Dave Freedman - Natural Selection

“What does that mean?”

“You don’t think these things know something’s in the ocean tracking them?”

The idea took Lisa aback. “I couldn’t say for sure.”

“They know, and they’re outsmarting us. They’ve been outsmarting us from the get-go.”

“So where does that leave us?”

“We’ve got to outsmart them for a change. I just don’t know how.”

Neither did anyone else. They were all silent. Until Summers returned.

“Any idea how we can find these rays, Craig?” Jason asked.

Summers looked astounded by his own answer. “Actually… yes. I know where they’re going. I know where they’ve been going this entire time. They have a destination; they’ve been migrating to it all along.”

“What is it?”

Craig looked up at the rainy sky. “I’ve got a map downstairs. Let me show you.”

THEY’D LOST thousands of pounds of weight and become emaciated skeletons on the verge of death. They lay flat on the dark sand four miles below the surface, their thick leathery skins too big for their bodies, excess folds everywhere, the result of having eaten nothing.

They were the only members of the older generation still alive. Within just the past hour, thousands more had simply closed their eyes and died right here. The move north would continue. It had to. But only when they had the strength to lift themselves up off the seafloor.

The young adults, they knew, were at the surface again. Their elders tried tuning to them, but they couldn’t. Their sensory organs weren’t functioning properly. For these members of the species, the darkness was dark now. They saw nothing.

FOUR MILES above, under the drizzling night sky, the rays shot out of the sea, flapping and gliding in every direction.

They were a hundred yards off of a desolate, evergreen-lined shore. While this part of the coastline looked just like any other, not special in any way, it was very special indeed. The rays knew it was safe here. During their migration, they’d repeatedly detected sonars in the ocean, not from whales, and not from dolphins, either, but from something, and always pointed toward them. As predators, the rays instinctively understood that they were being tracked. Over and over, they had evaded the strange signals with little effort at all: simply by swimming the canyons, then returning to the surface after a bend in the shoreline. They’d just done it again. No sonar, including their own, could pass through land.

The juveniles were now young adults. Fully exposed in the drizzling night air, they revealed how much they’d grown. They were now enormous 1,500-pound creatures, eight feet across the wings and six feet lengthwise, with deep muscular middles, huge mouths, and pupilless, jet-black eyes the size of squash balls.

An enormous fleet of out-of-control airborne bumper cars, they zoomed everywhere. The differences in flying abilities were dramatic now. While no two animals flew exactly the same way—there were literally millions of subtle, often imperceptible differences—four broad skill levels existed.

The first group comprised those creatures whose increase in body weight had caused great problems. While these animals still thundered out of the ocean successfully, they never climbed higher than fifteen feet. As they’d grown larger, they could no longer properly control their rippling muscles to achieve true lift. Catching unsuspecting gulls bobbing on the seas was easy, but that was all.

The second group flew considerably better. By mimicking a seagull’s diagonal liftoff exactly, they ascended just like one, picking up speed horizontally and gradually climbing. But unable to manipulate their rippling muscles for the subtle changes in air density, this group tended to experience lift problems above fifty feet. Discontinuities in the airflow resulted and consistently caused crashing falls.

The third group was more advanced, capable of performing many of the basic flying motions successfully: liftoff, flapping, gliding, turning, and dipping. More sophisticated maneuvers like soaring, diving, and flying across wind currents were beyond their skills, but they continued to practice and improve.

The fourth group, composed of just four dozen animals, had successfully learned virtually every type of movement there was: flapping, gliding, turning, diving, soaring, angling, flying into currents, with currents, across currents, and skid landing. While not yet graceful, every movement was consistently achievable.

With one exception. Hovering. Even the most talented of this group couldn’t master it. Every time they attempted to hover, beating their wings superfast above the water’s surface, they lost control and fell in with awkward crashes. The four dozen animals continued to practice, however. They were particularly conservative, even for their species, and knew they weren’t ready for the land.

Suddenly they detected movement far below the surface. It was the adults, resuming their quest.

These animals would follow, but not yet. As the drizzle turned into a full rain, they zoomed in every direction. As close as they now were to the looming forest, they were instinctively tuning toward it. Earlier in their development, their sensory organs hadn’t functioned properly in the air, but as they’d grown, their organs had matured and adjusted to the new medium. As a result, the prey from the land was calling them. Softly but very persistent. They’d detected only tiny traces earlier, but now they knew with absolute certainty. Vast amounts of food existed on the land.

Long ago, one of them had attempted to find that food. A single juvenile ray had flown inland but not made it past a hundred and fifty feet. It had long since died.

The others were more cautious, however. Some were so cautious they’d never be ready for such a journey. But others might. The land possessed a variety of different signals, almost all of them unknown. One signal was familiar, however. From a particular type of prey these rays had tasted once before, a species that had been easy to hunt in the water and perhaps would be easy to hunt on the land as well. They continued to practice.

“ WHAT THE hell is that?”

It was still raining and dark, but Darryl had spotted something in the distance. It was silhouetted against the dreary night sky. Something large, dark, and flying. He squinted. “Oh.” An airplane.

Monique shook her head. “Let’s get downstairs and see what Craig has to say.”

They joined the others in the galley. Around a little white table next to the fridge, Summers was already speaking. “They’ve been migrating to it from day one. It’s an island in the depths.”

“An island? ” Jason had no idea what this meant.

“Correct. One spot, one relatively small area. Filled with every type of sea life imaginable and apparently without a trace of GDV-4.” He pointed to an open map on the table. “It’s four miles down and surrounded by mountains that York thinks have effectively blocked out the virus.”

Jason leaned into the map. “Where is it exactly?”

“Off the coast of Eureka. About fifty square miles. If the rays actually get there, they’ll find all the food they need.”

Darryl nodded. “So how far do they have to go?”

“At the current pace, they’re days away at least. Jason, we can beat them up there and set up the equipment.”

“Then let’s do that. Right now.”

BY THE next afternoon they’d finished. Sonar buoys covered the deep-sea island from the water and radar guns, staked into nearby shorelines, covered the land.

Darryl Hollis didn’t think any of the equipment would help with their task. In a sweat-soaked red polo at the stern, he shook his head at the closest buoy. “Four miles down and surrounded by mountains? Sonar’s not gonna pick up a damn thing down there, Craig.”