"Follow The Whales"

FOLLOW THE WHALES

by Carl L. Biemiller

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

“Is the sled all right?” groaned Tuktu. “The gear?”

“You don’t care whether I’m all right or not?”

“I know you’re all right. You’re always all right, but then I also care. Where do you hurt?”

“Where do you?”

“Tell you later. Now we think and fast. This place might not be here much longer. Us either if everything boils over with bumps and slides.”

They lay on a thin strand of rocky beach, which ended in a sheer cliff face. The sled, pulled out of water beside them, was intact, its lashings tight. They were in shield suits, donned to protect them against the rising water temperatures when they left the stricken Adam II. They checked them carefully: tanks, okay; all band communicators, okay; holstered pulsars, laser tubes, pellet ejectors for anesthetic use, miniature nerve gas globules or the capsules designed for internal explosion within large predators.

They gazed out over the steaming waters trying to see some familiar forms in the mist.

“Well,” said Genright thoughtfully. “Unless the bottom opens and swallows her, we know Adam II’s out there in nothing more than a hundred and fifty to two hundred feet. We sprayed the com console and the recording banks with protective gel, so she ought to be salvageable later—"

“Unless that half-a-bean unit of A power cracked out of its shielding enclosure and spilled radiation poison that’ll be around for the next five hundred years.”

“Don’t be gloomy, Tuktu.”

“I won’t be gloomy. I would rather be off.”

“Where?”

“Hmmmmm…”

“You think the Polaris will be in here?”

“We heard all the gabble Kim sent about locations and fixes. We also heard all Toby’s chatter during his rescue of that otter-man. We know about following the whale into the tunnel. And if we know all that, the Polaris knows it too, and Commander Brent will be along if possible. I don’t think he’ll be friendly when he comes.”

“What did we do?”

“Genright, old buddy, study it. It isn’t what we did, it’s what we didn’t. We didn’t leave the area as ordered. And we didn’t exactly refrain from contact with the new friends.”

“Fella waved at Kim, you know.”

“I heard. Some big initial contact. Commander Brent and others heard it too.”

“Well, we couldn’t have gotten out anyhow.”

The beach shuddered as Genright spoke. Then it rippled noticeably.

“I’ve got a notion we’d be better off in the water,” said Tuktu.

“Agree. Maybe less shock, and take our chances with heat. Did I tell you I’m scared?”

“How could you be? I’m here, and all this clammy sweat on my forehead is from pure courage.”

“Trust the Service, they taught us. I’m going to try for the Polaris.”

“Make it fast then.”

Their heads vanished into masks and helmets and the built-in com units within them.

They raised the Polaris first try, and with it Commander Brent’s dry-ice voice demanding a location.

“It will be some time before we can reach you. Can you stay where you are?”

The beach rippled again, and a faint, burning musk odor blended with the swirling mist.

“Assume part of Adam II might be habitable?” asked Commander Brent.

“It’s bottomed, sir,” said Tuktu, “and we don’t want to be on that bottom right now. It may be fissuring. We know it’s doing something. The beach is sort of crawling under us. And the cliff behind us may let go on our heads. We’re thinking about entering the water for whatever cushion value it might have.”

There was a brief silence, then Commander Jensen’s voice, soft and somehow merry, reached them.

“Assume you heroes saved enough survival gear from the work sub you smashed up? How did you break your toy, Genright? It was designed for everlasting life, you know.”

“Tuktu and I were just rasslin’ around a bit. Good to hear you, Jiggs, sir. How soon can you be here?”

“No hurry, heroes,” snapped Commander Torrances’ voice. “You’re going to be put under charges anyhow, and if Rockwell ever comes within reach he’ll be rescrambled until only his basic genes will remain for reassembly. That cheer you up? Make you forget your troubles?”

“It sure helps,” laughed Tuktu. “All you brass holding a meeting?”

“No,” said Commander Brent, suddenly gentle, “just sitting around chuckling and reading the instruments.”

A great hollow boom assailed the hydronauts. A half-mile distant, the mist was blown away by some monstrous explosion and the sea on the edge of a strip of washed shale rose into a towering geyser. The earth had blown seemingly as the whales blow when they surface from the depths.

“There’s a hole down there,” said Genright.

Tuktu spoke almost drowsily. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“The tunnel?”

