Frank Schatzing - The Swarm

'I'll have you stopped.'

'You can't. This is a free country, and no one can tell us when and where to sail. We've laid our plans and we're ready for action – although maybe if you were a bit more accommodating I'd think about calling it off.'

Anawak stared at him. 'There aren't any whales around anyway,' he said.

'Because you've driven them away.'

It's nothing to do with us.'

'Yeah, right. We're never the ones at fault. It's always the animals. They're forever swimming into harpoons or posing for photos. In any case, I heard humpbacks had been sighted.'

'A few.'

'I guess your business must be suffering. You don't want us to dent your profits even more.'

'Get lost, Jack.'

'That was my final offer.'

'Thank God.'

'Leon, you could at least put in a good word for us. We need money. We rely on donations. It's for a good cause. Can't you see that? We're both working for the same thing.'

'I don't think so. Take care, Jack.'

Anawak quickened his pace. The eco-warrior didn't follow. Instead he shouted, 'Stubborn bastard!'

Anawak walked determinedly past the dolphinarium and headed for the exit.

'Leon, you know what your problem is? Maybe I'm not a proper Indian, but you are !

'I'm not an Indian,' murmured Anawak.

'Oh, sorry!' veiled Greywolf, as if he'd heard him. 'You think you're special, don't you? Well, how come you've abandoned your people? Why aren't you there for them, where you're needed?'

'Asshole,' hissed Anawak. The beluga test had gone so well – it night have been a really good day. Now he felt worn down and miserable.

His people …

Who did Greywolf think he was?

Where he was needed!

'I'm needed here.' He snorted.

A woman walked past, looking at him strangely. Anawak glanced round. He was on the street outside the aquarium. Shaking with fury, he got into his car, drove to the terminal at Tsawwassen, and took the ferry back to Vancouver Island.

THE NEXT DAY HE rose early and decided to walk to the whaling station. Wisps of pink cloud trailed on the horizon, but the mountains, houses and boats still cast dark shadows on the perfectly still water. Within a few hours the tourists would arrive. Anawak walked the length of the jetty to where the Zodiacs were moored and leaned over the wooden railings.

Two small cutters sailed past. Anawak wondered whether to call Susan Stringer and talk her into going out with him to look for whales. As Greywolf had said, the first humpbacks had been sighted, which was reassuring, but it didn't explain where they'd been hiding. Maybe together he and Stringer could identify a few. She had sharp eyes, and he enjoyed her company. She was one of the few people who never pestered him with questions about his background.

Even Samantha Crowe had asked about it. Oddly, he might have told her a bit about himself, but by now she would be on her way home.

Anawak decided to let Stringer sleep and set off on his own. He went in to the station where he stowed a laptop, camera, binoculars, tape-recorder, hydrophone and headphones in a waterproof bag. He placed a cereal bar and two cans of iced tea on top, then headed for the Blue Shark . He let the boat chug leisurely through the lagoon, waiting until the town was behind him before he opened the throttle. The prow rose up in the waves and wind swept into his face, driving the gloomy thoughts from his mind.

Twenty minutes later he was steering through a group of tiny islands and out on to the silvery-black open sea. The waves rolled in sluggishly, separated by long intervals. He eased off the throttle, and as the coast disappeared, he gazed into the morning light, trying not to succumb to the pessimism that had lately become a habit. Whales had been sighted and not just residents: the humpbacks were migrants, on their way from California or Hawaii.

Once the boat was far enough out he turned off the engine, opened a can of iced tea, drank it, and sat down with the binoculars.

It was an age before he spotted anything. Then a dark shape caught his eye, but vanished in a trice. 'Go on, show yourself,' he whispered. 'I know you're out there.'

He scanned the ocean intently. The minutes ticked by and nothing happened. Then, one after the other, two dark silhouettes rose above the waves at some distance from the boat. A sound like gunfire rang out across the water as two clouds of white spray shot into the air, like breath on a winter's morning.

Humpback whales.

Anawak was laughing with joy. Like any competent cetologist, he could identify a whale by its blow – a large one could fill several cubic metres. The air in the lungs would compress, then shoot out at high speed through the narrow holes, expanding and cooling in the atmosphere to form a spray of misty droplets. The shape and size of the blow varied, even within a single species. It depended on the whale's size, the duration of a dive and even the wind. But this time there was no doubt: those bushy clouds of spray were characteristic of the humpback.

Anawak flipped open the laptop and booted it up. The hard drive contained a database with descriptions of hundreds of whales which regularly passed that way. To the untrained eye the little of the whale visible above the water was scarcely enough to identify the species, let alone the individual, and to make matters worse, the view was often obscured by rough seas, mist, rain or blinding sunshine. But each whale had its own identifying features. The easiest way to tell them apart was by looking at the flukes. When a whale dived, its tail often flicked right out of the water and the underside of each fluke was unique to that animal, differing in pattern, structure and form. Anawak could identify many flukes from memory, but the photos on the laptop helped.

He was willing to bet that the two whales out there were old friends.

After a while the black humps resurfaced. First to appear were the blowholes, little raised bumps on top of the head, barely visible among the waves. Then came the firing noise again, followed by two puffs of air, rising in synchrony. This time the whales didn't sink back into the water, but raised their humps high above the waves. Their stumpy dorsal fins came into view, arching slowly through the air, then slicing back into the water. Anawak had a clear view of the whales' backs with their prominent vertebrae. Then they dived again, their flukes rising leisurely out of the water.

Hurriedly Anawak raised the binoculars for a glimpse of the undersides, but failed. Not to worry. The first commandment of whale-watching was patience, and there was plenty of time before the tourists arrived. He opened the second can of iced tea, unwrapped the cereal bar and took a bite.

He didn't have long to wait before his faith was rewarded, and five humps ploughed through the water not far from the boat. Anawak's heart quickened. The whales were close now. Full of anticipation he waited for the flukes. He was so engrossed in the spectacle that he didn't notice the enormous black shadow by the boat. It was only when the creature loomed vertically out of the water, towering above him, that he turned and jumped.

Instantly he forgot the other humps.

The whale's head had risen almost silently. Now it was almost touching the boat's rubber hull. Three and a half metres of whale extended upright out of the water, the drooping mouth covered with barnacles and knotty bulges. An eye as big as a human fist stared at him.

It wasn't the first time Anawak had seen a whale at such close-quarters. On dive trips he'd swum alongside them, stroking and clutching on to them. He'd ridden on them. It wasn't unusual for grey whales, humpbacks or orcas to poke their heads out of the water right next to the Zodiac to look for landmarks or examine the boat.