'Is it working?'

'We're on the point of giving up. It hasn't achieved the desired results. We're having to try everything – at least if we can keep the whales away for a while, we've got more chance of sending down divers or robots.'

'You need to expand the team.'

'Who did you have in mind?'

'Three people.' He took a deep breath. 'I'd like you to recruit them. We need more input in the areas of behavioural and cognitive science. And I need someone to help me. Someone I can trust. I'd like you to get Alicia Delaware on board. She usually spends her summers in Tofino. She's a student – majored in animal intelligence.'

'Fine,' Li said. He hadn't expected her to agree so quickly. 'And the second person?'

'A guy in Ucluelet. If you take a look at the MK files, you'll find him under the name of Jack O'Bannon. He's good at handling marine mammals. He knows a thing or two that might help us.'

'Is he a scientist?'

'No. An ex-dolphin-handler with the US Navy. Marine Mammal Program.'

'I see,' said Li. 'I'll look into it. We've got plenty of our own experts. Why him?'

'That's who I want.'

'And the third person?'

'She's the most important of all. In a sense, we're dealing with aliens, so you'll need someone who devotes their time to thinking about how we could communicate with non-human life-forms. Dr Samantha Crowe is head of SETI in Arecibo.'

Li laughed. 'You're a bright guy, Leon. We'd already decided to recruit someone from SETI. Do you know Dr Crowe?'

'Yes, she's good.'

I'll see what I can do. Make sure you get back here safely.'

INSTEAD OF TAKING a direct route northwards, the Hawker Siddeley turboprop headed east. Akesuk had persuaded the pilot to make a small detour so Anawak could admire the Great Plain of Koukdjuak, a wildlife sanctuary dotted with perfectly round ponds that were home to the world's largest colony of geese. The passengers, from Cape Dorset and Iqaluit, were all en route to Pond Inlet, where the expedition into the wilderness would begin. Most were already familiar with the view, and had dozed off Anawak, however, was entranced.

They followed the line of the coast for a while, crossing into the Arctic Circle. Below them was the lunar landscape of Foxe Basin, its frozen surface fissured with cracks, leads, and pools of water. After a while, land reappeared, mountainous territory with steep drops and sheer palisades of rock. Snow glinted from the bottom of deep, shadowy gorges. Rivulets of meltwater poured into frozen lakes. In the light of the setting sun the scenery looked more majestic than ever. Rugged brown mountains were interspersed with snowy valleys, while jagged ridges reached up into the sky, the rock disguised by snowdrifts. Then, almost seamlessly, the plane passed above a blue-tinted shoreline, and they were staring down at a continuous layer of pack ice, Eclipse Sound.

Anawak forgot everything around him as he gazed at the strange beauty of the High Arctic. Colossal snow-white crystals stuck out of the white sheet of the Sound: icebergs. Beneath them the tiny forms of two polar bears raced across the ice, as though the turboprop's shadow was chasing them. Shimmering dots swooped through the air- ivory gulls. Further on, the glaciers and precipitous cliffs of Bylot Island rose into view. Then the plane dropped down, heading towards a shoreline as a marbled brown landscape appeared before them, a settlement of houses and an airstrip – Pond Inlet, or Mittimatalik in Inuktitut, 'the place where Mittima rests'.

The sun glared into their eyes from the north-west. It wouldn't set completely at this time of year, merely come to rest on the horizon for a few minutes at two o'clock in the morning. When they landed it was nine in the evening, but Anawak had lost all sense of time. He looked at the scenes from his childhood, and felt as though a weight had been lifted from his chest.

Akesuk had succeeded in doing something that, twenty-four hours earlier, Anawak would not have thought possible.

He had brought him home.

POND INLET WAS of a comparable size to Cape Dorset, but in most other respects it had little in common with the south of the island. The region had been settled for over four thousand years, but no one had embarked on any daring architectural experiments of the kind that Anawak had seen in Iqaluit. Akesuk explained that tradition played a more important role in this area of Nunavut than anywhere else. Some people even practised shamanism, he said cautiously, and hastened to add that they were good Christians too.

They stayed overnight at a hotel. Akesuk woke him early, and they strolled down to the shore. The old man sniffed the air. The mild weather would continue, he announced. They could look forward to the hunt.

'Spring hasn't kept us waiting this year,' he said, in satisfaction. 'I heard at the hotel that it's half a day's journey to the floe-edge. Or maybe a full day, depending.'

'On what?'

Akesuk shrugged. 'All kinds of things can happen. It depends. You'll see plenty of animals – whales, seals, polar bears. This year the ice is breaking up earlier than usual.'

Now that was hardly surprising, thought Anawak, given what else was going on.

The group was made up of twelve people. Anawak recognised some from the aeroplane; others he met in Pond Inlet. Akesuk had a word with the two guides, who were putting together the equipment for the trip. Anything that wouldn't be needed was left in the storeroom at the hotel. Four qamutiks were waiting. In Anawak's memory, the sleds had been pulled by dogs, but now they were hitched to snowmobiles and skidoos. The qamutiks hadn't changed, though: two wooden runners four metres long, curving up at the front, to which horizontal slats were tightly lashed. No screws or nails, the sleds were held together with rope and cord, which made repairs considerably easier. Open-topped wooden compartments mounted on three of the quamutiks would protect the passengers from the worst of the weather while the fourth was the pack sled.

'You won't be warm enough,' Akesuk warned him, glancing at Anawak's jacket.

'I checked the temperature. It's six degrees.'

'You're forgetting the wind chill from the sled. And I hope you're wearing two pairs of socks. We're not in Vancouver, you know.'

There was so much that he had forgotten. He was only just regaining his instinct for what it was like to be out there in the cold. He felt almost ashamed of himself. The challenge was in keeping your feet warm – it always had been. He pulled on another pair of socks and an extra sweater. In their padded clothes and snow goggles, they all looked like Arctic astronauts.

Akesuk and the guides made one last check of the equipment. 'Sleeping-bags, caribou pelts…'

There was a shine in the old man's eyes. His thin grey moustache seemed to bristle with pleasure. Anawak watched as he hurried between the sleds. Ijitsiaq Akesuk was nothing like Anawak's father.

His thoughts turned to the unknown force in the sea.

Once the expedition started, their decisions would be governed by Nature. 'To survive on the land, you had to adopt an almost pantheistical attitude: you were just part of the living world that manifested itself in animals, plants, ice and sometimes humans.

And in the yrr, he thought, whoever they are, whatever they look like, however and wherever they live.

There was a jerk as the snowmobile set off, pulling them over the snow-covered sea. Anawak, Akesuk and Mary-Ann shared a sled. From time to time they saw puddles of water on the surface, where the ice was melting. 'They curved round the settlement on the coastal hill, and headed towards the north-east, moving away from Baffin Island, which now protruded from the ice behind them. Across the sound the soaring-peaks of Bylot Island towered into the sky, surrounded by icebergs. An immense glacier poured down from the mountains and on to the shore. Anawak reminded himself that the surface beneath them was the frozen crust of the ocean. Fish were swimming below. Every now and then the qamutik's runners lifted as they hit a patch of rough ground, but the sled cushioned them from the impact.