After assembling and putting on most of my own equipment, I coaxed the dog from cowering in the hold with a bowl of bacon and latched the buoyancy compensator, balloon mask, and fins to his trembling frame.

“Don’t worry, Kip,” I encouraged, “the first step is always the worst, you’ll do great as usual . . .” and, with a gentle shove, launched him off the boat into the sea. I jumped in after him, waited a few moments for his comfort level to rise, and, signaling the okay, counted to three and dove.

Our mission status had been reduced from high priority to freelance. But everything goes in circles, I knew. Unless the habit of heavy drinking got to me again, I figured Kip and I would be back where we belonged. True, we missed Sheba, and before her we missed Meg, and so on and so on; it was just part of the battle of challenging four centuries of oceanic research.

I would not be one of those graduate students who came and “just settled,” however. Taken all together, there were only a few areas in which our current project was lacking. One, a hypothesis, and two, a way of going about proving whatever it was we came up with.

Kip and I are destined for things. Yes, I know. For now, the depth gauge reads 120 feet, the world is wide and empty, and Kip, happy at last, is truly his own little lighthouse in the deep.