Makanee
She sent a command over her neural link, ordering the tools of her harness to fold away into streamlined recesses, signaling that the inspection visit was over.
The chief of the kiqui, a little male with purple gill-fringes surrounding a squat head, let himself drift a meter or so under the water's surface, spreading all four webbed hands in a gesture of benediction and thanks. Then he thrashed around to lead his folk away, back toward the nearby island where they made their home. Makanee felt satisfaction as she watched the small formation of kicking amphibians, clutching their stone-tipped spears.
Who would have thought that we dolphins, youngest registered sapient race in the Civilization of Five Galaxies, would become patrons ourselves, just a few centuries after humans started uplifting us.
The Kiqui were doing pretty well on Jijo, all considered. Soon after being released onto a coral atoll, not far offshore, they started having babies.
Under normal conditions, some elder race would find an excuse to take the Kiqui away from dolphins, fostering such a promising pre-sapient species into one of the rich, ancient family lines that ruled oxygen-breathing civilization in the Five Galaxies. But here on Jijo things were different. They were cut off from starfaring culture, a vast bewildering society of complex rituals and obligations that made the ancient Chinese Imperial court seem like a toddler's sandbox, by comparison. There were advantages and disadvantages to being a castaway from all that.
On the one hand, Makanee would no longer have to endure the constant tension of running away from huge oppressive battlefleets or aliens whose grudges went beyond Earthling comprehension.
On the other hand, there would be no more performances of symphony, or opera, or bubble-dance for her to attend.
Never again must she endure disparaging sneers from exalted patron-level beings, who considered dolphins little more than bright beasts.
Nor would she spend another lazy Sunday in her snug apartment in cosmopolitan Melbourne-Under, with multicolored fish cruising the coral garden just outside her window while she munched salmon patties and watched an all-dolphin cast perform Twelfth Night on the tellie.
Makanee was marooned, and would likely remain so for the rest of her life, caring for two small groups of sea-based colonists, hoping they could remain hidden from trouble until a new era came. An age when both might resume the path of uplift.
Assuming some metal nutrient supplements could be arranged, the Kiqui had apparently transplanted well. Of course, they must be taught tribal taboos against over-hunting any one species of local fauna, so their presence would not become a curse on this world. But the clever little amphibians already showed some understanding, expressing the concept in their own, emphatic demi-speech.
## Rare is precious! ##
## Not eat-or-hurt rare/precious things/fishes/beasts! ##
## Only eat/hunt many-of-a-kind! ##
She felt a personal stake in this. Two years ago, when Streaker was about to depart poisonous Kithrup, masked inside the hulk of a crashed Thennanin warship, Makanee had taken it upon herself to beckon a passing tribe of Kiqui with some of their own recorded calls, attracting the curious group into Streaker's main airlock just before the surrounding water boiled with exhaust from revving engines. What then seemed an act of simple pity turned into a kind of love affair, as the friendly little amphibians became favorites of the crew. Perhaps now their race might flourish in a kinder place than unhappy Kithrup. It felt good to know Streaker had accomplished at least one good thing out of its poignant, tragic mission.
As for dolphins, how could anyone doubt their welcome in Jijo's warm sea? Once you learned which fishoids were edible and which to avoid, life became a matter of snatching whatever you wanted to eat, then splashing and lolling about. True, she missed her holoson unit, with its booming renditions of whale chants and baroque chorales. But here she could take pleasure by listening to an ocean whose sonic purity was almost as fine as its vibrant texture.
Almost...
Reacting to a faint sensation, Makanee swung her sound-sensitive jaw around, casting right and left.
There! She heard it again. A distant rumbling that might have escaped notice amid the underwater cacophony on Earth. But here it seemed to stand out from the normal swish of current and tide.
Her patients -- the several dozen dolphins whose stress atavism had reduced them to infantile innocence -- called such infrequent noises boojums. Or else they used a worried upward trill in Primal Delphin -- one that stood for strange monsters of the deep. Sometimes the far off grumbles did seem to hint at some huge, living entity, rumbling with basso-profundo pride, complacently assured that it owned the entire vast sea. Or else it might be just frustrated engine noise from some remnant derelict machine, wandering aimlessly in the ocean's immensity.
Leaving the kiqui atoll behind, Makanee swam back toward the underwater dome where she and Brookida, plus a few still-sapient nurses, maintained a small base to keep watch over their charges. It would be good to get out of the weather for a while. Last night she had roughed-it, keeping an eye on her patients during a rain squall. An unpleasant, wearying experience.
We modern neo-fins are spoiled. It will take us years to get used to living in the elements, accepting whatever nature sends our way, without complaining or making ambitious plans to change the way things are.
That human side of us must be allowed to fade away.
Peepoe
She made her break around mid-morning the next day.
