The Great Unknown

“Thank you for taking the time to meet with me today.” The stocky sunburned man pulls out a folder with my résumé and letter of application in it. “You have successfully completed phase one of your admissions interview.”

“What?” My heart sinks. I have just been arguing with this guy, thinking he was another candidate for the same position I’m interviewing for.  

Then he comes clean, says he’s the one hiring people. “Just had to test you.”

At his invitation, I come inside to the control room of a medium-sized boat, its large observation window looking out on the bobbing waves of the ocean. (The argument was trivial, about whether coffee cups could be recycled. He said no; I pointed to the sign that said sleeves and lids should go into the recycling bin.)

“My name is Martin Vandersnitt. I’m project lead for the deep-sea exploration crew.” He laughs, obviously enjoying my discomfiture. “I have to test prospective crew members, make sure they’re a good fit.”

“I’m sorry if I was too uh blunt,” I say, fumbling for words.

He chuckles softly. “Oh, don’t worry. I wanted to see how you’d handle disagreements. You didn’t sulk, resort to name calling, or blow your top. You calmly referred to the rules. So… you passed part one—with flying colors.”

I blink. It didn’t feel so calm to me. “A strange way to do it.” I still don’t feel entirely comfortable with Martin Vandersnitt.

We fall quiet while he peruses my résumé and I gaze out the window. The sight of the ocean relaxes me. Breathing deeply, I am revitalized by the familiar marine odor: fresh fish, seaweed, and engine oil.

The SS Magdalena, where we are sitting, is the boat that will carry the crew and a remote operated vehicle (ROV), known as a Rover, two miles offshore and lower it, still attached by a long serpentine cable, until it reaches the ocean floor. Once there, it can continually transmit data and be remotely operated.

The deck is quiet right now, with a few gulls slowly circling over the water, returning to sit on the poles, the rigging, and the giant cable spool. They are as impatient as I am to get out on the water. Gulls love boats churning through water, bringing up unsuspecting fish to the surface, just as much as swallows love to follow the plow.

Inside, it’s a fancier control room than I’ve worked in before—more computer workstations, more screens to display data coming up from the ocean floor, and a bigger map showing Rover’s position.

Suddenly, I notice movement near a coil of rope that lies in the shadows, partially hidden by a bench. I hold my breath while Martin flips a page. I watch until I see movement again.

It’s a kitten. Squeaky? A ghost from my past?

I pretend to watch the gulls but it’s really the kitten (or ghost) I’m straining to see again. And the kitten comes back, this time silently stalking a moth, then ducking out of sight. There is something accusatory in its small, precise movements, its poker tail.

Martin goes through phase two of the admissions interview, which consists of the regular interview questions: what drew me to study marine biology; the previous work assignments I’ve had; and how comfortable I’d be working with a small crew. “Your degrees are from University of Auckland?”

“Yes,” I say. “I grew up in New Zealand but I’m an American citizen.”

He checkmarks a form. Finally, he says, “Your references had great things to say about you… so… welcome to the crew of SS Magdalena.”

He seems to be waiting for me to gush with joy over landing a job. It’s true; I am over the moon about getting an offer—and right now, it would be appropriate to show some excitement and gratitude—but my inner skeptic makes me hold back.

He hands me an employee pass card on a lanyard with BOEM (Bureau of Ocean Energy Management) stamped on it. Sunlight from the large window glints from the plastic surface.

“It’ll be a relief to work for a well-established program,” I say—and I mean it. My past three summers were spent working for non-profits that had to squeeze every penny. A strange expression when you think of it, since pennies are obsolete now and besides, what would you get from squeezing one, except a cramp in your thumb?

By contrast, BOEM is flush with cash, thanks to the recent multi-billion-dollar energy initiative. “But,” I say to Martin, “I care deeply about protecting vulnerable species and their eco-systems. More than I care about the energy to run electric toasters. Just so you know.”

He looks mildly surprised by my declaration. “Well. You are hired as a marine biologist—and I guess that’s what you guys stand for.”

