The Thrill of Falling: Stories

Purity of Ice

Water promises to be to the 21st century what oil was to the 20th century: the precious commodity that determines the wealth of nations — Fortune

He was asleep, dreaming of a hotel, like a mirage, on a tropical island in a beautiful azure sea. The sun was shining in a clear blue sky change that, move a cloud over the sun to cut down the glare, ah, that’s good and the wind was coming cool across the waves.

Where the tropical island came from, he didn’t know. Maybe he’d seen it in some ancient fantasy film shown by Bazza to tease him, yeah, that’s it: South Pacific. He frowned, didn’t want to think of Bazza right now where the hell has that island got to? Bring it back!

Ah, there it was again. Most people long for another island … a voice sang, teasing, haunting. And there he was lying on a lounger on the beach right in the front of the hotel, where he would like to be. Only a few other people around. Smiling, smelling rich, privileged. Tropical breezes were coming off the shore, bending the palm trees along the golden strand of beach. A special place where sun met the sea.

Aha! The waiter in the white suit had returned, bringing his mai tai in a tall glass with pure ice on top. ‘Just as you ordered, sir.’ The drink was so cool, delicious, oh oh oh, hitting the back of his throat and shivering through his dream.

Now bring on the dancing girls.

At his bidding seven dusky maidens came surfing across the lagoon, all dressed in grass skirts and holding leis out to him sweet leilani, heavenly flower, beaching prettily in front of the hotel. They waved and began to dance a hula just for me? Their hips swayed to a jaunty ukulele as they came up the beach towards him, onto the hotel terrace and, when they arrived, they took him by the hand and led him to the pool.

But what was this? Freeze frame? Nononono. Another woman was coming out of the waves. Short spiky red hair. Skinny ass. Colby, get outta my dream. This ain’t your party.

Too late. He felt a shivering blast of cold. Somebody shook him awake. When he opened his eyes it was Colby all right, holding a cup of coffee. She was dressed in tracksuit and sneakers.

He was back in his bunk, freezing his butt off in the helicopter base deep in the fiords.

Colby rolled her eyes. ‘Dreaming of hula girls again, are we?’

‘What else am I to do on these cold lonely nights?’

‘It’s a wonder you’re not braindead. Try something warm that moves,’ she said.

‘What about you?’ he asked, reaching up to grab her.

She evaded his arms. ‘The last time, you farted in bed.’ She handed him the cup. ‘Okay Maori boy, I’ll give you five minutes to drink your coffee, and then up and at ’em.’

Drake scratched himself, yawned, put on some music and, sitting up, sipped his coffee. ‘All right, all right,’ he said finally to the clock on the wall.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and slipped on T-shirt, pants and running shoes. He wondered if he was losing his touch with Colby, but his confidence was restored when, towelling himself, he looked at his reflection in the mirror.

‘Still a good-looking sonofabitch at thirty,’ he said to himself. Black curly hair. Caramel complexion and, most interesting, eyes that were different colours: one ice blue, the other light brown. This often caused people to do a double take but, hey, not his fault if mixed Maori and Pakeha ancestry resulted in such an ocular oddity. A good physique — tall and muscular — that he owed to his father, Hemi. And, in homage to his father’s warlike ancestors, a body tattoo of a taniwha, head resting on his left pectoral and scaly carapace hugging his back as if protecting him, the tail wrapping around his right calf.

Drake stretched, and made for the door. As always, he did a check of his room before he left. He took great pride in it, and his eyes lingered on a new acquisition in his bookshelf: beside The Worst Journey in the World, the copy of Moby Dick which he’d bought from an antiquarian bookshop during a recent trip to Wellington. In a world where novels were now available online, it had been aberrant behaviour to buy the book.

But ever since his grandfather had read it to him as a boy he’d loved it.

Call me Ishmael … Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet … then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

As for his tidiness, Drake owed that to his mother, Phyllis. She had been a small, no-nonsense woman. You should always leave your room the way you want to come back to it, she used to say. And she was right: how great it was to be able to return and wrap the cocoon of familiarity around you and let the day drain away.

They were both dead now, Mum and Dad. They’d been in what qualified as an essential industry: a dairy farm in the Waikato. China had replaced the US as the world’s leading economy, with Japan in third place, so most of the milk products went to Asia. Drake had expected to take over the dairy farm but, instead, ten years ago during compulsory military service — he’d chosen the air force and, in particular, helicopter pilot training — he’d gone to the top of his flight class. That had meant a diversion to ‘military operations’ and immediate assignment to what was known as the Hot Zone — the area straddling the equator — to help with the evacuation of VIP civilians.

Hemi and Phyllis hadn’t seemed to mind that, from now on, he wasn’t going to be close to home. Thinking that eventually he would return to the farm, they’d waved him goodbye at Auckland airport, saying, ‘We’ll see you when you get back.’ They’d looked like your regular cow cocky and his missus, dressed up in their Sunday best to farewell him. Drake hadn’t expected to be away for six years and, when he had returned to New Zealand, he assumed they’d be there to greet him, Mum in her blue jersey top, skirt and sensible low-heeled shoes and Dad in his ill-fitting suit and crumpled hat.

They weren’t.

‘We can’t keep meeting like this,’ Colby said when Drake came out of his room. She had already stretched and warmed up. ‘Shall we run this morning or do you want to lift weights?’

Drake squinted into the pearl-grey light. ‘What’s the weather like?’

‘Another beautiful day in Costa Del Fiord-ay,’ she answered. Actually, though, you could never tell from inside the complex; inside was nice and warm all the time, and sealed against cold and rain.

At that moment, Starbuck, Flask, Samurai Sam, Czar and Hari, who was a Parsee, came loping along the hallway. ‘Don’t be a pussy, sir!’ Starbuck yelled. ‘The squadron that runs together …’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ Drake nodded. ‘Okay, Colby,’ he said as the boys joined him at the end of the corridor, where they were all getting into cold weather gear, thermals, hoodies, gloves and eye goggles, ‘lead on. Let’s do the whole circuit.’

‘All the way?’ Samurai Sam asked, looking suggestively at Colby.

‘Why is it,’ she responded, ‘that you can make anything sound filthy?’ She put on a sun visor against the morning glare and punched the exit button. Immediately the temperature dropped to almost freezing point and Samurai Sam was gasping for breath.

‘You meant to do that,’ Drake said. The vapour from his mouth was already creating crystals around his lips. He led the squad, scrambling out into the cold, running along the circuit track away from the Tangaroa Consortium.

Just another day at the office.

Seniority required that Drake get out in front and set the pace. He would have liked it leisurely except that Colby kept pushing him from behind. Starbuck was abreast, and Drake managed to mutter to him, ‘Now I know why harpoonists are mainly women.’

It was a standard joke. ‘Yes, sir,’ Starbuck answered.

Drake concentrated on the run. When he’d spoken to Starbuck the air had invaded his lungs; ice caves with stalactites and stalagmites forming in their interior — not a pretty thought. He headed clockwise along the cluttered rooftop walkway of the main complex, jogging on the spot while the security guard looked him over. Once the check was done, he surged away from the complex.

Sheathed with sun reflectors, the base hugged the sheer sides of one of the deepest fiords at the bottom of New Zealand’s South Island. It wasn’t pretty: a Monty Pythonesque assemblage of cumbersome concrete blocks seven storeys high — headquarters, communications, personnel quarters — all connected by a dizzying array of walkways, elevators and lifts and topped off with an odd crown of flimsy communications antennae. Tumbled into the neck of the fiord, the base looked as if some giant’s kid — a wannabe engineer with bad balance and no idea of perspective — had made it from Lego, got bored and abandoned it.

By the time the team reached the security road, Drake’s breath was coming in huge, tortuous, ragged gasps and his eyes were stinging from the cold. The road took them past the remote defensive armament installations that ringed the fiord. The last attack had been made about two weeks ago, nothing major; since then, all was quiet on the southern front.

Five kilometres later, they came to the massive iron double-locked gateway at the entrance to the fiord, which separated it from the sea. It was closed; they dashed across.

‘Let’s rest a bit,’ Drake ordered the others as he dived into the warmth of the gateway controller’s station, startling Silas, the engineer on duty.

‘Christ,’ Silas said. ‘Shut the freezer door, willya?’ He quickly switched off the porno download on his tablet before Colby could see it. The office was a mess.

‘Okay everyone?’ Drake asked. ‘Maybe we should have done weights this morning.’

Colby cocked an eye. ‘You’re not going to be like you are in bed, are you?’ she enquired. ‘Good at the start but can’t go the distance?’

