The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 25

by Gardner Dozois

  Taking a seat, he watched as a hinged arm with a pump on one end was lowered five feet below the surface. After the temperature and salinity had been recorded, fifty gallons of water were pumped into a plastic drum, passing through a series of increasingly fine filters. The process took about an hour. As they waited, Gary engaged in a friendly contest with Kiran, the yacht’s first mate, to see who would be first to catch an octopus. Gary had floated a baited trap out to sea on a cable, while Kiran, tan and muscular, was taking a more active approach, which he claimed to have learned in the Canary Islands. It involved a hooked rod and a red rag tied to a stick, and did not, at first glance, seem especially effective.

  As Ellis and Ray stowed their equipment, they picked up the thread of what seemed to be an ongoing debate. “We need to stay here,” Ellis said. “If we leave now, we’ll be giving up the chance of a lifetime.”

  “The chance of your lifetime, not mine,” Ray said, rinsing himself off in the cockpit shower. “We’re already running behind schedule. If we stay here much longer, we won’t make it to the Galapagos as planned.”

  “Then we need to push back the deadline. This is a new species. Only one other variety of luminescent octopus has ever been described—”

  “Take a specimen, then. I’ve already asked Kiran to put together a couple of tanks.”

  “A few specimens won’t be enough,” Ellis argued. “We’re seeing extraordinary collective behaviors here. Octopuses aren’t supposed to travel in schools, and at this distance from shore, they live well below the waterline. Something is causing them to appear in groups on the surface. We need to find out why.”

  Ray turned to Trip, the beads of water standing out on his face. “Are you getting all this? Ellis thinks that science can only take place in a bathysphere. He can’t accept that a new kind of octopus isn’t going to change the world.”

  “It may not change the world,” Trip said carefully, “but it’s something that a lot of people would like to see.”

  “I agree,” Ellis said. “If anything, it would enhance the reputation of this project.”

  Ray shook his head, dislodging a cascade of drops. “You’re missing the point. In the sample of water we’ve taken today, we’re going to find a thousand new species of microbe, if not more.” He turned to Trip. “With every sample we analyse, we double the number of genes previously known from all species across the planet. It’s the first time that modern sequencing methods have been applied to an entire ecosystem. I don’t see how an octopus is any more important than this.”

  “It isn’t a question of importance,” Ellis said impatiently. “It’s a question of—”

  “Even now, nobody really knows what the ocean contains,” Ray continued, still looking at Trip. “Every milliliter of seawater contains a million bacteria and ten million viruses. Until I came along, nobody had tried to analyse the ocean with the same thoroughness that had been applied to the human genome. When we’re done, the results will be available to everyone, free of charge, with no strings attached. That, my friends, is what will enhance our reputation. Not a glowing octopus.”

  He turned to look at Gary, who was seated on the transom, clutching the cable of his octopus trap. “As I see it, there are two approaches to science. You can lunge after something with a rag on a stick, like Kiran, or you can bait a trap and see what floats by. It’s less glamorous, maybe, but in the long run—”

  Ray was interrupted by an excited shout. At the other end of the sloop, Kiran had caught an octopus on the end of his hook, and was lifting it carefully out of the water. As Kiran dropped the octopus into the bucket at his feet, Trip saw a handful of arms writhing uselessly in the open air.

  Ellis turned to Ray. “What were you saying about the two approaches to science?”

  Ray forced his face into a grin, then turned to the first mate. “Kiran, think you can catch a few more of these monsters?”

  “Not a problem,” Kiran said, climbing into the cockpit. “How many do you want?”

  “As many as you can get,” Ray said. “We’re having octopus for dinner tonight.”

  An embarrassed silence ensued. Kiran gave them all an uneasy smile, then headed below. After a pause, Ray turned to Ellis. “All right. We’ll hold station for one more day. You should be satisfied with this.”

  “Fine,” Ellis said, although he was obviously displeased. “I’ll do what I can.”

