the waiting helicopter, tears and sheeting rain ran together on my uplifted face.
The mess was nearly empty. Harvey, Ted, and I slid into a corner booth. A couple of crewmembers huddled together across the room stopped talking and between whispers glanced over at us.
Harvey sat next to me, head bent, elbows on the table. Again and again she ran her fingers through frowzy hair, trying to straighten out what couldn’t be fixed. Unseeing, I stared ahead, replaying the movie of a buoy falling in slow motion.
Ted’s voice broke in, gentle but firm. “We’ve got to talk about the rest of the cruise.”
Seymour was on the bridge with the captain, so we could be candid.
Harvey straightened her back and coughed. “I keep thinking Peter will stroll in and joke about why he’s late. He must be in the operating room fighting for his life.”
I nodded. In the last hour, I’d roller coastered between shock, guilt, anger, and incredulity. I was spent.
Ted said, “We have to talk to the captain, of course, but should we scuttle the trip?”
Harvey leaned back and crossed her arms. “This is the second mishap in less than a day—by far worst. What’s going on?”
We looked at one another. I said, “I have no idea. But wouldn’t Peter want us to keep to the schedule and steam back tomorrow afternoon as planned?”
She put her hand on mine and squeezed it. “Yes. He would.” Harvey kicked into gear. “Okay. We need a research plan which I’ll pass by the captain. There are only two buoys left now. I’m scheduled to deploy rosette water samplers, but that’s straightforward. Mara, do you still want to try out the new Video Plankton Recorder?”
“I’ll wait on the VPR.” The instrument was brand new, but even photos of microscopic critters taken right in the water didn’t interest me now.
“I can supervise another deployment,” Harvey said. “Want to do one, Ted?”
“If that’s okay with Mara.”
After what had just happened, I wasn’t about to take any chances. I gave Ted a quick nod. “Thanks. And Harvey and I can handle the water samples.” I touched the caddy at the end of the table. The salt and pepper shakers didn’t rattle. “The storm’s passing us now.”
As Harvey and Ted discussed the winch malfunction, their voices faded into the drone of the ship’s motor.
Harvey brought me back. “Mara, what are you thinking?”
“We’ve all heard about winch accidents of the past. Shutoffs didn’t work, cables snapped, unsecured wire lashed across the deck. But that was before the regs.”
Two lines formed between Harvey’s eyebrows. “And?”
“Peter halted the deployment twice. He must’ve noticed something. And before the copter lifted him up, Peter mumbled ‘not your fault.’ So maybe he guessed it was someone else’s fault.”
Harvey reached across the table and put her hand on Ted’s. “Tell me again what Ryan said?”
Ted squeezed Harvey’s hand and let it go. “The winch fouled. He freed it just as the ship pitched, and the buoy dropped. Which sounds like an accident to me. And the captain is calling it that, maybe a defective winch.”
Harvey turned toward me. “Mara, do you have another idea?”
“What if there’s inexperienced crew on board? Maybe the buoy-winch linkage wasn’t set up right.”
Harvey said, “You mean incompetence caused what happened?”
“Yes.”
“The crew looked first rate for this morning’s deployment,” Ted said. “But can’t we talk about all this back at MOI? We’ve got a lot of work to do, and we’re down an experienced scientist.”
Harvey got up. “I’ll get up to the bridge and speak with the captain.”
Ted slid out of the booth and stood next to her. It looked as though he was going to put his arm around Harvey’s shoulder, like he was worried about her. “Want company?”
They walked out together.
I wished Ted had shown more interest in my guess about the crew and less in Harvey.
What followed was a long, long night. Thank god, the sea was calm.
There was much to accomplish and everyone—scientists, grad students, crew—rotated shifts to get it done. In and out of spotlights and shadows, we crowded the decks, and called out to each other. Over and over, we set and retrieved water sample arrays. We deployed the buoys with a new winch. In between it all, I hardly slept. I tried to catnap on my bunk, but all I could think about was Peter.
The captain kept us current on his condition—critical, no change.
At dawn, the sun erased a purple-red splash on the horizon above a placid sea, and by noon Intrepid was carrying its melancholy passengers home. I was about to tackle the first ladder down to the staterooms. A mousy man a couple of inches shorter than I am walked up.
“Dr. Tusconi, John Hamilton. Apologize for not introducing myself. With all that’s happened—so terribly sorry.”
Hamilton tossed his black knit cap from one hand to the other. With his deeply creased forehead, worried eyes, and downturned lips, the guy looked undeniably sad. I mumbled a few words of thanks. He nodded and walked away. It took me a minute to recall that he was Seymour’s friend. He sure seemed a lot nicer than Seymour.
I was out on deck, duffle bag at my feet, when the first features of Spruce Harbor came into view. Actually, the Juniper Ledge bell buoy’s clanging first announced the harbor’s presence. In perfect order, houses and docks took shape, as if the town didn’t yet know what had happened.
The ship passed the twin headlands protecting the harbor and left behind the buoys and what they’d tell us. Compared to the horror Peter and his family were going through, the April temperature data seemed a whole lot less important.
RV Intrepid slid alongside the institute’s dock. As the crew secured the boat, I leaned over the rail and looked out at the venerable MOI brick buildings. My parents had worked in the same one that housed my lab and office now. The shadow of an idea drifted by and faded with a more immediate thought.
Harvey joined me. “You okay?”
“Just musing. Our building, my parents dead, maybe Peter dead. It looked like he was, you know, sleeping there on the deck.”
A tall man with white curly hair jogged around the nearest building. He waved and called out, “Mara!”
Warmth filled me. “Angelo! I wasn’t expecting you.”
I turned to Harvey. “See you tomorrow. Get some sleep. You deserve it.”
My godfather met me at the bottom of the gangway and led me to the side. His handsome face was pinched, and with dark smudges beneath
