"Follow The Whales"

FOLLOW THE WHALES

by Carl L. Biemiller

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

There was a boil in the canal below them. A sleek back arched out of the water, and a big triangular dorsal fin seemed to point an admonitory finger. There was a snorting blast of spray. And a fifteen-foot dolphin from the open sea startled a school of foot-long pilchards toward a hastier destiny in the waiting reaches of the bay, where the forever-hungry shark herds cruised.

“The snort sounded like a form of criticism,” mumbled Commander Jensen, his face cracked in a grin. “That particular member of the whale family must think you’re all too puny for messing with the big cousins.”

“I am inclined to agree with him,” whispered Genright.

“Come, come,” said Commander Brent. “Any questions?”

“Sir,” said Toby Lee. “What happened to our sea babies?”

“First, they were not your sea babies,” snapped Commander Brent. “Second, they died and despite every effort to keep them alive and well, they died naturally, although considering the circumstances, it is hard to say just what in their case was natural.”

He locked the four wardens together with a single cold stare.

“We think they were mistakes,” he said.

“With all due respect, sir,” said Kim, “they were still a form of mankind.”

“And with your respect noted, young man, we, meaning the best scientists of the burrow cities, think now that they were not the only such form created by the great laboratory geneticists of the lost Hawaii hive. They were merely the last such attempt to create a man with a sea form to live and survive without contact with a poisoned land.

“You will recall that when we discovered them”—he nodded to Toby Lee—“there was speculation to the effect that at least two other life hatches had preceded them.”

The young wardens bobbed their heads in agreement.

“The best scientific assumption is now that they might have had a better chance of survival and adaptation than the sea babies. Almost certainly, they were mammals with certain alterations for life in salt water.

“Careful examination of the sea babies after they had died, with what was learned from them before their death, proved that they were a combination of both fish—the bony fishes—and mammals. Our geneticists believe that such a combination was too forced to be successful.”

“May I ask a question, sir?” asked Kim.

“Do,” said Commander Brent.

“Were the sea babies intelligent?”

“Do you mean did they have human intelligence?”

“Yes, sir.”

“As you pointed out yourself, they were a form of mankind. Although, as you know, we only had two of the young, male and female, to observe, we think their problem was physical and physical only. Certainly they were well…oh, so very well cared for….”

It might have been a scrap of cloud wisping past the sun, but Kim thought he saw a faint shadow darken the commander’s face before he continued, a tiny tint of hurt.

“But we don’t know much of anything for sure. If the offspring we saw as your sea babies failed in the oceans, did the first or second adaptations succeed? If so, where are they? What are they thinking and doing? Are they upsetting the food supplies the cities depend upon? Are they a menace to those who live on land?

“The questions are endless, and our answers are guesses.”

Commander Torrance interrupted.

“But the Service has a basic operating assumption,” he said, “and we’re going to go with it.”

“He means that there is now a theory which seems believable enough to spend money and risk lives, mostly young.” Commander Jiggs Jensen spoke bluntly and cheerfully.

“That’s nice,” grunted Tuktu.

Kim watched Commander Brent’s shoulders stiffen. Commander Brent was a man who preferred discipline in a straight line. He was a man who did not always consider levity to be a laughing matter. And he was obviously a man with a serious problem.

“That’s enough,” he said, and his voice was chilled. “It is believed that all of the human prototypes which came from the laboratories of the lost hive city in a sea-adapted form were released into the ocean habitat. The first creation may have survived, but it is doubtful. The second, a greatly refined version of the first, may right now be living and propagating. The third, your sea babies—we don’t think so.

“In any case, we are going to make a search for all versions. We are going to concentrate our efforts on the so-called second birthing. That’s the one we think produced the improved mammal merman. In fact, our geneticists say he may outwardly resemble the dolphins a great deal. He will almost certainly share some characteristics, both physical and biological, with most mammalian forms of sea life.

“We assume that if he is prospering with the advantages of superior intelligence and the ability to think, that he may already be able to control, live among, and use the other mammals.”

“And so, sir,” said Kim, “we follow the whales.”

Commander Brent nodded. “You have the heart for it.”

“Kim shook his head slowly as though he were lost in some thought which seemed unthinkable and, as he did so, he felt the warm, questing touch of Toby Lee’s mind in his own.

“What sir, do we do if and when we find our cousins?” she asked.

Commander Brent exhaled deeply.

