Cachalot Page 10

  "That Ends It," the whale said.

  "Wait, wait!" Cora was waving frantically at the receding eye. "I didn't mean to insult you. I—"

  "You can't be subtle or dilatory with His kind." Sam spoke curtly, angry not at her but at Them. "They understand neither." He raised the volume on his translator.

  "Four floating towns. Four of the off-bottom islands on which our people lived have vanished in the past three months! All the people on them also disappeared. Nothing has been heard of them; no trace of their passing has been found. Have you any idea what might have happened?"

  The head paused, the eye now just above water. "We Do Not."

  "But how can you say that?" Rachael left off programming her instrument to interrupt undiplomatically. This did not upset Cora. At least her daughter was becoming involved. "You haven't even asked the other members of your pod!"

  The great eye swiveled to stare dispassionately up at her. "I Am Called," and the translator fought with whistles and squeaks to announce finally, "Lump-jaw. Lumpjaw Speaks For The Pod. If Thou Hast Anything More To Say To Lumpjaw, Then He Bids Thou Sayest It. If Thou Hast Anything More To Say To The Pod, Then Say It To Lumpjaw. If Not…"

  "No, we do. At least I do." Cora took a cautious breath. "Why are you so hostile?" Her curiosity had the better of her now. "We haven't done anything to you. Why can't you wait?"

  From the water rose the great head. It eased toward her, barely touched the railing. Even so, the Caribe slid slightly sideways and listed several degrees to starboard.

  "Nothing To Us? How Many Whales Did Thy Ancestors Slay? How Near To Completion Came Man's Policy Of Genocide?"

  "That was a thousand years ago," she said indignantly. "I will not be held accountable for the transgressions of my distant ancestors. Nor should you identify so intensely with your equally ancient ones."

  The whale pulled away. The railing groaned, unbent in the middle. "The Little Female Hath Spirit. We Do Care. We Do Remember. The Diaspora Came Almost Too Late. But What Mankind Hath Done He May Do Again.'

  "Mankind has changed." She moved tentatively to the bent rail, looked down. "Just as radically as have the Cetacea."

  "Words!" Lumpjaw rumbled, though with seemingly less conviction. "And Worse, They Are Words of Mankind, Who Is Not To Be Believed."

  "What about Wenkoseemansa and Latehoht?" Cora argued. "And their cousins the porpoises? They trust."

  "The Little Ones Who-Leap-AH-The-Time Are But Children, Locked Into A Degraded, Permanent Infancy Of Their Own Choosing. As For The Mottled Brave Who Are Also Our Cousins; They Have For Reasons Of Their Own Chosen Friendliness And Association With Thy Kind. We Do Not."

  "Unhappy to you," a new voice said, "Ponderous Swimmer." Latehoht had appeared nearby.

  "Perhaps So." Lumpjaw sounded philosophical, not angry with the orca. "We Cannot Judge Eventuality, Only The Present. Perhaps Thy Course May Be The True One, Little Mottled Cousin. But We Of The Catodonia Have Not Yet Forgotten Nor Forgiven. We Only Hope For Thy Sake That Thy Trust Is Never Betrayed."

  "It won't be," Sam insisted.

  "May It Be So." The head turned slightly, bringing huge ivory teeth within Cora's reach. She did not flinch. "There Are Men, And There Are Men. They May Differ As Much As The Colors Of The Fish Who School In The Millions, And Their Feelings And Beliefs And Desires May Be Equally Diverse. That Be The Difference Between Us. We Strive For A Singularity Of Thought, A Unity. Not Diversity."

  "Mankind has its own form of unity," Cora pointed out.

  "Aye, But Tis Not A Unity of Soul." The whale waxed poetic: "Thy Unity Springs From A Drive For Survival. We Of The Caledonia Have No Such Need And Find Our Strength In Individual Independence Joined To A Unity Of Thought.

  "In That Unity There Is As Yet," he added almost as an afterthought, "No Room For Trusting Mankind. I Have Seen Nothing Of Man As Yet To Convince Me Otherwise And I Have Made The Great Migration Yea, Twenty Times."

  "Five years of adolescence," Sam murmured, "give or take a little, and four years per migration. That would make him eight-five years old, or more."

  "How can you be so sure of man if you remain aloof from him?" Cora wanted to know.

  "I Would Debate Philosophy With Thee Longer, Little Female," Lumpjaw said, "But There Are Those In The Pod Who Grow Anxious. We Have Distances To Travel And Thoughts To Think. Thou Hast Interrupted Both."

