Chapter 8
The lab was a fifteen-minute walk down the hill to the tiny harbor that Harper had seen from the ride into the village.
A stone cottage on the water line, it looked more hobbit hole than science lab.
Inside, it was a jumble of unpacked equipment, folding tables, and chairs.
Harper sighed heavily as Kyle enthusiastically opened the door.
“So you haven’t started setting up,” Harper stated, already feeling a headache forming behind her eyes.
“They told us to wait for you. Team Lead manages the lab; besides, most of this arrived only a day or so ago.” Kyle sounded annoyed at the admonition.
“Let’s get to work,” Harper said as she stepped into the room.
She was pleased to find that the heater worked, in addition to the stone fireplace in the corner.
There was even a beat-up easy chair that Kyle arranged in front of the fireplace.
By the time everyone was ready for lunch, the boxes were opened and their contents lined the floor.
BSI had sent the original paper files from the New Brunswick team, which baffled Harper—surely everything was digitized.
The sonar equipment was in a small shed outside.
Murphy would bring the research vessel around the island to the small harbor, which Harper found out was called simply East Harbor, and they would launch from there.
The tables were set up, and Kyle was cabling power sources to the various stations.
It was starting to look more like a workspace and less of a dumping ground.
Harper stretched her neck and stared out the window. The lab overlooked the East Harbor. As she watched the restless waves rock the docked fishing boats back and forth she felt a weightless unsteadiness that she thought she’d left behind in Boston.
“You feel that?” Harper looked behind her at the team. “I think that was a tremor.”
Kyle looked at her uncertainly. “Yeah. It’s happened this week once before. Just really minor like now. That’s an earthquake?”
Harper pulled out her phone and clicked on the GeoRata app. “Yep. According to GeoRata, looks like a 3.2 and the epicenter is”—Harper copied the coordinates and plugged them into her GPS app—“about 40 miles off the coast, due east—right about where we’ll be heading.”
“I’ve only ever lived on the East Coast and never felt an earthquake, and now two in one week?” Kyle’s face was wrenched with worry.
“Way strange, these little tremblers are pretty common in Alaska, I’ve done fieldwork up there. But yeah, really strange. Maybe they’re more common on Bell? We are pretty far off coast.” Harper tried to control the trepidation in her voice.
“Such babies. A 3.2 hardly counts. You all should visit me in Tokyo,” Shuri said with a grin. “Lunch. It’s time for lunch.”
The team led Harper to the main street she’d driven through with Murphy. Kyle grinned as he presented a hole-in-the-wall diner with a curved counter. Bell Diner, read the faded sign over the door. “I have a food crush on this place.”
A handful of customers sat at the counter inside.
A cat of fluff and size equal to Polly but with a mottled black-and-gray coat lounged on a stool, utterly unconcerned with the new arrivals.
The human occupants regarded Harper and the team with unmasked disdain as they entered.
They slid into one of the booths that lined the wall.
A potbellied man wearing a stained shirt and apron looked up at them from behind the counter.
Kyle smiled at the man. “Meet Harper, our Team Lead, we can finally get to work. Harper, meet Bennie, he’s the nicest man in town.” Kyle passed Harper a paper menu.
“Nice to meet you, Bennie. I just arrived yesterday, but I swear I’m the last.” Harper mirrored Kyle’s smile.
Bennie grunted. “Shout it out when you know what you want.” And he went back to his work behind the counter.
“That’s the nicest man in town, huh?” Harper said in a low voice, and Kyle nodded with a sardonic grin on his face.
“Yes, in fact. Wait till you meet the charming lady who runs the laundromat,” he said in a near whisper. Shuri groaned softly and shook her head.
An hour later, Harper was full of grilled cheese and fries, and she could not argue Kyle’s food crush. Shuri brought them all steaming cups of coffee, trading them for the empty plates, which Bennie accepted with another grunt.
“Okay, so let’s break it down a bit,” Harper said, blowing on her coffee.
“Fifteen years ago, the New Brunswick team spent several months down here mapping hydrothermal vents approximately 3,100 miles down. It was building on research from the University of Iceland regarding DNA anomalies in water surrounding the vents.” Harper took a sip of the coffee and grimaced at the bitterness.
