Cosmo arrived a little early at the designated spot. The last daylight had faded and the sky was clear. Why had Delph summoned him? Delph arrived and wasted no time explaining.
‘I’m preparing a small group of dolphins about your age for the early stages of practical astronomy. I’ve decided to allow you some trial sessions among them, but your astral travel will be restricted to zones within Azure’s gravity. Are you happy to accept the limits?’
‘I am,’ Cosmo said, and Alpha Centauri seemed suddenly brighter above him. This was hardly the interstellar travel he dreamed of, but any out-of-body travel was a step towards it.
‘I know no other young astronomer who would leave his home, swim for five days alone and face a thousand strangers for the slim chance of learning a vocation. You shared a shining memory, but surrounding your moonlight rainbow there were darker visions which you withheld.’ Delph paused.
He hopes I’ll respond, thought Cosmo, but he doesn’t expect it.
Delph gave him times and locations of the sessions and Cosmo hunted with extra appetite that night.
~~~
Cosmo swam hard, into a powerful headwind pushing a short, steep chop. It was past midnight and thickly overcast; sea and sky were coal-black, nothing to see but blinding flashes of phosphorescence flying by.
They were all boys as was usual with practical astronomy classes. Delph was in the lead; Cosmo swam to his left and slightly behind him; the youngest, a dolphin called Flip, in similar formation on Cosmo’s left. The three others in the class, Quin, Rush and Givan, had arranged themselves on Delph’s right. Together they formed a V formation like a flock of birds in flight and for the same reason; to take advantage of the lift from the slipstream of the ones in front. They navigated the darkness by sonar alone.
‘Hold formation when I accelerate,’ ordered Delph, as he drove ahead.
Cosmo breathed out-and-in in a fraction of a second, pushed up to speed and held position. He kept the tip of Delph’s left flipper in front of him and was aware of Delph’s flukes thrusting strongly alongside.
They smacked forward into the chop.
Breathe. Smash! Smash! Smash! Breathe.
The minutes passed. Cosmo wondered how long they could keep up such speed. His muscles burned with the effort.
He must ease up soon, he thought, but Delph accelerated. Top speed was not enough. Something beyond was required. Cosmo breathed again. Alcyone had taught him how to relax his spirit for combat. He did it now, knowing that a widening gap meant failure. Nothing existed except the fin before him, waving effortlessly, goading him. The acceleration continued; he found new limits of speed and pain. When it became more than he could bear, he deepened his inner relaxation. His mind began sliding away, separating itself from his body, lifting him beyond pain. Cosmo swam until the acids seared his straining flesh, the microscopic fibres of his muscles tearing and ripping under the strain.
Delph slowed at last. It was minutes before Cosmo’s mind gathered its homing instinct and drifted back to his gasping body, like a feather falling from storm-cloud and settling on a ruffled sea. He was alone with Delph. They had out-swum the others.
‘You’re young’ said Delph. ‘But your mind and body are strong. You could be great one day.’
They swam back side by side.
‘Interstellar journeys,’ Delph explained, ‘are not unlike what you’ve just experienced: the blackness, the speckles of light flying by, the sense of speed, and the same separation of mind and body. I saw that you achieved separation tonight. It often happens for the first time during supreme physical effort. You’ve done well to reach that stage so quickly. Soon you’ll learn to separate without so much as a swish of a pectoral.’
Rush, the fastest of the others, was the first they met on the way back, then Givan, Quin and Flip. Delph allowed each of them to turn and swim back with them. Rush had the grace to congratulate Cosmo on his fine swimming, in spite of his own surprise at being beaten. Givan was quiet for a time and Cosmo thought he had more difficulty in adjusting to the idea of Rush being thrashed than Rush himself did.
Cosmo ached for days, from beak to flukes, as the damaged muscle tissue healed. The muscles healed to a stronger state than before as is usual with hard physical training. Cosmo found that the training had permanently increased his top speed.
Speed sessions were not as common as endurance workouts. For these, Delph allowed the boys to swim at a more moderate pace but expected them to swim without rest or food for hours on end. All of them improved as the training progressed, but Cosmo kept a comfortable edge on them in speed and endurance and the others respected that.
~~~
In Cosmo’s absence Delph asked the other four how they felt about the newest member.
‘He swims like a demon,’ Givan admitted. ‘But who is he? What is he?’
‘Physical score one hundred percent,’ said Quin. ‘Intellect one hundred percent. Transparency ten percent. Emotions unknown. Group loyalty unproven.’
‘He’s secretive, but the little we know of him is all good,’ said Rush.
‘He wouldn’t hide the good stuff would he,’ countered Givan.
‘Wish I could be like Cosmo,’ said Flip.
‘You don’t know what you’re wishing for,’ said Givan.
