Shark: symbol of terror. It is the same throughout the world.
Shark is the enemy, to be killed, or fled, but never ignored.
You stand on the beach and see the fin in the distance,
and even knowing you are safe, the feeling comes. Shark:
fear. A racial memory perhaps, of a time when we co
existed in the oceans, when shark was synonymous with
death. And Ed Bryant. a Wyoming man, growing to adult
hood where the mountain lion or bear might have been
the symbol of terror, understands the feeling that comes
to the pit of the stomach when you see that fin at sea.
The war came and left, but returned for him eighteen years later.
Folger should have known when the clouds of smaller fish disappeared. He should have guessed, but he was preoccupied, stabilizing the cage at ten meters, then sliding out the upper hatch. Floating free, he stared into the gray-green South Atlantic. Nothing. With his tongue, he keyed the mike embedded in his mouthpiece. The sonex transmitter clipped to his tanks coded and beamed the message: "Query-Valerie-location. " He repeated it. Electronics crackled in his ear, but there was no response.
Something moved to his right-something a darker gray, a darker green than the water. Then Folger saw the two dark eyes. Her body took form in the murk. A blunt torpedo shape gliding, she struck impossibly fast.
It was Folger's mistake and nearly fatal. He had hoped she would circle first. The great white shark bore straight in, mouth grinning open. Folger saw the teeth, only the teeth, rows of ragged white. "Query-" he screamed into the sonex.
Desperately he brought the shark billy in his right hand forward. The great white shape, jaws opening and closing, triangular teeth knifing, whipped past soundlessly.
Folger lifted the billy-tried to lift it-saw the blood and the white ends protruding below his elbow and realized he was seeing surgically sawed bone.
The shock made everything deceptively easy. Folger
reached behind him, felt the cage, and pulled himself up toward the hatch. The shark flowed into the distance.
One-handed, it was difficult entering the cage. He was half through the hatch and had turned the flotation control all the way up when he blacked' out.
Her name, like that of half the other women in the village, was Maria. For more than a decade she had kept Folger's house. She cleaned, after a fashion. She cooked his two meals each day, usually boiled potatoes or mutton stew. She loved him with a silent, bitter, unrequited passion. Over all the years, they had never talked of it. They were not lovers; each night after fixing supper, she returned to her clay-and-stone house in the village. Had Folger taken a woman from the village, Maria would have knifed both of them as they slept. That problem had never arisen.
"People for you," said Maria.
Folger looked up from his charts. "Who?"
"No islanders."
Folger hadn't had an off-island visitor since two years before, when a Brazilian journalist had come out
on the semiannual supply boat.
"You want them?" said Maria.
"Can I avoid it?"
Maria lowered her voice. "Government"
"Shit," said Folger. "How many?" sawed-off
Just two. You want the gun?" e
twelve-gauge, swathed in oilcloth, leaned in the kitchen
closet.
"No." Folger sighed. "Bring them in."
Maria muttered something as she turned back . through the doorway.
"What?"
She shook her matted black hair. "One is a woman!" she spat.
Valerie came to his quarters later in the afternoon.
;
The project manager had already spoken to Folger..
Knowing what she would say, Folger had two uncharacteristically stiff drinks before she arrived. "You can't be serious," was the first thing he said.
She grinned. "So they told you."
He said, "1 can't allow it."
The grin vanished. "Don't talk as though you owned me."
"I'm not, I'm just-" He floundered. "Damn it, it's a shock."
She took his hand and drew him down beside her on the couch. "Would 1 deny your dreams?"
His voice pleaded. "You're my lover."
Valerie looked away. "It's what 1 want."
"You're crazy."
"You can be an oceanographer," she said. "Why can't 1 be a shark?"
Maria ushered in the visitors with ill grace. "Get along," she said out in the hallway. "Senor Folger is a busy man."
"We will not disturb him long," said a woman's voice.
