Operation Malacca (3 page)

CHAPTER THREE

The dolphin swam strongly out into the lagoon, troubled by the two strange men he had just met and the information Keilty had given him. He clearly recalled every word and intonation of the conversations concerning human relations that he had had with Keilty.

He realized that Keilty was what humans called a rationalist. But beneath, and even more important, Keilty was an optimist. He had never dearly understood what optimism was until Jack had explained, using Keilty's relationship with Margaritta to put his point across. Even then, it had taken some time for him fully to grasp this totally human idea.

The terms, or temperamental viewpoints of optimism, pessimism, and cynicism, etc., are related to the sense of time, since they are all concerned with what might happen tomorrow. Until Charlie had been taught by Keilty what tomorrow meant, he had never considered the concept of time. Dolphins had and needed no concept of time.

Yesterday, today, and tomorrow were needless, one and the same. There were no passing seasons to stimulate them in the sea; no need to build shelters. Their home was the sea and the sea furnished them both food and shelter. If food became scarce, they went somewhere else where food was more plentiful. They were born, lived, and died in the sea. They had no religion, because the sea supplied them with all they needed. Hence they had no need of a promised land or a better tomorrow, as all tomorrows were equally as good as today. The sea was bountiful. Keilty had once told Charlie that his race was either the most advanced or the most degenerate that he, Keilty, would ever encounter – and he was not sure which. Looking at it from Keilty's human standards, Charlie was not so sure either. But from the dolphin's point of view, he was sure that he was content – and probably degenerate, though the idea continued to bother him.

So Charlie had had to discover the idea of time. Jack suggested that he watch the sun and had given him a rudimentary counting system to use. Since that day, he had counted four hundred and seventy-three periods of alternating daylight and darkness. They still meant nothing to him, but he could see somewhat the importance of time to humans.

Mentally, he

gave the equivalent of a human shrug.

He was very much troubled by what Keilty had asked him to do. And, as he had lately found himself coming to do more and more when he had a problem, he filled his lungs and sounded for the base of the reef. The water was cool and dark some seventy feet down, and into one of the many empty overhangs, he could insert his body to satisfy his survival instincts. Any enemies had to approach from the front. He wriggled his bulk in and relaxed to think through the problem. First of all, before meeting Keilty he had never had a problem in his life. Dolphins lived by the old axiom 'all things come to him who waits' – without realizing it. Then, he had learned that in the world of humans there were such things as problems.

He had decided on the spur of the moment to involve himself in a human problem. He had always been reluctant to do this before. He stayed near Keilty because he was as curious as Keilty was. But now, why all of a sudden had he said yes? He had insufficient data to go on and basically he could see no real differences in the two opposing sides. He did not understand the ideologies or ramifications involved for humans, and he sensed that it would be better if he did not. His own kind were satisfied with their few problems and certainly did not wish for human problems. Degeneracy again, he decided.

Perhaps it was Keilty – there was a compatibility between them that he did not recognize as friendship since that concept was alien also. He considered Keilty to be one of the herd in which he grew up – a part of the family so to speak. Keilty now wanted his help.

If he did help, it would make Keilty happy. He recognized that he had never been dependent on Keilty the way humans were dependent on each other. Margaritta again –or was it Keilty? He had never been held captive, nor did Keilty feed him. He was free to come and go, and he did as it pleased him, and Keilty had never interfered.

Charlie was faced with a dilemma – not of deciding whether or not he would help, because he had already told Keilty he would – but of resolving his own conflict: to become involved in a human problem.

He could see the problems in taking sides with either faction, could see the factions factionating down through a series of images to infinity, as if in parallel mirrors.

His justification of the course he had taken was honestly rationalized – mostly because, lacking the distinction between honesty and dishonesty, he chose this course because he wanted to help. And because he was rather curious. And now that he thought about it, he realized that Keilty had played on the right chord in offering him a chance to watch out the window of the airplane. He had flown once before and had been completely captivated by the process of flying. Another chance was too good to pass up. Perhaps he was not so honest after all, he decided. Then it came to him that he had a better understanding of honesty than Keilty thought he did, or himself for that matter. It troubled him a little that perhaps he was becoming a bit too human.

