Hugh Howey - The Shell Collector

“Ms. Walsh?”

A woman my age, but more muscular and with short-cropped hair, approaches. Her accent sounds vaguely Russian. We shake hands. “Maya,” I say.

“Petrona. Welcome aboard. Coffee’s over there. Eggs and ham? Or do you prefer porridge?”

“Eggs and ham,” I say. I make myself a cup of coffee. A heavyset man watches me and puffs on his vape. The cloud smells of mint and strawberries. “What is this ship?” I ask Petrona.

“The Keldysh? She’s an old research vessel. Decommissioned years ago until Ocean Oil got her fit again. A floating four-star hotel and world-class laboratory.” She says laboratory the way a Brit might, pronouncing the bore in the middle. “But mostly it’s home to the Mirs five and six. Finest shellers on the seven seas—”

“That’s enough,” a voice behind us says. I turn to see Ness entering the mess hall. He smiles at Petrona and wags a finger. He has something in his other hand. “Ms. Walsh is a reporter. The less you say the better.”

Someone seated at one of the tables laughs.

“How come you get coveralls, but you told me to wear shorts and a t-shirt?” I ask, studying Ness’s getup.

“Because shorts are what you wear under your coveralls.” He presents me with a neatly folded pair of coveralls of my own. I unfold them and see my name embroidered on the chest. “I was bringing them to you so you wouldn’t look ridiculous around here in your skivvies. Which you do.”

There’s a pause.

“So stop looking ridiculous,” he says.

More laughter from the peanut gallery. I go with it and put the coveralls on right there. They’re a perfect fit. I don’t ask how he procured them in such short order. Must’ve set this up days ago when I accepted his invitation. So whatever he has planned, everything is going according to it. Thus far, at least.

“Eat up,” he says. “You’re going to get hungry today, trust me. But go easy on the coffee.”

Too often, a thing stares me in the face long before I recognize it. I should have known what we were doing. Something the rain won’t affect, but no swimsuit needed. A sort of diving. The next progression of shelling. But it isn’t until a deckhand is cracking the hatch on the bright yellow submersible that I see what Ness is up to. It’s almost too late to complain.

“How safe is this?” I ask.

“Perfectly safe,” he says. “The Mir Mark Five is rated for depths this planet doesn’t even possess. You could sit at the bottom of the Mariana Trench in this puppy.” He slaps the hull with his hand, which rings like an empty oil barrel. A perfectly normal empty oil barrel. The kind I imagine the ocean deep would crush in its fist.

“How deep are we going, exactly?”

“A little less than twenty thousand feet.”

“That sounds like a lot.”

Ness laughs. “It is. We’re at one of the deepest points in the South Atlantic.” He gestures toward the sub. “Ladies first.”

“Always with the ‘Ladies first,’” I say. “Why do I expect things to go really poorly when you say that?”

“Because you think I’m inviting you to your doom. And maybe I am. Now watch your head when you get in. There are pipes and sharp corners everywhere. Russians are fond of such things. And don’t touch any buttons or levers.”

I find myself crawling inside the oblong craft. The passenger compartment is a rough sphere right behind and above the sub’s twin folded arms. There are wide portholes everywhere. I settle into the far seat despite my trepidations and watch the deck crew scramble around in the rain coiling cables, signaling to one another, and checking out various parts of the sub. There’s a scraping noise above me. Through a porthole in the roof, I can see the treads of someone’s boot. I watch as a thick cable is attached to a stout bar. Ness crawls in beside me.

“I take it you want to drive,” he says.

“No, I don’t. Switch.” I make to get up and let him slide under me, but he places a hand on my arm.

“I’m just kidding. There are controls on both sides. But I will let you take the wheel for a bit. It’s easy. Like playing a video game.”

“Awesome. So it’s exactly like something I never do.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“I swear to God, Ness, if our lives depend upon me operating this contraption, I want the hell out right now.”

“Okay. You don’t have to do anything. Sorry. Just trying to lighten the—”

“You aren’t lightening the mood!” I say. And I realize I’m panting. Just like the first time with the dive gear. Someone swings the hatch shut by Ness’s side, but he braces it and pushes it back open.

“Just one second,” he tells someone. And then he turns to me. “We don’t have to go if you don’t want to go. But I assure you, it’s perfectly safe. People have been going this deep for nearly a century. The equipment has gotten nothing but better. You are safer in this than you were in the helicopter.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

Ness shrugs.

“Why didn’t you just tell me yesterday that this was what we were coming here to do?”

“Because you would’ve worried all night. You wouldn’t have slept. And you’d be even more panicked now after getting yourself worked up for hours over this.”

He’s right. But I don’t like decisions made for me, even if they are in my best interest. Especially when they’re in my best interest. It assumes someone else knows me better than I know myself. And so I hate that he’s right.

“I just need a minute,” I say.

“Take your time.”

I get my breathing under control. After a moment, I nod my assent, even though I’m not quite ready, because I want to show him that I’m braver than he gives me credit for being. I am brave. I know this about myself. I have kicked ass in a man’s world because I embrace being doubted. I embrace being underestimated.

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s do this.”

Ness gives a thumbs-up to someone outside. The hatch swings shut with a clang.

“That’s my girl,” he says.

And I almost don’t hate him for saying it.

My stomach turns as the submersible is hauled into the air. As soon as we leave the deck, the sub twists on its cable, and the world beyond the circular portholes of glass goes spinning.

We go up and out. I can see the rail at the edge of the ship pass beneath us, hear metal creaking, and then we begin to drop—and I find myself clutching Ness’s arm, fearful of grabbing any part of the sub, any of the levers and buttons, and prematurely detaching us from the crane.

Ness has a headset on, is talking to someone, probably the crane operator. A second headset hangs from a rack on my side of the sub. I pull it on and listen to a woman’s voice counting down numbers. When she gets to zero, the swell of the stormy sea thwaps the bottom of the sub, sending a rattle through it and into my bones. I hear Ness’s voice in my headset and also beside me: “Touchdown.”

But we aren’t through descending. We’ve only begun. Another wave shakes the craft, foam and salt sloshing up the porthole beside me, and now I have Ness’s arm wrapped in both of mine. The water rises up the portholes in front of us, bubbling and frothing, the gray overcast sky replaced with the deep blue sea. And then we’re below the water. The Atlantic closes up around us. And the world is silent, peaceful, and still.

“Ready to detach,” Ness says.

“Detaching.”

There’s a mild clank above our heads. Otherwise, nothing seems different. But I sense that we’re free of the ship.

“Unless you want to drive, I’ll need that arm,” Ness tells me.