IV.

, his news upset Cora even more than she showed.

"So we're to suffer a bodyguard." She tried to make light of it. "So the powers that be are afraid someone might try to-what was it you and Pucara were talk- ing about?-explosively debond my molecular struc- ture or something."

Mataroreva did not smile. "If there are groups or individuals who are preying on the floating towns, and if they are already responsible for the deaths of twenty- five hundred people, it's unlikely they'd balk at a.s.sas- sinating a few imported specialists if they felt that action would continue to keep their operations secret and unimpaired."

She had no reply for that, fumed silently at the lack of specific information. Perhaps the original settlers could provide some information, despite all she had heard about their famous (or infamous) insistence on privacy. They were the real, secret reason for her leaving her comfortable post on Earth and coming all this way, regardless of the potential danger of the a.s.signment. She found herself trying to see over the enclosing reef, out beyond the garland of gla.s.s that surrounded the lagoon, to the open ocean beyond.

"I want to meet the whales, Sam." He continued to steer the skimmer, listening. "I need to meet some of them. Ever since I was a little girl I've read about

45.

46.

CACHALOT.

CACHALOT.

47.

the whales of Cachalot. Every adult oceanographer's dream is to come here and perhaps be granted one of those extremely rare opportunities to study them, if only briefly. To w.a.n.gle the chance to come here, to observe what many consider to be the greatest ex- periment in Terran sociohistory ... I couldn't return, couldn't leave, without doing that."

"I'd like to see some of them, too." Rachael was peering over the side of the skimmer, studying the rising bottom.

"Well, you won't see any of them here," Cora chided her. "It's unlikely they'd come into the lagoon."

"As a matter of fact," Sam countered, "there are a couple of pa.s.sages through the reef large enough to admit them. The lagoon is big enough and deep enough to accommodate some. Many, I understand, like to calve in the larger lagoons. But not in Mou'- anui."

"Why not?" Cora asked.

Sam told her, his words touched with something beyond his usual carefree self. "They could explain in words, but they don't wish to. It's simple enough to guess. They came to Cachalot to get away from people, remember."

"I would think that by this time," she murmured, "on an alien world, having come from a common planet of origin, all mammals together-"

Sam interrupted her gently. "You'll understand better if you do meet any of them."

"What do you mean 'if? I know it's difficult, but surely it can be arranged. It's unthinkable to come all this way and-"

"Mother," Rachael said admonishingly, "we weren't sent here to study whales. We were sent to find a solu- tion, or at least a causative factor, for a very dangerous situation."

"I know, I know. But to come to Cachalot and not study the cetaceans ..."

"Remember that they don't wish to be studied,"

Sam told her. "Part of the Agreement of Transfer is that they can't be studied or bothered unless they specifically ask to be. There are certain species who are friendlier than others, of course. You know about the porpoises and their relatives. But the great whales shy away from any human contact. They find us ...

well, irritating. Their privacy is their right. The details of the Agreement of Transfer go back to before the Amalgamation and the formation of the Common- wealth. No one would even think of violating it."

"What about individuals?"

"We don't know that they think individually. That's one of the mysteries. They may have evolved a col- lective consciousness by now. And it's not a matter merely of irritating them. They can be downright hos- tile at times. That right is reserved to them as well."

"Six, seven hundred years or more," Cora whis- pered. "I would've thought they'd gotten over that by now."

"They'll never get over it," Sam replied, disturbed by his own certainty. "At least, they haven't as yet.

It's been seven hundred and thirty years exactly, if I remember the histories right, since the serum was discovered that enabled the Cetacea to utilize all of their enormous brains. That's when it was decided to settle some of the pitiful survivors of the second holocaust on a world of their own. No, they haven't gotten over it"

Cora knew that Sam was right, though it was hard to feel guilty for the actions of an ignorant and prim- itive humanity. She insisted she should not feel guilt for the repugnant and idiotic actions of her distant ancestors.

Sending the whales to Cachalot had been hailed as a magnificent experiment, a gigantic fleet of huge transports working for two decades to accomplish the Transfer. It had been done, so the politicians claimed,

48

CACHALOT.

to see what kind of civilization the cetaceans might create on a world of their own.

In actuality, it had been done as penance, a racial apology for nearly exterminating the only other in- telligent life ever to evolve on Earth. The Cetacea had possessed cognitive abilities for nearly eight hun- dred years now. From all the reports she had eagerly devoured, as keenly antic.i.p.ated as they were infre- quent, she knew they were still growing mentally.

Part of the Agreement of Transfer stated that they would be left alone, to develop as they wished, in their own fashion. Intensive monitoring of their progress, or lack of it, was expressly forbidden by the Agree- ment. But the idea that they would resist such study to the point of open hostility was new to her, and surprising.

"I would think by now they'd enjoy contact," she said. "When you're building a society, conversation with others is helpful and psychologically soothing.

Our experiences with other s.p.a.ce-going races has shown that."

"Other s.p.a.ce-going races didn't have the racial trauma that the Cetacea did," Sam reminded her.

"And the society they're constructing, slowly and pain- fully, is different from any we've yet encountered.

Maybe it's a reflection of their size, but I think they have a slower and yet greater perspective than we do. Their outlook, their view of societies as well as of the universe, is totally different from ours.

"When they were first settled here, they were of- fered, for example, aid in developing devices with which they could manipulate the physical world. Tools for creatures without hands or tentacles. They refused.

They're not developing as a larger offshoot of man- kind. They're going their own way.

"Sure, it seems slow, but as I said, their outlook is different from ours. A few experts do study them a little, and depart discouraged in the belief that in the

49.

past half a millennium the Cetacea haven't made any progress." There was a twinkle in his eye.

"Then there are some of us on Cachalot who think they are making progress. Not progress as we would consider it. See, I don't think they care much for what we call civilization. They're content to swim, calve, eat, and think. It's the last of those that's critical. We really know very little about how they think, or even what they think about. But some of us think that may- be our original colonists are progressing a little faster than anyone realizes."

"All the reports I've read are fascinating in that respect, Sam. I understand they've developed and discarded dozens of new religions."

"You'd know more about that than I," Mataroreva confessed. "I'm just a peaceforcer. My interest in the Cetacea is personal, not professional. I only know as much about them as I do because I live on their world.

"As to whether we'll encounter any of them, that I can't say. They've multiplied and done well on this world, but it's still incomprehensibly vast. We are duty- bound not to seek them out."