Regulatory Issues
"Are you sure? There are sharks down there," he asked, checking his regulator. Leah calmly pulled her flippers on, squinting in the bright sunlight.
"Yeah. That's why we're taking Dave."
"Dave?" He looked around the deck, but aside from the elderly captain in the wheelhouse there was no one else in view, and he couldn't see another boat in the flat blue sea.
"Dave." She pointed over the side with the hand holding her mask. He turned round to see a wide, friendly, smile. It was a six-foot-wide friendly smile, filled with unfriendly, five-inch-long, teeth. He jumped back as the black snout edged up to the rail making a questioning chittering sound.
"It's an-" he stammered.
"He is an Orca." She walked up to the rail and patted the end of the jet black nose. "His pod's normally further south, but if we're doing a rescue mission here, with the number and size of sharks in the area, I thought they made sensible backup."
"You have a killer whale." He was trying not to imagine falling overboard into those teeth. It wasn't helped when Leah unscrewed the lid from a twenty-gallon white plastic tub and hefted a large fish out of it in both hands. The orca gaped, nodding frantically, and she gripped the fish by the tail and threw it. Water erupted as the killer whale leapt upwards, spraying them both. The fish was gone at a gulp.
"No, I raised a killer whale. He was only an adolescent when I found him caught in some nets. I cut him free, stopped him drowning, and patched him up." She threw another fish, snapped eagerly out of the air with a flash of red mouth and white teeth. The dark head bobbed up by the rail again, looking for more. "Spoiled him rotten," she chided, stroking the dark snout. He edged to one side to get a better look, his back against the wheelhouse. One of the most intelligent eyes he had ever seen regarded him, small only by comparison with the huge head it peered from. "And now he hangs out occasionally."
"They can smell fear, right?" He was pretty certain that, right now, so could Leah.
"That's sharks."
"And if there are sharks when we get there?"
"Then Dave and his pod have lunch."
"And if there aren't?" He desperately wanted to ask 'Do they eat us?'. Leah sighed in exasperation and held out her hand.
"Come here." His legs wouldn't move. That was the biggest bull orca he had ever seen, not that he'd ever seen one in the flesh before. "I said come here. Or do I do this dive solo?" Embarrassed, he made his way to the rail, trying not to think of a certain film scene. "Give me your hand." Reminding himself that it was a shark in that film, not an orca, he reached out. Leah took his hand and placed it firmly on the orca's snout. The beady eye he could see was fixed on him, but the fish – no, the killer whale – didn't move. Slowly he started to relax, stroking its snout as Leah had done. Maybe this wasn't so bad –
The blast of spray soaked them both, and the end of the boat.
"Dave!" The Captain's angry bellow sounded from the wheelhouse. "I just scrubbed that deck!"
"So get your grand-daughter to do it again when we get back," Leah answered, blithely climbing onto the dive ladder and easing herself into the water without a splash. She looked up at him, one arm hooked though the ladder, the other rinsing her mask. "Last chance, doctor." He screwed up his courage, climbing onto the ladder as she moved aside. Easing himself into the water as she had, he hooked his own arm through the other side of the ladder, trying to ignore the huge, dark, shadow circling below them. It was almost the length of the boat.
"Signals?" she asked, and he ran through the basic signals for the dive, until she was happy they were understood. "Okay. We go down in stages. Find the cage, assess the situation, and report up. The operators were cagey about what was going on, and didn't give much information."
"Anything useful?" He rinsed his googles to stop condensation, as she checked his gear to make sure it was ready.
"No, they just said their dive cage had broken free and they were heading back to docks for a new winch." Keeping one arm hooked round the ladder, Leah slipped her mask into place. "They were very sure they didn't need any help even though Jean-Eric told them we have a winch, which normally means they've dropped something they shouldn't. We're going to check for plastics and contamination."
He nodded, swallowing, and Leah smiled.
