The Shell Collector (19 page)

I settle back in my seat. The scope of this story has shifted yet again, and not for the first time, I wonder why Ness is even taking me on this journey. He confessed as to the veracity of the shells on the plane. With the verdict no longer in doubt, that leaves only his justification. But why care what I think?

Suddenly, an answer to this last question falls into place.

The last time Ness made me keep something off the record, he gave me a glimpse of the truth in his grandfather’s journal, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to write my piece afterward. Perhaps he hopes he can do the same here, that he can show me some validation that would make the highly illegal seem perfectly okay. Maybe I was right to suspect that he’s working on an eco-education program, some way of raising awareness of species that have gone extinct. He said he wanted redemption. This fits. It all fits, but I don’t see how it will keep me from writing a piece about it. Unless he
wants
me to write that story. Unless I’m a tool for his ultimate redemption.

I hate that my mind goes to places like this, but it does, like filings to a magnet. When Ness takes an interest in something out the window, I lean across to check for myself, to get my thoughts elsewhere. Below, I see the lights of a ship. My stomach sinks as I realize we’re going to
land
on it.

Rain beads on the window—the stars and the moon are obscured as we drop through the clouds—and I wonder what the chances are that we left a rainstorm, flew however many thousands of miles to the other side of the globe, and are landing in yet another shower.

Red and white flashing lights illuminate the aft deck of the large ship. I can see a giant ‘H’ marked out on the deck. The helicopter touches down with a jarring double-bounce and a thump. Ness steadies me as I lurch into him. Men with glowing orange cones signal one last thing to the pilot, and then the door opens, and a man in a jumpsuit holding a large umbrella helps me out of the helicopter.

“Welcome to the
Keldysh
,” the man says to me. He shakes Ness’s hand. “Hello, boss.”

“Lieutenant Jameson, Maya Walsh of the
Times
. Maya, this is Lieutenant Jameson. First mate on this vessel.”

“You can call me Jimbo, ma’am.”

“Would you mind showing her to her room?” Ness asks. “I’m going to speak with the captain and check the Mir.”

“Yessir.”

Ness guides me away from the helicopter, which is spinning down its rotors and being strapped to the deck by a crew in rain slicks. It appears it will be staying with the ship. Perhaps belongs to it. Rain pops against the umbrella, and the deck is shiny and wet; it gleams from all the bright lights scattered across the ship. I can feel the world moving and swirling beneath my feet and am thankful that a childhood on boats has made me resistant to seasickness.

“Get a good night’s sleep,” Ness tells me. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Before I can complain, or ask where he’ll be staying, or realize that it shouldn’t matter, my mind is adjusting itself to the distance between us. Staying in his guest house and knowing he is right up there on that dune was one thing; sleeping in the plane with him across from me was another; but neither of those were by any circumstance other than necessity. And once again, my summer-camp brain leaves me unprepared for this intense closeness followed by a sudden absence. As he walks away, something inside me is stretched like taffy. I look away before I feel it break.

Beside me, a stranger in a gray jumpsuit with the name “Jameson” on his chest indicates the way. I follow him numbly into the riveted hull, through cramped steel corridors, and to a bunkroom that makes my college dorm seem like some palatial resort in retrospect.

The lodgings do not matter. I’m exhausted and discombobulated. I still don’t know where I am or what the hell I think I’m doing. I unpack my bag, change into sleep shorts, and fall asleep with
Moby Dick
in my hands. I don’t open the book. Don’t need to. It just feels good to have something solid there, to not be chasing after a great big nothing. This white whale has a name, at least.

I wake to the smell of coffee brewing and the clang of boots on steel decking outside. It takes several minutes of lying in the dark to realize where I am, to make sense of which direction the door is in relation to my bed. I’m not in my apartment in New York. I’m not in Ness’s guest house. Not on a plane. I’m on a ship.

I stretch as much as the small bunk will allow, get up, and refresh myself in the tight confines of the pantry-sized bathroom. I brush my teeth and then figure out the shower, which is basically the bathroom itself. A nozzle in the wall and a drain on the floor suggest the rest of the room is just meant to get soaked. I close the door, lower the toilet lid, and take a steaming hot shower. I get dressed and then braid my hair into something utilitarian. It’s the military-feeling surroundings, I think. And the fact that my hair will never fully dry in this humidity.

