Frank Schatzing - The Swarm

'Who knows? It wasn't as though anything was drawing me back. Maybe Vancouver wanted to get rid of me for a while.'

'Nonsense.'

'Well, it had nothing to do with my father, if that's what you're thinking. I'm not going to shed any tears over him.' He knew it sounded harsh, but it was too bad. 'I can't do that, Iji.'

'You're too hard on him.'

'He led a bad life.'

Akesuk gave him a long look. 'Yes, he did, but there weren't many options back then.' He drained the dregs of his coffee. Then he was smiling. 'Here's a suggestion. We'll start our trip today. Mary-Ann and I were planning to go somewhere different for a change – north-west to Pond Inlet. You could come too.'

Anawak stared at him. 'It's out of the question,' he said. 'You'll be out there for weeks. I can't possibly be away for that long – even if I wanted to.'

'I'm not suggesting you stay the whole time. We'll all set out together, and after a few days you can fly back on your own. You're a grown man – you don't need me to hold your hand. You can get on a plane by yourself, can't you?'

'But that'll be far too much trouble, Iji, I-'

'I'm fed up of hearing about trouble. Why should it be any trouble for you to come too? There's a group of us meeting in Pond Inlet. All the arrangements have been made, and I'm sure we'll find room for your civilised behind.' He winked at him. 'But don't go thinking it'll be an easy ride. You'll be given your share of bear duty like the rest of us.'

Anawak pondered his uncle's invitation. It had caught him off-guard. He'd prepared himself for one more day, not three or four.

But Li had made clear that he should stay for as long as he needed to.

Pond Inlet. Three more days.

'Why are you so keen for me to come?' he asked.

Akesuk laughed.

'Why do you think?' he said. 'I'm going to take you home.'

ON THE LAND . Those three words encapsulated the Inuit philosophy of life. Going out on the land meant escaping from the settlements and spending the summer camped in tents on the beaches or on the floe-edge, fishing, and hunting walrus, seal or narwhal, which the Inuit were permitted to kill for their own consumption. They would take everything they needed for life beyond the reaches of civilisation, loading clothes, equipment and hunting tools on to ATVs, sledges or boats. The territory they were venturing into was untamed: a vast expanse of land that people had roamed for thousands of years.

Time was of no importance on the land, where the routines and patterns of cities and settlements ceased to exist. Distances weren't measured in kilometres or miles but in days. Two days to this place, and half a day to that. It was no help to know that it was fifty kilometres to your destination, if the route was filled with obstacles like pack ice or crevasses. Nature had no respect for human plans. The next second could be fraught with imponderables, so people lived for the present. The land followed its own rhythm, and the Inuit submitted to it. Thousands of years as nomads had taught them that that was the way to gain mastery. Through the first half of the twentieth century they had continued to roam the land freely, and decades later the nomadic lifestyle still suited them better than being confined to one place by a house.

Some things had changed though, as Anawak was increasingly aware. They seemed to have accepted that the world expected them to take regular jobs and become part of industrial society, and in return they'd been granted the acceptance denied to them when Anawak was a child. The world was returning part of what it had taken, and giving them a new outlook, in which ancient traditions took their place alongside a western lifestyle.

The place Anawak had left behind had been a geographical region devoid of identity or self-worth, its people robbed of their energies and respected by no one. Only his father could have redrawn that picture for him, but he was the one who'd done most to inspire it. The man buried in Cape Dorset had become symbolic of the wider resignation: a worn-out alcoholic prone to self-pity and temper, who'd failed to stand up for his family. That day, as Cape Dorset had disappeared from his view, Anawak had stood on deck and shouted into the fog: 'Go ahead, kill yourselves! Then you won't be such an embarrassment.' For a second he'd toyed with the idea of leading by example and jumping overboard.

Instead he'd become a west-coast Canadian. His adoptive parents had settled in Vancouver, good people who did everything they could to support him in his schooling. They'd never grown accustomed to each other, though: a family united purely by circumstance. When Leon was twenty-four, they'd moved to Anchorage in Alaska. Once a year they sent him a greetings card, and he'd reply with a few friendly lines. He never visited, and they didn't seem to expect it – the idea would probably have surprised them.

Akesuk's talk of an expedition on the land had prompted a new wave of memories – long evenings round the fire, while people told stories and the whole world seemed alive. When he was little, he'd taken for granted that the Snow Queen and the Bear God were real. He'd listened to the tales of men and women who'd been born in igloos, and imagined how one day he'd journey over the ice, hunting and living in harmony with himself and the Arctic myth – sleeping when he was tired, working and hunting when the weather was right, eating when he was hungry. On the land they would sometimes leave the tent for a breath of fresh air and end up hunting for a day and a night. On other occasions they'd be ready to go, and the hunt never took place. The apparent lack of organisation had always seemed suspect to the qallunaat: how could anyone live without timetables and quotas? The qallunaat constructed new worlds in place of the existing one: Nature's ways were sidelined, and if things didn't fit with their notions, they ignored or destroyed them.

Anawak thought of the Chateau and the challenges he and the team were facing. He thought of Jack Vanderbilt, clinging to the belief that the events of the past months were down to human planning and activity. Anyone who wanted to understand the way of the Inuit had to let go of the mania for control that characterised the western world.

But at least they were all of the same species. There was nothing familiar about the beings in the sea. Anawak was convinced that Johanson was right. Humanity was on the brink of losing this war – people like Vanderbilt couldn't see any perspective but their own.

Maybe the CIA boss was aware of his failings, but he wasn't about to change.

Anawak suddenly realised that they would never solve the crisis without the right team.

Someone was missing, and he knew who it was.

WHILE AKESUK PREPARED for their departure, Anawak sat in the hotel and tried to place a call to the Chateau. After a few minutes he was redirected to a secure line and diverted several times. Li wasn't in Whistler: she was on board a US warship near Seattle.

A quarter of an hour later, he was connected and made his request for another three or four days' leave. When she agreed, he felt a prick of conscience, but told himself that the fate of the world hardly depended on it. Besides, he would be working: he might be in the Arctic Circle, but his mind would still be busy.

Li mentioned that she'd launched a sonar offensive against the whales. 'I don't expect you to be pleased,' she said.

'Is it working?'

'We're on the point of giving up. It hasn't achieved the desired results. We're having to try everything – at least if we can keep the whales away for a while, we've got more chance of sending down divers or robots.'

'You need to expand the team.'

'Who did you have in mind?'

'Three people.' He took a deep breath. 'I'd like you to recruit them. We need more input in the areas of behavioural and cognitive science. And I need someone to help me. Someone I can trust. I'd like you to get Alicia Delaware on board. She usually spends her summers in Tofino. She's a student – majored in animal intelligence.'