The Neptune Promise

by Polly Holyoke

  :Or, the spongebrain could have worn his gloves like he was supposed to,: says Rad, one of Dai’s old friends from Atlantea.

  :It sounds like a whale of a rescue to me,: Robry says with a grin while we all groan.

  Bria, Tobin’s little sister, smiles at me, her big brown eyes shining with excitement. :Nere, I bet you did manage to communicate with that mother whale. Think of how amazing it could be if we figured out how to talk to more marine mammals. We could help them, and they could help us.:

  :I bet you do learn how communicate with other species someday,: I tell Bria. :The dolphins love you, and you’re doing a wonderful job with Tisi.: She’s been teaching Mariah’s calf new behaviors and new words in English.

  :That’s mostly because Tisi’s so smart,: Bria is quick to say, her cheeks flushing.

  :So are you,: Tobin replies. He gives her a hug and listens patiently while Bria tells him all about her training session with several young dolphins today.

  When Bria finally turns to talk to Robry, I meet Tobin’s gaze. :By the way, thanks for volunteering to help the whales this afternoon.:

  :I meant what I said out there,: Tobin says as he crosses his arms and frowns at me. :You don’t always need to assign yourself the most dangerous job.: Usually Tobin’s easy-going, but right now, I can tell he’s truly angry with me.

  :I do know that, but today I honestly thought I was the best person to approach the whales, and this time, anyway, I was right.:

  :Just promise me you’ll remember that your patrol members can handle tough situations, too.:

  :I promise. So how’s your EMC training going?:

  I’m relieved when Tobin stops lecturing me and instead talks about the emergency medical care course he’s taking with our friend Rohan. Someday all twelve Neptune colonies around the world will become completely independent of their shore helpers, but that means we have to learn skills like how to care for ourselves when we’re sick or injured.

  When we finish eating, we take our food containers to the wash and recycling nets.

  :It’s great not having to do kitchen patrol,: Thom says to me as he tips his food box into the nets.

  :Yeah, we may have to clean a lot of barnacles off our boats, but at least no one has to wash dishes at Safety Harbor,: I reply. Instead, small crabs and fish scour our eating utensils clean.

  I make a point of leaving the mess hall when Dai does. His expression is closed and withdrawn again. Chills trace down my back as I picture his father, Ran Kuron, the cold, cruel man who held my friends and me captive and plotted to take over Safety Harbor.

  None of us have seen or heard from Kuron since the Sea Rangers destroyed Atlantea, his undersea base, a year ago. There’s a chance he was killed in that attack, but my father’s security staff monitor a radio frequency that Kuron’s network uses. Transmissions there are coded, but their frequency has increased ominously in the past few months. That fills me with dread along with the submarine sighting so close to Safety Harbor.

  :How do your hands feel now?: I ask Dai while I carefully shield my worries about his father from him.

  :My hands are still sore,: he admits, :but they already feel better. Where’re you headed?:

  :I’m going topside to talk to my dad.:

  :I’ll swim you to the ladder,: he offers, his expression warming.

  We fall into an easy rhythm, kicking through the water side by side to the sea cave that leads to our topside facilities. I laugh and show him a brilliant little red Irish Lord fish trying to hide under a white sponge, and Dai points out a rare lavender coral he discovered last week. Even though it’s almost nine o’clock, the water has yet to darken because the sun sets so late this far north in the summer.

  When we reach the cave, I swim to the base of the metal ladder set into its rocky wall. I turn toward Dai, sensing he has something he wants to say. I hope he doesn’t want to talk about our relationship. Things have been complicated between us this past year. I know Dai cares about me. He’s risked his life to save mine, and he betrayed his own father to save all of Safety Harbor. I care about him, too.

  :But you still aren’t ready to be my girlfriend,: Dai says, looking rueful.

  :Stop reading my thoughts,: I snap.

  :I didn’t. This time, I just read your face. I’ve gotten better at that living here. I’m trying not to read people’s minds unless they give me permission.:

  :I know you’re working hard to live our way,: I say, and he has. Strong telepaths at Safety Harbor are supposed to respect the privacy of weaker ones, but back at Atlantea, Dai’s ruthless father expected him to read minds.

