“We were at the end!” Percy assured her. “And have no fear. We’ll check out every single piece down to the atoms to find out what failed you!”
“Hey, it’s good to have a dive captain for your dive partner!” Darlene said.
Percy looked at Wes. Wes shrugged.
“Any of us down there could have shared our air—we didn’t need to surface from being too deep. It’s all good, Percy,” Wes told him.
“All good!” Darlene said.
“Hey, young lady, you had a real problem,” Celia said, looking over at Percy apologetically. “I did exactly what you said not to do!”
“People get excited—they get too close to ancient rotting things,” Percy said. “It’s happened before, and... well, you see why I run a tight ship! Buddy system all the way.”
“Hear, hear!” the captain’s mate, Buddy, said, causing everyone to laugh.
“Seriously! We had an amazing time, thank you!” Broderick said. “And, hey, what’s a good time without a little drama?”
A little drama. We seem to be having a lot of it lately!Chloe thought.
She looked at Wes. She knew that they were due back at the dive station where all equipment would be returned, theywould gather whatever they had left there, and board the bus for their return to the ship.
But she knew, too, that before they left, Wes would be talking to someone.
And that he’d be damned if he’d leave before he knew just what had caused the problem with Darlene’s equipment.
Fourteen
Others had already headed for the bus, Chloe among them, Wes knew. He had watched as they started out. Chloe was walking along with Darlene and her father, and Wes knew that Darlene was still trying to apologize, telling them that she had been trained, she knew she could have asked to share air, and that she could have gotten to the surface on her own without causing such a problem.
And, of course, everyone was assuring her that they’d been at the end of the dive anyway, they’d seen the wreck! Everything was well.
And, of course again, he assumed Celia was telling her that it was probably her fault, not Darlene’s, because she’d managed to get them close together in the ship’s broken hallway where protruding metal and wood might have caused some kind of puncture in her air hose.
Right.
“I swear to you, sir, we thoroughly test our equipment andwe’re vigilant about it, about measures to make sure that all mouthpieces are purified and...”
Wes looked at the young technician working on Darlene’s air hose as he spoke.
Percy walked up. “You know, I warn people about getting hung up on something when we’re in the wreck, but this might have been my fault. I didn’t think to remind them that they had to watch out for their equipment, as well. You know, we have never had a single incident before and today we had two. Well, you live and learn. And thanks, man, you were so fast, but I hear that you’re a dive master—”
“I was just there. Anyone who has been diving anytime would know to share air,” Wes told him.
“But you did it without blinking, without causing a big disturbance,” Percy said. “Thank you!”
“Hey, don’t worry. They stress that divers are supposed to be experienced,” Wes told him. “It’s all good.”
“I wasn’t worried about being sued,” Percy said, grimacing. “I, um, actually care about people. And that lady... well, she did exactly what I said not to do. But that poor kid! It’s a scary thing when you’re suddenly inhaling water with your air.”
“It all turned out fine—”
“And there it is!” the tech suddenly said. “Well, I guess you’re right about the old rotten wood and all. There’s the scratch against the hose and the hole that it caused is so small! But big enough so that the air pressure wasn’t enough to keep out the water. Kid must have brushed against something.”
“That couldn’t have been there before she went in,” Wes said.
“We test—”
“No, sorry, that wasn’t a question. It was a statement—she would have been choking long before we were in the wreck,” Wes told him.