“I am not going to mince words with any of you,” he said. “The answer is that I do not know their ultimate fate. The Council of Cities is still confronting the fact that there may be two types of mankind now sharing this planet. I do know that you will make your reports, attempt to locate whatever passes for home bases among these strangers, and supply all possible data concerning them.

“The truth is that you may never see any of them after years of search.”

“Years of search?” asked Tuktu, suddenly startled.

“A figure of speech,” Commander Jiggs Jensen said comfortingly.

“Us whales got lots of time,” muttered Genright.

Commander Brent permitted himself the sound of breaking sticks, which he considered a chuckle.

“That’s the essence of the matter for now,” he said. “You will report in uniform and for duty to Commander Torrance’s office at base following the sundown meal. Details of your orders will be discussed at that time. Before then you will have a chance to talk this over among yourselves and formulate as many questions as you deem necessary. Dismissed.”

He picked up the other two officers with his eyes, and together they walked off along the embankment toward the headquarters compound.

“Order us to go swimming again,” said Tuktu.

“And order us not to come back,” added Genright.

“I don’t believe my sea babies died a natural death,” snapped Toby Lee.

“You mean they were fried and eaten like mackerel?” asked Genright eagerly.

“You are disgusting.”

“Too true, too true,” moaned Tuktu. “He is a burden.”

“Do you realize just what we are going to be part of?” asked Kim. “Come on now. I want all the good brains going for a change.”

“A search that may take years,” said Genright.

“Where were you going otherwise?” asked Tuktu. “But that’s not what Kim is concerned about. Not really. What he means is that, like it or not, we are going to be in the middle of a very important Council of Cities decision. Not that we’re so much. Who needs four teeny wardens?”

“Me,” said Genright. “I need me especially.”

“If we should be lucky enough to find the new sea people, or even if we don’t, our information and our reports will reach high places,” continued Tuktu, undisturbed. “And if we should ever make contact—or be able to communicate—then we might actually say whether or not these, ahh, ughh, strangers would be allowed to exist.

“I haven’t forgotten that the first orders back there in that lost hive city were to destroy the sea babies.”

“But they decided not to, you know,” said Toby Lee. “People don’t destroy people.”

“Back to the archives and the history tapes for you, my girl,” said Genright. “Some few thousand years ago, give or take a week maybe because I’m not very good at history, people not only destroyed people, they destroyed the world people lived on as well. Now these people we’re talking about won’t even look like people, and some people will say they’re not and call them an oceanic resource.

“Do I make myself clear?”

“Unclearly, but yes,” said Toby Lee.

“Genright’s right,” Kim said seriously. “Especially when he mentions oceanic resource. The needs of the cities come first. Figure it out. Commander Brent talked about us as whalers, special whalers. Then he talked about the possibility of the new people controlling other sea mammals and using them. Notice I said ‘using them.’

“The supply administrations of the hives would call it depleting the herds, the herds that the Service has spent hundreds and hundreds of years reviving to feed and supply the cities.”

Tuktu scratched himself inelegantly.

“I’m thinking of what whales mean to the cities,” he said. “There’s the oil. Not that we need it for light and heat or energy. The A power takes care of that. But the wars vaporized the petroleum man once used, and the hydroponic operators and laboratory operators and laboratory geniuses can’t produce enough vegetable oils. So there’s the whale oil for diet fats, for soaps, and for glycerin, which, in turn, is used for medical and industrial reasons. And then there’s oil again for varnishes and inks--”

Toby Lee interrupted.

“And don’t forget the sperm oils and spermaceti, which are really liquid waxes for lubricants, detergents, dyes, bleaches, alcohols,” she said.

“And the meats,” said Genright, “fresh, frozen, dried, smoked, and very good for you, according to the instructor at Rover School, because of its high content of histidine--”

“I know. I know,” yelled Tuktu. “Without histidine everybody would be two inches high because without it you can’t grow. And how about blood powder and bone powder from the nitrogens needed to grow things in the greenhouses? And the gelatins richer than those we get from the kelp stipes for food and even photographic film? And ambergris for scents? And hides for leathers?”

“So, we all did our homework,” said Kim. “And while we’re thinking of what the whales mean to the cities, add vitamin A from their livers and insulin to help people sick with diabetes. Count in what our instructors said about ACTH, the adrenocorticotrophic hormone, to treat arthritis. Think of all the uses for bones__”

Toby Lee shrieked.

“What’s that for?” asked Genright.

“Simply attention,” she said quietly. “And to remind you that if the sea people do not view whales as a quick lunch, for instance, they are still people.”

