World of Water

by James Lovegrove

  “Harmer,” said Fakhouri. “I’m waiting. Haven’t got all day.”

  Then Jiang’s voice sounded over the Admiral Winterbrook’s PA system.

  “All hands to the bridge. I repeat, all hands to the bridge. Contact imminent. Report fully prepped, armed and armoured. This is not a drill.”

  Fakhouri, Reyes and Cully exchanged glances.

  “You two go get kitted out,” Fakhouri said. “I’ll keep the ISS contingent covered. Then you can escort them upstairs while I get ready myself.”

  “Affirmative,” sad Reyes. “Cully, you heard the woman. Double time. Let’s hustle.”

  Fakhouri held Dev at gunpoint and Dev in turn kept Handler pinned to the wall, and this uneasy tableau remained in effect until Reyes and Cully returned from the boat’s armoury in full battle gear.

  Blunt and Francis appeared too – clothing straightened, hair a little mussed – and that was when Dev finally had to admit defeat. He took his arm away from Handler’s neck with a grunt of frustration. Handler managed to look affronted and peeved, but there was also a twinkle of vindication in his eyes that could have been taken, if you were looking for it, as a sign of guilt.

  Reyes and Cully took charge of both Dev and Handler and bundled them up to the bridge...

  ...where, amid the rollercoaster ups and downs of the waves, they had ringside seats for the Ice King’s attack on Mazu.

  55

  EXCEPT THE ICE King didn’t attack Mazu.

  The gargantuan crab circled the township, seeming cautious, unconvinced. Again and again it poked its face speculatively above the surging waves, as though something about Mazu struck it as not quite right, as though it was looking for something that wasn’t there.

  “What’s it up to?” said Jiang.

  “Suspicious and unimpressed,” said Milgrom. “Like a dog sniffing at its bowl. ‘Kibble again?’”

  Sigursdottir was torn between watching the Ice King and wanting to know why Reyes and Cully were treating Dev and Handler like captive prisoners.

  “Explain,” she said, drawing an index finger back and forth in the air to indicate the two non-Marines. “What’s up with the ISS guys? They under arrest?”

  That was when Fakhouri made her entrance.

  “They were having a row,” she said. “It got heated. I cooled it down.”

  “A row about...?”

  Dev glanced sidelong at Handler. It took every ounce of self-control he had in him to say, “A misunderstanding. Handler and I have conflicting views on a certain set of facts. You know how it is.”

  “No, I don’t know how it is, and what’s more, I don’t care. Have you settled your differences?”

  “Yes,” said Handler firmly.

  “No,” said Dev. Then: “Yes.”

  “That’s what I want to hear. I will not tolerate squabbling on my boat, not from my men and not from civilians. You, Harmer, seem to be going out of your way to antagonise people today. You’d better stow that shit, or else. We don’t have a brig on the Winterbrook but we’ve got a galley you wouldn’t like to be shut up inside. Place is a health hazard.”

  “Message received and understood.”

  “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d rather pay attention to what matters, which is that freakazoid crab monster out there.”

  Sigursdottir turned back to the windows, which were under siege from sheeting torrents of seawater and rain, so much so that the ultrasonic inducer field that was supposed to be keeping the glass clear and dry couldn’t cope.

  The Ice King was still giving Mazu a wary once-over.

  “Maybe it always does this,” Blunt said. “Checks out the opposition before going in for the kill.”

  “That’s not what it did when it attacked the drift cluster earlier,” Dev said. “It barely thought twice.”

  “So what’s different about Mazu?” Jiang wondered.

  Dev thought he knew. “If you ask me, it’s people.”

  “There aren’t any on Mazu.”

  “Exactly. This thing likes people. It likes to kill them and eat them. It’s a forager carnivore and it needs a lot of food to keep it going, and it’s unsure about Mazu because it’s not detecting any prey there.”

  “Is that true?” said Sigursdottir.

  Dev shrugged. “I can’t swear to it.”

  The Ice King sank under the surface once more, but this time didn’t re-emerge.

  “So it might wander off now,” said Sigursdottir. “Go in search of a meal.”

