The helicopter gently settled onto the landing pad and the rotors powered down. Maura let the others file out first. She had a strange, apprehensive feeling after witnessing the scale of the operation from above. Maura had to assume Amy was feeling something similar. She planned to ask her. That is, if she could get her to make eye contact for more than a few seconds.
The others were gathered around a slender Asian man with a coif of black hair. He grasped Amy’s hand and shook it vigorously. Maura thought he looked a little tired. The bags under his eyes appeared to have settled in for the long haul. She was one to talk. After traveling for nearly a full day and not getting a wink of sleep, Maura must look just as sapped. He smiled at her and stuck out his hand.
“You must be Doctor Kates.” He pumped her hand up and down, “Chan-yeol Sun. So nice to meet you. Ms. Portanova and I are very excited to have you on the team.”
Maura smiled back and gave Amy a sidelong glance. Her former second mate averted her gaze. That’s how Maura found out she wasn’t leading the expedition. Amy was in charge. Maura felt her cheeks brighten but she kept on grinning.
“We’ve arranged for the entire research team to meet this evening in the mess hall at 1800 hours. We use military time out here. You’ll get used to it.”
“I was a clerk in the 13th Quartermaster Platoon. I’m sure it’ll come back to me.” Lucas replied. Maura tried to calculate which conflict he must’ve been talking about. Vietnam maybe? She guessed serving in the Quartermaster Platoon meant supplying troops not fighting them.
Far off, they could hear the clanging of metal on metal and shouting, a foreman giving orders. The Overture felt like a well-run construction site. It had neither the sleek curves of a big tech campus or the sterile floors of a research facility. There were walkways made of metal, grates arranged at sharp angles. Everything was designed for maximum efficiency, not a thought spared for aesthetics.
“Mr. Tanaka, I think you’ll find our facilities are up to snuff.”
“You do know where I’ve been working, don’t you?”
The joke was lost on Chan, but he smiled anyway.
“Any chance our lodgings are nearby? I’m a little past my sell-by date.”
Maura was anxious to wash the plane funk off and after finding out she was a subordinate on this mission, she was dying to shut the world out and simply collect herself.
“If you’ll indulge me, I thought I’d take you on a quick tour of the facilities. Your quarters are actually on the other side of the ship. A bit of an oversight. But I didn't design the ship, I just run it.”
Chan handed them hardhats as their bags were loaded into a golf cart. It seemed showers would have to wait. Maura took note of how Chan delicately donned his hardhat, trying not to squash his hair. She thought there must be so much pomade in there, even a hurricane couldn’t disturb it.
Chan took the wheel himself and Amy slid in beside him. As befitted her rank, Maura stuffed herself in the back with Minato and Lucas. There wasn’t much room and everyone’s knees were touching. She held fast to the side of the cart as they lurched forward.
“This is the main deck. There are seven decks below us, each one allowing access to different parts of the ship. You’re looking at over two hundred and sixty thousand metric tons of steel. As you can imagine we’re constantly having to make repairs.”
They passed a line of workers, white hardhats and bright orange Carharts, piecing together a length of pipe. The men gave the passing cart a once over, then carried on.
“We have a hundred and twenty crew members, mostly Australian tradesmen; pipe fitters, plant operators, crane operators, riggers, doggers and their assistants. Of course, there’s cleaning staff for the living quarters, divers, underwater welders and… You. Our brand-new research team.”
The cart drifted into a tunnel, the rest of the ship momentarily obscured by a forest of yellow piping.
“These all carry minerals?”
Chan chuckled at Maura’s question.
“Actually, they mostly carry water and sediment. We have five drills working at any one time to break up the crust, then the harvesters can go about their business.”
“Harvesters…?” Minato piped up innocently.
“Yes. Fully autonomous, all terrain underwater vehicles. They have production rates of approximately 86 tons of nodules per hour.”
“Per hour?” Maura heard herself exclaim.
