"Follow The Whales"

FOLLOW THE WHALES

by Carl L. Biemiller

Published by Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York.

They were sunning on a patch of sand beside one of the food inlets which ran from the open sea into Jewel Bay in what had once been Baja California, before the old nuclear wars had gouged the ancient peninsula into a chain of islands.

At least, two of them were. Two were otherwise engaged.

“Why did you bite my foot?” asked Genright. “Or should I say, why are you still nipping it?”

“Not your foot, your big toe,” answered Toby Lee. “And because it is not nice to shove your foot into a lady’s face, and I am a lady, I intend to bite it right off.”

“What would you do if you weren’t a lady?” asked the muffled voice of Tuktu Barnes, his face hidden in the crook of his arm as he lay on his belly.

“I would bite off a whole leg and plant it as a roost for the gulls,” said Toby, sitting up and throwing Genright’s intruding foot in the general direction of away.

“Would you water it faithfully and hope it grew leaves?” grunted Tuktu.

“Better you should soak your heads and try to figure why we are here at Baja Base, unassigned, and loafing—which can’t please Commander Tod Torrance and his executive officer, Commander Jiggs Jensen, too much,” Kim Rockwell said quietly. “But here we are right out of Rover School at Olympia Base, which does not usually accept Sea Wardens Third and a Sea Warden Second for rover training. If we had come to work, we’d be down in the bay herding sharks as we did before, not lolling about biting toes.”

They sat up and looked at him.

Sea Warden, Second Class, and a rank grade ahead of the others owing to meritorious service, Kim was tall and wire-muscled, with a deep rib cage beneath a wide span of shoulders, and his new tan held a sun flush, which would deepen into the color of pale tea. His ash-blond hair tossed in the breeze from the sea, and his eyes were green as the young combers curving to the west.

Kim warmed his eyes on his companions. They had been similarly trained and were also moving through the ranks of the Services as they gained experience and additional knowledge. A scrap of Service ceremony scratched at his mind: “This band of brothers…” And this group was particularly close, almost a telepathic unit, made so by shared danger, shared enthusiasm, shared in-sea daily work.

The Service held many such units. The Service was a brotherhood, and a vital one. What remained of civilization—the great hive cities burrowed deep in North and South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe since the nuclear wars altered the continents and changed the more than 80 percent of the world now covered with water—depended upon those who worked the shores, the continental slopes, and the depths. The sea range was the world’s warehouse, which held the resources for mankind’s survival until all earth would once again be healed.

“Why are you looking at me as though I were not here?” asked Genright, staring at Kim.

“Maybe you aren’t here,” drawled Tuktu. “To me you are very wispy, practically a shadow.”

“You only say that because I’m black.”

“You see, black shadows are very hard on wispy black people,” added Tuktu.

“I got a white arm to replace the one the giant squid ate off that time in the kelp forest.”

“That’s how I know you’re here,” murmured Tuktu blandly.

“If Toby Lee bites off your toe, maybe I could get a white one for it,” speculated Genright.

“They might not have your size,” giggled Toby.

“They might have a used finger or so that would do,” contributed Tuktu.

“What would I use it for down there?” mused Genright.

“Surprise scratching,” laughed Kim. “But just keep it up, you clowns. Anything to avoid thinking. You’ll come to it though, sooner or later. The question is, what are we doing at Baja loafing?”

“We are waiting for new orders,” said Tuktu thoughtfully, his eyes squinched, and he nodded as if to confirm his own words, relaxed as a sack full of wet seaweed. He was wide and stocky, with a deep chest that seemed to extend to his waistline under an umbrella of vast shoulders.

Genright Selsor, who had been Tuktu’s in-sea patrol partner during most of the warden service, was totally unlike him physically. Genright was built like a jointed sea eel, and he moved like a wand in wind with superb coordination. His skin was velvet and black as the great deeps. Against it his right arm looked like a white exclamation mark, and he was lucky to have it.

“I agree that we are waiting for orders, but if we were waiting for ordinary orders, don’t you think Commander Torrance would have given them to us when we arrived? We’ve been doodling around here a week now.”

“These must be special orders,” said Genright.

“Right,” said Kim, “but why?”

“Because I, for one, am very special,” muttered Tuktu.

“I am, without doubt, much more special,” added Genright.

