'My Goodness!' thought Danny, 'now this is speed.'
The light-blue dolphin had pulled him underneath the freezing cold waters. He wasn't sure what had come as more of a shock. Was it the fear of death or the strange wonder of the dolphin? Perhaps the greatest shock of all was finding he could still breath.
‘Breathe the liquid, breath human boy,’ the dolphin had said to him telepathically in a strange high-pitched tone.
‘You will come to no harm,’ a second dolphin added in a deeper tone.
Once underneath the dark freezing cold water, Danny could see the two dolphins that were with him. He was in a fast-moving water-tunnel but he could not see the bottom or the top and the dark sides were as yet indistinct. The dolphin who had grabbed him had a glowing light-blue body but jet-black eyes. The other was a darker blue, almost black, with bright white lights for eyes. Apart from the dolphins Danny could see little in the gloomy waters. He even wondered if the dolphins were some kind of advanced organic machine, with their strange headlight eyes and glowing bodies.
The dolphins were making a strange sonic whistle which produced an egg shape of lighter blue liquid within the darker waters of the tunnel. This liquid appeared to emanate from their beak area. It was this that Danny breathed.
The two dolphins shepherded him between themselves and gradually increased their speed. As his eyes grew accustomed Danny could see that the tunnel wasn't big, perhaps a quarter of the width of the pool above. Danny could have swum from one side to the other in a couple of seconds. The walls were dark green and were etched with a smooth spiral shape. Down through the black water Danny could just about see a faint blue circle in the distance.
They were working against the current, creating spirals in the water. The spirals helped push them in the opposite direction to the water flow, which was rushing up past them furiously. They gained momentum for some time until their travel was quite phenomenal. Danny tried to gauge their speed. At the very least it must have been some hundreds of miles an hour. After some minutes, they slowed gradually to a halt and passed through some kind of invisible plastic-like barrier. They had come to an enormous water-filled cavern.
What looked at first to be stalactites and stalagmites probed a few metres into the waters from the walls. The edges of the protrusions were smooth like roots made of ancient wood. The pure blue, bright clear water stretched for perhaps a quarter of a mile in each direction. The walls were dark green like the tunnels but the water itself seemed to be luminous. There was a gentle light source in the centre somewhere. Everything felt in slow motion here compared to the adrenaline of the tunnel. Danny felt expansive and peaceful as he bobbed within the water. There was a fragrant smell, perhaps of sandalwood, or maybe lotus blossom, it was impossible to tell exactly. Tunnels led off darkly, presumably heading toward the many floors above. The water itself was silky to the touch; it was almost as though the water was not even wet. Danny felt a sense of lightness from the water's caress. All around him, flowing like atmospheric jets, were the shapes of thoughts. Words, symbols and pictures were in constant stream. Here and there pulsating squares of light bobbed in the waters - the Akashi books waiting to be born.
Danny guessed the whole place must have been big enough to fit many an international stadium comfortably inside. A body of water this size should have been pitch black and bitterly cold. Yet, unlike the cold tunnel, it was a Mediterranean, translucent blue. It was warm. Danny didn't even want to guess the depth of the waters. They're might be ancient creatures down there the size of a building. He thought of himself as an irritating fly, about to be snapped up.
At the centre of the cavern was a blue-green globe, which pulsated and shone. At first Danny thought it was the Earth, or a miniaturised version of it. But no, the patterns were different. The continents were constantly shifting.
The dolphins brought him steadily closer to the globe. The two creatures chattered on and off in their strange sonic language. Telepathically, by homing in on their emotions and ideas Danny could pick out the rough themes. They were intent on trying to explain something to him, something about an engine. With much effort they spelled out a word letter by letter. R-u-r-o, ruro. This was what ran the blue-green globe. The globe itself was an engine. It used a self-generating fuel. The more it was used, the more powerful it got. The ruro-powered globe ran the whole organic ship, the Arkstone. Ruro was the most powerful material in the universe they said.
The two dolphins wanted to tell him more about the ruro but there was neither time nor ability. It appeared, in the language of emotion, common to both dolphin and human language, that it was made from evil that had been transformed into good. A speck of ruro could power a whole planet for a year. Apparently, humankind had possessed ruro once but it had been misused. The mysterious elders had reappropriated it many aeons ago.
The two dolphins formed themselves nose to tail to each other. The light-blue glowing dolphin, with its onyx eyes was uppermost. His head lay parallel to the tail of the dark bodied dolphin, whose eyes shone like lights. Together, they formed a shape similar to the yin-yang symbol. Slowly, they started to rotate in this formation. They then pressed themselves firmly against the side of the globe in the centre of watery cavern.
An unbearably bright light issued forth from the globe. At the same time, a powerful and deep humming sound tore at Danny before easing. The bright light lessened. Then the dolphin's bodies flushed a brilliant golden light. Electrical swirls of many colours, like miniature auroras, flamed out of the shining dolphins. The humming sound could have been a scream, but it was low-pitched and longer. The dolphins moved apart. From between them, a small egg-sized version of the original globe emerged. Within the small blue globe could be seen a molten yellow core, a core of pure ruro.
A cord of light, like a protoplasmic umbilicus attached it to the main globe. This cord stretched and then snapped as the small egg travelled purposefully toward Danny. It attached itself on the central line in the middle of his chest. Little wriggling blue legs drilled their way into his flesh as it positioned itself.
It was horrible watching something wriggle its way inside his body like an overgrown tic. But there was no pain. Perhaps even warmth. One of his greatest fantasy fears was of being eaten alive. There was something of this in the whole experience. Yet he could sense that it meant him no harm. In fact he felt so alive he could barely contain the feeling. He was on fire. He was ice. He was everything.
The dolphins left their positions and guided Danny toward the top of the cavern. He could see the tunnel entrances dotted here and there. It looked like they were heading back for the one that had brought him here. Where the tunnel entrances converged on the great cavern there was a glassy, black smoothness which broke up the irregular, organic look of the cavern walls. There was a membrane closing off the tunnel entrance, beyond which only darkness could be seen. The stalactite root formations that grew out of the cavern walls a yard or so were shorter toward the tunnel mouth. The mouth itself was a rough-drawn oval big enough to admit a truck. It had a dark, small rim of wood.
It was then that Danny realised exactly what the dolphins were planning to do with him. He didn't like it one bit. Before he could struggle the light-blue dolphin had hold of both his feet in its vice-like mouth. He was being steered into the tunnel entrance as though he were a prize fish. The dark dolphin appeared and moved its head next to Danny's. Without warning it promptly engulfed his whole face between its jaws. It breathed the blue breathing-liquid straight into his lungs. The other dolphin then pushed Danny’s head through the plastic-like membrane which felt like it was an inch or so thick. His head poked through into the tunnel itself.
The speed of the icy cold water rushing upwards in the tunnel immediately tried to tug his head off from his shoulders. The water in the tunnel shot upwards faster than a speeding train. It was as if the waters sprang from some invisible geyser. The dolphins pushed him through the tunnel membrane up to his ankles and promptly let go.