Lisica Chapters

Thanks for joining us on our Scientist Soap Opera escapist journey to the mysterious island of Lisica! You can find previous episodes in the link above or column on the right. Please don’t forget to subscribe and leave a comment if you enjoy what you find!

Audio for this episode:

22 – Ba-a-a-a!

That night, the sky clears. The stars come out in all their glory. Esquibel stands on the beach, her mind empty, letting the high vault of the night sky, so rarely seen, calm her.

She is playing such a dangerous game.

The camp has been asleep for hours. She knows she is the only one awake, especially after Katrina’s blowout for Flavia’s birthday. What debauchery. If it hadn’t grown so cold, they would have all ended up naked. But instead they passed out in shivering piles.

After several hours, Esquibel had gently pulled herself free of them to use the trenches. Then instead of heading back to bed she has snuck out here to the verge of the strand to watch the stars. She inhales the sharp salt tang on the air and tilts her face further upward. The Milky Way is a bold stripe against the darkness, a purple glow of cosmic gas behind it. Very little of this magnificent sky is actually black. Oh, but the universe is so inhospitably crowded with stars. Good thing it’s also enormous.

She hears the hiss of a line. Here it is. This is actually happening. What she’s been working toward for years. She turns to the cliff on the northwest side of the beach, where it drops precipitously into the water. A dark figure is rappelling down toward the beach.

Esquibel fingers the USB drive in her pocket. Worth more than gold, that. It is her precious entry into their world. She watches the figure drop onto the rocks fringing the cliff, then pick their way lightly across, splashing through a few spots, to the beach. Then they stride purposely toward her.

The figure is clad entirely in black, face covered. They approach, the fabric of their suit nearly invisible in the dark. This person is a bit shorter than Esquibel, facing her. She can’t tell anything about them. It is probably best that way, at least at this stage.

The figure holds out a black-gloved hand. She drops the USB stick into it. The fingers of the hand close. The hand disappears inside the suit. It is done. There is no turning back now.

The figure glides away, still facing her. Their movement is so uncanny Esquibel fears it must be a ghost. A spirit has just visited her. That’s all. And she whispered secrets in its ear. And now the ghosts will trust her and welcome her into their realm. And that is all that is important.

Esquibel faces the camp. Now her mind is full, alive with moves and strategies. Everything is going exactly as it should. She is even enjoying herself, falling in love with each of these lovely people. None of their hard words or recriminations mark her. They have no idea what they’re doing here or how valuable their innocent labors are. They are just so precious. It is ultimately them and people like them for whom she fights. That is all she must remember: to fight in secret for the world’s salvation.

Ξ

“I wouldn’t call it resentment…” Jay holds up a hand.

“Jealousy.” Amy laughs at him when he nods.

“Yeah, I guess that is more like it.”

“Oh, at least you get a fresh start with the Lisicans. They won’t even let me back in the village.”

“Well if Esquibel gets her way we’ll never see the village again!” A plaintive whine edges Jay’s voice. He plucks at his trousers like a child. “Man, I always wanted to have this kind of first contact situation. There’s so much to learn! They’ve been making their own world here for what, a hundred years? More?”

“I’d guess more. But who knows how long? We should have brought a linguist. But not even the Air Force could anticipate needing one of those.”

“So what’s it like in there? Really. Nobody’s told me. I just get these little snatches of detail that people think are enough. I mean, there’s a path? Okay. Well, is it lined with domesticated plants or wild? How wide is it? Is the one going to Wetchie-ghuy’s spot different? Do they maintain the trail? Is there like gravel in the washouts? Come on. That’s the kind of stuff I got to know. But when I ask everybody just shrugs and goes, ‘You know. It just looked kind of normal.’ And I’m like aaaagh.”

Amy holds up a hand to protect herself from his onslaught, shaking her head in amusement. “I guess I should have taken pictures. But I didn’t want to freak anyone out. Don’t worry, Jay. Remember what Katrina said? Esquibel is being security-crazy now but in another week or so I bet we’re all on the best of terms and your ankle will be back to normal. How’s the hand?”

“Still stiff.”

“Any more headaches?”

“No. Huh. I hadn’t really realized that, actually. Wow. Thanks for checking in, boss. You’re right. I’ve just got like a lot less pain in general. The hand, the head, the ankle. I was miserable!”

“So just hold tight, kid. We’ll get you in those tunnels in no time. And then up into the heart of it.”

