Frank Schatzing - The Swarm

Then he'd noticed Delaware stretched out beside him, and the pain had stopped mattering. For a moment, he'd thought she was dead, but someone had told him that she was OK. She'd been even luckier than he had. The body of the pilot had cushioned her fall. Barely conscious, she'd struggled free from the sinking wreck, and the plane had filled with water in less than a minute. The Whistler's crew had managed to fish Anawak and Delaware out of the water, but the pilot and his DHC-2 had sunk into the depths.

The trip had ended in tragedy, but their goal had been achieved. Danny had fired the tag. The URA had followed the whales and recorded twenty-four hours' worth of footage without coming under attack. Anawak had known the recording would arrive on John Ford's desk at the aquarium that morning, and he'd intended to be there on time. Besides, the Centre national d'études spatiales had released all the telemetric data received so far from the tag. They'd have been patting themselves on the back now, if the plane hadn't crashed.

Instead things were looking more desperate than ever. People were dying every day. On two occasions he'd nearly died. At the time of Stringer's death he'd dealt with things quite well – perhaps his anger with Greywolf had distracted him from his grief. But now, two days after the plane crash, he felt wretched – as though he'd finally succumbed to an insidious sickness, and was paying for it in uncertainty, self-doubt and a worrying lack of strength. There was a chance he might be in shock, but Anawak didn't quite buy it. There seemed more to it than that. Ever since he'd been hurled from the plane, he'd had spells of dizziness, pains in his chest and vague feelings of panic.

He wasn't better, and the problem wasn't his knee.

Anawak felt bruised inside.

The previous day he'd done little but sleep. Davie, Shoemaker and the rest of the team had been to see him, and Ford had called a few times to ask how he was. Apart from that no one seemed overly concerned. While Delaware's parents and friends were urging her to leave the island, the only people who'd spared a thought for Anawak were his colleagues.

He was ill, and he knew the doctors couldn't help him.

Delaware put a mug of coffee on the table in front of him and studied him through her blue-tinted shades. Anawak took a gulp and burnt his tongue. He asked her to fetch him the phone.

'Can I ask you a personal question, Leon?' she said.

'Later.'

'How much later?'

He punched a series of digits.

'We haven't finished sifting the data,' said Ford. 'Take your time and get some rest.'

'You told Licia I should draw my own conclusions.'

'Yes, once we've been through the rest. So far it's uninteresting. For the moment, we'll carry on sifting. Who knows? Maybe you can save yourself a trip.'

'When will you be done?'

'No idea. Four of us are looking at the tapes. Give us another two hours – no, three. I'll have you flown over mid-afternoon. That's one of the perks of working for an emergency committee – always plenty of helicopters.' Ford laughed. 'Not that I want to get used to it.' He paused. 'There's something else you can do, though. I don't have time to tell you about it now, but ask Rod Palm. You'd be better off speaking to him directly. He's just had a long chat with the Nanaimo lab and the Institute of Ocean Studies. Call Oliviera if you prefer, but Palm's on your doorstep.'

'Christ, John. Why doesn't anyone call me when something's going on?'

'I wanted to let you sleep.'

Anawak said a surly goodbye and phoned Palm. The head of the research institute on Strawberry Isle picked up straight away. 'Ah!' he said. 'Ford promised you'd ring.'

'So I hear. Apparently you've made an earth-shattering discovery. Why didn't you call me?'

'Everyone knows you're supposed to be resting.'

'Yeah, right.'

'Seriously, Leon, I thought you should get some sleep.'

'That's the second time I've heard that in the last sixty seconds – actually, it's the third, what with Licia's constant fussing. And I'm fine.'

'Why don't you pop over?' suggested Palm.

'In the boat, you mean?'

'Come on, Leon, it's only a few hundred metres. Besides, we haven't had any trouble in the Sound.'

I'll be with you in ten minutes.'

'Great.'

Delaware peered at him over her coffee and frowned. 'What's up?'

I'm being treated like an invalid.' Anawak scowled.

'That's not what I meant.'

He got up, rummaged beneath his bunk and pulled out a T-shirt. 'Some discovery at Nanaimo,' he said gruffly.

'What is it?' asked Delaware.

'I don't know. I'm going over to see Rod Palm.' He hesitated, then added, 'Come along, if you like.'

'I'm honoured.'

'Don't be stupid.'

I'm not.' She wrinkled her nose. The edges of her incisors rested on her lower lip. She desperately needed some work on those teeth, thought Anawak. Whenever he saw them, he had to fight off the impulse to tell her. 'You've barely said a civil word for two days. You're in a foul mood, Leon.'

'You wouldn't feel great yourself if-' He stopped.

'I was in the plane too,' she said calmly.

'I'm Sorry.'

'I can't tell you how scared I was. Lots of girls would have run straight home to Mummy, but since you'd lost one assistant I stayed. To help you , you old grouch. Now what was that about not feeling so great?'

Anawak felt the bump on his head, which was painful. His knee hurt too. 'Nothing. Calm again now?'

She raised her eyebrows. 'I'm always calm.'

'Good. Then let's go.'

'Can I ask you that question?'

'No.'

THERE WAS SOMETHING unreal about crossing Clayoquot Sound in the Devilfish . It was as though the mayhem of the past few weeks had never happened. The islet itself was just a pine-covered mound – the circular tour took five minutes on foot. Right now there wasn't a ripple on the water. The wind was still, and the sun beat down on them. At any moment Anawak expected to see a fluke or a fin rise out of the ocean, but since the trouble had started, orcas had only been sighted twice in the Sound. On both occasions they'd been residents, showing no sign of aggression. Anawak's theory about the change in behaviour being peculiar to migrants still seemed to hold true.

But for how much longer?

They pulled up at the landing jetty. Palm's research station was opposite, housed in an ancient sailing-boat, the first British Columbia ferry, now nestled prettily on the shore, supported by logs and surrounded by driftwood and rusty anchors. It was also his home, which he shared with his two children.

Anawak was trying not to limp. Delaware was silent.

A few minutes later the three were sitting round a small beech-bark table in the ferry's bow, Delaware sipping Coke. From their vantage-point they could see Tofino with its houses on stilts. Strawberry Isle, a few hundred metres away, was much quieter than the town, and they were treated to a variety of nature's sounds.

'How's the knee?' Palm asked. He was an affable, bald man with a curly white beard, who seemed to have been born with a pipe in his mouth.

I'd rather not talk about it.' Anawak tried to ignore the hammering in his head. 'Why don't you tell me what you've found?'

'Leon doesn't like it when people ask him how he is,' Delaware said pointedly.

Palm coughed. 'I've had a long chat with Ray Fenwick and Sue Oliviera,' he said. 'We've had a lot to talk about, what with J-19's dissection and the other stuff that's happened since. You see, on the day your plane crashed another whale was washed ashore, a grey. It wasn't one I'd seen before, and it's not in any of the databases. Fenwick was too busy to fly over, but Nanaimo needed the usual autopsy samples so I got a few people together and we took it apart ourselves. A god-awful task, I can tell you. We'd just about got down to the heart and I was standing in the ribcage when I slipped – blood and slime everywhere, in my boots and splattering down from above. We looked like zombies at a feeding frenzy. A not-so-romantic view of the heart, that's for sure. Anyhow, we took samples from the brain as well.'