One edged in closer. It opened its ponderous jaws. She couldn’t believe its size, the beast long as a small bus. She could see its pink tongue waggling from side to side, its tongue an animal unto itself, mouth lined with razor-sharp teeth. She knew the species sometimes hunted other animals just for sport. One bite would puncture the zodiac. Within minutes she’d be in the water. As if reading her mind, the leader swam up and put its mouth on the gunwale. It sat gumming the boat, daring her to stop it.

  Striker picked up a can of chili. She threw it straight at the animal’s snout. With sharks, you were supposed to drive the bone in their nose up into their brains. She picked up the laptop, hurled it as hard as she could. It was like tossing pebbles at an elephant. Her only hope lay buried in the yellow dry bag with the ragged hole shot through it.

  An unfathomable intelligence flared in the orca’s great black eyes. It was grinning at her, laughing. She thought of the long-ago albatross convulsing on the Yegorov. Was there a similar curse surrounding the killing of a whale? On a practical level, the gun’s recoil might blow her out of the boat. She’d injure the animal but it’d be nearly impossible to kill it with just one shot. She’d have to keep firing and firing until the clip was empty. If she didn’t, she’d only make it and its kind angrier.

  “It’s either you or them.”

  Was that the story of her life?

  The animal is less than a foot away, sinking its teeth deeper into the rubber. Striker’s hand shakes as she takes aim. Percy would’ve told her the trick is to keep your eyes fully open even beyond the moment when you pull the trigger. If you don’t, you’ll miss. But Percy is dead. She doesn’t know how she can possibly keep from flinching, considering

  saw the line of kayaks snaking along the beach. She felt like a warrior returning from battle, was sure she smelled like one too. The front of her dry suit spattered with gore, her skin freckled with somebody else’s face.

  And then there were five, Striker thought.

  Six. You forgot the brown dad.

  The tide was in. She drew on the ancient muscle memory of how to beach a boat with an outboard motor, running the zodiac in until she could see the rocky bottom, then cutting the engine and tipping the motor up out of the water before hopping over the side and pulling the inflatable up on land. It maneuvered easily, the boat empty. Only a silver case lay floating in the bottom.

  It was done. She had come back with nothing but a radio that most likely none of them knew how to use. Even the sunnies Vadim had gifted her on the rich man’s boat were missing. She walked back into the ocean up to her knees and rinsed her face, rubbed the blood off her dry suit. The rubber remained stained, the dark spots the only proof any of it had happened. Already her calves were numb though the water wasn’t nearly as cold as she’d anticipated. She looked around at the endless nothingness and let out a gut-blasting scream. Between the cries of the penguin chicks and the pounding surf, she couldn’t even hear herself. The universe went on doing as it had been doing. She picked her way out of the ocean and lay down on the rocks, closed her eyes.

  Something was sitting on her chest. A small, dense weight like a foot. She bolted upright and the thing scuttled off, flapping its flippers as it waddled away. She remembered the penguin that had coughed on her whole lifetimes ago back on Paulet. If that bird had been sick, how long would it take for her to come down with whatever it had? And what would her symptoms be? Her mind growing soggy, softening into a red mush?

  She got up and peered into the zodiac. Seeing the blood slosh back and forth made her stomach heave. Why now, she thought, as she doubled over. Why not back when she’d actually been staring at both men’s ruined corpses? The one with his face turning purple, eyes big as rotten apples, and the other with all his features blasted off.

  The vomit came quick and easy. Instantly the surf washed it away. She was surprised by how much came out, that there was still a whole meal roiling around inside her. It felt like ages ago since she’d eaten. Or had it only been a few hours? She heaved one more time, thankful it was gone in the waves before she even saw it.

  “You done?”

  She wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “Almost,” she said. “Gimme a minute.”

  She willed herself to pick the radio up out of the wretched soup in the bottom of the zodiac. She washed the case in the ocean before heading up the beach. Her eyes were on fire. She kept her gaze down off the sky. She noticed the booties on her feet. They would never be lemony yellow again.

