David Dun: The Black Silent

Frick's hand spidered across the floorboards and grasped the knife. To Sam's surprise, he drew the blade to the base of his own throat.

Sam had just enough energy to stop him. He knew what Frick feared and it wasn't death.

"They'll put you in a cage," Sam said as he pulled the knife away. Frick passed out, probably imagining the headlines announcing that a discredited female scientist had taken him down.

Sam felt fingers pressing down on the wound at his shoulder. It was Haley, blood seeping from the wound in her neck. Ben lay beside them on the deck, two bullet holes in him. He struggled to breathe, and it didn't look promising.

Haley sobbed as the last of Glaucus's tentacles slipped noiselessly over the side.

"Don't worry," Ben said. "I've lived a very good life."

"You're not going to die," she sobbed.

"Haley," Ben whispered

She put Sam's fingers in the hole under his clavicle and moved to Ben, taking his head in her lap.

"I loved you more than my dream. That's why I kept you out of it," he said. "The world isn't ready, but maybe it's like a new mother… never ready."

"Stop talking," she said.

"You understand I love you more?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Hide it from all the Fricks and Sankers of the world…"

"No. No. No," she said, trying to quiet him, uninterested in the Arcs for the moment.

Ben rested a moment, catching his breath.

"Save your energy," she whispered, trying desperately to somehow hold the blood in his body. Sam understood her desperation.

"The flask," he gasped.

"It's gone," she said. "Blown away over the side." She cradled his head. "We don't get to choose." She kissed his forehead and smoothed his hair.

Ben managed the slightest smile. Then he sighed and looked up at the sky, his face growing peaceful, content.

"I want you to have babies," Ben told Haley, his mind clearly wandering. "And if some fishermen catch a giant octopus, tell them it's not Glaucus and let them make sushi."

"I said quiet, old man," Haley chided, tears in her eyes. Ben managed another smile. "I have loved you as much as I could love anyone," he said. "And if I could, I would see your children."

Ben closed his eyes and Sam's heart shrank within him. The weariness of death was overtaking him as Haley's racking sobs filled his ears. He'd lost another fellow traveler.

Sam sat on the veranda above the ferry, with the turquoise of the water against the blue of the sky and the breeze washing over his mind like the waves on the rocks. The orcas made their rounds, looking for foolish seals, the salmon having mostly passed to the rivers. Food was already a bit sparse for the bald eagles and they were flying about hunting and generally looking magnificent.

After all the hysteria about youth retention, Sam occasionally found himself looking in the mirror, wondering about the coming of the age spots and wrinkles. He was too young to think about such things, about which kind of bypass surgery worked best, what diet might keep his prostate reasonably small and his hemorrhoids under control. Despite the aches and pains of aging and not-so-old injuries, he felt better than ever. Felt comfortable with getting older (unless Haley could make him a deal). Felt happy to take his place in the order of things, content to breathe the sea air and listen to the blow of the whales. Life brimmed inside him, and, for the first time since his wife, Anna, had died, his joy was unmitigated. He hadn't yet decided why the fullness of his spirit had returned, but he thought the reason might have been buried in a conversation with Haley about measuring life by whom you loved and who loved you-and not by what you thought you did or did not do. Anna was a terrible loss, but now he knew that they had agreed in a moment that she should go on ahead.

Ben had been right. The older Sam got, the more surprised he was by the shortness of his days on earth. It was important to get to wherever you were going before you went out of this life. Anna had done that.

Haley had her own lab at the university compound and was desperately trying to figure how she might extract microbes and mud from the deep parts of the sea and keep it under pressure. Sam had been there when they gave her an award and had reveled in the gleam in her eye when her shame became just a memory.

Finding the magic Arc was a grail quest she undertook willingly-largely, Sam thought, because she thought humankind was meant to have it, to use it, despite men like Garth Frick. Frick himself awaited a death sentence or, if unlucky, life in prison.

Sanker and Rossitter were fighting charges of conspiracy to commit murder, and Sanker had the largest criminal team ever assembled. Sam figured having to deal with all the lawyers was in itself some punishment. Of course, Sanker and Rossitter had turned on each other. Everybody figured they'd both end up with life terms, which in Sanker's case wouldn't be long.

Frick's rocket had melted the Arc container, effectively disintegrating it. Whatever was left of the genetically engineered Arcs had been blown over the side by the explosion.

The obstacles to rediscovery, given the luck of the first find, were turning out to be enormous. Somewhere down in the depths of the sea, under the mud-maybe a thousand feet down into the earth or even deeper, or perhaps under a brackish freshwater pond- lived a particular Arc with a particular gene with a certain codon. No one knew exactly where and no one knew how many of this Arc subspecies existed.

Perhaps people could handle the prize, given a second chance and armed with the knowledge of the mistakes of the past. It was a decidedly optimistic view. Haley slipped up behind Sam, but not unnoticed. She came around him and sat across the table, a little short of breath. She must have been running to keep from being late. One of the many things Sam had learned about her was that Haley considered lateness a subtle form of arrogance.

She looked at his sling and then at his eyes, and she seemed to enjoy the way they held hers.

"You're not going. You aren't better yet-you've had holes blown through you. Don't tell me you called me here to say good-bye."

"The muscle's knitting well enough. Besides, I'm just supervising."

"You're going into a war zone."

"Not technically. We're just gonna get some food and some medicine to people who need it."

"We're not discussing this. I'll fight you."

It was hard not to chuckle, but she wasn't having any of it. Haley was angry, determined, and utterly sincere.

"I more than appreciate your concern."

Her face softened and she stood, came back around the table, and sat in a chair close beside him. It was rather pleasant.

"I'll sit on you until your flight leaves," she said matter-of-factly.

"I'll be back."

"How would I know that? You've been all over the world. The rest of your family is from California."

"Ernie is going with me. I don't have to stay for the whole thing."

"Ernie, of the FBI?"

It had surprised Sam too. "Yeah. He's taking a little leave from the FBI to celebrate his hero status and he wants something worthwhile to do. I won't be doing it all myself, Haley. As soon as Ernie gets the hang of this private contractor work, I'll leave. They just need someone to follow."

"You really have to go, all broken up like this?"

"I gotta go."

"You're a wonderful idiot." She kissed him on the forehead.

He paused, working up his courage.

"I let you down all those years ago. I let you down bad." The words came from his soul.

In her eyes he saw the flood of pain. Then tears poured. It was almost more than he could handle. She said nothing, waiting.

"The day on the dock when I was touching you, we both know I was trying to say that I loved you. Of course, we both knew I did. I whispered it so quietly you weren't sure what I said." He waited, wishing there was an easy way to do this. "If you want, you can say you don't know what I'm talking about." Judging from the increased flow of tears- she knew what he was talking about. "I promised you I would call you. I said I'd call you the next day. We both figured that on the phone I might be able to say more about how I was feeling. But I didn't call. Not that day, not the next. You probably went the first week, making excuses for me, telling yourself there would be a letter or something. I know this sounds ridiculous. It does to me. We talked so little about our feelings."