“What about the plumes?” Lucas probed gently. Plumes were the clouds of sediment stirred up by the mining process. A benign name for something extremely devastating.
“It depends on the process. The Overture is one of a kind in that it’s designed for all types of deep-sea mining. If we’re just having the harvesters collect nodules that are loose on the sea floor, there’s very little damage to the ecosystem.”
She waited for Amy to engage him, but she sat there stoically. Disappointed, Maura pressed on.
“I thought even disturbing a few inches of the seabed could release tens or even hundreds of meters of sediment.”
“You’re referring to the DISCOL study.”
Maura was momentarily surprised by Chan’s quick reference to the only study undertaken thus far to determine the environmental impacts of deep sea mining.
“The DISCOL study didn’t definitively prove anything. In fact, it only suggested further research was needed,” Chan continued, “We’ve taken pains to ensure the Overture is unlike any other mineral extraction effort on the planet. When it comes to this kind of deep-sea mining, it’s as low-impact as it gets.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Maura thought it all sounded a bit rehearsed. Talking points from some seminar meeting.
They took a sharp turn, escaping the web of piping and emerging on the other side of the ship. They traversed an alley of steel. On one side a fence faced the gray ocean. Maura was a little relieved to see it was still there. That her whole world hadn’t just become this jumbled zoo of iron and metal. Up ahead, a tall building with what looked like balconies appeared. It was the first thing she’d seen that didn’t look completely functional. A breeze pressed through the holes in the fence and the salt air tickled her nose.
“I have a teensy question…” Maura looked over at Minato, a mischievous smirk on his face. “What’s a nodule?”
Chan bit his lip.
“You know, it’ll be easier to just show you.”
He took a quick ninety-degree turn and the ocean disappeared along with the cool air.
* * * * *
The cart came to rest in front of a low-slung building encased in corrugated metal. A few technicians, yellow hardhats and goggles, moved in and out through the front doors. Chan hopped out and beckoned them to follow.
“This is one of our processing plants. We have two, one near the bow, the other near the stern. Just be careful not to touch anything.”
Chan opened the door and they stepped onto what felt like a factory floor. Technicians were tending to a series of vats, all connected to a large, central, container, tubes and pipes feeding it from all directions. Maura likened it to a patient on life support. Chan handed them goggles as they danced out of the way of the frantic technicians.
“One of our tubes leads directly to this facility. Any sediment is cleansed from the nodule, then deposited back down via a separate return duct. It’s all very streamlined.”
Chan walked over to the chamber and spoke quietly with a technician. The tech scurried away and Chan smiled back at Minato. The tech soon returned with something in his hands. It was small and black. Chan put on a pair of gloves and held it out for all to see.
“This is a nodule. Before its ore has been unlocked.”
Maura leaned in. It was about the size of a potato, dark, blackish-green and covered in bumps.
“My goodness, it looks like an avocado.” Lucas said with a chuckle.
Chan handed the nodule back to the tech.
“Once the nodules are cleansed they’re headed for one of these smaller vats where leaching is used to reduce it into its most potent mineral form. In this case cobalt.”
Technicians in full white hazmat suits unburdened one of the vats, sorting everything into a bin, which was wheeled over to a conveyor belt.
The black pimply rock had now been rendered into something slightly smaller but imminently more arresting— A gray chunk laced with brilliant blue and aqua streaks. The hunks of cobalt rattled along the belt into another machine, emerging even brighter on the other side. Chan stepped over and plucked up one of the rocks, holding it aloft.
“And this is the finished ore.”
He handed it to Lucas.
“Try making guacamole out of that.”
* * * * *
“So the vats act as leach fields?”
They were back on the cart and now it was Lucas asking the questions. His interest seemed to have been piqued by the demonstration. As Chan explained the difference between heap leaching and the more sophisticated methods used aboard the Overture, Maura noticed Minato smiling quietly to himself.
“What’s got you so pleased?” Maura asked.