Toby Lee tossed her head, waved an airy nothing to the sky with a languid hand, and managed to give the impression that she had arched her slim back. “Hum ho and ho hum,” she said.

Kim’s green eyes sparkled, turned a dark emerald, and a small quirk tilted the corners of his mouth. “I see no contest,” he said softly.

The mind-bending psychs of the International Marine Council were resolute in the manner in which they conditioned members of the Warden Service for in-sea duty. Nobody could ever say they never failed completely. But some relationships did not work out as predicted.

Toby Lee was a year older than Kim, but he now ranked her a full grade in the Service. However, time could close that gap. He never doubted her competency, her skills, or her ability to carry more than her share of the workload. That slim, agile, female body held an amazing strength. Her affinity with the sea was total.

Genright and Tuktu twisted to their feet. They brushed sand from the scraps of sargassum cloth wisps that served them as beach garb.

“We are going swimming,” announced Tuktu. “For fun and for free. It won’t cost the government a cent. We want to make this contribution of our own time generously. When we come back we’ll tell you why we seem to be in exile waiting for special orders.”

“Thanks,” said Kim. “I think I already know.”

“So do I,” added Toby Lee.

“Don’t you want us to go swimming?” asked Genright blandly. “They don’t want us to go swimming, Tuktu.”

“I don’t care whether or not you swim,” grunted Kim.

“Okay, order us to go swimming then. You rank us. Say ‘Barnes and Selsor, you are hereby ordered to go swimming.’ And specify the ocean, not that food canal or any buckets you might have hidden around.”

“How about drinking cups?” asked Tuktu.

“No drinking cups either.”

Toby Lee sprang to her feet, but Genright and Tuktu were already loping toward the beach, a breeze-tossed confetti of laughter echoing behind them. Kim heaved himself erect beside her. He squinted into the glare bouncing off the foaming surf line, automatically and expertly examining the water. He noted that Genright and Tuktu had halted at the water’s edge and were also checking the sea. Long training made good habits, and good habits as often as not meant survival to those who worked in the waters. Out there somewhere, thought Kim, dolphins were chasing food fish toward the inlet canals of Jewel Bay to become meals for thousands of herd sharks, who would in turn become meals and medicines for the hive cities. Out there, in the depths, sonic emitters were aiding the dolphins, and maybe a few wardens, piping small school fish onward through the ocean abutting the canals. And nobody ever knew for sure exactly what bigger life forms might be following the smaller ones except that if there were bigger creatures about, they would own appetites to match their sizes.

The surf was orderly, and the green combers wearing foam-white shakos marched in straight files. A steady west wind had given them some dimension, however, and they seemed to be six to eight feet at the curl.

Genright and Tuktu vanished beneath one of the ranks and emerged into the smooth sea beyond.

“They are too much,” said Toby softly, smiling like a mother.

Kim grinned. “They don’t let their smarts ruin their fun, that’s for sure.”

They walked into the water and stood thigh-high in suds hooking their toes into the firm white sand footing and balancing unconsciously against the backwash. Kim licked a spray splash from his cheek. “High saline content,” he said. “Very gluey, plastic waves, almost perfect for surfing.”

Toby Lee giggled. “You might take a look at the perfect surfers too.”

A scant quarter of a mile from them Genright’s head peered from a green wall of humping water with Tuktu’s grinning brown face immediately above it. There was a tumult of flashing arms at the curl, then Genright’s slim black body, arms outstretched, stiffened into a human surfboard. Simultaneously Tuktu seemed to eject from the sea, rise to his feet, and remain frozen in precarious balance. As nearly as the watchers could tell, Tuktu had one foot on Genright’s rump and the other in the middle of his back. Together they whizzed down the slope of the sea immediately ahead of the curl, body surfer and rider, until the wave crested. They parted and peeled off into the side of the wave before it collapsed under its own weight. They picked themselves up in the shallows and sloshed toward Toby Lee and Kim in the wash.

“You like my tame surfboard?” asked Tuktu.

“He’s a better one,” said Genright. “He’s wider, and you can jump up and down on him without slipping off.”

“You’ve been practicing, that’s for sure,” said Kim. “And you can teach Toby and me. That looks like real fun.”

“You think Toby Lee can carry three?” asked Genright. “Lie down on your face, Toby. We’ll trample over you for size. Might as well find out now if you bend in the middle or not.”

“I’ll bend you in the middle, you big slab.”

