The Atomic Sea: Omnibus of Volumes Six, Seven and Eight

by Conner, Jack

  He nodded, the thought having occurred to him long before; he had hoped she wouldn’t realize it. “You’ve actually lived nine years already.” Lived, he repeated to himself. She had not-lived for four years. “Nine years and, let’s see, two months.”

  “Yeah.” Her voice was small. “Right.”

  Gently, he squeezed her shoulder and put on a smile, though he felt a swell of worry and fear rise up through him, cold and dark. Questions which he had suppressed for so long surfaced. Would she age normally? Was it possible that dying and being resurrected had affected her maturation? She could be stuck like this all her life, or she could age too slowly, or too rapidly, growing old in a matter of years. Or days. No one knew. And what of medical complications? Was she more prone to getting sick now, or more resistant to disease? When she did reach maturation, if she did, could she bear children? Should she?

  He tried to keep all this from his face. He smiled and said, “Then I guess somebody deserves a birthday party, doesn’t she?”

  She looked up, eyes wide. Not smiling, exactly, but hopeful.

  “Really?”

  “Really.” He kissed her cheek, then stood to go, tired after a long day. She stopped him with a tug on his sleeve.

  “Papa?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m … still having those dreams.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “There’s the door that I’m walking toward, always at the same distance, huge and crystal, and the sounds—the music and bells. And the heartbeat. Always the heartbeat. What could it mean, Papa?” Fear trembled in her voice.

  He smiled and hugged her again, which was all the answer he had. Leaving Ani with Layanna, Avery returned to his own new room to finish settling in. Out of all the party, he was the only one with private accommodations, but somehow he didn’t feel honored, only lonely. Before flinging himself on the bed, which was suitably soft, something caught his attention:

  A business card rested on his pillow, its ivory grain a flash of yellow in the dim light. What in the world?

  Feeling the hairs stand on the back of his neck—Someone’s been in my room—he plucked the card up and examined it. The front showed a serpentine dragon, more worm than reptile, curled in a tight circle. No letters, no words, nothing.

  It was the symbol of the Drakes, the old royal family, deposed and hounded, any surviving members of their clan, like Mari, in hiding or fled far, far away.

  Noting the shaking of his hand, Avery turned the card over. A neat, elegant, feminine script read, Meet me. Now. Luya’s.

  He stared at the card for a long time, thinking.

  He found the restaurant easily enough. It was a fashionable place downtown, one that served fully processed gourmet seafood.

  Two hard-looking men waited outside for him, and one ushered him inside Luya’s while the other remained on the street, perhaps making sure Avery hadn’t been followed. Or perhaps they had enemies that might be watching. The large man took Avery past the receptionist, who, surprisingly, did not protest the admittance of an infected man (further showing the importance of whomever he was about to meet), past most of the dining crowd (who looked at him but made no comment loud enough for Avery to hear), to a dark booth in the back, where someone waited for him.

  It wasn’t Sheridan. He had half thought it might be her. Gods, is that why I came? Why HAVE I come? I should’ve ignored the note. Hell, I should’ve reported it.

  The woman—lady, Avery corrected himself—was tall and handsome, her dark hair, streaked with silver, pulled back in a tight ponytail. She wore a dress that, while conservative, was elegantly fashioned and obviously tailored. There was something about her face ... Avery frowned but couldn’t place it. She looked strangely familiar.

  “Thank you for seeing me,” she said.

  “Of course.”

  “Please, do sit, Doctor.”

  He obliged. “What may I help you with?”

  She smiled, and it was a surprisingly warm smile. “Dr. Francis Avery, husband of Marisela Unlow Riegasoc Vorys, father of Anissa May.”

  “And I would have the honor of addressing ...?”

  She gave another smile, but this one was small. “You may simply call me Oris, for the moment. Full names can wait, although you may have guessed it already. I represent a group that would like very much to meet with you.”

  “Then why aren’t they here?”

  “They want you to visit them. I’m something of an ambassador.”

  “You wanted to see if I were followed.” He leaned back, studying her. “Just who are you? Why do you know about me, my family? How did you find me?”

  “Oh, we’ve been looking. Keeping our eyes open, and we have many eyes. As for your other questions ... well. You saw our card.”

