Sarah Nuhr FitzRose spotted the missing planet cruiser, Mercury, submerged beneath clear water at the end of a trail gouged through the jungle to the narrow beach and into the bright, rippling surf. A tongue flick to the sheath of her helmet lit her augmented reality display. Among the illuminated strings of data blinked a red icon, confirming the proximity of the beacon sewn into the abducted girl’s clothes.
Sarah scouted the shore for a place to land. The next nearest scrap of earth on Nellus lay 660 miles away across a world 98 percent covered by ocean. She banked the glider and eyed a sandy strip fringed by vine-draped trees and elephantine leaves. Cutting altitude until spray kicked up, she fired her braking thrusters then skimmed her glider’s belly across the surface to slow her approach. The glider lurched sideways. Sarah wrestled it on course, skipping from wave crest to wave crest. She nosed down, plunging the glider beneath the fluid’s skin. The sharp drop in speed pitched her forward, knocking her helmet against the cockpit glass. Caught by the undertow, her glider jerked sideways into shallow waters, then spun and skidded up the beach, furrowing sand until it stopped hard against a thick wall of entwined tree trunks.
The glider’s systems malfunctioned and winked out.
The echo of the crash rang in Sarah’s ears.
When the shock faded, she punched the cockpit release, lifted the glass, and spilled out onto the soft sand. Wrestling her feet under her, she stood, surveyed her landing, and found the glider’s frame crumpled beyond repair.
She activated a sensor in her helmet to initiate a diagnostic app for her vital signs then confirmed her weapon remained holstered at her waist. Her sleek, black body suit looked undamaged, and seconds later, the diagnostic confirmed her stats as normal and verified the com-link to her orbiting ship, the Sif. She retrieved her gear bag from the wreck and slung it across one shoulder.
Ahead, an endless ocean confronted her. Behind, the abyssal dark of deep jungle awaited. To either side, the pale sand narrowed until it vanished between the two realms. She could swim along the shore or trek through the lush growth to reach the Mercury. Either way, she belonged to Nellus now, to its barely charted oceans and inscrutable jungle untouched since its discovery early in the Myriarchy War.
She referenced her frustratingly limited planetary knowledge base. Nellus had claimed seven exploratory expeditions before being ignored because it held no strategic value. The planet’s most common fauna, nicknamed nellies, resembled, according to their database image, a monstrous mix of lobster and tuna with a long, translucent fin rising from its back. Each had two mouths set vertically parallel and ringed with razor-sharp teeth. They hunted in schools, capable of devouring prey completely in seconds, but feeding frenzies often continued with the school consuming its own, reducing its numbers by as much as one-third before satiating its hunger. Only Nellus’s sea clouds, enormous creatures larger even than Earth’s blue whales, preyed on the nellies. The database listed no such predators on land, making the jungle path far more inviting.
She cycled through her full mission plan. Radiant ghosts of terrain maps slid across her view augmented by meager data—water content, soil composition, weather patterns—regarding Nellus’s vast oceans dotted by a few scattered land masses, even the largest of which sometimes vanished beneath its tides. Sarah knew even less about her objective: the abducted girl.
The Commission’s need for secrecy rankled her. With all the resources at its disposal, it had sent her on what should have been a simple recovery run—but the Commission never called on Sarah for anything simple. Her direct lineage back to Earth qualified her as a Registered Agent, eligible for the service’s highest ranks and the trust that necessitated. She only pulled missions that required exceptionally hard work or exceptionally difficult choices, the kind that could sway the future of the Commission. Even more unusual, Cultural Relations Commissioner Ariana Dey had issued her orders. The lone Commissioner from Darinthe, the only world to stay independent after choosing the wrong side in the Myriarchy War, Dey stood apart from her ruling colleagues despite talk of her secret romance with Pen Bouchard, the First among the Commissioners. The unspoken bonds and tenuous alliances beneath the Commission’s surface seemed as daunting as Nellus’ oceans, the rumors of fresh dissent as challenging as its jungles. The lost girl could be anyone; her abduction could mean anything.
