that in the end Suarez-Navarro will be sorry they ever heard of him.
It’s happened to him before and he’s always bounced back. I still work
for him. I-‘ JL “Whatever it is, say it.” “I had you checked out in
London, when you were preparing for this trip. I didn’t want Pop stung
again.
Besides.
“My name was Trevelyan?” “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said. “But I had
to.
You checked out fine, you know.”For the first time since I’d known her
she was a little shy. She went on. “That’s enough about the
Campbells.
What about the Trevelyans – about you?” “What about me? I’m just a
plodding scientist.” We both laughed. Plodding certainly didn’t
describe this airy swooping progress, and it eased her tension.
“Most scientists seem to be looking up these days, not down.” “Ah,
space stuff,” I said.
“You don’t seem very enthusiastic.” “I’m not. I think it’s a waste of
money. The Americans are spending thirty billions of dollars to put
man into space; in the end it could cost ten times that much.
That works out at about twenty thousand dollars for every square mile
of airless lunar surface. You could get cheaper and better land on
earth and if you poured that much money into the sea the returns would
be even better. I think the sea is our new frontier, not space.” She
smiled at the missionary note in my voice. “So that’s why you became
an oceanographer.” “I suppose so – I was always in love with the
sea.”
“And Mark? What made him one? I don’t think I’ve ever known two
brothers more different.” I said, “Mark was eaten up with ambition.
How he got that way I don’t know – I think some of it was jealousy of
me, though God knows what he had to be jealous about. When my father
died Mark seemed to go wild; mother couldn’t control him. Since she
died I’ve had nothing to do with him – he went his way and I mine. It
hasn’t always been easy having a brother like that in my line of
work.
People sometimes confuse us – to my detriment.” “And his advantage.”
“Why, thank you, lady,”I said and bowed; and our relationshin suddenly
took a step forward.
“Trevelyan; that’s Cornish, isn’t it? Are you Cornish?” “Yes.
We’re descended from the Phoenician and Carthaginian tin traders.
Hannibal is still a popular name in Cornwall, though not in our family,
thank God.” “You’re kidding.” “No, I’m not. It’s a fact.”
We had a long, relaxed and easy conversation that night, talking about
everything under the sun and moon, and by the time she went back to her
cabin I had a better idea about both Clare and her father. Campbell
was a difficult man to assess, not very forthcoming about himself and
sticking to business most of the time. This talk with Clare had given
me something of his background and I felt more than ever that he was a
man to be trusted.
And then there was Clare herself – I found myself wondering if she
could bring herself to trust another Trevelyan, or whether Mark had
soured her on Trevelyans for life. I mentally chalked up another
stroke against Mark. I spent a long time thinking about Clare before I
turned in.
And then I suddenly thought of what she had said about Mark – of his
death hand pushing people around like pawns on a chessboard. It was
true; everything we had done or were doing stemmed from Mark and his
character. It was as though Mark had been a showman and we were his
puppets as his skeletal hands pulled the strings.
It was a shuddery thought to go to sleep on.
We entered a region of small revolving storms as Kane had predicted.
They ranged from mere waterspouts, ten yards across, to monsters fifty
feet in diameter. These squalls provided exhilarating sailing as long
as care was taken.
Esmerelda would be foaming along beneath a brilliant blue sky when the
horizon would darken and within minutes the water would be dark and
wind lashed, and when the storm AL had gone there would be rainbows
plunging into the sea and the faithful trade wind would pick up again,
driving us deeper into the heart of the Pacific towards the south-east
corner of French Oceania.
Sixteen days after leaving Panama Geordie figured out the midday sights
and announced, “We’re nearly there. We’ll enter the search area this
afternoon.” We had decided not to tell the crew too much, and so
Geordie gathered them and merely said that I wanted to stooge about
looking for a particular sort of water condition, but that everyone was
to be on the watch for shoals. Everyone knew there wasn’t much land
out here and his request may have sounded strange, but they willingly
organized for extra ees on each watch, and we had a man up the foremast
with binoculars a lot of the time. To my mind that was just a token
that a search was in progress as I didn’t think they’d spot anything,
but for everyone else it perked up interest. We arranged for some
dredging, to give the teams practice as we went along.
I was in the chart room early the next morning with Campbell and
Geordie, going over the chart and the Pilot.
I said, “The Erato spotted Minerva here – that was in 1890.
In 1920 another ship placed Minerva here, stretching eastnorth-east for
two miles. As Robinson points out, there’s a difference of ten
miles.”
Campbell said, “It’s strange that there should only have been two
sightings in thirty years.” “Not so strange,” said Geordie. “These
waters are pretty quiet, and they’re quieter now that power has taken
over from sail. There’s no need for anyone to come here just for
commerce.” He put his hand on the chart. “There are several
possibilities. One of these sightings was right and the other wrong
take Your pick of which was which. Or they were both wrong.
Or they were both right and Minerva is a moving shoal which happens
sometimes.”
“Or they were both wrong – and Minerva is still a moving shoal,” I said
dubiously.
“Or there are two shoals,” offered Campbell.
We all laughed. “You’re getting the idea,”said Geordie. He bent to
the chart again. “Now, we’ll put each of these sightings; into the
middle of a rectangle, ten miles by twenty. That’ll give us two
hundred square miles to search, but it’ll be sure.
We’ll start on the outside and work our way in.” Campbell said, “Let’s
get to the heart of the matter. Let’s go right to each of these
positions and see what’s there.” But Geordie decided against that.
“It
depends on the weather. I’m not going anywhere near those two
positions unless the sea is pretty near calm. You read what Robinson
said about not being able to distinguish breakers from storm waves. We
might find her too quickly and rip the bottom out of Esmerelda.”
“We’ve got the echo sounder,” I said. “They should tell us where the
water’s shoaling.” “Damn it, you’re the oceanographer,” said
Geordie.
“You should know that these islands are the tops of undersea
mountains.
There’ll probably be deep water within a quarter of a mile of
Minerva.
And we could be sailing in twenty fathoms and a spire of coral could
rip our guts out.” “You’re right, Geordie. Minerva’s probably a
budding atoll. Give her another million years and she’ll be a proper
island.” “We can’t wait a million years,” said Campbell acidly. “All
right, you’re the skipper. We’ll do your square search.” So we got on
with it. Geordie estimated that we’d have to pass within a mile of
Minerva in order to see it. That meant we’d have to cover about 100
miles in order to search a 200 square mile area. We used the engine as
sparingly as possible, confined our speed to about five knots and less,
and that way a daylight search would take about two days.
The first leg of the search gave us nothing and in the evening we
hove-to, knowing that it would be the devil of a job to assess our
actual position the next morning because of the rate of drift in this
area, and an uncertainty factor of at least one knot.
Geordie pointed this out to Campbell to make him realise that this
wasn’t like searching a given area of land which, at least, stays
put.
Campbell hated it.
That evening, relaxing on deck, I was bombarded with questions by the
crew as we ate our evening meal. They were all curious and I thought
that this was not a satisfactory way to deal with them – they’d be more
use and have more enthusiasm if they were in the know, of one piece of
the story at least. And I was also curious myself as to Kane’s