“On Baker Island itself, was it?”
“Yes. No! There was a small island a hundred kilometres or so to the east. It had an odd sort of a name.”
“Harpoon?”
“That’s it. How did you know?”
Somerville sighed as he closed up his book and put it back on the shelf. “It would have saved me a hell of a lot of money and time if we’d got together years ago. Why didn’t you tell me you were in the South Newzealand Air Force?”
“It’s a bit tricky—I’m still supposed to be in it.”
“I see.” Somerville tied his bandana around his balding head again. “Let’s go up on deck—it’s time we were on our way back to the island.”
Oblivious of the watchful gazes of the five other humans, Tarrant followed Somerville up the steps and into the bright, simplistic universe of green ocean and blue sky. A slight breeze had sprung up and Tarrant’s boat was nuzzling The Rose of York like a calf seeking milk from a cow.
“What was all that about saving you time and money?” he said.
Somerville untied Tarrant’s boat and began walking with it to the stern of his own boat in preparation for towing. “I’ve been interested in this Bergmann thing for more than ten years. A couple of years ago I even went to Brisbane and bought myself some time on what’s left of the Oceania computer. Most of it is dead, or electronically gangrenous, and all the links west of Celebes are suspect. It did a kind of search and analysis, though—and indicated a spread of islets and atolls all the way out to the Low Archipelago. Harpoon was one of them.”
Tarrant blinked at him. “You were lucky to get that much. I mean, what does it know about Bergmann’s Hypothesis?”
“I didn’t ask about Bergmann. I was working on reports of unusual military activity, furtive scientific expeditions, compass anomalies—dysteleonic radiation does that, you know. That sort of thing.” Somerville glanced up from hitching the smaller boat to his stern post. “There I was in Brisbane wasting three months’ profits, and you were back here sitting on the facts I needed.”
“Not really,” Tarrant said. “I’d forgotten all about it. I didn’t even know the pilot who went up there, and I only heard him mention it once in the mess.” He pressed a hand to the right side of his chest. “I must have had some assistance.”
Somerville nodded seriously, momentarily touching his own chest. “It would be a double tragedy if we couldn’t save Ka. Obviously his life has to be preserved at all costs, but on top of that there’s the benefit he could bring to other people besides us.”
Tarrant tried to imagine an existence without the companionship of the sentient black jelly which nestled within his right lung, feeding its messages of comfort directly into his nervous system. He drew back from the bleak prospect, and the desperate urgency of the situation began to bear down on him.
“Will,” he said, gripping the older man’s shoulder, “let’s assume there’s some kind of control station on Harpoon Island. It’s bound to be way down below the surface. We wouldn’t be able to touch it, let alone put it out of action, unless we had something like….”
“A tactical nuke?”
“That’s right.”
Somerville grinned his piratical grin. “There’s one back on Cawley Island. Three, in fact.”
Tarrant had to make an effort to prevent his jaw sagging. “What are you saying, Will?”
“It’s true—that’s one of the reasons we’re going back there.”
“But where did they come from? Who has them?”
“Don’t forget the farm’s been in existence for almost forty years,” Somerville said, “and things weren’t so secure around here at first. Spiegel was still raiding out of the New Hebrides, King Tom out of Suva, and the Barrett brothers out of New Caledonia. Into the bargain there was always the chance of pirates coming along and cleaning the place out—food was a lot scarcer in those days, and a shipload of protein cake was worth a fortune.
“When old Patch Cawley and the others settled here to start the farm he had a Mark 89 mortar with him—stolen from a Peruvian sub-killer—and three general purpose nuclear loads for it. He was fully prepared to let fly if anybody had shown up to make trouble, but nothing ever happened. Maybe the word got around. Anyway, the stuff is still there.”
“Nobody told me about it,” Tarrant said.
“It isn’t supposed to be general knowledge, though I imagine nearly every independent island has something similar tucked away. Nobody but members of the Inner Council are told officially, and they’re the only ones who have access to it.”
“Do you know where it is?”
Somerville looked surprised at the question. “Of course! Come on—let’s get back.”
Tarrant went with him to the upper deck and leaned on a rail while Somerville switched on his motors and swung the cruiser around to the south. The Rose of York had much more space for solar panel arrays and batteries, and therefore was faster than Tarrant’s nameless boat in spite of the extra weight. Tarrant watched its bow wave build up on each side and wondered if it was fast enough to out-distance the remaining big squid, the creature he now knew as the Horra. As the farm came into view ahead—a thin white line of booms, topped by a band of vivid green and the misty blue triangle of the island—he fetched his rifle and began scanning the water In the clear light of the late afternoon he could see a considerable distance below the surface.
Somerville glanced over his shoulder. “What are you looking for?”
“Horra. This might sound crazy, Will—but I think I recognised the big one which nearly capsized my boat.”
“You think it might be following us?”
“I’m not sure. It seems malicious enough, but could it be that intelligent?”
“Wouldn’t be surprised.” Somerville locked the wheel and took a bundle of black cheroots from his shirt pocket. “The reason I came out to see you earlier on was that I had never seen a cellular structure anything like theirs before. My microscope was too small for the job, but the plasma membranes seemed to have an extra layer.”
“Would that lead to an increase in intelligence?”
“I couldn’t answer that.” Somerville put a cheroot in his mouth and took out his lighter. “But squid and octopus are fairly intelligent to start off with, and when you have a viable mutation which leads to a big increase in size—coupled with extra cell complexity—anything could happen.”
Somerville lit the cheroot, inhaled deeply and a curious expression appeared on his face. He blew the smoke out immediately, clutching his right side, then stamped out the cheroot and threw the rest of the bundle overboard.
The tomb of Captain Patch Cawley was in a small memorial garden on the island’s central peak.
It was an appropriate place for the storage of the community’s small arsenal—those who were in on the secret thought of him as still keeping his finger on the trigger—and it had the advantage of being easy to secure. The fact that the vault was always locked excited no comment, and even the most adventurous of the island’s young people had no desire to pry inside. There was the additional advantage that the site provided 360-degree coverage of the surrounding sea, making it possible for a trained man to drop a nuclear shell into the midst of an invading fleet regardless of the direction from which it came. After decades of peace, however, this consideration had begun to seem more and more academic, and the garden remained a focus of tranquillity for those who liked to sit on its stone benches and admire the panoramic views.