Chapter 13

Choose the Future

David West ignored his curious audience as he frantically rummaged through gear on the raft. Minutes later he had lowered the clicker into the water. He stood scanning the water with bait in hand. The large dolphin had disappeared at the sound of Joshua's yells of protest. Sally held her son and tried vainly to distract him.        "So you recognize this dolphin, Mr. West?" Sally asked, "What did you call him? Cozy?"        "Kozy. That's short for Kozyrev, but she's female. Yes, I have no doubt it's her. She's been missing for days," West commented without moving his eyes from the water.        "Hey MacArthur, can you come aboard and unfold that blue mat, please?" asked West, observing Kozy's dorsal fin appearing and disappearing in the water far out in the bayou.        "What do you have in mind?" the Visitor asked.        "You'll see," was all the response that West could manage as he repeatedly signaled and scanned the water's surface.        With MacArthur's help, he managed to position the mat so that it hung over one side of the Zodiac and extended up and into the interior of the raft. When, at last, Kozy surfaced directly in front of West, he offered her the fish. No special skills were required to see that David West was quite fond of this animal. The man and dolphin exchanged greetings of a sort. The interchange ended with a hand signal and clicker signal from West. Kozy circled in front of the raft several times and suddenly leapt onto the mat. MacArthur was caught off guard and fell backward into the Zodiac. He laughed out loud as he righted himself, caught up in the exhilaration of contact with the large, intelligent mammal.        With the sun setting and a beached dolphin in their care, David was anxious to set out immediately for the research facility. MacArthur had no time to dwell on farewells, promising to call Sally Crane, if possible, when they reached shore. Given the choice, the Visitor chose to stay with Kozy, sluicing water over her body and steadying her upright against the movement of the raft. West took the captain's seat. Rather than follow the shore, he rashly decided to cut directly across the bay in order to reach their destination before dark.        "You're managing Kozy like a pro, MacArthur," West shouted over the wind. "Have you worked with cetaceans before?"        MacArthur's response was inaudible as he continued to work with the dolphin. The wind picked up just before sunset and the water became choppy with small white caps. Both men were hard pressed simply to remain upright, but the Visitor smiled to himself. Facing into the wind, he drank in the essence of saltwater spray and the feeling of the sea breeze ripping through his hair. The sensations of wind, water, and companionship washed over him creating a long-forgotten euphoria.        The Zodiac was now far from any shore and it appeared that the daylight would not last long enough to reach the other side. Abruptly, another concern presented itself, as the outboard motor began to run rough, sputter and at last became silent. West cursed and announced the bad news. The outboard had quit in mid-stroke with plenty of gas remaining. There were no easy solutions.        "We have a paddle and a locator signal we can activate, but I didn't bring a radio," West began thinking through his options. "Someone's bound to start looking for us when they find the Zodiac is still out."        "Kozy is starting to panic," MacArthur announced. "There's no way she can wait for someone to find us. We need to release her."        "But we're so close to pulling this off," David objected. "Let me try to work with her."        Many minutes later, the Visitor interrupted West's work, moved by the dolphin's pitiful cries. "I've helped you up to this point, David, but now I've got to know why getting this dolphin back is so important." Getting no response, MacArthur forcefully pushed West aside and held him at arm's length away from the mat. They struggled briefly until their eyes met.        "Kozy has to come back and join the others. She's at risk out on her own," West answered. He then voiced his deeper concern, "Plus I owe it to her."        "This dolphin has been hurt in some way," the Visitor commented in the silence. "Did you have something to do with it?" he prodded.        "Kozy is part of my work. She's part of a special group of dolphins. They've been trained for offensive maneuvers. Her partner was killed during an exercise several days ago. That's when she took off." West let one statement follow another, his voice sounding suddenly tired.        "Do you want Kozy back for your work," MacArthur asked, still holding on to West, "or do you want her back for her safety?"        "For both of those reasons, MacArthur!" David West responded making no attempt to hide his frustration.        "No, it can't be both," the Visitor asserted. An unexpected lurch of the raft sent them both onto the mat gripping the dolphin between them. He continued, "David. It's time to make a choice. And the decision you make will affect much more than this one dolphin. It will affect the course of events, affect the future that concerns us all."        