The Whiteness of the Whale: A Novel (29 page)

“Eddi, that cough doesn’t sound good.”

“I’ll be okay, Sara.—We lost Jamie. Lost Dru. We can’t stay out without them. So I think the only question is, where do we head to get back?”

Sara said, “Well, we all know the wind blows from the west. So going back to Argentina would be too rough and take too long. If we went north, that would take us to South Africa. Northeast would be Australia.” She looked at Bodine. “Right, Mick?”

“Kind of. In a gross sense.”

“Then it’s not? If it isn’t, let’s talk about it now.” Her tone was sharper than she’d meant, but then, his hadn’t been so pleasant either. As if just by speaking out, she’d contradicted him. “How about food? Fuel? Any idea how much longer we can stay at sea?”

“We burned up what was in the drums on deck, but we haven’t used much out of the main tanks yet,” Madsen said. His eye sockets looked hollow; his face, shadowed. “As to food, we stocked for seven people for three months. Georgie made eight, but she’s gone too. We’ve got five mouths now. So we should be okay for quite a while yet.”

“Six,” said Eddi. “You forgot Hy.”

“Oh yeah. Sorry. But we’ve still got plenty.”

“How long would it take to get to South Africa?” Eddi murmured into the slanting air. No one answered, so Sara got up and went to the navigating station. She rummaged and found a chart. They pored over it.

“Five thousand miles to Capetown,” Eddi whispered. Then added longingly, “It’ll be warm there. Summer.”

“We’d be sailing crosswind the whole way,” Bodine pointed out. “A rough trip.”

“We went through a lot of bad weather to get down here,” Eddi said. “Why can’t we go through a little more?”

“If we did decide to abort, it’d be easier to keep going east,” Bodine pointed out. “The way we’re headed now. Then at about this longitude”—he tapped the chart with a blunt, blackened, nail-chewed forefinger—“head off to the north for Sydney.”

“Sydney in the summer,” Dorée murmured. “That sounds good too.”

“Mick, do you know where the whaling fleet is?” Madsen asked.

“I get flashes of their emissions. Weak, but I’d call it southeast.”

Hideyashi called down, “I know where they are.”

They twisted in their seats. “You do?” Bodine said.

“They will be where the whales are: at the edge of the pack. You have seen this. Haven’t you? Find the krill and you find the whales. Find the edge of the pack and you find the krill. I can tell you where that latitude will be.”

“That gives us a cross-bearing,” Bodine said. “Thanks, Hy.”

“You are welcome.”

The Dane said, turning back to the table, “Here’s my opinion. We’re still seaworthy. We have plenty of food and fuel. Losing Dru … no question, that’s a major setback. But he taught us a lot. Not just how to sail, but how to always keep pushing. ‘Press on’—remember what he always said? If this was the start of the cruise, I’d say, we couldn’t go on. Especially since Quill’s gone too—our two experienced sailors.

“But now we’re all experienced. And the League sent us out here to do a job. Track the whalers. Get between them and the whales. Jam their screws, cut their lines, frustrate their efforts. So far we haven’t done much, except make them look stupid over Hy. That’s a publicity coup, but not a big payoff from all the planning that went into this. As the CPL representative, I think—”

“As the what?” Dorée said. “I beg your pardon, but I’m one of the people who’re actually funding this.”

“You helped fund this cruise, Tehiyah, yes. And we are grateful. But I’m actually on the board of directors. So since this is a League charter, and the captain is—deceased”—the others stirred, and he looked around the table, squinting inflamed-looking eyes—“I’m left in charge. That’s how I see it.”

“A ship needs a captain,” Bodine said. “I don’t think there’s going to be any argument about that. And Lars’s been out on Greenpeace ships. He’s got more experience at sea than any of the rest of us—right?” Madsen nodded. “I think I’m going with Lars.”

“No fucking way,” Dorée said. “Jules-Louis made it clear to me there was a limit. He loves this boat. He helped design it. ‘Bring her back safe,’ he told me, ‘and bring yourself back safe too, Tehiyah.’ What about the keel? Dru knew how to fix things like that. Do we?”

“We can keep her sailing,” Bodine said.

