Daughter of the Deep(19)

I lay my face against his smooth, warm forehead and start to weep.





We don’t let Caleb drown.

If we’d put it to a vote, I’m not sure he would’ve had enough support, but Dr Hewett insists we fish him out of the water. Then Kiya and Dru haul him off for interrogation.

The rest of the LI attackers we strip of their weapons, constrain with zip ties and set adrift in the pontoon. Dr Hewett assures us they’ll get picked up soon enough – by the Coast Guard if they’re lucky, by their schoolmates if they’re not.

‘Land Institute doesn’t reward failure,’ he says. ‘We must get underway.’

Tia Romero stares at him in disbelief. ‘Sir, we’ve been attacked. We have wounded. We should call the Coast Guard ourselves.’

Hewett gives her a pitying look. ‘The authorities can’t help us, Prefect. We would just put them in danger, too. Finish your modifications and start the engines. The Aronnax will not be far behind.’

Tia doesn’t look happy about it, but she hurries off to comply.

House Orca has their healing work cut out for them. Meadow, Eloise, Cooper and Robbie Barr all suffered flesh wounds from miniature harpoons. Franklin thinks they’ll be okay, but they’ll need stitches.

‘Completely unnecessary,’ he complains, holding up one of the six-inch hooked projectiles. ‘If you’re going to shock somebody unconscious, why spear them, too?’

I don’t have an answer. The fact that Land Institute would develop a Leyden gun that causes unnecessary pain doesn’t surprise me, though.

The rest of our crew suffered only minor injuries. Franklin urges me to go to the sickbay so he can run some tests, make sure the poison is really out of my system. I assure him I’m fine.

He doesn’t believe me. Neither do Nelinha and Ester, but the last thing I want is to be confined in a small room belowdecks, attached to a bunch of monitors. I need open air and the sea. I need to watch Socrates swimming alongside our boat, happily chattering at me. After everything else that has happened today, my abduction has left me trembling with shock, terror, shame and rage. Sea-snake venom isn’t the only poison I’m trying to flush out of my system.

The Cephalopods run around finishing Dr Hewett’s alt-tech modifications. The pulse-dispersion unit is installed to block radar and sonar. Projection modules are fixed around the hull for dynamic camouflage. From the rail where I’m standing, I can’t see any difference in the ship’s appearance, but the Cephalopods look excited. They talk to one another breathlessly about specs and parameters like they’re discussing magic spells.

‘Can you believe this?’ Nelinha grins at me as she passes by. Getting zapped by Dru’s gun hasn’t slowed her down at all. If anything, it seems to have charged her batteries. Her smile fades, however, when I don’t respond. She rests a hand briefly on my shoulder. ‘You sure you’re okay, babe?’

Then her housemate Kay calls, ‘Oh, no way. Look at these phased-optics reaction times!’

And Nelinha is off.

She is the most caring friend you could ever want, but you have to accept that sometimes you’ll take a back seat to shiny new tech.

In a matter of minutes, the Varuna is underway.

We head due west. Socrates keeps pace with us easily. He and I talk as best we can, but as usual it’s all questions and no answers.

I wish I knew how he found me, and whether he understands that Dev is gone. He can’t tell me these things.

No, that’s not correct. I know enough about dolphin intelligence and communication to know he is absolutely capable of telling me. Dolphin language is infinitely more complex and nuanced than human languages. It’s just that I can’t understand him well enough.

‘Thank you,’ I say to him, also using sign language to make my point more visual. ‘I wish I could repay you.’

He gives me his sideways dolphin smile. I imagine he’s saying, Yes, you owe me all the squid.

A voice behind me says, ‘I got upstaged by a dolphin.’

Gemini Twain leans against a capstan. His arms are crossed, his expression glum. His dark hair is flecked with sea salt.

‘My one job was to protect you,’ he tells me. ‘I’m sorry.’

I’m tempted to snap I don’t need a protector. But he looks so depressed I don’t have the heart for it.

‘Don’t beat yourself up, Miles Morales,’ I say.

Gem laughs under his breath. ‘Easier said than done.’

He pulls at his collar like he’s wearing a tie that’s too tight.

I don’t know much about him. After his altercation with Nelinha during our chum year, I decided I didn’t want to deal with him any more than I had to. I guess Harding-Pencroft hasn’t always been easy for him, either. He’s the only Latter-day Saint at HP, as far as I know. How does a Black Mormon kid from landlocked Utah get interested in a career at sea? I’ve never asked. Now I hope we’ll get more chances to talk – not because I like him, or because I feel like I have to like him, but because he’s a classmate. Today I was reminded that anyone in my life can be taken away in the span of a heartbeat.

‘What did you see,’ I ask him, ‘when you looked at Dr Hewett’s tablet?’

He frowns. ‘A dark shape under the water. Like a massive arrowhead.’