"Thanks for agreeing to do this on your holiday. We'll make it up to you." She adjusted her regulator and clamped the mouthpiece over her mouth, flipping over easily and kicking downwards. At the two metre mark she stopped, flipping upright, and waited. With a final grip on his nerves, and a dubious look at the shadow that seemed even larger now he was underwater, he followed suit.
The water was clear, visibility down to the bottom, and he followed her to the mid-point between surface and sand. His air supply was working fine, his last excuse gone, and he gestured the OK sign to Leah to proceed. Turning west, she kicked onwards and he followed her.
The large bull orca swam alongside for a few moments until it got bored. With a flick of its tail that sent a wash over him even under the water it shot ahead, spiralling in the water for the fun of it, in a movement too trained to be natural.
Looping back it swam overhead, briefly blocking out the sun, and came alongside with a questioning whistle. Leah patted the giant dolphin – he reminded himself killer whales were just dolphins, friendly giant dolphins with mouths full of butcher knives – her proud smile obvious even if he couldn't see her whole face, and then raised a hand, signalling to her dive partner to come alongside.
He swallowed. Still, she was his dive lead, and he was already in the water. It was too late to put things off, or flee back to the boat. She gestured again, deliberately, and with quiet trepidation he followed her signal, swimming alongside the vast, dark, shape.
Leah took his hand. To his surprise she put it firmly on the base of the giant black dorsal fin, adjusting his grip and then closed her hand over his fingers to make sure his hand wouldn't slip. Then she threw her free hand forward in an unmistakeable sign for 'Go'.
A smooth stroke of the powerful tail and they were moving. Water pressed against his hand, pushing him back and he would never have kept his grip if Leah hadn't clamped her spare hand over his. Two strokes, three, and they were moving faster than he had ever gone underwater. On reflex he bit down on his mouthpiece, afraid it would be knocked free by the force of the water.
Kicking was pointless. He mimicked Leah's pose, body straight, legs together, minimising the drag as much as possible. Lifting his head he risked a quick glance ahead, gripping firmly on his regulator to stop it being knocked from his mouth. The bright sea surface above gave no clue as to their speed, but the rocky reef below was passing at a rate he'd expect from a boat, not underwater.
Out to the side he caught a glimpse of another shadow, huge, black above, white below. His hand gripped in sudden terror before he saw the tail movement, the vertical wave of a whale not the sideways sweep of a shark. One of Dave's pod, he hoped, and friendly if not. Either way it was staying quite a way away. From the water around him he heard the clicks and whistles of a killer whale's call and then, much louder, Dave's answer. The shadow shot off ahead, and he suddenly realised the orca below them wasn't going at full speed. This was a leisurely jaunt for the huge mammal.
Raising his head again, feeling the force of water pressing his mask into his face, he enjoyed the ride. A cloud of angelfish whipped by below them, a giant brain coral off to one side. A shoal of tangs scattered ahead as they rushed passed. Something on the seabed he could hardly identify as a type of flatfish before it flashed by underneath them, and then the cliff edge and they were over the drop off and abruptly heading down.
He felt Leah's grip loosen and she waved one hand in front of his face, gesturing to let go in five four three two…
He let go as her grip released him, and the orca shot forward, tail obligingly still so it didn't hit them, and then it was off, heading down into the darker waters below. That leisurely jaunt had saved them an hour's swimming, but clinging on while it dived was unwise. Orcas handled pressure changes better than humans.
It was a shame orcas couldn't scent track rubbish to find whatever the boat had dropped, as an entertaining vision of Leah waving a plastic bottle in front of its nose darted through his mind. He wasn't too sure what it would do if it found some. Now it was up to the humans to do their part.
Leah gestured ahead, beginning to swim and he followed her. If they were in the vicinity of the cage, and she seemed to think so, it should be visible to the naked eye. The water was darker, but still clear and the depth never went below ten metres.
A shame the dive operators hadn't given them details. Knowing whether they were looking for a yellow, orange, or even red or hi-vis cage against the sand would help, but they hadn't said anything useful. Just variants of: rope snapped, cage at bottom, nothing to worry about. Which just raised the question of why they didn't want R&R's help to haul it up.
