The water crested the gunwale, rolled along the deck, and slammed into her so hard that it lifted her from the ship. She closed her eyes. Through the icy water, she heard a scream muffled by air bubbles and a sloshing in her ear. She flailed, hoping to catch something to hold her on board. But gravity no longer applied here. She ascended into the foam, tumbling and spinning. The salt water singed her nostrils and scorched her throat. Panicked, she swung her arms until she felt her body lifting again, toward a dull light.
She surfaced with a desperate gasp. The waves lifted her, dropped her. Lifted, dropped. Her jacket formed a lily pad around her. She gripped the hem of the nylon and flopped it over the water, forming a brief air bubble that helped her to float. Kicking her legs, she turned in a circle while the rain fell on her face, colder than the ocean.
A domed object bobbed in the water. It was a lifeboat, hurtled from the deck and capsized. She paddled to it, embracing the stern.
The clouds hung so low they nearly touched the surface. A heavy fog blotted out everything.
The al-Rihla was gone.
Chapter 3
The Grumpy Beaver
Mort(e) took his usual place at the corner stool and rested his knobby elbows on the bar. The brim of his specially fitted baseball cap concealed his eyes. At this time of day, with the winter sun setting behind the Hosanna skyline, the patrons filed in three or four at a time. All beavers as usual, with Mort(e) the only cat. They worked together, helping to rebuild the dam that had burst many months earlier. His ears flicked at the chatter and the clinking glasses that marked the end of another long day on the river.
Without asking, the bartender delivered Mort(e)’s usual drink, a catnip and mint concoction, steaming hot. He swallowed the first gulp right away. It washed out the taste of salt water that always plagued him when he got nervous. Mort(e) called the drink an Archer, naming it for the raccoon who perfected the recipe during the war. Months earlier, he bullied the bartender into including it on the menu, though Mort(e) was the only one who ever bought it. The rest of the patrons drank an awful fermented honey soup flavored with wood chips. A Lodge City Special, they called it. Or LC. In the afternoons, they boiled the drink in enormous pots. The sweet fragrance wafted to the river, signaling the end of a shift on the dam. The beavers would often sing when they smelled it. They sang at every damn thing, especially now that their time here was drawing to a close. In a few weeks, after finishing their work, they would return to Lodge City. By the spring, the dam would create an enormous pond and nature preserve. It would partially wash away at the end of the summer, like all beaver dams did. Unlike stubborn human designs, the beaver dam could adapt to the land and the climate. And then, in the fall, the Lodgers would return to start anew, creating a permanent relationship between the two cities.
In the other corner of the room, three female beavers hummed in unison while a male patted his tail on the floor and slapped his little hands on a homemade drum. Later that evening, on the third or fourth round of drinks, the patrons would supply the lyrics, unprompted. They couldn’t help themselves.
A few of Mort(e)’s coworkers acknowledged him by lifting their mugs. Mort(e) did the same in response. When they turned away, and he was sure no one was watching, he peeked out the greasy window into the street. It was why he was here. Some of them knew. The rest knew to leave him alone after a day spent hauling logs and drilling holes.
Like many streets in Hosanna, the cracks in the sidewalk allowed aggressive weeds and shoots of grass to claw their way out. Faded graffiti on the walls demanded equal rights for canines and an end to the occupation of wolf country. The flood had emptied this neighborhood of its residents. Only the beavers lived here these days. They built their lodges near the river because the sound of the water reminded them of home.
In the last few weeks, however, some visitors had arrived. Humans, all male, at least a dozen of them. They took over an apartment building and immediately sealed the entrance to the parking garage with a chain-link fence. They wore secondhand coats, re-soled boots, and patched jeans, like most of the humans in Hosanna. From the rooftop, they spent hours scoping out the dam with binoculars. The city government had made an effort to repopulate the areas lost to the flood, but these interlopers acted more like soldiers on some kind of recon. They didn’t smell right. Then again, humans never did.