“Oh, nothing. I don’t get out very much.”
He laughed.
“That makes two of us. You know, I thought I was going to another research vessel or at least some kind of vessel, this is…”
“It’s not like anything I could’ve imagined.”
Maura considered her words.
“It's just... I like to have a clear view of the ocean. You know, from wherever I am. That’s the whole point of being at sea. It’s right there beside you.”
“I don’t know. It makes me feel more secure like this. It’s almost like a campus.”
“I’m not sure how many college grads we have out here.”
“I don’t know. You might be surprised.”
“Well, I’m definitely surprised.”
Maura glanced up at Amy again. At the hearing she had still very much been, Amy, more at home in a mosh pit than a research facility. But now, it was like she was Amy in corporate drag. Their last expedition had apparently changed them both.
“I hope no one minds one last stop.” Chan announced.
Maura held fast as the cart took another hairpin turn. They headed away from the balconied building toward the northeast corner of the ship. There, they went down, into what resembled the entrance to a parking garage. As they traversed the decks, daylight gave way to florescent lights. The cart finally came to a rest outside a secure door. Chan used his keycard to unlock the door with a click.
An Aussie worker in a white jumpsuit was there to meet him.
“Sorry about the intrusion. I’m just showing our new crew members the hawsehole.”
The Aussie seemed a bit indifferent, but nodded and returned to his booth.
Chan urged them down a darkened corridor. As they approached the end of the tunnel they all began to hear— swishing. Chan led them through a doorway into a tall, silo-looking structure. Once inside, they found themselves approaching a railing. They peered over and found themselves staring into the jet-black waters of the Pacific.
“Chan, your ship’s got a leak.” Maura quipped.
“A very calculated leak. Do you see the chain?”
They all looked up at the thick iron cable stretching high into the silo until it met the end of a crane. It was outfitted with an enormous winch capable of pulling the chain taut. Iron fetters traveled down, plunging into the strange wave-pool below.
“That chain weighs nearly twenty-five thousand tons.”
“It’s a mooring.” Lucas realized out loud.
Chan smiled, “Correct. It sits on the shallowest part of the trench, about two thousand meters down and that’s where it’ll stay until we have to move the ship again.”
“Just how much planning went into this?”
“I’m sorry?”
Lucas tried to rephrase his question, “The amount of engineering… The sheer size of it all… I mean, if I’m not mistaken, the ISA didn’t even approve drilling until last year. This investment must’ve taken…”
“The Chinese Ocean Mineral Resources Research and Development Association has been planning this operation for nearly twenty years. Most of the world thinks short-term. The Chinese are nothing if not far-sighted. You may have noticed that we are in the midst of what the Australians refer to as “cyclone alley.” Everything about this ship has been designed and planned to withstand even the most debilitating of storms. This ship, is, as they say…” He stopped himself from saying the unword.
“How did you secure the moorings?”
It was Amy again.
“The same as you would secure your boat in the harbor, Ms. Portanova. Just with a much longer rod of iron.”
“But you’d need divers.”
“Yes, that’s why we had to place them at the shallower end of the trench.”
“With actual divers?”
He knew what she was getting at.
“Yes, correct.”
Maura was catching on.
“So, that’s where the incident occurred?”
Chan carefully elided her question.
“We won’t change our mooring very often, but occasionally we have to repair parts of the extraction process. We have a small but essential team of divers. This whole operation is with the consent of the Australian government and with our assurances that it can be maintained safely. As far as they’re concerned, even a tiny number of accidents merits an extensive investigation.”
Maura understood. An extraction operation twenty years in the making, now in danger of being undone by an unforeseen new species. She stared into the opening, the thick iron cable quickly disappearing into the inky darkness. It was down there, somewhere and she was going to find it. A horn sounded. Orange lights strobed all around the compartment. The group exchanged concerned glances.
“Don’t worry. It’s just our DP alert system,” Chan assured them, “Looks like one of our diving teams is on their way back now.”
