World of Water

by James Lovegrove

  He did have the presence of mind to wonder why the Ice King had turned on the very people it was supposed to be liberating. Had its Plusser puppetmaster made a mistake? Had attacking the drift cluster been a tactical aberration? A technical glitch? Or was there some motive behind the action that he couldn’t as yet discern? Did it serve some wider purpose?

  Even as Dev was pondering these questions, Ethel abruptly bent the steering stalks as far forward as they would go. The manta sub beat its wings hard, accelerating from stationary to top speed.

  The other manta was galvanised into action, its pilots loyally copying Ethel and falling in step beside her sub.

  We’re going to help some of these people, right? Dev said. The ones with children, maybe? Let them hitch a ride with us?

  Ethel barely glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. No. There’s no point saving only a handful of them, not when they’re all at risk.

  What are you proposing?

  What do you think?

  You’re not seriously –

  But she was.

  The manta subs were making directly for the Ice King.

  46

  DEV GAPED IN disbelief.

  Whoa there! he said. Stop! Now!

  The glare of his demand was reflected on Ethel’s skin, a super-bright yell. She couldn’t have failed to see it. She ignored him nonetheless.

  He thrust himself into her eyeline.

  What are you hoping to achieve? A pair of manta subs against that thing? It eats vessels like these for breakfast. Literally. I’ve just seen it.

  Move, Ethel snapped, pushing him aside.

  You’re going to get us all killed.

  You don’t strike me as someone who’s frightened of dying.

  I’m not – not if it’s worthwhile. But I’m against pointlessly throwing my life away. It’s a policy of mine.

  I have no intention of pointlessly throwing my life away, or yours, or anyone’s.

  Well, you’re doing a fairly good impression of someone who’s about to.

  You need to trust me.

  I don’t know you well enough to trust you.

  Then you might as well make yourself useful instead.

  How?

  By shutting up, for starters, Ethel said. Also, by going to the other cockpit.

  You want me out of the way, huh?

  No, you ungilled ignoramus. Most submarines work better if there are two people in charge, especially when there’s danger involved. I want you to co-pilot this thing with me.

  Co-pilot...?

  A sub is more responsive if two people are operating the control columns in unison. When it receives commands from both, it accepts them better and processes them faster. And for what I have in mind, this manta’s going to need a lot of persuading and every bit of agility we can coax from it.

  I’ve never driven anything like this before, Dev said. You know that, right?

  Who else is there? That boy? A sulphur-yellow pulse of disgust. All you have to do is pay attention and follow my lead. It’s easier than you think.

  You’re sure about this?

  Co-piloting is at its most efficient when both pilots are related in some way, ideally by blood, Ethel said. Failing that, if they’ve developed a bond over time. My cousin is no longer with us, and I can’t say we’ve really bonded, you and me. All the same, you’re far from stupid, and you seem to pick things up quickly. And you’re all I’ve got.

  Number one in a field of one.

  Indeed. Now go!

  Dev swam through the duct connecting the chambers and planted himself behind the other control column. Currents surged and swirled within the spherical confines of the cockpit; the manta sub’s speed was forcing water through the rip the cuttlefish sub had made in the cornea. Dev had to scissor his legs around the base of the control column in order to stay anchored and in place.

  He grasped the steering stalks with both hands and looked across the manta’s mouth to the other cockpit. Ethel flashed him a word or two of encouragement and he answered with a mixture of trepidation and bravado.

  Both mantas plunged into the field of debris which had until a couple of minutes earlier been a drift cluster. Ethel deftly navigated around the boulders of coral and the dislocated sections redback vertebra. The subs soared and swooped and side-twisted, threading the three-dimensional, rapidly changing maze. It was the directest route to the Ice King, and the only one that afforded any sort of cover. Neither the ‘god’ nor its worshippers would see them coming.

  Dev felt the fleshy stalks twitch and tense in his hands. He sensed them mirroring the activity of the other control column.

