Wasp looks up and spots the shredder just in time. Fast as a startled minnow, she flashes behind one of the engines right as the mutate reaches out to grab her.
I back up toward the door behind me. If I duck through the doorway and seal it shut, I’ll be safe, but I’ll be leaving Wasp to be torn apart by the shredder. I can’t leave anyone, even her, to be killed so horribly.
My blood racing, I look for something to hold off the mutate. I spot a length of old pipe lying on the deck, catch it up and shout, :Wasp, swim for this door!:
She darts toward me, the shredder so close behind her that it grabs one of her dive fins. Desperately she kicks off the fin and keeps swimming. I raise the pipe. My timing has to be perfect.
A second later, Wasp passes me and races through the door. The creature charges, its mouth open, its clawed hands reaching for my body. I slam the pipe down on its snout as hard as I can. The shredder rears back, and I twist about and sprint through the door.
Wasp slams it shut and cranks down the latch. We stare at each other, panting and shaking. Deep booms echo through the water as the frustrated shredder rams against the heavy metal door again and again.
:T-that was too close,: Wasp gasps, :but how did that thing get inside the wreck?:
Before I turn away from the door, a flicker of movement catches my eye. The circular latch is turning.
:That’s how,: I say, lunging for the door. :The shredder must have figured out how to open it.: My hands shaking, I use the pipe to jam the latch so that it can’t turn.
Wasp and I stare at the latch. It turns another inch, but then the pipe stops it.
:What if that shredder tries the other hatches?: she asks, her eyes wide with horror.
:We’ve got to tell the others to fasten every working hatch that leads outside.:
Whitey, Dai and Sham appear in the passageway moments later, their spear guns raised.
:What happened?: Dai asks us.
:I-I think the shredder that’s been watching us must have figured out how to open the hatches,: Wasp tells them. :It came after me in the engine room. Nere smashed it on the nose and we both got out through this door. But then we saw the latch turning after we cranked it down, which means that mutate was trying to open it.:
Dai frowns at the latch. :They must be smarter than we realized.:
Whitey’s looking at Wasp. :So, let me get this straight. You’re saying the Neptune princess here just saved your life?:
Wasp shrugs. :Yeah, I guess she did. She was closer to the door and she could have gotten out and left me there to be shredded, but she didn’t.:
Whitey stares at me like I’m a problem he’s trying to solve.
:She rescues people, bro. It’s what she does,: Dai says. :Don’t let it throw you. We gotta get all the hatches fastened so we don’t have to worry about a freakishly smart mutate coming after us again. Wasp and Nere, you take all the hatches forward from here. The guys and I will take the rest. Let’s go.:
Wasp and I hurry forward and start fastening hatches. I feel her gaze on me as we work together to find pipes and bars to jam the latches shut.
:Why’d you do it?: she asks suddenly. :I’d think you’d want to kill me yourself after what I did to Tobin and Mako. You could have let the sharkhead do your killing for you.:
:I don’t want to kill anyone. I just want to find those c-plankton notes and go home.:
:Well, don’t think this changes anything.:
:Don’t worry. I won’t,: I say bitterly.
:Got here just in time,: Whitey shouts a few minutes later. :That mucker was trying to get in by the stern deck hatch.: The notion that a smart shredder might keep trying to find its way into this grim, black wreck makes me quiver.
:I think we’ve done enough for today,: Dai calls to us all after we finish securing every hatch. He asks his dad to use the shredder patrol he still controls to clear the waters between the wreck and the sub. When they finish, we hurry into the waterlock.
As we wait for the pressure to change, Whitey rubs his face tiredly. :Ice, you gotta tell your dad that a sharkhead got inside the wreck. If they can figure out how to open doors, they might figure out other ways to come after us.:
:I know,: Dai says. :I’ll tell him.:
:For all the good it will do,: Wasp says, her face paler than ever.
After we strip off our heavy seasuits, we swim to the mess. No one talks as we force ourselves to eat the last of the squid that Sham shot.
Even though I’m so exhausted that I just want to tie myself into my hammock and sleep for a week, I ask Dai to stay after dinner to talk. Wasp starts to protest, but then I stare at her and she slips away without saying another word. She said that my saving her life wouldn’t change anything, but she owes me now, and she knows it.
