Humanx - Cachalot Part 38

"That's a pretty far-fetched hypothesis," Cora com- mented.

"I'm willing to accept a better one."

"Could a human agency somehow be controlling

the baleens?"

"I don't see how." But she could see he was seri- ously considering the idea. "No group of humans could so completely dominate and direct a pod of in- telligent whales. Not by any known technique." His hand gestured, a glowing pointer in the water.

"There must be a couple of hundred cetaceans functioning in chorus out there to generate such total destruction in so short a time. No wonder the other towns never even had time to send out a warning."

"I think we'd all do well to be silent for a while."

Merced was looking away from them, around the hex- alate tower.

"Why?" Cora asked.

He pointed toward the town, to where the reef sloped off into deeper water. "I think I just saw some- thing move."

They went quiet, huddling together tight against the finger of silicate. The rumbles had vanished, and the water, though still disturbed, was silent.

Cora couldn't be certain, but she thought she saw a great silver-gray wall sliding past in the blackness. It was only a dim outline on the far boundaries of per- ception. She cursed their gelsuits' irrepressible lumi- nescence. The sight reminded her of nothing so much as a shark on patrol, and she shuddered, cold now despite the warming efficiency of the suit.

The outline faded into the blackness from which it had emerged, but they continued to stay bunched to- gether and silent. With their suits automatically as- sisting in respiration, they might have slept in s.h.i.+fts, those awake monitoring the regulators of their somno- lent companions. They tried to do so, but no one could fall asleep. The gelsuits could modulate air and warmth but could do nothing where fear was con- cerned.

Gradually, an eternity later, the water around them began to lighten. The storm had long since moved on.

Sunlight was once more turning the water to gla.s.s, sparkling off the brilliant reef growths. The day swim- mers appeared, poking at crevices in the hexalates for food and amus.e.m.e.nt. Long, multihued fronds hesi- tantly unfolded from their hiding places, began to strain the water for microscopic sustenance.

All was normal save for the presence of thousands of inorganic objects drifting on the surface. Some sank slowly past the five tired swimmers, who made their way carefully to the light. Around them drifted the remnants of the town of Vai'oire, shattered and torn.

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Sections of housing, packages, clothes, and personal effects bobbed eerily on the gentle current. Meter- square hunks of polymer raft dominated the flotsam like miniature icebergs. The superstrong polymer had a breaking point of several tons per square meter, a point which the rampaging cetaceans had handily ex- ceeded.

Incongruously human in the sea of technological corpses, a doll drifted past. It was half sunk, badly waterlogged already. Its head was bent and hung be- neath the surface. Cora s.h.i.+ed away from it as if it could poison her through the water.

They remained next to the crest of the bemmy, hanging onto it as they studied in stunned silence the section of sea where the town had been anch.o.r.ed.

Considering that all her friends and a.s.sociates, per- haps relatives as well, had been killed, Dawn was holding together surprisingly well.

"I'm going to hunt for survivors," Mataroreva an- nounced.

"What about remaining cetaceans?"

He started swimming around the bemmy, looked back at Cora. "I don't think so. I don't see any plumes or backs. Not a fin in sight. They finished their work last night."

Fin ... fin ... the way he said it made Cora think of something else. Then she had it. There was no sign of either Latehoht or Wenkoseemansa. Yet she had been told the cetaceans did not fight among them- selves. The cooperative action of the different whales the previous night proved as much. But the effort it- self, the hostile premeditated attack by the herd of cetaceans, was so unprecedented that she wouldn't be surprised to learn that the baleens had killed the two orcas because they had been working alongside man- kind.

Come to think of it, the orcas had been on patrol last night but had sounded no warning. Were they

dead, or in league with the baleens? The plankton- eaters had no teeth, nothing to bite or chew with. But a tail weighing many tons could smash the skull of a much smaller orca as easily as it could a section of polymer raft.

Which survivors was Sam really worried about?

He searched for some thirty minutes before rejoin- ing them. The current was already dispersing the broken skeleton of the town. In the bright sunlight of morning the remaining fragments took on a surreal aspect. It was as if the town had never been, and something had poured tons of garbage into the waters surrounding this reef.

"No sign of them," he announced and then, seeing Cora's questioning look, confirmed her thoughts. "Ei- ther of them. I called and called. No one responded."

He forced himself on. "I didn't spot a single body.

What the h.e.l.l do they do with the bodies?"

"I can't imagine," Cora said carefully. "The throat of even a blue is too small to pa.s.s a whole man, and they've nothing to chew a person up with." Rachael looked ill. "Anyway, why would they suddenly switch, after millions of years, from a diet of krill to much bulkier food?"

"Then what do they do with the bodies?" Sam mut- tered again.

No one had any ideas. At that point, everything caught up with Dawn. They took turns comforting her, calming her. Only Cora stayed aside. She was nauseated by her own thoughts: the wish that Dawn had perished along with the rest of the town. Her re- action was only human, but sometimes the thoughts that cross a human mind can be appalling. How thin is the veneer of civilization.

Rachael and Merced did a better job of soothing the distraught girl anyway. Cora forced personal mat- ters from her mind by concentrating relentlessly on the problem at hand.

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"We have enough nutrients in our suits to keep us going four or five days." She pulled herself up onto the smooth top of the bemmy, slid aside her mask.

"We can rest here without having to swim and can conserve our strength." She looked at Sam. "I'm sure we can find something in the way of local life to sup- plement our suit diet." She gestured at the surround- ing debris. "There should be some useful material among all this, food included. We'd better start look- ing for it before the current carries it beyond our reach." And, she mused silently, it will give us some- thing to do besides think.

Even Dawn partic.i.p.ated in the search, hiding her sobbing behind her mask. They found a considerable amount of packaged food floating on the surface.

Much of it was inedible. Either the vacuum seals had cracked, or it was designed only for use in automatic cooking units. But some was both intact and directly edible.

A great deal of torn, lighter-than-water cable drifted about like yellow seaweed. These lengths served to tie the packages of food to the tops of sev- eral bemmies. The pattern thus formed would also serve to attract high-flying skimmers.

Merced suggested they employ one or more of the emergency transmitters located in the instrument belt of every gelsuit. The idea was vetoed by Mataroreva.

They still could not discount completely the possibil- ity that a human agency was somehow involved in the attacks. Setting up an emergency beacon might draw visitors to the reef other than those desired. Besides, the lack of communication from the town would draw investigators soon enough.

Quite unexpectedly, they did come across three closely grouped watertight containers from their own sunken suprafoil. Two contained delicate research equipment for the study of underwater life. That was a laugh, Cora thought. They would be doing nothing

but studying undersea life for the next several days, perhaps for weeks, until someone thought to send out a skimmer or a s.h.i.+p to see why the town of Vai'oire was not responding to signals.

She couldn't decide whether to be pleased or disap- pointed at the contents of the third container. It was filled with personal effects that were of no use to any- one in the water, and included Rachael's neurophon.