"But why?"

The girl shook her head. "I do not know; I can only feel. Wait!" Her
hand rose in imperious command. She did not rise to her feet, but
crawled on hands and knees to the edge of the ledge. Both dolphins were
there, raising their heads well out of the water, their actions
expressing unusual excitement.

"Ross!" Karara's voice rang loudly. "Ross, they can understand him!
Tino-rau and Taua can understand him!"

"You mean, they understand this language?" Ross found that fantastic,
awesome as the abilities of the dolphins were.

"No, his mind. It's his mind, Ross. Somehow he thinks in patterns they
can pick up and read! They do that, you know, with a few of us, but not
in the same way. This is more direct, clearer! They're so excited!"

Ross glanced at the prisoner. The alien had wriggled about, striving to
raise his head against the wall as a support. His captor pulled the
Hawaikan into a sitting position, but the native accepted that aid
almost as if he were not even aware of Ross's hands on his body. He
stared with a kind of horrified disbelief at the bobbing dolphin heads.

"He is afraid," Karara reported. "He has never known such communication
before."

"Can they ask him questions?" demanded Ross. If this odd mental tie
between Terran dolphin and Hawaikan did exist, then there was a chance
to learn about this world.

"They can try. Now he only knows fear, and they must break through
that."

What followed was the most unusual four-sided conversation Ross could
have ever imagined. He put a question to Karara, who relayed it to the
dolphins. In turn, they asked it mentally of the Hawaikan and conveyed
his answer back via the same route.

It took some time to allay the fears of the stranger. But at last the
Hawaikan entered wholeheartedly into the exchange.

"He is the son of the lord ruling the castle above." Karara produced the
first rational and complete answer. "But for some reason he is not
accepted by his own kind. Perhaps," she added on her own, "it is because
he is crippled. The sea is his home, as he expresses it, and he believes
me to be some mythical being out of it. He saw me swimming, masked, and
with the dolphins, and he is sure I change shape at will."

She hesitated. "Ross, I get something odd here. He does know, or thinks
he knows, creatures who can appear and disappear at will. And he is
afraid of their powers."

"Gods and goddesses--perfectly natural."

Karara shook her head.