As we drew nearer, I could see that everyone in the group was gazing intently at the hole beneath the gantry. A couple of people glanced our way briefly, and one woman raised a hand in a tentative greeting. I returned the gesture, and she smiled nervously, then turned back to the hidden entrance.
I whispered (though we were barely within earshot), "They look like they're at a mine disaster. Waiting to identify the bodies as they're raised to the surface."
"It's always tense. But… be patient."
From a distance, I'd thought people were just randomly, casually dressed, but close-up it was clear that they were mostly in swimming costumes, though some wore T-shirts as well. A few were in short-limbed wetsuits. Some peoples' hair looked distinctively disheveled; one man's was visibly still wet.
"So what are they diving into? The water supply?" Ocean water was desalinated in specialized pools out on the reefs, and the fresh water pumped inland to supplement recycled waste.
Munroe said, "That'd be a challenge. None of the water arteries are thicker than a human arm."
I stopped a respectful distance from the group, feeling very much an intruder. Munroe went ahead and gently squeezed his way into the outer circle; no one seemed to mind, or to pay either of us much attention. It finally struck me that the awnings overhead were flapping and shuddering out of all proportion to the gentle wind from the east. I moved closer and caught the edge of a strong, cool breeze emerging from the tunnel itself, carrying a stale damp mineral odor.
Peering over people's shoulders, I could see that the mouth of the tunnel was capped with a knee-high structure like a small well, built of dark reef-rock or heavy-duty biopolymer, with an iris seal which had been wrenched open. The winch, a few meters away, seemed monstrous now—far too large and industrial-looking to be involved in any light-hearted sport. The cable was thicker than I'd expected; I thought of trying to estimate its total length, but the sides of the drum concealed the number of layers wrapped around it. The motor itself was silent except for the hiss of air across magnetic bearings, but the cable squeaked against itself as it spooled onto the drum, and the gantry creaked as the cable slid over the pulley.
No one spoke. It didn't seem like the time to start asking questions.
Suddenly I heard a gasping sound, almost a sobbing. There was a buzz of excitement, and everyone craned forward expectantly. A woman emerged from the tunnel, clinging tightly to the cable, scuba tanks strapped to her back, face mask pulled up onto her forehead. She was wet, but not dripping—so the water had to be some way down.
The winch stopped. The woman unhooked a safety line linking the scuba harness to the cable; people reached out to help her onto the lip of the well, and then the ground. I stepped forward, and saw a small circular platform—a coarse grid of plastic tubes—on which she'd been standing. There was also a twin-beam lantern fixed to the cable, about a meter and a half above the platform.
The woman seemed dazed. She walked some distance away from the group, almost staggering, then sat down on the rock and stared up at the sky, still breathless. Then she removed the tanks and mask, slowly and methodically, and lay down on her back. She closed her eyes and stretched out her arms, palms down, spreading her fingers on the ground.
A man and two teenage girls had separated from the others; they stood nearby, watching the woman anxiously. I was beginning to wonder if she needed medical attention—and I was on the verge of discreetly asking Sisyphus to refresh my memory on heart attack symptoms and emergency first aid—when she sprung to her feet, smiling radiantly. She began to speak excitedly to her family, in what I took to be a Polynesian language; I didn't understand a word she said, but she sounded elated.
The tension vanished, and everyone began laughing and talking. Munroe turned to me. "There are eight people in the queue ahead of you but it's worth waiting for, I promise."
"I don't know. Whatever's down there, my insurance doesn't cover it."
"I doubt your insurance covers a tram ride, on Stateless."
A thin young man in bright floral shorts was putting on the scuba gear the woman had discarded. I introduced myself; he seemed nervous, but he didn't mind talking. His name was Kumar Rajendra, an Indian-Fijian civil engineering student; he'd been on Stateless less than a week. I took a button camera from my wallet and explained what I wanted. He glanced over at the people gathered around the hole—as if wondering if he needed to ask permission of someone—but then he agreed to take it down. Fixing the camera to the top of the scuba mask, where it sat like a third eye, I noticed a faint chalky residue on the faceplate's transparent plastic.
