by Jenn Reese
People had lived and worked here. Not phantoms, not faceless ancients, but real people just like him.
He righted a fallen chair and sat at a desk by the room’s lone window. Had Sarah Jennings sat here? Or her assistant, the one she’d trusted with the water safe? Grandma Nani said he’d been Hoku’s ancestor. Hoku wiped the dust and dirt from the desk’s surface. It smeared across his palm and forearm in dark streaks. Had his ancestor done the same thing hundreds of years ago before he sat down and got to work?
Work. He was here to do that, too. His ancestor had helped build the first Kampii colony. Now, across the centuries, Hoku needed to save it.
“Zorro, look for an interface,” he said. The raccoon’s eyes glowed green. He hopped onto a desk and began to sniff for a place to plug in his tail.
Hoku stood and searched the room for anything that looked like it might be connected to the main computer system. When he found buttons, he pressed them. When he found switches, he flipped them back and forth until their lights blinked. He found the power switch under one large monitor, but when the screens lit up, he was surprised: instead of one big image, there were dozens and dozens of tiny ones. They each had a label displayed in blurry type, and he instantly recognized several of them:
SKYFEATHER’S LANDING
TALON’S PEAK
COILED DEEP
EQUIAN SETTLEMENT #1: MIRAGE
He even saw screens for Silverfin and Nautilus, two distant Kampii colonies he’d only heard of once before. Most of the screens were dark, but a few flickered with life: the inside of the communications room at Coiled Deep, and the back of an Equian’s head in Mirage.
And then, on the monitor labeled EQUIAN SETTLEMENT #6, a familiar face zoomed in so close that Hoku could count its shaggy nose hairs.
“Took you long enough,” Rollin said with a grunt. “Now, what are we working on today?”
ALUNA SWAM TOWARD Daphine’s surface colony, but when she neared the shallows of the reef, she stopped. Sharks filled the water. Before, they’d been milling around, lazily looking for easy meals. Now the ocean roiled with fins and sleek gray bodies and the flash of jagged teeth.
A feeding frenzy.
Not all the sharks were big, but many were vicious, trying to get a piece of whatever had died — and willing to kill in the process. To them, Aluna’s beautiful Kampii tail looked like food.
She circled around the frenzy, keeping her short, sturdy spear tight against her body to minimize its drag in the water. The knife strapped to her waist had been freshly sharpened, and a harpoon — liberated from the training dome in the City of Shifting Tides — dangled from a bandolier across her back, along with a canister of bolts and hooks.
“This is Aluna,” she called. “Can anyone hear me?”
Her brother Anadar’s voice answered immediately. “Aluna! Get out of the water! We’re trying to kill the most vicious ones, but it’s only drawing more into the mix.”
She surfaced to get a better view. Most of the Kampii lay clustered together on the reef like a pile of terrified seals. Unfortunately, the water covering the reef was still half a meter deep, giving most of the sharks plenty of room to navigate. Even Great White could leap onto the reef to grab a Kampii morsel, then wiggle its way back into the depths.
Anadar had arranged the colony’s few warriors — and anyone strong enough to wield a weapon — in a circle around the rest of the Kampii. They seemed to be doing a good job keeping the sharks away, but blood stained the water around them and the current wasn’t carrying it away. The sharks would keep coming, long after Anadar’s warriors grew tired.
She couldn’t see her brother well from this distance, but she recognized the way he held his weapons and the way he moved. He’d trained her, after all. Her own style owed as much to him as it did to High Senator Electra and the cappo’ra fighters in Coiled Deep.
The warriors couldn’t hold out forever, so the sharks needed to stop attacking. They needed another target. Something to distract them long enough for the Kampii to escape. Aluna dove underwater. The sharks on the outskirts of the action were slower, older, weaker, or just opportunists waiting for leftovers. Well, she could capitalize on an opportunity when she saw one, too.
A lazy dark-gray shark drifted by her tail. It wasn’t a big animal, not much of a threat to her, which made it a perfect choice. She spun, just like in the dolphin form she used to practice with Anadar, and stabbed it in the gills with her spear. She pulled the weapon out quickly, before the animal could jerk and rip it out of her hands.
