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, Liz. Our expedition has gathered plenty of data, and we were far ahead of schedule. You think I took this decision lightly?”
“You certainly decided quickly and without consulting the rest of us.”
Simon spoke sharply. “I don’t need to consult anyone. We aren’t taking votes here.”
“Some of us came here on the understanding that we were to carry out a specific task. We came to study climate change. If we knew we’d break off to travel to God knows where we’d have stayed at home.”
“We have enough already to keep everyone busy for days. This is a short detour, nothing more. We’ll return as soon as we are done.” Simon peered over my shoulder. “Why don’t you put it up on the projector?” He pushed a button on the wall to deploy the projector’s screen and sat down near it.
I glanced around. The command centre was almost full of staff eager to satisfy their curiosity. Some of the science team had started to speak quietly among themselves, no doubt prompted by Liz and Simon’s debate. I changed the computer’s display to mirror on the overhead projector. As it warmed up, the sporadic discussions became more animated. Just before the projector kicked in Liz had another accusation.
“Is it true that you’ve told the bridge crew that they aren’t allowed any communications?”
That gave me pause, as well some of the crew of the Mimas. I spun in my chair. “Now hold on, Simon-”
“It makes perfect sense,” he said, speaking to us but with his eyes on the projector screen. Everyone was shuffling along, finding seats where they could, arranging themselves around the display. “The last thing any of us want is for some boat to get wind of what we’re up to and interfere. To intercept the pod and take their own footage. To claim discovery.”
“That’s a risk for something that sounds a little far-fetched.”
“This is a huge opportunity for the Mimas, and you’d get some great publicity yourselves. Now, of course if we run into any danger we can get on the radio, but unless that happens wouldn’t you rather keep this a secret? To present all of our research and footage on this cetacean, a complete record, instead of having some chancer fishing vessel upload grainy footage from a camera phone to the internet and getting millions of hits?”
I considered. It did make sense although it felt wrong. I thought back to the times in the past when our filming had been disturbed by fishing boats rowed or piloted by the locals, or tourist divers wanting to see our work and instead scaring off the marine life. “Alright.” I still had resercations but as Simon pointed out, if we were in no danger at all what harm could come of it?
Simon stood up and deliberately interposed himself between the projector and the screen, demanding the attention of the room. Distorted images of the dolphins streamed across his torso. His shadow loomed large behind him. “We are going to follow this pod for as long as we can. We are going to remain incommunicado. We are going to be the ones who break this find to the World.” His voice was tense, but his expression was unreadable, erased by the reflected glow of the projector. Some of the science team muttered but none spoke up. “Alright,” Simon said, “Let’s get some food.”
The evening meal turned into something of an impromptu party, at least for those who welcomed Simon’s decision. The small contingent that had protested drifted off to their berths. Susan opened some liquor for us and we concocted theories about why the dolphin had gone undiscovered in a shrinking World. All of us could quote figures about how poorly explored the oceans are, and some offered conjectures about areas of the sea from which the dolphins migrated without coming to the attention of men. Eventually our discussions, fuelled by the alcohol, became a competition of who could make the wildest, most hilarious speculation. It climaxed with Meredith breaking into song, one picked up immediately by many of us, sung to a red-faced Simon. ‘Congratulations on your cetacean.’ She attempted to follow this up with ‘New cetacean,’ no doubt a nod to her Australian heritage. Not many knew the song from which she was crabbing lyrics, so she tailed off. Before we could jeer, there was an interruption from the intercom.
“Matthew, are you there?”
It was Justin, the second mate, calling from the bridge. It was very late and Norbert would have finished his shift, handing over to Justin. I got up and answered. “Evening. What’s up?”
“You might want to come up on deck. And bring anyone still up.”
The party shifted mood, jovial faces turning serious, concerned.
“What’s happened to the pod?”
“Oh, nothing. They’re still on the same course, same speed. I called down because the Sun is setting in five minutes.”
That brought us to our feet, and off to find our parkas. The last time we saw a sunset was a month and a half before. Just an hour after that it rose again, and we’d been in daylight ever since. So the party relocated to the foredeck, and gazed out. It was a glorious sight – the Sun had thrown glowing arms wide across part of the horizon, and above it, moody clouds were tinged with shades of bruise, blush and burn. The churn of the engines provided soothing music for the occasion, a low-bass rumble and high-bass growl, with a rhythmic sussuration of surf against the flanks as a percussion accompaniment. I remember thinking that this represented the highest point of my professional life: the beauty of the moment, the promise of discovery, observation, and collaboration in the days ahead.
