“What?” said Candace. He banked the car slightly but he didn’t throw it in the tight circle Daniel had wanted. It didn’t matter; there was no longer anything to see.
“It was a sweep,” Daniel said, giving the others a smile of glum embarrassment. “I’m pretty sure it was a sweep, I mean. It’s a predator in your seas here.”
The seascape they overflew had remained much the same for the past fifty kilometers. Reefs neared the surface and shelved away into valleys that were rarely more than a few hundred feet deep. In this clear water, bottom life even in those relative depths was visible as movement and shadow.
Daniel had noticed coral standing unusually high and vivid in an oval area which sprawled up the side of an approaching reef. Fish in their striped and flickering brilliance were relatively sparse against the lush background. The beaks of the reef fish hadn’t browsed the sessile life of this patch to the same degree as they had neighboring regions.
Only because he was already focused on the unusual region did Daniel see the paired tentacles lash swiftly over the top of the coral and withdraw into the cave from which they’d so briefly extended. The coral shuddered: all the animalcules went limp in their self-secreted lime caverns, changing the look of the setting without any individual movement great enough to be visible from where Daniel watched.
Simultaneously all the fish in the water through which the tentacles passed rolled onto their backs and began to sink, stunned by the electrical charge the sweep had released into the water. A few fins wobbled randomly.
The coral animals would recover from the shock. Most of the fish would not have time to do so, because when the sweep was sure it was safe from retaliation the tentacles would project again from the pit in which the creature hid. This time they would pick over the reef, searching for the slight electrical charge that all life-forms generated.
The hooked teeth on the tentacles would draw the fish, quivering and still alive, back to the sweep’s lair. Its beak would complete the job the electric shock had begun.
“Oh, it must be wonderful to know so many things, Lieutenant Leary,” Margrethe said.
Daniel wondered if he could’ve gotten the same response by saying, “The sun is shining.”
“My uncle is a great naturalist,” he said aloud. “For a serving naval officer, that is.”
On the other hand, Margrethe was trying to communicate something beyond her interest in Kostroman natural history. From the way Candace hunched over the steering yoke, Daniel wasn’t the only one getting that message.
Margrethe too must have decided she was being overly obvious. She joined Daniel in an attempt to minimize contact as they squeezed in turn through the narrow center aisle between the front seats.
Bet patted the cushion beside her. She poured wine into a single glass, sipped it, and gave the glass to Daniel. Only then did she pass the bottle and another pair of glasses to the couple in front.
It was good wine. Daniel wondered if Herrick was her husband.
The sea had darkened to a uniform green. The water was deeper here, but there were also scores of islands rising above its smooth surface. None were large and some were little more than rocks. Vegetation waved above the tide line of even the smallest, however.
Bet closed her fingers over Daniel’s to retrieve the glass. He squeezed them with his left hand and smiled at her. He felt a little sheepish about his lack of concern for the girl, but this was the first time he’d been off Kostroma Island.
“Has the lodge been in your family for long, Candace?” he said, letting his fingertips lie on Bet’s arm as she poured wine from another bottle.
“For nearly a hundred years,” Candace said. Margrethe was snuggling him as he drove and his tone was more relaxed. “We’ve always been a navy family. That means living on Kostroma most of the time. A great grand-uncle who loved to fish bought it to have a place nearby that wasn’t on the big island. There’s a path and steps down to the water that must go back to the Founding, though.”