CHAPTER FOUR

Cold tropical rain pounded the decks and upper works of the H.M.S. Bradley, wallowing heavily in the stormy waters of the Strait of Malacca.

`Meteorological report says the rain will last another twenty-five minutes, sir.' The rain-slickered executive officer recapped the speaking tube and turned to the captain.

`You chaps about ready?'

Keilty nodded to Rawingson. 'We're about set, Admiral, Captain, can you swing this pogo stick into the wind when I give the signal, then cut your engines long enough for Charlie to get away?'

`Yes, I think so. Wouldn't do to cut up our spy, now would it?'

Keilty swung down the ladder, muttering to himself. Charlie was ensconced in his tank, fastened to the starboard bow just inside the railing, and looking very unhappy.

Keilty flipped on the transphonemator.

`This damned stuff chafes,' was the first thing Charlie said. He didn't understand the deeper meanings of profanity but agreed with Keilty that for emphasis, it had no substitute.

`Knock off the griping, I gave you your chance when we were fitting it out,' Keilty growled humorously.

`Maybe, but there's a big difference between just trying this junk on and actually wearing it.' The dolphin was loaded around his shoulders with equipment to power and control the two TV cameras mounted on either side of his head to give a stereo effect. They were encased in watertight rectangular and contoured plastic kits 18" x 20" x 3". The equipment was slung around his shoulders in two pocketed belts that resembled oversized cartridge belts. A flexible metal strip ran the length of his back from shoulders to tail to serve as an antenna.

Keilty peered over the spray-lashed side of the destroyer and came back to the tank. 'It looks pretty rough down there. Do you think you can get into the water without any trouble?'

Charlie peered at the series of mirrors, shielded from the rain, that angled over the side to give him a view of what was below. 'Really kicking up a storm down there, isn't it?' He contemplated for a moment. 'When you're ready, drain the

water out of the tank first. I don't want it twisting me around. Swing the board over and then dump. And for God's sake, warn me first. That's a long way down.'

Àll right, we're ready,' Keilty shouted towards the bridge, and waved an arm. Then he pulled out the stops in the bottom that drained the tank.

Charlie grunted as the supporting water ran out and he settled into a rather flaccid heap.

With the help of two British sailors, Keilty wheeled the tank over to the railing, then pulled away the sides. Charlie now lay poised on a swivel board, half over the rail. With the microphones and tape recorders unplugged, Keilty was unable to understand Charlie'

s high-pitched squeaks of complaint. He waited, grinning into the mirrors and stroking the dolphin's flank to calm him, judging the depth of the waves. A few seconds later, the destroyer buried its bow in a deep wave that washed solid spray over them. The following wave was the one he had been waiting for. It built under the bow, lifting the ship over its crest, then slid past as the bow sliced down, cleaving the water into a churning furrow, down into the trough. As they crested again, Keilty waved his arm vigorously to port and the helmsman on the bridge peering at him through the revolving screen, turned the destroyer into the beginning of an S-curve. The bow plowed through the furrow into the next wave and Keilty slapped Charlie on the side and upended the board. The dolphin gave a powerful kick with his tail and shot clear in a long curving arc that carried him away from the destroyer's side. He disappeared into the boiling green water less than six feet below with hardly a splash, and sounded desperately.

The helmsman swung the helm back, slewing away from the spot where Charlie had disappeared and bringing the thrashing propellers clear of the furiously swimming dolphin.

The fast-swinging bow smashed into another wave, just below the crest, and the destroyer rattled and shook along its stern as tons of sea water smothered the bow.

Without their life lines, Keilty and the two sailors would have been swept overboard. As it was, they were nearly drowned as the water flung them around like corks before it cascaded off the decks. Breathing heavily, the three pushed to the rail, but there was no sign of the dolphin in the churning leaden-green waters below.

