Dark Oceans

by Mark Macrossan

  These thoughts occurred to him in a disconnected fashion as he stared out his south-facing window on the Quai de Marché Neuf, with its view over the Seine, and on the other side, the rooftops of the Left Bank. And when he looked in a roughly south-south-easterly direction, directly over the Petit-Pont, and the tops of the buildings of the 5th arrondissement and, in the distance, out through the high-rise blocks of the 13th on the other side of the Place d’Italie, he imagined that he could almost see all the way to the Mediterranean and the coast of Algeria, and then the rest of Africa beyond that, and that if he looked hard enough, he could just about make out Table Mountain and Cape Town itself.

  Part Three – Western Australia

  16. Lena Was Dangling

  [Indian Ocean: off the Kimberley Coast, W.A. (-16.8439, +122.2022), 16 Oct 2013, 2.50PM]

  While Commandant Ruart was chewing his biro in Paris, Lena was dangling off the side of the Seaking. Thousands of kilometres away from Ruart, but still on the same, sunlit side of the globe, Lena had her legs wrapped around the Seaking’s guard rail and with her back against the side of the boat, she was upside down and letting her arms dip into the water every time the boat rolled in that direction.

  Diane, who was on the other, far larger yacht, found it a very odd sight, judging from her expression. Brian, not so much. He’d seen her do it many times before – she used to be his wife for starters (briefly) and they’d spent one long European summer sailing all over the Mediterranean. Lena was always mucking about, the usual mischievousness: flinging herself off the boat, nude sunbathing when there were other boats about, sleeping with the crew (usually in that order)… Those Russian women, unbelievable! It was a relief to be out of that relationship, frankly. Diane was wonderfully down to earth and not at all pretentious – maybe a little on the dull side, but after Lena, dull was a wonderful luxury. Come to think of it, dull wasn’t really the right word. A little on the careful side, was Diane – realistic, reliable and discreet – and Brian loved her for it.

  ‘Let’s all go swimming!!’ Lena was shouting out. Roy, the captain and proud owner of the Seaking and Lena’s new ‘man’ for want of a better description, raised his eyes for what was probably the sixtieth time that day. Poor Roy! Brian smiled to himself. He wouldn’t trade places with Roy for all the tea in China (and didn’t Diane love her Chinese tea, her always ‘glorious’ lapsang souchong).

  ‘Lena!’ Roy yelled. ‘Get back on the boat, for God’s sake!’ He’d been about to up anchor, but stopped what he was doing, possibly about to lose his temper? ‘Lena!’

  ‘Impressive bait!’ Brian shouted out gleefully. ‘Fishing for great whites are you?!’

  ‘Coward!’ Lena yelled back. ‘You know very well there aren’t any this far… aaaayyyyyyeeeeee!!’

  She was cut short.

  Not by a shark though, thank heavens. Roy had grabbed hold of Lena’s legs and was pulling her back into their boat, ignoring the ear-bursting squeal. It was a miracle her bikini managed to stay on. Brian was just starting to think how much he missed her after all – certain things, anyway. Diane looked like she was sick of Lena already, and in the circumstances, Brian could hardly blame her for that.

  They were all on a yachting holiday together – not the Mediterranean this time, but the tropics, around the Lacepede Islands to be specific, off Western Australia’s Kimberley coast. Roy and Lena had the Seaking to themselves (a fact which was becoming increasingly obvious). Lena’s best friend Lydia and her boyfriend Aleks were supposed to have joined them, but they’d had a better offer or something, Brian wasn’t completely sure what the story was there. Off on some quest or other – driving up the West Coast, all the way up apparently – they were quite the lunatics, Aleks and Lydia, always up to something. It was no surprise Lena and Lydia were best friends. (Brian even remembered one time when there was just the three of them, when they’d hit one Perth pub too many and, well, let’s just say, that night at least, Lena and Lydia ending up behaving like they were a little more than merely best friends…! Anyway.)

