Fortis and I don’t speak. We just look out at the horizon, side by side, as if it is the one thing we have in common.
“That’s some talk, Fortis. I don’t know.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
“Did I ever?”
“Fair enough.”
He turns to look at me, and for a moment it’s like talking to a regular person.
“I’m sure about this, Dol. I won’t let anything happen. We won’t have to go it alone. I have a few friends left in the world, you know. In the Colonies.”
“And a few more enemies,” I add, my mouth twisting.
“You have no idea.”
Fortis winks, and we look back out to the water. Then—suddenly, awkwardly—Fortis clears his throat. “Speaking of enemies. It’s none of my business, the mushy stuff, you know. Friendship and true love and all that rot. But you and your boys, you seem a bit out of sorts.”
I can feel my face turning red. “Whatever point you think you’re making, don’t.”
He ignores me. “That Padre of yours did an all-right job. You turned out all right. And he’s not all bad, the other one.” Fortis smiles. “When he’s not busy beatin’ on the whole world.”
“Ro?”
He nods.
I sigh. “He’s just like that, I guess. He likes a challenge.”
“You mean he likes a fight.” Fortis looks at me, leaning closer along the rail. “I’d watch that one if I were you, Grassgirl.”
“Why is that?”
“Fellow like that, never know what he’ll do. When he’ll blow. Boom.”
I shiver.
Fortis pats me on the shoulder.
“You’re smart to stick with Buttons. He’s going to be a sight cracked, what with the whole Mama Ambassador thing, but there’s always medical science to take care of that.”
“You mean, like a Psych. Virt?”
He grins. “I mean like a lobotomy.” He turns away. “I’m off to scare up some breakfast. Get back in the hidey-hole before someone sees you, will you?”
“Promise.”
I say it and I mean it, because the minute he’s gone, I make my move.
Something’s going on with Fortis and I’m not letting it go past me.
I slip back noiselessly into the shadows, walking over the same rolling deck where I stumbled not so long ago. Tima and Lucas and Ro are still sleeping; even Brutus is snoring. Battered as we all are, just getting through another day is a minor medical miracle. Fortis says sleep is the best thing they—and any of us—can do. Not that it’s that easy to come by, in a situation like ours.
Maybe he spiked their food with sleep tabs, I think, looking at them snoring away now.
Even better.
I spy Fortis’s jacket, and before I know it, I’m reaching inside. I need to know what’s going on, especially with his sudden plans for us to take down the entire General Embassy.
Fortis isn’t himself—or I’m not.
Either way, I have to find out.
As with any Merk, his jacket is a treasure trove, with every hidden inside pocket brimming full of the odd bits that make Fortis, Fortis. He’s never without it; only the intolerable heat and the more intolerable humidity of the Colonies have made him leave it behind, even now.
A rare mistake.
Stop it, I think.
What are you even looking for?
But I don’t stop. I can’t help myself.
Information, as he would say. Pertinent information. That’s what I’m looking for.
And so I keep looking.
The first thing I see is the cuff, wrapped in the stiff black fabric.
Strange, Fortis without his cuff.
That rarely happens.
Next I find a wad of digs, a bundle of Merk cash held together in a digi-clip with the faded letters P.F. on it. Beyond that, there are such treasures as this: a bundle of old photographs, tied with string—a small pocketknife—a larger hunting knife—and what looks like a tin of grease for his hair. I open it.
Plastic explosives. Nice.
Then I find it, in one of the larger pockets that line the back of the jacket. Still bound in its own rough burlap sack, just as I left it when I gave it to him for safekeeping, back at Nellis.
My book.
My last gift from the Padre.
The Humanity Project: The Icon Children.
I open the pages, eagerly, shamefully—as if I were reading something immoral or illegal or worse.
But I’m not. I’m reading about myself. Until I get to the back pages, which are scribbled in with writing by another hand.
Fortis’s.
It’s his journal, as far as I can tell.
I settle back against the wall of the rolling ship and start to read about the man I have entrusted my life to.
THE ICON CHILDREN—
SEA COLONIES LAB DATA—WEEK 27
GENETIC MODIFICATION FOR ALL SPECIMENS PREPARED. PRIMATE TESTING SUCCESSFUL, NEUROLOGICAL SIDE EFFECTS NEGLIGIBLE. AMYGDALA AND CORTEX CUSTOMIZATIONS MEET OR EXCEED SPECIFICATIONS ON ALL MEASUREMENTS. DETECTING ORDERS-OF-MAGNITUDE INCREASES ACROSS ALL KEY BRAIN FUNCTIONS AND CORRESPONDING INCREASES IN ENERGY OUTPUT. REDESIGNED HARDWARE WAS REQUIRED TO ACCOMMODATE NEW, HIGH READINGS.
THE DESIGN IS SOUND, AND WORK BEGINS ON HUMAN INTEGRATION, MARKED BELOW.
SPECIMEN ONE: DNA SYNTHESIS COMPLETE
SPECIMEN TWO: DNA SYNTHESIS COMPLETE
SPECIMEN THREE: DNA SYNTHESIS COMPLETE
SPECIMEN FOUR: DNA SYNTHESIS COMPLETE
MODIFICATIONS FOR ALL SPECIMENS SUCCESSFULLY ENCODED AND READY TO TEST INCUBATION FOR VIABILITY.
NOTE: ELA INSISTS ON FURTHER TESTING. I DON’T BLAME HER FOR WANTING TO BE CERTAIN OF WHAT WE HAVE. SOMETHING NEW. A SOLUTION TO EXTINCTION. A SOLUTION TO EVERYTHING.
IT’S QUITE POSSIBLE THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD DEPENDS ON IT.
ELA? Who is that?
And DNA synthesis?
What was he synthesizing?
“Still sleeping?”
I hear the booming voice before I see him, moving across the skiffs in front of our shadowy shelter—and I rush to toss everything back into his jacket.
“Like babies,” I say, my heart pounding.
“Good. I like it that way. Less chatter.” Fortis smiles as he creeps into our hidey-hole, tossing a sack in my direction. “Paid a little visit to the galley storage. Eat up. Don’t exactly know when fresh food is coming our way again. It’s not like we’ll be going fishing.”
“You never know,” I say.
“What?”
“Fish. Birds. Extinction. You never know. You might wake up one day and find a genetic solution to extinction. Something new.” I don’t look at him, opening the sack instead.
“Not likely,” he says, ripping off the end of a stolen loaf.
I pull out a hard round of bread for myself. “Do you still have the Padre’s book, Fortis? The one about us—about me?”
He looks startled. “Of course.”
“Can I see it?”
“It’s not with me. Not here.”
“Where is it?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“That’s what I thought.”
I bite into the tough, leathery roll, thinking about genome sequencing and bioinformation and, as I swallow, the future of the world.
And who or who not to trust it to.