“What if…? Do you ever think…?” Jay shakes his head. “Man. A nearly empty island, with all these gorgeous natural features at this latitude… I could just like build a treehouse here and get a fishing line and… Seriously. I’m never gonna need to leave. I could like stay here forever. Prad.”

Jay calls out to Pradeep, who is crossing through the camp, pulling his collections backpack off his shoulder. “Yes, Jay?” Pradeep is preoccupied by his latest discoveries, a Eucestoda flatworm he had wrongly classified as a Lepidoptera larvae. But no, it has a fully-developed white body, like a parasitic worm he’d find in animal stool samples. These were in leaf litter that seemed to have an extra stench to them. Perhaps there was dung in it.

“Would you live here, Prad? Like forever?”

Pradeep blinks at Jay, his mind far away. He studies the crowns of both trees and cliffs. Then he shakes his head and involuntarily shivers. “Ugh. Why do you ask me these things? What is wrong with you? Are you trying to freak me out?”

“No, dude. Think about it. There’s a lot of empty land—”

“I won’t!” Pradeep chops the air with his hand. “I get to go home to a normal life in a normal house and sleep in a normal bed. Very soon. This is a nice vacation. And perhaps if it is truly safe someday I would like to return. But—but there is no amount of preparation I can do that would make me feel like I could stay here forever.”

“Wow. Well, hike your own hike, dude. Get me some fish hooks and a garden and I could stay here until I’m about ninety-seven.”

Pradeep tries to make light of the situation. He reaches for something clever to say but it’s hard when his anxiety is jangling like this. Finally he comes up with, “Sometimes I wonder if you are truly a modern human, Jay. Perhaps you have more paleolithic or even archaic lineages in you, expressed so strongly in your, well, your morphology and behavior.”

Pradeep and Amy watch Jay’s face for a reaction to this unkind comment. He takes a long moment to digest it, then Jay blushes and drops his eyes to the ground. “You think so? That’s like the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me. Dude, I’m like an atavistic throwback to our wild past! I thought I was the only one who realized it. Y’all are way too civilized for me.”

Pradeep and Amy share a complex look. Only Jay would take these words this way. Pradeep shakes his head, mildly annoyed, and gets back to his work.

“Hey, Prad.”

“What.” Pradeep doesn’t even look up. He is excavating his bag for the worm samples. The Dyson reader will be able to identify it instantly. Then he can see how it fits in with the larger—

“When the tunnels open back up, you and me, right? We head inland. Check out the whole island.”

But the panic such possibilities bring shoots through him and his hands spasm, scattering his carefully stacked sample bags. “Amy,” Pradeep seethes, “keep him away from me or I swear I’ll kill him.”

“What?” Jay asks as Amy hauls him down the beach. “What did I say? I’m just trying to tell him how awesome he is…!”

Finally Jay’s voice fades into the crashing of the waves and the cawing of the gulls. Pradeep takes a deep breath and looks up. His eyes catch Maahjabeen’s. She is doing minor repairs to her kayaks after the big platform collapsed on them during the storm. Just cosmetic stuff. Her brow is pinched, from working on a fiberglass hairline fracture with some epoxy, and her frown is deep. But she is still so beautiful.

Maahjabeen realizes she is grimacing when she sees Pradeep making the same face. They are both working too hard. She smiles at him, shy, and drops her gaze, her brow suddenly clear.

Pradeep stifles a smile and looks down. But he doesn’t see the worm or his collection bags under his hands any more. He only sees Maahjabeen’s body beneath his, an absolute wonder of beauty and sensuality. Lying with her is like bathing in a river of maple syrup. He didn’t know such a thing could be addicting, but now all he wants is another deep drink of her. Last night was a frustration. Nobody would leave them alone. They couldn’t do more than squeeze hands in the dark. Privacy is what they need. How will he find intimacy with Maahjabeen ever again?

Ξ

“I haven’t been down here in so long.” Flavia picks her way across the second wardroom of the lower deck of the sub.

Triquet is with her, checking all the piles and collections to make sure nothing has been disturbed. “It does feel like the Lisicans have been down here. I mean, honestly, I expect them to have been here. But nothing’s actually out of place or…”

“Why would you expect them?” Flavia pulls back in fear toward the hatch leading back to the surface. “Don’t say things like that. There is no reason they would come here. All they ever did is show us how little they want us here. Maybe they know we are gone in another five weeks so they are just trying to wait us out.”