Sarah locked the homing signal on her display and entered the jungle. The ground rose in shallow steppes as if carved by giants, eroded by rising and falling tides over the course of many centuries. A leafy canopy diminished all but the strongest rays of sunlight, which proved enough to baffle her low-light-enhancement function, forcing her to rely on the spotlight affixed to the side of her helmet. The homing signal pinned the wreck a mile from her position, maybe half an hour’s walk through the tangled vegetation.
Clusters of soft, fleshy vines dangled from the trees. When Sarah pulled on them, they snapped and exuded a milky green sap. She gazed above her, seeking their origin, but the dusky heights revealed nothing. Dense vine curtains thickened or parted with the subtlety of wind currents tickling water until Sarah realized they moved with a purpose, directing her toward the jungle’s core. Whenever she corrected course, the vines closed ranks and guided her in another direction. She walked a few feet, tried again to turn, eliciting the same response. Now the vines grew stronger and coarser. The pathway they shaped offered a tunnel defined by a loose mesh before it tapered into darkness.
Sarah’s spotlight penetrated the shadows. At the light’s farthest limit, a huge, indistinct mass recoiled from the artificial brightness.
She slid her knife from its sheath on her thigh and slashed at the forbidding vines. Her blade severed the thinnest ones but only gouged chunks from the largest. Bits of plant matter dropped down and disgorged muddy green ooze. Sarah lashed out and pushed onward, moving as swiftly as she could manage.
Something stirred in lumbering pursuit.
The vines rustled, and the ground quivered—then in a moment, the vines slithered rapidly together to form a swaying wall behind her, broken only where she’d cut them. A menacing bulk trundled along the other side, afraid or unable to pursue Sarah farther. Eager to put distance between her and whatever the vines hid, Sarah resumed her ascent, gripping exposed tree roots and protruding stones until she reached the island’s peak. From there, she spied an unexpected and unwelcome sight.
Devastation scarred the hillside. A crater roughly thirty feet in diameter. Rocks and soil, spewed upward by the impact, coated the surrounding turf. Trees lay scattered at the edge of the blast area, letting full sunlight pour into the jungle. Sarah’s sensors read the crater as cold, hours old. She saw no sign of the object that had created it. One edge had crumbled in on itself. Loose dirt had then been packed down, forming a crude ramp out of the concavity. Wide patches of trampled soil led up and away like mammoth footprints. Sarah read the signs and identified the likely cause of the crater as a killing machine programmed to camouflage its landing as a meteorite impact, a weapon outlawed after the Myriarchy War, now controlled only by the Commission. The sight chilled her so much she feared she might already have lost any chance of saving the girl.
Chasing the fairy flicker of the homing signal, she raced around the crater, her body suit protecting her against branches and thorns. Pushing faster, she soon reached the shore, sloshing into mud that surrendered to shallow water that frothed as she stampeded into it. She struggled against the current as the surf rose to her knees, then to her waist, then emerged into undiluted daylight. The homing icon flickered. Not far away, the Mercury’s dim bulk shimmered underwater.
Her sensors showed no activity in the area. She primed her body suit for submersion, switching from filtered air to internal supply, and then dove beneath the surf. The craft rested twenty-five feet below her. Only a little farther, the shoreline plummeted, the change in depth darkening the liquid vista. As Sarah neared the Mercury, a hole three feet round and scored black came into view at the base of the ship’s tail, above the engines, most likely the cause of its crash. She swam to the hatch. Her suit struggled to maintain equilibrium as she dove deeper.
Sarah found the external release along the underside of the rim and activated it. A torrent of air bubbled out from within as water flooded the opening. The hatch flipped back against the hull with a muted clang. On the fringe of her sensor range, a mass of small objects appeared. Not waiting for positive identification, she quickly slipped inside the Mercury, sealing the hatch behind her.
Automatic systems pumped out the water, allowing Sarah to open the inner door. Four space suits hung along the wall in the next chamber. A door led farther into the craft. The ship’s atmosphere remained intact, allowing Sarah to switch back to filters and preserve her internal air supply.