  "Are you sure," Merced interrupted, speaking for the first time, "that in all your travels you've seen or learned nothing from other whales that could give us a hint of what might have caused the obliteration of the four towns? The destruction occurred over a wide area. Surely some of the cetaceans must have been nearby. With your ability to sense and hear over considerable distances, it seems inconceivable that—"

  "Why Should We Trouble Ourselves?" Lumpjaw muttered the question with alarming indifference. "We Care Not What Happens To Humans." The eye turned back up to Cora. "We Do Not Oppose Thee. We Do Not Support Thee. We Tolerate. Cachalot Is Our World. As Long As Man Realizes That, We Will Coexist Here Better Than Ever We Did A Millennium Ago On Earth. The Loss Of A Few Human Lives Is of No Concern To Us. Less So Than Was The Loss Of Thousands Of Cetacean Lives To Thy Ancestors."

  "I wish you'd stop going on about people long since turned to dust!" Cora shouted, more out of frustration than from anger. "I told you, I won't assume the guilt of a thousand years."

  "Perhaps Not, Little Female. But Remember Always That Somewhere, At Sometime In Thy Past, One Of Thy Ancestors Ate, Or Read A Book By The Light Of, Or Dressed In Part Of The Corpse Of, A Whale. We Cannot Forgive Thee, For Thou Knew What Thee Were About."

  Merced had more courage than sense, because he finally asked the unaskable question. "You say you've no idea what happened to the towns or their missing inhabitants." Cora and Rachael turned to him in surprise. Sam was making urgent silencing motions. But Merced ignored him. "Just for the sake of conversation, wouldn't it be possible for a large, well-organized group of like-thinking cetaceans—yourselves, for example—to commit that kind of destruction?"

  Rachael stared at him in horror, held her breath. Sam's fingers tensed on the master control, ready to give full throttle to the engines if a probably futile attempt at flight became necessary.

  But Lumpjaw's reaction was no more and no less hostile than his previous statements. "Of Course Such A Thing Would Be Possible." He considered the question dispassionately. "But Why Would We Do Such A Thing?"

  "To force humans off Cachalot," Merced offered.

  Another gray-brown wall rose into the starlight. A third suddenly loomed over the rear deck of the ship. Two more huge eyes stared down at the puny inhabitants. The three catodons could have demolished the Caribe merely by nodding. They did not. The newcomers, however, were less controlled than Lumpjaw. One, whose voice was translated with a distinctly feminine tone by the head unit, said in outrage, "What A Bizarre Conception!"

  "How Typically Human," the other new arrival agreed. "Dost Thou Believe That Because We Have Gained Intelligence We Are Doomed To Repeat The Mistakes Of Mankind?"

  "We Have Heard Tales Of Things Like 'War,' " the female said. " Tis Difficult Enough For Us Merely To Imagine Such An Obscenity. The Idea Of Practicing It Is Utterly Beyond Us. Dost Thou Think We Have Gained Intelligence, Improved, And Progressed So That We Might Imitate Thy Stupidities? Contradiction, Contradiction!" Both breached slightly. An enormous volume of water cascaded over the Caribe, drenching its occupants.

  "We Could Not Do Such A Thing," the younger male said. "We Do Not Hate Humans. We Ignore Thee. Were We To Engage In Any Form Of… Of…" He hesitated, searching for a word to use. "… Of Organized Destruction Of Human Lives, That Would Mean Paying Attention, Devoting Time, To Thee. We Would Pay Thee As Little Attention As Possible." Another gigantic double splash, and the two disappeared.

  Cora wiped salt water from her face, tried to wring out her hair. Many more such physical adjectives, and she would have to don her gelsuit.

  L
umpjaw pivoted on his tail, a balletic mountain. The other eye examined them now.

  "If not you, what about other catodons?" Merced inquired.

  "What Holds True For Us Holds True For All," the whale declared with certitude. "We Are Not Subject To The Kinds Of Individual Madness That Afflict Humans. We Think As One. Only In That Manner Can We Hope To Aspire To Our Great End."

  "What is your 'great end'?" Rachael asked curiously, mechanically entering a variation or two into her neurophon's memory.

  "If We Knew That," Lump] aw told her portentously, "We Would No Longer Be Aspiring."

  "What about the other cetaceans?" Merced persisted. "The baleen whales, for example?"

  Cora's earphones were filled with an eerie high-pitched whistling the headset could only make audible. It might have been laughter, as had been that of the porpoise herd. It might have been amazement. It might have been a combination of things, but it came from many members of the pod. When Lumpjaw did not elaborate, a puzzled Merced turned to Sam for explanation.

