World of Water Page 4

  “You have permission to come aboard Station Ares, gentlemen,” she said. “Apologies for firing on you just now. You were zooming in fast and we’re a mite defensive at the moment. It’s a good thing you saw sense and halted. If you hadn’t, we might have blown you out of the water.”

  “Itchy trigger fingers, huh?” said Dev.

  “Afraid so. The situation on Triton being as it is, we’re in a shoot-first-ask-questions-later frame of mind.”

  Sigursdottir was no more than a metre and a half tall, but somehow made up for it with an erect bearing, as though she felt there was no one she couldn’t see eye-to-eye with. She had classic Nordic features – lofty cheekbones, narrow eyes, ash-blonde hair – and her sea-camo battledress barely disguised the bulges of a powerful, athletic physique. Like many a Marine, she looked as though she could bench-press her own bodyweight without breaking a sweat.

  Dev was ever so slightly smitten.

  “If you’ll walk this way...”

  He and Handler fell in behind Sigursdottir, who marched them to the snowflake’s axis at a fast lick. The other two Marines took the rear, carrying their rifles in their hands rather than slung over their shoulders.

  This spoke to Dev about the general nervousness at the base as loudly as the artillery shell had. A pair of unarmed and apparently harmless friendlies were being treated with the same protocols as captive enemy combatants. He imagined that were he and Handler to step out of line, they might expect a bullet in the face. Or, just as likely, in the back.

  They entered a building that, like every other one on the base, was single-storey and as featureless as any bunker. They passed communications rooms where staff sat cradled in padded lounge chairs. These people seemed to be staring off into the middle distance, but unless Dev was very much mistaken, they were uplinked via commplant to radar arrays, data-collecting buoys and geostationary observation satellites all over Triton, monitoring the planet for security purposes. There were a few floatscreens for general use, if imagery needed to be shared and communally examined. Otherwise the work was done inside people’s heads.

  At the epicentre of Station Ares lay the office of Captain Arkady Maddox. It was a bare space with no windows and not much in the way of ornamentation beyond a TerCon Marine flag on the wall and a floatscreen gif gallery of significant moments in the occupant’s life, which seemed to consist entirely of parades and medal presentation ceremonies.

  The man in charge of every Marine on Triton was in his mid-fifties, with hair the colour of iron and a grin that revealed teeth like ivory tombstones. Dev recognised in him the hardbitten, highly-decorated top-brass type he had come across countless times during the war, a gruff outward bonhomie masking a harsh, aggressive nature. His handshake was crushingly strong, less a greeting than a test of character.

  “Handler,” Maddox said. “Good to see you again. And this is Harmer, yes?”

  “Dev Harmer, ISS,” said Dev.

  “So they’ve made you a fish-man too, eh?”

  “In their infinite wisdom.”

  “Well, I suppose it makes sense. If the natives are restless, deploy an asset who’s half-native and can speak the lingo.”

  “That would seem to be the general idea.”

  “Lieutenant? Thank you. You’re dismissed.”

  Sigursdottir and the other two Marines saluted, about-turned and left.

  “Heck of a good officer, that one,” said Maddox. “Takes no shit, gives no shit. The ideal combination. Drink?”

  Handler declined, but Dev said, “Don’t mind if I do.”

  “Only have some of the local rotgut, I’m afraid. Distilled from fermented kelp. An acquired taste, but it does the trick.”

  He uncorked a label-less bottle containing a greasy clear liquid with a greenish tinge, and poured Dev and himself a tumbler each.

  “Down the hatch.”

  “Fuck me!” Dev yelped after his first swallow of the stuff. He exhaled hard and thumped his chest. “Whoof. That clears the pipes.”

  “And that’s why I passed,” said Handler, while Captain Maddox guffawed lustily.

  “Told you. Takes some getting used to.”

  “It’s like seawater mixed with acid,” said Dev. “And fish.”

  “That’ll be the other main ingredient coming through. Bile from the gall bladder of one of the local fish species – runty little sucker that looks a bit like a herring.”

  “You could have warned me.”

