Where they were completely eluded her. If something had happened to Marty and Dr. Montero on the dive, why hadn’t Radhika and Jacqueline returned to the Oannes? Surely they wouldn’t still be waiting around in the painted cavern they’d described? Surely they’d know that if Marty and Dr. Montero hadn’t yet returned, they wouldn’t be returning? At least not via the water. It was possible they had discovered where the lava tube emptied into the ocean. If the dive had been more difficult than they’d anticipated and they’d run low on air, it was possible they had decided not to backtrack through the tube but to do so on land. They might then have become lost in the rainforest. This was what Pip hoped for, but it didn’t explain Radhika’s and Jacqueline’s absence. Had they arrived at the same conclusion as Pip? Had they gone looking for Marty and the doctor? Had they become lost themselves? Had the villagers turned hostile and come after them? Were they holding them against their will?

If you’re drinking moonshine right now at some jungle orgy party, Marty, I will never forgive you. I will—

Starting in surprise, Pip squinted through the pilothouse’s windshield before jamming the binoculars hanging around her neck to her eye sockets. She eased the barrels slightly apart, and when the circular field of view focused, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

A merfolk was lying motionless on the beach.

∆∆∆

Pip ran helter-skelter to the aft deck workshop. Under one bench were two charcoal hard-shell tactical cases. She yanked them both out, ignored the lighter one, and opened the lid of the other. She removed the assault rifle cushioned within high-density foam, as well as the magazine, which she knew was loaded with 5.45mm underwater cartridges. Slinging the weapon over her shoulder, she skipped down the ladder to the aft hydraulic loading platform. She unclamped the tender that was strapped to it, shoved the inflatable boat into the water, and hopped aboard. It was equipped with an outboard motor, but right then she preferred stealth over speed and opted for the oars. When she reached the beach a hundred feet from the mermaid (the Oannes’ momentum had kept the ship moving even after she’d throttled down the engines), she pulled the tender up onto the sand, then ran barefoot toward the creature.

Washed in silvery moonlight, the merfolk was the most hideous yet beautiful thing Pip had ever witnessed, a human-like hybrid being that could have been one of Dr. Moreau’s Beast Folk stitched together via vivisection. Its bone-white neck and torso were smeared with bright blood. Eyes closed, it very well might have been dead.