Shallows and Depths
Kim Greenwald reached out and stopped the alarm clock's ringing. Yawning, she got out of her
bunk and stretched, looking out to starboard through the curtains she'd made. She put on some
sweats, and began her daily regimen.
The sun was barely up this late in the Fall, and there was quite a chill in the air, still. The City
Marina was silent and peaceful, the only sounds that of the surf pounding the breakwaters
protecting the Marina, and waves lapping against the hulls of the ships moored in their berths.
One of those ships belonged to her; a 28 foot River Queen houseboat named "Fancy" that she
called home.
With practiced ease Kim hopped onto the dock and began jogging past the rows and rows of
silent, empty vessels as she made her way out of the Marina and to the Park. Only one vessel in
ten was allowed to house "liveaboards" as people like her were called. Kim sneered as her
jogging shoes left the floating docks and hit the concrete sidewalk. The Conservation and
Development Commission was responsible for that particular rule. They had made it their goal in
life to blame liveaboards for all the pollution in the whole darned Pacific Ocean. Of course,
they'd never had any proof, or even any evidence. As a matter of fact, what evidence there was
pointed firmly AWAY from liveaboards being sources of pollution, pointing the finger at the
cities and suburbs themselves as being the culprits. No matter, though; with the backing of the
no-nothing average citizen, they'd gotten their "ecological reforms" rammed through the city
government.
Around the park she jogged, working up a sweat, despite the brisk Fall morning. She wound up
on the beach, where she performed some stretches, and basic dance and gymnastics routines to
cool down.
"Hey, there, young lady," came a familiar call. "How are you doing this morning?"
"Hello, Mr. Peterson. Great. I'm lord of all I survey. How about you? Having any luck?" she
replied.
"Not too bad," replied the elderly gentleman, showing her his basket of the morning's
beachcombing foray. An unidentifiable collection of wood and plastic items filled the basket.
Kim had no idea what the detritus was.
"Uh, looks like quite a haul, so far. Be careful about old medical stuff, though, Mr. Peterson.
Needles and who-knows-what. If you get sick, who'll watch me while I do my morning
routine? she said, not un-affectionately.
The older man just laughed. "Yes, dearie. Hey, watch out if you go down the beach. There's
another mysterious spill. Looks like it took out some wildlife."
Oh great, thought Kim to herself. Something else for the eco-nuts to lose their minds over.
She forced a smile for the eccentric old beachcomber. "Will do, Mr. Peterson. I'd better get
back. Got school, you know. Good luck!"
With that, the attractive, athletic girl began jogging back towards the Marina. Mr Peterson
watched her go through age-dimmed eyes. A pretty girl, that Kim; and so dedicated to her
health and learning. He just knew that she was going to go places, unlike his own obscure
existence. The thought warmed him, however, and he continued on down the beach, leaning on
his cane sometimes, and using it to turn over rocks and debris at others.
Kim jogged back to the Marina, and used her keycard to get access to the floating docks. Her
feet pounded down the docks, thumping hollowly as she jogged back to the Fancy. Nothing
much had changed since the weekend. Since she also worked part time at the Marina as the
harbormaster's assistant, she had found herself responsible for a lot of the harder or less
pleasant tasks. Inspecting boats for proper lighting and safety equipment, running the black-
water (sewage to most people) pump-out station, and walking the docks to make sure
everything was okay. Of course, there were also the times when the Marina needed a "face" to
represent it at community events (of which there were an annoying multitude), so the comely
Kim Greenwald found herself having to do those as well. Which was just as well, since the
harbormaster wasn't exactly. photogenic, to put it nicely. Or even particularly nice, since he
was an appointee of the CDC. Kim winced inwardly as she thought about him.
The Fancy barely moved as she leapt aboard at the rear of the ship. Kim confidently made her
way forward to the cabin door. Stripping off her clothes, she pulled a bottled water from the
small fridge in the galley, and ate a breakfast bar as she watched the weather and news for a
few minutes. Then it was off to the incredibly small shower for an economical shower, meaning
not nearly long enough or warm enough (the Fancy's water heater had never been particularly
strong at the best of times), but good enough to do the job.