  Overhead the sun gleamed, an immobile white hole. She recalled a YouTube clip she’d seen of an astrophysicist claiming time is a byproduct, an entanglement produced by the mind. Time only exists because we believe in it, the scientist explained. The subtle illusoriness of everyday existence was beginning to seem obvious. All these years how had she missed it?

  The white arrows drawn in stones were still pointing the way. Finally she rounded the promontory and found him floating in the water. She could tell he hadn’t been expecting anyone. His old-man clothes rumpled in a pile. The murderous walking stick propped up among the rocks.

  “Careful,” the Baron said. “Word on the street is hot tub usage may result in premature death.”

  Striker set the radio by his clothes, then sat on the edge and slid in. “Do I wanna know?” she said.

  Weakly he paddled around on his back. “I’m ethically obligated to tell you someone got cooked in one of these here things.”

  She gave her face another scrubbing, wanting to make sure she wasn’t still spattered with evidence. “Cooked?”

  “Anders says the temps could spike without warning,” he said. “Guess our trusty vent isn’t so trusty.” For the first time since she’d made his acquaintance, the Baron sounded vaguely human, the sardonic bite gone from his voice. She chalked it up to fatigue. Already his face appeared thinner, cheeks gaunt, the skin loose around his throat. “The kid read about it in one of the journals,” he said. “Claims any second now we could be boiled alive.”

  Wait. Had he actually called Anders Anders? She realized she had never heard him say the teen’s name.

  “How often we think that happens?” she said.

  “Dunno,” he said. “My understanding is a hundred years ago a party of sailors met an inglorious end that way.” He lifted his head and smiled at her. “I can think of worse endings,” he added, then lay back down. “Where’s Kevin and Vadim?” he asked. There was real concern in his voice.

  Striker began floating in the rock pool waiting for the earth to send a blast of avenging steam ripping through her flesh, her body’s meat blasted right off the bone. When nothing happened, all she said was, “There wasn’t any caviar.”

  The Baron nodded understandingly. “There are very few true gentlemen left in the world,” he replied.

  The sun stayed pinned in place but they kept floating. Striker figured it was just as easy to die there as anywhere. Even as a child, she had thought drowning wouldn’t be a bad way to cash out. There was something romantic about it, the way the ocean forced you to surrender. Fighting it would only drag you down faster. She lay floating, letting the water take her wherever it would.

  Okay then. How about some truth?

  Truth?

  Yeah. Truth is you thrived on Zinnia Trace.

  Me?

  Hell yeah. You ate it up!

  Striker couldn’t really argue with that. Little Ronnie had squeezed every last drop out of the lemon for all it was worth while that very same lemon had destroyed her sister. It’s like I never left, she thought. She may have walked away from Zinnia Trace, but she had packed up its worldview and taken it with her. It was in the minerals that formed her bones. A feeling of entitlement. A sense that if the police ever came knocking, she’d stare the officer square in the face like Trish had done on numerous occasions, too many to count, telling the officer not to lecture her about her driving and just give her the ticket already.

  “Ama stayed true to where we came from. But me.” Striker searched her memories. “I became that place. A Black woman with a white mind.” All around her the Southern Ocean nodded in agreement. It was why she’d had no fear about traveling to Antarctica. The earth was hers. She’d learned that on Zinnia Trace. “Who knew white privilege could include someone like me?”

  “You say something?” asked Robert.

  “Negative,” she said.

  Striker watched as the old man splashed a penguin that had waddled up to the edge of the pool. Suddenly it all made sense. His hiring one of the Russians to ferry him around in a tandem. How thin he looked. The marijuana still potent because it wasn’t a hundred years old. It was freshly harvested—he’d brought it with him.

  Robert Foley was dying. She could see it in the looseness of his skin. Maybe it was cancer or some problem with his heart or one of the million other calamities that kill people. It was obvious the old man wouldn’t live to see another Christmas. Striker felt her own heart crack open a smidge.

