Margaret St. Clair (16 page)

They did as she suggested. Kendry had swum apart and was floating motionless. We others did a little fishing, but mainly we stayed near the rock cluster, since we knew Lawrence was somewhat mistrustful.

The two Splits ate in silence. The gulls swooped around them. Sosa dabbled her fingers in the water to clean them; Lawrence lit a cigarette, smoked furiously for a moment or two, and then squashed the cigarette out against the rock. He shifted his legs impatiently. “Madelaine, do you think —oh, here she comes.”

Kendry stopped in front of Madelaine. We were all listening. “Sosa —I cannot remember,” she said.

-

Chapter 12

Dr. Lawrence looked around the horizon. Kendry’s rocks were so little elevated above the surface of the sea that he was almost as low as if he sat in a rowboat. He seemed to find no help in the wide, flat prospect, and his gaze returned to Madelaine.

“Kendry says she can’t remember?” he repeated. “She must remember. Getting the ahln is too important to dismiss like this. Can’t you enter her mind, Madelaine, the way you did with me when I couldn’t remember how to get rid of the pyrtrol foam?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’s a dolphin, and her brain is much more complex than yours. Besides, she is very old. If I tried to enter her mind, in any but the most superficial way, I would probably kill her.”

“Well, for Christ’s sake, there must be some wa y of reminding her.”

“Perhaps there is, but it can’t be forced.”

Kendry, though she had not understood Lawrence’s words, had understood his tone and was looking at him intently. To me she said, “This is the Split who betrayed us?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Is he really our friend now?” she asked.

“I think so. We have had no reason to mistrust him since he came back. And Sosa seems to think he is reliable.”

Madelaine, who was following our conversation, nodded her head, though not very enthusiastically . “Tell Kendry he is worried because she can’t remember,” she said.

I relayed this message, adding, “Is there any reference to the ahln in the poem of the covenant, Kendry?”

“There may be,” my great-great-great aunt answered slowly. I seemed to have st arted her on a new train of thought. “There is that passage about the parting and wasting of the waters that might refer to it. I never thought of it in that light before.”

We were all quiet—even the doctor, though he did not understand what had been sai d —while Kendry softly recited the verses. At the end, she said, “Yes, I think it does mean the ahln. But I still cannot remember how I was told it is made.”

Moonlight let out her breath in disappointment. She shook her head in response to Lawrence’s look of inquiry. A gull swooped low over her head, and she put up her arm to protect herself. The motion made the loose cap sleeve of her dress fall away from her shoulder.

“How did Sosa get that scar on her arm?” Kendry asked.

“That’s where she was wounded during the attack on Noonday Rock,” I answered. “Don’t you remember our telling you she was hurt in the arm?”

“Yes, I remember. I have seen such a scar before —it was —I —no, it’s gone.”

Madelaine had turned to the doctor. “Give me your hunting knife,” she said in a low voice.

He drew it from the sheath and handed it to her. I thought she seemed a little paler than usual. “Tell Kendry this —this will help her remember,” she told me. She drew the hunting knife forcefully across the barely healed scar.

Blood gushed out. Lawrence jumped to his feet and snatched the knife away from her. “Maddy! What are you doing? What’s the big idea?”

Moonlight was clutching her arm underneath the freely bleeding gash. “I think Kendry can tell us now,” she said.

We were all making noises of distress. “Sosa!” Kendry cried. “I don’t understand! Why did you wound yourself?”

“Amtor, tell her to remember the o ther time she saw a scar, and it was gashed by a knife.”

Ivry was dashing about wildly; as usual when something went wrong, he was inclined to blame Lawrence. Pettrus and I were relatively calm, and Kendry, though she couldn’t help making the distress si gnal, was trying to do as Madelaine had bidden her.

“I remember,” she said after a minute. “It happened when I was young, a long, long time ago.

“We were swimming along beside a canoe of the Splits, the brown Splits who live on islands in the big calm ocean. It was a big canoe, filled with people, and we were guiding them to a new island, where they had never been before.

“We sea people talked as we swam along, of course; a very old cousin of mine was telling us about something the Old Ones had had, c alled the ahln.

