by Anna Burke
“I’ll try. Do you think—”
“Good. You’re awake.” Lia appeared in the doorway, her short kelp-brown hair damp and the bioluminescence beneath her skin muted. Kraken and Nasrin moved as one to come between her and me.
“It’s fine,” I told them, though I wasn’t sure it was true. Kraken touched my shoulder as he stepped out of the way. The gesture braced me. He had my back. I didn’t know if he could help me or what he could really do if they decided we were expendable, but I knew he’d die trying to protect the crew.
“How do you feel?” Lia asked me.
“Fine.” Truthfully, I did feel fine, physically. Disoriented from the sonar reinstalled in my head, yes, but that was preferable to pain, and the luxury of thoughts that didn’t drag was worth it. My emotional state was another thing entirely. I touched the tender scar above my eye.
Lia quirked an eyebrow. “You will get used to it. Now, I will take you to your friend.”
Orca moved forward at the mention of Harper.
“Just you,” Lia said to me. She didn’t even glance at Orca. The total dismissal narrowed Orca’s eyes. She opened her mouth to protest, but Kraken closed a large hand around her arm, cutting her off. I turned to look at Miranda. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and the muscles of her forearms were tight with frustration, but she nodded.
“Why don’t you want my crew to come with us?”
Lia shut the door before answering. “It is nothing personal. They are not like us. They will not understand some of what they see, and it is easier this way. For now.”
“I’m not sure I understand, either.”
Harper remained unconscious when I entered the infirmary. She floated in the bath, naked, with her hair tied out of the way and the stained bandage gone from her hand. The wound still looked angry, but the red streaks and blotches had faded from her skin, and she breathed easily beneath the oxygen mask. My hand hovered over her shoulder, as I was unsure if touching her would rouse her.
The doctor—Vi, I remembered—cleared her throat. I withdrew my hand hastily. Harper’s skin no longer bore a feverish sheen. She rested peacefully, and my vision blurred as relieved tears filled my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. She breathed. She was going to live. I wasn’t going to be left alone without the closest thing I would ever have to a sister. I swallowed a sob and bit my lip until it stopped trembling.
“She will need another day, at least,” said Lia. She spoke a few words in her own language to the doctor while I stared at Harper. Even the pull of the currents faded as I memorized the way her black lashes lay against her cheeks in sleep.
Something darted just past her bound hair. I jumped. “There’s something in there.”
Lia pointed at Harper’s hand. “Flesh fish.”
“What are—” I broke off, my gorge rising. Small green fish nibbled at the necrotic tissue around Harper’s finger.
“They don’t eat healthy tissue.”
“What’s wrong with a scalpel?” I averted my gaze and took shallow breaths.
“They have analgesic and antibiotic properties in their bite. Our design, of course. They’re more efficient; they can find tissue we miss.”
“Oh. That . . . that makes sense.”
That didn’t mean it wasn’t fucking disgusting.
“When they’re finished, we’ll put a flap of viable skin over the site. Whoever cut it off didn’t leave much to work with. The bone—”
“That’s okay.” I didn’t want to hear any more details. “But she’ll recover?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.” Nausea receded, and I met both Lia and the doctor’s eyes, trying to convey the depth of my gratitude with a look, because words couldn’t even begin to encompass the void her loss would create in my life.
“You’re welcome.” Lia then translated my words to Vi, who smiled and spoke. Lia relayed the message. “She says your friend is a fighter.”
“Yes.” More tears pricked my eyes and I wiped them away, too happy to care.
“Would you like to see the rest of the ship?”
“I need to tell my crew Harper is doing well, but yes.”
Irritation flickered over Lia’s face at the mention of my crew, but she nodded. “Of course.”
I ran the short way back to our quarters, my bare feet silent on the moss. Lia didn’t say anything when I pressed my hand to the door and opened it without her consent. There would be time to navigate the realities of our situation later. Harper, first.
Orca took one look at my beaming face and slumped against the nearest bunk. Palpable relief seeped from her posture.
“She’s—” The rest of my words were cut off by Kraken’s hug. My bones creaked as he wrapped his arms around me. Lia stepped out of the way to avoid getting crushed, and though my ears were mostly stoppered by Kraken’s arms, I heard Miranda questioning her about Harper’s health. I hid my face in Kraken’s chest and let his body shield me. He released me when my breathing steadied.
“With respect, while we appreciate your hospitality, traditionally the first mate accompanies her captain,” Miranda said to Lia.
“With respect, we follow different traditions.”
I blinked my eyes clear of my remaining tears. Both Miranda and Lia kept their voices pleasantly neutral, but there was nothing neutral about the way they looked at each other. Miranda’s eyes, by rights, should have sliced Lia to ribbons, and Lia’s expression suggested a sea slug had just grown a human mouth and a grasp of language.
“Perhaps you could enlighten us as to those traditions,” said Miranda. The scars on her knuckles whitened in warning.
“As I explained to your captain, much of what we are is beyond your comprehension.”
“Um—” I started to say.
“I’ll give you something to comprehend,” said Orca.
