Free Margaret St. Clair by The Dolphins of Altair Page A

could put Madelaine ashore was the Channel Islands, and that was much too far.
    That le ft the east, back to the shaken California coast, with forty miles of water between us and the mainland. What place should we head for? Sosa, on Ivry’s back, said, “Try for Drake’s Bay. There’s water there.” She passed her tongue over her lips.
    Her wound , I thought, was making her thirsty. But Drake’s Bay seemed a good idea. Since it was a public beach, there would be drinking fountains with fresh water, and it was most unlikely anybody would be there, bathing or fishing, on the day after a full-scale ea r thquake. Sosa-Madelaine could rest there for a day or two. She could even make a fire without rousing suspicion, and do a little cooking. We could catch fish for her.
    My mind held other thoughts than these, of course —concern for Sven, worry about the bo mbers that were certainly approaching, and constant, not yet fully apprehended grief for Blitta’s death. As we began to leave the Farallons behind, Sosa turned to look at the lighthouse, still visible above the horizon. “I hope Sven saw the plane,” she sa i d. She swallowed. “If he did, he’ll realize what happened. Can any of you make mental contact with him?”
    “No,” Pettrus answered. “Or with Djuna, either.”
    The girl sighed. “I ought to have realized the navy plane was coming before I did,” she said. “Som ething is getting in the way of our minds.”
    Nobody said anything for a while. Ivry was swimming in the middle, with Pettrus on his right and me on his left. I began to wonder why we hadn’t heard the bombers yet. Would they see us from the air, or would t hey be so intent on their target, Noonday Rock, that we could hope to go unnoticed? Moonlight’s shoulder had stopped bleeding, anyhow.
    She stirred uneasily on Ivry’s back. “I think —yes, yes, they’re coming. Dive, all of you! Ivry, too. I’ll hold my breat h. Don’t come up until I kick you, Ivry. Dive!”
    She filled her lungs. Ivry and the rest of us went under as smoothly as we could.
    Ivry said afterwards that he was torn between a wish to go as deep as he could and a fear that Sosa couldn’t stand the sud den increase in pressure. We all were afraid the bombers would see the disturbance in the water and drop explosives on us. One bomb in the right place, and Madeline’s “war against the human race” would have come to an end then and there.
    Under the water, I looked anxiously at Madelaine. She had gripped her legs hard against Ivry’s sides and was bent over against him with her hands behind his flukes. I didn’t know how much air her lungs could hold. Blood from her shoulder made a faint haze in the water. Sh e was very pale.
    We could hear the roar of the planes overhead. It seemed to go on for a long time. We didn’t know whether or not the girl could hear it. Ivry said he thought she was never going to give him the signal to go up. We were all afraid that sh e might faint. But at last I saw her left foot move against Ivry. It was the sign to surface. We could go back to the air.
    We had been swimming forward while we were under water. We came up a good many yards from where we had submerged. Sosa was breathin g in deep gasps. The blood stains on her white dress had turned to a rusty pink. But we seemed to be safe for a while.
    Then I saw that the submersion had washed the blood clot from her shoulder. The wound was bleeding again. She lost more blood before a new clot formed.
    We got to Drake’s Bay a little before sunset. As far as we could see from the water, there was nobody at all there. Madelaine got off Ivry’s back and walked unsteadily through the surf to the beach.
    “I’m so thirsty,” she said. “I’ll tr y to get a drink. I’ll be back.”
    We waited silently. In about five minutes she came out into the surf again, still walking unsteadily.
    “The drinking fountain was working,” she said “I was afraid the pipes might have broken in