"Me too," Sam said.
"You too?" Tristan's face twitched. "I think we all want very badly for this to be true. But that makes it so easy for us to delude ourselves about it."
Sam shrugged lightly. "We don't have to accept their deal as it is. We strengthen our position in two ways. First, we talk to them a little more. Get more details to confirm or deny our belief in their good faith. Second, assuming that faith holds, we arrange the meeting in a way that minimizes the potential damage they can do to us."
"If that's how you all feel. But if we smell anything fishy, we have to shut it down immediately. No matter how much we want to believe them."
Ness grinned and asked Sebastian to ring up the Swimmers and try to pry a little more information from them. A conversation ensued, lasting a couple minutes.
Sebastian finished up and turned to Ness. "THEY ARE OF THE DEEPFINDERS WHO SAIL THROUGH SPACE WITH NO FIXED HOME. THEY MUST HAVE BEEN CLOSEST WHEN WE OF THE FARSCHOOL SENT OUR FINAL SIGNAL"
"You know anything about these Deepfinders? Like, are they lying eels?"
Sebastian clicked his claws at that. "THEY ARE RESPECTED. THEY FOLLOW THE WAY WITH CARE"
"And what part of the Way involves overthrowing your peace-minded government in order to wrap up the genocide of an intelligent species?"
"THE PART THAT HAS PERHAPS SAILED SPACE TOO DEEPLY AND TOO LONG"
It was Ness' turn to express amusement. "So what's your read on this?"
Sebastian's limbs moved uncertainly. "I FEEL TRUTH. BUT I DON'T KNOW IF IT IS ALL TRUTH, OR IF IT IS THE TRUTH OF HE WHO HIDES A KNIFE WITH A SMILE"
"Then the only way to find out for sure is to meet them."
"YOU KNOW WHAT THIS WILL MEAN"
"That Tristan's trigger finger is going to be even itchier than normal?"
"I SPEAK OF THE MEETING. WHO CAN SPEAK TO THEM BUT ME? NONE. SO I WILL GO"
Ness tipped back his head sharply. He wanted to protest, but Sebastian was right. If they were going to talk to the Swimmers, Sebastian would have to be front and center.
* * *
Ness rested his back against the trunk of a pine. Tristan was across from him, staring downward in the way of people listening hard. Wind rustled the trees. After years of being creeped out by the noise, Ness still wasn't sure why it bothered him, but he no longer tried. He took it as a given. The nature of water was to be wet. The nature of fire was to be hot. And the nature of Ness was to be freaked out by windy trees, deep water, and just about every other phenomenon that allowed his brain to imagine that it was hiding something horrible inside it.
It was hard to get rid of your worries outright. But it was like being around a bad smell: after a while, you didn't notice it so much. And when you did notice it, well, you had a pretty good idea it wasn't going to kill you.
So he quit worrying about the trees and started worrying about Sebastian. In case anything went wrong with the Deepfinders, they'd given Sebastian an air horn to blow, but Ness imagined the enemies' lasers could get to Sebastian much quicker than he and Tristan could.
Tristan glanced his way. She murmured, "He's going to be all right."
"You really think that?"
"You said the chance at peace was worth any price. Sebastian agreed with you. If you guys are right, this could put an end to this war."
That was mildly comforting, so he started worrying about the submarine instead. It had dropped them off north of Malibu hours in advance of the meeting in the hills overlooking the sea. At that moment, the ship was supposed to be miles off the coast and at least a quarter mile below the surface, but they'd left Sprite as acting captain, and Sprite was prone to impulsiveness. And if this was a trap, Ness wasn't sure Sprite had the skills to pilot the sub out of it. In fact—
Leaves shuffled. Steps. Ness peered around the trunk of the tree. Downhill, a Swimmer walked toward them. Sebastian.
Ness scanned the woods, ensuring he was alone, then jogged to meet him. "Well?"
"THEY ARE OF THE DEEPFINDERS," Sebastian gestured back. "THEY REPRESENT HE WHO ONCE LED THEM BUT WAS THEN REPLACED BY THOSE WHO WISHED THE COLD ANSWER"
"Revenge of death? For who?"
"FOR THOSE THE HUMANS HAVE KILLED SINCE THE DEEPFINDERS CAME. SUCH AS AT CATALINA"
"Oh shit. And the Deepfinders came here to deal with the Farschool, right?"
"YES THAT IS RIGHT"
"So let me guess. The Deepfinders show up and start rounding up the invaders. But the humans assume this is part of a second wave. They start killing the Deepfinders. Who start calling for the Cold Answer. But the general or president doesn't want to escalate things, right? So he's all, 'No revenge.' And so his people are all, 'Well then you're not our general or president anymore.'"
