Page 3 of Ruining His Smirk

“I do hope somebody’s still at the bridge.”

Looking around the hangar, I counted at least fifteen heads. That was half of our entire crew. Even our chef had come down to see the spectacle.

The chatter died away as the lead technician rested a hand on the control console. “Beginning deployment,” he announced. The hangar fell silent. The wall of screens flickered on.

Goosebumps erupted over my arms. The electric winch hummed to life. The probe disappeared beneath the dark waters through the moon pool.

“Deployment confirmed.”

All of our eyes went to the screens. Small flashes of life drifted through the lights. Tiny translucent creatures pulsed past the cameras before vanishing back into the darkness.

For the next half hour, we watched the astonishing diversity of underwater life move across the screens.

“Depth approaching seabed.”

“I’m glad I lived long enough to see this,” the captain said quietly.

Several of us nodded. It wasn’t that the ocean floor was unknown. It was just that it was the least mapped of all the surfaces on our planet. Only a tiny fraction of the ocean floor had ever been mapped to a level of detail comparable to land.

The vehicle glided ahead. The lights swept slowly across the bottom, revealing scattered rocks and gentle ripples in the sediment before the edge of the iceberg came into view. Even beneath the surface it was enormous. The white-blue wall stretched upward beyond the reach of the cameras, disappearing into darkness above.

The beam from the lights played across smooth ice worn into gentle curves by years of moving water.

“Hold on.” I frowned at the top-left screen. “I want to explore this bit.” I tapped.

The probe reversed a few feet and glided forward again at a slightly different angle.

“There!”

“Is that… a cave?” Hillary squinted. “Oh… that’s the underside of the iceberg.” She looked back at me.

“But it’s not touching the ocean floor?” I asked her.

She nodded. “It is not grounded in this section. Looks like we have some evidence of melting here.” She pointed to the screen. “We have an overhang. That’s why it looked like a cave earlier.”

The technician maneuvered the probe as all three of us huddled together to focus on the screens. Suddenly, something pale caught the edge of the beam.

I stiffened. “Stop.”

The vehicle jerked to a stop.

“Do you guys see what I see?”

“I see it.” Keith stared at the screen. “This right here, correct?”

“Yeah. Uh…can you very slowly nudge the probe? Be careful not to touch it.”

The white shape grew longer. The lights revealed the unmistakable arc of a spine.

“Keep going,” I said quietly.

The probe crept forward. Vertebra after vertebra emerged from the darkness, followed by ribs curving outward beneath a fine layer of sediment.

My pulse quickened. “It’s a whale skeleton.”

Hillary glanced at me. “Can you tell which species?”

I nodded without taking my eyes off the screen. “Humpback.”