  “Unless it decides to trash Mazu just for shits and giggles,” said Francis.

  They waited. The syzygy storm continued putting Mazu through contortions, like a cruel gymnastics coach, but the Ice King appeared to have decided to leave the township alone.

  “Uh-oh,” said Jiang.

  “Gunnery sergeant, you had better clarify that remark,” said Sigursdottir, “quick smart.”

  “On the sonar. The Ice King. It’s coming this way.”

  “Full reverse thrust! Now!”

  The Admiral Winterbrook’s engines had been holding the boat in position, making constant micro adjustments in order to resist the sweep of the storm. Jiang threw the throttle back as far as it could go, and the catamaran began to move. Progress was sluggish at first, but then the propellers gained traction in the water.

  The Ice King neared. It was swimming just below the surface, pushing a localised tsunami in front of it, a crescent-shaped wall of water five metres high that was gathering size and impetus with every second.

  “Do you think it’s after us?” said Francis.

  “Doesn’t matter if it is or it isn’t,” said Milgrom. “Fucker’s going to swamp us either way.”

  “Unless it changes course,” said Blunt.

  “Everybody, hang on to something,” Sigursdottir ordered. “Even if the Ice King passes right below, we can ride it out. This boat’s built to handle the worst nature can throw at it.”

  She sounded confident. She looked confident. But the confidence didn’t extend to her eyes, which were tight with apprehension.

  Hands reached out to grab consoles, bulkheads, seat backs, wall-mounted cupboards, whatever was fixed in place and bolted down. Milgrom lodged her hands flat against the ceiling, using her augmented strength to chock herself in place.

  Handler, Dev noted with satisfaction, was trembling like a kitten.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll look after you. Just like you’ve been looking after me.”

  “Funny.”

  “You could come clean now, if you want. Seeing as we might not live through this. Admit you’ve been poisoning me.”

  “The only thing I’ll admit to is realising that you were having doubts about me when you stopped making up stupid nicknames for me and started calling me by my surname again.”

  “That wasn’t a conscious decision.”

  “Get this through your thick skull, Harmer. I’m no villain, no traitor. I’m a follower of orders, just like you.”

  “Yes, but whose – ?”

  “Here it comes!” said Jiang.

  “Brace! Brace! Brace!” Sigursdottir yelled.

  The wall of water struck. The Admiral Winterbrook’s bow rose, and rose, and kept on rising. The angle of pitch steepened until it was approaching vertical. People leaned, clinging on hard to whatever support they had found, all except Milgrom, who stayed wedged between ceiling and floor like a pillar. Voices were raised in shouts that were not quite screams.

  “It’ll right itself!” Sigursdottir called out. “It’ll right itself! The boat is not going to go over!”

  For a moment her prediction almost seemed to come true. The Admiral Winterbrook teetered, twin keels exposed to the air. The catamaran felt as though it was about to lunge forward and slap back down into the water. Its stabilisers moaned as they fought to compensate, redistributing ballast.

  But then, with slow, heavy inevitability, the boat inclined further up.

  Up to perpendicular.

&
nbsp; And then a fraction beyond.

  Past tipping point.

  “Oh, shit!” someone cried.

  Jiang lost her grip on the main console and went tumbling with a thud against the rear wall.

  The windows showed nothing but furious sky.

  A rushing sensation.

  A feeling of falling.

  Down the Admiral Winterbrook went. Straight down at first, like a post being driven into soil, and then backwards down, toppling.

  Over onto its superstructure.

  Slamming belly up into the sea.

  56

  THERE WERE BODIES in freefall. A colliding, helpless chaos of limbs and heads and torsos. The shouts were now pure, plain screams as the ceiling became a repository for a tangled mass of men and women. Bodies sprawled among the light fixtures, dazed and groaning. The windows were a gallery of seething bubbles and subaquatic gloom, and from somewhere above and to the rear of the boat came the shrill whine of propellers churning empty air.

  Sigursdottir, pushing up to hands and knees, addressed her troops. “Is everyone okay? Anyone hurt? Sound off!”

