“Halt!” I yelled and Aurora turned on her torch, shining it ahead and over my shoulder. It played across them and they instantly covered their eyes with their hands and screamed in panic, then turned and ran back the way they’d come.
“Wait!” I called out. “We won’t hurt you! Who are you?”
They didn’t hear me, or didn’t believe me, or were beyond understanding.
The encounter left us unsettled, but we kept going.
An hour or two later—it was getting hard to remember how long we’d been walking down there—five of them ran toward us down a long straight stretch, so I saw them on thermals from quite a distance and they saw our light. For whatever reason, maybe because it was not such a surprise, it didn’t frighten them, or at least not as much as what they were fleeing. They ran toward us shouting, all at the same time, the different voices and echoes rendering each other mutually unintelligible. But one word jumped out, over and over again.
“Gas!” they screamed. “Run! Gas! The Varoki are gassing the sewers!”
I took a step back in panic but made myself stop. I grabbed the first man as he tried to push past.
“Where? Did you see it?”
He wouldn’t make eye contact, struggled to get free, and kept gesturing down the tunnel behind them. “Gas!”
He pushed against me and I lost my footing, fell against the tunnel wall and slid into the water, and he was gone past me followed by the others. They pushed Aurora and our father down and the torch fell into the water, making the surface glow and sparkle.
I sat there for a moment, short of breath as much from the excitement as the exertion. I got the RAG out of the water and shook it, then got the electric torch. Both were solid state and designed to take at least this much punishment, but it was stupid to tempt fate.
“Is everyone all right?” I asked, shining the torch back on the others. The gauss pistol I’d given to Aurora had found its way into our father’s hand and although it wasn’t aimed at me, it was angled in my general direction.
“You better either shoot me or give that back to your daughter,” I said, “and do it now.”
Something flickered in his eyes, a moment’s pause before deciding. Then he made a production of shaking the water from the pistol as I had done and handed it grip-first to Aurora.
I held the torch higher and shined it farther back. I could see a light bouncing up and down, receding up the tunnel. “Wilson, where’s your light?”
“Mr. Wilson left with the others,” Divya said.
“The others?” I said and played the torch around. Our group had grown smaller. Aside from Aurora, Pops, and myself, there was Divya, a middle-aged woman holding onto her young boy, and three wounded—two men and a woman—slumped in the water where their helpers had dropped them.
“Oh shit.”
I walked back to them and sat beside them, trying to assess how bad off they were.
“Can you walk on your own?” I asked each of them in turn. One of the men said yes, he thought so, but the other two shook their heads, their faces lined with exhaustion and pain, eyes wide with fear.
“Aurora, can you walk on your own?” I called to her.
She paused before answering, then said, “Yes, for a while at least.”
“I can help Miss Aurora,” Divya said.
“No,” the mother said. “You mind my Petya and I will help Miss Aurora.”
“Thanks. Father-of-ours, you will help this injured lady and I’ll try to carry the guy. What’s your name, by the way?”
“Konstantine,” the wounded man said, his voice weak. His head and left leg were bandaged, both bandages soaked with blood and now muddy as well.
“Okay, Kostya, looks like I’m your ride. Put your arms around my shoulder and hang on.”
“I’m an old man,” my father said, looking at the woman he was to carry.
“You want to get any older? Help her.”
“What about the gas, Sasha?” Divya asked. No one else spoke but I could see in their eyes that all of them were thinking that.
“I don’t think there’s gas up ahead, or if there is, I’m betting it’s a nonlethal riot control agent. Might make us puke and cough, but it won’t kill us. If it’s lethal, nobody would have gotten away to give the warning, not down here. But I’ll go ahead of the group just to be sure. Aurora will keep the light on me so you will know whether or not I fall down. Pretty tough on you, Kostya. You up for it?”
