Horizon (13 page)

Aluna swished over and hugged him, careful not to dislodge Zorro from his shoulder. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

Aluna watched Hoku swim off, then found a smiler — a shark with a curved mouth that made it look like it was grinning. She matched the shark’s speed, then calmly grabbed the animal’s dorsal fin with one hand and its pectoral fin with the other. The shark ignored its new parasite and kept on swimming.

The shark dodged through kelp and around growing columns of coral. Aluna could tell they were approaching the vast reef that hid the City of Shifting Tides, only they weren’t near the city itself. She studied every hermit crab and shiny-blue they passed, letting the ocean soak back into her bones. The number of sharks swimming with them grew, but Aluna still couldn’t see what they were hunting.

Eventually the smiler changed direction and headed up, toward the sun, and Aluna’s ears filled with noise.

“No attacks on the south,” a male voice said. “Is the western flank secured? Good. Let me know if that changes.”

Aluna released her shark and swam up until her head broke the surface of the water.

Dozens of adult Kampii lay scattered across a kilometer of shallow reef, looking more like a herd of sunning seals than people. A few younglings stood and squatted among them, not yet old enough to have their tails. All around them, the water churned with sharks.

The Kampii on lookout spotted Aluna immediately. “You! Unless you’re in the hunting party, get back to the reef!”

“Who’s in charge here?” Aluna asked. “Is it Elder Kapono?” Her stomach twisted as she said her father’s name.

The lookout snorted. He was young, maybe just twenty, with sun-yellow hair and thin scars covering his arms and tail. “An Elder? Up here? You’ve spent too long in the sun.”

Aluna couldn’t stop staring at the Kampii. Something about him looked strange.
Wrong.
What was it? “His necklace,” she whispered. “He’s not wearing a breathing shell!”

Of course, since Aluna was close enough to hear the lookout, he was close enough to hear her, too.

“You’ve got a breathing shell.” The lookout’s face no longer held any concern for her safety. “You don’t belong here. Go back down to the city.”

“No one here has a breathing shell?” Aluna asked.

“You think we’re up here because it’s fun?” The guard spat into the water. “We don’t have any Elders up here. Not much shelter or food, either. You want a nice sticky bed or a safe place to sleep, then go home.”

“If there aren’t any Elders, then who’s in charge?” Aluna asked.

The lookout pointed back along the reef. “You’ll find her over there,” he said. “She used to be the Voice of the Coral Kampii, but now she’s stuck with us.”

Daphine.

Aluna closed her eyes and breathed deep, too overwhelmed to even thank the guard. She made herself swim slowly through the shallow water covering the coral reef, careful not to agitate the sharks.

Daphine sat at the center of a group of Kampii, just like always, but instead of politely accepting compliments from her suitors, she was barking orders. Leadership seemed to run in the family.

When Daphine saw Aluna, she squealed. Aluna couldn’t keep a grin from spreading across her face. She sped across the reef’s surface and tackled her sister in a hug.

“Watch the scope,” Daphine said, laughing. “You’ll poke your own eye out with it, if you’re not careful.”

Aluna refused to let Daphine go. She buried her face in her sister’s stupidly long hair and squeezed. The ocean made almost everything smell the same, but there was something about Daphine’s scent that would always remind Aluna of being a youngling and feeling safe.

“I missed you, too,” Daphine said. “You were gone so long in the desert, and then when the attack on HydroTek came . . . We were all so worried.”

Reluctantly, Aluna released her hold on her sister and pulled back. Daphine’s face had once been considered perfect, but Fathom changed all that. He’d replaced her left eye with a scope of black metal that protruded a dozen centimeters from her eye socket. Now Aluna had to work to see anything else: Daphine’s sun-cracked lips, the new scar on her cheek, the frown lines framing her sister’s mouth.

“You’re wearing a breathing shell,” Aluna said. “I thought if you were up here, it meant your necklace had failed.”

