Killer

On the floe, something moved. To Kate’s mind what she saw then was a natural part of this terrible, final nightmare. The shape on the ice pulled itself slowly erect. It had no left arm, only the ragged banner of a sleeve flapping in the wind. Its right arm was huge as it reached out its great square hand, blindly groping in the icy air. As it rose to its full height on the rocking ice-raft, the sun broke through the clouds somewhere far beyond the fogbank, colouring everything a strange greenish-yellow and lighting the fires in the blue ice just beyond her reach. The monstrous shape on the floe staggered forward on stiff legs, the light behind it flaming grotesquely upon the wild tumbled mass of black hair which fell forward concealing its face, making its body a hard black silhouette, casting a giant shadow on the fog, on the blue-flame ice, on the restless green water.

As the shadow covered her head, Kate began to go down for the last time. Suddenly, incredibly, her feet thumped into a solid base. Without thinking she kicked up towards the surface, but something held her legs. Confused, she looked down and saw a black shape hulking beneath her. She saw what it was and almost screamed. She looked up wildly, fighting against the horror, and at the distant edge of her vision she saw the shadow move on the surface as her monster toppled forward, arm reaching, into the ocean.

Colin’s numbed legs had saved him, bending automatically into the perfect parachutist’s landing roll. Then he heard Kate screaming and began to drag himself towards the sound. After a few agonising feet he realised the sounds had choked into silence. He began to get up, his face pressed against the ice, humping his backside ridiculously into the air, pushing with his arm until he was on his knees. He made it to his feet and staggered stiff-legged over the last few feet to the water. He began to topple forward. As he did so he saw the sharp black tip of the killer’s fin rising slowly out of the dark, still ocean. His head broke free of the water, eyes closed, he gasped in a breath and sank again. Something gently thumped him in the stomach. He opened his eyes and the killer was there, its mouth opening in a great tooth-lined cavern. Oh, my God, he thought. His legs swept in; his arms reached up over the snout, out of the water, trying to find something to hang on to, something by which he could pull himself out of the killer’s mouth, pictures flashing in his mind of Preston’s legs, Job’s white-bone arm. But of course there was nothing there to hold on to and he began to slip inch by inch down the monster’s throat . . .

Then, suddenly, something grasped him by the wrist and hauled him free. Beside the killer’s head, floating in the dinghy, hanging on to the net, were Sergei Antonovich Ivanov, and Pjotr Picatel. Pjotr’s hand slapped against the monster’s white cheek.

“Dead,” he said.

They began to laugh. But Colin’s terrible fear was not lessened by the fact that he was safe. He looked down at the men, and they quietened. “Kate?” he said. He handled the word as someone handles a thing that he fears will give him pain. The Russians looked at one another, not understanding. Suddenly, agonisingly, he was certain she was dead. “Kate,” yelled Ross, as though the sound of the word, if it were loud enough, could call her back out of the depths of the ocean.

“It’s all right Colin, I’m up here.” He looked up, straining his neck. On the monster’s back, leaning against the fin where Simon had sat with the axe, she was sitting. Her feet dangled down the net. One hand raised to pull her hair back from her face. The other bent across her chest, easing her left shoulder. She was shivering convulsively, but she smiled at him. He smiled at her.

“Someone have one hell a fight!” said Pjotr, slapping the whale again, higher this time, just below where the stub of the boat-hook stood out like a bolt from its neck. He gestured to the net, the harpoons.

“Us,” said Ross. “We did it . . .”

He thought of them all then. He thought of the pilot keeping the plane aloft against all odds until he could land safely; of Hiram Preston pushing into the blizzard of fire inside the torn cargo-hold to save Kate; of old Doc Warren, legs spread, leaning forward over the harpoon gun, ready to send a silver-steel spear through anything that threatened them; of Simon, seated upon the killer’s back swinging the axe like a lunatic; of Job, of his massive strength, of his weaknesses, of his friendship, of no single thing that he had done, but all he had meant, all he had been, all he still was, somewhere. His eyes, moving up, met Kate’s again, and they smiled at each other, silent among the laughing Russians. Not needing to speak, not even needing to touch; tied even more deeply than Job had suspected.