LITMIR.BIZ

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The wind’s bite on my face, wet with sea spray and rain, faded as I fixed on the buoy’s ride from ship to sea.

      The taut hydro-wire held the buoy steady as Ryan slowly advanced it toward the stern. Peter yelled “Halt!” and Ryan slid the gear to neutral. Peter squinted at the buoy and frowned. Something about that buoy troubled him.

      Peter signaled Ryan to power the winch once more.

      What happened in seconds was slow motion to me. In frame one, the hydro-boom held the buoy upright, seaward of the stern. In the next, the ship pitched up. Like an enormous pendulum, the buoy swung back toward Peter.

       4

      PETER SAW IT COMING. HE stretched out his arms as if he could deflect the tonnage, but his legs stayed glued to the deck. The bottom of the buoy hit Peter squarely in the chest. He fell backward and the entire thing rolled on top of him.

      Peter’s screams tore through the squall like a jagged knife through flesh. The captain sounded the alarm call. Frantic crew and scientists scrambled toward Peter, but there was nothing they could do. Ryan wrestled with the stuck winch, swearing a black streak like the Irish sailor he was.

      It seemed like an hour but was probably less than a minute before the winch kicked in and lifted the buoy up and off Peter. He’d stopped screaming, and his leg below the hip was twisted at a sickening angle. Blood had undoubtedly pooled inside his jacket and pants, but only rain mixed with ocean spray ran across the ship’s deck.

      Two medics ran to Peter’s side. Deckhands dropped to their knees and made a colorful semicircle around the stricken scientist. They waited while the captain and medical crew checked Peter’s vitals. Peter looked peaceful, like he was asleep on the tossing deck.

      Stunned, I held on to the ladder.

      “He wants to talk to someone named Mara before we lift him up!” Coast Guard search and rescue hollered over the helicopter’s roar sixty feet above. I scampered behind the man and knelt beside the rescue basket.

      Shrouded and strapped, only Peter’s head was exposed. In tight curls, his sandy hair was wet. The day after we got back, Peter was going to get a haircut, he’d said.

      I bent over, my mouth next to his ear. “I’m here, Peter.”

      Peter’s eyes fluttered open. I leaned closer. His words were slurred, halting, urgent.

      “Not your fault, Mara. Not your fault.”

      Before I could respond, his eyes closed, and the strain around them faded as he slid into unconsciousness.

      “Not your fault.” What did he mean? Maybe that he volunteered to take my place. Or something was amiss with the buoy. I stood and stepped away from the basket. The medic gave the signal. As Peter rose off the deck toward the waiting helicopter, tears and sheeting rain ran together on my uplifted face.

      The mess was nearly empty. Harvey, Ted, and I slid into a corner booth. A couple of crewmembers huddled together across the room stopped talking and between whispers glanced over at us.

      Harvey sat next to me, head bent, elbows on the table. Again and again she ran her fingers through frowzy hair, trying to straighten out what couldn’t be fixed. Unseeing, I stared ahead, replaying the movie of a buoy falling in slow motion.

      Ted’s voice broke in, gentle but firm. “We’ve got to talk about the rest of the cruise.”

      Seymour was on the bridge with the captain, so we could be candid.

      Harvey straightened her back and coughed. “I keep thinking Peter will stroll in and joke about why he’s late. He must be in the operating room fighting for his life.”

      I nodded. In the last hour, I’d roller coastered between shock, guilt, anger, and incredulity. I was spent.

      Ted said, “We have to talk to the captain, of course, but should we scuttle the trip?”

      Harvey leaned back and crossed her arms. “This is the second mishap in less than a day—by far worst. What’s going on?”

      We looked at one another. I said, “I have no idea. But wouldn’t Peter want us to keep to the schedule and steam back tomorrow afternoon as planned?”

      She put her hand on mine and squeezed it. “Yes. He would.” Harvey kicked into gear. “Okay. We need a research plan which I’ll pass by the captain. There are only two buoys left now. I’m scheduled to deploy rosette water samplers, but that’s straightforward. Mara, do you still want to try out the new Video Plankton Recorder?”

      “I’ll wait on the VPR.” The instrument was brand new, but even photos of microscopic critters taken right in the water didn’t interest me now.

      “I can supervise another deployment,” Harvey said. “Want to do one, Ted?”

      “If that’s okay with Mara.”

      After what had just happened, I wasn’t about to take any chances. I gave Ted a quick nod. “Thanks. And Harvey and I can handle the water samples.” I touched the caddy at the end of the table. The salt and pepper shakers didn’t rattle. “The storm’s passing us now.”

      As Harvey and Ted discussed the winch malfunction, their voices faded into the drone of the ship’s motor.

      Harvey brought me back. “Mara, what are you thinking?”

      “We’ve all heard about winch accidents of the past. Shutoffs didn’t work, cables snapped, unsecured wire lashed across the deck. But that was before the regs.”

      Two lines formed between Harvey’s eyebrows. “And?”

      “Peter halted the deployment twice. He must’ve noticed something. And before the copter lifted him up, Peter mumbled ‘not your fault.’ So maybe he guessed it was someone else’s fault.”

      Harvey reached across the table and put her hand on Ted’s. “Tell me again what Ryan said?”

      Ted squeezed Harvey’s hand and let it go. “The winch fouled. He freed it just as the ship pitched, and the buoy dropped. Which sounds like an accident to me. And the captain is calling it that, maybe a defective winch.”

      Harvey turned toward me. “Mara, do you have another idea?”

      “What if there’s inexperienced crew on board? Maybe the buoy-winch linkage wasn’t set up right.”

      Harvey said, “You mean incompetence caused what happened?”

      “Yes.”

      “The crew looked first rate for this morning’s deployment,” Ted said. “But can’t we talk about all this back at MOI? We’ve got a lot of work to do, and we’re down an experienced scientist.”

      Harvey got up. “I’ll get up to the bridge and speak with the captain.”

      Ted slid out of the booth and stood next to her. It looked as though he was going to put his arm around Harvey’s shoulder, like he was worried about her. “Want company?”

      They walked out together.

      I wished Ted had shown more interest in my guess about the crew and less in Harvey.

      What followed was a long, long night. Thank god, the sea was calm.

      There was much to accomplish and everyone—scientists, grad students, crew—rotated shifts to get it done. In and out of spotlights and shadows, we crowded the decks, and called out to each other. Over and over, we set and retrieved water sample arrays. We deployed the buoys with a new winch. In between it all, I hardly slept. I tried to catnap on my bunk, but all I could think about was Peter.

      The captain kept us current on his condition—critical, no change.

      At dawn, the sun erased a purple-red splash on the horizon above a placid sea, and by noon Intrepid was carrying its melancholy passengers

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