Benchley, Peter - Novel 08 Read online

  Darling wet a finger and held it up. “Home,” he said. “Northwest wind. We’re going home.”

  54

  IT HAD BEEN created in the abyss, and had remained there for weeks, adhering to a rock overhang on the mountainside. Then it had broken away, as Nature planned it should, and, buoyed by a concentration of ammonium ions, it had begun slowly to drift toward the surface. In times past, it might have been eaten on the way up, for it was a rich food source.

  But nothing had attacked it; nothing had shattered its integrity and permitted a rush of seawater that would have killed the tiny creatures within, so it had arrived safely on the surface and bathed itself in the sunlight vital to its survival.

  It floated on the still water, oblivious to wind and weather, so thin as to be nearly transparent. But its jelly skin was remarkably strong.

  It was oval, with a hole in its center, and it followed eons of genetic instructions and rotated itself in the sun, exposing all of itself to nutrients sent from almost 100 million miles away.

  Still, it was vulnerable. A turtle might have fed on it, a passing shark might have slashed at it. Nature had ordained that many of its members would die, feeding other species and maintaining the balance of the food chain.

  But since nature itself was out of balance, the gelatinous oblong rotated through days and nights until its cycle was complete. At last, ripe, it broke apart and scattered into the sea thousands of little sacs, each containing a complete creature. As each creature sensed that its time had come for life, it struggled free of its sac and immediately began to search for food.

  They were cannibals, these creatures, and those that could turned on their brethren and ate them. But there were so many, and they dispersed so fast in the water, that most survived and dove for the comfort of the cold abyss.

  Almost all should have been eaten before they reached the bottom, or the safety of the crevices on the submerged volcano’s slopes; at most, one creature in a hundred should have survived.

  But the predators were gone, and while a few lone hunters did appear, and took their toll, there were no longer the great gatherings that had once acted as natural monitors. The vast schools of bonito and mackerel, the swarms of small white squid, the pelagic jacks, the herds of tuna, the voracious wahoo and barracuda, all were gone.

  And so, by the time the creatures had crossed three thousand feet of open water and taken shelter in the cliffs, nearly ten percent—perhaps a hundred individual animals, perhaps two or three hundred—still lived.

  They hovered, each alone, for each was completely self-sufficient, and drew water into their mantles and expelled it from the funnels in their bellies. Their confidence grew with every respiration. Their bodies would mature slowly, and for a year or more they would be wary of other predators. But the time would come when they would sense their uniqueness, their superiority, and then they would venture out.

  They hovered, and they waited.