by Anna Burke
“So goddamn little.” She slumped against the plex. “I didn’t want any of this to come out this way. I was going to tell you everything when the time was right. I just . . .”
“I get it. I helped the Archipelago murder your friends.”
Hands seized my shoulders, and she tugged me close enough to see the burst capillaries at the corners of her eyes. She looked exhausted. “Never say that again.”
“It’s true.”
“No, it’s not, and guilt will kill you.”
“I led them down on her fleet.”
“Yes. And I led a mutiny, but the Archipelago pulled the trigger. Not us.”
“You don’t really believe that, though,” I said. “I know you, Mere.”
Even when you feel oceans away.
And hadn’t she implied blame only the night before?
“I tried to end things twice after Ching saved me. The first was because everything hurt so damn much. The second was guilt. Ching—Amaryllis—told me after the second time she found me half-drowned that if I wanted to absolve myself, death wasn’t going to help.”
“I don’t want to kill myself.”
“Good. Because I’d hate to have to drag you back out of hell.” She cracked a smile. “Rose, we’ve both made choices that led to terrible things. We’re not . . . we’re not innocent. But you have to remember where to put the blame.”
“On the Archipelago?”
“No, actually. On our fucking ancestors. They evolved in a world perfectly calibrated for their survival, and they broke it. We’re all just trying to survive. Even the seas-damned Archipelago.”
Her thumbs stroked the tops of my shoulders. I wanted to believe her, but I’d seen the way she had looked at me the night before. I’d seen the accusation. I dropped my gaze.
“Ching told me once that she made you.”
“I wish that were true. I’m not really something I want to take credit for. Amaryllis was there for me when my people threw me away. I owe her everything, but I made myself. So have you. And I’m telling you now that there’s another option besides fighting over the last drop of poisoned water.”
“Better purification systems?”
“Yes, actually.” She took a deep breath and let it out the way I’d seen her do when she was preparing for a round of boxing. “Amaryllis is a sea wolf.”
Chapter Four
“She’s what?” I couldn’t shout in the hydrofarm without drawing unwanted attention, but I put as much force into my whisper as I could muster.
“She’s a sea wolf.”
“Neptune, Mere.” I shook my head, trying to clear it.
Wolf pup.
You’ve got eyes like a sea wolf.
Yellow-eyed drifter.
Who was your father?
A lifetime of questions assaulted me at once. Her eyes pleaded with me to listen, but I wasn’t sure I could. All this time, she’d known the sea wolves were real, and she hadn’t seen fit to mention it? Lying about Ching I understood, even if I hated it. This, though . . . this was different.
“This whole time, you knew the sea wolves were real. You had proof. And you didn’t say anything?” I pulled away from her.
“Rose—”
“I don’t know if I can do this, Mere.” My eyes burned with unshed tears.
“Rose,” she said again, cutting off my escalating thoughts. “Listen to me.”
I remembered nights growing up with my pillow soaked with tears, both hating and missing my father and hating the drifter heritage he’d given me. I remembered years where it hurt to look in the mirror, because all I could see was the wrongness of my face, the lurid brightness of my eyes, golden as a cat’s, wrong, wrong, wrong. Any justification, any answers, would have changed my life.
“Am I one of them?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s the most logical explanation for what you can do, and your eyes . . . the color is linked to genetic expression. Amaryllis didn’t like talking about that part of her life, but I know that much.”
“Her eyes are brown.”
“Yes. It’s a bit of a sore point.”
I set that aside for later analysis. “You should have told me.”
“How could I have told you the sea wolves were real without telling you about Ching?”
“She’s either Ching or Amaryllis. Pick a name, Miranda. And you could have, I don’t know, told me you knew about the wolves from someone else. Seraphina, maybe. And ‘sea wolves’ is a fucking stupid name, anyway.”
I was shouting, now. Workers scuttled to the far side of the room.
“It’s only been a few months, Rose. I’m not just your . . . lover.” She stumbled over the word. “I’m also your captain. This is still so new. I can’t—”
“You were worried we wouldn’t work out,” I said, lead in my heart and on my tongue.
“No. Yes. I was worried you’d change your mind.” Her voice broke, and her fingers spun the Gemini ring round and round her thumb. “This life is hard.”
“You’re not exactly making it any easier.”
“Rose—”
“Forget it. As you said. You’re my captain. So explain to me, Captain, why I’m sailing south.”
I answered the question myself as I spoke. No one sailed near the poles. It wasn’t Archipelago territory, and I hadn’t thought it was pirate territory, either. I hadn’t thought much about it at all. Keeping control of our own waters took enough as it was without worrying about other oceans. There was also increased risk of volcanic activity farther south. The melted glaciers had shifted tectonic balances, and I knew from previous records that ash periodically drifted north from the southern sky. Then there was methane, also disturbed by the plates, and squid. And—abruptly none of those things made sense as deterrents. Our dead seas carried equal risks. From dead zones to toxic blooms and jellyfish, we sailed in the soup, eking out an existence in the liminal spaces below the surface. If there was life at the poles, why weren’t we taking advantage of it?
