Part 51 (1/2)

Gradually the water calmed. The s.h.i.+p ceased rock- ing. Cora slipped her translator back on her head. ”So the whales are apparently not responsible. Someone is directing them.”

”Whoever it is can compel them to attack a town,”

Merced murmured thoughtfully, ”but we can't compel a single one to explain his actions.”

”I still don't see how you can compel something that weighs a hundred tons,” Rachael insisted. ”Let alone dozens of them.”

Cora snapped at her without meaning to. ”Thoughts don't weigh much. I think it's pretty clear we're up against some kind of mind control. Something that can force the cetaceans, but not people. Otherwise who- ever's behind this could simply direct the inhabitants of each town to blow themselves up. The Common- wealth watches anything having to do with central- nervous-system or mental-modulation research very tightly. But as isolated as the cetaceans have been in their mental development here, by their own choice -that would make them a perfect subject for anyone wis.h.i.+ng to try out such a control system.”

”Not only doesn't it affect humans,” Merced ob- served, ”I would guess it doesn't affect the toothed

217.

whales, either. Certainly not the orcas and the por- poises, probably not the catodons and their relatives.”

”Not yet it doesn't,” Cora said grimly. ”Maybe it's not perfected yet. Maybe the catodons will be the next subjects, together with the orcas-and then us.

We can't break this precious Covenant, can't even chance it, but I can think of some that ought to be ready to risk it, for their own sakes.”

”We can't,” Mataroreva protested immediately.

”We tried it once and got nowhere.”

”We know more now. I should think the catodons would be interested. They ought to be, if they know what's good for them.”

”I keep telling you,” he said tightly, ”they don't think the way we do. No matter what we've learned, regardless of what we might say, they'll see it first and foremost as another attack on their privacy, on their thinking time. We might try another pod-”

Cora shook her head. ”It has to be the same one we talked to before. We can't take the time to estab- lish a relations.h.i.+p with a new pod, even a.s.suming we could locate another one, and we can't take the time to go over old ground again. It has to be Lumpjaw's pod.”

”They could consider a second attempt a provoca- tion,” he warned her. ”They as much as told us so.”

”Do you have a better idea?”

”No, I don't have a better one!” he shouted angrily at her. ”But I don't have any as dangerous, either!”

Legally they were now subject to local administra- tive directives. So the question was formally put to Hwos.h.i.+en.

”Let us try it,” he finally told them. ”It offers us the best chance of obtaining a solution fast.”

”It also offers the best chance of eliminating our now experienced research team,” Mataroreva argued.

”If we get in among the herd and they then decide on a

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unified attack, we won't have a prayer of getting out alive.”

”I am willing to trust the Covenant,” Hwos.h.i.+en re- plied. ”I do not think they will break it this time merely to protect their right to privacy. And our new information may indeed, as Ms. Xamantina says, in- trigue them.”

”There's no telling,” Mataroreva muttered. ”You know people, Yu. I know cetaceans. A group of peo- ple wouldn't react violently to the mild intrusion we plan, but we're dealing with different moral standards, with a different scale of values. I'm certain of nothing except the catodon's unpredictability. Maybe it's the smartest of the Cetacea, but it's also the most volatile.”

”I have an obligation to protect the living,”