Right on schedule, the gate to the parking garage swung open, its chain links scraping against the battered asphalt. Two men stood guard on either side. They wore caps and amber sunglasses to conceal their faces. The shorter one, wearing fingerless gloves, cracked his knuckles. The other tried to warm his hands with his breath.
The show was about to start.
“Refill?” the bartender asked.
Mort(e) slid his cup toward him. The beaver topped it off, then set the clay pitcher on the stove to keep it warm.
Somewhere near the end of the block, the horn of a truck sounded. Mort(e) winced. Couple minutes early, he thought.
A dark-green trash truck with enormous tires lumbered into the window frame. The compactor in the rear of the truck was sealed shut. Something was inside. Definitely not garbage. No, this required a hydraulic metal door to protect it. Mort(e) sensed something, something that pulled him toward it. Not a scent exactly, more of a gravitational force. True, the humans most likely smuggled weapons. The gangs all over Hosanna needed them to protect their turf. But these humans ran this operation on the ass-end of town. If they sold arms, no one seemed to buy any. Nothing troubled Mort(e) more than not knowing.
The truck stopped and reversed into the entrance while the guards waved the driver inside. That was the cue. Before the truck could roll into the driveway, a beaver turned the corner and waddled right into its path. Through the glass, Mort(e) could hear the humans shouting, “Whoa, whoa, stop!”
The beaver walked with a cane. He wore a pair of goggles that extended a full five inches from his face like little telescopes. Though Mort(e) could not hear, he knew that this fat rodent was asking for directions to the Grumpy Beaver. Exasperated, one of the guards pointed toward the bar. The beaver continued hassling them, his hands flailing. He must have launched into one of his rants about how the neighborhood was changing, and how different things were in Lodge City.
Come on, Castor, Mort(e) thought. Don’t oversell it.
Now both humans pointed at the bar, trying to hurry the nuisance along. Castor continued yapping. He tapped the side of his head, maybe telling them that his old mind didn’t work like it used to. With the beaver out of the way, the humans waved the truck in and closed the gate.
A few sips of Archer later, Castor entered through the front door. A great shout rose up, as it always did. He was their leader, the one who guided the Lodge City beavers to greatness. The patrons broke into song. Castor tossed the cane to the older beaver who had lent it to him. He removed the goggles and replaced them with his regular glasses. Each of his comrades greeted him by touching noses, a ritual that lasted a full nine minutes before Castor finally took a seat beside Mort(e). A mug of LC sat waiting for him. Castor sipped it, then plucked one of the pieces of wood out and gnawed on it with his enormous buck teeth.
“Wanna talk now or later?” Mort(e) said.
“Now. Before they ask me to sing.”
Castor always asked Mort(e) to join in. Mort(e) always said no. It had become a joke between them: Mort(e) would pretend that he hated the beavers’ music, though they both knew that it had grown on him.
“What did you find?” Mort(e) said.
Castor held out the goggles. “These things are amazing. I could see the serial number on the registration card. Two six. Zero nine. Seven eight.”
Mort(e) sighed. “That’s the one.”
They both knew what it meant. Through his contact at Tranquility, Mort(e) found out that the same truck had been reported missing in the flood. These humans may have sa
lvaged it. Nothing surprising there—all sorts of junk and debris gathered near the mouth of the river. It would take years for scavengers to pick it all clean. But a piece of hardware this valuable would not have been written off so easily. If the humans didn’t simply find it, then they could have stolen it and then altered the records, especially if they knew someone on the inside. Either way, Mort(e) could not rule out the involvement of the Sanctuary Union in all of this.
“Where does that leave us?” Castor asked.
“Same as always. On our own.”
A drunk beaver—Castor’s nephew, Kerdigan—stumbled over to them and clapped Castor on the shoulder. “Two weeks!” he shouted. “Two weeks to go!”
“Two weeks, that’s right,” Castor replied.
“Hey, hey,” Kerdigan said. “Did I tell ya? I named my kit after you.”
