Дэймон Найт: Orbit 12

The sibling combat in the pit had begun to quiet. A few sand tiger babies twitched weakly. The children nudged them with the sticks. When there was no response, the sticks rose and fell violently, splashing the water and mashing the fish into the sand.

“The islanders hate sharks,” Folger said.

She awoke violently, choking off a scream and blindly striking out at him. Folger held her wrists, pulled her against him, and then began to stroke her hair. Her trembling slowly subsided.

“Bad dreams?”

She nodded, her hair working softly against his jaw.

“Was I in them?”

“No,” she said. “Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“What happened?”

She hesitated. “I was swimming. They—some people pulled me out of the water. They put me on a concrete slab by the pier. There was no water, no sea —“ She swallowed. “God, I want a drink.”

“I’ll fix you one,” he said.

“They pulled me out. I lay there and felt the ocean drain away. And then I felt things tear loose inside me. There was nothing supporting my heart and liver and intestines and everything began to pull away from everything else. God, it hurts—”

Folger patted her head. “I’ll get you a drink.”

“So?” said Per. “Sharks aren’t particularly aggressive, are they?”

“Not until after the war,” said Folger. “Since then there’s been continual skirmishing. Both the villagers and the sharks hunt the same game. Now they’ve started to hunt each other.”

“And,” said Inga, “there has been you.”

Folger nodded. “I know the sea predators better. After all, that was my job.”

The children, bored with the dead shark pool, followed the adults toward the village. They gawked at the Lindfors. One of the more courageous boys reached tentatively toward Inga’s hair as it blew back in the wind.

“Vayan!” shouted Folger. “All of you, move!” The children reluctantly withdrew. “They’re accustomed to whites,” he said, “but blondes are a novelty.”

“Fascinating,” said Inga. “It is like an enclave of a previous century.”

The road widened slightly and became the village’s main street, still unpaved, and winding down along the edge of the sea. Folger saw the aluminum bulk of an airboat tied to a pier, incongruous between two fishing ketches. “You come alone?” he said.

“Just the two of us,” said Inga.

Per put his hand lightly on her wrist. “We’re quite effective as a team,” he said.

They passed a dark stone house, its door swung open to the wind. Rain blew across the threshold

“Abandoned?” said Inga.

“Quaint old island custom,” said Folger. “Catholicism’s a little diluted here. Priest only comes twice a year.” He pointed at the open door. “The man who lived there died at sea a couple days ago. Family’ll keep the door open, no matter what, for a week. It’s so his soul can find shelter until it’s shunted to heaven or hell.”

Per said, “What happened to the man?”

“He was fishing,” Folger said. “Friends saw it all. A great white shark got him.”

Closer, now:

“Dolphin!”

“Shark!”

They lay together.

“I wish we had more time,” said Inga. “I should like to hunt a shark.”

“Perhaps on some future leave,” said Per.

“And that’s about it for the village,” said Folger. “There isn’t much more to see, unless you enjoy native crafts like dipping tallow candles or carding wool.”

“It’s incredible,” said Inga. “The only time I have seen anything remotely like this was in pre-Reconstruction America.”

Folger said, “You don’t look that old.”

“I was barely into puberty. The Protectorate brought our father from Copenhagen. He is a design engineer in hydro-electrics. He worked on the Oklahoma Sea projects.”

They stood on a rough plank pier beyond one horn of the crescent of houses. Per tapped a boot on the wood to shake loose some of the mud. “I still can’t see how you endure this place, Folger.”

Half asleep, Folger said, “Some day when the war is over, we’ll get a place by the ocean. There’s still some great country north of San Francisco. We’ll have a house among the trees, on a mountainside overlooking the beach. Maybe we’ll make it a stone tower, like Robinson Jeffers built.”

Close to his ear, Valerie said, “A tower would be nice.”

“You’ll be able to read all day, and swim, and we’ll never have any visitors we don’t want.”

“It’s a fine dream for you,” Valerie whispered.

“I came as jetsam,” Folger said.

The three of them stood silently for a few minutes, watching clouds darker than the water roil in from the west Triangular shapes took form on the horizon. Folger squinted. “Fishermen are coming in.” After another minute he said, “Tour’s over.”

“I know,” said Inga.

“—hoping. I kept hoping.” Folger raised himself on one elbow. “You really are going to go through with it.”

The fishing boats neared the breakwater. Folger and the others could hear the faint cries of the crewmen. “Why are you here?” he said.

Per Lindfors laid a comradely hand on Folger’s shoulder. “We came here to kill you.”

Folger smiled. What other response could there be?

“Tell me how it works,” said Valerie.

They paused on a steel catwalk overlooking the catch pens. In the tank immediately below, two divers warily man-handled a five-meter great blue in an oval path. If water weren’t forced over the shark’s gill surfaces, the fish would suffocate. The water glittered in the glare of arc lights. Beyond the pens, the beacon on Cape Pembroke blinked its steady twelve pulses per minute.

“I know the general techniques,” said Folger. “But it’s not my specialty. I’m strictly mapping and logistics

“ I don’t need apologies,” said Valerie.

“Excuse me while I violate the National Security Act.” Folger turned to face her. “Most of the technology is borrowed from the brothers upstairs on the orbital platforms. Everybody’s been doing secret work with cyborgs. Somewhere along the line, somebody got the bright idea of importing it underwater.”

“The Marine Forces,“ said Valerie.

“Right. The bureaucrats finally realized that the best weapons for fighting undersea wars already existed in the ocean. They were weapons which had been adapted for that purpose for more than a hundred million years. All that was needed were guidance systems.”

Valerie said wistfully, “Sharks.”

“Sharks and killer whales; squid; to a degree, dolphins. We’re considering a few other species.”

“I want to know how it’s done.”

“Primarily by direct transplant. Surgical modification. Nerve grafts are partially electronic. Is that what you wanted to know?”

She stared down at the docile shark in the tank. “There’s no coming back, is there?”

“We’ll probably use your old body to feed the new one.”

“So kill me. Do I rate a reason why?”

“Not if your execution had been scheduled now,” said Inga. “It would not have been merciful to alert you in advance. Such cheap melodrama is forbidden by Protectorate codes.”

Folger snorted. “Isn’t all this overly Machiavellian?”

“Not at all. We were given considerable latitude on this assignment. We wished to be sure of doing the right thing.”