A Bone From a Dry Sea by Peter Dickinson

any of the adult males were around to come and take their prey off them. Then she went out again to the spit, to wait for the dolphin. She was sure it would come, and it did.
    They played and danced as they’d done the day before. Since the dolphin was so much the better swimmer, so made for the single element of water, it played with her as an older child might play with a younger one, teaching it an easy game, patient with its mistakes and clumsiness. Li’s wonder and joy were no less than before. Laughter burst from her mouth whenever she surfaced, while underwater she became aware that the sea was not silent, but full of whistlings and clicks, which seemed to come from the dolphin itself.
    Then it swam suddenly away, and she realized that there were other whistlings coming from far off, which it seemed to have gone to answer. She waited in the water unalarmed, sure that it would not have left her in danger. She heard the noises returning, watched underwater, saw shadows move and all at once found herself in the middle of a large shoal racing in panic past her. She missed two strikes but grabbed a fish at her third try and surfaced. A big dolphin arched past, ignoring her, and then three more close behind her. The water foamed round her with the rush of their passing, and then a final dolphin rose and tried to take the still struggling fish from her hand. She let go and sank beside the dolphin as it sank, hearing the whistles of the hunt recede.
    The dolphin waited, impatient. Why didn’t she join the hunt? it seemed to be saying. She slid her arm around it and gestured underwater towards the shore. Again it understood and let her lie beside it, streamlining her body along its flank, as it leaped through the waves. Half the tribe were out on the spit, watching and pointing. Presh dived and swam to meet her, but as he approached, the dolphin bucked itself loose from her grasp and swam off.
    This was bad for Presh. To maintain his dominance he couldn’t let anyone else achieve triumphs which he couldn’t either out-do or somehow counter. If Li had been an adult male Presh would at once have displayed at him and faced him down, and if necessary fought him. But Li was a child, and children didn’t have that kind of triumph. There was no ritual, no mechanism, for dealing with what she had done.
    Presh solved the problem first by patrolling the shark-watch line and sending the watchers ashore. Then, watched by the tribe, he turned towards the open sea, sank below the surface and shot his body back up until he was visible to the waist. As he reached the top he let out a yell of challenge, and as he came down he slapped his palms against the surface to force two arching sprays of foam away from him. At once the tribe understood what he was doing. This was the first stage of a contest for dominance between a leader and a challenger, but they had never seen it used as Presh was using it now.
    He leaped again and again, but at last turned and gestured to the watchers to prepare for the next stage of the ritual. Puzzled but obedient they went and lined the shallows of the bay, facing the shore. Presh came last of all, swimming and then wading straight to where Li was waiting apprehensively beside Ma-ma. She ducked herself down until her long hair floated out round her and only the curve of her spine showed above the water, the gesture of total submission. He seized her beneath the arms, lifted her up and strode ashore. Watched in silence and alarm by the rest of the tribe, he turned and raised her to sit on his shoulder. Startled, she grabbed his hair to stop herself falling. He punched his free hand into the air, let out a bellowing laugh, and began the triumph-dance.
    He was telling the tribe that he, Presh, Leader, had sent his niece Li out to ride in deep water with the dolphins, and now they were to welcome her home. So he made her triumph into his triumph, telling them to praise both Li and himself as bringers of