A Daughter of No Nation

by A. M. Dellamonica

  “‘Gale will be safe until Parrish loses his heart,’” she quoted, bitterly.

  The crew’s trying to clear a little space in case Verena jumps, Sophie guessed. It wouldn’t be enough. The bevvies were too agile.

  She could easily imagine the creatures devouring Verena if she fell or jumped. The image cleared her head a little.

  What would Cly say? He was always pretty infuriating. “What, precisely, is this tantrum getting you?”

  Verena’s head whipped round, snakelike, and her grip on the rigging tightened.

  Man, yeah! Managed the patronizing tone pretty good there. “Perhaps if you fling yourself overboard and get devoured, Garland will realize he’s made a terrible mistake?”

  “Shut up, Sophie.”

  “Ooh! And Annela will give you a posthumous medal?”

  Okay, kid, you’re supposed to be running across the spar now to deck me. She was out of mean comments. She tried to adopt Cly’s puzzled, How are you so dumb and still breathing? expression.

  For a second, Verena stood there, quivering like an electrified squirrel on a high wire. Then she whisked her sword out of its scabbard and came at her.

  Oops, bad strategy, forgot the bladed weapon.

  But at least Verena was off the edge of the spar now. If she fell, she’d either hit the rigging or the deck. Suboptimal, but she didn’t look like she was thinking of flinging herself into the sea anymore.

  “We were fine before you came,” she hissed. “Now Gale’s dead and Cly Banning has Mom jailed. Garland’s head over frigging heels—”

  “Gale’s not my fault!”

  “She was safe until he fell in love.”

  “He’s not—”

  “And for what? Garland’s just another notch on your bedpost. Crook your finger, that guy Lais jumps into your pants. You just assumed you’d gotten engaged on Sylvanna—”

  “Yeah, and that was such a barrel of fun.” She was getting angry. “Know any five-year-olds, Verena?”

  Verena’s overwide brown eyes, so like her own, were just inches away. “What?”

  “Your neighborhood, in Bernal. Pretty family-oriented, right? Any little kids?”

  “So?”

  “Any first-grader boys you might consider dating, say in twelve years’ time?”

  “It’s different here.”

  “Really? It’s that different?” She leaned in a little, and Verena did withdraw the blade before it could cut her. For just an instant, Sophie felt a terrible urge to give her a shove. “You sent Garland after us when Lais and I were—”

  “Slutting it up?”

  “You invited that woman Langda aboard Nightjar because you hoped I’d get jealous.”

  Damn, this is dumb, it’s the critters. I gotta dial this down, gotta calm us both.

  She whispered through gritted teeth, “Listen. I’ve never managed to make a relationship work for even eighteen months.”

  The change of direction caught Verena before she could reply: her mouth opened, and she looked quizzical.

  “So,” Sophie finished, “chances are good you’re gonna get another shot.”

  An edgy laugh. Then, bursting into tears, Verena sheathed her sword.

  To the stern, the school of bevvies was surfacing, one after another, wailing.

  Despair rolled through her. Gale died because Parrish fell for me? That’s just—if it’s true and they can predict the future then the future is fixed and I had no choice. And if it’s not and it was just a coincidence, but oh jeez, what if Gale died and Parrish thought: That does it, Sophie’s the one I must be in love with, and deep down he doesn’t even—

  Stop it, it’s the bevvies, just the weird effect of the bevvies—

  She reeled Verena into a hug, just in case her mood swung back to suicidal. “It’s gonna be all right,” she said, and she was almost crying herself. “Somehow or another, it’s all gonna be okay.”

  “How?” Verena said.

  She didn’t know.

  CHAPTER 28

  The bevvies followed them for a day and a half, giving the new medic, Watts, an excuse to ply the crew with a “relaxing” ginger-laced tea that Sophie suspected was a placebo—or, at best, a delivery system for nutrients. The creatures’ pursuit left everyone dispirited except Bram, who just tucked his nose into his notebook, finishing their presentation.

  “Why aren’t they cranking you up?” Verena asked. She was red-eyed and keeping to her cabin.

