Killer

“At our Facility here, we have one male killer whale obtained by the Navy as a calf seven years ago in Antarctica. As part of our experiments we fed it a carefully selected diet, and have given it a body weight in excess of seven tons, with an overall body length of thirty-nine feet eight and one-half inches. This is ten feet in excess of the norm, but no larger than some killers observed in the wild. This killer we have trained fully in anti-personnel work. It is instantly aware of any invasion of the anchorage which it guards. It is able to pinpoint any invader, and shadow him, keeping out of sight. If immediate action is called for, it will decide upon the type of action and upon its own role in this action. The ultimate trigger to anti-personnel action is the simple reaching out of an arm towards the hull of one of the ships, as though to place a mine.”

Harper stood up. He found he was sweating slightly. It had been touch and go, whether this admiral would stay with him. But a certain basic minimum of information had to be got over – even if it had meant boring the pants off his listener.

“And now, sir, if you’d like to follow me, we’ll go down to the anchorage.”

They went through the main hall of the Administration Building to the back of the lower floor. A gleaming sentry checked their passes, pressed a button, and escorted them into a steel-lined lift. He stood at attention between them and the doors.

“I’d like to show you the dolphins we have here, first, admiral. We keep them in pens at one side of the anchorage. They are all in there now, except the killer, which is outside somewhere.”

“Outside?”

“In the anchorage, but free to go where he wants. He becomes moody if kept penned up for too long, and if we’re not careful he becomes uncooperative.”

“Dangerous?”

“Not actively so, sir, no. But we are dealing with an animal here that is as big as three elephants standing nose-to-tail: he doesn’t have to do much to let you know he’s not happy.”

“I see.”

“And furthermore, sir, he has been carefully trained by a system of rewards to derive the maximum enjoyment out of patrolling this anchorage, occasionally killing an invader. We use dummies for this. Radio-controlled. Very expensive.”

Outside, the sun was strong, but it didn’t really warm the Admiral. He saw the dolphins, but his mind was totally preoccupied with what the commander had said about the killer. After what seemed like an interminable time, Harper said, “If you will follow me now, Admiral, we’ll go up to the monitoring room and see the killer go through his paces.”

“Couldn’t we see it from here?”

“Not very clearly, sir. If you want a closer look, we can come down again later.”

Hope had to be content with that. With one long look over the water which saw none of the perfectly painted ships, he followed the commander into yet another lift. Above everything else he wanted a cigarette.

There were six monitor screens linked to more than twenty cameras above and below the anchorage. Harper took over an intercom, and sat near the controls.

“Can you pick it up?” asked Hope. Harper had to think for a minute before he realised the admiral meant could he pick up the killer on the monitor.

“Doubt it, sir. He’s very good at hiding. If you’ll just watch Monitor One . . .”

He spoke into the intercom. Monitor One showed a concrete slipway shelving steeply into the water. A man in a white coat walked on to the slipway and waved towards the camera. “Just testing, sir,” said Harper, and into the intercom, “All right, we see you. Call him in now, please.”

The man in the white coat took a long pipe from a sailor behind him, half in picture, knelt, and blew down it into the water. Immediately there was a flurry of movement on Monitor Six, repeated formlessly, at second intervals on the others, until there was a still dark shape in the water by the scientist on One.

“He was watching us back,” observed Harper. “He knows which monitors are on, because the cameras have red lights.” Into the intercom he said, “Bring him up.”

The scientist moved. A great black head broke water without even a ripple beside him. The head alone was twice as broad as the man. The size of the killer was masked by the water. The huge mouth came open.

“He has a bite-width of three feet seven and a quarter inches,” said Harper, as the scientist put his hand into the killer’s mouth and rubbed the pink shovel of its tongue. “Clearance between jaws three feet one inch. Fifty-six interlocking teeth between six and eight inches long.”

A voice, drowned in static, came over the intercom.

“Very good,” said the commander, “begin One.”

The scientist moved. The head was gone.

“Monitor Six, sir.” The picture on Six changed to show a raft moored behind one of the ships, glinting white on the blue sea. On the raft was a black box of about nine cubic feet.