Читать книгу Fragment - Warren Fahy - Страница 8

2:10 P.M.

The Trident cut the deep water with her single-hulled bow and turned three wakes with her trimaran stern. She resembled a sleek spacecraft leaving three white rocket trails across a blue universe. The storm clouds that had driven her south for three weeks had vanished overnight. The sea reflected a spotless dome of scorching blue sky.

The 182-foot exploration vessel was approaching the center of 36 million square miles of empty ocean that stretched from the equator to Antarctica–a void that globes and maps usually took advantage of to stack the words ‘South Pacific Ocean.’

Chartered for the cable reality show SeaLife, the Trident comfortably quartered forty passengers. Now an ‘on-camera’ crew of ten who pretended to run the ship, fourteen professionals who really ran the ship, six scientists, and eight production staffers, along with a handsome bull terrier named Copepod, rounded out her manifest.

SeaLife was chronicling the Trident’s yearlong around-the-world odyssey, which promised to encounter the most exotic and remote places on Earth. In its first four weekly episodes the cast of fresh young scientists and hip young crew had explored the Galapagos Islands and Easter Island, launching SeaLife to number two in the cable ratings. After the last three weeks at sea, however, enduring back-to-back storms, the show was foundering.

The ship’s botanist, Nell Duckworth, glared at her reflection in the port window of the Trident’s bridge, repositioning her Mets cap. Like all the other scientists chosen for the show, Nell was in her late twenties. She had just turned twenty-nine seven days ago, and had celebrated over the chemical-and-mint-scented bowl of a marine toilet. She had lost weight, since she hadn’t been able to keep food down for the last ten days. Her motion sickness had subsided only when the last of the massive storms had passed last night, leaving a cleansed blue sea and sky this morning. So far, bad weather, sunblock, and her trusty Mets cap had protected her fair complexion from any radical new pigmentation events. But she was not checking her reflection for wrinkles, weight loss, or freckles. Instead, all she noticed was the look of despair glaring back at her from the glass.

Nell wore taupe knee-length cargo jeans, a gray T-shirt, and plenty of SPF24 sunblock slathered on her bare arms and face. Her beat-up white Adidas sneakers annoyed the producers since Adidas was not one of the show’s sponsors, but she had stubbornly refused to trade them in.

She gazed south through the window, and the crushing disappointment she was trying not to think about descended over her again. Due to weather delays and low ratings, they were bypassing the island that lay just beyond that horizon–bypassing the only reason Nell had tried out for this show in the first place.

For the past few hours, she had been trying not to remind the men on the bridge of the fact that they were closer than all but a handful of people had ever come to the place she had studied and theorized about for over nine years.

Instead of heading one day south and landing, they were heading west to Pitcairn Island, where the descendants of the Bounty’s mutineers had apparently been planning a party for them.

Nell gritted her teeth and caught her reflection scowling back at her. She turned and looked out the stern window.

She saw the mini-sub resting under a crane on the ship’s center pontoon. Underwater viewing ports were built into the port and starboard pontoons–Nell’s favorite lunch spots, where she had seen occasional blue-water fish like tuna, marlin, and sunfish drafting the ship’s wake.

The Trident boasted a state-of-the-art television production studio and satellite communication station; its own desalinization plant, which produced three thousand gallons of fresh water daily; a working oceanographic lab with research-grade microscopes and a wide spectrum of laboratory instruments; even a movie theater. But it was much ado about nothing, she thought. The show’s scientific premise had been nothing but window dressing, as the cynic in her had chided her from the start.

On the poop deck below, she watched the ship’s marine biologist, Andy Beasley, trying to teach the weather-beaten crew a lesson in sea life.

2:11 P.M.

Andrew Beasley was a gangly, narrow-shouldered scientist with a mop of blond hair and thick-framed tortoise-shell glasses. His long, birdlike face often displayed an optimistic smile.

Raised by his beloved but alcoholic Aunt Althea in New Orleans, the gentle young scientist had grown up surrounded by aquariums, for he lived over his aunt’s seafood restaurant. Any specimens that came under his study were automatically spared the kettle.

He had gone on to live out Althea’s dream of becoming a marine biologist, e-mailing her every day from the moment he left home for college to the day he accepted his first research position.

Aunt Althea had passed away three months ago. After surviving Hurricane Katrina, she had succumbed to pancreatic cancer, leaving Andy more alone than he had thought possible after feeling so terribly alone all his life.

