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flotsam like miniature icebergs. The superstrong polymer had a breaking point
of several tons per square meter, a point which the rampaging cetaceans had
handily exceeded.
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Incongruously human in the sea of technological corpses, a doll drifted
past. It was half sunk, badly waterlogged already. Its head was bent and hung
beneath the surface. Cora shied away from it as if it could poison her through
the water.
They remained next to the crest of the bemmy, hanging onto it as they
studied in stunned silence the section of sea where the town had been
anchored.
Considering that all her friends and associates, perhaps relatives as
well, had been killed, Dawn was holding together surprisingly well.
"I'm going to hunt for survivors," Mataroreva announced.
"What about remaining cetaceans?"
He started swimming around the bemmy, looked back at Cora. "I don't think
so. I don't see any plumes or backs. Not a fin in sight. They finished their
work last night."
Fin... fin... the way he said it made Cora think of something else. Then
she had it. There was no sign of either Latehoht or Wenkoseemansa. Yet she had
been told the cetaceans did not fight among themselves. The cooperative action
of the different whales the previous night proved as much. But the effort
itself, the hostile premeditated attack by the herd of cetaceans, was so
unprecedented that she wouldn't be surprised to learn that the baleens had
killed the two orcas because they had been working alongside mankind.
Come to think of it, the orcas had been on patrol last night but had
sounded no warning. Were they dead, or in league with the baleens? The
plankton-eaters had no teeth, nothing to bite or chew with. But a tail
weighing many tons could smash the skull of a much smaller orca as easily as
it could a section of polymer raft.
Which survivors was Sam really worried about?
He searched for some thirty minutes before rejoining them. The current
was already dispersing the broken skeleton of the town. In the bright sunlight
of morning the remaining fragments took on a surreal aspect. It was as if the
town had never been, and something had poured tons of garbage into the waters
surrounding this reef.
"No sign of them," he announced and then, seeing Cora's questioning look,
confirmed her thoughts. "Either of them. I called and called. No one
responded." He forced himself on. "I didn't spot a single body. What the hell
do they do with the bodies?"
"I can't imagine," Cora said carefully. "The throat of even a blue is too
small to pass a whole man, and they've nothing to chew a person up with."
Rachael looked ill. "Anyway, why would they suddenly switch, after millions of
years, from a diet of krill to much bulkier food?"
"Then what do they do with the bodies?" Sam muttered again.
No one had any ideas. At that point, everything caught up with Dawn. They
took turns comforting her, calming her. Only Cora stayed aside. She was
nauseated by her own thoughts: the wish that Dawn had perished along with the
rest of the town. Her reaction was only human, but sometimes the thoughts that
cross a human mind can be appalling. How thin is the veneer of civilization.
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Rachael and Merced did a better job of soothing the distraught girl
anyway. Cora forced personal matters from her mind by concentrating
relentlessly on the problem at hand.
"We have enough nutrients in our suits to keep us going four or five
days." She pulled herself up onto the smooth top of the bemmy, slid aside her
mask. "We can rest here without having to swim and can conserve our strength."
She looked at Sam. "I'm sure we can find something in the way of local life to
supplement our suit diet." She gestured at the surrounding debris. "There
should be some useful material among all this, food included. We'd better
start looking for it before the current carries it beyond our reach." And, she
mused silently, it will give us something to do besides think.
Even Dawn participated in the search, hiding her sobbing behind her mask.
They found a considerable amount of packaged food floating on the surface.
Much of it was inedible. Either the vacuum seals had cracked, or it was
designed only for use in automatic cooking units. But some was both intact and
directly edible.
A great deal of torn, lighter-than-water cable drifted about like yellow
seaweed. These lengths served to tie the packages of food to the tops of
several bemmies. The pattern thus formed would also serve to attract
high-flying skimmers.
Merced suggested they employ one or more of the emergency transmitters
located in the instrument belt of every gelsuit. The idea was vetoed by
Mataroreva. They still could not discount completely the possibility that a
human agency was somehow involved in the attacks. Setting up an emergency
beacon might draw visitors to the reef other than those desired. Besides, the
lack of communication from the town would draw investigators soon enough.
Quite unexpectedly, they did come across three closely grouped watertight
containers from their own sunken suprafoil. Two contained delicate research
equipment for the study of underwater life. That was a laugh, Cora thought.
They would be doing nothing but studying undersea life for the next several
days, perhaps for weeks, until someone thought to send out a skimmer or a ship
to see why the town of Vai'oire was not responding to signals.
She couldn't decide whether to be pleased or disappointed at the contents
of the third container. It was filled with personal effects that were of no
use to anyone in the water, and included Rachael's neurophon. Her daughter, of
course, was overjoyed. To Cora's relief, however, she wouldn't chance playing
the sensitive instrument, much as it would have relaxed her.
Not that the sealed, solid-state electronics would be damaged by a little
water, but Rachael was unwilling to risk dropping the device from the
uncertain perch of a bemmy top. It would not float. So she left it sealed in,
together with the other two containers, and tied to the top of a silicate
projection.
They spent the next few days examining the rest of the debris as it was
dispersed by wind and wave. Mataroreva made longer and longer swims out to
sea, disdaining the comparative shelter of the reef. He claimed to be
searching for weapons as well as for additional food supplies.
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