NaNoWriMo Thing

With the Mimas following the dolphin pod, our diving for the day was over, but our working day was not. We still had a couple of hours of routine procedures to follow. Checking over Phoebe and stowing her safely under wraps, washing salt water from equipment and suits, uploading files from the cameras and sensors, delivering samples to the lab for Simon’s team to analyse. As soon as I could, I took a desk in the command centre and played the footage from the dive. The rest of the crew drifted in, two or three at a time, and crowded around the screens to watch the new discovery for themselves. Presently I heard Simon in heated conversation as he entered. He was with Lizzie, who supervised the team of lab staff that came with us on the trip from Christchurch. “The university-” she began. “-Will be very happy with the publicity.” “They will be very unhappy to have arranged a research expedition only to have its leader gallivant off in search of personal glory.” “Don’t be so dramatic,

‘Enchanting’ is an extremely apt word to describe what it’s like under the ice. We had a Christmas tree erected in the mess on board, but every day I was taking the submersible out to play in a seascape that was like a surrealist artist’s impression of a tree. The ice above is of varying thickness, and in places the strong sun shines through with a soft blue glow. These are my fairy lights. There are baubles and adornments scattered over the ocean floor – pink and white starfish, cerise urchins, and delicate ice crystals like clusters of glittering feathers. The desmonema jellyfish, drifting serenely through the clear water, have strings of tentacles that stream for many metres, and they are my tinsel. The Weddell seals are my choir. Their calls whoop and beat and whistle, sounding like abstract electronic music. We’d been working at and under the ice for a month and a half. After a programme of mandatory survival training for those in the team who were new to Antarctica, we took a tra

The kettle finished boiling and Simon poured water into two mismatched mugs. "Have you ever gone to the ice before?" he asked as he yo-yoed teabags on strings in and out of the cups. "No," I replied. "But the Mimas has done some time in the Norwegian Sea, filming and tagging the humpbacks. Meredith and her dive team have logged hundreds of hours of ice diving. We've not taken Phoebe under the ice itself." (Editor's note: 'go to the ice' is the colloquial term used by scientists, technicians and support staff to refer to taking a trip to Antarctica. Phoebe is the name given to the submersible used by the Mimas) "It's actually the open water that's more dangerous for the submersible," he said, handing one of the mugs over. The teabag had given the water a warm, bright red tint. The drink smelled like a bag of sweets. "The 'bergs collide on the surface and break up. When that happens they might turn over to find a

(Editor: The account begins with fragments of sentences which were crossed through. Evidently the author found it difficult to begin, and made several attempts before the writing becomes ordered and coherent. Of the  'hesitations', I show here the ones which lead naturally into the first full paragraph.) I DIDN'T KILL THEM I DIDN'T KILL ANYONE These were my friends, I swear I didn't do this Simon died too, but he didn't die with the others, he was killed by Everyone in the command centre died of fright. And now I think, having written that, I can carry on writing more. Because I wrote it and I stopped to laugh. Strange to laugh after what's happened. It was a laugh of despair and sickness, of course, but it feels like I just dislodged a stone from my chest. Died of fright. Ridiculous. It's a phrase for another time, the sort of thing a man with mutton chops would exclaim while raising a lantern. "They appear to have died of fright, consta

I'm taking a risk in revealing the truth about what happened to the Mimas, but I suppose  that's an inevitable part of leaking information to the public. I will, when it comes to be my turn, be marched into a small room and interrogated in the expectation that I'll admit to being the one to have 'compromised the investigation'. But there is no investigation, not any more. I rather believe that the government organisation for which I work is hoping for the event to fade from the public's consciousness, for the journalists to become occupied with fresher news, for the relations of the dead or missing to accept the lies that they've been told for expediency. This leak will give them no solace; they are far more likely to dismiss it as a cruel hoax. But I can't let what I know remain secret any longer. I tell the truth and shame the devil. For those that don't recall, the Mimas was an oceanographic research vessel, a ship with a crew of thirty, which wen