  He had assumed there was a second cockpit on this and every Tritonian sub simply for the same reason that many aircraft had dual yokes: redundancy. A spare was needed in case one set of controls malfunctioned or one of the pilots became unable to fly.

  But now he understood that the adaptations which the Tritonians had made to these animals reflected their bilateral symmetry. The control columns tapped into both sides of the creature’s nervous system. Each alone gave a pilot mastery over it, but both in conjunction made that mastery absolute.

  He began operating the stalks, matching his movements to Ethel’s. The stalks, he realised, worked much like the differential control sticks on a tank or other tracked vehicle. Each ran one of the manta’s wings. The further forward you pushed it, the harder the wing on that side would beat. Pulling back on the stalk flared the relevant wing, applying braking power.

  He let the stalks themselves guide him, taking his cue from them as much as from Ethel. The sensory link between the two control columns made this comparatively straightforward. His principal job as co-pilot, it seemed, was to reinforce whatever the other pilot did.

  Nevertheless, there were one or two hair-raising moments. Either he misinterpreted what the stalks were telling him or he anticipated Ethel’s next manoeuvre incorrectly. Then the manta sub would veer crazily, or dip like a kite during a sudden lull in the breeze, or threaten to go into a pancake spin.

  That led to several near-misses in the debris field, and only Ethel’s experience and rapid reflexes saved them from a nasty collision.

  Just relax, she flashed to Dev from her cockpit. Go with it. Don’t overthink it.

  Which was easy for her to say, but this was Dev’s first time at the helm of a manta sub. And, moreover, he was having to learn in the worst possible circumstances. It was like having skis strapped to your feet on your starter lesson and being shoved down a black run rather than the nursery slopes, with an avalanche chasing you for good measure.

  Then the mantas were out of the debris field, emerging into clear water between it and the Ice King. They had come through unscathed, for which Dev could take little of the credit but about which he was more than a little relieved.

  Alarming as that escapade had been, it was nothing compared with what came next. Dev had a feeling Ethel wasn’t zooming towards the gargantuan crab simply to get a better view of it. Her plan was more drastic and foolhardy than that.

  Unfortunately, he was right.

  We’re going to attract its attention, she announced to him and the Tritonians in the other manta sub. We’re going to make ourselves bait and lure it away from here.

  That sounds like a totally sensible and sound idea, Dev said, picturing the sarcasm on his face as the deepest shade of orange imaginable, something like burnt tangerine.

  If we keep our wits about us and collaborate...

  We’ll still probably get mashed to pulp or wind up as a tasty crab treat.

  It’s us or the people from the drift cluster, one or the other. The Ice King is going to go after them eventually, if it hangs around much longer. They can’t outswim it.

  And a manta sub can?

  A manta sub should be able to. And outmanoeuvre it too.

  Only should?

  As long as we stay alert and focused. Now, enough whining. We’re doing this.

  Dev did
n’t think he had been whining, just sounding a note of caution. Ethel was harsh in her judgements. All the same, he could see the sense in what she was proposing.

  The manta subs dived towards the monster.

  Here goes nothing, Dev thought grimly.

  47

  HE HAD A moment of sudden clarity as the Ice King’s vast, hideous face loomed in front of him, a kind of epiphany.

  I feel fine, he thought.

  It was the first time since arriving on Triton that he could say in all honesty that there was nothing physically wrong with him. There were no aches, no pains, no nausea. No dragging undertow of illness. No nagging feeling that something was amiss, something was missing.

  He was healthy. That was the word. He felt sharp and alert and on top of things. Firing on all cylinders. The full ticket.

  It might, of course, have been due to the adrenaline coursing through him, the fight-or-flight response triggered by the obvious hazardousness of the undertaking. That could be what was honing his thought processes and banishing bodily discomfort. Adrenaline was a great sweeper away of cobwebs, wasn’t it? A great, if temporary, anaesthetic as well.

