Undertow

by Elizabeth Bear

  André’s fingertips grew cold. “You’re not claiming responsibility for those.”

  “André—” Cricket said. She bit her lip, though, and gestured to Kroc, who appeared to be waiting politely for her comment. He shrugged and continued.

  “Of course not. Nor would I be responsible, you see, if there were a similar freak accident here in Novo Haven. But the point I’m making is that I certainly don’t need your assistance to kill people. If I wanted to engage in such a problematic undertaking.”

  “So what do you want?” André didn’t sit, but he didn’t step away from the chair either.

  “Information.”

  “I don’t talk about my clients.”

  “That’s all right,” Jean Kroc said. “I don’t care about your clients. But I care about the Colonial Rim Company—are they hiring out their wet work now?—and I know you have ways of finding things out.”

  Cricket leaned forward, her lower lip still pinched between her teeth. She was staring at André, willing him toward some decision, some course of action, but she didn’t speak.

  André looked from her water-brown eyes to Kroc’s flat blue-gray ones. He sat down in the wicker chair, and let it creak under his weight. He could refuse to answer—as good as an admission that he’d worked for Rim, and a violation of confidentiality in itself—but there was a threat in what Kroc was saying. He can’t know about Spivak. If he knew about Spivak, I’d be dead.

  Wouldn’t he?

  God-botherers were licensed and controlled for good reason. Unchecked coincidence could break planets apart—and had nearly done so on Patience.

  He had other sources of information. But—

  “I can’t make these promises.”

  “I will never ask you to do what you find…unethical,” Jean said. “A handshake contract. You can walk away any time.”

  André picked up the tea again, blew across it, drank. Something to steady his hands. An elaborate game of cat and mouse? He swallowed the fluid: sweet, warm, full-bodied.

  How badly did he want this?

  Cricket was looking at him, a little smile curving the corners of her mouth. She was not the sort of woman who would lay down an ultimatum. She was not the sort of woman who said, “Either you change or I go.” She was the sort of woman who watched until she didn’t like what she saw anymore, and then she went. No games, not with somebody like her. No manipulation.

  “Teach me,” André said.

  Kroc smiled. “I hope you don’t have anywhere to be for the next few hours.”

  Gourami in se captivity could not see the swift failure of the equatorial twilight. But se felt it in the shift of the air, the humidity, the coolness from the ventilation ducts—and knew the wait would now not be long. It must not be long; se was drying, laid long on the floor, lungs heaving with the effort of respiring when the skin was too parched to exchange gases.

  Se closed se eyes to concentrate on the work of staying alive, thinking, they will be coming. As night fell, clouds would coalesce over the mining platforms, in air saturated by steam from the seawater used to cool the drills. They would spread, water first precipitating from the atmosphere into visible vapor and then precipitating in truth, falling in fat warm blobs to the accompaniment of crackling thunder. It was good, a good omen; Gourami did not think that the humen’s wet eyes—sonar, especially—would work well with ripples of sound-interference everywhere.

  The rescuers came at sunset. Gourami did not hear them, did not know they had arrived until there was a hiss and sizzle in the darkness, the reek of scorching insulation. Se nictitated when the light spilled through the opening crack, but it still took moments to adapt. Se blinked, dazzled, and pressed hand-pads to eyes until pupils could contract.

  After a moment, the pressure of light eased and se could no longer see hand bones. Se pushed up to stand, licking eyes over nictitating membranes. In the doorway stood a hand of people, all four of them naked of identifying patches, wearing only belts of canvas strapping from which to hang their tools. They carried no slates, no locators; nothing that might be used to identify them. Gourami could not tell if they were coolies or savages, even, to use the humen terms. But the light behind wasn’t bright enough to silhouette, and when the smallest person turned sideways Gourami could see skin dyed an even, artificial green to hide the mottles.

  The smallest person made the scrape and click of Gourami’s own-name, with a question-trill. The smallest person was Caetei.

  —Here, Gourami answered, staggering forward. Se did not add the croak-trill-scrape of the smallest person’s own-name. The aliens might recognize se real name if they listened through their devices.