“Okay. How would they know that?”

But Flavia is already over this conversation. “I don’t care. I will not think about them for one second longer.” She talks herself into staying and she drifts back to Triquet’s side. “But you know who I am thinking about? Maahjabeen. I am worried that she is being treated poorly again. This time her boss kicked her out of her cell and had sex in her cot. We must be nicer to her. Did you know she lost her mother not even a year ago? Car accident.”

“No. No, I did not.” Triquet blinks at Flavia. “I know next to nothing about her. She hasn’t really befriended a weirdo like me. And she isn’t interested in any of my wardrobe. Uh, let me know what I can do to help. So how was your birthday?”

“It was very special and you were all very nice. Thank you. Of all my birthdays I rank it fourth.”

“You rank your…? Of course you do. All about the numbers, yes? You absolute madwoman. All right. So tell me about your ranking system? What made this one fourth?”

“Well. I have a weighted system of analysis that assigns points to various attributes of a birthday. How healthy I am. How many of my favorite people are here. What kinds of gifts. What kinds of unique experience. Each experience is valued differently, with a library of metrics that cover all types of encounters possible for humans in the real world. Special moments each get between one to three points. And there are modifiers to account for age-related changes in myself and certain epi-cycles I’ve charted that show how my personality waxes and wanes over the years like the moon. This year’s birthday scored 1341.337 points, putting it just over two points behind the best birthday of my childhood, when I turned five and rode on a pony.”

“Fascinating. Well, nearly. So when you turned five was third? What was second?”

“1833.242 points. When I turned nineteen I lost my virginity on my birthday to the most gorgeous boy in the whole school.”

And first?”

“The very next year. When I was twenty I dumped him. And it was the best feeling ever. 2115.902 points. My record.”

Triquet laughs. “And what about your worst birthday?”

“Ah, it was only 27.644 points. Last year. I was alone. No family. No celebration. No presents. I felt like I would never have a good birthday again. But then… this! Last night was fantastic! If only my mother or brother or someone like that had ben here it would have put it over the top, especially with the bonus qualifiers Katrina earned for playing all my favorite Björk songs.”

Triquet is bemused. “I love this idea. It kind of works with mine. Maybe makes it better. See, what I’ve learned is that birthdays and holidays are extremely important and that the biggest deal possible should be made of them.”

“No, that is not what I am saying, Triquet. I do not make a big deal. Things happen or they do not, then I score them afterwards. I am not trying to reach my highest score each year. That is not how I do it.”

“No, but listen. This is how I do it. Birthdays aren’t about parties and presents. It’s about mental health. You work too hard. Right?”

“Of course. We all do.”

“Yes. And even if your institution has good personal day and vacation policies, it’s still hard to take all the time we need, right?”

“For most Italians I would say you have no idea what you are talking about. They aspire to do nothing every day. But in my case, yes. Our department is very fierce with their focus. Schedules are very tight. It is hard to not work too much.”

“Unless… you make your special days really special. Now, personally, I don’t care about turning thirty, or thirty-three, or whatever. But it is one of those common cultural things that many people do care about. So I’ve learned to care about them too.”

“But why? That is just like, what do they call it in America? Greeting card culture?”

“Exactly! Hallmark holidays galore! Yeah, I work in the States where it is a sin to want a day off. Like ever. So I’ve told all my co-workers that I really really care about my birthday. And they’re really happy for me! It’s a great story. I told them when I turned twenty-nine, back at Loyola, that my childhood dream had always been to go to Singapore when I was twenty-nine.”

“What? What kind of crazy kid idea is that?”

“No, see, I was lying. I don’t care about birthdays but I do care about time off. I don’t care about any holiday really, but you ask my coworkers and I’m the biggest Christmas elf and Easter bunny the world has ever seen. And that’s how I get two weeks off every time I have a birthday. I come back with pictures and stories and tell everyone how much I thought about my uncle who died from lymphoma. Every ten years, I take six weeks. Because I just HAD to make all my dreams come true when I turned thirty! I climbed Haleakala in Maui and wandered the South Pacific. It was glorious. When I turn forty I’m gonna, I don’t know…”

“Go to the moon!”

“Perfect! Then my return flight could get delayed and I could get even more time off!”

Flavia laughs. “Clever. You are right. I will start doing this too. Whenever I need a break. Now. Did you find what you were looking for down here? I should get back to my work. Plexity is becoming such a mess. Alonso has already broken the beta.”

