Maybe if they’d settled in Hawaii, as Jillian had proposed, she would have been … not well, but better. Better able to adapt. Better able to feel the roll of the sea beneath her feet, moving into her hips, keeping her spine in the alignment she was used to. But Theo hadn’t wanted to be close to the water. Theo hadn’t wanted to be reminded of what he’d lost. He’d been fine with the idea that she’d be out there, having adventures, touching the waves he was denied, as long as he didn’t have to watch.
His injury hadn’t shattered them. The healing that came after had. One day she had looked at her husband and realized everything about her life and career had become a shameful secret, something she had to hide when she was home, lest she break his heart all over again. She hadn’t blamed him then and she didn’t blame him now. He’d been through something terrible, and he’d found the strength to come out the other side, not stronger, but intact. “Intact” had been more than they could dream, once. Now …
Intact wasn’t enough. Broken wasn’t bad. She would have settled for serviceable, for a shape they both could live with, and that was exactly what she hadn’t been allowed to have. By the time the Atargatis had happened, with its cargo of guilt and recrimination, their marriage had already been all but over.
“You were the lovely ladies of the sea,” she informed the siren, looking at its alien face. There were things to be learned from the structure of its eyes, from the way its teeth slotted together, like a zipper meant to rip and rend, but those things were for other people, not for her. She would use their findings to establish a better understanding of everything else about the creatures, how they moved, how they hunted. The gross aspects of their physicality were already answering so many questions.
They used their voices for hunting more than for conversation; if they had a spoken language—Daniel and Tory seemed certain they did; Hallie was less sure—it was primitive, probably intended for use with children too young to have mastered signing. In hearing humans, at least, basic sign came before speech, with more complicated sign following verbalization. And if they metered their mimicry, picking and choosing the sounds they put out into the world, they would inevitably have found some way to use that mimicry to communicate.
It didn’t really matter whether they had a language of their own. They stole language from every creature in the sea. If Jillian were asked, she would have said they had no spoken language, because they had too many teeth. The risk of injury was worth it if their stolen songs lured in dinner for the school; it wasn’t a fair trade for a whispered phrase or a muttered complaint. What’s more, the structures of the siren’s larynx indicated that lips weren’t used as extensively in its mimicry as they were in human speech.
The lights in their hair … Bioluminescence was common in deep-sea organisms. Trying to decide which had come first—the lights or the enormous light-hungry eyes or the intricate sign language—was a fool’s errand. They had all three. She might as well join the age-old argument of which had come first, mankind’s brain or fleshy buttocks or flexible tongue. Nature made what nature wanted to make. Sometimes it came together perfectly. Other times it all fell apart.
“You were the perfect predator,” she said softly. “You look like us, you sound like us … There must have been a time when you lived closer to shore. There’s no other reason for you to be so good at playing pretend. If you’d stayed in shallow water, we might never have set sail. We would have been too afraid of the voices in the deep. So what drove you away? What kept you from coming back? What aren’t you telling me?”
The siren didn’t answer.
Dr. Jillian Toth, the world’s foremost expert on creatures like this one, creatures that had been only myths and legends until a ship sailed above the Mariana Trench and sent footage home, stood looking at the body in front of her. She was missing something. She knew that she was missing something. And if she didn’t figure out what it was soon, they were all going to pay for it. One way or another, someone always, always paid.
Jason carried the basin with the utmost care, trying to keep his hands from shaking. His heart was beating too fast, rendering him unsteady, and he wasn’t watching where he was going. He knew that was dangerous; one trip and he’d be watching a whole new world of biological science run down the nearest drain. That didn’t help. He still couldn’t take his eyes off the things—the living, impossible things—teeming in his stolen tide pool, going about their business, unaware that everything had changed.
The crabs! They were unlike anything he’d ever seen. From the way they carried their elegantly curved claws tucked against their bodies, he half suspected them of being stomatopods that had undergone unchecked carcinization, becoming more and more crab-like. There were tiny pseudoshrimp, their tails banded in palest pink and transparent white, and if the crabs had evolved from mantis shrimp, he was reasonably sure these had as well, continuing to exist alongside their cousins, seeking cooperative niches in the same self-contained ecosystem.
Humans did not enjoy having head lice, had created tools and medicines to dispose of them, choosing to pretend that people were individual organisms, not merely the largest component of a colony composed of mites and bacteria and viruses. In the sea, cooperative symbiosis was much more common. He could picture infant mermaids—sirens, whatever Dr. Toth wanted to call them—cradled by their parents, scalps touching, until the tiny parasites transferred from one to the other.
(It was a very anthropomorphic idea of an underwater civilization, complete with nuclear families of sirens guiding one another through the depths. He knew that, even as he contemplated it at giddy length. There was so much here to discover, so much to learn and know, and they were all going to be superstars when they made it back to land, because they were going to be the ones who’d been there when it happened.)
There was also the chance—small as it was—that examining the creatures in the shallow basin would reveal some unsuspected metamorphosis. Dr. Toth thought the sirens were amphibians, or something so close to amphibians as to make no functional difference. Well, even the largest frog started life as a tadpole. Unless the sirens were like the paradoxical frog, which was larger as a juvenile than it was as an adult, there was every reason to suspect they might look completely different in infancy. They could be tadpoles, or sleek, squid-like creatures, darting through the deep.