Starbuck and Czar roared with laughter. They appreciated Colby’s acidic humour and the way she dished it to the boss.

Drake took it all in good humour. ‘I thought you liked the hundred-metre dash.’

From Silas’s place, the view was to die for. Within the high walls of the fiord the air was perfectly still — freezing, but still — and the water calm, but outside the gateway, the sea was storming up from the south, mountainous waves chasing squalls before them.

Time to get going again. ‘Vengeance is mine,’ Drake said. The laughter was cut short by oaths and curses as he led the squad back out into the freezing cold. Their breath jetted and curled in the air.

Approaching the base, they jogged past the submarine pens, still lit from the fleet’s late-night operations. One of the subs was in dry dock. So were a couple of water-powered jet boats, used as tugs. On the hills the wind turbines were spinning hard. The ground shook with their rhythmic force; they were like Maori gods doing a haka.

‘How’re you all doing?’ Drake asked everyone as they approached the elevator to the skyline water processing operations centre. Elevator? Well, it was more like an antiquated ski lift, but it did the job.

By now the squad was loping along, happy to be on the home straight, but Samurai Sam was flagging, taking twice as many steps as everyone else. Not that he would admit it.

Starbuck spoke for the group. ‘Don’t worry about us, sir,’ he said. ‘We’ve got your back.’

Suddenly, Drake saw something silver flashing through the air and hovering above him: a remote drone, come to check.

‘Drake Haapu,’ the drone said, ‘you naughty boy. Why didn’t you tell me you were going for a lovely walk in the park?’

‘Morning, Sally.’

Sally was the communications officer at the base, fifty if she was a day. ‘And is that the delectable Colby?’ she asked. ‘No wonder I’ve been stood up by you Drake … again. Ah well, lover boy, don’t forget you and your squadron are due to lift off at 0100 hours. See you later, honey.’

The drone whizzed off, skimming the water of the fiord. By this time, the team had reached the point overlooking the helicopter pad, close to the water.

‘Almost there,’ Drake said to Samurai Sam. He saw Bazza, the air controller, coming out onto the helipad.

‘Queequeeg and the early shift must be coming in,’ Flask said.

Colby looked at her watch.

‘Running on empty as usual,’ she added.

Even as she was speaking, Drake heard the distant familiar thump-thump-thump of rotors and over the lock appeared a group of small specks like mosquitoes come to suck blood.

Colby counted: ‘One, two, three, four, five …’

Drake shaded his eyes against the rising sun. He saw the familiar insignias on the approaching squad of Mad Max pilots — there was no other name for them really — Johnno, Slava, Oscar Bravo, Gayhead and Jenkins, and their outdated helicopters. As each chopper circled, Bazza waved them in. Mechanics were out, pulling one chopper off the helipad and into the hangar so that the next could land.

‘Where the hell’s Queequeeg?’ Colby asked.

‘He may have long-range fuel tanks,’ Czar calculated, ‘but he’s cutting it fine.’ Chopper pilots liked to dice with death and take the fuel gauge all the way down to the red when they landed. Judging by the earlier arrivals, however, Queequeeg was definitely running on fumes.

‘I think I hear him now,’ Harry said.

Bazza still had Jenkins on the helipad when, with relief, Drake saw a small spot in the distance: Queequeeg at last, riding Daedalus, but trailing a plume of black smoke, weaving a bit, nursing the engine along. A drama began to develop down on the helipad; Bazza had struck trouble stacking Jenkins into the hangar. Drake watched him frantically trying to wave Daedalus away to give him some time to sort the problem. But Queequeeg was coming in on a wing and a prayer, couldn’t wait for the all-clear, saw a space close by Jenkins that he just might be able to squeeze into, wiggled, began to descend … and his motor cut out.

Daedalus dropped like a stricken angel. Bazza threw himself clear, and bang, Queequeeg hit the deck.

‘Not the most elegant of landings,’ Starbuck said.

‘Good enough,’ Drake replied.

When Queequeeg stepped out, Bazza was apoplectic, doing a song and dance. Queequeeg laughed at the little man, pointed down the fiord and then, looking up, saw Drake, Colby and the guys on the circuit. Forgetting Bazza, he gave a thumbs-up sign.

‘Hunting must be good,’ Colby said.

Not long afterwards, the fiord’s double-locked gateway opened and two tugs entered, towing between them what looked like a large, uncut sparkling diamond.

Drake hit the showers.

The run was a bonding thing. Showering together, too, allowed the squad to be easy in their skins with each other. The guys were good mates, always looking after each other. Such things mattered, especially when they were on patrol where anything could happen.

Flask, Starbuck and Samurai Sam were horsing around, pressing into Colby as she made for the women’s shower room. ‘Hey, Colby, save some water and shower with friends,’ they laughed.

‘You guys are all macho, penis-oriented, honcho shits,’ she answered, slipping easily past them and slamming the door.

‘We love it when you talk dirty,’ Czar and Hari called. ‘Wa-hey!’

‘Wa-ho!’ came the bellowing response.

The infra-red came on, the aged pipes wheezed and coughed, and the fine steam whooshed at them from all angles for the sixty-second max timing reserved for airmen; everyone else at the base got forty-five seconds. And why shouldn’t airmen be privileged? After all, they were the reason why the base existed; without them, the Tangaroa Consortium wouldn’t have anything to sell to the international community.

As the men dressed, Drake checked them for dings and bangs that they might not have reported to the medic after their last operation. He was worried at Samurai Sam’s limp. ‘Better tell him to get that checked.’ Most of all, he was pleased by the men’s good mood as they zipped themselves into their black overalls and leather flying jackets. Sixty seconds of steam was just enough to warm and sting them all a little, to remind them of their humanity.

And that they were still alive.

In the cafeteria, Drake picked up a tray and headed for the breakfast counter. Matilda was on duty.

‘Bacon and eggs?’ Drake asked. Well, the soggy yellow, white and brown concoction looked like it had once had poultry and pig origin.

‘Rank has privileges,’ she answered. ‘Do you want coffee with that? Real beans today, all the way from Chile.’

‘Thanks.’ He, Starbuck and Flask moved to their usual table near the window where he sipped at the coffee and thought back to his Pacific island dream. Even the notion was problematic. Did anybody live in Hawaii any more? Ha, with climate change, anywhere within 20 degrees latitude north or south of the equator was too hot to live in now.

‘Hey, Matilda,’ he called, ‘is Hawaii still alive?’

She looked at him, puzzled. ‘Yeah, just,’ she said.

‘The military airbase at Hickam’s still operable,’ Czar added, ‘for long-range military.’

‘Thanks.’ No locals. Sweet leilani, heavenly flower? No palm trees. No golden strand of beach. Certainly no mai tais and dancing hula girls. Definitely in your dreams, mate.

But a memory welled up. His aged Maori grandfather, whom he called Huppapuppa — from childhood days when he couldn’t quite say Wharepapa, which was Grandad’s name. The old man helped Hemi and Phyllis with the cows. He had his own small bach on the farm — didn’t want to take up space in the farmhouse — and as a teenager Drake loved to go over and have a yarn after dinner.

Huppapuppa was a mine of information about the world before the Big Burn. During one rambling talk, his eyes had lit up at the mention of the Hawaiian Islands. ‘Oh, Honolulu …’ he had coughed, catching his breath on his roll your own, ‘that was one lulu of a place. Met myself a cute local girl on the beach … they had beaches then … and we went swimming at Hanauma Bay … it was paradise.’

Paradise wasn’t a word you could associate with the Tangaroa Consortium, where the sky was always grey, the personnel were ex-military and the wind could freeze your balls off. Here, the locals were just a bunch of flying buccaneers and base personnel, with an equal contingent of women thrown in like Colby, Sally and Matilda, to maintain equity between the sexes. This core contingent was supplemented by mercenaries like Samurai Sam, Starbuck and Flask, all drawing pay from the consortium, one of many in the lucrative business of capturing the best water in the world for the commercial market:

Antarctic 100 % Pure, the finest water on the planet.

When Colby came into the cafeteria Drake excused himself and went to join her.

‘Fixing her up for a date tonight, boss?’ Hari kidded him.

‘Don’t you mean another date?’ Flask added with a wink.

Colby overheard them. When Drake sat down beside her, she was smouldering. ‘I’m no trophy,’ she warned him. ‘You know that, don’t you?’ Then, abruptly, she said, ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you for ages now, how did you get your name?’

‘It’s really Francis but after too many punch-ups on the marae I changed it. And Drake went with Francis. My grandfather was really disappointed in me because he had given me boxing lessons and thought I was wimping out.’

