Killer by Peter Tonkin

Author:Peter Tonkin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Valacourt Books
Published: 2023-01-16T00:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

i

The sounds echoing in the caverns of the iceberg moved through the water five times faster than they moved through the air and the killers had begun to run even before Quick’s boat had been hauled up on to the floe. They did not all run in the same direction, but split up and scattered. They did not run as a unit because they knew as well as the men on the floe the danger, and did not pause to organise. The leader and his consort ran side by side, great boulders of ice plunging deep into the water around them like unimaginable hailstones, spurting bubbles, turning over and over, crashing against other boulders coming sluggishly upwards, crunching, crying, ringing.

The current caused by the iceberg’s massive rush towards the air plunged them willy-nilly deep in the black heart of the ocean. The female, injured, hurled down like a dummy, trailing bubbles. The leader followed her, only partly in control of his headlong rush. Blood streamed from his mate, but was whipped away by the terrible currents like smoke in a hurricane. Powerless as leaves in autumn they tumbled into the deep, until the solid shelf of the bottom rose to meet them and the turbulence rushed them towards the surface again. Then, abruptly, it was over.

The leader slowly regained absolute control of his progress, and caught up with his wounded mate. Carefully, he angled his vital body against her still flank and began to push her away from the danger and towards the surface. As he moved he sent out urgent cries, but it was many minutes before any of his pack came to their aid. Even then he would not relinquish her completely to their care, not accept their help himself. Another large male supported her on the other side, and more rapidly now, they lifted her towards the air. Most of the rest of the pack returned and grouped solicitously around them, rising rapidly ahead of them to smash away the half-frozen debris of ice which now covered the ocean, so that they could breathe.

For several hours they lay on the surface, breathing deeply, recovering, beginning to shrug off the weariness and move more freely – all except the leader’s consort who lay still, not obviously wounded, nor bleeding any more, but badly stunned by a heavy blow to her head, the back of which was swollen and horribly discoloured by a great bruise. No more of the group joined them. Now there were only twelve of them: not a large pack, but still a formidable force. The leader carefully positioned his mate across his broad forehead so that she could still breathe, and began to move with her: temporarily heading south away from the ice-pack.

ii

Back on the floe, the hours dragged interminably by in a haze of shock for all of them. Even Ross and Job were deeply shaken by their narrow escape, and depressed by the greatly increased danger of their new situation. For now

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