by Patty Jansen
“We’re outside the gate. We’ll wait until you get here,” I told him.
He clicked off and we waited. There was no one in the street, and all the surrounding buildings were dark, being industrial warehouses where no one lived.
I asked Deyu about her studies, and then I asked her about her family. Her father had recently moved out of his furniture business in Eighth Circle, so that he could concentrate on his politics. Deyu had a half sister who lived with her father and had been, rich-people style, contracted by him by paying for a woman from Seventh Circle to have his child. One day not so long ago, Deyu had said at the table that the contract system tended to break down if no one had any money or owned anything worth inheriting.
That had earned her some strange looks from the others, but she was right, of course, even if Sheydu, Thayu, Veyada and Nicha had never been anywhere near poor enough to comprehend this.
I asked her about her father’s politics. It was no more than a local wardenship, looked down on by people in the inner circles, but I understood one thing about Athyl’s outer circles: they were vastly more populous than any of the inner circles, and to wield power over a single ward could mean having earned the respect and loyalty of close to half a million people. That was not nothing.
I had learned that if people in Eighth Circle were high enough in the hierarchy, they could find plenty of Seventh Circle partners happy to go into a contract with them. Which was how Deyu’s father had worked himself up.
Being a child born to a low woman out of despair—she had forced Deyu’s father to pay for the child—Deyu had missed out on such selection of genes, which was why she had been working behind the counter in a bar when Nicha found her. But she lacked neither determination not her father’s smarts.
Reida joined us.
I told him briefly what we had seen. “I’d like to retrieve whatever he threw in the water.”
“What, now?” Reida said.
“Yes, there will be people here during the day.”
“But it’s dark.”
“I’ve noticed. Come, let’s go.”
Neither of them said anything. It was probably their fear of dark, black water speaking. “Just help me get in there, and keep a look out. I’ll go into the water and fish it out. The water in these channels isn’t deep.”
We climbed back around the fence and walked along the mooring spots and the quietly bobbing ferries to the dark overhang of the shed. I found a broom and tested the depth of the water: it was as high as my waist and smelled of rotting plants and silt.
How appetising.
“All right, I won’t be long.” I kicked one of my shoes off, then the other one, then took my blue gamra pants and shirt off. I folded them neatly and put them on a bench that seemed to have been put there for just this purpose. I sat on the edge of the canal and pushed myself in. The bottom felt disgustingly slimy under my feet. I shuddered and tried not to think about what might be down there.
I waded across the channel, pushing through the fetid, lukewarm water, feeling for something big with my feet, but I reached the other side without having found anything. Then I took a step to the side and waded back. I didn’t find anything there either. Something nearby made a soft humming noise. I stopped to listen where it came from, but it sounded like a pump or some machine that came on automatically.
I waded back again. The water was waist-deep on the sides and a little deeper in the middle. Apart from being slimy, the bottom was surprisingly clean of debris. The bottoms of all the channels I had ever seen empty were concreted, although I’d been told that some were still made of packed earth.
Reida and Deyu stood on the side, silhouetted by the faint light from the office.
On my way back across the channel, my foot hit something. Ouch.
“Ah. I think I’ve got it.” I pushed with my foot, but the thing was too heavy to move. I crouched as far as I could without submerging my head in the foul water. My fingertips touched the top of the thing. It felt like metal or wood, clean and not slimy. That was definitely the thing, a box of some kind. No, a crate, and it had a handle, which I could feel with my toes. The thing was very heavy, but if I could drag it as close as I could to the side, Reida and Deyu would be able to help me getting it out of the water.
I took in a deep breath and let myself sink under the water. I grabbed the handle and heaved, but I floated too much to have the strength to shift it.
I had a better idea. “Throw me a rope.”
Reida went off looking for one. There were always plenty of ropes where there were boats, so he came back a bit later with a rope, one end of which he tossed to me. I waded back to the box.
I dipped underwater to pass the rope through the handle—
And something grabbed hold of my arm, a strong, snake-like thing, lashing around my wrist. I yelled underwater, letting out a burst of bubbles. Broke the surface.
“Reida! Deyu! Help me!”
I got water in my mouth. Coughed.
Someone jumped into the water.
Then I was pulled into the darkness again. I tried to grab the thing that was holding me. It felt like a snake of firm leather, wrapped around my wrist. I yanked. Slipped my hand out.
I broke the surface again, gasping. But now the thing had lashed around my foot and was pulling me into the middle of the channel. I kicked to get it off, threshing in the water.
Reida was next to me. He plunged his hand in the water, found the snake-like strap and pulled. My leg went up. He brought up a dark, black strap, and slashed at it with his knife. The material was tough, like rubber. But now I was being pulled closer to whatever was attached to that strap. It was big and it was bristly. It made a sucking noise and it moved. Sharp bristles grated across my shin. Ow, that hurt.
“Hurry up!”
Reida had finally sawed through the black strap, and pulled me along with him to the side, where he and Deyu heaved me out of the water. My left leg was bleeding with hundreds of little gashes that the horribly bristly thing had made. It was still down there, rumbling and sucking.
