“How about you, Rae? What do you think?”
“Don’t ask me, Dane. I’m resigning, anyway.”
September 2
Chapter Seven
Brande looked so crestfallen, she could not believe it. He had to be acting. Most of the time, he was so damned hard to read.
She had not really planned to announce her resignation in a group setting. It just slipped out.
The room was pretty silent, the darkness of early morning intruding through the windows. She could hear a faulty fluorescent fixture buzzing. The Orion crew in the corner had turned around to stare at her. She felt as if she were on display, and she was conscious of the perspiration under her arms and the wrinkles in her dress.
When she was in junior high school, she used to dream about wearing gowns and low-cut, steamy black cocktail dresses, dancing the night away with tall, handsome men and being the carefree center of attention. Those dreams had evaporated over time, and she did not normally worry about how she appeared in front of a crowd. She was not particularly concerned about being anyone’s center of attention.
Why now?
She spoke to the silence. “I’ve been offered a position at Scripps.”
After she had made a few calls.
No one said anything.
“It’s difficult to turn down,” she added.
More silence.
Finally, Brande said, “Could we talk about this, Rae?”
No immediate acquiescence, as he had shown with Kim, Svetlana and Valeri.
“There’s not much to talk about.”
Dokey shook his head sadly.
Larry Emry said, “Who’s going to cover my checks?”
Kim Otsuka said, “You keep this place together, Kaylene. How could you think of leaving?”
Watching Brande’s face, Thomas thought he was as surprised by Kim’s statement as Thomas was. She had not thought that others really, really noticed what she did. They tended to be wrapped up in their own work.
Brande pushed off the desk he was leaning on and crossed over to her. He gripped her elbow lightly and turned her toward the restrooms.
“Let’s go over to my private office for a few minutes,” he said.
She could not remember a time before when he had touched her.
Almost without volition, she found herself headed toward the restrooms, dodging the varicolored desks and chairs, imperceptibly guided by Brande. The recalcitrant air conditioner vibrated loudly.
He aimed her toward the men’s room.
“I’m not going in there,” she said.
He altered course toward the ladies, pushed open the door, and nudged her through the doorway.
She shook her elbow free of his grasp, irritated that she had let him take control. The fluorescent lights seemed brighter than normal.
The lights made Brande’s eyes seem more alive, but she had seen them like that before. It was the signal that his interest was growing into near-fanaticism. He could become overly zealous of a pet project, she had learned.
His hair was tousled. He needed a haircut.
“How come,” she asked, “you always march through the front door with a wild idea and expect that everyone here will jump at the chance to share your enthusiasm?”
“I’m idealistic?” he asked, leaning back against the lavatory.
“Very.”
“Single-track mind?”
“Extremely very”
Brande sighed audibly. “I know I get carried away sometimes, Rae. Let the details slide. I didn’t, however, commit anyone.”
“You’d let Kim, Valeri and Svetlana go?”
“They’re not mine to control.”
“And I am?”
“What are you going to do at Scripps?”
“What I want to do,” she said.
“If that ocean out there gets hot, no one is going to be diving in it,” he countered.
“Maybe,” she conceded.
“We’ve got to do something. We’re the ones trained and equipped to do it.”
“You’ve got to do something,” she said. “I can agree with that. It doesn’t have to include me.”
“You want to be executive vice president?”
“That’s just a title. You pass them around like candy, remember?”
“Chief executive officer?”
“That’s just another title. Conferring it wouldn’t change anything.”
“With all of the power to organize, or reorganize, the company?”
She wavered, but said, “No.”
“Hire and fire?”
“No.” That part was a little scary.
Brande crossed his arms, his strong jaw lowered, and he stared at the floor. It was tiled in horrible, tiny octagonal ceramic pieces. Gold and blue.
“Damn it, Rae. I don’t want you to leave.”
“Why?”
He looked up at her. “Because I need you.”
She stared back and let her eyes show her disbelief. “For this particular task?”
“For everything.”
“Oh, damn it, Dane! Don’t do this to me.”
“I mean it, Rae.”
She studied his face, the lean, hard planes of it. Sometimes his expression could mean he was deadly serious, and sometimes the same expression hid his amusement; it was so difficult to tell. His eyes had darkened a bit, become pools into which she felt drawn. He smiled a trifle, a little boy’s smile.
She felt a little giddy, then finally said, “Come on, let’s get this safari into the jungle.”
He grinned. “You’re staying?”
“Only because you finally said you needed me.”
He pushed off the sink. “I’m glad.”
“And because I’m the new CEO.”
Brande and Mel Sorenson toured the Orion together, inspecting her diesel engines, her steering, and her cycloidal propellers which were then retracted inside the hull. The dry and refrigerated lockers were jammed with enough food to last the three months of an extended expedition. The fuel bunkers were topped off.
The bills for both would be due in thirty days, Thomas had told him.
Connie Alvarez-Sorenson, the research vessel’s first mate, as well as Sorenson’s first mate, had gone out and rented thirty videotapes. Just in case it got boring, she had told them. Okey Dokey had a fresh supply of T-shirts, sweatshirts and coffee mugs, just in case it got boring, he said.
Bucky Sanders, one of the radio operators and the shipboard electronics technician, assured them that all the exotic radio gear he shared with Paco Sanchez was in A-one condition.
All of the crew members were stowing fresh clothing in the lockers of their accommodations in the hull decks and main deck. Even with the guest cabins on the bridge deck, it was going to be crowded for this voyage. Final packing had people running back and forth to the warehouse, toting cardboard boxes, battered valises and paper sacks full of tacos, rellenos, fried chicken, hargow, dim sum, potato chips, dips and anything else that was not part of the galley menu.
The vessel was docked alongside MVU’s warehouse, bathed in light from the warehouse, the lamp posts on the pier, and the floodlights mounted in the antenna rigging and on either side of the bridge. She appeared pristine in her white paint, with the diagonal yellow stripe swooping up the side of the superstructure. Interior light poured from the bridge windows and the portholes in the superstructure and hull.
On the aft deck, DepthFinder was snugged down against her rails, covered with a yellow tarp. Atlas, one of the small recovery robots, was secured next to her on the starboard side.