:So, what’s on your mind?: Dai asks impatiently. :I’m tired and I still need to talk to my father.:
I cross my arms and meet his gaze. :This isn’t working. Looking for one small hydro-computer in that big wreck is like looking for a needle in a haystack.:
Dai lifts one eyebrow. :I’ve never actually seen a hay-stack, have you?: he asks in his dry way, and for a moment, it almost feels like it used to between us.
:You know what I mean.:
:Yeah, I do know,: he says, running a hand through his hair. He does that a lot, which makes me wonder if he misses his braids. :The search is wearing us down, and sooner or later, a sharkhead is gonna get one of us. Wasp probably would have been killed today if it weren’t for you. So, what’d you have in mind?:
I blink, surprised he’s willing to hear me out. After seeing Maia’s cabin today, it occurred to me that we’re going about the search all wrong.
:You’re not going to like my plan, but I think it’s the only way we’re going to find your mother’s computer. We do have two witnesses who saw what actually happened when the Storm Petrel went down—your father and you. We need both of you to try to remember exactly where your mother went and what she did in the hours before her ship sank.:
Dai swings away from me and places a hand on a nearby bulkhead. :You d-don’t know what you’re asking,: he says, his voice strained.
I feel a tidal wave of guilt and sadness roar through him.
:It’s bad enough that my dad is forcing me to go through her ship again and again. Now you want me to remember the worst day of my life?:
:I’m so sorry,: I say, and I am. :But your father is going to make us keep searching until we find your mother’s computer or we all get killed by his shredders. If we can figure out exactly where your mother went on the ship before she died, we have a better chance of finding her computer. And if we do find it, you can let her ship and her memory rest in peace.:
He’s silent for so long, I’m sure he’s going to say no. But then he takes a deep breath and turns to face me. :You’re right,: he says, his face stony, :but my father will never talk about that day with us. So I’ll tell you what I remember.:
He closes his eyes as if he’s steeling himself, and then he starts to talk. His voice is toneless, like he’s recounting the plot of a movie he’s seen or a story he’s read.
:It was my birthing day, the day I turned ten,: he begins, and already I want to cry for him. :Mom got up early and cooked my favorite pancakes before she went to check some of her experiments with her runabout. I stayed back on the ship because she’d given me an old-time graphic novel about super heroes that I was dying to read.:
:So, she started that day in her cabin,: I say, trying to get everything straight in my mind, :and then she spent some time in the galley. Her first mate told my dad the runabout didn’t sink with the ship.:
:That’s right. Early in our search, I wondered if her computer might have been left in her runabout, but my dad said he used it to carry her…body,: he stumbles over the word, but then he forges on, his tone colder than ever, :and me away from the sinking ship. He said that her computer definitely wasn’t in the runabout then. She usually used a smaller hydro-pad to record her field results and sent them to the main computer she kept aboard ship. My father’s not always reliable, but I think we can trust him on this. He wants to find her computer as much as you do.:
:Was your father on the Storm Petrel the morning of your birthday?:
:He hadn’t been for months. Maia had died a year earlier, and my mother couldn’t forgive him for that. Although the venom in Wasp’s tentacles actually killed Maia, my mother blamed my father for deviating so far from the original Neptune plan.:
:You mean, the way he got so creative with the DNA he spliced into you guys?:
:Yeah, Mom thought he’d engineered kids that were way too unstable because he’d used genes from some of the most dangerous creatures in the sea. So whenever my parents were together after Maia died, they mostly fought. Even back then, my dad was wound pretty tight. I think she was starting to worry that he might be losing it, and I know she’d asked her crew to keep an eye out and to give her some warning before he came aboard.:
Dai takes a deep breath before he continues. :I remember the last time they argued. It was a particularly nasty fight, and at the end of it, my dad went storming off her ship. After he left, though, he sent me a message promising he’d be back on my birthday, with an amazing present.:
:I know he must have come back to the ship on your birthing day, but when exactly did he come back?:
:He came on board that morning while she was still out on the runabout,: Dai replies. :I was so excited to see him, I ran up and asked if I could have the amazing present he’d promised me, but all he was carrying was a small metal briefcase.:
Dai’s eyes go distant. :He took me down to her lab and took a syringe out of that case he’d brought. I remember feeling so confused. I couldn’t believe my present was some sort of shot. I started to back away from him, and he got angry.:
A chill skitters down my back. I think I know where this is going now.