“Better than to stay here,” he said.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
I found the switch for the helmet light and turned it on, switching off the thermal viewer. The thermals ate a lot more power and I didn’t know how much battery life the helmet had left, and who the hell knew how far we had to go? Every hundred meters of tunnel looked exactly like the last hundred meters and the next hundred meters, unless there was a junction. We came to a couple junctions and had always taken the right branch, so I was pretty sure we’d steered clear of Katammu-Arc.
Kostya and I were still out front. I hadn’t sniffed any gas, at least that I could be sure of. A couple times I caught a whiff of something sharp and industrial, something which got my eyes watering, but it had passed. There was enough funky stiff down there, no telling what that was.
First time we got to a rest halt I looked back and saw the torch lighting the ceiling behind me and had called out to Aurora, “Rest break, ten minutes.”
“Okay,” she called back.
I had a chronometer in the helmet so you’d think I could tell ten minutes, but I kept forgetting when the time started. When it seemed long enough I yelled, “Starting up again,” and she yelled, “Okay,” and we splashed on down the endless pipe. Aurora didn’t answer on rest breaks after a while, too tired I guess, but the light was still there lighting the ceiling, so I knew they were following.
I heard more voices in the side corridors when we passed some of the junctions, but we didn’t see any more sewer people. I wondered where they came from and how long they’d been down there. They couldn’t have been there the whole time. The rains those first few days would have drowned them, but they looked as if they’d been there forever, as if they’d forgotten any life they’d had above ground.
Kostya wasn’t much of a conversationalist, and after an hour or so he passed out, so it was just me, the voices, and the sound of my own splashing footsteps, one after another. There were some small animals in the water too, not at first but later. I wasn’t afraid of them. After all, I was a lot more dangerous to them than they were to me. Any local animal, one bite out of me would kill them. Maybe that’s why Varoki didn’t like us; they couldn’t eat us without dying.
The water got shallower and I realized I could hardly see where the helmet light was pointed. Maybe the battery was running down, but I could still see okay, so I guessed my eyes were adjusting to the dark. But when I stopped to catch my breath and looked up, I saw the wall noticeably brighter by the next bend. I lowered Kostya to the floor and leaned him against the wall of the tube. Then I unslung the RAG and clicked the safety off.
“Stay here, pal. I’m going to check out that light.” Of course he was unconscious so he couldn’t hear me. I looked back and the tunnel was empty up to the last bend. I splashed back to it, where it was much darker, and looked around the corner and up. I saw the glow of the electric torch on the ceiling.
“Aurora,” I called in a hoarse whisper, not wanting my voice to carry too far. “Are you there?”
No answer. I looked again at the ceiling and saw the reflection of the torch but it moved when my head moved from side to side, and I realized I was seeing the glow of my own helmet light. How long had I been seeing my own light and thinking they were still behind me? Hours? Days? How long had I been down here?
I sat down in the water and just looked, my mind empty, body spent.
After a while I got to my feet and staggered back toward the lighter end of the tunnel. When I got there I raised the RAG in both
hands and walked around the corner. I could hardly see in the dazzling glare, but in a few seconds my eyes adjusted enough that I could see I was looking at daylight, the yellow-white glare of the star Akatu reflected off the rippling surface of the Wanu River. The storm sewer terminated about five meters past the bend.
I walked back and pulled Kostya to the entrance of the pipe where the air was a lot better and the sun would warm him, because he’d gotten pretty cold. I turned his face to the sun and noticed his eyes were about half open. I sat down beside him for a while and looked at the river. I wasn’t so far gone I hadn’t figured he was dead. It just took me a while. As I sat there, two men with rifles over their shoulders walked up. They had black fisherman caps, just like I used to before I traded it for this helmet. I also noticed they wore Munie badges, just like our fighters had.
“Where you from?” one of them asked.
“Peezgtaan,” I answered, and then realized he meant more recently. “Oh…uh, Sookagrad. I think I’m trying to find the Black Docks. Have you heard of them?”
They grinned.
