The trip has become quickly routine. This morning we did our usual drag-net, which, despite my cleaning of it yesterday, still managed to dump cold water over all of us. As we were packing it away, Atiya came aft with her students to drop their buoy for the morning as we headed for the cafeteria.
Darrin, Reiko, and I talked a bit about our plans for the next few days. We had at least one, maybe two more days of open sea before reaching Paloma. It was pretty far to the east for Polynesia, far enough that it was almost just a random island in the Pacific, but I assume the geographers had some reason for including it.
Once we got there, we would quit using the drag-net for a while. Instead, we would do some diving to catalog and sample the fish in the reefs around the island. Given its isolation, we were hopeful of finding a new subspecies or two at least. Then, we would take the minisub down and see what the life below the light level was like.
When we had our schedule, they left to clean up while I walked back to get another coffee. Atiya and her students had come in as we had been talking, and she came up with an empty cup as well.
“So,” she said as she filled it. “Any more secret messages from Dr. Pickman?”
I shook my head. “No. And nothing from anyone else. Either what I am sending isn’t being posted, or no one on the Internet cares about our expedition. Frankly, it could go either way.”
She patted my shoulder. “Poor Dr. Ferris. You’re probably being pranked as some sort of initiation ritual.”
“For what?”
“Moving uptown? Everyone knows that, after this trip, you’re pretty much guaranteed for the downtown campus.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, everyone seems to know it but you. This is probably something to see how well you communicate with ‘new media’ or something. Anyway, remember those of us left behind in Arkham when you move to downtown Boston.”
“I like Arkham! And Miskatonic!”
“But surely you don’t intend to spend the rest of your career at what is basically a glorified local college?”
“I can do my research there. To do anything, I have to get well away from Boston harbor anyway. That place is so polluted that it’s amazing that anything lives in it.”
“What do you think gives Boston seafood its unique flavor?” We both laughed at that.
I followed her back to her table. Mitch and Sondra had left as well, so it was just the two of us.
“What do you have against Miskatonic anyway?” I asked as we sat down.
She sighed. “You know our reputation.”
“Yes, we pursue a lot of… ‘Unorthodox’ studies, you might say. So?”
“Which is another reason a lot of people don’t even think we exist.”
“I know some people are still surprised that we aren’t just something Hollywood made up, and at least the administration won’t let them film on campus anymore. But we’re still the go-to setting whenever someone needs a monster or a mad scientist.”
“Yeah, and everyone in Miami is a drug dealer, everyone in Los Angeles is an actor, and everyone in Washington is corrupt. So?”
“Everyone in Washington is corrupt.”
“Details.” I shook my head. “I’m a diver. I just found the branch of science that lets me travel the world, dive in all kinds of exotic locations, and have someone else pay for it. I’m not looking to make a name for myself. Hell, most people out there couldn’t name a marine biologist if they had to. You probably couldn’t if you didn’t know me.”
“Jacques Cousteau,” she said without blinking.
“OK, that’s one…”
She paused, sipping her coffee. “You know… maybe that is why Dr. Pickman asked you to keep sending data to him. You aren’t going to try to make yourself look good, or make someone else look bad just to boost your own reputation. You don’t have ambitions to exploit.”
“And you do?”
“I’ve made no secret of wanting to move to the main campus. You may be fine with our acceptance of ‘unorthodox’ research as you put it, but we do have a lot of–frankly–crackpots on the staff. It makes it very hard to collaborate, and you need collaboration to advance. It’s hard to get a paper published when the authors are you, two students, and someone whose previous publication had something to do with the possibility of ‘teleportation gates.'”
I raised an eyebrow at that. “Really? Who?”
“Dr. Clarke. Ashton Clarke. Do you know him?”
“I think I’ve heard the name.”
She laughed. “Oh, Kalen. You really do need to get out into the academic social scene more.” She frowned. “But… again. You aren’t involved in any academic politics, either. You’re a bit of a loner. Which may be another reason you got picked for this.”
Loner? Was I? I frowned a bit at that, but it wasn’t what I followed up on. “This. What is this?”
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “But I’m starting to believe you when you say something is wrong here.”
“Have you come across something else?”
She paused. “Maybe, but I’m not sure if I should tell you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re reporting things on the web. Sending info back home.”
