After breakfast, the four of them agreed to shower and dress and meet in the lab for a good day’s work together. They’d go fishing and help Mike and Theresa document whatever they caught.
Mike asked the question they’d all been avoiding. “What about Jim?”
They all looked at Jess for an answer.
She cleared her throat. “I told you. Ted took Jim’s body to the lab against my wishes. I couldn’t help him any more than I could Ian. Ted wants to observe any changes that occur over the next few days. After that, I guess we’ll have a ceremony again.”
“Observe changes?” asked Mike, instantly wound up again. “The guy’s dead! What kind of changes—decomposition? Jesus Christ, what the fuck is wrong with this guy?”
Jess put up her hand. “I wanted him kept in the sickbay. It wasn’t my call.”
“But he was dead, right?” asked Mike.
“I’m not sure,” said Jess quietly.
Mike stopped walking and stared at Jess. “What does that mean?”
Theresa put her hand on Mike’s arm, knowing he was about to blow a gasket again. “Mike, we all know you don’t like Ted—but give him some time to observe Jim. Ian went through a lot of physiological and anatomical changes after he got sick. A lot. He needs time to learn what we’re dealing with.”
“And you go along with this shit? Are you serious? You gonna help him dissect Jim, too?” asked Mike, seething with anger.
“Hey, man, relax. No one is carving up the skipper, okay?” said Tony with a calm, even voice.
“That motherfucker is treating our friends like an experiment, and you guys just go along with it,” said Mike.
Jess exhaled slowly and ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it away from her face. “Look—none of us are happy about what happened to Ian and Jim, but until we figure out what’s going on, we’re stuck down here. We all agreed: we can’t surface and bring some kind of new plague up to the planet. Until we’re sure that we’re safe, and we understand what happened, we have to stay here. If Ted can figure this out by observing Jim’s body, then we have to let him.”
Theresa thought about the finger attached to the beaker down in the lab, but remained silent. All it would take would be a few sentences and there’d be instant chaos and mutiny. Like him or not, Ted was probably their only hope in figuring out what was going on.
“Look,” said Tony. “Let’s just stick with the day’s plan, okay? We go to the lab, we try and catch something new from the deep sea, and Mike and Theresa document their catch. It is why we’re down here. Let’s see if we can use a few billion taxpayer dollars to actually learn something about the ocean.”
Jess patted his broad shoulder. “You’re right. Let’s clean up and start the day fresh, okay? We’re stuck down here for a while—let’s try and learn what we can and accomplish something.”
Mike mumbled a quiet “Fine,” and the group walked back upstairs.
As they headed off to their cabins to grab fresh clothes and towels, Jess whispered to Tony, “You should stop by before we go downstairs.”
He smiled, showing his big white teeth. “You’re insatiable.”
“If we’re all gonna die, we might as well enjoy the day,” she whispered, and squeezed his butt.
“We’re not gonna die,” he whispered back. “But we will enjoy the day.”