"Fish," he said disgustedly after a moment, as he kept swimming further out. "What good...?" He stopped and thought carefully. "If it was a big enough fish, maybe...." He sent his mind purposefully out and around.
He was still trying to swim, but his body was worn out. He knew desperation, for even if he outdistanced their pellets, there was just not enough strength left in him to swim back to shore. He turned over on his back and floated, resting as much as possible, but still kept his mind searching, searching through the waters. It was his only chance, he felt sure, and sent it ever farther out.
Finally he contacted a larger, stronger thought. Avidly he seized it, insinuated his mind into it, and realized at once that it was the brain of a fish. He forced it to swim at its top speed toward him. From the size and texture of the mind it felt like a large fish. He hoped it was big enough.
Soon it came up to him, and he saw that it was shark-like, almost eight feet long, but rounder, and with a head and face much like that of a Terran sea-elephant. Eagerly and thankfully he grasped one of the small fins protruding from its underside, and his mind started it swimming along parallel to the coast.
The musket-type gun had been splatting at him from time to time—evidently as fast as the shooter could reload. He looked up toward the cliff-top, and could see men running along it.
"Must be they can see me," although he doubted if they could see the fish, that swam just below the surface. "Probably," he grinned mirthlessly, "they're wondering how I can swim so fast."
Another pellet plowed into the water close ahead of his face. The portion of his mind inside the fish felt the intolerable, burning shock of pain. The fish seemed almost to stumble. It twisted and coiled about until Hanlon was able to tighten his control and calm it.
In the dim moonlight he could see the water becoming discolored—and knew the fish was bleeding profusely.
His mind in the fish knew where the wound was, and Hanlon reached up for that place and found a gaping hole. He put the tip of a finger into it to stop the bleeding as much as possible. But he realized at once that this would not save his carrier, which by now he knew was not a true fish, but an amphibious mammal, just as Terran's whales are mammals, not fish.
What could he do? As weak as he was, and as poor a swimmer as he was at best, there was absolutely no chance of his making it back to shore under his own power. And even if he did get back, there was no beach, only that unscalable rocky escarpment ... and the gunmen on top of that.