  “I’m more relaxed than I’ve ever been,” Bram said. “All this time to think without the clutter of—”

  “Human contact?” Sophie suggested.

  “If you’re going to heckle, get out,” he said, tone amiable.

  They made the rest of the sail without any more trouble, or any more dating. Verena’s disclosure about Gale’s death had left Sophie confused and raw.

  It didn’t help that the whole crew had been on deck, that Verena’s shouted declarations, about prophecies and fate and Garland being a notch on Sophie’s bedpost, meant all of them, Parrish included, had heard every word.

  As they neared the Butcher’s Baste, they laid all their data out on the galley table, once again turning the dining room into a shared workspace as they set out everything from a chart of the currents to Rees Erminne’s migration graph, the calendar he used for setting gambling odds on when the turtles would arrive.

  “We’ve missed the first night Kir Erminne listed as a possibility,” Parrish began.

  “Not a good one,” Bram put in.

  “The currents at this time of year make it likely the auto—atom—”

  “Automatons,” Sophie said. “Mindless gadgets with no volition of their own, sowing destruction wherever they wash up.”

  Bram gave her a slight frown.

  “Automatons.” Parrish savored the cadences of the English as he repeated the word, then marked a position on the chart. “They should go into the water near here. There’s a strong current; it would carry almost anything to Sylvanna in a matter of hours.”

  “That means there will be a Haversham ship in the area. Since we don’t want to be seen, the optimal location for a dive would be about—”

  “How about here?” Sophie said, tapping the page. “It’s about midway between both nations. Maybe this big islet will offer Nightjar some shelter?”

  “You would be hard put to resist the current,” Parrish said.

  “I’ll say.” Bram had been doing figures on the table, converting the Fleet units to numbers the Americans would understand. “It’s about six miles an hour, Sofe.”

  “So I wash up on the lowlands.” She spoke with more boldness than she felt. Thoughts of soot vipers and quicksand—oh, and let’s not forget the fire leeches—ran through her mind. “Turtle Beach is close to Low Bann. If worst came to worst, I could walk up to Cly’s house.”

  Parrish shook his head. “There will be people on the beach: guards, and someone to time the turtles’ arrival for the betting pool—”

  “Rees,” Sophie said.

  “And you organized a scientific experiment, didn’t you? To settle another of the lawsuits. So … observers?”

  “Okay,” Sophie said. “No washing ashore.”

  “I’m serious,” Parrish said.

  “You’re always serious. I’ll have to take a tether, that’s all.”

  “I’ll run her out in a rowboat,” Tonio said. “Same as when she went diving for the Heart of Temperance.”

  Late that night, they sailed into the Baste.

  She had heard that the Baste was tricky sailing—the passage had dangerous shallows and was filled with real and man-made islets. As he had on the approach to Issle Morta, Parrish took the wheel, paying close heed to a stopwatch as he took them around three of the islets before weighing anchor near a ponderous hump of rock that Bram, for some reason, had named Elvis.

  By night, Sophie could see evidence of border security—a line of watchtowers along the Sylvanner lowland shore, their tops ablaz
e, drenching the beaches with light. Escapees fleeing to the beach would be hard put to get to the water.

  The Haversham navy had responded in kind: brilliantly illuminated warships patroled the waters to the northwest.

  Sophie got her gear on and, with Tonio’s assistance, launched a small rowboat into the heart of the shorebound current. The boat was tethered to Nightjar; Sophie had an additional hundred meters of rope tied to the smaller craft.

  “Ready to go?” Tonio asked.

  She nodded.

  “What about these?” He indicated her tanks and regulator.

  “Not until I find the turtles,” she said, dropping into the sea.

  Diving, finally. She spent a moment getting used to the water, which was chillier than she’d expected. Summer was waning, but who knew what was normal at this time of year?

  She’d been on shoots where they’d set up and then been forced to wait for weeks for the animals to show, and one where they’d never put in an appearance at all. Here, she was relying on Rees’s gambling odds and on Parrish’s knowledge of the currents. Plus a bit of luck.

