Director of Intelligence
Posts: 7,214
Joined: 3 Dec 2005
Gender: Female
Country: USA
SAK owned: Camper&Swissbit
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Season: season 5
Episode:Serenity
Vehicle: Jeep
Jacket: Brown bomber
House: House boat
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The Sea Shepherds
Chapter 5: Acclimation
The destroyer shadowed us for almost two days. Sometimes the ship would come up close, within a few hundred yards of the Sea Shepherd’s stern; other times it would hang back until it was just a speck on the horizon. They didn’t try to talk to us by radio; they just seemed content to escort us out of Portuguese waters.
Once it became clear the gunship wasn’t a threat, I actually began to enjoy my stay aboard Sea Shepherd. She was an older ship than the Sierra had been, but she was cleaner. The decks were not crowded with grim men, for one thing, and it smelled like a ship should smell: sea salt and diesel fuel. I hadn’t realized how malodorous the other ship had been until I was no longer aboard. Now I could breathe deeply and relish the purer air. I could walk the decks without concern… well, relatively without concern… and get down to the joy and excitement of being miles and miles from dry land.
I have always been fascinated by water—to which my juvenile record of ‘borrowing’ boats from neighbors can attest. Also there were several attempts to build my own vessels, some of which were less successful than others. As kids, my friend Jack had often teased me about my Nordic ancestry—implying that I had to be the direct descendant of a Viking, and therefore, a plunderer and pirate. I never took him too seriously—you couldn't know Jack Dalton well and not know to take everything he said with a grain of salt—but there might have been something in this. I did love being on the water—by it, on it, in it, or beneath the surface.
So, my circumstances had improved, but there was still a lot of work to do. I made an effort to get along with his new shipmates. Jerry was deeply suspicious and followed me around for an entire day before he convinced himself that I wasn’t a threat. Peter, on the other hand, was supremely indifferent—except that he wouldn’t let me anywhere near the engine room for fear that I might sabotage something. But that left the rest of the ship open to me, and I did what I could to help everywhere.
It started with a little knot-tying contest with Jerry, and I confess that I had a bit of an advantage. People laugh and make jokes about it, but I was a Boy Scout, and I have all the badges to prove it…including Advanced Knots and Seamanship; I could tie any knot that they asked for, left or right-handed. Which sent Jerry into flights of frustration, much to the amusement of Watson and Peter, who were watching us. When I flipped a bowline in three seconds, he insisted that I try it again—blindfolded. So I did.
What I didn’t tell him is that I could probably do it behind my back, too. I didn’t want to sound like I was bragging…
Next, I fixed a feedback problem in the PA system, but that was no big deal; I just eliminated the extra yards of extension cords that were shorting out, and then I used the insulation that was on the surplus wiring to secure the existing connections.
I surpassed myself in the galley. I made a real splash with something I introduced to my new friends using an eggplant, tomato, and tofu. I called it ‘hot dish’, and it seemed to melt the last of the ice.
Or it could have been the cayenne pepper.
On the second evening on the Sea Shepherd, MacGyver was walking the deck on watch when he heard the singing. The sun was wallowing in the waves, casting a long glowing path across the water. A sound almost unearthly, a low moan that crested into a piercing cry, in a pitch so unusual that Mac thought his ears were playing tricks on him as he listened. His hands touching the gunwale felt the vibration throughout the ship, and it passed through his body as well, filled him with a longing he never felt with feet on dry land.
In the path of the burning sun, a great shape rose from the water. Forsaking for a few seconds the cradle of the sea, thrusting itself into the air as if it could suddenly deny gravity and take flight, the massive head of a great whale emerged into the twilight. Sunlight gleamed on the dark skin and flashed like a star on the patterns of white decorating the flanks of the creature.
It was only a few seconds, but time seemed to slow down as MacGyver watched. The head of the beast turned toward the ship, toward him, and regarded him with one great eye, as big as Mac’s closed fist, embedded in the wall of the creature's flesh. Mac held his breath as he felt himself regarded, measured.
Then the water fountained high as the leviathan lay back gracefully and was eagerly enfolded in the arms of the sea, just as the last glimmer of sunlight was drawn down into the deeps, and the water droplets fell like stars.
Mac released his breath. His skin was covered with goosebumps. The vision had only taken seconds, but he felt as if he had been standing on the deck for an hour. He could still hear the song of the whale, fainter now, echoing like laughter beneath the weight of the night. He resisted a silly urge to leap into the water to look in on the whale in its own watery world, as the whale had done to him.
“He’s curious about you.” Watson’s voice came out of the darkness nearby. Mac looked around as the ships lights began to awaken across the deck. He saw the captain where he was standing, leaning against the cabin where he must have seen everything that had happened.
“He?” The faint songs were still ringing; Mac spoke softly as if to avoid scaring away the wonder of the moment. “How can you tell?”
“His size, mostly. The distance from the eye to the fin, and to the dorsal crest. If we’d had a bit more light you could have made out the chevrons better, and his color. Plus, he was on his own. If he had breached while the sun was higher, it would have been because he was showing off for his cow, not for you.”
MacGyver chuckled. “Guess he decided I wasn’t his type.” Watson flashed a grin in the waning light.
They listened to the eerie music, leaning against the rail. The whale’s singing was answered in the distance by another voice, then another. “I’ve never heard so many whales singing at the same time,” MacGyver said. Then he admitted, “Well—to be honest—I’ve only ever heard a whale sing tonight, though I knew that they could. Does the sound attract all the others?”
“There’s only about three of them. They’re following us…or rather they’re swimming the same way we are. They’re ahead of us now.”
“I’m glad they’re not going the other way,” MacGyver added, “Even with the Sierra out of commission for a while.”
Watson sighed. “I hope some day to see that ship on the bottom. She’ll be crippled for a while, like you say, but they’ll be able to fix her, I think. They have the resources, certainly. But I’d give a lot to know where the rest of the fleet is skulking right now."
“The rest of the fleet?” Mac turned toward Watson. “You mean, there’s more than one?”
“’More than one?’ Why, there’s hundreds! The whaling industry is multi-million-dollar business. They sail on every ocean. Some, like the Sierra, actually follow the whales’ migrations, killing relentlessly regardless of season.”
Something clicked inside of MacGyver; in his mind, he reexamined the folded paper that he had inside his shirt. “I need to check something,” he said abruptly. “Can I look at your nautical charts?”
~~~tbc!
 Everyone, sometimes, needs a camel.
Old troubleshooters never die...
They just wait til the last moment and then rescue themselves!
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Thanks! Yes, RDA did plant that idea in my head. 