Blood puffed up from the wound. Almost instantly, the other sharks smelled it. When they arrived, Aluna was ready. She got another one in the gills, then missed her mark on the third and watched her spear tip slide across the shark’s flank, digging a shallow groove. The shark came for her. She unsheathed her knife with her left hand and punched at the animal’s face. Her blade caught it in the nose. The shark twisted away in surprise.
Oh, she had their attention now. More and more sharks came, called by the blood. The first few sharks she had wounded were now fighting for their lives or trying to escape.
While she was aiming for another, a shark rammed into her from behind and scraped its tough body along her side. She sheathed her knife with fumbling hands and grabbed her ribs. The sudden pain made her nauseous.
But her sealskin shirt had stopped the shark from reaching her skin. She still wasn’t bleeding, and that’s all that mattered.
Aluna straightened her tail, turning her body into an arrow, and sank down through the water, quiet as a crab. Above her, blood billowed in the waves. More sharks came, leaving the surface colony for fresher, easier-to-catch prey.
She swam slowly in a wide arc around the new frenzy. She touched her side and winced. Kampii healed fast, but broken ribs still took time. Please don’t be broken.
When she got close to the reef colony, she called out. Anadar and Daphine came to help her the rest of the way. She let them take her arms and tried to smile.
“You are so foolish,” Anadar said. “What were you thinking?” His brown eyes seemed so familiar, and so strange, as if a lifetime had passed since the last time Aluna had seen him.
“She was trying to save our fins,” Daphine said. “And she succeeded, at least for a little while.”
Aluna relaxed and let them pull her through the water.
“Where’d you learn to fight like that?” Anadar asked. “Must have had a good teacher.”
Aluna grinned. “Wish he’d spent more time teaching me how to actually fight things than making me do silly forms and exercises over and over again.”
Anadar’s face grew serious. She should have known not to insult his lessons. But when his words came, they were soft and kind. “Anyone who sees you fight will think I’m the best teacher in the world.”
Aluna closed her eyes and leaned into Anadar. She felt tears forming, but she didn’t know why. Her ribs hurt, true, but this pain felt deeper, confusing, unexplainable.
“We haven’t got long before the sharks find us again,” Daphine said. “I’m going to take everyone to the beach. We’ll be easy prey for the land animals, but we’re not faring much better out here. And the sooner our people learn to drag themselves on land, the better.”
“No,” Aluna said, opening her eyes. “I’ve got another idea. The people at the surface colony aren’t the only ones that need help.” She paused. “So do the Deepfell.”
Aluna swam beside Daphine just under the water’s surface, her ribs wrapped tightly in seal-hide strips. Behind them, the Kampii without breathing shells swam as best they could, surfacing like dolphins every few minutes for more air.
Hopefully the Deepfell would agree to an alliance, and Aluna wasn’t leading them all to their deaths. If Prince Eekikee was alive, she’d have a chance. The Deepfell’s hidden, air-filled cave would be the perfect place for the Kampii from the surface colony to stay until they found a more permanent home. It’d be cramped with all the Deep
fell wounded, but safe.
“This is the first time we’ve swum together since you got your tail,” Daphine said. “I used to dream about this day when you were young. Raising our three brothers . . . well, let’s just say that I was thrilled when you came along. My own dear little sister.”
Aluna was shocked into silence. As stupid as it was, she’d never thought about how hard Daphine’s life had been, or wondered what her sister dreamed of. Aluna’s life had centered entirely on her own problems with their father, her own feelings of inadequacy, her own far-flung wishes.
Daphine seemed happy to continue. “We never got to talk about regular things. I always imagined you’d tell me about the boys or girls you were interested in. I don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to meet anyone in the Above World? That boy with the dark hair . . . Dash. He’s handsome. Of course, he’s good with a sword, too, and that’s probably more important to you.”
Aluna felt her heart stop beating and then, far too slowly, start up again. “Dash . . . is a good friend. It’s . . . good to have such a good friend.”
