Thunderflukes

There is far more to dolphins than you humans could ever understand. Have you ever listened to their thought-streamed music? Now that so many of my kind are gone forever from the seas, sometimes I am almost overwhelmed with loneliness and usually it is a moment like that when the streams of dolphin music, rich in sound and story, drift into my brain and remind me that there are still reasons to live here on Azure.There is no human "movie" to compete with dolphin music for conjured sound, story and visions. Dolphins are the creatures whose achievements in the distant past have given this planet its inter-galactic renown. If you're curious I may tell you about this some time, though it's a very long story. They're also the health adepts of the oceans. If we're sick we enlist their help every time. Perhaps intellectually we whales may have the edge, but dolphins are among the greatest givers of the universe and have been renowned for it since the days of Ripple herself. You humans are incapable of imagining how far the dolphins gifts have travelled through space and time. Some of you even think of them as food! If only you knew.

We whales have been in charge of this planet for about 50 million years. We filled the niche left by the sea monsters who had previously occupied it until the big extinction that killed the dinosaurs. Those monsters were large, vicious, brainless, hideous, and cruel. When we took their place, Azure became the envy of the universe and we were inter-galactically famous as its lords and masters. But just in the last few generations of our kind, the universe has begun to pity us. A shadow is threatening the lordship of whales on their own planet and that threat comes from a very recently evolved form of small two-legged virus called homo sapiens. It lives squashed in seething millions in rabid infestations on the land, of all places. It spews poisons into our seas and spreads evil fumes across our once pure skies. Our numbers are diminishing, Azure wide, because of this new infection on our ancient planet. However, the dolphins have assured us that this virus, in spite of its tiny size, has a workable, though limited brain. It may be possible to get through to it before it is too late. That is my own mission, though I am running out of time.

Although humans seem to like having radiation, chemical pollution, tons of plastic and oil spills in the ocean we cetaceans do not. But there is nothing we can do about it. Many among us have decided they no longer enjoy life in this new kind of ocean so they are taking an early release from Azure. They do this by swimming into nets, allowing the bloodships to take them, stranding themselves or by simply ceasing to breathe. Our numbers are declining rapidly because of this but our spirits are happy to seek out new homes elsewhere in the universe. We've had a long and happy reign for fifty million years as the lords of this planet. It seems that our lordship is to be bequeathed to humanity and that we two life-forms cannot co-exist. I must not take this enticing option myself however, since it is my task to try to get through to humans and try to change things for cetaceans at the eleventh hour. So I continue to try and enjoy what is left of our marine environment. The Southern Oceans are still mercifully liveable for now at least, as long as I am careful.