TWO
The whaling fleet belongs to Kyodo Kujira Ltd, a Japanese fishing company, and is comprised of a processing ship, two harpoon boats, and a support boat. They are, ostensibly, hunting whales for research purposes—a gray area in international legislation and the Japanese haven't bothered to hide the fact they've been skirting the gray for many years. In the past, little more than lip service was ever paid to scientific research, but six months ago, Kyodo Kujira—who had been on the verge of bankruptcy—suddenly developed a change of heart.
It probably had something to do with a massive infusion of cash from the corporate giants who rule the biopharmaceutical and agrichemical industries.
There's an entire speculative industry in the medical and pharmaceutical literature, and more than one startup has bet its entire existence upon a bit of specious speculation in the literature. In this case, there was an article that caught fire in the community last year about the wide-ranging physiological properties of cetacean cartilage. Suddenly, the whaling market—which had been suffering recently due to a downturn in whale meat prices—is hot again.
Prime Earth is one of those militant environmental groups with more money than sense, and armed with a boat and a plan, they think they're going to be able to make some sort of difference for a few whale pods. It's all very reductionist and symbolic—save the whales, save the planet—and it is the sort of Neo New Age argument that gets a lot of play with the easily manipulated nouveau wealthy housewife that wants to do something to offset her carbon footprint. It's the sort of part-time environmentalist ethos that puts a boat overflowing with zealous volunteers out in the middle of the Southern Ocean, intent on getting between a pair of harpoon boats and their target, and will ultimately be about as effective a deterrent as chaining yourself to a tree has been on the logging industry. It's an ugly setup that has all sorts of opportunities for someone to do something stupid and, out here in the middle of the Southern Ocean, the repercussions of stupidity could be lethal.
We're several hundred miles from solid ground. I wasn't worried about drowning, but salt water is corrosive to Arcadian flesh. Too long in sea water and the flesh becomes tainted and doesn't absorb nutrients well. The four of us are much more resilient than the rest of the crew, but we aren't indestructible.
Remember who is family.
Sometimes it is hard to know who to trust. It is hard to know a person's true motivation. You trust your family with your life because that is the way it has always been. That is what keeps us strong. But those bonds can only take so much stress for so long before they start to fray. Before they weaken.
Keep her close.
I wanted to know why Meredith Vanderhaven was on this boat. Regardless of the story I had sold Talus, the coincidence bothered me. Given her contentious history with the food industry and Big Ag, it was possible that our paths would cross again, but I didn't like the way she had beat the odds. Was there something else going on? Had she known we were going to be here?
Behind all these questions lay others. Whispers I want to ignore, questions I want to dismiss as nothing more than distorted echoes. What did she remember from that night? What have I forgotten?
The disease of neglected memory is an eventual consequence of leaving Mother's embrace, but seeing Mere again has triggered that nagging uneasiness much sooner than I would like. It contributes to my own paranoia and confounds my ability to think clearly. I get easier to spook. We all do.
There is something rotten about this mission.
“Do you know what Prime Earth is going to do when we find the whalers?” I ask Mere. We are standing on the starboard side of the upper deck, sheltered from the wind that is pushing us toward the heavy storm in the south. It's mid-afternoon, and even if the sun wasn't obscured by the clouds, it wouldn't be very high in the sky.
She is wearing a heavy coat, a thick stocking cap, and her throat is hidden by the voluminous folds of a wool scarf. The tip of her nose and her cheeks are red. She stamps her feet and I know she's thinking about going inside, but she won't go in. Not while I'm in a sharing mood. The air is clean enough that I could go without my coat and hat, but that would only draw attention to me. It's the second week of July—mid-winter in the Southern Ocean. The air is always cleaner in winter climates.
“I've seen the videos from last year,” she says. “A lot of playing chicken and throwing—what is it?—that acid on deck.”
“Butyric. Stink gas, essentially. When they take a whale on and carve it up, the acid gets into the flesh and ruins it. They can't sell it.”
“So they just have to throw it away?”
“Yes, unless they can find another use for it. Some other buyer.”
She glances at me shrewdly. “Is there?”
“A buyer? I wouldn't know.”
Mere steps a little closer, letting my body act as a wind break. “Why are you here?” she asks.
“Why do you think we're here?” I throw the question back on her. “You're the one who took an extended vacation to come down and join the cruise. How many weeks have you been playing at sailor?”
“Two. And a half.”
“And what have you seen during that time?”
She shakes her head. “Lots of open water. Some birds; I think they were terns. I've been propositioned nearly a dozen times—only two of them have been poor sports about being turned down—and I've won around a hundred dollars in that endless poker game they run in the mess after dinner.” She lifts her shoulders and stares out at the sea. “Everyone is waiting for something to happen. Some of them are better at it than others. A few are… wound a little tight…” She trails off, and her words would have been lost in the bruising roar of the ocean against the hull of the boat if my hearing hadn't been so good.
“What are they waiting for?”
“Do you know what the whale market is like?” she asks, and when I don't immediately reply, she tells me. “Prime made an impact last year, but there's no sign any of their leadership actually bothered to notice. Japanese consumption of whale meat is down thirty percent from this time last year, and it's not from a lack of supply. Public perception has started to swing in an eco-friendly direction, and yet Kyodo Kujira sends out four boats for an extended whaling trip. In winter. They've been out for three weeks already, and I hear they're in no rush to return to port. Do you know how much it costs to keep these boats at sea for that long?”
“More than I make in a year,” I reply, a tiny smile touching the corners of my mouth.
“Really? How much does a private consultant like you make?”
“Less than you think. My tax rate is insane.”
“You should diversify your portfolio better.”
“I would if I knew what those words meant.”
She stands close to me, rising on her toes slightly to look closely at my eyes. I don't step back, though the smell of her breath and her blood is almost too much. “It's a matter of making good investments,” she breathes. “The wholesale price of whale meat is down forty percent. Over half the whalers never put out to sea this year, and yet Kyodo Kujira doesn't seem to be worrying about their burn rate. The Japanese are notorious for keeping up appearances, but this is ridiculous. Two years ago, they were looking for someone to buy their boats, and I heard they weren't having much luck finding a buyer. Now? This is either suicidal desperation—not a trait commonly found in your typical Japanese businessman—or…”
“Someone else is paying for it,” I say.
“Who?”
“Why do you think I know?”
“Why else would you be here?”
I smile at her. “Remember the bullet hole? Captain Morse, all bluster and bravery for the crew's sake aside, feels more secure with some… protection.”
That sounds convenient,” she says. “Is that the story he's supposed to tell?”
“You could ask him.”
“I have. He pretends to not know what I'm talking about.”
“It probably just slipped his mind.”
She takes one more step, and even through the thick layers of her coat, I can feel the heat of her skin. “Maybe,” she says. Her eyes are bright, and I can hear her lungs expanding and contracting. “But I suspect getting any real information out of him is a waste of time. Especially when I could ask someone else, someone who would actually know.”
My hand is on her arm when Nigel makes a noise behind us. “The captain has spotted the whalers. They're on the edge of the storm front. About sixty nautical miles to the west,” he says, ignoring the way we step back from one another, like teenagers caught by their parents, sitting too close to one another on the old couch in the basement.