One month after her funeral, he had received a letter inviting him to audition for SeaLife. Without telling him, Althea had sent his curriculum vitae and a photo to the show’s producers after reading an article about the casting call for marine biologists. Andy had visited his aunt’s grave to put flowers on it, flown to New York, and auditioned. As if it were Aunt Althea’s last wish being granted, he had won one of the highly contested berths aboard the Trident.

Andy usually wore bright clashing colors that gave him a slightly clownish appearance. It also made him a natural target for sarcasm. He was as blindly optimistic and as easily crushed as a puppy–a combination that drew out a maternal impulse in Nell that was surprising to her.

Andy fidgeted with the wireless mike pinned to his skinny yellow leather tie. He wore a Lacoste blue-white-orange-yellow-purple-and-green-striped shirt, which resembled Fruit Stripe gum. Paired with the vertically striped shirt, he wore Tommy Hilfiger boardshorts with horizontal blue, green, pink, red, orange, and yellow stripes. To set it all off, he wore green size-11 high-top sneakers.

Andy’s teaching props, a number of latex hand puppets of various sea creatures, lay scattered on the white deck before him. Beside him sat a panting, broad-nosed bull terrier with a miniature life vest strapped on his square chest.

Zero Monroe, the lead cameraman, changed the memory stick in his digital video camera. The previous one had blinked FULL in the middle of Andy’s lesson, something that had been planned, much to Zero’s chagrin, in order to start rattling Andy and get him primed for an eruption.

‘Are we ready yet?’ Andy asked, flustered but still trying to smile.

Zero raised the camera to his right eye and opened the other eye at Andy. ‘Yup,’ he replied. The rangy cameraman used words sparingly, especially when he was unhappy. This job was making him unhappy.

His lean physique, wide aquamarine eyes, and deadpan humor lent Zero a vaguely Buster Keaton-like quality, though he was six-two and broad at the shoulders. He wore a gray Boston Marathon T-shirt that he had earned three times over, and battered blue New Balance RXTerrain running shoes with orange laces and gel-injected soles. His faded brown Orvis cargo pants had fourteen pockets stuffed with memory sticks, lenses, lens filters, lens cleaners, mike filters, and a lot of batteries.

Zero had made his living and reputation photographing wildlife. He had mastered his trade in some of the most inhospitable environments in the world, taking assignments from the infested mangrove swamps of Panama (filming fiddler crabs) to the corrosive alkaline lakes in the Rift Valley of East Africa (filming flamingos). After the last three weeks, Zero was wondering which assignment was worse–this one, or standing in mud that ate through his wading boots while his blood was drained by swarming black flies.

‘Let’s go, Gus,’ Zero growled.

A grip clacked a plastic clapper in front of Andy’s face, startling him. ‘SeaLife, day fifty-two, camera three, stick two!’

‘And…ACTION!’ Jesse Jones shouted.

Jesse was the obligatory obnoxious member of the on-camera ‘crew.’ The real crew wore uniforms and tried to stay off-camera as much as possible. Universally hated by both his shipmates and the viewers at home, Jesse Jones was delighted to play a starring role. Reality shows needed at least one cast member everyone could loathe with full enjoyment, one who caused crisis and conflict, one whom sailors in olden days would have called a ‘Jonah’ and heaved overboard at the first opportunity.

Tanned and muscular, with heavily tattooed upper arms, Jesse wore his hair short, spiked, and bleached white. No one had taken advantage of the show’s legion of sponsors quite so much as he had. He was decked out in black thigh-low, ribs-high Bodyform wetsuit trunks, complete with a stitched-in blue codpiece, and over them a muscle Y-shirt printed with palms and flowers. On his feet were silver Nikes and on his nose rested five-hundred dollar silver-framed Matsuda sunglasses with pale turquoise lenses.

‘Where were we, Zero?’ Andy said.

‘Copepods,’ Zero prompted.

‘Oh yes.’ Andy smiled. ‘That’s right–Jesse?’

Jesse threw a rubber hand-puppet at Andy, who ducked too late. It bounced off his face.

Everyone laughed as Andy replaced his imitation tortoise-shell glasses and gave a crooked smile to the camera. He slipped his hand into the puppet and wiggled its single google-eye and two long antennae with his fingers. ‘So Copepod, here, gets his name from this microscopic sea creature.’

The banana-snouted dog barked once and resumed panting next to Andy’s leg.

‘Poor Copey!’ Dawn Kipke, the crew’s surf-punk siren, crooned. ‘Why would anyone name a dog after that ugly freaking thing?’

‘Yeah, that’s uncool, dude,’ Jesse shouted.

