Margaret St. Clair - The Dolphins of Altair

“How did Sosa get that scar on her arm?” Kendry asked.

“That’s where she was wounded during the attack on Noonday Rock,” I answered. “Don’t you remember our telling you she was hurt in the arm?”

“Yes, I remember. I have seen such a scar before—it was—I—no, it’s gone.”

Madelaine had turned to the doctor. “Give me your hunting knife,” she said in a low voice.

He drew it from the sheath and handed it to her. I thought she seemed a little paler than usual. “Tell Kendry this—this will help her remember,” she told me. She drew the hunting knife forcefully across the barely healed scar.

Blood gushed out. Lawrence jumped to his feet and snatched the knife away from her. “Maddy! What are you doing? What’s the big idea?”

Moonlight was clutching her arm underneath the freely bleeding gash. “I think Kendry can tell us now,” she said.

We were all making noises of distress. “Sosa!” Kendry cried. “I don’t understand! Why did you wound yourself?”

“Amtor, tell her to remember the other time she saw a scar, and it was gashed by a knife.”

Ivry was dashing about wildly; as usual when something went wrong, he was inclined to blame Lawrence. Pettrus and I were relatively calm, and Kendry, though she couldn’t help making the distress signal, was trying to do as Madelaine had bidden her.

“I remember,” she said after a minute. “It happened when I was young, a long, long time ago.

“We were swimming along beside a canoe of the Splits, the brown Splits who live on islands in the big calm ocean. It was a big canoe, filled with people, and we were guiding them to a new island, where they had never been before.

“We sea people talked as we swam along, of course; a very old cousin of mine was telling us about something the Old Ones had had, called the ahln.

“The Split in the prow of the canoe had a scar on his shoulder, very like the one Sosa has. One of the oarsmen began to quarrel with him, and suddenly he jumped up from his oar and slashed at the other Split’s shoulder with his knife.

“Blood ran out over the scar, a lot of blood. The other men in the canoe took sides, and in a minute they were all fighting.

“The canoe upset and they all went in the water, even the women. That would not have been serious; they could all swim, and they could have righted the canoe. But the blood in the water drew sharks, more sharks than I had ever seen at one time, and we sea people had to leave the Splits struggling in the water and swim for our lives.

“I suppose they were all killed. I am not surprised I couldn’t remember about the ahln. Seeing a Split hurt is very shocking to one of the sea people.”

“But she remembers now?” Moonlight asked. She was still clutching her arm underneath the wound, to check the bleeding. The blood ran out over her fing ers and down her arm.

Kendry blew a long jet of air after I relayed the question. “Yes, I think so. I am not sure of the names of the metal, but perhaps Amtor can help with them.—It is at least a hundred years since I had thought of it.”

Lawrence had taken off his life jacket and was tearing a strip from the bottom of his shirt to serve as a bandage. He began tying the cloth around Madelaine’s arm. “Did your self-mutilation succeed in jogging Kendry’s memory?” he asked.

“She believes so.”

“Good,” Lawrence answered. “When we get back to the Naomi , you must tell me how you knew it would have that effect. Meantime, see if you can get her to dictate the details of the ahln’s construction to you.” He tied the ends of his bandage in a neat knot, “All right.”

Lawrence got a writing pad and pencil from his pocket and handed them to her. Madelaine seated herself on the rocky surface, the writing pad on her knee and Kendry in the water close to her feet. The tide was rising, and there was less of the rock above water than there had been.

“I can’t tell you how to draw the ahln, Sosa,” Kendry said, faintly distressed. “I shall have to use Udra to make you draw the ahln as it is in my mind. Then you can ask me questions about what you have drawn. Will you object to this?”

“Tell her, not at all,” Madelaine said to me. “She is welcome to use my arm, or my whole body, as she pleases. I don’t find Udra frightening.”

There was a silence. Madelaine sat relaxed, her shoulders drooping, while blood seeped through the bandage on her arm. Her eyes did not seem to be focused on anything. Lawrence lit cigarette after cigarette. The rock area above water diminished steadily.

Slowly Moonlight’s hand began to move. She drew on the writing pad for about fifteen minutes, slowly and steadily, going back occasionally over what she had already drawn.

Her hand stopped moving. She gave a deep sigh. “That’s the ahln,” she said. “Take the pad, Doctor, and take good care of it. I can’t see to hand it to you.”

Lawrence’s hand had gone out to the note pad, but now he stopped, divided between curiosity over the drawing and solicitude for the girl.

“Can’t see to hand it to me?” he said. “What do you mean by that? Is something wrong with your eyes?”

“No. I mean, yes, there is, but I think it will pass. Translating Kendry’s multidimensional picture into human, two-dimensional terms has affected my vision. But I think it will pass. Take the pad, Doctor. Take good care of it.”

He obeyed. Madelaine was rubbing the back of her neck and sighing. He looked at the drawing thoughtfully.

“What are the wires in the upper left corner made of?” he asked after an instant.

“Cy—copper, I think.”

“And what’s that prism-thing in the middle? It doesn’t seem to be glass.”

“No, it’s not,” the girl answered. “Amtor, ask Kendry what the prism is.”

“She says it’s a heavy dull metal that’s quite soft,” I reported. “She says Splits use it on fishing lines. I think she means lead.”

“What’s the purpose of the prism, though?” Lawrence asked.

“Kendry says it regulates the amount of heat that is produced,” I reported.

“Um. And the little helix down on the right? Is it the same as the copper wire?”

“No, it’s not,” Madelaine said after I had put the question to Kendry. “It’s a silvery metal, very heavy, that’s resistant to almost everything. It’s hard to work. Kendry has never seen a specimen of it.”

“She must mean platinum,” Dr. Lawrence said. He was still studying the drawing. “Well, I guess we could make this thing without too much trou ble. Even the platinum wire wouldn’t be impossible.

“But I don’t see what it would do after we made it. For one thing, there’s no indication of a power source on the drawing. It isn’t self-powered, is it? Where does the power come from?” He gave the draw ing a final dissatisfied glance and put it in his breast pocket, under his life jacket.

“Ask Kendry, Amtor,” Madelaine said. She was rubbing her eyes.

“She says it is not self-powered. It has to have an external source of power.”

“Well, what is it? A battery? Electric current? What?”

“She says it is none of these,” I reported after I had relayed Lawrence’s question. “She says she cannot tell us how it is powered, though she knows it is something Splits do not have. But what it is exactly, she has never known. She was never told.”

Dr. Lawrence grew rigid. “Why didn’t the old lady tell us this before?” he demanded angrily. “It would have saved us all trouble, and Madelaine needn’t have that nasty cut on her arm. I don’t see how this contraption could do anything anyhow. But it’s perfectly useless if it can’t be powered.” He gave an exasperated snort.