Only auxiliary systems seemed active, leaving Sarah to explore the sleeping machine by the dim glow of emergency lights and harsh brightness of her spotlight. She followed the homing signal to a cabin with an unmade bunk, wall desk, and a chair. A girl’s blouse lay draped across the bunk. Squeezing the thermal fabric, Sarah discovered the transmitter sewn within the collar. She tore it loose and swore. The flashing icon vanished from her display. She tucked the useless transmitter into her equipment pack and then explored the remainder of the ship, except for the rearmost section, sealed tight against water taken on through the pierced hull.
In the cockpit, she found the pilot, slumped dead in his seat.
A wound gaped in his side. Pooled blood had grown tacky around him. Maybe the crash had killed the pilot, or he had left the ship and retreated inside to die, fatally wounded by nellies. Or maybe the abducted girl had proved tougher than Sarah expected and fought her captors.
Sarah summoned the flight record on the ship’s computer. It listed a crew of two and one passenger, all unidentified, offering hope that the girl had survived and fled with the other crew member. Sarah removed her helmet. Despite the ship’s clammy air, it felt good to shake loose her short, blonde hair and rub the base of her neck where the helmet clasp chafed her skin. From a small panel in the helmet, she uncoiled a thin cable. She popped open the command-deck console with her knife, exposing the innards of the ship’s computer, then snapped the plug of her helmet cable into a memory interface and downloaded the ship’s records.
The transfer completed, Sarah donned her helmet, then retraced her steps, pausing outside the hatch as her sensors swept her surroundings, finding no signs of life. She swam for the island, making it halfway before the mysterious cluster of small objects reappeared, angling toward her. She kicked faster, pulled harder with each stroke, racing for the shallows. The school gained on her with terrifying speed.
When her sensors showed it within visual range, she glanced back, and her stomach sank. Hundreds of nellies approached like a giant whip of teeth lashing the water. She sought a rock or reef for cover, but only barren sand lay between her and the island. A tangle of low jungle growth swayed in the water ahead. She wouldn’t reach it in time. Her suit would offer some protection but not enough. She slipped her weapon from its holster and switched off the safety.
As she prepared to fire at her pursuers, her sensors detected a new object—mammoth, so big her gear couldn’t measure it, rising from below the sea cliff. Then it appeared, a vast form pouring up from the depths, casting a shadow over her, the Mercury, and the nellies, turning the crystalline-bright sea to twilight. A sea cloud. Unexpected calm blossomed in Sarah’s mind as though a force outside herself reached out to reassure her. Then the huge creature twisted—or perhaps merely turned a limb—and the school of nellies scattered. Half disappeared in the sea cloud’s grip, or maw, or a fold of flesh. Sarah couldn’t tell. The others thrashed, struggling to regroup. Exploiting the moment, Sarah pressed forward to the shallows, resisting the urge to look back at the sea cloud until she pulled herself from the water and into the notch of an ancient tree root.
Away from shore, the sea boiled. The partial outline of a behemoth corralled the remaining nellies. Sarah tongue-flicked to snap on her helmet camera then watched the beast roil the ocean, dispersing the school of nellies, consuming those too slow to flee. With a grace that contrasted its bulk, the sea cloud slipped back over the cliff, descending to the onyx deeps. After it left, Sarah shut her eyes and rested.
After she caught her breath, she re-entered the jungle.
She arranged topographical charts on her display, choosing to start at the island’s highest point. From there, she would survey the terrain and mark the center of her search, hoping the girl had reached shore and survived. She plotted a route to avoid the area of the vines. Compass readings replaced the maps on her visor.
At the peak of the island, Sarah climbed the tallest tree until her weight threatened to snap the limbs. To the east, the sun fell lazily to the horizon, its reflection setting the sea afire. Sarah’s visor magnified her view, allowing close sight of the ground through gaps in tree cover with enough detail to discern the pattern in their bark. Here and there, she recognized the coloring of the vines that had interfered with her earlier. The rustling trees in those places testified to the presence of whatever creature dwelled there. She spied the sea to the west, the water unburdened by reflection, and saw dark shapes sailing below the waves like vast flowing wings. More sea clouds. She scrutinized the island to the last detail, passing over the same stretches of land and leaves until she was certain they held no clues.
