Above World (3 page)

“A mumble-jumble mostly, but I can hear that little squid Jessia gossiping to someone about the boy she likes — oh!” Aluna looked at him and giggled.

“What? Who is she talking about? Tell me!” he begged. Jessia had smiled at him that very morning. She had nice teeth. He grabbed the other hearing artifact and scrambled to affix it to his ear with none of the delicacy he’d used with the first one.

“Oh, she’s moved off. I can’t hear her anymore. Too bad!” Aluna said. “Are freckles really that cute? I hadn’t noticed. But now that old fish Moke is going on and on about what he wants for dinner.”

“Shhh!” Hoku said, but she was right. All he could hear was Moke talking about fish. He couldn’t hear Jessia at all. Had Aluna made the whole thing up? This wouldn’t be the first time she’d teased him about one of his crushes. He put a hand to his cheek. He had a lot of freckles.

“Hoku, these Extra Ears are amazing. You’re a genius,” Aluna said, and he instantly forgave her.

“Let’s get to the council dome,” he said.
And see how much trouble we can find.

T
HE ELDERS’ VOICES
were faint, but when Hoku clung to the council dome and pressed his Extra Ear against the slick, opaque surface, he could make out the words. Aluna followed his example.

“. . . simply ridiculous,” Elder Maylea said. “It’s already dangerous enough sending our trade team to the Human settlement. Who knows what horrors have overtaken the rest of the Above World. The ancients came to the City of Shifting Tides for a reason, and that reason has not changed.”

“The surviving Humans have reverted to barbarism and worse,” said Elder Peleke. “Our scouts have seen Humans with fingers made of knives, with artificial eyes that burn like fires! And the Humans that do not reshape themselves with tech simply cower in their villages or wage senseless, bloody wars with their neighbors.” He grunted. “Theirs has always been a savage heritage.”

“Their heritage is the same as ours, Peleke,” Aluna’s father said. His voice, even through the sound shield, resonated stronger than the rest. “A few hundred years of separation does not erase the thousands of years that came before. We were all Humans once.”

“But our security is based on the fact that none of the Above Worlders know where we are,” Elder Maylea said. “Sarah Jennings went to great lengths to keep our location a secret. Not even the other Kampii tribes know where to find us, and we are still three dozen years away from the next Exchange. The more contact we have with others, the greater the risk.”

“Yes, there is safety in isolation,” Kapono said. “But are we afraid of contact for the right reasons? Are we jumping at sharks, or just at their shadows? We could use the outpost at Seahorse Alpha to communicate with other colonies, to learn about our past, to plan for our future! And yet, Seahorse Alpha has never even been opened in my lifetime. We have imprisoned it in a glowfield, as if knowledge itself were dangerous.” Kapono lowered his voice and spoke slowly. “As long as our gaze remains inward, we will never truly know what is happening in the Above World.”

The Elders fell silent. Aluna and her father were so alike, Hoku thought. More alike than either of them realized.

Elder Inoa’s voice broke the quiet. “Are you suggesting that we reject the ways of our ancestors, reject the very will of Sarah Jennings herself? That we rejoin the Above World while we are at our most vulnerable?”

Rejoin the Above World!

Hoku couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The Above World had always seemed like a dream to him, a world filled with endless artifacts and machines and people who knew how to use them. Sometimes he wished he’d been born in ancient times, before the Kampii gave up that wondrous, mechanical life.

But he’d heard other stories, too. Tales of Humans with poisonous weapons for arms and with hearts of cold metal, who roamed the Above World killing whomever they wanted. With the Deepfell hunting the oceans and those Humans on dry land, the only safe place in all the wide world was right where they were: hidden in the City of Shifting Tides.

There was a silence in the council dome. Hoku pressed his ear harder against the dome’s surface, afraid that he’d miss Kapono’s answer. His heart pounded and the breathing shell at his neck pulsed rapidly to keep up. Half a meter away, Aluna’s shell pulsed just as fast, her eyes wide.

The silence seemed to last forever. Then Aluna’s father said, “No, no. Of course not. You all know how I feel about the Above World. It’s too dangerous, too unpredictable. My allegiance has always been, and will always be, to the Coral Kampii and our founding principles. I believe I have already proven my loyalty.”

“My mother,” Aluna whispered to Hoku. “He’s talking about my mother. He could have gone to the Above World when she got sick. I bet the Humans had medicines that could have saved her. But he didn’t. He let her die instead. To him, that’s loyalty.”

Hoku looked at her, saw her lips pressed together and her brown eyes fierce. He didn’t know what to say. He never did. Aluna’s loss made him feel guilty that he still had his own mother. Guilty, and grateful.

Elder Inoa said, “Yes, of course you have proven your loyalty. No one thinks otherwise. But we must stay hidden as long as possible, if not forever. It is who we are. We must trust the Elders before us and keep the Seahorse Alpha outpost secure. Exposing our people to the information inside will only cause more strife. Kampii must not fight Kampii. Not ever again.”

Aluna whispered, “The outpost! We have to —”

“Even so,” Elder Kapono said, and Aluna clamped her mouth shut so they could hear. “Heed my words: this is not the last death our people will suffer.”

“It is not,” Elder Peleke agreed. “But as you know better than anyone, in dark times, some Kampii must die to preserve the way of life for the rest.”

The Elders all spoke their agreement at once.