“For now, it’s best if you all stay here.”
“Perhaps—” I tried again.
“Traditionally, prisoners are told they are prisoners,” said Orca.
“Hardly. The best prisons are built on the illusion of freedom, don’t you think?” Lia dropped all pretense of neutrality. Light pulsed in her neck. “We are not the same, which is why, again, it is best you stay here until your captain can explain the situation in ways you can understand.”
This time, I managed to get the words out. “My crew is perfectly capable of understanding anything I can.”
“You haven’t seen enough of our ship yet to make that call,” said Lia.
“And if I refuse?”
Lia’s dimples vanished. “Then it will not be our fault if something happens to them.”
“Is that a threat?” asked Orca.
“Parts of this ship will eat you alive. Literally.”
I thought of the way the moss had absorbed my vomit. My initial outrage faded. The way she addressed my crew was unacceptable, but perhaps there was a rationale guiding her words.
“That’s impossible,” said Nasrin.
“It . . . might not be.” I avoided looking at Miranda as I spoke. “I don’t like it, but Lia might be right. For now.”
“Good. Let’s go. The speaker wishes to see you again.”
Miranda scoffed, but did not argue. I half wished she would. It wasn’t right; she should be the one negotiating. A surge of anger at her flared. She should be the one handling this situation, not me. I didn’t have the training or the temperament. Finding the sea wolves had been her damn idea, not mine. I followed Lia with the relief from moments ago draining away.
“You don’t like my crew,” I said, keeping one eye on her and the other on the walls, which I did not touch. Could moss be carnivorous? Anything was possible if people could have gills and glow.
“I neither like nor dislike them. Though that woman—the one who seems to think she is the captain—”
“Miranda. She was the captain until recently.”
“She lacks respect.”
“You can’t hurt her.”
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“I meant what I said. This ship is not safe for them. It is only safe for you because you’re with me. I will tell you what you need to know to navigate it safely. Understand, it is unusual for us to bring others onboard. You claimed inheritance, which is different.”
“What is usual, then?”
Lia raised an eyebrow. “I think our reputation precedes us?”
Legends. Nightmares. The hatred on the face of the pirate who had nearly split my skull.
Two women emerged from a doorway. Both had the mottled, shifting skin I’d noticed on some of the other sea wolves, and both stared at me out of golden eyes. Lipochrome, Lia had called it. Linked genes. Genes my father had tried to suppress in me as best he could, for reasons I would never understand, because he’d vanished forever from my life when I was five.
I expected her to bring me back to the room where we’d first been received by Altan. Instead, we descended a hatch to what I guessed was the common area. People lounged on mossy couches, some balancing bowls of food, others engaged in board games I didn’t recognize. A few children chased each other around the perimeter. With the exception of the ubiquitous moss and the tanks of curious octopuses, it felt much like any other common room I’d set foot in.
Then I saw the center of the floor.
Ringed by couches lay a pool, its surface disturbed by a number of gilled humans—though I wasn’t quite sure the label “human” applied. They lounged at the edges, submerging to breathe in between signing with the people nearby.
“Our engineers,” Lia said when she caught me staring.
I’d been exhausted and overwhelmed when she had brought me to the tank for healing. Now, I was fully conscious and alert, and the chatter in the room created an overlay of sonic patterns in my perception. Perhaps they signed to reduce the sheer volume of noise the human tongue produced.
I asked the only question I could think of: “How?”
“Genetic manipulation. It’s not my field, but from what I understand, it’s a matter of finding old codes in DNA and flipping them on. We emerged from the oceans once. Why not go back?”
“Because the water’s toxic most of the time?”
“We’re working on that, too.”
She spoke with such assurance that its meaning took a moment to find me. “What do you mean, you’re working on that?”
“You’ll see.” She pulled me toward a corner. The speaker, Altan, sat alone with a mug of something warm in his hands. Steam wreathed his smooth face and broke like clouds on his cheekbones.
“Altan,” Lia said.
He looked up and smiled. “Join me.”
We sat.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you. And thank you for seeing to my crew.”
“How are you adjusting?” He tapped his head to indicate his meaning.
“It’s confusing,” I admitted.
“Altan’s sonar is the most developed on the ship,” said Lia.
“Does this noise bother you?” I waved at the common area.
“I have learned to sort through it. Much like visual stimuli.”
“And you speak my language.”
“We are the only ones on the ship who do,” said Lia.
“We raid equatorially enough to merit it,” said Altan.
“There was a ship that intercepted ours before we came south,” I began, unsure of how to finish. “They’d been raided.”
“Are you asking if that was us?” said Lia.
“It’s possible.” Altan set his cup down. “Friends of yours?”
I touched the scar on my forehead. “No. But they didn’t show up on our sonar.”
Altan nodded as if this made sense. “Everything adapts.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“Evasion. They’ve learned how to avoid basic sonography waves. Not that it often helps them. Displaced water has its own signature.”
“Oh.”
“You have also been displaced,” he said.
The shift in conversation took me by surprise. I wished I had tea of my own so that I had something to do with my hands.