Simon joined me at my side. He was holding two mugs, and handed one over. He was having another go at converting me to herbal tea. I was in enough of a good mood to accept it ungrudgingly, and took a sip. It was delicious. He chuckled at my surprise.
“What’s in this one?” I asked.
“Peppermint and green tea, with a cube of demerara sugar. I always find a flavour that agrees with someone. It takes time, that’s all.” We turned to look ahead, forearms resting on the guard rail. In the fading light I could not make out a single dolphin, but the bridge staff were constantly monitoring them for us.
”So...Darnell’s Dolphin?” I suggested.
Simon grinned, his teeth shining in the dark.
“Maybe the university will want credit,” I teased. “Cornell’s dolphin.”
“Well then I’d just have to make a judicious typo.”
My turn to laugh. After a moment Simon spoke quickly, hesitantly. “How about Sarah’s Dolphin?”
I was struck dumb, first with shock, then with emotion. We hadn’t discussed the death of my wife. Neither of us had brought it up. Up until that moment I wasn’t even sure that Simon knew. Some of the nearby crew on the deck looked over, and by then it was dark enough to hide their faces inside their raised hoods. For several heartbeats I had the horrible sensation that their parkas were empty, each propped up by a void, some outside force directing their movements.
I found my voice, if only for a quietly stammered reply. “Yes...yes, I’d like that.”
I will not tell just how long we chased the dolphin pod before they stopped. For your protection, you understand. Stating only that we headed roughly North, and not for how long, means that there are hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of ocean surface to consider when narrowing down the location we arrived at. Undoubtedly authorities will make some attempt to work it out and I wish them no luck.
I give nothing away when I write that we came to a stop during daytime hours, and that there was nothing but open water within sight. No island, no abandoned ship. Only calm blue ocean. As soon as it was clear that the pod were not going to move off again we decided to make a dive, both the team and the submersible working together.
While Frank and his technicians prepared Phoebe, Simon and I joined John and Meredith by the dive platform. Meredith’s team were suited up and their technicians were helping them put on their equipment, wrapping hoses around them and connecting them to cylinders, running the cameras through checks before loading them into the dive platform. On this dive Meredith would be using a full face mask so we could communicate both ways with her. So far on our expedition Phoebe hadn’t worked in cooperation with the dive team, Simon and I having our own agenda to follow, so this time some planning was necessary.
“Matthew and I will stay beneath the pod and film it from below. We’ll be able to see all of them at once so if we spot any behaviour that we’d like you to film we’ll pipe up with what we see and where. We’ll use clock face directions from your position with North being twelve o’clock. If they go deep, you can follow, but don’t go any deeper than Phoebe. If they drop below our level we’ll follow them down ourselves.” Meredith pinched her thumb to her forefinger, the diver’s standard hand signal for OK. We left them to it, coming over to Phoebe to begin running through our own checklist. After a couple of minutes we heard the hum of the winch taking the dive platform down to the water below, then a sequence of splashes as each diver stepped off. After another moment we heard laughter from John and the technicians looking down on the dive platform from the deck. I looked around and John motioned me over. I complied.
“What is it?” I asked as I arrived.
“Take a look.”
All the divers were in the water in a cluster near the platform, and the pod had swum over to them. Their heads had emerged from the water and they clicked and groaned in their peculiar way. However, they weren’t interacting with the divers; instead their attention was fixed on Laura, the technician that had descended on the platform with the divers to hand them their cameras after they’d safely entered the water. Laura was the baby of the team, something of an apprentice. She grew up freediving off the coast of South Africa and we recruited her straight out of college.
The laughter was because Laura was dripping wet; one of the dolphins must have splashed her. Meredith directed one of her team to film her. As I watched a dolphin turned and dived under, slapping its tail on the surface as it did so, sending another splash cascading over Laura and slapping against the side of the ship behind her. Laura swept the water from her face and hair and joined in the laughter. Then another dolphin splashed her. This time, before she could recover, she was hit again. The dolphins were taking turns to launch a salvo of water at her, diving with a tail slap, returning to the surface and repeating. Laura shielded her face with an arm. She was met with a continuous torrent of water, no pause in the onslaught. A dolphin leapt from the water and belly-flopped in front of her, sending forth enough water to make Laura stagger back and drop to her knees. Her face was turned away and she was choking on seawater. By now no one was laughing – but the air was filled with croak and rasp as if the pod were a jeering, mocking mob. Meredith pulled off her dive mask. “Raise the bloody platform!” she shouted. John reached out to the control box and squeezed a button. The platform carried up Laura, as the dolphins made a few final attempts to drown her in splashes. She collapsed to her knees, face in her hands, her shoulders shaking. When the platform was all the way up John stepped on, offering words of comfort, and brought her to her feet. He led her away.
