Martin Greenberg - The Future We Wish We Had

“Go to the docks. Help them drop their cargo. Then they’ll leave.”

The whale turned slowly away from her, making a circle. Waiting. Three bulging nets hung from its harness. “I need the whales to help me.”

Jai stayed silent, keeping them on course, letting her work it out. But their com was open. Surely he heard the conversation. She made sure to hold the ball loosely and safely between her fingers. “Jai? Do you have any idea how to get the whales to help the city breathe? If we just help them unload, they’ll leave. I don’t know how to make them stay.”

“Maybe we can find something to attach the whales to the girder. I need to see the damage.”

“They’ll stay together.” The dome loomed up now, more than twice as big as it had looked from the shift-station. They were over halfway there. She squeezed the ball. “Ask the whales to wait for me by the dome.”

Sound belled out from the ball, filling her helmet and the sea around them. The whale she had been talking to ( she had been talking to a whale! ) beat them to Downbelow Dome by at least ten minutes. As the dome loomed large and silent and bright above them, Kitha said, “Doesn’t it feel like we’re visiting an artifact?”

Jai grunted. “Like an archeological dig.” She heard the fear in his voice, and wondered if she sounded as bad. Who did he love that was inside, silent, hopefully alive?

The whales bunched, never still. Their harnesses provided air, so they didn’t need to breach to breathe, but breaching was instinct, and every migratory and work path allowed for trips to the surface. Surely their time was running out.

Jai must have felt the same. He was all business as soon as they rounded the huge bright arch of the dome and began to approach the lungs, and the mess that lay on top of them. Kitha thought he might leave the sled on the sea floor and set her free to swim, but he kept her in it, strapped in, and they glided through tumbled bars and floors of steel that had once been a strong structure that stored transports and materials, the goods brought and sent by whales, and the underwater ships of visiting dignitaries. In a way, she liked still being on the sled. It somehow made the tangled landscape seem more like it belonged to a dream. This close, shadows and movement from inside touched the dome’s surface even though the glassoleum had been dialed to its most opaque setting to keep warmth inside it. People lived in there.

Kitcha clutched the translator. “Tell them thank you. Ask them to wait for longer. We will need them.”

It pulsed in her hand and then sang. The low, mournful notes seemed a perfect backdrop to the destruction they saw. Glassoleum and plastic had all weathered the quake well; metal had snapped and fallen.

The lungs were the size of the biggest whale, slightly squatter. They peeled disassociated oxygen from the water and fed it carbon dioxide, breathing the water like mammals so they could be plants in the dome itself, where they exhaled oxygen and inhaled carbon dioxide. They were grouped in two sets of three to minimize damage. A dome could live in lockdown on three lungs for days. The domes were safe. Everyone said so. Her boy was in there.

A long squared metal post lay across three of the lungs, holding them down. The lungs lay quiescent under it, undoubtedly turned off. Shreds of one lung covering floated around one end of the pole, but the other two looked whole and undamaged.

Now that they were here, it was easy to see what they had to do-get the whales to help them lift the large square metal pole that kept the lungs down. But how to do it? Kitha glanced up at the milling whales. They would have to be willing helpers. Psychology, she mused. There was no way to use food. Blue whales sieved the sea for plankton, which was more of a problem than a solution. Surely they were hungry by now, left on-shift past their time. The only thing she knew they wanted was to get rid of their burdens and get free-go eat and breach and play and be whales finished with their hard work. Best get the mechanics down first.

She asked Jai, “Do you see anything we can tie to a harness?”

He was silent for a moment. She thought with him, racking her brain. “What about the harnesses themselves? If we get one off, will it be long enough?”

“You’d have to get the whale right down next to the metal. There wouldn’t be enough torque. It might get hurt.”

Well, that was no good. “What about the lines that hold the lights up?”

“Maybe. But they’re attached directly to the dome.”

“Isn’t there some kind of failsafe?” she mused. “What if a whale ran into them? Or a transport?”

“Some kind of quick-release?” he asked. “I don’t know. I don’t have any idea how to trigger it.”

She didn’t have any other ideas. “We’ll just have to go look.” Her hands clenched in sudden anger. “Why won’t the damn city talk to us? Surely they can see we’re out here.” Her voice had an edge.

He waved a hand at the communication antenna that had been destroyed, as if to say “they just can’t,” but before he could get a verbal answer out, the translator spoke. “I can talk to the city-if anyone in there is using a translator. Someone may have thought of it.”

Wow. “Can you?” she asked, stuttering.

“Would you like me to?”

Damn all literal devices to hell. Her answer came out through clenched teeth. “Yes. Please.” And before she could formulate another question, a tinny machine-voice sounded in her helmet. “This is the emergency whale communications system. Hold on.”

She waited. Minutes passed. Shadowy movement passed between the lights inside the dome and the shell.

The whales circled faster, as if trying to tell her something.

“Whale trainer Jerzy Hu here. Great idea. We have you on-camera.”

She glanced at Jai. A broad smile showed through his helmet and he lifted one hand as if in benediction. She grinned and blushed. Lucky, mostly, and the fact that she’d even tried. She’d never met Jerzy, but she was ready to make the woman her new best friend.

“Can anyone come out and help us free the lungs?” Surely they could see what needed to be done.

Jerzy’s voice in her ear. “The dome is closed. It’s automatic. It won’t let us out. We’ve been trying. It seems to think even one lockfull of lost air will kill us all.”

There were a thousand things she wanted to ask. “Is everyone okay in there?”

“Almost everyone. A building fell. Three people died and we have about twenty injured.”

Jonathan. “My son. Jonathan Horner. Is he okay?”

A laugh. “He’s been a pest ever since the dome closed with you outside it. He’s okay.”

Kitha wanted to talk to him so badly it hurt. But the whales! “Jerzy. How do I get the whales to help us? We need rope or chain or something, and then maybe they can help us lift this.”

“We’ve been working on that ever since you called that whale. That was Kiley, by the way. The other two are Penelope and Lisa.”

She’d never thought to ask the translator the whales’ names. “Thanks, Jerzy. Did you come up with any ideas?”

“The trick will be getting them not to take off. Kiley’s the key-he leads that pod. But you have to get him to like you.”

“I like him. I love him. What do I do?”

“Swim up to him. You’ll have to guide the whole thing. Send Jai down to the communications building. We know it’s a wreck, but there should be wires used to move the antenna around when we need to work on it. At least one will be attached to the antenna.”

Jai was already directing the sled down. “Okay. But what do I do to make a whale like me?”

“Be yourself,” Jerzy said. “He’ll bond with you or he won’t. Whales make up their own minds about who they’ll accept as a trainer.”