“Whatever the hell was that?” I called out. I was shivering all over.
“It’s a bottom cleaner,” Reida said. “They crawl over the bottom to clean the canals.”
Shit. A machine? “With those black tentacles?”
“They are to gather rubbish to its mouth.”
“And then what does it do?” This was the first time I’d heard of such a thing.
“It munches everything to shreds.”
Great. I guess that was Clovis’ purpose of dropping the box there. I felt ill and cold, and defeated. “Let’s go home.”
They helped me find my clothes and gun. I wrestled my arms into the shirt, left it hanging open, tied the gun bracket and jammed my feet into my trousers. My skin was still wet and the fabric stuck to it. My leg was bleeding and covered in leaves. Eirani would have something to say about having to clean my pretty uniform.
But as I was doing up the fastening on my shirt, Deyu let go of me and clicked her gun out of the bracket. The next moment, a beam shot across the shed, coming from outside, missing Reida by a hair’s width.
He swore.
Deyu pulled me to the side near the office where we stood against the window.
Who was that? Reida asked through the feeder. Deyu held her gun raised. The feeder showed her to be more frightened than I was.
This had to be a guard employed by Clovis. And I did not want to get caught here. Clovis would expect me to support him, not snoop about in his business at night, interesting though my findings were.
“How about we try to get out the back way?” Reida said.
I looked over my shoulder to where pale moonlight from one of Ceren’s tiny moons glittered on the water. Some larger boats lay moored out there, but nothing moved.
“There is a fence,” I said.
“That has never stopped us before.”
“True.”
“Can you run?” he
asked.
“I’ll have to, won’t I?”
“How well?”
“I won’t know until I try. I think I’ll be all right.”
“Let’s go then.”
With one last look to the entrance of the yard, Reida set off across the shed’s floor, sticking close to the walls.
Damn it, I had my fancy gun, but no armour. Thayu would kill me if she found out.
We left the shed, and zigzagged in between the boats in dry dock and stacks of transport crates and other things I didn’t recognise in the dark.
Someone shouted behind us in keihu. Reida stopped and changed the setting on the gun to broad.
“No, don’t shoot,” Deyu said. “We want them to think we’re unarmed vagrants so that we can take them by surprise when they’re closer.”
Good point.
“It means that you’ll have to do something about the fence without a gun,” I said.
“That’s not a problem.”
An amplified male voice shouted behind us, “Trespassers! Come out with your hands raised. Put down any weapons. Don’t try to run or we’ll shoot to kill.” He spoke keihu, but with a strong accent that I couldn’t place.
“Better hurry up,” Deyu said.
She ran to the fence at full speed, jumped and kicked the top bar. It bent but didn’t give. Deyu went sprawling.
She pushed herself up. “Damn it. That’s stronger than it looks.”
Reida said, “No, it isn’t. You need to apply the right force at the right place.”
He grabbed one of the metal fence posts and pulled it inward. It bent to about waist height. He climbed on top and jumped a few times. The post broke with a snap and the fence sagged further. “There.”
Deyu scrambled on top of the wobbly mesh and pulled me up as well.
Reida had already jumped off on the other side. He was scanning the ferry yard through the infrared camera on the sight of his gun. “Quick, get out of here! They’re just crossing the shed now.”
We ran.
The land outside the yard was uneven, with surprisingly solid grassy tussocks that weren’t always easy to see or avoid. Several times, my foot sank away into a hole dug by some sort of animal.
Someone fired over our heads.
I dropped face down into the grass. Deyu was close behind me and Reida was somewhere in front although it was too dark to see him.
There are four, Deyu said. She was looking through the sight of her gun, too, and on the screen over her shoulder, I could see them, too: four men now at the place where we had bent the fence.
Come over here! Reida said. He was closer to the water. I picked up from the feeder that he wanted to get away in a boat. I still couldn’t see him, but started crawling through the grass. Those holes were really very annoying—
The ground gave way under one of my hands.
And something came out of the hole, growling and hissing. It closed a pair of horn-rimmed jaws on the sleeve of my shirt and a fold of my skin.
I couldn’t help yelling out, “Hey!”
I pulled my arm up, dislodging the creature from the ground. It was one of those lizard-looking things that also lived closer to the ocean, about as long as my arm, not counting the tail.
I grabbed hold of its body and pulled. Its feet scratched my hand.
Ow, ow, stupid bloody thing.
I yanked. The animal lost its grip on my sleeve with a ripping sound. I threw the thing as far as I could throw it. It flew through the air and landed in the grass, letting out an undignified squeal.
Not a moment later, a white crackling beam—the narrow, deadly setting—flew from the gun of one of our pursuers to the place where the lizard had fallen.
Grass tussocks and dirt vaporised in a cloud of debris. The distinctive smell of ozone drifted on the air.
We kept our heads low in the grass, barely daring to breathe.
I strangely hoped that the lizard was all right.
They’re Tamerians, Deyu said.
Artificial semi-human fighting machines, that some argued had been made to be better fighters than the Coldi. For one, they had excellent night vision, which was a known problem with Coldi people.