Andy lowered the puppet and frowned at Zero, who zoomed in on his face.

Andy’s face turned red and his eyes bulged as he threw the puppet down. ‘How can I teach anything if nobody ever LISTENS TO ME?’ he raged.

He stormed off the deck and down the hatchway.

The crew turned to Zero.

‘Hey, I’m not in charge, man,’ Zero said, walking backwards as he shot. ‘Ask the guys upstairs!’ He panned up to the bridge, where Nell stood looking down at them. She made hand-antlers at them in the window and stuck out her tongue.

2:14 P.M.

‘Looks like mutiny, Captain. I think we’re going to have to land at the first opportunity.’

Captain Sol gave Nell a sly look over his shoulder. A trim white beard framed his tanned face and sea-blue eyes. ‘Nice try, Nell.’

‘I’m serious!’

Glyn Fields, the show’s biologist, stepped next to Nell to look through the window. ‘She’s right, Captain. I really think the crew’s getting ready to storm the Bastille.’

Nell had met Glyn during her second year as an assistant professor teaching first-year botany at NYU. Glyn was teaching first-year biology, and his looks had caused quite a stir among the faculty when he arrived. It was Glyn who had persuaded her to try out for SeaLife.

Tall, pale, thin, and very British, Glyn had sharp, handsome features, nearly black eyes, and his mother’s thick Welsh crown of black hair. The biologist was a tad too vain for Nell’s taste, but she may have felt that way simply because he never seemed to notice her (like that, anyway). He wore the stereotypical clothing of an English academic: Oxford shirts, corduroys, plain leather shoes, and even blue blazers on occasion. He now wore a blue Oxford shirt, khaki slacks, and topsiders without socks–about as casual as he was capable of dressing, even in the tropics. Nell suspected the Englishman would never be caught dead wearing shorts, a T-shirt, or, heaven forbid, sneakers.

She remembered how she had protested to Glyn a year ago that SeaLife would create a yearlong detour in her studies. When Glyn had mentioned that the expedition might come across the obscure little island she was always talking about, Nell knew instantly she might never get this chance again. Surprising herself, she tried out for the show and was actually chosen, along with Glyn.

Now, as he saw Nell’s hopes dashed, Glyn obviously felt a twinge of guilt. ‘Maybe a quick landing would be good for morale, Captain.’

Second Mate Samir El-Ashwah entered through the starboard hatchway, dressed in the full Love Boat-style white uniform inflicted on the Trident’s professional staff. A wiry man of Egyptian extraction, Samir’s Australian accent surprised at first. ‘Holy Dooley, the Turbosails are in the groove, eh, Captain? What are we making, just outta curiosity?’

‘Fourteen knots, Sam,’ Captain Sol said.

‘That’s getting it done, I reckon!’

‘I’d say.’ Captain Sol laughed, scratching the coral atoll of white hair around his bald head.

Nell peered up toward the skylight at the ninety-three foot Turbosail, one of two that towered over the bridge like cruise-ship’s smokestacks grafted onto the research vessel. The massive cylindrical shaft passed through the center of the bridge, housed inside a wide column that was smothered in notices and photos. Nell heard motors whirring inside the column as the sail turned above.

Turbosails were pioneered by Jacques Cousteau in the eighties for scientific exploration vessels, including his own Calypso II. Ideal for long-range research vessels, the tubular sail used small fans to draw air inside a vertical seam, as wind passing around it produced a much higher leeward surface speed than any traditional sail. Now that the storm had passed, the crew had raised both of the Trident’s Turbosails and rotated the seams to catch the nor’easter.

The ship cruised due west at a nice clip, ten degrees south of the Tropic of Capricorn.

‘Captain Sol, we’ll never get this close again!’ Nell said.

‘The storm did blow us pretty far south,’ Glyn said. ‘And while as a biologist, I have to say Nell’s little island is pretty intriguing, the thought of solid ground is even more appealing right now, Captain. It sure would feel good to stretch our legs.’

‘Why can’t we go?’ Nell whined.

Sol Meyers frowned. He looked like Santa Claus on vacation in his extra-large orange T-shirt with a white SeaLife logo silk-screened on the breast pocket.

‘I’m sorry, Nell. We have two days to make up if we’re going to make Pitcairn in time for the celebration they’re planning for us. We just can’t do it.’

‘A scientific expedition to explore the most remote places on Earth!’ Nell quoted the show’s opening tagline with naked scorn.

‘More like a floating soap opera that ran out of bubbles,’ Glyn muttered.