He'd been diving long enough for that to ring alarm bells for him, and Captain Rouvier had been just as suspicious. R&R had promised to credit him another dive if he was willing to give up this one to investigate. He'd been supposed to be seeing butterflyfish by the coast, not riding an orca into shark-infested waters.
Leah stopped ahead of him, swimming back as she realised they had drifted apart. He shook himself in frustration. Diving when distracted was dangerous and he knew it. Trying to keep an eye on his dive partner and look for the cage was going to be nearly impossible, and if he got lost in these waters he'd not bet an empty shot on his chances.
Expertly she pulled a rope from her belt pouch and made a loop at each end, fastening it to her belt and putting it round his wrist so he could get a grip. The makeshift buddy line floated free between them, leaving them free to survey the ground without worrying about drifting apart.
Fastened, they moved on, almost instinctively moving to the full reach of the line to survey the seabed as they swam. A flash of yellow caught his attention, resolving quickly into a vibrant coral. It made him feel better a few minutes later when Leah tugged the rope, only for the orange to belong to a large wrasse.
In the blue nothingness that the water faded to at the edge of his vision, a dark shape darted up to the top of the world to breach and breathe, then down and diving back passed them. It was out of sight almost instantly, but he could still hear clicks echoing in the water.
There. He stopped, turned in the water. There had been a flash of light off something out of the corner of his eye, but now it had gone. There was no cage, no hi-vis colours visible, but as he turned it was there again, and gone just as quickly into the dark blue at the edge of vision. Leah had stopped swimming, watching him and he pointed, wiggling his hand to try and indicate his uncertainty.
Reaching for her belt she unclipped a high-powered dive light, playing the beam over the area. The rock was illuminated instantly, standing proud from the sea floor, the shadows showing the edges that had blended with the sand. Over the tip of it, as the beam panned across once more, there was a brilliant flash of reflected light.
All business, she clipped the light back to her belt and took the buddy line back, re-coiling it and stowing it away in the pouch. Then, cautiously, she began to swim forward, gesturing him to follow. It might not be the cage, it probably wasn't, but there was something there and a large, familiar, shadow was circling nearby. Leah lowered her regulator, raising a strange device to her mouth and whistled. It sounded strange and dissonant under the water.
Replacing her air supply, she gestured upwards to him and began a slow ascent herself, keeping her movements smooth and even to minimise disturbance. He copied her as best he could, aware he really did not want to look like a fish in distress in these waters.
As they got closer and higher, they could see over the ridge, over the loaf-shaped rock that had blocked their view. Behind the edge, the overhang, they got their first sight of what it had hidden. A mouthpiece and mask made reactions hard to read, but he was convinced he caught the exact second Leah cursed. He was doing the same thing.
It wasn't a cage. It was a Plexiglas viewing box with its own air supply. Four people were huddled inside it, summer tourists from their garb, battered from their sudden descent to the bottom. There were no children, thank god, but circling nearby was an orca, taking quite an interest in the cage. Except it wasn't Dave; smaller, leaner, and as he looked, he saw that the white markings round its eye were different. The tourists in the cage were watching it, terrified and hardly moving as it swam round them.
Leah gripped his arm, a clear signal to halt as she pulled out a dive slate and scrawled the details quickly across it. Handing it to him, she attached a float bag and a radio tag from her belt to the slate. With a whoosh of air it floated straight upwards to the surface, light blinking.
If he guessed right, Jean-Eric would be on his way here the instant he picked up the signal. If anything happened to them, someone would know the cage was here. It was progress, of a kind.
He waited for her to finish, then tapped her arm and gestured uncertainly to the cage. She shook her head, and he was relieved to see that wild orcas were something even Leah was cautious around. Self-preservation was a good trait in a diving guide.
As the larger shadow came up from behind, giving her a playful bump that knocked her forward in the water, he realised what she was waiting for. She relaxed and began to swim downwards as her large companion took the lead.
