“Mmmmm...” she said, and he wondered if she was even listening to him.

“Do you want me to choke you?”

“Mmmmm...”

He moved on to another knot. She sighed again and said, “If you hear one, how are you going to go about catching it?”

“We moor the hydrophones in an array on the seafloor. This allows us to determine the direction any sound is coming from and follow it to its source.”

“Yes, but how are you going to catch one? Throw on a pair of goggles and flippers and jump overboard?”

“I’m glad you take my work so seriously, Rad. Even now, after the recent discoveries, you’re still making jokes—”

She rolled onto her side. “I’m sorry, Marty. I don’t mean to sound snarky. I guess I’m still a little jaded about your big lie. Don’t worry, I’ll be back to my charming, irresistible self soon. Okay?”

“Sure.”

“So tell me—I’m genuinely curious—if you find a merfolk, how are you planning to catch it?”

“Dynamite.”

“Marty!”

“The underwater shockwave should stun a merfolk long enough for us to collect its body.”

“If it doesn’t kill it!”

“There’s a chance the blast would rupture its lungs, yes, and that would be unfortunate. Yet while a live specimen would be ideal, a dead specimen is better than no specimen.”

Rad sat straight, covering her breasts with an arm. Her expression was incredulous. “Seriously, Marty? If you make first contact with a creature from myths and legends, a creature that potentially has human lineage, your plan is to blow it up with dynamite?”

“It would be for the greater good, Rad. Morality is determined by the end result. In this case the capture of a merfolk, dead or alive, would change everything we know about human evolution, about our seas and oceans, about our history. It would be the greatest boon to biological science since Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Surely that outweighs the life of one creature, which would expire eventually.”

“That’s a heartless argument, Marty.”

“If the death of a single slave during the antebellum era would end slavery and prevent the Civil War, wouldn’t it be justified?”

“That’s not even close to the same thing, and you know it.”

“Would you kill the slave?”

“Give it a break, Marty.”

“Would you, Rad?”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“What about you, dog?” he asked the Pomeranian, which was looking up at them sleepily. “Would you do it?”

The dog yapped loudly, what sounded to him like an affirmation.

“Good, Marty,” he said, and got up and left.

∆∆∆

He went to the pilothouse to check on Pip, who was standing in the dimly lit room before the ship’s wheel, throttles, and control board.

“Bonjour, mon capitaine.” She pointed to the GPS screen. “We are only a few nautical miles from the island now. Is something…wrong?”

“Rad doesn’t think our plan to blast-fish a merfolk out of the water is ethical.”

“Ethical? What is ethical?” Pip shrugged dismissively. “You think it is wrong to eat dog meat, some people think it is okay. You think it is wrong to lie. Some people think it is okay. Your girlfriend has an opinion, that is all. And she is not a scientist. She does not have the head of a scientist, or the hunger of a scientist. She does not have that drive that you and I have, to explore, to unravel secrets, to find new truths. So her opinion is moot.”