CHAPTER 8
After about an hour, they sighted the blue and white hull of the Valentina. Matthew had been on her once a few years ago when she made one of her infrequent calls at Victoria. That brief visit had helped him decide to return to school and earn at least a graduate degree in marine science. At nearly sixty meters long, with a generous ten-meter beam, the Valentina was built more for working room and stability than for speed, but she was tough enough to go anywhere on earth where the water was four meters or deeper.
One of the crew approached them in an inflatable dingy, the usual Zodiac. With an oversized outboard clamped to the stern, the dingy came up fast and swept by, then circled to come up alongside the launch.
“Matthew Amati and Penny, right? I’m Dirk. Welcome. Ah, captain, if you can just dock at the dive platform…”
The old man politely obeyed this statement of the obvious. In minutes they were there. The crewmember that hauled up their gear insisted on taking the time to use the power winch. Penny began to protest, but then shrugged her shoulders and clambered up the ladder.
Matthew immediately followed, but once on deck trailed behind her at a distance. She headed to the foredeck, where she ran up to the Captain and gave him a bear hug. Thorssen eventually acknowledged Matthew by taking a few steps his way, with his hand held out. “Welcome aboard, Mister Amati.”
The skipper of the Valentina was in his late fifties, with a blonde beard turning to gray. He was tall and heavy, yet he carried his weight well. His firm handshake was reassuring rather than intimidating, and his eyes, though ice blue, seemed to have a low-banked fire behind them.
“Great to see you again, Penny,” Thorssen said, and gave her a light kiss on the cheek. “Have a look.” He handed her his binoculars.
Matthew attempted to ignore the irritation that lingered from his fight with Penny by scanning for the whales, eyes unaided. He saw them a few degrees off the starboard bow, about five hundred meters away. The light from the afternoon sun made him squint. At this distance it was hard to make out details, but he could see enough.
“Your turn, Matthew,” Penny said, her mouth close to his ear. She was smiling and offered him Thorssen’s binoculars.
“Thanks. Penny, I—”
“Yeah, me too. Let’s drop it.”
He took the binoculars. She walked to the tip of the bow and leaned out into the wind. Though her body was not ample enough to pass for a traditional figurehead, she was dazzling in the June sunlight.
“Out there,” Thorssen said, pointing toward the whales.
Matthew brought the binoculars up to his eyes. They were heavy and old, the black worn off all the high points, exposing the brass.
“About halfway back from the whales in the lead,” Thorssen said, “you see that flash of orange? It’s the transceiver we have on Lefty. From the coordinates you gave, She must have been in the group you saw from your fishing boat.”
Matthew could see significantly better with the binoculars and something was strange and yet familiar about the whales. Oddly, the grays were swimming in a regular pattern, diving and rising in unison. One of the whales out front was larger and seemed to be the leader, but its color was completely typical. Matthew offered the binoculars to Penny, but she shook her head no.
“They’re cruising at about the typical speed for gray whales,” Thorssen said. “About five knots. We’ve been hanging back a ways. Didn’t want to spook them.”
“Is that what you saw?” Penny asked Matthew.
“I’m not sure. The grouping looks about the same size. The whale out front seems…normal, but the behavior is weird. They seem almost synchronized.”
“You didn’t mention that before,” she said.
“I don’t remember it.”
An orange-tinged light reflected now and then from the device pinned onto Lefty’s dorsal ridge. Matthew brought the binoculars down and surveyed the decks. Up on the fo’c’sle were a man and a woman, peering at an array of video monitors. In front of them, aimed at the whales, was an oversized set of binoculars mounted on a tripod. In the place of eyepieces, two cameras were attached. He recognized the setup as a video recording system, but a much more elaborate one than anything he had ever seen.
“Been keeping the whales under constant watch since last night,” Thorssen said.
Matthew, looking around, said, “I’m surprised you have the monitoring station out on deck, and the consoles.”
“Weather’s good and that should hold the next few days. The kids tend to get mesmerized by equipment, especially the new stuff. We try to have things running outside whenever possible. Too much gear, between us and what we’re observing, it goes bad.”
“Lose the forest for the trees.”
Penny walked up and caught the end of the Matthew’s sentence. “Not really the best metaphor out here.”
Thorssen smiled and pointed to the set up. “They’re designed to run remotely, but it’s still easier from the deck. The labs are always crowded. We move the gear inside fast when conditions demand.”