The visitors, as they entered, had to duck to clear the doorframe. The woman was nearly two meters in height; the man half a head taller. Identically clad in gray jumpsuits, they wore identical smiles. They were -Folger searched for the right word-extreme. Their hair was too soft and silkily pale; their eyes too obviously blue, teeth too white and savage.
The pair looked down at Folger. "I am Inga Lindfors," said the woman. "My brother, Per." The man nodded slightly.
"Apparently you know who I am," said Folger.
"You are Marcus Antonius Folger," Inga Lindfors said.
"It was supposed to be Marcus Aurelius," Folger said irrelevantly. "My father never paid close attention to the classics."
"The fortune of confusion," said Inga. "I find Mark
Antony the more fascinating. He was a man of decisive action."
Bewildered, Maria stared from face to face.
"You were a component of the Marine Institute on East Falkland," said Per.
"I was. It was a long time ago."
"We wish to speak with you," said Inga, "as representitives of the Protectorate of Old America."
"So? Talk."
"We speak officially."
"Oh." Folger smiled at Maria. "I must be alone with these people."
The island woman looked dubiously at the Lindfors. "I will be in the kitchen," she said.
"It is a formidable journey to Tres Rocas," said Per. "Our airboat left Cape Pembroke ten hours ago. Unfavorable winds."
Folger scratched himself and said nothing.
Inga laughed, a young girl's laugh in keeping with her age. "Marcus Antonius Folger, you've been too long away from American civilization."
"I doubt it," said Folger. "You've obviously gone to a lot of trouble to find me. Why?"
Why?
She always asked him questions when they climbed the rocks above the headland. Valerie asked and Folger answered and usually they both learned. Why was the Falklands's seasonal temperature range only ten degrees; what were quasars; how did third-generation computers differ from second; how dangerous were manta rays; when would the universe die? Today she asked a new question:
"What about the war?"
He paused, leaning into a natural chimney. "What do you mean?" The cold passed into his cheek, numbed his jaw, made the words stiff.
Valerie said, "1 don't understand the war."
"Then you know what 1 know." Folger stared down
past the rocks to the sea. How do you explain masses of people killing other people? He could go through the glossary-primary, secondary, tertiary targets; population priorities; death-yields-but so what? It didn't give credence or impact to the killing taking place on the land, in space, and below the seas.
"1 don't know anything," said Valerie somberly. "Only what they tell us."
"Don't question them," said Folger. "They're a little touchy."
"But why?"
"The Protectorate remembers its friends," said Per.
Folger began to laugh. "Don't try to snow me. At the peak of my loyalty to the Protectorate-or what the Protectorate was then-I was apolitical."
"Twenty years ago, that would have been treason."
"But not now," said Inga quickly. "Libertarianism has made a great resurgence."
"So I hear. The boat brings magazines once in a while."
"The years of reconstruction have been difficult. We could have used your expertise on the continent."
"I was used here. Occasionally I find ways to help the islanders."
"As an oceanographer?"
Folger gestured toward the window. "Me sea makes up most of their environment. I'm useful."
"With your talent," said Per. "It's such a waste here."
"Then, too," Folger continued, "I help with the relics."
"Relics?" said Inga uncertainly.
"War surplus. Leftovers. Look." Folger picked up a dried, leathery rectangle from the table and tossed it to Per. He looked at the object, turning it over and over.
"Came from a killer whale. Got him last winter with a harpoon and shaped charge. Damn thing had stove in three boats, killed two men. Now read the other side."
Per examined the piece of skin closely. Letters and
numerals had been deeply branded. "USMF-343. "
"See?" said Folger. "Weapons are still out there.
He was part of the lot the year before I joined the Institute. Not especially sophisticated, but he had longevity.,
"Do you encounter many?" said Inga.
' Folger shook his head. "Not too many of the originals."
The ketch had been found adrift with no one aboard. It had put out early that morning for Dos, one of the two small and uninhabited companions of Tres Rocas. The three men aboard had been expecting to hunt seal. The fishermen who discovered the derelict, also found a bloody axe and severed sections of tentacle as thick as a man's forearm.
