Wet Rocks

by Dylan James Harper

     A flash flood forced a wave of natural and man-made debris through the Oslava river, which worried British biologist Nigel Lowe. He had spent the better part of a decade studying the endangered Unio Crassus, thick shelled river mussel, which thrived in the Czech body of water. 

    He was delayed in flying out by a month due to the death of his mother, which impacted him greatly. When he arrived, his longtime colleague Struan Davenport was waiting for him at the hotel. They took a cab over to the river together, and were surprised when they saw a large crowd gathered around what had been a wider, shallower part of the river, but which now was threatening the nearby road. 

     As the pair got out, they watched as several middle-aged men, all in outfits ranging from polos to three-piece suits, were handing out cash to a group of mostly women and children in swimsuits in exchange for something. As they got closer, they saw that as the women and children were surfacing they were carrying small green rocks that were clearly the subject of the exchanges. 

“co se tam děje?” Struan, who spoke decent Czech, asked one of the men. 

Nigel quickly thumbed his phone to translate. 

“Povodeň odhalila torbernitovou žílu, děti se potápí po skalách,” the man replied, showing one of the green rocks. 

Struan gasped as he looked at the rock. Nigel put away his phone. The flood must have exposed a vein of Torbernite, which the men were paying the women and children to find. 

"Velká část je v jeskyni, takže musíte být malí,” the man continued. 

“He says many of the rocks are in a cave, so you have to be small to get it,” Struan translated. 

“Ask if any of the divers speaks English,” Nigel instructed as he pulled up a picture of the mussels on his phone.

“Mluvíš anglicky?” Struan yelled. 

       A young woman, maybe eighteen or nineteen, who had been wading in the bank, swam over. She had long blond hair that she had tied up into a high ponytail. She had wide swimming goggles up on the top of her head.

“I speak it,” she said. 

Nigel knelt down and showed her his phone. 

“These mussels used to live in this part of the river, can you find me one?” He asked. 

“Ano,” she nodded, before putting her goggles on and diving down into the water. 

Several minutes later she resurfaced, something concealed in her clenched fist. Nigel reached out his hand and she withdrew hers. 

“Více!” She demanded. 

    Struan quickly pulled some British Pounds out of his pocket and offered them up. The woman looked at them suspiciously, but rolled her eyes and made the switch. The men looked over the mussels, which was alive and seemed fine. Both let out a sigh of relief. The woman, who had been watching this with a degree of curiosity, turned, but Nigel called out. 

“Miss!” 

She turned back. He held out his phone again, this time showing a picture of a yellow and pink carp. 

“Can you find one?” He asked, turning to Struan to translate, which proved unnecessary. 

“No, no,” she shook her head. 

Nigel and Struan looked quizzically at her. 

“Mrtvÿ” she continued. 

They paused. 

“Dead,” she said emphatically. 

      A few days later Nigel and Struan had put the pieces together. Each mussels had a unique fish species that served as its host. It would clamp onto the fish and spray a slurry of glochidium, which were microscopic larvae. They would then release the fish which would swim away, eventually passing the extra passengers it was unknowingly carrying, and distributing the species to carry on. The carp that served as the thick shelled river mussels’ host had died, not from the flood, but from acute radiation poisoning from the rocks. The already endangered mussels they’d devoted their lives to studying wouldn’t be far behind them.

       The pair had already grieved, planned their paper on the subject, and moved on to something far more important. Anne, the name given to them by the female diver, had continued to serve as their assistant. They explained to her the harm the rocks would likely be doing to those who dove for them with any regularity. Prolonged exposure could cause radiation poisoning, long term birth defects, and even death. 

       Horrified, she helped them explain to the other women and children, but most disregarded them, saying they needed the money. They appealed to the men buying them, but they were less threatened, usually having safe containers to store the rocks in and quickly selling them off for a nice profit. Some of the men even threatened them. Finally, they appealed to the police, given this sort of for profit diving was illegal, but they were totally disinterested. One sympathetic officer said one of the men out there was the mayor’s brother and they should stop sniffing around.

       They booked their flights home. They plead with Anne to come back with them. Even in the few weeks they were there her English had improved significantly. Oxford had a large endowment for biology professors, and larger for those studying a soon to be extinct species. Both were confident they could get her a job as their assistant, maybe even help put her through school. She had some units at the local college already. Anne had very few ties to her home town, her parents had died when she was a teenager and her older brother had joined the military. Still, she was reluctant, and not entirely trusting of these two older  men. 

      Running out of time to convince her, and worried she’d go back to diving for Torbenite if she needed money, they decided to just buy her a plane ticket. They gave it to her and told them she could come with them if she wanted, but if not, was free to return the ticket and keep the cash. They arrived at the airport early, as most middle aged people do, and after finding their gate sat down and began scrolling through their phones. Each in turn looked up every few minutes, wondering if they’d see Anne walking towards them. A voice over the intercom announced their flight would be boarding soon. They both looked up in unison.