The Crossing of Ingo (30 page)

“She wanted to help us.”

“Help
humans?
I wish humans would help
us.”

“I mean, help Ingo.”

“Hmm. From what you say my mother put herself in danger
quite unnecessarily. She’s a grandmother now. She should be thinking about her family. I don’t know why she’s getting mixed up with humans.”

“Sister,” remonstrates one of the other whales.

“Why pretend?” demands the whale’s daughter angrily. “When have humans ever brought us anything but death and misery?”

I am seething at the way the whale’s daughter speaks of her mother. What right has she got to be so critical? But I’ve got to be careful. Conor and I are still surrounded by the whales, and I don’t want them getting angry again.

“Your mother will be glad to have news of you. She misses you very much,” I say, trying to change the subject away from humans.

“I know how my mother feels, thank you very much.” The calf has been edging out to take a good close look at us, but the whale’s daughter nudges him back into place protectively. “As if I need humans to tell me about my own mother,” she goes on in one of those mutters that is meant to be heard.

She is jealous. I realise it in a flash that makes everything clear. The whale sent her daughter away to the other side of the world so she’d be safe, but still it must have felt terrible. She lost her mother. My dear friend doesn’t even know that she’s a grandmother yet. And I come here saying to her daughter how kind the whale has been, and how she’s helped us and looked after us and even rescued us. Of course she is jealous. I can’t really blame her.

“Your calf is beautiful,” I say.

“I don’t know about that. He’s certainly hard work,” says the whale’s daughter with proud grumpiness. The calf butts against her, looking up, and she looks down into his eyes. It’s obvious that she thinks he is the most beautiful creature in the world.

“Can I tell your mother about him?”

“I suppose so. Tell her …”

I wait. At last the whale’s daughter says in a quite different voice, “Tell my mother I was thinking of her when he was born.”

It’s a long time before the whales will let us leave. Each of them has a message for our whale, and I have to keep repeating them to be sure I’ve got them clear. After that they start giving us advice about the best route home. One whale thinks it’s best for us to take the Deep Current, then another argues that our bodies will never be able to stand the pressure. A third suggests we go due south, then we will be able to catch a current that will sweep us past the Southern Land – which I suppose means the Antarctic. More and more voices break in, all making suggestions and all contradicting one another. My head feels as if it’s about to burst with advice.

“Which route do you use?” Conor asks.

Silence. Maybe they don’t want to tell us. At last one of them says, “We are happy here. The hunting is good.”

I hide a smile. The whales remind me of people who watch loads of travel programmes and can tell you everything about
foreign places, but never go there themselves. Dad used to call them sofa travellers. The whale’s daughter has travelled, though – she came all the way from the other side of the world. She’s feeding the baby again, and it’s clear she doesn’t want to take part in the discussion. She never wanted to travel after all. She was forced to leave her mother, and her home.

At last the whales seem ready to let us go. Each of them says farewell to us in turn, formally. Just as we are about to swim off, the first whale we spoke to swings her head in our direction again. “You have friends among humans,” she says.

“Yes,” I reply.

The whale pauses, as if it’s hard to put into words what she wants to say.

“Do you know the humans who power the ships that hunt us?”

“No! No, I told you, we’ve got nothing to do with them!” The whale sighs.

“We thought perhaps you might speak for us. Remember us, when you are back among humans.”

F
aro’s lips are tight and his face stormy. He blames himself bitterly for pearl diving with Elvira while I was in danger.

“But I’m fine, Faro. Really fine.”

“I was a fool ever to let you go. I forgot what our
deubleks
know. We are stronger together than apart. If the whales had hurt you, little sister, I could never have forgiven myself.”

It doesn’t matter what I say, he keeps brooding over it. I hate to see Faro so unhappy.

“Leave him,” whispers Seiliko.

“But I want to make him feel better.”

“He feels what he feels. Sapphire, I think I know your recognition pattern now.”

“Really? Do you?”

I’m intensely curious, and a bit flattered. I never thought I’d have a recognition pattern, like a dolphin. And then I remember that Seiliko told me she would know my recognition pattern by the end of our journey. “Seiliko, you aren’t going to leave us!”

“No, Sapphire.
You
are going to leave
me.”

So often I come to love someone and then they go away. Now Seiliko’s going.

“Don’t you want to know your recognition pattern, Sapphire?” asks Seiliko.

“I suppose so. I mean, yes, of course I would,” I answer. I can’t summon up much enthusiasm now.

Seiliko doesn’t seem to notice. “Then I will tell you,” she says. In spite of myself I feel a prickle of interest. I can’t help hoping it will be something good, like Seiliko’s own recognition pattern. I would love to be first in understanding the water – or first in anything, really …

“Friend of Ingo,” says Seiliko as if I should be thrilled and impressed.

My moment of expectancy dissolves. Friend of Ingo! Is that all? It sounds so – so
weak
somehow. So
nothing.
As if all that’s recognisable about me is that I’m not an enemy. I can’t see why Seiliko thinks I’ll be pleased.

