Foundation (19 page)

Trumaine watched the baby sleep, at ease in her mother’s arms.

“
We have already sampled the DNA of the baby,” said a voice behind him in an automatic monotone.

He turned to see the Aquarian nurse, a cold but perfectly efficient animal. She had walked up to him so quietly he hadn’t heard her approach.

“
I shall need her name for the paperwork.”

“
We’re gonna call her ... Maia,” Starshanna told her softly, after she had glanced at Trumaine for validation and he had nodded back.

“
Very well. Maia it is,” confirmed the nurse.

She scribbled away in her blipping pad, then she turned to Trumaine.

“
I take the liberty to remind you that tomorrow your temporary visa will expire. Many of our visitors just forget to go, and are so forbidden to ever return. Just see that you leave on time.”

The nurse awaited like a zealous machine for Trumaine’s response, but the answer never came.

Trumaine had eyes for Maia only.

Starshanna had been granted leave from work for ten months, so they had long since returned to Earth. Even if she had developed her pregnancy on Aquaria, she always thought that Maia should live her first years on Earth. It was the original planet where the adventure of space colonization had started, after all. As much as Aquaria and the new planets represented the future of mankind, Earth still stood for what good and uplifting the past had been. Starshanna and Trumaine had agreed it was the right thing for Maia to learn as much as possible about Earth before she finally moved to Aquaria. Once she had grown up, it was entirely up to her, of course, to decide what to do: stay on Aquaria, move back to Earth, try one of the other dozen or so extraplanets where mankind was expanding to.

The house had never been more lively and cheerful.

Maia was happy to be alive and eager to explore the world around her. The genuine enthusiasm and the curiosity she studied even the most insignificant event with, was so contagious it drew in both her parents.

Ten months went by in the blink of an eye. Maia was growing fast and steadily. In the moments when she was at her boldest, she would dare heave herself on her wobbly legs and reach to the objects that she wouldn’t get otherwise, but it was when she was down on all fours that the bulk of her exploring was done. She strolled around the house and the patio, arriving at the parapet Trumaine had built around the water channel to make sure she didn’t fall into it.

Maia, who had long since suspected the presence of another creature in the house, listened to the odd clicks and whistles that rang about in the patio; it had taken her very little to realize where she could find the dolphin. Trumaine and Starshanna often caught her clinging to the parapet, peeking through its gaps, trying to get a glimpse of him, contemplating him, wondering what that blue splashing thing was.

At long last, they had shown him to her.

It was the first summer of Maia’s life. It was hot outside, so Trumaine had removed the parapet and had joined Starshanna and the dolphin in the refreshing water of the channel.

Now that the barrier had suddenly disappeared, Maia was somehow reluctant to go beyond that point. She was drawn to the new world, feeling it was calling for her, but even if she saw her mommy and daddy in the water, all the same she couldn’t make up her mind and jump in too.

She kept crawling around, nervously inspecting the edge of the channel, throwing cautionary glances at the unsteady element she was supposed to experiment. Then her attention would shift to the dark shape darting below the blue surface. She followed him with her intent eyes then, from time to time, when she saw the tapered nose of the dolphin emerge, she would open her mouth in wonder and let out a high-pitched squeal of marvel to which the dolphin responded in his own language—a series of modulated whistles.

The dolphin had always been aware of Maia’s presence; his instinct had told him from the very beginning she must be a human cub. He poked his head out of the water, approaching the small thing down on all fours, crawling about on the edge of the channel then, when he wasn’t but a couple of feet from her, he would study her in turn.

To Trumaine’s and Starshanna’s surprise, Maia had sat up. Clapping her hands at the dolphin, she had cooed back at him.

Once again, the dolphin had clicked and whistled, responding to every single sound Maia made.

Starshanna and Trumaine trod water from afar, observing the scene, a look between the amazed and the amused on their faces.

In a second attempt of tasting the blue world where the dolphin was master, she had inched closer to the edge of the channel. Still, she wouldn’t leap through the last feet that separated her from the water.

It was only when Starshanna had swum in front of her, clapping her hands, reaching out for her, that Maia had held her breath and finally had jumped into the water.

It turned out that she was a natural in the water.

All babies her age must be, thought Trumaine. Even if she needed support to stay afloat and despite the fact that she never kept her mouth shut, all the same—probably by means of some primeval instinct—she managed to seal her throat when water flooded in.

Ever eager to see and to explore, she never closed her eyes when she was underwater.

The dolphin circled her slowly, never splashing about with his tail or making sudden movements that might scare her. He just studied her as she tried to find her bearings amidst the element she was floating in.

Oddly enough, Maia wasn’t afraid in the least of the dolphin and, in just a few weeks, the two of them had developed a steady relationship. When Maia wasn’t in the water, the two kept seeking each other, lingering close to the parapet, peeking longingly through the stakes of the fence.

Only when they had the chance to be together once more, in the water, would they be happy again.

Trumaine remembered how fast she was growing up. She had learned to swim very quickly; from her first attempts, when she flailed her arms and legs in haphazard and disjointed movements, she had learned to coordinate her limbs, stroking and paddling more effectively.

As her limbs had stretched out, growing stronger, she had started chasing after the dolphin; awkwardly at first, then with more energy and determination.

