Дэймон Найт - Orbit 12

“I was used here. Occasionally I find ways to help the islanders.”

“As an oceanographer?”

Folger gestured toward the window. “The sea makes up most of their environment. I’m useful.”

“With your talent,” said Per, “it’s such a waste here.”

“Then too,” Folger continued, “I help with the relics.”

“Relics?” said Inga uncertainly.

“War surplus. Leftovers. Look.” Folger picked up a dried, leathery rectangle from the table and tossed it to Per. He looked at the object, turning it over and over.

“Came from a killer whale. Got him last winter with a harpoon and shaped charge. Damn thing had stove in three boats, killed two men. Now read the other side.”

Per examined the piece of skin closely. Letters and numerals had been deeply branded. “USMF-343.”

“See?” said Folger. “Weapons are still out there. He was part of the lot the year before I joined the Institute. Not especially sophisticated, but he had longevity.”

“Do you encounter many?” said Inga.

Folger shook his head. “Not too many of the originals.”

The ketch had been found adrift with no one aboard. It had put out early that morning for Dos, one of the two small and uninhabited companions of Tres Rocas. The three men aboard had been expecting to hunt seal. The fishermen who discovered the derelict also found a bloody ax and severed sections of tentacle as thick as a man’s forearm.

So Folger trolled along the route of the unlucky boat in his motorized skiff for three days. He searched a vast area of choppy, gray water, an explosive harpoon never far from his hand. Early on the fourth afternoon a half dozen dark-green tentacles poked from the sea on the port side of the boat. Folger reached with his left hand for the harpoon. He didn’t see the tentacle from starboard that whipped and tightened around his chest and jerked him over the side.

The chill of the water stunned him. Folger had a quick, surrealistic glimpse of intricately weaving tentacles. Two eyes, each as large as his fist, stared without malice. The tentacle drew him toward the beak.

Then a gray shadow angled below Folger. Razor teeth scythed through flesh. The tentacle was cut; Folger drifted.

The great white shark was at least ten meters long. Its belly was uncharacteristically dappled. The squid wrapped eager arms around the thrashing shark. The two sank into the darker water below Folger.

Lungs aching, he broke the surface less than a meter from the skiff. He always trailed a ladder from the boat It made thing’s easier for a one-armed man.

“Would you show us the village?” said Inga.

“Not much to see.”

“We would be pleased by a tour anyway. Have you time?”

Folger reached for his coat Inga moved to help him put it on. “I can get it,” said Folger.

“There are fine experts in prosthesis on the continent,” said Per.

“No thanks,” said Folger.

“Have you thought about a replacement?”

“Thought about it. But the longer I thought, the better I got without one. I had a few years to practice.”

“It was in the war, then?” asked Inga.

“Of course it was in the war.”

On their way out, they passed the kitchen. Maria looked up sullenly over the scraps of bloody mutton on the cutting board. Her eyes fixed on Inga until the blonde moved out of sight along the hall.

A light, cold rain was falling as they walked down the trail to the village. “Rain is the only thing I could do without here,” said Folger. “I was raised in California.”

“We will see California after we finish here,” said Inga. “Per and I have a leave. We will get our anti-rad injections and ski the Sierras. At night we will watch the Los Angeles glow.”

“Is it beautiful?”

“The glow is like seeing the aurora borealis every night,” said Per.

Folger chuckled. “I always suspected L.A.’s future would be something like that”

“The half-life will see to the city’s immortality,” said Inga.

Per smiled. “We were there last year. The glow appears cold. It is supremely erotic.”

In the night, in a bed, he asked her, “Why do you want to be a shark?”

She ran her nails delicately along the cords of his neck . “I want to kill people, eat them.“

“Any people?”

“Just men.”

“Would you like me to play analyst?” said Folger. She bit his shoulder hard. “Goddammit!” He flopped over. “Is there any blood?” he demanded.

Valerie brushed the skin with her hand. “You’re such a coward.”

“My threshold of pain’s low,” said Folger. “Sweetie.”

“Don’t call me Sweetie,” she said. “Call me Shark.”

“Shark.”

They made love in a desperate hurry.

The descent steepened, the rain increased, and they hurried. They passed through a copse of stunted trees and reached the ruts of a primitive road.

“We have flash-frozen beefsteaks aboard the airboat,” said Inga.

“That’s another thing I’ve missed,” Folger said.

Then you must join us for supper.”

“As a guest of the Protectorate?”

“An honored guest.”

“Make mine rare,” said Folger. “Very rare.”

The road abruptly descended between two bluffs and overlooked the village. It was called simply the village because there were no other settlements on Tres Rocas and so no cause to distinguish. Several hundred inhabitants lived along the curve of the bay in small, one-story houses, built largely of stone.

“It’s so bleak,” said Inga. “What do people do?”

“Not much,” said Folger. “Raise sheep, hunt seals, fish. When there were still whales, they used to whale. For recreation, the natives go out and dig peat for fuel.”

“It’s quite a simple existence,” said Per.

“Uncomplicated,” Folger said.

“If you could be anything in the sea,” said Valerie, “what would it be?”

Folger was always discomfited by these games. He usually felt he chose wrong answers. He thought carefully for a minute or so. “A dolphin, I suppose.“

In the darkness, her voice dissolved in laughter. “You loser.”

He felt irritation. “What’s the matter now?”

“Dolphins hunt in packs she said. “They gang up to kill sharks. They’re cowards.”

“They’re not. Dolphins are highly intelligent. They band together for cooperative protection.”

Still between crests of laughter: “Cowards!”

On the outskirts of the village they encountered a dozen small, dirty children playing a game. The children had dug a shallow pit about a meter in diameter. It was excavated close enough to the beach so that it quickly filled with a mixture of ground seepage and rainwater.

“Stop,” said Per. “I wish to see this.”

The children stirred the muddy water with sticks. Tiny, thumb-sized fishes lunged and snapped at one another, burying miniature teeth in the others’ flesh. The children stared up incuriously at the adults, then returned their attention to the pool.

Inga bent closer. ‘What are they?”

“Baby sharks,” said Folger. “They hatch alive in the uterus of their mother. Some fisherman must have bagged a female sand tiger who was close to term. He gave the uterus to his kids. Fish won’t live long in that pool.”

“They’re fantastic,” Per breathed. For the first time since Folger had met him, he showed emotion. “So young and so ferocious.”

“The first one hatched usually eats the others in the womb,” said Folger.

“It’s beautiful,” said Inga. “An organism that is born fighting.”