A Daughter of No Nation (2 page)

“Mom, please. More people are killed by cows every year than sharks.”

“So you keep saying, but you're not a farmer, are you? If it's just a diving job, why the secrecy?”

“Talking about the secrecy is still talking about it.”

“If you'd joined the DEA or some other government agency, you wouldn't be taking community center anti-rape classes. You'd be at Quantico, learning to defend yourself properly. With an enormous gun.”

“Federal Agent Sophie, that's me.” It wasn't a bad idea. Didn't Quantico have programs for civilians?

“It's not funny.”

Her mother was trying to wind her up. Get her babbling—play Twenty Questions. Then she could start mining out the truth as Sophie slipped and dropped clues. It was a good strategy. They both knew she was something of a motormouth.

But Sophie had promised, under threat of having her memory wiped, no less.

And the truth might hurt more than her silence. She could imagine her mother's face if she broke:
I went looking for my birth parents.

Can of worms, or what?

The temptation to spill it all rose, as it always did. “It's an incredibly cool gig, Mom. And important, okay? But I can't talk about it.”

“Says who?”

“That would be talking about it, Mom.”

“You used to tell us everything.”

Her patience snapped. “Unlike you. What was it you'd say when I asked about the adoption? ‘Confidentiality, in this case, is nonnegotiable.'”

Regina stamped the brakes, too hard, at a red light. A driver behind them honked as they both snapped up against their seat belts.

“I would hate to think you've been waiting your entire life to say that.”

“What if I was? Twenty-five years ago you do a closed adoption, and whatever I might want to know about it, it's just too bad. Isn't that right?”

Regina's voice was thready. “We made a promise.”

“Yeah,” Sophie said. “Gave your word, and too bad for me. Shoe's on the other foot now, Mom.”

Her mother rocked in her seat, clutching the wheel. Sophie fought an urge to open the door while the car was stopped, to just run for it.

She'd never been at odds with her parents before. Her passion for climbing and diving made them anxious, but they'd worried quietly … well, except for Dad hectoring her to finish her degree and do something worthwhile.

Worthwhile. Intellectual. Safe.

She stared at the dashboard, digging for something she could say that would help. But it wasn't just that she'd promised—hell, she'd signed nondisclosure agreements and gotten multiple, tiresome, finger-wagging lectures on the subject. There'd been threats of jail, of magically wiping her memories, even, if she blabbed.

Secrecy, secrecy, secrecy.

In a way, the promises were beside the point, because telling the truth would land her in a facility for the profoundly delusional. She'd found her parents, all right, and they weren't even from Earth.

“Now there's a supermodel on my damned porch.”

The change of subject was so jarring that it took Sophie a second to make sense of her mother's words. “What?”

Captain Garland Parrish, of the private sailing vessel
Nightjar,
was sitting on their stoop.

This was going to make things with her parents even worse. All the same, Sophie found herself smiling.

If he was here, odds were good she was going back to Stormwrack.

 

CHAPTER    
2

Parrish was dressed in normal American clothes: pressed tan slacks, a mustard T-shirt that hung very nicely indeed on his well-constructed frame, and a Mackenzie Sam jacket that had never quite fit right on Bram. His hair was in serious need of a cut: black, lamb's-wool curls hung every which way.

It was a relief. Sophie wouldn't have put it past him to turn up in full captain's uniform: breeches, long coat, and a bicorne hat straight out of a Napoleonic-era biopic. Stormwrackers rarely gave strangers a second glance, no matter how they dressed, but Parrish had obviously let Bram convince him that things weren't the same here.

He had her mother's polydactyl cat in his lap and was examining the extra toes on its front paws with an expression of delighted absorption.

Sophie hit the ground running, jumping out, dashing to the porch, and throwing herself into a hug. “Try not to talk too much,” she murmured in Fleet. He smelled, ever so faintly, of cedar and cloves. “And no bowing.”

“Understood,” he replied, sounding flustered.

