The broken wave crest weakly rippled to shore.
They mount up to heaven, they go down again to the depths; their soul is melted because of trouble.
I prayed.
The ship was being ever more perfected for the sojourn.
We worked and refitted the ship. We retooled the facilities of the ship. The ship and the ship’s equipment were not only made perfect to the most stringent maritime specifications but were made to exceed the specifications by exponential factors of ten. It was unspoken but it was known by all that this was going to a last dive.
The Deacon began talking to all of us. “The ship looks good and it looks tight. We have put a lot of good hard work into this. It is as if we have a new ship. Except for head and mess there just ain’t that much there that was there to start with from the beginning.
“The last thing we have to do is to install and get this digital visual system up and working. If we can get eyes under the water before we splash and if we can have a scout topside during the dive we will have two tactical advantages.
“We have all seen and have fore-knowledge of what is down there and yet it has eluded acquisition and the main reason is time over target. The laws of the dive have always been the same and sighting has always been the joker in the deck. Not this time, pilgrims. Many have dived, many have drowned—but not this time, pilgrims of the Deep. We are going to be the first to dive into what we have seen. We are going to dive into what we know. We are going to dive into charted waters. The dive will lead directly to it and then the dive will lead directly here from whence we began our pilgrimage.”
He had converted John Henry and Manta. None of the three saw the dive. They all saw it.
Manta saw a reestablishment of the original unity. John Henry saw the establishment of a new unity. The Deacon saw the dead one.
They that go down to the sea in ships; that do business in great waters;
These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.
I prayed.
This I knew: in the great waters most of the works of the Lord are not seeable. Below a few feet, the great waters eat up the light. In the great waters, most of what is there is transparent and at best only translucent. The rest is encased, hidden, or indistinguishable.
The great meaningless ones—whales, sharks, and seals—are only upper orders of disorder on the great water. And, in the midst of such technology and empirical wonder, I knew two and certain truths at this moment. The Deacon, John Henry, Manta, and I were the highest order of disorder and crying pleads of mercy cannot be heard in the Deep.
Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their distress.
I prayed.
Manta added his ideas. “The sooner we commence the better. There is a silence between the wrath of the spirits and the stillness. I think we are being granted a gift of kindness. We are between the seasons. There is none that control the ocean, now. That will change, if we do not commit to our feat. If we delay we will be cursed with defeat. And, if we are defeated, let us wear our defeat with pride.”
John Henry agreed. “It is getting on to that point when we should stop talking and preparing to dive and just do the dive. Dive or don’t dive—one or the other, I say. And, not to dive would be too severe a consequence to endure. We are as ready as we are going to be at any time. Tell me: is ninety-nine point nine percent any different than one hundred percent?”
The Deacon spoke his peace, “Yes, we are going to dive. We are going to dive not because the water gives us allowance. Yes, we are going to dive. We are going to dive not because the percentage gives us allowance. We are going to dive because we have willfully decided to dive.
“The waters have no ownership of my will. Percentage has no call upon my will. I am diving not because I do not fear the water or percentages but because I do fear the water and the percentages and that is not permissible. I am diving because fear is not permissible in the waters of the Deep, in the seasons of the times, or in the calculations of life. That is why I am diving and as for it—it will be captured. Intellect dictates that it must. It is just an inspiration.”
Manta and John Henry were at peace.
Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their distress.
I prayed.
Then I talked to the group. “No good can come of this. If we are successful in gaining possession of it, then we will have failed. It has claimed the bodies, minds, and souls of many. I am certain that we are better than the waters. I am certain that we are better than percentages. I am sure that we are better than our fears.
“I am not sure that we are better than our will. I think that we are weaker than our will. This is put before you as a proposal. Upon the capture of it, let’s take it to the fault line off Hopeless Atoll and drop it into the deepest waters of the Deep. Let it be there until it’s captured by the subductive flow pressures of the mantle. Then it will be gone, for all time.
“Let us not become the curse. Let us not lose our humanity and simply become the thing that we do, the thing that we desire, or the thing that we are not.”
John Henry and Manta answered with talk of unity and of one.
Then the Deacon spoke, “What it is doesn’t matter until we have it. Let us first put upon it and then in cool and precise intellect make a willful decision.
“With your insight you have put before all of us this problem. What is to become of it and what is to become of ourselves? I make no claim upon it. However, there is one of it but there are three of you. A decision may have to be made, but how is that decision to be made?”
This was the first time that the question was asked. I supposed we had thought about such a decision in an ethereal way but never in a conclusive fashion. The way into the Deep had been singular and unified. Coming up from the Deep, we would be singular. But we would not be unified. We all knew that the sequence of events goes from order to disorder. In this case, from one will to three wills.
“Drawing lots is unfair and voting will not work.” I don’t know who said it but it was said.
Whoever said it was correct.
They that go down to the sea in ships; that do business in great waters;
These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.
For He commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.
They mount up to heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.
They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit’s end.
Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their distress.
He maketh the storm a calm, so that thereof are still.
I pondered how a poet thousands of years ago and thousands of miles away and so deprived of thousands of devices was so aptly able to pen my situation. Who had been this desert genius that saw over the horizon and then saw into the Deep?