World of Water (27 page)

But it was getting
somewhere
. A few metres at a time, it was crawling over the swampy morass of bladderwrack.

Dev and Handler were tossed violently around inside the manta’s mouth. There was nothing to grab onto for support except the creature’s gill arches, but even after Dev had established a handhold and foothold here, and made Handler do the same, they still found themselves being bounced bruisingly up and down. Dev felt it worst in his cracked molars, which sent bolts of pain into his skull with every bump his body suffered.

How long the torturous journey lasted, Dev had no idea. It was probably no more than four minutes, but it felt like forty. The manta sub’s exertions grew increasingly urgent. With no water flowing into its mouth and through its gills, it was running out of oxygen.

Then it was past the edge of the bladderwrack and plunging headlong into open water. It shook off the last few strands of seaweed still adhering to its body, and soon it was planing smoothly through the water once more, at home in its natural element.

Dev thrust himself out of its mouth. He offered a quick flash of gratitude to Ethel, who sat at her piloting station in the manta’s intact eye, before shooting up to the surface.

The
Admiral Winterbrook
.

The Marine catamaran was, for all he knew, still marooned in the centre of the bladderwrack, surrounded by burning liquid methane. If Sigursdottir and her team had taken the option of abandoning ship the way he and Handler had, then they needed retrieving from the seaweed too, and quickly. Once he had assessed the situation, he would go back down and get Ethel to attempt another rescue operation if one was needed.

At first all he could see was a coruscating wall of fire. No sign of the
Admiral Winterbrook
. Tongues of flame licked upward from the sea, rising from a coal-black bed of burnt, shrivelled bladderwrack.

Had Sigursdottir found a way out? Or had her boat gone down with all hands, either consumed by the fire or dragged under by the sentient seaweed?

Sigursdottir? Sigursdottir!

No reply.

Shit. That could mean only one thing.

Dev tried to console himself with the fact that the Marines had been professional soldiers. They had signed on the dotted line knowing the job brought with it a risk of getting killed. They hadn’t been forced to join up, as he had. They hadn’t been part of TerCon’s juvenile offender conscription programme and offered the not-really-a-choice of military service or a spell in prison. They had been well aware of what they were getting into and how they might come out of it: feet first.

All the same, he couldn’t help feeling at least partly responsible for their deaths. If not for him, the eight of them would even now be sitting safe and sound at Station Ares, rather than plummeting into the icy depths of Triton’s ocean. Their final resting place lay so far from Earth that the light reaching it from the Sun, one of the fainter stars in the night sky, was twenty thousand years old.

He would have to break the bad news to Captain Maddox. That was a conversation he wasn’t looking forward to. He imagined the grizzled old bastard would not take kindly to losing eight of his complement, a favoured lieutenant among them. He foresaw bellowing. Not to mention the threat – and perhaps the application – of physical violence.

A low, steady rumble caught Dev’s attention, and he looked up. There, to his left, was the
Admiral Winterbrook
, hoving into view around the edge of the field of bladderwrack. It had emerged from somewhere behind the curtain of flames, which had been screening it from his sight.

Sigursdottir, you made it!

What’s that? Harmer, your signal’s breaking up. Repeat.

I said, you made it.

Ah. Yes. Well, we owe it to you, I suppose. When the seaweed started burning, it lost its grip on us. Like it got frightened and forgot what it was meant to be doing. Jiang goosed the motor and we reversed out. Been looking for you since. We thought
you
might not have made it.

Well, I’m here.

Sorry, say again. You keep cutting out.

My commplant must be misbehaving.

That’ll be why we can’t get a GPS fix on you.

I’m about five hundred metres off your port bow. Look. I’m the one in the water, waving.

Got you. Where’s Handler?

Down below. He’s safe.

Hooray.

Sigursdottir?

Yeah?

I’m glad you’re okay. And your men too. Even Milgrom.

Didn’t catch that.

I said I’m glad you’re –

Still not hearing anything. Just static.

You bitch, you’re screwing with me, aren’t you?

That
I heard, loud and clear.

Dev laughed. No room for sentiment, not in Sigursdottir’s world.

As the catamaran wheeled round towards him, he set his commplant to run a diagnostic on itself.

The results were dismaying, if unsurprising. Not only had the shocks given him by McCabe damaged its operational efficiency, the commplant was now suffering from intermittent power supply. It drew bioelectricity from the user’s own physiology, specifically the action potentials in the nerve fibres, and wasn’t presently getting a consistent, reliable flow of juice from Dev’s host form. The cellular breakdown must be interfering with electrochemical reactions in his body.

It often affected commplants in the elderly and those with neurological disorders. The low-resistance electrodes and power harvesting circuitry found input harder to come by, and so the device performed less well. The usual remedy was the surgical installation of a pinhead-sized lithium polymer ion battery to boost its charge and normalise function.

Dev had neither the time nor the wherewithal to adopt that solution. He would just have to make do and hope for the best.

In the meantime, Opochtli beckoned.

He had a township to save.

40

T
HERE WAS A
hastily convened conference.

Dev and Sigursdottir stood on the rear deck of the
Admiral Winterbrook
with Ethel and Handler. The catamaran was en route to Opochtli, and finding the increasingly high waves heavy going. The sky had darkened, the weather turning from blustery to squally. A warm, frenetic rain had started to fall, while sea spray burst over the
Admiral Winterbrook
’s twin prows with every wave the boat ploughed into, much of it vaulting over the superstructure and reaching all the way aft to soak the three humans and the indigene.

“And she has no idea what we’re up against?” Sigursdottir said, eyeing Ethel.

