began to understand, a little, when they first tried to house Orcas and dolphins next to each other at ocean parks, and discovered, to their amazement, that the dolphins would leap over barriers to be with the killer whales… so long as the Orcas weren't hungry.
In Primal, a cetacean did not blame a member of another race for killing him, not when that other race was higher on the food-chain. For centuries cetaceans simply assumed that man was at the topmost rung, and begrudged only the most senseless of his killing sprees.
It was a code of honor which, when humans learned about it, made most of them more, not less ashamed of what had been done.
Keepiru slid out into the open channel to change his location, certain that K'tha-Jon had taken a fix from that last exchange.
There was something familiar about this area. Keepiru couldn't pin it down, but there was something to the taste of the water. It had the flavor of stale dolphin death.
* Eating — eaten
Biting — bitten
* Repay the sea…
Come and feed me! *
Too close. K'tha-Jon's voice was much too near, chanting religious blasphemies. Keepiru headed for a crevice to take cover, and stopped suddenly as the death- taste became suddenly overpowering.
He nosed in slowly, and halted when he saw the skeleton suspended in the weeds.
'Hist-t!' he sighed.
The dolphin spacer had been missing since that first day, when the wave had stranded Hikahi and he had behaved like such a fool. The body had been picked clean by scavengers. The cause of death was not apparent.
I know where I am… Keepiru thought. At that moment the hunt-scream pealed again. Close! Very close!
He whirled and darted back into the channel, saw a flash of movement, and dove out of the way even as a monstrous form plunged past him. He was knocked spinning by a whack from the giant's flukes.
Keepiru arched and darted away, though his side hurt as if a rib was broken. He called out.
* After me — reverted scoundrel
* I know — now it's time to feed you *
K'tha-Jon roared in answer, and charged after him.
A body length ahead, now two, now a half, Keepiru knew he only had moments. The gaping jaws were right behind him. It's near here, he thought. It's got to be!
Then he saw another crevice and knew.
K'tha-Jon roared when he saw that Keepiru was trapped against the island.
# Slow, slow
or fast, fast
# Time to feed me — feed me! #
'I'll feed you,' Keepiru gasped as he dove into the narrow-walled canyon. On all sides a dangling-weed bobbed, as if tugged by the tide.
# Trapped! Trapped!
I have you… #
K'tha-Jon squawked in surprise. Keepiru shot to the surface of the crevice, struggling to reach the top before vines closed in around him. He surfaced and blew, inhaling heavily and clinging close to the wall.
Nearby the water churned and frothed. Keepiru watched and listened in awe, as K'tha-Jon struggled alone, without harness or any aid, tearing great ropes of the killer weed with his jaws, thrashing as strand after strand fell over his great body.
Keepiru was busy as well. He forced himself to remain calm and use his harness. The strong claws of his waldo-arms snapped the strands that grabbed at him. He recited his multiplication tables in order to stay in Anglic thought patterns, dealing with the vines one at a time.
The half-Orca's struggle sent geysers of seawater and torn vegetation into the sky. The surface of the water soon became a beaten green-and-pink froth. The hunt-scream filled the cavern with defiance.
But the minutes passed. The ropes that attempted to seize Keepiru grew fewer and fewer. More and more descended to fall upon the struggling giant. The hunt-scream came again, weaker — still defiant, but desperate, now.
Keepiru watched and listened as the battle began to subside. A strange sadness filled him, as if he almost regretted the end.
* I told you — I would feed you *
He sang softly to the dying creature below.
* But I did not say who -
I would feed you to… *
75 ::: Hikahi
Since nightfall she had hunted for the refugees, first slowly and cautiously, then with growing desperation. There came a point when she threw caution away and began broadcasting a sonar beacon for them to home in on.
Nothing! There were fen out there, but they ignored her totally!
Only after entering the maze did she get a good fix on the sound. Then she realized that one of the fen was desperately crazy, and that both were engaged in ritual combat, closing out all the universe until the battle was over.
Of all the things that could have happened, this stunned Hikahi most of all. Ritual combat? Here? What did this have to do with the silence from Streaker?
She had an uneasy feeling that this ritual battle was to the death.
She set the sonar on automatic and let the skiff guide itself. She napped, letting one hemisphere and then the other go into alpha state as the little ship slid through the narrow channels, always headed northeastward.
She snapped out of a snooze to the sound of a loud buzzer. The skiff was stopped. Her instruments showed traces of cetacean movement just beyond a sheer shelf of metallic rock, heading slowly westward.
Hikahi activated the hydrophones.
'Whoever you are,' her voice boomed through the water. 'Come out at once!'
There was a faint query sound, a weary, confused whistle.
'This way, idiot-t! Follow my voice!'
Something moved out from a broad channel between islands. She snapped on the skiff's spotlights. A gray dolphin blinked back in the sharp glare.
'Keepiru!' Hikahi gasped.
The pilot's body was a mass of bruises, and one side bore a savage burn, but he smiled nevertheless.
* Ah, the gentle rains -
Dear lady, for you to come here
And rescue me… *
The smile faded like a quenched fire and his eyes rolled. Then, on pure instinct, his half-unconscious body rose to the surface, to drift until she came for him.
PART EIGHT
The 'Trojan Seahorse'
