World of Water Read online

  “That’s not true. Not everyone. Only if I like you.”

  “So it’s a kind of litmus test. You know you’re in with Dev Harmer if he comes up with a nickname for you.”

  “Something along those lines.”

  “Do I have one yet?”

  “Working on it.”

  The sun breasted the horizon, dispelling the last of the night clouds that were loitering to the west. Dev noted that the two boats were holding a southerly heading.

  “These Tropics of Lei Gong I heard Maddox mention,” he said. “What’s down there?”

  “The name should give you a clue.”

  “Can’t say ‘Lei Gong’ rings a bell.”

  “Chinese thunder god.”

  “Ah. I see. Bad weather. What else?”

  “The greatest concentration of settlers on Triton. Three floating townships: Opochtli, Dakuwaqa and Mazu. All within a twenty-kilometre radius of one another. They’re known collectively as the Triangle Towns region. The Tritonian insurgents seem to be focusing their attention there. Mazu alone has been hit five times in the past month.”

  Handler broke off to emit a huge yawn.

  “Beg pardon,” he said. “I’ve been up all night. It’s starting to catch up with me.”

  “I can take over,” Dev said. “You go down and get some rest.”

  “You’re okay to pilot this thing? Not too sick?”

  “Give me my next nucleotide shot and I’ll cope. How hard can sailing a boat be? There’s the throttle, there’s the steering wheel...”

  “Ship’s wheel,” Handler corrected.

  “Whatever. The turny thing that makes you go right or left. We’re running on autopilot anyway. If I get into difficulties, I’ll give you a shout.”

  “All right. We’ve a few hours to go before we hit the tropical latitudes. Wake me when we’re below the twenty-third parallel.”

  “Which I’ll know we’ve done because...?”

  “Because that big red dot on that map screen there, which is us, has a number beside it, which is our GPS co-ordinates, and when the first bit of that number starts to read twenty-two degrees, then we’re –”

  “Okay, Captain Condescension. I get it.”

  “Please tell me that’s not my nickname.”

  “Captain Condescension? Nah. I can come up with something better than that. At the moment I’m edging towards Manhandler, on account of the way you shoved me into the sea yesterday and pushed me under.”

  “Manhandler,” Handler said, as though trying it on for size. “Could be worse.”

  11

  ONE SERUM PATCH later, Dev was left alone on the flybridge, minding the ship while his ISS liaison slept.

  After half an hour he was bored. One stretch of seascape looked much like another. So he searched the local commplant directory for 1st Lieutenant Eydís Sigursdottir.

  Her personal details were classified, but one of the few perks of working for ISS was high security clearance and the master-key override software that came with that. Soon he had a link for her, and called her. Handler was right: connection times on Triton were ridiculously slow. It was nearly a minute before he got through – he had begun to think Sigursdottir was asleep and had her commplant switched off.

  Yeah?

  Lieutenant Sigursdottir, how goes it?

  Who is this?

  Dev Harmer. We met last night.

  ISS guy? Charming nature? Dazzling personality? Great sense of humour?

  The fish-looking one who came with the other fish-looking one? And who can’t hold his drink?

  That’s me. Hailing you from the Reckless Abandon, currently cruising alongside your fine and rather intimidating catamaran.

  What do you want? It’s early.

  You’re up, though.

  I’m CO. Of course I’m up. Wait, how did you get hold of my commplant address?

  I’m sneaky. I only want to say hi. We didn’t really get a chance to chat before, did we?

  So?

  I thought, as we’re working together now, we ought to get acquainted. Break the ice. Strike up a rapport.

  Why do we have to do that?

  Because it’ll foster a close professional relationship.

  I have a unit of eight Marines under my command, all of them well trained, highly disciplined, and good at taking orders. Right now, a close professional relationship with them is the only one I need.

  Sigursdottir was going to be a tough nut to crack. But then Dev preferred it when women didn’t make life easy for him. He was perverse that way.

  So what do you do for fun around here? When you’re not busy with your Marine-y stuff, that is.

  Are you hitting on me?

  It’s called polite conversation. That thing where you find out things about other people and they find out things about you and it becomes a thing. That thing.

  In my down time I practise my Krav Maga, hit the weights racks, clock up hours at the shooting range, and keep on top of my studies for my diploma in interstellar logistics. And when I’m not doing any of that, sleep.

  Wow. I did say “fun”, didn’t I? You did hear that?

  We clearly have different definitions of the word.

  You don’t go for a drink, then? Maybe download a movie? Grab a pizza and just chill?

  Mr Harmer, I am a member of a Marine force stationed on one of the remotest Diasporan planets, more light years from home than I care to think about, overlooking Polis Plus territory. I am not here to chill. I am here to do a job.

  Everyone needs to let off steam every now and then.

  You’re not a Marine, are you?

  Come on. I’ve never met a serving military person who didn’t like to go crazy and let their hair down once in a while. In fact, you Marines are famous for it. I remember this one time, during the war, I was out with some of the guys from my regiment during a week’s R and R, and we came across a bunch of Marines who were shit-faced drunk and setting fire to –

  Terrific anecdote. I’d love to hear more of it sometime.