Donning the shorts and t-shirt Ness suggested I bring, I grab my book and follow the wafting promise of coffee down the corridor, up one deck, and to a small mess hall or break room. Conversations continue after a brief pause and curious stares. Heads track me. I’m an alien in the midst of these jumpsuited, tight-knit oil roughnecks, or shell miners, or whatever they are.

“Ms. Walsh?”

A woman my age, but more muscular and with short-cropped hair, approaches. Her accent sounds vaguely Russian. We shake hands. “Maya,” I say.

“Petrona. Welcome aboard. Coffee’s over there. Eggs and ham? Or do you prefer porridge?”

“Eggs and ham,” I say. I make myself a cup of coffee. A heavyset man watches me and puffs on his vape. The cloud smells of mint and strawberries. “What is this ship?” I ask Petrona.

“The
Keldysh?
She’s an old research vessel. Decommissioned years ago until Ocean Oil got her fit again. A floating four-star hotel and world-class laboratory.” She says
laboratory
the way a Brit might, pronouncing the
bore
in the middle. “But mostly it’s home to the Mirs five and six. Finest shellers on the seven seas—”

“That’s enough,” a voice behind us says. I turn to see Ness entering the mess hall. He smiles at Petrona and wags a finger. He has something in his other hand. “Ms. Walsh is a reporter. The less you say the better.”

Someone seated at one of the tables laughs.

“How come you get coveralls, but you told me to wear shorts and a t-shirt?” I ask, studying Ness’s getup.

“Because shorts are what you wear
under
your coveralls.” He presents me with a neatly folded pair of coveralls of my own. I unfold them and see my name embroidered on the chest. “I was bringing them to you so you wouldn’t look ridiculous around here in your skivvies. Which you do.”

There’s a pause.

“So stop looking ridiculous,” he says.

More laughter from the peanut gallery. I go with it and put the coveralls on right there. They’re a perfect fit. I don’t ask how he procured them in such short order. Must’ve set this up days ago when I accepted his invitation. So whatever he has planned, everything is going according to it. Thus far, at least.

“Eat up,” he says. “You’re going to get hungry today, trust me. But go easy on the coffee.”

Too often, a thing stares me in the face long before I recognize it. I should have known what we were doing. Something the rain won’t affect, but no swimsuit needed. A sort of diving. The next progression of shelling. But it isn’t until a deckhand is cracking the hatch on the bright yellow submersible that I see what Ness is up to. It’s almost too late to complain.

“How safe is this?” I ask.

“Perfectly safe,” he says. “The Mir Mark Five is rated for depths this planet doesn’t even possess. You could sit at the bottom of the Mariana Trench in this puppy.” He slaps the hull with his hand, which rings like an empty oil barrel. A perfectly normal empty oil barrel. The kind I imagine the ocean deep would crush in its fist.

“How deep are we going, exactly?”

“A little less than twenty thousand feet.”

“That sounds like a lot.”

Ness laughs. “It is. We’re at one of the deepest points in the South Atlantic.” He gestures toward the sub. “Ladies first.”

“Always with the ‘Ladies first,’” I say. “Why do I expect things to go really poorly when you say that?”

“Because you think I’m inviting you to your doom. And maybe I am. Now watch your head when you get in. There are pipes and sharp corners everywhere. Russians are fond of such things. And don’t touch any buttons or levers.”

I find myself crawling inside the oblong craft. The passenger compartment is a rough sphere right behind and above the sub’s twin folded arms. There are wide portholes everywhere. I settle into the far seat despite my trepidations and watch the deck crew scramble around in the rain coiling cables, signaling to one another, and checking out various parts of the sub. There’s a scraping noise above me. Through a porthole in the roof, I can see the treads of someone’s boot. I watch as a thick cable is attached to a stout bar. Ness crawls in beside me.

“I take it you want to drive,” he says.

“No, I don’t. Switch.” I make to get up and let him slide under me, but he places a hand on my arm.

“I’m just kidding. There are controls on both sides. But I will let you take the wheel for a bit. It’s easy. Like playing a video game.”

“Awesome. So it’s exactly like something I never do.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“I swear to God, Ness, if our lives depend upon me operating this contraption, I want the hell out right now.”

