She experienced a sense of calm which she knew to be false. Oakes had bolstered himself with alcohol, Lewis with work. They were still getting reports from Colony, but the last word suggested that the old Lab One site was under siege. Lucky thing Murdoch had been sent shipside.

Disorderly sea.

Only thin rags of kelp remained on the surface, and she found the absence of it a loss which she could not explain. Once kelp had dampened the surf. Now, wind whipped white froth across the wavetops. Had Lewis allowed for that?

“Why do you link the kelp and hylighters?” she asked. “You’ve seen the reports. They’re vectors of the same creature or symbiotic partners.”

“But it doesn’t follow that they think.”

Oakes directed a lidded stare at her, swirled an amber drink in a small glass. “Touch one of them and the other responds. They act together. They think.” He gestured at the cliffs across the Redoubt’s bay where a scattered line of hylighters hovered like watchful sentries.

“They’re not attacking now,” she said.

“They’re planning.”

“How can you be sure?”

“We plan.”

“Maybe they’re not like us. Maybe they’re not very bright.”

“Bright enough to pull out and regroup when they’re losing.”

“But they’re only violent when we threaten them. They’re just a . . . a nuisance.”

“Nuisance! They’re a threat to our survival.”

“But . . . so beautiful.” She stared across the small bay at the drifting orange bags, the stately way they tacked and turned, touching the cliff with their tendrils to steady themselves, avoiding their fellows.

Turning only her head, she shifted her attention to Oakes, and tried to swallow in a dry throat. He was staring down into his drink, gently swirling the liquid. Why wouldn’t he talk about what was happening at Colony? She felt nervous precisely because Oakes no longer appeared nervous. It had been two full diurns since the food riot. What was happening? She sensed new powers being invoked—the bustling activity all through the Redoubt while Oakes stood here drinking and admiring the view with her. Not once in this period had Oakes turned to her with an assignment. She felt that she might be on probation for a new position. He could be testing her.

Does he suspect what I discovered about him shipside? Morgan Lon Oakes.

Impossible! He could not appear this calm in the face of that knowledge.

Oakes raised his eyebrows at her and tossed back his drink.

“They’re beautiful, yes,” he said. “Very pretty. So’s a sun going nova, but you don’t invite it into your life.”

He turned back to the ever-present dispenser for another drink, and something about the mural on the inner wall of the porch caught his eyes, startling him. The thing seemed to move . . . like the waves of the sea.

“Morgan, may I have a drink, too?”