  “And ruin the surprise? This drink’s been known to cause blindness and renal failure, by the way. But it gets a buzz going like nothing else.”

  “Does it have a name?”

  “Don’t think anyone’s dared give it one. I’ve heard it referred to as ‘double moonshine,’ which is reasonably witty, but I reckon leaving it anonymous shows it the respect it’s due. Top-up?”

  Dev figured he was being judged, so he held out his tumbler. “Go on, then.”

  The next shot tasted no better than the previous one, but at least this time he was prepared for it. He could feel the alcohol hitting him already, a heat spreading outward from his belly. Quick work. The sensation of peaceful ease it brought was almost worth the disgusting aftertaste lingering in the back of his throat.

  “So, Handler, this request you put in...” said Maddox. “You’re wanting some of my men.”

  “As many as you can afford to lend us, if that’s all right,” Handler replied. “I know it’s an imposition, but we’d be eternally grateful.”

  Dev felt this was the wrong approach to take with a man like Captain Maddox, who respected forthrightness, not politeness. By the same token, Handler should have accepted the offer of a drink, regardless of how much he didn’t want it. Still, Handler knew Maddox, this was his negotiation, so Dev said nothing and let him take the lead.

  “How many?” Maddox barked.

  “We’re thinking a contingent of about a dozen Marines,” Handler continued. “Unless that’s too many. Half a dozen will do.”

  “A dozen, half a dozen – why should I go along with that? Why should I let you have any? We’re on code amber right now. Do you know what code amber means?”

  Handler floundered. Dev stepped in.

  “Strong threat of imminent attack,” he said.

  Maddox regarded Dev evenly, reappraising him. “There speaks a serviceman. War veteran, yes?”

  “As it happens.”

  “Where did you see action?”

  “Easier to name the places where I didn’t.”

  “Who were you with?”

  “Ninth Extrasolar Engineers.”

  “Sapper regiment.”

  “Yes, but they chucked us into just about any firefight going.”

  “Including Barnesworld?”

  “Of course.”

  “Leather Hill?”

  Dev flinched a fraction.

  “Ah,” Maddox said. “Say no more. Your reaction speaks volumes. Let’s have another glass.”

  They clinked drinks.

  “To fallen comrades.”

  “To fallen comrades,” Dev echoed.

  “Wasn’t there myself,” Maddox said.

  “Why would you be? It was an inland battle, not littoral or inshore.”

  “Sometimes wish I had been.”

  “You shouldn’t.”

  “Why ever not? The decisive clash of the Frontier War. The one where we finally settled the digimentalists’ hash. Who wouldn’t want to have been there? Glorious moment!”

  Dev did not remember Leather Hill as glorious at all. He remembered day after day of grinding, gruelling attrition. Slow advances, desperate retreats, determined re-entrenchments. Troops thrown headlong into the threshing machine of the Polis+ lines. The Plussers pitching everything they had into the fray, every mech, every organic war beast, crab tank, suicide spider, zombie clone battalion, and blade-flailing samurai robot, all the time proclaiming in high, ululating voices the majesty and wonder of their god the Singularity...


  It was tempting to put Maddox straight, to point out that Leather Hill had not been a victory but rather the final straw for both sides, a mutual massacre so extensive that it had eventually brought them to the negotiating table to sue for peace and sign a treaty.

  But here was a man who relished combat. Lived for it. No amount of slaughter could ever dismay or deter him. Death was just an unavoidable necessity, as far as Maddox was concerned, the fire that he snuggled close to for warmth even though it could burn him. Dev had no hope of persuading him otherwise.

  So all he said was, “You had a good war, I’m guessing.”

  “The best,” Captain Maddox replied. “Loved it. Every minute of it. You’re not one of those limp-wristed liberal pacifists who’d rather we never got involved, are you?”

  “We did what had to be done. I did.”