“What would you do if you weren’t a lady?” asked Tuktu.

“Hammer him down until he’d be up to his neck in an inch of water,” she said firmly.

“That’s nice,” Genright murmured absently. “Incidentally, Kim, that surfing thing isn’t a bad trick to learn. Got us out of some trouble once. We were pretty new in the kelp forest and working close to shore in gill suits one day when a real tricky jet current banged Tuktu against a saw-toothed rock. Nicked an artery in his leg. I don’t remember how we thought of it, but we caught a wave, with Tuktu hanging my back, for a quick ride to the shore, where we got a tourniquet on the leg.”

“You thought of it,” said Tuktu. “You are a hero. You saved my life.”

“You bled all over me.”

“All reeky and gruesome and messy and disgusting?”

“Ukk!”said Toby.

“Anyhow, we’ve practiced a lot of funnies in the surf since,” added Genright, “and it’s nice and crazy to do too.”

The four of them strolled up the beach and headed slowly toward the canal bank. The sun was beginning to slide down the afternoon slope of the sky although Kim could still feel its reminding sting on his back, which itched as the salt dried.

“You said you’d tell us why we were sitting around Baja waiting for special orders,” he said. “Or did the two of you forget while you were swimming?”

“You and Toby said you knew,” grunted Tuktu.

“All right,” said Genright. “When I count to three everybody tells. One, two…what comes after two?”

“Two what?” asked Tuktu.

“One angry me, said Kim, an edge in his voice.

“Okay, okay,” hastened Genright. “The only reason we can think of that might mean special orders for all four of us is in the sea babies.”

“Or something to do with them, certainly,” said Toby Lee softly.

“Right,” interrupted Kim. “And either Commanders Torrance and Jensen don’t know what our orders will be, or they have been asked to wait until someone arrives to give us special briefing. What’s more, I have a very clear idea of just who that person will be.”

“Oh, no,” muttered Tuktu.

“Oh, no,” echoed Genright.

“Oh, yes,” said Toby Lee. “Commander Brent, or whatever his title is.”

“Or whatever he does,” speculated Tuktu.

“And not to me, I hope,” Said Genright.

“Or the sea babies either,” Toby Lee’s voice was crisp.

“As I remember, Commander Brent once wanted the sea babies destroyed,” Tuktu muttered somberly.

They still moved through the sand toward the canal bank, but mechanically now. They were all remembering. They remembered the Cryo, Ury Kaane, now dead, who had led them to the lost Hive Hawaii, where forgotten masters of the chemical genesis, creators of so-called artificial life, had made a new form of mankind, a thinking man-creature designed for the sea and adapted to life in the oceans should the dwellers of the dry earth completely vanish.

It was assumed that the life masters of the lost burrow city had worked for centuries on the project while still racing time to keep some strain of man alive. But they were not the real pioneers.

Long before them, and long before the rending of the earth while there was still a United Nations and even separate countries with their own governments, there had been work in evolutionary control.

School children as far back in history as the twentieth century, the same period in history which saw the atom unchained for the first time, knew about DNA and RNA. They knew that DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, set the main patterns in all human heredity, and that RNA, or ribonucleic acid, was the message-carrying chemical that told the life cells how best to form the patterns set by DNA. More, they knew that man, using DNA and RNA, were coming close to the creation of artificial life, even in human beings, that would not show any differences from natural life.

It seemed logical that a scientific laboratory could be somebody’s “mother.” And after the years of emergencies and crises that finally caused most of earth to explode, laboratory babies became as commonplace as naturally born ones, maybe much better ones in a world that was forced into rigid disciplines for survival.

But with more than 80 percent of the world covered by water, it was the lost Hawaii hive city that realized that some form of man had to be created for life in the sea itself.

It was hardly a new idea. Nature held it first millions of years before any men existed. Many of her evolutionary creatures had started as land animals and returned to the oceans of their forebears; the whales, for instance, the dolphins—all the air breathers redesigned within fusiform or torpedo-shaped bodies, which could move in the density of water and give their owners life.

And now there were real mermen and mermaids somewhere in the great sea ranges. Sea babies! Kim, Toby Lee, Genright, and Tuktu had seen the last hatch from the destroyed Hawaii burrow city born during the dramatic missions known as Hawaii Search.

