Rachael and Merced rejoined them, already properly equipped for interspecies conversation.

It was decided that Mataroreva would speak first, as before. He leaned over the portside of the bow, chose a subject, and shouted hopefully, "How goes your jour- ney, youngling?" The translator could interpret that query several ways. It might refer to the journey for food, the whale's personal odyssey, or the catodonian journey through life. She guessed that he left it purposely indistinct, perhaps to provoke a questioning

response.

A very young whale, no more than four meters in length, responded by angling for the flank of the ship.

"Human ones, I have never seen that-" A vast ma.s.s suddenly appeared beneath the juvenile, nudged it aside.

"Will you talk, mother?" Matororeva hurriedly in- quired of the female who had interposed herself be- tween ship and offspring. She and the infant slid away, and what she replied was not translated effectively.

Mataroreva managed a tight grin, however. "Scolding the child, I would guess. Trying to keep him from the evil influence of human beings."

Abruptly, a gigantic bulk emerged alongside the ship. A vast skull, larger than most of the creatures that had dwelled on the Earth or in its waters, reared above the surface. Cora immediately recognized the gnarls and whorls that slashed it, like markings on some ancient tree.

"Greetings, old one," Mataroreva offered in recog- nition.

"Human, I Know You," a vast, sighing voice said

through Cora's headset. The eye set back and just above the wrinkled jaw flicked across the railing. "I Know Most Of Thee. We Did Talk To Little Purpose Not Long Ago." Lumpjaw paused, considering how to

proceed.

"We Did All Our Talking Then. Why Dost Thou

Disturb Us Yet Again?" No one could mistake the urgent edge to that question, nor the implied threat behind it. Normal catadonian apathy was changing to anger.

"Thou Tryest The Patience Of The Pod. We Will No More Talk With Thee. Go-Now!" he finished em- phatically. "Or We Will Not Be Responsible. We Know The Laws And Will Make Use Of Them! Nor Depend On Thy Small Servants To Help Thee. They Are Well Away From This Place And Would Not Help Thee If They Could, For They Also Know The Laws."

"What is there for them to help us from?"

Mataroreva asked with an ease he did not feeL "If we are not friends, at least we are not enemies, for we have not harmed you."

"Thou Interruptest Thought, Thou Breakest Con- centration, As Thou Didst With That Youngling, Thou Lengthenest The Great Journey!" the furious old ce- tacean stormed.

"We know and we're sorry," Mataroreva replied quickly. "We just want-"

A ma.s.sive pair of flukes slammed dangerously near the ship, dousing everyone on board. "No More Talk- ing! No More Wasted Time! Life Is Short!" Cora found herself wondering at their perception of time, since a healthy catodon could live well over a hundred years, as this patriarch probably already had.

"We Go This Side Of The Light-Giver. You Go The Opposite Way. Go Now!"

"That's enough," Hwoshien grumbled outside his headset. "We'll have to find another pod to question, or look elsewhere altogether." He yelled dispiritedly up at the helm. "Slow turn to starboard and quarter speed ahead."

"Yes, sir," the helmsman acknowledged; he needed no urging to comply.

"Wait," Cora pleaded with the Commissioner. "We

226 CACHALOT.

can't give up now. We need to ask only one or two

questions."

"I'll take a reasonable risk," he replied carefully, "such as entering this pod's area. I won't risk a warn- ing such as we've just received." The engines whined behind them.

She looked imploringly at Mataroreva, found no comfort there. "He's right, Cora." He turned away from her, spoke to his superior. "We might have a chance to locate an isolated . . ."

Cora looked wildly around. Anxious crewmembers were rushing preparations to depart. Mataroreva con- tinued to converse in low tones with Hwoshien.

Rachael fingered her neurophon and chatted with Merced. Only Dawn appeared unoccupied, and she was staring interestedly at the herd, not at Cora.

Frustration, loss, Silvio, Rachael, pride, and the eternal burning desire to slay ignorance that so often plagued her combined to push desire past reason in the mental race for attention that was screaming inside her head. Impulse overwhelmed rationality.

There was a zero-buoyancy rescue disc tied to the railing. She unlatched it, put her other hand on the rail, and vaulted over the side of the ship. The last words she heard were a startled scream from her daughter and a Polynesian oath from Sam.

XV.

L.er arms threatened to tear from her shoulders as the float disc sank only a few centimeters before bob- bing insistently to the surface. She hung on, struggled to adjust her headset translator as she sucked air and climbed onto the stabilizing disc. Though the water was reasonably comfortable even out here in mid- ocean, she still felt cold without her gelsuit.

As she attempted to get into a lotus position on the disc, water cleared from her eyes and she discovered she was sitting not more than a few meters from a gray promontory. That towering cliff swung slightly toward her as it sensed her presence. Near the line where cliff-head met water, an eye the size of her head impaled her with an unwinking stare.

She froze on the disc. Too late now to reconsider, too late to apply reason. But commitment did not breed action. She could only sit motionless and stare back.

The cliff came close to her legs, the entire enormous ma.s.s balancing in the water with wonderful delicacy.

Behind her, shouts of confusion and worry formed a meaningless babble on the ship. The sounds might as well not have been there, for all the attention she de- voted to them. Only she and that curious eye existed.

Rows of white teeth a fifth of a meter long lay partly exposed in half-opened jaws. The slight move-

227.

228 CACHALOT.

ment of the whale in the water sent swells cascading over her legs and hips, but the disc's stabilizers held her level.

It required no effort to concentrate wholly on the creature before her. She wished she could see what was going through that huge mind, what emotions if any lay behind that speculative eye. Another impulse, perhaps less rational than the one which had forced her to jump overboard, induced her to reach out a tentative hand. The old catodon did not pull away from her touch. The feel of the skin surprised her. It was smooth and slick, not nearly as rough as it ap- peared.

"You Fell," a voice in her headset claimed, strangely noncommittal.

"No. I jumped." She wondered if the translator would convey her nervousness along with her words.

If it did, the whale gave no sign that it mattered, for all he came back to her with was, "Why?"

"You may not like us," she began, her mind func- tioning again. "You may not like me. But I am doing only what you or any member of your pod would do, defending the endangered and the calves."

"There Are No Weak, No Injured, No Calves On Board Your Float," the whale said.

"No, but there are calves on other floating towns as yet unharmed, healthy ones who stand to be injured, and all who are endangered. I have to help them now, before it's too late."

"So Thou Riskest Thyself To Leam. Preventive Sacrifice." Cora trembled a little, wondering what the whale meant by the use of the word "sacrifice."