“No. They weren’t kind. They were weak. They should have acted right away. They should have resisted when the authorities came to take the dogs away. Violently, if that was what was needed. That would have been real kindness: To act. To save the animals from being taken in the first place. To protect them. But they did nothing when it counted, and then tried to make up for it later with actions that were not enough. It was useless, and cruel. It just created more suffering. Their inaction, when it really counted, was also a kind of action. It was a choice they made.”

“They were afraid. The state was powerful, and they were nobody at all.”

“Well, I am nobody at all. But I am not afraid. Not anymore.”

Chapter 43

Symbolic language retains meaning even in the absence of physical points of reference: the word “tree” does not need a real tree to be present to communicate its meaning. Symbols form systems that remain stable from one generation to another. Even for centuries.

These complex systems take on their own significance. In the end, it does not even matter if the Greeks burned Troy. What matters is that the story is communicable and reproducible. It has a meaning and a life of its own.

Symbols are forever. Or, at least, for as long as there is a society capable of interpreting them and unleashing their communicative power.

—Dr. Ha Nguyen, How Oceans Think

43

“THERE. Pan right, and let’s move through that connecting hatch. I see light in that space.”

“What are you doing?”

“Good morning, Ha. Come and join us.”

Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan and Evrim were seated in front of one of the larger terminals in the lobby of the hotel, driven back inside by a thin rain hanging over the island all night, and persisting into the morning. Altantsetseg stood over them, her operators’ gloves on. A finger flicked.

“Yes—through there,” Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan said. Her hair and clothes were wet. She had gone for her early morning run despite the weather—like clockwork.

On the screen, Ha saw what they had come to call the “barrel room,” the storage hold where many of the octopuses had built homes in the barrels and containers of the sunken Thai freighter, gating their entrances with gardens constructed from machine parts and other objects. The early morning sun angled obliquely into the space, leaving most of the hold in shadow difficult even for the low-light-adapted camera eye of the submersible to penetrate.

Nothing moved here. The cloaked submersible tracked toward an open hatch in a bulkhead, a frame of lighter water that indicated a better-lit area beyond.

Another cargo hold, smaller than the first, pierced by pinholes of light.