“That may well be the trouble,” said Kim. “Time to go.”

They reported to Commander Torrances’ headquarters office trim in Service greens with short-sleeved, bloused uniform shirts and shorts, their shark leather ankle boots gleaming. The amber dusk about them was soft, and to the west the sea was saffron, not yet blooded by the plunging sun.

They found Commanders Torrance and Jiggs Jensen hunched over a long, flat, map-covered table waiting of them. Commander Brent was not there.

“He took the freight rocket back to the Denver hive,” explained Commander Jensen. “One more meeting connected with your assignment, and apparently half the entire Service’s as well. Said he’d see you at sea if necessary. We’ll handle the briefing. That’ll please you, won’t it?” His smile was warm. “But enjoy now, pay later.”

“Step around here and look at this map,” said Commander Torrance. “It’s an antique, but like so many things stowed away when humanity decided to commit suicide, it’s fairly valid.

“This is a map made by oceanographic biologists maybe a thousand years ago. It shows the migratory routes of the animal once called the California gray whale. California is gone, but the gray whale endures. You’ve seen them when you worked in the kelp forests.

“The gray has changed some, naturally, due, we think, to radiation and general oceanic alterations from the old wars. They are still baleen whales filtering small marine organisms through their baleen sieves for food.

“They are still lung breathers, and they still surface to breathe. But their size has changed owing to mutation factors. The grays that used these old routes weighed in at approximately thirty-five tons, according to the study reports of that day. They cruised about four knots an hour, could sustain speeds up to ten knots for maybe two hours at a time, and could achieve up to thirty knots when they decided to heave out of the water in breaching.”

He paused.

“But you know all this, I’m sure, and it’s fresh to you. However, the point that I’m making is to expand all the old figures for today’s grays, or any other whales.

“However, back to the map. You’ll notice that they were travelers like all the big cetaceans. They roamed from right here at Baja, before the changes, up the coast of what was the United States and Canada, zinged west to the old Aleutian Islands into the Bering sea and along the coasts of Siberia and the Kamchatka Peninsula. They went into the Arctic Ocean as well, right to the fringes of the pack ice.

“That was their summer journey. In the winter they came south again to mate and bear young, mostly in the bays and coves of Baja.”

“About nine to ten thousand miles round trip,” said Commander Jensen. “You may get used to it. You are joining the gray pods.”

“But you’ll run into blue whales that will give you something to see, about a hundred and fifty feet and two hundred and fifty tons of something,” added Commander Torrance. “And of course the sperms, the great toothed creatures, which feed on whatever is around—"

“I resign,” muttered Genright.

“For both of us,” said Tuktu.

“I know you want the big fact as far as you are personally concerned. You’ll remain as in-sea buddies just as you were in the kelp forest and here in the shark pens. But there won’t be any break every three months to get away from each other. Just remember the rover regulations for teams or small units. Anything done for the cause of compatibility is not only condoned but required.”

“Just don’t try keeping white mice for pets,” Commander Jensen said, laughing.

“That means Kim and Toby as a unit, and Genright and Tuktu as another,” continued Commander Torrance.

“As to equipment, each team of you will have one of the new pelagic work subs.”

He paused.

“All I can say is that Commander Brent must think highly of your capabilities,” he said. “These subs are the latest in the Service, and there are only fifteen in the entire fleet. You remember the Polaris, in which you served during Hawaii Search? These are thirty-foot versions of her. Radial filament, weld-glass pressure hull tested to more than 250,000 pounds per square inch. Nuclear-powered all the way with in-hull sea engines with induction coils driving her on water jets. Even the anti-gravity keel.”

He noted the puzzle lines that furrowed Toby Lee’s brow. “Explain, Rockwell,” he said.

“Well, sir, as Commander Cassius of the Polaris cleared it for me, the keel’s made of one of the new stabilized metals with an amazing property of changing molecular densities when we apply energy. Its mass stays the same, but its weight can be changed in any section along its length at any time. Its total weight can be altered enough to take us to the bottom at about any depth. It can change the total boat weight so we can hover, hold at any depth, or surface quickly. The boat does not need propulsion to keep it at depth.”

“Very good, Rockwell,” said Commander Torrance. He gazed at Toby Lee. “You were all checked out with this craft at Rover School. You all had operating instructions on the boat, I assume?”

“Yes sir,” said Toby Lee. “I just forgot for a minute about the keel. We did get a week of sea tests as operators.”