To Delph this continuing lack of acceptance of Cosmo was the chief reason he didn’t allow Cosmo to join the boys on missions beyond the moon. Teamwork was too important, even at this stage of their training, though their journeys did not yet take them beyond the solar system.
But after that first speed session, when Cosmo achieved mind-body separation, Delph gave him astral travel experience on all missions within Azure and the moon, so his skills kept pace with theirs. He also allowed Cosmo opportunities to study the science and practice of navigation and noted his aptitude.
Delph thought about Givan’s strong intellect and navigation prowess, Rush’s physical power and co-operative skill, Quin’s mastery of data collection and storage, Flip’s ardent enthusiasm. The best leader needs to combine all those strengths, and yet have something more: a capacity to forge team spirit, the charisma to arouse courage, the ability to inspire trust. That last one alone, he thought, bars Cosmo from participating, let alone leading.
That night Delph swam away from all other dolphins into an empty stretch of ocean and made long-range contact with Zenith in the south.
‘Young Cosmo,’ he streamed, ‘could succeed at practical astronomy, if he were not so veiled in mind.’
‘He’s known tragedy,’ Zenith explained. ‘Once in his babyhood when he lost his parents and again just prior to his departure from us, when he witnessed the deaths of his two closest friends.’
Zenith then sent a graphical thoughtstream. Delph received it like a movie playing out in his head; exactly the movie that Zenith himself had received from Cosmo, displaying his experience with Alcyone and Maram at the Black Reef.
‘I understand why he wouldn’t wish to have such matters discussed by strangers,’ said Delph.
‘There’s something else Cosmo conceals from you, perhaps for good reason in view of his ambitions.’
‘You can trust my discretion. I value any information which could lead to a better understanding.’
‘It may surprise you to know that the Southern School has never, in living memory, produced a better fighter than Cosmo.’
‘A fighter?’
‘A good one.’
‘If he’s good by the standards of the south he is indeed skilled.’
‘If ever his team-mates are in need of protection, they could not have a better defender.’
This explains so much, thought Delph. How could I have been so blind?
~~~
The call flashed around the main school.
‘Surf’s up on the western beaches.’
Lessons were finishing, so Echo, Ripple and some classmates abandoned their after-school hunting plans and headed west with hundreds of others. Ripple and Echo swam together until a large group of newcomers bounced in and separated them. Ripple swam among the newcomers. She imagined the roar of the waves and the bodies of dolphins dancing in the surf
~~~
I, Father Clement, senior deity of the Sacred Galaxy, looked forward to watching the surfing, as did the seraphim. I suspected they intended to join in as far as their disembodied state would allow. Sterne however, was not so keen.
‘If Ripple is to waste time playing, my time is better spent elsewhere. I could return to Azure when she is more likely to be working at her task.’
I was inclined to forget how Sterne still sometimes required the guidance of those older and wiser. It was fortunate that I took such interest in certain species under her care.
‘Surfing is more than just fun,’ I said. ‘It’s the dolphins’ celebration of the power and beauty of some of this planet’s most wondrous phenomena. This is a chance for you to explore the relationship between the celebration of the physical universe and the advancement of the spirit. Someone with your spirit-reading skills might learn much.’
She rolled her evergreen eyes in that impertinent manner of hers. I urged her to observe the seraphim who had already heeded the dolphins’ call to the surf. They swarmed above the western beaches, trailing their crystal veils through the water, testing the strength of the forces driving the waves, before the dolphins themselves arrived.
‘I’m certain Ripple’s task is a purely intellectual one,’ snapped Sterne. ‘Bouncing around in a lot of froth won’t help her.’
However she had the grace to respect my advice, and stayed to watch the surfing.
~~~
His astronomy team headed west, so Cosmo followed. The call to surf had its usual effect on him, twisting his spirit with visions of the Maram of old leading the charge into the wild waves of the southern islands. He separated himself from the team as they swam so he could think for a while of friends he would never see again. He tried to think only of Maram as he was before the illness struck, and before the chaos raged. But always the memory of the blood of Alcyone clouded the sea, and the dry land where flesh boiled, skin cracked, blood seeped, and the beach pressed upwards, crushing . . . crushing. He swam faster to banish the visions. But it required a stronger physical battering than mere speed could provide. Fortunately help was at hand in the shape of big waves.
It was a couple of hours before high tide and the waves were building to fantasy proportions. Because of wide variations in the shape of the coastline and the contours of the ocean floor, every kind of surf was available. The dolphins could choose from waves ranging from gentle to brutal, according to their moods, and capabilities. They inspected the options, made their choices and caught their first rides.
Cosmo chose Point Savage where huge swells rolled in unimpeded from the open sea, smooth at first, until the seafloor, rising suddenly, pushed them into towering top-heavy ridges. These unstable mountain ranges of water raced ashore between misshapen reefs which reflected new forces into them, complicating their ruthless energy.
