“It’s usually the bitter ex,” said the captain.
“Victoria isn’t bitter. She’s moved on, if I’m not mistaken. Jason, on the other hand, was working for a jealous man with a history of stealing breakthroughs from his students. You should be looking at Dr. Lyons. That is, if you must insist on looking at anyone at all.” Dr. Toth unfolded her arms. “I don’t think you should be.”
“Dr. Toth?” whispered Tory.
“It’s all right, Victoria. We’re just waiting for the other participants in this little passion play to put in an appearance—and there they are, right on time.” Dr. Toth looked past her to the open door. “Dr. Lyons, Mr. Blackwell, please, come in.”
“What is the meaning of this?” demanded Dr. Lyons, before catching sight of Jason, motionless on the table. He gasped. “My student. He’s—”
“Dead, yes. Theo, come here, would you?” Dr. Toth approached the body. She had looked more concerned—and more reverent—when dealing with the dead siren. It, at least, had been filled with mysteries. Jason was just one more dead human. If there was any novelty in him, it was that this time, they had a body. The sea hadn’t claimed him the way it had claimed the others.
“It’s amazing how quickly you code switch,” said Mr. Blackwell.
“You’re Mr. Blackwell when I’m being formal, and Theo when I want something,” said Dr. Toth. “It’s not that complicated.”
“I didn’t say it was complicated. I said it was amazing. What’s going on?”
“Two engineers accompanied a security team to answer an alarm from the port elevator. Something was jamming the doors open. They expected to find a mechanical failure at best, another siren at worst—the people on this ship are seeing sirens every time they turn around. Can’t imagine why.” Her tone turned dry on her last words. “He was dead when they discovered him, lying in a pool of uncoagulated blood. They notified the captain, who promptly dispatched one of his security staffers to arrest Miss Stewart.”
“Miss Stewart?” Mr. Blackwell turned, surprised, to face the woman who had been one of his first recruits. “Did you kill this man?”
“No,” she said, and sniffled. “But we used to go out, and I guess Jason had told some people that, so maybe it seemed like I … Like when he died, it was because I …”
“Because you’d murdered him, yes,” said Mr. Blackwell. “It’s an easy, if simplistic, conclusion to jump to. As you say you didn’t do it, we should move on.”
Luis blinked. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.” Mr. Blackwell chuckled at the stunned expressions around him. “Interesting fact: we’re currently in what can only be regarded as ‘international waters.’ The Melusine was constructed in the United States, but her papers of incorporation are in three different countries, none of which have extradition treaties with the US. There were several reasons for that, primarily relating to taxation, but one of the side effects is that here, there is no greater governing body. I could kill you all, and while the American government might try to have me arrested, they’d have trouble convincing me to come back into their jurisdiction. Here, the word of Imagine is law, and I am the voice of the company. If you say you didn’t kill this young man, I have no reason to doubt you.”
“I don’t believe he was murdered in the anthropocentric sense of the word,” said Dr. Toth. “Is it murder when a hawk kills a mouse or an octopus eats a crab? Murder implies someone was killed, intentionally, by a member of their own species.”
“What are you saying?” demanded Dr. Lyons. His face grew redder with every word, like the enormity of his loss was starting to sink in. It might not be a personal tragedy, but on a staffing level? Jason represented the whole of his research team. The voyage had been under way long enough that every other group was full; he’d be hard-pressed to find someone to rinse his beakers and stand by watching as he dissected his treasures from the deep. They would want a piece of the research pie if they helped him, and he wasn’t that willing to share.
(On the positive side, Jason’s death meant the boy wouldn’t be using any of his notes, now would he? A whole world of research, already finished and ready to be used. It wasn’t like Jason had a lot of close friends he would have confided in. It would be a shame to let all that hard work go to waste.)
“Look.” Dr. Toth pulled on a rubber glove before turning Jason’s palm toward the ceiling. There was a red, inflamed puncture in his skin, covered in watery blood and visibly swollen. The motion of Jason’s wrist knocked something loose; another trickle of blood ran from the puncture, thinner than it should have been.