Dry off. Dress. Apply makeup. Grab the gym bag and book bag, and then hop the bus the short
two miles up University Avenue to Demontfort.University for morning classes. Classes were
interesting; she got to interact with people her own age, and learn about things that one didn't
see very much in the real world, but that had obvious applications, such as the Product
Possibilities Frontier or why a particular method of doing something was the "best" way, since
the slope of the equation that represented that method was zero. Of course, she'd always
believed that there were trade-offs in life, and that some ways of doing things were better than
others. but it was reassuring to see smarter people than herself confirming her suspicions.
Lunchtime came, consisting of a boxed salad purchased at the Student Union, and a piece of
fruit. Most of the other nine members of the drill team ate lunch together, and they were mostly
eating salads as well. The talk ran along its usual lines; fashion, classes, boys, music, their dance
routines, and the like. Of particular interest was the news that Tony Durham, the walk-on
Sophomore, had quit the team with three games left. The consensus of the drill team was that he
had wussed out after injuring that other player. as if any of them had ever let injuries stop
them. Even though Demontfort put more emphasis on dance routines than "stunting", Kim and
her team mates were taking risks and exposing themselves to hazardous physical situations.
and they didn't wear helmets and pads.
One thing Kim didn't mention, of course, was how her date with Scott Sorrell had gone. Kim
smiled as she munched on a piece of broccoli from her salad, thinking about the green lizard.
Handsome and smart, and without all the insecurities that made Tony Durham so unpredictable.
What you saw was what you got, with Scott. and she made it a point to see as much of him as
possible. If only he had more money, she thought to herself. He comes from an ordinary
family, so no family wealth. what will he do with a math degree? Teach?
Lunchtime ended, and it was time for afternoon classes. With some effort, she managed to keep
her assets, liabilities, and equities straight, but she found all the dreary bookkeeping of it so
tedious! And it was tricky, at times! Kim had always thought money was a straightforward
concept (as in, she needs more of it), but the People Who Make The Rules had decided that on
their green ruled pads, that money could do strange things indeed, such as travel through time,
or be worth more or less depending on which rule one used. Bizarre stuff. but even more
bizarre was her Accounting professor kept telling her that she'd be a natural at it, for some
reason.
After classes came practice. Kim met up with the other girls at the gym for practice. No, that's
not actually true. Kim was there well in advance of them, and had the videotapes queued up. As
captain of the drill team, it was her responsibility to keep the squad in top form, and that meant
constant reevaluation of their routines.
Kim was merciless. "I know you can do this one perfect, we've done it plenty of times before,
now DO it!" she would yell as the team practiced a specific routine. No error of timing nor
misplacement of feet went undetected. To Kim's credit, however, she worked as hard as any of
the rest of the girls (and guys) on the squad, and harder. She could hear her own dance and
gymnastics coaches from her younger days speaking through her. when there had been money
for frivolities such as dance lessons and gymnastics. Kim kept perfect time, of course, and
nailed the routine perfectly. It wasn't an accident that she was team captain. When one of her
teammates hesitated and lost her rhythm, however, Kim called a cut to the music.
"No, no, no. C'mon, let's do it again. We are going to get this right. Run that music again,
Dave," she called to the male rabbit working the sound board that patched into the gym's
speaker system. The rest of the squad groaned as the heavy dance beat started up yet again.
Through half-lidded eyes she stared at her squad; ". and then play it AGAIN after!"
This time any dissension was silent.
-----------------------------------------------
Worn out, Kim boarded the public transit bus that would take her the two miles to the marina,
and home. Her gym bag was slung over one shoulder, and her bookbag was in the other as she
hustled off the bus, and into the City Marina. Rather than going to her boat, however, she
stopped at the Marina office.
