Far From The Sea We Know (31 page)

“Clear as glass, now,” he said. “Confirms it
absolutely for me.”

“You said, a ‘different location.’ What does
that mean?”

“The circle expanded a mite.”

“And how much is ‘a mite,’ exactly?”

“Not much. Twenty meters is what I was told,
so the diameter is still about the twenty-three kilometers you
calculated before. A fluctuation, maybe. Good as any explanation
for now, and fits in nicely with the idea of some kind of induced
field.”

“There aren’t as many new arcs here as I had
hoped.”

“No, but two-thirds of a circle is plenty
enough to make this actionable. The pattern holds up, that’s the
point. The ability to predict is a fundamental aspect of moving a
premise to theory, and later to fact, right?”

“Sorry, I was stifling a yawn. Hard to
hear.”

“Well, it’s true, and a damn sight better
than sitting around playing guessing games.”

“When are they going to sweep the rest of
the area?”

He looked like he was internally debating
whether to refrain from a rejoinder. Finally, he let out a small
sigh.

“They’re not. All their gear got fried.”

“What!”

“Yes, and the ship went dead in the water.
Sound familiar? It drifted out of the circle finally and, what do
you guess, most everything came back online. Speculation it was
something like an EMP effect, a pulse that overloaded everything,
but it doesn’t really fit that profile because an EMP would have
caused permanent damage and this didn’t. Everyone’s okay, by the
way. Don’t lose any sleep over that.”

“Sniping season was declared over, remember?
Where was the ship when this happened?”

“Dead center—if you’ll excuse the pun.”

“Why were they in the middle? I assumed they
would prioritize on following the arc. The center would obviously
be the most risky area.”

“Well, that may be more clear now, but it
wasn’t then.”

“It was to me.”

“I am not calling all the shots. It was
decided to be worth the risk.”

“And the responsibility nicely passed
on.”

“Something about ‘sniping season’ being
over, a while back?” The smile that always hovered around
Chiffrey’s face slipped away. “I can assure you that I am being
held responsible for everything I do. Lots of eyes on me now. Some
waiting for me to screw this up so they can move in and take over.
You can cheer them on if you like, but you’ll miss me when I’m
gone. And the first thing they’ll do then is send you home under
escort.”

He seemed uncharacteristically unguarded.
“So,” she said, “they’re putting the squeeze on you.”

“On all of us. Every minute that goes by,
there is more attention being drawn to this show. More at stake
now, and those in power have a sixth sense for both opportunities
and threats. We are all on stage, and this one is only for players.
Trust me.”

“We agreed to work with you,” Penny said.
“We didn’t agree to trust you. What else?”

“The scanning ship had an ROV down in the
center of the circle. That’s a Remotely Operated Vehicle.”

“I know that!” Penny said loudly. “You’re on
a research ship, damn it. We’ve got at least two on board. You
should have waited until we got there. I thought that was
decided.”

“Not specifically, and people up the line
went over my head. I’m sorry. There wasn’t any way to stop them.
But listen. They captured only a few minutes of imagery, but I can
tell you they definitely saw something down there! ‘Bigger than an
aircraft carrier,’ they said. ‘Looked natural, but unnatural.’
Direct quotes from the crew operating the ROV. And, oh yeah, the
thing was magenta. Purple!”

Chiffrey looked at her and smiled, but there
was a grimness she hadn’t seen before. “This is it,” he said.
“Looks to me like we finally have the source.”

“They will wait for us before they do
anything else, right?”

“Absolutely. Considering what happened,
they’re now mostly convinced that the
Valentina
is their
best shot. Related to that, your dad and the Captain are on the
horn with your administrators back at Port Angeles to smooth the
way for the
Valentina
taking the lead in investigating the
circle. The board of directors has some misgivings about the plan
to off-load some of the crew and resupply at sea.”

“Not surprising. This does seems rushed, if
not a little panicked.”