“Oh. Okay. Just some light reading then.” Triquet lifts a large stack of folders and loose papers. “I’m sure it’s in here somewhere. It was just the briefest glance and I didn’t attach any significance to it at the time. But why would anyone even try to correspond with an Iranian embassy in 1954 unless you were like part of the CIA coup that had just deposed Mosaddegh? Especially coming at them as a representative of the U.S. Military. Very fishy. So yeah. I’ll just take it all upstairs and sift through.”

Flavia mimics Triquet’s encompassing gesture but she wraps her arms around herself instead of archaeological treasures. “Don’t you ever get spooked down here? Ghosts of submarine sailors?”

“I wish. Like, of all the people in the world, I’d be the happiest one if I could talk to a ghost.” Triquet turns to address the empty chamber. “You hear me, ghosts? I’m your huckleberry. Right here.” Triquet sighs and addresses Flavia again. “They were there. They saw the world I’m just trying to reconstruct. They could tell me so much. Ghosts…!” Triquet’s voice rings out, harsh against the metal bulkheads, “If you’re here, make a sign! We have cookies.”

Triquet waits a moment in silence and then a hollow boom echoes from below. Flavia cries out and bolts for the hatch back up to the surface. Triquet yelps and loses their grip on all the files. They cascade to the floor in a mess. “Hold on! Just hold—!” But Flavia is already gone. Triquet giggles, convincing themself the boom was the sub sinking further in the water-logged sand and making the noise that old houses do when they settle.

But still, the bowels of the sub aren’t the most welcome place to be right now, especially alone. This is breaking Esquibel’s protocol. Nobody alone at any time. But Triquet can’t just leave these files here alone on the floor.

As they gather them, another paper slips out, catching Triquet’s eye. It has Korean characters written on it in faded black ink. But they look simplified. “Flavia…?” Triquet wants to show off how much they know about the development of the modern Korean language. This doesn’t look like Hangul, but the modernized form that they briefly tried to introduce after the war, when Korea shook itself free from all Japanese influence. “That was an initiative by Syngman Rhee, right? And when did it officially start? Must have been around 1953. I’m sensing a theme…”

Triquet stands, the gathered papers pressed awkwardly against their chest. A bit of a head rush nearly makes them swoon. When their vision clears, a figure resolves from a blurry outline at the far hatch, the hatch that leads further down.

It is the Lisican elder who first welcomed them to the village. His fox is curled on his shoulder, staring at Triquet with dark beady eyes. It locates a patch of mud on its tail and licks itself clean with a deft pink tongue.

Triquet is silent. In this moment, they have nothing but stillness and emptiness to offer. They probably couldn’t move if they tried.

The man points at Triquet with the tip of his thumb. He mutters a brief incantation. Then, his voice rough and eyes swimming with tears, a long preamble ends with him confessing something profound to Triquet. It is difficult for the old man to get it all out and by the end he is spent. He leans on a staff, careful to touch no part of the sub.

“Undisturbed.” Triquet’s voice is a breathy sigh. “You all come and go but you leave it all undisturbed. You don’t touch anything in the sub when you pass through. And now we’ve taken this path away. I’m sorry. We didn’t know.” Intuitively, Triquet holds out a gift as an apology. It is a cheap chrome ballpoint pen with a retractable tip.

The fox leaps from the man’s shoulder and runs along one of Triquet’s work tables to sniff at the pen. It turns away, rejecting the offering. The animal leaves no tracks on the scattered white pages. But hadn’t they come through the muddy tunnels below? Triquet wonders if the fox and the man are ghosts after all. But no. That very real boom let them in. Ghosts wouldn’t need to break down barriers. They could pass through walls, right? Ghosts wouldn’t want a dollar store ballpoint pen…

But the man is intrigued. He crosses to where Triquet stands. The fox leaps back onto his shoulder as he reaches for the gift.

“Pen,” Triquet instructs him. “Ballpoint pen. See?” With a sweep of their hand, Triquet drags the pen’s tip across an empty page, leaving an unsteady blue line.

The man’s eyes narrow. He closely inspects the paper.

“Oh, you like that? Well check this out.” Triquet holds the page in place and signs their name with a flourish. Triquet Carter Soisson. They are quite proud of their florid signature.

The man grunts. He drags his finger over the ink and streaks it a bit off the line.

