Dana Stabenow - Dead in the Water

When the door closed behind Harry she waited a few moments before saying in a low voice, "Andy?

Thanks."

He flushed up to the roots of his hair. Trying for nonchalance, his voice squeaked, and he flushed again. He cleared his throat and said gruffly, "Forget it." He picked up the remote and pretended to fiddle with the tracking.

"You ever going to tell me what you were doing on that island? Or what they were doing there?"

"Sometime."

"But not now?"

She shook her head. "Andy?" He looked at her and sobered at her expression. "This is my last trip on the Avilda. It should be yours, too."

"I haven't found another berth yet, I-"

"I'll help you find one," she said. "Let's get off the Avilda while we can still walk off. Okay?"

The color left his face, leaving it pale beneath his fading tan. "Okay."

They settled back to watch the movie. When it was over, Andy said on a long sigh, "Now there's a man who is on the road to Enlightenment."

Kate hid a grin. "No need to reinforce his prana, I guess."

"No, Kate," Andy said earnestly, "everyone has to do that. 'You must perform thy allotted work, for action is superior to inaction.' Like Jesus, Gandhi preached love of your fellow man, and he performed his allotted work so well that his legacy was a free India."

"And look how well things turned out there," Kate told him. " Pakistan and India are at each other's throats, they're starving in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka is in the middle of a civil war and every two or three years the Muslims murder a hundred or so Hindus, or the other way around. Some legacy, all right."

" 'Always perform the work that has to be done without attachment,' " Andy quoted solemnly, " 'for man attains the Supreme by performing work without attachment.'

"Is there anything you don't believe in?" she demanded, exasperated. "There's got to be some crackpot religion you've overlooked. Zoroastrianism? The Cathars?

Have you accidentally let a recruiter for the Rosecrucian Fellowship pass you by?"

" 'The ignorant man who is without faith and of a doubting nature perishes.' " And the little prick had the nerve to grin at her.

THE next day was as balmy as it got in the Aleutians.

It wasn't raining, snowing or sleeting, the omnipresent bank of fog stayed low on the southeastern horizon, and there were enough breaks in the clouds overhead for the sun to peep through occasionally with at least the illusion of warmth and cheer. A strong, regular swell caused the deck of the Avilda to lift and fall rhythmically beneath their feet but there was no breaking spray, and except where their hands got wet on the lines they worked dry for the first time in anyone's memory. Kate found that she was actually enjoying herself.

She was hanging a bait jar when she heard Andy cry out. She wormed her head and shoulders out of the pot and stood. "What?"

His eyes blazing with excitement, he pointed to port.

"Look! Look at them all!"

It was a pod of killer whales, cresting and blowing, their backs gleaming black and white in the erratic sun.

"For a minute I thought they were sharks," Andy said.

There was awe in his voice and Kate smiled to herself.

"Why are they called killer whales?"

"Because they do."

"What, kill? I thought whales only ate krill."

Kate's hands paused as she looked over at him. "And what do you know about krill?"

"Hey, I went to college." He was tying door ties with a deftness that had not been present a month, even two weeks before. "For one semester, anyway. I took a class in marine biology when I knew I was coming to Alaska."

"And you didn't learn about killer whales?"

"Well, I kind of… left… before we got to killer whales." He gave her an engaging grin. "So. What do killer whales kill?"

"Actually, they aren't whales, they're the largest dolphin.

And they eat just about anything they can fit into their mouths," Kate replied, loading bait jars. Even the smell of dead herring wasn't as bad this morning. "Seals, mostly, but any kind of fish, squid, penguins, sea lions.

Even other whales." She screwed down the lid on one jar. "They've even been known to attack boats."

"Wow, " Andy breathed. "You mean like Moby Dick?"

Kate nodded, and he stared at the retreating backs of the orcas, upright fins slicing through the water. "They're probably hunting now," Kate added. "They hunt in pods."

Olga's chant flashed through her mind. "When the killer whales come to a bay with a village, someone dies in that bay. " A whisper of unease crept up her spine. She shrugged it off and said to Andy, "Did I ever tell you I used to sing high sea chanteys?"

He was unable to repress an expression of alarm.

"No."

"Well, I did." She whacked vigorously at a block of frozen herring. "There was a song the whalers used to sing on their way south." And for the first time in two years she raised her voice in song. It was harsh, grating across the wound in her throat and coming out low and raspy, but it seemed somehow appropriate to the place and the day and the killer whales frolicking with lethal intent off their port bow.

'Tis a damn tough life full of toil and strife We whalemen undergo And we don't give a damn when the gale is done How hard the winds did blow."

She grinned at Andy, who looked like he was failing in love.

'Now we're homeward bound, 'tis a grand old sound On a good ship taut and free, And we won't give a damn when we drink our rum With the girls of old Maui."

She handed Seth a full bait jar so he could hang it in the pot about to go over the side. He took it and didn't immediately turn to hang it, but stood for a moment, looking down at her. Her smile faded. "What's the matter?"

He shrugged. "Nothing," he said, and turned back to the shot of line he was coiling.

She stared at his back, puzzled. The expression in his eyes had seemed somehow regretful. She shrugged and went back to the bait table to cut more herring and fill more jars.

Rolling down to old Maui, my boys, Rolling down to old Maui

Now we're homeward bound from the Arctic round Rolling down to old Maui."

She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt this good.

Her last trip on the Avilda, and no matter what Jack said it was going to be her last trip, was going to be a piece of cake. As soon as they nailed the shark in Dutch, he'd put them on to the men in the Navaho, and when they finished singing, the truth of what had happened to Alcala and Brown would be known at last.

Harry Gault had no real idea there was a cuckoo in his nest, and all Kate had to do was help set and pull pots and make money and count the knots home. She hoped Jack had remembered to make her a reservation on the plane. The flights north were always jammed and she wanted to be on the first one that left after her tippy toe hit dirt at Dutch. She missed Mutt and her cabin and her homestead and the Park, though it didn't look like she was going to miss the first snow after all.

"How soft the breeze from the island trees Now the ice is far astern And them native maids in them tropical glades Is awaiting our return."

She was able to dismiss Harry catching her coming out of his cabin at two in the morning; he hadn't so much as raised an eyebrow in her direction, or referred to it in any way. He had likewise ignored her reference to his two previous crewmen's disappearance, probably having decided she'd heard the story over a bar in Dutch. He hadn't picked up on the shark's reference to Jack, and Andy, bless his heart, had covered for the wet survival suit.

"Even now their big black eyes look out Hoping some fine day to see our baggy sails running 'fore the gales Rolling down to old Maui."

She leaned head and shoulders inside a crab pot balanced delicately on the pot launcher, and began to hang the bait jar. Through the metal mesh stretched between the steel frames, she saw Ned raise his right hand, as if to wave toward the bridge. His left hand moved to the launching lever.