Zhaki was sleeping off a hangover near a big mat of driftweed, and Mopol was using the sled to harass some unlucky penguinlike sea birds, who were trying to feed their young by fishing near the island's lee shore. It seemed a good chance to slip away, but Peepoe's biggest reason for choosing this moment was simple. Diving deep below the thermal layer, she found that the distant rumble had peaked, and appeared to have turned away, diminishing with each passing hour.
It was now or never.
Peepoe had hoped to steal something from the sled first. A utensil harness perhaps, or a breather tube, and not just for practical reasons. In normal life, few neo-dolphins spent a single day without using cyborg tools, controlled by cable links to the brain's temporal lobes. But for months now her two would-be "husbands" hadn't let her connect to anything at all! The neural tap behind her left eye ached from disuse.
Unfortunately, Mopol nearly always slept on the sled's saddle, barely ever leaving except to eat and defecate.
He'll be desolated when the speeder finally breaks down, she thought, taking some solace from that.
So the decision was made, and Ifni's dice were cast. She set out with all the gifts and equipment nature provided -- completely naked -- into an uncharted sea.
For Peepoe, escaping captivity began unlike any human novel or fantasholo. In such stories, the heroine's hardest task was normally the first part, sneaking away. But here Peepoe faced no walls, locked rooms, dogs or barbed wire. Her "guards" let her come and go as she pleased. In this case, the problem wasn't getting started, but winning a big enough head start before Zhaki and Mopol realized she was gone.
Swimming under the thermocline helped mask her movements at first. It left her vulnerable to detection only when she went up for air. But she could not keep it up for long. The Tursiops genus of dolphins weren't deep divers by nature, and her speed at depth was only a third what it would be skimming near the surface.
So, while the island was still above the horizon behind her, Peepoe stopped slinking along silently below and instead began her dash for freedom in earnest -- racing toward the sun with an endless series of powerful back archings and fluke-strokes, going deep only occasionally to check her bearings against the far-off droning sound.
It felt exhilarating to slice through the wavetops, flexing her body for all it was worth. Peepoe remembered the last time she had raced along this way -- with Kaa by her side -- when Jijo's waters had seemed warm, sweet, and filled with possibilities.
Although she kept low-frequency sonar clickings to a minimum, she did allow herself some short-range bursts, checking ahead for obstacles and toying with the surrounding water, bouncing reflections off patches of sun-driven convection, letting echoes wrap themselves around her like rippling memories. Peepoe's sonic transmissions remained soft and close -- no louder than the vibrations given off by her kicking tail -- but the patterns grew more complex as her mind settled into the rhythms of movement. Before long, returning wavelets of her own sound meshed with those of current and tide, overlapping to make phantom sonar images.
Most of these were vague shapes, like the sort that one felt swarming at the edges of a dream. But in time several fell together, merging into something larger. The composite echo seemed to bend and thrust when she did -- as if a spectral companion now swam nearby, where her squinting eye saw only sunbeams in an empty sea.
Kaa, she thought, recognizing a certain unique zest whenever the wraith's bottle nose flicked through the waves.
Among dolphins, you did not have to die in order to come back as a ghost... though it helped.
Sometimes the only thing required was vividness of spirit -- and Kaa surely was, or had been, vivid.
Or perhaps the nearby sound-effigy fruited solely from Peepoe's eager imagination.
In fact, dolphin logic perceived no contradiction between those two explanations. Kaa's essence might really be there -- and not be -- at the same time. Whether real or mirage, she was glad to have her lover back where he belonged -- by her side.
I've missed you, she thought.
Anglic wasn't a good language for phantoms. No human grammar was. Perhaps that explained why the poor bipeds so seldom communed with their beloved lost.
Peepoe's visitor answered in a more ambiguous, innately delphin style.
* 'Til the seaweed's flower
* Shoots forth petals made of moonbeams
* I will swim with you *
Peepoe was content with that. For some unmeasured time, it seemed as if a real companion, her mate, swam alongside, encouraging her efforts, sharing the grueling pace. The water divided before her, caressing her flanks like a real lover.
Then, abruptly, a new sound intruded. A distant, grating whine that threatened to shatter all illusions.
Reluctantly, she made herself clamp down, silencing the resonant chambers surrounding her blowhole. As her own sonar vibrations ceased, so did the complex echoes, and her phantom comrade vanished. The waters ahead seemed to go black as Peepoe concentrated, listening intently.
There it was.
Coming from behind her. Another engine vibration, this one all-too familiar, approaching swiftly as it skimmed across the surface of the sea.
They know, she realized. Zhaki and Mopol know I'm gone, and they're coming after me.
Peepoe wasted no more time. She bore down with her flukes, racing through the waves faster than ever. Stealth no longer mattered. Now it was a contest of speed, endurance, and luck.
Continue to 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.
The Real Culture War