"Afternoon, Kim," asked a pleasant lioness behind the counter. "How was school?"
"Oh you know. The usual. Graphs, curves, rules, exceptions, facts, theories. How was your
shift, Rosa?" The lioness rolled her eyes. "That bad, huh?"
"Another oil slick. All the "Friends of the Wildlife" and other Eco-nutcases who obviously don't
have JOBS or they wouldn't have time to cause us all this trouble are claiming that the Marina in
general, and the liveaboards here IN SPECIFIC are causing the local pollution. I've been
fielding phone calls all day long. Some even from the Mayor's Office."
"What? That is such a crock! Do they have any idea how much oil it takes to cause a big slick?
There's prolly not enough in the whole Marina if you emptied the crankcases of every one of
our boats! And their cars and houses make FAR more waste in a week than we liveaboards
would in a year!" came Kim's stricken reply. "I suppose it must be BOATS that are responsible
for all the medical waste that closed down that beach season before last!"
"Girl, you're preaching to the choir. But be ready. You know that the Conservation and
Development Commission is going to use this as an excuse to try and force out the
liveaboards. meaning you and the others, and pass maintenance checks that no boat but an
ultra-modern yacht could pass. If they had their way, anyone making less than 200K a year
would have to slip their boats somewhere else, leaving this a Rich People Only place. It's all
about the image that they want to project."
Kim gritted her teeth in anger. Not no way, no how were they going to make her move her old
houseboat. Not after all she had gone through to claim title and clear the lien against it. For one
brief moment she thought of the shotgun she kept by her bunk. then she dismissed it. Never
fight if you can run, she thought to herself. And never run if you can find a clever way out
of the problem.
The only problem was that Kim didn't really consider herself a clever person. "Well, anyway.
I'm here now. Bring 'em on. I'll bite their heads off! Wait'll they get a load of me!" Kim
punched her time card and took the lioness's place behind the counter.
"Give 'em hell, sister," said Rosa, and tousled her hair affectionately, in an almost motherly way,
and headed up the hill to the bus stop.
For her part, Kim was too furious to get her homework done. not that she was any good at
college algebra. and Scott was too darn. DISTRACTING to be of much help. and after
about the fifth shrill-voiced eco-nut on the phone, she just left it off the hook. Anyone she really
needed to talk to would use the VHF rig anyway.
Kim's job consisted of being a flunkie for the Harbormaster. That meant that she often found
herself working the desk, working the VHF, relaying messages for ocean traffic, giving weather
reports, running the phone-patch computer, and collecting various "fees." for the Marina. It beat
having to go out and inspect boats for lights and safety compliance, and it beat the HECK out of
having to empty the sewage pump-out station. all things that she also did. It was part of the
deal she had cut with the Harbormaster to get the Fancy out of a BIG lien for back slip charges.
Two men entered the Marina office. an otter and a wolf. They were young, and dressed in
shorts and beer t-shirts.
"Can I help you," she asked automatically, in the guarded way she had of dealing with strangers.
"Yes, we're here because of the oil slicks. You see-" the otter began. He was totally
unprepared for Kim's response.
She got up from her chair and leeeeeeaned across the counter, laying her ears back and baring
her teeth, and with a crazed gleam in her eye, said "Take your nutcase ideas about where the oil
is coming from and GET OUT OF MY OFFICE!"
The wolf and the otter took an involuntary step backwards "Ah, but we think we know where
it's coming from! We just need a boat from here, and we can prove it," said the wolf, as if he
were helping any.
He wasn't. The pair didn't. quite see smoke coming out of Kim's ears as she leapt over the
counter, clearing it easily, and grabbed a fistful of each of their beer slogan t-shirts. "There's not
enough oil in the entire Marina to cause those slicks you idiots! Go get your facts straight before
you come down here with your "causes." As a matter of fact, don't come down here at all!
Why don't you go save some rainforest somewhere, instead of trying to get people thrown out
of their homes!"