“Mom, this is my friend Gar … Gary Parrish. Gary, my mother, Regina Hansa.”

“A pleasure, Mrs. Hansa.” He didn't put a hand out. His accent was thicker than Sophie might have guessed.

“
Doctor
Hansa,” Mom said, tone frosty.

“Gary's … uh, Gary's a friend.”

“You said that.”

“I knocked, but…” He indicated the house. Her father had probably been out back, contemplating his roses or listening to Chopin.

Crap, crap. Now what?

“What do you do, Mr. Parrish?”

“Oh,” he said. “I came to get Sophie. I—”

Mom's eyes narrowed. “You're part of this sailing job she won't tell me about.”

“I'm…” He frowned, processing, then seemed to realize it was true. “Yes, that's right.”

Oh, no. Time to go.
“Yes. Mom, Gary's here because—”

“So you're a biologist? Or another crazed thrill seeker?”

“You can't quiz him,” Sophie interrupted, before he could tell her he was a ship's captain or, worse, mention
Nightjar.
Mom would do a Web search for the ship's registration, fail, and get even more upset. And everything he said was coming out in that accent that wasn't South Asian, which would have matched his looks, or German, which was what it sounded closest to. “He can't talk about it either.”

Mom simmered for a second and went into the house. “Cornell,” she called. “Cornell!”

They wouldn't have long. Sophie whispered in Fleet, “What are you doing here?”

“Bram tried to contact you, but his telephone is missing.”

“Mom snagged it,” she said.

“He was afraid that if Verena came, your parents might see she resembled you and realize you'd found your … your other family.”

“Verena's at Bram's?”

He nodded, keeping one eye on the house.

“She's going to take us back to Stormwrack?”

“As soon as possible. We have…” He glanced at the sky, a habit-driven attempt to tell the time from the stars, but between the fog and the light pollution, there wasn't much to see. “Perhaps an hour.”

“Has something happened?” She dialed a cab. She'd had her bags packed and ready to go at Bram's for two months. She hadn't dared leave them in her room.

Parrish opened his mouth to answer and that was when both parents came back out onto the porch.

United front, Sophie thought.

Her father taught Romantic poetry and the birth of the novel at Stanford, where he was one of the world's authorities on Shelley. He was as acerbic as any British-born academic, and in the last few years he'd been making a name for himself by writing newspaper columns that railed against what he'd always called sloppy thinking.

“Your mother says you've been taking rape classes,” he said.

Sophie stifled an inward groan.

Just get through the next five minutes with a bit of grace.
“Gary and I are going sailing. This is the trip I've been planning, the one I've told you about—”

“The one you've
not
told us about, to be precise. The one you've turned down the Scripps Institute for—”

“I could be gone awhile,” she interrupted.

“You'll certainly be gone
awhile
.” Her father's acidic repetition was a criticism of the vagueness. “The question is, how long?”

“I don't know, Dad. I'll e-mail when I can. I've told you I'm going to be hard to reach.”

“And in danger,” Mom put in.

This was the point where a sensible person would say,
No, no, it's just a sail, it's a sensitive research project. Blahdeeblah confidentiality, don't worry, it'll all be fine.
Sophie could never pull that off. She could barely lie to strangers. Trying to deceive her parents would be hopeless. “I have to do this. I have to. I'd tell you more if I could, I swear.”

“You're not federal.” Dad was looking Garland up and down. “International Space Agency?”

“It's not space,” Sophie said. “And he can't talk about it either.”

“Let him speak for himself.”

Parrish pulled himself up as if he were a soldier at attention. “If it is within my power to keep your daughter safe, I will. You have my word.”

Dottar.
Her father's lips moved, committing the sound of it to memory.
Mai verd.

She was saved by the taxicab, which pulled up behind Mom's car.

“We gotta go,” Sophie said, tone bright despite the crushing guilt. She gave her father a hug, which he barely returned, and tried not to register how pale his face had gone. “I'm sorry, Dad, I am. I'd tell you if I could.”