“And we certainly had plenty of time on the boat’s fully controlled environmental systems, all the acoustical and vision devices, all the recorders, sensors, and biological snoopers too,” Tuktu put in. “They’re really beautiful.”

“We also used the in-hull pressure bubbles for any depth exits and entrances with all types of diving and swimming equipment,” said Genright.

“And of course we got pretty handy with the navigational and control systems,” said Kim. “But I must say, sir, I never thought we'd catch one of our own for quite a few years. Well, not until we'd worked our way to regular rover rank.”

“You have,” snapped Commander Torrance. “At least as far as Commander Brent is concerned. How many of the open-range men have ever seen sea babies or worked with a Cryo?”

“Sir, none of us have ever had any real experience with whales either,” said Genright.

“You are not instructed to assume any of the duties of the regular pelagic herdsmen,” Commander Torrance informed him. “As a matter of fact, you will stay away from milking operations, plankton seedings, slaughter croppings, breeding operations as direct orders. “You may be asked to assist the regular rover herdsmen from time to time as special help is needed. But probably one of the major reasons you have been selected for your assignment is that you lack experience with whales, and that whatever you see and record may have a significance that older and wiser pelagic experts might miss simply because they have seen so much for so long. “Does that make sense to you?”

“Yes, sir,” said Kim thoughtfully. “It does when you add it to the fact that we, at least, have some idea of what we may be seeking.”

“And no one else presently doing normal Service work does. Remember that always,” added Commander Torrance. "You will be given special communication links for your reports. As I get it, there will be special mother vehicles in various parts of the range to serve as reporting centers. The Polaris under Commander Cassius, whom you know, will be one of them.”

“Why were we assigned to the gray whales, sir?" asked Tuktu. "I mean, why the grays specifically?”

“Rockwell, answer him,” said Commander Torrance.

Kim thought a moment, his green eyes turning darker.

Jiggs Jensen prompted him. “You saw their migratory routes.”

“Of course," he said. "The sea babies headed north and east from the old charts which marked Hawaii toward the Aleutians, as shown on this map of the gray whale routes. The old Aleutians, the Bering Sea, and the northeastern Pacific itself are home to the grays. At least, home base," he amended. "So we observe the grays. Am I right sir?”

“Who knows?” Commander Torrance shrugged. “But it's the same assumption the biologists made for starters.”

“You know, of course, that the business of observation is not limited to peeking out of peepholes at the pretty ocean." Commander Jensen was grinning, and he patted a thick, bound volume of papers on the map table.

“These instruction manuals call for about ten hours a day of pure, wonderful drudgery for you all. Everything from water samplings to exercise periods, from underwater mapping to nutrient analysis—busy, busy, busy hands, as we say in the Service.

“Now for the cookie break and then more story hour," he added.

There was never a Marine Service corps in the history of man without some hot pot brewing on its premises. Commander Jensen produced mugs, slabs of algae-dough bread pocked with hydrogarden berries, and steaming seaweed tea.

They talked. Shoptalk. About the whale herdsmen who spent their live with the herds, about the explorer rovers who wandered remote regions of the open sea ranges years at a time poking into anything at all which might be of use to the cities: currents, tides, strange life forms, odd geographic facts about the sort of people who made up the Service itself.

“We're the last of the free,” murmured Genright.

There was an odd silence.

“What made you say that, Genright?" Commander Torrance asked softly.

“No rank, sir?” Kim queried him hastily.

“In this room only,” said Commander Jensen, "and that very carefully.”

Genright was careful. “Well,” he said. “The psychs pick types at birth, and more than half the births are controlled. When there is little physical living room for people anywhere on earth, and limited food to feed them, then the people within that living space have to be selected according to function and disciplined down to their deepest breath. Further, they have to be conditioned, as we have been to accept their own part in a society which has to eliminate any possible human friction or conflict to exist. We were typed at birth for Service duty. Just had to be, you know. Because somewhere in our genes were human characteristics that couldn't be controlled for hive living no matter how much conditioning we got. So the city fathers stamped our rumps for seagoing and put us to work. But I have no doubt at all that if the service weren't necessary to city survival—human survival, that is—we'd have been discarded just as coldly as…as kerplop.”

“Kerplop?” asked Tuktu.

“And that's not all,” Genright continued serenely. “They take a look at a mess of genes that may turn into some fella who's going to ask a lot of questions, like who's got the right to lean on who and is there a better way to do things, and he has to go. That is, if human beings are going to make it as a species. So send the potential troublemakers to sea, where they can serve the race until there's enough world restored to let everybody ramble. That's what I meant. We're the last of the free.”

