When she had all but cleared the rocks around her she picked up the last two, slid down into the water and kicked gently towards the dolphins. They backed away so she waited, treading water, with a fish held in each hand until they became inquisitive and drifted in. Two of them took the fish, but suddenly they backed away again.
Goor had appeared beside her. She made a Be-still sign and then they waited, rising to the surface only when they needed air. Li knew the dolphins were still nearby because of the sounds they made, their wailing whistles and clicks, call and answer, filling the sea around her. Shadowy shapes loomed, neared, took shape, came close, circled until she could stroke the long flanks as they passed, and returned to caress themselves against her body.
Then they swam together, dolphins and people, through the greeny-golden sea-world, not in a wild dance full of rush and foam but in a slow, close, gentle weaving of bodies in the friendly water, while the dolphins’ song went on and on, filling the sea like the wavering sunlight. Li understood it to be song because the only sound she knew at all like it was the song of the tribe waking in the morning to greet the returning day.
The dolphins left without a signal, but the song continued in the water, dwindling as they went, until they rounded a headland and it was lost. Li and Goor waited a long while, hoping, but they didn’t come back.
Gulls had gathered screaming for a share of the fish, but Ma-ma, Hooa and Rawi had by now carried almost all that was left to the back of the cave, where it was cooler and the meat might last a little longer before it stank (though the tribe had strong stomachs, and needed them). Li took one to eat and rested in the blood-warm shallows. Thoughts drifted through her mind – the hunt, the dance, the song. These things had a meaning, a pattern she could almost see. It didn’t cross her mind that it might be part of the dolphins’ hunting technique to harry a shoal towards the shore and pen them in some inlet to catch them there, and that they’d never meant to chase this one into the bay, where they couldn’t get at it. If there hadn’t been helpers in the bay to force the shoal back again they’d have had a poor hunt. To her it was obvious that the dolphins had come because she needed them, because she was hungry and they were her friends. They were so much wiser than she was. They knew where the sun was born.
A few days later the dolphins came again, nine or ten of them and herding a large shoal. Goor saw them first and called Come-help. The others were racing to the bar when the shoal swept through on a wave-surge. They chased it out, and this time, as the tide was lower than before and the water at the bar shallower, the fish had to thresh across in a packed mass where they were almost as easy to pick out as anchored mussels. The dolphins drove them in again, but were less lucky with the wave and half the shoal jibbed at the bar and broke free. Next time the rest escaped, but by then the shelving rocks beside the bar were covered with silver bodies, and Li and Goor could fling plenty out to the cruising dolphins, leaving masses still to be carried back to the cave. The dolphins didn’t stay, but as soon as they’d fed enough flipped on their sides and swam off.
That evening in babble and clamour the tribe arrived. They were hungry. Tong and Kerif were still disputing the leadership, with three other males joining in temporary alliances which stopped anything being settled. The tribe’s journey to the shrimping beach and back had been governed not by whether they’d stripped all they could from a feeding-ground but by one of the contenders trying to enhance his prestige by getting the tribe to move against the other’s will. So the tribe had come to the shrimping beach in separate groups and found poor harvesting there, with the sea not calm and the high tide less than usual. By the time they reached the bay with the water-caves their stomachs were rumbling with hunger.
It was Kerif’s fault, and Tong’s. When times were good, leaders accepted the prestige, but when times were bad the blame was all on them. It was in this mood that the tribe streamed into the bay and saw Presh sitting by a cave mouth in the evening shadow, chewing the back-muscles out of a succulent fish.
He rose, supporting himself against the rock but managing to look as if he had expected their return. His leg was still too weak to bear his weight, but Li had decided only that morning that it would be safe to take the splint off. The bone had set crooked above the ankle, and the calf muscles were shrunken, but otherwise Presh was in fine fettle. He had eaten well, drunk fresh water, rested in the healing sea, been cosseted by females and slept untroubled in the cave. His muscles moved easily under the blue-black skin and his mane was glossy with health.
The tribe had half-forgotten, during the separation, that Presh existed, but now they remembered and scampered up the rocks with cries of greeting. They fawned on him, inspected his leg and wheedled for his fish. At this point Hooa came out of the cave with a fish of her own and stood in baffled happiness, staring at the newcomers. Presh took her fish and passed it to Kerif with a lordly I give, and the same for Tong with the one he’d been eating. He barked Fetch to Hooa, meaning her to get him another one, but by then the tribe, eager for fresh water, were pressing into the caves, jostling to reach the thin sweet trickles down the rocks.
They found the fish by smell in the dark and squabbled over them till they realized that there were enough for even the weakest to get a share, so they finished the day feasting on the spits by the mouth of the bay, where the rocks still held the warmth of the sun. It was obvious to all of them that Presh had arranged this feast as a reward for their return to his unquestionable leadership. He accepted their fawnings and touchings with great good humour. His prestige was immense.
Prestige is like food. It must be frequently given and taken or its effect dwindles away. A full stomach will see people through a day and a night, and maybe another day, but by the second evening they were hungry again. Prestige lasts longer, but not very long among people with empty stomachs. Next morning Li came as usual to inspect Presh’s leg, to stroke and feel it and wonder what might be happening to the bone inside. She felt ill at ease. Alone with her small group, life had seemed straightforward. Presh had been leader, but he was hurt so he and the others had simply accepted that Li knew what should be done. And when they were hungry she would arrange for the dolphins to bring them fish.
The tribe knew nothing of that. They had almost forgotten that Li might be in some way different. She was a child like other children, to be ignored unless she got in their way. Not that she wanted prestige for herself, but she was no longer certain how she fitted in, and that made her anxious.
Tong came to pay his morning respects. Presh should have risen, allowing Tong to dip his own head and shoulders as a signal of acceptance of Presh’s superiority, but Presh stayed seated, looking lordly and confident. Puzzled, Tong peered into his eyes, then remembered about the leg and bent to inspect it. Presh had already tried it out and realized from the pain that it wouldn’t yet bear his weight, but he didn’t wish to have to hunker ignobly down to the sea in front of the whole tribe. Now he seized his chance. As Tong rose, Presh put his arm round his shoulder and used him to help himself to his feet. His free hand grabbed Li’s shoulder. Between them he hobbled down to the water, demonstrating that even a senior male must do what he, Presh, wanted.