“Maybe they could name it after us,” Thalia suggested. “The Quivaros-A’kona-Halverson effect. QAH for short.”
“Notice how she put herself up front,” Kimo said to Halverson.
“Ladies first,” she said with a nod and a smile.
Halverson laughed and adjusted his hat.
“While you guys figure that out, I’ll get started on the mess for tonight. Anyone for flying-fish tacos?”
Thalia looked at him suspiciously. “We had those last night.”
“Lines are empty,” Halverson said. “We didn’t catch anything today.”
Kimo thought about that. The farther they sailed into the cold zone, the less sea life they’d found. It was like the ocean was turning barren and cold. “Sounds better than canned goods,” he said.
Thalia nodded, and Halverson ducked into the cabin to whip them up some dinner. Kimo stood and gazed off to the west.
The sun had finally dropped below the horizon, and the sky was fading to an indigo hue with a line of blazing orange just above the water. The air was soft and humid, the temperature now around eighty-five degrees. It was a perfect evening, made even more perfect by the notion that they’d discovered something unique.
They had no idea what was causing it, but the temperature anomaly seemed to be wreaking havoc with the weather across the region. So far, there’d been little rain across southern and western India at a time when the monsoons were supposed to be brewing.
Concern was spreading as a billion people were waiting for the seasonal downpours to bring the rice and wheat crops to life. From what he’d heard nerves were fraying. Memories of the previous year’s light harvest had sparked talk of famine if something didn’t change soon.
While Kimo realized there was little he could do about it, he hoped they were close to determining the cause. The last few days suggested they were on the right track. They would check the readings again in an hour, a few miles to the west. In the meantime, dinner called.
Kimo reeled the sensor back in. As he pulled it from the water, something odd caught his eye. He squinted. A hundred yards off, a strange black sheen was spreading across the ocean surface like a shadow.
“Check this out,” he said to Thalia.
“Stop trying to get me up there in close quarters,” she joked.
“I’m serious,” he said. “There’s something on the water.”
She put down the computer tablet and came forward, putting a hand on his arm to steady herself on the narrow bowsprit. Kimo pointed to the shadow. It was definitely spreading, moving across the surface like oil or algae, though it had an odd texture to it unlike either of those things.
“Do you see that?”
She followed his gaze and then brought a pair of binoculars to her eyes. After a few seconds, she spoke.
“It’s just the light playing tricks on you.”
“It’s not the light.”
She stared through the binoculars a moment longer and then offered them to him. “I’m telling you, there’s nothing out there.”
Kimo squinted in the failing light. Were his eyes deceiving him? He took the binoculars and scanned the area. He lowered them, brought them up and lowered them again.
Nothing but water. No algae, no oil, no odd texture to the surface of the sea. He scanned to both sides to make sure he wasn’t looking in the wrong place, but the sea looked normal again.
“I’m telling you, there was something out there,” he said.
“Nice try,” she replied. “Let’s eat.”
Thalia turned and picked her way back toward the catamaran’s main deck. Kimo took one final look, saw nothing out of the ordinary, then shook his head and turned to follow her.
A few minutes later they were in the main cabin, chowing down on fish tacos Halverson style while laughing and discussing their t
houghts as to the cause of the temperature anomaly.