“About two hundred yards downriver is where the docks are. You inside the perimeter right now. We supposed to watch for Varoki infiltrators.”
“I’m not Varoki,” I said.
They exchanged a look and then the other one said, “You better come with us, we get you fixed up.”
“Can’t. Eight more people back in there. I gotta go get them.”
They looked at each other again, their looks incredulous. “Go? Can you even stand up?”
It took a little work, but I stood up.
“Let Abílo go instead,” the first one said. “He’s gone in the tunnels, pretty far.”
The second guy nodded.
I looked at the sun and felt it warm my face, felt how sweet the air smelled, how easily it filled my lungs after the stale miasma of the tunnel. I was weak, might not even make it back to wherever they were. This guy knew the tunnels, he was strong. I closed my eyes for a second or two.
“He can come along with me.”
* * *
“You went back?” Cézar Ferraz said. “So, you crazy, is what. Well, I thought so since I pull you out river. But for family makes sense, yeah?”
I took another drink of the espresso, which was heavily laced with something potent. Whatever it was, it was smoothing out a lot of kinks and bumps.
“My family’s in Kootrin. Those people from the tunnel are mostly strangers.”
He frowned. “Not father and sister?”
I looked at him for a moment, thinking about my answer. “That’s complicated,” was all I could come up with.
“Well, two little kids and boy’s mother fine. Other five in med center, but be okay.”
I finished my cup.
“More?” he said, and I nodded.
As he poured I looked around the bunker built into the riverbank and with a wide view of the river. It was poured foamstone, fairly recent too, the walls still sweating and smelling of catalyst. The main firing slit facing the river was broad but not very high. What looked like a big electrocoil harpoon gun was bolted to the floor, its muzzle poking out of the center of the embrasure. I wasn’t sure what it was loaded with, but it sure wasn’t a harpoon. Some sort of spigot bomb, it looked like. They had a land line phone installed in the bunker. That was smart. I wonder if we didn’t think of it or just didn’t have the needed hardware.
I nodded toward the harpoon gun. “Can you actually hit anything with that?”
“Sank militia boat with it, two days ago.” He shrugged. “I think lucky shot, but Dado say he always hits where he aims. Same Dado pulled you out of the water.”
I took a sip of the fresh cup. “What do you call this stuff? It’s pretty good.”
“Café com música. The aguardente makes it sing.”
“Sure does.” I sipped again and leaned back, watched driftwood slide by on the Wanu. No boats out today—too dangerous. The government was shooting at Human-crewed boats and now Dado was blowing up militia boats with a jury-rigged explosive harpoon gun. It was no more ridiculous than the multiple launchers we’d used to bring down a gunsled.
Cézar had already roughed out the situation for me. The Black Docks had been under siege as long as Sookagrad. The big difference was the Black Docks people weren’t all Human; a lot of stiff-necked Varoki loyalists had stuck around. They helped the Humans fight off the mobs until the initial attacks had petered out.
Now getting rid of the enclave was a little more complicated than Sookagrad had been. After all, the Provisional Government had overthrown the old bosses for killing Varoki citizens. They couldn’t very well just kill a bunch of them themselves, and so far all attempts to coax out the Varoki fishermen had failed. The irony of it made me smile.
“So, Cézar, what do you think of leatherheads now, since they’re saving your ass?”
“Oh, fishermen are different. All fishermen are brothers, yeah? Besides, maybe not save ass much longer. Army says we keep them here as hostages, is what. Maybe they have to come rescue them.”
Yeah, dirty rotten Humans took Varoki hostages, who were tragically killed by their Human captors during the rescue attempt. If you could control the news, control the communications, you could make something like that fly. And they’d finally thought of it, right when we got here.
“Man, I tell you,” I said, “lately I am like the cooler in a casino. I show up and everyone’s luck turns to shit.”
I looked down at the Café com música, but all I saw were faces, faces of people I hadn’t even known ten days ago, but who had grown large in my life in a very short time. How many of them were alive to see the sun today? Were any of them?