“That’s right. It’s like paint. It’s just like fingerpaints in a cave or what have you, but this blue paint is forced to come out through this tiny little hole. Here, you see it? Right there at the very tip? That’s a ball. It’s a ball point. The ball rolls and deposits the ink. The paint. Here. You try.”

The man holds the pen like a stick he just picked off the ground. Smelling it, he wrinkles his nose at the complex tang of the ink. He talks to the fox, trying to reason this all out. And he appears to be hearing replies from the fox as well, to judge by his moments of listening and responses. Triquet finds it all quite fascinating.

The man jabs the paper. Too hard. The paper tears. He grunts again. He pushes the pen back into Triquet’s hands and glares at them with a dark expression, making a long speech indicating the items of the sub around him.

“No, it’s okay. It’s fine. Just paper. You didn’t like… ruin any of the church treasures here. Plenty of paper.” Triquet picks up another sheet and blithely tears it, letting the halves drop to the floor. But this has the opposite effect from the one intended.

The man draws himself up and sternly lectures Triquet while the fox darts forward to snare the fallen halves. The man crouches and takes the torn sheet back, placing it on the table and smoothing it out. He tries to do the same with the sheet the pen tore.

Triquet watches in confused silence. “I mean, it’s okay. That wasn’t even the sub’s paper. I brought it. From my own notebook. It isn’t like… special or anything.” Triquet offers the pen again, clicking the chrome push button to withdraw the tip.

The man’s eyes bulge. With childlike glee he snatches the pen from Triquet’s grip and carefully presses the button. The tip emerges and then sets with a click. He looks at Triquet with profound wonder, sharing the magic trick.

“Oh, good. You like that? Yes. I guess that’s the second best part of the whole pen experience. The clicking. Okay. So are we friends now? Can we agree to like live in peace and not block any more passages and steal any more people away? Huh?”

The man turns back to the hatch and says something. Another head emerges from it, a younger person in a fur cloak. All Triquet can register is that their gender is indeterminate. They have a heavier triangular face and delicate pointed chin, but their eyes aren’t feminine. Long curly hair, narrow shoulders. A feather and bead necklace. All Triquet’s instincts say this is an indigenous non-binary person. Wow wow wow.

Then another Lisican emerges, a young woman with bare breasts. Well. Nothing indeterminate about those. But now Triquet is seeing the Lisicans in a whole new light, as individuals with the same identity issues and expressions as themself. Are these two a couple? Who knows? The girl might be in love with her very own Triquet. The man shows them the pen, lecturing them on its uses, clicking it again and again. They cry out with pleasure.

Triquet’s head whirls with the potential significance of a non-binary native. This could be huge. Enormous. Assuming they aren’t wildly misreading the situation here, the prospect of studying a figure like this in the wild and the resulting papers, why… It feels like destiny. It’s as if Triquet’s whole life has just been practice for this one moment. All the archaeology and collection and study, all in preparation to have the necessary skills in place when an individual like this appeared.

But their instincts tell them to hang back. It’s fairly clear that Triquet shouldn’t stay. There is a quiet intimacy to the three Lisicans and the fox, crowded around the pen. Maybe they’re a family? Dad and two kids. Equally legitimate. And one is two spirits, like some of the Plains nations of American natives. Are they a shaman? Some kind of spiritual figure? An entire flood of questions fills Triquet. “Don’t want to disturb your fun…” Now is not the time to press. They still have weeks here on the island. A light touch is needed. Triquet will circle back to this enthralling person in time. They haven’t responded to their words at all. “Guess I’ll head back to camp.” With a final reassortment of the papers in their grasp, they turn to the hatch Flavia used.

The three Lisicans follow.

Ξ

Miriam is at the stove, making a proper cup of tea. She isn’t much of a traditionalist by any stretch, but every once in a while the Irish grandmother who lives in her bones wants a nice cuppa, steeped properly. She brought her own box of Assam loose-leaf black tea and when she feels the need to really ground herself like she does today, she drops a pinch into a rolling boil as a treat.

The important thing is to not let it steep too long because then it becomes too bitter. But just as she reminds herself primly of this canonical tea fact, the door at the bottom of the stairs creaks open and someone else emerges from the sub. Flavia had come out just a few minutes before, muttering about worker rights and safety.

Miriam forgets all about the tea as Triquet, followed by three Lisicans, climb the stairs from below and enter the bunker.

