Gargantua (5 page)

So finally he grew fed up and used the money he’d saved over the decades to put together the Hale Institute for Oceanography in Melbourne. He made his own damn rules and regulations.

One of those rules meant he could pick and choose his projects. The latest had him studying the unusual increase in seismic activity on and around Malau, his favorite of the numerous local islands. He could do what he was best at, do it how he wanted it done, and do it in a pleasant locale. As a result, he did excellent work, which made his Board of Directors at the Institute happy; and he got to take lots of naps, which made him happy. Hale’s philosophy had always been that everyone should be as happy as possible, so this arrangement suited him just fine.

Eventually, the computer finished going through all eight million stages it needed to go through before it would allow its user to actually use it.
Times like this, I miss the old IBM PC. Couldn’t do much more than a crummy word processor and a crummier database, but at least it booted up in thirty seconds.

Hale double-clicked on the icon for his e-mail program, then single-clicked the
CHECK MESSAGES
icon. As the modem made the various and sundry awful noises it needed to make to connect Hale’s computer to the Internet (or, at least, to his e-mail provider’s little corner of it), he noticed another icon for the program he checked Usenet with.
Better not get into that,
he decided.
The e-mail alone’ll take the whole time.
Sometimes he wondered why he bothered with the various newsgroups that discussed geology (his chosen field) and scuba diving (his favorite hobby), since ninety-eight percent of what was posted there was either useless and/or inaccurate.
Still, that other two percent can be gold.

He winced as the program informed him that he had three hundred and sixty-two messages. The program also sorted it for him. The stuff from the various mailing lists could wait until later; that accounted for eighty percent of the messages right there. Of the balance, he recognized only a few e-mail addresses, and only three absolutely required a response. One was from the dive shop, informing him that his new air tanks had arrived and when did he want to pick them up? Another was from Paul Bateman, saying he’d have the transcription of the interview for Hale to go over in a couple of days.

The third was from his editor at
Scientific American,
who was justifiably annoyed at his tardiness in delivering his latest column.
Hell and damnation,
he thought with a sigh. The seismic activity in the local waters had gone into overdrive, and he’d spent every waking moment—and, if it came to that, every napping moment—trying to figure out why. His quarterly column for SA had gone straight out of his mind.

A whistling sound from the kitchen grabbed his attention. He wandered back into the kitchen, switched the burner off, and poured the water into the waiting mug. He contemplated several options, most of which boiled down to coming up with some kind of excuse. He even briefly entertained the notion of using those two poor sheilas drowning the previous night, then immediately rejected the idea as tasteless and irresponsible.

Walking back to the computer and setting the steeping tea on a coaster next to it, he decided to just go for the truth. Sighing, he hit the
REPLY
button and typed,
Sorry, love, been a bit crazy hereabouts. By Friday, I promise. Cheers, Ralph.

None of the e-mails were the one he truly wanted to see: the one from his old friend Andrew Angelopoulos, a marine biologist from Queensland. He’d gone on walkabout at the beginning of the semester, but Hale remembered him as an obsessive net-head. He thought for sure that Angelopoulos would check his e-mail, but he hadn’t replied to any of the messages Hale had sent over the past week.
Pity. Could use a marine biologist’s input right about now.

He took one last quick glance over the various mailing list messages to see if any subject lines looked familiar—sure enough, a few did, and he read those, and started composing replies to one or two. One in particular was a pronouncement made by some know-nothing undergraduate about sharks that Hale couldn’t just let go by without a severe reprimand from someone who actually knew what he was talking about.

After a minute, he glanced at his watch—which read 1:02. His tea had gone cold and he was late.

Hell and damnation, this contraption’ll be the death of me.
He quit out of the e-mail program, shut the computer down, gulped down the last of his tea, grabbed a small shovel, and headed out to the beach.

Outside, it was another hot and humid day, as would be expected for a South Seas island. Hale loved it. Well, not the humidity, but other things made up for it—unlike, say, Atlanta, where he had spent many years as a geology professor, and where the humidity seemed all-encompassing.