The whistle exchange was brief, if nearly deafening this close, the juvenile chattering excitedly as the large male approached. He wasn't sure if he was anthropomorphising, but the tone of the exchange seemed very much like a child's 'Dad, dad, look what I round!' to the adult's 'Yeah, seen it'. With a final whistle and a definite tone of 'Beat it, kid, I got this', the younger orca swam off, but not too far. It was either curious or playful.
Now they were close enough to see it, the cage seemed intact. No water inside that he could see, but a thin stream of bubbles were winding upwards. Not a good sign. It had landed awkwardly in the sand, rocking back at an angle against the stone and settling there, giving the people inside no flat floor to stand on.
The first priority was the glass, but none of the joints were leaking, no spray of water he could see entering as Leah's feet vanished up passed him. It was a miracle the glass hadn't cracked, but the stream of bubbles had to be coming from somewhere. He followed her up, finding her looking at the equipment at the top of the cage, the two tanks that should have been bouyancy and air. They seemed too small for either.
The thin line of bubbles from the air hose showed where it had been damaged. Leah was checking it over, trying not to make it worse, but as she turned it his heart sunk. The rip was too large to patch, and far too large for the small stream of bubbles rising. The air tanks had to be nearly empty. The pressure gauge was present, but loose and he wasn't sure whether it could be trusted. The top seemed an odd hodge-podge of gear, already patched and repaired to its limits, but he didn't know enough to know if that was normal.
Leah was already examining the mess, and there was nothing he could do up there. Dropping down to float above the sand, he turned his attention to the people in the cage. Two men, two women, getting out of their huddle and pressing forward to see the divers. He waved, and almost disbelievingly, one of them waved hesitantly back.
Coming up close to the Plexiglas, he still couldn't see their features clearly, but the way they were pressing forward seemed hopeful, and there weren't any major injuries visible. There were general cuts, and he'd be amazed if they didn't have bruises, but thtough blue light a mask, and glass, he couldn't see them. One of the men was cradling his arm, but in the dim water and the shadow of the rock it was difficult to see details.
He waved for Leah's attention, only to see her flippers waving above the top of the cage. Swimming upwards, he found her comfortably inverted, head down over the broken fitments and writing industriously on another dive slate from her bag. Careful not to obstruct her, he tapped her arm and took the dive-light from her belt, making sure she knew he had done so and getting a brief absent nod in return. Swimming back down he played the light obliquely into the cage, trying not to dazzle them as he looked at the man's arm. It seemed straight but there was something odd about the joint and he was holding it with eaxaggerated care.
This was where an underwater notebook would be useful, and he hadn't brought one. Leah's was in use, so he'd have to improvise. Awkwardly he held up his own arm, pointing to his forearm, then to the man's. The man tried to reply, mouthing exaggerated words that he simply could not make out. He shook his head, trying to get across the problem and then one of the women dug into her bag and produced a small tube of suntan lotion. She dabbed some on her finger, smearing it on the glass and he read the words in mirror writing. 'Bad arm. Hard to breathe.' That could be internal damage on the patient, or lack of air in general.
He nodded to them and kicked up above the box to Leah, pointing to the air supply. Orienting herself to hide her face from the people inside she shook her head, pointing in turn to the air equipment at the top of the box. It was a cheap, tangled, mess, he saw, and the damage was worse than he'd realised. The fitment was smashed, possibly by the fall. She'd managed to get the gauge on the airtank working, but it showed empty with only the last pitiful remains emerging as bubbles. No more air was entering the box. Only the emergency cut off and the air already inside it had stopped the cage itself from flooding.
He paused, trying to consider how much air that would be at this depth and ten metres pressure, but Leah hadn't finished. She took his hand, pointed to the gauge on the cage's outlet and he blinked, trying to take it in. It read surface pressure. At this depth that was impossible, and then he was interrupted by a tap on the arm. Leah flashed five fingers at him three times and drew a finger across her throat.
Fifteen minutes to get them air or they drown. That was blunt enough. He held out a hand flat and pretended to write on it. Leah took the hint and handed him the dive slate. Surface pressure would explain why they weren't dead from the pressure change, but the weight of the glass and fitments must be huge to overcome the natural bouyancy of the air.