Not only did Huppapuppa teach Drake boxing: it was from him that Drake had developed his love of books. And it was from his lips, as they milked the cows one day and the milk spurted, rich and foaming into the cups, that Drake as a teenager had learnt about the opening up of Antarctica to the water trade.

Huppapuppa told him that, with climate change, the ice shelves of Antarctica had begun calving. Huge icebergs broke off, filling the air with a constant crack crack crack as they split away, creating huge waves when they crashed into the sea. The original Antarctic Treaty partners had tried to maintain ownership of the giant bergs when they hit the warmer northern currents, but because they were no longer part of the continental mass, the UN said no. They decreed a Free International Zone (FIZ) that allowed any nation to capture what had become unexpected bounty: the pure, fresh, glacial water of the bergs. Any ice that made its way from the frozen continent could belong to anybody who hoisted a flag on it.

The Maori-owned Tangaroa Consortium dated from the days when the government returned Maori land under the Treaty of Waitangi. They didn’t think the fiord would be of use to anyone, let alone have strategic value someday.

Were they ever wrong.

Drake watched as more bergs came up the narrow neck of the fiord, sliding serenely through the still water. Not only had they been towed; forward sails had been attached to them and, belling in the wild wind, had brought them faster to the fiord. However, as soon as they entered the double-locked gateway, the sails immediately fell limp, gathered in by tug personnel. From the gateway, the bergs moved through a carefully controlled system of locks, one opening while the other behind it was closing; the purpose was to progressively diminish the amount of saltwater that might have come through the gateway with the bergs.

The Tangaroa Consortium preferred to harvest tabulars, the colossi of the iceberg world. These floating frozen islands scraped both sky and earth. Below the surface they carried keels a massive two-thirds of their mass, often skidding along the bottom of the fiord. There the natural contours had been deepened and engineered to capture the bergs on automatic rails that took them to melting positions.

And so they advanced, some like aircraft carriers, others like tall white towers. Trussed up and tied, guided by the tugs and mini-subs and pulled forward by underwater winches, they made stately procession up the fiord. Jetskiers whizzed around them checking their progress.

The air resounded with celebratory music — today it was Handel’s The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba — piped through speakers surrounding the fiord. ‘Bloody Bazza.’ Drake shook his head admiringly.

The sun came out. All of a sudden the fleet of bergs flashed and sparkled and glowed, radiating shimmering colours: delicate pink, luminous pounamu green, indigo blue, deep mauve.

The bergs filled the morning sky with rainbows.

Drake turned back to Colby. ‘And what about your name?’ he asked.

She looked at him sharply. ‘It’s not my real name, of course. In civvy street I had another life and another identity.’

Ah yes, Drake thought, civvy street. History was now marked, not by BC and AD but, rather, BB and AB: Before and After the Big Burn. BB many at the consortium had different names, simpler names, to go with their simpler lives. But AB, orphaned, they had chosen to hide behind new identities, had taken up new names, the more fanciful the better — anything to escape the memories of the world before.

Something must have got into Colby today; she opened up. ‘You won’t believe it,’ she continued, ‘but I was living in South Africa at the time. I went to college in New Johannesburg. I met a guy in the air force. He was in navigation but, man oh man, he should have been a Maori like you ’cause he couldn’t hold a course even when the stars were out. So I took over and found I was good at it.’

‘You married him, didn’t you?’

Colby immediately shut down. ‘You’re getting a bit up close and personal, aren’t you?’

In a flurry of noise Queequeeg and the pilots who had flown with him on the morning shift entered the cafeteria.

Queequeeg began kicking the furniture around. ‘I almost ditched out there,’ he said. ‘We’re flying death traps, tin cans with rotors. Can’t you talk to the consortium, Drake, and get some real flying machines? Take it up with Kuia? I got into a dogfight out there with the Red Baron …’

‘Gonzalez?’ Drake asked, naming their main rival. He and Gonzalez had had a number of major battles as each tried to plant their flag of ownership on a berg, shooting down each other’s flags mid-sky with lasers before they could spear the ice.

‘Yeah,’ Queequeeg nodded his head, ‘but my engine started smokin’ and I had to hightail it out of there with my tail between my legs. Luckily, though, I’d bagged a beauty but I tell ya, if we want to cut it with the competition we gotta have modern choppers and not the second-hand stuff that the consortium buys from Japan.’

Drake had to admit that the base’s fleet was pretty dismal. But it was better than most: since the Big Burn, the consortium had purchased anything that flew, from gas-guzzling jet aircraft to planes with, ye Gods, rotors and propellers. Similarly, it had ransacked the world for a suitable fleet of ships and mini-subs and converted them to waterpower, either in its jetted form or as steam.

Welcome to the retro world of the future.

‘Who else did you see out there in iceberg alley?’ Drake asked. The bergs from Antarctica came up a corridor to the east of the undersea Campbell Plateau, northward past Macquarie Island, squeezing between Auckland Island and Campbell Island and along the east coast of the South Island.

‘Hard to say,’ said Queequeeg. ‘Visibility was low, with the cloud cover down to sea level, so we were wave hopping for most of the time. Apart from Gonzalez, the Germans were operating from their carrier fleet, the Chinese off Bounty Island, and the usual assortment of cowboys sniping at the smaller stuff from their bases on Stewart Island.’

Drake realised that Queequeeg had hesitated. ‘I saw something else out there,’ he continued. His eyes glowed and his voice became hushed with awe. ‘I saw Moby Dick.’

‘There she breaches! There she breaches!’ was the cry, as in his immeasurable bravadoes the White Whale tossed himself salmon-like to Heaven. So suddenly seen in the blue plain of the sea, and relieved against the still bluer margin of the sky, the spray that he raised, for the moment, intolerably glittered and glared like a glacier; and stood there gradually fading and fading away from its first sparkling intensity, to the dim mistiness of an advancing shower in a vale.

At Queequeeg’s words, Drake was drenched with a fearful sweat. His hand went to his shoulder and the disfiguring scars and thick welts from his long ago encounter with the giant berg.

In those days, new to the squadron, he had scoffed at the existence of such a creation, something that defied all logic. But he understood the impulse to imagine such an entity into the world: it was only to be expected that the airmen would create a myth, not of a great white whale but of an icy counterpart which roamed the Antarctic Ocean, malevolent, dedicated only to the destruction of man.

The legend told of a huge iceberg that had existed since antediluvian times, created in the womb of Antarctica and birthed from a glacier canal to fall, slippery, into the sea. Millions of years later, cruelly sculpted by wind and sea, it had become an unholy nemesis in the shape of a whale.

‘Watch yourself, young feller,’ Bazza had warned Drake when he laughed at the story. ‘Moby Dick can hear you challenging him. He’ll be after you now. And if he gets you in his death roll, you’re a goner.’

It was not long after this that Drake had his first encounter with Moby Dick. Young Anders Yates had been his harpoonist in those days, a boy with down on his chubby cheeks, eager to prove himself in the company of older men; he liked to call Drake ‘Captain’.

One clouded dawn, the base’s klaxon began to wail and all the pilots scrambled for their choppers. Rangi, the Tangaroa Consortium’s own satellite positioned above Antarctica, had sent pictures back of bergs which it had been monitoring since they broke away from the Ross Shelf. Huge monsters, some more than eighty kilometres long, they had been gradually moving north with the Humboldt Stream. Now, having broken into smaller bergs, a large cluster of them had arrived at the borders of the FIZ.

The squadron leader at the time was Crozier Dalrymple, and Drake had already been assigned an ancient chopper that he immediately dubbed Pequod. The wind was blowing hard and squally, and the squadron was already at its maximum fuel range when, suddenly, ahead, were the bergs, dazzling in the sunlight.

Crozier Dalrymple radioed, ‘They’re the right size, so take your pick, boys.’

They were soon at it, flagging the catch to their hearts’ delight.

‘Harpoon away!’ cried Anders Yates as he sent the standard pennant of ownership whizzing down to the berg and then, with his harpoon, took the shot. Rocket-assisted, the harpoon sizzled through the air and through the berg’s skin.

Drake watched the computer as it read out the harpoon’s course through the berg. ‘Thirty, sixty, ninety …’ The harpoon zigzagged slightly as it tried to find the berg’s gravitational centre, then — there! — on target.

‘Got it, Captain!’ yelled Anders as he guided the harpoon through the rest of the berg to three hundred and sixty metres. ‘We’re through,’ he confirmed, as he tapped the keyboard and sent horizontal stabilisers snaking along the bottom of the berg.