“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, Liz. Our expedition has gathered plenty of data, and we were far ahead of schedule. You think I took this decision lightly?”
“You certainly decided quickly and without consulting the rest of us.”
Simon spoke sharply. “I don’t need to consult anyone. We aren’t taking votes here.”
“Some of us came here on the understanding that we were to carry out a specific task. We came to study climate change. If we knew we’d break off to travel to God knows where we’d have stayed at home.”
“We have enough already to keep everyone busy for days. This is a short detour, nothing more. We’ll return as soon as we are done.” Simon peered over my shoulder. “Why don’t you put it up on the projector?” He pushed a button on the wall to deploy the projector’s screen and sat down near it.
I glanced around. The command centre was almost full of staff eager to satisfy their curiosity. Some of the science team had started to speak quietly among themselves, no doubt prompted by Liz and Simon’s debate. I changed the computer’s display to mirror on the overhead projector. As it warmed up, the sporadic discussions became more animated. Just before the projector kicked in Liz had another accusation.
“Is it true that you’ve told the bridge crew that they aren’t allowed any communications?”
That gave me pause, as well some of the crew of the Mimas. I spun in my chair. “Now hold on, Simon-”
“It makes perfect sense,” he said, speaking to us but with his eyes on the projector screen. Everyone was shuffling along, finding seats where they could, arranging themselves around the display. “The last thing any of us want is for some boat to get wind of what we’re up to and interfere. To intercept the pod and take their own footage. To claim discovery.”
“That’s a risk for something that sounds a little far-fetched.”
“This is a huge opportunity for the Mimas, and you’d get some great publicity yourselves. Now, of course if we run into any danger we can get on the radio, but unless that happens wouldn’t you rather keep this a secret? To present all of our research and footage on this cetacean, a complete record, instead of having some chancer fishing vessel upload grainy footage from a camera phone to the internet and getting millions of hits?”
I considered. It did make sense although it felt wrong. I thought back to the times in the past when our filming had been disturbed by fishing boats rowed or piloted by the locals, or tourist divers wanting to see our work and instead scaring off the marine life. “Alright.” I still had resercations but as Simon pointed out, if we were in no danger at all what harm could come of it?
Simon stood up and deliberately interposed himself between the projector and the screen, demanding the attention of the room. Distorted images of the dolphins streamed across his torso. His shadow loomed large behind him. “We are going to follow this pod for as long as we can. We are going to remain incommunicado. We are going to be the ones who break this find to the World.” His voice was tense, but his expression was unreadable, erased by the reflected glow of the projector. Some of the science team muttered but none spoke up. “Alright,” Simon said, “Let’s get some food.”
The evening meal turned into something of an impromptu party, at least for those who welcomed Simon’s decision. The small contingent that had protested drifted off to their berths. Susan opened some liquor for us and we concocted theories about why the dolphin had gone undiscovered in a shrinking World. All of us could quote figures about how poorly explored the oceans are, and some offered conjectures about areas of the sea from which the dolphins migrated without coming to the attention of men. Eventually our discussions, fuelled by the alcohol, became a competition of who could make the wildest, most hilarious speculation. It climaxed with Meredith breaking into song, one picked up immediately by many of us, sung to a red-faced Simon. ‘Congratulations on your cetacean.’ She attempted to follow this up with ‘New cetacean,’ no doubt a nod to her Australian heritage. Not many knew the song from which she was crabbing lyrics, so she tailed off. Before we could jeer, there was an interruption from the intercom.
“Matthew, are you there?”
It was Justin, the second mate, calling from the bridge. It was very late and Norbert would have finished his shift, handing over to Justin. I got up and answered. “Evening. What’s up?”
“You might want to come up on deck. And bring anyone still up.”
The party shifted mood, jovial faces turning serious, concerned.
“What’s happened to the pod?”
“Oh, nothing. They’re still on the same course, same speed. I called down because the Sun is setting in five minutes.”
That brought us to our feet, and off to find our parkas. The last time we saw a sunset was a month and a half before. Just an hour after that it rose again, and we’d been in daylight ever since. So the party relocated to the foredeck, and gazed out. It was a glorious sight – the Sun had thrown glowing arms wide across part of the horizon, and above it, moody clouds were tinged with shades of bruise, blush and burn. The churn of the engines provided soothing music for the occasion, a low-bass rumble and high-bass growl, with a rhythmic sussuration of surf against the flanks as a percussion accompaniment. I remember thinking that this represented the highest point of my professional life: the beauty of the moment, the promise of discovery, observation, and collaboration in the days ahead.
