“That’s right.”

“Don’t keep the good doctor waiting, my dear.”

Pip rolled her eyes. “My dear? He only says that when he is in a really good mood. Me, I prefer the grumpy old Marty better.” She manipulated the mouse. Several windows on the monitor disappeared before others appeared. “Here it is,” she said, opening a final window.

Elsa bent closer and read the words on the screen:

DNA testing result:

Mitochondrial DNA with mutations unknown in any human, primate, or known animal.

Elsa reread the second sentence several times. Her immediate thought was that there had been a mistake, or the DNA sample was contaminated, something along those lines.

Because if what you’re seeing is true…

Dr. Murdoch was grinning at her, his eyes alight.

“It’s incredible, Marty,” she said hesitantly.

“It’s more than bloody incredible, Elsa. This is not the discovery of a new species of frog. It’s a clearly human-like creature that is neither human nor ape! A human-like creature that, given its dramatic mutations, is very distant from Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, and Denisovans.”

“How distant?”

“I’ve always believed the closest known ancestor to merfolk to be Australopithecus. AL 288-1, commonly known as Lucy, is the best-known specimen from the genus. Do you know much about her?”

“Only that she lived in Ethiopia about three million years ago, and she was named after a Beatles’ song. Sorry, paleontology isn’t my specialty.”

“She was a hirsute chimp-like primate with a skull, jaws, and teeth more ape-like than human. Her arms were long and strong with curved fingers, her legs were short, and her shoulders were narrow, all of which were adapted for climbing and foraging in tree branches. But what makes her special is that she’s the oldest known bipedal hominin. Her pelvis and knees and ankles all reflect a fully upright gait.”

“Our oldest ancestor,” Pip said, blowing a bubble with pink chewing gum.

“That we don’t know for certain,” Marty said. “The evolutionary process that gave rise to us wasn’t linear. Numerous hominins lived side by side. There were variations amongst species, interbreeding, evolutionary experimentations, extinctions. When Lucy was discovered, about seven early hominins were known. Now there are at least twenty on record and the number keeps growing. However, Lucy’s species is certainly a good candidate for Homo sapiens’ direct ancestor—and an equally good candidate for merfolk’s as well.”

Elsa frowned. “Because it was bipedal? What am I missing, Marty? Last I heard, merfolk had fish tails for swimming, not legs for walking.”

Pip’s bubble popped. “I am going to the kitchen to make a sandwich,” she said, taking the gum from her mouth and sticking it to the top of an empty Pepsi can. “I will leave Marty to eat your ear off, Dr. Montero. He has eaten mine off all day.”

“It’s talk your ear off, Pip. And forgive me for being excited about the biggest scientific discovery of the century.”

Grinning, she sprang off her chair and left the dry lab.

“She makes idiomatic mistakes all the time,” Marty said, “and the thing is, I think she does it on purpose. What was I saying?”