Ten Years Before

WARNING: Mentions of animal abuse and suicide. Reader descretion is advised.

Man, do not pride yourself on superiority to animals; they are without sin, and you, with your greatness, defile the earth by your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your foulness after you - alas, it is true of almost every one of us!
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov 

Berufjörður, Eastern Iceland
November, 2012

Julius Eriksen, captain of the fishing boat Hvidhal, was not sure about what he was going to do.

He knew what he was going to do, of course. He'd been paid a lot of money for it, by a man who spoke with a strange accent and had said a lot of big words. And he was nothing if not a man who knew his trade very well, and wanted badly to support his family through that trade. Three thousand US dollars was not something you sneezed at, not if you knew anything about exchange rates and cared about keeping your house.

But Julius was starting to have second thoughts, the intrusive little voices that, just as you find yourself set on doing something, pipe up and go "Here, can't we have another talk about this?"

It was a bad time to have them, too. He was on the deck of the Hvidhal, and they were waiting for word from the boats that had gone up ahead. The day was fine - no clouds, a pale blue sky, but still chilled by an icy sea wind blowing in from the west. A wind that pulled at the tangled mass of his hair and beard and threw the faint, salt spray of the waves over the side of his boat. His men were waiting all around him, as tense with anticipation as he was.

So the second thoughts were very unwelcome at the moment.

A movement made Julius turn his head. His bosun, Henrik, was coming up beside him, clutching onto the rails as he moved to avoid being cast into the water by a sudden rolling of the ship. Much younger than the captain, his body language brooked none of the doubt that was plaguing the older man's mind at that moment. He was a relative newcomer, having only recently become a bosun, and hadn't seen much of what could go wrong on a hunt like this.

Lucky bastard, thought Julius, with a hint of bitter jealousy.

"Lovely weather for it, eh, kaptajn?" Henrik hollered over the wind as he approached. He was wearing the kind of grin usually only reserved for boys who poked spiders with sticks to see them scuttle. That was the worrying thing about Henrik - he always enjoyed whatever job he was doing a bit too much. Julius hadn't really wanted to take him on - you naturally grew to dislike anyone like that. But nobody knew bosun's work better than Henrik Hjort, so there you were.

Julius shrugged. "No fog at least, thank God. And the water's clear enough. Pilots should be able to see our quarry well enough."

It was standard procedure - the smaller, faster speedboats would start it all. Dynamite charges, ignited and exploded into the water, would drive and corral the prey into the right channel. Spotter helicopters, up in the sky, would keep them hot on the trail and guide the chasers into what, hopefully, would be a dead end that couldn't be escaped from. Then the larger boats would move in and drop the seine nets at the mouth of the estuary, cutting off any means of escape. That was when the boys would move in with the gear - nets, hoops, anything they could use for their quarry.

That was what he was doing now. Waiting for the signal. The boys had gone ahead to chase... whatever it was they'd been ordered to chase, and they were waiting for the spotters to tell them where they'd gone so they could catch up.

Henrik had reached him by this point, his boots making dull clumping sounds on the metal of the deck.

"It's about that I've been meaning to talk to you, kaptajn," he said in his low voice. "You've been pretty damn vague about what we're after and you've not told us who we're doing this for. And some of the boys... they don't like that. Not knowing what we're after? Sure, the boys in the chasers know, but you can't trust them and that's a fact. Trigger-happy idiots to a man. The lads on the boat, though..."

Julius had fixed him with a hard stare. The grin didn't go away, which only made the words that had come out of the bosun's mouth more aggrivating. And what was further aggrivating was that he was correct. 

It was true, he'd been rather cagey about the details of this. Half of the reason was a pragmatic one - letting all of the facts loose would have made this job unappealing to any crew, no matter how hardened or desperate they were. Who would have taken on a job as outlandish as this? It wouldn't have mattered how much was being offered. When he'd been told what he was going to catch, he himself had been inclined to question the sanity of the man making the offer. 

But his employer had not only been very insistent about it, he'd been... persuasive. Aside from the money, there was a way that man had carried himself that brooked no argument, no contradiction or second-guessing. And Julius, at fifty years old and with a family to provide for, always thought twice about such grand gestures as refusing. It was only away from the man, here and now, that the second thoughts were coming. They hadn't dared show their faces in the presence of...

...what was his name now? Clarence? Clemence? Some weird, foreign name like that.

"It's a need-to-know basis, Henrik," Julius retorted at last. "I told you that when you took the job, and you know all that you need to know."

And that was the other half of the equation. The other half - and this was the sticking point - that his employer didn't want him to tell. He'd made it very clear, as bills changed hands, that this was meant to be on the down-low. No records of it kept, not a word of it breathed to anyone. And Julius didn't know how, but something in his gut told him that, even though the stranger hadn't said anything of the sort, that there would be... consequences for telling.