Another pause, then an appalling bang and racket from above.
Anemone
slewed, lurching over. Everyone at the table seized a handhold as the deck tilted thirty, forty-five, fifty degrees, until Sara stared nearly straight down into Bodine’s eyes. Which turned away, blinking. He couldn’t still hold their encounter against her, could he? She’d thought that’d blown over. “I don’t know what to do,” Kimura shouted from the steering dome, voice high. “Help.
Help!
”

“He’s jibed,” Eddi said. She let go of the table and scrambled like a spider monkey up the support structure. “Watch the wind indicator. Don’t let it get too close to the stern, or that boom will go over again. That puts strain on the rigging. It might break. Especially when the wind’s real high, like this. Okay? Understand now?” A murmur from the Japanese. “I know. I know! But we all had to learn. You got to have confidence steering,” she added firmly.

“Okay, where were we?” Lars resumed when she climbed back down.

“I was saying, we’re risking too much.” Dorée smoothed long black hair that Sara suddenly noticed was lank and dull with dirt. The rashy pimples were even bigger, and spreading up that long slender neck. “There’s a limit to what we can do with six people.”

Madsen said, “I’d say, there’s no limit to what six people can do. If they’re truly dedicated.”

“Hear, hear.” Mick lifted a mug.

“We’re all
dedicated
,” Eddi said. “That’s not the question. The question is, at what point is it too dangerous to keep going. With a damaged boat and all. I’m not saying you wouldn’t be a good captain, Lars. But do you have Dru’s sailing experience? Can you navigate, like he could? I think we should call this off and go home. Get another crew, see if Jamie’s well enough to come back. Get the keel repaired. Then try again.”

“We couldn’t do that before the summer’s over. We’d lose a whole season,” Bodine pointed out. “Meanwhile, they’re killing more whales. More even than we thought, according to Hy.

“As far as navigation goes, it’s not like in the old days, with a fucking sextant. I can use GPS as well as Dru, and triangulate radio stations, too. We know where the fleet is. Or at least which way to sail to intercept them again. Now that we’re down here, we should stay. As long as we possibly can. Okay, sure—it’s risky. We knew that when we signed up.”

The discussion guttered out. They stared at one another. Finally Sara said, “Well, let’s vote. Is that fair?”

“What do we have to vote on?” Bodine said, not looking at her. “Lars’s the captain. We do what the captain says.”

“You aren’t in the army anymore, Mick,” Dorée said. “And neither are we. And Lars is
not
the captain, until we say he is. Eddi?”

A nod. “Sure. Let’s vote.”

“On what?” Bodine said again. Madsen leaned back, looking angry, but saying nothing.

“First, on what we’re going to do.” Sara tried for a tentative tone; suggesting, not advocating. “Once we decide that, we vote on who’s captain.”

“That’s ass-backward.” Bodine was openly antagonistic now. “What’s the point of having a captain if he doesn’t make the decisions?”

Tehiyah shook her head. “Dru didn’t decide where to go. You’re confusing the owner and the captain. The captain, I don’t know how else to say this, isn’t a—a principal—he’s staff. He does what he’s told, just like anyone else you hire.”

Sara crossed her arms and sat back, letting them argue. They were coming at it from different directions. Bodine had a military mind-set. The man in charge had to be obeyed. Madsen seemed more intent on saving the whales than anything else. Dorée seemed to think of the captain as just another hireling, to be fired at will.

Finally Eddi burst out, “I don’t get it. I won’t even talk about how miserable we all are. Always cold. Always wet. Our clothes stink.
We
stink.” She coughed, a raw tearing rasp that made Sara wince. “But Jamie got hurt. Dru
died
. Doesn’t anybody understand how dangerous this is? We need to go back before someone else gets killed. Or before
all
of us do.” She half turned and called up, “Hy, you listening? Do you have anything to say?”

“I am not really one of you. I will do whatever is decided.”

“Thanks for that,” Auer muttered.

Bodine slammed his hands down. “Okay, if we got to, let’s vote. Go back, or stay out. For going back?”

“Me.” Eddi’s hand shot up. Sara gave it a moment, then added her own. Looked around the table. At Dorée, who smiled at her, but made no move to raise a hand.

“Two for—for Australia? Right. Okay, all for continuing to chase the fleet.” He lifted his own hand, and Madsen immediately did too.

They all looked at Dorée again, but she still hadn’t moved. “Tehiyah?” Eddi said. “You didn’t vote.”

“There are good arguments for both sides.” She tossed her hair back, enjoying the attention. Good grief, Sara thought. The actress stretched languorously, playing the slow move for all it was worth. “It’s very dangerous. We all know that. Especially me. Considering what I’ve lost …
who
I’ve lost. The one I loved. The only one who understood me.” She covered her face. “I can’t … No. I can’t go on.”

