Killer

“ ‘It is Sedna,’ said Angusta, and he paddled towards his daughter’s voice. Sure enough, it was Sedna who cried at the foot of the cliff. But when she saw her father she smiled, and she said to him, ‘Take me away now, for I have fallen out of love.’ Her father was glad to do so, for his hut was cold without her. So they paddled over the mighty sea, but the Kokksaut who loved Sedna ventured home from his windy roads and saw that his ledge was empty, that she was gone from the foot of the cliffs. And he cried his wild fulmar’s cry, and set out in his turn to search. High and high the petrel flew, and he quartered the sea below. After many hours and days he saw the kayak of Angusta with Sedna kneeling in the back. He dived down to the kayak then and cried out, ‘Sedna, return.’ But Sedna cried, ‘You tricked me: I will never return.’ Then was the Kokksaut truly enraged, and he cried to the Inua of the ocean who were his cousins, and to the Inua of the winds who were his brothers, and they built up a terrible storm. Angusta’s kayak was battered and swamped. The waves fell out of the sky, and they became the black-grey of the magic stones, with teeth the white of the ten fat love-figures; and once in the distance they saw the sun, and it was the colour of clouded amber. So great was the storm that Angusta at last became afraid.

“ ‘Go back to your husband, my daughter,’ he cried.

“But she replied, ‘I will not return.’

“Then the storm became so terrible that Angusta cried out in fear, for the waves were as light as full grey pearls, and their teeth were ivory-gold. There were rocks both large and beautifully shaped tearing the water like the skins of birds; and, although it was high summer, the day became as dark as the winter’s night. And Angusta cried, ‘Go back, go back.’

“And Sedna answered, ‘No.’

“What the storm became then cannot be told, but it drove the old man mad. He hurled his daughter from the kayak and tried to paddle away. ‘Do not leave me, father,’ she cried. But her father replied, ‘I must.’ Then Sedna broke free of the ocean’s embrace and caught at the side of the boat. And Angusta, mad, brought the blade of his paddle down on his daughter’s hand, and the bones at the tips of her fingers broke away. She grasped again, and her father struck, and the bones of her fingers broke. The third time she tried and her father struck, and her knucklebones broke off.

“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.”