It was while he was radioing the position to the tugs and mini-subs that Drake spied, in the distance, another iceberg, shining spectral white, boiling up and out of the sea. ‘So it’s true then,’ he whispered. He knew it was the legendary Moby Dick and he cursed himself that he could not unhitch himself and go after it.

Like some ancient artefact, the berg climbed into the sky. Its shimmering skin had been tattooed, pitted and whorled by aeons of scouring waves and wind. Black or indigo patches on its enormous white bulk indicated cavities that created its unstable buoyancy.

Crozier Dalrymple had not made a catch. ‘I’ve got him,’ he radioed.

It all happened so quickly. Moby Dick floating there, seeming benign, and Dalrymple approaching in textbook fashion. And then the berg turned as if casting a backward glance, showing a cyclopean eye. Suddenly it reared above the chopper, tipped and in plunging, grabbed the machine in the downdraft. Then came the death roll, the turning and turning, before Moby Dick took Crozier Dalrymple with it into the depths.

Had he awoken the monster? Was that when the vendetta between them both had begun?

Drake looked at Queequeeg, his mouth dry. ‘You saw Moby Dick?’

Queequeeg nodded. ‘As God is my witness, aye Sir, I saw the monster. He came up right beneath me. Breaching the surface, he was ready to snatch me out of the air and roll me back down with him to my death in the briny sea below.’

‘How did you know it was him?’ Drake asked.

‘By the single eye and the battering ram of the bastard’s icy head,’ Queequeeg swore. ‘And also by the gigantic profile, the hump of the beast which rose ever upward, endeavouring to buck me into the air. Then, in sounding, he showed me his peculiar yellow underbelly and the cluster of harpoons embedded in his flukes. Oh, it was him all right.’

On Crozier Dalrymple’s death, Drake took over the squadron. His age hadn’t told against him, or his lack of experience. Kuia, CEO of the consortium, saw in him an utter fearlessness and an ability to lead men. Even more telling, pilots followed him and trusted in him.

Drake, for his part, couldn’t wait for his second meeting with the rogue berg. He studied the reports of other pilots who had tried to capture Moby Dick. Some had successfully harpooned the berg, but the cables had been too short or they’d had to wheel away from his implacable rage. Even when he was harpooned and in tow, the death roll could wrap towing tugs and mini-subs in flailing hawser lines and down they would go with him.

Drake’s obsession with Moby Dick grew. How could the berg appear and disappear at will? Was it because of that freak buoyancy mass, those chambers which, sometimes filled with air and sometimes with water, enabled the entire berg to tilt, flick at the sky, plunge fathoms deep and stay there? From where, then, did the air come to allow Moby Dick to surface again? And how could he appear in places where he should never have been? How could he get there if he hadn’t swum against the tide?

The fact was that anything, even the impossible, could happen in a world where climate change played havoc with the sea. Traditional ocean movements could no longer be counted upon. The Antarctic Ocean had turned into a place driven by solar bursts one moment and icy weather fronts the next. In the early days, confused pods of whales had trapped themselves, circling around and around within the clashing tides. Later, entire fleets of ships found themselves unable to break free of immense tsunami, rushes of waves that drove them into huge whirlpools until they sank with the other detritus of a decaying world.

It was not to be wondered at, therefore, that an iceberg could float, at the whim of sun and wind, along corridors of clashing currents and even against the prevailing tides.

And it was only a matter of time before Drake encountered Moby Dick again.

The sun had been a cartwheel in the sky and the sea was black. But the water was sending frost-smoke across the surface and, as the Pequod flew deeper into the mass, all vision was lost.

‘Captain?’ young Anders Yates asked.

‘We can’t turn back,’ said Drake. Nobody returned to the base empty-handed. Somewhere out there, Rangi had sighted bergs. Somewhere …

Vicious hail began to fall, rapping at the windscreen of the chopper. It was in the middle of the hailstorm that Moby Dick chose his moment to attack.

If Drake hadn’t been alert he would not have seen the dark mass lurking below the surface of the sea. Only good fortune made him look down and there — there! — was that huge baleful eye staring back at him.

Moby Dick leapt into the sky.

‘Hold tight!’ Drake cried to Anders Yates as he threw the chopper away from the ascending berg. Sweat beaded his brow as Moby Dick showed an underbelly ghastly with embedded ropes and hawsers, evidence of earlier encounters. ‘Take the shot!’

The harpoon zinged through the air, but somehow, while the chopper bucked, Anders Yates was caught in the cable and yanked out of his seat. ‘Oh Captain, my captain!’ he screamed.

All Drake could do was to watch, helpless, as the young boy disappeared into the hail.

In that same moment, a contrary current created a perilous downdraught. The Pequod slid against one of Moby Dick’s icy sides and would have plunged into the sea had not the chopper, with a sudden loud explosion of metal and glass, lodged on a jutting fluke, which punctured it — and that was when Drake’s shoulder had been scored. Screaming with shock and fear, he managed to lever the helicopter off the fin before Moby Dick could take him in the death roll. He lifted the chopper into a shuddering climb and away.

Next time, e hoa.

Liftoff at 0100; two hours away.

Rather than go back to his room, Drake decided to take the elevator to the water processing operations centre on the skyline. No sooner had he pressed the button than the old lift began to shake, rattle and roll.

‘Welcome to Lubjanka by the Sea,’ he muttered to himself as he held on for dear life. This was more like some deteriorating base on the Gulag Peninsula than a supposedly high-tech operation in New Zealand.

Kuia, otherwise known as Boss Lady, was in the main operations room, wearing dark glasses and looking down at the fiord, now crowded with icebergs, glowing in the southern light. ‘Kia ora, Francis,’ she said, greeting him by his real name.

Whenever Drake was with Kuia, he felt an incredible sense of peace. ‘Kia ora,’ he returned. Kuia was his substitute Huppapuppa — maybe his Huppamama.

‘You be careful out there today,’ she warned. ‘The weather looks as if it’s closing in.’ Above, the sky was heavy and grey with boiling clouds; within the fiord, everything was still.

For a while, Drake and Kuia watched in silence as, below, the crews of the tugs and mini-subs — the consortium’s honcho group of young thrill-seeking wave surfers, hang gliders, bungy jumpers and kamikaze scuba divers — continued disengaging the last tow lines of kites and sails from the bergs. Everybody at the base affectionately called them the Yahoos, this being their favourite word. Danger was their desire, as they winged their ways over the bergs checking out the cables, skimmed around them like butterflies to ensure trim, or even dived beneath them to secure them even further from rolling.

‘The guys are complaining about the helicopters,’ Drake said.

‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ Kuia sighed. ‘I saw Queequeeg almost crash on the helipad. Okay, I’ll put in another requisition order, but it’s hard enough getting black market fuel these days to keep you all flying, let alone purchase modern air support.’

She turned to Ralph, the chief technician. ‘Looks like the Yahoos have finished their job.’

‘On with the show?’ asked Ralph.

‘Yes.’ Kuia nodded.

‘Goody,’ said Ralph as he turned to the comms system: ‘Clear the processing area.’ The Yahoos scattered like flies.

Ralph started to do a dance around the mainframe, whizzing from one control panel to the next. Immediately, the whole operations centre began to jiggle and jump. ‘Better hold on to something,’ Kuia said. ‘And here, you might need this.’ She gave Drake a sun visor.

‘Come on, baby,’ Ralph said to the computer. ‘Give me more power to the grid.’

Drake heard the huge, protesting whine of turbines as the platforms on which the icebergs were resting ascended from the waters of the fiord. Each platform was lined with siphons leading to reservoirs deep within the surrounding hills.

Next moment huge solar reflectors, designed to concentrate every beam of available light like a row of silver plates, slid up from all sides of the fiord. Ralph manoeuvred them so that their power was focused onto the icebergs at rest. ‘I need more, baby,’ he yelled to his turbines.

He jabbed the button to increase the power from the wind farm. Christ, thought Drake, as the rotors went into overdrive and things started to shake and quake around him.

‘Let there be light!’ Ralph screamed above the din.

With a sudden, bright flare the mirrors sparked into action, solenoid panels shaking. The landscape dissolved into whiteness as the melting began.

And Drake remembered a day when he was helping Hemi and Phyllis to take the cows back to their underground silos and his grandfather was with them.

Huppapuppa looked up in the sky. ‘That storm we’ve been warned about, it’s coming.’ The herd, sensing the oncoming danger, set up a loud bellowing and lowing. They couldn’t wait to get safely inside. Drake was closing the gates when there was a blinding flare, followed by a withdrawal of air, as if it was being sucked up. The birds, what few there were, were circling madly, trying to find a way, it seemed, away from and out of the sky. Some of them managed to flutter into the silo before it was sealed.

