Updated Mar 22, 2026 • ~7 min read
Chapter 4: Better to Be Present
FINN
She’d checked the forecast.
He’d expected that. He’d used the word *accessible* as a test rather than a redirect — if she noted it, she was the kind of thorough that would check. She’d noted it, she’d checked it, and she’d come to the meeting with the mild week’s forecast memorised and the survey protocol’s language about outer positions already quoted back at him.
He drove home from the research cottage and found Cal eating breakfast at the communal kitchen table.
Cal said: “How did it go.”
Finn said: “She checked the forecast.”
Cal said: “I know, I checked it too after you went down. It’s mild through Thursday.” He looked at the ceiling. “So what did you tell her?”
Finn said: “That I’d take her to the cliff path positions at two.”
Cal said: “And the outer?”
Finn said: “Thursday if the forecast holds.”
Cal nodded. “That’s reasonable.”
Finn poured coffee and stood at the kitchen window with it. The cliff face from the community side was a different view than from the cottage — the interior face, the one that held the majority of the clan’s active nest sites, the ones that had been here since before the lighthouse. The outer face, visible from the cottage and accessible by the northern boat route, was where the survey population was officially documented.
The outer face was also where, on a calm October Thursday, certain things would be visible that were not present in the visible spectrum on rough-weather days.
He said: “She’s going to want boat access.”
Cal said: “Of course she is.”
Finn said: “So either I take her and control what she sees, or she finds another way.”
Cal looked up from his breakfast.
Finn said: “She counted thirty-seven. She knows the four are somewhere she can’t see from the cottage. She told me the natural mortality rate for a population this size.”
Cal said: “What is it?”
Finn said: “Two to six individuals per year. Six years of zero in the database.”
Cal was quiet.
Finn said: “She’s not here to confirm the database. She’s here to investigate why the database looks the way it does.”
Cal said: “Can you redirect her?”
Finn said: “I redirected the last four researchers. The one before Petersen was a graduate student who came for population density metrics for his dissertation. The one before that was a condition assessment team that filed a report in four days. The one before that —” He stopped.
Cal said: “The one before that was the PhD from UBC who stayed two weeks.”
Finn said: “And left with a dataset about coastal habitat quality and excellent prey base conditions.”
Cal said: “And this one.”
Finn said: “This one quoted the stability figures at me across a kitchen table and then gave me the expected mortality rate for this population size.” He looked at the cliff face. “She’s thorough in a specific direction.”
Cal said: “What direction.”
Finn said: “The anomalies.”
Cal was quiet for a moment.
He said: “So what are you going to do.”
Finn said: “Take her to the outer positions.”
Cal stared at him.
Finn said: “If I keep redirecting her, she’ll get there herself. She’s already set up a spotting scope on the east corner of the cottage garden — the one angle that maximises her sightline to the outer headland. She’s not going to stay at the cottage positions.”
He thought about the grid count she’d been running at six-fifteen. The planned morning. The notebook that was clearly already dense with entries.
He said: “If I take her, I know what she’s seeing. I can be present for what she finds.”
Cal said: “And if she finds something.”
Finn said: “Then I’m there when she does.”
Cal leaned back in his chair and looked at him with the expression that Finn had been seeing since Cal was approximately sixteen and that meant: *you are making this more complicated than it is.*
Finn said: “Don’t.”
Cal said: “I’m not saying anything.”
Finn said: “Your face is saying something.”
Cal said: “My face is observing that you are going to spend significant time on coastal cliff faces with someone you’ve been watching from the headland since three forty-seven yesterday afternoon, for reasons of operational security.”
Finn said: “That’s correct.”
Cal said: “Right.” He stood and put his plate in the sink. “What do you want me to do.”
Finn said: “Tell the clan we have an active survey visit. Three weeks minimum. Researcher is thorough — tier two management at least.” He paused. “And stay away from the cottage until I’ve had the initial access sessions done. I don’t want her getting a secondary line of information.”
Cal said: “Tier two management.”
Finn said: “Yes.”
Cal said: “And you’re taking her to the outer positions on Thursday.”
Finn said: “In the boat. I’ll control the route.”
Cal had the expression again.
Finn said: “What.”
Cal said: “Nothing. Tier two. Controlled route. I’ll stay away from the cottage.” He picked up his jacket. “For now.”
Finn said: “Cal.”
Cal said, from the doorway: “She’s going to ask the right questions, Finn. She asked them this morning in the kitchen and you didn’t have a lie that fit.” He paused. “Think about what you’re going to do when she asks the one you can’t deflect.”
He left.
Finn stood at the window with his coffee and thought about thirty-seven and forty-one and the way she’d said *in the range of four* as though she was offering him the chance to confirm something they both already understood.
He thought about the last ten years of researcher visits. The redirections that had worked because the visits were short and the researchers were looking for what they expected to find. The UBC PhD who had stayed two weeks and filed an excellent habitat quality report and left satisfied in a way that had felt, at the time, like a significant near-miss.
He thought about the fish catch data he’d offered, which was real — they did have six years of catch records from the community’s fishing operation — and which would show exactly the prey base picture he’d described: abundant, consistent, better than the regional average.
He thought: *the prey base data will hold. The mortality data is the problem.*
He thought: *she already knows it’s the problem.*
He thought about her face across the kitchen table — the still, focused quality of someone listening to information and categorising it precisely, the way she’d noted the word *accessible* and the way she’d said *in the range of four* without breaking eye contact.
His eagle had an opinion about all of this that was not, strictly speaking, relevant to tier two management protocols.
He noted the opinion and did not act on it.
At five to two he went back down the coast road to the research cottage.
She was at the door when he arrived.
She had a field pack, her binoculars, a notebook, and a camera with a long lens. She had waterproof layers over her base layer despite the mild conditions. She looked at the cliff face and then at him with the patient quality of someone who had been ready since one-thirty and was now being professional about the ten minutes she’d spent waiting.
He said: “Ready.”
She said: “Since one-thirty.”
He almost smiled.
He took her to the cliff path positions.
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