Ordinarly, Kim lived by a philosophy of doing whatever she wanted. She wanted to do
something violent to these two nutcases.
She settled for forcing them back out the door, and over the edge of the floating dock, where
they made a quite satisfactory splash.
The. ferocity of her response to their question was such that they were pretty much
paralyzed. until the cold Pacific water hit them.
"Jeez, lady, are you CRAZY?!?!" shouted the otter as he treaded water. The wolf was
coughing and dog-paddling his way over to the walkway he had been pushed from.
"No. But I have a home to protect. It's people like you who get the CDC down on us all the
time, because we have a lifestyle they don't understand. Because of you, the CDC gets to
blame people like me for all the pollution out there, when it's coming off the CITY STREETS
and MUNICIPAL GARBAGE DUMPS! So why don't you just go get back in your gas-
guzzling SUVs and find somebody else's life to ruin!"
"Whoah. is that what this is about? You think we're blaming the Marina?" asked the otter
incredulously, still in the water, floating on his back. For his part, the wolf was clumsily trying to
pull himself up onto the walkway.
"Well, duh! Show up in MY office, telling me you KNOW where the slicks are coming from,
and you can PROVE it with one of MY boats? Hello?"
The wolf gasped and spluttered as he heaved himself the rest of the way up, and lay down on
the floating dock he had been so unceremoniously thrown from.
"Ship. *cough* sunken ship. old freighter. *cough* That's where it's coming from. It's
my Master's Thesis project. *wheeze* . finding it and proving it. *cough* I'm a History
grad student," choked out the wolf. "Hi. I'm Tim Woolfe," he said, extending his hand from his
supine place on the dock. "My friends call me Timber though." He gave a wry grin.
"And I'm Hank Olsen. This is also my master's thesis project in Marine Biology," said the otter.
"We want to charter a boat to help us find the wreck. We tried calling ahead, but the phone
was busy."
"So you don't think it's the Marina?"
"Of course not!" said Tim and Hank in unison. "It's got to the oil bunkers of a big ship, like a
tanker or freighter, but an uncharted one. In fact, we've got a good idea of the ship's identity
already."
"And if I help you find the cause of the oil slicks, you can prove it to the people like the CDC?
And they'll leave me and my neighbors alone? For now, at least?"
"Quite likely," said Tim. "We just need a boat to help us go out and start cutting squares in the
ocean. We've got a small grant from the University which should pay-"
"Stop right there. I'm way ahead of you two boys. It just so happens that I know the perfect
ship for the job. She's tough enough to handle the open sea, and very roomy. How much was
that grant for again.?"
------------------------------------------------
The days passed, and it was Saturday. Kim was awake and had coffee made when the two
grad students arrived at dawn, in a small pickup truck (with one of those funny red license-
plates with the diagonal white stripe) loaded down with gear. It took several trips in the cold
Fall air, but assorted instruments and diving paraphernalia were loaded aboard.
"What is all this stuff?" asked Kim of the impressive pile in the middle of her living room/bridge.
"Oh, the usual. Side scan sonar, normal sonar, magnetometer, and our diving gear for diving the
wreck itself," replied Hank as he and Tim began organizing everything. Soon her kitchen dinette
table was turned into something that looked like a sci-fi movie set, there were so many flat panel
displays and LEDs and other techno-geegaws. Kim thought about how much more the
equipment on her table was worth than the entirety of her floating home as she started babying
her inboard/outboard., coaxing it to life.
After several false starts, the noisy V8 (a marine variant of a passenger car motor, making
maintaining it MUCH easier) finally shuddered and rumbled into life. Kim grinned, elated that
the old engine had fired up yet again for her. meaning that she didn't have to pay to have the
engine overhauled. just yet. After a reasonable amount of warm-up time, she engaged the
bow thrusters, and the small electric motors backed the ship out of its berth. She put the wheel
all the way over, and the ship began to turn until the bow was pointed at the breakwater at the
mouth of the Marina. Slowly, she throttled up, and the Fancy soon found herself gliding past the
breakwaters, and heading out to the open sea.
