Once we’ve said our goodbyes and are outside heading back down the sloping skull toward our landing beach, I tell Cleve, “So, on your to-do list, next to where you have making better masks, add launching a message to the stars.”
Cleve chuckles. “Sure. Given what I’ve seen you do, I’m sure you can figure it out.”
“I don’t think my reach can exceed the range of the planet’s resonance energy,” I tell him, taking that statement more seriously than he probably intended. “If that resonance energy is what caused the crash, I need people to receive a message before they get too far within it.”
“It seems like our best technology though,” Cleve says. I bark out a rough laugh at that, and maybe he can hear in it that I’m starting to get overwhelmed by the enormity of this problem. I can’t take sole responsibility for solving it. “And we have smart people,” he assures me. “Roze and them all. I’ll put it on the list right after the constitution,” he adds with a grin.
“Aren’t you just going to copy the Stepdaughters of Chiron constitution anyway?”
“Pretty much. The Stepdaughters of Data Haven,” he jokes.
Waiting for us on the beach is our errant ranger, cooking up some kind of Chiron fish over an open fire. On the white sand next to them sits a strange device. Some piece of salvage they recovered? “Are there any threats?” they ask us.
“No, there are no threats to us,” I tell them, downcast.
“What are there threats to?”
“They had more evidence that another ship from Earth is possibly in orbit. So, there’s threats here to that ship, depending on what actually caused Unity to crash.”
“Ah,” the ranger says. That was before their time, probably.
“If that ship continues its approach unwarned about miasma and resonance energies and all that, they might end up the same way. But we currently don’t have a way to send any sort of message up into space, so…” I shrug, feeling rather helpless. “That’s something that smarter people than I might need to look into.”
“It’s not the smartest who can get things done,” the ranger tells me. “It is those with the drive.”
“Yeah, well I don’t have a rocket drive,” I reply, “and that seems to be what’s required.”
“So we need to find a rocket.”
“Or build one.”
“I heard that there were a lot of rockets on the Unity ship. Maybe you can salvage one somewhere.” Oh, that is an interesting point. “I didn’t see any here, though,” the ranger continues.
“So what did you see?”
“I saw something that was terrorizing the planet.”
“Is this the subsonic thumper thing?” I ask, looking at the device sitting in the sand alongside the ranger.
“Yes, this is the sonic repulsor,” the ranger says. “So we should probably leave sooner rather than later.”
“Yes, we should!” I agree.
“Oh!” Cleve exclaims, realizing the implications. Ensign Redd, meanwhile, throws her arms around the startled ranger, giving them a grateful hug for protecting the wildlife of this planet.
“Is this going to be an issue?” the ranger asks after extracting themself from Redd’s embrace.
“They didn’t see you, right?” I ask.
“Of course not.”
“And we three were with them the whole time. They have no evidence with which to blame us.”
“They are going to blame us,” Cleve says, “or the Stepdaughters of Chiron.” I bet he’s doubly glad now that we never mentioned Data Haven. “Is it going to be a problem?” he echoes the ranger’s earlier question. “Probably. Nothing to be done about it now, though.”
“Best we be moving on then,” the ranger says, and I couldn’t agree more.
“It’s not going to kill anyone, is it?” Cleve asks.
“Not unless they choose to fight the xenodragons,” the ranger replies, which is sufficient for Cleve.
“Okay, but no turning it on aboard the ship,” I warn them.
“Of course not!”
“Oh! You haven’t set it to explode; this is a theft,” Cleve realizes. No wonder he’s been eyeing the device so nervously—he was wondering how much time we had left.
“We could bury it at the bottom of the sea,” the ranger offers, “but it might be relevant to study. For example, we might outfit some hearing blockers that can protect a xenodragon from it. If they have one, it stands to reason they have more.”
“Yeah, I personally wouldn’t destroy it,” I agree. “Working out a defense is a good idea. It may not hurt humans and they may say that it does not damage the wildlife, but how do they really know that?”
Cleve gives a sharp nod, having made up his mind. “We don’t need to be dropping technology to the bottom of the ocean on this planet. That’d be littering. We can take it apart for study.”
So, yeah, that’s what the ranger was up to while we were inside with Thara and Alakai. Rangers are good at stealing things, I guess. The one with us now gathers up the roasted fish and the sonic repulsor, and then we all climb back aboard the hydrofoil. Ensign Redd pilots the tender back to Good Fortune, where Xiao is relieved to see us returned without a scratch—and with no guns fired. Gale has also returned to the boat, much to Xiao’s surprise, and he says she seems to be doing fine.
“Great. We should get moving,” I urge him.
“What happened?” he asks. “Let me rephrase that… are we in a war now?”
Cleve and I answer at the same time, with the same sentiment. “No, not a new one.”
“Okay…” Xiao draws the word out. “That’s good.” He doesn’t sound like he believes it, though.
Cleve gives a full report on the small team of University scientists studying the Shadow of the Deep bones that make up the island. He shares that he has a manifest of this colony pod, marked with who he knows for certain died in the crash. We entrust Xiao with the cryopod data we recovered; he can get that to Deirdre once this whole war is over. “And the ranger stole the device that was making all the noise,” Cleve adds. “They gave us this pamplet, but they don’t know who we’re affiliated with. Though they may have seen this ship. The Stepdaughters of Chiron came up in conversation. They’re probably going to blame us for the theft of this device. I don’t know what ramifications that’s going to have.”
Xiao flips through the pamphlet, nodding to himself. “The ambassador has one like this. Typical University literature. Different address though.”
“But there are no new threats to us all here,” I say brightly, trying to end on a high note. “We can proceed on to the Morgan domes.”
“I don’t think this will start a war,” Cleve assures Xiao, who’s still looking thoughtfully back at what everyone is now thinking of as Skull Island.
“You never can be too sure sometimes,” the mariner says. “Does the University lay claim to this island then?”
“Yes, definitely,” I tell Xiao. “So mark that on your map.”
“Right.” He considers for a moment. “Well, unless the xenodragons reclaim it. I don’t know how I feel about making landfall on a creature’s corpse, setting up a settlement there, even just establishing a trading port. So perhaps it’s best this way.”
Cleve shrugs. “Everything’s built with something’s bones,” he reflects.
“Yeah, I suppose. This seems more like a Cult of Chiron sort of place.”
Ensign Redd, though not a part of this conversation, has been listening from a distance. These are all things she’ll take back to Sal, I’m sure. “Well, it’s University land right now,” I say, not wanting anyone to get ahead of themselves here.
“According to whatever agreements they have with Morgan,” Cleve says dismissively.
“That should be sufficient,” I counter. “The University claims it, and at least one other polity recognizes that. There is no international law on this planet. What there is, is different groups recognizing each other’s claims.” We can’t just go ignoring that to suit our own whims, or nothing we hold will stand. “There’s an agreement between Morgan Industries and the University of Chiron that that skull is the University’s, so it is.”
“Well, we’ll see if they maintain interest,” Xiao says, not overly concerned, given his current priorities. “If they lose interest… well, we can declare it a sanctuary, perhaps.”
I snort with laughter at the word choice. “That terminology would be problematic,” I say, tapping the pamphlet still in his hands.
“You’re right,” he says, shaking his head at himself. “Wildlife preserve?” he suggests, and I nod.
And so Good Fortune sets sail again, wrapping around back to the west, following the currents and winds to the far side of the continent, to Morgan’s seat of power, and to Fritz.
Fin