So Folger trolled along the route of the unlucky boat in his motorized ski# for three days. He searched a vast area of choppy, gray water, an explosive harpoon never far from his hand. Early on the fourth afternoon a half-dozen dark-green tentacles poked from the sea; on the port side of the boat. Folger reached with his; left hand for the harpoon. He didn't see the tentacle: from starboard that whipped and tightened around his: chest and jerked him over the side.
The chill of the water stunned him. Folger had d= quick, surrealistic glimpse of intricately weaving tentacles. Two eyes, each as large as his fist, stared with-, out malice. The tentacle drew him toward the beak.
Then a gray shadow angled below Folger. Razor teeth scythed through flesh. The tentacle was cut; Folger drifted. ;
The great white shark was at least ten meters long., Its belly was uncharacteristically dappled. The squid wrapped eager arms around the thrashing shark. The two fish sank into the darker water below Folger.
Lungs aching, he broke the surface less than a meter from the skit. He always trailed a ladder from the boat. It made things easier for a one-armed man. ,
"Would you show us the village?" said Inga.
"Not much to see."
"We would be pleased by a tour anyway. Have you time?"
Folger reached for his coat. Inga moved to help him put it on. "I can do it," said Folger.
"There are fine experts in prosthesis on the Continent," said Per.
"No, thanks," said Folger.
"Have you thought about a replacement?"
"Thought about it. But the longer I thought, the better I got without one. I had a few years to practice."
"It was in the war, then?" asked Inga.
"Of course it was in the war."
On their way out, they passed the kitchen. Maria looked up sullenly over the scraps of bloody mutton on the cutting board. Her eyes fixed on Inga until the blonde moved out of sight along the hall.
A light, cold rain was falling as they walked down the trail to the village. "Rain is the only thing I could do without here," said Folger. "I was raised in California."
"We will see California after we finish here," said Inga. "Per and I have a leave. We will get our anti rad injections and ski the Sierras. At night we will watch the Los Angeles glow."
"Is it beautiful?"
"The glow is like seeing the aurora borealis every night," said Per.
Folger chuckled. "I always suspected L.A.'s future would be something like that."
"The half-life will see to the city's immortality," said Inga.
Per smiled. "We were there last year. The glow appears cold. It is supremely erotic."
In the night, in a bed, he asked her, "Why do you want to be a shark?"
She ran her nails delicately along the cords of his neck. "1 want to kill people, eat them."
"Any people?"
"Just men."
"Would you like me to play analyst?" said Folger. She bit his shoulder hard. "Goddammit!" He flopped over. "Is there any blood?" he demanded.
Valerie brushed the skin with her hand. "You're such a coward."
"My threshold of pain's low," said Folger. "Sweetie."
"Don't call me Sweetie," she said. "Call me Shark."
"Shark."
They made love in a desperate hurry.
The descent steepened, the rain increased, and they hurried. They passed through a copse of stunted trees -and reached the ruts of a primitive road.
"We have flash-frozen beefsteaks aboard the airboat," said Inga.
"That's another thing I've missed," Folger said,
"Then you must join us for supper."
"As a guest of the Protectorate?"
"An honored guest."
"Make mine rare," said Folger. "Very rare."
The road abruptly descended between two bluffs and overlooked the village. It was called simply the village because there were no other settlements on Tres Rocas and so no cause to distinguish. Several hundred inhabitants lived along the curve of the bay in small, one-story houses, built largely of stone.
"It's so bleak," said Inga. "What do people do?"
"Not much," said Folger. "Raise sheep, hunt seals, fish. When there were still whales, they used to whale. For recreation, the natives go out and dig peat for; fuel."
"It's quite a simple existence," said Per.
"Uncomplicated," Folger said.
"1 f you could be anything in the sea," said Valerie,
"what would it be?"
Folger was always discomfited by these games. He usually felt he chose wrong answers. He thought carefully for a minute or so. "A dolphin, l suppose."
