Chapter No. 9 Precious Stones

Day five and another lazy day in the waters off Fernandina: The only thing of interest is a group of Sally Lightfoot crabs crawling around on the rocks near shore. Their bright neon-red appendages make them easy to spot from a distance.

And, there are always the rambunctious sea lions. They're all over the place, and they're a virtual troop of playful, entertaining creatures. Just watching the large-girthed bulls protecting their territory by swimming back and forth barking and gesturing menacingly at any invader is an amusing way to spend a morning. They have their fins full, for there are many predators out there ready to grab a hapless youngster. Sea lions on this side of the archipelago also attract orcas. And there are plenty of hungry sharks. On shore, females nurse their pups and try to prevent them from frolicking in the dangerous seas.
By noon, both intrepid scientists are ready for something more interesting.
Or exciting.

"Just think, Love," Eric said without turning around. "Most people spend their lives bored to death. We, on the other hand, are living out an adventure."

"At least those bored-to-death people live to a ripe old age. We'll be lucky to survive this expedition."

"I don't care. At the rate things are going, we'll die of boredom."

"I second that emotion," his wife said.

After several minutes of silence, Eric turned to his wife. "Maybe we should take a break and hunt for something down below."

Her eyes brightened. "Yes, I'm sick of this waiting."

"Ok, Love." Her husband advanced the throttle and flooded the ballast tanks. "Going down."

The minisub swiftly slid beneath the surface to enter an amazing world of activity. The seas around the Galapagos Islands teem with life and quite a bit of it is unique. A biologist can literally bump into a new species without really trying. The only caveat is that he or she must risk plunging into the depths where danger is a way of life and death is a constant companion.

Especially at the depths the Hauptmans like to explore. Most recreational--or professional for that matter--divers rarely risk dives below 45 meters. In order to make deep dives, Eric and Margaret used re-breather units in which the carbon dioxide they breathe out is scrubbed and pure oxygen is bled into the system to replace that which they use up. Besides allowing longer dives, the system is lighter and less bulky than standard compressed air systems. The bad news is that you have to pay particular attention to the dive computer. If an excess of carbon dioxide builds up, death is right around the corner.
As the minisub descended into the sea, a blanket of near darkness made seeing difficult, but there is no dearth of things to see: Fish that resemble neon signs mesmerize their prey into a false sense of serenity with garish bioluminescent beads and ribbons. Red and white striped eels wiggle along the bottom searching for crustaceans. Delicate films of translucent flesh, lined and tipped with pink, dance whimsically, undulating and flaring to sweep living food inside their ravenous mouths. Dark and mysterious stingrays glide along like jet fighter squadrons, swooping along the sea bottom, trailing their swaying tails. Hermit crabs plough the bottom, dragging their borrowed shells along behind them. The panorama is enticing, especially to two biologists.

"Let's get out and explore those chitons over there." Margaret pointed to a colony surrounding what appeared to be part of a sunken ship, an ancient fishing vessel that probably fell victim to a ferocious storm.

Eric flooded the main compartment, and when the pressure equalized, he activated the canopy release. After the canopy retracted, the two occupants swam out into the sea with only their lamps to dispel the silent darkness.

They approached the wreck with care, making sure that there were no unexpected predators lying in wait among its barnacle-encrusted structures.

Margaret quickly swam to the chitons and examined them closely. She dislodged one with her knife and placed it in her specimen bag. When a stray fish meandered close to her, she paused to admire its unusual coloring, but in the twinkling of an eye, the fish was enveloped by long red arms, powerful tentacles and arms that were connected to a bright red squid. As the creature darted away with its prey caressed in a death grip, Margaret swung her waterproofed camcorder up and began recording it.

Noting his wife's sweeping camcorder light, Eric moved closer to get a better look. His attention was so completely captured by the rare cephalopod that he failed to notice the approach of a new hungry mouth. Even at the depth of seventy meters, the ominous shadow that the creature cast was unnerving. He looked up to find himself staring into two black doll-like eyes and a cavernous mouth filled with razor sharp teeth. His only relief was the fact that he was staring into open eyes. When sharks attack, membranes cover their eyes.

Margaret didn't see the shark until it was next to her husband. Her heart racing, she swam toward him, flailing around in a desperate attempt to distract the large Maco shark's attention.

The shark was not impressed.

At this point Margaret's heart was in her throat and it was beating ferociously. She instinctively grabbed for her knife, but she knew the gesture was a waste of time. There was no way she could get to her husband in time, and even if she could, there was little she could do to a big shark with her little knife.

Suddenly, whirling trails of bubbles whistled through the water, knifing into the shark's side, causing explosions of blood. When the shark arched its back and began twitching and flopping violently, Eric moved away. Soon, death stilled the shark and it drifted away, trailing plumes of blood into the darkness.

Feeling a stinging sensation in his left calf, Eric played his hand lamp on the location of the pain and saw a small hole in his wet suit. Quickly, the pain grew in intensity, and he saw blood swirling from the hole. Margaret came to his side, noted his attention to the wound, and inspected it closely.

She motioned for him to return to the minisub and he obeyed without hesitation. After helping him into the back seat, she climbed into the pilot seat, retracted the canopy and actuated the compartment pump. After several anxious minutes, the main compartment was filled with air.

