When he opened his eyes, the sun had visibly shifted in the sky. He must have slept for at least an hour. The air was still cool. He had rolled onto his side, while he was sleeping. Now he was looking at the raft. Small, stenciled letters on its rubber surface read: PROPERTY OF AUTOMATED MARINE PROTEIN INDUSTRIES INC: A DIANIMA GROUP SUBSIDIARY.

Eiko laughed. It was a small, exhausted sound. Another mistake: someone had forgotten to scrape that stencil away when the AI ships went from being robot-crewed to being slave ships.

Well, he had wanted to work for DIANIMA. And he had gotten what he wanted.

He thought of DIANIMA’s gleaming, mirrored tower of glass—fifty stories of global power looming over the Ho Chi Minh Autonomous Trade Zone … and that was just a regional office.

If he ever met anyone from DIANIMA, he would make them pay for what he had gone through. He would make them pay for Son, for Indra, for Bakti—for all of them. Even for Bjarte and the Monk—yes, even them. After all, they were just more victims of the same endless greed.

He rolled over on his side, away from the raft. Who was he kidding? He would never have a chance of getting back at any of them, hiding behind that shield of mirrored glass. None of them would ever come within his reach.

Such grand thoughts, for someone lying half-dead on a beach. He was nobody.

But he was alive. The feeling of it flooded him. Alive! And free of the Sea Wolf. That was enough, for now.

Somewhere on the forested island, one animal called to another.

He saw the figure, coming toward him. A monk in saffron robes, carrying a wicker basket down to the beach. Gently, the monk tilted the basket to the sand. Small, flippered ovals poured out and began to scramble to the waterline.

Turtles! Eiko found himself laughing in joy. Turtles! Of all things!

Some hatchlings turned the wrong way, starting up the beach away from the water. The monk intercepted them, kneeling in the sand in his saffron robes to guide the stragglers back toward the sea.

“Hello!” Eiko called to him in English. “Hello! I need help! I have been in an accident. Please.”

“First,” the monk answered, “come and help these little ones find their way.”

Eiko managed to get to his feet. One of the tiny discs was running up the sand toward the forest as fast as its clumsy paddle-feet would take it. Eiko picked it up and placed it in the water. Then Eiko picked another one up, and another. Laughing. He was laughing. Soon, all of the turtles were in the sea.

The monk smoothed the sand and chanted, almost inaudibly, a mantra under his breath.

“This is a refuge? A turtle refuge?”