5.2

She had really been proud of herself for not getting seasick.

She’d wondered about it, before she arrived. Not that she had any particular reason to worry — she’d been on the water before and been ok, and she’d never been someone who had problems reading in cabs or whatever. But she kept envisioning herself greeting a new world by throwing up into it.

And then she’d been totally fine their entire first voyage. She’d slept like a baby, eaten big meals, all of that. And sure, there hadn’t really been a storm or anything, but it had unquestionably been life on the open sea, and she’d been fine.

Until now.

A day into their trip the waves had become not just larger, but oddly choppy and sporadic. It wasn’t just going up and down — Adelaide told herself she could still handle that. It was going up and up and down and up and down and down and up and down. She couldn’t let it fade into the background, and so she couldn’t feel better.

She seemed to have company, at least. She’d heard groaning and stumbling from the hallway around her all night. And, when she’d dragged herself to breakfast, she saw that there were just some bagels and toast laid out for anyone who felt up to grabbing them — apparently, Emma had either read the ship’s mood or she wasn’t feeling up to cooking.

The food had helped a bit, which Adelaide decided meant she was up to go up to the decks. Sea air was supposed to be good for this kind of thing, right? And there was just something offensive about the idea of missing one of the handful of days mankind would ever have in this little world.

She’d been expecting, at the least, a storm on the horizon. But it was the same sort of generalized gray sky they’d had so far, without anything particularly ominous. It wasn’t even particularly windy. It was just the waves themselves, rising and falling in odd groups.

Adelaide had quickly realized that sea air was not sufficiently medicinal and decided she needed to sit down. She knew she’d probably need to go down to her cabin to actually feel better, but that would have required standing up. And they were supposed to be nearing a Node — she wanted to be able to see it when it came close.

Closing her eyes, things weren’t actually so bad. She couldn’t see anything staying still or moving or whatever, and so the sense of wrongness abated. She tried to forget her body, forget her situation, forget the stakes, and just let herself be moved up and down. And, in that mindset, the sea air actually did seem helpful — it was cool but not frigid, and she focused on the feeling of each breath in her nose and mouth.

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She began to drift. At first, she was confronted by practical considerations. Alessio’s interview request was worth considering seriously, but she knew it would be hard to maintain any kind of confidentiality once she’d spoken with him — it was his job to extract secrets, and she was very new at keeping them. And was it even realistic to keep it? I mean, she obviously wouldn’t keep it forever, but the commercial realities demanded discretion.

Maybe that’s the part she was really unused to: the secrecy. Sure, labs could be a secretive, but not at such a fundamental level — people knew what you were looking into, at least. And the best practice was always to preregister your expectations.

And why do it differently now? This wasn’t exactly the Manhattan Project — it was a big idea, but not a dangerous one. It was just the fear of getting scooped. But, even if someone else did it first, would it really matter? Well, personally, it would, both for pride and for her future. But the world would keep spinning. Hell, for all she knew, someone was already working on it. A dozen ships could be pursuing the same idea.

And that was the problem: this way was so lonely. She enjoyed her companions, but only Percy really knew what they were doing, and he wasn’t exactly chatty. She would have loved another scientist to bounce things off of, instead of Ray’s remarkable inability to make it three words into one of her explanations.

She wondered how Ray would react if she found another scientist to join her. A biologist would honestly make the most sense — if they kept coming across strange wildlife, it was silly not to have as close to an expert as there was. Although people like that were probably really in demand. But Ray might know someone. Ray seemed to know everyone. One day, she’d get to the bottom of Ray. She’d read his resume and asked around, but she knew nothing of his life before all of this. It seemed worth knowing…

Adelaide wasn’t sure if she’d drifted to sleep or just let her thoughts wander, but she was nonetheless stirred by a hand on her shoulder. She opened her eyes to see Grant looking down at her.

“Feeling the sea a bit?” he asked.

“Less than before, but yeah. I assume it’s old news to you, but I apparently am not ready for this yet.”

“You’re doing alright. Better than most, I’d say. You’d be amazed how many people lose their stomachs as soon as we cross the Triangle. It can be a bathtub, they’re still green. And this is a tough day for everyone — not like a normal storm. Just chop.”

“That does make me feel better, even if you’re probably just being nice.”

He smiled. “Well, anyway, Captain told me to get you. You see, we’re approaching that Node you gave him, and he has a question.”

Adelaide bounced up, nausea forgotten. She looked over the railing, then turned, then turned back. She didn’t see — she couldn’t quite find —

Grant continued, “Specifically, his question was, ‘Where the hell is it?”