  The two scientists went their separate ways. A few minutes later, when the filtering process was complete, Gary unscrewed a set of steel plates and used tweezers to fish out the filters inside. Each filter, the size of a vinyl record album, had been stained various shades of brown, as the microbes were captured in paper of decreasing porousness. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” Gary said to Trip, sliding the filters into plastic bags. “Those two don’t always see eye to eye—”

  “What about you?” Trip asked, helping him pack up the morning’s sample. “Do you think we should stay longer?”

  Gary headed for the companionway. “Ray pays my salary, which doesn’t make me a disinterested observer. The fact is, I love both of those guys, but Ellis is just as ambitious as Ray is. He’s better at hiding it, that’s all.”

  He disappeared down the stairs. As the day wore on, Trip caught occasional glimpses of Gary in the wet lab across from the salon. Through the laboratory window, Trip saw him sterilize a pair of shears with a blowtorch and slice each filter in two, one half to be frozen for later analysis, the other to be sequenced aboard the yacht itself. Aside from the time spent gathering each day’s water sample, Gary spent most of his time in the lab, dissolving the filters and analysing the resultant genetic material, which meant that he was the only crew member without a tan.

  Trip took a seat in the salon, where the captured octopus had been installed in a plastic tank. Since his arrival, he had been struck by the demands being made of the scientific team. Sequencing the genes of all the organisms in a random sample of seawater was an incredibly complicated process, akin to assembling a thousand jumbled jigsaw puzzles. Normally, most of the analysis would have taken place on shore, but Ray, hoping to save time, had insisted that it occur on the sloop itself. Several competing efforts to sequence marine ecosystems were currently underway, and Ray had become obsessed with concluding the project before the bicentennial of Darwin’s birth, which was in less than three weeks.

  Such urgency might have seemed strange, but as Trip reviewed his notes, he reflected that nothing less than Ray’s legacy was at stake. Despite the role that he had famously played in decoding the human genome, Ray remained a controversial figure, known more for his ruthlessness as a businessman than his scientific integrity. Now that money was no longer an issue, he had funded this mission in an attempt to refute his detractors, as well as to make his own case for a Nobel Prize. As a result, he had begun to push his scientific team to show greater progress, which, as far as Trip could tell, had only deepened the divisions within the crew.

  Dinner that night was quietly tense. Dawn, the ship’s cook, an attractive woman with a blonde ponytail, had prepared a ceviche, slowly simmering the octopus to soften it first. Although the flesh was tender, nobody could do more than pick at it, so the crew focused on the vegetable curry instead, which they washed down with plentiful wine and cold water. “You can judge a yacht by how the wine flows,” Ray said, his eyes red. “On the Calypso, Cousteau had a wine tank made of stainless steel. And how many bottles do we have?”

  “Two hundred in the hold,” Dawn said, “and another fifty or sixty in the fridge.”

  Trip poured himself another glass. Unlike some yachts, which had separate tables for guests and crew, everyone on the research sloop ate together, although this did nothing to lighten the mood. Ray, he noticed, treated everyone as his servant, even Stavros, who had been the yacht’s captain long before the billionaire had acquired it. When Ray asked him condescendingly to tell them the Greek word for octopus, the captain replied, “Octopous, of course. But t
o Hesiod, it was anosteos, or the boneless one. The boneless one gnaws his foot in his fireless house and wretched home.”

  “I didn’t know we had so many scholars on board,” Ray said. He eyed Trip over the rim of his glass. “I’m aware, by the way, that I’ve neglected to give you the interview I promised. Are you free tonight?”

  Trip, who had nearly given up hope of such an invitation, was surprised at the sudden offer. “Of course. Maybe after dinner?”

  “I need to take care of some business first, but if you want to drop by my cabin at ten, I can give you an hour of my time.” Ray’s bloodshot eyes flashed between Trip and Meg. “Unless you have other plans—”

  Meg rose abruptly, clearing the dishes and carrying them into the galley. Ray, flushed from the wine, did not take his eyes from her face.

  After dinner, the crew dispersed. Kiran headed up to the deck, joined a moment later by Dawn, ostensibly for the first watch, although a whiff of sweet smoke from the crew’s quarters made Trip guess that they had something else in mind. Around the yacht, the octopuses had resumed their nocturnal flickering. When the lights in the salon were turned down, the octopus in the tank started to glow as well.