‘I’m sorry, Nelly,’ Captain Sol repeated. ‘But this is Cynthea’s charter. She’s the producer. I have to go where she wants, barring some emergency.’

‘I think Cynthea’s trying to pair us off now,’ Glyn mused. ‘Apparently the entire crew has already boffed each other.’

Nell laughed and squeezed Glyn’s shoulder.

The biologist flinched and rubbed his triceps as if she had bruised him. ‘You’re the most touchy-feely woman I’ve ever met, Nell,’ he snipped, fussing with his shirt where she had touched him.

Nell realized they were all getting irritable. ‘Sorry, Glyn. Maybe I’m part Bonobo chimp–they use physical contact to give members of their group a sense of security.’

‘Well, we British have the opposite reaction.’ Glyn pouted.

‘Hey, I don’t mind, Nell,’ said Carl Warburton. The ship’s first mate had a TV actor’s tanned handsomeness, black wavy hair frosted gray at the temples, and a late-night deejay’s voice to go along with his droll sense of humor–all of which made him irresistible. ‘Consider me a Bonobo,’ Warburton said, and he scratched his ribs and stuck out his tongue at Nell charmingly.

Captain Sol glanced up at the bridge camera mounted over the forward window. Cynthea Leeds, the show’s producer, watched everyone through cameras like this one, which were positioned throughout the ship. Each week’s show was cut from footage collected by these cameras, as well as what was captured by the ship’s three roving cameramen.

Captain Sol hid his lips with his hand and whispered, ‘I think Cynthea’s trying to set me up with ship’s surgeon Jennings.’

‘She’s trying to set me up with ship’s surgeon Jennings,’ Warburton said.

Nell did her best Cynthea impression: ‘Drama!’

A loud tone blared suddenly on the bridge, and everyone jumped.

‘Captain,’ Samir said. He checked the instrumentation. ‘We’re picking up an EPIRB, sir!’

‘Christ, I thought it was Cynthea,’ Captain Sol sighed.

‘An EPIRB?’ Warburton asked. ‘Out here?’

‘Double-check it, Sam,’ Captain Sol instructed.

‘What’s an EPIRB?’ Nell asked.

‘An Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon.’ Warburton was moving quickly to Samir’s side.

‘Got a position?’ Captain Sol asked.

‘We should after the next satellite sweep…’ said Samir.

‘Here it comes.’ Warburton glanced over his shoulder at Nell.

‘What?’ she asked.

‘You’ll never believe it.’

Samir turned to her. Surprise lit his round face and a smile revealed his beautiful teeth. ‘According to these coordinates, it’s coming from your island, mate.’

Nell felt her heart pound as they confirmed the signal.

‘Hold on–wait–we’re losing it,’ Warburton warned.

Captain Sol stepped around Samir and squinted at the navigation screen. ‘That’s strange…’

Warburton nodded.

Nell moved a little closer. ‘What’s strange?’

‘You don’t fire off an EPIRB unless you mean business,’ the captain answered. ‘And if you do, the lithium battery should last forty-eight hours, minimum. This signal’s fading.’

‘There it goes,’ Samir reported as the next data update wiped it off the screen.

‘Sam, you better hail the nearest LUT station. And check the beacon’s NOAA registration, Carl.’

Warburton was already scanning the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration database. ‘The beacon’s registered. Oh man…it’s a thirty-foot sailboat!’

‘What the hell is it doing out here?’ Captain Sol scowled.

Warburton scanned the information on file. ‘The vessel’s name is Balboa Bilbo. The owner’s name is Thad Pinkowski of Long Beach, California. OK, this is interesting: the registration on the beacon expired three years ago.’

‘Ha!’ Captain Sol grunted. ‘It’s a derelict.’

‘Maybe the NOAA records are out of date?’ Glyn suggested.

‘Not likely.’

Samir held the Satphone to his ear. ‘LUT reports that we’re the nearest vessel, Captain. Since it’s too far from an airstrip to get a search plane out here, they’re asking us to respond, if able.’

‘How soon can we reach it, Carl?’

‘Around fourteen hundred hours, tomorrow.’

‘Bring her about, due south. Sam, let the LUT station know we’re responding.’

‘Aye, sir!’

‘And try hailing her on VHF.’

‘On it!’

Captain Sol pushed a button and spoke into the ship’s intercom. ‘All hands, as you can see, we are now making a course adjustment. We will be landing sooner than planned, tomorrow afternoon, on an unexplored island. There will be a more detailed announcement at dinner. As you were!’