Or they could be jeweled, segmented worms, cradled in the hair of their parents until they were mature enough to develop clutching hands and thrashing tails, and propel themselves out into the deep and generous sea.
He could be holding a basinful of baby mermaids.
He could be holding the goddamn golden ticket, and Dr. Toth had just handed it to him, like it didn’t matter as much as her dead monster. He could raise his own sirens from larval form, raise them to respect him as their parent and keeper, and she’d be the one standing on the sidelines then, wouldn’t she? Let Dr. Toth come to him, hat in hand and his moon-eyed ex-girlfriend at her side, begging for scraps of his research, and would he grant her requests? Would he be magnanimous?
Of course he would. Because her name would carry the weight of legend after this trip, when the sirenologist sailed across the world, looking for mermaids, and came back with irrefutable proof of their existence. She’d be involved, because her involvement would benefit him. Tory, on the other hand, could just watch as he unraveled the mysteries of the creatures that had taken her sister and consumed her every waking moment. That would be a fitting punishment for her transgressions.
Part of him knew he wasn’t over her, and wouldn’t be until he stopped thinking of “fitting punishments” for the crime of breaking up with him. The rest of him didn’t care. She’d hurt him. He would never be immature enough to go looking for revenge, but if revenge happened to come his way …
The door to his advisor’s lab was unlocked. Jason breathed a sigh of relief. Dr. Lyons didn’t always feel like sharing space with his assistant; even though it was Jason’s association w
ith Tory that had tipped the balance on their being offered a place on the Melusine, Dr. Lyons still had a tendency to act as though Jason were some kind of scientific freeloader, looking for a tropical cruise more than he was looking for the truth.
(It didn’t help that Jason had overstated his relationship with Tory, even going so far as to imply that they were still a couple, merely “taking a break.” It had been expedient. He wasn’t sorry to have done it. But he might have been better off finding another way, or at least one that came with fewer awkward questions about why his so-called girlfriend was avoiding him so assiduously.)
“Jason.” Dr. Lyons pushed away from his microscope, hands already outstretched to take the precious basin away. “What took you so long? I was getting ready to send a search party.” The words were jocular, but there was a warning in his tone, reminding Jason that all the work they did here—everything, from the analysis to the dissections to the preservation—was going to have someone else’s name listed first. Nothing he did was going to get him ahead of the story.
Well. Maybe nothing. There were always options, if he was feeling clever. If he was feeling brave. “I had to wait for Dr. Toth to let me take the specimens,” he said.
Dr. Lyons looked almost sorry about that, like he’d been hoping for the chance to blame Jason for the delay. He took the basin as he asked, “How many casualties?”
“Four worms died on contact with the light. Two more were eaten by the crab-like things. It seemed less aggressive than reflexive. The crab-like things and the shrimp-like things have been avoiding each other as much as possible. Someone passed me on the stairs and startled one of the crab-like things out of its corner. It was speared and shredded by one of the shrimp-like things.” The tiny scrap of chitin and flesh had moved faster than Jason’s eye could follow, and the bits of pseudocrab were already gone. The encounter, brief as it was, had him itching to get one of the pseudoshrimp under a microscope. If anything in the basin was a protoform of the sirens, it would be the shrimp.
“There was nothing you could have done to avoid the encounter?”
I could have installed a private stairway when the ship was under construction. Jason bit back his first response. He bit back three more before saying, “No, sir. There’s only one available stairway, and I don’t have the authority to reserve it for my own use.”
“The lift—”
“Was being used by Mr. Blackwell. I’m not allowed to put my needs above those of the corporation, and you instructed me to take the stairs if it was that or spend unnecessary time waiting.”
Dr. Lyons glowered before subsiding and saying, “You did well. I expected more fatalities.” He turned his back on Jason, dismissing him as he walked to the counter.
Let him try to hog the glory. Jason wasn’t going to be that easily disposed of. He followed his mentor, saying, “One of the crab-like creatures had some scraps of plant matter when they were put into the basin. If you find any of it, I’d like it for analysis. I want to determine whether it was harvested near the surface, or whether they have a type of kelp growing around the deep thermal vents.” The material he’d seen had been green. Either it came from someplace where there was sunlight, or his theories about underwater photosynthesis were about to get a great deal of additional support.
“You can have what’s left when I’m done, Jason. Patience is the watchword.”
Patience was never the watchword in science. Patience came later. Patience came when they were back on land, milking the results of this journey in an unending effort to make the funding last. Patience came after the first hot rush of discovery.
Dr. Toth understood that. Dr. Toth had chosen knowledge over patience. Without her making that choice, their precious basin would have been empty; the creatures it now contained would have suffocated in the siren’s hair.
The hair … Jason went still. There would be no more living specimens there, but it wasn’t like Dr. Toth had gone through the siren’s hair strand by strand. Any number of specimens could be trapped in the tangles, slowly drying out and losing essential data.
“I have some paperwork to finish,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant. “I’ll go take care of it now. I can bring back coffee in about an hour, if you don’t mind.”