“He came in here to collect more samples,” she said. “He extracted an assortment of small organisms from the creature’s hair. Dr. Lyons, did he come to you?”
“No,” said Dr. Lyons. He scowled. “Are you saying he was concealing research materials from me? Why, that ungrateful little—”
“Yes, I can’t imagine why he’d be unwilling to share his findings,” said Dr. Toth dryly. “It appears Mr. Rothman’s blood has lost its clotting factors. He bled out. From this puncture, but also from his eyes, nose, and, judging by the dampness of his trousers, other orifices. There are venoms that could have done this, even among terrestrial species. I believe he cut himself on one of the specimens. We should find them before it happens again. All of them.”
Dr. Lyons’s eyes widened. “But—”
“This is a matter of ship security,” said Dr. Toth. “You’re not an organic chemist, Dr. Lyons. Surely you can see where getting this substance to the people who can do something with it will be more beneficial than leaving it locked in your lab.”
“Do you think we can use it against the sirens?” asked Luis.
Dr. Toth looked at him. “That, or they’re immune to it, and we need to know that. Something that’s a minor annoyance to them might prove to be fatal to us.”
“It’s like the reverse of Wells’s Martians,” said Olivia. “It’s us getting killed by the common cold.”
“By fleas, more like, but yes.” Dr. Toth looked to Tory, her expression softening slightly. “I’m sorry for your loss, and I’m sorry you had to see this.”
“He was an asshole,” said Tory, eyes on Jason. “But he was my friend once, and I didn’t wish this on him. I wouldn’t. No one would.”
“Are you satisfied, Captain?” asked Mr. Blackwell.
The captain sputtered before nodding and saying, “I’ll accept your ruling on this matter. We’re almost prepared to lower the shutters. Recent events have our engineering crew slightly on edge, which is slowing their progress, but we’re getting there.”
“Recent events meaning ‘killer mermaids eating people’?” asked Luis. “Yeah, I can see where some folks might find that unsettling. Probably best to offer two-for-one mojitos the next time we have an open bar. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and alcohol will be fatal to the things. They’ll eat a couple lightweights and decide to leave us alone.”
“Not likely,” said Dr. Toth. “Several recorded disappearances in these waters have involved private yachts of the sort that are either used for poaching or partying. I’m sure the sirens have encountered drunk humans before. They probably think we’re even more delicious when we self-marinate.”
The captain’s lips twisted. “This is no laughing matter,” he said.
“Do you see me laughing?” asked Luis. “Whistling past the graveyard is a time-honored tradition. Keeps us from screaming.”
“Captain,” said Mr. Blackwell. “That will be all.”
For a moment, the captain looked like he was going to object. Then he nodded, shoulders going stiff, and walked toward the door. The security staffers trailed after him. Mr. Blackwell turned his attention on Dr. Lyons.
“You’ve lost your assistant, and it seems your lab is now home to some remarkably potent biological weapons,” he said. “I suggest you collect them for me.”
Dr. Lyons scowled. “You can’t do that.”
“Check your co
ntract. All specimens derived from or relating to the unknown creature or creatures designated as ‘mermaids’ in the official mission description remain the property of Imagine, and can be reclaimed at any time. I don’t own your findings, Dr. Lyons, but I own the things you’re hoping to use to make them. If you want to make history, you’d best move fast.”
“I’m working,” snapped Dr. Lyons. “Jason was an assistant, nothing more. Losing him affects nothing. Nothing.”
“Prove it,” said Mr. Blackwell.
Dr. Lyons turned and fled.
It was interesting, noted Theodore Blackwell as he looked at the trio in front of him. Olivia was in the employ of Imagine, and had been poised to be the bane of Tory’s existence. She hadn’t needed to do anything; just being alive and in Anne’s position would have been enough. But they were standing together, so close their shoulders almost touched, and the camera in Olivia’s hands was consistently pointed at him when no one was speaking. It was like she was trying to keep a record that could be used to protect her friend, even if it meant acting against her employer.
