Field Journal – Gerald “Charts” Whitcomb

(Filed but not circulated. Found between survey schematics and a chart.)

The Concord should have carried us to Traverse Bay. Our own Ranger R-43 Command Bridge — the pride of the Order’s small but capable fleet. Forty-three feet of composite grace and over-engineered purpose, twin D6s tuned to hum at a conversational pitch, her lines clean enough to shame newer boats with twice the attitude and half the ballast.

But she’s still in refit.

The Council approved an “analog integration initiative” last spring — Barlow’s idea — to ensure we could operate “independent of digital fragility.” In practice, it means the nav suite has been gutted. The glass dash removed, replaced by a mahogany binnacle custom-fit for a magnetic compass, a set of brass clinometers, and a manual gyro repeater last used in 1978. The engineers are still arguing over how to mount the analog depth repeater without offending the original finish.

I saw her before we left Rawley Point. The salon stripped bare, the flybridge shrouded in tarps, the helm half-disassembled. Someone had chalked across the cabin bulkhead: Awaiting realignment — magnetic and otherwise.

So instead of cutting across the lake in quiet dignity, we rented a van.

A beige twelve-passenger with a U-Haul trailer, no character and less power. Inside: the Little Concord, spare ballast cylinders, Mags’ archival cases, Eleanor’s camera crates, a small pelican box labeled "Pokemon TCG 2024 Championship Deck" and Barlow’s garment rack lashed down with more ceremony than sense. Alistar rode up front with his notes, silent and priestly. Barlow clutched a laminated Great Lakes chart like it was scripture.

We crossed the Upper Peninsula in gray light and drizzle. The van heater hissed and the trailer rattled like a conscience. I spent the first hundred miles checking the tie-downs through the side mirror and the next hundred regretting it.

Crossing the Mackinac Bridge, the wind hit us from the west. From my seat I watched the towers appear and vanish in fog — the lake below shifting steel-green. Eleanor filmed from the back, narrating as if the bridge itself were foreshadowing. Barlow recited the span length aloud for morale.

We stopped in St. Ignace to refuel and retighten the trailer straps. Mags asked if I was worried about the load or the metaphor. I told her yes.

By the time we reached Traverse City, the clouds had thinned to copper. The GLRC’s Arcturus was tied at Pier Five, immaculate and humming. Crew in matching windbreakers moved about with synchronized efficiency — the sort of precision that always makes you question your own profession.

Then I saw her.

Dr. Selene Armitage stood on the gangway, clipboard in hand, her hair tied back the way she did when she wanted people to underestimate her. She was laughing at something Hemsdale said, but her eyes flicked toward the van more than once. I looked away first, which I regretted immediately.

Unloading the trailer took an hour. The Little Concord gleamed beneath her tarp, the one thing among us that seemed certain. Alistar offered a short address about “thresholds of cooperation.” Barlow corrected his Latin halfway through. Eleanor muttered that it sounded like a eulogy for common sense.

Now I’m in a motel above the harbor. Through the window I can see the Arcturus at anchor, her deck lights mirrored in the still water like a line of punctuation marks. The Concord should have been out there too — her flybridge helm trimmed, the diesels idling with that low, confident murmur that says “we’re meant to be moving.”

Tomorrow, calibration tests begin. I’ll have numbers again — ballast ratios, frequency drift, oxygen efficiency — something fixed and measurable. Anything other than the variable currently named Armitage.

For now, I’ll log the journey as follows:
Route: Rawley Point to Traverse City via the Upper Peninsula.
Vessel: None. Substitute van, inadequate.
Condition: Steady with minor interference.
Outlook: Restless.

— G. Whitcomb