"Buddy breathe?" he wrote. There were two of them and they could share tanks to get the tourists to the surface, but it was a risk. If the cage was at surface pressure the ascent could kill them. If the group stayed here, the lack of air definitely would.
"Not all to surface before air." she scrawled back, slashing the line through 'air' with force. She was probably right. Inexperience and panic increased air consumption, and if the tourists started fighting for the regulators all six of them would drown.
He pointed to his own air hose, then to the fitment on the cage, and Leah shook her head. Holding the hose by the fitment valve it was easy to see the scuba tanks would not fit the cage's inlet.
"Drop spares?" he wrote, not knowing how else to say it.
"R&R none that fit. Only dive boat." And if the operators didn't return in time these people would die. That had to have been on the slate she sent up, so they were relying on R&R to find it, relay the message and...and why hadn't the dive boat asked for help? Someone had to have oxygen.
"Where's secondaries?" He scribbled. Her hand clenched into a fist as a cloud of bubbles escaped her. Her response was a displeased scrawl.
"None. No buoyancy either." No secondary tanks and no ability to float when detached from the boat? That was criminally irresponsible. The kind of thing that you got away with until you didn't. The dive boat couldn't expect to get away with this except...he felt sick. The evidence was on the sea floor and dead customers couldn't sue, or testify. Pull the cage up, dump the bodies out, change the logs, and they might even get away with it for lack of evidence. Suspicions weren't enough for convictions.
"They no come back?" he wrote, hoping he was wrong. She tapped his shoulder to get his attention, and took the slate.
"R&R coming," she wrote back, reassuringly. He shook his head. What did they do now? Ask the victims to draw straws? Open the cage and take the ones that didn't immediately get the bends? He chilled as he realised that even then there was a problem.
"Bleeding. Sharks." he wrote. She looked up and he saw the raised eyebrow behind her mask. Belatedly he remembered that she had taken precautions.
"Find hard point & chains." Leah scrawled. "R has winch." He nodded, grateful for something he could do, and began examining the sides of the cage, looking for places the winch chain or ropes would be fixed. The fixings seemed secure, but the way the chains trailed to a broken link on the seafloor showed exactly where they had failed. He signalled to Leah, pointing at the lengths of chain, reluctant to touch them in case he disturbed anything she was working on.
She spread her hands helplessly and went back to working urgently on the cage's top. He worked his way back along the length, checking as he did. The fixings were sound, and the several feet of chain that extended on each side before the break seemed good if rusted. The remains of half a snapped join were still at the end of one, the rest somewhere on the seabed. He didn't waste time searching and carefully untangled the lengths from the coral on the seabed, returning a nervous thumbs up from one of the tourists with his own though he had never felt less sincere in his life.
A shadow moved overhead and he looked up. The surface had parted, the outline of a boat's hull clear above them. Something dropped from the surface, two spare scuba air cannisters, and a white bag fluttering down with it. The tourists brightened at the sight and inwardly he cringed. They'd work for him and Leah, but they weren't short on air. For the people who needed them, they were useless. Leah swam over pulling the tanks to the top of the cage. She tore open the attached bag, revealing a collection of bits that the Captain must have thrown together in the hope they would help, and pulled out a new dive slate to let him read.
"Too heavy for boat winch. Could try anchor chain." It sounded okay but Leah shook her head and he realised the problem. If the boat was simply too small to raise the cage, changing the chain wouldn't help. It could pull itself under trying, and he had no doubt that Captain Jean-Eric would try.
He pointed to the float bags on her belt, but Leah turned the dive slate back.
"15kg" she scrawled on the corner. It wasn't enough. The cage didn't have neutral buoyancy, even with the air in it, or it wouldn't have sunk. 15kg wouldn't even lift the chain. If only they had had R&R's full research vessel instead of the little reefhopper, but then 'if only' was the bane of doctors and divers.
"Their boat?" he wrote, hoping against knowing.
"Left." Leah wrote, saying far too much in one word. "The chain. Rope it and Up."