“Which you could do as well, apparently. It looks like I’m the one getting pranked here.”
“Maybe. Are you still making your reports?”
I hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah, though it’s turned into more of ‘this happened to me today’ instead of ‘this is what the ship did today'”
“Oh? Posting pictures of your meals on Instagram too?”
“No one wants to see what we’re eating.”
“You’re probably right. But I still want to know why you’re still publishing this ‘blog.'”
I sighed. “If no one is reading it and it’s just a prank, then no harm, no foul. I annoy someone, and they don’t transfer me to the main campus? Fine, I just said that I’m happy where I am.”
“But… If there is a reason I’m supposed to be doing this. If there is something going on here. Then maybe. Maybe it is important that I do it.”
She sat for a long time, looking at her coffee. I was wondering what I had said to annoy her. Was my posting of our status that upsetting to her? I had never made a secret of the fact that I was doing it. I was about to ask if she was all right when she spoke.
“All right,” she said finally. “It’s… possible there are more secrets here that someone wanted to get out. I don’t really know Dr. Pickman, but he has a lot of friends in the administration. A lot of friends. Did he really ask you to keep sending this, even after you questioned it?”
I nodded. “I can show you the comment if you would like.”
“No, no. I believe you. And I believe he must know that I would eventually tell you some things and that you would post them.”
“What kind of things?”
There was another long pause. “We… my team was asked to carry some special equipment with us on this trip by Dr. Hazelwood, he’s the head of the physics department. ‘As a precaution’ we were told. I told him we wouldn’t need it, but he insisted. So, I stuck them in with the buoys and forgot about it. But now…” she trailed off.
“Things?”
“Yeah. Two sets of things. First, about a dozen radiation suits.”
“Radiation suits? Why?”
“I don’t know. Hazelwood is in high-energy physics, maybe he just assumes all physics involves radiation. We’ve got three or four Geiger counters too.”
“But why?”
“Unknown. Unless, as you said, something is going on that we don’t know about.”
“So why tell me this now?”
She paused. “Because I found out that we have some more ‘extra’ cargo on board.”
“What kind?”
She looked around, then leaned forward. “Anna. Dr. Chambers was doing some looking around in the cargo bay.”
I smiled slightly. “Yeah, I kicked her and Darrin out of the minisub.”
“Yeah, she wasn’t happy about that. Anyway, she found what looked to be an empty cargo bin. At least, one with some cases that weren’t flagged for any of us. Then she looked inside one.”
“And?”
“Guns. Lots of them.”
My stomach suddenly tightened in a way that had nothing to do with the motion of the ship. I felt my blood rush from my face. “What? Why? What kind?”
“I don’t know. She hasn’t told anyone but me. We went down for another look, but the room was locked.”
“When was this?”
“Yesterday.”
Guns? Why? Then I remembered something else.
“Did you know…” I said with more calmness than I felt, “That the majority of our crew are ex-military?”
I saw her face whiten at that. “No… Why did…”
“Apparently some kind of arrangement with the government. Part of the same one that gets us ships like this one. Providing jobs for veterans or something.”
We both sat in silence for a while.
“Kalen, what have we gotten into?”
“No idea.” I stood up. “Maybe I should make a check on the cargo bay. Make sure all of our samples and sensors are safe.”
She stood up as well. “Yeah, I should probably make sure the next load of buoys is ready to go too.”
—
“It’s over here,” she said, gesturing as we descended the ladder.
I shook my head. “You said someone locked the door, right? So they might know someone went down here. Let’s do what we said we were going to do first and check our equipment. Just in case.”
She opened her mouth to say something, then nodded. We headed aft.
She spot-checked a few cases, opening them and inspecting the contents. Finally, acting as if she was satisfied, she closed the last one.
“That’s good. Want to check yours now?”
“Just a minute. Let me see that ‘special’ cargo of yours first.”
She glanced around, then shrugged and led me to the very back of the bay.
There were six large cases there; bright orange Pelican cases very much like the ones my own scuba gear was stored in. A seventh, smaller case sat on top of them. I unfastened and opened the first, then glanced inside.
“That’s a full has-mat suit,” I said. “Why would they think we needed those?”
“I asked the same thing, remember?”
“Yeah, and the Geiger counters?”