“Okay. You don’t have to do anything. Sorry. Just trying to lighten the—”

“You aren’t lightening the mood!” I say. And I realize I’m panting. Just like the first time with the dive gear. Someone swings the hatch shut by Ness’s side, but he braces it and pushes it back open.

“Just one second,” he tells someone. And then he turns to me. “We don’t have to go if you don’t want to go. But I assure you, it’s perfectly safe. People have been going this deep for nearly a century. The equipment has gotten nothing but better. You are safer in this than you were in the helicopter.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

Ness shrugs.

“Why didn’t you just tell me yesterday that this was what we were coming here to do?”

“Because you would’ve worried all night. You wouldn’t have slept. And you’d be even more panicked now after getting yourself worked up for hours over this.”

He’s right. But I don’t like decisions made for me, even if they are in my best interest.
Especially
when they’re in my best interest. It assumes someone else knows me better than I know myself. And so I hate that he’s right.

“I just need a minute,” I say.

“Take your time.”

I get my breathing under control. After a moment, I nod my assent, even though I’m not quite ready, because I want to show him that I’m braver than he gives me credit for being. I
am
brave. I know this about myself. I have kicked ass in a man’s world because I embrace being doubted. I embrace being underestimated.

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s do this.”

Ness gives a thumbs-up to someone outside. The hatch swings shut with a clang.

“That’s my girl,” he says.

And I almost don’t hate him for saying it.

My stomach turns as the submersible is hauled into the air. As soon as we leave the deck, the sub twists on its cable, and the world beyond the circular portholes of glass goes spinning.

We go up and out. I can see the rail at the edge of the ship pass beneath us, hear metal creaking, and then we begin to drop—and I find myself clutching Ness’s arm, fearful of grabbing any part of the sub, any of the levers and buttons, and prematurely detaching us from the crane.

Ness has a headset on, is talking to someone, probably the crane operator. A second headset hangs from a rack on my side of the sub. I pull it on and listen to a woman’s voice counting down numbers. When she gets to zero, the swell of the stormy sea thwaps the bottom of the sub, sending a rattle through it and into my bones. I hear Ness’s voice in my headset and also beside me: “Touchdown.”

But we aren’t through descending. We’ve only begun. Another wave shakes the craft, foam and salt sloshing up the porthole beside me, and now I have Ness’s arm wrapped in both of mine. The water rises up the portholes in front of us, bubbling and frothing, the gray overcast sky replaced with the deep blue sea. And then we’re below the water. The Atlantic closes up around us. And the world is silent, peaceful, and still.

“Ready to detach,” Ness says.

“Detaching.”

There’s a mild clank above our heads. Otherwise, nothing seems different. But I sense that we’re free of the ship.

“Unless you want to drive, I’ll need that arm,” Ness tells me.

I realize I’m still clutching him for balance. “Oh, right.”

I let go, and Ness grabs the joysticks on either side of his seat. He pushes them to one side, and I feel a sense of acceleration as we move away from the mothership. The fat hull of the research vessel recedes until it’s swallowed by the black. Just before it disappears, the view reminds me of looking up at Ness’s boat while diving, but on a completely different scale.

“What does that do?” I ask Ness as he adjusts some knobs.

“It controls our rate of descent. We drop at about fifty meters per minute. We should touch down in a little less than two hours.”

“TWO HOURS?”

I immediately regret shouting. Every sound is amplified in the small metal sphere and the headsets. Ness raises an eyebrow.

“What happened to sixty feet, ten minutes?” I ask. “Sixty feet. Ten minutes. What happened to that?”

“We’re going a lot deeper for a lot longer,” Ness explains. “I promise you it’s safe. I’ve done a hundred deep dives in this baby, and she’s done thousands more without me.”

“But two hours just to
get
there?” I now understand why Ness insisted I use the bathroom after breakfast and why he told me to go easy on the coffee.

“Yeah, and we run on battery power, which we need to conserve. I’m going to dim the lights for now. The heater has to stay on, or we’ll freeze in here. But let me know if it gets too cold for you.” He flips switches, and the banks of internal lights go off. There is enough left from the dials and indicators to see around us. Ness seems to study one readout after another, checking things. All I see is the inscrutable cockpit of a jumbo jet wrapped around us.