:He told me not to be a coward and said the shot would give me super powers. That sounded cool, and I trusted him, and I didn’t want to make him angry. So I let him pull up my sleeve and give me the shot.:
I suck in a breath. So much pain and anger is pulsing through Dai right now. I hate making him relive this.
:My mother walked into the lab a moment later, and I’ll never forget the terrified look on her face. She guessed at once that he’d begun my Neptune transformation. Then she got angry and turned on him. I remember her shouting, ‘He’s too young. Ran, he won’t survive!’ But my father just looked excited and eager.
:Almost at once, I felt so strange. My body tingled all over, and then it began to hurt. I started to cry, and that made my parents argue even more. Then my chest tightened, and I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs.:
:I remember that stage in the transformation. It was terrifying,: I say quietly.
:The problem was that they’d never put a kid through the transformation before. I was their first human lab rat. Knowing Mom, I think she would have planned carefully for that moment and made it as easy for me as she could. But my dad surprised her by giving me that shot years ahead of schedule. Anyway, when she realized I couldn’t breathe well anymore, my mom grabbed an oxygen tank and put a mask over my face. The oxygen helped at first, but it couldn’t ease the pain, and it was bad.:
:My mom gave me meds that knocked me out for the painful part,: I say, grateful now that my mother had tried to make my terrifying Neptune transformation at least a little easier.
:I didn’t have any pain meds in me, and I hurt. I hurt all over, and it felt like my chest was about to explode as the gill filaments in my lungs began to swell. Suddenly, I saw Mom coming toward me with another syringe. She probably wanted to give me something for the pain or to knock me out, like your mother did. All I knew then, though, was that I didn’t want anyone getting near me with another shot.:
Dai pauses for a moment and looks down at his hands. :I was so frightened that I hit out at her, and she stumbled back from me, and I don’t remember anything more after that. I must have passed out from lack of oxygen. But my father told me that she fell and struck her head against a table and died almost instantly. So, now you know the truth.:
Dai raises tormented eyes to mine. :I killed my own mother.:
I’m quiet while I try to absorb his confession. Could he have done such a terrible thing, even by accident? I study his face for a long moment. Dai can be angry and brooding, but that’s because he cares too much sometimes.
:I don’t believe it,: I declare, and I don’t. From everything he’s told me about her, Dai adored his mother. And for all the anger in him, he’s not a violent person. :Maybe you did hit her. I wanted to hit my mother when I was going through the transformation, but I don’t believe you struck your mother hard enough to kill her.:
:Nere, even when I was ten, I was freakishly strong because of all the shark genes my father spliced into me, and I couldn’t control myself. I was dangerous then, and I’m dangerous now. That’s why it’s just as well I’m back with my father, Whitey, Sham and Wasp.:
:You’re wrong about yourself. You are one of the bravest, most principled guys I know, and you totally belong with us at Safety Harbor.: I want to reach out and touch him, but I’m afraid he’s still too furious with me to want my sympathy.
:If I truly belonged at Safety Harbor,: he says, his jaw tight, :you would have told me about your big plan to salvage my mother’s ship. But even after I betrayed my own father and tried living your way for a whole year, you and your dad still wouldn’t trust me. This conversation is over, and I need to lock you in your sleeping compartment before I go talk to my dad.:
As I follow Dai into the passageway, I catch a glimpse of Wasp ducking into her own sleeping compartment. Did she listen in on our whole conversation? She’s a strong enough telepath that she could have, even though Dai and I were trying to communicate privately. Did Dai know she was listening? His expression is unreadable as I swim past him into the tiny berth. The door closes behind me, and the bolt thuds shut. Tiredly, I climb into the hammock.
The moment I shut my eyes, I picture Dai’s face as he told me about the awful day his mother died. I bury my face in the rough pillow and burst into tears. It’s so wrong that he’s had to carry such a dreadful burden all this time. I know he didn’t kill his mother. Ran Kuron must be lying to his son about this just as he’s lied about so many other things.
Dai may not care about me anymore, but I care about him, more than ever. Somehow before I escape, I have to prove to Dai that he’s wrong about himself.