"YES THAT IS ALSO RIGHT"
Ness groaned, then gestured more. "That's totally screwed up. Assuming they're not lying to us. How do you know all this is true?"
"I WAS SHOWN RECORDS. CAN THESE BE FAKED? THEY CAN BE FAKED AS ALL THINGS CAN BE FAKED. YET IT REACHES A POINT AT WHICH IT IS MORE WORK TO FAKE THAN TO SMITE"
"So basically, this is so convoluted it must be the truth?"
Sebastian spread his tentacles. "WHAT WOULD BE THE TRICK? TO LEARN OF MY FRIENDS? THEN WHY NOT STEAL ME AND HURT ME UNTIL I BRING THEM TO YOU"
"Got it. One last question: what do they want with us?"
"IT IS AS YOU SAID: TO RETAKE THE WHALESHIP SO AS TO COMPLETE THEIR MISSION"
"So where do we go from here?"
"BUT YOU SAID THE QUESTION BEFORE WAS THE LAST QUESTION." Sebastian clacked his claws. "AS TO THIS LAST-LAST QUESTION, YOU SHOULD ASK IT OF THEM YOURSELF"
Ness glanced downhill. "What, right now?"
"WE MEET SO AS TO FIND TRUST. THEY ARE DEEPFINDERS; DEEPFINDERS RESPECT THE WAY. THEIR WORDS TO ME VIBRATE LIKE TRUTH"
"I'm down. But I better explain all this to Tristan."
She had been waiting beside them, keeping her eyes on the woods and doing a bang-up job at not looking annoyed at being excluded from the conversation. Ness filled her in on what Sebastian had learned from his initial meet with the Deepfinders.
Tristan squinted, regarding Sebastian. "And he wants us to go speak to them again. Right now."
"He thinks it's all kosher. We're right here. Might as well take the next step."
"I have a bad feeling about this. We're moving too fast."
"The Deepfinder rebels are bombing the bejesus out of the city. Every hour we wait, more of the Farschool show up to support the rebellion. And more humans die."
"Can we think of another way to do this? A way to get a little more assurance first?"
"Like what? Go to their parents' house for dinner? Sebastian can speak to them in their own language and I can speak to him. We might be the only people in the whole wide world who can bridge the gap."
"If anything, I'd say that would argue for greater caution."
"Come on, Tristan." The words surprised him, but he didn't seem to be able to stop himself. He wasn't sure he wanted to. "We've got the chance to put an end to all of this. To save everyone."
Tristan's face darkened. "We can do that on our own. Join up with Raina's army and take the Swimmers down."
"Yeah, and what happens if the Deepfinders' buddies decide they want vengeance for what we've done to their pals? We fight off a third invasion? And in the meantime, how many thousands of Swimmers have we killed?"
"Who gives a shit about the Swimmers? They started all of this!"
"Wrong. The Farschool started it. And almost all of them have died for it. We can't carry that war over to the Deepfinders. That isn't the Way."
"The Way? I'm trying to survive. I don't care about holding tentacles and singing 'We Are the World.'"
"Fine. Then you stay here while Sebastian and I go stick out our necks."
He turned on his heel, gesturing to Sebastian without looking the alien's way. Sebastian crunched through the fallen leaves, catching up to him.
"YOU ARGUED"
&n
bsp; He kept one eye on Sebastian's limbs and the other out for roots and rocks. "She thinks this is too dangerous."
"SHE'S RIGHT"
"But we have to do it anyway."
"YOU ARE ALSO RIGHT"
Leaves crackled behind them. Tristan jogged after, closing on them. Awash in anger though he was, Ness already felt stupid. She was just trying to look out for them. She wasn't even wrong, exactly. The situation was moving fast. But he didn't see what else they could do. Considering how much smoke they'd seen rising from the city on their way to Malibu—you could smell it on the air, when the wind was right—it looked like Raina was losing the war. If they waited much longer, there might not be anyone left to save.
Sebastian took the lead, guiding them down the hillside toward the cliffs overlooking the road along the coast. "THEY WILL EXPECT SWIMMERS. NOT HUMANS. SO DO NOT DO THAT WHICH GIVES THEM REASON TO SHOOT HUMANS"
"Sebastian says to play it cool," Ness said. "They're not expecting humans."
Tristan didn't look his way. "Do you think they'll be okay with that?"
"I don't know. I trust Sebastian to defuse any hostilities."