Faint cheers rose from the deck outside.

Captain Sol turned to Glyn. ‘Mutiny averted. That should hold them for a while. Well, Nell. It looks like the wind keeps blowing your way.’

The southern horizon swung into view in the wide windows as the Trident came about. Captain Sol pointed to the left edge of the navigation monitor, where a small white circle rose on an arc toward the top of the screen.

Warburton smiled. ‘There it is, Nell.’

Nell ran to see the plotting monitor as the men stepped to each side.

‘If you want to find an untouched ecosystem, you certainly came to the right place,’ Glyn conceded.

‘It must be twelve hundred miles from the nearest speck of land, I reckon,’ Samir said.

‘Fourteen hundred.’ Nell’s heart pounded so loudly she feared the others could hear it. ‘Every plant pollinated by insects on this island should be a new species,’ she explained.

Glyn nodded. ‘If your theory holds up.’

The motors revved as the Turbosail rotated over the bridge.

As Nell’s eyes brimmed, the others wondered whether she was looking for more than a new flower on Henders Island.

They all cringed as a voice blasted from a speaker by the camera over the forward window: ‘Tell me this is not a joke, please!’

‘This is not a joke, Cynthea,’ Captain Sol answered.

‘You mean we actually got a distress signal?’

‘Yes.’

‘Captain Sol, you’re my hero! How bad is it?’

Captain Sol looked wearily at Warburton. ‘It’s probably just a derelict sailboat. But the beacon was activated, so we have to check it out.’

‘God, that’s gold! Nell–tell me you’re excited!’

Nell looked up at the speaker over the window, surprised. ‘Yes, it’ll be nice to do a little actual scientific research.’

‘Tell me more about the island, Glyn!’ screeched the electronic voice.

‘Well, according to Nell, it was discovered by a British sea captain in 1791. He landed but couldn’t find a way to the island’s interior. There’s no other record of anyone landing, and there are only three recorded sightings of it in the last 220—’

The starboard hatch slammed open and Cynthea Leeds power-walked onto the bridge wearing a fitted black Newport jumpsuit with white racing stripes.

Everyone froze.

‘I like that. I like that a lot,’ Cynthea announced. ‘Peach, did you get that? Great! Gentlemen–and lady–congratulations!’

Cynthea smiled wide, flashing her expensive teeth as she tossed back her bangs in girlish joy. A thin black wireless headset arched over her black hair, which was cut in a razor-sharp pageboy.

Cynthea was a dauntingly well-preserved woman, sexy at fifty. Her mother had insisted on strict ballet training from the age of five–the only thing she considered a kindness on her mother’s part. At five feet eleven inches without heels she still had the posture of a ballerina, though her imposing stature was better suited to the high-testosterone arena she had chosen to enter than to ballet.

Like a hermit crab out of its shell, Cynthea looked laughably out of place at sea, or even outside a city. But she couldn’t help noticing lately that she was being herded out to pasture in the youth-centric jungle she inhabited.

Cynthea had produced two number-one reality shows for MTV. But the cutthroat environment she lived in would not tolerate a single misstep. After her last network reality show, the misbegotten Butcher Shop, had cratered, her only offer was the job every other producer in town had passed on: a round-the-world sea voyage with none of the comforts of home.

Sensing that she had to adapt or go extinct, and in the midst of an acute panic attack, she told her manager to take the offer.

She knew she had won the SeaLife gig because of her talent for spicing up a show’s content, which the show’s producers were painfully aware could be a problem if the science stuff got dull. Over the last three weeks, however, her efforts to get seasick scientists to mate had been a gruesome debacle.

If this show was killed, she was convinced it would be the end of her career. No husband, no kids, and no career: all of her mother’s prophecies checked off. Which would be much easier to bear if Cynthea’s mother were dead, but she wasn’t–not by a long shot.

Cynthea pressed her hands together in a gesture of thanks to the powers-that-be. ‘This could not have come at a better time, people! I think we would have killed and eaten each other before we ever got to Pitcairn. Tell me more about this island, Glyn!’

‘Well, it’s never actually been explored, is the neat thing. According to Nell—’

‘When can we land?’

‘Tomorrow afternoon,’ Glyn answered. ‘If we can find a place to put ashore. And if the captain grants permission to go ashore, of course…’

‘You mean we can shoot our landing on an unexplored island for the anything-can-happen segment of tomorrow’s broadcast at five-fifty? Glyn, you will be my superhero if you say yes!’