  Concentrate. She adjusted her snorkeling mask—as she’d told Tonio, she couldn’t afford to use the air tanks until she absolutely needed them—and set about getting to know the water. She had a good LED dive light and her camera, and as she sank below she turned into the current, submerging her lantern and looking for the turtles, looking for anything.

  Staying even with the current was a significant effort. She fell into a rhythm: submerge, search, kick back to the rowboat, submerge again. Her light was faltering and she was exhausted when Tonio indicated it was time to give up for the night.

  She climbed into the rowboat. He immediately gave her a flask of hot tea. Feeling chilled and disappointed, she helped him row back to Nightjar.

  “You rarely score the first time out,” she said, as cheerily as she could. Parrish took them around Elvis and out to open sea. She spent the next day recharging her lamp and her camera batteries using the solar panels, and sleeping off the night’s search.

  The second night was a repeat of the first except that they had to break off a little earlier, when one of the Haver navy vessels seemed to be heading their way. Had they been spotted? Nobody was sure.

  On the third afternoon, a chilly rain began to fall, cool wet drops with a hint of autumn in them. They went over the tide charts again.

  “It seems to me the rain offers a chance to get closer to one nation or the other,” Parrish said. “Visibility will be poorer, and with the clouds there will be no moon or starlight.”

  “If we aren’t tucked in behind Elvis, aren’t we more likely to be seen?” It turned out Bram had so named the islet because it was located about where Memphis should be at home.

  “I can find a similar berth.” Parrish shook his head. “The question is: Closer to Sylvanna, where Sophie might be taken for an escaped slave or someone trying to aid same? Or closer to Haversham, where they could try to sink us to hide what they’re doing?”

  “Haversham,” Sophie said. “More chance we can catch them if we find the ship doing the dumping.”

  “Sylvanna,” Verena said at the same time. “Sophie’s sort of one of them. If they don’t kill her immediately, she can drop Cly’s name. And we can show we’re acting in their interests.”

  Bram squinted at the chart. “You picked a good spot here, Parrish. The turtles will show. Let’s not increase the risk.”

  They were evenly divided.

  Tonio said, “I guess you’re deciding, Garland.”

  He looked at the chart, assessed the rain and wind, and thought it over. “We’ll defer to Verena’s expertise.”

  “More risk—” Bram objected.

  But Sophie was already looking at the line of the beach, the marked currents. “It gets shallow here, right?”

  Parrish nodded. “We’ll be gone long before low tide.”

  “Are you sure?” Bram said.

  If they were southeast of the deeper part of the Baste, the outgoing tide would lower its depth by—what? Twenty or thirty feet?

  You will bring doom on all your family, Gale had said.

  Shut up. I don’t believe in predestination.

  “I studied the Butcher’s Baste extensively when I was younger,” Parrish said to Bram.

  “You know, it looks like it might get choppy.” Sophie spoke without premeditation. “What if Verena ran you home tonight?”

  Everyone looked at her as though she’d grown a second nose.

  “Excuse me?” Bram said.

  Sophie persisted. “Why not? You’ve made up the model turtle, and you’re finished with the evidence we’re going to present. You’re obviously nervous about the Butcher’s Baste and there’s no reason to spend the night puking your guts out if the wind comes up.”

  “You’re saying you don’t need me now, so I should take my toys and go home?”

  “Come on, Bram. You hate the cold, you hate being damp, you know you’re gonna get nauseated—”

  “I hated the cold when I was four and my gut has been improving.”

  “It’d give you a chance to reassure the parents. We’ll have this wrapped up in another week, maybe? Then—”

  “Then what? Are we back to the ‘I’ll come home to Earth for good?’ thing?” he demanded. “Because I don’t think any of us believes that.”

  They were glaring at each other when Verena spoke. “She’s not wrong, Bram. I don’t appreciate being treated like a taxi service, but this might get hair-raising.”

