Merfolk

by Jeremy Bates

  “Am I in your sun?” he asked, moving.

  “Thanks.” She flipped onto her stomach, reached behind her back, and unclipped her bikini top. “Would you be a doll and rub some sunscreen on my back?”

  He retrieved a bottle of Coppertone from the deck, sat on the edge of the reclined chair, and squeezed some lotion onto his hands. He rubbed them together and began massaging the lotion on Rad’s back.

  “Mmmmm…” she said. “How much longer until we get to this island?”

  “Shouldn’t be too long now.”

  “The plan?” she murmured into the cushion beneath her face.

  “Pip and I will map the ocean floor around the island so we know where best to deploy the hydrophones.”

  “What are hydrophones? Underwater microphones?”

  “Essentially, yes. Light doesn’t travel very far underwater, which makes cameras rather useless. Sound is a much more efficient form of underwater information transfer. The hydrophones we deploy will convert whatever they detect into audio signals that get transferred back to the ship. Special software will display them as graphs and other images that Pip and I can study in detail.”

  “So you’re…listening for merfolk?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Ah, there! Can you feel it?”

  Marty worked on a knot in her shoulder.

  She sighed, and they were quiet for a little bit. Then she said, “How do you know what to listen for if you’ve never heard a merfolk before?”

  “The acoustic characteristics of marine mammals differ considerably between species. Short-pulsed echolocation clicks of dolphins are distinct from those of porpoises, and they’re nothing like the long-frequency modulated songs of whales. Not to mention the vocalizations of seals, sea lions, manatees, and other large aquatic creatures. Merfolk vocalizations, it stands to reason, would be equally unique.”

  “Mmmmm...” she said, and he wondered if she was even listening to him.

  “Do you want me to choke you?”

  “Mmmmm...”

  He moved on to another knot. She sighed again and said, “If you hear one, how are you going to go about catching it?”

  “We moor the hydrophones in an array on the seafloor. This allows us to determine the direction any sound is coming from and follow it to its source.”

  “Yes, but how are you going to catch one? Throw on a pair of goggles and flippers and jump overboard?”

  “I’m glad you take my work so seriously, Rad. Even now, after the recent discoveries, you’re still making jokes—”

  She rolled onto her side. “I’m sorry, Marty. I don’t mean to sound snarky. I guess I’m still a little jaded about your big lie. Don’t worry, I’ll be back to my charming, irresistible self soon. Okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “So tell me—I’m genuinely curious—if you find a merfolk, how are you planning to catch it?”

  “Dynamite.”

  “Marty!”

  “The underwater shockwave should stun a merfolk long enough for us to collect its body.”

  “If it doesn’t kill it!”

  “There’s a chance the blast would rupture its lungs, yes, and that would be unfortunate. Yet while a live specimen would be ideal, a dead specimen is better than no specimen.”

  Rad sat straight, covering her breasts with an arm. Her expression was incredulous. “Seriously, Marty? If you make first contact with a creature from myths and legends, a creature that potentially has human lineage, your plan is to blow it up with dynamite?”

  “It would be for the greater good, Rad. Morality is determined by the end result. In this case the capture of a merfolk, dead or alive, would change everything we know about human evolution, about our seas and oceans, about our history. It would be the greatest boon to biological science since Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Surely that outweighs the life of one creature, which would expire eventually.”

  “That’s a heartless argument, Marty.”

  “If the death of a single slave during the antebellum era would end slavery and prevent the Civil War, wouldn’t it be justified?”

  “That’s not even close to the same thing, and you know it.”

  “Would you kill the slave?”

  “Give it a break, Marty.”

  “Would you, Rad?”

  “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “What about you, dog?” he asked the Pomeranian, which was looking up at them sleepily. “Would you do it?”

  The dog yapped loudly, what sounded to him like an affirmation.

  “Good, Marty,” he said, and got up and left.

  ∆∆∆

  He went to the pilothouse to check on Pip, who was standing in the dimly lit room before the ship’s wheel, throttles, and control board.

