“Keep your voice down,” Ryan warned. “You know how sound carries across water. This part of the day, just before the dawn, is a quiet time.”
“My sincere apologies, my dear fellow. Just brought back the merry days of punting down the Cherwell when I was at Oxford. I had a small rented room in the suburb called Jericho, just south of Summertown. Ah, me, such happy days were those. The dreaming spires of honey-colored Cotswold stone and the warm, green-muffled Cumnor Hills.”
“Don’t you ever shut your fucking mouth?” snapped Trader, who had been in a foul mood since driving a splinter of wood deep into his palm in the first minutes of their journey.
“Only when I have nothing to say,” the old man replied. “And when I do open my mouth I endeavor to avoid foul and obscene language whilst in the presence of ladies.”
“Well said, Doc.” Mildred paused in paddling to clap her hands.
Trader sucked at the jagged wound, spitting crimson over the side of the raft into the sea,
“Might attract the sharks, blood like that,” Abe said worriedly.
Krysty smiled. “I think it might take more than that to bring in the great whites.”
“You never know.” Abe was kneeling on a triangular slab of timber, leaning out to paddle, and he kept glancing around through the vanishing veil of mist.
There was a swirling ripple in the dark water, about fifty yards from the raft, on the starboard side. Dean saw it and called out to his father, finger pointing.
“Seal,” Jak said calmly.
“Sure?” the boy asked.
“Sure.”
A moment later the albino was proved right when a sleek whiskered head popped out of the sea in a welter of silver bubbles, grinning directly into Dean’s face, making him jump so much that he nearly lost his balance and fell over the side.
“Told you,” said Jak.
RYAN WAS AWARE that the sulfurous smell was becoming stronger as they made their way over the placid water. But, by now, he had to admit that he hardly seemed to notice it anymore.
Dawn was rushing across the land, bringing a lightening of the sky from the east. It was becoming possible, now that they were better than halfway over from the island, to make out some of the features of the mainland.
“Something behind us,” J.B. said, holding his dripping paddle clear of the water, looking at the ocean a hundred yards or so astern. The first sliver of sun was peering over the distant mountains, glancing off his glasses.
“What?” Ryan asked. “Everyone stop paddling for a minute. All quiet.”
“Don’t know what, but I’m sure I saw the surface kind of change. Like something big had moved by, deep down.”
Ryan stood, steadying himself with a hand on the shoulders of Krysty and Doc Tanner, trying to see beneath the glittering water. At first there was nothing.
“Hope it’s not another of those mutie crabs,” Dean said, shuddering.
There was a flicker under the sea, about twenty yards off, slightly behind and off to the port side. Ryan shaded his eye and stopped a little to see more clearly.
Then he saw it.
“Hang on. No sudden movements. It’s several big whales.”
Everyone promptly turned to see for themselves, tipping the raft sharply to the left, coming close to toppling it. There was some splashing and shouting, but it eventually settled down again on an even keel.
Now the whales were very close, one on either side and two more off a little distance to starboard.
Mildred stared at them, a fascinated smile on her face. “They won’t hurt us. Not deliberately.”
“How do you know?” Trader had pulled out the Armalite, holding it across his lap.
“Use that and you could easily get us all chilled,” the woman warned. “All the guns we got together wouldn’t do more than irritate one of these fellows.”
One surfaced, whooshing a great jet of spray from its paired blowholes. Its side was scarred and marked, slick and shining. Dean put out a wondering hand and stroked it. The tiny eye seemed to revolve in its socket and look solemnly at the boy.