He didn't want to know what those consequences were.

"Well, yes," Henrik went on, "but... they're starting to talk. They're saying... well... words like 'mobster' and 'unpaid debts' are being thrown around. And some of them think you might be after orcas. You know we don't do orcas, Julius. Nobody buys them anymore, not after what happened in America. And as for keeping us in the dark like this, well... it's not a good look for anyone is it? Secret jobs make us look... untrustworthy."

Julius would have liked to retort. He wanted to say, oh, how he wanted to say, 'Really? Then what's this I hear, friend, about you taking that job chasing that monster whale two years ago? Don't remember seeing that on your books. And how much did Greasy Jim pay you for that again? Enough to up the lease on that house of yours, from what I hear. So who the hell are you, telling me I can't take a job off the record to keep my family in order?'

He didn't say it. Partly because you didn't speak to bosuns that way, even if they were Henrik Hjort. But mostly because the walkie-talkie started crackling. Grateful for the interruption, he snatched it up and hit the button.

"Hvidhal, reading you," he barked into it. "What's going on?"

The response that came through was, mercifully, understandable. There was a crackle of static in the background, but the syllables came through sharply enough.

"Pelikan One to Hvidhal," came the pilot's voice. "We got a problem here!"

"What problem?!" snapped Julius. His nerves were already jangling from anticipation - this was the last thing he wanted to hear.

"They bamboozled us, Hvidhal!" came the cry over the crackling speaker. "The males... they split off from the pod! Led half the boys down a side channel to the west! The mothers and their offspring went down the main tributary to the north! Cunning bastards knew what we were gonna do!"

Julius muttered something under his breath he never wanted his wife and children to hear. But Henrik, who was an expert at reading lips, grinned regardless.

"Well, where the hell are the rest of the boys, Pelikan One?!" he yelled.

"They're following," replied the pilot. "But those... things are going hell for leather! The boys can barely keep up! And there isn't enough of them to block those things off if they get to a dead end! You'd better get your ass in gear, Hvidhal, or else they're gonna slip through our fingers!"

"Already on our way, Pelikan One!"

This was it. The now or never moment, the moment where he proved he was worthy of the money he was given. Julius Eriksen twisted a dial on his handset and turned to face the pilot of the boat, visible behind the reinforced glass canopy. The man was about his age, but even through the dirty glass he could see iron grey staining the dirty brown-blonde of his hair. His hands had a death-grip on the tiller and his jaw was set, turning his mouth into a thin line of nervous anticipation.

He looked exactly like Julis felt.

"Full steam, Klaus!" he bellowed into the walkie-talkie. "We're getting paid today!"

With a nod, Klaus reached forwards and pushed hard up on the throttle. The engine roared - as did the few crew members lingering on the deck, throwing their hands up in joyous thrill of the hunt beginning at last. And as the Hvidhal lurched forward, spray gushing in front of the bow, Julius clutched the railings and stared grimly ahead, finally happy to be focused on doing his job.

A strange job, but a job nonetheless.

--------

They found the boys at the mouth of another tributary. It lead into a bay - not large, but enough to admit at least one large fishing boat. The men in their smaller speedboats were doing what they could, throwing more dynamite and firecrackers into the water, and plumes of spray and bubbles marked the place of the detonation of each one. But further up ahead, the once-tranquil waters were churning and frothing, as if a great pack of something was circling and twisting in a frantic effort to find some other way out of the bay.

But they were trapped. Even Julius, up on his deck, could see that.

The moment the Hvidhal drew up, the boys turned. They weren't yelling and whooping anymore, as was their wont. Their faces had gone oddly pale - they had the look of men who had seen something that they didn't want to believe they had seen. But one man did more than turn. He rose to his feet, fear and anger written on his face, grey eyes fixed on the boat's captain with an almost wild frenzy.

"Julius, din bask!" he screamed. "Din løgnagtige gamle idiot! What did you tell my boys we were after?! How much did you pay them to keep quiet about this?!" He pointed at the churning waters - it was hard to tell how many there could have been under the surface, but it seemed to be at least a dozen.

Julius kept his face stoic, even as he faced the bewildered and questioning eyes of the bosun on him. Damn. He'd been hoping to avoid this. The man - Leif - was an old friend of his, and had been with him on many a fishing trip or a hunt before. He'd assumed that, due to their relationship, he could have trusted him to not kick up any fuss about what the job was. Oh, well, this was what he got for being cagey.

"Leif," he said, calmly, "you've known your trade for ten years now. You've worked with me for six of those. Have you ever known me lie to you? I wouldn't have brought you onto this job if I didn't think I could trust you. I told you this job was to be secret, and it's going to stay secret."