  You don’t mean that.

  No, I don’t.

  It really is pretty amusing. You see, we were on Kepler 62F, or was it Kepler 22B? One of the Keplers, at any rate. Desert planet. And it had these burrowing meerkat-type creatures, real pest, got everywhere, loved to chew on cables and crap under your cot. And the Marines... Sigursdottir? You still there?

  The call had been disconnected. Sigursdottir had hung up. Dev was projecting his thoughts out into a void.

  Shame. The story about Marines dousing the meerkat creatures’ fluffy tails in ethanol and setting them alight seldom failed to raise a smile. Especially the part where several of the terrified, flaming mammals – someone had dubbed them ‘nearkats’ – scurried into the mess habitat and it caught on fire and burned to the ground. The Marines ended up facing a disciplinary tribunal and receiving a non-judicial punishment of a forty-eight-hour forced march during which their only food rations were strips of roast nearkat meat.

  The point he had been trying to make by regaling Sigursdottir with the story was to show that Marines did know how to have fun. But maybe Sigursdottir wasn’t that sort of Marine. Or that sort of person.

  Dev suspected, though, that deep down, underneath that stern exterior, she was.

  He turned his attention back to the map screen, where the red dot that was the Reckless Abandon continued to nudge its way southward. The sea around it was rendered as a patchwork of concentric blobs in various deepening shades of blue, signifying seabed depth. The Admiral Winterbrook showed up as a faint secondary dot overlapping the Reckless Abandon’s.

  All at once a fresh red dot appeared.

  Then another.

  Dev was gripped by alarm. Other vessels? Popping up out of nowhere?

  The explanation was only a little less disturbing.

  Blood was dripping from his nose onto the map screen.

  He pinched his nostrils shut and went down to the galley for a cloth to s
taunch the bleeding. Back on the flybridge, he wiped the screen clean with another cloth and waited for the flow of blood to taper off. Eventually it did, but not before the first cloth was almost fully saturated.

  So this was how it was going to be, was it? As the host form continued to break down, he could expect more nosebleeds? Perhaps, to add to the merriment, he would start bleeding from other orifices as well. There was something to look forward to.

  Jetboat and catamaran sped along side by side for another hour, and as Beta Ophiuchi rose further, the air grew humid. Dev’s skin began to prickle in the heat. Or was that another manifestation of his deterioration?

  He realised he was going to have to be unusually careful on this mission. Not only was he pushed for time, he would not be functioning at peak capacity, and his physical efficiency would inexorably decrease. His body was crumbling under him like an unstable cliff edge. It might give way at any moment.

  What he would have to bear in mind, above all else, was the need to data ’port out of the host form before it disintegrated completely. If he failed to get out in time, if his consciousness was still inside this body when its brain turned to mush, that would be that. Game over.

  The matrix rig and uplink were back at the ISS outpost at Tangaroa. Whatever else happened, he had to give himself sufficient leeway to return there before his condition got too bad. He only had Handler’s estimate of seventy-two hours to go on. It was probably just an educated guess. His host form might have longer, it might not; it might have far less. He would have to play it by ear.

  The main thing was not to leave it too late to get back to Tangaroa. There might not be much margin for error.

  To be on the safe side, Dev started a countdown timer on his commplant. Approximately sixteen hours had elapsed since he had data ’ported in, so he dialled the clock to 56:00:00 and set it going.

  55:59:59

  55:59:58

  55:59:57

  There. Now he had a rough guide to his remaining lifespan. How many people could say they knew, almost to the minute, when they were going to die?

  Mr Harmer.

  It was Sigursdottir, calling him back. Dev permitted himself a small, secret smile. He might have known she wouldn’t be able to resist for long.

  Lieutenant Sigursdottir! To what do I owe the honour?

  Don’t get all tumescent. This isn’t a social call. Have you looked at your map screen in the past couple of minutes?

  Uh, no, not really.

  Do.

  Dev glanced at the screen and frowned. There was a new red dot on it, some distance to the south-west. To judge by the map scale, fifty-odd kilometres.

  What’s that?

  It’s a licensed scientific research vehicle, the Egersund, Norwegian-owned. I know that because I’ve cross-referenced its radar signature with the Triton maritime database, and also because it’s sending out a mayday giving its name and position.

  It’s in trouble?

  That’s usually what a mayday means.

  But what sort of trouble?

  Unknown. All we’re getting is the automated distress beacon. We’ve hailed, but no response. We’ve no option but to go in and help.

  Hold on, you mean divert?

  That’s exactly what I mean. It’s a rule of the sea. A mayday cannot be ignored, especially if you’re the nearest available ship, which we are. It’s our responsibility.

  Do I get any say in the matter?

  None at all. I’m telling you as a courtesy. We’re already changing tack. If you want to stick with us, then you can come along. Otherwise feel free to carry on on your own.

  Dev looked to the right. The Admiral Winterbrook was veering away from its parallel course, trending westward. The gap between the boats was widening.

  He was in a quandary. On the one hand, the sooner they got to the Tropics of Lei Gong, the better. The mission was, after all, time critical; they couldn’t afford to be sidetracked. On the other hand, he and Handler had gone to all the trouble of securing an escort of Marines, and now they were going to lose it? That would render the whole trip to Station Ares a waste of time.

