“And do you have permission to do this?” Carol asked.
Dexter kissed her again.
“I dunno. Do I, boss?”
“Take your camera,” she said. “Matter of fact, take two.”
“You’re not coming with us?” he asked.
“We’ll see,” she said in the tone of voice that implied probably not, work to do.
“All work and no play…” Dexter warned her. For him, “all work” was rarely a problem. He was the consummate Southern California surfer boy, perpetually tanned, with a megawatt smile and a shock of blond hair that caught the sun like yellow chrome. A master’s graduate fifteen years Carol’s junior, Dexter had called the Nolan Group every single day, looking for a job. As she recalled, there had been a kind of well-meaning desperation in his approach that reminded Carol a little of the used-car salesman in Bob Nolan and a little of the Boy Scout integrity of her first husband.
Dexter proved himself to be a loyal and dedicated employee from the start, taking on the tasks of senior technician on many assignments, arriving early, staying late, and giving up more than a few evenings and weekends to support Carol’s various contracts and expeditions. When everyone else had gone home for the night, there was Dex. When no one else wanted to log any more overtime, he was ready to go, claiming that his “charmed and indulgent childhood” was responsible for his utter disregard for time clocks and large paychecks.
In short, he was always there for her, no matter what the task. In time, after enough weekends and budget meetings over Chinese takeout, the question of whether Carol would see this young man socially had become a non issue. The distinction between employee, friend, and confidant had blurred irrevocably, and the technician and the CEO became an item.
For his age, Dex was masterful at lovemaking, driving their encounters to sweaty extremes, but always remaining considerate of her need for tenderness, for closeness. It was the wide-eyed, unjaded youth in him who made Carol feel as though she might even fall in love again, given enough time. Ironically, this time she was the one who was jaded and distracted, and a part of her still needed to resolve that. Dexter carried his consideration for her into their work in a kind but professional manner, and she appreciated this most of all. It was good to know that as she forged ahead with her discoveries and adventures, someone like Dex would be there with her, as grateful for the experience they would share as for her company.
She had no way of knowing that that would all change very fast.
“Awesome!” Dexter said into the microphone of his full-face scuba mask. His exclamations were interrupted by the gurgling of his regulator as he described the scene around him. Carol and the others saw what he saw through a small camera carried by Dexter’s diving partner, Tony Ramsey. Clad in their polar-weight dry suits the two divers were dwarfed against the massive backdrop of the first animal.
The water clarity was exceptional, and the crew on the Phoenix could even see the vast yellowish growths of diatoms on the whale’s gray-white belly. It was a Balaenoptera, a large female. A smaller female and three males made up the rest of the stranded pod.
“See if you can find the eye,” said one of the technicians into the comm link.
It was a common request for first-time whale watchers. The sheer size of the animal seemed to detach it from any definite point of reference; the eye was needed to identify the massive form as an actual creature and really see it for what it was.
Ramsey panned his handheld camera left, then began gliding toward the head of the whale. Dexter’s flippers could just be seen, moving ahead of his partner.
From time to time, the length of polypropylene line tethering the divers to the surface drifted into view.
“There it is!” the technician called out, pointing to the monitor. And so it was, nearly buried in the gnarled folds of scarred flesh. The eye had a mildly clouded appearance, perhaps a cataract, but was otherwise alert. It stared back at the camera with neither fear nor aggression.
The humans trailing along its formidable length were only the latest, and least, of its recent inconveniences.
“Poor old girl,” Carol muttered.
“We’ll get you out of here. Damned if I know how, but we will.”
From the warmth inside the Phoenix, the group of scientists watched the divers cross the open water beneath the ice and explore the second whale. All remained entranced for the next fifteen minutes, until the excitement of the venture and the numbing cold of the water conspired to cut short the divers’ supply of air. Reluctantly, Dexter and Ramsey swam back to their entry hole chipped in the ice.
“Okay, folks, let’s get back to work,” Carol said. The others reluctantly obliged as she made her way aft to the Phoenix’s main lab.
Two small coolers filled with blood samples waited there on the bench.
She pulled on a pair of latex gloves and prepared the first sample for a cell count. While a relief crew continued to chip away at the floe, she could at least run some preliminary serum tests. What she had seen of the whales deeply troubled her; they looked more malnourished than she had wanted to believe.
Dexter appeared half an hour later, his face still flushed with exertion and excitement from the dive.
“You’ve got to go down there,” he said after relaying a first-person account of his experience, as if Carol herself hadn’t seen much of the same thing via Ramsey’s camera. “I can’t believe you don’t want to go down there. I mean, this is it. This is your thing.” Dexter’s age was showing, as it often did when he was excited.
“I will,” Carol said, but her eyes remained focused on the eyepieces of her microscope. “But when I do, I want to be sure of what we’re looking for. What we can do to help these big fellas besides letting them loose.”
As Carol heard herself speaking, she sounded so… maternal. Worse she sounded old. At Dex’s age hell, even ten years ago the Carol she thought she knew wouldn’t sit right down at the lab bench. She wouldn’t be concerned about the danger or the frigid water temperature.
She would dive with the whales, then dive again, then screw Dex’s brains out for hours more until her excitement finally abated into deep-seated happiness. Carol the scientist, Carol the CEO, Carol the expedition leader and contract officer was guiding this exchange, and Carol the woman found she didn’t like it.
To her continued amazement and appreciation, Dex understood. Instead of being put out, he came to her and embraced her. Instead of ridiculing her meticulous dedication, he thanked her for the opportunity of being with her, moored to this particular piece of ice in all the Arctic Ocean.
Come to think of it, they still had time for a shower.
“You read my mind,” Dexter said in response to her offer. Carol promised him that she would look at just one more sample, then meet him in their cabin.
As it happened, it was several samples and nearly three hours later when she finally looked up from the microscope. She saw the time and gasped, letting out a guilty moan. As a partial peace offering, she stopped in the Phoenix’s galley to pour two large mugs of hot chocolate. Pausing at the door of their cabin, she unbuttoned her shirt suggestively, licked her lips, and stepped inside.
Dexter was not in their bunk or on the cabin’s small settee. For a moment, Carol thought he must have given up waiting and gone back out to look at the whales.
Then she heard the sound of his coughing from the cabin’s private head.
She tapped tentatively at the door.
“Dex?” she asked.
“Sweetie? What’s wrong?”