Why, unless . . .
The depth of my willful ignorance floored me. The answer had always been obvious. The Archipelago didn’t sail near the poles because the poles were someone else’s territory. Someone better equipped, better armed, capable of resisting annexation or conquest. Nobody in the Archipelago government would have wanted that knowledge spread, and so they quelled our curiosity and focused their resources on threats they could control, like pirates.
And even then, we were almost overrun. Would have been overrun if it hadn’t been for my pure dumb luck.
“They’re at the poles,” I said aloud, my revelation temporarily outweighing her betrayal. Ching had surprised the Archipelago. We—they, I reminded myself, for I was no longer an Archipelagean—were used to pirates driven reckless with deprivation, not unified naval forces. I pictured the Archipelago charts Miranda had put in front of me during my first few weeks as part of her crew. Archipelago territory was shrinking. Part of that had been Ching, and another part the loss of surface waters to inclement conditions. Regardless of the cause, it amounted to the same thing: they patrolled less and less territory each year. What if Comita really did need us to update her charts? What if the Archipelago had no real idea about what—or who—else occupied the oceans? I’d thought our mission was mostly busywork to keep Miranda far away from the stations, concealing her role in the war. Perhaps I’d been wrong.
“Yes.”
“The north, too?”
“I’m not sure.”
“And you want an introduction to them? I thought they killed anyone who wasn’t them, or something.”
“We’ll have Amaryllis. And . . . you.”
“Nobody likes a half-breed, Mere. Haven’t you realized that?” The vitriol that boiled up in my voice left a bitter aftertaste on my tongue. “Anyway, what do you want from them?”
She turned to glance at the curious eel lurking over her shoulder, studying it before answering.
“I want t
o fix things.”
I recalled a conversation I’d had with Miranda shortly after we’d escaped Comita. We’d been topside, watching a distant squall and sharing a flask of rum.
“If you could design a new world, what would it look like?” she asked.
“You’d be there.”
She pulled me into her, resting her chin on top of my head. “That goes without question.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it before.”
“Sure you have.”
I felt her words vibrate through her chin and into my skull. I asked, “What would your world look like?”
“Less tribalism. Less tyranny. Less us versus them.”
“Good luck with that,” I said, memories of my time on North Star all too present.
“Think about it.” She pulled away, turning to sit cross-legged to face me. “What do we fight over? What is the one thing we all need, the source of every rift?”
“Um. Vaccines?”
“Partially. Resources. Namely biofuels and plastics, plant strains, and knowledge. If drifters and pirates had access to Archipelagean tech and know-how, we wouldn’t need to raid. If we didn’t raid, we wouldn’t need to hate each other.”
“But there’s still the issue of clean water.”
“Yes. But better filters would eliminate that.”
“Maybe.”
“I’ve studied enough history to know power loves a vacuum. With Ching gone, someone else will rise in her place, and we’ll do this all again.”
“What are you saying? Are you going to be the next Ching?” I’d meant it as a joke, but she considered it.
“I don’t deserve that kind of power.”
“Does anyone?”
She smiled at me, looking for a moment like a young woman, instead of the scarred and battered captain of my ship. “Probably not.”
The memory receded.
“Can it be fixed?” I asked. I wasn’t just talking about our world.
“Why does the Archipelago hold sway over the Atlantic? What gives them the right to withhold resources from everyone else?”
“There isn’t enough to go around.”
“That’s squidshit and you know it.”
“Resources are limited. The mines—”
“You can still share limited resources. It’s the fact they have those resources that matters. If the drifters and the rest of us have something the Archipelago doesn’t, they’ll have to treat with us. We could finally get something like equality. And if they don’t, then we’ll build something new.”
The light in her eyes unnerved me. This was the Miranda who’d led the Gemini rebellion against the Archipelago—an idealist and a warrior. That combination, I now knew from experience, got people killed. And yet, I thought about Jeanine and Dev, who wouldn’t have died if Man o’ War had been outfitted with Archipelago-grade parts. I thought about Ching, who’d led her sailors in an attempt to upset the power balance because she, too, needed resources. I thought about small stations like Cassiopeia who were a part of the Archipelago but shared only the barest taste of its bounty. I understood Miranda’s rage, but equality felt impossible. I wished I could believe in something like that. It was hard enough to have faith in the people around me, let alone an idea.
Maybe, for Miranda, ideas were easier than people.
“What if we’re just not capable of equality? What if it’s biologically impossible, and that’s why we ended up in the ocean in the first place?” I said.
Miranda shrugged, disturbing the inquisitive eel and sending it rippling back into the weeds. “Then at least we’ve tried.”
“Comita—” I began, but I stopped myself. Comita wouldn’t want to help us equalize the power dynamics that benefited her people. She’d proven that already.
“We can deal with Comita.” Something dark filtered through the blue of Miranda’s eyes. It looked like hate.
“How? When she finds out we didn’t kill Ching—”
“I held up my end of the bargain. Ching was neutralized. Without a fleet, she’s just Amaryllis. What can one woman do?”
