While a howitzer liaison for an American military unit in Afghanistan returns home on parental leave, his unit embarks on a mission to find two missing soldiers and finds a possibly permanent replacement for him.

A man on Venus hunts a sea monster that escaped from him on a hunt five years ago.

Thistle is leading her partner Wilder through the forest to meet her mother. Wilder asks if her mother lives in the river or in a tree, and Thistle says she is the river and the tree.

A local sailor in Venice is upset by the irreverence exhibited by tourists—and it gets him into immense danger.