scoop another one out of the bucket at my side. When he spots
me, fish in hand, he gives an impatient thrash of his tail. At his
current size, a single fish is enough to get his attention, but that
will soon change.
“Give it to him,” Swift mutters from behind me, but Swift
doesn’t know shit. Now that the trainer deck is vacant, she’s
been assigned to full-time guard duty, and she’s probably pissed
because tonight she’ll have to share her bed with me again.
Santa Elena’s somehow furnished a working beacon for
me to train her beast on—no surprises there. It takes some fid-
dling to get its signals off the factory defaults and on to some-
thing unique. There’s one signal set I know by heart, one that
no other beast on the NeoPacific is going to respond to, so I
futz with the dials until the device communicates in those low
tones and pulsing blues that make my heart ache with loss.
The beacon hangs on hooks that jut from the edge of the
trainer deck, allowing me to stand over it as I issue commands.
I kick on the homing LEDs and hold the fish out toward Bao,
wiggling it back and forth. He pumps his stubby legs, swim-
ming closer until his nose brushes the flashing patterns of
lights.
Then
I drop the fish.
And that’s lesson number one. Come to the beacon, get
a reward. I snap off the LEDs and step back into the recesses
of the trainer deck, waiting to see what Bao does. Some pups
don’t take kindly to sharing waterspace with their companion
vessel, but this is an interesting case, since the
Minnow
is the
only thing he’s ever known. So far, he seems to be comfort-
able. He knocks his beak against the ship’s hull a few more
times, then turns and begins nosing farther away.