She opened the small case and handed me one. It was about the size of a thick cell phone. I fumbled around with it for a moment before she took it from me and turned it on.
“Thanks,” I said. I reached for it again, but she was looking at it herself.
“That’s… odd.”
“What?”
She turned it to face me, I saw what looked like a random graph with some bars beneath it, all green or yellow.
“It doesn’t look like anything to me, what is it?”
She tapped at one of the yellow bars, expanding it. “This is ambient radiation. It’s… well above normal.”
I took an involuntary step back. “Dangerous?”
She shook her head. “Not immediately, but definitely something you would want to keep an eye on.”
“Where is it coming from?”
She tapped it again. “This way.”
She led me through the maze of crates, heading forward. We had covered about half the distance when she glanced over her shoulder. “It’s that same compartment.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.” She walked directly to a door and held the counter in front of it. Now all the bars were yellow, and a few were getting uncomfortably close to the next index.
“What’s in there?” I asked, trying the door. It was locked as she had said.
“Dr. Ferris!” came a voice from behind us. “Dr. Parimala!” We turned to see a pair of crewmembers approaching. One was Sara, and the other was one I recognized as part of the engineering staff. I think Canton was his name.
“Hey!” I said as they approached. No point in trying to hide what we were doing. “What’s in here?”
“Hazardous material storage,” Sara said as they came up. “You should stay away from there.”
“Hazardous?” asked Atiya. “Don’t you mean radioactive?”
Sara glanced with seeming unconcern at the counter. “Yeah. We got the Miskatonic here from the military. God knows what they kept in there. We just marked it hazardous and locked it up. The cargo hold is shielded enough that it doesn’t bother us upstairs.”
“So…” she said, her tone changing slightly. “Why are you two down here?”
I had been trying to come up with a good answer to that and went with the obvious. “We were just checking on our equipment, checked this counter to make sure it was working, and saw the radiation. We were just trying to figure out where it was coming from.”
“Oh, OK. We assumed that you two and your student and assistant were just trading places for the day.”
What the hell? I felt my face flush and saw the same on Atiya.
I smiled slightly and shook my head. “No, the minisub is mine.”
She smiled slightly. “Yeah. Well, all of you need to be careful down here. We try to keep the place under observation because it can be dangerous. After all, the ship might turn suddenly, cargo might shift, and you could be pinned under it, and it might be a long time before someone showed up and found you. Maybe too long. Just… let one of us know when one of you come down here, OK?”
Her tone had slowly changed as she was speaking. Any trace of friendliness was gone, and her final question had sounded more like a threat. I glanced over at Dr. Parimala, and she quickly nodded.
“Yes, certainly,” I said, nodded. “I don’t want to cause any of you any problems.”
“Oh, it isn’t a problem. For us.” Her tone hadn’t changed.
“Well, sure. Tell you what, we’ll go ahead and leave and schedule an inspection time so one of you can be down here. It’ll be better to have someone help move crates around anyway.”
Her smile instantly returned. “Of course! Just let any of us know when you need to come down. Though… you might tell your colleagues to find another place for their… extra-curricular activities? I don’t think they will want one of us down here supervising.”
I nodded. “Got it.”
Sara gestured towards the ladder, and she and Canton followed us. No one said anything until we were back on the main deck.
“Thank you, Doctors. Now, please be safe.” She turned and immediately headed towards the bridge. Canton looked at us for a bit longer before turning and heading aft.
Atiya let out a long sigh. “What have we gotten in to?”
“I don’t know. Minisub?”
She nodded. “It’s a bit early in the day, but… why not?”
I climbed the sub and opened the hatch, then gestured for her to wait as I dropped inside.
It took me less than a minute to find it, buried in the control cables beneath the aft seat. A couple of wires and a small metal cylinder that shouldn’t be there. I turned, grabbed a couple of beers from the specimen cooler, and climbed back out.
Atiya was on the top of the sub looking down. “Something wrong?”
“You’re right, it is a bit early in the day.” I looked around. I couldn’t think of a good place and finally pointed towards the bow.
“We haven’t spent a lot of time at the bow, let’s go up there.”
She frowned in confusion but nodded and followed me forward. Once there, I sat on the deck and dangled my legs under the railing and over the side. That position also let me look at the underside of the railing itself. I saw nothing but crusted salt spray.