Night sped upon her. Sarah puzzled over the girl’s absence, fearing her lost in the sea—then, in the western shallows, harsh light glimmered to life beneath the water. Brightening as it neared the surface, it broke into the air like a miniature sun. Sarah magnified and shaded her view until she confirmed her worst fear. A mechanical demon appeared on the shore. Ornamented with heavy weaponry, its brightness blazing stark shadows on the sea, a Cerberus Assassin swiveled then marched onto land. Her scanners detected radiation, indicating a leak in one of its power supplies. It had likely submerged to stave off overheating. She wondered what on Nellus could have hurt it.
Cerberus Assassins, unstoppable by conventional weapons and capable of operating in the vacuum of space, resembled an articulated tank built in humanoid form for psychological intimidation. They bore an arsenal of powerful sensors. Compartmentalized power sources let any part of the machine carry on despite damage to the rest. The Assassins had hastened the end of the Myriarchy War. Afterward, the Commission—deeming them too dangerous—gathered them together and outlawed them to preserve the tenuous peace.
The machine’s glow flickered as it entered the jungle. Sarah marked its progress by the muted light. It gave wide berth to the vine clusters. Sarah extrapolated its route across the terrain. The only unusual feature in the weapon’s path was a barren hill of exposed rock, where, almost invisible in the night, a thin column of smoke rose. Switching to thermal sensors revealed a heat source at its base: a fire, either freshly lit or masked from earlier detection by the rim of the hills.
Sarah calculated the distance to find herself closer than the Assassin. She scrambled down the tree, jolted to the ground, then rushed into the jungle, hoping to reach the smoke source first. Heat sensors guided her to the intense infrared blur on her map.
She circled the campsite, her sensors showing only flame, registering only the night sounds of the jungle and the surf’s constant drumming. On the edge of the firelight, she wrapped her hand around the grip of her weapon. To one side of the clearing, an opening in a short rock face suggested a cave entrance. A second rock wall rose sheer and high beside it. Footprints marred the smooth dirt—a larger set and a small set. Sarah’s heart raced. She peered into the crevasse with her spotlight.
The pocket cave stretched back to a spacious nook. Propped against the far wall rested a corpse in a uniform identical to that of the dead pilot in the Mercury’s control room, his head slumped on his chest, eyes open and glassy, hands clutched over a bloody wound in his torso.
A scraping sound from the rock above caught Sarah’s attention.
She aimed the spotlight beam at the cliff top. A girl stood there, no older than eleven or twelve, clothes torn, face dirt-smeared, brown hair a tangle around her head. She regarded Sarah with a serious, stubborn expression, her quivering arms lofting a pumpkin-sized stone overhead, the stance of a defiant warrior ready to strike.
“Do what I say, or I’ll drop this on your stupid head,” the girl said.
“I’m here to help you, kid,” Sarah said.
“Drop your gun and walk over by the fire.”
“You’re wasting time. Put that rock down, and let me help you.”
The girl kicked a stone off the cliff. It bounced off Sarah’s helmet. “Do what I said!”
“All right, all right.” Sarah dimmed the spotlight, lessening the glare in the girl’s eyes. She placed her weapon on the sand then walked to the campfire.
The girl followed along the ridge of the rock face. “Now go away.”
“Listen, I’m here to rescue you. If I go away, I won’t be doing a very good job.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“I’m going to remove my helmet so you can see my face, okay?” Sarah lifted off her helmet, then set it down beside her feet. “See? My name is Sarah. What’s yours?”
The girl only stared.
“How much longer do you think you can hold that rock over your head?”
A snap of the girl’s wrists sent the rock whistling down, thudding a few feet away from Sarah. She flinched but stood her ground. On the crest of the ridge, the girl vanished.
“I’m coming down.” The small voice echoed from behind the wall of the narrow cove. “I recognize you from pictures in my father’s office.” The girl emerged at the base of the cliff and joined Sarah. The orange firelight softened her haggard appearance. “He said he trusts you.”
“You can trust me too.” Sarah sat crossed-legged and placed her hands on her knees. “I’m not the only one looking for you, though.”
“You mean the robot.” The girl shuddered. “It attacked after we left the ship. We ran away from it into the jungle.”
“Did the pilot have a weapon?” Sarah said.