  Caetei wrapped handfingers around Gourami’s wrist and pulled se forward. Se had been dry too long; se felt dizzy, cracked, and se mucous was pasty. But the grasp gave se strength, and se answered Caetei’s unspoken command. Triggered by the touch, endorphins helped. Gourami was docile, and Caetei’s desire was that se follow.

  Se would follow until se flippers wore to nubs.

  There were humen here and there in the corridors, on the deck, each one trussed and glaring. Gourami waddled past, moving only because Caetei pulled se and se must do what touch commanded. The unmottled green backs were curiously anonymous. Unless their owners spoke, Gourami could not identify them—though the long one might be Tetra, egg-mate of one of Gourami’s exoparents, related by blood rather than by water.

  That one cross-wired a final door lock, and the little party came out in starlight on a battered-looking barge that was quite at odds with the gleaming modern interior. There were more persons here, two hands of them, and while Gourami leaned on Caetei, the rangy person passed the tool se had used to cross-wire the door into se toefingers and used its waterproofed handle to pound on the deck.

  From other hatchways, persons scrambled, some of them hopping on all fours in their haste. Some were pear-shaped, their pouches full of seawater and nutrition for egglings still too small and presentient to swim free. Three hands, five—Gourami, dizzy, could not count them as Caetei dragged se toward the railing. Some of the persons dragged bound humen, lowered dinghies over the sides of the barge. They all moved with great haste, efficiently, in teams.

  Se could not clamber over; se feet would not lift high enough to hook the bottom railing. But Caetei insisted, leaning in to make eye contact, and from that demand Gourami drew the strength to climb.

  Still, if it had not been for Caetei’s hands curled under Gourami’s armpits, lifting, se would have ended slumped, halfway over the rail. Caetei wrapped bony fingers around Gourami’s ankles. Se crouched and heaved, lifting with the powerful muscles of thigh and haunch. Gourami slithered overboard, bruising pelvis and knees on the rail. And then se was falling, uncontrolled, tumbling, and then the warm water smacked se hard along the left side, bruising webs between reaching toefingers, stinging the outflung arm. A pop as a handfinger dislocated, pain that coiled se arm like jelly-colony sting. Se shocked alert, wet now, warm in the shallow water of the bay. Se gasped, wetting throat and sinuses, skin prickling as toxins and foreign matter adhered to drying mucous washed away. The burn-wound seared, dazzled, numbed.

  Se was wet again.

  Se breathed deep, oxygenating, feeling mottles flush and go violet. The itching tightness eased. Mucous flowed freely, rehydrated, and Gourami croaked in relieved pleasure as Caetei and the disguised others began to splash into the bay. —Hurry, Caetei thrummed into the water. —We must be away when the barge sinks.

  Se words caressed Gourami’s flanks. —Sinks?

  —Hippolytae mined it with a boring charge. It will sink; we must be clear. Can you swim?

  Gourami’s damaged handfinger delivered a nauseous spike of pain when se tried to paddle, and so se tucked arms to chest and kicked experimentally. Se glided forward, water sluicing along a streamlined form. The course was unpredictable, with only one hand to steer with, but speed was not impaired.

  —I can swim, Gourami answered. —
Caetei—

  —Then swim, the other interrupted. —Talk when we’re away from the bomb.

  —But what about the humen on the barge? Se’d seen some lowered into the rubber boats. But had they all gotten off? Would the boats withstand a nearby explosion? They drowned in water, humen. Faster, much faster, than Gourami would drown in either water or dry air. They could not skin-breathe; they had not even rudimentary gills.

  Se made a small sound of protest. Caetei did not answer, though se must have felt the noise. Gourami kicked, feeling green bodies stirring the water alongside, and held peace.

  For now.

  Later, there would be words. Words with a human Gourami thought se could trust. Because if the humen slew their own and gave no respect to the passing, then that was ill. But if they hurt or killed persons, and persons hurt or killed humen—

  —then that was war.

