Hugh Howey - The Shell Collector

“My dad saw that at Loch Ness. He saw people blaming a monster for all the things wrong with the world at large. He saw how we do this all the time. You want to know what the worst of it is?”

“What’s that?” I ask, my voice a whisper.

“The people who live around that loch, their monster doesn’t even exist. They had to create it.”

I wake in the middle of the night to the soft bump of landing gear hitting some unknown tarmac. Ness has moved to another seat, one that faces forward, and is peering outside. My only sense of how long we’ve been in the air is the two meals we were served. It felt like an eight-hour flight, but it could’ve been four or it could’ve been twelve.

The air outside is humid. I imagine we’re in the Caribbean, where I know Ness owns several islands. It occurs to me that I don’t have my passport, which might get interesting. The mystery of our destination will soon be solved by the nationality of the jail I end up in. But we don’t head for a customs building or the small airport when we deplane. Our bags are moved directly from the jet to an idling helicopter, and our trip has now taken on the air of the absurd.

It only gets crazier.

The helicopter takes us up and out to sea. I’ve ridden on a lot of helicopters in my line of work, and the mix of exhilaration and terror never lessens. I gaze down at the airport and then the wider land for hints about our location. The sporadic dots of lights from homes and a few moving cars reveal the outline of a small island. Tiny, in fact. I’m not great with distances, and our altitude and the dark make it even trickier, but the entire island looks to be no bigger across than Manhattan is long.

“Bermuda?” I ask. I have to raise my voice over the noisy rotor. This helicopter isn’t as sturdy and well insulated as the one we took from Ness’s house.

“Tristan da Cunha,” Ness says, which doesn’t solve the mystery of where in the hell we are.

“Never heard of it,” I confess.

“It’s about as far from anywhere as you can get.” He leans close so we don’t have to shout. “About twelve hundred miles from Saint Helena and fifteen hundred from South Africa.”

“You brought me to the Southern Hemisphere? ” I ask incredulously.

“You wanted to see what led me to those shells, right?”

I settle back in my seat. The scope of this story has shifted yet again, and not for the first time, I wonder why Ness is even taking me on this journey. He confessed as to the veracity of the shells on the plane. With the verdict no longer in doubt, that leaves only his justification. But why care what I think?

Suddenly, an answer to this last question falls into place.

The last time Ness made me keep something off the record, he gave me a glimpse of the truth in his grandfather’s journal, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to write my piece afterward. Perhaps he hopes he can do the same here, that he can show me some validation that would make the highly illegal seem perfectly okay. Maybe I was right to suspect that he’s working on an eco-education program, some way of raising awareness of species that have gone extinct. He said he wanted redemption. This fits. It all fits, but I don’t see how it will keep me from writing a piece about it. Unless he wants me to write that story. Unless I’m a tool for his ultimate redemption.

I hate that my mind goes to places like this, but it does, like filings to a magnet. When Ness takes an interest in something out the window, I lean across to check for myself, to get my thoughts elsewhere. Below, I see the lights of a ship. My stomach sinks as I realize we’re going to land on it.

Rain beads on the window—the stars and the moon are obscured as we drop through the clouds—and I wonder what the chances are that we left a rainstorm, flew however many thousands of miles to the other side of the globe, and are landing in yet another shower.

Red and white flashing lights illuminate the aft deck of the large ship. I can see a giant ‘H’ marked out on the deck. The helicopter touches down with a jarring double-bounce and a thump. Ness steadies me as I lurch into him. Men with glowing orange cones signal one last thing to the pilot, and then the door opens, and a man in a jumpsuit holding a large umbrella helps me out of the helicopter.

“Welcome to the Keldysh ,” the man says to me. He shakes Ness’s hand. “Hello, boss.”

“Lieutenant Jameson, Maya Walsh of the Times . Maya, this is Lieutenant Jameson. First mate on this vessel.”

“You can call me Jimbo, ma’am.”

“Would you mind showing her to her room?” Ness asks. “I’m going to speak with the captain and check the Mir.”

“Yessir.”

Ness guides me away from the helicopter, which is spinning down its rotors and being strapped to the deck by a crew in rain slicks. It appears it will be staying with the ship. Perhaps belongs to it. Rain pops against the umbrella, and the deck is shiny and wet; it gleams from all the bright lights scattered across the ship. I can feel the world moving and swirling beneath my feet and am thankful that a childhood on boats has made me resistant to seasickness.

“Get a good night’s sleep,” Ness tells me. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Before I can complain, or ask where he’ll be staying, or realize that it shouldn’t matter, my mind is adjusting itself to the distance between us. Staying in his guest house and knowing he is right up there on that dune was one thing; sleeping in the plane with him across from me was another; but neither of those were by any circumstance other than necessity. And once again, my summer-camp brain leaves me unprepared for this intense closeness followed by a sudden absence. As he walks away, something inside me is stretched like taffy. I look away before I feel it break.

Beside me, a stranger in a gray jumpsuit with the name “Jameson” on his chest indicates the way. I follow him numbly into the riveted hull, through cramped steel corridors, and to a bunkroom that makes my college dorm seem like some palatial resort in retrospect.

The lodgings do not matter. I’m exhausted and discombobulated. I still don’t know where I am or what the hell I think I’m doing. I unpack my bag, change into sleep shorts, and fall asleep with Moby Dick in my hands. I don’t open the book. Don’t need to. It just feels good to have something solid there, to not be chasing after a great big nothing. This white whale has a name, at least.

I wake to the smell of coffee brewing and the clang of boots on steel decking outside. It takes several minutes of lying in the dark to realize where I am, to make sense of which direction the door is in relation to my bed. I’m not in my apartment in New York. I’m not in Ness’s guest house. Not on a plane. I’m on a ship.

I stretch as much as the small bunk will allow, get up, and refresh myself in the tight confines of the pantry-sized bathroom. I brush my teeth and then figure out the shower, which is basically the bathroom itself. A nozzle in the wall and a drain on the floor suggest the rest of the room is just meant to get soaked. I close the door, lower the toilet lid, and take a steaming hot shower. I get dressed and then braid my hair into something utilitarian. It’s the military-feeling surroundings, I think. And the fact that my hair will never fully dry in this humidity.

Donning the shorts and t-shirt Ness suggested I bring, I grab my book and follow the wafting promise of coffee down the corridor, up one deck, and to a small mess hall or break room. Conversations continue after a brief pause and curious stares. Heads track me. I’m an alien in the midst of these jumpsuited, tight-knit oil roughnecks, or shell miners, or whatever they are.