He obeyed, taking the rope from the bag. Gathering the lengths carefully, he tried not to tear his gloves on the rough metal, tieing the rope to the cage fitment and threading it through the links to try to add some strength. As best he could he repeated it on the other side, until he was happy it would hold. With it secure, he swam upwards. It was surprisingly heavy, even in water, but at full length he could keep the chains taut and out of the way as Leah worked urgently on the air supply, trying to find some way to connect the scuba tanks to the cage, or even just refill their tanks without flooding them. The angle left him looking straight down into the tilted cage at the hopeful, terrified, faces. A perfect position to see the first choke, the first hand raised to a throat. To see someone struggling for breath jump to their feet, pointing at something behind him.
He kicked out, turning, expecting a shark's teeth closing on him as the huge shape swam in. Black back, white belly, and he relaxed as Dave swam passed him. He had bigger things to worry about. Leah looked up and he saw her eyes narrow behind the mask. As she swam up, she held out the dive slate with one word scrawled on it.
"MRgency?" Emergency ascent. The last resort. Risk the bends when the only alternative was dying of suffocation. He didn't need to write an answer, he just pointed into the cage and gripped his throat in the sign for suffocation.
Leah dropped down to the side of the cage, pointing up once, and then lowered her regulator. He could see the bemusement on their faces from here as she raised the strange whistle again, blowing a single discordant note. A giant black snout nosed in beneath him, turned sideways, open jaws showing a horrifying array of teeth that closed on the ropes just inches below his hand. He let go, not quite understanding, and Leah pointed upwards. Then she threw her hand forward.
Dave blew passed him so fast he was knocked tumbling by its wake, sharp strokes of the tail driving it upwards as the cage jerked free of the bottom and shot towards the surface like an elevator, bouncing below the orca's shadow. The spare scuba tanks fell free, bouncing as they hit the seabed.
Following instinctively, he started to kick upwards, paused at five metres to let pressures equalise. Dave had already broken the surface, dorsal fin vanishing above the mirror of the waves as it aimed directly for the shadow of the boat. The cage bobbed behind it. The tourists were still in it, inches below the water's surface but not reaching up, not getting out of the cage. They weren't even moving. If they didn't move they would suffocate inches from the surface, but if he ignored his dive-break-
Leah kicked upwards, fast. As she passed him, she gestured frantically behind her, a single signal: Hold.
He started to follow, stopped, frustrated, by her order and knowing it made sense. Above him Leah reached the cage and hit the release to free the top. It didn't move, held by the weight of water, and she braced against the side with both feet, pulling at the edge with her hands. Helpfully the orca rolled, raising the edge clear of the surface and as she heaved the door came clear, flipping back and knocking her down into the water below it. The tourists stirred, the waves soaking them and lifting them as they rushed over the lip of the door and the cage began to drop away from the weight.
Hurriedly Leah pulled herself round, reaching over and inside, hauling the first out and up through the water that was filling the cage, towards the surface just above them. As they got their first breaths of air, head vanishing above the opaque water's surface they came abruptly to life, floundering and struggling in the waves.
The boat's Captain wasn't idly watching. A lifebelt hit the surface, then the end of a boat-hook lowered into the water to be grabbed. Leah pushed the belt towards the injured man, taking a kick to the head for her trouble. She shook her head clear, resettled her regulator, and pulled the next out as the lifebelt was reeled in. Rapidly the others tourists gained their wits, bearings and flailed clumsily, desperately, towards the surface and air, feet pushing the cage down as the only footing they had. Their heads above the water, the boat was only ten feet away and the first of them vanished upwards as they were hauled onboard.
The water was a churning mess of bubbles, legs, and the shadow of the boat and orca. He didn't see what happened, but one moment Leah was pushing the last of the tourists off the cage, towards the boat's ladder and then she was sinking, clutching her leg, doubling over. Cramp or worse. She wasn't moving, not swimming, just falling in the water. Her bouyancy was off, still set for the lower depths, and it wouldn't stop her.