  “Bonjour, mon capitaine.” She pointed to the GPS screen. “We are only a few nautical miles from the island now. Is something…wrong?”

  “Rad doesn’t think our plan to blast-fish a merfolk out of the water is ethical.”

  “Ethical? What is ethical?” Pip shrugged dismissively. “You think it is wrong to eat dog meat, some people think it is okay. You think it is wrong to lie. Some people think it is okay. Your girlfriend has an opinion, that is all. And she is not a scientist. She does not have the head of a scientist, or the hunger of a scientist. She does not have that drive that you and I have, to explore, to unravel secrets, to find new truths. So her opinion is moot.”

  “But her intention is not. I wish there were some other way to capture one unharmed…”

  “There is not, Marty. We have discussed this thoroughly. A merfolk has never been caught in a trawler’s net the world over. You will not catch one in a net either, not even if you know precisely where to search. Do not lose your spine.”

  “I’m not losing anything, Pip—spine, nerve, or otherwise.” He sighed. “I don’t believe I ever asked you: why did you become a scientist in the first place?”

  “No, you have not asked me that, mon capitaine, and we have known each other for a long time now. I wonder where your head is sometimes. No, I know where it is. Do not answer that.” She paused. “Why did I become a scientist? Do you really want to know, or are you simply eating my brain?”

  “Picking your brain. And I’d like nothing more than to know.”

  “After I graduated university, I flew to Spain to visit my sister. She was teaching French there. Her contract had finished, and we made plans to travel Europe.”

  “You stayed in hostels?”

  “That is where poor backpackers stay, yes? We also took overnight trains and buses to save on that night’s accommodation. One overnight train to Austria was full, so we ended up getting seats in different carriages. I woke in the middle of the night to find an old man rubbing my feet on his crotch. I kicked him in the stomach and got away and found a conductor. I brought him back to my seat, but the pervert was gone—and he took my shoes and handbag with him.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Because he was a pervert, Marty. That is what perverts do. Anyway, he must have gotten off at the next stop because I could not find him anywhere on the train. I could not find my sister either. It turned out the train had split during the night. The end my sister was in continued to Austria, while my end was en route to Slovakia.”

  “With no money or shoes…”

  “And no phone.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Walked barefoot through Bratislava until I found an internet café and begged the owner to let me send an email to my sister.”

  “This is interesting, Pip, but what does it have to do with you becoming a scientist?”

  “I was setting the scene, Marty. But I see that I am boring you, so I will give you the annotated version. Eventually my sister and I ended up in Israel. This was right when a mermaid craze swept the country. You know what I am talking about, yes?”

  Marty nodded. In 2009 dozens of eyewitnesses reported seeing a mermaid in the Mediterran
ean Sea near Haifa. The local legend became an international phenomenon, and tourists began flocking to the beach where it was spotted to catch a glimpse of the creature, which supposedly looked like a cross between a little girl and a dolphin.

  “Mermaids were all anybody talked about for weeks,” Pip continued. “The town’s tourism board offered an award of one million dollars to anyone who caught one on film. No one ever did.”

  “Because it wasn’t real, Pip.”

  “No, it was not,” she agreed. “But the power of suggestion and imagination is very strong. I became caught up in the craze too. I convinced my sister to stay in a hostel near the beach so I could look for the mermaid myself. Eventually I came to the conclusion the sightings were innocent mistakes that were exploited for tourism. But that experience did not stop me from believing in mermaids in general. I was as convinced then as I am now that they exist, and I realized I had found my calling. I would dedicate my life to proving they are real. When I returned to France, I completed a master’s degree in marine science. I became involved in a small community of sirentologists. I even traveled to London to attend a lecture of yours at the University of Cambridge.”

  “You never told me that!”

  “I went to many of your lectures, if you want the truth.”

  Marty had a revelation. “Did you follow me to Sri Lanka, Pip?” he asked, stunned.