Uh-oh: “you guys.” It sounds like “us” versus “them.” I gnaw my lip. Is Martin Vandersnitt really interested in protecting eco-systems?

“Protecting wildlife shouldn’t be a problem,” he says. He taps his pen on the folder. “But here’s the thing. There’s a bunch of polymetallic nodules just lying there on the ocean floor.” He drops his pen on the desk and makes basketball shapes with his hands. “Nodules are ripe for the plucking. It’ll be like picking up gold nuggets from the stream beds in the first days of the California Gold Rush.” He licks his lips.

“You describe it in glowing terms,” I say, “like it won’t disrupt anything to tear the nodule from the surrounding life forms.”

He eyes me keenly. “Those polymetallic nodules are really what’s driving this project, Evangelia.”

I bristle when he speaks my name—it’s the same tactic salesmen used on my mom when they’d be plying her with new dress samples for her shop.

Martin continues, radiating sincerity. “Getting minerals from them so we can build more batteries and better batteries—that’s what’s funding this whole deep-sea exploration project.”

I cross my arms. I’ve already stated my position: I champion ecology over the never-ending greed for cheap energy.

“Let me tell you a lil story, Evangelia.” Martin adopts a soft, folksy voice with a slower rhythm. “I grew up in a family of ten. Eight hungry kids at the table—and, since I was second youngest, my seat was at the far end of the table. The serving bowls made their way down to me—more often empty than not. Around eight years old, I used to shoplift—good enough so I never got caught. By age ten, I got a job delivering supermarket flyers so I could buy my own food. Do you see the moral of the story?”

“That you’re willing to break the law?”

“Ha ha, no.” He sizes me up. “The moral is, you have to pay your own way in life. Now, if we have to chat up the Department of Energy about all those rare-earth metals in the nodules to fund our program of ocean research for those quirky lil critters that live at the bottom of the ocean, so be it. I’m happy to talk the talk. Are you with me?”

Oh God, this guy really is a salesman.

Hang on, maybe I can fight story with story.

“Two summers ago,” I begin, “I was involved with an ocean-bed recovery operation. An aircraft fuselage had to be lifted. All the way to the top. It wasn’t that deep, only a couple thousand feet below. But it was very tough to do because of the weight of the water—and the extreme cold—and zero visibility.”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s the engineers’ problem,” he says, waving it away.

“The plane had been down there only twelve years,” I say. “That’s a millisecond, compared to the time the nodules have been there, right?”

He nods, but a wary look comes into his eyes, like a salesman who’s about to be sold to.

“There were already deep-sea creatures there, dependent on the shelter provided by the crash fuselage. Creatures like the viperfish, the lantern fish. Fragile creatures with specific needs for their young to survive.”

“Ah, the viperfish,” he says jokingly.

“Yes, the viperfish.” I have to chuckle, too—the common names of these species are a little bizarre, I’m the first to admit. But then I get serious again. “The engineers—those almighty heroes you think can handle every problem—they made a terrible mess of the lift. They ripped up the whole sea-bed.” Simply saying it aloud makes me feel upset all over again. “They couldn’t get the fuselage and worse, they wiped out the entire school of viperfish.”

“Okay… we’ll learn from their mistakes.” He asks for the contractor’s name, and I oblige. He flashes a smile. “I do care about the eco-system, Evangelia.”

“The eco-system of the deep sea is more fragile than on land, or in lakes and marshlands,” I say. “It takes longer to recover. I hope you’ll take that into account with your time estimates.”

“I will,” he says.

“How can I believe you?” Incredibly, it seems, he is seeking approval from the eco-systems and bio-diversity people—including me.

“We’ve got ESG ratings to protect. I need you to support our mission, okay?” His voice is plaintive and it’s not hard to picture him as a skinny, pale kid sitting at the far end of the table, waiting for food that never comes. “Okay?”