It was the first time the two women had been in close proximity to each other, and the Sigursdottir was as wary of Ethel as the Tritonian was of the Marine lieutenant. For all Dev’s assurances that Ethel was an ally, Sigursdottir had yet to be convinced. Ethel, likewise, seemed mistrustful – perhaps forgivably – of the woman who only yesterday had ordered her manta sub to be torpedoed. Her hand never strayed far from her shock lance.

“She has no clue what these Ice King guys used on Dakuwaqa?” Sigursdottir continued.

“None,” Handler replied, relaying Ethel’s answer. He, like Sigursdottir, had to raise his voice above the seethe of the sea and the whip of the wind. “Whatever it is, she doesn’t believe it’s Tritonian in origin. She says her race would never manufacture something quite so destructive.”

“Not even religious fanatics? The same people who just sicced a dirty great clump of living seaweed on us?”

“I suppose it’s possible,” Ethel conceded, via Handler. “But I don’t know where or how they built it, if they did. What if, instead, they’ve somehow got hold of ungilled weaponry? What if they’re using some of your own explosive devices against you?”

“She has a point,” Dev said. “Maybe they’ve raided an armoury and stolen a bunch of missile launchers. What we saw at Dakuwaqa could, I suppose, have been caused by rockets packed with high-ex cluster-bomb submunitions. Thistledowns, for instance.”

“The dispersal pattern wasn’t right for Thistledowns,” said Sigursdottir. “The bomblets’ targeting would have been much more uniform and precise. Besides, the only military-grade armouries on this planet are ours, and there’ve been no thefts from them that I’m aware of. Captain Maddox would go apeshit if something like that happened. Man runs a tight ship, and a security breach on that level – he’d roast the poor sucker responsible alive, and every one of us would hear about it.”

“Somebody else has given them weapons, then.”

“Plussers?” Sigursdottir blinked rain out of her eyes. She was the only one present who had to. Dev and Handler’s nictitating membranes clicked protectively into place when exposed to water, while Ethel had no eyelids at all, her eyes quite comfortable with being wet.

“Stands to reason,” Dev said. “It’s the perfect set-up for them. A world on their doorstep which we’ve very cheekily come along and claimed for ourselves. A faction of the indigenous race that wants rid of us. Slip the insurgents a bit of high-end ordnance, light the blue touchpaper and retire. A little proxy war and they don’t have to get their hands dirty or risk a single casualty.”

“The Ice King worshippers are in league with your enemy?” Ethel said after Handler had finished explaining who Polis+ were and the state of chilly hostility that existed between them and the Terran Diaspora. He had had to coin a special Tritonese term to convey the concept of AI sentiences: ‘Number Folk.’ “I don’t know. They’re independent and righteous. Too proud to accept assistance from outside.”

“You sure about that?” said Sigursdottir. “Even if it’s assistance that gives them a winning edge?”

Ethel’s face went a muddy, equivocal ochre. “Having seen what they’re prepared to do – slaughter thousands in their god’s name – I’m not certain anymore. About anything. I don’t understand these people. Perhaps I never will.”

“It could be that they’re receiving help from Polis Plus without realising,” Dev said. “Plussers are tricky fuckers, we all know that. They could have infiltrated the Ice King worshippers. There could be agent provocateurs within their ranks who’ve convinced them that non-Tritonian weapons are the way forward.”

“Aren’t you trained to spot Plussers lurking in organic host forms?” said Handler.

“It’s a skill I’ve acquired. Trouble is, I’ve not been able to apply it yet. I haven’t had a chance to sit down with any insurgents and see if I can weed out ringers.”

Dev also had his doubts that the standard test questions would work on Tritonians. Their expressions and mannerisms were so different from humans’, not to mention their mode of speech, that the usual deviations from the norm – the quirks and atypical responses you had to watch out for – weren’t applicable.

An alien masquerading as a human was one thing. An alien disguised as another species of alien – then all bets were off. How could you tell which behavioural patterns were anomalous? It would be as though the Plusser was wearing two masks. Doubly impenetrable.

Besides, the true marker of a Plusser occupying a human host form was that unnerving deadness in the eyes, Uncanny Valley. And Tritonians’ eyes were naturally blank and inexpressive.

You could also make a Plusser agitated by mocking the race’s religion. Since the Tritonian insurgents were themselves religious zealots, however, exploiting that topic to provoke a reaction from them meant nothing. They would be just as touchy about it as any Plusser.

“I’ve a good mind to call Maddox and ask for reinforcements,” Sigursdottir said. “This is bigger than we thought, bigger than we’re equipped to deal with. We need backup.”

“You mean leave Opochtli to the mercy of the insurgents?” said Dev. “No way.”

“You’re in no position to give me orders, civilian. If I think waiting for reinforcements is a good idea, then waiting for reinforcements is what we’re going to do. Maddox can mobilise all of Station Ares and have three hundred heavily armed Marines here in no time.”

“In no time? How long do you reckon it’ll take them to arrive?”

“Best-case? Twelve hours.”

“Opochtli will be toast by then. Maybe Mazu too. By all means have Maddox deploy. The plain truth, though, is that right here, right now, it’s all on us. Me, you and your Marines, and Ethel and her pals. We’re less than twenty klicks out from Opochtli and, like it or not, we’re the best and only chance that town has.”

“It may already be too late. The attack may already be over.”

“We don’t know that,” Dev said, “and now’s not the time to start second-guessing ourselves. Whatever weapons the insurgents have, it’s up to us to stop them. Nobody else can. I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re hopelessly outnumbered. Outgunned as well. But holding back and waiting for support simply isn’t an option. I’m sorry, but that’s just how it is.”