  Red light slicked Jean Kroc’s windows before those inside felt the shock or heard the explosion. André was moving before he had time to hope it was ridiculous, cold tea scattering from the mug he kicked over, his foot just missing the remains of supper on his plate. He clotheslined Cricket as she lurched to her feet. She folded around his arm and he twisted, pressing her into his chest. He fell underneath her, rolled to cover her with his body, tucking her face against his throat. She shoved his chest with both hands. “Oaf!”

  André pressed her down.

  Kroc rose from his chair. Wiry, a little bowlegged, most of his weight rested on the outside edges of his feet. “It’s not close enough,” he said; the floor lurched up and thumped André in the knees and elbows on the fourth syllable. Cricket grunted against his chest. He lifted his chest and hips; she wriggled free, palm on his shoulder, elbow pressing his upper arm, and eeled away.

  The atmospheric shock wave hit a moment later, the poly groaning as André’s ears popped, the sound a thud like a crushed drum. Cricket had one knee down, one palm flat. She squeaked like something stepped-on and clapped her hands to the sides of her head. André knelt, staring at Kroc. “It could have been a nuke.”

  “My eyes haven’t melted.” Kroc slipped his hands under Cricket’s armpits and pulled her to her feet, then scrubbed palms and fingers on his shorts. He walked to the window, padding over rag rug and plascrete. The red glare of the explosion had faded, but firelight limned Kroc’s cheek and temple as he pressed his face to the window.

  “Lighter crash?”

  “Looks like a barge exploded on the bay,” Kroc said. “It’s burning to the water.” He put his back to it. “Hell of a thing. You know, there was just one the other night. Getting to be a habit.”

  André pushed to a crouch. His back protested. He’d skinned a knee. “Cricket, you all right?”

  Her lip curled, but whatever she’d been about to say, she thought better of it and looked down. “Thanks,” she said. “Although if it had been a nuke, it wouldn’t have helped.”

  André shrugged around his grin. “You don’t think I’m radiation-proof?” He turned to Kroc, caught a glimpse of the tiny, burning shape a mile or so out on the water. “Shit—”

  A thumping sound was rescue craft, their lights playing over the water. There couldn’t have been much warning. André expected fruitless sweeps, perhaps doll-small figures sliding in harness to pluck bodies from the water. But as he watched they dropped rescue harnesses, hauled up kicking women or men.

  It was strange, seeing it all through a chunk of clear plastic, barely augmented, unskinned. It was flat, without hyperlinks. He couldn’t zoom. He couldn’t access histories or burn context.

  Just what was out there, reality primitive as an oil painting. Even with the augments, he hadn’t seen the world this way since his teens. Since he got out of his mom’s house and started making some real money.

  And this was how Kroc lived all the time?

  André wet his lips with his tongue. He didn’t know quite what he’d say, but he thought he’d find out when it got out of his mouth.

  Whatever it was going to be, he never heard it; there was a thumping at the door and he startled. Kroc brushed past him, one hand steadying André’s shoulder, and strode to the door. “I’m not feeding anybody else,” Cricket called over the noise of the kettle boiling.

  The entry was dark. André couldn’t see what security measures Kroc took, but it was a minute before he opened the door. When he did, he jerked it abruptly. What André saw past him was not human, with its teardrop-shaped body, thick indistinguishable neck smoothing to sloped shoulders, and thick-thighed, crooked legs. The ranid steadied itself on the doorframe, the other knobby forelimb akimbo and firelight lending unnaturally green skin a mucilaginous shine. It crouched between its knees, eyes tilted up at Kroc, and darted hand-gestures this way and that. It wore only a woven belt, no slate and no pass-tags. Not an employee of Rim, then. A wild froggie, a savage. André tensed, though he couldn’t make out a weapon.

  Kroc stepped back. “André,” he said without turning his head, “go home.”

  André glanced over his shoulder at Cricket. She did not look up from her fussing by the cooker. “By water, now?”

  The scooter had a shallow draft, and there wouldn’t be that broad of a cordon around the fire. He wanted an excuse to stay and see what happened next.