“Direct hit!” Daphine said, laughing. “Maybe I’ll make a decent big sister after all.”
“Well, what about you?” Aluna grumbled. “Still fending off pods of slobbering Kampii? I remember when old Iokepa asked you to marry him and bear his children. Tides’ teeth, he was older than our father!”
Daphine’s smile quirked down at the corners. “My options have dwindled a bit. You might be surprised to learn that some Kampii aren’t interested in women with a scope instead of an eye.”
Aluna stopped swimming and stared at her sister.
Who was still, objectively, the most beautiful, smart, funny, and accomplished woman in the entire City of Shifting Tides.
“Then those Kampii are idiots, and you’re better off without them,” Aluna said coldly. “All the Upgraders have tech, and they don’t seem to have any trouble finding one another attractive.”
Daphine sighed. “Maybe I’ll lure one of the Upgraders down here, then, just like in the old stories.”
“Make sure he’s waterproof,” Aluna said. “Rust isn’t good for relationships.”
Daphine laughed again, a sound that always made Aluna’s heart soar. She had successfully made her sister laugh and avoided answering any questions about Dash. She was turning out to be a pretty good little sister, too.
“What does your scope do, anyway?” Aluna asked. “It can’t just be for looks.”
Daphine’s scope whirred. “That’s what I tell people,” she said. Her mouth twisted mischievously. “But, oh, Aluna, the things I see now!” Daphine swept her gaze up, down, and around. “The temperature of the water, of the fish, of you. There are twenty-six bluefins in that school over there, and I didn’t have to count. I can see all the different colors of sunlight. I can see how fast your heart is beating and when it speeds up and slows down. I can tell when people are lying.”
Aluna sputtered. “When they’re lying? You’re joking.”
“No, I’m not,” Daphine said smugly. “I didn’t know how to do most of this at first. I kept the scope to teach the Elders a lesson, and as a reminder to our father that we can’t stay hidden. But now I’m keeping it because I love it.”
“That skill must make the Elders very nervous,” Aluna said.
“And that’s why they don’t know —”
Daphine stopped suddenly, but her scope continued to twist and focus. She whispered, “Over there, in the kelp. A Deepfell.”
Aluna followed Daphine’s gaze and saw a slick gray form shadowed in the dark fronds. It was definitely one of Eekikee’s shark people.
“Deepfell!” she called. “Your people are in grave danger. I am Aluna, an ally of Prince Eekikee’s. We need to speak with him at once.”
Nothing happened for several long moments. Aluna’s tail twitched. Was the Deepfell still out there? Did it even understand what she was asking?
“His heart is beating fast,” Daphine said. “He’s not sure what to do.”
Then, slick as an eel, the Deepfell emerged from the kelp. Its smooth, hairless head and wide black eyes no longer seemed strange to Aluna, not after everything she’d seen in the Above World.
The Deepfell spoke carefully around its mouth full of sharp teeth.
“Ffffoooollow.”
ALUNA FELT A BOND with Prince Eekikee. When she’d first gone to the Above World, she’d found him on the beach, the lone survivor of an Upgrader attack on his people. He’d been suffocating, but her own breathing shell had saved his life. He’d saved hers not long after that by bringing her, Hoku, and Dash down to the cave when the Upgraders were chasing them.
Later, Aluna, Eekikee, and Daphine had all witnessed Fathom’s cruelty. They each knew, on a large scale and on a very personal one, how horrible living in a world ruled by Karl Strand would be. Despite the history of fighting between their people, Fathom had forged them into allies.
They trusted each other, and now that trust was the only chance they had of saving both their people.
The scout Aluna and Daphine had met in the ocean had taken them directly to Eekikee. The prince had accepted Aluna’s warning about the Kampii attack without question and ordered his Deepfell to bring the Kampii waiting at the water’s surface down to the safety of the cave.
Now Aluna sat on the sand and waited for a Deepfell scout to lead her brothers’ hunting party into their trap. Daphine fidgeted on her right, and Eekikee sat motionless on her left. The Deepfell prince wore a thin circlet of gold around his bald gray head, the only thing besides the scar on his throat that marked him as any different from the rest of his people.