He walked the short distance from the bungalow the Institute had rented to the beach where he’d buried the prototype seismograph. On the way, he saw a much lower concentration of people than one would expect on such a beautiful day. Hale thought again about the two American girls who drowned.
Poor sheilas, going on vacation and winding up like that.

Not everyone had been intimidated by the news of drowning tourists—Hale saw a man, woman, and a little bloke who couldn’t have been more than eight eating a picnic lunch, and another man playing Frisbee with his dog.
’Course, maybe they didn’t hear about what happened,
Hale thought, then dismissed it. It was possible, of course, but not likely. News travelled faster than the wind on Malau.

Another little bloke was watching the picnicking family with a peculiar interest. Hale noticed that the boy was holding, of all things, a water thermometer—and also that he had a longing expression on his face. Hale wondered what had brought that on.

Stop trying to figure out other people’s lives,
he admonished himself, shaking his head,
and get on with the work.

Ralph Hale had a phenomenal memory, and so moved unerringly to the very spot where he had buried the seismograph twenty-four hours earlier. Kneeling down into the sand, he started digging with the shovel until he found the latest toy from his techies at the Institute. Once the shovel struck the metal of the seismograph’s container, he set it aside and pushed the remaining sand away with his hands.

Inevitably, his action caught someone’s eye—a young man approached just as Hale finished unearthing the device.

“Is that some kind of seismograph?” the man asked.

Hale looked up sharply at the man. He had spoken with an American accent, and Hale saw that he held a couple of sample jars. “Yeah,” he said. “Excellent guess. It’s just a prototype, mind you.”

“Great toy. Doctor Hale, I presume?”

Hale stood up. “Another good guess,” he said. This time he wasn’t surprised; anyone bright enough to recognize the seismograph for what it was would probably know Hale was on the island.

“I’ve read your articles, and your column in
Scientific American.
I’m a marine biologist—Jack Ellway.”

“Ralph Hale,” he replied automatically, then shook the man’s hand. “You know that, of course. Never mind.”
A marine biologist,
he thought, remembering several unanswered e-mails from Angelopoulos.
Well, the hell with you, old friend, I’ve got someone close to home now.
“I’m glad you’re here, actually—I’ve been wanting to get a perspective from someone on your end of things about all this seismic activity.”

“Well, the water temperature’s changing, for one thing, which could affect migratory patterns. I’ve got my son checking some of that now.”

Hale remembered the little bloke with the water thermometer. “That’s your son?”

Ellway smiled. “Yeah, and my intern—well, he prefers ‘assistant.’ Either way, he’s very bright. A lot better than most of the other losers I’ve had as interns, believe me.”

“Yeah, well, I had enough of that when I was teaching undergraduates. That’s why I usually work alone now. Besides, I like to get my own hands dirty.” Realizing they were getting off track, Hale steered the conversation back to migratory patterns. “Have you noticed any particular shifts?”

“I only just arrived today, so I haven’t had time to do any kind of serious projections, but I think we can expect certain . . .”

Brandon looked wistfully as a woman wiped her son’s face with a napkin. At least, Brandon figured they were a family. They certainly looked like a family.

They look like us.

He remembered the Key West trip. On their last day there, after Mom and Dad had completed their work (days ahead of schedule, as it happened), they had thrown together a picnic on the beach. Brandon hadn’t much liked the Key West beach—not wide enough, and the waves were all wimpy—but they had had a great time. They hadn’t had sandwiches, though—Mom had put together a bunch of different fish plates.

Aside from that, though, these three people were dead ringers for the Ellway family in Key West.

We’ll never have that kind of picnic again.

Then:
Stop it! They’re probably not even a real family. Probably just some lady and her nephew and some guy she met at a bar somewhere or something like that. You don’t know that they’re a real family.

Having convinced himself of that, Brandon went on toward the rocks where Dad had asked him to take the water temperature. He looked back to see Dad talking to some older guy. Whatever they were talking about, Dad was really into it.
The old dude’s gotta be a scientist.
Dad didn’t get that look on his face unless he was talking about work. Certainly, he never looked like that during lunch with Paul, though Paul was certainly nice enough.

