The Time Harvester by D.A.Sanford - HTML preview

We finally have enough

It has been a few years since we started to work on the house and found things worth selling. There is the break in and then kidnapping. Excited, worried and distressed, all the emotions associated with our profession. Those wear on a person.

“Shela, what would you think if I was to say that we need to set aside the harvester, the other businesses and take a month off. Just wander. Goof off here or run away to join a circus, for a while? I just need to detoxify.”

“How about we talk to our partners. See if they would mind, maybe they feel the same.”

She got a weird sly smile then she puts her elbows on the table, puts her hands on the sides of her face and leans in.

“How about we charter one of those ships that have a deep submersibles. What if we took our best customer, as thanks for what he has done for us, on that trip. With Martha and Carmine of course. Do you think the Boss would like to actually see the Titanic?”

I love it. Almost like a family trip that my dysfunctional family never took. There were always things that needed to be done. I have her go on the web to see if there is a established expedition organization that would like ten million to take five people to the Titanic.

While she is doing that, I call a meeting here. I personally call the Boss and invite him here. Shela has found one then fixed some light snacks that go well with her favorite whiskey. The three arrive here and are wondering what is up.

We all sit at the table and sip. Just talking about nothing and everything. Then I look at the Boss but talk to all.

“We have been working together for a while. Good times and crazy times. Those times that we helped you and those hard times we relied on you to help us. The five of us need a vacation.”

Shela brings out her tablet and brings up the site. She now announces to him

This is the most well known people who have been to the Titanic. We are going to fund a portion of their next expedition to the tune of ten million. That would be for five passengers wishing to visit the ship. Boss wana go?”

He doesn’t know what he is hearing as I tell the other two they are invited.

“The past few years have been full of things to do. Things to watch out for. Things to avoid. All of us need to step back, away from everything. Discuss nothing about work. Have the Boss here and the experts talk about that ship. After all we have had the pick of the cargo. I hear that it is disintegrating.”

Shela tells us that we will ask them to have one of those ROV’s go into the interior spaces. “Well do I contact them? Boss, do you think that your people could let you have a month off? Our treat.”

Martha said that her service can function for that time and Carmine told us that he would give his clerks a month off with full pay. His inventory would go into the corporate vault.

Now the four of us look at the Boss. He is still stunned. He, since a boy, has been fascinated with the ship. Climbing the ladder until he could buy some of the things that related to the ship. Then we came on the scene and his dream, he thought, was fulfilled with the things we offered. Never did he think. He could not think he would have this presented to him.

“How could I not go. My people will insist and they would not let me pass it up. To look through a port hole and see her there. To watch from the ship as they fly into the heart of the ship. I’m going!”

As he is saying this, Shila has made the arrangements. Those people welcomed ten million but said that it was only a quarter of a million per person for a seven day trip. They were told that this is to be a exclusive trip with quite a few trips down. An ROV of the reachable areas. Two weeks. They welcomed it because there was some research they wanted to do.

Shela now tells us, “It will be in three weeks. The weather is predicted to be fairly calm. Boss, you will be able to see almost every portion of the site multiple times. One thing they did say is that they will no longer place plaques. There are too many now.”

He says that it is plenty of time to get things in order. The other two agree. The Boss tries to say that he would pay for us to fly to the port. We told him that the expedition was sending a private jet for us.

“We were told to pack lite. Mostly personal items. We will be wearing their ship board uniforms.”

By now, everyone had more than enough. We gather keys from each but the Boss had his come over and drive him and his car home.

In the morning we got to the task to finish some things and make business arrangements. Three weeks have gone by quickly and now we were on the ship.

We let the Boss have the first dive. After the hours down, there before the now crying man, lay his life long quest. From the bow railing to those majestic bronze propellers. The debris field and yes some shoes. There is no removing items. He knew it but still he wished that he could reach out and take something that is there on the bottom.

Upon surfacing. He clutched his camera. “If I did not live any longer than the next moment, I will go with a smile.” Looking at us, he thanks us and just goes to his cabin. The rest of that day, he went through the thousands of pictures.

The weeks went like that. We all had the same experience but to me, after the second trip, I let the others have my turns. When asked why, I told them that it felt like a grave yard that those who were killed that day thought they hid their graveyard well.

“I was intruding on their rest. Everything we retrieved was taken on or before they died but this, I’ll watch on the ships screen.”

The others did not feel the same but they respected my feelings.

Finally the last dive was finished. We were back home and the world kept spinning. I was refreshed and my mind was back in the dream mode. I wanted to work on something that would help those who work on those artic waters who fall overboard.