Luis, on the other hand … he had always been expected to take Tory’s side. He was her friend and lab partner, and those were two bonds that could take a great deal of strain before they snapped. The Melusine mission hadn’t needed funding beyond what was provided by Imagine and its corporate partners; the Martines money was no good here. There had been people higher up in the chain who questioned Theo’s decision to include a cryptozoologist among the approved scientists. What Theo had never been able to make them understand was that Luis, through his mere presence, would keep Tory calm and stable, and Tory, by sailing with the ship that answered the mystery of her sister’s death, legitimized the whole thing. She was a PR coup given flesh, and she made it real.
He simply hadn’t expected her to be real enough to start wooing his own people away from him.
“The sirens are aware of our presence,” he said. “I’ve tripled security sweeps. Every dock has a full contingent of armed guards. Michi and Jacques Abney have joined the security teams, and they’re carrying sufficient firepower to stop a charging rhino.”
“You say that like it’s something to be proud of,” said Dr. Toth.
“No. I say that like it’s reassuring, like it’s something that will make our people more able to finish doing their jobs. We have sufficient proof of the creatures now. We have a body. We have fulfilled our basic mission objective.”
“So we leave,” said Tory. “We can … we can tell the navy, and they’ll come back with bigger guns.”
“They’d come back to drop a nuke into the Challenger Deep, and you know it,” said Theo. He sounded tired more than anything else; this was not the first time he’d considered this. “They’d set the seas to boiling before they’d share them with a hostile sentient race, and when that made the weather even more unpredictable—when that killed the fish and destroyed the people living on the local islands—they’d say all of that had been unforeseen. Even though anyone with eyes could have seen it. No. We need to go back with as much data as possible. We need these creatures protected.”
“Protected?” Tory stiffened. “Why would we want to protect them?”
“Because waging war on things that normally live a mile below the surface of the sea does no one any good, and could do us quite a lot of harm,” said Dr. Toth, stepping in before Theo could open his mouth. “Because they represent something otherwise unknown to science, and studying them could tell us things about our planet that I never thought we’d have the opportunity to learn. But most of all, we protect them because it’s our job. We don’t just conserve the things we like, or the things we find adorable. We conserve everything. We take care of the planet. We’ve been doing a piss-poor job so far, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get better.”
“That’s all well and good and, oh yeah, insane, but what are we supposed to be doing right now?” asked Luis.
“All three of you have lost someone to the sirens,” said Theo. “Some in a more abstract way than others, and yet. You’re viewed as people with an active stake in things. Stay alert. Keep your eyes open. If you hear people speaking of mutiny, let me know.”
“You want us to spy?” Olivia frowned. “That’s not part of my job.”
“That is exactly your job, Miss Sanderson.”
“I think you’re overlooking something,” said Tory. “These are scientists. They’re not going to want to leave while there’s a chance that they could learn something. The problem isn’t going to be people rising up to overthrow you in order to get out of here. The problem is going to be someone sabotaging the engines so they can finish their chemical analysis of the surface water.”
“That, at least, isn’t a concern,” said Theo. “The Melusine’s engines are the best in the business. Nothing could be done to sabotage them.”
“I don’t think you’re listening,” said Tory.
“He never does,” said Dr. Toth. “Please. Will you all just be careful, and let one of us know if you see anything out of the ordinary? And … stay alive. We know there’s danger here, but we’re working to minimize it. I don’t want any more losses.”
“Right.” Tory’s eyes went to Jason’s face. It was still uncovered. That seemed obscene, somehow, and so much worse than he deserved. It wasn’t fair, leaving him like that. She wanted to close his eyes. She wanted to cover his face. “Because there haven’t been enough of those already.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” said Dr. Toth. “It’s time for us to finish and get out of here. This is their place, not ours, and the longer we linger, the worse things are going to become.”