“The Split in the prow of the canoe had a scar on his shoulder, very like the one Sosa has. One of the oarsmen began to quarrel with him, and suddenly he jumped up from his oar and slashed at the other Split’s shoulder with his knife.

“Blood ran out over the scar, a lot of blood. The other men in the canoe took sides, and in a minute they were all fighting.

“The canoe upset and they all went in the water, even the women. That would not have been serious; they could all swim, and they could have righted the canoe. But the blood in the water drew sharks, more sharks than I had ever seen at one time, and we sea people had to leave the Splits struggling in the water and swim for our lives.

“I suppose they were all killed. I am not surpri sed I couldn’t remember about the ahln. Seeing a Split hurt is very shocking to one of the sea people.”

“But she remembers now?” Moonlight asked. She was still clutching her arm underneath the wound, to check the bleeding. The blood ran out over her fing ers and down her arm.

Kendry blew a long jet of air after I relayed the question. “Yes, I think so. I am not sure of the names of the metal, but perhaps Amtor can help with them.—It is at least a hundred years since I had thought of it.”

Lawrence had taken off his life jacket and was tearing a strip from the bottom of his shirt to serve as a bandage. He began tying the cloth around Madelaine’s arm. “Did your self-mutilation succeed in jogging Kendry’s memory?” he asked.

“She believes so.”

“Good,” Lawrence answered. “When we get back to the Naomi, you must tell me how you knew it would have that effect. Meantime, see if you can get her to dictate the details of the ahln’s construction to you.” He tied the ends of his bandage in a neat knot, “All right .”

Lawrence got a writing pad and pencil from his pocket and handed them to her. Madelaine seated herself on the rocky surface, the writing pad on her knee and Kendry in the water close to her feet. The tide was rising, and there was less of the rock abo ve water than there had been.

“I can’t
tell you how to draw the ahln, Sosa,” Kendry said, faintly distressed.
“I shall have to use Udra to make you draw the ahln as it is in my mind. Then you can ask me questions about what you have drawn. Will you objec t to this?”

“Tell her, not at all,” Madelaine said to me. “She is welcome to use my arm, or my whole body, as she pleases. I don’t find Udra frightening.”

There was a silence. Madelaine sat relaxed, her shoulders drooping, while blood seeped through th e bandage on her arm. Her eyes did not seem to be focused on anything. Lawrence lit cigarette after cigarette. The rock area above water diminished steadily.

Slowly Moonlight’s hand began to move. She drew on the writing pad for about fifteen minutes, sl owly and steadily, going back occasionally over what she had already drawn.

Her hand stopped moving. She gave a deep sigh. “That’s the ahln,” she said. “Take the pad, Doctor, and take good care of it. I can’t see to hand it to you.”

Lawrence’s hand had gone out to the note pad, but now he stopped, divided between curiosity over the drawing and solicitude for the girl.

“Can’t see to hand it to me?” he said. “What do you mean by that? Is something wrong with your eyes?”

“No. I mean, yes, there i s, but I think it will pass. Translating Kendry’s multidimensional picture into human, two-dimensional terms has affected my vision. But I think it will pass. Take the pad, Doctor. Take good care of it.”

He obeyed. Madelaine was rubbing the back of her n eck and sighing. He looked at the drawing thoughtfully.

“What are the wires in the upper left corner made of?” he asked after an instant.

“Cy—copper, I think.”

“And what’s that prism-thing in the middle? It doesn’t seem to be glass.”

“No, it’s not,” the girl answered. “Amtor, ask Kendry what the prism is.”

“She says it’s a heavy dull metal that’s quite soft,” I reported. “She says Splits use it on fishing lines. I think she means lead.”

“What’s the purpose of the prism, though?” Lawrence asked.

“Kendry says it regulates the amount of heat that is produced,” I reported.

“Um. And the little helix down on the right? Is it the same as the copper wire?”

“No, it’s not,” Madelaine said after I had put the question to Kendry. “It’s a silvery metal , very heavy, that’s resistant to almost everything. It’s hard to work. Kendry has never seen a specimen of it.”

“She must mean platinum,” Dr. Lawrence said. He was still studying the drawing. “Well, I guess we could make this thing without too much trou ble. Even the platinum wire wouldn’t be impossible.

