Upon graduation from Lomonsov, he was one of five selected for further study at the Scripps Institute. It was an honor to be chosen, and Dankelov appreciated, not only the opportunity for academic and practical experience among some of the world’s best oceanographers, but also the chance to see a world beyond the limits of Leningrad and Moscow.
There was something of a diplomatic flap when Dankelov and Svetlana Polodka, one of his fellow postgraduate students, were approached by Dane Brande and offered both practical experience and jobs. After discussions between the United States Department of State and the Soviet Foreign Ministry, Dankelov and Polodka were allowed two-year extensions on their student visas. Some other accommodation was reached by someone, allowing them to accept salaries. Salaries, Svetlana had been quick to note, that amounted to life savings for most Soviet citizens.
Salaries, Dankelov had replied, which rapidly evaporated in the San Diego standard of living.
And six years later, they were on the fourth extension of their visas. The authorities in Moscow approved because Dankelov and Polodka provided scientific reports (a procedure which Dane Brande thoroughly endorsed) that were helpful to other Russian scientists and oceanographers. The U.S. Department of State approved the extensions because Dankelov had become something of an expert in acoustic controls as a result of the feedback he received from his Russian counterparts. The same could be said for Svetlana Polodka, who specialized in fiber-optics communication.
Still, even with the freedoms and the substantial income, Dankelov often longed to return to Leningrad. There is a national consciousness among Soviet citizens of a vaporous, but undeniable, linkage to the rodina, the motherland. He had already made up his mind that he would return upon the expiration of the current visa.
Svetlana did not feel the same way, and that basic difference between them had terminated a seven-month affair begun in the first year of their association with Marine Visions. Dankelov frequently found himself thinking in terms of a family of his own, and he was not about to start one in the United States.
If he did not hurry, he would not start one in Leningrad or Moscow, either. In his middle thirties, he did not have illusions about his attractiveness. He was short, and he was broad. His face matched his stature. He assumed others thought of him as brown. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Swarthy complexion. He was given to wearing brown suits and dull neckties. He had never fully acclimated to the casual atmosphere permeating the MVU labs and workshops.
Dankelov climbed the outside stairway to his balcony, crossed it, and unlocked the door. Inside, he placed his briefcase on his desk in the living room, then hung up his suit coat in the closet.
In the kitchenette, he took a frozen Swiss steak dinner from the freezer and placed it in the microwave. He had not forgotten the food shortages in his homeland, and he often felt guilty living among the abundance available to him here.
He went back to the living room, turned on the television for the evening network news, then rewound the tape on the answering machine.
The only message was from Kaylene Thomas. She wanted him to call her at the office immediately. He did not know what time she had called.
While he dialed the office number, he watched as Tom Brokaw solemnly summarized a copyrighted story of the Washington Post.
The telephone was still ringing on the other end when Dankelov replaced his receiver.
My God! What have you idiots done now?
Curtis Samuel Aaron was on the flying bridge of the Justica. He had kicked his running shoes off and propped his feet on the instrument panel. There was a chill breeze building, and Aaron could feel his skin puckering beneath his grayed white sweatshirt. There was a small rip in the knee of his pants, which had been designer jeans three or four years before.
Aaron stroked the beard he was so proud of — well tended and shaped like that of Kenny Rogers — and sipped from a lukewarm rum-and-Coke, the one drink he allowed himself daily. The cruiser’s ice machine had broken down, a victim of the neglect that had already affected one of the VHF radios and the sonar.
Aaron was fifty-two years old, and he felt good. He felt better about himself physically than he did about the rest of the world, which was deteriorating so rapidly that he sometimes feared he would outlast it.
The airborne crud of cities choked him. He would drown in the sludge coating the coastlines and clotting the rivers. Hiking the byways of America, he would trip over plastic sacks — and six-pack webs, falling to his death on the shrapnel of aluminum cans. His dreams, ever changing were full of such futures.
His disturbing and forbidding dreams prompted him to challenge those who disrupted nature, wherever he found them. It was necessary to clean up that which had already been dirtied, but it was imperative also to deter those who would further rape the planet.
Right then, his ire was directed at the two ships standing off the Justica by two hundred feet. George Dawson had stationed a crewman on the stern of the salvage vessel with a shotgun. The signal was clear to Aaron, and he had no intention of challenging a twelve-gauge. His battles had ever been verbal; there would not be a missile exchange of any kind between Oceans Free and those who interfered in the course of history and nature.
The submersible from the MVU research vessel had descended three times that day, and was currently still somewhere on the bottom. Rooting out that which nature and fate had planted, disturbing forces that would have long-term effects on the planet.
Aaron was certain of it.
And angered at his own impotency in preventing it.
Among the nine people of Oceans Free who were with him aboard the Justica, there were several who advocated storming the vessels.
The single shotgun, however, was deterrent enough. The most dangerous thing aboard the cruiser was a fishing hook.
Dawn Lengren, a can of Budweiser in one hand, was sitting in the helmsman’s seat, fiddling with the AM radio, trying to get some news. She had already found a broadcast out of Mexico, but no one aboard could speak Spanish.
A couple of the others finished cleaning the galley and joined them on the flying bridge. The several conversations taking place were acrimonious and mostly directed against the Grade. From below came the floating aroma of some kind of pie baking. Mimi Ahern was fond of baking and of desserts.
Dawn found a station.
“…independent experts contacted by this station say that the radiation could eventually encompass all of the Pacific Rim. Within hours of the news breaking, protests were being mounted in Japan, in Korea, in the Philippines, and in the Hawaiian Islands. Three persons were injured in Seattle when a so-called ‘Rally of Outrage’ in that city turned to violence.
“City and state governments along the West Coast have urged restraint and the patience to await more information.
“Fishing and shipping companies have tied up telephone lines to Washington in the attempt to learn more about the catastrophe. Fishermen from Alaska to Mexico were rumored to be planning meetings. The citizens of communities which could be affected by the ever-spreading contaminated water are panicky, and…”
Aaron was surprised to find that his feet were on the deck, and he was almost out of his chair, leaning forward, straining to hear the raspy voice on the speaker.
“Dawn, start the engines,” he ordered.
“What! Where are we going?”
“I don’t know yet, but we’ve got to hurry.”