Frank Schatzing - The Swarm

She put all her strength into trying to win back what she had lost. They allowed her to return to school on the condition that she saw a therapist. She agreed. She showed them that she was disciplined and eager to learn, and read everything she could lay hands on, especially if it was about the environment and the oceans. She jogged, swam, boxed and climbed, trying to eradicate the last traces of the lost time, until there was no sign of the scrawny, hollow-eyed girl she'd once been. She finished school at nineteen, a year older than her classmates but with perfect grades and a body like a sculpture of an ancient Greek athlete. She began a degree in biology and sport.

Karen Weaver was a new person.

With an ancient longing.

In order to better understand the workings of the world, she took a course in computing. The idea of programming computers to model complex changes intrigued her, and she persisted until she knew how to model oceanic and atmospheric change. Her first big project was a comprehensive report on ocean currents. It didn't add anything to existing research, but it was an intelligent piece of work: a homage to two people she'd loved and lost. She set up her own media business deepbluesea , and wrote for Science and National Geographic . Popular science magazines gave her regular columns to fill, which attracted the attention of research institutes, whose scientists needed a voice to convey their ideas. She was invited along on expeditions. She dived to the Titanic in MIR, visited the hydrothermal vents in the depths of the Atlantic with Alvin, and took the Polarstern to visit the over-winterers in the Antarctic. She went everywhere, making the most of every opportunity, because since that night in the Channel she had never felt fear. She wasn't afraid of anyone or anything.

Except of being alone. Sometimes.

Now she looked at herself in the mirror on the wall of the bar, wrapped in a bathrobe, looking a little lost.

She knocked back the Bailey's and made her way to bed.

Anawak

His decision to make the trip hadn't come easily, and even then there'd been no guarantee that Li would let him leave. As it happened, she'd practically forced him to go. 'If you stay here, you'll never forgive yourself. Family comes first in life. It's the only thing you can count on. Make sure we can contact you, that's all I ask.'

Now, sitting in the plane, he wondered why Li was so eager to sing the praises of kinship. He couldn't share her enthusiasm.

The man sitting next to him, a climatologist from Massachusetts, began to snore. Anawak tilted back his seat and looked out of the window. He'd been alone with his thoughts for hours. From Vancouver he'd flown on one of Air Canada's Boeings to Toronto Pearson airport, where a long line of planes was waiting for takeoff. A violent storm had descended over Toronto, bringing air traffic to a temporary halt. To Anawak it had seemed like an omen. Waiting anxiously in the departure lounge, he'd watched as the planes were hooked up one by one to concertinaed walkways. Finally, after a two-hour delay, his flight had left for Montreal.

From there, everything had gone smoothly. He'd stayed overnight at a Holiday Inn near Dorval airport, then returned first thing in the morning to the departure lounge. At last there were signs that he was entering a different world. A group of men with steaming coffee cups were standing by a plate-glass window, their overalls emblazoned with the logo of an oil company. Two had faces like Anawak's: wide cheekbones, dark skin and Mongolian eyes. Outside on the airfield, enormous pallets trussed with netting were being loaded into the belly of the Canadian North Airlines Boeing 737. The lifting ramp was still shunting them into the aeroplane when the boarding call went out. They crossed the airfield on foot and climbed the steps at the tail. The seating area was limited to the front third of the plane; the rest of the space was given over to storage.

For more than two hours now Anawak had been in transit. From time to time the plane juddered. For most of the journey they'd been looking down on thick plains of cloud, but now, as they approached Hudson Strait, the grey mass of vapour parted to reveal the dark brown landscape of the tundra below, mountainous and jagged, with snow-fields and ice floes drifting on the lakes. Then the coast came into view. Hudson Strait passed beneath them, and Anawak knew he was crossing the frontier. A rush of emotions flooded through him, sweeping away his torpor. In every venture there was always a point of no return. Strictly speaking, that point had been Montreal, but symbolically it was Hudson Strait. Across the water was a world to which he'd sworn never to return.

Anawak was on his way to the country of his birth, to his homeland on the edge of the Arctic Circle – to Nunavut.

He stared out of the window, willing himself not to think. After thirty minutes the water gave way to land and then to a shiny frozen expanse, Frobisher Bay, cutting deep into the south-eastern tip of Baffin Island. The plane banked to the right, descending rapidly. A bright yellow building with a stumpy tower appeared in the window. It looked like a lone human outpost on an alien planet, although it was actually the airport, the way into Iqaluit, 'place of many fish', Nunavut's capital.

The plane touched down and taxied slowly to a halt.

It wasn't long before Anawak's luggage appeared. He hoisted the heavy rucksack on to his back and made his way through the terminal, passing a display of wall coverings and soapstone sculptures promoting Inuit art. In the middle of the building a giant figure, sturdily built, clad in boots and traditional attire, held a fiat drum above his head in one hand and a drumstick in the other. It exuded vigour and self-assurance. Anawak stopped to read the inscription: 'Throughout the Arctic there is drum dancing and throat singing when the people come together.' He went to the First Air ticket counter and checked in his rucksack for the flight to Cape Dorset. The woman at the desk informed him that it was delayed by an hour. 'Maybe you've still got some errands to run in town,' she said, with a smile.

Anawak hesitated. 'Er, no, actually. I don't know my way around.'

She looked surprised. She was clearly wondering how someone whose appearance identified him as an Inuk could be unfamiliar with the capital. 'There's plenty to see,' she suggested. 'You should wander into town. There's the Nunatta-Sunaqutangit Museum. It has a wonderful collection of traditional and contemporary art.'

'Uh… sure.'

'Or you could try the Unikkaarvik Visitor Center. And it's well worth stopping off at the Anglican church. It's the only church in the world to look like an igloo.'

She was an Inuk, small with a black fringe and a ponytail. Her eyes shone as a smile spread over her face. 'I could have sworn you came from Iqaluit,' she said.

'No.' For a moment he was tempted to say that he came from Cape Dorset 'Vancouver, actually.'

'Oh, I love Vancouver,' she exclaimed.

Anawak glanced round, worried that he was holding up the queue, but he seemed to be the only person on the onward flight that day. 'You've been there?'

'No, but I've seen the pictures on the web. It's a beautiful city.' She laughed. 'A bit bigger than Iqaluit, I guess.'

He smiled back. 'I'd say so.'

'But Iqaluit's bigger than it used to be. We've got six thousand inhabitants and we're growing all the time. Soon we'll be the size of Vancouver – well, almost anyway. You'll have to excuse me.'

A man and a woman had appeared behind him. He wouldn't be flying alone. He said goodbye and disappeared outside, in case she took it into her head to give him a tour of the city.