invest in the company that manufactured it. That is, if he ever made it back to that world.

At night he felt more relaxed than he had in years, perhaps ever, dozing while the dolphins’ clickety gossip seemed to flow up his jaw and into his dreams. By the fifth or sixth morning, and increasingly on each that followed, he felt closer to understanding their way of communicating.

I once saw a dolphin expert—on some nature show—say these creatures are merely bright animals, who had powers mimicry and precocious logic skill, maybe some basic semantics, at the level of a chimp, but little more. He said the evidence disproved all those old wish fantasies about dolphins actually having culture and language.

What a dope!

Hacker felt confirmed in his longstanding belief that so-called experts often lack the common sense to see what’s right in front of them.

Despite a promise to himself, he soon lost track of how many days and nights had passed. Moreover, gradually, Hacker even stopped worrying about where the pickup boats could be. He no longer rushed to the surface, bobbing frantically, whenever engine sounds rumbled through the shallow currents. It happened frequently, but though he often glimpsed a distant boat or plane, it was never within reach of his shouting voice, or waving arms.

Angry mutterings about revenge and lawsuits rubbed away under relentless massage by current and tide. Immersed in the dolphins’ communal sonic chatter, he began concerning himself with daily problems of the Tribe, such as when two young males got into a fight, smacking each other with their beaks and flukes, then trading snaps and rakes with sharp teeth, until half a dozen adults intervened, forcibly separating the brawlers.

Using a combination of spoken words, sign language and his growing vocabulary of click-code, Hacker made inquiries and learned that a female (whose complex name he translated to
Blue Lady
) was in heat. The youths held little hope of mating with her—top males circled much closer. Still, their nervous energy needed an outlet. At least no one was seriously harmed.

One old-timer—
Mellow Yellowbelly
—shyly presented a pectoral fin to Hacker, who used his knife to dig out several wormlike bloodsuckers. The dolphin chuttered unhappily, but barely flinched.

“You should see a real doctor,” Hacker urged, as if one gave verbal advice to cetaceans every day.

# Helpers go away,
Yellowbelly tried to explain in click-code. Though Hacker had to ask for three repeatings
.

# Fins need hands. Helper hands.

It supported a theory slowly gestating in Hacker’s mind—that something had been done to these creatures. An alteration that made them distinctly different. A breed somehow apart from others of their species. But what? The mystery grew each time he witnessed some behavior that just couldn’t be natural.

At the same time, Yellowbelly’s answer lit a spark in one corner of Hacker’s mind—the section assigned to wariness and suspicion. It had been dozing, of late, but nothing could ever turn off that part of his character. Not completely.

Could their kindness to me have a double purpose? Maybe it’s no accident that we’ve not passed near any boats or shore. Or any of the search parties that Mark and Lacey would have sent out.

Having a human may be useful to them.

Perhaps they have no intention of letting me go.

Hacker wondered afresh about his own survival. Despite being fed by the Tribe—and sustained by the wonderful suit—there were limits to how long a man could last out here.
I’m developing an itch, all over. The human body isn’t meant for perpetual exposure to salt, and deposits must be building up on my skin. My waste products are easy to dispose of … but what if the gills or freshwater distiller get permanently clogged?
Already, he saw signs of declining efficiency.

Still, there seemed to be no life-or-death urgency.

Except to one mother, a brother, three girlfriends, four avocation clubs, and my investment company, drifting rudderless without me. And all the searchers that Lacey has probably sent scurrying across the Caribbean looking for me.

How, he wondered, could the rescuers keep missing him? Had every transponder chip failed, including several in the suit?

One theory occurred to Hacker—that jibbering, noble twit, Lord Smits, must have used something more powerful than a signal laser, during that brief-stupid attempt at playing space war. Perhaps the snooty, inbred bastard also wielded a narrow beam EMP-thrower, firing an electromagnetic pulse that fritzed Hacker’s ailectronics. It could explain the rapid deterioration of his suborbital capsule, at a crucial moment.

If so, it was nothing less than attempted murder.…

Yet, even that realization did not fill him with the expected flood of fury. Somehow, wrath seemed out of place down here. Perhaps it was the implacable push of solar and lunar tides, so much more palpable and insistent than mere atmospheric breezes. Or else the infectious attitude of his companions. Not perfectly cheerful or always accepting … they had their frets and upsets … still, the dolphins were keyed to a wholly different scale. One that seemed less egocentric or self-important. Or that seldom saw a point in frenzy.

# Sea gives …

# … though we must leave her

# … to breathe …

So explained Yellowbelly. At least, that was how Hacker loosely interpreted one set of sonic glyph images.

# And Sea takes it all away again.

Of course, it was an iffy thing, trying to decipher a brief sound sculpture, crudely perceived with a jaw implant that hadn’t been designed for this purpose. Translating Yellowbelly’s explanation as some kind of poetical theology was probably a product of Hacker’s own imagination. Yet even that seemed amazing, for he had never been one for theology. Or poetry, for that matter.

Whatever it is, I’ve managed to figure out all this without assistance. No clever mechanisms or hired experts or AI helpers.
There was a grim-amused satisfaction in that.
If I’ve gone mad, at least I managed it all by myself!