“You’re getting your wish, aren’t you? And I
do think the
Valentina
has an excellent chance of operating
there without the problems the Navy has had. We were untouched when
the whales disappeared, at least the ship still functioned. They
were circling us for a reason. It might be the transceiver. Or
maybe we’re just in their good graces somehow.”

He glanced at her in a strange way, almost
smirking. It suddenly struck her why, and she didn’t like the why.
Chiffrey had made the connection to the transceiver that Andrew
predicted he would, but he had gone further.

“If you’re thinking Matthew is some kind of
lucky rabbit’s foot,” Penny said, “I wouldn’t count on it.”

“I’m far from certain, but going back to the
Eva Shay
, he certainly has the longest history with this and
seems to have a connection of some kind. And where he is, things
happen.”

“That’s why you’ve been so accommodating and
helpful. You think Matthew, along with the
Valentina
, is the
key, and when you have the only key, you don’t want to lose
it.”

“What’s the beef?” Chiffrey said. “You
wanted a piece of the action, and I just scored you season
passes.”

He looked at the scans again and traced the
circle with his finger. “If we work together, we may be able to
sort this out on our terms, which just might mean avoiding any
unfortunate repercussions. We have a responsibility, and everything
I have heard from you all since I got here tells me this is exactly
what you most want.”

“But not with you waiting in the wings to
swoop in anytime and hijack whatever we discover.”

“I’d suggest just dealing with what is, but
listen, what if it turns out to be a threat of some kind? I’m sure
you will agree it would be good to have some backup.”

Penny shook her head. “You’re jumping your
guns yourself, as usual. This could easily still be a natural
phenomenon with no malice behind it at all.”

“I don’t know where you get ‘easily’ out of
this. But I hope you’re right about ‘no malice,’ because if there
is any, we just might be the ones outgunned.”

That evening, Penny met up with Andrew and
her father in C-lab. Andrew gave her the gist of the conference
call to the board at the Point. There was, at best, a mixed level
of support. The board wanted them to cooperate with Chiffrey, but
her father and Andrew would be held accountable for anything that
went wrong. “It’s always been this way,” her father said. “Don’t
waste any energy on it.”

Emory came in to ask Doctor Bell something
about the
Bluedrop
, their minisub. As if on cue, Chiffrey
entered not long after and, overhearing, said, “Yeah, the
Bluedrop.
Had a look at her innards this morning with Becka.
One sharp piece of tech. Can’t wait to see it in action.”

“We have ROVs,” Penny said. “It’s too risky,
at least in the beginning, to go down in the
Bluedrop
.”

“That’s what Becka told me, but wouldn’t
being there in person be better?”

Her father gave no indication that he wanted
to voice an opinion, but Emory said, “I seem to notice more sitting
here on the ship, to tell you the truth. High def cameras catch it
all, and we have the same access to instrumentation, manipulator
arms, remote sensors, as we do in the
Bluedrop
.”

“Well,” her father finally said, “I would
not altogether agree, although I know I am in the minority these
days. But, yes, we will start with ROVs. We can get a lot with
them, certainly.”

“One last point,” Chiffrey said. “We’re the
main act now, so they will clear the way for us. Can’t get their
minds around what is going on, and they are not taking that well.
Before, it was ‘no target, no mission.’ Not anymore. They won’t
give us forever.”

“Got that message a while back,” Penny
said.

“Just time to tree this possum,” Chiffrey
said laughing. “Which you should be thrilled about. You’re going to
get first crack.”

“Yes, if your idea of thrilling is the
privilege of being the first one to stick your head down a deep
dark hole with no idea what’s really down there.”

Andrew caught her eye, and she backed off.
He addressed everyone in the lab. “Our gear needs to be operational
when we reach our destination. Make sure it is. Can’t be sure how
much time we’ll get once there. But first, a mid-sea fueling
tomorrow noon and departures for some soon after. Be ready.”