Her blue friend would never let her hang behind; on the contrary, he would wait for her to get close enough. Only then he would move on, putting some more distance between them, as if to test her—and Maia dutifully put every effort in pursuing him.

At eight, Maia’s small body cut through the water at amazing speed and agility.

It was one day about that age that she had come up with a name for the dolphin, since all pets should absolutely have a name, as she put it. While Trumaine couldn’t imagine anyone else in the world having a dolphin for a “pet,” he had found the name she has chosen for him quite appropriate: it was “Arthur,” the stalwart king of a magical kingdom.

Starshanna came and went from Aquaria as frequently as possible, especially on the weekends, often times spending half of her earnings as a biologist to buy the tickets for the Neptune—the Aquarian shuttle. It wasn’t like her to be lazy or idle at work, but she would now try to find any reason for remaining on Earth a few days more, so that the three of them could be together as much as possible.

It was about at that time that Maia also made the decision that would change her life forever.

It happened one afternoon, after Starshanna was gone. As usual, Maia had heaved herself out of the water, scampering toward her father, who was coming over with a bucket filled with mackerel. Feeding the dolphin had become a sort of a bonding ritual between father and daughter. The dolphin didn’t need to be fed, of course, he came and went from the ocean as he pleased, so he could find his nourishment there, but he accepted eagerly a free meal and Maia found the thing fascinating.

She had simply turned toward her father.

“
When I’m in the water, no matter how hard I swim, I can’t catch up with Arthur, Daddy. How is that?”

It was just a little girl’s question, one of the million boys and girls her age ask and Trumaine didn’t put much weight in it. After all, how many questions like that does a father receive from a smart, volcanic child like Maia? So he had answered her as best as he could.

“
Because Mother Nature has made him fit for the sea. In place of your arms and legs, she gave him fins and a powerful tail.”

“
Will he always be faster than me?”

“
I think so. But you can always try to outswim him, can’t you?” he said, trying not to discourage her.

It seemed a perfectly harmless answer to give a little girl and he didn’t think about the devastating consequences such a few words might have on Maia’s exuberant brain.

“
Yes. One day, I’ll beat him,” she said with a stubborn resolve.

Little did Trumaine know that she was making the most terrible decision in her life. He could never imagine the many times he would have cursed himself for not telling Maia the simple truth: the dolphin belonged to a world she had no clue of; he was out of her reach, he was out of any human being’s reach, because he was a powerful swimmer designed to live in the water.

Maia was now twelve. On the large video wall they had installed in the living room, she could see her mother almost any time she wanted. It wasn’t the same thing as having her around, of course, and Trumaine and Maia kept wondering when they would be together once again.

Maia was in the years when she had started to fully realize about herself, about what she liked and what she hated.

Trumaine knew that the time when she would choose between staying with him or going back to her mother was approaching fast and he felt he couldn’t do anything about it.

Maia had never ceased sharing Starshanna’s love for water and was fascinated by her work on Aquaria.

Trumaine remembered the conversation he had with her exactly about that.

It was at the end of summer. Trumaine was on the beach, tanning in the sun hanging lower than it used to be only weeks before. As always, the crashing waves had a soothing effect on him; even the jarring high-pitched screeches of the circling seagulls were a note he couldn’t do without.

From where he was he could glimpse, just off the beach, Arthur’s dorsal fin slice the water with little noise and, at some distance behind him, a couple of thin limbs tirelessly emerging and dropping to the water, following him.

Maia jerked her head out of the salt water regularly, gasping for air, then she plunged in again, straining to keep up with the dolphin.

There was something primeval and obscure about Maia’s determination in trying to outswim the cetacean Trumaine hadn’t yet acknowledged. It wasn’t the absurd persuasion of a little girl anymore; it had grown out of that, well beyond the point of what could be proven or disproved, well beyond the size or the strength of the contenders. The struggle had risen to an unprecedented level and had become the millenary, secret challenge of man to nature’s order.

It didn’t look like any of that from where Trumaine was; he couldn’t see yet the danger that was growing before his eyes. To him, it was just another lazy day at the end of a long, hot summer.

He looked on: Maia and the dolphin were entering the channel now. Little by little, they came to level with the point where he sat and he knew it was time to get back to the house. In an hour, they would have supper and, before that, they would feed the dolphin.

So he stood, picked up his towel from under him, then jogged along the edge of the channel, preceding them to the patio.

As usual, Trumaine got out of the French doors holding the bucket containing the mackerel. He placed the bucket in the corner, then he moved to one of the deckchairs, where Maia had carelessly dropped her bathrobe. He scooped it up, then stepped to the metal ladder he had personally installed to make it easier for Maia to get out of the water.

Dolphin and girl had finally arrived.

Shivering from wear, looking up with a smile, Maia climbed out of the channel, taking the robe she was offered. Trumaine could never quite get used to the speed she was growing; she had suddenly blown into a radiant if bony teenager and she was more adorable than ever. She wrapped herself in the robe, squeezing the water out of her nose the same way her father did.

“
You still think you can beat him?” he said, teasingly.

Maia didn’t say anything. She just glared at him from behind her furrowed brows, the same way teenagers do when they are disappointed, but don’t dare say what’s on their mind—or don’t care.