The Pressure Drop

The Pacific looked bigger from a thousand feet up. Polly tilted her head into the wind. Her glasses had slid down her beak a little, and she shook them back into place. Far below, a small white ship was cutting through the water from Guam.

She came down in slow spirals. From this height, the wake behind the ship looked like a chalk line on blue paper.

The salt air was warm. The diesel smell from the engines was sharp. She tucked her blue-teal wings and landed on the railing near the front. The ship was called PRESSURE DROP, in tall white letters.

The crew did not seem to notice her. They wound thick cables onto a drum and lashed crates to the deck. They worked the way people work when they have done a job many times.

Polly cocked her head at the submersible. It was almost a ball at the centre, with skids and floats stuck on the outside. It looked less like a submarine and more like a steel pumpkin.

A young engineer stood beside it with a clipboard. He read out a checklist in a quiet voice. "Sphere pressure tested. Trim weights confirmed. Battery state ninety-eight percent."

Near her feet, a thick cable lay coiled. Two crew members wound more cable onto a big drum, talking in half-Spanish and half-English.

The sun was setting fast. The sky turned the colour of a peach. Polly hopped along the rail to keep the sun in view, the wood warm under her yellow feet.

A cook came out of the galley for a cigarette. He wiped his hands on his white apron and squinted at the sky. He did not see her.

The light went orange, then red, then went out altogether. Floodlights hummed on along the deck.

The silver skin of the submersible reflected the lights in patches. Polly fluffed her feathers against the cool air.

No land was visible in any direction. The Mariana Trench was somewhere below, dropping more than ten kilometres into the dark. She tucked her head under her wing. Tomorrow, the descent.

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