Dolphin Island

In fact, after only three days it was obvious that Snowy had learned her lesson. It was no longer necessary to punish her, only to reward her with short spells of electrical ecstasy. The dolphins lost their fears equally fast, and at the end of a week, they and Snowy were completely at ease with each other. They would hunt around the reef together, sometimes cooperating to trap a school of fish, sometimes foraging independently. A few of the younger dolphins even started their usual horseplay around Snowy, who showed neither annoyance nor uncontrollable hunger when they bumped against her.

On the seventh day, Snowy was not steered back to her pool after her morning romp with the dolphins.

“We’ve done all we can,” said the Professor. “I’m going to turn her loose.”

“Isn’t that taking a risk?” objected Dr. Keith.

“Of course it is, but we’ve got to take it sooner or later. Unless we let her run wild again, we’ll never know how well her conditioning will last.”

“And if she does make a snack of a few dolphins—what then?”

“The rest of them will tell us, soon enough. Then we’ll go out and round her up again. She’ll be easy to locate with that radio pack she’s carrying.”

Stephen Nauru, who had been listening to the conversation as he stood at Flying Fish’s wheel, looked back over his shoulder and asked the question that was worrying everybody.

“Even if you turned Snowy into a vegetarian, what about the other millions of the beasts?”

“We mustn’t be impatient, Steve,” answered the Professor. “I’m still only collecting information, and none of this may ever be the slightest use to man or dolphin. But I’m certain of one thing—the whole talkative dolphin world must know of this experiment by now, and they’ll realize that we’re doing our best for them. A good bargaining point for your fishermen.”

“Hmm—I hadn’t thought of that one.”

“Anyway, if this works with Snowy, I’ve a theory that we need condition only a few killers in any one area. And only females—they’ll teach their mates and their offspring that if you eat a dolphin, you’ll get the most horrible headache.”

Steve was not convinced. Had he realized the tremendous, irresistible power of electric brain stimulation, he might have been more impressed.

“I still don’t think one vegetarian could make a tribe of cannibals mend their ways,” he said.

“You may be quite right,” answered the Professor. “That’s what I want to find out. Even if the job’s possible at all, it may not be worth doing. And even if it’s worth doing, it may take several lifetimes. But one has to be an optimist; don’t you remember the history of the twentieth century?”

“Which bit of it?” asked Steve. “There was rather a lot.”

“The only bit that really matters. Fifty years ago, a great many people refused to believe that all the human nations could live in peace. Well, we know that they were wrong; if they’d been right, you and I wouldn’t be here. So don’t be too pessimistic about this project.”

Suddenly, Steve burst into laughter.

“Now what’s so funny?” asked the Professor.

“I was just thinking,” said Steve, “that it’s been thirty years since they had an excuse for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize. If this plan of yours comes off, you’ll be in the running.”

Chapter 18

While Professor Kazan experimented and dreamed, forces were gathering in the Pacific that cared nothing for the hopes and fears either of men or of dolphins. Mick and Johnny were among the first to glimpse their power, one moonless night out on the reef.

As usual, they were hunting for crayfish and rare shells, and this time Mick had acquired a new tool to help him. It was a watertight flashlight, somewhat larger than normal, and when Mick switched it on, it produced a very faint blue glow.

But it also produced a powerful beam of ultraviolet light, invisible to the human eye. When this fell upon many varieties of corals and shells, they seemed to burst into fire, blazing with fluorescent blues and golds and greens in the darkness. The invisible beam was a magic wand, revealing objects that were otherwise hidden and that could not be seen even by ordinary light. Where the sand had been disturbed by a burrowing mollusk, for example, the ultraviolet beam betrayed the tiny furrow—and Mick had another victim.

Underwater, the effect was astonishing. When the boys dived in the coral pools near the edge of the reef, the dim blue light sliced ahead for fantastic distances. They could see corals fluorescing a dozen yards away, like stars or nebulae in the deeps of space. The natural luminosity of the sea, beautiful and striking though it was, could not compare with this.

Fascinated by their wonderful new toy, Mick and Johnny dived longer than they had intended. When they prepared to go home, they found that the weather had changed.