Page 93 of My Tiny Giant

The small sphere of light floated in the water between us.

Was that what Agan had risked his life for?

I grabbed the sphere, stuffing it into a pouch on my belt. Then, I used the red rope to tie Agan’s motionless body to my chest. Using both arms and legs I headed back to the open water outside the Mind’s shell.

The fescods continued to swim around in the open. Only there was a noticeable difference in their movements now.

They no longer circled over the shell, guarding and protecting it. Now, their movements were chaotic, their swimming pattern frenzied and confused.

The one closest to me spotted a long, flat sea creature on the bottom. Diving for it, he raised a cloud of sand that shrouded my side of the Mind’s shell.

Using the sand cloud as the cover, I dashed for the nearest “boulder”-organism.

Another fescod took off after a school of deep-water fish swimming by. His shapeless body elongated, cutting through the water, then disappeared out of sight beyond the glow of the Mind.

Whatever Agan had done in the center of the shell must be working. The Mind’s control over the fescods had loosened if not completely gone. Without its commands, their organized behavior changed to chaotic.

It didn’t make the fescods any less dangerous to me. Uncoordinated and disorganized, they remained brutal and bloodthirsty. The one who had caught the flat bottom dweller was now ripping the poor creature to pieces, its dark blood spreading through the water in ribbons of red.

I pulled my knife out again, then unclipped Agan’s blade, too, to have a weapon in each hand.

Using the boulder creatures for cover, I kept to the sand clouds that rose from where the fescod was feasting on the sea creature.

The fescods’ frenzy seemed to have impaired their attentiveness. None of them spotted me as I made my way out of the bright circle of light and headed upwards, starting the hours-long, perilous ascent back to the surface.

Up and up I went toward the surface, where I could hopefully get help for Agan.

If it wasn’t already too late.

Chapter 20

“W HERE IS AGAN?” I ASKED the army hospital’s AI for probably the millionth time already.

The moment Agan and I had been successfully fished out of Tragul’s ocean by the Voranian transporter crew, we’d been separated. I’d been assessed right there on the vessel, while Agan had been whisked away with no updates.

Once in the hospital back in Voran, a medical team performed a lengthy evaluation of my body and all of its vital functions. I had just gotten the all clear from them, delivered via the unsympathetic AI.