  Milgrom, Francis, Blunt, Fakhouri, Reyes and Cully all called out their names, some hoarsely, others with more vigour.

  “Jiang,” said Francis. “Jiang’s non-responsive. Think she hit her head when she slipped backwards.”

  “Tend to her. Harmer? What’s your status?”

  “Ouch.”

  “Handler?”

  “I’ll live.”

  “All right. First things first. Here’s your no-shit-Sherlock update for the day: we’ve capsized. We need to get off ASAP. No way the Winterbrook’s going to stay afloat for long like this.”

  “Lieutenant, we’re shipping water already,” said Blunt.

  One of the windows had cracked, and cold sea was oozing in through the fissure. A couple of the other windows had been loosened in their frames by the boat’s somersaulting impact. Water was welling up and leaking in around the panes.

  “That settles it,” said Sigursdottir. “No time for taking stock or gathering supplies or any of that. Reyes, Cully, you’re our best swimmers. Grab Jiang. You’re responsible for her.”

  “Aye-aye, sir.”

  “Brace yourselves, folks.” Sigursdottir pulled her gun and took aim. “We’re about to get wet.”

  “And not in a good way,” said Milgrom.

  “This is going to happen fast. Deep breaths. Oxygenate those lungs. Get ready for a big influx of water in three... Two... One!”

  She fired off several rounds in swift succession, blowing out five of the windows in a left-to-right arc.

  Glass shattered. The sea gushed in. Five geysers flooded the bridge at fire-hose pressure, filling up the space from ceiling to floor in a matter of seconds. Electronics sparked and died. Lights extinguished themselves like snuffed candles.

  The Marines swam for the hollowed-out windows, towards the shafts of dim, grey daylight that were now the only source of illumination. Dev saw Handler thrash forwards, barging ahead of Francis even though she had to hold her breath where he could breathe normally. Reyes and Cully grappled with the unconscious form of Jiang, one exiting ahead to reel her out, the other staying behind to push.

  Sigursdottir made sure everyone else was out of the boat before squeezing through a window herself.

  What she failed to notice, as she kicked for the surface, was that Milgrom hadn’t got away. The huge Marine was jammed in one of the windows. She had managed to wriggle her head and shoulders through but had got caught around the chest thanks to her bulk and her body armour. The ceramic tiles on her flak vest had snagged on the frame.

  She didn’t panic. She began patiently, painstakingly trying to extricate herself. When tugging at the flak vest didn’t work, she undid the straps.

  Still no joy. She couldn’t reach the lower straps, on the other side of the window. She was stuck fast.

  Dev doubled back. He signalled to Milgrom that he was going back inside the bridge to assist her. He shimmied through one of the adjacent windows and jackknifed towards Milgrom’s legs.

  The Marine corporal had the sense to keep still. Flailing legs would not have helped the situation. She was aware that Dev was the only solution to her predicament and she just had to stay calm and trust him.

  Dev unfastened the lower two straps of her flak vest, but there was still one strap in the middle, right beneath the edge of the window frame, that neither he nor she could get any access to.

  He spotted a shimmerknife attached to Milgrom’s calf. Did shimmerknives work underwater? Time to find out.

  He unsheathed the knife and switched it on; the blade began to vibrate. He slid the blade flat under the last remaining strap, doing his utmost to keep the cutting edge away from Milgrom’s stomach. Then he twisted the knife through 90º and dug up against the strap, which parted as though made of liquorice. The blade even cut a nick in the steel of the window frame.

  There was an explosion deep in the heart of the Admiral Winterbrook. Water had reached the engine room, and the motor had blown. The entire boat shrieked and shook, and the inverted bridge began to tilt around Dev.

  Milgrom still wasn’t free. She was trying to wriggle out of her flak vest, extricate her arms from the arm holes, but there wasn’t enough slack.

  Dev ducked back outside. The Admiral Winterbrook was taking on water fast, its stern getting heavy. Milgrom had only moments before the catamaran lost what little buoyancy it had left and began to sink with a vengeance.