“Has anyone else from Sookagrad come in, other than us?” I asked.
“Not many. Maybe one, two hundred, come in all through the night and morning. Looked like hell of a fight.”
“It was a massacre,” I said, but the word felt bad in my mouth. “No, that’s not right. That’s not right at all. A woman named Zdravkova, who commanded the defense force, planned and executed a surprise attack that was a thing of beauty, caught the Army in the middle of setting up shop and spanked their asses good, chewed the militia up and spit out the bones. She put the Army right back on their heels, and then she led the breakout, due east, cracked their line wide open and pushed right through, taking everyone with her: kids, wounded, mothers with babes in arm, the whole outfit.”
“What happened?” he asked.
I sighed. “No heavy weapons except made-up crap like that.” I nodded at the harpoon gun. “Not enough ammo. No communication except by runner. We still might have pulled it off, but gunsleds cut off the escape corridor. We even brought one of those bastards down, but it wasn’t enough. They just kept coming. I don’t know how many people got out with Zdravkova, or if she even managed to fight her way free. What came after…well, that was a massacre. But Zdravkova and her kids made the uBakai pay for it in advance. They really made ’em howl.”
I finished the espresso. “We had a patch into a data fiber pipe, started sending out bulletins. My sister got one last one out about the massacre. I don’t know if anyone—”
“That your sister? Aurora? Didn’t recognize her in hospital.”
“Yeah, she’s my sister, sort of. But how—?”
“Broadcasts got out, yeah? We see all of them. We made some bulletins, too, like yours but without Aurora, so not as good. ‘Black Docks Calling,’” he said in a deep voice.
I opened my mouth again to ask how but he shook his head. “You think you are only smart ones, yeah? All broadcast jammed. Army blocks all uplinks to satellites. Data lines all encrypted. What is left? Oceanic navigation relay towers, is what. Along coast of Zhak Kakavaan. From top of Mercantile Building have line of sight, down Wanu River valley, and Army never thinks to block. Navy might have. So can bounce tight beam off towers, send and receive, but we not advertise how, yeah?
“I tell you, things getti
ng bad out there: uKootrin Army has crossed border, occupied everything down banks of Zhak Kakavaan to maybe two hundred kilometers north of here.”
The Zhak Kakavaan was a large inland sea east of Sakkatto City, about as large as Lake Baikal back on Earth. Tweezaa’s family had a house on its shore north of the capital.
“Not much fighting yet—disarmed uBakai troops, turned towns over to loyalist officials, but word is uBakai moving troops north for counterattack. Gaantist demonstrations in Kootrin last few days, now in some other Varoki countries too, maybe even riots is what. Somebody don’t slap the Army down here pretty soon…” He let his voice trail off and looked down at his espresso.
So the trouble was spreading. At least the last bulletin got out. Everyone saw it. I closed my eyes for a moment and just sat there, feeling one part of the anxiety I’d been carrying for days slip away. Whatever else happened, the Cottohazz knew what we’d done, and they saw what the uBakai Army had done.
I pushed my chair back from the table and stood up.
“I’m going to the hospital. Aurora needs to hear this.”
“Needs to hear from brother, yeah?” Cézar said. “Okay, go. But then come back, you meet big boss, tell him about fight, what worked and what not, yeah?”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Aurora seemed to get stronger as soon as I told her the news, and I think the fact I came to tell her personally helped.
She’d lost a fair amount of blood and then had driven herself to exhaustion, as we all had, getting here. They were giving her plasma, and would have done whole blood but there was a shortage of A negative. I offered to give some of mine—no question of compatibility there—but the tech took a look at my veins, gums, and eyes and told me to spend a day getting hydrated and some sleep and decent food first. I didn’t know about the sleep, but the food and liquids I could manage. The big question was whether any of us would still be around tomorrow.
Concerning that subject, I had another meeting to get to so I left her to rest.
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