11
The Council of the Ruined Plateau

Robin-Breee was lost in thought, lulled into a daydream of Brian by the last speaker when she realized the groaning voice of Old Blowhole was speaking to her. She turned anxiously. Suddenly, it was like being caught in class with no idea of where to begin reading. Thousands of searching eyes were on her, all clustered in the darkness around the plateau.

The booming voice rang out again, "WHO SPEAKS FOR HUMANS? HAS OUR COUSIN NO VOICE, NO EXCUSE?"

Her mind whirred, voice frozen. First, she remembered, Greyback had spoken, had sung the history of the Returned from the first Old Blowhole to the sad present, with all its butchery and abuse. Then Brow had told the story of the Squareheads in his brief style;

how they had been reduced to a dwindling tribe unable to keep the big wiggly, the giant squid, in check, how soon the squids would own the sea. Each group had spoken of songs lost, of massacres, of poisonings, on and on until her mind had turned inward in self-defense.

Greyback's barnacle-studded nose spun her into the empty speaking place before the Great One. Now it was her turn.

"THIS IS BREEE. SHE SPEAKS FOR HUMANS. SHE KNOWS THEIR MINDS, AND THE THOUGHTS OF THEIR CLEVER FINGERS, FOR SHE IS NIGHTSEE. WITHIN HER LIVES THE MIND OF ONE SPRUNG FROM THAT OLD STOCK, OF THE OLD MAGIC NOW AWAKENED BY HUMANS THEMSELVES. WE HAVE HEARD SONGS THAT SUCH A ONE WOULD COME TO US AT THE TURNING; THIS IS SHE. ASK HER WHAT YOU WILL, FOR SHE KNOWS AS MUCH ABOUT THE AIR-WORLD AS WE DO OF THIS ONE."

"SIIIING," throbbed the Great One's voice. She faced him, concentrating on his tiny eyes. Her voice seemed small.

"I am called Breee. The name Humans call me is Robin. My father found a ring at the bottom of the sea that opened Breee's mind to me. In the day I have fingers, at night I have fins. I ... came here because Old . . . Greyback asked me to. He thought it was important that you understand about Others. It is important. Drummer, a friend or mine, is not here tonight because he chose to help me. I will explain what I can for his sake.

"There is much to explain. You must understand that the Others we speak of are hunters. They are stupid and cruel. But they are not the end of it. There are good and kind men, and wise men, who want to stop the killing.

"I have found, in the time that I have lived as a dolphin, that all Returned are not the same. There are cruel dolphins, and there are good ones, foolish dolphins and wise Singers. There are Squareheads who like to act, and Great Ones who think. The Others are no different. Hands are not what is important about them - you have the same bones in your flippers. But they have the same heart as you."

A female sperm whale nudged forward, a white scar running jaggedly across her face. "You say Others have heart. This done to me when Shika was calf. Still Shika remembers laughter of Others."

"Cruel, cruel," Robin-Breee whined, her body wriggling with the effort to explain her race. "Cruel and blind. But that was done by Hungry Men. Have you not heard of Hunger, of what the Darkers do, and sometimes do laughing? Yet you do not despise them. They assemble here with their kind. Do not hate all Others because some are hungry. It would be wrong to turn against all who stayed on land."

She swam quickly to the surface to breathe. When she returned, the water was boiling with controversy. She felt a thousand pairs of malevolent, distrustful eyes on her, but the conversation ceased when Gorge, the huge Darker, moved into the empty circle with her. Circling her, his gravelly voice rang out.

"It is madness. A fever. No Returned can know the mind of Others."

"But I do," she insisted. "I am Other, and Returned."

Gorge stopped. The white spot over his eye glowed like ice. "You speak of wise Others, of Others with kind hearts. Yet who has ever heard an Other sing? I have seen them many times on their boats and swimming, but they never sing to each other. Their stonefish call, but only to locate and destroy other stonefish. If you can really tell us of Others, tell us of their songs. Where are they?"

Robin-Breee cut off the babble of skeptics quickly. "In books," she answered. "Others make marks that stand for speech. These are put in things they make with their hands. No Singers are needed because every Other can open a book and read what it sings."

Gorge laughed, bubbling. His teeth flashed. "What nonsense!"