CHAPTER 27
Western Pacific Ocean, above the Mariana Trench: September 3, 2022
Night filled the sky with stars, rendering it distinguishable from the sea. Without those stars, the two bodies would have seemed to be one and the same, like the sirens could swim between them. All over the Melusine, lights blazed behind closed lab doors. The greatest scientific minds in the oceanic world had been handed physical proof of one of the sea’s great mysteries, and they were going to take it apart, down to the smallest atoms.
Dr. Lyons bent over a dissection board, studying a pseudocrab he’d concealed from the men who cleared his lab, careful to avoid any contact with the creature’s tissues. When he closed his eyes, even for an instant, he could see Jason’s bloodied face, hanging there like a warning of the costs of hubris. He was not going to go out the same way.
Hallie and Daniel worked side by side, watched by the unblinking eyes of Mr. Blackwell’s captive siren, and any guilt Hallie felt about leaving her sister again was washed away by the sheer passion of discovery. There was so much to learn. Hallie spoke to the siren with her voice and her hands, constantly expanding the scope of their shared vocabulary. Daniel’s work was less flashy; he recorded everything, picking it apart for repeated themes, incorporating the notes he’d received from Dr. Toth after her conversations with Tory and Luis. They were close to answers. He knew it in his bones.
Holly sat alone in her lab—which she’d never shared with either of her sisters; no, their disciplines took them elsewhere. Her lab mates were a pair of scientists she didn’t know, hearing women who spoke to each other constantly, but had never made the effort to learn to speak to her. She’d tried, at first, offering to teach them simple signs like the gift they were, using Hallie as a bridge between herself and their casual, cheerful ignorance. Here and now, she was grateful for their inability to communicate. She didn’t want to talk to them. She didn’t want to see the pity in their faces. It was a reminder of what she’d lost, what she was never going to have again, and it was like Heather died over and over when people looked at her like that. So she bent over her work, and she tried to focus, and she let the silence comfort her.
Michi Abney prowled the third deck at the head of a squad of Imagine’s security dolts, rifle slung over her shoulder and finger hovering near the trigger. The hunt was
finally under way. She’d been waiting for it since they’d left the dock, and now she was going to have it, every scrap of it, every drop. She’d shared the first kill with Jacques—which was, perhaps, the most romantic thing she could have imagined—and now she was going to fetch the first trophy. These mewling scientists were afraid of what was to come. She was overjoyed.
Two decks down, her husband’s thoughts paralleled her own. They’d met, fallen in love, and married because of their shared love of the hunt; to most of the world, they were bloodthirsty freaks, too dangerous to be allowed in polite company, no matter how nicely they cleaned up, no matter how good they were at greasing the wheels of diplomacy. No one who took that much delight in killing belonged among normal people. But oh, how those normal people begged for what he and Michi could do when they felt their lives were in danger! How they screamed and pleaded. And bled, of course. Bleeding was par for the course when soft, pampered things like these scientists moved through the living world.
In her own lab, the door closed and barred against the rest of the ship, Dr. Toth watched the mass spectrometer return reading after reading explaining the chemical makeup of the samples she’d retrieved from Jason’s room. If Dr. Lyons had been as smart as he believed himself to be, he would have gone there immediately upon leaving the wet lab; he would have cleaned out whatever Jason had found and pled ignorance when asked about it. No one would have known. But he’d been so interested in preserving what he saw as the important specimens—meaning the ones belonging to him—that he’d left three times as many sitting around for her to find.
It would be days before she understood the protein makeup of these toxins, weeks before she finished analyzing them to a degree that would allow her to make any sort of counter. Not that it seemed possible. In at least one case, the toxins acted on blood samples with a vicious swiftness that would make antitoxins virtually impossible to administer. She would need to inject the treatment at the same moment as the venom to have a chance of success.