Before anything else happens, the man’s silver fox leaps from his shoulder and dashes through the cells to the open door, where it disappears outside.

Jay’s voice cries out, “Whoa! Did you see that? Vulpes sighting!” Then he comes running to the doorway just as the Lisicans cross the bunker. He falls silent when he realizes he’s blocking the door. “Uh, what the fuck? I mean, hey. Howdy. What’s up?” He makes a series of awkward gestures like waves and greetings and salutes. “Is that fox yours? Or are you his? Heh.”

The three Lisicans stand before him, faces closed.

“Jay, get out of the doorway,” Amy says. The old man turns to Amy and sees her. His face darkens. He makes a pronouncement and steps away from her, closer to the door. She tries a half-hearted diplomatic greeting. “Bontiik? Aw, seriously? I’m still blacklisted? Even here? Dude, it was just one step on the path…”

Jay finally withdraws. The three Lisicans slip outside, crossing the camp toward the beach, moving with purpose.

Most of the researchers are here, apart from Maahjabeen and Pradeep and Mandy. They all fall silent and make no moves, just quietly following the progress of the old man and his two sidekicks out of the camp toward the lagoon.

Alonso is overwhelmed with emotion. Anxiety sweeps through him, that the sudden advent of the Lisicans in his camp could ruin everything. But he is also thrilled by the contact with them, the daylight exposure to these actual living people, whom he has only ever glimpsed by starlight. His heart hammers and a near panic claws at his diaphragm, tightening his chest. They skip up over the fallen redwood on the beach, the old man no less agile than the two others, and vanish. “What…?” Alonso searches quickly for his cane. He finds it and hurries forward, shuffling through the sand. “What are they doing? Where are they going?”

“The water…” Katrina is the first one up on top of the trunk. “They’re unrolling something. A big dark open-weave textile or… No, it’s a net. I think it’s a big net. They’re going fishing.”

By the time Alonso reaches the fallen trunk everyone else has passed him and stands looking out at the lagoon. He remembers so clearly how to climb a surface like this, how to flex and spring and scamper upward with a lithe body and catlike reflexes. But now he is made of sand and there is no power in his calves and feet. He can’t spring anywhere. He grips the rough bark of the fallen redwood and hauls himself up, sheets of connective tissue in his back and hips complaining. This is preposterous. Humiliating. A three year old could climb better. But a three year old doesn’t weigh a hundred kilos.

“Well that was quick,” Amy observes just as Alonso pulls himself up to the top of the log. This is the first time he has seen the ocean from this vantage and it commands his attention. Gunmetal gray and rippled, a faraway band of luminous turquoise water at the southeastern horizon indicates that the sun breaks through out there. So many colors. And textures. And he wants to define all of them! Now what are the Lisicans doing? Ah, yes. They are knee-deep in the lagoon, drawing the net to them. A half-dozen fish are already tangled in the cords, helplessly wriggling.

“Oh, man, I wish Maahjabeen could see this.” Jay knew the lagoon held such bounty. Here’s the proof. And so easily caught…

“She does see it.” Katrina points to the left, at the far side of the beach where Maahjabeen and Mandy stand watching.

Alonso does a quick headcount. Everyone is here but Pradeep and Flavia. He turns back to see the two of them in camp. Both look spooked, and Flavia holds Pradeep’s arm close. Alonso waves his cane at them. “It is fine!” he calls out, but his voice doesn’t carry that far. He tries again. “They are just fishing!”

But Flavia and Pradeep look no better assured.

Mandy and Maahjabeen haven’t moved. They stand still, watching the scene with fascination. The net is cast again and the Lisicans draw it in, picking kelp out of it and placing live fish in sacks they wear at their hips.

“I guess they got sick of not having fresh fish since we got here.” Amy wishes she could divine these people better. She wants nothing more than to be wise enough to be appreciated by a native person who lives in harmony with the land. It has always been her belief that they would be the only ones who would understand and appreciate her. The sacrifices she’s made. The obsessions she has that almost no other modern human seems to share. But the moment she met them, she set her foot on the wrong path and now she is forever rejected in their eyes. So hideously monstrously unfair. Nobody here wants their respect more!

Within a few short minutes the net is rolled back up and stowed in a fabric bag. “I counted thirty-three fish.” Jay shakes his head. “But I don’t think I got them all. They’re gonna feast tonight! Man, I wish I could join them.”