  But there had been plenty of previous instances during this mission when he had been in danger: the thalassoraptor, coming under fire from Station Ares, hand-to-hand combat on Llyr, the bladderwrack... None of those had sparked the same heightened, zingy clear-headedness he was currently experiencing.

  It was almost as though up until now he had been too under par to appreciate just how under par he was. Right from the outset, he hadn’t been himself, or rather it had been a struggle to be himself. He had been on the back foot, error-prone, forever missing a beat.

  He hadn’t noticed because he had started out from a pretty low baseline – the skull-lava headache – and after that things had never improved more than marginally and seldom for long. Constantly at the back of his mind there had been the knowledge that his host form was compromised and would last seventy-two hours at most. Awareness of his body deteriorating had overshadowed everything else, like a curse.

  From this he could only infer that he had done the right thing rejecting Handler’s regime of nucleotide shots. They weren’t therapeutic, they were toxic. And either the ISS liaison knew that, which meant he was a liar and a traitor, or he didn’t, which meant he was a dupe, someone’s patsy. Dev resolved to find out, at the earliest available opportunity, which of the two it was.

  In the meantime...

  The manta sub swooped so close to the Ice King that Dev could make out every section of its mouth parts, all the articulated segments that meshed neatly together and could manipulate and dissect prey as nimbly as fingers. They were slimed with gore and speckled with shreds of torn flesh.

  He and Ethel danced the sub right in front of those big-as-a-baseball-diamond eyes. The invitation couldn’t have been plainer. Come and get it, big boy. Nice juicy manta. All yours. Free grub. Just reach out a grab a bite.

  The Ice King gazed, perhaps mesmerised, perhaps uninterested – it was hard to tell. Dev kept a watchful eye on the pincers. They were at rest, but at any time they might come roaring up, eager and grasping.

  The sub continued dancing, appetisingly – or so Dev hoped. The manta itself was not a willing participant in the plan. He could feel that through the stalks. It didn’t like exposing itself so blatantly to any predator, and its electroreceptors were telling it that here, perilously nearby, was a predator deluxe. Dev and Ethel were having to fight to keep it in position. Had there been only one pilot in charge rather than two, the manta might have won; but beneath their combined wills, it submitted. Just.

  The Ice King, however, still wasn’t taking the bait. Was its stomach full, no room for anything more?

  Or did the Polis+ agent inhabiting it know that something was awry? Perhaps the Plusser thought the manta sub was too obviously making a target of itself. Perhaps Dev and Ethel had overplayed their hand.

  Then, fast, astonishingly fast – almost too fast – the Ice King made a grab for the sub.

  One pincer rocketed through the water, yawning wide, its serrated inner edges like the fangs of some vast dragon.

  Without hesitation, in unison, Dev and Ethel sent the manta into a steep climb. The creature beat its wings as rapidly as it could, surging upwards at full tilt.

  At the limit of the Ice King’s reach, the pincer snapped shut, crashing together.

  It missed the tip of the manta’s tail by centimetres.

  The manta sub cleared the sea’s surface and flew over the long, raging waves for a span of several seconds before slamming back into the water with an impact that nearly dislodged Dev from the control column.

  Down it went again, to come face to face once more with the Ice King.

  The crab was indisputably interested now. Its mouth parts rippled as though it were gnashing its teeth or voicing threats. With a kick of its hind legs, it lunged for the manta, both claws outstretched.

  Dev and Ethel threw the sub into full reverse, even as the two sets of pincers converged on it. The thought crossed Dev’s mind that Ethel had sorely overestimated the manta’s capabilities and underestimated the Ice King’s. The crab was swifter and quicker-witted than she’d realised.

  Then the other manta sub darted in. It wove a spiral around one of the pincer arms enticingly, divertingly. The Ice King, suddenly presented with two potential snacks instead of one, lost focus. It couldn’t decide which to go for. It made a half-hearted snatch at the new arrival, before turning back to the first sub.

