Cracking the Sky (12 page)

Kisha bent down and looked on the bottom shelf. It was empty. “They’re small. In a drawer?” She began pulling open drawers and cubbies, glancing outside every few minutes to make sure the three lights still hovered around the dome.

Nothing.

She looked out again. No lights. Just the diffuse sunlight that penetrated down here, fifty meters below the sea surface. At least it wasn’t night above them in the world of air and sun. Had the whales gone? How far would the sounds go? “Give me a boost?”

Jai came over and helped her balance with her feet on the bottom shelf. She felt around on the top of the cabinet. There! Something. She hooked her hand around a leather strap and pulled. “We found it,” she breathed, looking down at a round ball the exact right size to hold in her fist, encased in a glassoleum shell to keep it safe from water. Four little blue plastic levers protruded slightly on one side. Four times four commands. But the easy ones were just one lever.
Come
had to be basic. She knew what to do. It had been in one of her books. She even sang it to Jonathan. One to come and two to wait, three to lift and four to lower. There was more, there was a whole damned language, but she didn’t know it.

Were there even any whales to call? She glanced back out the porthole. The three lights once more hovered above the brilliantly lit city. She breathed a sigh of relief. “They must have just been around the other side.” Now what? “Okay. I’ve got to go outside. The sound will only travel well through water.” She reached for a new air bottle.

She smiled as Jai reached past her and grabbed a fresh air bottle for himself.

Ten minutes later, she and Jai clung to the rope just above the shift-station. She thumbed the first lever and a clear, mournful whale song filled the water. A shiver touched her spine. As beautiful as the sound was, she knew humans only heard part of it, and badly, filtered by bubble-helmets. Yet the smallest portion was beautiful enough that she and Jai reached for each other’s hands.

She let go of the rope, and Jai held on for both of them. Her breathing seemed loud and intrusive against the whale-song.

The lights of the three whales didn’t seem to be getting any nearer. Was there something else she should do? Whale training was more than just pushing a button, or everyone could do it. Her prep classes had been psychology and some of her reading talked about building a bond with the whales.

“We might have to go to them.” She tried an experimental swoop with her damaged fin. Her right thigh protested. Some piece of her safety training ran in the back of her mind. She turned off the translator for a moment. It seemed sacrilegious to talk over it. “Aren’t there emergency sleds? The kind you’d use if I got hurt in the beds and couldn’t swim and you came for me?”

“And they’re motorized!” Jai grinned. “How come I didn’t know you were so brilliant before?”

How should she take that comment? It didn’t matter. Getting to Jonathon mattered. She followed Jai up-rope to a glassoleum bubble dotted with emergency symbols. Directions for opening the bubble were painted on the shell. Jai pulled a lever and water and air began changing places just like in the locks, the tempo of the exchange exact so that no pressure differences were introduced.

The sled was a simple backboard cupped to hold the injured worker, straps, an air tube and spare helmet, and handholds. She was strapped in moments later, feeling foolish but grateful for any way to get to Jonathon.

She clutched the translator to her as they traveled, excruciatingly slowly, toward the brilliant light of Downbelow Dome, their own small findme light illuminating just a few feet of water in front of them. She lay down in the sled, keeping it as aerodynamic as possible, while Jai trailed his long body behind her and the sled. Every once in a while, she heard the swish of his fins behind her as he added his strength to the tiny motor. The sea floor spun by slowly, seven meters or so below them, rocky and full of waving sea-trees and sponges specially adapted to use the human-provided light to grow unusually large at this depth.

As they came closer, the whales’ dark bodies and lighter bellies began to resolve below the harness lights. When the sled was halfway there, she flipped on the
come
lever again, watching the whales for any sign they heard her. The translator ball in her hand glowed a soft orange. Proximity?

One of the lights began to grow bigger. A whale was coming toward them. She wanted to crow in relief, but held her tongue, listening. The translator would surely tell her what the whales were saying. If they said anything.

The other two whales stayed by Downbelow Dome.

The translator glowed brighter. Was it trying to talk to her? How would it? She searched the little ball, somehow pressing something that sent the whale song thrumming through her speakers. Then English—translated whale: “Turn it off!”

Oh.
Oh!
She thumbed off the lever. It must have been like yelling at them. She tried speaking at it. “Thank you.” The ball stayed quiet. The whale kept coming, larger than she thought from this angle. Fast. She leaned toward it, unafraid, the sheer beauty of the behemoth making her want to sing. She squeezed the translator tight to her and a voice spoke in her ear, and she nearly dropped the ball. “The whale expresses confusion.”

It must respond to pressure. She squeezed the ball. “Confusion?” she asked.

“The dome is not responding to it. It needs to drop its cargo.”

“So I don’t need these levers? I can just talk to you?”

“They’re handy if you need to give an emergency command.”

All right. “How can I help it know what to do?”

The translator apparently wasn’t smart enough to answer her question the way she’d phrased it. “What does the whale need?”

“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 the docks 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 though he might leave the sled on the seafloor 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 the dome. People lived in there.

Kitha 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 done with their hard work.

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

He was silent for a moment. She thought with him, wracking 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. Luck, 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.”

Jonathon. “My son. Jonathon 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 whale’s 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.”

Great. The sled bottomed out and Jai’s hands began to unstrap her, clumsy in his big pressure gloves.

“Oh . . . and don’t be afraid of him,” Jerzy added. “Be positive. Whales like the positive.”

She floated free of the sled. Jai was already heading for the wreck of the dome’s communications equipment.

“Jerzy, I’m going.”

The woman’s voice was warm and encouraging. “Good luck.”

Kitha kicked upward. Should she ask Kiley to come to her? The whale wasn’t far away. Maybe she’d start by just coming near and then waiting. Her stomach had gone to water. She had to succeed.

About halfway up the tall curve of the dome, Kitha kicked a little bit away, holding the translator ball in two hands so she wouldn’t drop it, being careful not to squeeze it. Who knew how much power it had?