Keilty straightened up from where he had been leaning over the rail and glanced at the two ratings. 'Thanks, fellows,' he

said briefly, grinning at both, and made his way across the heaving deck and up onto the bridge. Halfway up the ladder, he frowned, suddenly apprehensive about what he had done.

Charlie swam strongly below the turbulent wake created by the ship. Five minutes out from his point of entry, he began swimming aimlessly, as Keilty had instructed him to do. If the research station had spotted the ship, they would surely be listening on sonar for more underwater trespassers, and would have spotted the dolphin leaving the ship.

From there, his cover would be good if he could find and blend in with a school of good-sized fish. Keilty had once explained to Charlie how sonar worked, but Charlie had been way ahead of him – had in fact been amazed at the limitations of the human device.

After what he judged was sufficient time, he began swimming in the general direction of the Vietnamese research station. By now, he had gotten out of the storm area that had carried on north on the prevailing winds. The sun was shining strongly enough on the surface to light quite dearly the thirty-foot or so depth at which he was swimming. The water tasted and smelled different to Charlie. This was the first time he had ever been away from the waters that he knew around the Keys. He was not afraid, since fear was an alien abstraction to him. What he felt was more an extension or a heightening of his senses that put him on edge, made him doubly alert – a feeling he had felt before when his few natural enemies were in the neighborhood: sharks, and once a killer whale that he had identified from the descriptions once given him by his master. He was nervous, but since this feeling had never been described to him by humans, he did not recognize it as a human feeling.

Charlie swam on, from time to time noticing strange fish with which he was not acquainted. Other than that, it seemed to him much like swimming in the open ocean at home. The water was delightfully warm and he swam happily, beginning to lose his nervousness as he became used to the new surroundings. About an hour after leaving the ship, he began to pick up the scent of man and seconds later his own variety of sonar showed a large bulky object, or series of bulky objects, dead ahead.

As he swam closer, he began to make out the image of some type of strandlike obstruction reaching to near the surface. When he sounded for air, he was only some ten feet from the buoyed net. He swam up and nudged it playfully. Nothing happened. The bright yellow buoys fastened all along the top bobbed erratically, but the net remained in place. Keilty had described netting to him and told him he could expect to run into some type of it. Charlie swam back and forth along the netting for a ways, then sounded, swimming down along the net to see how deep it went. The mesh was quite fine, about half an inch wide, and beyond he could now see what was another, thicker net made of steel cables.

Charlie swam back to the surface to consider for a moment. He picked up the sound of a boat's propellers moving through the water quite fast. Above him, the mirror image of the underside of the surface was broken quite suddenly by a V-shaped trail and a turbulent wake as a twenty-foot patrol boat passed over him.

Charlie swam quickly to the surface, careful to keep the equipment strapped to him out of sight as much as possible. He was beginning to think this was all rather ridiculous and not in keeping with his fine sense of dolphin propriety, but Keilty had warned him to be careful.

He chased after the patrol boat, slapped the surface with his tail to attract their attention, then showed his dorsal fin. The boat rounded an him in a sweeping turn and came back under full power. Charlie dived and stayed below the surface out of their sight.

Apparently they were satisfied that it was only a fish that had disturbed the net, as they roared off towards the research station barely visible in the humid mist. Charlie listened to the sound of the propellers disappearing in the distance, then swam back to the net. He was careful not to touch it this time.

When the net was before him, he cruised slowly along, ascending at the same time until he was again at the surface. The top of the net was flush with the surface and there was about twice his length between it and the next fence, which, according to what Keilty had told him, was presumably charged. He considered the distance, then backed off and shot forward into the air over both nets at once. He caused a loud smack as he splashed back into the water, but surfacing again to look around, he could not see that it had tripped any alarms or alerted anyone. He wondered briefly what alarms were as he cruised around the surface, waiting to see if anything would happen now. Keilty had said that he should avoid alarms but had neglected to tell him what they were.

With his beak out of the water, he cleared his lungs through his blowhole, then refilled them to capacity with fresh air. Sighting on the station lying across the oily sea from him in the tropical afternoon, he sounded as deeply as he dared, and swam forward. He was not too sure of the distance because, out of the water, appearances were still deceptive to him, but he surged forward at close to twenty-five knots.