  Her cheeks were bulging. Her eyes said it all. She needed to breathe, and soon. It wasn’t a case of willpower, mind over body, not anymore. The inhalation reflex was becoming impossible to resist. By remaining calm she had extended the amount of time it took her body to use up the oxygen in her bloodstream, but now the carbon dioxide buildup was reaching a peak. She was close to breakpoint, when she would have no choice about trying to get some air into her lungs.

  She indicated to Dev that it was no good. She was going down with the ship.

  He curtly gave her the finger and applied the shimmerknife to the yoke of her flak vest.

  Accuracy and precision didn’t come into it. No time. He sliced from arm hole to collar, on the left side then the right, in the process managing to gouge out a sliver of Milgrom’s shoulder by mistake. Blood blossomed, but he had released her.

  Milgrom breast-stroked urgently upwards, with Dev hauling her, adding his speed to hers.

  She broke surface with an almighty sucking gasp.

  Meanwhile the Admiral Winterbrook’s tail end, thoroughly waterlogged, dipped down amid a maelstrom of bubbles and minor explosions. The catamaran, racked with shudders, riddled with jagged holes, seemed not to want to go gently into the waiting darkness below, seemed to be resisting every inch of the way.

  But the darkness was inevitable.

  Like its namesake, the Admiral Winterbrook had fought its last battle and had lost.

  57

  UP ON THE surface, the Marines were fighting a losing battle of their own, against the relentless sway and crash of the syzygy storm.

  Reyes and Cully struggled to keep Jiang’s face above water while trying not to get overwhelmed themselves by the waves.

  Milgrom found it hard to catch her breath after her near-drowning. The sea kept sloshing into her mouth and choking her.

  “Together!” Sigursdottir called out. “Everyone! Bunch up and stick together. Don’t get swept away. Grab hold of the man next to you if you have to.”

  Dev front-crawled over to her. “Mazu,” he said. “We have to get there. It’s our only chance.”

  “The storm’s driving us away from it.”

  “Then we swim harder.”

  “Easy for you to say, fish-man. You’re built for this. And you’re not carrying a couple of dozen kilos of equipment.”

  “You’re not a quitter, lieutenant. Woman up. It’s Mazu or die.”

  Just as Sigursdottir was marshalling the Marines and poin
ting them in the direction of the township, Blunt yelped a warning.

  “Ice King. Ten o’clock.”

  The God Beneath the Sea, not content with sinking the Admiral Winterbrook, was coming back for the humans who’d been aboard the boat. It must have thought itself very clever to have shaken these tasty morsels loose.

  “Francis!” Sigursdottir shouted. “You’re right in its path. Swim, woman. Swim!”

  The Ice King was just below the surface, cutting against the angle of the waves. Francis had drifted some twenty metres from the rest of the group. There was no doubt the gargantuan crab had her in its sights. She was the nearest to it, and although she started swimming with all her might, the Ice King was easily going to outstrip her.

  “Come on!” Blunt urged. “Francis, move your stupid fat butt! The bastard’s gaining on you!”

  Francis cast a glance backwards. The leading edge of turbulence that marked the Ice King’s progress was approaching fast, faster than she could possibly go herself.

  She halted.

  “Francis! No!” Blunt cried.

  Treading water, Francis reached down with one arm to detach something fastened to her belt.

  “No, you fucking bitch! Don’t you dare!”

  But Francis ignored Blunt’s pleading. She produced a Ninety-Nine Point Nine, a grenade that sent out a wave that disrupted the quantic interaction inside atoms, collapsing electron shells against their nuclei. The name derived from the fact that well over 99.9% of an atom was empty space, and this was the factor by which the grenade shrank everything within a programmable distance of its epicentre.

  Quickly she thumbed the radius dial on the Ninety-Nine Point Nine, then grasped the detonation lever and thumbed out the safety pin.

  Blunt howled words, becoming incomprehensible in her horror and despair.

  Francis nodded to her, as if to say everything was okay, this was just what she had to do. She seemed aware that she was making a futile gesture, that she wasn’t going to kill the Ice King by any means. She was going to make it pay for her, though. It wouldn’t get her for free.