“Then Sedna sank, and the sea grew calm, and Angusta paddled home. But the Inua of the sea were kind: they gave Sedna a kingdom of her own. She called it Adliden and rules there now, with Angusta her father and the dog.
“Now the magic of the Inua did not rest there, for the tips of Sedna’s fingers became the little seals; the middle bones of her fingers became the deep-sea seals; and the knucklebones of Sedna became the terrible whales.”
They sat for a moment in silence.
The wind cried, the water lapped, the ice cracked and roared; and deep in the heart of the ocean they heard the songs of the hunting whales.
“That is what I meant when I said what I said about the Knucklebones of Sedna.” There was a pause. “Mind you,” he went on matter-of-factly, “the killer isn’t even a proper whale; it’s the largest of the dolphin family: Orcinus orca; the killer whale. More than thirty feet long, clever as a chimpanzee; the wolf of the sea.”
“All right, Job,” said Ross, “you’ve made your point. Now reassure these good people. Tell them there has never been any recorded instance of an attack by killers upon people.”
“Wrong,” said Quick, enjoying the feeling of scoring over Ross, ignoring his almost imperceptible shake of the head. “Herbert Ponting, in Antarctica. He was with Scott on the Terra Nova. Their dogs were on the ice, and a pack of killers was trying to get them. Ponting decided to go over the side and photograph them. They came up through the ice after him. Nearly got him.”
“Thank you for the history lesson, Simon,” said Ross coldly. “But Ponting was the last man ever to be attacked by the things, and what Simon has just told you took place over sixty years ago.”
Quick stirred. “Yes, well; it shows you it can happen.”
“Right. But it hardly makes the things super-sharks, does it?”
There was a strained silence. Ross had made his point, but the elation they had been feeling earlier was now replaced by nervousness. The ice cracked sharply. Kate jumped. “They came up through the ice?” she asked quietly.
“Yes, Miss Warren,” said Ross, “but it was thin ice; only three feet thick. They can come up through thin ice by smashing it from underneath with their heads. But only thin ice.”
They all nodded. Kate smiled at her groundless fears.
“Right,” said Quick, “rest-cure over. Let’s get back to work. There’s quite a bit to do.”
They sorted out the food in the chests. It was fairly basic, but it would last.
“We have fishing lines,” Preston said. “We can get fish enough I guess.”
Ross shook his head regretfully. “Not until those killers move away. They’ll scare everything for miles around.”
They all looked nervously at the bright water. In the far distance something moved, sending up a thin plume of spray. Then there were more: they seemed to be moving away.
Suddenly there was a splashing roar at the edge of the ice. Kate’s hand flew to her mouth; she did not scream. The men jumped up, grabbing at the guns. And out of the water, grunting with the effort, snorting, hissing, cascading golden droplets, came a seal. It was huge, nearly twelve feet long, eight feet in girth. It flopped along the edge of the ice, taking no notice of them, and eventually came to rest well clear of the water’s edge. It reared up on its flippers, looked suspiciously round, and lay down and went to sleep.
“Now there,” whispered Quick, “is enough fresh meat for quite a while.”
“It must weigh fifteen hundred pounds,” said Preston, an avid hunter. “What a kill. We could do it fine with the Remington and the Weatherby.”
“A soft-nosed bullet in the head,” agreed Quick, “but we’d have to get close.”
“I don’t think it would be a good idea to kill it,” said Ross.
“Oh come on, Colin. Got a weak stomach?” sneered Quick.
“Where will the blood go when you butcher it?”
“Into the sea.”
“And in the sea is a pack of killer whales which will be attracted by the blood.”
But already Preston was creeping across the ice towards the black-brown mound, his gun slantwise across his chest. Quick moved off after him. Mouth tight, Ross watched from a distance. His eyes flicked out to sea. Six black sail fins were moving towards the ice, moving so fast that little bow waves foamed at the front of their sinister triangles.
“Preston, Preston get back! Simon, SIMON!”
Preston’s hand went up and waved: shut up, you’ll scare it. Simon turned. Job had run towards him. Now he pointed: the fins were near the ice now, their tips visible even over the fat bulk of the seal.
“Preston,” cried Ross, “get back!”
Preston swung round, his face ablaze with rage. The seal, roused now, heaved itself up and turned towards him, mountainous, angry; it bellowed, began to move towards the camp . . .
And the killer came out of nowhere, reaching ten feet across the ice. Huge black flippers holding it steady on a base of fifteen feet from tip to tip, huge black fin flopping over out of the water. The great mouth closing on the flank of the seal, huge teeth, suddenly awash with blood, tearing the hide and blubber like paper, finding purchase in the writhing flesh, pulling . . .
Ross saw the black and white head from a distance, yet even he was shocked by its size. Kate couldn’t believe it. Quick nodded with satisfaction: told you so. Kate covered her ears against the seal’s terrible cries. Ross put his arm around her. Warren was saying “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” Job watched, utterly detached, as the seal fought forward a few inches, its hide making a dry ripping sound as it tore. Preston saw a round black eye regarding him coldly; he saw the scars on the killer’s snout and cheek. He raised the Remington and fired. He missed.
The killer, its mouth awash with the dizzy heat of the blood, saw the man. It saw him raise the rifle and heard the sound. It saw his arm reach out under the long thing, and remembered the agony and the wild, fierce joy trained into it in Oregon.
All this happened in the second before the seal’s grip on the ice broke, and, with a twisting convulsion, the leader tore the fifteen hundred struggling pounds into the ocean.
Warren sank to his knees. He was shaking. Job leaned on the rifle, breathing deeply. Ross looked out to sea, frowning, his arm still round Kate. Preston came stumbling back towards them, white as the snow.
Simon said, “Look.” The black sails had come up again; twenty of them, distant, indistinct, merging with the sharp patterns of black and gold the sun made on the water. And as they watched, they began to patrol up and down by the floe, waiting; keeping watch and waiting.
They returned the little way to the camp, and sat in silence round the fire.
“What’ve we got to fight them with?” asked Preston.
“Fight them?” said Job, almost shocked at the idea.
“Rifles,” said Quick.
“Not big enough,” said Preston with a shudder.
“Dynamite,” said Warren. “We have dynamite.”
“And the harpoon gun.” Quick.
“They won’t attack,” said Job, but he didn’t seem too certain, “there’s only the one recorded . . .”
BOOM.
The ice leaped beneath them, heaved into a cracked hillock twenty feet away. “Christ!” screamed Preston, “they’re coming through.” They began to scramble to their feet.
CRASH.
The ice hillock burst open. A huge black and white head thrust through, streaming water from its gleaming skin, venting a cloud of breath with a great roar. The unimaginable mouth opened, revealing the huge teeth. The pink-white tongue lolled out. The head swivelled towards them, the liquid black eyes observing. Quick grabbed the Remington and aimed . . .
The immense head lifted lazily, insolently, and slid out of sight. The bullet sped through empty air, and Quick swore. Preston was on his knees by the box of dynamite, his mittens off, tearing at the fastenings with clumsy wool-gloved fingers. Warren was at the crate containing the harpoon gun. Kate was standing, feet spread in standard two-handed firing position, holding the Very pistol like a handgun. Ross still sat on his box, for once rendered inactive by his great knowledge: killers did not attack people. The occasional skeleton was found in a dead killer’s belly, he knew; and he had not been entirely honest about Ponting, but this was something strange, beyond belief. Killers just did not go hunting people.