  Going into his cabin, Trip began to review his list of questions, glancing out the window at the show of lights. As he prepared, he began to feel strangely nervous. Looking at his hands, he noticed that he had been chewing his fingernails, which was something that he had not done in years.

  When the time for the interview arrived, Trip rose from his chair, making sure that he had his notebook and audio recorder, and went into the hallway. The yacht was silent. Stavros sat in the salon, his back turned, laying out a game of solitaire. None of the other crew members was in sight.

  Trip went to the door of Ray’s cabin, which was closed, and knocked lightly. “Ray?”

  There was no answer. Looking down, Trip saw a line of light beneath the door. He knocked a second time, and when there was no response, he tried the knob, which turned easily.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Trip pushed open the door and entered the stateroom. He had been here only once before, on the day that he had boarded the yacht, and had been duly impressed by its luxury.

  Ray was seated at his work station, his back to the door. His head was bowed, as if he were looking intently at something on the desk. Trip came forward cautiously, afraid that he was intruding, and gingerly touched Ray’s shoulder with his fingertips. “Do you still want to talk?”

  In response to the nudge, Ray swiveled around in his chair, although the motion was due solely to momentum. His eyes were open, and his head was tilted at an unnatural angle. A gash had parted the skin of his throat, the blood running down the front of his shirt and pooling on the floor below, where it blended with the burgundy rug. Trip was not a doctor, and had no first-hand experience of murder, but even at first glance, it was clear that Ray was quite dead.

  II

  The captain was the first to respond to his shouts of alarm. Stavros appeared in the stateroom door, his calmness oddly reassuring, and stopped. He looked at Trip, saying nothing, then turned to the body. Going up to the corpse, he placed his fingertips against its throat, almost in a parody of checking for a pulse, and examined the wound, which was clean and deep. After studying the gash for a moment, he shook his head. “It’s bad luck to have a dead man on board.”

  Trip stared at the captain, wondering if he was joking. Instead of saying more, Stavros took the body beneath its arms and laid it on the floor, with Trip doing his best to help. As they moved the body, a fresh stream of blood trickled from its throat, swallowed up at once by the plush fibers of the carpet.

  There was a gasp from the doorway. It was Meg. A second later, Gary appeared, still in his gloves and laboratory gown, his face pale with shock. Kiran and Dawn stood behind him, looking over his shoulder at the scene in the cabin. Their eyes were bloodshot. Last of all, Ellis pushed through the knot of bodies, his gaze fixed on the corpse on the ground.

  “My God,” Ellis said, his voice nearly cracking. “Did anyone see what happened?”

  No one replied. Through the windows, the octopus lights continued to flicker.

  “I’ve been in the salon all night,” Stavros said at last. “I saw nobody enter or leave.”

  “Someone must have been here,” Trip said. “Ray didn’t cut his own throat. If he did, where’s the knife?”

  There was another silence, more suspicious now. Trip was studying the faces of the others, searching for signs of guilt, when his eye was caught by a trail of blood on the floor. It led from the desk to the far wall, where a door had been set into the bulkhead. “Where does this hatch go?”

  “The deck,” Stavros said. He went to the hatch and opened it, touching only the edge of the knob. Beyond the door lay a narrow companionway. He went up, followed by Trip and Kiran, with the others remaining behind.

  Outside, the air was cool and motionless, the ocean glowing with eerie light. In the dive cockpit, a constellation of blood was visible on the deck. A pool of pink water had collected beneath the showerhead, as if someone had paused to wash his or her hands before moving on. Stavros turned to Kiran. “You were supposed to be on watch. You didn’t see anything?”

  Kiran looked embarrassed. “We were at the prow, looking at the lights. And we were, uh—”

  “Yes, I know,” Stavros said, making a gesture of disgust. “A couple of potheads.”

  They returned to the stateroom. In the cabin, someone had covered the body with a sheet, the crimson petals of blood already starting to soak through. Meg was seated on the bed, eyes wet, with Dawn’s arm around her shoulders.