In the darkness, her voice dissolved in laughter. "You lose!"
He f-It irritation. "What's the matter now?"
"Dolphins hunt in packs," she said. "They gang up to ' .arks. They're cowards."
"They're not. Dolphins are highly intelligent. They band together for cooperative protection."
Still between crests of laughter: "Cowards!"
On the outskirts of the village they encountered a dozen small, dirty children playing a game. The children had dug a shallow pit about a meter in diameter. It was excavated close enough to the beach so that it quickly filled with a mixture of ground-seepage and rainwater.
"Stop," said Per. "I wish to see this."
The children stirred the muddy water with sticks. Tiny, thumb-sized fishes lunged and snapped at one another, burying miniature teeth in the other's flesh. The children stared up incuriously at the adults, then returned their attention to the pool.
Inga bent closer. "What are they?"
"Baby sharks," said Folger. "They hatch alive in the uterus of their mother. Some fisherman must have bagged a female sand tiger who was close to term. He gave the uterus to the kids. Fish won't live long in that pool."
"They're fantastic," Per breathed. For the first time since Folger had met him, he showed emotion. "So young and so ferocious."
"The first one hatched usually eats the others in the womb," said Folger.
"It's beautiful," said Inga. "An organism that is born fighting."
The sibling combat in the pit had begun to quiet. A few sand tiger babies twitched weakly. The children nudged them with the sticks. When there was no response, the sticks rose and fell violently, splashing the water and mashing the fish into the sand.
"The islanders hate sharks," Folger said.
She awoke violently, choking off a scream and blindly striking out at him. Folger held her wrists,
pulled her against him, and then began to stoke her hair. Her trembling slowly subsided.
"Bad dreams?"
She nodded, her hair working softly against his law.
She hesitated. "1 was swimming. They--some people pulled me out of the water. They put me on a concrete slab by the pier. There was no water, no sea-" She swallowed. "God, l want a drink."
"I'll fix you one," he said.
"They pulled me out. I lay there and felt the ocean drain away. And then 1 felt things tear loose inside me. There was nothing supporting my heart and liver and intestines and everything began to pull away from everything else. God, it hurts-"
Folger patted her head. "1'11 get you a drink."
"So?" said Per. "Sharks aren't particularly aggressive, are they?"
"Not until after the war," said Folger. "Since then there's been continual skirmishing. Both the villagers and the sharks hunt the same game. Now they've started to hunt each other."
"And," said Inga, "there has been you."
Folger nodded. "I know the sea predators better. After all, that was my job."
The children, bored with the dead-shark pool, followed the adults toward the village. They gawked at ' the Lindfors. One of the more courageous boys reached tentatively toward Inga's hair as it blew back in the wind.
"Vayan!" shouted Folger. "All of you, move!" The 7 children reluctantly withdrew. "They're accustomed to
whites," he said, "but blondes are a novelty."
"Fascinating," said Inga. "It is like an enclave of a previous century."
The road widened slightly and became the village's
main street, still unpaved, and winding down along the edge of the sea. Folger saw the aluminum bulk of an airboat tied to a pier, incongruous between two fishing ketches. "You come alone?" he said.
"Just the two of us," said Inga.
Per put his hand lightly on her wrist. "We're quite effective as a team," he said.
They passed a dark-stone house, its door swung open to the wind. Rain blew across the threshold.
"Abandoned?" said Inga.
"Quaint old island custom," said Folger. "Catholicism's a little diluted here. Priest only comes twice a year." He pointed at the open door. "The man who lived there died at sea a couple days ago. Family'll keep the door open, no matter what, for a week. It's so his soul can find shelter until it's shunted to heaven or hell."
Per said, "What happened to the man?"
"He was fishing," Folger said. "Friends saw it all. A great white shark got him."
Closer now:
"Dolphin!"
"Shark!"
They lay together.
"I wish we had more time," said Inga. "I should like to hunt a shark."