Sebastian came to a stop. Forty feet away, four Swimmers stood among the trees. Their bandolier-like uniforms were the shade of pink that Sebastian had long ago told Ness represented the beaches where the Swimmers had first crawled out of the sea. Their eyes rolled toward Sebastian, then to Ness and Tristan. Sense-pods shot up from their backs.
Sebastian gestured to them rapidly. Ness had picked up enough Swimmer to tell his body language was cautious and anxious but not panicked. Yet. One of the uniformed Swimmers went for a laser. Sebastian's tentacles contracted; he motioned so quickly Ness wouldn't have been able to keep up even if he understood the language. The Swimmer's claw drifted away from the gun.
Sebastian took a few steps forward. He spoke with the others for several minutes. Most of the talking on the other side was being done by a tall Swimmer with symmetrical mottling on the sides of his head. Occasionally, a shorter alien with pale gray skin interjected. The other two said virtually nothing.
Sebastian relaxed his limbs and turned to Ness. "THEY AGREE NOT TO SHOOT YOU"
"I guess that's progress," Ness signed, repeating this information out loud to Tristan. "So…what's up?"
"IT IS ASKED WHY WE TRAVEL TOGETHER"
"Tell them the truth. That's why we're here, isn't it?" He tipped his head. "I mean, unless you think the truth is going to get us killed. Then lie like crazy."
Sebastian nodded his long head and swung to face the others, signing in their language. All four Swimmers leaned back, tentacles angled down, bent up at the ends like candy canes. Their heads swiveled to Ness. If it was possible, their eyes were open even wider than normal.
"What's got them so surprised?" Ness gestured.
"I TOLD THEM THAT WE ARE GUTBROTHERS," Sebastian said. "IT IS ASKED HOW THIS CAN BE BETWEEN HUMAN AND D-O-V-O-N." He spelled this last word out, then displayed a faster signal for it, jabbing his tentacle down twice to indicate the addition of a new word to their vocabulary.
"Dovon? Is that what you guys call yourself?"
"THIS IS CLOSE"
"Why didn't you tell me that before?"
"SWIMMERS IS ALSO FINE," Sebastian signed. "AS TO THEIR QUESTION"
"Well, you renounced what the Farschool was doing and returned to the Way. And then taught it to me as we traveled the world fighting the Farschool."
Sebastian relayed this. The four Swimmers—Dovon—repeated their shocked gesture, even more emphatically than before. Three of them gestured at once. It took a minute for Sebastian to sort this out and turn back to Ness.
"THEY ASK WHAT YOU THINK OF THE WAY"
"It feels pretty smart to me." Ness hunched his shoulders. "It seems so simple, but it feels like you could go on learning about it until the end of your life. It doesn't feel like it's just a Swimmer—Dovon—thing, either. Like imagine trying to get all of you guys to buy into Christianity! The Way, though, is something we can all believe. Because it includes all of us."
His words felt awkward, incapable of capturing what he felt about the matter, but as Sebastian translated them, three of the four Dovon tucked their limbs inward in respect. The other one watched Ness closely, tentacles held still; its head bore two large dark spots like the false eyes on a moth's wings. The mottled alien replied to Sebastian.
"IT IS SAID THAT THIS IS WONDERFUL," Sebastian gestured. "THAT THIS JOINING OF PEOPLES IS ITSELF PROOF OF THE WAY"
"Well duh." Ness spread his hands wide. "Wait, don't tell them that part. Tell them that if we've found common ground on this, then we can find it with other people, too."
Sebastian passed this along. The mottled alien signed something, gesturing southeast toward the city. Sebastian turned to Ness. "IT IS ASKED IF WE ARE ALONE OR IF WE ALSO CAN CALL ON OTHERS"
"We've got ties to the leader of the city. That's hundreds of people. And they've got ties to hundreds more. Including another city."
Sebastian relayed this. A flurry of discussions broke out between three of the Dovon. As they spoke, the fourth—the one with the dark-spotted head who'd been watching Ness earlier—slipped a pad from the pockets of its bandolier, gesturing over it with tight, curt movements.
"What's that one doing?" Tristan said.
"Beats me. I can't understand what they're saying."
"Then ask Sebastian."
Ness tried to sign to Sebastian, but the alien was so wrapped up in his talk with the others that he didn't notice. Across from them, the fourth Dovon tucked away his pad and faced his companions, tossing a few gestures at them.
Sebastian swung toward Ness. His tentacles and claws hung in front of him as if he'd forgotten what they were for.
"What?" Ness signed. "What are they saying?"
