“I had a hard gene coding on the person, he’d been going by the name Rob Morescue, mostly, but he had seemingly dropped off the face of the earth. None of the secondary surveillance systems picked him, or his DNA, up, anywhere. I was able to secure the information that the person had turned himself into a kraken. I had reason to suspect that he was residing somewhere in the deep trenches near the Asur Islands. I had been asking around; there was a pretty large delphino population in the area as well as orcas and various fishermen and sailors. At the time of the Fall I had gotten three confirmed sightings of a kraken in the area and was about to perform a search of the depths. Then, with the Fall, I was forced to forego my investigation.”

“And since?” Sheida asked.

“I took a job with one of the local sailors who had converted to commercial fishing,” Travante replied. “In time I was able to secure my own vessel, a small sailing caique. When New Destiny forces took over the island I maintained my cover as a visiting tourist and post-Fall fisherman. When the time was right and the weather looked good I set sail for the mainland.”

“In a fishing caique?” Sheida said, aghast. “How large?”

“Four meters, ma’am,” Joel replied. “I had reason to suspect that some of the orcas that had willingly joined the New Destiny forces had suspicions that I was not all that I had said. Some of my questions, pre-Fall, had apparently been insufficiently circumspect. And, frankly, ma’am, I didn’t think much of New Destiny’s charter or actions. So as soon as I felt it was probable I’d survive, I set sail. It’s not that difficult a sail from the Asur Islands to Norau, provided nothing goes wrong.”

“Charts?” Sheida asked. “Navigation?”

“I was able by that time to secure a compass and had some training from my previous employer at stellar and oceanic current navigation,” Joel said, shrugging as if a three-thousand-kilometer voyage across empty ocean in a small boat was no great feat.