“What was supposed to be a routine geothermal observation turned out to be something entirely different.”
“The octopus,” Kyle said, nodding.
“Yes, the octopus,” Harper replied. “Your mother”—she nodded to Shuri—“was part of the team that discovered a species of deep-sea octopus that were laying eggs 3,100 feet down on the seamounts adjacent to the hydrothermal vents.”
“But they couldn’t track them then, just note the locations.
They had an ROV that failed before it ever launched and there was never any evidence of the octopus on the surface, so the original team tagged the study for a fifteen-year check to see if the colony was still active or just a fluke,” Kyle said in an excited rush.
“They’d been trying to get water samples, the most pure water on the planet, untouched by all things human, and that only comes from the Earth’s core. But they found Thalassa.” Kyle grinned.
“And your mother and father,” Shuri said carefully, “provided some of the preliminary research that led to all of this.” She looked around the table.
“I’ve done my homework.” She cocked her head at Harper.
“You are far too humble about your connections to Bell. From what I read, your parents were Aron and Kristín Hafdóttir, their work on Bell was the core of the New Brunswick team. Your mother published the first paper about anomalies in the DNA sequences surrounding Bell Island. It was her paper that led to investigation of the hydrothermal vents in the first place.”
Harper smiled, a quiet pride in her words.
“I’m glad you did your homework and read the lab reports.
” A memory flashed of her parents on the deck of their research vessel in Vestmannaeyjar, their cheeks flushed, their bodies perfectly at ease on the sea.
“You are absolutely right. They were extraordinary. As was your mother too, Shuri; from all the reports she was the last off the island during the hurricane, and one of the only reasons the research survived the storm. Speaking of the storm, I’m sure you”—she pointed at Kyle—“are aware that the New Brunswick team was forced to abort the mission and evacuate after Hurricane Audra tore through. It was a miracle the town survived, but the lab was obliterated.”
Harper sipped her coffee. “We are here to follow the map left by New Brunswick, identify if the colony survived, thrived, or disappeared. We are also tasked with identifying the octopus. Are they Common Octopus, which are, well … common to the area? Or are they something else? And you are quite right, Kyle. The proposed species name was Thalassic calide. But that was before anyone believed they were real. So don’t get too attached. ”
“My mother talked about the Thalassa. She said it was an old folk story,” Shuri said.
“It is,” Harper replied. “Greek mythology. Thalassa is older than the gods, an elemental, mother of the sea who lived in the very deepest depths of the ocean.” Harper nodded at the team.
“Like our octopus,” Shuri said softly.
“Exactly. And like our octopus, she is very unlikely to be seen. I like it, adds some mystique to what is essentially a study of microbes and water temperature.” Harper regarded the team.
“I want to make sure our expectations are clear on this project. The crew at Okeanos firmly does not believe this colony exists. You all know that octopus favor colder, more oxygen-rich waters, and the fact that there have never been any surface sightings are not in our favor. We are here because of an agreement made fifteen years ago between BSI and New Brunswick to follow up on the colony. We are very likely to be collecting a lot of water samples to be sent back to Okeanos for DNA analysis, taking temperature readings, and running sonar scans. You all in for that?” It was more statement than question.
“If they’re wrong, and the Thalassa exist, there’s a whole new species out there that no one’s ever seen. Even if it’s a slim chance, I want to see that,” Shuri answered softly. “My mother passed last year, and she wanted to see them more than anything.”
Harper paused, unexpected emotion welling in her throat. “For your mother, and mine, we will do our damnedest to find something in the soil and rock.”
Kyle handed the empty mugs over the counter to Bennie, who grunted acknowledgment.
The group was quiet on the way back to the lab.
A rustle in the scrubby growth near the doorway to the lab caught Harper’s eye.
She waved the others inside and watched the spot, wondering what manner of squirrel or mouse lived on the island.
As she leaned forward, a low-toned hiss, barely perceptible even to her sensitive ears, cut through the frozen grass.
Harper jumped back and stepped away, shifting her gaze to the harbor.
Harper wondered what other mysteries Bell Island hosted.