“But I don’t see what it would do after we made it. For one thing, there’s no indication of a power source on the drawing. It isn’t self-powered, is it? Where does the power come from?” He gave the draw ing a final dissatisfied glance and put it in his breast pocket, under his life jacket.

“Ask Kendry, Amtor,” Madelaine said. She was rubbing her eyes.

“She says it is not self-powered. It has to have an external source of power.”

“Well, what is it? A battery? Electric current? What?”

“She says it is none of these,” I reported after I had relayed Lawrence’s question. “She says she cannot tell us how it is powered, though she knows it is something Splits do not have. But what it is exactly, she has ne ver known. She was never told.”

Dr. Lawrence grew rigid. “Why didn’t the old lady tell us this before?” he demanded angrily. “It would have saved us all trouble, and Madelaine needn’t have that nasty cut on her arm. I don’t see how this contraption could do anything anyhow. But it’s perfectly useless if it can’t be powered.” He gave an exasperated snort.

“Maybe not useless,” Madelaine answered. She reached out her hand gropingly and laid it on the doctor’s arm. “Be patient a little.—Amtor, ask Kendry ab out this.”

Kendry and I talked for several minutes. Madelaine listened carefully, but Lawrence, of course, could only wait.

At last I said, “She says Madelaine and I must unite our minds to try to find out how to power it. We must unite our minds and r each out.”

“Reach out? To where?” Lawrence was still fuming with exasperation.

“She says it will not be easy, but Madelaine has become enough like one of the sea people to make-it possible. We must unite our minds and reach out with all our strength to the sun from which the Old Ones came. We must reach out to Altair.”

“A storm is coming up,” Kendry continued. “Sosa must have a place where she can be quiet and warm before she and Amtor try what they have to do. Sail your boat south, down the coast, and try to find a quiet anchorage.”

Dr. Lawrence, though the water was lapping around his knees when this message was relayed to him, sat motionless. “Before we go off on another wild-goose chase,” he said, “find out from Kendry why she thinks the ahln is powered by something Splits don’t currently have. I don’t want Madelaine to knock herself out only to discover that the ahln is powered by something on the order of a flashlight battery. Ask her, Amtor.”

It occurred to me that Lawrence’s app etite for marvels was temporarily satiated; the idea of trying to make psychic contact with Altair seemed to annoy him.

“She says that ‘powered’ is not exactly the right word,” I reported. “She says that what the ahln needs to be effective might be somet hing Splits do have; she isn’t sure. But the secret lies in how it is used. And she is sure Splits have no knowledge of the principle of the ahln, or they would have made great changes in their environment.

“She thinks we had better start south, before t he storm comes up.” I did not repeat the last part of Kendry’s reply, which Sosa had heard as well as I had: that we must use all care to prevent the knowledge of the ahln from coming into the hands of other Splits. There was too much power represented in. it to be trusted to the good intentions of humanity.

“Very well,” Lawrence said. “I suppose we’d better try it, anyhow. Ivry, may I ride on your back till we get to the Naomi?”

“All right,” Ivry agreed without enthusiasm. Sosa was already astride me. She leaned forward and caressed Ken-dry’s head delicately.

“Tell her good-bye, and that we will hope to see her again,” she said.

Kendry answered, “Yes, we can hope. But I am getting old. Sosa, if I never see you again, remember how happy I am that you came to help us in our need. Good-bye, dear Sosa.”

We began to swim away. Moonlight waved her hand in farewell. As we looked back at Kendry’s rocks from a distance, we saw that the water had almost closed over them.

By the time we got back to the
Naom i, the first drops of rain had begun to fall. The doctor had Madelaine lie down on the settee in the cabin. Then he sent me down to bring up the anchor, while he laid a course to the south.

“Can you dolphins swim ahead and warn me of any rocks?” he asked . “I want to sail close to the coast, so I can see if we get near a suitable anchorage.”

This was agreed, and Lawrence had Sosa take the wheel briefly while he put a better bandage on her arm and gave her an injection of penicillin. Then he took the helm again.

We soon left the storm behind us, except for brief squalls and bursts of rain. A little before dusk, the doctor saw a small circular bay ahead of us. It seemed to be the site of a village: small craft were drawn up on the beach, and there was a t iny jetty where a larger boat was moored. It was obviously the place he had been looking for.