My swim instructor told me you only swim in the top three feet of the water no matter how deep. As the helicopter pilot hovered over the research station with bored efficiency I had my doubts.
"You'll have to go down the cable," he said in my ears, "It's way to choppy to try and land. Don't worry we do this all the time."
As his reassuring words were blaring in through my headset, a marine had hooked me up to the crane and got ready to swing my out over the raging waters of the ocean.
"Just remember Samuel L. Jackson," the pilot said as I was pushed out the side of the chopper.
"What?" I yelled, forgetting the mic on the headphones.
"If one of the sharks escapes, don't turn your back on the water!"
The marine reached out and snatched the headset off me and sent me plummeting toward the pitching deck of the center. I came to a stop just a foot above the pitted metal. A hand coated in black neoprene clipped a new rope to my harness. It steadied me as it pulled the quick release and sent me down the last few inches. I shrieked, just a little and clutched the arm. My bag came down in the same precipitous manner except for the undignified squeal. The chopper vanished up into grey sky and the arm guided me through a door.
"Down the hatch, sir."
I peered down the gullet of a sea monster and shrugged, I could correct the arm later.
At the bottom of the ladder the motion of the ocean waves had vanished and I might as well have been standing at my lecturing podium at the university. I was trying to reach behind me to unclip the rope so I could move again when that arm, still coated in black neoprene unsnapped it for me.
The arm was attached to one of the biggest specimens of the human species that I had ever met in person. I looked up at him.
"Thank you for your help," I said.
"No problem, sir, uh miss."
"Perhaps it would be easier to call me Doctor," I said.
He grinned. "Sure thing, Bones,"
I opened my mouth to correct him again, but let it close. I was going to living here for several months. I didn't want to start off with a reputation for fussiness.
I thought I saw a brief flicker of approval before my bag appeared on its own rope. He unclipped it and held it effortlessly. Knowing how many books were in it, I was content to let this giant carry the bag.
He ducked through a doorway, a hatch, I guess I should call it and led me into the station.
"I'll leave your bag in your quarters," he said as he stepped to the side to let me enter a room that left me speechless.
"Welcome to the Deep Blue Sea," a deep bass voice said.
"Glad to be aboard, Captain."
"Commander," the voice said, and an extremely short man in a jumpsuit walked from behind some equipment. "There is a Captain, who commands the ratings who run the station. I run the mission and am in charge of both enlisted and civilians.
I shook his hand.
"This is wonderful, Commander." I looked around at the view of water on all sides of a huge sphere.
"We can observe directly here, but it also helps relieve the claustrophobia of the station. Unless General Quarters is called, this room is always open to off duty members of the mission."?
"It's stunning," I watched the shifting blues for a moment before I saw a black shadow cross above us.
"Is that?" I started to ask trying to peer up. The floor moved below me and the Commander's surprisingly strong hand steadied me.
"Careful, even this far down there is some movement in this rough weather." He let me go and I gripped a railing. "Yes that is one of them. They are apparently quite intelligent, but would still eat you as soon as look at you. They are carnivores, Doctor, as much at the mercy of their instincts as we are. Now you'll likely be tired after your trip, so I will let you rest. Just follow the yellow line to your quarters."
"Doctor," his voice stopped me at the door, "You are a medical Doctor?"
"Among other things," I said.
"Very good," he said.
I followed the yellow line to a door that looked like all the other doors. When I looked back the line was fading into gray. My door swung open and I saw the narrow bunk and thin mattress that awaited me.
It looked heavenly.
It was very easy to fall into the routine of the station. I ran a brief clinic in the morning. Nothing out of the way, mostly insomnia and complaints of the ocean's noise around us. The rest of the time I was reviewing the research that had been done at Deep Blue. When I wasn't reading or taking pulses I was in that astonishing sphere watching the sharks.
They swam past the glass with unconcerned majesty. Without the evidence of my predecessor it would have been hard to believe that they were both intelligent and dangerous. Dr. Jules' notes were filled with his wonder at the discovery of a new intelligent species on our planet. He was convinced that no intelligent species could be dangerous. His passion consumed him. Quite literally. He had disobeyed orders and gone out swimming with his new found friends. I'm told they found him very tasty.
In spite of the pilot's parting words, there was no direct access from the station to the ocean. Dr. Jules had climbed up through the sphincter and then swum down into the school of sharks like an appetizer. The Commander had worried that the sharks would attack the station, but it seems that they were more amused than anything.
I watched the great fish swim occasionally bumping into buoys painted with symbols.
"At first we had full pictures, but learned that it wasn't necessary," the Commander explained. "The beasts were able to use the more symbolic images as easily. We still aren't sure that they and we mean the same thing by some of the images."
The large grey spotted shark that seemed to hold some leadership role bumped into a buoy that had a fish painted on it.
"That would seem to be pretty clearly a statement about food," I said, "Sonar is showing a large school just west of us."
"Yes, but there are times when she bumps that image when there is not a fish around us."
"Maybe it is wishful thinking,"
"Maybe, but there are other images that have the same lack of clarity, and some that apparently always mean the same thing."
"Interesting."
From Dr. Jules' notes and my own observations I started to put together a vocabulary of the shark language.
"Commander, is there a way I can indicate buoys? It's frustrating to have all the communication one way."
"That was was Dr. Jules' asked just before he went for his swim."
"I don't swim, Commander, I was thinking of some kind of drone."
The Commander found a spare maintenance drone. The giant who had met me at the helicopter pad showed up to teach me how to drive it.
I put on the headset and took the joystick in my fingers and practiced making the tiny drone do what I wanted it to do. I could hear all the sounds of the ocean with clarity as I made the probe bump the fish buoy then sent it in the direction of the school of fish that showed up on the radar.
The sharks ignored the drone after bumping it a couple of times. My hopes to start some kind of conversation were dashed, but I kept at it day after day. I had noticed by this time that there was one buoy that none of the sharks ever touched.
It had a picture of the sun on it. Since the sharks were avoiding it I ignored it too. Then in frustration one day I deliberately bumped the sun buoy. Every shark froze, then they circled the drone coming ever closer to it. The large leader shark finally lunged at it and bit down on it. The other sharks followed and soon the drone was in pieces.
The big grey shark came closer to the glass then I had ever seen her and I was sure she peered through the glass at me.
I haven't told the commander yet, but I've started to have dreams of swimming. It doesn't help that the sharks circle the glass closer every day, and I'm sure they're looking hungry.