Dragon Song

Chapter 3

THREE

With the sea gates secured, Eva convened with her team in the lab to use the Cymascope to analyze Romeo’s click trains. She wanted to see what Romeo was trying to show them before they asked the wild dolphin any questions. But the process was slow, and they all held their breath as they waited for the first image to form in sand on top of the drum.

“I think we’re going to get an image of the tylosaurs,” Axel said.

Eva wasn’t so sure. “I don’t know. I thought that too, but could a group of juvenile tylosaurs even have killed the entire pod? For all of them to be gone, all but Romeo, I fear we might be dealing with something more.”

“Not gone. T-taken,” Jose stuttered in reply.

“Delphi Imago translated it as gone,” Axel said.

Axel was right, but Jose’s words gave Eva pause. His autism meant he had trouble communicating, but not understanding. And in fact, due in part to his strong bond with baby Chico, he often intuitively comprehended the nuances of the dolphin language better than anyone else—better even than the Delphi Imago AI program.

As the image from the first click train began to take shape, Eva could make out a large object with what appeared to be a rudder. “A hull of a boat, maybe?”

Other objects formed off to one side. Perhaps a pod of dolphins? But something surrounded them. “That could be a net,” Axel said.

“Taken,” Jose said.

Axel nodded, conceding. “Ja, I see.”

Eva shook her head in disgust and made herself count to ten, pushing her rage response aside. Anger wouldn’t help find these stolen dolphins. Strategy would. And as in all things, knowledge was power.

“Okay, I’ve seen enough,” she said. “Axel, take a high-res photo of it, then let’s look at the next one.”

The next click train was the one Axel had predicted from the start. Eva wiped her clammy palms on her shorts as she watched the images of several tylosaurs form in the sand on the top of the Cymascope. Their posture was that of a pack of marine lizards hunting prey, but there was no prey in the image. Eva concluded that once his wild pod had been taken, Romeo was on his own in the open ocean and was hunted by the few tylosaurs that roamed the reef.

“The sequence of events is clear,” Eva said. “Romeo’s pod was taken, and once he was alone, he was threatened by the tylosaurs. Now Romeo has decided to come to RIMS, seeking safety in numbers. Clearly the tylosaurs remain a problem—a big one. But first things first: we have to find Romeo’s family.”