  “I’ll call you,” Kroc said. “Please, go now.” He raised his voice. “Cricket, you, too.”

  She came out drying her hands. She sat down on the floor without a word and started pulling on her shoes.

  André offered her a lift, and she took it. Took him home with her, too, and what with one thing and another, it was an hour and a half before he remembered to power up and connex, and morning before he checked his messages.

  Gourami hunkered, wet, amid waterplant and reed in the brackish water where the delta ran into the bay. Se croaked low in frustration—an anonymous noise in the dark—and dipped under again so only bulging eyes and comma-shaped nostrils would show. Se mottles were not dyed into green anonymity, as the commandos’ had been, but even humen technology would not single se out so hidden.

  In the dark nearby, other persons moved, thrummed through swelled throats, quiet reassuring conversation. Gourami filtered water, swallowed plankton and waterweed. As it too often did in the bay now, the food had an acrid tang. Se ate farmed on the job and at home—

  Se could not go home. Se had no home. No position now. Reinvention or death.

  Because the body had been tangled in the cables, halfway down. And when Gourami had tugged it free, had brought it up, none of the humen had cared. Had honored the dead. Se knew its name; it had been a friend of some of the other persons. And the mate of this one they came to talk to now, because the humen mated like animals, with their pair-bonds and their closed little families.

  Se thought somebody should have sung for it. Even if it was an animal. And even if, though se had not yet worked out the logic behind it, it was the dead animal’s fault that Gourami could not go home.

  There were footsteps through the marsh. Some humen, booted, and a person’s, too. Ripples in the water stroked Gourami’s skin. The person at se left hand sang low, and a song answered. Tetra had returned. With the human Gourami had heard, and the rest said, could be trusted. The mate of the human who had become the body in the cables.

  The rest. The rest were revolutionaries. The persons who had come to rescue se were rebels. They had destroyed the humen ship. And Caetei was one of them.

  Gourami sank into calming mud and water, nostrils sealing as se submerged. The human needed a light to walk in the dark. It bobbed, reed-cut, reflecting splinters off the water. Gourami let a thin stream of silver slip from se nostrils. Handfingers brushed a still-sore shoulder; se leaned into Caetei’s touch, allowed Caetei to lead. The light clicked off as they came forward, as if the human knew it would hurt a person’s dark-adapted eyes.

  Se slipped up the bank beside Caetei. Tetra’s palms luminesced faintly, enough to guide them. The human stank in the dark, of p
oison—which the humen drank as if they breathed it—and of fire-charred humen food and chemicals. It—he, it was a he, by the flat chest and the bristles on its face—did not reach out for Gourami, who folded se hurt hand to chest and waited.

  Instead, he hunkered on his heels in the dark, a humen approximation of a person’s rest-pose, and extended the back of one arm. Something glimmered there. Gourami crouched, too, knees higher than the half-seated human’s head, and bent to see what he offered.

  A slate. There was a slate on his wrist, and it made words when he made those burbling humen noises.

  —I am Jean, the machine wrote. —Tetra says they call you Gourami. Can you tell me what you’ve seen?

  Gourami was not a very good storyteller. But a not-very-good storyteller by a person’s standards was an exceptional one, as humen went. And se was an experienced liaison.

  With a ripping sound, se tugged the gripping fabric loose and pulled the waterproof slate from the human’s arm. With the tips of se handfingers, ignoring the hurt in the one, se keyed: —the body was tangled in the cables, halfway down.

  5

  CLOSS’S VIEW OF THE EXPLOSION WAS BETTER THAN HE would have preferred. His office had real windows, shatterproof laminate rated to blast level seven with a reality-skin interleaf that he habitually shut down. Closs wasn’t a Naturalist; he wore a headset and augments like any sensible man. But he found no wisdom in relying too heavily on technological crutches.

  Better to get the benefit when you needed it, and deal with reality the rest of the time. Not useful to forget that others were skinning their reality tunnels, that their perceptions were modified to suit their preferences.

  Even if it would have been soothing, once in a while, to skin Jefferson Greene with a pink-and-black-spotted pig. Oink.