“Mine still works, but I wasn’t about to abandon all these people, no matter what the Elders ordered me to do.” She traced the tiny seahorse design on the shell with her fingertip. “I still use it when I go down to talk to the Elders, although I don’t know why I bother. They’ve got working necklaces for themselves and their families, and that’s all that seems to matter to them. When Anadar’s breathing shell failed, Father gave him a new one — despite the fact that so many other people were in need. He wouldn’t even tell Anadar where it came from.”

“So Anadar is still down in the City of Shifting Tides?” Aluna asked. She touched her own necklace, wondering how many minutes or days or weeks she had left. Or maybe it was already depleted and she’d never taste deep ocean again.

Daphine smiled. “No. Anadar gave the new necklace to a woman so she could stay with her family. He lives up here now, and leads the hunting parties.”

“Still the same Anadar, then,” Aluna said. She should have known. He was the one who’d taught her how to fight even though it was forbidden. Only her brother could teach her a lesson in selflessness when he wasn’t even here.

“Yes, he’s the same,” Daphine said, her thoughts obviously swimming in the same direction as Aluna’s. “I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

“What
are
you doing?” Aluna asked, her gaze sweeping across the Kampii clustered on the reef. “You can’t protect yourselves up here, and you certainly can’t build any kind of shelter. This isn’t a long-term solution.”

Daphine’s scope whirred and spun as she stared at her people. “We can’t go to the shore, or we’ll be useless. Unless we do it for the younglings who still have legs. At least they have a chance for a life in the Above World.”

“I’m going down to talk to the Elders,” Aluna said. “Maybe after we’ve told them about the desert and Karl Strand’s growing army, they’ll agree to take action. They should at least be bringing you supplies and helping you stay safe.”

Daphine put a hand on Aluna’s shoulder. “If you can make the Elders see reason, then I’ll do all your chores for three tides.”

Aluna laughed. They used to make those sorts of bargains all the time, back before the world fell apart. “And if I can’t, then I’ll let you braid my hair whenever you want.”

“Deal!” Daphine said. “But you’re getting pearls and shells woven in, too.”

“I’ll go to the city now, but I’ll be back,” Aluna said. “If the Elders won’t help you, then I will. For what it’s worth.”

Daphine hugged her. “It’s worth everything.”

H
OKU SWAM
into the City of Shifting Tides with his fingers pressed against his breathing shell, convinced it would fail. Is this how the Kampii had been living — terrified that they might start to drown at any moment?

To stave off his panic, he focused on his surroundings. Anemones grew everywhere, covering the outskirts of the city in a patchwork blanket of brilliant reds, yellows, and purples. Some had been grown in patterns, creating living mosaics depicting Kampii swimming or fighting or singing. Fish snuggled among them, adding movement and surprising sparkle.

The city was familiar in so many ways, but Hoku felt as if he were seeing it with new eyes. Now he noticed the simple tools the Kampii used for hunting and gathering and the way all their food was eaten raw and without flavoring. Compared to the other LegendaryTek splinters, the Kampii barely used any tech at all.

He should have gone straight to Elder Peleke to see if the old tech master was working on a way to fix the breathing necklaces, but he let his heart lead him to the sand-side of the coral reef instead. To his family nest. His father and mother would be home from their work duties by now, and Grandma Nani would be there, too, since she was far too old to dig mussels or mend nets. He couldn’t bear the thought of waiting one more minute to see them.

He swam through the opening to his family’s modest nest, and into the kitchen. Everything was the same as he remembered, except smaller, as if the whole place had been magically shrunk. Had they really all crowded into this tiny room for their meals? Had they actually invited other families over to join them?

“Mom? Dad? Grandma? I’m home! I’m back from the Above World!”

No answer, not even inside his ear. He could hear some of their neighbors squabbling over dinner, but nothing more.

