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Even the see as they are required by mortal men

- The Oakes Covenant

OAKES BEGAN to sputter and snore His body lay half- divan which stretched beneath Legata’s ht was dull red, the early dayside of Rega coata untangled herself frolesuit froh She stepped over to the plaz and looked out at the dayside light flickering off the tops of waves The sea ild turmoil and the horizon a thick line of milky white She found the uncontrolled violence of the sea repellent

Perhaps I was not lesuit on, zipped it

Oakes continued to snore and snort

I could have crushed him there in those cushions, thrown his body to the demons Who would suspect?

No one except Lewis

The thought had very nearly become reality back there on the divan Oakes had been satyric all through the dark hours Once, she had slipped her ar andherself to kill Not even Oakes

Waves whipped high onto the beach across the bay as she scanned the scene The water slashed high thisof the earth and she could hear the clatter of rock against rock The sound ly loud outside for it to be heard that well in here

It’s the job of waves and rocks to ht Why can’t I do my job that wel without question?

The answer cah countless ti It is change, not extermination

Her artist’s eye wanted to find order in the view out the plaz, but all was disorder Beautiful disorder, but frightening What a contrast with the peaceful bustle of a shipside agrarium

She could see the shuttle station off on the isolated point of land to her left, an arc of the bay between, and the low line of the protected passage leading from Redoubt to Station That had been Lewis’ idea: Keep the Station remote, easy to cut off should attackers co the roll and toss of kelp leaves in the bay, but the kelp was goin goin

A chill crawled up her spine and down her arms

A few diurns, Oakes had said

She closed her eyes and the picture that haunted her was her own ht at her heart

You are killing me! it said

No matter how hard she shook her head, the voice would not be still Against her better judgment, she crossed to the dispenser and keyed it for a drink Her hand was steady She returned to the plaz-guarded view, and sipped slohile watching the waves bite their way up the beach across the bay The waves had buried the previous high-tide mark at least a dozen meters back She wondered whether she should wake Oakes

A hylighter suddenly valved itself low across the beach below the shuttle station A sentry appeared at the beachside guardpost and snapped her heavy lasgun to her shoulder, then hesitated Legata held her breath, expecting the bright orange flash and concussion But the woman did not fire; she lowered her weapon and watched as the delicate hylighter drifted out of sight around the point

Legata let out her breath in a long sigh

What happens e have no others to kill?

Oakes’ desire for a paradise planet vanished when she confronted that seascape He could make it sound so plausible, so natural, bu

What about the Scream Room?

It was a syether in tribes and attack each other in the absence of Dashers or Runner or kelp?

Another hylighter drifted past farther out

It thinks

And the vanishing kelp Oakes was right that she had seen the reports from the disastrous undersea research project

It thinks

There was a sentience here which touched her where cell walls left off, soination which Oakes distrusted and would never enter

Alhty percent of this planet is wrapped in seas and we don’t even knohat’s under there

She found herself envying the researchers who had risked (and lost) their lives groping beneath these seas What had they found?

A pair of huge boulders down on the beach beneath her s crack that caused her to julanced at the beach across the bay As quickly as it crossed the high-tide an their ebb

Curious

Tons of boulders had been rolled up against the cliff barrier across the compound More of them obviously must be on the beach beneath her The boulders she could see were gigantic

That ata

The abruptness of Oakes’ voice and touch upon her shoulder startled her, and she crushed the glass in her hand She stared down at the hand, the cuts, her own blood, shards of glass glinting in her flesh

"Sit over here, my dear"