My Name is Legion Read online

  There was still a lot of daylight left in the sky, though the air seemed to have cooled a bit, when I spotted a small cove at about the proper distance, throttled down, and swung toward it. Yes, there was the place, partway back and to the left, built against a steep rise and sporting a front deck that projected out over the water. Several boats, one of them a sailboat, rode at rest at its side, sheltered by the long, white curve of a breakwater.

  I headed in, continuing to slow, and made my way around the inward point of the breakwall. I saw her sitting on the pier, and she saw me and reached for something. Then she was lost to sight above me as I pulled into the lee of the structure. I killed my engine and tied up to the handiest piling, wondering each moment whether she would appear the next, boathook in hand, ready to repel invaders.

  This did not happen, though, so I climbed out and onto a ramplike staging that led me topside. She was just finishing adjusting a long, flaring skirt, which must have been what she had been reaching after. She wore a bikini top, and she was seated on the deck itself, near to the edge, legs tucked out of sight beneath the green, white and blue print material. Her hair was long and very black, her eyes dark and large. Her features were regular, with a definite Oriental cast to them, of the sort I find exceedingly attractive. I paused at the top of the ramp, feeling immediately uncomfortable as I met her gaze.

  My name is Madison, James Madison, I said. I work out at Station One. I'm new there. May I come up for a minute?

  You already have, she said. Then she smiled, a tentative thing. But you can come the rest of the way over and have your minute.

  So I did, and as I advanced she kept staring at me. It made me acutely self-conscious, a condition I thought I had mastered shortly after puberty, and as I was about to look away, she said, Martha Millay, just to make it a full introduction, and she smiled again.

  I've admired your work for a long while, I said, although that is only part of the reason I came by. I hoped you could help me to feel safer in my own work.

  The killings, she said.

  Yes, Exactly ... Your opinion. I'd like it.

  All right. You can have it, she said. But I was on Martinique at the time the killings occurred, and my intelligence comes only from the news reports and one phone conversation with a friend at the IDS. On the basis of years of acquaintanceship, years spent photographing them, playing with them, knowing them, loving them, I do not believe it possible that a dolphin would kill a human being. The notion runs contrary to all my experience. For some peculiar reason, perhaps some delphinic concept as to the brotherhood of self-conscious intelligence, we seem to be quite important to them, so important that I even believe one of them might rather die himself than see one of us killed.

  So you would rule out even a self-defense killing by a dolphin?

  I think so, she said, although I have no facts to point at here. However, what is more important, in terms of your real question, is that they struck me as very undolphinlike killings.

  How so?

  I don't see a dolphin as using his teeth in the way that was described. The way a dolphin is designed, his rostrum, or beak, contains a hundred teeth, and there are eighty-eight in his lower jaw. But if he gets into a fight with, say, a shark or a whale, he does not use them for purposes of biting or slashing. He locks them together, which provides a very rigid structure, and uses his lower jaw, which is considerably undershot, for purposes of ramming his opponent. The anterior of the skull is quite thick and the skull itself sufficiently large to absorb enormous shocks from blows administered in this fashion, and they are tremendous blows, for dolphins have very powerful neck muscles. They are quite capable of killing sharks by battering them to death. So even granting for the sake of argument that a dolphin might have done such a thing, he would not have bitten his victims. He would have bludgeoned them.

  So why didn't someone from the dolphin institute come out and say that?

  She sighed.

  They did. The news media didn't even use the statement they gave them. Apparently nobody thought it an important enough story to warrant any sort of followup.

  She finally took her eyes off me and stared out over the water.

  Then, I believe their indifference to the damage caused by running only the one story is more contemptible even than actual malice, she finally said.

  Acquitted for a moment by her gaze, I lowered myself to sit on the edge of the pier, my feet hanging down over the side. It had been an added discomfort to stand, staring down at her. I joined her in looking out across her harbor.

  Cigarette? I said.

  I don't smoke.

  Mind if I do?

  Go ahead.

  I lit one, drew on it, thought a moment, then asked, Any idea as to how the deaths might have occurred?

  It could have been a shark.

  But there hasn't been a shark in the area for years. The 'walls' ...

  She laughed.

  There are any number of ways a shark could have gotten in, she said. A shift on the bottom, opening a tunnel or crevice beneath the 'wall.' A temporary short circuit in one of the projectors that didn't get noticed, or a continuing one, with a short somewhere in the monitoring system. For that matter, the frequencies used in the 'wall' are supposed to be extremely distressing to many varieties of marine life, but not necessarily fatal. While a shark would normally seek to avoid the 'wall', one could have been driven, forced through by some disturbance, and then found itself trapped inside,

  That's a thought, I said. Yes ... Thank you. You didn't disappoint me.

  I would have thought that I had.

  Why?

  All that I have done is try to vindicate the dolphins and show that there is possibly a shark inside. You said that you wanted me to tell you something that would make you feel safer in your work.