The few others prepared to ride here were all fighters. They chose Point Savage because only here could they hone their physical skills against waves that were worthy adversaries. Cosmo did not know these dolphins well, but he knew they were members of one of the school’s elite-level fighting squads. He carefully screened off all the fighting zones in his mind so they wouldn’t recognise him as one of them; then launched himself into the thunder.
‘Sweet brutality,’ thought Cosmo, as the first wave grabbed him and flung him shore-wards.
Cosmo was on his third ride for the day. Three other males shared the wave with him. They all swam ahead of the break. It imploded behind them in white pandemonium.
An emerald flash to his left. A female. Ripple! What’s she doing here? If she needs help, the others can give it.
She swooped before him, at peace among the fury, like a gull in a storm.
He watched as she whipped along the wave then leapt before it. The curve of her body echoed the curve of the wave. Her movements flickered, he thought. No wonder they call her Ripple. And her mind? Strangely empty, as though she too was keeping certain zones hidden.
She flicked out the back of the wave. He followed, staying in her slipstream as they returned to deeper water to meet the next wave. A group had gathered beyond the break. He checked it for dolphins he knew. There were none. He stayed beside Ripple for wave after wave. Later, he checked again, scanning to see if any of the astro-team had turned up. That moment’s inattention was all it took. She caught her next wave and he missed it. He took the wave behind but it lacked thunder and sparkle. He exited early, returning to the calmer water beyond the surf. He cruised quietly, letting several perfect waves pass. Then he caught sight of the emerald flash shimmering towards him through the surf. This time he made sure he caught the same wave.
All around them the thunder deepened, the blue intensified, the spray flew higher and dazzled brighter than he’d ever seen before.
~~~
Dozens of seraphim followed Ripple and Cosmo, trailing their particles in the waves. Sterne stared in absorbed silence, almost mesmerised.
I couldn’t resist enquiring, ‘Much to see in their spirit lights? Hmmm?’
‘Remarkable,’ she admitted, without shifting her gaze. ‘Most remarkable.’
~~~
Eventually the tide changed and the best surf was gone. Up and down the islands’ coastlines, dolphins thought of hunting. Cosmo saw Rush and Givan approaching with other groups who’d surfed further south. He dived, separating from Ripple before his friends arrived. The crowd of dolphins headed back towards the main school, picking up other groups on the way, including one containing Echo. Cosmo noticed Ripple race out to meet her sister so they could swim on together.
Why do I care where she is, he wondered?
But somehow, all the way back to the main school he knew exactly where, in this large group of dolphins, that one small female was swimming.
~~~
The seraphim had joined the dolphins in the surf, flown beside them on the waves and even followed after the surfing was over. Two groups hovered above the homeward-bound dolphins; one group swooped above Cosmo’s team and the other followed Ripple and Echo. But as the exhilaration of the surf faded from the dolphins, the seraphim increased the distance between themselves and the ocean.
~~~
The sisters hunted in the dark. They’d located an uprising current delivering abundant multi-species food from the deep.
‘Echo, something strange happened to me today. If I tell you will you keep it to yourself?’
Echo was snapping up delicacies in satisfying mouthfuls.
‘I’ll try,’ she said, ‘but I’m not so great at closing my mind off like you. What happened?’
‘That Cosmo, the new blue Southerner; he surfed with me at Point Savage.’
‘You surfed at Point Savage!’
‘I surfed with Cosmo.’
‘You’re lucky to be alive.’
‘He’s not that bad.’
‘I meant Point Savage, stupid. Did he say anything?’
‘We didn’t exchange a single thought. He was just . . . there . . . beside me all the time! I’m sure he was watching me.’
‘I know where he went,’ said Echo. ‘Hunting with that astronomy team. Shall we join them?’
‘No! I don’t think he wanted to be seen with me. He left when they arrived.’
‘In that case, he’s not worth bothering about.’
Ripple scooped up three baby squid in one gulp and squished them between her teeth. Their chewiness soothed her and the sweet juice trickled down her throat.
The roar and dazzle of those waves haunted Ripple for days and she couldn’t separate Cosmo’s midnight blue shape from the memory. She could feel the secret all around her closer than ever, as though it was hammering on her mind trying to get in.
Is Cosmo the key to the secret?
He approached her after astronomy class.
‘Great surf yesterday,’ he said.
‘It was loud.’
‘Loud?’
‘It wasn’t boring.’
‘Too tricky for some.’
‘I liked the noise it made.’
‘What’s noise got to do with it?’
She could not explain and he swam away.
Why did I talk about noise? He’ll think I’m crazy. He’s the colour of the deep sea. There’s nothing in his mind but planets and stars and galaxies. Why do I hear that ringing every time I see him? I heard it when we surfed together. Oh, the secret; it’s here with me now. I can feel it everywhere. Is it Cosmo who brings it closer? Or is it the sound? I must hold the sound and find the secret.
~~~
Read on, or if desired . . .