Eddi patted her shoulder. “Poor honey. You’ve given up more than any of us. To come down here, and go through so much.” She rolled her eyes at Sara.

“I know.” She sobbed for a moment, then gazed up through shining tears. “But when you care about something, so much, that’s—that’s really when you can’t stop to count the cost.”

“Tehiyah?”

“Yes, Lars?”

“Dru gave his life for this. Are you going to say he gave it for nothing? If we turn back, that’s what it means.”

“No it doesn’t,” Sara said. “You can’t say what he’d have done, Lars.”

“Tehiyah, you’re the swing vote,” Eddi told her. “You have to decide.”

She looked slowly around, lower lip caught in flawless teeth. Very slowly, she raised one hand. “All right then. I vote…”

They all waited, Sara feeling like she was going to scream. In another moment, she would. She promised herself that. Dorée’s gaze sought the overhead, calling on Heaven itself to witness this moment.

“I vote yes,” she said.

“For what?” “Which way?” “How?”

“I vote … we keep on.” She half smiled through tears. “If Lars thinks that’s what we should do.”

Sara hammered the table so hard her wrist hurt. “You want to
stay out here
?”

“That’s how she just voted,” Bodine observed.

“But she hasn’t—”

“Three to two,” Madsen said coldly. “So we press on.”

“For how long?” Sara was trying hard not to sound desperate, or weepy. “We really don’t even know how to sail. And the engines, how do we—”

“We know enough.” Bodine cut in. “That’s what we came here for. So let’s do it.”

“Sara, enough. It’s settled,” Dorée murmured.

She vibrated, angry, frightened too. Then forced herself to sink back into her chair.
Anemone
chose that moment to launch herself into the sky, so she ended up floating, gripping the table edge, before the boat crashed down again, stabbing pain up her backbone.

“And Lars takes over as captain,” Bodine pressed. Madsen looked from face to face, but no one objected this time.

“So what about—about what Sara just asked? When
do
we go back, Lars?” Eddi asked him. “After somebody else gets hurt, or dies? Or what? I just want to know.”

“We don’t leave until we’ve done what we came so far to do.”

“And what is that, Lars? Exactly?” Sara asked him. “If you’re the captain, we ought to know.”

He looked away then, and the pale blue eyes seemed to see far beyond the hull. “You want to know what I think? Seriously? Okay. We’re in a war. But a different kind than people used to fight.”

Across from them, Bodine smiled grimly.

“A war,” Eddi said. “Against who?”

Madsen took a breath and lifted his head. He looked from gaze to gaze, and those pale blue eyes widened. “I think … no … this is something new. People used to have to fight just to survive. Darwin, and all that. Then they fought each other. For land, and gold and stuff. But now we don’t have to. Or else, it’s just too dangerous—we’d destroy the world, if we really got going.”

“So we’re in a war for the whales?” Sara asked him.

“It’s bigger than that. There’s so many of us, and we’ve got so much power. Like, you saw the krill. The penguins, the killers, the sea lions. That whole struggle-for-existence thing. We came out of that. But we came out on top.

“So that makes us … responsible, now. We could kill every whale and lion and elephant, but what would it prove?” The boat staggered, and he and Bodine, beside him, gripped each other to keep from falling backward. “They used to think God was in charge, or Nature. Well, we killed God, and we’re working on Nature. We can keep murdering, until there’s nothing left. Or else start acting like we know what we’re doing.

“That’s what we’re down here for. To strike a blow. And we can’t go back before we do.”

Sara took a deep breath, feeling even less reassured than before he’d explained. The two men sat close together, legs crossed the same way, body language echoing each other’s. “What
kind
of a blow, Lars? How hard? We just want to know when we can say, we’re done.”

“We’ll know. Don’t worry about that,” Bodine said.

Madsen looked around again, then hoisted himself. Clinging to the table, then the support beams as he made his way to the steering station. He called up, “Hy? Bring her around to starboard. Course, about one one five. —That about right, Mick?”

“It’ll get us to the vicinity,” Bodine said. “I’ll plot what Hy gives us, for the pack edge, and cross-check that against my bearings.”

As the steering creaked and
Anemone
heeled under them Dorée got to her feet too. She wiped her eyes and smiled brightly. “So, all together now? No more arguing? Then I have something for everybody. Finish your tea. Eddi, would you please—the camera? To get this, for the special?”