"Secret?!" barked Leif. "You have my boys chase after... something like this and you expect it to stay a secret?! What's to stop me telling every Tom, Dick and Erik-"

"If you want to feed your family tonight, you won't!" snapped Julius. "Now shut up and move aside! Drive them to us - we're dropping the seine! My boys will handle things from here!"

Leif looked like he wanted to keep arguing. He was that sort of man, Julius knew - a man whom, when there was a grievance to be had, clung to it like a stubborn dog on a leg of lamb. But the barb about his family always got to him - he had a sick grandmother, Julius knew, and any amount of money that would go towards her care couldn't be thrown away on a grievance. So after a moment's hesitation, he turned back to the business at hand.

"Move up!" he barked. "Hvidhal's dropping her net! Get them towards her end of the bay, quick!"

The chasers moved like lightning - they'd been at this job for several years now, and speed meant everything to them. Splitting in two, the flotilla gave way to the Hvidhal as she moved forward, churning the waters behind her. As she approached, she turned, and the chasers re-formed behind her, once again cutting off escape from the bay. No room for dynamite - now the men on the speedboats resorted to yelling and slapping the surface of the water to keep the things hidden beneath the churning depths from fleeing.

"Drop the net!" bellowed Julius. His men obeyed in a split-second, already having anticipated the order. Behind them, the great purse seine was dropped into the water, the weights on the bottom edge plummeting to the bottom of the bey while the floats on the upper edge bobbed upon the surface. Little by little, as the ship advanced, the net was payed out, unfurling like a great green curtain in the water.

Everything else went like clockwork after that. The Hvidhal, slowly yet surely, described a perfect U-shape around the bay. Within the space of a mere two minutes, the net had been dragged around the quarry, cutting off escape from all sides. Then, with the mechanical whirring of the boat's powerful winch, the purse line was wound in. Like a drawstring bag, the bottom of the net was pulled up, closing as the line was pulled - for the prey, diving was now no longer an option. They were caught in a great bowl of netting, from which the only escape would be to jump over the side.

They rarely did, in Julius' experience.

He spared a glance down at the end result. He could see the shapes moving through the water and over the green netting, like a herd of anxious sheep in a pen, unsure of which way to go. Even now, he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. He barely believed it when his employer showed him the diagrams, the footage, the documents. It all seemed... unreal. But there it was, all the same, springing out of reality and into a mind that barely comprehended to begin with. Real, live-

"Captjan!"

He shook himself awake. Henrik was giving him an anxious look - the first, he realized - he'd given him since this trip. Very little fazed Henrik - he'd put his entire arm down a shark's throat once, to rescue a man's watch that had been swallowed by mistake. And now...

"Catchpoles!" he snapped. "Quickly, now! Get that deck hatch open! And prioritize the little ones - we've got shipping costs to worry about!"

Three of the men were already poised at the side of the boat before he'd finished speaking. In each of their hands was a catchpole - three feet of reinforced aluminium, through which a noose of vinyl-coated rope was fed. Normally, something sturdier would have been used - but Julius knew that, as these weren't very large animals, they could afford to use the light-duty stuff on this job Behind him, there was the heavy clunk of the deck hatch leading to the inner cargo hold, being thrown open. It had been filled with seawater prior to the trip - which was why it had taken a bit longer than usual for the Hvidhal to catch up to the chasers.

There was a moment of tense silence. Except for the splashing and the strange, hissing cries that occasionally breached the ear. Julius Eriksen stood impassive, watching like a hawk for his boys to do their thing.

He didn't wait long. Like a cobra, one of the men suddenly lunged forward. His arms made a sweeping motion as the end of the pole surged through the water - and in the same instant he pulled on the end of the pole. The noose tightened - around something, and his arms met resistance in a weight, a weight that struggled and thrashed.

There was a roar from the watching chasers.

"Good man!" Julius called over the clamour. "Haul it up!"

The man tensed his shoulders, then, using the edge of the rail as his lever, pulled the other end of the catchpole out of the water. 

The thing on the end was small, about the size of a human child. High-pitched squeals escaped from its mouth, water sloshing off of its hide as it thrashed in the grip of the catchpole. Dark eyes, wide with terror, stared at the horrified fisherman who held the other end of the pole, who himself looked as though his eyes would pop from his head.

"Gode ​​Gud," cried the man. "What is it?!"

"Never you mind what it is!" snapped Julius. "Just get it in the damn boat before it wiggles free! Watch that line, you," he snapped at a younger hand struggling with a pole of his own. "They'll be out like lightning if-"

It was the most fleeting of distractions, a flash of lightning breaking the monotonous grey cloud of building chaos. But it was enough. A shape suddenly rose from the blue waters - only for a moment. And yet, in that moment, Julius caught sight of everything. The hairless head, a face twisted in a snarl of fury, the sunlight glinting of the water that dripped from the tip of the spear, primitive yet ominous in its outline, clutched in a sinewy hand. 