“I thought you had a girl.”
“Yeah! Castoria!”
Kerdigan turned to his comrades and shouted the name. They shouted it back. The band changed tune, and the entire bar started a new song.
“Congratulations,” Castor said.
Mort(e) figured that Castoria was as good a name as any for a female kit. By his last count, there had been four D’Arcs and three Shebas born since he’d left Lodge City.
Castor thanked Kerdigan and sent him on his way.
“So we can’t go to Tranquility because we don’t trust them,” Castor said to Mort(e). “We have to do this ourselves.”
“I’m going to do it.”
“Don’t give me that.”
“I’ve snuck into places like this one,” Mort(e) said. “Besides—”
“Are you about to tell me that this is your fault again?”
“Yes. Because it is.”
“It’s not! Now let’s come up with a way to do this together. Okay?”
To stop himself from saying anything else, Mort(e) chugged the rest of his Archer and slammed the mug onto the bar.
“I told you I lost people under my command,” Mort(e) said.
“Not this again.”
“Did I tell you their names?”
Castor set his drink on the bar. “No.”
“That’s right. Because you are the master over someone who has told you his story.” As he said it, he heard it in the voice of his old captain, the bobcat Culdesac, whose story he never learned.
Mort(e) swiveled toward Castor. But after he stopped, the room continued to spin. A sharp smell of salt water made his nose twitch. The bitter taste filled his mouth, shriveling his tongue. He tried to lean on the bar, but his hand slipped from the counter, slamming his elbow into the wood. Castor became blurry, like a mossy rock in murky water. Soon, the entire room became submerged. The beavers’ voices traveled to his ear in gurgling noises, like the gasps of a drowning person.
“Mort(e)?” Castor said, his voice like bubbles rising.
Mort(e) tried to plant his foot on the floor. His knee buckled. He slipped from the stool and collapsed. His hand landed next to his face. With his declawed fingers, he pawed at the wood floor.
When the floor fell away, Mort(e) knew that he had started dreaming again. He didn’t fight it this time. The seawater pooled around him and then lifted him from the bottom of the ocean. A faint light penetrated the surface above, painting everything around him blue. The beavers’ humming died out in the deep. A new sound emerged: a clicking and screeching, the song of the Sarcops who ruled this place. The fish-heads. He could understand their speech. No point in translating. The words summoned him. At last, he took in a breath, and the briny coldness poured into his throat and vented through gills on his neck. This was home, for as long as it would last.
When he awoke, Mort(e) recognized the ceiling with its white tiles and a mold stain in the corner. He remembered the thick drapes covering the windows. The tattered flag of Venezuela on the wall right next to an amateur oil painting of Simón Bolívar. The mahogany desk with a coffee cup filled with pens. A lamp with a green shade that provided the room with warm light.
He inhaled. The air felt dry. He lifted his hand to his throat to feel the gills. They were gone. When he tilted his head, Dr. Marquez appeared, wearing his usual khaki slacks and white doctor’s coat. The man brushed his fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair, which conveyed either relief or exhaustion. Ever since the encounter with the Sarcops, Mort(e) still visited Marquez once a week. The doctor studied animals who had used the translator and the effects that still lingered in their brains. Sometimes he ran cognitive tests, but mostly he sat there and listened to Mort(e) talk. About the war, about his new life with the beavers. Sometimes, if Marquez asked nicely enough, Mort(e) would talk about D’Arc. He would imagine her staring out at the sea under the stars, and before long it would feel like another hallucination.
“Where did you go this time?” Marquez said.
“The sea again. Cold Trench.” Mort(e) motioned for the pitcher of water on top of a liquor cabinet. Marquez filled a glass and handed it to him. As he did so, another set of footsteps sidled up to the couch where Mort(e) lay. They belonged to Castor. The beaver leaned over to touch noses with Mort(e), then reconsidered and backed away.
Mort(e) forced himself to sit. His head swam, and he cinched his eyes shut until the room steadied.