“I can’t promise that yet,” I say. “I’m concerned about vulnerable creatures. I need data to see how they—”

“Data, schmata! We need funding.” He drops the charming pretense. “The general public? Nobody really cares about the precious lil viperfish or… or… the spot-bellied squid. They care about energy to power their cars and their smartphones. They care more about getting the metals so they can have that.” His nostrils flare. “A bunch of scientists—including you, Evangelia, will be unemployed without this project getting the greenlight.”

I spread my arms in mock surrender. “Jeez, I’m barely hired and now you’re talking pink slips!”

He exhales an elephantine sigh. “I’m just being realistic.”

His paternalism rubs me the wrong way. The boss who thinks the paycheck trumps my own code of morals. Who thinks that waving a dollar at me will get me to bow down and kiss his feet. I’d rather be an unemployed marine biologist, walking dogs for a living, than someone helping cover up the next environmental catastrophe.

Those poor, defenseless viperfish. Well, okay, with their two-inch fangs I guess they’re not totally defenseless, are they? A split-second fantasy brings a smile to my face: attaching viperfish to the noses of all who ruin their habitat. “Realistic, yeah, I get that,” I say, relaxing back to my regular, mild nerdy self.

He looks relieved. “Good.”

“I hope your marine engineers can figure out how to do a gentle scoop.” At this point, I have a strong urge to stop and pinch myself: am I dreaming? I sound like a take-control gal.

“A gentle scoop, eh?” He reflects on this. “They have a variety of devices they can choose from. There’s got to be one that minimizes the damage.”

He takes a step back, fixing me fully in his sight. He sees a frizzy-haired, gangly eco-warrior.  I know I am blushing—but I try to ignore this. Think of the viperfish, the lantern fish, the frilly shark, the squat lobster… all these amazing deep-sea creatures… and the hundreds more who are not even known because so few submarine canyons have been properly and thoroughly explored.

“I tell you what.” He, too, looks pinker than his sunburn. “I’ll appoint a cross-disciplinary panel to minimize our footprint.” He gives a thousand-watt smile. This guy might be project manager of a mid-sized government boat, but he’s also a seasoned politician.

“I’d like that,” I say. “We could be the role model for all the other BOEM projects. How to protect ecosystems and collect natural resources.”

Yes, I make it sound good. Make it sound like I was won over by his hard-luck story of a hungry kid who learned to pay his way.

The kitten leaps from the coiled rope, and we both stop to watch him as he pounces about, trying to catch a moth.

Martin laughs. “That looks just like my lil Squeaky,” he says. His voice has flipped back to the softer, folksy style, and it catches me off guard. “We called him Squeaky coz he had the weirdest meow.”

“Squeaky.” I chuckle with recognition. “That’s what I called my cat, too! But he was a ginger tabby, not like this one.”

And I called him Squeaky because of the sounds made by the little birds he liked to kill. Squeaky was an excellent hunter and when I was very young, I was proud of him. Then one day my Grade Two class went to the conservation park. I learned about the devastation caused by invasive species. I learned about the dogs and cats introduced to New Zealand by Europeans and how these pets hunted native birds—especially the shy, flightless Kiwi bird, the national symbol—to the point of extinction. I went home and had nightmares for the next week. I tried to make Squeaky an indoor cat but he was always running out.

It upset me terribly, this new knowledge that my cat was a murderer. Finally he came home dragging a dying takahe bird—and I convinced my parents we ought to have Squeaky put down. I have never forgotten the pain of that day. But I believe I did the right thing.

On the boat, the kitten jumps back into the coil of rope, breaking my reverie.

Martin’s formative childhood memory might be the hunger that forced him to source his own food. My formative childhood memory is somewhat sadder. Precociously cruel, some might say. I don’t plan to share it with him. At least not right away. But someone has to get serious about protecting endangered species.

Martin pushes the admissions sheet toward me. “Last step. Please sign here.”

I balance the pen in my hand. With every job I hope to make a difference, and some day I very well might. I sign.

“Welcome aboard,” he says and we shake hands.

Then I go out to the deck to look at the Rover and plan my next move.

THE END