I looked at Miranda. One woman could do a hell of a lot of damage. All we had to do was look to our own pasts for the proof.
“Do you know what your admiral told me when we first negotiated a contract?”
“She offered you a pardon.”
“No. She offered me a revolution.”
I blinked. There wasn’t room for more surprises in my system, but my adrenal glands made a valiant attempt to flood my body with more cortisol.
“It took me a while to figure out she was playing me. She had no intention of negotiating autonomy for Gemini, but she knew it would get my attention. Granted, I was trying to play her, too. But she won.”
“And you think, what, the sea wolves will give you something you can use as leverage? Resources or whatever? Even though they like raiding anyone who isn’t them? Your logic doesn’t add up.”
I was so sick of secrets.
“I don’t think they will give us anything. Amaryllis made that clear. But if there is even a chance of negotiation, shouldn’t we at least try?”
“Honestly? I don’t know,” I said. She frowned at my response. Before she could protest, I continued. “Is there anything else? Because I swear to all seven seas, Miranda—”
“That’s everything.”
“Do you promise?”
“I promise.”
“Swear it on your ship.”
“I swear it on my ship.”
“Okay.”
She raised her eyebrows, clearly expecting more of an argument. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.” I didn’t have any emotions left over for a fight. There were only so many betrayals, only so many times my world could be upended, before the ability to care was stripped from me. The plex felt cool against my neck. “Am I excused, Captain?”
Without waiting for her response, I fled.
••••
“The South Pole?” Harper looked up from a steaming vent, wiping condensation off her forehead. It had taken a good ten minutes for Harper to stop swearing after I’d explained, dumbstruck, that Ching would be joining us on Man o’ War. The vent had not survived the encounter. Harper had understandably strong feelings about Ching’s methods. Her abduction by Ching’s sailors had not been gentle, and ultimately had resulted in deadly violence. Much like Harper’s attack on the vent. She traced her finger ruefully along the edges of the busted plex.
“Yeah.”
“And these sea wolves are real?”
“Yeah.”
“And she’s really not dead?”
“Unfortunately not.”
“It’s super fucked up Miranda didn’t tell you.”
I let the steam shroud my expression. “Should we do something about this?”
“Oh. Yeah.” She pulled a length of tape from her toolbelt and wrapped up the rent. “That will hold for now.” A pause. “Fuck. What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“You look like a drowned ass,” she said.
“Sounds about right.” My stomach would probably never settle again.
“Wanna get drunk?”
Drinking wouldn’t solve anything, especially the nausea. I shook my head. “I have to plot a course.”
She double-checked her tape work before replying. “Miranda’s breaking contract with Comita, isn’t she?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“She can’t keep mapping and go south.”
“Do you think Comita will care? We’ll just get reports to her later.”
Harper tapped the vent. “My mother will come after us as long as I’m on board. We could always leave, Rose. We don’t have to stay here.”
“You don’t. I do.”
“I’d protect you.”
“Miranda,” I said, though it wasn’t an explanation.
“She just admitted she’s been lying to your face for month
s. You don’t owe her shit.”
“And Orca?”
Her face fell. We were both in too deep for easy extrication. “She’d understand. Maybe. I don’t know. But I can’t be on the same ship as that bitch.”
My chest ached with unreleased tension. I couldn’t be on the same ship as Ching, either. Nor could I leave. Harper meant well, but I could never return to Polaris. Not knowing what I knew. Not with what they’d done. I hadn’t mentioned the guilt I felt over the massacre of Ching’s fleet to Harper. Some wounds were too fresh.
“I don’t know, Harp.”
She looked at me. Her eyes were rimmed red from angry tears, but they saw me. They knew me. She tugged on my sleeve and drew me to her until she could wrap her arms tightly around my waist. Her head came only a few inches above my chin, but I heard her whisper anyway.
“She doesn’t get to hurt you like this. Not again.”
The scars on my body burned in response: the one on my hand, which I now shared with Ching, and the one on my stomach, from Miranda’s whip. In Harper’s fierce embrace, the beginnings of a sickening certainty settled over me.
I couldn’t leave, but neither could I continue on as I had been, love-drunk on Miranda, blind to the disparities in our relationship. Today had been the beginning of something, and I was terribly afraid that something was an ending.
West
Captain’s Log
Captain Miranda Stillwater
Man o’ War
February 24, 2514
5°06’46” N, 50°01’02” W
Narrowly avoided catastrophe after a major breach to the hull. Lost two crew members—see attached casualty report—and significant supplies. We were lucky that Seraphina and Trench were within hailing distance and that she had the component parts we needed to replace that section of hull. See damage report for details.
While docked, Seraphina engaged in parley with Amaryllis, formerly known as Ching Shih. I—fuck. [redacted text] As captain, it is my job to see to the preservation of my crew. I cannot in good conscience bring her aboard. And I cannot leave her behind. After years of asking, she’s finally agreed to grant me an audience with her people. She will take us to Symbiont. If it had been any other offer, I would have turned her down, despite everything she was to me. But I cannot turn my back on this.