  Meanwhile he and Diane were on Bob’s yacht with Bob and his latest squeeze, Peta. She was a beauty too, but Brian wasn’t too sure where Bob had picked her up… Réunion was it? The yacht that is, not Peta! (although she wasn’t too dusty either, it had to be said). But the Diamond Moon, which he’d only just acquired, was really something. It was massive. A forty-nine metre, silver, Italian-made superyacht with aluminium alloy hull, equipped with zero speed gyroscopic stabilizers, maximum speed of almost thirty knots and accommodated ten crew plus twelve guests when necessary – although in this case there were five crew including the skipper, and four guests: Bob reckoned with so few souls onboard it felt like a ghost town (which was a pretty odd way of describing a boat as far as Brian was concerned, but that was Bob for you, he was always coming out with stuff like that). Anyway it certainly demonstrated in no uncertain terms the benefits of owning a W.A. copper mine, although where Bob got the money from to buy that was anyone’s guess (and guesses, there were plenty of them floating around, there was always a new piece of gossip about our mate Bob).

  Unlike the Diamond Moon, the Seaking was a sailing yacht. It was a sloop – with a single mast, mainsail and headsail – and at twenty metres, a somewhat more modest affair. But it was still a rich man’s toy (designed to be sailed short-handed with fully automated winches, but could also take four VIPs and four crew, with two luxury double bed cabins and two twin bunk cabins, all fully air-conditioned) and in fact, it used to be Bob’s toy. Bob sold it to Roy at mate’s rates after he bought the Diamond Moon.

  Lena had Roy in a koala-hold by now, hugging him to within an inch of his life and, by now, giggling her head off. When she started grappling with his shorts – she nearly managed to get them off, too – he laughed, finally, and so very subtly, Brian thought, steered both of them into the cabin and out of sight.

  Brian looked at Diane, the twinkle of lust in his eyes. ‘Girls will be girls”, he said, trying to admire her body, but realising he’d have to get Lena out of his head and find some way of ignoring the fact that Diane had no breasts to speak of. Fantastic legs and a nice figure, but…

  Diane caught the look in Brian’s eyes and Brian caught her catching it. And she looked, to Brian, as if she was thanking her lucky stars for blessing her with such a manly, no-nonsense, hunk of a boyfriend who, out of all the beautiful girls in the world to choose from, had chosen her.

  17. Two Forensics Personnel

  [Great Sandy Desert, W.A. (-19.7492, +121.7244), 17 Oct 2013, 11.05AM]

  The next day, and a little over three hundred kilometres to the south of the antics taking place on board the Seaking and the Diamond Moon, two forensics personnel emerged from a Kawasaki Bolkow BK117 helicopter, which had just landed on a dusty red patch of ground in the middle of nowhere.

  It wasn’t long before they came across the remains of the old ship. While this was a high point – they’d only been expecting a hot, empty car and a few dusty footprints – their day pretty much went downhill from there.

  They’d flown in from Perth that morning, and the possibility of not making it back in time for Thursday night drinks meant that their spirits weren’t high to start with. They were somewhat placated, though, once they got there, by the realization that despite the discovery of the ship – the Destino En Distancia – there was very little for them to do.

  Other than sweat.

  On the plus side, they weren’t wearing the blue jumpsuits that, as forensics, they were usually required to wear. Not that they would have served much purpose anyway, but given the extreme temperature conditions, the jumpsuits were out of the question. It was bad enough as it was, in their casual gear.

  The only section of the ship poking through the sands was the stern, containing the captain’s cabin. The years, the centuries, had conveniently created a de facto entrance in the side of the ship and it was easy enough to enter, without too much of a strain, the ‘cave’ formed by what was
left of the ship’s hull. Inside, though, was not much better than outside. Oven-like was the polite term for it.

  They found the one item of clothing – Lydia’s white cotton dress – and that was all. Nothing else out of place, no other shreds of clothing material, no footprints or drag marks, no other clues in there of any kind. The desert though, as they well knew, had little respect for police operations.

