My Last Continent(3)

“You’re right,” I say to Thom. “Gotta love a ghost ship.”

He nods. I look at him for a moment, then ask about his kids, his wife, how it feels to be back. We usually don’t spend a lot of time talking about our personal lives. But I have a question I need to ask him, and I want to ease into it.

After Thom fills me in on his wife’s new job, his kids’ transitions into the first and third grades, I bring it up. “So you were called in sort of last minute?”

He nods. “I contacted Glenn last year, thinking I’d be ready to come down again now that the kids are older. He said he didn’t have any openings, but then he called a couple of months ago, asked me to fill in.”

“For Keller?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“I didn’t ask.” He looks at me. “You don’t know?”

I shake my head. Out of the corner of my eye I glimpse a passenger entering the room, and I feel my shoulders shrink down, an automatic reflex, the instinct to hide. But the guy sees us and comes over, his plate piled high with eggs and sausage, which would turn my stomach even if we weren’t rolling through the Drake. I know from the ship’s doctor that about 60 percent of the men on board take heart medication. I also know that the second most requested pill on this ship, after meclizine for seasickness, is Viagra—and that the loss of blood flow to the right places is due more to artery-clogging food than to age.

And now this middle-aged guy, who actually looks trim and healthier than most, takes a seat across from Thom and me.

“Nice binocs,” Thom comments, indicating the binoculars the man has placed on the table.

“Thanks,” the man says, clearly pleased that Thom noticed. “Waterproof, shock resistant, image stabilizing. They’ve even got night vision.”

“Not that you’ll need it here,” Thom says.

“What do you mean?”

“It doesn’t get dark,” Thom says. “Just a couple hours of dusk between sunset and sunrise.”

The man looks out the nearest porthole, as if he’s not sure whether to believe what he’s heard. “Well, for what they cost me, I’ll certainly use them for other trips after this,” he says at last. “I’m Richard, by the way. Richard Archer.”

“Thom Carson. And this is Deb Gardner. Welcome aboard.” Thom rises to get more coffee, taking my mug with him.

I nod toward the binoculars. “May I?” I ask, reaching for them.

Richard pushes them across the spotless white tablecloth. “Be my guest.”

I take the binoculars over to a porthole and raise them to my face. It takes me a moment to realize they’re digital, that I have to press a button before my field of vision comes into sudden, sharp focus. Their power is incredible. After a few moments, I see the barnacle-encrusted gray head of a sperm whale, barely breaking the surface of the water as it refuels with air. I should announce this over the PA, but without binoculars like these, no one else is likely to see it.

I lower the binoculars and return to the table, handing them back.

“Maybe I did spend a little too much on them,” Richard says, “but this is a once-in-a-lifetime trip, right? I don’t want to miss anything.”

“There’s a sperm whale at eleven o’clock.” I point toward the horizon and watch him scan for the whale. I imagine the tiny electronic pulses that are disassembling and reassembling reality at mind-boggling speed.

Thom returns, placing fresh coffee in front of me. “What do you see?” he asks Richard.

“I’m trying to find a sperm whale.”

“It probably took a deep dive,” I say. “Don’t worry. You’ll see others.”

I’m not sure he will—typically only the males feed in this region, and they prefer the deepest of waters—but I try to be encouraging, to let people believe they’re going to see everything possible, that they’ll get their money’s worth. They don’t need to know that they could visit Antarctica every year for the rest of their lives and still not see all there is.

“So,” Richard says, putting the binoculars back on the table, “how long have you worked on the Cormorant?”

“We’re actually with the APP,” Thom tells him.

“Oh?”

Thom’s mouth is now full of toast, so I continue. “The Antarctic Penguins Project is a nonprofit organization,” I explain. “We study the three species of penguins here, tracking their progress, numbers, feeding and breeding habits. The boat transports us down here as part of the project’s mission to educate people about the region.”