  In the corner, Ellis and Gary were talking in low tones. A second later, Ellis turned to the others, as if he had decided to assume control. “All right. Whoever did this needs to confess now.”

  In the long pause that followed, volleys of glances were exchanged, but no one spoke. Eventually, one by one, they began to offer explanations for their whereabouts. It soon became clear that only Kiran and Dawn, who had been smoking up on the far end of the sloop, could verify their stories. While Trip had gone into his room after dinner, Gary had returned to the lab, and Ellis had been in the observation chamber belowdecks, taking notes on the octopus school. Stavros had been in the salon, facing away from the stateroom, while Meg had retired to her cabin to read.

  Ellis turned to Trip. “You’re the one who found him. What were you doing here?”

  “You heard what happened at dinner,” Trip said. “Ray offered me an interview.”

  “Is that what you thought?” Ellis gave him a tight smile. “I happen to know that Ray was planning to tell you that he was withdrawing permission for the article. He told me so himself.”

  Trip was astonished by the unspoken implication. “Why would he change his mind?”

  Ellis looked at Meg, who was seated on the bed. “Who knows what he was thinking?”

  Trip’s face grew red. “So what are you saying? He wouldn’t give me an interview, so I killed him?”

  There was no response. After another moment, when it became clear that no confessions were forthcoming, they turned, almost with relief, to the business of dealing with the body. Ellis went into his cabin and returned with a medical kit, which he used to tape bags over Ray’s hands. When he was done, Stavros wrapped the corpse in a sheet and secured it neatly with nylon cord. Sealing off the stateroom, they carried the body into the galley, where Meg and Dawn had removed the bottles from the wine refrigerator, and laid it snugly inside.

  As they were closing the galley door, Trip happened to glance at the rack above the sink, and saw that one of the knives was missing.

  Once the body had been stowed, they returned to the salon to debate their next move. The first decision was easy. The Lancet, like many yachts, had a system of security cameras that was rarely used, and which they now agreed to turn on. There was also some discussion of sleeping arrangements. In the end, it was decided that the women wo
uld share one of the staterooms, Trip, Ellis, and Gary the other, and that the captain and first mate would each take a cabin for themselves.

  Finally, they raised the issue of the voyage itself. “There’s no way out of it,” Stavros said. “We need to go back. If we make full speed, we can be at Antigua and Barbuda in three days.”

  “We would have been done in a few more weeks,” Gary said bitterly. He looked around at the others. “I know we don’t have much of a choice, but after all this is done, I’m coming back to finish the project.”

  No one spoke. In the tank, the octopus wound and unwound its arms, glowing softly, like an emblem of death from a medieval painting.

  They all spent a restless night. The following morning, Trip was in the salon when he felt a soothing vibration well up through the floor. The engine had started. He was smiling at Meg and Dawn, who seemed equally relieved that they were on their way, when an alarm sounded from the cockpit. A second later, the wailing ceased, and the engine died as well.

  Trip went up to the deck, where he found Stavros crouching over the hatch of the engine room, biting his lower lip. A sharp tang of scorched metal wafted up from the engine. “Overheated,” Stavros said tersely, in response to Trip’s question. “We’re taking care of it.”

  Kiran, who was examining the engine, stuck his head and shoulders out of the darkened rectangle, a smudge of grease on his face. “It’s the alternator and pump. The belt’s torn to shreds. I’ll need to replace it.”

  “How long will that take?” Trip asked, unsettled by the prospect of an engine failure. Although the sloop was perfectly capable of proceeding under sail, the last few days had been windless, and they were weeks away from shore.

  Kiran wiped away the grease. “A couple of hours. We’ll need to hold station here.”

  Word of their situation spread quickly. After learning what had happened, Ellis announced that he would spend the morning trying to capture a few more octopuses. While examining the octopus that had been caught the day before, he had noticed that one of its arms was missing, apparently severed. “We need a perfect specimen,” Ellis said, as if challenging the others to contradict him. “If we’re stuck here anyway, we may as well make the most of it.”