“Did you taste salt water?” Marquez asked. “Before the episode began?”
“Yep.”
“How long has this been going on?” Castor asked.
“Please,” Marquez said, “give him a moment.”
“No, it’s okay,” Mort(e) said. Until then, the beaver knew only that Mort(e) still visited Marquez on occasion to run some tests. Nothing more.
“Remember last month, when I said I was taking a few days off?” Mort(e) said to Castor. “I was here. Well, my body was here. My mind was off on another adventure. Under the sea.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m going crazy!” Mort(e) said.
“It’s the translator,” Marquez said. “It taxes the brain.” He illustrated this by squeezing his hairy-knuckled hands into fists. “The damage is degenerative.”
“That means it’s getting worse,” Mort(e) said.
“I know what it means,” Castor said. “When were you going to tell me? You want to pick a fight with these humans, and now you tell me you’re going senile.”
“Pick a fight with what humans?” Marquez asked.
“Oh, great,” Mort(e) said. “Tell each other all my secrets, why don’t you? My stool samples are in the fridge. Let’s break those out.”
Castor told Marquez about the humans. They were organized, armed, secretive, transporting large objects with stolen vehicles. Whatever they smuggled, it triggered Mort(e)’s episodes from afar. He could feel its power calling to him, throbbing in his brain.
Marquez spun around to Mort(e). “Are you sure you are not imagining any of this?”
“My nephew went snooping around their building,” Castor said. “A couple of weeks ago. They found his body the next day, way downstream.”
“I told him to do it,” Mort(e) said, eyes on the floor. “It should have been me.”
“I am sorry to hear this,” Marquez said. “But whatever this is, it is a matter for Tranquility now.”
“Tranquility’s in on it. We ask them to inspect the building, and then the humans move their trucks to another location. We tell them that the building is unregistered, and then the next day it magically appears in their records. We show them a dead body, they say it’s an accident.”
“So you take this into your own hands?”
“What difference does it make? Either way, I’m your next cadaver.”
Marquez motioned for Mort(e)’s glass. He refilled it and handed it back.
“Oh, wait,” Mort(e) said. “I’m your last cadaver. All the other translator use
rs are dead. I’m still hanging on for some reason. You’ll have to find a new hobby.”
“You can insult me, you can keep punishing yourself,” Marquez said. “But don’t tell me I see you only as a specimen. You have been coming here for months. You are my friend.”
“See!” Castor said. “I told you you have friends.”
“Quiet,” Mort(e) said.
Marquez turned to his liquor cabinet again, opened it. “I can increase your dosage.”
“Forget it. I’m sick of the side effects.”
“What side effects?”
“The pills make me irritable.”
“Oh, what’s that like?” Castor said.
Ignoring them both, Marquez pulled a brown pill bottle from the shelf and handed it to Mort(e). “Take two the next time you feel a spell coming on.”
“They’re coming on faster these days. I’m telling you—those humans have something dangerous.”
“Your stress level is not helping things.”
Mort(e) attempted to stand. But when he wobbled a bit, Marquez reached out a hand to steady him. Mort(e) batted it away.
“Are we still on for next week, Doctor?”
“You cannot run away from this,” Marquez said. “Let me bring you to the hospital. They have better equipment, more staff—”
“No. There’s no time for any of that.”
Marquez rubbed his temples. He must have known Mort(e) was right. “Next week, then.”
“If I’m still around,” Mort(e) replied.
He walked out.
“You’ll still be around!” Marquez shouted after him. “We are not done yet!”
Outside, the street lamps were all dark, thanks to another scheduled blackout. A few candles and lanterns flickered in the windows of the neighboring buildings. A fierce wind whipped along the brick wall, slapping him in the face. When the sound of it finally stopped ringing in his ears, he heard Castor scrambling behind him, huffing and puffing, keeping an eye on him while maintaining distance. Soon, another breeze drowned him out entirely, leaving Mort(e) alone in the dark.
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