Dave Freedman - Natural Selection

Summers eyed the dotless crisscrossing gray formations on the sonar monitor. “We still gotta try. We might get something.”

Jason was suddenly depressed. “Why would we? If those rays actually make it into these waters, why would they ever come up again?”

“Because this island might not stay an island for long, Jason. Don’t you understand. GDV-4 isn’t in these waters right now, but that could change.”

“When?”

“Who knows. A day, a week, a year.”

“Where does that leave us, then? We can’t go down there after them, not at these depths. So what do we do here?”

Summers eyed the monitors patiently. “We wait.”

THREE DAYS later, the equipment turned up the reading everyone expected. The rays swam right into the virus-free island. But then some of them apparently left it. Over the next weeks, sporadic sonar and radar signals painted an unambiguous case. For reasons unknown, a small number of rays were repeatedly venturing to the surface. They nevertheless remained elusive. Given their extraordinary sensory abilities, their potential to hide in the canyons, and the island’s fifty-square-mile size, they were impossible to pin down. They successfully evaded Jason’s team for months.

It was near sunset in late April. In the waters offshore of Eureka, with a stunning line of ruby red on the horizon, Darryl shook his head. “I don’t get why these things are still coming to the surface at all. They’ve got all the food they need down there, they’re not feeding on gulls anymore”—Audubon reports indicated the birds had returned to the coastline en masse—“so why are they still coming up? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Yes it does,” Monique said. “They’re not coming up for food, Darryl. At this stage, I think it’s much more complicated than that.”

“How so?”

“I think some of these rays spent so much time at the surface they might be… linked to it in a way.”

“ Linked to it?” Darryl knew that Monique had been spending a great deal of time with her old evolution texts lately. Apparently, she’d learned some things. “How do you mean?”

“Maybe accustomed is a better way to put it. Their muscles, their brains—everything about them is accustomed to the surface now. So they can’t just desert it. At least not entirely. Despite the food below, I think certain physical and even physiological changes might have occurred that will make disappearing down there an impossibility.”

“You almost make it sound like an addiction.”

“In a lot of ways, I think it is. For some of them anyway. They may have spent so much time up here that they can’t just quit it cold turkey.”

“How big do you figure these things are now?” Summers asked.

“Full-size adults. Fourteen feet across the wings, twelve feet long, four thousand pounds. Hang-glider size.”

“You been keeping Mr. Ackerman up on all of this, Jason?” Phil asked.

“I’ve left messages, Phil. I think he’s got other things on his mind right now.”

“Like what?”

“His businesses. They’re doing worse, and I don’t know how his capital raising’s been going.”

Phil nodded and went below deck. Darryl turned back to Jason. “ Four thousand pounds?”

“If not more.”

“My God. Can you imagine seeing one of those things actually flying on land?”

“It could happen, Darryl.” Monique cleared her throat. “It really could. And much sooner than twenty million years. Maybe sooner than any of us could fathom.”

“Let’s say it did.” Jason noticed a glowing full moon was overhead now. “Where would they go, Monique?”

“Around here…” In the pale white light Monique looked around, noticing the trees onshore. These particular trees weren’t ordinary trees but coastal redwoods, towering evergreens the height of office buildings that stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction. Monique knew that in their current location they were very close to several redwood parks: Redwood National Park, other private parks, and the biggest park of them all, Leonard State Park, a truly gargantuan forest that stretched right up to the Oregon border, nearly a hundred miles away. “I don’t know where they’d go, Jason. All I know is this area makes me nervous.”

“Why?”

“Because there aren’t any beaches here.”

“So… ?”

“So if another one of those things really did come to the land…” She looked around some more. “We’d have a hell of a time finding it.”

“Monique.” Phil Martino peered up the stairs from below deck. “FYI, I’m printing a really big e-mail that just came in for you.”

“Who’s it from?”

“A… professor, uh…”

She looked stunned. “Professor Benton Davis?”

“Yeah.”

“Son of a bitch, he got back to me.”

Jason turned. “Who’s Professor Benton Davis?”

She went to the stairs. “An evolutionary historian, the author of one of my textbooks…”

“Why’d you contact him?”

“If one of these things really does try going to the land, he can help us determine exactly where….” She rushed below deck. “Where’s that e-mail, Phil?”

THEY’D LEARNED to hover.

With the full moon lighting up the ocean plain, the four dozen most talented fliers continued to practice. Visible in silhouette, they were hang-glider size indeed, with mouths the size of a sports car’s front end and eyes as big as baseballs. A recent growth spurt of a thousand pounds had added powerful lean muscle to their wings and undersides, their rippling muscles now vastly faster and stronger.

Thousands of other animals hung just beneath the ocean’s surface. They were resting. They’d practiced flying for hours, but fatigue had set in and forced them to stop. They simply watched as the others darted in and out of the moonlight above.

The experts consistently moved with grace now. No frantic flapping, no violent splashes. Body movements were controlled, precise. Discontinuities in the airflow still occurred, but they were far less common, and even when they did happen; the resulting turbulence no longer sent them crashing into the ocean. The four dozen creatures had learned to regain continuity, to fly through turbulence just like an airplane or a bird. Wind wasn’t a problem either. By manipulating their flying muscles in literally thousands of subtle yet significant ways, they’d learned to use the wind to their advantage, to manage it, to massage it.

After months of practice, hovering, too, had become more than doable. Like the rest of the movements, it was almost natural now.

Almost. With the full moon shining down, the four dozen predators continued to practice. There were different types of hovering, and several focused on the most basic, hovering in the stationary position, beating their wings in rapid smooth movements and holding steady. Others hovered while simultaneously moving forward. Others still hovered straight up, rising like helicopters, then descended the same way. Half a dozen worked on arcing motions, rising up, moving forward, then descending again. A few dive-bombed, then came to gentle hovering stops just above the water. They all practiced something, over and over again.

All of them wanted to stop, however, to submerge and join their brethren in the water. None dared. Earlier, one had tried, and the one that had become their leader savagely killed it. They continued to practice.

As they did, those beneath the waves just watched them soaring like great, watery seagulls beneath the rippling moon. Then a mass of clouds drifted in front of the orb and threw the submerged creatures into darkness. Still none moved. They simply continued to watch. Even as everything faded to black.