She continued to look at me in confusion, but I patted the deck next to me, and she sat as well. I popped the first beer, handed it to her, and then popped my own, putting the caps in my pocket.
“Kalen, this is actually less comfortable than your minisub. Why are we up here?”
“Because someone has planted a bug in my minisub. They couldn’t put one up here because the spray anytime we hit weather would damage it, and our back is to the bridge so they can’t see what we are saying.”
“See what we are saying? Are you…” She paused. “Yeah, probably a good idea.”
“Believe me now that something is very wrong?”
“Well… yes. I had actually decided that, but it’s pretty much confirmed now.”
“What can possibly be going on?”
“I have no idea, but someone was really unhappy about us being in that cargo bay.”
“No, they were unhappy about what we found in that cargo bay. Or what Dr. Chambers found.”
“But why? Why are there weapons on this trip?”
That’s an excellent question. I thought. What could be so important?
“Let’s think,” I said. “Something has been a bit off about this trip since even before it started. Dr. McNamara gets dropped, and I get put in his place. Then Dr. Pickman hands me a laptop, that somehow has different access than the rest of the ship, and insists that it is vital that I document the events of this trip, but doesn’t tell me why. I make the updates, but they don’t appear as far as anyone else is concerned.”
“And I get asked to carry some extra equipment that I don’t need–radiation equipment–and then it turns out that we have a source of radiation on the ship.”
“And when we get too close to that, some crew members show up and tell us, in no uncertain turns, that we need to not look at it too closely.” I paused.
“You know, the other day, I asked Dr. Stepherson to look for himself to see if my updates were actually being posted; he was worried that I would give away his secrets. It was only when he saw that they weren’t that he agreed to tell us what he was up to. I was relieved, but so was Sara. I thought she was just glad the confrontation was over, but maybe…”
“Maybe she didn’t want information getting out either.” she finished. She thought. “Dr. Pickman wasn’t trying to keep things secret from the rest of the research staff… he’s keeping it secret from the crew!”
“Which means this isn’t a research expedition. So what is it?”
We sat, drinking beers in silence for a moment. Finally, she spoke.
“You know, I had been thinking about the makeup of the expedition. I assumed that Dr. McNamara had been booted because he had made an enemy or three back in Arkham, but… you don’t think Dr. Stepherson has to have made enemies too? And his research? Atlantis? You and I have something that mainstream scientists would accept as ‘reasonable’ research. Same with Dr. McNamara. But trying to find evidence of ‘Atlantis’? Really?”
That had bothered me too, but I had just assumed it was another of those odd ideas Miskatonic was so fond of. “OK, so why did they keep him then?”
“Because someone wanted an excuse to go to Paloma.”
“What? Why?”
She shrugged but was smiling. “No one goes to Paloma. The South Pacific is one of the most unvisited parts of the world. It isn’t on a trade route, it isn’t big enough to bother to exploit, no one lives there. If someone just went there, say… a US warship full of troops…”
I saw where she was going. “Then someone would notice. But a research expedition…”
“…with a legitimate reason for going there, that just happens to be going there in a former Naval vessel crewed by a group of former military personnel…”
I swore as quietly as I could. “We’re being used.”
“And Dr. Pickman knew it. Knows it. And wanted at least some way of getting the word out.”
I suddenly wanted another beer. Or several. “We can’t let anyone know this. If they know that we’ve figured it out…”
“What can they do? Miskatonic lost an expedition last year; lose one this year, and things start looking suspicious.”
“I hope you’re right.” She frowned. “You said they planted a bug in the mini-sub?” I nodded.
“Could they have gotten to the laptop? The one Dr. Pickman gave you?”
I laughed and patted the back of my vest. “In here, in a waterproof case. As soon as I realized that it had a different connection, I decided I needed to keep it where I could keep an eye on it.”
“Good. Update as soon as you can.” She stood up. “I’m going to go tell Anna that she and Darrin need to stay out of the cargo bay. I’ll let them use my cabin if they’re that concerned.”
“Where will you be then?”
She leaned over and kissed me on the forehead. “With you. I think we need to stick together as much as we can from now on.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. And… Mini-sub later?”
“You know where I’ll be.”