Eyes wide, he kicked up to meet her, catching her ankle and pulling her down and horizontal to stabilise her at three metres. She wasn't reacting, holding her leg and trying to breathe regularly as he supported her. It wasn't ideal, but dragging her back down to increased pressure could just make it worse. At least on the surface medical help was available, but if it was a pressure problem rushing her back up without offgassing would make it worse.
Checking quickly, he made sure her regulator was fine, that there was air left in the tanks. There was less than he had thought, and a quick check showed his own air was lower than he'd expected. For all it had been a short dive he felt like he could sleep for a week from sheer stress. It didn't matter. The boat was only a minute away, and they had plenty of air for that.
Turning carefully in his grip, Leah slid her hand down her leg from where she had grabbed it, her teeth clenched, eyes screwed up behind her mask. Painfully she worked her grip onto the tip of her fin and forced her leg straight, waiting for the cramp to pass. He took a deep breath of his own, grateful it was nothing worse.
With the last of the tourists' feet disappearing onto the boat, the divers had time to recover so he let them drift, kicking gently to keep them near the boat. All the flailing should have attracted sharks, the blood certainly should have, but the silent shadow above them seemed to be a good repellant. He kept half an eye on it. If Dave got bored, they'd have to get on board the boat pretty damn quick.
A few minutes passed, and Leah let go of her leg and began to float gently, orienting herself to a more normal diving pose. He signalled a question to her and she held up five fingers, then pointed up, shaking her leg out as she finally let go to swim on her own. He shook his head, flashing five fingers three times, then up. Five minutes might be a good recovery time, but after her fast ascent and involuntary descent he didn't think it would be enough.
That was when the weighted hook lowered from the boat, a dive slate attached. "My tanks?" it read, and Leah shook her head, shoulders heaving in a silent chuckle, as he frowned in exaggerated confusion. She pointed down, to the spare scuba tanks still lying on the sand. He laughed soundlessly, as Captain Rouvier bought him his fifteen minutes. Leah spread her hands in resignation and returned his fifteen signal with good humour.
Grabbing the hook, letting its weight draw it down slowly, she guided it across the seabed to hook onto the tanks, rather like an arcade's claw game. It wasn't easy, and it took a few tries, but he wasn't going to drop down to do it manually and go through the whole descent and ascent process again. After all this, he was more than ready to get back on board the boat and then he had plans for the hotel.
It was a relief when the metal hook eventually caught in the rope holding the tanks together. With four quick tugs, the snared tanks began their ascent, rising passed them. He and Leah followed, taking their time as the empty cage spiralled down passed them, hitting the seabed with a soundless eruption of sand. Dave had obviously got bored.
Breaking surface near the dive ladder, Leah courteously gestured him to climb in first. He did, surprised to realise he was shaking and cold. The sun would take care of that quickly enough. Clearing the ladder, he began to strip out of his diving gear, hoping to warm up as Leah boarded behind him. Irate chattering followed as she swung her legs into the boat and she grinned as she pulled off her mask and regulator.
"Told you, spoiled," she said, opening the large white barrel and hefting a chunk of tuna. Slinging it over the side, it was snatched with a grateful whistle, and then the black snout was back, bobbing suggestively over the side of the boat in an attempt at puppy dog eyes. The size rather spoiled it.
As he lowered his own hood, taking a deep breath of fresh air and enjoying the sun, Jean-Eric waved him across. The small boat was packed, the four people they had rescued, sitting shoulder to shoulder on the rail.
"Ah, Doctor, could you have a look at Rob's arm?"
"Sure." He pulled his flippers off and put them out of the way, finally putting a name to one of the people they had rescued. "Any signs of the bends?"
"Nothing I saw. We were lucky. Seems the cage was at surface pressure." So the gauge had been right.
"It would have been nice to be sure." The bite in Leah's voice matched the one Dave delivered to the next piece of tuna. "So where's their dive boat?"
"Not answering their radio," Jean-Eric said as Leah wiped her hands on her wetsuit. "What happened?"
