Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan swept a hand in an arc around her. “No. This is my world, Evrim. These islands. The octopuses. And most of all, you. The greatest mind I have ever built. I came here to make sure that, if my world falls apart, I am there with it to the end.”

“You never have only one reason for doing anything,” Evrim said. “I know you. There is some other reason. There is always some other reason.”

“Yes, Evrim,” Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan said, “you know me better than anyone.” She stood up. “But people can change. And now—”

“And now you are going for a run,” Evrim said. “To clear your head. Like I said—I know you.”

Chapter 39

The octopus is pure protean possibility. There is no clear boundary between body and mind in a form with no hard parts, suffused with more neurons in its radius of arms than in its brain.

The octopus is a mind unbounded by bone—shape-shifting flesh permeated with neural connectivity, exploring its world with liquid curiosity.

What world would such a fluid creature build?

—Dr. Ha Nguyen, How Oceans Think

39

HERE, UNDERWATER, WAS WHERE HA FELT MOST AT HOME.

Strange, that the element she felt so at home in was one where she would not have been able to survive without assistance. I suppose we don’t get to choose our homes. They choose us.

She was happy to be here, underwater, after the scene on the boat. Her wrist still seemed to burn where Altantsetseg had grasped it, although the powerful woman’s grasp—the first time she ever touched me—had been light. Not restraining, but imploring.

“Don’t blame me,” Altantsetseg had said to her, “for your captivity. I am not the one who ordered it.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“I see it in your eyes, every time you look at me now: fear and hatred.”

“No—I am not afraid of you. And I don’t hate you.”

“You hate what you think I am. Your jailer. But there is more to me than that.”

“I don’t hate you. I just don’t want to talk to you. That’s all.”

“You don’t want to talk to me?”

“I can’t.”

“You are talking to me now.”

“You are forcing me to.”

“Tell me”—Altantsetseg released her hand—“why you can’t speak to me.”

“I can’t accept that you would kill me to keep me here, and I can’t speak to someone capable of taking on that kind of responsibility—the responsibility for destroying another person.”

Then Altantsetseg’s face changed from its imploring look to something cold. Contempt. Condescension. A sneer, missing from the even tones of the translator.