Dolphin Island

At the moment, the two scientists had much more important matters to bother about. After twenty-four hours of continuous work, Professor Kazan had translated the message that Einar had brought back—and it had placed him fairly and squarely on the horns of a dilemma. The Professor was a man of peace. If there was one phrase that summed him up, it was “kindhearted.” And now, to his great distress, he was being asked to take sides in a war.

He glared at the message that OSCAR had typed out, as if hoping that it would go away. But he had only himself to blame; after all, he was the one who had insisted on going after it.

“Well, Professor,” asked Dr. Keith who, tired and unshaven, was slumped over the tape-control desk, “now what are we going to do?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” said Professor Kazan. Like most good scientists, and very few bad ones, he was never ashamed to admit when he was baffled. “What would you suggest?”

“It seems to me that this is where our Advisory Committee would be useful. Why not talk it over with a couple of the members?”

“That’s not a bad idea,” said the Professor. “Let’s see who we can contact at this time of day.” He pulled a list of names out of a drawer and started running his finger down the columns.

“Not the Americans—they’ll all be sleeping. Ditto most of the Europeans. That leaves—let’s see—Saha in Delhi, Hirsch in Tel Aviv, Abdullah in———”

“That’s enough!” interrupted Dr. Keith. “I’ve never known a conference-call do anything useful with more than five people in it.”

“Right—we’ll see if we can get these.”

A quarter of an hour later, five men scattered over half the globe were talking to each other as if they were all in the same room. Professor Kazan had not asked for vision, though that could have been provided, if necessary. Sound was quite sufficient for the exchange of views he wanted.

“Gentlemen,” he began, after the initial greetings, “we have a problem. It will have to go to the whole Committee before long—and perhaps much higher than that—but I’d like your unofficial opinions first.”

“Ha!” said Dr. Hassim Abdullah, the great Pakistani biochemist, from his laboratory in Karachi. “You must have asked me for at least a dozen ‘unofficial opinions’ by now, and I don’t recall that you took the slightest notice of any of them.”

“This time I may,” answered the Professor. The solemnity in his tone warned his listeners that this was no ordinary discussion.

Quickly he outlined the events leading up to Johnny’s arrival on the island. They were already familiar to his audience, for this strange rescue had received world-wide publicity. Then he described the sequel—the voyage of the Flying Fish and Einar’s parley with the deep-sea dolphins.

“That may go down in the history books,” he said, “as the first conference between Man and an alien species. I’m sure it won’t be the last, so what we do now may help to shape the future—in space, as well as on Earth.

“Some of you, I know, think I’ve overestimated the intelligence of dolphins. Well, now you can judge for yourselves. They’ve come to us, asking for help against the most ruthless of their enemies. There are only two creatures in the sea that normally attack them. The shark, of course, is one, but he’s not a serious danger to a school of adult dolphins; they can kill him by ramming him in the gills. Because he’s only a stupid fish—stupid even for a fish—they have nothing but contempt and hatred for him.

“The other enemy is a different matter altogether because he’s their cousin, the killer whale, Orcinus Orca. It’s not far wrong to say that Orca is a giant dolphin who’s turned cannibal. He grows up to thirty feet in length, and specimens have been found with twenty dolphins in their stomachs. Think of that—an appetite that needs twenty dolphins at a time to satisfy it!

“No wonder that they’ve appealed to us for protection. They know that we’ve got powers they can’t match—our ships have been proof of that for centuries. Perhaps, during all these ages, their friendliness to us has been an attempt to make contact, to ask for our help in their continual war—and only now have we had the intelligence to understand them. If that’s true, I feel ashamed of myself— and my species.”

“Just a minute, Professor,” interrupted Dr. Saha, the Indian physiologist. “This is all very interesting, but are you quite certain that your interpretation is correct? Don’t get upset, but we all know your affection for dolphins, which most of us share. Are you sure you haven’t put your own ideas into their mouths?”

Some men might have been annoyed by this, even though Dr. Saha had spoken as tactfully as possible. But Professor Kazan replied mildly enough.

“There’s no doubt—ask Keith.”

“That’s correct,” Dr. Keith confirmed. “I can’t translate Dolphin as well as the Professor, but I’d stake my reputation on this.”