  :Thank you for coming with me this afternoon,: I say, hoping to change the subject.

  He stares at his feet and tugs on one of his black braids. They reach past his shoulders and make him look wild and very different from the other boys at Safety Harbor. :I am glad we helped those whales. Maybe it evens the score, at least a little.:

  When he looks up at me, his eyes are haunted. It takes me a moment to realize he’s referring to his former life. Dai and some of the savage kids he was raised with used to hunt orcas and humpbacks just for fun.

  :You did even the score today.: Impulsively I reach out and lay my hand on his arm.

  Dai stares at my hand. When he looks up again, there’s a longing in his gaze that makes my heart twist. I like Dai so much, but caring about him scares me. At my old school I was used to being invisible and staying under the radar, and Dai is a gorgeous, high-profile kind of guy. I’m also still getting used to living in the sea and being part of Safety Harbor. Being someone’s girlfriend sounds so complicated, and I’m afraid I won’t know the rules and disappoint him.

  :You don’t have to keep making up for what you did at Atlantea, or what your father did,: I add softly and pull my hand back.

  He lifts one dark brow. :Reading my thoughts now?: he asks.

  :No, but I know your father must be on your mind sometimes.:

  :Yeah, especially after those Sea Rangers were so sure they spotted his sub. If he’s still alive, I can’t help wondering and worrying about what he’s doing.:

  You’re not the only one, I think to myself, but I’m careful to shield that thought from him. :I promise I’ll check with my dad and see if we have any news of your father.: Dai can’t come topside with me because his lungs are so packed with gill filaments, he can’t breathe air anymore.

  Taking hold of the metal rungs, I climb upward. Soon my head breaks the surface. I exhale the water in my lungs to breathe air again. It’s hot and dry tonight, and the smell of smoke is strong which makes me feel all jittery. The winds must be blowing from the east.

  I know I’m not about to burn up, but I worry about our topside facility, and Tsukwani’s village, and I can’t help thinking about all the forest animals that are dying or losing their homes right now. At the top of the ladder, I flip my wet braids over my shoulder and stride past the equipment shed where the helper staff hang their scuba gear on racks to dry. Beyond the shed lie several cabins and buildings, all painted green and gray to blend in with the trees and rocks of the Broughton Archipelago.

  “Hey, Nere.” My brother James hurries across the clearing and falls into step beside me. Six years older than me, James is my only sibling. He’s tall and lanky, with sandy brown hair and a shaggy beard. He’s always looked out for me, and I try to look out for him. “I hear you had an exciting patrol today.”

  “Word sure gets around fast in Safety Harbor,” I say, shaking my head.

  “You’ve definitely got Roni and Sall worked up. They can’t wait to talk to you about your whale contacts. That’s a lot more fun than talking about the results of our latest acidification tests.”

  “Why? What’s up with your results?”

  “They’re grim,” he replies. “The water in the warmer, shallower parts of the strait is far more acidic than we thought, and all the shellfish we tested have abnormally thin shells. If we don’t find an effective way to stop climate
change and the oceans from absorbing so much carbon dioxide, there won’t be any corals or shellfish left in the seas. Even the bodies of the tiny zooplankton we sampled are deformed. That means the whole base of the ocean food chain is in danger.”

  “I don’t understand why we haven’t started to seed the oceans with the c-plankton we brought back from Atlantea,” I say. “We risked our lives to bring that stuff back here.”

  Last summer Kalli, Ree, Tobin and I infiltrated Ran Kuron’s base to steal the c-plankton that Dai’s mother developed to capture carbon dioxide. A brilliant marine geneticist, Idaine Kuron created a phytoplankton strain capable of sequestering a hundred times more carbon dioxide than normal plankton does. She hoped her genetically engineered c-plankton could be spread throughout the seas to turn them into a massive carbon sink that would finally start cooling our planet. Unfortunately, she died before she could convince the scientific world of the value of her discovery.