His parents’ room was empty. Well, empty but messy. His father never bothered to tuck his things back into the cubbyholes in the wall. Zorro squeaked and shook his head. Hoku pulled himself out of his parents’ room and swam across the hall.

“Grandma Nani?”

She wasn’t there. Her bed and her resting stick were gone, replaced by a sticky bed far too small for his grandmother’s old body. Zorro swam off Hoku’s shoulder and paddled through the room with his four small paws, smelling everything with his twitchy raccoon nose.

Hoku examined the items in one of the cubbyholes. Instead of the supply of special kelp that Grandma Nani ate to help her sleep, he found toys. Bright shells on a string for counting, a little Kampii doll made from sand and cloth, and a tiny shark carved from white coral.

Baby toys.

“Hoku? Is that you?”

He turned and found his father’s arms around him, felt his dad’s wiry beard crushed against his cheek. His mother waited for them to separate before taking her turn. Hoku stared at her, amazed that she could look both so familiar and so strange at the same time. Her hair was pulled back from her face and she wore a billowy white shirt that almost hid her wide, round belly.

She laughed. “You’ve come back just in time, little one. You’re going to be a brother!”

“A brother?” he said, extending his hand. She pulled it to her stomach so he could feel the tiny creature rolling around inside.

“This will be the baby’s room,” his mother said. “She’s coming any day now.”

“A sister!” he said, amazed. Until the rest of their words sunk in. “But where’s Grandma Nani? Is she sleeping in my room?” He’d be sad if they’d given his room away, but he didn’t blame them. Their nest was small and he’d been lucky to have his own room for as long as he did.

His dad pulled Hoku into a hug again. “Your grandma left us, Hoku,” he said gently. “She went quietly in her sleep. There was no pain.”

Hoku felt tears form in his eyes and twisted his face to stop them. He pushed himself away from his father. “She would have hated going quietly,” he said. “She would have wanted to die on an adventure, or in an explosion, or cursing and yelling in order to irritate the neighbors.”

“She was proud of you,” his father said, and Hoku could see the pride in his father’s eyes, too.

“She never stopped talking about how you went to the Above World,” his mother said. “We were angry and hurt when you left. Your father wanted to go after you. But your grandma yelled at us. She told us to have more faith in the boy we’d raised.”

Hoku buried his face in his father’s shoulder.

“She was right about everything,” his father said. “But especially about how brave you’ve become.”

“The baby!” Hoku said suddenly. “The breathing necklaces are failing — do you know that? Have the Elders told you? The baby won’t be able to live underwater. And what about you? Your shells could stop working at any time!” He pictured his mother a full nine months pregnant, struggling as she swam for the surface. “You’re not safe here anymore.”

“We know, Hoku,” his father said, putting a callused hand on Hoku’s arm. “Kaila’s necklace went last week. She had a few hours to make it to the surface and find that colony that the Voice started.” Hoku remembered Kaila, a young Kampii who lived alone nearby and refused to have children, but who would swim over and watch Hoku when his parents were working extra shifts. He hoped she had made it to the surface in time.

“The Voice. You mean Daphine, Aluna’s sister? She’s somewhere Above World?” Aluna would be so relieved when he told her.

His mother kept a hand on her belly, as if she were protecting the baby inside. “Daphine made sure to spread the word so we’d all know where to go if something happened. She told us to have emergency sacks ready. We’ll go the instant there’s trouble.”

“Good,” Hoku said. “But what about the baby? They can’t be giving out new necklaces when so many are failing.”

His parents shared a dark look with each other. “We’ve kept your grandma Nani’s passing a secret from the Elders,” his father said quietly. “Her breathing shell was still working, so we didn’t turn it in to the city. The sand-siders — all of us — have made a pact. More of our necklaces break than the moon-siders’, but the Elders don’t give us as many shells. We’ve started to take care of our own.”

Hoku winced. Hoarding breathing devices had been a crime even before they’d started breaking. If the Elders found out, his parents would be in terrible trouble.