“He lost it in the water when those things …” Tears welled in her eyes. “… when those things bit him.”
“The nellies,” Sarah said. “How’d you escape the robot? How’d it get damaged?”
“The vine monster hurt it. It walked in there to get in front of us, but it never came out. We heard an explosion later. I thought it was dead.”
“No, it only laid low to cool off. It’ll be here soon. It detected your fire.”
“I was cold. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“It’s okay. You did the right thing. I’m going to signal my ship to launch a jump pod for us. Then all we have to do is keep away from that thing until it arrives. Okay?”
The girl nodded, then sniffled and wiped at her nose with the back of her hand.
“So, you have a name?”
“Annasol.”
“Okay, Annasol, let’s move.”
Sarah retrieved her weapon. She left the fire burning to misdirect the Assassin.
“They said someone would come, but not to take me home. I figured they meant the robot.”
“Who said that? The men who took you?”
“Not them.” Annasol bit her lip and lowered her eyes. “The ones in the water.”
Sarah snapped around. “Someone’s in the water?”
“The gliding things. The ones so big you can’t even see all of them.”
“The sea clouds… talked to you?”
“Not regular talking. I just…,” Annsaol said, then hesitated before inhaling deeply. “I just knew what they wanted me to know and knew it came from them.”
“What else did they tell you?”
“About the war. They knew it would happen and how it would end. And how it will happen again.”
“Kid, what are you saying?”
“You don’t believe me. The pilot didn’t either. They frightened him. Until he died, at least. Then I think they helped him feel a little better, and he believed.”
Sarah recalled the rush of confidence and security she experienced before the sea cloud laid into the school of nellies headed for her.
“Annasol, who’s your father?”
The girl frowned. “Commissioner Pen Bouchard. I thought you knew him.”
Sarah had accepted many missions from Bouchard, First among the Commissioners, architect of the peace that had ended the Myriarchy War. He faced many enemies, even within the Commission itself—and at least one, it seemed, powerful enough to deploy a Cerberus Assassin and bold enough to target his daughter.
“I do. We’re good friends. But you and I have just met, haven’t we?”
She led Annasol by the hand into the jungle. Sarah transmitted a coded message to the Sif but received no acknowledgment. Atmospheric conditions could obstruct the signal— but more likely, the Assassin’s jamming equipment blocked it. She scoured her terrain charts for a safe haven and considered hiding in the Mercury, but the Assassin could tear through the hull or simply destroy the entire ship.
Without warning, they broke free of the tree line and found themselves on a scant stretch of beach. Water lapped at their feet. Annasol’s chest heaved. Nellus’s twin moons gazed down at them in cool, unfeeling stillness. Sarah tongue-flicked her sensors and located the Assassin, now past the cave area and clearly tracing their path.
“I can’t summon a jump pod. We’re stuck here for now.” Sarah met Annasol’s eyes. “Will you do what I ask?”
Annasol fought off a frightened expression then nodded. “Okay.”
“We have to trick the Assassin into going where the vines hang and hope whatever’s in there can damage it again, maybe stop it this time.”
Terror swept Annasol’s face. “No! Then the vines will get us too!”
“We’ll be okay if we’re careful. I wandered into them when I arrived here, but I got away. The vines themselves can’t hurt us. Only what lives inside them. We won’t go in that deep. The hardest part is we’re going to have to let the Assassin see us.”
Sarah’s maps indicated that if they walked straight to the vine cluster, they would cross directly in front of the Assassin. She unholstered her weapon and led the way. Soon they heard the clanking, whirring, buzzing of the death machine, so out of place in the jungle. Its lights broke through the foliage. Sarah waited until she discerned its silhouette, then took aim and fired three shots. The blasts tore through the leafy curtain, striking the Assassin’s metal hide. The explosive rounds merely scarred it. Before the blast echo faded, Sarah and Annasol bolted.
The Assassin pursued.
The night flared into brilliance as the machine fired, and a deafening roar erupted.
Shock waves staggered Sarah to one knee, dragging Annasol down.
She lifted the girl and plunged ahead again.
