Blackwater Sound

‘What exactly is a TP3 hybrid fuel cell, Morgan? Could you explain that to me? Could you tell why in the last six months we’ve devoted almost half a million dollars of research and development money to a battery?’

He lifted his eyes and settled his gaze on hers. The nodding had ceased.

‘Are we in the battery business, Morgan? Because if we are, I think somebody should explain why that is.’

‘We’re not in the battery business, Jeb.’

His eyes drifted up, holding onto a spot a few inches above her head.

‘Well, maybe we should be. I tracked down the specs, looked over the tests you’ve been running on this TP3. I must say, Morgan, it’s got a very impressive performance history. Packs one hell of a wallop.’

Morgan strained to keep the smile on her lips.

‘I’m going home now, Jeb. If there’s anything else, it can wait till tomorrow.’

‘So, if we’re not going to manufacture these batteries, why’re we doing all this fuel cell R and D, at a time when our resources are strained to the limit? You mind telling me?’

‘Good night, Jeb.’

‘Is this another one of Andy’s ideas? Something else you found in his notebooks?’

Morgan felt the smile die on her lips. She drew a calming breath.

‘No, it’s not Andy’s idea. It’s mine. All mine. Is that so hard to believe? That I would have an idea once in a while.’

‘Nothing personal, Morgan, but it’s been my observation that your strength lies in marketing products, not creating them.’

She turned to go but Jeb Shine slid off his desk, angled in front of her, and blocked her way.

She kept her tone relaxed.

‘Maybe it’s time you started thinking about retirement, Jeb. Take up golf, shuffleboard. Maybe a nice long cruise around Polynesia. You’ve served your time in the salt mines. What you need to do is kick back a little, take a few deep breaths, you know, before it’s too late.’

He squinted at her.

‘Too late?’

She reached out and touched the point of her fingernail to one of the hula girls on the belly of his shirt.

‘Good night, Jeb. We’ll talk again soon, I promise.’

When she opened the door to his office, her dad was at his desk staring into his computer screen. He wore a green polo shirt and a pair of khakis, leather sandals. Gray was creeping into his sandy hair, but otherwise he was still trim and youthful. His office walls were bare except for a single photograph that hung across from his desk. Andy and A.J. stood by a seven-hundred-pound blue on the docks in Venezuela, her dad with his arm over Andy’s shoulder. A golden light suffusing the sky behind them. Eleven years ago, back when beautiful sunsets were still possible.

On her dad’s computer screen she saw the wavy blue lines, the circles and swirls of a tidal chart.

A.J. was running the program he’d written that attempted to plot the movements of Big Mother. Using her last known position, two hundred miles southeast of St Thomas in the Virgin Islands, he was computing the effects of tidal shifts on her migratory pattern.

Her last appearance on the global positioning satellite was on April fifteenth of the previous year. So the computer program had to sift through a year’s worth of data to make its current calculation. Tidal shifts were only one of dozens of variables influencing her direction. The ever-changing temperature variants, the snaky course changes of the Gulf Stream and the dozen other tidal currents, the effects of storms, lunar cycles, even the presence of a fishing fleet in a particular zone had to be factored in. And, of course, there were forces he had no way of reckoning. It was, as Morgan had known from the start, a hopeless enterprise. A futile task that nevertheless consumed most of his waking hours. And she was fairly certain it consumed most of the others as well.

‘Where is she, Dad?’

‘Still off the Abacos. South and east. Thirty, forty miles. I’m beginning to think it’s her mating grounds.’

He continued to click his mouse, adding data, correcting.

‘It’s time to move the boat,’ he said. ‘Marsh Harbor, that’s our best bet. Only a few days before the pod switches on. We have to be ready.’

‘I know, Dad. Only a few more days.’

‘This is the year, Morgan. This is the year we nail her.’

‘Yeah, Dad. This is the year.’

But she didn’t believe it. No matter how sophisticated his program was, it just wasn’t possible to calculate exactly where the fish would surface next. Too many variables, too much chance. Marlin were the least understood fish in the ocean. They’d never been raised in captivity, never studied up close. Placed in an aquarium at any age, they died in hours. Even the top scientists with the national marine fisheries who spent their careers investigating marlin had been unable to track their migration patterns or understand something as basic as their spawning habits. They were loners, these fish. Mysterious and baffling. Otherworldly.

Big Mother might reappear anywhere on the globe. No way to be sure. Math couldn’t do it. Black magic wouldn’t either. For all they knew, the transmitter might have broken loose this year somewhere in the marlin’s travels. Or the fish might have died since last year’s ping – caught by a long-liner, or maybe attacked by its only enemy in the ocean, a great white.

In the weeks following Andy’s death, Morgan and her dad had created a duplicate pod, programmed identically, so they’d have an idea of the life span of the pod hooked to Big Mother. The duplicate hung on the wall across from A.J.’s desk, its battery still chugging. Morgan’s calculations said it had a ten-year life, but there was no way to predict such a thing with total accuracy. So far, so good. Each spring for the last nine years, the duplicate unit came alive right on schedule and beeped steadily for seven days.

‘I’m going home, Dad. I’ll pick up something for supper.’

‘I’ll be along in a while.’

‘All right.’

‘Tell Johnny he needs to get his gear together. Tomorrow we’re heading to Abaco. We have to be close by when she surfaces.’

‘All right, Dad.’

‘And you’re coming, right? To Marsh Harbor?’

‘I don’t know. There’s a lot of work around here.’

He let go of the mouse and swiveled his chair around to face her.

‘This could be our last shot,’ he said. ‘That battery’s about to give out. It’s now or never, Morgan.’

‘It’s a busy time, Dad. A lot of things around here need my attention.’

He reached out and took her hand in his. His palm was roughened from boat work and fishing, the hand of a laborer.

‘Family, Morgan. It’s more important than business.’

‘Is it, Dad?’

His dark eyes took her in and he gave her a quick boyish smile. The smile her mother must have fallen in love with. This man who had once been so easy and fun-loving, brimming with dreams and self-confidence. Nothing like the dark set of his mouth that dominated his appearance these last few years as his attention to the world dwindled to a fine point. Until all his energy, all his time and intelligence was focused on that one thing, a blue marlin swimming somewhere in the oceans of the world. Big Mother.

‘Family,’ he said, a brief light filling his smile. ‘It’s everything, Morgan. The whole ball of wax.’