‘That came on fast,’ Huppapuppa said. ‘Are you all okay?’ He had Drake’s face in his hands, looking into the boy’s eyes to see if his retinas had been burnt. ‘Better take the boy home,’ he said to Hemi and Phyllis, ‘and batten down the hatches.’

They’d made their way back to the farmhouse, and by the time they arrived, the temperature had already climbed 20 degrees. Quickly, they went into the underground shelter.

‘Thank God,’ Huppapuppa said, ‘we still live in New Zealand, and in the world’s good lung.’

‘What do you mean?’ Drake asked him.

‘Well, New Zealand, Antarctica, Australia and the Pacific, we’re in the part of the world that’s still okay after the Big Burn. The rest of the world, that’s the bad lung,’ he said, as the extraordinary heat storm burst around them. ‘We should be thankful we don’t live there because they get these storms all the time.’

Huppapuppa had explained that for most of the world’s peoples, global warming was a death sentence, bringing flood and drought, crop failure and mass starvation. ‘At first world governments tried to save everyone, but as more and more people needed food, and there were more cataclysmic natural disasters, it all became too much. By the middle of the millennium, it was too late. Continuing greenhouse gas emissions completely destroyed the ozone layer and, without it, solar destruction began. One year After the Burn, wars began in India, the Eastern Archipelago and Central America. But those who survived concentrated on their own survival, and you couldn’t blame them. Let’s face it, it was easier now that most of the poor had been incinerated. And water became the new oil, especially the top grade stuff from Antarctica, which only the very rich could afford.’

Icebergs: the pure, crystalline essence, a million years in the making.

The purity of ice.

Suddenly the klaxons started to wail.

At first, Drake thought the fiord was under attack. The industry was so lucrative that rival consortiums were not above warring with each other — on land or sea. Just three months ago, an unknown party had tried an air strike on the consortium’s operation; and two weeks ago security forces had been under fire from snipers coming overland. Each ocean operation required armed protection too: all vessels of the fleet — choppers included — were armed. That didn’t completely stop the poachers, who weren’t averse to attempting to snipe at a berg while it was under tow or trying to unhook it from the tow and claim it for themselves. With so much money riding on a berg, an easy capture was preferable to the difficult task of hooking one yourself. Some of the most desperate battles occurred underwater, as rivals tried to ‘skin’ the berg, puncturing its amniotic sac and siphoning it from below.

No, the klaxon was for something else. ‘I’d better see what the trouble is,’ Drake said to Kuia.

She restrained him for a moment. ‘Be careful out there, e hoa,’ she said. ‘I’ve had a bad feeling all day.’

He winked. ‘You know me, the least bit of trouble and I’m coming straight home to Mama.’

As he was descending in the elevator he saw a remote drone whiz up to him. It was Sally again, scolding him. ‘So there you are, Drake, you naughty boy! Where have you been?’

‘Talking to Kuia,’ Drake answered. ‘What’s up?’

‘Ah well,’ Sally sighed, ‘stood up by yet another woman.’ Then her voice became businesslike. ‘All pilots are to report to the helipad. You’re to lift off as soon as you can.’

No sooner had Drake arrived at the helipad than Bazza was onto him. ‘Rangi has revealed that there’s an almighty storm coming out of nowhere. It could last for days. We want the entire squadron up and at ’em, flagging what bergs are out there before the storm hits and closes us down. Bring them home. It’s going to be a free-for-all as rival companies are scrambling too.’

‘Round-up time,’ Drake told everyone.

‘Wa-hey,’ Drake’s men chorused in the traditional bonding cry.

‘Wa-ho,’ Queequeeg’s men responded.

Kelly, their service mechanic, had already got the Pequod warmed up and waiting for them. She was relishing her ten per cent cut of whatever Drake and Colby made from their catch.

Drake was buckling up and doing a systems check when Bazza rushed up to him.

‘I forgot to tell you,’ he coughed, ‘Rangi has shown up an anomaly. A ghost image. One minute there, in the middle of the calving, next minute gone.’

A ghost image? Drake’s mouth dried.

Bazza paused, then spoke softly. ‘It could be Moby Dick.’

Drake’s heart was pumping with dread.

Next time, e hoa.

Drake’s squadron was first off the helipad. He lifted the Pequod and circled the fiord. Behind him, all five rattling rust buckets made it: Starbuck, Flask, Samurai Sam, Czar and Hari were chasing after him. Drake waited for Queequeeg in Daedalus to get his squadron into the air: still puffing a black plume of smoke, Queequeeg led Johnno, Slava, Oscar Bravo, Gayhead and Jenkins along the fiord and over the gates. Silas was waving: Good hunting.

Drake sent a quick prayer to whichever gods were listening, asking that no one should plunge into the deep. And then, ‘Let’s go,’ he called through his com. Out of the fiord the Pequod roared, the two squadrons following him and, immediately, they were battling wild, conflicting winds. ‘Time to climb,’ he said to Colby, adjusting the rotors.

The Pequod leant into the wind, Drake and Colby like two people sheltering behind an umbrella as they pushed into the squall. For a long while the chopper had a grim time of it but, miraculously, it didn’t break apart. And, checking behind him, Drake saw the rest of the choppers playing follow the leader and, thank God, Queequeeg had managed to shut down his smoke trail.

‘Hey, Drake,’ Colby said, when the worst was over, ‘how long have we known each other?’

‘Almost two years now,’ Drake answered, calculating from the first time they’d slept together. Actually, he’d slept with most of the women at the base. Everyone knew the score and tried not to get attached. They were all fuck buddies. And Colby had no illusions.

Eyes fixed firmly ahead, Colby took a deep breath. ‘You asked me earlier if I was married … Yes, his name was Jake and, after South Africa, he was called to China to do relief work with the poor. Well, you know what that job’s like: shepherding people from one shadow spot in the mountains to the next, from one cavern community to another, before the owners throw you out. And one day, he had around five hundred refugees in his convoy and they stayed out too long … and, well, a sun storm hit them … and they …’

‘Colby, you don’t have to …’ Drake tried to give her comfort. Fifteen minutes out in one of those storms was all it took, and all that was left would be black bones melted together.

‘I don’t need your sympathy, you fuck,’ Colby said. She was as closed down inside as he was.

He tried again. ‘We all left somebody behind.’ Everyone in the squadron had lost someone they’d loved. Maybe that was why they’d applied for one of the most dangerous jobs on earth. They had nothing to lose and nobody would grieve over them.

Bad choice of words. ‘Jake wasn’t just somebody, he was my life.’ She sighed and gave him a forgiving glance. ‘I know you always dream of dancing girls,’ she said. ‘Or is it electric sheep? But …’

Suddenly she unclipped her chair belt, leant over and pulled his face around to hers and kissed him. Warmly. Tightly. ‘I’m here. I’m real. I’ve always wanted to do that.’ Then she buckled herself in again.

Drake regained his composure. ‘What do you dream about?’ he asked after a while.

It was as if the kiss had never happened. ‘One of these days, I’d like to take a bath. I’d fill it to the brim with cool water. I’d sit in it. And then I’d pull the plug and let that water drain clear away.’

‘Room for a friend?’

‘Answer me one question. You fart in bed, right? What about in water?’

‘Well …’

‘Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll pass.’

Drake was about to protest, but he saw that Colby had flipped into work mode. ‘We’ve entered the FIZ,’ she said.

Small talk was over. ‘Okay, radio the rest of the squadron to get ready, and ask Queequeeg if he’s okay and to keep his guys in formation. I don’t want to lose anybody.’ The Southern Ocean was one of the most inhospitable and windswept areas of ocean on the planet; a cyclone wind or water spout could come out of nowhere and take a chopper down. On top of which other companies sometimes liked to get into a dogfight; there was safety in numbers.

‘We’re right on your tail, boss,’ the squadron responded. And Queequeeg came through the headset. ‘So are we, and Daedalus has still got his wings.’

Relieved, Drake made a visual check. Starbuck and Flask had joined Samurai Sam, Harry and Czar on port. Queequeeg and his guys came up on starboard. With Drake leading, they made a perfect V.

‘What about the subs and the tugs?’ Drake asked Colby.

‘They’ve just left base and hope to cross the FIZ with an estimated time of arrival in two hours,’ she answered. ‘They’ll await our word that we’ve planted our flags on whatever we find. Once we’ve done that and radioed location, they’ll be on their way to grapple and take the tow. No doubt Gonzalez will be out there again to complicate matters for us.’

It was a messy business but it got the adrenalin going.

