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their youngsters with him.  He’s probably all right,’ Chip comforted her, but he knew from his own experiences that the Greys were unpredictable. Their morals and actions seemed to depend on who the Great Lord Silver was at their Woburn Base, and what the Great Lord believed was right, or expedient, at the time.
    Marguerite’s thoughts had moved on. ‘If we’re going to get over to the South Shore in time to meet the dolphins, we’d better leave,’ she said.
    Chip hid the Bark-rush and together they rushed through the treetops in the gathering dusk, enjoying the activity and forgetting their worries in the pleasure of judging and executing graceful leaps between the trees.
    The dolphins were waiting just off the beach.
    ‘I’m sorry we’re late,’ Marguerite panted, speaking the words out loud so that Chip could hear them as well as the dolphins. ‘I know that time is important to you. I remember you saying, Lost minutes sink forever.’
    ‘We have only just come ourselves,’ Lundy told her.
    ‘We waited until we could be sure that there were no humans about. They make such a fuss if they see us too close. Is that the friend you told us about?’
    ‘Yes, like me he can understand your thoughts. I told him what you told me this morning. We both wish to hear more.’
    Marguerite and Chip settled in a tree near the shore. From there they could just see the shapes of the three dolphins in the water as the evening light faded and the tide started to ebb.
    ‘We will have to move further out as the tide falls,’ Lundy told them, ‘but darkness makes no difference to our conversation. Was there something you especially wanted us to tell you?’
    ‘It’s about the human’s computer. Does it have rings of bark that move backwards and forwards on rush stems?’
    ‘Not as far as we could tell. But the human only pictured the box that covered it. There might have been fish swimming backwards and forwards inside it for all we could tell.’
    Chip looked disappointed. ‘Do you think it will do what the humans want it to do?’ he asked.
    Malin appeared to be discussing something intimately with Lundy, shutting the squirrels out of their thoughts. Then he came back to them. ‘I once told you that dolphins can sometimes Look Forward but we don’t often do it. I looked forward/2 years to see if the human’s predictions were correct.’
    Marguerite interrupted, I’m sorry, but how long is/2?’
    ‘It is I who must apologise, I forgot that you count differently to us. is our symbol for what the humans would call sixty, so it would be one half of that. Thirty years to them.’
    Marguerite was about to interrupt again to point out that squirrels counted in eights, not tens as humans did, but suppressed the thought. She was far more interested in the dolphins’ ability to Look Forward. Was this what Wally had been able to do?
    ‘Was the man right about only four days for work and three for fishing?’
    ‘Sadly, no. He was right about computers taking over much of the work but the humans had not shared out what was left. Most were still working for five days out of seven and others were able to fish on all seven days. Our fishing man was one of these, but he was not happy about it. Odd creatures, humans!’
    ‘I’m hungry,’ Finisterre’s thoughts reached the squirrels. Marguerite smiled. All young males must be the same.
    ‘Thank you, my friends, she said. ‘This has all been most interesting. I think your youngster wants to forage. Farewell and thank you again.’
    The dolphins turned in the darkness and swam for the open sea. Marguerite was glad that Chip was with her and the two of them climbed higher into the tree and settled down in a fork to discuss what they had learned, before drifting off to sleep, each enjoying the warm comfort of the other’s body next to theirs.
     
     
     

CHAPTER SIX
     
    Marguerite had been glad of Chip’s warmth. The night had been cold for sleeping alone in the open, and