“We can’t make it here. We’ve got to try.”

“That blast may have busted it closed.”

“We try anyhow.”

From far across the steam-hidden waters and the miles of open sea, Commander Brent’s voice, thin with interference, yet firm, said “God bless you, gentlemen wardens, and good luck.”

“Luck and luck,” echoed the voices of commander Torrance and Jensen.

The hydronauts swiveled the sled from the grip of the beach and entered the water. Adjusting their shield suits for diving, they let the sled tow them toward the site of the geyser.

The water was agitated. It was also warm and murky with suspended sediment. Their lights, thin-beamed though they were, seemed diffused. The sled, although buoyant, was sluggish as its water jets pushed it into the depths.

The current found the tunnel for them in the end. It literally streamed them toward the entrance or what was left of an entrance now nearly blocked with rocky debris.

“Never get a work sub through that hole now,” said Tuktu.

“Let’s hope it was through and found clear sailing all the way,” added Genright.

“That muck could be cleaned out again easily enough. Beam it out with the lasers if we had to, and in no time.”

“What we’ve got now is plenty of no time, buddy. The sled is just going to squeak through. And let’s hurry before the bottom drops out of the bay or the top falls in with the next shock wave. I didn’t like the way Commander Brent said they were sitting around reading the instruments. It didn’t sound as though the Polaris was racing to our rescue.”

“Who’s going to race to pick up prisoners, especially baddies like us who disobey orders?”

The water was clearer inside the tunnel as the sled and the swift current swept them onward. The lights seemed brighter.

They were dumbstruck when they reached the ice walls and saw the entombed inhabitants. Those walls were flawed. Apparently a great seismic finger had pried a section of the ice into the tunnel. Two blocks of glacier, one with a girl embedded within it, another a man, floated ahead of them.

“Nothing to say, Genright?”

“I’m adjusting to the trip.”

Keep adjusting. I think we’re moving up a slope. We might be nearing the end of this road. You notice the water’s cooler?”

“I’m still too busy adjusting. And what I’m adjusting to most is what happens when we get to the exit. You suppose we’ll be met?”

“You mean by Kim and Toby Lee?”

“I mean by a committee of otter-men, preferably friendly.”

“I’ll tell everybody you’re a friend of mine and they’ll like you right away.”

The sled surfaced. They were in the great mountain-girdled lake. Adam I bobbed before them. so did the huge blocks of ice, each with its silent passenger. And Toby Lee’s voice was shouting:

“Hey, Tuktu and Genright, welcome aboard!”

They steered toward the work sub.

“You notice anything, Gen?”

“Nothin’ special. Just a mob of overgrown sea otters.”

“Men, buddy. Otter-humans. The second hatch at home.”

“I’m adjusting.”

“I’ve got a notion that all of us will be adjusting a long time, and right here.”

“You don’t think Commander Brent will find us?”

“I don’t think he’s going to look real hard. We and the New Breed are problems, and he needs thinking time. He’ll expect us to contact him if we survive and are able.”

“What do you mean if we survive?”

“You might catch a bad cold.”

They left the sled tethered to Adam I and scrambled to her sloped deck and the open hatch, where Toby Lee awaited them.

“Where’s Kim?” they demanded.

“Ashore with a friend, I think. I don’t know where. You want to tell me why you are here?”

“I think, you female,” Genright said grandly, “that the answer to that is, we are here because there was not going to be a there at the other end of your tunnel.”

“You want us to go find Kim?” asked Tuktu.

“He said to wait. He was explicit. I’m not worried yet. Besides, there may be another chore to do right here.” She nodded toward the huge blocks of ice bobbing toward the middle of the lake, each carrying its eerie cargo.

“They’ll keep for a long time,” said Tuktu seriously, “and we ought to talk that matter over very carefully before we do anything. You know about Cryos, and we aren’t high-ranking hive city psychs.”

“Agree,” nodded Genright. “We had one experience with Cryo Ury Kaane that none of us will ever forget. And anyhow, now that I am here, where’s my whale?”

Toby shook her head at him as though in despair.

“You are too much.” She waved at the vast expanse of water girdled about with the distant mountains. “He went that-a-way.”

“Fine. I have plenty of time to eat before I summon him up”

“Now, my friend,” said Kim, bending over the furred figure on the cabin deck of Adam I. “Lets see what we can do for you.”