‘It’s possible, I should think, providing the captain agrees.’ The Englishman shrugged. ‘Yes—’

‘Glyn, Glyn, Glyn!’ Cynthea actually jumped for joy. ‘What was it you were saying about a British sea captain?’

‘The island was discovered in 1791 by Captain Ambrose Spencer Henders…’

Nell was amused to see Glyn’s vanity flattered by Cynthea’s spotlight.

Glyn looked at Nell. ‘However, Nell is the one who—’

‘That’s just gold, Glyn! Do me a favor and make the announcement to the crew?’ Cynthea interrupted. ‘At sunset–right after dinner–and really build it up? Oh, pretty, pretty please?’

Glyn looked apologetically at Nell. She nodded, relieved to have him do the honors. ‘Well, all right.’

‘You know Dawn? The tan, leggy brunette with the tattoo?’ Cynthea gestured in the vicinity of her tailbone. ‘Yes? She was just remarking to me how she thought British scientists were the sexiest men alive.’ Cynthea leaned forward and crooned in Glyn’s ear: ‘I think she was talking about YOU!’

Glyn’s eyes widened as Cynthea turned to Captain Sol. ‘Captain Sol, can we land?’ She jumped up and down like a little girl pleading with her grandfather. ‘Can we, can we, can we?’

‘Yes, we can land, Cynthea. After we check out the beacon.’

‘Thank you, Captain Sol! You know ship’s surgeon Jennings is just crazy about you?’

Warburton shook his head.

‘Now if we could only find someone for Nell,’ the producer persisted. ‘What about it, sweetie? What is your type, anyway?’

Nell saw Glyn looking out the window at Dawn, who was performing yoga stretches on the mezzanine deck below. Hard-bodied and sporting buzzed black hair, Dawn wore a midriff-baring mustard mini-T over her imposingly toned core. A purple and yellow sun tattoo peeked over the rear of her black bikini bottoms. ‘I don’t have a “type,” Cynthea,’ she said. ‘And I wouldn’t want to be anyone’s “type,” either.’

‘Always the loner, eh, Nell?’ Cynthea said. ‘You have to know what you’re looking for to find him, darling.’

Nell looked Cynthea in the eyes. ‘I’ll know him when I see him.’

‘Well, maybe you’ll find a new rosebud or something to name tomorrow, eh? Give us some drama, if you do, Nell! Pretty please?’

Cynthea turned and loped out the hatch.

Nell looked back down at the plotting monitor, watching the island as it moved down in tiny steps from the top of the screen. As the sight overwhelmed her, she almost forgot to breathe.

Captain Sol looked at Nell with fatherly affection. He placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘I’d say it was destiny, Nell, if I believed in that sort of thing.’

She looked at him with bright eyes and impulsively squeezed his big, tanned hand.

‘Still no response on the emergency frequencies, Captain,’ Warburton said.

Nell traced a fingertip from their position over the blue plasma screen to the white circle above tiny white letters:

Henders Is.

7:05 P.M.

Huddled inside the cramped, equipment-filled brain center of SeaLife, tucked within the Trident’s starboard pontoon, Cynthea watched three camera feeds of Captain Sol and Glyn making the announcement to the crew after dinner.

‘Peach’ McCloud sat by Cynthea, manning the editing/uplinking bay. Whatever original audiovisual equipment Peach was born with was buried under his hair and beard and replaced with man-made microphones, headphones, and VR goggles.

Cynthea had worked with Peach on live MTV shows in Fort Lauderdale and on the island of Santorini. Her one stipulation when she accepted the job as SeaLife’s producer had been that Peach come along as her engineer. Without Peach, the job would have been unthinkable.

Peach had agreed. He always agreed. Anywhere was his living room if he had a wireless connection. It really didn’t matter to Peach if he was on a boat weathering fifty-foot swells or in his Soho apartment. So long as his digital habitat came with him, Peach was happy.

Cynthea spoke urgently through her headset, on a conference call to the SeaLife producers in New York. Peach equalized sound levels and switched shots according to the jabbing eraser-end of her pencil as she talked.

‘We need the segue, Jack. We’re getting it right now and can zap it to you in ten minutes. We’re landing on an unexplored island in the Anything-Can-Happen feed tomorrow, Fred–come on, that’s the hook! And it’s a rescue mission–we’re responding to a distress signal!’

Cynthea gestured at Peach for confirmation, and Peach flashed ten fingers twice.