He looked up at the sky as if divining the weather and added, “I’m not against new gear as long as it stays at the end of your hand. Last night we relied mainly on the tag for tracking. Would’ve been hard otherwise.”
“How accurate is the satellite tag?” Penny asked Thorssen as she watched the whales.
“Within a meter or two, since it was upgraded. Does what it’s supposed to do, even synched-up Lefty’s signal with our satellite navigation. Tried some light-enhancing gear last night, too, but that didn’t tell us much. The infrared would have been better, but it has a glitch. Malcolm and Emory are tinkering with it, so maybe later.”
Thorssen produced a small black notebook from his breast pocket of his slicker and thumbed through the pages. He looked at Matthew. “Got the basic story from Martin, would like to hear it directly from you. There’s more going on than just the peculiar way they’re all moving together.”
“What?” Penny asked. “Something since you got here?” She was giving Thorssen that friendly, yet piercing, look Matthew had already come to regard as his alone.
Thorssen took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. “Come on. Show you something.”
He headed to a nearby entry and Matthew took another quick look at the whales before following Thorssen and Penny through the hatchway.
Below decks, the Valentina showed wear and tear, with paint worn through to metal in places like railing ends, but the impression was of a ship being cared for in all the details that really mattered. It was as safe as any place was going to feel, out here. They entered a cabin full of benches and equipment.
“C-lab, our largest work area,” Thorssen said. He walked to a desk and opened a drawer.
“Take a look.” He handed some photos to Penny and Matthew. “Got these with the telephoto this morning. Ship was a little closer then. Our leader and five other whales. Notice anything?”
“The whale’s hide,” Penny said with some hesitation. “It looks a little different on the leader.”
“Yes. Was even more pronounced in person. Seems to be gone now, though. And what else?”
Penny handed the photos to Matthew. The texture, or pattern of mottling, of the lead whale’s skin were slightly different. Wait. “The barnacles look somehow off,” he said.
Penny took one of the photos back and smiled. “These yellowish encrustations on the other whales?”
“Yes,” Thorssen said. “Barnacles are so much a part of grays, might as well been born with them. Add the sea lice and they’re like reefs that swim. This one has the patterns, but no barnacles. Maybe just a few small ones.”
“You sure?” Penny asked. “I can’t be sure from this.”
“Got a closer view this morning.”
“I thought you had been hanging back?”
“We were, but the lead whale didn’t.”
Thorssen turned and took a few steps toward a porthole, clearing his throat. “This morning
, we were a little closer than now. Just breaking dawn, and wanted a good look. I’m at the helm alone. Video crew is below, setting some connections. Just me up here, and I’m looking out with binoculars, moving in closer. All at once, here’s the leader suddenly just thirty meters in front off starboard. Must have gone under and come back toward us. Stops dead in the water and turns toward me. I bring our speed down to idle, the other whales just wait. The leader is bolt upright in the water, like a channel buoy, as we drift by her. Seen them spy-hopping a thousand times, but it wasn’t that. The attention was…deliberate. Directed toward me. Sure of it.”
He closed his eyes for a moment and continued.
“She’s facing me, half out of the water, not moving. Lasted about a minute, seemed like forever. She’s completely still. I’m feeling odd. Knees go weak. Can barely stand.”
Thorssen’s breathing had picked up while he was telling this, but now it became strangely calm. After a pause, he went on.
“That’s never happened to me. Not like this. Seen some terrible things in my day, had to do some terrible things.” He looked at Matthew. “Don’t understand it, but I’m inclined to take your account more seriously than I did yesterday.”
He thrust his hands deep in his slicker pockets. “Happened after I spoke with you last night, of course. Didn’t seem possible to explain on the sat-phone this morning, and you were already on the way. I was the only one who saw all this. Lot of late sleepers this morning, not sure why. Crew’s a little antsy lately, a little keyed up, since we’ve been tracking the whales.”
“You?” Penny asked.
Thorssen’s smile faded for a moment to reveal a glimmer of sadness floating under the surface.
“I’m okay, but we’re in some deep water out here, and it’ll only get deeper. My opinion.” He smiled finally. “Not out to scare you.”
Penny only laughed, but Matthew said, “Well, frankly, it’s a relief.”
“All right,” Thorssen said, looking at Penny. “Can’t seem to scare you off, so you might as well stow your gear. Bunk in your father’s cabin.”
She gave Thorssen another hug and said over her shoulder as she ran off, “I have some things I want to get, then can we get to work?”