As the ship prepares to launch, Cleve stands on the deck of Good Fortune, notebook in hand. “Alliance, success,” he mutters, making a tick mark. “Permanent lab for Marina in Data Haven, success.” Another tick mark. “Agriculture, success. Our little community is building up,” he says with satisfaction. But then he tacks on, “Hopefully.”
I lean against the railing next to Cleve, turned toward the ship rather than facing the dock. My eyes track everyone scurrying around on the deck until finally they settle on the person I need. “So… I know you have a lot of work to cast us off here, Xiao, but when you have a moment there are some things we need to talk about.”
Xiao groans. “It’s always something more! Nothing can be simple.” With a sigh, he leaves me to continue his duties. With great ceremony, the ship leaves harbor, the first of many heading ultimately to the Morgan domes. Xiao got Good Fortune prepared for launch more swiftly than other captains did, as we need the lead time to sneak into the domes before the blockade begins. So for now, our ship is traveling alone. Well, except for the xenodragon.
Gale mostly flies above us, sometimes providing gusts of air to adjust our course at Xiao’s request. Once we get out to the deep water, the captain is able to take a break. Xiao sighs as he approaches but then asks seriously, “All right, what’s the situation?”
“Let me see if I can share this,” I say. I lay my hand on Xiao’s arm, close my eyes, and seek out the sensations associated with that enormous sea creature. As I describe it aloud as best I can, I cast my senses about, trying to locate it. We’re at sea now, though, and I don’t have my bearings. Disappointed in myself, I open my eyes and notice that there is a slight indigo haze in Xiao’s. I did something.
Brow is furrowed, Xiao says, “I don’t know what it means to be several times bigger than a whale, but whatever you just did… I think I’ve gotten a sense of the scale. And this is coming to the Garden of Chiron?”
“It’s headed in that direction. I think I can distract it to head a different way, but that will be wherever I am at the time I try the distraction.” Xiao frowns in consideration. “We’re on a boat, we are moving, but there’s the risk that it would lock onto me and follow us, as opposed to just going to the distraction location. I’ve experienced this before with the siege worm. That’s where the broken arm came from.” I glance down at my left arm where the marks of that injury are now concealed by an impressive xenofungus tattoo. There’s plenty of breeze out here on the open water, but the sun can still feel fierce, and I’m keeping my shirt sleeves rolled up to my elbows. “And right now, this enormous sea creature is headed straight towards the Garden of Chiron, but also…” I look to Cleve, “that island with the people in the cryopods is right on the route.” Cleve nods in understanding. Looking back at Xiao, I add, “We may even be passing by it on whatever course you plotted.”
“Wait, what island with people on it?” Xiao asks. “Most of our outlying islands are to the east, in the other direction.”
“There’s…” I begin, trying to sort out how to explain this. Instead I settle on a more practical approach. “How well mapped is the space between here and the University?”
“In terms of good places for fishing, pretty well mapped. In terms of islands for habitation, not as much.” We look over his charts to try to figure out which of the islands I sensed. Xiao asks for defining features, and I tell him about the striking set of cliffs. “White chalky cliffs,” he mutters under his breath, shaking his head. He doesn’t know the island.
We’re still talking about the colony pod location and the enormous sea creature when Gale descends from her aerial games and settles onto her large perch on the ship. When she catches the gist of our conversation, she suddenly wails out an absolutely piercing screech. She’s seen this creature before, though just its form deep below. She doesn’t know if it would attack xenodragons, since she’s never actually gotten close to it. I relay the information she gives me. “The Shadow of the Deep is what Gale refers to it as, and she says it clears out all the fish—everything.”
“I mean, it’d have to at that size, right?” Cleve says. “Does Gale know if it goes on land?”
“It sounds like she’s never seen it out of the water,” I tell him. “What about the cliffs?” I ask Gale. “Have you ever seen an island with really tall white cliffs?” Her senses are different from ours, but if she can pick up any of the mental images I have from looking at them with miasma-vision, maybe she’ll recognize something.
Gale gives a little hop of excitement, which ruffles everyone’s hair and shakes the boat. Turns out that island is a warm nesting spot with tasty fish. Although she can’t point it out on a map, she knows which schools of fish travel there, which Xiao can equate to ocean currents the mariners have charted. So between the two of them, and some translating from me, we work out Cliff Island’s likely location. “Is that on our way?” I ask Xiao.
He nods. “The winds we’re using to head west to the Morgan domes will take us by there. Sailing isn’t done in a straight line.”
“So if this creature doesn’t go on land, the challenge it presents is decimating fishing spots,” Cleve observes.
“Or it could also knock our boats asunder or cause tidal waves in Garden Bay,” I say. “There are a lot of things it could do. Maybe it can go on land, and if so, it would be quite destructive.” I shrug. “I admit I don’t have a lot of details other than ‘big, enormous creature’—but it felt massive.”
Xiao growls in the back of his throat, lips pressed together with annoyance.
“I’m not going to say that it isn’t super dangerous, but it probably doesn’t go on land,” Cleve says, with more knowledge of nature than I have. “Which isn’t to say it can’t cause problems for the land.”
“Yes, if it causes a tidal wave like Mariah has suggested, that’s just as bad,” Xiao says.
“So, there’s a potential threat to the people at the wrecked colony pod. There’s also a potential threat to the Garden of Chiron. And we’re going to be passing in a direction that we could do something about it,” I say, summing up the situation. “And also… I kind of feel like it’s my fault that sea creature is coming this way. I think that, like with the siege worm, it… noticed me.”
I don’t know what I was expecting—arguments, admonitions—but no, Xiao just says, “All right, we’ll go investigate then. If there are people there and we need to evacuate them, we’ll do that. Or if you need to redirect this creature—”
“That’s a potential threat to your own ship,” I hasten to tell Xiao. “I just want to make that clear.”
“Yes, and I don’t like that, but we’re going to go about this smartly. Can you track this creature?”
Cleve assumed I could with the siege worm, too, and look how that turned out. “Uh, I can try. I can’t guarantee that. I’m not a radar.” Oh, maybe not the best analogy. “Do you even have radars? Probably not.”
“Sonar?” Cleve suggests.
“We have a rudimentary sonar for fish finding,” Xiao confirms.
“For absolutely enormous fish finding?” I ask.
“Well, a large fish would return a rather big signal,” Xiao says. He cautions us about range limitations and noise from being above the water rather than below it. But he doesn’t dismiss the idea completely. “We might be able to tune the equipment…”
“I can try to track it, but anything I do to try to track it also risks alerting it,” I say.
“Ah, just like sonar,” Xiao says. Oh, I hadn’t realized that was the case.
It might be safer for all involved to send Gale out on a reconnaissance run, but we’ll have clearer information if we handle this ourselves. “Maybe Cleve can take a look at your sonar equipment while I try to have a listen my own way, and we can combine those two approaches,” I suggest. “At the very least, Gale’s got us pointed in the right direction for looking, now that we know where the island is.”
“That sounds reasonable,” Xiao agrees.