"Perhaps on some future leave," said Per.
"And that's about it for the village," said Folger. "There isn't much more to see, unless you enjoy native crafts like dipping tallow candles or carding wool."
"It's incredible," said Inga. "The only time I have seen anything remotely like this was in prereconstruction America."
Folger said, "You don't look that old."
"I was barely into puberty. The Protectorate brought our father from Copenhagen. He is a design engineer in hydroelectrics. He worked on the Oklahoma Sea projects."
They stood on a rough plank pier beyond one horn of the crescent of houses. Per tapped- a boot on the wood to shake loose some of the mud. "I still can't see K how you endure this place, Folger."
Half asleep, Folger said. "Some day when the war is over, we'll get a place by the ocean. There's still some great country north of San Francisco. We'll have a house among the trees, on a mountainside overlooking the beach. Maybe we'll make it a stone tower, like s: Robinson Jeers built."
Close to his ear, Valerie said, "A tower would be . nice."
"You'll be able to read all day, and swim, and we'll never have any visitors we don't want."
"It's a fine dream for you," Valerie whispered.
"I came as jetsam," Folger said.
The three of them stood silently for a few minutes, watching clouds darker than the water spill in from the west. Triangular shapes took form on the horizon. Folger squinted. "Fishermen are coming in." After another
minute he said, "Tour's over."
"I know," said Inga.
"-hoping. 1 kept hoping." Folger raised himself on one elbow. "You really are going to go through with ft."
The fishing boats neared the breakwater. Folger and the others could hear the faint cries of the crewmen. "Why are you here?" he said.
Per Lindfors laid a comradely hand on Folger's r shoulder. "We came here to kill you."
Folger smiled. What other response could there be?
"Tell me how it works," said Valerie.
They paused on a steel catwalk overlooking the
catch pens. In the tank immediately below, two divers
warily manhandled a five-meter great blue in an oval
path. 1 f water weren't forced over the shark's gill sur-
faces, the fish would suffocate. The water glittered in
the glare of arc lights. Beyond the pens, the beacon on Cape Pembroke blinked its steady twelve pulses per minute.
"I know the general techniques," said Folger. "But it's not my specialty. I'm strictly mapping and logistics."
"I don't need apologies," said Valerie.
"Excuse me while 1 violate the National Security Act." Folger turned to face her. "Most of the technology is borrowed from the brothers upstairs on the orbital platforms. Everybody's been doing secret work with cyborgs. Somewhere along the line, somebody got the bright idea of importing it underwater."
"The Marine Forces," said Valerie.
"Right. The bureaucrats finally realized that the best weapons for fighting undersea wars already existed in the ocean. They were weapons that had been adapted for that purpose for more than a hundred million years. All that was needed were guidance systems."
Valerie said wistfully, "Sharks."
"Sharks and killer whales; squid; to a degree, dolphins. We're considering a few other species."
"1 want to know how it's done."
"Primarily by direct transplant. Surgical modification. Nerve grafts are partially electronic. Is that what you wanted to know?"
She stared down at the docile shark in the tank. "There's no coming back, is there?"
"We'll probably use your old body to feed the new one."
"So kill me. Do I rate a reason why?"
"Not if your execution had been scheduled now," said Inga. "It would not have been merciful to alert you in advance. Such cheap melodrama is forbidden by Protectorate codes."
Folger snorted. "Isn't all this overly Machiavellian?"
"Not at all. We were given considerable latitude on this assignment. We wished to be sure of doing the right thing."
"-come down to the point of whether or not I'll stop you from doing this." Wind off the headland deadened his words.
"Can you stop me?" Valerie's voice was flat, without challenge.
He didn't answer.
"Would you?" Valerie kissed him gently on the side ._ of the throat. "Here's a Hindu proverb for you. The ` woman you love, you must not possess."
He said in a whisper, without looking at her, "1 love you."
"If you're not going to kill me," Folger said, "I've got work to do."
"Folger, what is your fondest wish?"
