Then the running lamps found the shipwreck, listed on its side. The dark, rounded rectangle of the hatch. Visibility was decent. The submersible was more than five meters above the ship, but the hull’s outline stood out against the shallow seafloor.

On the beach that morning Ha had tried to help with the burials. But she was sick in the sand the moment they moved the first corpse and the flies swarmed her face. She’d vomited, then washed her mouth with seawater that tasted as saline and mineral-rich as blood.

She’d tried to return to the task, but finally had to leave Evrim to do it all. Evrim seemed unmoved by the men’s deaths, undisturbed by their torn bodies. Ha wished she could feel the same. She could not.

We need to call someone, she’d kept thinking. Someone has to be told.

But who? This wasn’t an emergency: Evrim was right. These killings were protocol, carried out to protect the island. These men had died because the ship they were on had attempted to force its way through a blockade. They were killed as a matter of routine by a security officer doing her job. They had died—Altantsetseg had killed them—to protect this place. And to protect the work being done here. They had died so Ha could continue her research. And so the octopuses could continue to live.

Back in her room that morning, Ha had collapsed into a dreamless, exhausted sleep from which she woke dry-mouthed and confused. When she’d finally managed to come down to the hotel lobby, she found Evrim and Altantsetseg sitting at opposite ends of the long table, like a rich estranged couple in an old film. Altantsetseg was listless over a cup of coffee. Evrim was studying a terminal.

It was like nothing had happened. Like they had not buried three corpses that morning. And how many more were floating out there, being torn by scavengers in the drift? Ha drank two glasses of water from the distiller before filling a cup with coffee and sitting down, as far away from either of them as she could.

A happy family. Just like I always dreamed of.