But the other killer whale, Dash, interrupted. "Wait, Gorge, listen. She may be right. I have seen Others on ships looking into little flat boxes, might they be books? And what about the little marks Others always put on their ships?"

Gorge obviously despised Dash and his effort to understand. He nodded menacingly at him. "But how can little marks sing?" he triumphed.

"Of course!" Robin-Breee suddenly realized. "You don't understand because this is a sound-world. Others don't communicate that way. They see. They use their eyes, that is how little marks sing to them!"

The throng babbled in amazement, some in fear. How could a dolphin speak like an Other? It was preposterous to think that Others could hear with their eyes. How limited that would make them! It would have been impossible for them to conquer the earth with such puny communication.

"She is mad!" shrieked a right whale.

But Greyback calmed things a bit when he waggled forth and snorted, "WHAT SONGS DO THESE . . . BOOKS SING TO THE OTHERS?"

"A thousand songs," she said quickly, glad for a friendly question. "Songs about love and death. And God. You won't understand that. God is goodness and beauty. You have Awa. God is like the spirit of the earth, or the Circle of All Living Things. There are songs about justice and injustice. And songs about peace."

The Great One groaned suddenly, and the vibration startled her into silence. "SING AN OTHER-SONG," he croaked.

"But I don't have a book down here!" she stuttered. The curious and doubting throng edged in. "I guess I could tell you the Pledge of Allegiance, or sing some Christmas songs . . . but those won't tell you about the Others very much. You wouldn't understand the words . . . Wait a minute! The poem, of course! The poem I learned for literature class - it's about whales, and Humans!"

She had been twisting and bending nervously with the strain of explaining one race to another, but now that she had remembered the poem she calmed. How grateful she was that Mrs. Payne had made her memorize it!

"It's called 'The Last Whale's Dream,' " she said. It took her a moment to trade her English memories for dolphin words. Then she spoke.

"The sky was gray, the clouds were high when I wandered to the beach,

And stumbled on the stranded whale, the sea beyond his reach,

At first I thought he had fought with the moon and with the tide,

A titanic battle, which he had lost, and subsequently died,

But deep within his brow there was iron from human hands;

He must have hoaxed his hunters to sleep in greedless sands,

His eye, which had traveled black troughs through the sea,

Stared blamelessly, blind and unblinking at me,

I stood stilled by that gentle and mountainous face,

As though by a message from an alien race,

Once, like a meteor through the chasms he ran,

In ice-canyon kingdoms unguessed of by man -

Did he speak to his brothers in vibrating cries,

His mother - did she soothe him with low lullabyes?

And when he lay dozing in the black heart of the deep,

What shadowless ramblings rumbled his sleep?

At his death now I felt empty, like a waterless pail,

For I thought, 'Perhaps man is the dream of the whale,

And when we have bloodied the last whale's last spout,

Perhaps then man, and his light, will go out.' "

Silence reigned in the Council until the last echo of her speech was done. She hoped she had put in the right words.

A bubble of surprise wobbled up from Greyback.

"IT IS AMAZING! UNLIKE ANYTHING I HAVE HEARD SUNG IN THE SEA. So MUCH TALK ABOUT EYES AND COLOR AND LIGHT. IT MUST BE TRUE!"

"Nooooo," exploded a group, led by Gorge. "She is a zhaki! Look at the way she turns and twists! The wizards among Humans have sent her to deceive us."

"WHAT SAY YOU, DOLPHINS," the Great One spoke. "SHALL WE LISTEN TO THIS OTHER-SONG?"

The dolphin chorus was deafeningly negative. The sperm whales also scorned peace. Brow alone refused to choose, though Robin could see his doubt. And the right whales could not accept the idea that some people could be good. Gorge seemed to speak for the killer whales.

"Yes, let us Turn, but let us not divide Others into good and bad! Let us pull them off their sailing ships in harbors and attack them at beaches and chew them to bits! This story is a zhaki vision: it would have us attack only armed Others, who have the exploding spear. You know where that would end. I say drive this little fool from us so that we may not doubt our purpose."

Robin recoiled, for Gorge's eyes gleamed horribly above his double rows of teeth. But suddenly he was pushed aside; the other Darker, Dash, had bolted to hover beside her so fast that she had no time to run. He pulled her against his smooth skin protectively, as Greyback had once done.