  “And the kids in the Neptune Project around the world were supposed to play an important role in spreading that c-plankton,” James adds. “Fighting climate change was always a major part of your purpose.”

  “That’s what Dad promised us, anyway. So we all keep waiting to hear the big announcement that the c-plankton is ready for shipping and seeding, but when I ask Dad when it will be ready, he just keeps saying that his Neptune scientists are still testing the strains we brought back.”

  “I’m not positive,” James says, “but I think their tests haven’t been going well.”

  I glance at him sharply.

  “Don’t look at me that way.” My brother stops dead in his tracks, his face flushing. “I swear I didn’t force anyone to tell me anything, but you know I can’t shield well, and I often pick up thoughts I’m not supposed to hear.”

  James was genetically engineered to be a part of the Neptune Project, but his transformation failed because the gill filaments in his lungs didn’t develop properly. The transformation did switch on his telepathy. Our mother was a strong hereditary telepath, and somehow the strong telepathic genes he inherited from her were amplified with disastrous results. James became a Controller, which means he can enter people’s minds and force them to do things.

  “I know you wouldn’t control anyone,” I reassure him, “and I know you’d prefer that everyone kept their thoughts to themselves.”

  “It can get a little embarrassing sometimes,” he confesses as we start walking again. “At least I can’t read Roni unless she lets me.” His expression brightens as he says her name.

  Roni is a young marine biologist and James’ girlfriend. She also happens to be a hereditary telepath like me with particularly strong mental shields. She’s definitely one of the reasons James is so happy here at Safety Harbor.

  “Y-you haven’t told her yet, have you?” I worry that someone will find out that James is a Controller. The more principled governments in the world would have him executed at once while others would try to use him.

  When the brightness fades from his face, I’m sorry I asked the question. “Would you want to hang out with a guy who could force you to do anything he wanted?” he asks bitterly. “No, I haven’t told her, but she’s such a strong telepath, it’s just a matter of time before she picks up something, and then it’s game over for us.”

  “She might surprise you,” I say.

  We’ve reached my father’s cabin now. I knock on the door, but he doesn’t answer.

  “He just went to check on something in the bio lab,” a tired-looking Doc Iharu calls to us. A warm, soft-spoken man from Okinawa, Doc Iharu is Safety Harbor’s chief medical doctor. He’s in charge of keeping us healthy, which means he spends almost as much time in his scuba gear as my dad does.

  I glance at my wrist computer. It’s almost ten o’clock. My dad is working late again. We find him just as he’s leaving the lab. His face is lined with weariness, and every day I see more gray strands in his brown hair. Running a colony of three hundred Neptune kids is a lot of responsibility.

  He gives me an absent smile and a hug.

  “Are the fires getting worse?” I ask as we walk back to his cabin.

  He nods. “There’s a big blaze that’s only twenty miles from your friend Tsukwani’s village. I’m afraid if the wind shifts, embers could land on their island and burn them out.”

  He opens the door to his cabin and waves us inside. It’s a tiny space cluttered with dive gear, scientific equipment, and stacks of reports and boxes. James and I shove gear aside and sit on the bed, and Dad sits in his desk chair.

  “Can’t we start spreading the c-plankton soon?” I burst out. “We have to do something before our whole planet burns up.”

  “If only we could.” My father sighs and stares at his hands as if he’s not really seeing them. Then he straightens his shoulders and turns to face me.

  “Nere, it’s time I told you and James the truth,” he declares, his expression somber. “Our scientists are certain now that you and your team did not bring home the right strain of c-plankton from Atlantea.”

  chapter four

  Struggling to digest his words, I stare at my father. After all we went through, we brought back the wrong strain of c-plankton? I can’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it. I still have nightmares about the two terrifying weeks I spent inside Atlantea. Ran Kuron made us wear shock collars like animals. We worried constantly that the vicious shark mutates patrolling his base might tear us apart. A young boy named Mako even died helping us escape.

