The desert gave nothing away. At noon it looked endless. Sand. Rock. Heat. A drilling mast standing against a white sky. And beneath it, a well that had spent days doing exactly what wells are first taught to do. Go down. The Apprentice watched another length of pipe disappear through the rotary table. “How deep?” The Directional Driller checked the numbers. “Deep enough.” The Apprentice smiled. “Then we found it?”

The coastline was enormous. That was the problem. From the cliff above the Mediterranean, the Apprentice could see blue water in every direction. Ships moved against the horizon. Villages broke the shoreline. Coves disappeared behind headlands. Farther south, sails clustered around a city large enough to be seen through the morning haze. The Apprentice pointed. “There.” The Harbormaster did not look. “The great port?” “Yes.” “Why?” “Because everyone goes there.”

At first light, the land looked worthless. That was the consensus. Dust. Scrub. Stone. A dry wash cutting through the eastern side. Twenty-seven square miles of country that had produced nothing anyone could point to. No derrick. No pumpjack. No black stain in the dirt. No neighbor bragging about production.

The Apprentice opened the notebook. Pages of dates. Wind direction. Water temperature. Bird activity. Currents. Previous catches. Places where we had found nothing. She laughed. “You wrote down where there weren't fish?” “Especially there.” “Why?” “Empty water is expensive.” That quieted her. Two hours later, we had not dropped a single line. The Apprentice was becoming restless. “We've passed miles of water.” “Yes.” “We could have been fishing.”