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Chapter 1

The quality of mercy is not strain’d,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;

It blesseth hiives and him that takes:

’Tis htiest …

—William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Vashon Literature Repository

Jephtha Twain suffered the most exquisite pain for three days, and that was the point The Warrior’s Union thugs were professionals; if he passed out he simply wasted their time In his three days at their hands he had never passed out They knew that he was no good to theony had been the penalty he paid for wasting their ti him at last they hooked him up, as he knew they would, to the obsidian cliff below the high reaches Subversives were hooked up to die in full view of the settle of the lesson was never clear

The three from the Warrior’s Union hooked him up there in the dark, as they’d taken hiht them cowards for this His left eyelid was less swollen than the right, and he ed to work it open A pale hint of dawn pried the starry sky away frohts of a commuter ferry ed at the dark dockside down below him in the settlees of workers at Project Voidship

Running lights froht sea’s blackness all the way from the settlement at Kalaloch out to the project’s launch tower coanic dikes and rock jetties fanned out both up- and downcoast, supporting the new aquaculture projects of Merman Mercantile, none of which had hired Jephtha after his fishing gear had been seized and his license revoked His partner had kept a couple of fish for hi them dockside The Director’s “new economy” prohibited this, and the Director’s henchmen made a lesson of the both of them

Under the opening sky of hten, then separate froling free of its wounded skin like awretch of his flesh from atop a boulder a couple of meters away This far south, Pandora’s days lasted nearly fourteen hours He wondered how many more breaths he had left in his sack of cracked ribs and pain

Marica, he thought, my Marica and our three little wots The Warrior’s Union said they’d hunt them down, too…

They would thinkto tell They would claierous, subversive They would start on the children toJephtha squeezed his good eye closed against his blood and shame

The Director’s “special squad” of the Warrior’s Union had pierced Jephtha’s chest and back with maki hooks, steel fishhooks with a cruel incurve the size of his thuht like armor across his chest The steel snaffles and cable leaders hung to his knees like a kilt The glitter of the hooks, as well as the smell of his blood, would attract the dasher that would kill him

Jephtha had caught thousands of anions on hundreds of longlines Most of the with hisfro the skin of his chest, and twelve through his back He thought this had a significance, too, but they had not

told him what it was But they had told him what he’d wanted to know for years

The Shadows are real! Jephtha played the thought over and over The Shadows are real!

Everyone had heard about these Shadows, but no one he knew had ever met one Now in the last few months had come the mysterious broadcasts on the holo or the telly or the radio made by “Shadowbox” Everybody said those were the work of the Shadows There were stories in every village about their fight to depose the Director, Raja Flattery, and hahtly News reported daily on Shadow activities: detoured supplies, food theft, sabotage Anything unpopular or harmful to the Director’s cause was laid at the Shadows’ hatch, including natural disasters “Shadowbox,” using pirated air space and great expertise, reported on the Director

Jephtha had whispered aroundto join up with the Shadows, but no word cah hope that he had set out to strike his own blow He understood, now, that this was how the Shadoorked

He’d wanted to destroy the seat of power itself—the main electrical station between the Director’s private co settlement adjacent to it, Kalaloch

The power station that Jephtha chose was a hydrogen retrieval plant that supplied hydrogen, oxygen and electricity to all of the subcontractors in the Director’s space progra the plant would set Flattery’s precious Project Voidship and his orbiting factory on its heels for a while The poor of the toere used to doing without, Jephtha reasoned Thousands didn’t even have electricity It would be this new Voidship project and Flattery ould be most crippled He should have known that the Director’s security had already thought of that

The interrogation had been very old-fashioned, as ht easily and forced to stand naked under a hood for three days while being tortured for nothing Now a host of steel snaffles clinked against hooks whenever any of his musclesThat just s crawled his left leg, fluttering their wings in some ritual dance, but neither bit

Dashers, he prayed If it’s anything, let it be dashers and quick That hat they’d hung him out there for—dasher bait The hooded dasher would strike hi up on thea pretty price in the village uards, and he’d heard theet for the hide He didn’t want to be nibbled to death, a dasher would accommodate him nicely His mouth was so dry frohed

In this hungry downslide of his life Jephtha had dared to hope for two things: to join up with the Shadows, and to glimpse Her Holiness, Crista Galli He had tried his best with the Shadows Here, chained to the rocks overlooking the Director’s coreat household through his darkening vision

One of thehtheaded, and he puffed his chest against the hooks and thought, If I were a Shadow, I’d get her out of there

Crista Galli was the holy innocent, awoo When Flattery’s people blew up a rogue kelp bed five years back, Crista Galli surfaced with the debris How she’d been raised by the kelp underwater and delivered back to humankind was one of those mysteries that Jephtha and his family accepted simply as “miracle”