  She lifted her head off the water. Smoke was rising from the top of the volcano. It wasn’t some tiny fire the others had built to help her find her way back. It was too big for that, the smoke billowy and white. It could even be the start of what Percy would’ve called a seismic event, the volcano waking up. She was about to say something when Robert pointed down the beach.

  “Who’s that?” he said.

  The two of them watched as the zodiac came screaming around the bend and shot out into the ocean.

  “Weird,” she said. “Looks like Hector. The third dad.”

  “Ah, the lawyer with unusual views.”

  “Like what?”

  “That something in the ice is driving us all nuts.”

  Striker tried to act casual as if she had nothing riding on his answer. “That’s pretty kooky,” she said. “What do you think?”

  “I think this is exactly who each and every one of us has always been,” he replied.

  She nodded toward the zodiac. “Where do we think he’s headed?”

  Robert shrugged and lay back in the water. “Home.”

  The tide was high, the rock pool white with froth. Each incoming wave battered the shore, sending spray ten feet up in the air. Striker had lost all sense of time. She was learning you could live without it. When she tuned in again, Robert was reading a book. How he kept it dry was a mystery.

  “For real,” she called from her side of the hot spring. “We should probably call it a day and head back up.”

  “I’m on the last page,” he said.

  She sat up on the edge of the pool, happy to let the sun warm her. She wondered if he’d agree with her assessment that it was almost 70°. Shizer, that can’t be good. She pushed it from her mind and thought instead about the killing spree one of the Yegorov’s historians had detailed in a talk. The lecturer explained that upon arriving on Elephant Island, Shackleton had allowed his crew to bludgeon to death anything that moved. Penguins, flying birds, seals. She wondered if the men had left the carcasses to rot or if, after they worked off some steam, they’d gone back and salvaged what might be eaten. Thing is, when you smash something dead with a piece of wood over and over, chances are what’s left doesn’t make for good eating. Still, it was a case study in productive cruelty. It was probably something they studied in business school or at West Point. When letting your men become savages is in a commander’s best interests.

  Robert lowered the book.

  “I’d give it six out of ten stars,” he said. “Eight if you like happy endings.” He waded over to a spot where the rocks acted like steps but didn’t climb out. “In case you were wondering,” he said apologetically, “but I’m all out of Mary Jane. It was nice while it lasted.”

  “Does it—” Striker wasn’t sure how to phrase the question. “Help with your symptoms?”

  “Is it that obvious?” When she didn’t answer, he sighed. “Don’t tell anyone but I’ve always been a smoker. Even before this.” He gestured down at his withered body.

  Look at that. Y’all have something in common.

  “The Supreme Court’s terrible ruling last summer has only made it worse,” he said. “Now the police have the right to search you just by claiming they smelled it.” Robert shook his head. “It’s downright fascist.”

  Why’s everyone suddenly got their panties in a wad about fascism? America’s never been great for everyone.

  “And if there’s one thing I hate more than anything, it’s overreach,” he added. He gazed off at the horizon. Striker wondered how far he could see, the film on his eyes eerily pearly. “Though I suppose it’s human to overreact in the name of justice. Take my Janey, for example.”

  Silently it landed a few feet away on the rocks. “We should get out,” Striker said in a low voice. The bird cocked its head, appraising her with its one good eye. “Like now.” She pulled her legs out of the water and stood up.

  Oblivious, Robert went back to bobbing on the surface. “I love that woman,” he said. “That’s why I did what I did.” A wave crashed over the rocks. He shuddered but kept on going. “Afterward I gave her her space,” he said. “And that monster emerald on her finger. How could I not? I’d denied her a child of her very own, even if it was for her own good.” Striker could tell he was mostly talking to himself. “Thing is I’ve kept her in the dark all these years,” he mused. “Nothing builds a wall between two people like a secret.”

  You can say that again.