“We’ve worked hard to preserve our bloodlines. Too much is at stake, which is why we have inheritance rights.”
“My parents never mentioned anything. My father—he had to be the one—vanished when I was young. He was a drifter.” I glanced down at my unwebbed hands. “He had brown eyes.”
“How did you come to work with Amaryllis?”
“It’s . . . complicated.”
“Uncomplicate it for me.” He spoke gently, but I wasn’t fooled. I was treading squid-infested waters.
“I actually worked against her. I’m Archipelagean. Or I was.” In halting sentences, I gave him an abbreviated version of the events that had led us to flee Man o’ War. I didn’t know what to keep secret, so I skipped what I could and hoped I wasn’t damning us. When I finished, Altan watched me from above those severe cheekbones.
“Do you know how we came into being?”
This was not the follow-up question I’d been expecting. I shook my head.
“The Archipelago is just one of many installations designed by our ancestors. Some have been more successful than others. Yours, for instance, has merely managed to survive. We Symbionts seek more than that. We were founded by scientists, and the spirit of inquiry lives on in all of us. ‘What if?’ This is the first question our children learn to ask.”
“What if?”
“What if we could breathe water? What if we could seed the seas with bacteria to combat the dead zones? What if we could see sound, feel north, live as the creatures of the seas have always lived?”
What if Miranda had killed Ching? What if Comita hadn’t betrayed my trust? What if my father hadn’t left me with more questions than memories? I had ‘what if’s’ enough already.
“The dead zones are getting larger,” I said, trying and failing to keep the accusation out of my words.
“But not as large as they would have without intervention. If you want proof of more obvious success, consider our ships. Can you feel the difference?”
“Yes. But—”
“They’re composed of living material. Cells send messages, and they move and breathe and respond. Just as plants bend to the light, so our ships move. More efficient than your dated solar tech.”
“The ships really are alive then.”
“Of course. Sentience is debated, but it is a moot point. All living things are sentient in their own way. Granted, we don’t think the ship as a whole is sentient, merely a collection of smaller selves. The moss is separate from the algae plex, though the relationship is symbiotic, and the fungal components live their own little lives beneath the rest.” He smiled, as if this were a joke. I couldn’t smile back.
“But why raid?”
“Ah.” Altan exchanged a glance with Lia before continuing. “I will be transparent. We do not raid for material gain.”
“Then why? What other reason is there?”
“Would you knowingly sail into territory patrolled by ships stronger, faster, and deadlier than yours?”
“She did,” said Lia.
Altan ceded the point with a nod. “Not the best analogy. But you were seeking us out. Most don’t.”
I remembered the revelation I’d had while looking at our charts: Archipelago territory was bound by more than temperature extremes and dead zones. Our ships avoided the poles for a reason, a reason that now sat across this small table from me.
“You’re protecting your territory.”
“More than that. We’re protecting our cities.”
Cities were drowned things—the jagged, broken teeth of civilizations lost to time and waves. Perhaps it was an error in translation. “Cities? Are those like stations?”
“Approximately. We’re heading to Symbiont, our capital, as we speak. The commission will assess your case, as I told you.”
My heart stumbled. Our case, and the host
age I’d promised them. But Harper was alive: I clung to this fact. A living hostage could be rescued.
“What assurances do I have my crew won’t be harmed?”
“What assurances do we have that you did not come here intending harm?” Altan countered. Then, still watching me with those amber eyes, he said, “They will not be harmed without cause. See that they do not give it.”
“I will.”
“Good.”
I needed to find out what claiming inheritance meant, but I was afraid to ask, as it would reveal the depth of my ignorance. There was one question, however, I could not repress.
“My father . . . if he was a Symbiont . . .” Symbiont. That was what Altan had called himself. Not a sea wolf, but a name synonymous with equilibrium.
“The commission will check our records. You may have other family, too.”
The sharp stab of hope almost made me gasp. It was a child’s hope, and traitorous. I did not have time to search for relatives my father had actively tried to prevent me from ever finding. And yet, how could I not yearn for answers?
Chapter Sixteen
“Well? Do you think you can explain things in ways we can comprehend?” Orca said when I returned.
“No, because I don’t understand any of it.”
“News that surprises no one.”
“They fed us while you were gone. Hungry?” Kraken gestured to the table, perhaps hoping to offset Orca’s bickering. Her scowl implied she was not deterred, but I approached the table, mind reeling from the last few hours. The food consisted of a platter of sweet round fruits, crispy wafers, and a gelatinous substance that tasted significantly better than it looked. I took bites in between filling my crew in on the conversation I’d had with Altan and Lia.
“What is the name of this city? Symbiont? That’s a little . . . obvious . . . don’t you think?” said Finn.
“Not any more obvious than naming stations after constellations or a ship after the jellyfish that fucked up its captain,” said Kraken.
“Can we please get back to the part about the gills?” said Nasrin.
“She said they were the engineers.”
“Implying the engine is underwater?”
“I’m not sure there is an engine, at least not like we’re used to.”