"IF HUMANS FOLLOW THE WAY, THEY MUST NOT BE DESTROYED. THIS CAN BE USED TO BREAK THE DEEPFINDER REBELLION. TO BRING BACK THOSE WHO JOIN THE FARSCHOOL. AND ALSO THAT THE HUMANS MIGHT BE ARMED TO DEFEAT THOSE WHO CONTINUE TO REBEL"
"Are you joking? They want to team up with us? Sebastian, we might be able to pull this off!"
"THEN YOU WISH TO JOIN THEM"
"Of course! We'll have to speak to Raina, obviously, but—"
"Ness!" Tristan grabbed his arm, jerking her chin at the spotted alien, who had the pad out again. "There's something wrong."
"Sebastian," Ness signed. "Tristan thinks that one's acting funny. Can you find out what's going on?"
Sebastian swung his head toward the others. Hesitantly, he signed to them. The mottled alien turned to the spotted one, eyes widening as it noticed the pad. It gestured insistently.
The spotted Dovon backed away three steps, then swiveled and turned to run. The mottled one charged after it, springing onto its back. Tentacles lashed in all directions. As the mottled alien held down the spotted one, the pale Dovon wrestled the pad away and scuttled back, motioning over the device.
The pale Dovon went stock still, then began to sign. Sebastian retracted his claws close to his body. All four of the aliens were gesturing wildly. The spotted one bucked and thrashed, but the mottled one's weight was too much.
Tristan had her laser out, her hand shaking. "What the fuck is going on?"
Ness repeated the question to Sebastian. Sebastian's limbs shook as he gestured. "AIR STRIKE"
"Air strike? Where?"
"HERE. US. THE ONE IS A TRAITOR." He moved over the spotted Dovon, hammer-pod lifting menacingly. "A TRAITOR WHO KILLS HIMSELF AND HIS GUTBROTHERS SO AS TO STOP US FROM ENDING A WAR THAT DISGRACES US ALL"
An engine keened across the sky. Ness tipped back his head, hunting for motion among the wind-tossed pines. "We have to get out of here."
Tristan swept her gun across the four Dovon. "This was a trap?"
"One of them's a traitor. I think the others are legit. We'll figure it out later." He signed to Sebastian. "Shouldn't we be running?"
"MOMENT"
Sebastian exchanged
gestures with the pale alien. The mottled one extricated itself from the traitor, backing away. The spotted Dovon pushed itself to its feet, signing angrily. The mottled Dovon drew a laser and shot it in the head. It collapsed to the forest floor.
The pale Dovon waved its tentacle over the confiscated pad. When the results it wanted failed to materialize, it slashed a tentacle in frustration, wound back, and slung the spotted one's pad discus-style. It sailed through the forest, smashing against a knotty trunk. The mottled one conversed with Sebastian.
With the jet's engines growing louder, Sebastian pointed downhill. "RUN"
Ness grabbed Tristan's wrist and sprinted through the slippery brown pine needles. Sebastian and the three Dovon churned between the trees. Ness wanted to ask Sebastian more, but he was running too hard to make use of his hands. A burst sounded far ahead of them. The aliens didn't slow down.
The trees thinned. They ran across a shelf of land overlooking the coastal highway, the ocean shining two hundred feet beneath them. It didn't look like there was a way down, but Sebastian ran pell-mell toward the cliffs. A blue wedge moved against the clouds. Inbound. Lights flashed from its belly.
The Dovon picked up speed. As the jet soared past, the aliens neared the cliffs. A tentacle wrapped around Ness' elbow, clamping down tight. Sebastian grabbed Tristan's arm, too. Too late, Ness understood.
Sebastian launched himself forward, sailing off the edge of the cliff. He grabbed at the shrubs embedded in the slope. Ness held tight to the tentacle wrapping him. It jerked Ness' arm hard; Sebastian had caught hold. The other aliens dangled from small trees rooted to the rock.
Ness hung over the near-vertical slope. As he opened his mouth to ask what the hell was going on, the ground shook. Bombs boomed deafeningly. Dirt and rocks spewed over the top of the cliff, arcing away to the ground below.
"Look!" Tristan pointed out to sea. Smoke climbed from the waves. Beneath the black column, the body of the submarine listed and snapped in half.
18
Raina moved between the buildings and her warriors followed.
Overcast sunlight illuminated them to any who crossed their path, but she moved forward. Her feet hurt, but she moved. Her stomach ached with hunger, but she moved. This portion of the city was foreign to her, capable of hosting unknown dangers, and yet she moved.
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