Anadar had arranged his small band of surface-colony warriors in a semicircle behind their group. The warriors would be ready to act, but wouldn’t be seen as an immediate threat. Aluna had wanted them in the water where they could move and fight more freely, but Anadar overruled her. Without breathing necklaces, Kampii from the surface colony could be drowned too easily. Behind the row of hunters, the remaining Kampii from the surface colony spoke quietly with their new Deepfell hosts.
“It’s been too long,” Aluna said. “Maybe they caught the scout.”
“Akkaia is best,” Prince Eekikee said. “We waaait.”
Daphine’s scope whirred as she focused on the water. Aluna wondered what hidden mysteries her sister could see that were invisible to the rest of them.
Eventually, Deepfell brought large shells filled with dead fish, and they ate. Aluna did her best to answer Prince Eekikee’s questions about Scorch and Strand’s army, and she was pleased to see her brother Anadar starting to relax slightly in the Deepfell’s presence. She didn’t need Anadar to like Eekikee, but it helped. After seeing what the Equians and the Serpenti had done to each other in the desert, she was even more determined to build this alliance. Beginning to see one’s enemies as people, not demons, was the first step toward peace.
Aluna was about to regale everyone with a highly dramatized retelling of her humiliating defeat by Scorch during the Thunder Trials when distant words buzzed in her ears, then fell silent. Every Kampii in the cave looked up at once.
“They’re close,” Daphine said. “Everyone back to your positions!”
Aluna dropped the fish head she’d been about to crunch and dragged herself back to the water’s edge. She checked her wrist sheaths and found her talon weapons, Spirit and Spite, ready for action. She hadn’t been wearing them since she returned to the ocean — trying to spin them underwater would be futile — and she hoped she had no cause to unleash them now. Without Vachir to grant her height, she’d probably hook one of them around her own neck instead of her opponent’s.
“Daphine will do the talking,” Aluna said. “They’ll listen to her. Everyone does.”
Daphine rolled her one eye and rewarded Aluna with a grim smile. “If that were true, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Quit bickering,” Anadar called from his place by the warriors. “Don�
��t make me get our father.”
There it was again, the warmth that started in Aluna’s gut and radiated outward, like the sun. She was about to toss a retort back at her brother when her ears erupted with chatter. “There, behind that rock!” “No, the kelp — I saw it hide in the kelp!” “It’s headed for that tunnel!”
The Kampii in the cave fell silent. The Deepfell picked up on the change and followed their example.
This waiting was even harder than before. Seconds felt like hours. Aluna studied the waves. Her breathing shell pulsed at her neck, its glow reflected in the rippling cave pool.
And then the Deepfell scout shot out of the water with a gasp and landed hard on the sand, her gills puffing frantically. Aluna and Eekikee grabbed her arms and pulled her up the shore until she was safely behind them.
A moment later, Aluna’s brother Ehu’s familiar face broke the surface. His eyes widened and he brought his spear forward in a flash. “Stop,” he called to his hunting party. “It’s a trap!”
“You’re safe. No one will attack,” Daphine said quickly. “You know me. I’m your sister, but I’m also the Voice of the Coral Kampii. Please come here so we can talk.”
Pilipo’s head popped out of the water, but neither he nor Ehu came any closer to the shore.
“You’re working with them, Daphine? And Anadar and Aluna?” Pilipo said. “What treachery is this?”
“We’re allies,” Daphine said. “Prince Eekikee and his people have granted Kampii without breathing necklaces sanctuary in this cave. In return, the Kampii will not hunt his people.”
Pilipo and Ehu bobbed in the water. Aluna saw at least two dozen more hunters waiting just beneath the waves. She tried to still her body, despite how badly it wanted to prepare itself for battle. A clenched fist, a subtle shifting into an aggressive stance . . . Her brothers would notice these tiny changes and make changes of their own. Before long, the whole encounter might escalate to heated words and the first ill-advised throw of a spear.