  There really seemed no choice but to stick with Sigursdottir and her squad.

  Handler’s down below, snoozing, and we’re on autopilot. How do I alter course?

  Log in to the navigation computer. The interface is pretty straightforward and self-explanatory. Just draw a vector line to the Egersund’s position. The computer will do the rest.

  Roger that.

  Don’t want to be separated from us, huh?

  It’s a big ocean. It might be tricky to hook up again. Plus, we’ve only just got to know each other, you and me. It’d be a shame to lose this connection we’ve got.

  Mr Harmer, sincerely, give it a rest.

  Dev followed Sigursdottir’s instructions, synching his commplant with the navigation computer, and the Reckless Abandon was soon coming about to match bearings with the Admiral Winterbrook.

  55:55:13

  55:55:12

  55:55:11

  12

  THE EGERSUND WAS enormous. Dev kept thinking the research ship couldn’t loom any bigger, but it kept growing.

  It was like an oceangoing skyscraper. Its hull was solid and plain, unrelieved by portholes, a sheer metal cliff face. Its superstructure consisted of a bridge, an accommodation level, and a pair of towering derricks.

  Licensed scientific research vessel, Sigursdottir had called it, but Dev couldn’t help thinking it was a whole lot more than that. What need did scientists have for something this colossal?

  More to the point, how come a ship so huge was sending out a mayday? What could conceivably pose a threat to a titan of such epic proportions?

  Closer yet, he noticed that the Egersund was listing slightly. It was stationary but leaning at a drunken angle. He could only presume it had been holed below the waterline.

  The Admiral Winterbrook dropped to dead slow, and Dev did the same, disengaging the autopilot and assuming manual control of the jetboat. The catamaran nosed warily around the bow of the Egersund, and Dev followed in its wake.

  Still not getting anything on any of the regular radio frequencies. If someone’s aboard, they’re not answering. I’m going to try the loudhailer.

  Aye-aye, lieutenant.

  You’re not a sailor. Don’t say that.

  “Ahoy, the Egersund.” Sigursdottir’s amplified voice rang out from the Admiral Winterbrook. “Can anyone hear me? Signal somehow if you can. What is the problem? Are you taking on water? Do your crew need rescuing?”

  Nothing from the research vessel. No heads appeared atop the great promontory of its prow. No arms waved.

  As they came round its far side, Dev saw that the sea was awash with blood. A great frothing patch of crimson spread out from the hull. It looked as though the Egersund was bleeding into the water from some mortal wound.

  No, it wasn’t the Egersund.

  Attached to the ship’s flank by cables was the carcass of a redback whale. The cetacean was floating underside up, quite dead, its pectoral fins raised towards the sky as though in supplication or valediction.

  The cables were lashed around its tail, and one of the derricks had begun the process of drawing the beast aft but had halted for some reason, leaving the redback’s flukes suspended just above the waves.

  The Admiral Winterbrook and the Reckless Abandon chuntered past the whale. The boats were dwarfed by the mound of the creature’s pink, barnacled belly, and the redback was in turn dwarfed by the Egersund.

  The stern of the gigantic ship sported a U-shaped transom, inset with a ramp almost level with the water. The ramp was streaked with stains that could have been rust but could equally have been caked-on blood from the corpses of other cetaceans. This was where the derrick had been hauling the redback carcass before something interrupted the procedure. The ramp doubled as a means of getting the bodies aboard the ship and a chute for dumping bones, offal and other valueless parts.


  Scientific research my butt.

  My thoughts exactly. This is a whaler. A factory ship. I’d heard there were a couple of them operating on-planet, but I reckoned it was just a rumour.

  They’re collecting whale meat?

  There’s a market for it back home and in some Diasporan communities. A ship like this can catch, process and flash-freeze several thousand tonnes of redback and load the flesh aboard a goods freighter for distribution.

  That’d cost a small fortune. The price per kilo at the restaurant table would be extortionate.

  There’s people willing to pay it and rich enough to. Japanese tech tycoons, for one.

  Nordic interstellar logistics magnates, for another.

  Was that a dig, Harmer?

  Not intended as such. But it’s the Nordic countries and Japan who used to consume whale meat the most and who whined the loudest when TerCon finally abolished it from the menu. Stands to reason they’d be the ones coughing up the cash to buy it from other sources when it’s no longer available on Earth. Pricey extraterrestrial whale meat’s better than no whale meat at all.

  Well, yeah, can’t argue with that. Speaking as an ethnic Icelander, I’ve never had the urge to eat it myself, but I can remember my grandfather going on about how much he had loved hval rengi – that’s whale blubber soured with milk.

  Seriously?

  And sur rengi – pickled blubber.

  Sounds delicious. I’m amazed you were never tempted to try it.

  Grandpa used to bitch about TerCon outlawing whaling. But even he had to admit that if it hadn’t been banned outright, eventually there’d have been no whales left.

  Luckily the gene pool wasn’t too depleted and the Comprehensive Repopulation Programme had a broad enough clone base to bring the species back from the brink of extinction.