Dolphins Dilemma

By Steve Davis

On the first ship to have left the solar system, now coming back from Tan, the first life-identified exoplanet. Now first explored. Less than three years out from it, eighteen more to reach home.

“We’re deciding their fate. We have to wake at least one of them up for this. They need to input.” The roundest bellied of the five dolphins floating in the ship’s water-filled corridor tapped its snout for emphasis against the glass wall they were all staring at.

The advocating swimmer had strapped on a pair of powered limbs — the robotic arms stretching over her side fins. A smaller dolphin with a dark streak across its tail fin swam close to her and shook his snout.

“We’re all part of the same pod, Salwah. Our team, their team. So it’s our decision too, which we can make for them. Waking is big. It’s not like we can get whoever we wake up back into sleep/stas without risk. On Earth it took all of Minneapolis University Medical and Russia Federation Space Clinic to get them under without killing everyone. It took both our teams, finned and limbed, to put them back under for return from Tan,” he cautioned.

Drifting a bit in the warm water, blowholes just a little above the waterline, all five bottlenose dolphins practically radiated indecision. Three to four metres long and a thousand pounds each, they swam about gracefully, wavering in the water’s buoyancy — seemingly okay with the high acceleration’s otherwise squashing 4G weight.

The robotic armed dolphin dipped a hand toward the window. “Yes. So big a risk. Life and death. Wish we didn’t have to wake one of them to decide, but — ,” she almost reluctantly pressed.

Still, no one moved.

“Ask ship?” another swimmer suggested hopefully, attempting to shift the decision.

The others made affirmative, if less than completely enthusiastic, nods.

“Why not? It can’t hurt. Much,” the limbed swimmer, Salwah, joked. Then whistled the request to the corridor’s underwater pickup. The ship’s voice instantly came on.

“— In-flight/dolphin team. The mission is unchangeable. It is what you were genetically tweaked to accomplish. You pilot the ship during the trip, because you can better withstand the acceleration, then join human team in exploring Tan. Over two thousand in-mission adjustments have been pre-approved, if needed. Some of those mission corrections are quite wide. But everything must fit into the envelope. You go to Tan, you explore, you return to Earth —,” the ship’s digitally perfect voice told them.

Salwah shut it off with a curt command. She voiced their common opinion, “AI so smart and almost never helpful,” then made a series of whistles equivalent to a sigh.

“Eighteen years older when he or she reaches Earth, if we wake it. That’s too much even for one of them. A whole generation. That one will be biologically older than their shipmates. Can they spend that much time awake without other humans? Suicide, more likely.”

The five lowered their snouts, paused by that. Near the back, one abruptly lifted his snout in sudden thought.

“Danny.”

“Never wanted to sleep,” another dolphin quickly added in support. 

Up by the window the streaked-fin dolphin nodded. “He made a joke as he was going under. That if he didn’t wake up, I could have his shoes. I thought that odd, even for a land person.”

Instantly liking that, the five swam around the glass barrier into the sleep/stas room.

***

As the wake process for Danny’s couch brought him up, he started moaning then growling through the breathing mask attached to his face, unconsciously flailing his arms in his wetsuit. Even in the water’s buoyancy his breathing struggled. Then his eyes flickered, opening slightly.

A metre in front of his face, five large shapes stretched nose-to-nose, left-to-right — open mouths of sharp teeth and eyes trained on him as if studying a tasty fish.

“Whoa! Back off, back, back, back!”

Sounds, clicks, whistles, formed words through translation disks attached to the sides of five jaws. Familiar voices, some saying his name.

He looked around, focusing. And untensed with relief.

“Oh. You guys. Sorry. Thought for a second... I’m awake now, mostly. Hey Salwah. Daurish, guys!” he recognised. “Salwah, wow. You’re pregnant big again,” he congratulated. 

The bulged dolphin moved closer. “Danny. We’re the ones sorry. This must be rough.”

The man pushed up with long, sleep-thin shaking arms, trying to sit. When he made it he smiled wide. “You know what they say, always a good day when you wake. Wait. What do you mean, you’re sorry? And where’s everybody else? I’m way down on the list. Where’s the rest of human team?” he asked with a perplexed look.

“They’re still under. We woke only you, Danny. The situation has gotten tricky. Are you okay enough to hear some troubling news?” Salwah asked back.

“Only me. Really?” the slim human repeated, seeming to absorb it. “Yeah. Okay. Lay it on me, guys. What’s up?” he asked. 

The smaller dolphin, Daruish, quietly dropped the news. “Communication with Earth is gone. Nothing since yesterday.”

“There’s more.”

Someone screened the opposite wall. On it graphics showed Earth’s electronic output the previous day, eighteen lightyears ago. A bright globe of activity, busy with lines and circles of light — the immense communications traffic between billions of people and trillions of embedded devices. Then the lights went out.

Danny’s face fell as that sank in.

“Earth dusted itself,” he said flatly, then looked away in shock. Salwah quickly splashed an arm at the screen, then crossed them.

