Clicks

Three clicks east of the research vessel “New Frontiers”, the small drone prepared to dive. On the bridge of the New Frontiers the First Officer gave a satisfied nod to no-one in particular and leant into a mic protruding from the bank of instruments; “On location and maintaining dynamic positioning; over to you, team.”

Further aft, in the Dry Lab, the team were gathered, tense with excitement — the atmosphere was electric. “Okay — Start the dive” commanded the Chief Scientist. “Dive has commenced” announced the AUV operator who was monitoring one of the MacBooks lying around the planning table. The UAV op, eyes fixed steadily on the screen, started the count: “5 metres… 10 metres… 20 metres… 30 metres… A moment of silence punctuated by various intakes of breath, before the Chief, leaning closer to her screen, announced: “We have three subjects within the target zone — correction, 5 subjects — looks like three adults and two juveniles — probably the same group.”

None of these sperm whales were tagged — At the last moment, by unfortunate chance, or perhaps through some kind of cetacean intuition, the two pods they’d spent months tracking had suddenly and uncharacteristically departed, probably to hunt in the deep trenches further north, which was the other popular spot for whale pods in the region. They could have followed, but it would have been too costly to move all their stationary equipment — the expedition coordinator would never approve. A wide network of sensors and hydrophones had been anchored to the sea floor. This equipment, along with a fleet of submarine…