West remained silent for a time, observing that darkness had fallen and the waters of the bay had at last calmed. "Now I know you're not with the Marine Mammal Commission," he smiled, weakly. "They're not this crazy."        "Promise me that you care more about Kozy's welfare than any other plan you have in mind," MacArthur said, ignoring West's last statement, "and I'll make certain that you see her again."        Feeling the last of his motivation drain away, an exhausted David West agreed. He and MacArthur laboriously pushed and dragged the mat and dolphin over the side of the raft. Before Kozy slid into the water, West observed the Visitor pausing over the dolphin, his hands along her head. He felt certain he noticed a light glowing between them, but then his thoughts turned to Kozy as she swam a brief distance and dove deep, disappearing from view. The Visitor leaned back against the raft, lethargically, and watched the stars appearing in the clear night sky.        David West activated the emergency signal and locator and resigned himself to the wait for help. "So what do you do, MacArthur?" he asked.        "I'm a pilot, was a pilot," Adam MacArthur answered, still watching the sky with half-closed eyes. He added, "You can call me Adam."        "Care to explain?" David asked, his interest suddenly overcoming his reservations about this stranger.        "I might," the Visitor responded, "but I'm not sure you're ready to listen."        "Try me," West encouraged.        "It seems like yesterday. No, it was yesterday," MacArthur began. "I was on top of the world. A squadron leader. Nothing phased me. When I looked down on the Earth from my vantage point, it seemed there were no limits. I knew nothing, and it didn't even matter. I had my job. I was doing what I'd been trained to do."        "You were a military pilot? What branch of service?" West interrupted.        "That's not important any more, David," the Visitor continued. "One night, off the coast of Melbourne, my men and I encountered something new. I was taken, and I was changed. I can't describe it to you. Now I know a lot - too much - about what's happening in the world and what's likely to happen. And I can't ignore it. There are things I've got to do. David, you should know our future doesn't look good. I learned so much while I was with them, but I feel incredibly less in control of my destiny than before."        "Who took you? Where were you?" asked West, attempting to disguise signs of disbelief in his voice.        "I'll show you," MacArthur replied, facing east and pointing. "See those four stars that form the corners of a big square? The one in the lower left corner is Alpheratz. See?"        "Yes, I think so," David replied steadily. Meanwhile, his mind screamed silently about being stranded in the Zodiac with a probable lunatic.        "Now look through the square," MacArthur directed.        "Okay;" David sighed, nervously.        "Imagine we are on a spiral arm of the galaxy. Toward the center of the galaxy is another arm. There. That's about as close as I can come to showing you the Colony where I was," MacArthur finished. He realized he wasn't making his case with this scientist. "But that's enough about me. It's your turn."        West laughed nervously in reply. He checked his watch and hoped whoever was on night duty had seen the signal.        "David," the Visitor intruded on West's thoughts, "what do you like about working with dolphins?"        "Well, I guess it's contact with another intelligent species that draws me. I think maybe we learn a little more about ourselves by studying dolphins. Did you know that 13 out of 22 dolphin chromosomes are the same as those of humans?" West found himself recovering from his fear as he responded to the question from this enigmatic stranger.        "That doesn't surprise me," MacArthur responded. "All life is connected, and I don't mean just through genetics. I'm talking about energy. What we see here on earth is only a tiny piece of a much larger community, all resonating with the same energy. We humans haven't been open to the bigger picture. We fear whatever is different from us. And we very quickly follow up with hostility toward anything we fear. It's time to change that pattern while we still can."        "Sorry Adam, all this talk is too way out for me," West responded honestly. "But you said before that I had to make a choice about Kozy, between her welfare and my work. What makes you say that?"        "What you do with the dolphins is part of the same pattern, David," the Visitor became more animated. "It isn't enough that we create weapons to use against people who look or think differently. Now, it seems, we want our hostility to extend even to other species in the sea. This path can only lead to our destruction. You don't believe me, but I've seen how this plays out in our future. How we relate to others of our own species, and how we interact with other species, will make the difference for us, between surviving... or not. If you use your talents to learn from these dolphins, you'll start a process of growth in human communication that will astound you, David! The decision is yours."        The two men became silent. One watched the stars. The other scanned the water. Finally, both fell into a light sleep that lasted until the approach of a Coast Guard launch awakened them just before dawn.