The Neptune Project Read Free Page A

VISION is freakishly good, but right now I wish it wasn’t. I can clearly see the gleeful expression on the fishmaster’s face, and it makes my stomach churn.
    â€œI’ve finally caught you,” Hycault says to Cam. “I knew your friend Jac was a smuggler, but I wasn’t sure about you until tonight.”
    â€œI’m no smuggler,” Cam says bitterly as he brings the zode up beside the dock.
    â€œThe Marine Guard sank Jac’s boat five miles north of here,” Hycault continues, as if Cam hadn’t spoken, “and I spotted you entering the harbor from the north. That can hardly be a coincidence.”
    â€œYou have no proof I smuggled anything tonight.”
    â€œI don’t need any proof except what my eyes tell me right now,” Hycault says, growing more strident by the moment. “You took this boat out without my permission, and you broke the curfew—”
    â€œActually, Fishmaster”—my mother’s cool voice interrupts him—“my daughter and her crew members don’t need your permission if she’s out on the water doing research for me or training our dolphins. I believe we’ve discussed this issue several times before.”
    I’ve never been so glad to see Gillian. She is standing beside Hycault now, her expression amazingly composed.
    â€œBoys, you can tie up the zode and hurry home,” she continues on. “Cam needs to eat a good breakfast before he heads out with the fleet. Thanks for helping Nere tonight.”
    â€œYou’re welcome, Dr. Hanson,” Cam says as he and Robry tie up the zode. Cam sends me a quick grateful look, and then he and Robry slip away. I, in the meantime, stand in the middle of the zode, wishing I could just disappear.
    â€œYou’ve no right to send them out without consulting me first,” Hycault says furiously.
    â€œYou can check with the Department of Fisheries. I have the right to send my boat out whenever I want to do research. The Western Collective needs more protein for its citizens, and the Department of Fisheries values the work I do,” my mother replies.
    â€œJust you wait,” Hycault says with such menace, I tremble. “In a few days you’ll be sorry for all the times you dared to challenge my authority here.” With that, he stalks up the dock.
    â€œI sincerely doubt it,” Gillian says to his retreating back. She steps down into the zode and reconnects the boat batteries to the solar array. From her tight expression, I know I’m in deep trouble. Wordlessly, she retrieves the lobster from the specimen bin, kills it with a deft knock against a dock piling, and strides quickly toward home.
    I follow her up the path toward our stone cottage. I stop at the little spring where Cam rigged a pipe so that we have a shower we can use to rinse off seawater after a swim. I stay under the cold trickle for as long as I dare.
    The instant I close our front door behind me, my mother asks, “What on earth were you thinking? You just risked your life and your freedom, all for some fool of a smuggler!”
    â€œI thought the point of our dolphin program is to save human lives,” I make myself say. I hate arguing with my mother. She’s so brilliant, she always wins.
    â€œI’d rather see our dolphins save worthwhile human lives. You may have saved Jac’s life tonight, but that idiotic boy will be risking it again tomorrow for nothing more than a few dollarns and some thrills.”
    â€œYou’ve said yourself if it weren’t for smugglers who brought in meds from the Southern Republic, I’d have died long ago.”
    â€œWell, those were principled smugglers, not like Scarn and his gang, who just traffic in black-market luxuries. They’re little more than scum.” She pauses and seems to collect herself. “Do you have any idea how I felt when I saw that your bed was empty, and then that the zode was