When the Lights Go Out

Tuesday. A power fluctuation at twenty thousand leagues, which is to say the lights went out exactly when they were meant to.

The Nautilus has moods. There are stretches of total darkness aboard her and moments when the lights flash, and I will not apologise for either; this is the bottom of the ocean, not a library. Anyone who minds flashing light should choose a gentler vessel, and the management says so plainly.

But scary? A father asked me that at the hatch, holding his son’s shoulder a little too firmly. I told him the truth. The Nautilus is an adventure. There is a monster outside, and it may make you jump once or twice, but nobody aboard is trying to frighten anybody. They are trying to stop a submarine coming apart. So am I.

The son was not frightened in the slightest. The father yelped when the Beast brushed the hull. I have recorded it in the log as “a sighting”.