Free Far From The Sea We Know by Frank Sheldon Page B

unused. Matthew’s lab
partner at school had told him that Ripler had finished college
early and entered the graduate program at the Point when he was
only nineteen. Now, he couldn’t be much over twenty-one.
    “It’s all wonderful,” Matthew said, “but
don’t you find, at least at times, that the technology gets in
between you and what you’re observing? I mean, you lose the
immediacy.”
    Ripler glanced up then back down, but not
fast enough to hide a slight sneer.
    “I see you’ve been listening to ‘Captain
Nemo.’ Or Doctor Martin Bell, to you and the world. But to answer
your question: not at all. The data we’re able to gather and
instantly cross-reference is, quite frankly, way beyond anything
done before. Knowledge accretion will accelerate to the point where
almost any question can be answered quickly. We’ll be able to build
incredibly complex models from a mass of accurate data.”
    Ripler gave a little laugh. “And it doesn’t
hurt a bit that we get some grants from the company who makes this
gear.”
    “Jack was the main force behind getting this
equipment for us,” Becka said.
    “With strings, I’m sure,” Matthew could not
stop from adding.
    Ripler shook his head and laughed again.
“Using their stuff is a de facto endorsement, which means everyone
else will have to have it, and that obviously benefits the company
that makes it. Marine science does not come cheap. With this gear,
we are light-years ahead of where we were even two years ago. This
is the future, not standing on a pitching deck, squinting at the
horizon. Even after we’re long gone, anybody will be able to use
the data we’re gathering right now, and go on a virtual field trip.
And this data may not be available much longer, after all.” He
looked at the whales on his screen. “They’ll all be gone before the
end of the century.”
    Ripler’s face clouded over for a moment. His
concern seemed genuine, and his pessimism was not unfounded.
    “We’d be crazy not to use it,” he said,
gesturing toward the array. “So get used to it or get out of the
way.”
    “Don’t forget yesterday,” Becka said.
    “I’d rather like to forget, if you don’t
mind.”
    Matthew looked at Ripler, who had again
become absorbed in making fine adjustments to the array. It was not
the time to press him on whatever had happened yesterday, but he
noted the point for later.
    “If you’d like to view anything since we got
here,” Ripler said, “the files are down in the lab. Use the
backups, please. Everything we have is there and as good as we
could make it. Can’t update with anything on shore, however, as
Doctor Bell doesn’t want Internet access on the ship, for some
unfathomable reason.”
    “Well, the cost,” Matthew said.
    “Even a fool should know by now it is the
future. We could have a satellite downlink for a tiny fraction of
the money that goes into the mini-sub, his favorite toy, but he’s
afraid we won’t get enough exposure to the raw elements or
something. Foolish.”
    Ripler suddenly smiled. “I’m sure you’ll see
the whole picture, with time. Check the files we made
yesterday.”
    “For now, I’d like to follow in real time,
but I’ll definitely take a look later. That holding tank they’re
putting together: are you planning to make some captures this
trip?”
    “Certainly not! Those days, thank God, are
over. Our good Captain Thorssen used to do that, by the way. Before
he saw the error of his ways, I’m sure. You know, bring ’em back
alive, man against nature. Capturing dolphins and small whales for
the amusement of tourists. You didn’t know?”
    “No.”
    “Back when he was much younger and before he
had some kind of ‘encounter’ that supposedly changed his life. Part
of his myth, anyway.”
    Ripler glanced over to the tank. “Sometimes
we come across the orphaned or the injured: whales, seals, and
further up north, walruses. We save a few, learn something from the
others. Many die. That