Her mom clung. “I just want to understand.” She was tearing up. “Sophie, please. Tell us something.”

“Sorry, sorry,” she whispered, disentangling herself as gently as possible. “I'll be in touch soon. Come on, Par—Gary.”

She could still feel her mother's grip on her arm as she piled into the cab and pulled Parrish in after her. Regina tried to muster a wave.

I don't deserve them.
She was gut-achingly achurn with guilt. What to say? Could she have done that better? Looking back, she saw their faces through the cab's back window, taut with two completely different expressions of devastation.

“Rape classes?” Parrish inquired, as she settled against the backseat, trying to banish the memory.

“Don't, okay?” With that, she burst into tears.

 

CHAPTER    
3

Bram was the elder statesman of a shared house occupied by a transient roster of graduate students, usually physicists and mathematicians, who were working their way through advanced degrees in the various Bay Area universities. The space was divided so that it had seven bedrooms and was known, on multiple campuses, as Dwarf House. To those in the know, Bram was, predictably, Doc.

The top floor, a converted attic, was her brother's domain. It had good light on clear days, wood floors, and spartan furnishings. The bed and wardrobe were tiny in comparison to the computer workstation and a big drafting table devoted to whatever research project was serving as Bram's latest obsession.

Her little brother was a bona-fide kid genius. He had been collecting advanced degrees like a hunter gathering game trophies, or a high-altitude climber bagging big peaks, since his early teens.

As she and Garland disembarked from the cab, one of Bram's roommates was just stubbing out a cigarette near the weathered fence. She got a look at Sophie's tear-streaked face, stepped out of her way, and then did a double take as she took in Garland.

“Can't talk, sorry,” Sophie said, hustling past her.

Her adopted brother and biological half-sister were waiting in his room, talking quietly next to a pile of stuff: a duffel full of unbranded, plain-Jane jeans and shirts, a plastic bag jammed with medications, and a pair of fresh diving tanks. Everything was disordered: Verena had searched it, presumably.

Sophie had cried herself out in the cab, but at the sight of her brother she almost welled up again.

“How'd it go with the parents?”

“Big ugly scene.” Sniffling, she handed over his phone. “They're freaking out, Bram.”

“I'll do what I can.” Parental inquisitions never bothered him; he'd been fighting with Dad since he was ten.

“We need to get going,” Verena said. She was ratcheted tight with tension—no hug on offer there. “Last chance to come along, Bram.”

“Tempting, but we can't both disappear at once.” He shook his head. “I've got things going on here.”

“Okay. We'll check in with you. Sophie, are you carrying any electronics?”

Sophie handed Bram her phone. “Want to pat me down?”

Verena looked like she was considering it.

Be that way.
Sophie bent to repack her bags, putting her back between herself and her half-sister as she sorted through the collection of generic casual wear: hardy, easy to wash, suitable for hiking and camping.

As she zipped the bags shut, she glanced around Bram's room, checking for anything that might expose their research into Stormwrack.

For the past six months, Bram's worktable had been devoted to the world where Sophie's birth parents had been born. They had reconstructed a map of the world, using information gleaned on their last visit to lay out its enormous oceans and the tiny archipelagos that were its only landmasses. He'd told his roommates he was designing a map for a gaming project. He was a polymath; they just accepted that he'd take it into his head to design an MMORPG in his copious spare time.

Now the incriminating evidence—all their notes and speculations—had been packed away. Bram'd flipped the map to face the wall, instead displaying a photo Sophie had taken in Africa, impala grazing under the watchful gaze of a pride of lions. The broken pieces of Aunt Gale's brass watch were out of sight, too, probably hidden under his model of the TARDIS from
Doctor Who
. There was no visible sign that either of them had given Stormwrack much thought.

“Stop fussing with your stuff.” Bram took her by the shoulders. “Be safe, Ducks.”

“Don't call me that,” she said, bumping her forehead against his.
Best you stay here. Safe and out of trouble.