An Ordinary Drowning, Book One of The Mermaid's Pendant (27 page)

Tamarind
sat down and began gathering necessary bits and tools. Valerie had plenty of
wire, but her store of polished stones had grown low and nothing appealed to
Tamarind. She picked up some wire and began twisting a figure anyway. She could
add a stone later.

“Do you
know someone named Raimunda?”

Valerie
snipped a bit of wire before answering. “No, can’t say that I do. Why, should
I?”

Tamarind
bit her lower lip and twisted a tight spiral. “Well, I thought you might if
John’s been bringing her around here.”

“Ah,
that’s what this is about.” Valerie put her piece down and took a sip from her
coffee. “Last night, he brought someone home but I heard her screaming at him
not long after they got here. I don’t think she stayed long.”

She
watched Tamarind deftly twist two arms and a head for her Goddess.

“There
aren’t any good stones here.” She fingered the pile in front of her. “Of
course, some might tell you to go ahead and put in any old stone you find and
what you’ve got will be good enough. I say you have to wait for the right stone
for your Goddess to be polished and set carefully into Her form. The love and
care you take will be nothing short of pure magic. But I think you know that,
don’t you, Tamarind?”

She held
up the Goddess that she’d been working on. In its belly was an inferior stone,
dull and pockmarked.

“See?
This one doesn’t have any power with the wrong stone. Now take this stone
here.” She picked up a dull blue one. “This stone looks rather unimpressive in
its current state. But I can tell by its shape and color that it’s actually
rather rare. It’s a blue moonstone. Blue moonstone symbolizes the water signs
in the zodiac. It’s supposed to make wearers more receptive so they recognize
the truth and to bring them dreams. It’s also said to calm emotions so two
lovers can see their future together without fear or pain.”

She
paused and looked steadily at Tamarind.

“You
know, I think you should have this one, Tamarind. If you’re patient and wait for
it to be polished, you may find that this moonstone is exactly the right stone
for your Goddess.”

Valerie
slipped the milky-blue stone into Tamarind’s palm and closed her fingers around
it. “Just take care of it, Tamarind. Something this rare won’t come across your
path again. I know it.”

Tamarind
looked into Valerie’s eyes. Swallowing hard against a dry throat, she nodded
and squeezed the blue moonstone even tighter. She would keep the promise of
this stone against her heart as long as necessary.

John felt the solid presence
of the hills between the
Pittsburgh airport and the Fort Pitt Tunnel as his friend Stefan’s car climbed
and plunged. Once through the tunnel, his gaze embraced downtown—“dahntahn” in
the vernacular—and the point where the Allegheny and the Monongahela Rivers met
to form the Ohio. As they passed over the Monongahela, he could see the dark
bulk of Three Rivers Stadium across from the Point State Park. He’d missed so
many of the Pirates’ summer home games.

The
drive from the airport to Stefan’s place in Squirrel Hill took only half an
hour; Stefan asked no questions and John volunteered nothing. They chatted
about inconsequential things, the latest gossip in the CS department, the
incoming first years, the big grant won for a robotics project. They headed to
the Squirrel Cage where Stefan’s favorite waitress, the one John used to tease
him was his soul mate, brought them hand-formed hamburgers and black-and-tans.
Pittsburgh residents and grad students filled the booths of the dark bar, their
cigarettes and chatter comforting to John. He’d had no idea how fond that he’d
grown of this former steel town or how much he’d missed its coffee houses and
bagel shops. When they’d finished dinner, he urged Stefan to cross over Murray Avenue
to the Eat’n Park for dessert.

Stefan’s
last roommate had graduated in May and he hadn’t yet found a new one. John
viewed the available bedroom, which was still furnished in low-budget melamine
from the popular Swedish furniture store, and thanked Stefan for letting Zoë
dump his clothes and books there. He’d get the rest of his stuff from storage
later, after he’d had time to get back into the groove at school. Dropping his
bags near the door, he went over to the window facing the street and opened it wide
to the muggy August evening. He stood inhaling the mingled smells of exhaust
and baked motor oil and listening to the sounds from Murray Avenue where people
laughed and talked at outdoor tables or walked between restaurants and shops.
Underneath it all the sound of cars washed like the waves on Culebra’s beaches.
He’d returned to the place he belonged, but he’d left his soul behind.