  Apart from finding the ship and the dress, the other highlight of that first hour at the site was spotting a Pig-Footed Bandicoot, supposedly extinct and not seen for over fifty years. An eccentric-looking little creature he was too: the size of a large rat, and kind of a grotesque cross between a mouse and a kangaroo. With rabbit ears and hoofed feet. He hopped out from the Destino as they drew near – which was puzzling in itself as they are, or were, known to be nocturnal creatures, and why he was fleeing his dark hiding place in broad daylight was only to make sense some time later.

  *

  A glistening sheen of sweat coated the exposed skin of the two men – neck and arms – as they conducted one final look-around. The timber inside the half-buried cabin was age-blackened and lifeless, the floor just sand and broken fragments of wood.

  Not much to take particular note of, but for one thing.

  Carved into one of the cabin walls was some sort of design containing a series of surprisingly intricate geometric markings – unusual, it seemed to them, although they were no experts. The design itself consisted of a series of neatly-fitting, straight-sided shapes – polygons – over which was superimposed a network of jagged lines which formed further shapes of their own. The combination of elements created an effect that was both complex and visually striking. Was it a symbol of some kind? A secret sign?

  Apart from the carving though, there was little to catch the eye. Except, perhaps, for the remnants of a couple of small animal skeletons, which managed to effortlessly express the way the two living visitors felt. Their lamps seemed to add to the already overwhelming heat, and they both, independently, experienced the urge to turn them off and welcome the darkness, anything to mitigate this slow-basting torture.

  ‘I reckon that’s it for us,’ the taller of the two eventually said. He was bald with big eyes and had been pretty much over the idea of this job before it had begun. And after fifteen minutes, for sure, it had become patently obvious to him that this had been one wasted trip. Whose idea was it that they come up, again? It was nothing more, nothing less than two city folk, tourists, whatever, who stupidly left their vehicle, left these ruins and wandered off into the desert. Dingo food, now.

  The other one – stocky, with close-cropped black hair – grunted and kept looking around. ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Leave it to the History Boys,’ the bald man went on. ‘They’ll be straining on their leashes to get an eyeful of this. Whatever it is.’

  ‘Oh yeah. The archaeologists. If they knew we were in here, they’d be pissing themselves we’re gonna step on a skeleton or something. Christ it’s hot.’ He breathed in deeply through his nose and exhaled wearily. ‘It’s gonna be big news that’s for sure.’

  ‘This, and little Pig Foot out there.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘So what do you reckon this is. Some old… I don’t know… Captain Cook era, kind of―’

  ‘Actually looks like a galleon to me. And the name… I think it’s Spanish. If it’s for real… it could be one of the, er… Manila galleons I think they call them. Blown off course, or…. even Portuguese, although that’d rewrite the history books if they beat the Dutch, who got here in, when was it? 1606? Destino En Distancia. I’m sure that’s Spanish. I’m pretty sure the Portuguese’d use “Em”, “e-m”, and not “e-n”.’

  ‘Yeah? So what’s it doing in the middle of the desert? Sixty clicks from the sea?’

  The black-haired man stared back for a moment. An intense, laser-look. Right into his eyes. Some serious thinking was going on.

  ‘Most likely the coastline’s shifted,’ he said eventually. ‘This whole area could have been some kind of inlet back then. Or I dunno… Maybe a tsunami did it.’

  His bald colleague just nodded. Taking all this in. To the extent he could. In this heat, the brain could barely function. And his brain was normally OK, he had a good brain. Normally.

  ‘Not sure about the name though,’ the black-haired man continued. ‘Destino En Distancia. So what’s that. “Destiny In Distance”?’ He shrugged. ‘And doubly odd because they usually named them after saints or something religious. Or… the whole thing’s a fuckin hoax.’

  ‘Someone went to a lot of trouble for a laugh.’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘And I for one ain’t laughin’.’

  ‘Nup.’

  ‘And if it was a hoax, why didn’t they get the name right and call it the… Santo… Pedro or whatever.’

  ‘San Pedro.’

  ‘So… d’you get the… friggin’… social studies prize in grade three or something?’

  The dark-haired man grunted.

  ‘You’re into this shit though, right?’

  ‘Just a… bit of an interest yeah.’

  ‘Huh. Man. It is so hot in here. So is that it, then?’

