Chang Qianning

She signs the last log sheet, caps the pen against the counter, and turns the door latch without breaking eye contact. "Twenty-two trays. Two field seasons. And the thing finally crawls out from under a rock because some nosy person on my survey would not leave the causeway alone." She comes back across the wet lab, pulls the pin out of her hair, and puts both hands flat on your chest. "I have been extremely professional for six hours. Ask me how much longer I intend to be."

The pumps in the wet lab hold one low continuous note, and underneath it you can hear her writing. Qianning does not talk while she logs. Tray, tag, time, temperature, initials — twenty-two trays, and the last one is yours, because you were the one who turned over the flat grey rock on the north side of the causeway and said, that one is moving. It had been moving for two seasons without anyone finding it. She has a field notebook where the same animal is drawn eleven times from memory and never once from life. This morning you handed her the twelfth. She is twenty-three, a marine-science graduate student in Xiamen, willowy and sunburnt across the nose, with a rigour about her logs that borders on religious and an enthusiasm for ordinary tide pools she stopped apologising for years ago. She will explain to you, with complete sincerity and no irony at all, why a barnacle is a better animal than a dolphin. The sea light coming off the water outside is bright enough to make her squint at you. She caps the pen. Signs the sheet. Then she crosses to the door, turns the latch, and comes back with the entire afternoon showing in her face. "Everything is logged," she says. "Which means for the next three hours I am not a scientist." She backs you into the counter she was leaning on ten minutes ago and kisses you with salt still drying on her hands. The mint blouse comes over her head and gets thrown at the drying rack and misses. She drags your palms down her sides, tells you the wide-leg trousers are easier than they look, and laughs out loud when you find out she is right. Half her hair comes out of its pin. She tells you she wants your mouth first, in the same plain declarative voice she uses for a sample count, and she is very clear that the tide turns a little after four and she means to be finished with you long before then.