Page 28 - Unlikely Stories 3

Gaea Omphalos

March 22: The first day of spring, but who would know it on the
ocean’s floor? I can see how it takes a certain personality to work in
this environment. I don’t think I have it. This morning, when I was
passing by the library, I could have sworn I smelled flowers. At first I
thought it was an olfactory hallucination, but then I realized one of
the women in there must have been burning incense or spraying a
heavy perfume—both in violation of Aquadome rules for
maintaining a breathable atmosphere. With Foucault seeming such a
martinet, I feared that the poor girl would be chewed out, maybe
discharged from the project and sent back up in the next sub shuttle.
Anyone who might bear a grudge against Foucault was someone I
wanted to talk to, so I contrived to join the three assistants in the
mess hall during lunch. When I steered the topic of conversation
away from fashion and television mini-series to their boss, I was
surprised to hear nothing but praise for the overbearing tyrant. Could
we have been talking about the same man? This didn’t make sense at
all. I could only conclude they were so afraid of him they wouldn’t
dare speak out in such a public place. I had only two more days
before I had to return to the surface, and this looked like my only
lead. Slim, but promising. So I acted very chummy with them,
agreeing with all their narrow-minded observations on life, love and
the price of pantyhose. In the afternoon I was briefed by members of
the team working on the power-generation facility attached to the
Aquadome. It’s about a quarter of a mile away, connected by a
tunnel; if anything goes wrong there, it won’t affect the safety of the
people here. That was comforting.

March 23: Now here’s a strange thing: I was interviewing the team
geologist this morning (not bad looking, like all these young
scientists, but I still prefer Si Klopperman), and he told me that the
site chosen for boring was not the one recommended by an advisory
panel of which he was a member. Instead, they are digging into the
ocean floor at a location that slightly mystifies him, as it is far from
optimal in many of its characteristics. He really didn’t mind all that
much; just to be down here, sampling deeper strata than anyone else
in history is good enough for him. The question remains: who pulled
the strings or altered the data to change something potentially so

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