movement. Then he taught them to slip the hook from the jaw, careful
not to damage the vulnerable gills, holding the fish firmly but gently
while the assistant pressed the barbed dart into the thick muscle at the
back of the dorsal fill. When the fish was dropped back over the side,
there were so few after-affects that it almost immediately began feeding
again on the packed masses of tiny anchovies.
Each plastic tag was numbered and imprinted with a request in five
languages to mail it back to University of Miami with details of date
and place of capture, providing a valuable trace of the movements of the
shoals in their annual circumnavigation of the globe. From their
spawning grounds somewhere in the Caribbean they worked the Gulf Stream
north and cast across the Atlantic, then south down and around the Cape
of Good Hope with an occasional foray down the length of the
Mediterranean Sea although now the dangerous pollution of that
landlocked water was changing their habits, From Good Hope east again
south of Australia to take a gigantic swing up and around the Pacific,
running the gauntlet of the Japanese long-liners and the California
tunny men before ducking down under the terrible icy seas of the Horn
and back to their spawning grounds in the Caribbean.
They sat up on the wheelhouse as the Dicky ran home in the sunset,
drinking beer and talking. Nicholas studied them casually and saw that
they possessed so many of the qualities he valued in his fellow humans;
they were intelligent and motivated, they were dedicated and free of
that particular avarice that mars so many others.
Tom Parker crumpled the empty beer can in a huge fist as easily as if it
had been a paper packet, fished two more from the pack beside him and
tossed one across to Nick.
The gesture seemed to have some special significance and Nicholas
saluted him with the can before he drank.
Samantha was snuggled down in luxurious weariness against his shoulder,
and the sunset was a magnificence of purple and hot molten crimson.
Nicholas thought idly how pleasant it would be to spend the rest of his
life doing things like this with people like these.
Tom Parker's office had shelves to the ceiling, and they were sagging
with hundreds of bottled specimens and rows of scientific papers and
publications.
He sat well back in his swivel chair with ankles crossed neatly in the
centre of the cluttered desk.
I ran a check on you, Nicholas. Damned nerve, wasn't it? You have my
apology. Was it an interesting exercise? Nicholas asked mildly.
It wasn't difficult. You have left a trail behind you like a - Tom
sought for a comparison, like a grizzly bear through a honey farm.
Son of a gun, Nicholas, that's a hell of a track record you've got
yourself. I've kept busy/ Nicholas admitted.
Beer? Tom crossed to the refrigerator in the corner that was labelled
Zoological Specimens. DO NOT OPEN. It's too early for me. 'Never too
early, said Tom and pulled the tag on a dewy can of Millers and then
picked up Nicholas statement.
Yes, you have kept busy. Strange, isn't it, that around some men things
just happen. Nicholas did not reply, and Tom went on, We need a man