He stared at her with enigmatic eyes. "You can't give it to me."
"Wealth?" said Per. "Recognition? You had a con-
siderable reputation before the war." "When we leave," said
Inga, "we want you to return,
with us."
Folger looked slowly from one to the other. "Leave the island?"
"A center for deep Pacific studies is opening on Guam," Inga said. "The directorship is yours."
"I don't believe any of this," said Folger. "I'm in my fifties, and even considering the postwar chaos, I'm a decade behind my field."
"Some refresher study at the University of San Y Juan," said Per.
Inga said, "Reconstruction is not all that complete. Genius is uncommon. You are needed, Folger."
"Death or a directorship," said Folger.
Folger spoke to the project manager in a sterile cubicle o.9 the operating theater. "What are her
chances?"
"For survival? Excellent." _
"1 mean afterward."
The project manager drew deeply on his extinguished pipe. "Can't say. Test data's been spotty."
The project manager evaded Folger's eyes. "A high proportion of the test subjects haven't returned from held trials. The bio boys think it may have something to do with somatic memory, cellular retention of the old, nonhuman personality."
"And you didn't tell us anything about this?"
"Security, Marc." The project manager looked uncomfortable. "1 never know from day to day what's under wraps. You know, we haven't had radio reception for twelve days now. Nobody knows-"
"I swear, Danny, if anything happens to her-"
The pipe dropped from the project manager's open mouth. "But she's a volunteer-"
It. was the first time Folger had ever struck another human being.
"Elections are approaching on the continent," said Inga.
"Free?"
"Of course," said Per.
"Reasonably," said Inga. "Within the needs of reconstruction."
A crowd of children scampered past. Further down the beach, the fishermen began to unload the day's catch.
"Do you remember a man named Diaz-Gomide?" said Per.
"No."
"He is a Brazilian journalist "
"Yes," said Folger. "About two years ago, right?"
Per nodded. "He is not only a journalist, but also a higher-up in the opposition party. He is their shadow minister of information."
"Senior Diaz-Gomide has proved a great embarrassment to the present administration," said Inga.
"The same regime that's been in power for a quarter century," said Folger.
Inga made a noncommittal gesture. "Someone had to keep order through the war and after."
"The point is," said Per, "that this Diaz-Gomide has been disseminating historical lies on behalf of his party."
"Let me guess," said Folger. He walked slowly toward the end of the pier and the Lindfors followed. "He has disclosed terrible things about the government in connection with the Marine Institute on East Falkland."
"Among other fabrications," said Per.
Folger stopped with his toes overhanging the water.
"He alleged that inhuman experiments were carried on, that the brains of unwilling or unknowing subjects were transplanted into the bodies of sea creatures."
"Something like that, except he couched it in less clinical language."
"Down the rabbit hole." Folger shook his head slowly. "What do you want from me-a disclaimer?"
Inga said, "We suspect Diaz-Gomide grossly distorted your statements in the interview. It would be well if you set the record straight."
"The Marine Forces experiments have been greatly exaggerated," said Per.
"Probably not," said Folger.
They stared at each other.
Folger floated in the center of the holding tank. The whisper of the regulator sounded extraordinarily loud in his ears. He turned to follow the great white shark as it slowly circled, its eye continually focused on Folger. The shark-he found difficulty ascribing it her name-moved fluidly, weaving, head traveling from side to side slowly -with the rhythm of its motion through the water.
She-he made the attempt-she was beautiful; implacably, savagely so. He had seldom been this close to a shark. He watched silently her body crease with a thousand furrows, every movement emphasizing musculature. He had never seen beauty so deadly.
. After a time, he tried the sonex. "Valerie-inquiry -what is it like?"
The coded reply came back and unscrambled. "Marc-never know-mass & bulk & security-better."
He sent: "Inquiry-happy?"
"Yes."
They exchanged messages for a few minutes more. He asked, "Inquiry-what will they do with you?"
"Assigned soldier-picket duty-Mariana Trench."
