Part 53 (2/2)

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 rus.h.i.+ng preparations to depart. Mataroreva con- tinued to converse in low tones with Hwos.h.i.+en.

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 s.h.i.+p. 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 s.h.i.+p. 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.”

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