Chapter 66

chapter 66

CEPHARIUS

"With what?" I thought back angrily. It had already cost me my love, what else could it possibly want?

"Ceph," Elle said, tempering me.

"We cannot rise! "

"What the pump—" Balesur began, raising the spear by his side.

"It's the ship—it talks," I said, waving a glowing arm to calm him.

"We have been here too long . We are trapped ," the ship thought out to everyone in the vicinity. "Our rescue awaits but they cannot come this deeply . We need to rise! "

"Trapped like how?" Elle asked, and received a picture of the ship trying to escalate. "Oh—I think that's easy?" she said, searching out on the 'qa. "Remember how you broke down the rock, Ceph?"

"Ah, yes," I said, transmitting that thought out to the rest of my countrymen. "It needs to be freed from ancient sediment."

That was something useful to do, for everyone but me. My people swarmed the base of the ship and began tearing away the millennia of silt that had encased its bottom, while the entire thing kept glowing .

But I only had eyes for Elle.

"Let's just disconnect this," she said, reaching back to pop off her umbilical cable, still snuggled up against me. "And get it out of the way. It's amazing."

I had no idea what she was talking about, and she laughed.

"All of them. You. That I even got to have this experience."

Her bail-out oxygen was breathing gas only, so I knew she would become hypothermic quickly. "Not as amazing as you," I told her, stroking a hand against the outside of her helmet.

"But Snout and all the others are going to get back to space, right? We saved them?" she asked me, as I carried her away from all the activity.

"Absolutely," I promised.

"I like the 'qa, Cepharius," she went on. I got the feeling that she wanted to get all her words with me out now, while she still had breath to say them. "You were right. Being a kraken is superior."

"I know, my pearl." I bowed my head to hers, focusing on the 'qa just between the two of us. I stared at the beauty of her face, still trapped in the clamshell of her helmet. "My beautiful perfect pearl."

"Cepharius of the Sea," she whispered, trailing her hand against me, and then she gasped, her gaze flickering over my shoulder.

I turned to see what she saw—and found the ship finally rising, all aglow over a massive cloud of silt, illuminated by itself and the bodies of my brethren. "We did it, Elle," I thought at her. "You and me."

I felt her nod weakly inside her helmet. "You and me," she whispered back—and then she started gasping.

"Oh, my pearl," I said, falling to my knees, feeling her begin to suffocate.

It was like the bonding all over again, except this time it was real, and I was already in love with her.

I cried out on the 'qa, heard my cry echoed by my countrymen, and found myself surrounded by a hundred other mourners at once, carrying my pain, placing their arms and tentacles about me, holding me up, while I fell under the slight weight in my arms.

"My Elle, my Elle," I called out, feeling her leave me, the sensation of her on the 'qa fading. I wanted the last thing she heard to be my voice. "My pearl," I howled, sending her a wave of love and every good moment we had ever had together. When she accepted my courting—when she told me she loved me—when I got to touch her?—

And then she was taken away from me.

Not from the 'qa, but literally. Something was pulling her up, at the same time as I panicked, trying to pull her back down.

I hadn't been paying attention, lost in my grief, but the lights of the ship had gotten nearer and brighter, and one of their beams that only I could see and she could not was running over her now.

"She was brave . This is our trade for you."

And then the spaceship disappeared, leaving me and all of my brothers in the dark.