Then it all happened at once. A swift, lurching movement- a sound like rushing and murderous wind- a wet thunk- a scream.

"FANDEN!" screamed Henrik, leaping back by about a foot. 

Julius turned. The youngster lay sprawled on the deck in front of him, knocked clean off of his feet. The spear had pierced his shoulder - gone right through the shoulder, tearing through the lifejacket and the heavy clothing he'd worn against the wind and wet, and out the other side. The point, embedded in the metal floor, dripped crimson, which was also running in a steady stream down the man's chest.

For a moment, the world stopped. Julius's eyes were fixed on the young man, writhing and screaming on the floor in front of him. Dark blood blossomed on his jacket and spread like a rash across the deck. Men were shouting, yelling, pushing. The chasers were backing up, trying to get away. Henrik was shouting something, but he didn't hear it. All was confusion and noise, and all he saw was red, liquid red dripping everywhere.

Then another spear, whizzing through the air, missed him, by whisker's breadth. It skimmed over the top of his head and smacked into the iron plating with a crash that sounded like a hammer against a barricade.

It was enough to snap him out of it.

"HOLD!" he bellowed.

The men stopped and stared at him. Good, he had their attention. Now he could control the mood in the air - and hopefully keep everyone from losing their heads. He took in a deep breath and, with a great effort, brought his own spinning mind under control.

"Move fast!" he snapped over the churning and the shrieking. "Get that man under hatches and get some medical treatment! The rest of you, get as many of those things as you can! Big, small, I don't damn well care anymore - I'm getting paid for this job one way or the other!"

"But captajn-" Henrik began.

"MOVE!" roared Julius. "They'll figure out the net in a minute, and then we'll be in real trouble!"

Everything after that was a frantic blur. Galvanized by the dramatic way their captain took control and terrified of their prey's new weapon, the fishermen worked like devils. The prey, as if sensing what was now happening to them, began jinking away from catchpoles the moment they saw one swing through the water. But the men on the boats weren't idle, either. The catchers moved in once more, using whatever they could to push the prey closer to the Hvidhal, and whatever came too close, looking to throw yet another deadly missile, was driven back by jabbing gaffes.

By the end of it, the sun was starting to dip down in the sky. They'd caught, by Julius' count, four young and three subadults. More than he was expecting to catch, overall - and promising to be quite pleasing to the employer. 

But the rest of the prey was becoming bolder. They seemed to sense what was happening and, instead of merely panicking, were turning aggressive in their attempts to escape the net. They attacked the chasers with spears, with what looked like knives, even with teeth. One man was pulled overboard, and it was by a miracle that he was dragged back in, screaming, great rents torn in his limbs and blood leaking into the water.

Julius, seeing that, knew the game was up.

"Enough!" he shouted. "We've got what we want! Let's get out of here!"

The Hvidhal turned sharply, then roared as the engine kicked into gear once more. The purse line was payed out slowly as the net itself was wound back - tangles were a huge risk. The chasers turned and rushed on ahead, knowing they had to get their man to hospital as soon as possible. And away and out of the bay they steamed, that great flotilla, its unusual and dark mission completed at last.

It was only after they'd cleared the mouth of the bay and gotten into the channel proper that Julius realized something. He turned back.

They hadn't pursued. They could have done - the speed at which they swam matched the speedboats. They could easily have given chase and kept up their attack. But the massed group of dark eyes merely watched, growing smaller and smaller in the wake of the Hvidhal's departure. Every expression seemed to be visible on their faces - anger, horror, shock, despair - 

Except no, Julius told himself. That wasn't possible. They were dumb animals, there was no way...

He became aware of Henrik by his side once again. The man had retreated into his usual disgusting habit, a cigarette between his teeth, plumes of foul-smelling smoke rising into the air. The hand holding the lighter trembled - and the captain suspected it was more than cold making it shake.

Even so, he was grinning like a madman.

"Think you'll remember this one, Julius?" he asked, almost casually.

Julius didn't answer

--------

He slept on the boat that night. It was dark by the time they got to port, and their contact was late. So he figured that a night afloat wouldn't kill him.

It proved to be a huge mistake as the wailing cries kept coming from the hold.

Julius tried everything. He covered his head with his pillow. He shoved in earplugs. He banged on the tank door and screamed for it to shut up. But it didn't. And the more the wails came, the more they sounded like human voices to Julius. And nothing he could say to himself could stop the horrible, bubbling guilt in his stomach - a thing he'd never felt before, in all his years of fishing.

He hadn't wept in years, not since his mor had died. But that night, the tears ran down his face until he fell asleep.

--------

Three years later, Julius Eriksen was found in his home in a heap on the floor, the gun still in his grasp.

The note he left behind, scrawled in a hand that had shaken so badly the paper had torn in places, only had one legible sentence in it.

"I can still hear them crying."