Dolphin Island

“It’s too good to be true,” said Dr. Keith. “Why, they were one jump ahead of us most of the time!”

“I noticed that,” answered the Professor. “I’m not sure whether they’re better thinkers than we are, but they’re certainly faster ones.”

“Can I use that gadget next time, Professor?” asked Mick plaintively.

“Yes,” said Professor Kazan at once. “Now we know that they’ll co-operate with Johnny, we want to see if they’ll do so with other people. I picture trained diver-dolphin teams that can open up new frontiers in the sea for research, salvage—oh, a thousand jobs.” He suddenly stopped, in the full flight of his enthusiasm. “I’ve just remembered two words that should have gone into the communicator; we must put them there at once.”

“What are they?” asked Dr. Keith,

“PLEASE and THANK YOU,” answered the Professor.

Chapter 13

For more than a hundred years, Dolphin Island had been haunted by a legend. Johnny would have heard of it soon enough, but, as it happened, he made the discovery by himself.

He had been taking a short cut through the forest, which covered three-quarters of the island, and, as usual, it turned out to be not short at all. Almost as soon as he left the path, he lost his direction in the densely packed pandanus and pisonia trees, and was floundering up to his knees in the sandy soil that the muttonbirds had riddled with their burrows.

It was a strange feeling, being “lost” only a few hundred feet from the crowded settlement and all his friends. He could easily imagine that he was in the heart of some vast jungle, a thousand miles from civilization. There was all the loneliness and mystery of the untamed wild, with none of its danger, for if he pushed on in any direction, he would be out of the tiny forest in five minutes. True, he wouldn’t come out in the place he had intended, but that hardly mattered on so small an island.

Suddenly he became aware of something odd about the patch of jungle into which he had blundered. The trees were smaller and farther apart than elsewhere, and as he looked around him, Johnny slowly realized that this had once been a clearing in the forest. It must have been abandoned a long, long time ago, for it had become almost completely overgrown. In a few more years, all trace of it would be lost.

Who could have lived here, he wondered, years before radio and aircraft had brought the Great Barrier Reef into contact with the world? Criminals? Pirates? All sorts of romantic ideas flashed through his mind, and he began to poke around among the roots of the trees to see what he could find.

He had become a little discouraged, and was wondering if he was simply imagining things, when he came across some smoke-blackened stones half covered by leaves and earth. A fireplace, he decided, and redoubled his efforts. Almost at once, he found some pieces of rusty iron, a cup that had lost its handle, and a broken spoon.

That was all. It was not a very exciting treasure trove, but it did prove that civilized people, not savages, had been here long ago. No one would come to Dolphin Island, so far from land, merely to have a picnic; whoever they were, they must have had a good reason.

Taking the spoon as a souvenir, Johnny left the clearing, and ten minutes later was back on the beach. He went in search of Mick, whom he found in the classroom, nearing the end of Mathematics II, tape 3. As soon as Mick had finished, switched off the teaching machine, and thumbed his nose at it, Johnny showed him the spoon and described where he had found it.

To his surprise, Mick seemed ill at ease.

“I wish you hadn’t taken that,” he said. “Better put it back.”

“But why?” asked Johnny in amazement.

Mick was quite embarrassed. He scuffed his large, bare feet on the polished plastic floor and did not answer directly.

“Of course,” he said, “I don’t really believe in ghosts, but I’d hate to be there by myself on a dark night.”

Johnny was now getting a little exasperated, but he knew that he’d have to let Mick tell the story in his own way. Mick began by taking Johnny to the Message Center, putting through a local call to the Brisbane Museum, and speaking a few words to the Assistant Curator of the Queensland History Department.

A few seconds later, a strange object appeared on the vision screen. It was a small iron tank, or cistern, about four feet square and two feet deep, standing in a glass display case. Beside it were two crude oars.

“What do you think that is?” asked Mick.

“It looks like a water tank to me,” said Johnny.

“Yes,” said Mick, “but it was a boat, too, and it sailed from this island a hundred and thirty years ago—with three people in it.”

“Three people—in a thing that size!”

“Well, one was a baby. The grownups were an Englishwoman, Mary Watson, and her Chinese cook, whose name I don’t remember—it was Ah Something…”