  By that time, Dev and Ethel had retreated out of reach. The Ice King set off after their sub, seemingly forgetting about the second sub, for all that it was closer.

  Together Dev and Ethel flipped the manta around and poured on speed. The Ice King gave chase.

  They had succeeded in making a target of themselves. They had the Ice King’s undivided attention.

  Which was all well and good, but what, Dev wondered, were they going to do for an encore?

  48

  JUST KEEP GOING. That appeared to be Ethel’s plan. Keep the manta swimming flat out, and let the Ice King follow. As long as they stayed ahead, they would be fine. But not too far ahead. They didn’t want the Ice King to lose heart and give up pursuing them. They had to be sure it remained interested.

  Every so often, they spun the manta round to look back and check that the Ice King was still on their tail.

  The first time they did this, Dev was startled to see just how much distance lay between them and the gargantuan crab.

  Hardly any at all.

  The Ice King was hot on their heels, its pincers aloft and flared, waving like titanic battle-clubs. Its eyes glinted with an avaricious inner light. Dev had been hoping the manta might have a lead of at least fifty metres on the behemoth, but in fact it was more like a dozen.

  That wasn’t anyone’s idea of a safety margin.

  He and Ethel somersaulted the manta sub to face forward again and urged it to flap harder and faster than ever. The manta, to be fair, needed little encouragement. In its dim, stunted brain it might have been asking itself why its pilots had voluntarily placed it in harm’s way, but its overriding imperative was sheer survival.

  When Dev and Ethel next turned the sub for a look back, the Ice King was that little bit further away. Still not far enough for comfort, but at least it wasn’t hulking directly behind them.

  Then it was.

  The Ice King had been between kicks. As its hind legs gathered for each thrust, its forward momentum briefly slowed and the manta sub gained ground. The next kick made up the difference.

  The manta whirled round once again, while the great chitinous cliff that was the Ice King continued to hurtle after it. The crab was as remorseless as any bloodhound, as implacable as any shark. Dev felt that in some way the hunt had become personal. The Ice King did not wish to be cheated of its prize. It was honour-bound now to catch the manta sub, come what may. Nobody, nothing, should escape it.
>
  The third backward look they took was the briefest yet, a mere glance, that was all. The Ice King was no further away, but no nearer either, which was a relief.

  Dev also observed that none of its worshippers were with it anymore. He couldn’t see them tagging along in its wake. The only Tritonian sub anywhere in sight was the other manta with Ethel’s Nautilus allies in it, keeping just to the Ice King’s rear.

  Reflecting on this as the manta resumed its desperate flight, he could only conclude that the worshippers’ subs were unable to keep up.

  That or, more likely, the Ice King’s unexpected and unprovoked assault on the drift cluster had taken the worshippers by surprise and they were still trying to process the turn of events. What did it signify? Why had their god mauled a Tritonian community when it was supposed to be attacking only ungilled settlements? Where was the divine justice in that? What was the Ice King thinking?

  God moves in mysterious ways.

  Dev vaguely recalled hearing that line some time back. It came, or so he thought, from that book which no one read or owned anymore, the Bible. Whoever had quoted it would have been using it ironically or for shock effect. Even just mentioning God – as in capital-g God – could provoke outrage in the Post-Enlightenment era, a blasphemy against rationalism, a heresy in an age of atheism.

  God moves in mysterious ways. You weren’t supposed to question your deity’s actions or motives, you were just supposed to accept them. Unthinkingly. Unblinkingly. Like a sheep.

  But this particular ‘god’ had behaved so out of character, so wrongly, that its worshippers were bewildered and taken aback. Maybe, even now, a chill of doubt was creeping into their hearts. They were beginning to ask themselves if they had made a mistake, if their faith was misplaced. Unfounded, even.

  As the manta sub swept onward, Dev looked across at Ethel and said, How much longer can we keep this up?

  As long as necessary, was the reply.

  But we’re well clear of the drift cluster by now.