Very soon the grey waves below were dotted with icebergs. Choppers from rival companies were already feasting. Over the headphones was the excited chatter of other companies as they staked their claims. The Chileans had homed in and now the Chinese and Russians were coming. Gonzalez, the pirate, was maintaining radio silence so that nobody would know where he was until, like an eagle, he would drop down from the sky and snatch his prey away before others had time to claim it.

‘We’ll leave those for the hungry,’ Drake said.

The floes on the outer perimeter were always the small ones, eroded away by the waves. The larger bergs of more ancient pedigree were further in. It was just a matter of holding on and finding them.

‘Let’s go for bigger fish,’ Drake radioed the squadron as he peeled the helicopter away. ‘Frankly, I’ve never liked crowds.’

An hour later, and Drake was still not satisfied.

‘We’ll be approaching our PSR in forty-five minutes,’ Colby warned him.

Drake nodded: the point of safe return. The thought never worried him: all choppers worked at the extreme range of their fuel capacities, trying to go farthest out on the assumption that the biggest bastards were just over the next wave, and praying like hell that there was something extra in the tank that would get them back. ‘Let’s live a little dangerously,’ he said, acting nonchalant about it. ‘You’re not going to get pussy on me, are you?’

‘Why aren’t I surprised?’ said Colby. ‘As to your second question, woof.’

Drake radioed the men. ‘See those clouds ahead? I reckon our quarry’s on the other side, don’t you?’

When he reached the cloudbank, Drake pushed Pequod up and over.

The aurora came rushing up and out of nowhere, fogbows and clouds of iridescence. Weaving through it was Hine Nui Te Po, the Great Goddess of the Underworld, in a waka of spinning water spouts. ‘Welcome to Te Kore, The Void,’ the goddess sang, ‘haere mai.’

In this place you could imagine a graveyard of ghostly ships, like the Flying Dutchman or the Marie Celeste. Within this realm lived the mighty kraken, the fabled giant squid, ready to pull the chopper down with its tentacles. Sirens sang men to their death.

Drake shivered. If hell ever froze over, this is what it would look like: a phantasmagoric place of clashing tides, steaming mist and white-tipped waves like a malevolent host on the march, herding all human souls down through the jagged rocks and icy whirlpools into the underworld. He wanted to curl into a foetal position, hugging himself against this place where the darkness was shining and the hands of loved ones were reaching up, pleading with him to save them.

Oh Huppapuppa!

I remember the day you died. I was a teenage boy when you had a heart attack. I found you in the cow yard, amid shit and cow piss, the cows all milling around, mooing frantically; they knew you were going. I yelled, ‘Mum! Dad! Something’s happening to Granddad!’ And when Hemi came, he went down on his knees and cradled your head and moaned, ‘No, Dad, no.’ You tried to smile, ‘At least, son, the sun hasn’t burnt me up. I’d have hated to go like that.’ And Dad yelled at me, ‘Get the cows outta the yard, Francis, for Chrissake, and bring some water so I can clean Dad up.’ He was rocking you, wouldn’t let you go, and you answered, ‘No, son, I’m used to cow shit.’

Then you looked at me. ‘The world’s not supposed to end like this. I’m sorry, mokopuna.’

They’d all died: Huppapuppa, Hemi, Phyllis, girlfriends, friends.

And yes, like Colby, like everyone on the base, even he had left someone behind. Actually, two people: his wife, Georgina, and their baby girl, Mona.

What better place to remember them than here, where souls were screaming and singing waiata tangi, here amid the grinding and crunching of ice, the whistling of winds? The fifth anniversary since … the temperature suddenly escalated and the solar deflectors failed in Los Angeles. Drake was stationed there with his family — gorgeous Georgina and happy Mona — and when the order came to evacuate, he was on one of the chopper teams pulling people out and ferrying them to ships, waiting off Santa Monica. Georgina and Mona were on the extraction list.

On the last day they were working against the clock and, as usual, company personnel came last. Whenever he landed to board the next lot of VIPs, Drake kept seeing Georgina with Mona in her arms, waiting in line at Los Angeles airport … or what was left of it. The entire city was on fire, the smoke billowing high, and the heat was unbearable. But there was still time before the gauge tipped into the red.

‘Soon, darlings,’ he would shout, ‘soon it will be your turn!’ But every time he went back they hadn’t been picked up by some other team; they were still in line, waiting.

‘Francis!’ Georgina cried, ‘I’m getting scared, honey.’

He hugged her. ‘If you’re still here the next time I’m back, damn it, I’m taking you out of here.’ He eyeballed the dispatcher, ‘Fuck you. Put them on priority.’

But there never was another trip.

A sudden solar flare, blinding, burning, and that was it. The operation evacuation was closed down.

And Drake began to weep.

‘No, no, no …’ he told himself don’t cry, because you know what will happen, it’s always like an invocation, they’ll hear you, don’t.

It was too late. Memories shimmered like mirages against the mirror of the sea. Francis? Is that you, darling? Have you come again?

Although they were charred beyond recognition, Drake would have recognised them anywhere — Georgina and Mona, a hideous angel with a charred cherub in her arms. With a banshee cry of gladness they came on their drifting wings of flame, ashes in their wake. They flew quickly up towards the chopper, there to knock on the glass, Let us in, let us in, oh, let us in, and to gaze through at him, their eyes already burnt from their sockets.

We’re still waiting, Francis. And then they fell away from him, down, down into the roaring, extinguishing sea.

Drake dried his eyes. He knew he would see them again … and again. They were his cross. His heart was scarred with recriminations.

Yes, by his tears he would bid them appear again.

‘Bingo,’ Colby said.

Beyond the fogbows and hazy mist the sky brightened, the sun spreading pools of light across the gleaming sea. And below, waiting, was an expanse of dense floes: tabulars, blockies, domes, wedges, pinnacles with one or more statuesque peaks and dry docks with two or more such peaks separated by water-filled channels. They were all extraordinary creations: ice Everests whose glassy surfaces created dangerous reflections that could fool a pilot into thinking he was navigating open sky. Many pilots, not having a spotter as alert as Colby, had crashed into the ice walls of a floating berg.

With relief, Drake saw his squadron, and Queequeeg’s, bursting behind him from the cloud cover. ‘Okay, fellas,’ he radioed, ‘we’ve found our happy hunting ground. Start tagging. Colby? Radio the tugs and submarines the coordinates.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Thirty minutes max, boys, and then let’s head for home. I don’t want anybody dropping into the sea.’

The two squadrons began their work, peeling off left and right … but Drake drove Pequod further, and out of sight. ‘Sir?’ Colby asked. ‘We’ve reached our maximum parameters.’ She had a puzzled look in her eyes.

‘I hear you,’ Drake answered. ‘Okay.’ Reason took over. With a sense of disappointment, he banked the chopper into a turn but, wait, what the hell was that? The sea was boiling on the horizon. ‘There she blows …’ he whispered, I knew you were out here, Moby Dick. From the depths began to climb an unholy white colossus, which stared at Drake and then slipped back into the sea.

One moment there. Next minute gone. But Colby had done her job and managed to calculate the mass of the majestic, malevolent ice leviathan. ‘You bastard, Drake, why didn’t you tell me you were after him? Well, he’s too big. We won’t be able to take him in by ourselves unless we cut him down to size.’

‘No way will I do that,’ said Drake. ‘How much help do we need to bring him in?’

‘Maybe two more choppers to help stabilise.’

The seconds were passing. ‘Radio our find to the others,’ Drake said.

‘No can do.’ Bazza had been eavesdropping; his voice came over the earphones from the base. ‘You’re already too far out and you should be heading for home … Jesus … are you crazy? Live to fight another day.’

‘I can’t let him go,’ Drake said. ‘There might not be another day. I’d rather die out here with him.’

Colby looked at Drake, startled. There was a pause, a crackle and then Bazza’s voice again. ‘Don’t be blackmailing me now. You do that and no more porn or ancient movies. Are you sure it’s Moby Dick?’

Colby spoke. ‘He’s serious, and so am I. And look, here’s something that might persuade you: a readout of the berg’s mass. Moby Dick’s almost a hundred per cent pure! Shit, if we bring this one in, Kuia can buy some better planes and we can all shout ourselves a holiday too. I’m sending the readings to you for confirmation, now.’

They were hovering over the sea, waiting for Bazza’s reply.

‘Drake!’ Colby screamed. Something came growling from beneath the chopper. The sea parted like jaws and vomited from its mouth something huge, something sinister that sang with supernatural force. ‘Bank left!’ Colby yelled.

And there was Moby Dick, looking in, eyeball to fucking eyeball. ‘Yes, I see you,’ Drake whispered. This must have been how Ahab had witnessed the whale: the cyclopean eye, the monstrous frame in all its awful asymmetry.