Life drifted on, a cadence of hunting, eating, socializing, exploring, and tending to the needs of the Tribe—followed by evenings bathed in equal measures of warm water and sound. When a storm or rain squall passed through the area, he listened to the dolphins as they kept a kind of syncopated time with the rippling waves and pelting drops.

Then came one day when the whole community grew excited, spraying nervous clicks everywhere. Amid a swirl of daunting gray forms, swooping and chattering, it took Hacker some time to gather a gist of what was up. Apparently, by group consensus, it had been decided all at once to head for one of their regular haunts, a favorite place of some kind. One they seemed to think of as
home.

For quite some time Hacker had been trying to keep up with the group on his own, kicking hard with his flippers and swimming with increasing strength, at a pace he was pretty proud of … even knowing that they were indulging him with affectionate tolerance, amused by his clumsy efforts. Now though, a note of impatience intruded. Several times adult members pulled alongside, offering their dorsal fins, crafting resonant shapes that urged Hacker to grab ahold. But he felt obstinately determined.

Well, after all, they have to go up for air and I don’t. That ought to count for something.

After refusing three times, striving hard to keep up with their increasing pace, he abruptly felt a narrow beam of unpleasantness rattle his jaw on one side. Turning, he felt struck, full-face, by a wave of sharp
rebuke
—there was no other way to interpret the harsh sonic waves—cast from the brow of an irascible dolphin he had nicknamed
Bicker-a-lot.

Heck, make that
Bicker-a-ton
! The creature glared the way cetaceans do, by crafting a jagged shape around Hacker’s head, composed of craggy, uneven sound waves. None of it showed visibly. There was no change in the beguiling, misleading dolphin smile.

All right. All right. If you feel that strongly about it.

The top female
Sweet Thing,
offered Hacker a dorsal fin, and this time he accepted. Soon, they were streaking along, building speed, alternately dipping below the thermocline and then racing upward to jet out of the water. Each time, he got an exhaled blast across the facemask as she arched and soared, blowing and filling her lungs while gravity was checked for a brief, glorious moment. Hacker couldn’t help flinching and squinting—and giving a hoarse yell. It was no rocket, but one hell of a ride.

He also tried to take advantage, every leap, of the chance to look around. After a while, Hacker glimpsed something—a blurry line of white and tan and blotchy green up ahead. It was hard to make out amid the jostling of spray and exhilaration. He didn’t dare to linger on the hopeful word—
land.

Too soon the rollicking journey ended. The pod of cetaceans slowed and submerged, heading downward at a shallow slant.
Now I’ll find out what “home” means to a pack of wild …

A bulky object emerged out of blue dimness, down at the sloping bottom. No more than ten meters below the surface, between sheltering, sedimentary rilles, it had the edgy lines of something man-made. At-first it seemed a derelict, perhaps a sunken ship. Then Hacker sucked in his breath, as the object resolved into another kind of thing altogether. A construct that had come to the muddy sea floor with deliberate purpose.

They were approaching an undersea
habitat dome,
hidden in a narrow canyon—one of thousands that had been mass produced in the twenties, during a brief suboceanic boom, when some thought it to be the next great property-rush frontier.
Dad invested in a few underwater hotels and mining facilities,
Hacker recalled.
With sea levels rising, he said that humanity would adapt, as always, and we needed to be part of it. Even make money off it.

Too bad none of the ventures ever made a profit.

While his heartbeat settled down, Hacker noticed a few other things. Like the shape of the gully, clearly formed by drifting sand and silt, piled up over many years. It was the kind of terrain that only formed where ocean bottom approached the continental verge. In fact, he could now pick up growling, repetitive rhythms with his implant—a complex pattern that any surfer would recognize—of breaker slapping against the shore.

Shore …
The word tasted strange after all these days—weeks?—spent languidly swimming, living on raw fish and listening to timeless ocean sounds. Suddenly, it felt odd to contemplate leaving this watery realm, returning to the surface world of air, earth, cities, machines, and nine billion human beings inhaling each other’s humid breath everywhere they went.

That’s why we dive into our own worlds, I suppose. Countless thousands of hobbies. A million ways to be special, each person endeavoring to be expert at some arcane art … like rocketing into space.

Psychologists approved, saying that frenetic amateurism was a much healthier response than the most likely alternative—war. They called this the “Century of Aficionados,” a time when governments and professional societies could barely keep up with private expertise, which spread at lightning speed across the World Mesh. A
renaissance-without-a-cause
, lacking only a clear sense of purpose.

A renaissance that seemed to be dancing atop a layer of fragile ice, moving its feet quickly, as if afraid that standing still could be lethal. The prospect of soon rejoining that culture left him suddenly pensive, even a bit sad, pondering something he never would have considered, before that ill-fated desert launch.

What’s the point of so much obsessive, frenetic activity unless it propels you toward something worthwhile?

Once, a few days ago, he had heard one of the dolphins voice a similar thought in their simple but expressive click-language, as far as he could dimly interpret.

# If you’re good at diving—chase fish!

# If you have a fine voice—sing!

# If you’re great at leaping—bite the sun!