She set the course that Timber had recommended in the planning stages of the trip. They were
aiming for a place seventeen miles south-southwest of the city, where the water was about 200
feet deep. The Jacob Luchenbach was a freighter that had sunk a little over 50 years ago. It had
collided with another vessel in a fog. Somehow, the wreck had escaped registry in the NOAA
database, but local records held the clues to her disappearance and possible location. She was
an excellent candidate to be responsible for the mysterious oil slicks.
Within just a few hours, the Fancy had arrived at the precise location Timber had requested,
courtesy of the GPS unit they had brought along, and were "cutting squares" in the ocean,
following a search pattern. While Timber and Hank sat at the table with the laptops and other
gear piled on it, Kim kept her hands on the ship's wheel, and an eye on the sky, horizon,
compass, and ocean in general. The weather radio was a constant low chatter at the helm
station, located in the "living room" as was the VHF. Kim enjoyed listening to the chatter of the
fishing boats and other working ships. The feeling of independence was invigorating; cut off
from the land, and any and all troubles there. freedom itself conveyed by the rocking of the
deck beneath her feet and the vibration of the engine coming through the wheel.
For the rest of the afternoon, and on into the evening they searched, with Timber and Hank
watching the side scan sonar, and Kim following the course the GPS was programmed for her.
She decided she liked the little gadget; with it she could find her way back home, to her slip
even, in the thickest darkest fog imaginable. She decided to have Biff buy her one. The side
scan sonar was interesting as well, but far out of even Biff's wallet's league; it allowed them to
cover 2000 foot wide ribbons of sea-bottom.
"Okay, boys, time to head home. It's getting dark, and we don't want to be out on the open
ocean in a boat this small at night," she called from her swivel chair/stool behind the helm.
"Aw, Mom, do we have to." joked Timber.
"Funny. Don't worry, we can go out again at dawn in the morning. I want to find where all this
damn oil is coming from as much as you do."
"Yeah," agreed Hank. "And we've only got the equipment for over the weekend."
"What about after we get back to town?" she asked.
"Uh, what about it? asked Hank.
"Do you boys have plans? You know, partying, clubbing, etc?"
"Hah! We're grad students, Miss Greenwald. Or Captain Greenwald in your present capacity.
We don't have time for fun," said Hank, sadly.
"Yeah. We're dweebs anyway. I mean, History and Biology. Maybe if we were. I dunno.
space shuttle pilots flying combat missions over Canada, or martial artists or something. " said
Timber. "We're just not cool enough for all that, even if we DID have time for it."
"Oh? And what have you got planned for tonight? Hmmm? A romantic evening with cold pizza
and warm beer?"
"Of course not. We were just going to go over the charts some more, and mark out better
where we've looked, and check the latest oil slick sightings against the weather." said Hank.
"Mmmhmm. No you're not. You're coming with me tonight."
"Hey, that's not the deal!" protested Tim.
"I am altering the deal," she smiled. "Pray I don't alter it any further." She was grinning to
herself as she lifted the VHF mike to her mouth. "City Marina, City Marina. Fancy, Fancy for
telephone patch."
"Switch three-nine, Fancy" came the reply, a female's voice through the static.
"Copy, switching three-nine and clear," said Kim as she reached up to the radio and switched
from the distress/call-response channel 16 to the working channel the Marina had assigned her.
"You're out late, Kim," came the much less businesslike version of the Marina's radio operator.
"What number you need?"
"Patch me through to Heather. Her number is there in the rolodex under my contacts," said
Kim. "Thanks, Rosa."
"Don't mention it, Kim. I'm clear." Rosa's voice was replaced by a dialtone, and then ringing as
the VHF rig at the marina was patched into the phone system. Soon Heather, one of the drill
team, answered, and plans were quickly thrashed out, since phone patches were only supposed
to last 3 minutes or less.