“Oh.”

“Sapphire, you do not understand,” says Seiliko severely. “The pattern honours you. We dolphins honour you for it.”

“Oh. I mean … Well, thanks, Seiliko.”

“There is no need to thank me,” says Seiliko rather haughtily. I’ve clearly ruined a moment that she’s been looking forward to. I lean forward on her neck and embrace her. “Seiliko, I’m sorry. I can’t think of anything better than being Ingo’s friend. I’ve always tried to be.”

“I forget sometimes how human you are,” says Seiliko. She
sounds mollified, so I decide to ignore that fact that she’s also being rather patronising. We’ve drawn ahead of the others, as usual.

“Soon you will leave me,” she repeats.

“Are you sure you can’t come with us?”

“No. It is decided. You will travel with other dolphins. We dolphins want to help you. You have braved the ice of the North, and journeyed many thousands of miles to what you call the bottom of the world. Because you are a friend of Ingo, Sapphire, we have agreed to send you home on a flight of dolphins.”

“But Seiliko, four dolphins can’t take us halfway round the globe. It’s impossible. They’d be exhausted.”

“You are right. You do not understand a flight of dolphins, and why should you? We do not turn our speed to human use, or even for the use of the Mer. We use flight only when there is urgent news to be taken on a long journey.”

“But what do you mean, Seiliko? Dolphins don’t ever fly, surely.” I’m half prepared to believe that perhaps they do, and that this is yet another of the mysteries of Ingo. Dolphins flying! It would be awesome.

“We borrowed the word from the birds that spend weeks on the wing without ever stopping to rest. The swifts and swallows travel fast, but we travel faster – much faster. Each group of dolphins who carries you will send out a message when it begins to tire, and the strongest dolphins who hear it will rush to meet them. When they tire, the next group will come to carry you. Even if a dolphin flight dives through a shoal of sprats, we
will not stop to feed. We dolphins know the currents as not even the Mer know them. No current is too strong for us to enter it. Sapphire, you will discover why it is called a flight of dolphins! You will go faster than Mer or human have ever travelled in Ingo.”

Her excitement makes my blood tingle. It’ll be like a relay race, and we’ll be the batons that are handed from one group of dolphins to the next. Imagine a race like that, on dolphins, riding on currents so strong and fast that the water blurs. Faster than anyone has ever travelled in Ingo. Wait until I tell the others …

A disturbing thought crosses my mind. I must not tell it to Seiliko: it would be throwing her generosity in her face. “I’m so grateful, Seiliko,” I say quickly. I look round and there’s Faro, his body sealed against the dolphin he rides on, his long hair streaming through the water. I’ll talk to the others. They’ll understand.

Faro and Elvira can’t understand what I’m worried about. Seiliko has left us now, with the other dolphins who have brought us this far. She’s promised that the first relay of dolphins will be with us at dawn. Faro seized on the idea of the dolphins helping us straightaway, and so did Elvira. Conor was like me. He was afraid that when we returned, Saldowr might ask us, “Did you truly complete the Crossing?”

“And I wouldn’t know how to answer,” Conor said. Faro became impatient. He said that the only thing that mattered was to cross Ingo, and prove to Ervys that he hadn’t defeated us. Elvira backed Faro. We seemed to be arguing for hours. At last, when we were all exhausted, Conor challenged Faro.

“You’re Mer. The Crossing of Ingo is a Mer thing, not a human one. We have to trust you. Can you swear to us that it’s right to travel with the dolphin flight?”

Faro threw back his head proudly. “You do not understand how greatly the dolphins have honoured your sister. I will swear,” he said. “I know that we must defeat Ervys, or his following will grow until it splits Ingo like an earthquake under the sea bed. We must seize every chance of help that we’re offered. Do you think I would agree to it if it were laziness or cowardice? No. The dolphins’ offer brings hope for Ingo.”

I was so impressed by this that it surprised me when Conor probed further. “What will you swear on, Faro?”

Faro’s gaze moved to me. He smiled, swam to my side and took my hand. He lifted our joined hands high, and
deublek
touched
deublek.

“I swear by this,” he said. “The
deublek
that binds me to your sister and makes each of us stronger than if we were alone.”

Conor nodded. “Then I accept what you say. But Saph’s decision is what counts. Seiliko chose her. What do you say, Saph?”

“I accept it. We’ll go with the dolphins.”

It seems a long time until the arrival of dawn, and the first dolphins. No one sleeps much. I want to tell Conor about Mum but I don’t, because I’m sure that he’ll say it was a dream. I’m beginning to believe it was a dream myself. And yet what Mum told me had the feel of truth. It made sense of so many things. And I keep thinking of the tenderness in her voice when she called me “lovely girl”.

How huge the stars are down here at the bottom of the world! We’re resting just a few metres below the surface and it’s so calm I can see the constellations clearly. I try to remember how long the stars have been there. To them, all our generations must look like less than a day.