  Bram rose. He closed his eyes and took one of those long breaths that, had he still been a toddler, would have preceded a sustained and piercing shriek of rage. Instead he said, “Surrounded by idiots,” and slammed his way off to his cabin.

  They retreated to the corners of the ship, waiting for nightfall—it was already plenty dark. Parrish took them into the passage, despite the downpour, steering the ship with his watch once again.

  The distance from where they had been diving the previous two nights was less than five miles, but Sophie could feel the difference as soon as she got in the water. The current was stronger. It felt as though it wanted to suck her right down to the bottom.

  Should’ve gone up toward Haversham after all, she thought, but she was here now and tethered to the rowboat, where Tonio waited.

  “Okay, Sophie?”

  “Keep your eyes peeled,” she said.

  “In this?” Water was falling in great sheets.

  She shrugged.

  “Don’t worry about Bram,” Tonio said.

  She groaned. “I should’ve kept my mouth shut. I should’ve known I’d just set him off.”

  He shrugged. “Nobody at home wanted me to go to sea, you know. They saw that I had to—had to go with Garland and Kir Gale.”

  “This was your preadolescent career change?”

  “Only time and proof stopped amia madre and my sister from trying to reshape me into a bookkeeper.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I was a sailor. It was inconvenient—painful. But Nightjar called me. Your life, Sophie, it’s here now.”

  “That simple, is it?”

  “Verena, I think, needs you. As for Bram, that’s not up to you.”

  She felt a sting of actual anger, had to fight an urge to make an obscene gesture at him as she slipped below. But she took the higher ground: she waited until she was underwater, well out of sight, before giving him the finger.

  Glowering down into the black, she saw the turtles.

  There were thousands of them, shadows in the dark, invisible but for the shine of her lantern off their shells. They were swimming at a depth of maybe twenty feet, an easy distance.

  She kicked up, breaking the surface.

  “Your light!” Tonio clapped a hand over the LEDs before they could advertise their presence.

  “Sorry,” she said, shutting it off. “Got that net?”

  “They’re down there?”

 
“They so are.” She switched her snorkel for her regulator and tanks, took two knotted net bags from Tonio, and double-checked her safety line.

  “Good luck.” He was shivering today—it was warmer in the ocean than on the surface in the rain and breeze.

  “Thanks.” She submerged again, checked her breathing and the tanks, reminding herself not to rush. Bram’s analysis of the automaton design indicated the decoys would be near the top of the dule, riding the current above them. She kicked slowly, maintaining a depth of fifteen feet, shining the light in the direction they were coming from.

  Just observe, she told herself, taking easy breaths. All the time in the world.

  When the automaton came, she almost had to chase it—the mechanism was imperfectly balanced. It was high in the dule but paddling sidewise, belly pointed left, shell to the right. She had to dive quickly, scoop at it with the net.

  She half-caught it—and caught a live turtle, too. And then she had to grab as the automaton, with a surprisingly powerful tick-tick-tick of legs, almost came free of the net. Her light went flying, out to the edge of its safety line. She got the automaton, plunged it into the sack of net, and set herself to kicking against the current and reeling the light in before detangling the live turtle.

  Sorry, she thought at it. Go lay your eggs.

  The animal resumed its swim, seeming undisturbed. Drawn on to the beach, by instinct’s irresistible pull.

  Another turtle swam into her with a brisk bonk—the current was pulling her toward Sylvanna and down toward the bottom and the dule.

  Okay, that’s one. But even as she contemplated waiting for a second automaton, there was a yank at her line.

  Sophie turned, checked the net and her equipment, then began to swim toward the rowboat while slowly gathering her safety line.

  She was only about twenty feet below when she hit a powerful rush of water, a current that threatened to pull her back to the limit of the rope.

  She shut off the safety light and focused on swimming. The automaton was kicking against her, within the net, beating an artificial pulse on the rubber-clad skin of her hip.

  It was as close as she’d come to true solitude in weeks. Her mind hashed through the unanswered questions she’d yet to research: Was this a future Earth? How did magic—any of it—work in both worlds? And now this new question, about Parrish and Gale having their futures set out for them.