  I felt uncomfortable again. I had the sudden, irrational feeling that she somehow knew all about me and was playing games at that moment.

  You said that you are familiar with my work, she said suddenly. Does that include the two picture books on dolphins?

  Yes. I enjoyed your text, too.

  There wasn't that much of it, she said, and it has been several years now. Perhaps it was too whimsical. It has been a long while since I've looked at the things I said ...

  I thought them admirably suited to the subject, little Zen-like aphorisms for each photograph.

  Can you recall any?

  Yes, I said, one suddenly coming to me, I remember the shot of the leaping dolphin, where you caught his shadow over the water and had for a caption, 'In the absence of reflection, what gods ... '

  She chuckled briefly.

  For a long while I thought that that one was perhaps too cute. Later, though, as I got to know my subject better, I decided that it was not.

  I have often wondered as to what sort of religion or religious feelings they might possess, I said. It has been a common element among all the tribes of man. It would seem that something along these lines appears whenever a certain level of intelligence is achieved, for purposes of dealing with those things that are still beyond its grasp. I am curious as to the forms it might take among dolphins, but quite intrigued by the notion. You say you have some ideas on it?

  I have done a lot of thinking as I watched them, she said, attempting to analyze their character in terms of their behavior, their physiology. Are you familiar with the writings of Johan Huizinga?

  Faintly, I said. It has been years since I read Homo Ludens, and it struck me as a rough draft for something he never got to work out completely. But I recall his basic premise as being that culture begins as a sort of sublimation of a play instinct, elements of sacred performances and festal contests continuing for a time in the evolving institutions, perhaps always remaining present at some level, although his analysis stopped short of modem times.

  Yes, she said. The play instinct. Watching them sport about, it has often seemed to me that as well adapted as they are to their environment, ther
e was never a need for dolphins to evolve complex social institutions, so that whatever it was they did possess along those lines was much closer to the earlier situations considered by Huizinga, a life condition filled with an overt indulgence in their version of festal performances and contests.

  A play-religion?

  Not quite that simple, though I think that is part of the picture. The problem here lies in language. Huizinga employed the Latin word ludus for a reason. Unlike the Greek language, which had a variety of words for idling, for competing in contests, for passing the time in different fashions, Latin reflected the basic unity of all these things and summarized them into a single concept by means of the word ludus. The dolphins' distinctions between play and seriousness are obviously different from our own, just as ours are different from the Greeks'. In our understanding of the meaning of ludus, however, in our ability to realize that we may unify instances of activity from across a broad spectrum of behavior patterns by considering them as a form of play, we have a better basis for conjecture as well as interpretation.

  And in this manner you have deduced their religion?

  I haven't, of course. I only have a few conjectures. You say you have none?

  Well, if I had to guess, just to pull something out of the ah , I would say some form of pantheism, perhaps something akin to the less contemplative forms of Buddhism.

  Why 'less contemplative'? she asked.

  All that activity, I said. They don't even really sleep, do they? They have to get topside quite regularly in order to breathe. So they are always moving about. When would they be able to drift beneath the coral equivalent of a bo tree for any period of time?

  What do you think your mind would be like if you never slept?

  I find that rather difficult to conceive. But I imagine I would find it quite distressing after a while, unless ...

  Unless what?

  Unless I indulged in periodic daydreaming, I suppose.

  I think that might be the case with dolphins, although with a brain capacity such as they possess I do not feel it need necessarily be a periodic thing.

  I don't quite follow you.

  I mean they are sufficiently endowed to do it simultaneously with other thinking, rather than serially.

  You mean always dreaming a little? Taking their mental vacations, their reveries, sidewise in time as it were?

  Yes. We do it too, to a limited extent. There is always a little background thinking, a little mental noise going on while we are dealing with whatever thoughts are most pressing in our consciousness. We learn to suppress it, calling this concentration. It is, in one sense, a process of keeping ourselves from dreaming.

  And you see the dolphin as dreaming and carrying on his normal mental business at the same time?

  In a way, yes. But I also see the dreaming itself as a somewhat different process.

  In what way?

  Our dreams are largely visual in nature, for our waking lives are primarily visually oriented. The dolphin, on the other hand ...

  ... is acoustically oriented. Yes. Granting this constant dreaming effect and predicating it on the neurophysiological structures they possess, it would seem that they might splash around enjoying their own sound tracks.

  More or less, yes. And might not this behavior come under the heading of ludus?

  I just don't know.

  One form of ludus, which me Greeks of course saw as a separate activity, giving it the name diagoge, is best translated as mental recreation. Music was placed in this category, and Aristotle speculated in his Politics as to the profit to be derived from it, finally conceding that music might conduce to virtue by making the body fit, promoting a certain ethos, and enabling us to enjoy things in me proper way, whatever that means. But considering an acoustical daydream in this light, as a musical variety of ludus, I wonder if it might not indeed promote a certain ethos and foster a particular way of enjoying things?

