Earth Thirst (The Arcadian Conflict) - By Mark Teppo Page 0,4
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.
THREE
We wait until the end of the day, even though there isn't much change in the available light in the sky. Winter near the Antarctic Circle is many days of near darkness, and for their own sanity, humans try to maintain a semblance of normalcy during these months. Sleep cycles and shift changes still occur in the last few hours of the nominal day, which makes this block of time optimal for our reconnaissance.