"You boys are going to be hanging out with the best looking girls in the school tonight," she
finally told them. "For a night of fun and relaxation. And there is precisely nothing you can do
about it."
"I think we've just been shanghaied," said Hank to Timber.
"Arrr" said Kim, holding a hand over one eye and looking their way, then going back to her
piloting.
--------------------------------------------
Four AM the next morning...
Two figures stole aboard the Fancy where she lay in her slip, and crept inside the cabin.
"So, did you have fun tonight, Timber?" asked the otter as the wolf put the rabbit to bed, still
wearing her sweat and alcohol-soaked party clothes (what there was of them).
"Heh. Sure. Nothing like watching the kiddos going completely bugnuts and drinking and
partying like there's no tomorrow."
"Think this one'll ever slow down? We all get old, you know."
"Hell, I'm surprised she's made it this far. All the girls in high school that I knew that partied like
her. well, if they made it to college, they didn't get any farther," replied Tim. "I hope this one
makes it."
"Yeah, me too. She's a nice kid. A bit hung up on material things and appearances, but other
than that, she's okay. So. we sleeping here?"
"I think so. that couch forward unfolds into a bed, I think. for what few hours of sleep we're
able to get."
---------------------------------------------------------
Seven AM the next morning.
"Good morning, boys!" shouted an impossibly cheerful Kim Greenwald from the tiny galley that
the Fancy sported.
"Blarg," said Hank.
"Hu.wha.brphlp." added Tim.
"Okay, you two, get up. I've already run four miles and am cooking breakfast. Up up up!"
"C-c-c-offfffeeeee.." moaned Hank.
Indeed, the homey smell was permeating the entire boat. Slowly, oh, so slowly, the two older
grad students made their way over to the small dinette table in the galley. With bleary eyes, they
cleared a small space to put their coffee mugs amongst the high-tech equipment on the table. As
consciousness and coherent thought returned to Tim and Hank, two small paper plates of
French toast appeared before them, smelling wonderfully of eggs and cinnmon.
"This is good," croaked Hank to Kim as she pulled her swivel chair from the helm to the galley
to join them.
"Thanks, guys," she replied. "It's not often I get guests aboard. Certainly not paying ones,
anyway. Call it customer service." She smiled.
"So what are you studying, anyway?" asked Tim. "I know you're on the cheer team."
"Business, actually," she said. "A lot of the girls are elementary ed and dance and art and other
stuff like that. But not me. I'm gonna be rich one day, one way or the other. Business seems
to be the way to go."
"Any particular subfield? The Business School is a big department, you know." said Hank.
"I'm thinking about Management. It's no accident that I'm running the dance squad. The
Athletic Director says I have natural leadership ability." She smiled. "Then again, Marketing is
fun. My looks could be an advantage there. Ever here the expression "Booth Bunny?"
The otter and the wolf groaned.
---------------------------------------------------------
Kim turned the wheel hard to port, and began her next long run as the sonar swept either side of
the Pacific floor beneath her little houseboat. The afternoon sun was in her eyes as she drove the
boat westward. It would be getting dark soon; it's too bad they weren't doing this in the
summertime, she thought to herself.
"Whoah! Stop! STOP!!!" shouted Hank from the galley table. Kim yanked back on the
throttle, and looked back at her passengers. The engines died down from a low roar to just a
murmur.
"That's it! That's gotta be it!" said Tim. "Mark the location from the GPS. Kim, c'mere, you
gotta see this!"
"Stand by, lemmee drop an anchor or two first." Kim glanced at the depth guage. 180 feet.
Her anchor lines weren't long enough for the proper way of setting anchor, but they would do
to hold her in place in the relatively calm seas they were having. Her Chapman's Piloting manual
recommended that anchor lines be played out to seven times the depth of the water. but
houseboats were never really meant for this kind of work anyway. The fluked anchor fell into
the water with a splash, and she went back inside to take a look at whatever had gotten the two
guys so excited.