When he
lay down on the bed’s bare mattress, no dreams graced his sleep.

***

As soon
as John walked onto the Carnegie Mellon campus, he saw his advisor. Steve
appeared surprised to see his errant graduate student—and exceptionally happy.
His surprise at seeing John lasted about two minutes, long enough for John to
cross the quad to the main entrance to Wean Hall.

“Hey, John!
You have impeccable timing,” he said when John got within five feet of him.
“I’ve been working on a funding application for ARPA and it would really help
our cause if you update your Web site with the digital stills and video from
the mission.”

As nearly
all his colleagues did, Steve constantly sought sources of funding and the
Defense Department’s Advance Research Projects Agency proved to be one of the
best.

“Yeah,
no problem. What’s the timeframe like?”

 “Paul Stoddard
is visiting next Monday so you don’t have much time, John, but I think you
could get something decent together by then. We don’t have to show Paul
much—he’s got the capacity to make a leap or two, if we can just show him the
outlines of what you’ve been working on. I had this idea just yesterday after I
poked around your Pitt-Woods Hole site and I wanted to talk with you about it.”

“Go
ahead.” John trailed Steve through the lobby of Wean. “Oh, hey, wait. I’ve got
to get a cup of coffee here. It’s been months since I’ve had a good cup of
Joe.”

Steve
kept talking while John ordered. “You’ve got a lot of great images from the
Puerto Rican Trench, John, but they don’t give a big picture of the place. I
mean, this trench is five miles below sea level and what you’ve got is a view
from a few hundred feet above it.”

“So
what’re you proposing? I’m not sure how my expertise in networked RAID and
streaming video is very useful for presenting the image data.”

Steve
ordered a decaf latte from the cart. “Well, no, you don’t have the
expertise—yet. But I think you should go talk with Ken Abel in the computer-vision
group. What I’m thinking is that your image data might be the source for a
modeling program that puts it all together into bigger segments.”

John
sipped his coffee carefully; it burned his tongue nonetheless. “This sounds
like a helluva lot of work. What happened to the work I was planning to do on
my proposal?”

Steve
gripped his own coffee and looked squarely at John. “Look, John, I’m not one to
give anyone advice on how to live his life—what’s done is done. But let’s face
it: you’ve been gone for nearly five months and now you’ve got to do a little
extra to redeem yourself. Six months ago, I could’ve let you stick with your
original plan. But now, I think you’d do well to labor on something a little
more glamorous, if you know what I mean.”

John
adjusted his backpack higher onto his shoulder. He could feel his chest
tightening, his esophagus narrowing. What Steve was suggesting—no, ordering—was
that he write a less evolutionary research plan and jump into a riskier
technical challenge, one that might not result in a feasible working solution
in the end. He said nothing for a few moments, instead focusing on breathing. A
faint humming echoed in his memory and his chest released. When he and Steve
made it to the Networking and Storage Lab, he spoke.

“Okay,
you’re the boss. There’s a faint chance that I could actually write a proposal
before Black Friday.”

“That’s
the ticket.” Steve opened the lab door. “Nothing like a high-stakes deadline to
get the old adrenaline pumping and the mental juices flowing. I’ll ping you in
a few days to see how it’s going.”

A week
later, John, ensconced in his office in the bowels of Wean Hall, had begun
tackling the new thesis proposal when his friend Puneet poked his head into the
lab.

“So it’s
true—you
have
returned from paradise! They say all good things must come
to an end and here you are slaving in the dungeon already.”

John
grinned. “You know Steve, Puneet. He can drive a slave with the best of ‘em.
Besides, there’s a corollary to your saying: eventually, you have to pay the
piper. And that’s what I’m doing.”