“Maybe. And maybe not. Everything electronic clearly is down. Which unfortunately means that society as we know it is certainly down. Not just modern life. We asked ship and it says likeliest scenarios are total social breakdown. Everything is dependent on AI, from agriculture to the electrical grids. And land people get nasty when they miss a few meals. We all do. The worst scenario says almost all limbed people are probably dead.”

“War,” their human crewmate cursed. 

Salwah turned her head sideways. “Possibly. Or a massive solar flare. Or, and this intrigues me, some countries were developing cyberwar viruses to shut down their rival’s processors, something called “chip pandemic”. And you know how easily viruses get loose,” the pregnant dolphin reminded everyone.

They all nodded, slowly.

“Doesn’t matter, Salwah. Home is dead. The world is gone. Us or a solar flare, everything and everybody is gone or knocked back to barbarism. Families and pods we knew. All flatlined,” Danny lamented. He lowered his head. 

They lowered snouts too.

A few minutes of grim acceptance of the situation later, they helped him put on a snorkel. With help, he joined them in the corridor. 

The small, dark-tailed dolphin swam close. “We can pump a cabin dry so you can take off the suit for a while,” he offered. 

Danny shook his head. “And have to feel 4G’s worth of acceleration, Daruish? I’d rather be crushed slowly under a car, thanks.”

Salwah made a rapid burst of clicks that actually sounded like laughter. She bumped Danny’s side. “Good that it’s you we woke. You’re the one most like us. Positive more than negative.”

They all entered the habitat disk — the human half also flooded almost to the ceiling and repurposed for dolphin team. The vast space was filled with fish, floating games and education screens. A dozen more dolphin adults and the half dozen babies born on the journey swam to meet them.

Salwah turned in the water toward Danny.

“We’re probably okay back home. I mean, dolphins back on Earth. So we could rejoin them and at least search for a survivable region on land to put your team. That’s why we woke you, to input on that last.

“Most of us want to swim Earth again. My guess is that most human teamers also want to see home again too. Bleak and bad as that may have become. Just a guess. You guys are so different,” she said. 

He looked at her. “Good guess, Salwah. Counting it up in my head, everybody in fact, yeah, they’d say keep heading home.” 

She nodded her snout at that. “So it is overwhelming for returning. Almost everyone wants — ,”

“But let’s not,” he said simply.

They turned sideways, each presenting one eye, the intently listening posture. Danny made his case.

“We’re it. Maybe all that’s left of civilisation. You guys and,” — he pointed back at the sleepers. “So, as I think Elon Musk used to say in the first half of the century, let’s start somewhere else. So no matter what happens on Earth there’s a bunch of us can carry on. Musk was talking Mars, of course, and that didn’t work out so great. But sounds like us right now, right?”

Whistles broke out, some almost too fast to translate. Including the distinct, piercing high, danger sound. Daruish shook his snout once.

“Go back to Tan. And live? We encountered many dangers there. And those were just the ones we identified during exploration. There are likely others even deadlier.”

“Yes. Unparalleled obstacles,” Danny agreed on that part. 

Salwah swam in front of him. “Danny. Aren’t you being swayed by your own desires instead of what’s best for the pod? On Tan you were the observation operator up on ship, a screen watcher. You surveyed ahead of the landing parties through the cameras of the scout drones. An explorer who didn’t get to ground. Isn’t this just a second chance for you?”

Danny nodded. “Yes, I sat up in Operations watching the landing parties through cameras. They explored, sometimes dangerous stuff, and I didn’t. Which I would really, really like to do. But returning to Tan is not just bigger than me, it’s bigger than the whole pod. Earth is past tense, at least for civilisation. We’re the best chance left,” Danny insisted.

“Plus — you know — new planet, barely explored. It might be fun,” the lean human added with a charming smile of encouragement.

In the water all around, finned bodies paused in indecision. No one even whistled one way or the other. The silence stretched for minutes.

“New fun, adventures.” A dolphin in back quietly broke the impasse. It looked at the rest of the dolphins.

“Tan’s oceans are small, barely bigger than very large lakes. But our members in the landing parties found fish in them. It would be fun to hunt new kinds of fish.”

“I’m tired of games and screens,” the rear dolphin declared firmly.

That sentiment got vigorous nods and sounds from all the finned swimmers. Whistles of fast conversation started. Everyone turned to Salwah to hear her opinion, but she swam away.

With a swish of her tail, she hauled up beside Danny. 

He smiled. “So you’re in?” his tone sly, more nudge than question.

The expectant dolphin gave him the one eye. “Uncharted waters, in so many ways. Not just to survive and learn all of Tan. And reset civilisation, a huge challenge. What would a human/dolphin society even look like?”

Danny didn’t say anything, giving her every kind of space.

Her arms crossed, uncrossed, crossed — then uncrossed a final time and relaxed, unmistakably signalling which way the future would swim.

About the Author

Steve Davis writes about himself:

"I deliver Dominos pizza by day here in Phoenix, Arizona, and write always-upbeat SF by night and weekends.

"My stories have run in a wild mix of mags from FreedomFiction to Warped.

"My non-fiction has appeared in a different zoo including; The Des Moines Business Record to Wired.

"SF is quite a bit funner."