Simon joined me at my side. He was holding two mugs, and handed one over. He was having another go at converting me to herbal tea. I was in enough of a good mood to accept it ungrudgingly, and took a sip. It was delicious. He chuckled at my surprise.
“What’s in this one?” I asked.
“Peppermint and green tea, with a cube of demerara sugar. I always find a flavour that agrees with someone. It takes time, that’s all.” We turned to look ahead, forearms resting on the guard rail. In the fading light I could not make out a single dolphin, but the bridge staff were constantly monitoring them for us.
”So...Darnell’s Dolphin?” I suggested.
Simon grinned, his teeth shining in the dark.
“Maybe the university will want credit,” I teased. “Cornell’s dolphin.”
“Well then I’d just have to make a judicious typo.”
My turn to laugh. After a moment Simon spoke quickly, hesitantly. “How about Sarah’s Dolphin?”
I was struck dumb, first with shock, then with emotion. We hadn’t discussed the death of my wife. Neither of us had brought it up. Up until that moment I wasn’t even sure that Simon knew. Some of the nearby crew on the deck looked over, and by then it was dark enough to hide their faces inside their raised hoods. For several heartbeats I had the horrible sensation that their parkas were empty, each propped up by a void, some outside force directing their movements.
I found my voice, if only for a quietly stammered reply. “Yes...yes, I’d like that.”
I will not tell just how long we chased the dolphin pod before they stopped. For your protection, you understand. Stating only that we headed roughly North, and not for how long, means that there are hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of ocean surface to consider when narrowing down the location we arrived at. Undoubtedly authorities will make some attempt to work it out and I wish them no luck.
I give nothing away when I write that we came to a stop during daytime hours, and that there was nothing but open water within sight. No island, no abandoned ship. Only calm blue ocean. As soon as it was clear that the pod were not going to move off again we decided to make a dive, both the team and the submersible working together.
While Frank and his technicians prepared Phoebe, Simon and I joined John and Meredith by the dive platform. Meredith’s team were suited up and their technicians were helping them put on their equipment, wrapping hoses around them and connecting them to cylinders, running the cameras through checks before loading them into the dive platform. On this dive Meredith would be using a full face mask so we could communicate both ways with her. So far on our expedition Phoebe hadn’t worked in cooperation with the dive team, Simon and I having our own agenda to follow, so this time some planning was necessary.
“Matthew and I will stay beneath the pod and film it from below. We’ll be able to see all of them at once so if we spot any behaviour that we’d like you to film we’ll pipe up with what we see and where. We’ll use clock face directions from your position with North being twelve o’clock. If they go deep, you can follow, but don’t go any deeper than Phoebe. If they drop below our level we’ll follow them down ourselves.” Meredith pinched her thumb to her forefinger, the diver’s standard hand signal for OK. We left them to it, coming over to Phoebe to begin running through our own checklist. After a couple of minutes we heard the hum of the winch taking the dive platform down to the water below, then a sequence of splashes as each diver stepped off. After another moment we heard laughter from John and the technicians looking down on the dive platform from the deck. I looked around and John motioned me over. I complied.
“What is it?” I asked as I arrived.
“Take a look.”
All the divers were in the water in a cluster near the platform, and the pod had swum over to them. Their heads had emerged from the water and they clicked and groaned in their peculiar way. However, they weren’t interacting with the divers; instead their attention was fixed on Laura, the technician that had descended on the platform with the divers to hand them their cameras after they’d safely entered the water. Laura was the baby of the team, something of an apprentice. She grew up freediving off the coast of South Africa and we recruited her straight out of college.
The laughter was because Laura was dripping wet; one of the dolphins must have splashed her. Meredith directed one of her team to film her. As I watched a dolphin turned and dived under, slapping its tail on the surface as it did so, sending another splash cascading over Laura and slapping against the side of the ship behind her. Laura swept the water from her face and hair and joined in the laughter. Then another dolphin splashed her. This time, before she could recover, she was hit again. The dolphins were taking turns to launch a salvo of water at her, diving with a tail slap, returning to the surface and repeating. Laura shielded her face with an arm. She was met with a continuous torrent of water, no pause in the onslaught. A dolphin leapt from the water and belly-flopped in front of her, sending forth enough water to make Laura stagger back and drop to her knees. Her face was turned away and she was choking on seawater. By now no one was laughing – but the air was filled with croak and rasp as if the pod were a jeering, mocking mob. Meredith pulled off her dive mask. “Raise the bloody platform!” she shouted. John reached out to the control box and squeezed a button. The platform carried up Laura, as the dolphins made a few final attempts to drown her in splashes. She collapsed to her knees, face in her hands, her shoulders shaking. When the platform was all the way up John stepped on, offering words of comfort, and brought her to her feet. He led her away.
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