A second blast flared closer, shoving Sarah and Annasol into the air. They sprawled on the ground. Sarah whirled to confront the third blast she knew would follow. Instead, she faced only silence and the jungle gloom. Obscured by smoke and shadow, the Assassin froze. Sarah and Annasol had entered the vines’ territory.
Dangling lines already gathered and shifted to form a path that would seem inviting to whatever swam into it when water submerged the island. To succeed, Sarah needed to go down the dark tunnel, but the Assassin seemed unwilling to follow. She debated firing another round at it but feared nothing short of letting the machine glimpse Annasol again would bait it. She didn’t think they were fast enough to risk exposing themselves at this range, though. Then the grinding of gears resumed, and the Assassin’s arm probed the sheath of vines.
Her hope refreshed, Sarah lifted Annasol, who flinched at her touch, her eyes locked in dread on the Assassin, then jogged along the path. Vines flexed to guide their passage. The Assassin stalked them, its steps slamming the ground. Sarah pushed herself to run harder, faster, until she reached a clearing, across which awaited a massive shape obscured by vines. The Assassin closed. A cannon emerged from its shoulder and swiveled to aim. Sarah waited another breath and then—clutching Annasol, now shuddering with tears, to her body—leapt to one side of the path as the cannon barrel flamed.
The shell blazed into the clearing then burst, producing an electric ball that spewed a cascade of sparks through the trees. One-handed, Sarah shoved Annasol behind her, training her weapon on the Assassin with her other hand. From the clearing edge, the machine re-aimed. Sarah blasted the thing, her shots only scorching its plating. The telltale whine of energy building up a charge turned Sarah’s blood cold. She couldn’t protect Annasol from another attack. Then a bulging shape appeared behind the killing machine, looming over the Assassin like a miniature mountain. Fleshy blackness swirled like a gelatinous storm cloud and grasped the mechanical nightmare.
The robot glowed and crackled with energy at the vine monster’s touch, then appeared to malfunction. Thick vines, flush with internal fluid, entwined the Assassin like steel cable, broke off its extruded cannon, and crushed its shell. The vines swelled to the width of a tree trunk. The Assassin’s energy weapon discharged, but the blast ended in a muted flash. Its upper torso vanished into the vine monster. Small thunders boomed as it unleashed what weaponry it still commanded. Sarah shuddered at the power of the thing. Annasol clutched her, pressed tight to her back like a shield. She and Annasol had been too small to fully rouse the vine thing, unlike the machine, or the sea clouds, upon which Sarah figured it preyed when tides submerged the island. As the Assassin’s legs slid deeper into the shadows, Sarah grabbed Annasol and fled.
Outside the vines’ territory, the girl clung to Sarah, sobbing against her neck. Sarah brushed her hand through her hair, whispering, “You’re okay. We’re safe now.”
Sarah took them to her ruined glider, where she tucked Annasol into the soft flight couch. Then she removed the outer layer of her upper body suit and wrapped Annasol’s shoulders with it to quell her shivering. Tired and hollowed out, Sarah leaned against the hull of the glider. When the tightness in her chest eased, she reached for her transmitter.
“Don’t,” Annasol said.
Sarah frowned. “Why not? What’s wrong?”
“They want to talk to you first.”
“Who?”
“The ones in the water.”
“The sea clouds can talk?”
“Sort of. You’ll see. It won’t take long.”
Sarah met Annasol’s teary gaze then faced the sea, where a shape rose to fill the emptiness. A heartbeat later, it vanished in a myriad flourish of sharp, glowing whitecaps…
… and Sarah knew.
The knowledge came in an instant. One moment she was alone in her mind, and the next, everything they wanted her to know crowded out her own thoughts. She jolted from the shock, staggered several steps, and then, lightheaded, propped herself against the glider.
Annasol clambered from the cockpit. “Did you hear them?”
Sarah nodded. Tears welled in her eyes now.
“What did they tell you?”
Screams and fire, people dying in mobs, clawing across each other for a last gasp of life. Pen Bouchard’s decapitated body on the floor of the Commission chambers, his head lanced on a pole. A blinding circle of pure light enveloping Earth before it vanished. True darkness falling as suns died. Nellus’s oceans evaporating in steaming, radiation-steeped plumes, leaving the sea clouds to shrivel in the sun like beached jellyfish. The beasts in the vines withering and blowing away. Her own death in the vacuum of space, drifting amidst the wreckage of the Sif.