  Possibly, if they were shared experiences.

  We still have no proper idea as to the meanings of many of their sounds. Supposing they are vocalizing some part of this experience?

  Perhaps, given your other premises.

  Then that is all I have, she said. I choose to see a religious significance in spontaneous expressions of diagoge. You may not.

  I don't. I'd buy it as a physiological or psychological necessity, even see it, as you suggested, as a form of play, or ludus. But I have no way of knowing whether such musical activity is truly a religious expression, so for me the ball stops rolling right there. At this point, we do not really understand their ethos or their particular ways of viewing life. A concept as alien and sophisticated as the one you have outlined would be well-nigh impossible for them to communicate to us, even if the language barrier were a lot thinner than it is now. Short of actually finding a way of getting inside them to know it for oneself, I do not see how we can deduce religious sentiments here, even if every one of your other conjectures is correct.

  You are, of course, right, she said. The conclusion is not scientific if it cannot be demonstrated. I cannot demonstrate it, for it is only a feeling, an inference, an intuition, and I offer it only in that spirit. But watch them at their play sometime, listen to the sounds your ears will accept. Think about it. Try to feel it.

  I continued to stare at the water and the sky. I had already learned everything I had come to find out and the rest was just frosting, but I did not have the pleasure of such desserts every day. I realized then that I liked the girl even more than I had thought I would, that I had grown quite fascinated as she had spoken, and not entirely because of the subject. So, partly to prolong things and partly because I was genuinely curious, I said, Go ahead. Tell me the rest. Please.

  The rest?

  You see a religion or something on that order. Tell me what you think it must be like.

  She hesitated. Then, I don't know, she said. The more one compounds conjectures the sillier one becomes. Let us leave it at that

  But that would leave me with little to say but Thank you and Good night. So I pushed my mind around inside the parameters she had laid down, and one of the things that came to me was Barthelme's mention of the normal distribution curve with reference to dolphins.

  If, as you suggest, I began, they constantly express and interpret themselves and their universe by a kind of subliminal dreamsong, it would seem to follow that, as in all things, some are better at it than others. How many Mozarts can there be, even in a race of musicians? Champions, in a nation of athletes? If they all play at a religious diagoge, it must follow that some are superior players. Would they be priests or prophets? Bards? Holy singers? Would the areas in which they dwell be shrines, holy places? A dolphin Vatican or Mecca? A Lourdes?

  She laughed.

  Now you are getting carried away, Mister, Madison.

  I looked at her, trying to see something beyond the apparently amused expression with which she faced me.

  You told me to think about it, I said; to try to feel it.

  It would be strange if you were correct, would it not?

  I nodded.

  And probably well worth the pilgrimage, I said, standing, if only I could find an interpreter ... I thank you for the minute I took and the others you gave me. Would you mind terribly if I dropped by again sometime?

  I am afraid I am going to be quite busy, she said.

  I see. Well, I appreciate what you have given me. Good night, then.

  Good night.

  I made my way back down the ramp to the speedboat, brought it to life, guided it about the breakwall and headed toward the darkening sea, looking back only once, in hopes of discovering just what it was that she called to mind, sitting there, looking out across the waves. Perhaps the Little Mermaid, I decided.

  She did not wave back to me. But then it was twilight, and she might not have noticed.

  Returning to Station One, I felt sufficiently inspired to head for the office/museum/library cluster to see what I could pi
ck up in the way of reading materials having to do with dolphins.

  I made my way across the islet and into the front door, passing the shadow-decked models and displays of the museum and turning right. I swung the door open. The light was on in the library, but the place was empty. I found several books listed that I had not read, so I hunted them up, leafed through them, settled on two, and went to sign them out.

  As I was doing this, my eyes were drawn toward the top of the ledger page by one of the names entered there: Mike Thomley. I glanced across at the date and saw that it happened to be the day before his death. I finished signing out my own materials and decided to see what it was he had taken to read on the eve of his passing. Well, read and listen to. There were three items shown, and the prefix to one of the numbers indicated that it had been a tape.

  The two books turned out to be light popular novels. When I checked the tape, however, a very strange feeling possessed me. It was not music, but rather one from the marine-biology section. Verily. To be precise, it was a recording of the sounds of the killer whale.

  Even my pedestrian knowledge of the subject was sufficient, but to be doubly certain, I checked in one of the books I had right there with me. Yes, the killer whale was undoubtedly the dolphin's greatest enemy, and well over a generation ago experiments had been conducted at the Naval Undersea Center in San Diego, using the recorded sounds of the killer whale to frighten dolphins, for purposes of developing a device to scare them out of tuna nets, where they were often inadvertently slaughtered.

  What could Thomley possibly have wanted it for? Its use in a waterproof broadcasting unit could well have accounted for the unusual behavior of the dolphins in the park at the time he was killed. But why? Why do a thing like that?

  I did what I always do when I am puzzled: I sat down and lit a cigarette.