The helicopter shuddered, its skiffs scuffing the berg’s mountainous tip as Moby Dick tried to lurch into it and throw it out of the sky. The rotors were working hard, creating snowstorms from the drifts streaming off the berg. Suddenly, one of the rotors nicked Moby Dick, slashing that hideous eye, and he roared his deafening and arrogant displeasure at the sky.

‘Oh, no you don’t,’ Drake muttered, not sure where up was, or down until, with a final shudder, he righted the chopper and they gained the horizon.

The berg was already plunging back to the sea, its cliff faces pouring with water. With its accustomed death roll, it corkscrewed into the depths and disappeared from the radar. ‘Where’s he gone?’ Colby asked.

‘He’ll be back,’ Drake replied as he set the helicopter to hover. ‘Get the harpoon ready.’

Minutes passed. The sea boiled again and, this time Moby Dick cracked through a sheet of thin ice. Come and get me, e hoa.

‘Looks like you’ll be able to afford that bath of yours,’ said Drake to Colby.

Moby Dick leapt with majestic insolence. Oh, he was so beautiful, a kaleidoscope of colours flashing across his skin. There was something wilful and purposeful in the way he turned to the approaching chopper, almost as if he’d been waiting all his life for this day.

‘Aye, breach your last to the sun, Moby Dick!’ cried Ahab, ‘thy hour and thy harpoon are at hand! — Down! down all of ye, but one man at the fore. The boats! — stand by!’

The airwaves crackled again, but it wasn’t Bazza.

‘I’m on my way.’ It was Queequeeg; he’d been listening in. ‘Come on, Bazza, this is Moby Dick, for Chrissake! And Drake’s got the motherfucker.’

Bazza’s voice came back. ‘I need to remind you all of the safety reg ulations … And this is a suicide mission, Squadron leader Haapu …’

‘Fuck the regulations,’ Queequeeg said.

Then, ‘Uh oh,’ Bazza said, ‘Rangi shows a raider coming in on you.’

Colby saw the rival chopper: ‘Enemy coming in at three o’clock.’

It was Gonzalez. Even though Queequeeg hadn’t arrived, she turned to Drake.

‘Post our flag!’ she screamed. ‘Now!’

Drake’s thumb was already on the trigger. The flag, boosted by rockets, sped towards Moby Dick. At the same time, Drake saw Gonzalez let loose with an interceptor. It made contact and the flag was diverted, exploding in the air. ‘Flag number two on its way,’ Drake shouted, gritting his teeth. From the corner of his eye he saw that Gonzalez had also unleashed a pennant. Which one would claim Moby Dick first?

‘We beat the bastard!’ Colby yelled as she saw the small puff of snow. At the impact, Moby Dick leapt sideways, revealing the extraordinary chambers shimmering, transforming themselves, creating instability within. But Colby was readying the harpoon. ‘Give me a clear shot.’

Gonzalez was dancing around the chopper, making it difficult for her. Colby found a window and pressed the firing button. ‘Come on,’ she muttered to herself.

The harpoon rocketed away, just missing Gonzalez’ landing gear, and a neat little puncture opening appeared on the surface of the berg. ‘We’re through the skin.’ Was that Moby Dick roaring his anger? Colby was too busy steering the harpoon through the berg.

Caught in an updrift of air, Drake was wrestling with the controls.

‘Are we locked on?’ Drake asked. ‘Gonzalez isn’t going to give up until we are. Moby Dick is still up for grabs.’ And Moby Dick flicked his tail. It was almost black, with stripes of embedded moraine debris, and it trailed the cables of ancient harpoons. The tail’s slipstream tumbled the Pequod like a toy.

Gonzalez’ mocking voice came over the intercom. ‘Drown, you fucker! Hey, Drake, gringo, I’m right behind you and if you don’t make it, I’m coming up your ass. Give me a shot too?’

‘Fuck off, Gonzalez.’

‘Oh, but I want to squeeze into him. Open up, Moby baby.’ And then Gonzalez screamed at Drake: ‘Give him to me! I want to pay him back for my leg.’ Drake wasn’t the only one with a grudge against the berg.

‘No way!’ Colby’s shout turned to triumph: the harpoon had found the gravitational centre. In a trice it was blasting a shaft and burrowing down. ‘What the hell is that?’ On her screen, halfway down, Colby saw a mass, an inconsistency. Something dark, like an insect trapped in glass. ‘Drake? Do you know what it is?’

‘Could be some rock and fossil material embedded millions of years ago. Forget it. Keep an eye on the progress of our harpoon.’

Nodding, Colby began to concentrate on the digital readout and calling out the depth that the harpoon was reaching. ‘We’re now at thirty, sixty, ninety …’ She punched some coordinates into the computer, checking the cable left on the drum. ‘One fifty, one eighty …’ There was alarm in her voice. ‘Drake, we’re at three hundred! Three thirty-five, three sixty-five, three ninety-five … and we’re only a third of the way through.’

Gonzalez purred over the intercom, ‘Lucky me to have more cable than you, gringo. Hasta la vista, baby.’

Drake knew what this meant. The Pequod would be pulled down with the cable to crash onto the berg. Or into it.

‘We might just make it,’ Colby screamed. ‘Brace! Here comes the hit.’

On the screen, Drake saw the harpoon break through into the sea below the berg. The spear point flexed, and eight prongs were released, snaking themselves across the bottom of the berg, attaching themselves with small popping explosions, attempting to find the best pattern to maintain the equilibrium.

A sudden snap. ‘We’re attached,’ said Colby.

The hawser took up the slack. Drake felt the whiplash shuddering back up to the helicopter. He battled to keep the chopper airborne as it yawed and flicked through the sky.

Thrashing with rage, Moby Dick was creating mountainous waves around him. I will never be taken. Never. Meanwhile, Gonzalez was still hovering. Drake had a sudden chilling thought. ‘You wouldn’t shoot us down, would you, Gonzalez?’

‘All’s fair in love and war,’ Gonzalez answered. ‘And nobody’s looking. But, oh fuck … this time we gotta bring Moby Dick in, eh amigo?’

‘I’m not sharing him,’ Drake warned.

‘Okay, but I give you just a leetle help?’

Just in time, Queequeeg came in, flying low. The berg was shimmering, changing colour, filling its chambers with water and ready to plunge downward. Queequeeg whizzed past Gonzalez and fired his own harpoon. And now came Starbuck, firing one harpoon after another.

The three choppers pulled. Heaved Moby Dick back from the depths where he was sounding. Back to the surface, back.

Time and time again Moby Dick tried to sound.

Time and time again, Drake, Queequeeg and Starbuck pulled him to the surface, the engines of the choppers whining into overload. They had the berg triangulated, keeping the centre of gravity so that no matter how hard he tried to shift the weight within his massive chambers, they corrected.

‘Don’t let him go,’ Drake yelled as he watched Queequeeg and Starbuck being whiplashed across the sky as if they were holding on to the end of two ropes.

And when Moby Dick finally submitted, shuddering, riding the tumultuous sea, Drake hovered cautiously. Was that it?

‘We’re down to fumes,’ Colby said.

To come all this way — and crash into the sea? ‘Not me,’ Gonzalez called. ‘Colby, I hate you, you beetch, but I fuck you next time. Go right up your ass with my big Argentine cock and come out your mouth.’

‘I love it when you talk dirty, Gonzalez.’ Drake grinned. ‘Adios, amigo.’ There was only one thing to do. ‘We’re landing on the berg,’ Drake ordered. ‘Queequeeg and Starbuck, join me, and that’s an order.’

‘What happens if Moby Dick’s still got some life in him? Does a death roll?’

‘Then land in the sea if you want to,’ Drake said. With a shudder, he brought the Pequod down. Queequeeg and Starbuck alighted close by.

‘I’m not getting out,’ said Colby. ‘I don’t trust this berg.’

‘Well, if that’s the case, I’ll stay inside where it’s just you and me, and we’re nice and comfy, and one thing could lead to another, and it’s a long, long way to Tipperary …’

‘I’m bailing,’ Colby said. Together they walked over to the other pilots and harpooners.

‘Are we good or are we good!’ Queequeeg laughed. He and Starbuck were waltzing together on Moby Dick’s back.

Drake was smiling. ‘Colby? Radio Bazza. Where the hell are those tugs and mini-subs?’

He should have been ecstatic, but he had a cold feeling up and down his spine.

‘This was too easy,’ he muttered. ‘Way too easy.’

It’s not over yet, e hoa.

