The Expedition That Found the Wrong Ocean

How it begins

The oasis had become an ocean while Elena Keane was looking at the map.

She lowered the paper.

Yesterday's dunes ended in a line of dark water. Waves moved beneath a skin of drifting sand, lifting it into pale ridges before letting it fall again.

Behind her, the expedition stopped one animal at a time.

Malik Saye took off his hat.

"That's inconvenient."

Elena looked at the map's small blue circle. A well, three palms, reliable shelter. The missing travelers were supposed to have reached it before dusk.

Out on the water, something flashed.

Once. Twice. A pause.

Not sunlight. A signal.

Elena raised her field glass. A strip of cloth moved from a dark shape beyond the first line of waves.

"They're there," she said.

The expedition leader behind her began discussing the route they'd agreed to follow. Elena listened for ten seconds before folding the map.

"The route is under water."

"The survey says..."

"The survey is having a difficult morning."

Malik crouched at the edge and watched a piece of wood turn in the current. He had joined them to inspect timber carried by an old trade road, not to become the only person present with experience of building anything that floated.

"It's moving north," he said. "Or what we called north before this."

Elena studied the shore. Fresh tracks ended at the water, then reappeared farther along a ridge that had begun to sink.

She had guided people through this desert for twenty years. She knew where the wind changed, which wells tasted of salt, and how confidence could become the most dangerous thing in a traveling party.

She put the map away.

"We start with what we can see," she said.

Across the impossible water, the signal flashed again.

This time, someone answered from beneath the sand.