The Trouts went back to their room to rest and clean up for dinner. Ramirez collected rainwater in a roof cistern and channeled it into a shower. Gamay had evidently been thinking about the Indian. As she toweled off she said, “Do you remember the Ice Man they found in the Alps?”

Paul had slipped into a silk bathrobe and was stretched out on the bed with his hands behind his head. “Sure. Stone Age guy who got freeze-dried in a glacier. What about him?”

“By looking at the tools and possessions he carried it was possible to picture his way of life. The Indians around here are at a Stone Age level. Our blue-faced friend doesn't fit the mold. How did he learn to make those things? If we had found those tools on the Ice Man, it would be in every newspaper headline. I can see it now: 'Ice Man Flicks a Bic.' ”

“Maybe he subscribes to Popular Mechanics.”

“Maybe he gets Boy's Life, too, but even if he got instructions every month on how to make neat stuff, where would he get refined metals to make them with?”

“Perhaps Dr. Ramirez can enlighten us at dinner. I hope you're hungry,” Paul said. He was staring out the window.

“I'm starved. Why?”

“I just saw a couple of natives carrying a tapir to the barbecue pit.”

NUMA 2 - Blue Gold

CHAPTER 4

As Austin stepped through the big bay door into the cavernous building at the San Diego naval station, his nostrils were assaulted by a hellish smell emanating from the three leviathans whose floodlit carcasses were laid out on flatbed trailers. The young sailor standing just inside the door had seen the broad-shouldered man with the strange white hair approach and assumed from his commanding presence that he was an officer in mufti. When Austin went to identify himself, the sailor snapped to attention.

“Seaman Cummings, sir,” the seaman said. “You might want to use this.” He offered Austin a surgical mask similar to the one he was wearing. “The smell has gotten real strong since they started pulling out the vital organs.” Austin thanked the seaman, wondering whom he had offended to pull such foul duty, and slipped the mask over his nose. The gauze had been sprinkled with a perfumed disinfectant that didn't quite cut the strong odor but subdued the gag reflex.

“What have we got?” Austin said.

“A mama, a papa, and a baby,” the sailor said. “Boy, what a time we had getting them here.”

The seaman wasn't exaggerating, Austin thought. The final count was fourteen whales. Disposing of their bodies would have been a tall order even without the turf battles. As the first government agency to arrive on the scene, the Coast Guard was worried about hazards to navigation and planned to tow the whales out to sea and sink them with gunfire. The highly dramatic TV reports had gone around the world and stirred up animal rights activists who were angrier over the whale deaths than if Los Angeles had fallen into the Pacific Ocean with all its in habitants. They wanted answers, fast. The Environmental Protection Agency was equally curious to know what had killed mammals that were under EPA protection.