Dolphin Island - Arthur C. Clarke [56]
Had they been scared completely away, or—horrible thought—had the killers already caught them? If they did not return, Johnny knew that he was finished, for he must still be at least forty miles from the Australian coast.
He was afraid to press the calling button a second time; it might bring back the killer whales, and he had no wish to go through that again, even if he could be sure that it would have the same happy ending. There was nothing he could do but sit and wait, scanning the sea around him for the first sign of a reasonable-sized dorsal fin, not more than a foot high.
Fifteen endless minutes later, Sputnik and Susie came swimming up out of the south.
They probably had been waiting for the coast to clear. Johnny had never been so pleased to see any humans as he was to greet the two dolphins. As he slipped off the board to fix the harness, he gave them the little pats and caresses they enjoyed, and talked to them just as if they could understand him. As, indeed, they certainly did, for though they knew only a few words of English, they were very sensitive to his tone of voice. They could always tell when he was pleased or angry, and now they must surely share his own feeling of overwhelming relief.
He tightened the buckles of Sputnik's harness, checked that blowhole and flippers were clear of the straps, and climbed back onto the board. As soon as he was lying flat and properly balanced, Sputnik started to move.
This time he did not continue westward toward Australia; instead, he headed south.
"Hey!" said Johnny. "That's the wrong direction!" Then he thought of the killer whales and realized that this was not such a bad idea after all. He would let Sputnik have his head and see what happened.
They were going faster than Johnny had ever traveled on the board before. Speed so close to the water was very deceptive, but he would not be surprised if they were doing fifteen knots. Sputnik kept it up for twenty minutes; then, as Johnny had hoped and expected, they turned west. With any luck now, it would be a clear run to Australia.
From time to time he glanced back to see if they were followed, but no tall dorsal fin broke the emptiness behind them. Once, a big manta ray leaped clear out of the sea a few hundred yards away, hung in the air for a second like an enormous black bat, then fell back with a crash that could have been heard for miles. It was the only sign of the ocean's teeming life that he saw on the second lap of his journey.
Toward midmorning, Sputnik began to slacken, but continued to pull gamely. Johnny was anxious not to halt again until the coast was in sight; then he intended to switch back to Susie, who would have had a good rest by that time. If his guesses of speed were correct, Australia could not be much more than ten miles away, and should be appearing at any moment.
He remembered how he had first glimpsed Dolphin Island, in circumstances which were so similar—yet so dif-ferent. It had been like a small cloud on the horizon, trembling in the heat haze. What he was approaching now was no island but a vast continent with a coastline thousands of miles long. Even the worst navigator could hardly miss such a target—and he had two of the best. He had not the slightest worry on this score, but he was getting a little impatient.
His first glimpse of the coast came when an unusually large roller lifted the surfboard.
He glanced up, without thinking, when he was poised for a moment on the crest of the wave. And there, far ahead, was a line of white, stretching the full length of the horizon…
His breath caught in his throat, and he felt the blood pounding in his cheeks. Only an hour or two away was safety for himself and help for the Professor. His long sleigh ride across the ocean was nearly over.
Thirty minutes later, a bigger wave gave him a better view of the coast ahead. And then he knew that the sea had not yet finished playing with him; his worst ordeal was still to come.