  "The catodons and the orcas are by far the smartest of the cetaceans. I'm sure you know that"—to this Merced nodded—"but because of the lack of information, you may not know how great the gaps are.

  "There are many degrees of intelligence, and among the cetaceans the gaps seem to be widening, not closing. For reasons which our limited studies have not been able to establish, the baleens are the mental primitives of the Cetacea. They're big, but comparatively stupid. The pod," and Sam gestured out over the dark water, "is reacting in surprise at the possibility anyone could seriously consider such an idea."

  "I have to consider every possibility." Merced sounded miffed.

  "Our Toothless Relatives Are Incapable Of Conceiving, Far Less Carrying Out, Such An Adventure, Even Were They So Inclined, Which They Are Not. They Have Not The Mental Ability To Do Such A Thing. They Can Join Together To Defend Against An Attack, But The Kind Of Effort Thou Suggestest Is As Far Beyond Their Capability As Is The Thought Of Our Doing So. Thou!" His eye focused on Cora. The head came closer, touched the railing once more. The eye stared at her, spitting distance away, and she did not have time to consider the remarkable feat of balance.

  "Touch!" It was a command.

  She hesitated, glanced at Sam. He said nothing. Incongruously, the worst thing about the confrontation was not the proximity of enough weight to smash her flat, or the nearness of those huge teeth, but the breath that emanated from a distant gullet.

  She reached out, ran a hand along one tooth a quarter of a meter long. Her fingers trailed down the tooth, touched the thick lower jaw. The whale pulled away and she instinctively jerked her hand clear. All bravery has its limits.

  "Those Teeth Never Have Nor Ever Will Damage Anything But Food," Lumpjaw told her somberly. "To Do Otherwise Would Be To Surrender Everything The Cetacea Have Accomplished On This World, To Snuff Out In An Instant The Progress Of A Thousand Years."

  "If you're not responsible, if the other whales aren't responsible, we're left with two possibilities," Merced declared. "Some variety of local life"—he hesitated, but Lumpjaw did not volunteer any suggestions—"or humans, for reasons we can imagine but cannot yet confirm."

  "The Latter I Can Well Believe!"

  "If that's the case, could you help us locate those who have caused the destruction?"

  "Certain It Is That We Could," the whale said, "But We Will Not."

  "Why not?" Merced asked.

  "The Great Question," Lumpjaw said, not being particularly profound. " 'Why' Indeed? Why Should We? Why Waste Our Time On Such Triviality? We Live And Die. Thou Livest And Diest. Better To Spend Time Exploring Life Rather Than Death.

  "All Humans, All Whales, Die All Too Soon, Before The Great Mysteries Can Be Explained, The

  Great Questions Answered. Those Who Perished On Thy Floating Towns Would Have Perished Soon Enough. Why Waste Time Trying To Learn The Cause Of Their Passing? We Work For The Ends Of Thought. No Time To Waste."

  "Do youu nott underrrstandd?"

  Cora looked down and to the left of the balancing sperm whale. A black and white head peered up the cliff of Lump jaw's side, unimpressed by the vast mass hovering near it.

  "Whhen willl you slowww swwwimmers underrstandd?" Latehoht asked. "Underrstandd as do the orrca and the ponpoisse, underrstandd as wwe hawe comme to, thhat all liffe and all the questions of liffe, hummman as welll as cetacean, arre interrelated. Thhat all quesstions that so concerrn catodon allso concerrn mann. Thhat we arre tied togethher on this worrld byy ourr alienness to it."

  Lumpjaw slid down into the water, keeping his eyes above the surface. "Ah, Small Cousin, Is It Indeed, Then The Porpoise Who Is The Greater Because He Has Sense Enough Only To Play With Man And Not To Deal With Him? What, Then, Would The Orca Choose To Do? Have Hands And Feet And Walk About On Land?"

  There was a splash in front of the great catodon's gnarled forehead as another shape slid whippet-fast past it.

  "Ayye, arre you grreaterr in weight and lengthh. Thhat does nott mean you knnoww the wayyy forr yourrselves anyy morre than you do for alll. Do nott attempt to speakk forr us, to coddle orr tease us," Wenkoseemansa warned, "forr you did nott act so superriorr lo those manyy centurries ago on Earrthh, and you arre no morre superriorr noww. We choosse onlly to rrelate to mankindd. Nott to becomme as menn."

  Cora moved to stand close to Sam. "I thought you just said that cetaceans don't fight among themselves."

