Heart of the Deep (The Kraken Book 4) by Tiffany Roberts

Author:Tiffany Roberts [Roberts, Tiffany]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-05-28T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Larkin wrinkled her nose and looked around the large room. Lockers stood along two of the walls, and various pieces of equipment — most of which she didn’t recognize — were stacked beside a third wall. In the center of the room was a huge pool of clear water; it had to be at least sixty meters from one end to the other, and half that across.

“What is that smell?” she asked.

Dracchus shrugged. The gesture was almost comical given his size. “Chemicals, Arkon says. I am not sure what that means, but he insists that is the source.”

“Chemicals for what? Are they dangerous?” Their smell sure as hell implied they were.

“I do not believe so.” He stared into the pool, one corner of his mouth turned down. “Kraken have entered the water before, and none have come to harm for it.”

“It’s coming from the water?” Larkin stepped to the edge and looked down. Her eyes widened at what she saw.

The bottom of the pool was covered by countless little stones, their differences in color creating intricate, swirling patterns that flowed into each other so naturally it seemed impossible.

“Who made that?” she asked.

“Arkon, over many weeks. I used to think that was time wasted.”

“It’s beautiful. Why would you think it’s a waste of time?”

“Because it did nothing to contribute to the survival of our people,” he replied, shaking his head. “But you are right. It is pleasing. I cannot decide what its value is, only that it is of some value.”

Larkin tilted her head, tracing the patterns with her gaze. “We’d spend days, sometimes weeks, out in the jungle, tracking our prey. It was hard work. Tedious work. And the whole time, I knew in the back of my mind that most of our food came from farms, anyway. But when we got back into the fort with our fresh kills, there’d be music, and dancing, and a feast to celebrate. People were happy because of what we’d done. Even if the farms produced more food, we’d added something more to their lives.

“That’s what this is. It’s about making people feel something, about…entertainment. A full belly is great, don’t get me wrong, but people need more than that sometimes to be happy. Life needs to be lived, and there is value in the small things, the things that might not seem important, like this,” she waved at the stones. “You gain pleasure, just from looking at it.”

Dracchus folded his arms across his broad chest released a slow breath. “For the kraken, it has been survival. For generations, that is all we’ve known.”

“That’s not so different from us,” she said, facing him. “Humans have had to work hard every day since the colonization to carve out our place on this world. We just have the tools and experience to make our survival more efficient. But even when things are rough, we take time to enjoy life.”

“So I have seen since our humans came,” Dracchus said.

The tone with which he’d said that — our humans — was so affectionately possessive that Larkin couldn’t help but smile.

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