Well, good night.
Good night.
My first thought was that there were no signs of any extra work having come in since the last time I had been around, my second one was that she had been trying a little too hard to get me to believe her, and my third thought was ignoble.
But the proof of the pudding would keep. I turned my attention to the dolphin skeleton.
The lower jaw, with its neat, sharp teeth, fascinated me, and its size came close to being its most interesting feature. Almost, but not quite. The most interesting thing about it had to be the fact that the wires which held it in place were clean, untarnished, bright and gleaming at their ends, as if they had just recently been cut, unlike their more oxidized brethren everyplace else where the specimen had been wired.
The thing I found interesting about the size was that it was just about right to make it a dandy hand weapon.
And that was all. That was enough. But I fingered the maxillary and premaxillary bones, running my hand back toward the blowhole; I traced the rostrum; I gripped the jaw once more. Why, I did not really know for a moment, until a grotesque vision of Hamlet filtered into my mind. Or was it really that incongruous? A phrase out of Loren Eiseley came to me then: ... We are all potential fossils still carrying within our bodies the crudities of former existences, the marks of a world in which living creatures flow with little more consistency than clouds from age to age. We came from the water. This fellow I gripped had spent his life there. But both our skulls were built of calcium, a sea product chosen in our earlier days and irrevocably part of us now; both were housings for large brains, similar, yet different; both seemed to contain a center of consciousness, awareness, sensitivity, with all the concomitant pleasures, woes, and available varieties of conclusions concerning existence which that entailed, passing at some time or other within these small, rigid pieces of carbonate of lime. The only really significant difference, I suddenly felt, was not that this fellow had been born a dolphin and I a man, but only, rather, that I still lived, a very minor point in terms of the time scale onto which I had wandered. I withdrew my hand, wondering uncomfortably whether my remains would ever be used as a murder weapon.
Having no further reason for being there, I collected my books, closed up, and cleared out.
Returning to my cottage, I deposited the books on my bed table and left the small light burning there. I departed again by means of the back door, which let upon a small, relatively private patio, pleasantly situated right at the edge of the islet with an unobstructed view of the sea. But I did not pause to admire the prospect just then. If other people might step out for a breath of air, so could I.
I strolled until I located a suitable spot, a small bench in the shadow of the dispensary. I seated myself there, fairly well hidden, yet commanding a full view of the complex I had but recently quitted. For a long while I waited, feeling ignoble, but watching anyway.
As the minutes continued their parade, I came near to deciding that I had been mistaken, that the margin of caution had elapsed, that nothing would occur.
But then the door at the far end of the office, the one through which I had entered on my initial tour of the place, opened, and the figure of a man emerged. He headed toward the nearest shore of the islet, then commenced what would have seemed but the continuance of a stroll along its edge to anyone just noticing him there. He was tall, around my height, which narrowed the field considerably, so that it was really almost unnecessary for me to wait and see him enter the cottage that was assigned to Paul Vallons, and after a moment see the light go on within.
A little while later, I was in bed with my dolphin books, reflecting that some guys seem to have it made all the way around; and pumling and wondering, with the pied typecase Don had handed me, that I was ever born to set it right.
The following morning, during the ambulatory, coffee-tropism phase of preconsciousness, I stumbled across the most damnable, frightening, item in the entire case. Or rather, I stepped over it, perhaps even on it, before its existence registered itself. There followed an appreciable time lag, and then its possible significance occurred to me.
I stooped and picked it up: an oblong of stiff paper, an envelope, which had apparently been pushed in beneath the back door. At least, it lay near to it.
I took it with me to the kitchenette table, tore it open, extracted and unfolded the paper it contained. Sipping my coffee, I read over the block-printed message several times;
AFFIXED TO THE MAINMAST OF THE WRECK, ABOUT A FOOT BENEATH THE MUD
That was all. That was it.
But I was suddenly fully awake. It was not just the message, as intriguing as I naturally found it, but the fact that someone had selected me as its recipient. Who? And why?
Whatever it was, and I was certain there was something, I was most disturbed by the implication that someone was aware of my extraordinary reasons for being there, with the necessary corollary that that person knew too much about me. My hackles rose, and the adrenaline tingles came into my extremities. No man knew my name; a knowledge of it jeopardized my existence. In the past, I had even killed to protect my identity.
My first impulse was to flee, to throw over the case, dispose of this identity and lose myself in the manner in which I had become adept. But then I would never know, would never know when, where, how, why, and in what fashion I had been tripped up, found out. And most important, by whom.
Also, considering the message again, I had no assurance that flight would be the end of things for me. For was there not an element of coercion here? Of tacit blackmail in me implied imperative? It was as if the sender were saying, I know. I will assist. I will keep silent. For there is a thing you will do for me.
Of course I would go and inspect the wreck, though I would have to wait until the day's work was done. No use speculating as to what I would find, although I would handle it most gingerly. That gave me the entire day in which to consider what I might have done wrong, and to decide upon the best means of defending myself. I rubbed my ring, where the death spores slept, then rose and went to shave.
Paul and I were sent over to Station Five that day. Standard inspection and maintenance work. Dull, safe, routine. We scarcely got wet.
He gave no indication of knowing that I was on to anything. In fact, he even started several conversations. In one, he asked me, Did you get over to the Chickcharny?
Yes, I said.
What did you think of it?
You were right. A dive.
He smiled and nodded, then, Try any of their specialities? he asked.
Just had a few beers.
That was safest, he said. Mike, my friend who died, used to go there a lot.
Oh?
I used to go with him at first. He'd take something and I'd sit around and drink and wait for him to come down.
You didn't go in for it yourself?
He shook his head.
Had a bad experience when I was younger. Scared me. Anyway, so did he, there, I mean, several times, at the Chickcharny. He used to go in back, it's a sort of ashram back there. Did you see it?
No.
Well, he had a couple bad ones in there and we got in an argument about it. He knew the damn place wasn't licensed, but he didn't care. I finally told him he ought to keep a safe supply at the station, but he was worried about the damn company regulations against it. Which I think was silly. Anyhow, I finally told him he could go by himself if he wanted to go that badly and couldn't wait till the weekend to go someplace else. I stopped going.
Did he?
Only recently, he said. The hard way.
Oh.
So if you do go in for it, I'm telling you the same thing I told him: Keep your own around if you can't wait to go someplace farther and cleaner than that.