"Inquiry-when?"
"Never-never soldier-run away first."
"So," said Folger. "Recant or die?"
"We would like to see you take the directorship of the research center on Guam," said Inga.
Folger found the paper among other poems scattered like dry leaves in Valerie's room:
"In the void, inviolate from what she was is and will be"
He went outside to the catch pens. From the catwalk he looked into the tank. The shark circled ceaselessly. She swung around to his side and Folger watched the dark back, the mottled gray and white belly slide by. He watched until darkness fell.
"Do I get time to consider the offer?" Folger asked.
The Lindfors looked at each other, considering.
"I was never good at snap decisions."
"We would like to tidy up this affair-"said Per.
"I know," Folger said. "Skiing the Sierras."
"Would twelve hours be sufficient?"
"Time enough to consult my Book of Changes."
"Do you really?" Inga's eyes widened fractionally.
"Treason," Per said.
"No. No, more. My mystical phase played through"
"Then we can expect your decision in the morning?"
"Right."
"And now it is time for supper," said Inga. "Shall we go to the boat? I remember, Folger. Very rare."
"No business during dinner?"
"No," Inga promised.
"Your goddam girl," said the project manager. Soaked through with sea water and reeking of contraband liquor, he sloshed into Folger's quarters. "She got away."
Folger switched on the lamp by the bunk and looked up sleepily. "Danny? What? Who got away?"
"Goddam girl."
"Valerie?" Folger swung his legs off the bed and: sat up.
"Smashed the sea-gate. Let loose half the tanks. We tried to head her off in the channel."
"Is she all right?"
"All right?" The project manager cupped his hands over his face. "She stove in the boat. Got Kendall and Brooking. You never saw so much blood."
"Christ!"
"Hell of it was," said the project manager, "we really ,.' needed her in the morning."
"For what?"
"Really needed her," the project manager repeated. He staggered out of the room and disappeared in the hall.
Folger answered his own question the following day. Through devious channels of information, he learned that Valerie had been scheduled for vivisection.
That night, Folger climbed the mountain above his `, house. He felt he was struggling through years as much as brush and mud. The top of the mountain was ragged, with no proper peak. Folger picked a high point and spread his slicker over damp rock. He sat in the cold and watched the dark Atlantic. He looked up . and picked out the Southern Cross. A drizzle began.
"Well, hell," he said, and climbed back down the mountain.
Folger took an Institute launch out beyond the cape .░
and anchored. He lowered the cage, then donned his scuba gear. He said into the sonex: "Query-Valerie -location."
Later that morning, Folger suffered his loss.
Maria shook him awake in the morning. Folger awakened reluctantly, head still full of gentle spirals over glowing coral. The water had been warm; he had needed no suit or equipment. Endless, buoyant flight
"Senor Folger, you must get up. It has been seen."
His head wobbled as she worried his shoulder with insistent fingers. "Okay, I'm awake." He yawned. "What's been seen?"
"The big white one," Maria said. "The one that killed Manuel Padilla three days ago. It was sighted in the bay soon after the sun rose."
"Anybody try anything?" Folger asked.
"No. They were afraid. It is at least ten meters long."
Folger yawned again. "Hell of a way to start a mom
"I have food for you."
Folger made a face. "I had steak last night. Real beef. Have you ever tasted beef?"
"No, Senor."
Maria accompanied him down the mountain to the village. She insisted upon carrying some of the loose gear; the mask, a box of twelve-gauge shells, a mesh sack of empty jars. Folger filled the jars with sheep's blood at the village butcher shop. He checked his watch; it was seven o'clock.
The skiff was tied up at the end of the second pier. The aluminum airboat glittered in the sun as they passed it. Inga Lindfors stood very still on the bridge. "Good morning, Folger," she called.
"Good morning," said Folger.
"Your answer?"
Folger appraised her for a moment. "No," he said, walking on.
The carcinogenic spread of the war finally and actively engulfed the Falkland Islands. The systemic integrity of the Institute was violated. Many components scattered; some stayed to fight.