“You wouldn't be advising a change in the system, would you, Genright?” asked Commander Torrance coldly.

“No, sir,” said Genright. “It could probably be improved, but without it, and those who planned it and made it work from the beginning, there wouldn't be a human race on earth.”

“You might give the system credit for that freedom you're talking about too,” interrupted Kim.

“Say,” said Toby Lee.

Kim grinned. “Well, it seems to me that the planners knew it would take certain types to work in the oceans and make them productive. Uncouth ones that needed lots of room and lots of challenge that would demand new skills and individual efforts and, maybe, sharper wits than are needed in routine city living. You know a lot of poison has gone from the earth since the wars, and someday there will be plenty of land outside the burrows.

“I'll bet the Council of Cities has a plan for just that time. And you know what? It says, get those wardens out of the oceans and turn 'em loose on land and make 'em put it in shape for the rest of us…trees, rocks, animals, farms, houses, churches, all the stuff in the archives saved before the wars. You know what else it says? It says the Service people have to do it, because they've had space and distances and have had to depend pretty much on themselves to do their jobs. The city people can't do it. They wouldn't know how to handle daylight. The cities did their job in saving the seed, but only our ocean types will know how to sow it again. And just because we had the freedom Genright's talking about, such as it is.”

“You mean there's a plan for us to take over the works?” asked Tuktu, wide-eyed.

“I'm not saying for sure,” answered Kim. “But it figures. And I'm not saying it will happen in our time. That's still a sick land outside the cities as far as we know, and the oceans aren't all that well, either. But they're all we have.”

“It occurs to me that if we listened to you youngsters long enough, we might hear treason," grunted Commander Jiggs Jensen. "I might remind you, as long as rank is out during this beddy-time story hour, that some people have been more conditioned than others, and that abstract thinking outside of what they've been schooled to think makes them unhappy. Any one of them hearing you spout off about rules, regulations, and reasons would turn you in to the authorities for recycling.”

“Commander Brent once hinted that I needed it,” said Kim. “I don't think he meant it.”

“He didn't," said Commander Torrance with a thin smile. “If he had, you'd have been re-psyched down to the bare bones, or else, kerplop.”

“Kerplop?” murmured Commander Jensen.

A door slammed sharply at the end of the corridor, which led to the headquarters office from the Baja Base complex. Jensen, moving lightly and swiftly, crossed from his position at the map table, opened the office door, and peered down the hall. He looked a long moment, turned, and faced the question in their eyes.

“Wind?” His statement was a query.

“That door's on the east side of the building,” Commander Torrance said softly. “Wind's from the west tonight. Bothersome. I wouldn't want anything overheard about the mission, not a peep. You all heard Brent's instructions. And, come to think of it, I wouldn't want anybody to overhear all the philosophy. Half-baked or not.”

“We'll look around a bit,” said Commander Jensen. “Anything else? Any questions? Rockwell?”

“It's about sound,” said Kim. “That door bang reminded me.”

“I said we'd look into it,” snapped Commander Jensen.

“I didn't mean anything about the door, sir. But earlier, when we were talking about the whale herdsmen, I meant to ask about sound as in echo location and communication from man to whales or from whales to men. Sonar ranging or what the Rover School instructors called 'ketophonation' when they talked about vibrations produced by whales.

“Well, we can talk to our dolphins through our sonic warblers when we're doing in-sea work, because we know their so-called language—their sound emission code and range. They talk back to us, and we pick it up through the receiving units on or face masks or any other receivers wherever we are.

“Do the herdsmen actually communicate with their whales that way, or just what is the drill?"

Commander Torrance thought a moment.

“There are two pelagic herdsmen on Base for rest and recreation right now. I’ll have them contact you tomorrow, and, if I know these lads, they'll be glad to tell you more than you want to hear about whales. Some of it might even be true.

"Dismissed."

Kim, Toby Lee, Tuktu and Genright saluted, spun, and collided in the doorway.

“Try four at a time,” murmured Commander Jensen. He stared reflectively at Commander Torrance when they'd gone in a tattoo of feet down the corridor. “That's quite a group,” he said. “How do you suppose they reached the same conclusions about certain things so much quicker than we did?”

“Smarter, maybe,” said the top executive of Baja Base. “But they make me very homesick for my youth.”

“Kerplop,” his second-in command said smiling.

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

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