  Maddox nodded. “Good an answer as any. It’s just that I’ve met some vets who seem to have turned their backs on the whole concept of fighting. They resent it. It’s as though we weren’t engaged in a struggle for the human race’s existence, as though the decade we spent keeping the Plussers at bay was somehow a complete waste of time and a senseless loss of life.” He snorted. “I have no truck with that attitude whatsoever, as I’m sure you’ve gathered.”

  “Ahem.” Handler looked sheepish. “I fear we’re straying from the point, captain.”

  “Men,” said Maddox. “You’re after a detail of my men to accompany you south to the Tropics of Lei Gong, where the Tritonians are raising the biggest ruckus.”

  “I appreciate that it’s a big ask.”

  “It is a big ask. As things stand, I’m under-staffed. I could do with another three stations this size, the better to keep an eye on the Plussers.”

  “There are Plussers on-planet?” Dev said.

  “Not that we know of.” Maddox waved an arm skyward. “The ones out there. What do you think this base’s purpose is, after all? I’ll give you a clue: we’re not here for the surfing and the seafood.”

  “Forward reconnaissance,” said Dev, “that’s what I think.”

  “Clever fellow.”

  “There are deep space radio telescopes orbiting above us, peering into Polis Plus territory. All those people we passed on the way in, I thought they were monitoring Triton, but now I see they’re not. They’re analysing and assessing regional Plusser activity and relaying it to high command on Earth.”

  “Precisely. This isn’t some peacekeeping force I’m in charge of. We’re not policemen. Station Ares is a high-value listening post, and it needs to be properly safeguarded. If the locals are busy attacking Terran interests, who’s to say we’re not next on the list? Meaning I need all hands on deck. That said...”

  Maddox rocked on his heels, mulling things over.

  “We can’t really look the other way and whistle when things are so clearly turning sour,” he said. “And TerCon must have a hunch it’s the Plussers who are getting the Tritonians all uppity, or why else bring ISS in?”

  “Covert Polis Plus plots are kind of our speciality,” Dev said.

  “And if that’s what’s happening, then it’d be a dereliction of duty on my part not to help out.”

  “That’s the spirit.”

  “Tell you what. Yes. You can have your Marines. You can also have a gunboat for them to tag along with you in.”

  “That’s very generous of you,” said Handler.

  “I’ll even throw in Eydís Sigursdottir. Can’t spare her, really, but you’ll need a decent junior officer to run the show, and she’s the best.”

  “I’m fine with that,” Dev said, sounding more eager than he intended.

  “Just make sure it’s worthwhile. Don’t make me look a fool. I’d hate that, and so would you.”

  Maddox hoisted the bottle of double moonshine and refilled Dev’s glass and his own one more time.

  Dev would have liked to refuse, because the buzz from the booze was beginning to turn nasty. The room had started to reel and his tongue had gone numb. His host form, after all, had never ingested alcohol before. Its physiology was as pure and untainted as a newborn baby’s, its liver a stranger to all intoxicants. And this particular liquor was so strong, even a hardened drinker would have had difficulty metabolising it.

  Nonetheless he slugged the shot down in one go, both to seal the deal with Maddox and to prove he had guts.

  Next instant, he proved he had guts in another way, by bending double and puking copiously on the floor, much to Maddox’s amusement.

  When he straightened up, he found he was hopelessly lightheaded. The room was growing grey and distant around him, and Maddox’s booming laughter had begun to echo as though they were in a cavern.

  Don’t pass out, Dev told himself. Whatever you do, don’t –

  10

  HE CAME TO aboard the Reckless Abandon, sprawled indecorously on a bunk in one of the cabins.

  He felt awful.

  No, that was an understatement. He would have loved to feel awful. Awful was a condition he aspired to.

  He felt truly abysmal. Wretched. A half-dead wreck of a man. A bag of pain and ghastliness. His every nerve ending jagged and raw. His muscles so many chunks of suppurating rotten meat. His bones broken twigs.

  Just raising his head off the bunk was like wrestling a grizzly bear, an act that was not only a huge, self-lacerating effort, but utterly futile and guaranteed to end in defeat.

  For a while all he could do was lie there and moan self-pityingly.

