Even though the Sun was rising, clearly not everyone in Beacon City on Science Island was used to getting up with it. George and Stingray were forced to wait while some of the Science Committee were summoned, and, when the members that took the longest arrived, they looked sleepy.As far as looks went, however, the most unpleasant ones were reserved for Stingray. George thought the humans here on Science Island were looking at his orca calling friend far worse than he and his friends had looked at him when he’d been rescued from a kraken in the ocean. That day, the sea elves had looked at George with a passive contempt for terakva and ambergris. The Science Islanders weren’t looking at Stingray with passive contempt, however. Their looks at him were easily described as active hatred, as if Stingray himself had done something to each of them personally.The assembled humans of Science Island looked like their lands of origin were diverse and widespread. This made sense, since they had

Maverick did indeed have the power left to make it to Beacon City, just barely. The scientist technicians there were able to improvise something that would act as an adapter between their power systems and Maverick’s, so that he could begin to charge up again. Charging all the way up from zero percent would take about eight hours, giving George just that long to figure out how he and Stingray were going to function on Science Island while maintaining the cover stories they’d concocted for themselves. If they wanted to leave, George could probably call Yörg who would brag about being able to take them ‘anywhere in the multiverse’. But George didn’t want that to be necessary. Nereia had had the AI sub bring them here for a reason. It couldn’t be a coincidence that this was an anti-Society science colony. He remembered what the Oracle had said in her farewell letter about “finding a family”. Were these people that family? “They will not look like a family. They will not sound like on