Timber turned the laptop around to face her. On the screen was the unmistakable sillouette of a
ship. a big one. The resolution of the sidescan sonar was incredible. she could even see the
details of the superstructure of the ship. and it even cast a sonar shadow on the bottom!
"Yup, that's the Jacob Luchenbach all right," said Timber, comparing an old photo of the
freighter to the image on the laptop's little screen.
"Wait," said Kim. "Now that we've found it. how do we prove that this is where the oil is
coming from?" She looked out the windows at the gentle seas, but didn't see oil slicks.
"We dive it," came the otter's succinct reply. "Of course, 200 feet of water is right at the
bleeding edge of what we can dive safely on regular compressed air."
"Edge hell!" said Tim. "We're gonna be narc'd out of our minds that deep, diving an unexplored
wreck in freezing cold pitch black shark infested waters!"
"Now now, Timber. How many times to I have to tell you that sharks rarely ever attack divers?
That's all bad press and lousy PR. Look at it this way. we get to be first!"
Tim harrumphed, and continued checking over his diving gear. Both divers were preparing to
put on drysuits and two air-tanks apiece.
"Are you going to be down there that long that you need two tanks?" asked Kim.
"It's not the duration of the dive that matters, Kim. It's the depth. The deeper you go, the more
air you breath in. even though each lungful is the same "size." 33 feet down is a water pressure
of two atmospheres, so if you normally can breath in five liters of air, now you're breathing ten
with each breath. it's just mashed all together. Hence "compressed air.""
"And how much pressure is there down there? 200 feet, I mean, at the wreck?"
:"Well, the deck is probably only 170 feet down; there's no need to go all the way to the
bottom. So, it's around 7 atmospheres."
"Yeah, and at that rate, we'll be burning through our tanks pretty quickly," interjected Tim. "We
plan on being on the wreck for 15 minutes. That should give us enough time to find some oil, if
this is really the source."
Hank nodded. "And to make matters worse, when you're breathing ordinary air at those kinds
of pressures, you experience nitrogen narcosis. We call it getting "narc'd", and it'll be the
equivalent of being well and truly drunk."
"In the dark. In the cold. On a wreck. At the bottom of the sea," said Kim, flatly.
"Exactly!" chorused the two guys, as if it were all great fun. "If we were pros, we'd probably be
using tri-mix. helium-oxygen-nitrogen. But we don't dive that deep often enough to justify it,"
continued Hank.
"Are you sure this is safe? I mean, if you guys don't come back up. what am I gonna do?"
"Hah! Your concern for our welfare moves us, Miss Greenwald, really it does. Don't worry,
we'll be fine. We really do know what we're doing," said Tim. "Now don't worry when we're
not back in 20 minutes. We're going to have to deco on the way up. A few minutes wait at
various depths on the way up." Tim played with the rubberized keys of the dive computer that
he would wear on his wrist. "Yup. Couple of minutes every ten feet or so on the way back up,
becoming longer as we get closer to the surface. We'll spend 8 minutes at 20 feet and 12 and
10 feet to finish decompressing. Call it an hour, total."
Kim glanced at the sun, estimating how long till sundown. "You guys had better hurry up and get
into your gear, then. We don't have much time if you're going to surface before sundown." With
that, she leaned against a cabin wall, and watched their preparations.
"Uh. Miss Greenwald. ah. we need to. uh.. change into our drysuits," said Tim.
"Oh, don't mind me. I don't mind. Just pretend I'm not here." Ogling your tight buns and flat
tummies and strong legs and. and.yum! she thought to herself.
"Sure, no problem," grinned Hank as he changed out of his shorts and tshirt and into the drysuit
with a total lack of modesty. Tim wasn't nearly so brazen, though, and felt the rabbit watching
him with an almost. predatory gleam in her eye. something the wolf found very odd indeed!