‘Peach can send it in fifteen minutes,’ Cynthea lied. ‘Give us the satellite feed, Fred. Yes, Jack, as you’ve mentioned several times already, there’s no sex. The whole crew screwed each other in the first four weeks. All I’ve got to work with now are scientists, Jack, so come on–cut me some slack! How could I know the crew smuggled Ecstasy on board? Anyway, that’s a done deal, Fred, and we’re lucky we kept it off the Drudge Report, OK? Are you kidding me? You must be kidding me now. Then Barry should do a show with scientists and try to have sex in it. I fucking dare him to do it, that flaming asshole, especially while they’re puking on each other! If there were any Ecstasy left I would have slipped it into their green tea by now, Jack! I’m suggesting that we go back to the original angle, the science thing. Right, adventure, Fred, EXACTLY! Thank you! And what comes from adventure but romance, Jack–I swear, if this isn’t the play that saves this show, you can broadcast my execution. Didn’t have to think about that too long, eh, Fred? Well, boys, I’m glad to know the way to your heart. Don’t worry–tomorrow we’re making television history sweetie!’

Cynthea squeezed Peach’s shoulder painfully. ‘We got it!’

Peach grinned and nodded, dialing in sound levels as Captain Sol addressed the crew. ‘This is good stuff, boss.’

7:05 P.M.

Shooting from port to starboard across the mezzanine deck, Zero framed a pointillist sunset of orange, lavender, and vermilion cirrus clouds.

Candlelit dining tables set for dinner dotted the foredeck as the Trident cruised due south. A warm wind played over the tables. The scientists and crew were finishing their dinner of orange roughy, rice pilaf, and green beans almondine. All three cameramen circled the tables as the crew buzzed with curiosity about the upcoming announcement.

Captain Sol finally clanged a glass and, with the South Pacific sunset at their backs, he and Glyn addressed the crew.

‘As I’m sure you’ve all noticed, we are now heading south,’ the captain began, and he pointed his right arm dramatically over the prow.

Cynthea directed Peach to cut to the bridge-mounted camera that showed the Trident heading toward the southern horizon, then to another that showed the prow slicing through the sea, then back to the captain.

‘A few hours ago we picked up an emergency beacon from a sailboat in distress.’

The crew chattered excitedly.

‘We know that the vessel’s owner was rescued by the United States Coast Guard off Kaua’i during a storm five years ago. So either this boat has been adrift for five years, or it came aground on the island south of us even before then, or someone else is on board it now. We tried hailing the vessel on emergency frequencies but got no response. Since search-and-rescue aircraft don’t carry enough fuel to reach this location from the nearest airfield, we have been asked to respond.’

A chorus of ‘Wow’s rose from the tables.

Glyn cleared his throat. The biologist was visibly nervous now that the cameras and lights turned to him. ‘The good news,’ the Englishman announced, ‘is that the signal seems to have come from one of the world’s last unexplored islands.’

After twenty-one miserable days at sea, the distress signal itself was cause for celebration. But the opportunity to land on an unexplored island inspired thunderous applause from all.

‘The island is only about two miles wide,’ Glyn said, encouraged. He read from cue cards Nell had prepared for him. ‘Since it is located below the fortieth parallel, a treacherous zone mariners call the “Roaring Forties,” shipping lanes have bypassed it for the last two centuries. We are now headed for what could well be the most geographically remote piece of land on the Planet Earth. This empty patch of ocean is the size of the continental United States, and what we know about it is about equivalent to what can be seen of the United States from its interstate highway system. That’s how sparsely traversed this part of the world remains to this day. And the seafloor here is less mapped than the surface of Mars!’

Glyn got an appreciative murmur out of the crowd and he charged on.

‘There are only a few reports of anyone sighting this island, and only one report of anyone actually landing on it, recorded in 1791 by Ambrose Spencer Henders, Captain of the H.M.S. Retribution.’

Glyn unfolded a transcript of Captain Henders’s log entry. This had been the remarkable glimpse into the unknown that fired Nell’s undergraduate imagination nine years earlier. Without stumbling too badly over the archaicisms and nautical abbreviations, he read:

‘Wind at WSW at 5 oClock in the AM, with which we hauld due West, and at 7 oClock spotted an Isle 2 miles wide that we could not find on the Chart, which lies at Latitude 46° S., Long 135° W. There is no bottom to catch anchor around this island. We rainged along its shore in search of a suitable landing but high cliffs gird the island completely. Our hopes frustrated and not wanting to spend more time than we had, I had every body to stations to put about, when at half past 4 oClock in the PM a man spotted a Fissure from which water streams down the cliff, staining it dark. Mr Grafton believed it could be reached by Longboat, and so I emmidiately put down one boat, and the men took some Barrecoes to fill.

