Summer turned her attention to a series of overhead feeder tubes that dangled like thick tentacles over the ship from an adjacent dockside pumping station. Called “Chiksan arms,” the large articulated pipes jimmied and swayed from the surge of the liquid CO2 flowing through inside. Small wisps of white smoke spewed from the pump building roof, condensation from the cooled and pressurized gas. Summer reached down and retrieved the last empty vial from her dive bag, wondering whether the water around her was contaminated with pollutants as she took the final sample. Zipping the full vial into her dive bag, she kicked toward her brother, who had drifted near the dock.

As she approached, Dirk pointed toward the dock entrance and whispered, “Let’s go.”

Summer nodded and started to turn, then suddenly hesitated in the water. Her eyes fixated on the Chiksan arms above Dirk’s head. With a quizzical look on her face, she raised a finger and pointed at the pipes far overhead. Dirk cocked his head and gazed up at the pipes for a minute but didn’t notice anything amiss.

“What is it?” he whispered.

“There’s something about the movement of the pipes,” she replied, staring at the arms. “I think the carbon dioxide is being pumped onto the ship.”

Dirk stared up at the wiggling arms. There was a rhythmic movement through the pipes, but it was hardly sufficient to tell which way the liquefied gas was flowing. He looked at his sister and nodded. Her occasional hunches or intuitions were usually right. It was enough for him to want to check it out.

“Do you think it means anything?” Summer asked, looking up at the ship’s bow.

“Hard to say if it has any relevance,” Dirk replied quietly. “It doesn’t make any sense that they would be pumping CO2 onto the ship. Maybe there is an LNG pipeline from Athabasca running through here.”

“ Trevor said there was only a small oil pipeline and the CO2 line.”

“Did you notice if the ship was sitting higher in the water this morning?”

“I couldn’t say,” Summer replied. “ Though she ought to be a lot higher in the water now if she’s been off-l oading gas for any amount of time.”

Dirk looked up at the hulking vessel. “What I know about LNG ships, and it ain’t much, is that pumps onshore move the liquid onto the ships, and they have pumps on board to move it off at the destination. From the sound of it, the pump house onshore is clearly operating.”

“That could be to pump the gas underground or into temporary storage tanks.”