David McDaniel - The Final Affair

"I believe its absence is most eloquent, Mr. Kuryakin. We will not rush into action before spying out the terrain, but we might do well to transfer our central operation, quietly, to Makasar pending an interview with Dr. Kaja and his trained fish. Mr. Solo, what do you feel about taking your wife on such a business trip?"

"Frankly, sir, I wouldn't want to leave her behind. I think I'd be afraid something would happen to her before I got back. Even under the circumstances, I'd feel better if she was with me."

Waverly nodded. "Very well. Her knowledge of the terrain will be useful, especially if we are unable to get that satellite picture. It will require repositioning one over the Gulf of Tonkin, and may take some time." He. fumbled his pipe and rolled leather pouch out of a side pocket and dipped a pungent bowlful which he tamped with stained thumb and forefinger. "I presume you can be ready to leave for Indonesia tomorrow evening. The sooner we get there, the sooner we will be acclimatized. This week we can spare three days – next week we will need all our faculties at optimum pitch."

"Next week?"

"Thrush Island knows we've been tapping the Ultimate Computer – the remote destruct command directed at our illicit terminal demonstrates that. Beyond a doubt they are racing to replace their lost hardware and renew the offensive.

If I knew absolutely that this unnamed island was the Thrush base we seek, I would order an attack on it at once. But pending verification by a NASA photograph – or positive identification by a qualified dolphin – I plan to be ready to move against them."

"Next week?"

"I confidently expect so."

"Then," said Illya, "Southward, Ho!"

An U.N.C.L.E. jet carried them from Djakarta to the small field at Makasar in just under two hours. From 40,000 feet the ocean was a featureless cloud – streaked sheet in shades of greens and blues varying with the depth except where odd-shaped lumps of greenish-black broke the surface, jungle-tipped peaks rising from the vast sunken plain beneath the shallow Java Sea. At last they saw ahead a jagged spine of mountains jutting from the sea, mist-shrouded and kar; a bony peninsula springing from a body of land which was only a shadow on the edge of the world to their left and fading towards the horizon to their right. Before the sea on the far side had vanished behind the mountains, they started their long descent towards a city which lay at the foot of a lush valley on the near coast.

Fifteen minutes later the door swung down and became a short set of steps leading to a red-cinder paved airstrip and stifling heat. Napoleon's light summer suit, comparatively comfortable in a New York heat wave, seemed suddenly bulkier and oppressive as he ducked slightly through the hatch and the interior air-conditioning vanished behind him.

A two-storey tower and a row of white buildings made up the airport facility. In the main waiting room, next to customs, they were greeted tentatively by a young woman in pink.

"U.N.C.L.E.?" she said as they entered.

"Yes," said Mr. Waverly.

"My name is Merah Diambu – I'm Dr. Kaja'sassistant. Ladju came in this morning and they've been working over charts all day. He's just full of information. He's been back to the island, and he's checked with several locals apparently."

"Fascinating. Does he talk to strangers?"

"He's never had the opportunity, but I shouldn't doubt it. Come on, I have a car outside. Unless you're waiting for luggage?"

"No," said Napoleon. "That's coming separately, since we don't know how long we'll be staying. Do you really talk to fish?"

"Of course not. No cold-blooded animal has intelligence capable of speech. Dolphins are as mammalian as people – and possibly more intelligent. We couldn't learn to talk to them, but some of them are learning to talk to us. You must be Napoleon Solo."

They exchanged information on the short drive south to a small group of buildings around the foot of a short low pier facing the declining sun, and Merah recited the names correctly to Dr. Larry Kaja, who squatted beside a wide shallow pool in which eight lazily moving feet of sleek power reclined on a bed of dark sand near a two-way hydrophone. Dr. Kaja was young, squarefaced, bearded and tanned. "Can he hear us?" asked Joan.

"Probably. Can you hear them?" Dr. Kaja addressed his microphone.

"C'ear azz a behl, Larry," said a speaker on the ground beside him, and the dolphin rolled lazily on his side and raised a casual flipper in greeting.

Ow'zzzat ?"

"You've got the initial L pretty good, but you lost the first one right after the plosive."

"Yah, I know. "

With a quick twist he lifted half his gleaming length out of the pool along with a cascade of water and leaned over the edge peering near-sightedly up at his visitors, swinging his head to scan them intently.

Napoleon gaped in amazement and turned to Illya. "That's really him?"

"Uhhuh," said Illya. "How about that?"

"Can he hear us?"

"Not well out of the water," said Dr. Kaja.

Ladju opened his glistening snout like a duck's beak and emitted a staccato series of high-pitched quacks before writhing back into the pool, displacing another slosh of warm seawater.

"Open mouthh mean surprizze, yah?"

"Right, Ladju. These are the men who are curious about that island you found."

"Curreeosity izz a ffuhn zzing. But zzey're noht ahll mehn . Hey you wahnna p'ay taggg?"

"Me?" said Joan. "I – uh -"

"Now just a minute, buster," said Napoleon, "That's my wife you're talking to."

The speaker erupted in a sputtering cackle as Ladju flipped back and forth in the pool, rolling over and over.

Larry flipped a switch on the small waterproof amplifier at his feet and the sound cut off. "He scored on you, Mr. Solo," he explained. "He's laughing at the moment."

Joan asked hesitantly, "Ah – did I misinterpret the tone of his…"

Larry suppressed a smile. "I'm afraid not. I have no idea how serious he was, but your reaction was reasonably appropriate. Don't worry – Ladju has a weird sense of humor; but he's tremendously honorable:- all the dolphins I've ever known are. Even if he is a little strange, even by their standards; Kanta, his girlfriend for a while, said so. Partly it's his more human characteristics, she said."

"I see," said Illya, whose smile had not been suppressed since his partner was looking elsewhere. "But about those charts.-"

A brass bell began clanging insistently on a post beside the pool as Ladju jerked the dangling rope with his teeth until Larry switched on the hydrophone again.

"Sohrry abou 'zzat ›said the speaker. "You ghoing to the islan'?"

"If it's the island we're looking for," said Mr. Waverly. "What can you tell me about it? Do you know where it is?"

"I cou' take you zzeve bu' I cou'n't ttehll you whehre itt -izz."

"I have that problem on Long Island sometimes," said Napoleon.

"Actually, we have it pretty well located," said Larry. "The last chart we went over – the one showing sincline shifts and minor currents in that area – checked with the bottom contour map you read this morning. And tell them what you saw there."

"Hlotsss of misstakss on tchartsss."

"What did you see at the island?"

"Hydrophonezz ahll aroun. I wehn' up c'ose an' tchecked i' toutt.

Zzere'zz a neht across zhe reef 'assage bu' I ssmelled zzubmarinezz inzide. An' I came up to zhe beatch an' zzaw hlotss of houzzezz. Zzome bhig onezz."

"There are no established military bases in that area," said Mr. Waverly. "Where is this island, exactly?"