Folger, his stump capped with glossy scar tissue, had already said his good-byes.
Suspended in the cold, gray void, Folger realized he was hyperventilating. He floated free, willing himself to relax, letting his staccato breathing find a slower, smoother rhythm. Beside him, a line trailed up to the rectangular blur of the skiff's hull. Tied to the nylon rope were a net and the unopened jars of sheep's blood bait.
Folger checked his limited arsenal. Tethered to his left wrist was the underwater gun. It was a four-foot aluminum tube capped with a firing mechanism and a waterproof shotgun shell. A shorter, steeltipped shark billy was fixed to a bracket tied to the stump of Folgeres right arm.
Something intruded on his peripheral vision and he looked up.
Arrogant and sure, the two deadly shadows materialized out of the murk. The Lindfors wore only mask, fins, and snorkel. They appeared armed only with knives.
Folger saw them and raised the shark gun in warning. Per Lindfors grinned, his teeth very white. With slow, powerful strokes, he and his sister approached Folger from either side.
Disregarding Inga for the moment, Folger swung the muzzle of the shark gun toward Per. Per batted it aside with his free hand as Folger pulled the trigger. The concussion seemed to stun only Folger. Still smiling, Per extended his knife-hand.
Inga screamed in the water. Per disregarded Folger's weak attempt to fend him off with the billy and began to stroke for the surface. Folger turned his head.
A clownish face rushed at him. Folger stared at the teeth. The pointed nose veered at the last moment as the shark brushed by and struck at Per. The jaws
cleanly sliced away Per's left arm and half his chest. The fish doubled back upon itself and made another strike. Per's legs, separate and trailing blood, tumbled slowly through the water.
Then Folger remembered Inga. He turned in the water and saw half her torso and part of her head, a swatch of silky hair spread out fanlike behind the corpse.
He looked back at the shark. It turned toward him slowly and began to circle, eerily graceful for its immense size. A dark eye fixed him coldly.
Folger held the metal billy obliquely in front of his chest. The tether of the shark gun had broken with the recoil.
The shark and Folger inspected each other. He saw the mottled coloration of the shark's belly. He thought he saw a Marine Forces code branded low on the left flank. He keyed the sonex:
"Query-Valerie--query-Valerie."
The shark continued to circle. Folger abruptly realized the shark was following an inexorably diminishing spiral.
"Query-Valerie-I am Folger."
"Folger." An answer came back. "Valerie."
"I am Folger," he repeated.
"Folger" came the reply. "Love/hunger-hunger/ love."
"Valerie-love."
"Hunger-love." The shark suddenly broke out of her orbit and drove at Folger. The enormous jaws opened, upper jaw sliding forward, triangular teeth ready to shear.
Folger hopelessly raised the billy. The jaws closed empty and the shark swept by. She was close enough to touch had Folger wished. The shark drove toward the open sea and Folger swam for the surface.
He tossed the yarrow sticks for an hour. Eventually he put them away, along with the book. Folger sat at
the table until the sun rose. He heard Maria's footsteps outside on the stone walk. He listened to the sound of her progress through the outside door, the kitchen, and the hall. "Senior Folger, you didn't sleep?" "I'm getting old," he said. Maria was excited. `.`The great white one is back." "Oh?" "The fishermen fear to go out." "That's sensible." "Senor, you must kill it" "Must I'?" Folger grinned. "Fix me some tea." She turned toward the kitchen. "Maria, you needn't come up tonight to fix supper." After his usual meager breakfast, Folger gathered together his gear and walked out the front door of the house. He hesitated on the step. You become what you live. She lived shark. He said into the wind, "What do you want me to do? Carve a cenotaph here on the mountain?" "What, Senor?" said Maria. "Let's go." They started toward the trail. "Hold it," said Folger. He walked back to the house and opened ` the front door to the wind and rain. He chocked it with a rock. Then he climbed down the path to the sea.