Sarah knew what Nellus knew, secrets hidden during the Myriarchy War, secrets the sea clouds had destroyed past expeditions to hide. Time and distance meant nothing to them. All events occurred simultaneously, the entire universe laid bare before their consciousness, a jealously guarded truth.
“They told me who sent the Assassin,” Sarah said. “It was… it was your father.”
Annasol’s mouth gaped then she punched Sarah’s arm. “No, it wasn’t. You’re lying!”
“They told me what happens if you make it back, and I… I believe them.”
Annasol splashed into the surf. She faced the dark sea. It should’ve made Sarah’s choice easier, but her gun filled her hand with venomous, dead weight. The trigger pricked her finger like a fang.
“I can’t bring you home, Annasol,” she said. “Somehow, your father understood that.”
“Why not—?” Annasol spun around. The sight of Sarah’s gun aimed at her locked her in place.
“They didn’t tell you…?” Sarah said.
Annasol trembled, unable to answer. Renewed tears ran down her cheeks.
“If you return, the war starts over. I don’t know exactly how, but you’re the catalyst. Your father knows it. So do others. Someone deduced it from what little data was gathered about Nellus—or the lost expeditions here sent back more data than what was reported. Anyone who finds you finds all Nellus represents. That’s something people will kill to possess.”
“Who? If who finds me?” Annasol said.
The gun wavered in Sarah’s hand. “I don’t… I’m not sure. They didn’t say….”
Sarah shifted her gaze toward the sea beyond Annasol. The open water, its ever-rolling waves and unseen currents, its strange ecology and unknown depths. Ever-changing, yet ever-present. A vast mystery, like those lingering in her mind as to who’d abducted Annasol and what they had hoped to accomplish. To hide the girl? To protect her? Why had Arianna Dey sent her after the girl? Had she known about the Assassin? Dey, Bouchard, secrets, and hard choices. A meager seed of hope took root in her mind.
Trembling, Sarah holstered her weapon. The moment she removed her fingers from it, the sense of calm the sea clouds had imparted to her when they saved her from the nellies returned, gently nudging aside her anger, fear, and horror. They had wanted her to take the first step, to make the hard choice. She knew that without knowing fully what it meant.
“You’ll stay here. The sea clouds will watch over you.”
“Don’t leave me alone!”
Sarah paused as a new thought unfurled in her mind. “They’ll make it so we can always talk to each other. You won’t be alone. I don’t understand it all. They can’t show us everything at once like they see it. That we can see any of it is because they’re helping our minds adapt. Wherever I am, I’ll never be farther than a thought from you, and you’ll have the sea clouds. I promise I’ll come back for you as soon as it’s safe.”
Sarah hugged Annasol. The girl seemed so small and drained in her arms. She hefted her into the glider cockpit and stayed until she fell asleep. Leaving the dozing child, she hiked half a mile along the shore and beckoned a jump pod from the Sif. Without the Assassin’s interference—or maybe it had been blocked somehow by the sea clouds—the signal patched straight through to the automated system.
Half an hour later, she left Nellus.
Four hours later, she convinced Bouchard and Dey the girl she’d gone to rescue had died on Nellus, her body lost to the sea. She provided the homing transmitter and the Mercury’s data as proof and reported the Cerberus Assassin, struggling to hide her rage at Bouchard for sending it after his own daughter. If Bouchard felt any remorse or grief, he betrayed none of it.
Six hours later, Sarah talked with Annasol.
She learned the girl’s favorite color, blue, that Nellus offered lots of good things to eat if you knew what to look for, and that the sea clouds watched over Annasol when she swam in the ocean. Sarah recalled the visions of war that had played in her mind, fading now, less certain with her increasing distance from Nellus. Her entire life seemed less certain now.
She had traded the trust of her position for the trust of a lost girl and a difficult promise, for prospects of a better future. An endless ocean to one side, an abyssal jungle to the other, and in between a patch of warm, shifting sand upon which she hoped to find firm footing.