Дэймон Найт: Orbit 12

“All right?” The project manager cupped his hands over his face. “She stove in the boat. Got Kendall and Brooking. You never saw so much blood.”

“Christ!”

“Hell of it was,” said the project manager, “we really needed her in the morning.”

“For what?”

“Really needed her,” the project manager repeated. He staggered out of the room and disappeared in the hall.

Folger answered his own question the following day. Through devious channels of information, he learned that Valerie had been scheduled for vivisection.

That night, Folger climbed the mountain above his house. He felt he was struggling through years as much as brush and mud. The top of the mountain was ragged, with no proper peak. Folger picked a high point and spread his slicker over damp rock. He sat in the cold and watched the dark Atlantic. He looked up and picked out the Southern Cross. A drizzle began.

“Well, hell,” he said, and climbed back down the mountain.

Folger took an Institute launch out beyond the cape and anchored. He lowered the cage, then donned his scuba gear. He said into the sonex: “Query—Valerie—location.”

Later that morning, Folger suffered his loss.

Maria shook him awake in the morning. Folger awakened reluctantly, head still full of gentle spirals over glowing coral. The water had been warm; he needed no suit or equipment Endless, buoyant flight—

“Señor Folger, you must get up. It has been seen.”

His head wobbled as she worried his shoulder with insistent fingers. “Okay, I’m awake.” He yawned. “What’s been seen?”

“The big white one,” Maria said. “The one that killed Manuel Padilla three days ago. It was sighted in the bay soon after the sun rose.”

“Anybody try anything?” Folger asked.

“No. They were afraid. It is at least ten meters long.”

Folger yawned again. “Hell of a way to start a morning.”

“I have food for you.”

Folger made a face. “I had steak last night. Real beef. Have you ever tasted beef?”

“No, Señor.”

Maria accompanied him down the mountain to the village. She insisted upon carrying some of the loose gear; the mask, a box of twelve-gauge shells, a mesh sack of empty jars. Folger filled the jars with sheep’s blood at the village butcher shop. He checked his watch; it was seven o’clock.

The skiff was tied up at the end of the second pier. The aluminum airboat glittered in the sun as they passed it. Inga Lindfors stood very still on the bridge. “Good morning, Folger,” she called.

“Good morning,” said Folger.

“Your answer?”

Folger appraised her for a moment. “No,” he said, walking on.

The carcinogenic spread of the war finally and actively engulfed the Falkland Islands. The systematic integrity of the Institute was violated. Many components scattered; some stayed to fight.

Folger, his stump capped with glossy scar tissue, had already said his good-byes.

Suspended in the cold, gray void, Folger realized he was hyperventilating. He floated free, willing himself to relax, letting his staccato breathing find a slower, smoother rhythm. Beside him, a line trailed up to the rectangular blur of the skiff’s hull. Tied to the nylon rope were a net and the unopened jars of sheep’s-blood bait.

Folger checked his limited arsenal. Tethered to his left wrist was the underwater gun. It was a four-foot aluminum tube capped with a firing mechanism and a waterproof shotgun shell. A shorter, steel-tipped shark billy was fixed to a bracket tied to the stump of Folger’s right arm.

Something intruded on his peripheral vision and he looked up.

Arrogant and sure, the two deadly shadows materialized out of the murk. The Lindfors wore only mask, fins, and snorkel. They appeared armed only with knives.

Folger saw them and raised the shark gun in warning. Per Lindfors grinned, his teeth very white. With slow, powerful strokes, he and his sister approached Folger from either side.

Disregarding Inga for the moment, Folger swung the muzzle of the shark gun toward Per. Per batted it aside with his free hand as Folger pulled the trigger. The concussion seemed to stun only Folger. Still smiling, Per extended his knife-hand.

Inga screamed in the water. Per disregarded Folgers weak attempt to fend him off with the billy and began to stroke for the surface. Folger turned his head.

A clownish face rushed at him. Folger stared at the teeth. The pointed nose veered at the last moment as the shark brushed by and struck at Per. The jaws cleanly sliced away Per’s left arm and half his chest The fish doubled back upon itself and made another strike. Per’s legs, separate and trailing blood, tumbled slowly through the water.

Then Folger remembered Inga. He turned in the water and saw half her torso and part of her head, a swatch of silky hair spread out fanlike behind the corpse.

He looked back at the shark. It turned toward him slowly and began to circle, eerily graceful for its immense size. A dark eye fixed him coldly.

Folger held the metal billy obliquely in front of his chest The tether of the shark gun had broken with the recoil.

The shark and Folger inspected each other. He saw the mottled coloration of the shark’s belly. He thought he saw a Marine Forces code branded low on the left flank. He keyed the sonex:

“Query—Valerie—query—Valerie.”

The shark continued to circle. Folger abruptly realized the shark was following an inexorably diminishing spiral.

“Query—Valerie—I am Folger.”

“Folger.” An answer came back. “Valerie.”

“I am Folger,” he repeated.

“Folger,” came the reply. “Love/hunger-hunger/love.”

“Valerie—love.”

“Hunger—love.” The shark suddenly broke out of her orbit and drove at Folger. The enormous jaws opened, upper jaw sliding forward, triangular teeth ready to shear.

Folger hopelessly raised the billy. The jaws closed empty and the shark swept by. She was close enough to touch had Folger wished. The shark drove toward the open sea and Folger swam for the surface.

He tossed the yarrow stalks for an hour. Eventually he put them away, along with the book. Folger sat at the table until the sun rose. He heard Maria’s footsteps outside on the stone walk. He listened to the sound of her progress through the outside door, the kitchen, and the hall.

“Señor Folger, you didn’t sleep?”

“I’m getting old,” he said.

Maria was excited. “The great white one is back.”

“Oh?”

“The fishermen fear to go out.”

“That’s sensible.”

“Señor, you must kill it.”

“Must I?” Folger grinned. “Fix me some tea.”

She turned toward the kitchen.

“Maria, you needn’t come up tonight to fix supper.”

After his usual meager breakfast, Folger gathered together his gear and walked out the front door of his house. He hesitated on the step.

You become what you live.

She lived shark.

He said into the wind, “What do you want me to do? Carve a cenotaph here on the mountain?”

“What, Señor?” said Maria.

“Let’s go.” They started toward the trail. “Hold it,” said Folger. He walked back to the house and opened the front door to the wind and rain. He chocked it with a rock. Then he climbed down the path to the sea.

THEY DIDN’T used to be so demanding. They never hurried us into anything more than a gallop, and that was rare; most of the time it was just a jigjog foot pace. And when one of them was on his own feet, it was a real pleasure to approach him. There was time to accomplish the entire act with style. There he’d be, working his legs and arms the way they do, usually looking at the road, but often aside at the fields, or straight at me; and I’d approach him steadily but quite slowly, growing larger all the time, synchronizing the rate of approach and the rate of growth perfectly, so that at the very moment that I’d finished enlarging from a tiny speck to my full size—sixty feet in those days—I was abreast of him and hung above him, loomed, towered, overshadowed him. Yet he would show no fear. Not even the children were afraid of me, though often they kept their eyes on me as I passed by and started to diminish.