  The jetboat was in motion, which did nothing to alleviate his suffering. It leapt and bounced across the water, heaving him up and down as gleefully as a cat persecuting a mouse.

  Even dying was preferable to this – and Dev, who had once felt his body being torn to ribbons by coilgun rounds, knew a bit about dying.

  The phrase Never again tolled in his mind like a bell. He always seemed to forget that every time he was installed in a host form he was starting over from scratch. His personal history, including a tolerance to alcohol accrued over a lifetime, meant nothing to a virgin, vat-grown body. In that disjuncture between what he remembered about himself and what he currently was, trouble lay.

  Finally, through the pulsating haze that fogged his vision, he noticed that someone had done him the courtesy of leaving a packet of Blitz-Go beside the bunk. He no doubt had Handler to thank for that. He fumbled for the packet and popped a couple of the hangover-remedy pills from their blisters. Then he helped himself to a third one. Well in excess of the recommended dose, but screw it.

  He dry-swallowed the three pills and waited patiently for them to take effect. Soon enough, specially designed enzymes were coursing round his body, breaking down the acetaldehyde build-up and negating acidosis. He dared to sit upright and, when he could manage that without feeling that he was going to pass out again, to stand.

  A bleary, brittle Dev climbed the companionway that led to the Reckless Abandon’s main deck. From there he bravely tackled the ladder up to the flybridge, only losing his footing twice.

  Handler, at the helm, gave him a commiserative smile.

  “You poor bastard. I almost admire you, the way you went for it with Maddox. I’ve played that game myself. Once. Once was enough. That man has the constitution of an ox.”

  “Trust me, I’m regretting it. Thanks for the Blitz-Go, by the way.”

  “No problem. How are you feeling?”

  “How do I look?”

  “Like crap, frankly.”

  “That’s how I’m feeling.”

  “I imagine the progressive host form deterioration isn’t doing you any favours either. You’re due for another dose of nucleotides.”

  “Fine. If you say so. Did I screw things up with Maddox? You know, by upchucking all over his floor?”

  “As a matter of fact, no. ‘Best laugh I’ve had in ages,’ he said, and then ordered some flunkey to come in and clean up the mess.”

  “Well, that’s a relief. So we have our Marine escort?”
/>
  “Look to starboard.”

  Dev turned.

  “No,” said Handler, “the other starboard.”

  Dev turned again, and there, some 400 metres away, was a naval catamaran keeping pace with the jetboat. Dawn was coming, and the sleek grey ship stood proud against the silvering sky. Its superstructure bristled with weaponry, from heavy calibre guns to missile launchers. Its twin hulls, with forward-projecting keels, sliced through the water like knives. Dev fancied the catamaran would offer a much smoother ride than the Reckless Abandon and kind of wished he was aboard it right now.

  “That there is the Admiral Winterbrook,” Handler said. “Hunter-killer class attack vessel. Named after the hero of the sea campaign on Kapteyn B.”

  “He went down with his ship, didn’t he?”

  “But not before destroying the Plussers’ submarine-generating facility.”

  “I’m just saying, is it wise to give your ship the name of someone famous for having his ship sunk under him?”

  Handler shrugged. “How should I know? I’m not a navy man. I guess a hero’s a hero, whether he died of wounds in battle or of old age in bed. Probably more of a hero, though, if it’s the former rather than the latter.”

  “Still doesn’t seem all that auspicious, to my mind,” said Dev.

  “Tell it to the Marines,” said Handler, gesturing at the catamaran. “Hey, that was a good joke. Don’t you think? They’re Marines, and I said, ‘Tell it to the Marines.’”

  “Jokes are even better when you explain them.”

  “But you didn’t laugh. I thought you hadn’t got it.”

  “I was laughing. Deep down. Where it counts.”

  “I read that you like wisecracks. It was in your psych profile. ‘Fond of using humour as a means of defusing tension and/or deflecting enquiries into private matters,’ or words to that effect.”

  “I like making wisecracks. Doesn’t necessarily mean I like it when other people make them.”

  “The other thing I read about you is that you give everyone nicknames.”