Leah looked at the four tourists, and then at Jean-Eric, and stepped into the wheelhouse. On a boat this small and overcrowded it was impossible to have real privacy, so he began to examine their unexpected passengers as a distraction.
Under the hot sun, they were drying off fast, and the heat was good for shock. The cuts he had expected were there, the start of bruises showing on their bare skin. The only really serious injury seemed to be Rob's arm, swollen and sensitive to the touch. Feeling round the arm carefully as the man flinched, he decided it wasn't broken, just a very bad sprain. It would need an X-ray to be safe, but for now he could strap it into a sling. He reached into the wheelhouse, snagging the first aid kit and a bottle of suntan lotion. Without it, the four were going to look like boiled lobsters before they got back.
"...left them down there..." Leah's hissed voice wasn't reassuring and the tourists stirred uncomfortably. They'd had enough unpleasant surprises for one day, he thought, raising his voice to cover the mutter from the wheelhouse.
"I know this is rather like asking, 'aside from that Mrs Lincoln how was the play?' but aside from that, how was your holiday?" It got a rather nervous chuckle from one of the women, and then the others joined in more loudly than the joke deserved. Shock did that.
"What?" The Captain's bellow cut straight through the conversation and the tourists jumped. So did he.
"The first week was fine," the woman who spoke was older, casting a nervous glance at the wheelhouse. No secondary bellow erupted, but there was a dangerous flush creeping up the Captain's neck under his tan. "We wanted to see the sharks."
"...utter deathtrap...no secondary tanks..." Leah's furious mutterings were as angry as the look on Captain Rouvier's face. He coughed, carefully applying antiseptic to the woman's cuts.
"That's a shame. I don't think there are any sharks around." He hoped he could distract them from the increasingly murderous mutterings in the wheelhouse by keeping his tone light, but it obviously wasn't working. They were playing along, with the cautious embarrassment of people overhearing something they weren't supposed to. Anger, he guessed, would come later, once they were safely ashore and the shock had passed.
"No?"
"Dave ate them all," he said, and to his surprise heard a chuckle from Leah.
"Dave?" The woman looked concerned. "You have a tame shark?"
"No." Distracted from her discussion, Leah grinned and pointed out of the wheelhouse at the giant black dorsal fin circling the boat in hope of more tuna. "I know a friendly killer whale."
"Does it only kill whales?" The man was only half-joking, and with the orca being the same size as the boat, his concern was obvious.
"Mainly sharks," Leah stepped out of the wheelhouse. "Also whales, seals, dolphins." The fin arrowed towards the boat, stopping short as a hopeful black snout bobbed up and down in the water. "No! You've had your fish for today!" The tourists were pressed against the other side of the boat, trying not to look terrified. He hid his chuckle. It was just Dave.
Leah was ignoring them, hands on hips as she chided a mouth that could have swallowed her at a gulp. "Fine. Then work for it." She moved a hand in a circle, flicking it hard left. Dave nodded, sliding back into the water and swimming out in a wide circle before it jumped, tail-walking passed the boat like a dolphin. As the orca fell back into the water with a colossal splash, soaking the suddenly less-scared tourists, he took the chance to step into the wheelhouse.
"How are they?" Jean-Eric asked, and he grimaced.
"Nothing too severe, I think, but they really need a hospital. There's a risk of slow-developing concussion or internal bleeds."
"We'll get them there." Jean-Eric started the engine. "We need their testimony."
"Bad?"
"We're looking at loss of licence at least. Possibly jail time for leaving them down there."
"Isn't that attempted murder?"
"Only if we can prove they weren't coming back." Captain Jean-Eric picked up the radio to call in, waiting for the response. "Sorry about the butterflyfish. We'll credit you a free dive, since we didn't live up to our guarantee."
"Oh, I don't know." He couldn't help but laugh, but as the Captain looked at him in puzzlement he managed to get his breath long enough to explain.
"Well, you did guarantee me a dive I'd never forget."
Fin
Author Note: I play the EU version, where they are Jean-Eric & Oceane Rouvier of R&R diving, not L&L.