Welcome aboard Healy. Please review the enclosed materials. The inherent hazards of life at sea require that we all understand and follow the basic safety practices which are described…
Jack skimmed the rest. Mostly, he looked for instructions on getting access to his Healy email account. Once the ship reached 75°N latitude, bandwidth would be so limited that only the bridge would be authorized to access the internet. The computer labs in the lounges would only provide email through Healy’s server onboard.
The Coasties and scientists surrounding Jack made more haste with their breakfasts. Their mornings were booked with scheduled activities listed on the plan of the day posted throughout the ship. Safety drills occupied the crew and one unlucky man-overboard dummy named Ralph. The scientists were to split their numbers in half to inventory equipment lockers and lab spaces while also testing the cranes on deck. Jack was left to his own devices.
The weather was warmer than he expected; high sixties, set to creep up to 73°F, according to plan of the day posts. Jack stuffed his hat and gloves into the pockets of his parka and thought it unusually warm for Alaska. Or maybe not so unusual, considering that the previous year brought the hottest global temperatures on record by the largest margin to date. The current year was already set to break more records. Jack often remembered the allegory of the frog plopped in water that was slowly brought to a boil—no cause for alarm until you’re already served up on a plate with garlic and lemon.
The mist had burned off, and Jack could see Seward’s mountains clearly. He walked aft and back again to the bow, checking different vantage points with the viewfinder of his camera. There were more dead eagles in the water, many more, and yet the air was full of healthy, obnoxious gulls that swooped and drafted large ships in the bay.
Jack craned his head up to the three boxlike structures rising from Healy’s hull.
The structure closest to the bow housed living quarters: staterooms, lounges, mess deck, gym, laundry, and so on. It was the widest and tallest of the three structures with small, evenly spaced portholes dotting its sides all the way up to a crown of windows and satellite antennae at the bridge, Healy’s central command. Sprouting from the bridge, like a mast and crow’s nest, was a small lookout. No doubt those windows afforded the best panoramic view.
Jack ducked into the closest ladder well and encountered two Coasties loping down single file.
“Wrong way, sir,” one of them called out.
“What?”
“Yah have to go to the starboard side if yah want to go up.”
The reasoning was immediately apparent as they squeezed past each other. Jack climbed to the bridge four levels up at the height of a six-story building. He stood and gaped at the view over the tip of Healy’s bow and onto the slate-colored horizon. A crewmember approached and introduced herself as Ensign Sokolov. Stocky, formal but helpful, she offered a tour of the bridge that Jack gladly accepted.
The other crewmembers were all patient, and each took a moment to give their names, ranks, titles, and assigned tasks. They tried to explain various functions of a long control console with clunky buttons, lights, and radar screens. Captain Weber even walked over to give a handshake. He was tall and lean, like Jack, but with a chiseled profile that belonged on Mount Rushmore. His eyes were blue as worn denim, but unfocused with distraction. After excusing himself, the captain walked up to the windows of the bridge and lifted a pair of binoculars. He didn’t look out to the horizon but down at the dead eagles floating in the water.
Jack’s pager sounded. He pulled it from his waistband and squinted at the display.
“What’s this code mean?” he asked Ensign Sokolov.
“Abandon ship.”
“We’re still in the harbor!”
Her eyebrows lifted as she stated that safety drills were explained in the welcome aboard packet and his assigned emergency location was listed on his new passenger card.
“Yes, it is,” Jack agreed, pulling the card from his back pocket and using it to salute her.
The abandon ship locker was halfway up Healy’s starboard side. A group of scientists were gathered by the doorway. Jack recognized the woman he had spoken with in the science lounge. She had light brown skin in the true light of day and barely came up to his shoulder in height.
“Might as well introduce ourselves,” Jack said, and approached with a smile.
He studied her oval face with rounded cheeks, nose, and chin. Her mouth had soft, mauve-colored lips, as if lightly stained by red wine. Sunglasses and gloves concealed her eyes and ring finger.
“Maya,” she said, after a pause. “Dr. Maya Gutiérrez. And this is one of my bunkmates, Dr. Nancy Stevens.”
She motioned to a tall woman standing beside her with paint-spatter freckles and red hair that curled and fluffed around her jawline.
“I’m Jack,” he said, shaking their hands. “Mr. Jack. Definitely not doctor.”
A Coastie holding a clipboard walked to the center of the group and called out above the wind.
“Good morning, life raft number five!”
They mumbled good morning and each raised their hands when he took attendance.
“Gustavo Wayãpi?”
Jack swiveled his head around but didn’t see his bunkmate.
“Gustavo Wayãpi going once? Going twice?”
The Coastie made a mark by Gustavo’s name. After roll call, he explained Healy’s abandon ship procedure: what supplies each individual had to bring along, what to wear, and how food would be rationed. Jack scrolled through his email, trying not to count all the new messages from his mother. He was subtle, but the Coastie was watching his audience carefully.
“You gonna remember all this?” he asked Jack.
“It’s okay,” Jack assured him. “I can’t die. I’m an only child.”
The man wasn’t amused.
“Doubt your mother can save you out here.”
“You haven’t met my mother!” Jack said, but he tucked away his phone and made a better show of listening.
“Any questions before we get you all fitted for immersion suits?”
The Coastie was quick to add that no one knew why the eagles were dying, but the EPA had been alerted days ago. Dr. Nancy Stevens raised her gloved hand.
“What if the ship needs to turn around?” she asked. “Because of the comet?”
The Coastie asked Nancy to repeat her question before looking at the rest of them for assistance. He hadn’t heard of any dark comet, but the scientists wouldn’t let him off the hook so easily. The Coastie finally radioed his supervisor, who joined the group ten minutes later with a reply that wasn’t an answer.
“We hear not much is known ’cause they just spotted the thing,” the supervisor explained.
The thing still didn’t have a name, only the label UD3.
“And this is Healy’s last scientific mission,” he added, visibly affected, “so we’re gonna see it to the end.”
Healy’s Arctic West expeditions had been recently defunded. Climate change wasn’t considered a factual threat by many in the administration. Those who did accept the science still understood that the Coast Guard’s budget had to be slashed where it could in order to fund a multibillion-dollar wall along the country’s southern border.