  The bird fluttered over to the edge of the hot spring. It hopped down into the water and began washing itself.

  “Why hello there,” Robert said. “Won’t you be my neighbor?”

  A foul smell filled the air. “Please,” urged Striker. “Climb out before it’s too late.”

  “She thinks I don’t know she gave up a child,” he said, “a son when she was much too young to be anyone’s mother. But a man like me doesn’t take a woman into his milieu without knowing these things.” Lazily he backstroked to the center of the pool. “She was in her late thirties. I was almost sixty with three grown children.” The bird dipped its head, sending water rolling down its back. “It was right as we were getting married. The kid had the nerve to insist she had contacted him.” Righteousness darkened his face. “The boy was a liar. He came crawling out of the woodwork for money. I managed to intercept the little bugger, send him packing faster than you could say—”

  The bird lifted off the water.

  “Robert!” shouted Striker, but the old man’s mind was still at work, still meandering through the memory of the time he’d saved his wife from meeting the son she didn’t want.

  “I told him to never darken our door again, that she didn’t want to see—”

  The steam was scalding. Even watching from the edge of the hot spring, Striker felt like she was standing on the surface of the sun.

  The old man’s skin began to bubble. Oil seeped from his flesh. It floated on the surface, the froth greasy. The air filled with the stench of cooked meat. Overhead a storm of birds formed. Striker turned and was about to run when his hand shot up out of the water. The flesh hung off his wrist in bloodless strips like bracelets.

  “Help.” There it was. Soft but clear. How could he still be alive?

  Striker grabbed the walking stick. The wood quivered in her fists, but she held it out. Somehow he grabbed on. She tried to lift him but she almost lost her balance. The surface of the water roiled as if teeming with faces. Things bubbling in the foam.

  Robert Foley wasn’t trying to pull himself out. Something was looking to pull her in.

  It’s either you or them.

  She let go of the stick. His hand fell back into the boiling water. Striker grabbed the radio and ran, kept running, up the volcano and into the clouds. She would never stop. The voice forever echoing in her head. Help. It had sounded like an elderly man crying out in the final pain-racked moments of his life. It had also sounded like a chorus of desperate voices demanding she rescue them at any cost. E pluribus unum. From many, one. She was wrong about water. It was one of the worst ways to go.

  The air thickened. Sweat pearled down her back. Everywhere a mugginess like swimming through bisque. Overhead the sun sat motionless in a sky leached of color, the day a hot silvery glare. Striker was halfway up the cone, the ground spongy. The island was thawing at a breakneck clip. She glanced back down on the coastline.

  Where the hot spring had once sat nestled in the rocks, giant plumes of steam were now shooting straight up out of the earth. Along the shore heated water from undersea vents was colliding with the cooler air, the clash in temperatures creating an impenetrable fog. It was pouring up out of the ocean, a thick white mist blanketing the beach. Ferociously it sparkled, the air gleaming as if embedded with needles. She watched as the vapor erased the landscape, extinguishing all sounds as it crept up out of the sea. Instantly it snuffed out the ruckus of the penguin colony, the silence as if the rookery had never existed.

  A second vaporous cloud was inching down the slope from the mouth of the volcano. She wondered if this was something worse than fog, maybe the same poisonous gases that had wiped out Pompeii. The two mists were on course to collide right where she was standing. Striker hadn’t been in the city on 9/11 but who hadn’t seen the videos of waves of ash racing through the streets, people instantly powdered pale as corpses?

  Any second now the dueling fogs would wrap her tight in a single white fist. She took a deep breath and held it. It seemed to take forever. Just as she was about to breathe, the hot mist slammed into her from both sides. She couldn’t tell if her eyes were still open. The fog had erased everything. The day an endless white. She tried to recall any nearby cliffs, spots where even the smallest miscalculation might send her tumbling over the edge. She kept moving, stuttering up the cone step by slushy step, testing the air with one outstretched hand like an insect’s antenna, the other clutching the radio.