  “When I saw in the news that you were hiding in Sri Lanka—”

  “I wasn’t hiding. I came here to—”

  “I would hide too, mon capitaine, if I had been in your position. The things people were saying about you were not very nice. But did I follow you? I do not know if I would say that. One of my sirentologist friends is from Calcutta. She was returning home for a few weeks and asked if I wanted to join her. I had not been traveling since the Europe trip with my sister, so I agreed. That is where we were—Calcutta—when we heard the news that you were in Sri Lanka. It was so close, we decided to go looking for you.”

  “Whatever the bloody hell for?”

  “Because you were the biggest sirentologist on the planet, and we were nerdy groupies. You seem to be getting upset, Marty. Should I finish my story?”

  “Please do, Pip,” he said sternly.

  “We went to the Daily Mirror and spoke to Jacky, who had just written the story about you—”

  “Jacky!”

  “She said you lived on a big boat in Galle Port. We couldn’t find it and figured you must be out at sea. My friend went back to India, but I stayed behind to wait for you. When you returned, and I saw that the ‘boat’ you lived on was a research vessel, and I realized you were not just hiding here but searching for merfolk, I decided you might need an assistant. And look! Now we are living happy and everlasting.”

  “Happily ever after?”

  “That is what I said.”

  Marty was staring at Pip, gobsmacked. He’d had no idea about any of this. Admittedly he hadn’t asked many questions when he’d initially hired her. She’d told him she was impressed by his ship, she was a marine biologist, and she was looking for work. Some preliminary questions confirmed she was familiar with the operation and analysis of sonar, and that had been good enough for him. After all, he’d never thought she would be anything more than a temporary assistant, sticking around for a few weeks at tops. It had been months before he’d confessed to her that he was searching for merfolk—something it was now clear she had known the entire time!

  “There, on the horizon,” Pip said, pointing through the pilothouse’s inclined windshield. “You can see the island now.”

  Chapter 17

  MARTY

  Marty snagged a pair of binoculars hanging on a wall hook and pressed them to his eyes. The island was covered with verdant vegetation, an emerald dot suspended in a world of blue.

  “We’ll continue this talk later, Pip,” he said. “Deploy the sonar winches and keep an eye out for the best locations to place the hydrophones. I’ll go get them ready.”

  Marty left the pilothouse and transferred fourteen hydrophones from the ship’s workshop to the aft deck. They were cylindrical, made from ceramic so as to not interfere with the reception of audio input, and mounted on stainless steel cones to keep them from touching the seabed. Chunky waterproof battery packs allowed them to record the first two minutes of acoustic data every ten minutes for up to three months. Over the next few hours, he used the A-frame boom to deploy four of them in a vertical line array at a depth of 150 meters.

  At five o’clock he called it a day and went below deck to shower and change into evening clothes. When he returned to the main deck, he found everybody gathered and talking excitedly. It took him a moment to realize what all the fuss was about: a curlicue of smoke rising from the center of Demon Island into the darkening twilight.

  Brow furrowed, he said, “I thought the island was unpopulated.”

  Elsa nodded. “It’s a designated wildlife sanctuary.”

  “That’s what I read. So who’s that over there? A ranger?”

  “Or a castaway,” said Rad. “That could be an SOS smoke signal.”

  “At nighttime?”

  “I’m with Marty,” Jacky said. “It’s simply some ranger cooking his dinner.”

  “Looks like a lot of smoke for a cooking fire,” said Rad.

  “You know, that island used to be used as a prison of sorts?” Marty said, deciding to have some fun with Rad, knowing she was superstitious to her core. “At the beginning of the eighteenth century a Dutch soldier was convicted of sodomy while stationed in what was then Ceylon. He was marooned on Demon Island as punishment. Perhaps his ghost still haunts it?”

  “Ghosts don’t make fires.”

  “Perhaps it uses the smoke to lure unsuspecting sailors to the island?”

  Rad folded her arms across her chest. “You’re not scaring me, Marty. You’re being condescending.”

