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breath. He leaned against a nearby bench but didn’t sit; he couldn’t risk nodding off again. He needed to remain on his feet until sunrise, until Lynda returned. Through his binoculars, the chain that stretched from the Tern to the pier appeared untouched. The windows along the hull and upper decks were dark. Then he noticed a pulse of light on the observation deck above the bridge, and he adjusted his focus. It was the light of a small phone, bathing Lauren’s face in a pale yellow glow. Robert assumed she was talking to Aeneas, based on her animated expressions, the way she paced the deck.
    Suddenly conscious of eyes upon him, he gazed up at the white steel ship, with Emperor of the Seas emblazoned across the bow, and noticed silhouetted bodies in windows several stories up. They seemed to be watching him with the same curiosity in which he was watching the Tern .

Angela
    For three days Angela and Aeneas circled and counted nests. Long enough to develop routines, long enough for her to begin wishing his ship would never return.
    But Shelly would be back any day now, and her arrival would bring Angela’s secret field trips to an end. Other naturalists had started to question why they couldn’t attend to nests up north. People, like penguins, had their territories and rituals, and Angela had disrupted them. Penguins, at least, didn’t nag.
    That morning, after sending the teams yet again to the south, Angela returned to the office and pored over spreadsheets of satellite tracking data. Rows and columns of times and transmitter I.D.s and coordinates. She leaned over a large map of the South Atlantic and cross-checked every coordinate, every I.D., hoping for a number out of place, a false positive, a statistical outlier.
    Doug entered and hovered over her shoulder.
    â€œStill no sign of Diesel?” he asked.
    She wanted to elbow him in the stomach but instead kept her eyes on the charts. “Shouldn’t you be in the South End by now?” she asked.
    â€œI’ll catch up. I needed to talk to you. Privately. You see, I had a rather strange sighting yesterday evening,” he said. “What shall I call this one—a yellow dot?”
    Angela spun around. “What did you say?”
    â€œI was looking for you. We finished up early, and I thought you could use a hand with your surveys. When I got about a mile up north I discovered why you didn’t want me tagging along, and how you were able to cover so many circles so quickly.”
    â€œWho have you told?”
    â€œNobody, yet. Who is he?”
    â€œI can’t say.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œI just can’t.”
    â€œYou’ll have to report him.”
    â€œThere’s no need. He’ll be gone soon.”
    â€œAngela, people know something’s up. And if I don’t say anything and somebody else sees this guy, which is bound to happen, they’re going to think I was in on it, too.”
    She could see it in his eyes—he had moved on. He’d found some other naturalist to shadow, and his allegiance would now shift as well, even as he tried to conceal it under that handsome veil of enthusiasm. If he turned Angela in, it would demonstrate his loyalty to the camp, to the penguins. Not to her.
    â€œAnd there’s no chance you would risk anything on my behalf?” Angela asked.
    â€œIt’s not personal, Angela. I’m new here—and I’d like to be invited back next year. If you don’t do it, I will, if for no other reason than to preserve what’s left of our Malbec supply.”
    * * *
    That day, for the first time, Angela did not visit Aeneas. Instead, she escorted Doug and the others to the South End, where they spent the afternoon weighing and measuring chicks in two dozen flagged nests, nests they’d monitored for more than a decade. She had told Doug that she needed one more day before turning in her companion, and he reluctantly agreed to stay