  ‘The only other thing is…. the fact that there isn’t any other thing.’

  ‘What do you mean.’

  ‘Have you noticed? There’s only wood in here. And a couple of rusty iron bolts. Some copper fittings.’

  ‘So?’

  The dark-haired man motioned the bald man over and shone his lamp on something. ‘See that?’

  They were looking at what appeared to be a jagged hole in the blackened wood of the cabin wall. Hot darkness beyond. Hell without the fires, as far as the bald man was concerned.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘That hasn’t just crumbled with age. Someone’s broken through. Recently.’

  ‘You reckon? Bit hard to tell isn’t it, with this―’

  ‘I reckon. And I reckon a ship like this… Probably full of gold and silver. Pesos, jewellery, whatever. They were bounteous times you know. No credit crunches. No fucken global financial crises back then.’

  ‘That so.’

  ‘Yep so you never know. Ship’s recently been exposed… Every chance it’s still here. Or was until…’

  They both peered through the gaping hole.

  ‘Well I’m not going in there to check,’ the bald man said, aware his bargaining position was somewhat weakened by his lower rank.

  ‘Be a shame. We’ve come all this way. And anyway there could be something else of the couple’s. Could be a dingo’s lair.’

  The bald man hesitated, clutching.

  ‘I doubt…’ he began. ‘Look this is, you know… clearly a, er… Health & Safety issue, it’s too dangerous. The whole thing could collapse.’

  ‘We have to do it.’

  The bald man sighed. Wiped off another layer of sweat. Swore under his breath. Nodded.

  They edged closer to the hole.

  Which was when they heard something. There was something in there.

  18. The Leaping Lady

  [Indian Ocean: off the Kimberley Coast, W.A. (-16.8847, +122.0675), 19 Oct 2013, 10.00AM]

  It had been a beautiful night on the Leaping Lady, the night just passed. Roy was sure of it.

  Well, almost sure. Hang on…

  He remembered thinking it at the time, it was magnificent all right, but… He was on the Seaking. The Leaping Lady was his last yacht. What was with these brain somersaults?

  A wonderful evening it had been though, one of the better ones. Stunning, really, as she bobbed gently up and down, in a rhythmical oscillation, riding the long, gentle swells of the Pacific, a hundred and forty-five kilometres off the coast of Fiji…

  No it wasn’t. It was Western Australia, off the Kimberley coast. The Lacepede islands. And that was when he realised it hadn’t been quite as wonderful as he’d first thought. In fact, things had taken a bad turn…

  The last thing Roy rememb
ered was the dazzling full moon, its long silvery pathway stretching to the horizon… and a strange clicking noise behind him. And then turning his head, and seeing something out of the corner of his eye: a giant yellow tentacle rising, in slow motion, out of the black, silken waters. And then, at the same time, suddenly losing all feeling in his arms and legs, so that in seconds, all he could do was watch the long tentacled arm approach him, draw right up to just in front of his face, almost inquisitively, and all he could think of was Rhuna – no, Lena – and what an incredible pity their delightful cruise should end like this, and how upset she was going to be…

  But I’m alive, he thought. But why can’t I open my eyes?

  He tried and tried. It felt like minutes, or hours even, but it was probably only…

  But anyway, then he succeeded, and… what was this?

  Roy, when he woke up properly, was tied naked to the deck of the yacht, spreadeagled, with the sun high in the sky and Lena, in her yellow bikini, was leaning over him. She was pouring some of her drink on him – it felt fizzy, it tickled the skin of his stomach.

  ‘We might need to circumcise you, Roy. I much prefer a circumcised cock. Yes? OK?’

  His head ached, and the mast behind Lena’s head seemed to be buckling and straightening with the swell. An optical illusion. It must be the drugs, Roy thought. She’s poisoned me. She’s going to kill me. It wasn’t rape, I didn’t rape you…

  ‘But first, I want to say goodbye.’

  She crouched down, and took his penis into her mouth – without spilling her drink, it was an impressive trick, from yoga? or Pilates? perhaps – and he was immediately hard, despite the dire circumstances.