The eyes beneath the ridged brows and the hair-tufted cheekbones were warm and expressive. They even held a glint of humor.

Kim put his hands on the otter body gently, seeking broken bones and other injuries. He muttered as he worked.

“Good, good, good… Ah, not good. That shoulder now, and the foreleg. Shoulder may be dislocated, and the forepaw is broken. I can set it with a gel splint, which will be comfortable. Hold on now. This will give you pain.”

He rotated the shoulder ever so gently, yet firmly, and heard it click into place.

“Toby Lee,” he shouted. Bring me the kit. I need a gel splint and a pain pill that won’t make our friend feel sleepy.”

“Coming,” she said. “Why don’t you ask me how I feel and examine me for injuries? Why don’t you even hold me a little, you oaf?”

“I don’t have to, Warden Three, I know all there is to know about your condition, just as you know all there is to know about mine. This fella saved our lives, I’m sure. And he’s hurt.”

Kim felt the high-frequency keening note, that sound above sound, for a brief moment. He looked down at his patient.

“You’re talking,” he said. “But you’re going to have to come down the range for me much more before I can get it right.”

He pointed to his ears and then the floor. He felt the ears of the otter-man and pointed to the ceiling.

The brown eyes stared at him, first puzzled, and then with a flicker of understanding, and finally with dawning intelligence. The creature raised its usable paw and with a muscular twitch, rolled back the fur from that paw to expose what appeared to be a hand.

The hand was webbed, a swimmer’s utensil. And with it the otter-man pointed to Kim’s throat and then the floor. He indicated his own throat and waved toward the ceiling.

“Right,” said Kim. “Difference in vocal chord structure. But wait a minute. I can correct that. What a dum-dum I am.”

“You sure are,” agreed Toby Lee. “Get a throat microphone with frequency settings and adjust it until you get a mutually understood sound. Of course the language may be a problem.”

“Don’t think so. All the cities had a common language. In fact, all mankind shared a common language even before the nukie wars. This fella is a man, remember, produced by men, remember.”

Kim worked swiftly, setting the broken forepaw and sheathing it in the flexible yet position-locking gelatin, the algin made from sea kelp. He pointed to his own mouth and opened it, then he touched the otter-man’s.

It gaped exposing a formidable array of sharp, flesh-rending teeth. Kim popped a pill into it and grinned as it vanished.

“I wouldn’t take a pill from anybody I didn’t know,” sniffed Toby Lee.

“He knows I want to help him.”

“He’ll find out.”

“And right now,” said Kim, padding over to the com console and rooting in one of the small equipment drawers until he found two throat mikes. He placed one against the otter-man’s throat and put his good paw up to hold it in place. He held the other against his own.

“How do you feel?” he asked, shoving the adjustment up to its highest frequency range level.

He reached out and set the other mike to its lowest frequency transmission range.

“I am not in pain,” declared a high, yet not unpleasantly so, voice. “And my thanks for your care.”

“You saved our lives,” said Kim.

“And you mine. How are you called?”

“I am Kim. My companion is Toby. And you?”

“I am called Kirl, as are all members of my group, which is called Kirl. You are of the people who died? The Forerunners? Those who stayed as they were? We have seen you in the sea, and we fear you. We do not think you mean the ocean to be free.

“Now help me to the water. It must be decided whether you may stay.” There was pain in the brown eyes. “Many things must be decided.”

“I will come with you and help you to your friends,” said Kim.

“And you may not come back,” added Toby Lee.

“Then wait a decent length of time, button up the boat, and go. But wait. Sooner or later this mission has to be reported, and you know it. Further, and somewhere along the line, we have to look for Genright and Tuk as well if the earth’s stopped shaking out there.

“I’m taking the mikes and a few belt things with me.”

Kirl spoke. “You are asking the Toby one to stay behind in this…?”

“Boat,” said Kim, speaking into the mike. “And I am.”

The otter-man heaved erect and stood on his legs much as the hydronauts had seen another stand on whale back in the moonlight. Kim helped him scramble up the hatch to the curved deck. Together they slid into the water and swam for the rocky shoreline. And as they did so, a shrill, vibrating, audible whistling arose from the sea people on the rocks and penetrated their skulls. Toby held her hands over her ears, and Kim shook his head.

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

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