Puneet
walked into the lab and stood next to John’s chair where he could see John’s
monitor. “Yikes! Don’t tell me you’re working on a proposal.”

“Okay, I
won’t tell you. But don’t act surprised when Catherine posts the date for my
proposal talk before the end of the semester.”

“So
soon? Man, you’re setting a bad standard for the rest of us. How long have you
been here, anyway?”

“This
will be my fourth year.”

“What’s
your rush? Don’t you have another semester or two before you’re really under
pressure to propose?”

“Not
after taking a five-month vacation—at least, that’s how it’s perceived around
here.”

“Oh.”
Puneet drew out the sound as if it were a three-syllable word. “Look, I know
you’re busy, but maybe you could come up out of your underground dwelling and
go to lunch with me. It’s a glorious day outside and you don’t see too many of
those in Pittsburgh.”

“No, you
don’t. Where should we go?”

“Mad
Mex.”

They
walked into Oakland and spent most of lunch talking at length about what it was
like to run away from research for a while.

“I don’t
know what happened to me, Puneet. There was something about Culebra—I don’t
know what exactly. I just found myself sitting for long hours staring at the
surreal blue ocean. I even wondered if I could open up a microbrewery there and
turn the local soda, el Tamarindo, into a wicked Snake Island Ale. Still sounds
like a good idea, actually.”

Puneet
grinned. “No doubt, John, no doubt. That idea is definitely enticing.” He toyed
with his fork, tilting it this way and that so that it threw light shards onto
the ceiling. “Especially when code won’t flow. Or you despair that you’ve
chosen a topic that’s just another math problem, one only pointy-eared geeks
care about.”

“You’re
not afraid of that, are you?” John let his voice register his incredulity. For
all his surface levity, Puneet was one of the most focused, most disciplined,
graduate students he knew. “Don’t be. What you’re working on will protect our
country’s most important secrets.”

“Me? I’m
just building a more elegant lock for network security. That’s enough to make
me want to take up auto mechanics sometimes.” Puneet laid the fork next to his
plate and looked at John. His dark eyes, usually dancing with humor, were
direct and sober. “John, you don’t have to run away to an island in shame and
frustration. You’re going to help advance what science understands about the
oceans. That’s monumental, if you ask me.” He paused. “So, tell me, what are
you planning to propose?”

Puneet
listened as John described the raw data he’d collected in the Puerto Rico
Trench and his original plans to write special algorithms for storing and
retrieving it over a high-speed network. When he heard Steve’s revised standard
for what constituted proposal-level work his eyes widened, but he said nothing
until John had outlined the problem and described how he’d solve it.

“That’s
good, John. You sound like you’re jumping in with both feet. But I think you’ve
got a bigger technical problem than how to build a system that enables both
quick-and-dirty analysis on-board ship and more detailed analysis after the
survey is over. Those are really two sides of the same issue. No, the problem
is more fundamental than that. I’m not a geologist and I don’t know what the
current state of knowledge is on the seabed, but I wouldn’t bet that a generic
algorithm is going to allow you to filter out all the noise from your video so
that you can cleanly model the Trench landscape.”

John
frowned and pushed his plate away from him. “I guess that is a naive approach to
take. But I should think the geologists have a pretty good idea what most of
the noises are so all I have to do is pick Dave Gibbons’ brain and write a few
more algorithms. I’m not saying it’ll be a piece of cake, but I’m not worried
it’s impossible.”

Puneet
nodded. “You’re probably right. Still, I’d be prepared, if I were you, for a
few surprises along the way. The oceans are the last great, uncharted territory
on Earth. I don’t think we know a tenth there is to know about them. That’s why
what you’re doing is so valuable.”

John
said nothing, but he kept thinking about Puneet’s remarks all the way back to
campus. He was so engrossed that he didn’t see Zoë until he’d almost bumped
into her as she stood chatting with a group of friends outside Wean. As soon as
they made eye contact, the chatter died down among her friends and one by one
they all drifted away, though most stayed just out of earshot. Puneet murmured
something polite and continued into Wean, leaving John alone with his
ex-girlfriend.