“Don’t look now,” said Genright. “But somebody is standing where we were lying before Kim ordered us to go swimming.”

“I am not really looking,” muttered Tuktu. “It seems to be three bodies, not one body.”

“They are all some bodies and all our bosses,” grunted Kim.

“And one of them is friendly, lovable, joyful Commander Brent,” added Toby Lee.

“But why Commanders Torrance and Jensen as well?” wondered Genright. “All they had to do was blow a whistle and we’d have zinged right up to the office.”

“Would you believe no whistles?” asked Tuktu.

“No,” said Kim thoughtfully, “But I’d believe that we are going to get our orders right out here in the beautiful sunshine where none of the little wardens running around the base will ever know we ever had a meeting with this much brass at all.”

“How can I hear orders when I’m out of uniform?” asked Genright.

“Well, they trip you. Two of them hold you down. The other one hollers in your ear,” said Tuktu.

“Wrong,” said Toby. “All wrong. Commander Brent will tell us that we’re out of uniform, and he’ll do it so you think you are in uniform. Then you’ll hear orders or anything else just as if you were standing at attention.”

“Toby’s got it absolutely right,” said Kim. “But uniform or bare as we could get, I’d suggest we salute.”

“I can get barer than this,” Toby said darkly.

“Then they’d all salute first,” said Kim, flashing one of his rare, wide grins. “But not ahead of me.”

“I don’t care about a thing now,” said Toby. “My whole year is made.”

They moved briskly, out of the sand, through a skirting of grasses, and climbed the embankment to the canal side. They approached the three waiting men, snapped to attention and saluted.

“Sirs,” they said.

“You are out of uniform,” said Commander Brent, his gray-green eyes probing, “but we appreciate Service courtesy.” He returned their salute meticulously.

“Stand easy,” he said, and then with even softer tones, he asked, “Figured it out yet?”

“Yes, sir,” said Kim. “the sea babies plus the Rover School plus this sort of rest and recreation period which we assumed would mean special orders.”

Commander Tod Torrance nodded approvingly.

“Bright, very bright,” he added. “But then you disappointed Commander Jensen. He thought you might come asking about your status at Headquarters.”

“But only for about ten seconds,” rumbled Jensen. “Then I remembered both your ages and the teachings of the elders. Don’t ask because you might be told, and never volunteer because you might be accepted. Further, as I recall, the Services teaches the art of waiting very early and very well.”

The three officials were in spotless green Service uniforms, and the Baja sun was hot. Commander Brent narrowed his eyes at a trio of terns about to make a swoop over his shoulder to snack at the food inlet. He gave the impression that he did not care for any good turns done from a tern’s point of view. They were messy birds.

“This is hardly a social call,” he snapped. “Ordinarily I do not conduct beachhead meetings. On the other hand, I thought it best not to give anyone reason to wonder why three high-ranking members of the Service bothered to consult with four minor wardens.”

Kim felt a smile form in his head and sensed that Toby shared it. He carefully suppressed any facial expression.

“Whatever is said here is secret information just as Mission Hawaii Search was, and that is highly classified. Its details are known only to the Council of Cities and the Service people who conducted it.”

Commander Brent paused.

“I would have been here a week ago had I been able to resolve other considerations in connection with your new orders. Further, I wished to consult with your instructors at Olympia Rover School.

“You did well there. I expected it. I might say, I took it for granted.”

He allowed himself a certain warming about the eyes.

“Did you notice anything unusual about your rover training? Speak up.”

There was a brief silence as the young wardens allowed Kim to assume their mutually granted leadership.

“Sir,” said Kim. “I don’t think any of us could give you an honest answer. None of us had ever been through formal rover training. Emphasis on sea survival techniques we expected. The classes on new equipment, weaponry, and underwater mapping processes didn’t seem surprising.” He hesitated and glanced around at his companions. “It did seem that we were getting an awful lot of sound detection, sub-sea sound analysis, and echo-location hours, however. And we felt that we were getting more studies in whale biology, whale migratory patterns, whale history…just whales of time on whales, sir, than we expected.”

“Good,” snapped Commander Brent. “you did notice. The extra studies in cetology are unusual in most rover courses. But then you are going to be whalers in a most unusual fashion.”

Chapter Two	Chapter Three	Chapter Four	Chapter Five	Chapter Six
Chapter Seven	Chapter Eight	Chapter Nine	Chapter Ten

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