“We will encourage more pregnancies,” Elder Inoa said. She herself had borne eight children, and she never let anyone forget it. Fertility was a great badge of honor for the women in the City of Shifting Tides.

“Yes, more pregnancies,” Elder Peleke said. “We can offer incentives. Our reasons need not be apparent.”

“Then the matter is settled,” said Elder Maylea. “We will weather this storm as we always have. As Sarah Jennings would have wanted us to. By the moon!”

The other Elders repeated, “By the moon!”

“The next order of business is the taxation of whitefish harvests from the sand-side farmers —”

“Enough,” Aluna said. She let go of the dome and drifted from its surface. She ripped off her Extra Ear and held it out. “Here, take it. I don’t want it anymore.”

Hoku stared at the artifact pinched between her fingers.

This is not the last death. Some must die . . .

“Take it,” she repeated.

He did. In the dome below, he could hear the Elders arguing about harvest rights. He quickly removed his own Extra Ear and shoved them both into one of his pockets.

“What should we do?” he asked her. Aluna always knew what to do. She always had a plan. No matter what, he could count on her to tell him where to go.

This time, she laughed. It wasn’t a happy sound.

“What should we do? Pass the tides, like good little fish,” she said. “And hope that the next Kampii to die isn’t someone we love.”

A
LUNA SAID GOOD NIGHT
to Hoku and swam for her nest, her thoughts dark. She kept seeing the same images, over and over: Makina’s dead white eyes, the broken necklace in her palm, Hoku’s worried face pressed against the council dome. How could she live a normal life knowing it was only a matter of time before someone else died?

Then again, maybe she
wouldn’t
be living a normal life. Maybe her own necklace would be the next to fail.

She changed direction and headed for the training dome. A few weapon drills would calm her tumultuous mind. Most days, they were the only thing that could. If only she were allowed to be a hunter like her brothers! She loved fighting — the emotional rush, the way her mind and body worked together, the rare feeling of power and control, even if it was just over herself. And she was good at it, too. But girls were forbidden to do anything the Elders deemed dangerous while the Coral Kampii population was below its “minimum safe level.” And now, with the Elders wanting more babies, she’d be lucky to do anything as deadly as shucking a mussel or skinning a fish.

Her brother Anadar was in the dome when she got there, going through a complicated spear set. Aluna treaded by the entrance, not wanting to distract him. Besides, she loved watching the swish of his long spear as it pierced the water. He wasn’t as strong or naturally talented as their older brothers, Pilipo and Ehu, but he worked harder and had more patience. And so far, he’d kept her training a secret.

When Anadar finished his series of moves, he saluted the old stone warriors’ shrine at the north curve of the dome and turned to her.

“I thought I might see you tonight, after everything,” he said, and that was all the mention he made of Makina. But there was a look in his eyes, a sadness, and Aluna wondered if he didn’t need this session as much as she did. Not that they could actually talk about it. Unless Daphine was part of the conversation, Aluna and her brothers stuck to the same three topics: eating, hunting, and which one of them would win in a fight.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” he said. “Grab your spear.”

Aluna grinned and darted for the weapons stuck to the nearby wall with jellyfish goo. A few of the spears had only one point, but most had sharpened metal tips on both ends. She chose the shortest, sturdiest spear, to match her smaller stature. One day, she’d wield the longer sinuous weapons and make them dance in the water, just as her brothers did.

“This is your last lesson before you get your tail, so let’s make it a good one,” Anadar said in his best grown-up teacher voice. “I want to see every spear set you’ve learned so far.”

She groaned. “All of them? But I want to learn something new!”

“Then you better find enlightenment in a set you already know.”

Aluna sighed and swam to the center of the dome, about three meters above the sandy floor. Before she started training, she’d thought the weapon sets were beautiful, but stupid. The hunter performed a series of moves with the weapon, but without an opponent. Some of the spear twirls and positions looked far too elaborate to ever be useful in a real fight. But after she learned her first set — Spear in Six Directions — she began to understand. The sets conditioned the body to understand the weapon, to feel its ebb and flow. And they were much harder than they looked. She never concentrated more than when she was learning a new series of moves.

She faced north, saluted the shrine and her brother, then began.

Her body did most of the work. It knew the moves, directed the spear to poke or slash, twist or spin. Her mind focused on
intent.
It was not enough to go through the motions. She had to understand what each of them meant. She had to give them heart, imbue them with her spirit. She wasn’t just poking the point toward the sand; she was driving it into the gills of an imaginary Great White.

After Six Directions, she performed two dolphin-style sets called Chase the Seal and Playing in the Surf that involved tumbles and quick changes of direction. By the end of the second one, her breathing necklace was pulsing so fast that she thought she might pass out.

“Go on,” Anadar said. “There is no time to catch your breath in the middle of a fight. Push.”

Push through the exhaustion.
He’d been telling her that since the first day she picked up a knife.
The only limits you have are the ones you set yourself.

Aluna saluted and began Devil in the Depths, a shark-style set with fast, sharp movements. Her arms wobbled, and the first few strikes were sloppy. She
pushed,
and found a second wave of strength.

When she had finished the rest of her sets, she stopped treading and drifted to the ocean floor. Her breath came in great gasps, and she held her side to ease the cramp in her ribs. Her spear hung lifeless from her hand. If Great White attacked right now, she’d almost welcome its jaws.