Even before they reached the fiord, Drake knew that the whole base had turned out to watch. The lights were blazing in the dusk, welcoming them home. This time, Bazza put on Handel’s Messiah.

Tugs and mini-subs came out to greet them, drones were looping the loop and Ralph in the operations centre had raised the solar reflectors to dance on the encircling hills. It was party time for the Yahoos: bungy jumpers and sky gliders trailed colourful smoke in celebration. Bazza, of course, had to save face: ‘Squadron Leader Haapu, report to the main office immediately.’ When Drake did, Bazza screamed, hopped and yelled and would have continued but for the arrival of Kuia. ‘I’ve broken out the best champagne for you, e hoa,’ she said

Truly, the arrival of Moby Dick dwarfed all others that had preceded him. He was enormous, scraping the hell out of the bottom of the fiord and reaching halfway up to the hills, a huge beast come to be moored.

Drake and Colby went up to the water processing operations centre to look at Moby Dick. No matter that his contours were softening — the huge iceberg was still a magnificent sight.

‘We knocked the bastard off,’ Drake said, holding her close.

Colby looked at him. ‘I do believe you’re crying.’

Drake shook his head. He still had that nagging feeling. ‘I didn’t think it would be so easy.’

‘Easy?’ Colby chuckled. ‘The berg fought us all the way.’

‘It was supposed to be harder.’ Trying to assuage his doubts, he pulled Colby to him and kissed her.

‘To the victor the spoils?’ she mocked.

‘Something like that. Your place or mine?’

Colby considered the invitation, wavered, then screwed up her face. ‘I’ve seen your place but … okay.’

They made love, efficiently, careful not to get too sentimental about it. Afterwards, they lay in each other’s arms. ‘There’s a question I’ve been meaning to ask you,’ Drake began. ‘How did you know about the hula girls?’

‘You sing in your sleep,’ she answered, teasing him. ‘Sweet leilani, heavenly flower …’

‘Yeah, well,’ Drake countered, ‘you whistle through the gap in your teeth.’

‘Are you trying to pick a fight, Maori boy? And I was thinking that this was going to be the beginning of an interesting relationship.’

‘Perhaps. Hey, I’m not objecting. Doesn’t a gap between the teeth mean a lascivious nature?’

She laughed, tossing her head. ‘Lascivious? Now that’s a long word for a hori helicopter honcho.’

He pretended wounded pride. ‘You’re not the only one who went to college.’ He motioned to his bookshelf.

She picked up Moby Dick. ‘Looks like you’ve read it,’ she said doubtfully, ‘but one book does not a bright boy make. And seeing as we’re complimenting each other, did you realise you have one blue eye and one brown eye?’

‘It comes in handy for showing my Maori side, and then’ — he turned — ‘my Pakeha side. So which side do you like?’

‘Don’t tempt me.’

‘What are you going to do with your money?’ Drake asked. They were snuggled into each other after making love again. ‘Are you still planning to buy that bathtub?’

‘And bathe in asses’ milk? Sure am.’ Colby pursed her lips and began to intone, from Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, ‘The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne burn’d on the water …’ She gave him a look, then kissed him. Of course they had kissed before, the kind of teeth-grinding, lip-mashing, tongue-searching kisses that came when they were climaxing. But this one was tender, sweet, gentle.

‘What did you do that for?’ he asked.

‘I was wondering if you’d like it.’ She kissed him again. ‘Feel anything?’

He tried to change the subject. ‘So what’s in your future, Colby?’

She knew he didn’t want to talk serious, so went with him. ‘I’ll do this for a couple more years. If I’m lucky, I’ve a hankering to settle down with the right man and make a baby.’ She gave him a quick glance. ‘Correction, seeing as you know my history. Another man.’

Drake tried to make it easy on her. ‘Second time lucky?’ He knew that she was thinking what he was thinking: to start again and fill the hole that had blown up in her life when her husband had died in China. ‘Not me, I gather?’

She took his hands in hers and flipped them palms up. ‘Oh Drake, one of these days I’m going to see hair growing here.’

He tried to look shocked. ‘You wound me deeply.’

In many respects he knew he wouldn’t be any good for her anyway. He’d never get over his other life. He’d always be wondering: if only he’d taken Georgina and Mona with him on the trip before the solar flare. And even if he did ever marry again, they would always be there, waiting for him, waiting.

‘What I mean is,’ Colby continued, ‘I don’t think you’re one of those guys who are into commitment with anybody else except yourself. Apart from which your heart is as big and warm as that ice cube out there.’

How long was it before the telephone rang?

‘Yes?’ Drake asked, disentangling himself from Colby’s arms.

‘Kia ora, Francis,’ Kuia began, her voice sounding mysterious. ‘Is Colby there with you? You might want to come down to watch your berg being melted. There’s something curious in the ice.’

It didn’t take them long to get dressed and take the lift down to the ice melting area where Kuia and a crowd of others were watching.

The mass. The inconsistency.

The light was refracting through the berg. The shape within morphed from one image to another: a giant mosquito from an antediluvian era; a Tyrannosaurus rex; an ancient artefact from some sunken Antarctic Atlantis; a legendary waka that had missed Aotearoa and ended up girdled in ice. An alien spaceship with its navigator, a thing from outer space, trapped inside.

Maybe it was Captain Ahab himself, wrapped around Moby Dick when he’d gone down to the dark depths of the sea.

‘What is it?’ Colby asked.

A rotor.

‘Stop.’

Drake’s heart was thudding as he walked quickly through the crowd to the ice wall. ‘Turn out the lights.’ With the lights off, everyone could see the shape within. Trapped inside the berg was a helicopter. Around it, the hawsers that had lashed around the chopper as it had crashed into the berg and been taken down into the sea.

Drake peered in. Colby joined him: inside, two people, a man and a woman. The man was cradling the woman in his arms.

The name of the helicopter: Pequod.

Drake showed not a quiver of emotion. ‘The berg was too big,’ he said. ‘The pilot and crew must have tried to reverse the cable and, when it came back it whipped around the rotors and pulled it down, lashing them to it.’

‘Thus, I give up the spear!’

The harpoon was darted; the stricken whale flew forward; with igniting velocity the line ran through the groove — ran foul. Ahab stooped to clear it; he did clear it; but the flying turn caught him round the neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, he was shot out of the boat, ere the crew knew he was gone. Next instant, the heavy eye-splice in the rope’s final end flew out of the stark-empty tub, knocked down an oarsman, and smiting the sea, disappeared in its depths.

Then, on the intercom, came Bazza’s voice:

‘Get your ass up here, Drake. You think you brought in a big one? Well, there’s another just turned up on the horizon.’

Drake looked at Colby.

Destiny.

‘Don’t go out there,’ Kuia whispered. ‘I’ve grown very fond of you.’

‘We’ll be fine,’ Drake answered, kissing her on both cheeks. Then she pulled him close and pressed her nose against his in the hongi.

Taking Colby’s hand, Drake led the way to the helipad.

The news had travelled fast. As they stepped out, Queequeeg, Samurai Sam, Starbuck, Flask, Czar and Hari were waiting for them. ‘This is our date, not yours,’ Drake said as he and Colby kitted up.

‘Oh yeah?’ said Samurai Sam. ‘Well, we’re coming along just to make sure the date doesn’t go bad. You’re coming back, you hear?’

‘Wa-hey,’ Flask said.

‘Wa-ho,’ Hari responded, punching the air.

Drake could swear there were tears in Samurai Sam’s eyes — nah, just spangles of snow, melting on his eyelashes.

Drake and Colby walked out to the Pequod. Just before they took off, a sudden radiance shimmered over the sea: an auroral display of such blinding beauty that it took Drake’s breath away.

A karanga: ‘Haere mai.’

Colby brought him back to the present. ‘Say, Drake, do me a favour? Kiss me just once as if you meant to marry me?’

And this kiss was even sweeter than the one in his room. But he was leading, not her.

She opened her eyes, surprised. ‘Wow, Drake, you’d better watch out. I might have to think twice about you and the commitment word.’

He kissed her again, this time, more passionately, to shut her up, to stop even thinking about what might be possible.

She laughed, pressing herself against him. ‘Just our luck, big boy. You know … now that we know the future, you and I haven’t exactly got a long shelf life, right?’

‘That depends,’ he said, jerking his head towards the other choppers, ‘on whether or not they can bring us back alive.’ Then he smiled, remembering the mangled helicopter in its crystal cave of ice and the two people inside it, cradled in each other’s arms. They looked happy.

Really happy.

‘Whatever happens,’ he said, ‘from now on we’ll be together all the way.’

No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast, plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head.