Out of the corner of his eye, Brandon noticed a guy throwing a Frisbee toward the water, a dog going after it. The guy who threw it winced as the Frisbee glided over into the surf.
Probably overthrew it,
Brandon thought.
Mom always got that look on her face when she overthrew a Frisbee back when we used to—

Stop thinking about it!

The guy ran toward the water even as the dog obediently ran into the crashing waves to retrieve the Frisbee—suddenly, the dog turned around and ran out of the water, making little
yipe yipe
noises.

The guy met his dog halfway, and knelt down to ruffle its now wet fur. “What’s the matter, boy?”

Of course, the dog didn’t answer, so the guy looked out to the ocean to see if he could see what the dog saw.

Curious, Brandon followed the guy’s gaze.

Suddenly, something poked its head out of the water, just for a second. All Brandon could really see were a what looked like a horn and a pair of eyes. It might’ve been a carnival mask, like the ones he’d seen in New Orleans.

But carnival masks didn’t usually have scales.

They didn’t usually blink, either.

The guy looked at Brandon, his eyes wide. “Did you see that?”

“Yeah. What was it?”

“I dunno.” He turned back to the ocean.

Brandon did the same, but the thing had disappeared, and nothing else poked out from the water.

“Weird. Maybe it was nothing,” Brandon said.

“Maybe,” the guy said. “Sure spooked Fred here.” He looked down at the dog, which still looked frightened out of its mind. “Hey, c’mon boy, it’s okay,” the guy said, scratching the dog behind the ears.

Brandon, meanwhile, went on to the rocks.
Maybe I did imagine it.

Yeah, right. So did that guy
and
his dog. Still, it was probably just some kind of fish or amphibian or something.
Brandon was pretty good at recognizing marine life at this point, but he had hardly gotten a good enough look at whatever it was to identify it.

He went to perform the task his father had set him and put the creature out of his mind.

“You’re going out windsurfing?
Tonight?
What’re you, nuts?”

Kulani sighed. She had been hoping that her father would work late tonight so that she and Dak could go out without a lecture, but no such luck.

“I’m not nuts, Pop. Dak and I planned this two days ago, and we’re going.”

“What about those two girls—”

“Pop, just because two beach bimbos were too stupid to stay out of a fishing net doesn’t mean Dak and I shouldn’t go out.”

Pop glared at Kulani. She was worried that he’d try to forbid her from going. It wouldn’t work, of course—Kulani was an adult, and he had no right to control her movements. She was only living with him until she and Dak got married anyhow.

Finally he said, “They weren’t beach bimbos, they were from Minnesota. And one of them was an experienced diver. It was in the paper.”

Kulani rolled her eyes. “Pop, they’re just a couple of dumb tourists. I’m a grown woman who’s been windsurfing since I was two, and it’s a beautiful night out.”

Pop walked up to her and put his hands on her shoulders. In a much softer voice, he said, “Lani, I just want you to be safe.”

Her anger melted and she sighed, kissing Pop on the forehead as she said, “Don’t worry, Pop, I’ll be careful.” Then she hugged him.

A knock came from the front door. “Hello?” It was Dak.

“Dak!” Kulani broke her father’s embrace and ran to the man she loved. She almost leapt into his arms; she did kiss him. She hadn’t seen him in almost a full day, and she had been counting the moments until she saw him again.

She couldn’t wait to be married to him so that she would see him all the time.

“Ready to go?” he said after she finally paused for breath.

“Definitely.”

Pop said, “You two be careful out there, okay?”

In a deferential voice, Dak said, “Don’t worry, sir, we will.” Dak had always been good about being on his best behavior around Pop. It was one of several reasons why Pop blessed their engagement.

“C’mon, let’s go,” Kulani said, pulling on Dak’s arm, trying to drag him out the door. His battered blue pickup truck was parked out front, the two sets of surf skis in the cab. “What took you so long?” she asked as she got into the passenger’s side seat. “I thought I’d have to listen to Pop bitching and moaning about the dangers of the water for
hours.”