"What happened?" she asked him, still trying to catch her breath--and her wits.

"I don't know. It feels like a puncture wound."

She examined his pain-twisted face. "We have to get you back to the Nautilus."

He nodded and attempted a smile but it came out as a grimace.

Margaret advanced the throttles and adjusted the diving planes to move up to thirty meters as quickly as possible while still maintaining a higher than normal pressure in the main compartment. After they arrive at the docking bay, they will have to decrease pressure slowly to purge excess nitrogen from their bodies the penalty for being exposed to water pressure at a depth of over seventy meters.

###

George Stevens looked up at Joyce Conners and flashed a satisfied grin.

"What the hell are you grinning about? You look like a Cheshire cat that just swallowed a canary."

"I was just thinking about the Hauptman's. They're out there wasting their time chasing after a hoax."

"Why don't you leave the Hauptman's alone? They're following their dream."

"Horse shit! They're just wasting precious Institute resources."

"What the hell difference does it make? It's not your resources. The Institute can afford it."

"You sound like a government employee," Stevens said. "No wonder that the Institute's budget is . . ."

DOCTOR CONNERS TO THE INFIRMARY. DOCTOR CONNERS REPORT TO THE INFIRMARY.

Conners looked up at the speaker in the specimen lab and frowned. "What the hell's going on now? Some idiot stub his toe?"

Stevens laughed. "You are the ship's doctor, Doctor."

"Yeah, I know. I just wished they wouldn't blare it all over the ship like it was a damned crisis."

"Maybe it is," George said in a teasing manner.

She gave him a disgusted look before she plodded out of the lab.

When she arrived at the infirmary, she saw Eric lying on the examination table.
"What the hell happened to you, Hauptman?"

"I don't know. Something stung me in the leg."

"Roll over and let me have a look."

Eric rolled over on his stomach and Conners began her examination of the wound.

"There's something in there," she said. "I had better remove it." She continued to probe the wound.

"Ouch!"

"I'll have to give you a local. It's going to take some cutting to get it out."

She gave him a shot above the wound and then waited until it took effect. After making a small incision, she soon had a grip on the object with forceps and used the instrument to pull it out and place it in a specimen tray.

"Looks like a bullet. What the hell were you doing out there: having a gunfight?"

Eric turned around to look up at her. "A bullet! That's impossible. We were down at least sixty meters. No bullet could penetrate that deep."

"Hey, I'm just a medic, not a munitions expert."

Conners washed out the wound, sutured it, and bandaged it using a spray-on. "Stay off this for a few days."

Eric didn't like the idea, but he nodded.

After she bandaged the wound, Conners washed the object she had taken from his leg and examined it closely. "This is a very strange object. It's shaped like a bullet, but it has a sharper nose, vertical striations, and it's not made out of metal."

Margaret moved to her side. "What's it made from?"

"Some kind of stone. I'll have to do some tests to determine its precise composition."

"You sound as if you believe it's an artifact," Eric said.

She shrugged, more to mock him than to signal ignorance. "I'm not an expert on stone bullets, Hauptman. Maybe it just resembles a bullet. Who knows?"

Eric sighed. "Well, whatever it is, it probably saved my life."

"How's that, Hauptman?"

"Whatever that thing is, a bunch of them hit a Maco shark that was about to bite my head off."

"Did you see anybody?"

"No. I have no idea where they came from."

Conners began cleaning up her instruments. "Well, at least nothing serious happened. I'm not a surgeon. I just happen to have some medical training. I can't handle major injuries."

"Oh, I don't know," Eric, said, giving her a wink. "I think you could handle a room full of wounded Tasmanian Devils."

She stared at him with a glower at first, but then melted down to a forced smile.

Just then, a blond-haired woman in her mid thirties popped in. She had a trim, muscular figure, graceful features, but there were hints of weathering here and there, not to mention a ragged seven-inch scar on her right arm.

"Dr. Hauptman!" Dr. Ruth Altman, the Institute's expert on sharks, said. "I just heard that you were attacked by a Maco shark. What happened?"

Conners rolled her eyes. "No keeping a secret on this tub."

"I wasn't attacked," Eric said. "The shark was killed by . . . Well, I don't really know how it was killed."

Dr. Altman stared at him with confused eyes.

"It was shot with stone bullets," Conners said, holding up the object that she removed from Eric's leg.

"Stone bullets?"

"Well," Conners said. "That's what it looks like."

She handed the object to Altman.

"I don't understand," she said after looking it over. "Is this what killed the shark?"

"No," Conners said. "That came out of Hauptman's leg. He claims that similar objects penetrated the shark."

Altman's eyes widened. "But what . . . who did this?"

"That's what we all would like to know," Eric said. "I couldn't see who was responsible."

"I don't understand. If objects similar to this killed the shark, why didn't they cause more damage to your leg?"

"Perhaps," Margaret said, "the object that struck my husband's leg ricocheted from something else, maybe the shark."

Dr. Altman shook her head. "This is very strange. I've never encountered anything like this."

Eric considered that an understatement, but he elected to remain quiet. No use starting unfounded rumors. He was just grateful to whoever it was.