  "Only verbally," he explained. "Some bad feelings between catodon and orca have always existed, though they're among the most closely related of all the whales. I guess it goes back to the ancient times on Terra, when the orca packs would eat any great whale they could kill. Just because the orca no longer eats the catodon doesn't mean they've grown to love one another. Respect, yes. They won't fight physically, but they're not the best of friends. Don't forget that they're cetaceans together, though."

  "Enough Of This!" the irritated old whale roared. "Enough Time Wasted! We Shall Not Help Thee," he told Cora. "Not Because We Wish To Hinder Thee. Understand That." He let out a long, modulated whistle. In a wonderful demonstration of the unity of thought the old male had talked about, three hundred massive backs arched as one. Enormous flukes came up, filled the surface with a temporary forest of gray-brown flowers, and dipped into the ocean with hardly a ripple as the herd vanished beneath the waves.

  In seconds it was as if they had never been more than a dream.

  Chapter VIII

  No violence marred their passing. They were simply gone.

  "Simultaneous sounding," Cora murmured.

  "Yes." Sam studied the surface. "They'll come up to breathe somewhere far from here, where we won't be around to disturb them. We could track them, of course, but they wouldn't take kindly to that." He smiled. "What the old one—Lumpjaw—said about not fighting with man is very true. In fatal incidents between the great whales and men on Cachalot, the fault has always rested with the persistent stupidities of the people involved. We won't make those kind of mistakes."

  "What about letting Wenkoseemansa and Latehoht follow them?" Merced ran a hand idly along the rail.

  "To what end?" Sam asked. "You heard their leader. They know nothing about what caused the destruction of the towns."

  "Or they're not saying."

  "That's possible," he conceded. "But you're still not taking into account their massive indifference toward mankind. That's genuine. They really don't care one whit what we do or what happens to us as long as we leave them alone."

  Merced persisted. "Holding back information wouldn't contradict their policy of ignoring us. At the same time it would passively encourage whatever still unknown force is conveniently ridding their ocean of humanity."

  The big man considered that, then leaned over the side. "She-Who-Rises-Above-The-World!" A head appeared, dim in the starlight near the bow. It floated back to linger below them.

  "Tell me, Beautiful Swimmer, what did you think of the old catodon's comments
?"

  "Forr all that wwe arre rrelated, theyy arre a conceitted rrace," she announced readily. "Likke wwe nott theirr companyy orr theirr philosophyyy."

  "Wwe like nott theirr thoughts," Wenkoseemansa added from nearby. "Theirr grreaterr intelligencce has brred in themm a grreat contemptuoussness. Yea, forr all thhat theyy mayy bee the smarrtest of the Cetacea."

  "Ayye, though theyy mayy bee the smarrtest of us allll," his mate agreed. "Butt thhat does nott makke themm wise."

  "No," Sam agreed, "that does not make them wise. Annoying, yes. But I want you to be more specific about what they said."

  "Theyy arre sharrpp and yyet vague, talkatiwe yet coyyy. Annd neverr as prroperrly poetic as wwe," Latehoht said.

  "Maybe they don't fight, but they snipe," Merced whispered to Rachael. "Certain vices seem to go with expanded intelligence."

  "Shush," Cora admonished him, trying to concentrate on the orca's words.

  "Wwe beliewe," Latehoht went on, after consulting with her mate, "thhat the Olid Onne was telling the trruth. Wwe listened carreful and close, to worrd and inflection. Wwe slid inn and ammong themm, ammong even the garrulous young, beforre wwe camme to rejoin you. Beforre we lefft the podddd."

  "Thhey murrmurred of manny things," Wenkosee-mansa added. "Of grreat shoals of voula fishh, of battles withh the great mallost inn the depths. Of calwings and matings and arrguments ammong the philosophher bulls. Butt newerr did we hearr talkings of mann orr his worrkks. Not of the towwns destroyyed, not of the people killed and missing. Not of thhose still actiwe, fishhing orr gatherring orr mminning. Theirr callous indifference is as hhonest as it iss monumentally foolishhh."

  "Thhat iss all we werre able to learrnnnn," Late-hoht finished. "Whhat noww, frriend Sammmmm?"

  "To the Rorqual Station, and the reefs by which it kept company. But slowly. Our ship will follow your path, but we must have some sleep."

  "Ahhhwww, poorr humanssss!" Latehoht commiserated sadly. "Sso little aliwe timme, so muchh of it spent in the brreathing deathh. We'll go and eat, we twwo, and watchh forr youuu." She and Wenkoseemansa turned as one, vanished supplely beneath the starlit surface.