Tusker was lying on his back, as if on a raft. The buoyancy wing was more than enough to keep him afloat, but the wing pushed him face-down unless he kicked. Every once in a while, the clouds parted and he caught sight of a few stars.

“Anything dangerous out here, Miss Marine Biologist?” he called out in the darkness. He thought of the hundreds of fathoms of black water under his dangling feet.

“Not really,” she replied. “We get the occasional Portuguese man o’ war, but the shark fin trade has been merciless on anything big with teeth out here. Well, unless you count the sperm whales.”

“So, what do you think happened to Roland?” Sam asked. “That anchor line looked like it was cut.”

“Could have been any number of things,” Tusker replied. “If the current got strong at the surface, or the swells got big, it could have been tough for him to keep the boat in place. The anchor line could have chafed and finally parted on the gunwale…”

“Or he could have cut it intentionally,” she said coldly.

“What makes you think that?” Tusker asked, surprised at her tone. “Is there something about Roland I don’t know?”

“He showed up a few months back and offered to help Thathi in exchange for free room and board and some occasional diving,” Sam said. “But I think he’s into something else.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. He comes and goes at odd times with some shifty-looking guys. And then there were the girls.” She paused. “I saw him in Batticaloa once handing a wad of cash to one that looked suspiciously young. I’ve also seen him chatting up schoolgirls.”

“Yeah, I gathered he’s a bit of a pig,” Tusker said, remembering how he was leering at Anja, the Swedish girl. “But cutting the anchor line is a bit more serious than being a dirty old man.”

“He also seemed a little too interested in what Upali was doing here. Asked a lot of questions about their plans, what they were looking for.”

“Your father seemed to tolerate him,” Tusker tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe help was on the way. Leaving them adrift on the ocean was tantamount to attempted murder.

“Thathi needed the help and was willing to look the other way,” she said. “I used to be around a lot more to help with the resort and the divers. But with my work and all the traveling…”

They floated in silence for a while. At the surface the water was warm and, even with the breeze and his exhaustion, it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. The swells had become gentle and lapped at the top of his head, where it was tipped back in the water. It reminded Tusker of summer nights swimming in the shallow lake at his family’s cabin in Michigan. But here, of course, the next landfall south of Sri Lanka is Antarctica.

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