Daughter of the Deep: Chapters 21–32

The damage is probably superficial, but I don’t want to take chances.

All I have left is a garbled recording of his last desperate moments.

His Mona Lisa-like smile makes him look like he’s just woken from a beautiful reverie.

I’m tempted to lie in my bed and wallow in misery, but I know that would only make things worse.

A series of clicks like a dolphin coda overlays the whale song.

“Unless we’re talking to an automated relay,” Virgil muses.

I hope I haven’t led them astray.

I imagine ballistic missiles hurtling over the horizon, zeroing in on our position.

I picture a full complement of alt-tech sonic fish burrowing through the water toward our hull.

Surrounding it is a turquoise lagoon, ringed by an atoll maybe a mile in diameter, with sandy white beaches hugging a spine of thick vegetation.

No dynamic camouflage in the world should be good enough to render this island invisible at point-blank range.

Along the perimeter of the atoll, turret guns peek from the brambles.

Along the perimeter of the atoll, turret guns peek from the brambles.

Sitting alone at the far end is a diminutive woman with a magnificent mass of braided gray hair like a heap of barbed wire.

Halimah sidles up to me.

“You could all use showers,” Ophelia concedes.

When I explain how my brother died, I feel like I’m collecting ashes from his funeral pyre, clawing through the hot cinders of his life with my bare hands.

They don’t seem surprised by anything I’ve told them. Their expressions convey grim vindication, as if they’ve been fearing this news for years.

I guess it’s a welcome change from debilitating sorrow.

We didn’t think Land Institute would ever risk such a brazen attack and put you and Dev at risk.

He would never have created such crass, clumsy weapons.

“In the water nearby. Many of those crops went wild. They’re still flourishing today. Everything on your plate is from those gardens.”

“Or we could feed the bottom line of multinational corporations who would want to exploit the food sources—or more likely strangle them—to keep their monopolies.”

Some of his cooking lingo is hard to follow. I have never learned the ASL terms for sauté or carrageen moss.

On top of that, Sharks and Orcas are generally considered diametric opposites.

She launches into a detailed analysis of nemonium’s tensile strength, malleability, and density that I’m sure several people in the world could understand, one of them being Nelinha.

She launches into a detailed analysis of nemonium’s tensile strength, malleability, and density that I’m sure several people in the world could understand, one of them being Nelinha.

Approaching the Nautilus should be quite safe. Luca and I are in and out of this cavern on a daily basis, and we’ve had no mishaps.

Mishaps. The term seems like quite an egregious understatement, considering my parents died because of the Nautilus.

I’m not fully aware when I cross the bank-vault threshold.

Intricate coils run along its sides, interspersed with bristly clusters of filaments and rows of indentations that remind me of the vibrissal crypts on Socrates’s skin—electroreceptors that allow him to sense his environment.

Intricate coils run along its sides, interspersed with bristly clusters of filaments and rows of indentations that remind me of the vibrissal crypts on Socrates’s skin—electroreceptors that allow him to sense his environment.

Set in the ship’s bow are two transparent convex ovals latticed with metal girders, like the compound eyes of an insect.

Set in the ship’s bow are two transparent convex ovals latticed with metal girders, like the compound eyes of an insect.

The Nautilus went into self-preservation mode. It was mostly dormant, using electrical currents and water circulation around the hull to maintain its integrity. But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t damage. There were leaks.

I feel smoldering resentment, even hatred, but I also feel more certain than ever that this weird submarine and I are connected by fate.

I speak in Bundeli. That was Nemo’s native tongue. He would have grown up speaking it, along with English, back when India was under British subjugation.

The cloying fragrances of pine and vanilla wage a war for dominance in my nostrils.

Instead of tiny coffin-size berths stacked one on top of another like I’d expect in a modern sub, there are four full-size bunk beds in each room—much more space per person than what we have on the Varuna. For a submarine, this is pure decadence.

“Ana, perfect timing! Perhaps you can help me convince the Nautilus not to be quite such a prima donna this morning, eh? There is a secret door I have been dying to open!”