Shortly, a long thick column that he had spotted with his sonar, minutes before, appeared in front of him, and he braked with his tail and surfaced carefully.

The Vietnamese had obviously made no attempt to hide the presence of the tower. The main platform reared nearly sixty feet above the choppy waves and rested on a series of concrete and steel pillars, which Charlie could see were mounted on concrete caissons sunk deep into the sea floor. The platform itself was triangular in shape and supported the main derrick, which rose another one hundred and twenty feet. A large revolving aircraft strobe light was mounted on the top of the derrick, which was painted fluorescent yellow. Two smaller cranes were stationed at the midpoints of two of the equilateral sides. Two housing structures, one of them extending the width of the base, took up two thirds of the deck. The building at the apex of the triangle supported a helicopter landing pad, while the largest building provided space for air conditioning machinery, pipe racks, and equipment storage. The deck itself was twenty feet thick and contained living and working areas.

A small, heavily guarded boat stage was attached to the forward main support. One small powerboat was tied up at the moment, while the guards smoked and lounged in what little shade was provided by the deck. Charlie could see a narrow ladder mounted between the two buildings and reaching the top of the deck near the drilling rig. Several black oil drums were clustered at the top.

Small groups of men were working near the derrick, but other than that, the deck was deserted. He caught the sound of one of the patrol boats approaching, and taking another deep breath, he submerged carefully and moved forward.

The water seemed to be quite thick and was full of refuse that hampered his vision. He swam between the columns, around a second and a third, until he emerged on the other side. Turning to his left, he swam out of the refuse-laden water and switched on his cameras. Immediately, he received a pulse close to his ear that told him the humans were aware that he had activated his equipment. He swam slowly forward until a large pillar again appeared. The water was much heavier here, with a nauseating taste to it, and the current so slow that he was barely able to detect it. He was directly in front of the pillar, some forty feet away. He could see practically nothing visually, but his sonar defined everything sharply for several hundred yards in every direction. Satisfied, he waited for the double pulse that would mean that Keilty was seeing what he saw. It did not come. Puzzled, he swam closer, cutting the distance in half. He could just make out the hazy image of the tower substructure with his eyes, but still no pulse. When he was less than ten feet away, the pulse came suddenly. They must be blind back there, he muttered to himself.

Now he began to swim even more slowly, letting himself rise up the pillar until he nudged something above him. He backed away to investigate and saw that it was some kind of barnacle-encrusted shelf. Then he saw that the pillar fitted neatly into the center of the shelf. Something shiny attracted his attention to the leg of the tower and he moved over to investigate. As he watched, a glistening drop broke away and formed a bubble, which shot towards the surface. When the next one detached itself, he snapped at it with his beak and immediately his mouth filled with a thick cloying taste that burned.

Violently, he expelled all the stored air in his lungs and rushed for the surface. He broke the surface in a jump that carried him half out of the water. He drew in deep draughts of water, sloshing it from side to side until he was able to clear some of the taste from his mouth. The burning was not quite so bad now and he lay quietly on the surface, shuddering through his entire length, fighting to regain his breath. Though he did not know it, what he had tasted was a much higher concentration of the substance in the water around him — lubricating oil to keep sea life from encrusting the retractable legs of the sea tower.

Three quick pulses were repeated over and over. Keilty was sending a query, puzzled as to why the transmission had broken off. Charlie pulled himself together, and began swimming slowly. It was quite dark where he was, although a ring of bright sunlight showed all around. He deduced that he was under whatever the pillars were holding up.

Off to his right, a long shaft — sunk straight down into the water — blocked the light from a small segment of the circle. Charlie swam to it, and taking a deep breath, he began to swim down the column hesitatingly. The pulses came again to show that Keilty was interested in what he saw. The shaft was quite a bit thicker than the others and was formed of segments rather than being one continuous column. It ended forty feet below the surface in a large bulbous structure some twenty feet across that looked like a flattened rubber ball.