*
They returned to the camp in silence, not touching, not sharing, and if they had dared to admit it, feeling more alone than if each to the other did not exist. They returned to Sylviana's glaring reproach, and to the doctor's knowing questions about the Children, the others having gone off to work. For he was the one member of the company to whom Kataya would open her thoughts; and he, too, shared her desire to understand and cure the baffling self-destruction of the Children's bodies as they neared adulthood, never forgetting that a living soul was carried within.
And as always among the social intercourse of men, many actions and words held cross-purposes at once, some realized, others forming like vague bubbles in the dark depths of the sea of human consciousness. Some would rise visibly, for those who knew how to read them; others would be raised only in the seclusion of after-thought. And still others, unwisely, would be suppressed. For all, in the end, must rise.
'Have they gone?' asked McIntyre, needing only Kataya's desolate expression for an answer.
'We'll get em next year,' he said more quietly.
'Who? What do you mean?' asked Sylviana.
'The Children,' he answered. 'Every Spring they migrate north.' He observed the tension between herself and Kalus, and added. 'You've wondered, no doubt, why the killer whales took up with them in the first place?'
'Yes,' said Kalus. 'Why?'
'Intelligent symbiosis, my friend. Works every time. A hunter like yourself will no doubt appreciate their technique. The youngsters make land some distance from the beaches where the seals lie in their hundreds, then come up behind them with sticks, startling them and driving them into the sea, where the orcas are waiting. Then the Children kill a few themselves, on land, and eat them on the spot. Feeds em both, neat as neat. A lesson for us all, I dare say.' He exchanged a look with Kataya, who said nothing.
'But they'll return next year?' asked Sylviana, still moved by the memory of them, though compassion was receding before the onslaught of jealous anger.