around it. Sea fans, half as tall as a man and much wider, looked like postage stamps beside the manta; a passing hammerhead looked no bigger than a spaniel. Also, as she stared down on the animal’s back she could see a white slash behind the manta’s left horn.
She guessed that the manta was hugging the bottom because there was less current there; the surrounding rocks and valleys would disperse the massive flow of water. And where there was less current there was less tug on the ropes that tore at the manta’s already battered flesh.
The manta was hovering in a temporary shelter, where the sea did not aggravate its pain.
That presumed—Paloma checked herself—that a manta felt pain. Jobim had told her that some animals have no sensation similar to what people call pain. They sense, by instinct, danger, shock, loss of a limb or of a vital fluid—but not pain. For pain was only a human word for a human feeling. Yet Paloma knew for certain that this animal felt something akin to pain, something that signaled alarm and distress, because yesterday when she had tugged at the ropes in the wound the manta had behaved like a dog that has stepped on a bee.
Paloma also guessed that it was instinct that told the manta it could find shelter in a place of less current and that there was less current near the bottom. Like any animal in pain, humans included, the manta would seek a path of least discomfort. It would move everywhere, into deep water and shallow, close to the seamount and far from it, and where it was most comfortable it would stay.
All of which was fine, Paloma thought, but the manta’s quest for comfort posed a problem: She could not possibly help the animal if it was determined to stay at sixty-five or seventy feet. She could make a breath-hold dive that deep, but she could not hope to stay long enough to accomplish anything.
On the surface—but more dramatically underwater—it is a basic truth that the more you attempt to do, the more oxygen you consume. A runner breathes harder than a walker because the runner is using oxygen faster and needs to replenish it faster. Underwater, there is no such thing as breathing harder: You have the oxygen you came down with, and there will be no more until you return to the surface.
The first time Jobim had explained that basic truth toPaloma, she had responded with a weary sigh, as if she felt he was insulting her intelligence. After all, it didn’t take a genius to realize that there is no air underwater; that is why you take a deep breath and hold it when you put your head underwater.
Later, however, after she had dived many times to many depths and experienced the different ways her body responded to different activities and exertions and pressures and sensations, she knew what her father had meant. You had to know before you dived how far you were going and what you wanted to do. To change your mind at the last minute, far underwater, was to invite confusion, exhaustion, panic, and death.
Paloma knew, for example, that she could easily dive down to sixty or seventy feet if all she intended to do was wrap her legs around a rock and observe the creatures of the seamount—or, at the very most, kick or swim calmly from perch to perch. She knew how to read the signals her body sent her, knew when to respond by starting for the surface. But if she were to go to sixty or seventy feet and were, say, to see a bed of oysters ten feet deeper still, and were to force herself down and begin to hack the oysters free and stuff them in a bag, the signals for immediate ascent would come right away. Because she had gone deeper and exerted herself more than she had intended and had consumed oxygen that should have been left in reserve for the trip to the surface, the signals would already be too late.
She would start up—not in the relaxed, oxygen-efficient way she knew to be best, kicking gently and allowing her body’s natural buoyancy to take her up, but struggling
She guessed that the manta was hugging the bottom because there was less current there; the surrounding rocks and valleys would disperse the massive flow of water. And where there was less current there was less tug on the ropes that tore at the manta’s already battered flesh.
The manta was hovering in a temporary shelter, where the sea did not aggravate its pain.
That presumed—Paloma checked herself—that a manta felt pain. Jobim had told her that some animals have no sensation similar to what people call pain. They sense, by instinct, danger, shock, loss of a limb or of a vital fluid—but not pain. For pain was only a human word for a human feeling. Yet Paloma knew for certain that this animal felt something akin to pain, something that signaled alarm and distress, because yesterday when she had tugged at the ropes in the wound the manta had behaved like a dog that has stepped on a bee.
Paloma also guessed that it was instinct that told the manta it could find shelter in a place of less current and that there was less current near the bottom. Like any animal in pain, humans included, the manta would seek a path of least discomfort. It would move everywhere, into deep water and shallow, close to the seamount and far from it, and where it was most comfortable it would stay.
All of which was fine, Paloma thought, but the manta’s quest for comfort posed a problem: She could not possibly help the animal if it was determined to stay at sixty-five or seventy feet. She could make a breath-hold dive that deep, but she could not hope to stay long enough to accomplish anything.
On the surface—but more dramatically underwater—it is a basic truth that the more you attempt to do, the more oxygen you consume. A runner breathes harder than a walker because the runner is using oxygen faster and needs to replenish it faster. Underwater, there is no such thing as breathing harder: You have the oxygen you came down with, and there will be no more until you return to the surface.
The first time Jobim had explained that basic truth toPaloma, she had responded with a weary sigh, as if she felt he was insulting her intelligence. After all, it didn’t take a genius to realize that there is no air underwater; that is why you take a deep breath and hold it when you put your head underwater.
Later, however, after she had dived many times to many depths and experienced the different ways her body responded to different activities and exertions and pressures and sensations, she knew what her father had meant. You had to know before you dived how far you were going and what you wanted to do. To change your mind at the last minute, far underwater, was to invite confusion, exhaustion, panic, and death.
Paloma knew, for example, that she could easily dive down to sixty or seventy feet if all she intended to do was wrap her legs around a rock and observe the creatures of the seamount—or, at the very most, kick or swim calmly from perch to perch. She knew how to read the signals her body sent her, knew when to respond by starting for the surface. But if she were to go to sixty or seventy feet and were, say, to see a bed of oysters ten feet deeper still, and were to force herself down and begin to hack the oysters free and stuff them in a bag, the signals for immediate ascent would come right away. Because she had gone deeper and exerted herself more than she had intended and had consumed oxygen that should have been left in reserve for the trip to the surface, the signals would already be too late.
She would start up—not in the relaxed, oxygen-efficient way she knew to be best, kicking gently and allowing her body’s natural buoyancy to take her up, but struggling
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