  Grinning, Marty lit his pipe, stuck the stem in the corner of his mouth, and puffed. “I’m going to make myself a much-deserved drink,” he announced. “Would anyone care to join me?”

  ∆∆∆

  Earlier in the day Marty had caught several bony fish on trolling lines. He baked two of them—a mullet and snapper—for dinner, which everybody ate on the foredeck. Afterward they sat around beneath the stars for a nightcap. Jacky and Rad chatted with Pip, while Marty and Elsa had an erudite discussion on the acidification of the oceans. Nobody seemed in the mood to talk about merfolk, Marty included, and at seven thirty they retired to their cabins for an early night.

  Marty dreamed he was lost on Demon Island, pursued by creatures he couldn’t identify. He woke before dawn, sheathed in sweat. He showered, shaved, dressed, then went to the dry lab to check on the preliminary data from the hydrophones.

  An hour later, he went to the kitchen to make a coffee and was surprised to find Elsa there, scrambling eggs in a skillet on the stove.

  “Good morning, Elsa,” he said. “Smells good.”

  “Good morning, Marty. I hope you don’t mind that I raided your cupboards. I’m making enough for everyone.” She removed a tray filled with crispy bacon from the oven and set it on the counter.”

  “Is that coffee freshly brewed?”

  “Indeed.” She filled two mugs from the coffee pot. “Milk? Sugar?”

  “Black for me, thank you.”

  She handed him a mug and took the other for herself. “You’re up early.”

  “I can say the same about you. But, yes, I’ve been in the dry lab for about an hour already. We have a curious pod of dolphins hanging around the ship. I suppose they don’t get many people out this way.”

  To the east, the sun crept above the horizon, orange and yellow rays of light fanning out against the waking sky. Marty and Elsa watched the sunrise in silence for several long moments.

  “It’s beautiful,” Elsa said finally.

  “Do you get out on the ocean often?”

  “I used to. Not so much anymore.”
/>
  “What made you and your husband relocate to Sri Lanka, if I may ask? Or did you meet him here?”

  “Excuse me? Oh.” She glanced down at the diamond on her ring finger. “My husband isn’t with us anymore.”

  “I’m terribly sorry. I had no idea—”

  “No idea about what?” Rad asked, entering the kitchen dressed in a pair of blue silk pajamas.

  Elsa cleared her throat. “Coffee, Miss Fernandez?”

  “Yes, please.” She accepted a mug of coffee and filled it to the rim with milk. “Have you guys eaten?”

  “Not yet,” said Marty, “but help yourself.”

  “I believe I will.” Rad retrieved a stack of plates from a cupboard and filled one with two scoops of scrambled eggs and three pieces of bacon. “Have to fill up for my big day.”

  “Lounging in the sun sure does burn a lot of calories.”

  “Actually, Jacky and I are going to explore the island.”

  Marty blinked. “What are you talking about?”

  “Just what I said. We planned everything last night.”

  Believing it would have been inappropriate for Rad to sleep in the master stateroom with him while there were other guests onboard, Marty had suggested she sleep in the second bed in Jacky’s cabin.

  Apparently they’d done more than sleep.

  “It’s a wildlife sanctuary,” he reminded her. “Tourists aren’t permitted.”

  “Do you see any cops around, Marty?”

  “There’s a ranger on the island.”

  “You say it’s a ranger. We think it’s a castaway. We’re going to try to find him.”

  He chuffed. “Oh, no, you’re not.”

  “Why not?”

  “You have no idea who it might be.”

  “You just said it’s a ranger. If it is, we’ll tell him we saw the smoke and were concerned, that’s all. No harm, no foul.”

  “It’s likely a ranger, Rad. But there’s a chance it’s not. It could be a criminal hiding out from the law. I’m sorry. You two aren’t going to the island.”

  “I’m a grown woman, Marty! You can’t tell me what to—”

  “And I’m the captain of this ship. I make the calls.”