  As I clench my hands into fists, Mako’s sweet face appears in my memory. I’ll never forget watching the life fade from his wide gray eyes. Wasp and Whitey, two of Kuron’s most savage kids at Atlantea, killed him. Was his sacrifice for nothing?

  “Are you absolutely sure we didn’t find the right strain?” I ask, my voice sounding harsh in my ears. If I concentrate on feeling angry, maybe I won’t burst into tears.

  “Our scientists are certain,” Dad replies. “Your team brought back over fifty different strains of c-plankton, and we’ve tested each one multiple times. None come close to producing the startling results Idaine reported in her log.”

  “Could she have been wrong about her results?” James asks.

  “It’s possible,” Dad replies, “but Idaine was an excellent scientist. Unlike her husband Ran Kuron, she was disciplined and methodical, and hardly one to cut corners. She contacted all the scientists in the Project to announce that she had developed a strain of plankton that could absorb a hundred times more carbon dioxide than regular phytoplankton and sequester it. Unfortunately, she died before she could share the details of her research with us.”

  “Then where is the stuff?” I ask. “Do you think it was destroyed when the Sea Rangers blew up Atlantea?”

  “I’m afraid it’s likely,” Dad replies, “and that’s why we’re determined to find her original research. Remember the notebooks Robry grabbed from that lab where you found the plankton cultures? Some of those notebooks were Idaine’s original journals. From their contents, we’ve determined that her very last round of c-plankton notes must have been aboard her research vessel the Storm Petrel when it sank in the Johnstone Strait five years ago. If we can find her notes, there’s a good chance we can engineer c-plankton just the way she did.”

  “But those notes would have dissolved years ago in seawater,” James protests.

  “That would be true if Idaine had kept only paper notes. But we know she owned one of the first hydro-computers ever built. Ran boasted to me about buying it for her.”

  I sit up straighter on the bed. “So, the moment the computer was submerged in seawater, a shell would have closed around the hard drive, and her data might still be intact.”

  “But wouldn’t Idaine have taken the computer with her when she left her sinking ship?” James asks.

  Dad looks down at his cluttered desk. “We don’t think she was alive when she left the Storm Petrel that final time,” he says heavily.

&nb
sp; I lean forward on the bed. “Dad, what happened the day Idaine’s ship sank?” I’ve never dared to ask Dai. The moment anyone mentions his mother, he clams up tighter than an oyster.

  “I wish we knew,” Dad admits. “We did track down her first mate, a man named Yanis Sevier. The afternoon the Storm Petrel sank, Sevier claimed he heard Ran and Idaine having a violent argument down in their cabin. The next thing he knew, there was a big explosion, and the Storm Petrel started sinking rapidly.”

  Dad clears his throat. “Before the boat submerged completely, Sevier saw Ran emerge from belowdecks with Idaine’s body slung over his shoulder. He lay her down in the runabout that she used to do her research. Then he went back below. The first mate ran to the runabout to see if he could help her.”

  “W-was she already dead?” I ask.

  Dad pauses. When he speaks again, anger and sorrow tinge his voice. “Sevier got a good look at Idaine, and he could tell she was dead. He was also fairly certain her neck was broken. Then Ran appeared with Dai slung over his shoulder and threatened Sevier with a solar pistol. Because the ship was sinking fast, Sevier ran back to the last life raft and jumped on board. Ran drove the runabout away from the Storm Petrel, and Sevier never saw him again.”

  I rub my arms as chills skate down my back. Poor Dai. I wonder if he knows what actually happened between his parents that day.

  “Do you think there’s any chance Kuron grabbed Idaine’s computer before he left the ship?” James asks.

  “We don’t think so, based on those notes Robry took from Atlantea and the large number of plankton strains Kuron was growing in his lab there. We think he was trying to recreate her c-plankton, too, which means he doesn’t have her computer.”

  “So that’s why you want to find the Storm Petrel now,” James says. “But most of the Johnstone Strait is deep and its currents are fierce. Salvaging a wreck there will be impossible for divers, and we don’t have any robotic salvage probes that could function at that depth.”