But another thing was also certain. Evrim, at least, would be free. He slid the terminal back into its case.

“I keep thinking of the dogs. On the island. Why did you tell me about them?”

“To give you something to consider. A problem to work out.”

“Well,” Rustem said aloud, “I worked it out.”

Chapter 45

In the end, the factors which will keep us from understanding a species as alien as the octopus are the same factors that keep us from truly understanding one another: imperfect predictions of what is “going on” in the head of another, misunderstandings compounded by assumptions, bias, and haste. And a pervasive distrust regarding the motives of the “other” as we struggle to understand and to make ourselves understood.

If we fail, there will be nothing unfamiliar about that failure. Though on a different scale, it will be essentially the same as the countless times our species has failed to communicate.

—Dr. Ha Nguyen, How Oceans Think

45

THIS TIME, WHEN EIKO WOKE UP to the Klaxon, he knew to scramble out of his hammock and get on the floor. He lay with his head pressed against the deck, his fingers laced over his skull.

Son, too, was out of his hammock, next to him. Others ran out of the barracks or hit the deck, taking defensive positions they knew would defend them against almost nothing.

There was a long beat of silence. Eiko heard the Sea Wolf’s engines humming in its depths and felt their vibration through his cheek.

Someone coughed. Someone else was mumbling something. A prayer?

Son squeezed Eiko’s arm. “This is it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I could smell it. For days now. The sea of home. We are arriving at Con Dao. Our plan has worked.”

“Yes,” Eiko said. “But now what?”

“Now,” Son said, “the Sea Wolf dies.”

There was a whirring sound—like the sound a bumblebee makes, but magnified a thousand times. Then the air compressed.

For a moment Eiko lost consciousness.

When he came to, the deck had tilted. Eiko was struggling to free himself from someone who lay on top of him. His ears rang: he could hear nothing else. He managed to push himself out from under the weight, get to his knees. Son. It was Son.

Now Son was pulling at his sleeve, saying something. Pointing to the door of the barracks. Eiko moved to it. Yes, he could move. He staggered in a low crouch on the tilted deck, the angle of which had steepened even in the last few moments.

But how long had he been unconscious? Son half dragged him through the hatch.