“That sounds excellent,” said Dr. Lyons, waving dismissively. His eyes stayed on the basin. Jason might as well have already been gone. “Remember, I take mine black.”
“I will,” said Jason, and turned and fled.
The trip back to the wet lab took less than half the time; he didn’t have a basin to carry, no deep-sea wonders to coddle and protect. He mentally reviewed the equipment brought for the necropsy. There were tweezers. Tongs. Gloves, yes; gloves were necessary when dealing with unknown marine organisms. There was no telling how many toxins they carried on their claws and shells. Even the ones that looked harmless could—
“Oof!” exclaimed the woman he had just run into.
Jason staggered back, unsurprised to find that he had, on a ship with over a hundred passengers, collided with his ex-girlfriend. “Victoria,” he said coldly.
Tory blinked, getting her feet back under herself. “Jason?” She looked past him, studying the empty deck. “Is something chasing you? I thought we weren’t supposed to be out here alone.”
“Important errands,” he said. “If you’re so nervous, why are you out here? As you say, we’re not supposed to be alone.”
“Luis and Olivia are in the lab. A security sweep just came through, so it should be safe for a few minutes. I’m getting coffee.” She nodded over her shoulder toward the cafeteria. “No coffee there, in case you wondered. I have to go to the kitchen.”
“I’m not looking for coffee,” he said. “Olivia. That’s the little blonde from Imagine, isn’t it? The girl who stole your sister’s job?”
“She’s the same age we are, Jason. There’s no way she could have done my sister’s job until long after Anne was dead. Imagine wasn’t going to retire their entire live-action news division just because they lost a few people.”
Jason stared at Tory for a moment. Then he smirked. “You’re screwing her.”
“What?”
“You heard me. You’re screwing her. The way you used to talk, Imagine should have shut down their entire news division. Imagine should never have been pretending to care about the news in the first place. Imagine should have done a lot of things, and none of them included hiring pretty little blonde things who look like that girl whose picture you used to keep on our bulletin board. What was her name? Susan? Shawna?”
“Shira,” said Tory. “Leave her out of this.”
“Shira,” echoed Jason. “You know, Tory, I don’t know many guys who’d put up with their girlfriend keeping a picture of her ex on the bulletin board behind her desk. You should have known I was a keeper just because of that.”
“And see, I knew you were a loser because you kept telling me how awesome you were for not getting mad when I kept a picture of my good friend who I happened to have been in a romantic relationship with once in a place where I could see it.” Tory scowled. “Shira and I broke up before I met you, remember? She’s an archeologist. She had shit to do that didn’t involve hanging around Santa Cruz waiting for me to get it together and stop obsessing over mermaids.”
“Looks like you were the smart one,” said Jason. “The sea’s out there, and the mermaids are out there, and you’re going to have your face on every science site in the world. You can write your own ticket after this. And you’re still screwing the blonde.”
“It’s none of your fucking business who I am or am not screwing. We broke up. You don’t get to dictate who finds their way into my bed.”
“Oh, like I ever did before.”
Tory’s eyes narrowed. “I never cheated on you, you self-righteous prick. Watch where you’re going.” She pushed past him and stalked away down the deck, off to whatever destination she’d been seeking when they’d collided.
Jason turned to watch her go. Tory was obsessive and perfectionist and sometimes preferred science to sex—not always at the most convenient of times, either; there had been nights when they’d been an hour into heavy petting, him straining against the front of his pants, her bra hanging off the bedpost, when her phone would ring and she’d go running, saying something about that asshole partner of hers and new results. Jason had occasionally wondered whether Luis had hacked her Fitbit, using it to decide when he needed to be a fucking cockblocker. But that wasn’t why they’d broken up.
They’d broken up because she hadn’t known how to play politics. Because she’d been more comfortable playing guide for those dead-end whale-watching tours and talking about the vengeance she was going to have someday than she’d been getting out and doing something. He’d played the politics. He’d found the ladder and started his upward climb, reasoning—accurately—that if he could hitch his wagon to the right star, he’d be able to reach a position where he could get things done. The fact that they’d wound up in the same place didn’t matter. Luck was always a factor, and Tory had gotten lucky. There were a few other people on the Melusine who could say the same, people who’d been in the right place at the right time, who’d shown their faces in the right doorways for the wrong reasons. But most of them … most of them were like Jason. They had worked hard for what they had. They were going to keep working hard.
They were in the same place now. That wasn’t going to last. Tory was going to have the opportunity to watch her ex-boyfriend make the future while she wound up standing in the past. He hoped her little slut could make it up to her. He sincerely doubted it.
Jason resumed walking, passing the cafeteria and heading for the closed doors to the wet lab. They weren’t guarded. He scoffed. The greatest biological discovery of the century, and no one was making sure it didn’t get up and walk away. He slipped inside.
“Hello, Jason.” Dr. Toth was at the foot of the operating table, resting her hands to either side of the siren’s tail, her eyes fixed on the open chest cavity. She looked like a woman who’d been trying to solve the mysteries of the universe without leaving her own head. “I wondered how long it would take you to come back.”