The next day, Penny was too busy to worry
about events moving too quickly. Chiffrey, like everyone else, had
come around to believing it best not to bring on new people. “Don’t
mess with success,” he had said. That meant they wouldn’t bring
over anyone from the Navy tanker to help with refueling. The
Valentina
’s crew had to manage the hookup on their own, and
they had never done it before. That, along with connector
incompatibilities, resulted in the operation taking longer than
expected.

But they managed in the end. It was hard for
Penny not to admire how they worked so well together. What had
changed? Maybe they were just more aware of those around them.

The resupply went much smoother, and it
didn’t hurt that the seas were running low. Chiffrey had backed
Andrew’s request for everything they might need. The Captain wanted
to be ready for anything, and the Navy had come through supplying
them from what was in effect a shopping plaza in the holds of the
resupply ship.

Lines with pulleys were set up between the
two vessels, as they sailed into the waves on the same heading.
With this simple rig, they transferred net after net of containers
over the water. Almost everyone on the
Valentina
was needed
to chain the supplies onto the deck, and later to move them down
into storage spaces. The crew had formed around this task with
little in the way of direction. No one told anyone else what to do,
they each just flowed into the right place and did what needed to
be done. It was hard for Penny not to feel good about this, and she
enjoyed the movement. Matthew was cheered and so was the crew. Even
Chiffrey had pitched in. Only for the last twenty minutes, true
enough, but Penny counted that as a win. Everyone seemed tired but
happy in the end.

Taking people off the ship had been a
different matter. Yet another Navy ship arrived and sent over a
launch. One person, who originally said he would go, unexpectedly
decided to stay. Andrew called him on it, but he held firm. Four
others, who earlier had chosen to remain, changed their minds, most
likely because of Ripler’s final apocalyptic outburst. The warm and
fuzzy atmosphere on board had ebbed, and was in a far more tempered
form. It was as if Ripler, even in his psychotic delusion, still
had been canny enough to further his agenda.

Those who were leaving stepped into the Navy
launch as if onto a bus departing a casino after a bad weekend.
Penny couldn’t really blame them. Even though she opposed
Chiffrey’s tendency to play on threats, surely there was a risk of
some kind for those who stayed. The smaller crew would still be
enough to keep things going, but everyone would have to work that
much harder.

Daryl, the cameraman along with the
helicopter pilot, Lorraine’s now-former TV crew, boarded the launch
after the last of the students. The pilot looked subdued, while
Daryl took one last opportunity to thank everyone, as if they had
personally saved his life. Only Dirk and Lorraine seemed completely
confident and at ease as they took their place on the launch, still
holding hands. As Dirk had announced to Penny that morning, “The
way lay not straight, but ’tis gleaming clear,” or some such
nonsense. And they weren’t just happy. They were completely
enthralled by their own bliss, and how delicious it must be, but
joy like that could not last, could it? In spite of Lorraine’s
implied skill at seeing the future, if they really did get married,
the only thing that seemed certain would probably be lawyers.

Of those who chose to stay, many seemed to
believe they were under some special kind of protection, perhaps
the result of Chiffrey spiking the punch with his ideas about the
transceiver and Matthew. Andrew seemed to have come to similar
conclusions. And the few times the subject had come up, it was hard
for Penny not to feel that it made sense in some unfathomable
way.

After the launch departed, everyone who
didn’t have duty headed for the galley for dinner. Chiffrey
announced to them that he had at last procured the Navy ROV video
from the center of the circle. In his usual annoying way, he coyly
suggested that if anyone were interested in “having a look,” he
would show the video in C-lab at eight o’clock. That is, he said,
if someone could help him set it up.

Malcolm popped up like a whack-a-mole, said,
“On it!” and was out the door with his mouth still half-f of
Navy-supplied French fries. The fast that he and Emory had
undertaken was apparently over.

When Penny stepped into C-lab, it was as if
she had entered a completely darkened room. She’d been outside for
hours, with the June sun still coming at her strong at eight in the
evening. The glare from the water made her wish she had brought her
sunglasses, and the double shine had contracted her pupils to
pinpoints. Nonetheless, she stepped into the lab confidently,
knowing by now where everything was.