‘We collected Three Barrecoes of freshwater from a trickling waterfall inside the Fissure. However, we lost one man dear to us in the effort, Stephen Frears–a true man, and strong made, whom we shall all terribly miss, and judged the risk of another man too great.

‘Upon the urgings of our Chaplain, and having determined that the island was neither habitable nor accessible by the blackhearts of HMS Bounty, we departed with haste and heavy hearts, our heading due West to Wellington, where we all are looking forward to a friendly harbour.

–Captain Ambrose Spencer Henders,

21st August, 1791’

Glyn folded the worn printout Nell had given him. ‘That’s it–the only reported landing. If we can find a way inland, we will be the first to explore Captain Henders’s forgotten isle.’ Glyn nodded and smiled at Nell.

There was a rowdy round of applause, and Copepod barked.

‘So the storms served a good purpose, after all,’ Captain Sol told them. ‘Poseidon has put us on a course to help a fellow mariner in distress. And we’ll have a chance to visit one of the final frontiers on Earth, where no man has gone before!’ Captain Sol raised his fist skyward, a ham at heart.

7:07 P.M.

‘God bless Captain Sol,’ Cynthea muttered in the control room, jabbing her pencil eraser at different screens as everyone cheered and toasted. ‘We’ll have to lay in some music behind Glyn’s speech and edit it way down.’

‘Yeah, that nearly killed us,’ Peach agreed.

‘Find some sea shanty thing, like something from Jaws when Robert Shaw is talking about sharks and battleships. Lay it in behind that speech and it’ll be a thing of beauty. Then can it and zap it, Peach. Get it to those bastards in L.A. before the assholes in New York can say no.’ Cynthea spoke through her headset to her camera crew. ‘OK, boys, we’re done. Eat some dinner. Nice work, darlings!’

7:08 P.M.

Spirits soared following the announcement, and when the annoying lights and cameras finally shut down everyone cheered again, sarcastically.

Nell glanced over at the next table.

Still puffed up from his starring debut, Glyn had seated himself across from Dawn. He seemed terribly interested in what she was saying.

Nell stifled a giggle at the almost inconceivable coupling. Dawn looked like she would eat Glyn alive.

Zero sat down across from Nell at her table and commandeered an unclaimed plate of food. Gouging a bite out of a filet of orange roughy, the lead cameraman looked at her. ‘So what made a gal like you want to be a botanist?’ He broke off a chunk of fish and fed it to Copepod.

Nell sipped her ice water as she mulled over his question. ‘Well, when my mom was killed by a jellyfish in Indonesia, I decided to study plants.’

Zero lifted a forkful of fish to his mouth, surprised. ‘For real?’

‘Of course, for real!’ said Andy, who was sitting next to Nell protectively, as always, though it was usually she who protected him.

Nell had persuaded Andy to leave his cabin after his earlier tantrum, and he had changed into a more subdued blue plaid flannel shirt open over a yellow T-shirt with a smiley face on the chest. The vintage shirt said, ‘Have a Nice Day!’ with no ironic bullethole in its head or anything out of the ordinary–just a smiley face waiting for the world to deface it.

Nell squeezed Andy’s wrist and patted Zero’s hand, instantly charming both men with her brief touch.

‘My mother was an oceanographer,’ she explained to Zero. ‘She died when I was a kid. I never saw her much, except on television. She was abroad most of the time, making nature documentaries in places that were way too dangerous for children.’

‘You’re not the daughter of Janet Planet, are you?’

‘Um, yeah.’

‘“Doctor Janet explores the wild planet!”’ he said, mimicking the show’s intro perfectly. ‘Right?’ A wide grin spread on the cameraman’s face as he remembered the early color TV series, to which he had been addicted as a boy.

Nell nodded. ‘Yeah. You remember the show?’

‘Hell yeah! It brought full-color underwater photography to TV for the first time! It’s pretty legendary among my kind. So, why isn’t your name Nell Planet?’

Nell laughed. ‘Our last name didn’t play well on television.’

‘So you’re following in your mom’s footsteps.’

‘Except that I chose botany,’ Nell protested, parrying with her fork. ‘Plants never eat people.’

‘Right on.’ Zero snagged a glass of iced tea from the tray of a passing server and raised a toast to her. ‘Conquer your fears, right?’

Nell toasted him with her water and frowned at the dark horizon. ‘Something like that.’