"Hold, Gorge! Listen to her. Her words ring true to me. There are good and bad in all creatures. If Others are as she says, surely it would hurt us greatly to kill as they do, the good with the bad. Clear your ears of hate. Can it be I hear clearer because my parents were not killed by fishermen, as yours were?"

Gorge squealed murderously, and his eyes burned like coals. He reared and grinned to show his teeth and prepared to attack . . . but did not.

It was not the judge, the Great One, who intervened. Instead, all heads cocked to a distant trilling note. Gorge, his charge interrupted, spun angrily to face the sound. A lilting whistle wove a haunting tune. Someone sang a familiar song.

"Drummer!" Robin-Breee shrieked in shocked joy.

Then, like an eerie spaceship, the dolphin's pale form materialized from the mist and swam over the craning crowd, who seemed bewildered. Had the zhaki summoned this spirit-dolphin from the Silent Circle to save her?

"What is your business here, silly singer?" growled Gorge.

"I implore your forgiveness, sir Darker," Drummer cackled, "but I could not help hearing what you were saying. I could not let you be embarrassed by driving out the truth from this Council."

"What truth?" Gorge sniffed.

"Why, what Breee was saying. I have just come from a short visit with the Other Circle - perhaps you have noticed the pink tag in my dorsal fin (you are obviously an observant fellow). This is my second stay with Humans, and I must say, she is absolutely right. There are good people as well as the blighters we're after, and we should not confuse the issue. My experience is not as direct as hers, of course. I am just a dolphin, and she has the Nightsee. But she is right."

Gorge snorted in frustration and skulked to the rear of the now-babbling crowd. The water filled with Drummer's name and "zhaki" and "Nightsee."

"Quiet!" the troubadour shrilled. "You all know me; I have told your children countless stories. You know I know the truth when I hear it. Breee is the truth."

He left the Council in stunned silence to consult with Greyback. Every eye now regarded Robin-Breee with renewed awe. Dash stayed near her as though uncertain of Gorge's peace.

Their Old Blowhole, the blue whale, rasped out in the pause, "I HAVE SWUM LONG IN SILENCE. IN MY YOUTH, THE COLD SEAS WERE LIVING WITH GREAT SONGS. NOW THERE IS SILENCE. I HAVE NOT SEEN ANOTHER OF MY KIND FOR NEARLY A SUNCYCLE. WE MUST TURN.

"OLD BLOWHOLE WAS WISE; HE SAVED HIS PEOPLE BY RETURNING TO OUR MOTHER. HER TIME OF PROTECTION IS NOW PAST. WE MUST SAVE OURSELVES, YOU HAVE SAID IT. WE HAVE WAITED LONG ENOUGH TO SEE IF THE OTHERS WILL LET US LIVE. THEY WILL NOT. WE MUST TURN.

"THE NIGHTSEE ONE IS TRUE. IF WE KILL EVERYTHING WITH HANDS, WE WILL BRING OUR OWN DESTRUCTION SOONER. THEY WILL THINK US MAD. THEY MUST SEE WE THINK, AND ACT ONLY TO PROTECT. YET WE MUST TURN."

"With teeth?" Glowered Gorge from the rim of the throng.

"WITH TEETH AND WITH FLUKE," answered Old Blowhole slowly, "WITH TAIL AND FLIPPER. AND WITH OUR MINDS."

"WHAT SHALL WE DO, THEN?" asked Greyback.

"KILL," answered Old Blowhole. "KILL THE MEN WHO WISH TO KILL US."

"But where?" Brow squawked. "Where we meet them?"

The water buzzed with consideration. Whaling fleets operated around the globe. Should they hunt them down one by one?

"Excuse me," Robin-Breee said in her small voice, "but there is a great ship, the biggest whaling ship ever launched. It is now in the cold waters above us, far beyond these shallows. Many Others know about it." The thought of the massive Russian ship made her shudder.

Suddenly Old Blowhole said, "THERE! MEET THE OTHERS THERE. WE WILL DESTROY THEM AND THEIR SHIP."

The decision had been made.