Alonso shakes his head, watching them return. “Not yet. Maybe someday.” The old man must be a decade older than Alonso but he still moves with the lightness of youth. The silver fox scampers at his side, smelling the fish wriggling in the sacks.

The Lisicans approach the researchers standing on the log. The old man studies them, searching their faces. He stops the others before the log and calls out, “Axh hidii! Yasiteh ribah.” Then he pulls a silver bream from the sack, its mouth gaping in the air.

“What is he saying?” Alonso’s voice is a rumble in contrast to the old man’s high sibilance. They all turn to him.

So the old man does too, realizing that Alonso is the elder here. He holds the fish out to Alonso, who is afraid that if he leans forward and takes it he will topple on the old fellow. So he instructs Jay with a gesture, who reaches out and takes the fish gratefully, bowing again and again, repeating, “Aw, yeah. Aw, YEAH!” as he scampers with it back to camp.

The old man is lecturing Alonso now, laying out particulars. He points at each corner of the lagoon, then several spots in the cliffs. Then he jabs the tip of his thumb toward his own face. He looks at Alonso with quiet challenge.

“I think,” Miriam mutters in his ear, “that he is claiming the beach as his. The fish was a statement.”

Alonso nods. “That it is his to give. Not ours. We are guests. Yes.” Alonso repeats it loudly for the man, nodding. “We are guests. And this is yours.” Alonso tries to encompass the lagoon and point it back in the old man’s direction but he isn’t sure his gestures and words are well-received. The old man frowns at Alonso with frustration.

“Alonso.” He points to himself. “Bontiik.” Then he gestures with a swipe of his fist in the general direction of the old man’s chin.

The elder seems to have understood the greeting. He now spreads his fingers and places them against his ribs on both sides, a way of indicating his own person. “Morska Vidra.”

“Ha!” Katrina laughs. “Tebya zovut morskaya vydra?” She turns to the others with a giggle. “He says his name is sea otter.”

“Why does he speak Russian?” Alonso holds a polite smile in place as his mind races with the implications.

“He doesn’t. I’ve tried. A ty govorish’ po russki? See?”

The old man, Morska Vidra, looks at them with an empty gaze. He repeats his name louder, as if they couldn’t hear him.

“Morska Vidra!” Katrina giggles again and spreads her hands across her own body. “Daisy Dolphin!”

Morska Vidra looks at her for a long moment, then the young woman at his shoulder suggests something and the old man replies. The young woman reaches into her own sack and pulls out a limp parrotfish. She hands it to Katrina.

“Oh, right on! Thank you! Spasiba! Oh, thank you so much!”

Morska Vidra evidently decides social hour is over. He presses his mouth into a line and slaps his hand against his bare thigh. The fox responds to this signal by leaping atop his shoulder. The three Lisicans climb the log, chatting low in their sing-song language, and head back to camp.

Flavia and Pradeep withdraw as the others follow Morska Vidra and his helpers to the bunker. Without another word to the island’s guests, the Lisicans descend the stairs into the sub.

Ξ

Esquibel sits, arms crossed, encircled by people lecturing her. She holds up a hand to get a word in edgewise but Amy is interrupted by Katrina who is undercut by Triquet. Esquibel drops her hand and crosses her arms again. All these daft statements of ideals. Like they’re writing a new bloody constitution for a utopian commune instead of hammering out rules of engagement with a dangerous foe. What fools they can be.

Their self-righteous speeches are finally cut short by Jay, of all people, whooping like a cowboy and slapping his knee. “Well, all right! Listen up, everyone!” He points at Maahjabeen, with whom he’s been conferring. “This wonderful amazing goddess of a scientist just said we could pull our own fish out of the lagoon!”

“No more than a few at a time. And not every day.” Maahjabeen glares at them, sure they will abuse her trust. “And we will have a survey first and a strict accounting of the populations. Do not impact any species too much. And no fishing where the Lisicans cast their net. Maybe only at the edges of the lagoon.”

“Yeah! Of course!” Jay is not to be contained. “Now who’s ready for some sushi tonight?”

“Ew, no.” Amy waves his offer away. “We need to flash freeze the fish to kill all the parasites before they’re safe to eat raw. And we don’t have a way to do that.”

“Fine. Fine. Baked Alaska it is,” Jay amends. “I don’t care, man. As long as I get some fresh fish in me. Yo, seriously. This is gonna be the most amazing meal of our lives. Just show me where.”