-----------------------------------------------------------
Straight downward swam the two divers. The surface water was cold, and it was getting much
colder the deeper they got. The press of the water around them got stronger and stronger, offset
only by the pressure of the air they were breathing in. For three whole minutes they swam
downward, until the only light came from their dive lights, themselves being swallowed up by the
blackness around them.
The grey hulk materialized out of the gloom at the edge of their lights, and they swam toward it,
orienting themselves. They played their lights on the ship. Clearly visible in white lettering was
the name. JACOB LUCHENBACH. It was crusted with sea-life, but she seemed intact
enough. There was an ugly scar on her port side, however; no doubt that was from the collision
that had sunk her fifty years ago. They headed aft, gliding above the deck, trying not to kick up
silt as they searched for any loose oil that they could sample.
Already their coordination was becoming impaired, and their vision blurry, and the cold was
leeching the feeling out of their hands and feet.
And I do this for fun thought Tim to himself. We didn't do any drinkin' last night, but now.
wheeee!
For his part, Hank was having trouble maintaining his buoyancy and proper trim. Big billowing
clouds of silt were kicked up from the deck of the freighter by his fins on several occasions.
With very deliberate movements they continued along the deck, without finding any trace of oil.
With only a few minutes left for on-wreck exploration, Tim clumsily pointed back forward to
one of the cargo hatches. With time running out, they swam back forward, shivering all the way.
When they reached the cargo hatch, it was closed, of course. Tim unclipped his wrecking bar
from his dive belt, fumbling at the carbiner until he got it loose. Then with careful deliberate
movements, they wrenched the hatch open. and were rewarded with an enormous ball of oil
that oozed and quivered like jello and began swimming its amorphous way surfaceward. It was
rising slowly enough that they were able to get several sample bottles into it, capturing some of
the black goo for study. The oil ball would beat them to the surface, since the two divers had to
wait and decompress along the way. The black blob disappeared into the murk above them
beyond the reach of their lights, anyway. They turned to follow it.
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Kim sat at her dinette table, her accounting book and worksheets all around her as she
struggled through the assignments on end-of-cycle adjusting entries. He cell phone chirped, and
she pulled it from her book bag.
"This is Kim," she said, picking up the phone.
"Kim! It's Tim! We got a match! The Luchenbach is the source of the spills! The oils match
chemically!" exclaimed the excited wolf on the other end of the connection.
"Really?!? Oh, thank goodness. I was so worried! That's wonderful!"
"Yup! How'd you like to come out and celebrate with us? I know we weren't much fun last
time. but we had to dive the next day, and all."
"Sure. I'd love to. Can you come pick me up? Great. Thanks. I'll get ready. Okay, bye." She
ended the call. "YEEESSSS!!!!"
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"But that was a great story!" shouted Loree Weston to the campus paper's editrix.
"Sorry, Loree, but that's the news biz. With this whole Lisa Dodson joining the football team
thing, we just don't have the space right for that story right now."
"But. but it had everything! The big bad government, crazed eco-freaks, and a trio of
DeMontfort students trying to save their homes and unmask the real culprit." argued the
chinchilla.
"And they'd have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those meddling kids. I know. I
know. Look, "continued the editrix, "this isn't' really a Demontfort issue. It's a community issue.
Maybe you'd have better luck selling the story to some of the community papers? Besides,
don't you live in the same dorm as this Dodson girl? Why don't you see if she'll give the campus
paper an interview; she's being awfully hesitant to speak to any of the media. Try and convince
her that we're, you know, like family and all." A look of realization dawned. "And the player
who she replaced who turned the team around lives on that floor! And star quarterback Biff
Kingston. And that jayhawk who helped win the Mascot Match last year. You know, I bet you
could do an entire set of stories about those students; they sound like a very dynamic lot
indeed!"
"Yes. Third floor.. Indeed..*choke-sob*" was all the poor chinchilla could say as she
turned and left the office.