There were cheers and whistles among the young. But many of the older Returned remained pensive, for never would the sea be as they had known it. Hereafter, they would be called the Turned.

Then, just as Robin-Breee was making for Drummer to discover the wonderful secret of his escape, a high wavering whistle broke through the background cheers. There were screams of fear. Pandemonium threatened, for it was terrifyingly close to the Hunger Call of the Darker.

When the dolphins and pilot whales had cleared away, Gorge and a dozen of his fellows remained with their backs together.

"Hear me now!" he shrilled. "I and my Circle will not follow you in this folly. To attack the whale boats is suicide. We should go to the beaches and bring terror to all Others, drive them from Awa. It is the enchantments of Drummer and his zhaki friend Breee, they lure you to misfortune. If you persist in this scheme, we will kill them, though you protect them carefully. Then their spell will be broken, and you will join us. Shreeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Then the great Darkers whirled and disappeared in the night sea. Robin-Breee felt her heart ice up inside her. Drummer flashed to her side.

"Don't listen to his gibberish, Breee!" he said. "They're just overgrown dolphins, except for their brains. They have seal brains."

"Kaaaarrrrraaakk!" sounded a Darker voice coming toward them. "Who's got seal brains?"

It was Dash, the one who had protected her, and Icebreak, and several other of the remaining Darkers.

"Well," gurgled Drummer as he backpedaled, "that is, er, I was applying that metaphor selectively."

"We are ashamed of Gorge," explained Icebreak. He was old and covered with many scars, especially on his head, which he had used to crack ice to get at seals. "He is very independent, as are those of his Circle. We offer you, Breee and Drummer, our protection. Gorge will not carry out his ultimatum while we live, you may be sure."

"Thank you," said Breee.

"He could not oppose us successfully," Dash further assured her. "There are too many of us."

"YAAAAAAA." It was Greyback. "DO NOT LEAVE US, BREEE. WE WILL NEED YOUR ADVICE AND HELP IF WE ARE TO BE SUCCESSFUL. COME TO THE COLD SEAS WITH US AND FACE THE FUTURE, WHAT."

"I . . ." she hesitated, glad for all the friendly faces, but chilled to the heart by the prospect of facing killer whales and harpoons. She felt her task here should be done. She had told them of Humans and stopped them from making a terrible mistake. "I will decide whether to go on or not . . . tomorrow night."

After the killers and Greyback had gone on to discuss strategy with the other great whales, she turned to find Drummer still waiting.

She dove upon him with affectionate gusto, nuzzling his face and nipping at his flippers until he cried out in surrender.

"By Awa's milk," he exclaimed, trying to maintain decorum, "did you really think I would not return? I told you I would get free soon."

"But how . . ." she babbled, "... I mean, is Zaak coming, too?"

"Alas, no. But do not look so forlorn, he is not hurt. He was having the time of his life the last time I saw him, as a matter of fact. After the Others got us back to their lab tank, he really cheered up. You should have seen him playing with them. It was all an adventure for him."

"But how did you escape?"

"Escape? How silly you are. If you have your wits about you, you can make them take you out and let you go exactly where they found you. They ran a whole series of intelligence tests on us. Naturally, Zaak wanted to please them, so he did well. I simply acted very, very stupid, like old Cheeka. And so they let me go."

She laughed, delighted despite the loss of Zaak. "You seem to know a lot about the way scientists handle dolphins."

"Oh, did you not know? I thought everybody did, but then you're ignorant about common things. You see, I worked for several years very closely with Others. They caught me, just as they did Zaak, and they taught me to speak some of their language and I taught them to speak some of ours. See the notch on my dorsal fin, below the tag? That was their mark. Talk about intelligence! These new Others did not even know that it was a Human-mark.

"Say, I'm glad I got here when I did. I heard things from a good ways off - it sounded as if you were in trouble. I see you found my friend Greyback. I knew you would be all right, but how did it happen?"

They spent the rest of the evening at the surface among the cavorting couples, telling each other their adventures. Robin-Breee was warm with the feelings friends bring, and she was glad the Council was ending this way. For she felt it might be a good time to end her part as Breee. Her other life was picking up in interest, especially since she had the date with Brian tomorrow night.

Afterward, she would return one last time to explain to Greyback and Old Blowhole that her part was ended. She thought.