“What, right now?” Maahjabeen squints at the sky. It will be dark in an hour.

“Sunset’s great for fishing. Let me just rig a line and hook. Find some bait.”

“Did I not just tell you that we must do a survey first?”

“Well…” Jay paces a bit, undeterred. “I’ll definitely keep track of the species. We can like add it to the count after. If I get more than one of a species then it’s just catch and release, bro. I swear.”

“Do not call me bro.” Maahjabeen glares at Jay, wondering if she is making a mistake working with him at all. “And what if it is the only example of that species in the lagoon? And now you have eaten it before we understand its place in the ecosystem? No, we will need to do a full survey first.”

“Well of course I wouldn’t be keeping any atypical—” Jay lifts his hands and drops them, helpless. “Look. I am an actual wildlife biologist. An actual fisheries manager. Been fishing my whole life. Come on. You’re treating me like I have no idea what I’m doing. I’ll stick with stock species like Scaridae and Salvenlinus. I can—I can… ah, hell.” Jay finally registers Alonso slowly shaking his head at him and patting the air for patience. “Fine. I’ll start the survey instead. The lagoon’s barely been scratched, Plexity-wise.”

Without another word, Jay hurries to the tables, grabs a reader, and makes his way toward the beach.

Alonso sighs. He turns to Amy. “His feelings are hurt. Will we have to repair this in any way?”

“What, with Jay? Not at all. Believe me, he doesn’t feel wounded by this at all. He grew up in a very intense family environment, with lots of yelling and teasing and bullying. What he considers normal is… far from what the rest of us do.”

That makes a few of them chuckle. Esquibel has used the respite to look at this impasse from another angle and now she takes the opportunity Jay has given her. “Alright, wait now. Before we all start yelling again let us figure this out together. We need a single defensible place, somewhere the islanders will not be able to reach us if we don’t want. I thought it was the bunker, properly sealed. But I don’t have the ability to keep the cliff tunnels closed without heavy machinery and like, concrete and steel bars.”

“Says the prison warden,” Miriam scowls.

“Mirrie. Let her finish. Please.” Alonso realizes the sense in what Esquibel is saying. After the last five years he needs safety too.

“That is all I’m saying.” Esquibel holds her hands up in surrender. “They’ve already gotten through all our defenses and can obviously come and go at will. But what happens when they show up in the middle of the night? What if it’s—?”

“Don’t say his name.” Flavia stands. “What about the sea cave? We could make that our safe house. One way in. Backs to the sea.”

“Good idea!” Amy likes that they’re trying to think of creative ways out of this mess. All these big brains together. They’ll figure something out.

But Esquibel is shaking her head no. “We would need a secure passage to the sub and access to the surface. It is too easily taken away from us. What if they block that tunnel down below and then come at us from their other tunnels in the cliffs?”

Pradeep barks, a sound halfway between a laugh and a gasp. He twists the fabric of his slacks in his hands. “Okay. That’s enough story time for me. Perhaps I’ll check up on Jay. Give him a hand. Since I obviously won’t be getting any sleep tonight.” Pradeep escapes from the argument, heading toward the beach.

“Well, if the Lisicans can control all the entrances and exits and there are so many… then I don’t know what we can do to be safe and secure.” Alonso reaches this reluctant conclusion but it doesn’t make him as uneasy as it should. These villagers are much less dangerous than gopniks, despite what games their outcast shaman plays. “I guess we must learn to live with insecurity.”

Esquibel shakes her head stubbornly no. “My orders specifically state that I must have a properly-secured and defended—”

“Well, fine!” Triquet has had enough. “Then tell us, Lieutenant Commander, what we’re supposed to do? Make weapons out of bone and sleep in shifts? Build our own bunker out of like redwood bark and sand? Sleep on a big raft in the lagoon? You’re full of objections to the way we’re doing things but you’re not offering any reasonable alternatives. And the one strategy you did have lasted all of two days, after the rains stopped.”

They all wait on Esquibel now. She knows that if this was a proper mission then yes, they’d sleep on the beach with a secured perimeter and regular guards. They’d have thermal imaging and trip wires and motion sensors. And they’d all understand that regardless of what the politicians say in their various capitals the world is actually at war. It always has been and always will be and not enough people actually realize it. She sighs. “You people make me feel like a shepherd who is leading her flock over a cliff.”

Katrina giggles. “Ba-a-a-a!”