Shit, shit shit. I had toyed with the notion of identifying myself and talking my way out, even if it would lead to all sorts of trouble, but you couldn’t argue with a Tamerian. They didn’t speak much and listened even less.
Why the hell had Clovis hired Tamerians to guard his ships?
But I knew. Because someone untied his boats when there was a storm and they washed over the lock and he had to go and retrieve them at great expense. He was merely protecting his business. In the same situation, I might have done the same thing.
But they were Tamerians, and they were coming closer through the grass, where it was dark, and where they could see vastly better than any of us. Not long and they would discover us, and then we’d all be shot.
We should make a run for it, I said.
That would be stupid, Deyu said. Sit still and grab your gun. Wait until they come closer.
I clicked the gun from its bracket and set it to the most narrow-beam and deadly setting.
Behind me, I sensed Reida doing the same.
I acted while feeling as if this wasn’t really happening and it wasn’t really me.
The sight on the gun had a little infrared-light window. It clearly showed the four figures walking through the grass.
Closer, and closer, and closer. They had to know where we were. Maybe they thought we were Pengali louts. Maybe they’d been given the order to try and catch intruders alive.
Now, Deyu said. On the count of three, pick one, and shoot him. That leaves one Tamerian. We should be able to take care of him, too. One . . .
I raised the gun.
Two . . .
I’ll take the on one the left.
Deyu would take one of the two in the middle who visibly carried a gun, and Reida would take the one on the right.
Three.
I pressed the release. Three white beams crackled through the air. Two men went down. I couldn’t see who missed. It was probably me.
The other two returned fire, hitting the ground so close to us that the debris hit me in the face.
I aimed—
Don’t shoot, don’t shoot! Deyu clamped a hand on my arm. It’s how they tell where we are.
There were a hundred other ways to tell where we were.
The men were now running through the grass in our direction.
Reida commando-crawled a short distance away and fired again. Missed. One of the men stopped and fired at him. There was a sound like a cry.
Damn. Did that mean Reida was hit?
Look, there! Deyu said.
I looked. Three more Tamerians had come through the breach in the fence.
There was nothing for it. I had to try the only way I knew to get out of here: by talking.
I was about to get up when a big whooshing noise made the air vibrate. A vehicle rose over the roof of the boat yard shed. Deyu aimed at its pilot’s window—
But I recognised that plane—one of the solar gliders that belonged at the gamra island.
“No! Don’t shoot,” I yelled. “It’s our guys.”
The plane landed in the grass between us and the Tamerians. Someone yelled from inside the darkness of the cargo hold, “Get the fuck inside!”
Sheydu.
Deyu jumped up. I jumped up. Oh, shit, my leg.
A spotlight went on, lighting the tussocks and uneven ground. Also, Reida running towards the plane. His side was covered in blood, but that didn’t slow him down. He reached the door before either of us did. Sheydu hauled him inside.
Deyu reached the door as well, scrambled in and then held a hand out to me. I went sprawling over the dusty floor.
Someone in battle gear sat at the other door firing a heavy-duty gun on a mount. It was hard to see out that way. The engines were blasting dust and grass everywhere.
&
nbsp; “All ready?” yelled the pilot.
It was Thayu, of course.
“Everyone’s in,” Sheydu replied. She heaved the door shut.
With a jolt, the plane took off again, while the marksman kept firing at the ground until we were out of range. Then he took his helmet and goggles off.
It was Veyada.
Phew.
For a moment, no one said anything. We were all too shocked.
Thayu gestured for me to come and sit next to her.
I scrambled to my feet. Whoa, the floor pitched under me much more than it should. My trouser leg was soaked with blood. I used the back of the seat to hold me upright.
When I had sat down, Thayu pushed her earpiece off. She gave me a blazing look. “What did you think you were you doing?”
She only used that voice when she was extremely angry.
CHAPTER 10
* * *
IT WAS NEVER EASY to face Thayu when she was angry. Because I loved her, and also because she usually had a very good reason to be angry. And because I usually knew what the reason was.
I didn’t dare look her in the eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t even begin to cover it. Has anyone ever told you that despite your stupid acts, you are exceptionally lucky? We just happened to be making a reconnaissance flight based on the readouts from the Exchange.”
“With weapons like that?” I cast a glance back into the cargo hold, where Veyada had taken the gun off its mount.
“We are prepared. We don’t go into town barely armed, not wearing armour, and with only two junior staff.”
Reida’s voice came from behind. “That’s not necessary! It’s not that bad.”
“Yes, it is, young man,” Sheydu said.
“But that stuff stings—ow! Hey! Ow, ow.”
I chuckled, but Thayu gave me a hard, serious look. “You brought them into danger unnecessarily. Tell me why you couldn’t have let us know what you were doing and we would have helped you get in and out safely.”
“You don’t like this project.”
“No, I don’t. So I think it’s even less worth getting killed for.”
“But I can’t just leave a fellow human marooned on an island or deserted beach in the territory of a hostile tribe.”