[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
trend.
"Hey!" Rachael leaned down and in. "You going to
stay down there forever, Pucara?"
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"Be right out." He watched her withdraw, leaving
the flash of an inviting smile lingering in his memory.
He thought of their previous weeks together and of
how the CunsnuC had almost destroyed the friendship
he had worked so diligently to build. Intimacy was
easily attained, but friendship that was a rare find.
CACHALOT 273
He grinned. This was a world for enjoying oneself,
for relaxation as well as research. It was time for
some of the former.
Confident in himself and in the report he would file
with his bureau, he started to climb out of the sub-
mersible. Waiting was the bright sun of Cachalot.
Nearby drifted the suprafoil, anxious faces crowding its
railing. Soon Hwoshien would make a broadcast of his
own, and anxiety would vanish from the faces of this
world's citizens for the first time in months.
His wave was for those on the ship, but his eyes
were for Rachael.
Far below danced vast spherical forms that pulsed
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
and glowed. They were akin to planets in their shape
and motion, yet they orbited not a sun but a common
thought. They conversed in a manner incomprehensi-
ble to man or cetacean, conversed in a manner fash-
ioned by darkness, shaped by pressure and isolation.
They were discussing the development of a new kind
of specialized internal polyp, much as any manufac-
turer might discuss an addition to his plant.
They knew it would take time. That could not be
helped. They would work and wait, until the new
polyp was ready to perform its function. Until then
there would be enforced tolerance of Those Above.
Afterward ... afterward, they would see.
Having thus decided upon a biologic course of ac-
tion, the CunsnuC commenced an addition to the in-
ventory of their minds.
Above and far distant floated a life-form that
thought in a manner incomprehensible to man or
CunsnuC. Lumpjaw, whose water name was
DeMalthiAzur-of-the-Maizeen and who was elder
among his people, had slipped away from them to
think quietly on portentous matters. And to consider.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
More men would come, and the free-thinking
274
CACHALOT
CACHALOT
275
stretches of sea would shrink still further. Not that
he felt they would break the laws (at least not right
away), but mankind had displayed a disconcerting
tendency throughout his history to circumvent them.
And the men of today were not the men of tomorrow.
Who could tell what changes they might propose?
Then there was the matter of the CunsnuC. Their
control over the baleen had demonstrated a disturbing
capacity for dangerous mischief. In the sanctuary of
their Deeps they might concoct further trouble for the
Cetacea.
DeMalthiAzur-of-the-Maizeen let pass the catodon-
ian equivalent of a sigh. Why must existence be so
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
complicated, he mused, when all one desired from life
was time to think? Of the men he had no worry, for
the cousins the orca would stay near them, professing
friendship for them and dislike for the catodon, and
report whatever they were about. Smartest of all was
the catodon, he thought, but cleverest was the orca.
The CunsnuC were more of a problem, and were
likely to present the greater problem for all that they
were confined to their abyssal home. So the people of
the sea had much progress to make, out of sight of
humanxkind and CunsnuC, out of sight of even their
massive but slow-thinking relatives the baleen.
Perhaps that progress would be part of the Great
Journey. Perhaps it would constitute only a digression.
But it was necessary to insure preservation of the
peace.
Time, the old whale thought. Never enough time.
So much wasted time. But it was vital, this digression.
Of all the creatures of Earth, only man had mastered
the ability to travel through environments hostile to
his kind. That was ever his great advantage. That,
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]