  “The Drakes.”

  She didn’t seem to like the word, but she refrained from commenting on it. “The group wants very badly to meet with you, Doctor, and it would be in your best interests to do so—yours, Ani’s, and Ghenisa’s.”

  “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned my daughter. I don’t like it.”

  “She’s the reason I asked you here.”

  Suddenly he realized something. He sat up sharply. “No. It can’t be ... You look just like her.” Well, not just, he reflected, but the resemblance was striking. If Mari had lived another fifteen years, she might well have looked a lot like Oris.

  “We want to meet with you,” Oris repeated. “It is of the utmost urgency.”

  He swallowed. “Give me an address. Let me think about it.”

  “I’m to take you there. Now. I have a car waiting.”

  The remnants of the Drakes rearing their wormy heads now, when all the world’s gone to hell. “Fine,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  An elegant black limousine idled along the curb, exhaust ports spuming, and a bodyguard in a suit, not quite as large as Janx but very sober and competent-looking, opened the door for them. Once inside, the bodyguard hunched beside his mistress, gazing at Avery across the dark space, his expression blank.

  “Go,” Oris told the driver, and the limo lurched into motion.

  Far above them floated the ray, massive and shimmering, visible sporadically between buildings.

  “Where are we going?” Avery asked. When Oris said nothing, he added, “And why? Why would the Drakes bestir themselves now? What could you people want? If it’s reparations, good luck.”

  Oris’s lips became a thin line. “The royal family is very much alive, if diminished and much abused through the years, and we do not enjoy being made mock of.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Please. The expression ‘Drake’ is pejorative. We are the Royal House of Ghenisa.”

  “Were.”

  To that she said nothing, and the mood in the vehicle turned cold.

  Not soon enough, they arrived at a fine mansion of the old Ysstral style, looming and heavily encrusted with nightmarish ornamentation. It stood behind a high, jagged stone wall whose top was actually serrated, like shark teeth, but more regularly-spaced; at each peak, or tooth-point, a two-faced gargoyle crouched, red gemstones glimmering dully for eyes. The gargoyles did not face outward but side to side, and a thin, slow, greenish liquid drooled from their gaping mouths and ran down the top of the wall, slow as molasses, to, presumably (it was too high for Avery to be sure) eventually funnel into a drain at the crux of the jags. The liquid was a poison, Avery knew, as he had seen this technique before, its fumes so poisonous it would kill anyone and so acidic that no thief could sneak over by laying a blanket or the like across the top. Far superior to the broken glass the Lai had embedded the tops of their walls with.

  The limousine was inspected at the high black gates, then waved through. Small, crimson stained-glass windows gazed at them from the mansion’s stone façade, and, as often with Ysstral architecture, Avery was reminded of spider eyes. He half expected to see one of the spires twitch like a carapaced leg.


  They climbed out of the limousine at the stairs leading up into the mansion, and servants held the door for them as they entered. A manservant escorted them through high, gloomy halls that gleamed and glimmered, but though everything was beautiful and well-lit it seemed to Avery as if a constant haze obscured the air of the rooms, making it somehow murky. It was as if there had been a recent fire, though there was no actual smoke.

  Oris dismissed the manservant and led Avery to a drawing room on the second floor, where an aged gentleman sat at an ornate chess table playing a game with a younger man; the chess pieces were carved of different colors of glowing jade—some alchemical process, surely. The pieces ceased glowing as they were removed from the board.

  The older gentleman looked up with a smile. “So, you fetched him for us, did you, my dear? Well done.” He stood, shaking Avery’s hand warmly, and Avery was a bit put out by the familiarity.

  “I’m Idris,” the man said. He ushered Avery to a couch, where they both sat. Oris and the younger man, who introduced himself as Ajaun, drew up chairs facing them. “Ajaun is our host,” Idris explained. “After his parents passed tragically last year, this house became his.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Avery told him, wondering what all this was about, and why Idris seemed the leader of the group, not the host. “But I fail to see—”

  “Please,” Oris said. “Hear us out.”

  “I didn’t come here to ignore you.”

  Idris sort of smiled. “That is reassuring, Doctor.” He raised an intricately chased silver bell and chimed it, and as he did Avery noticed the ring on his left middle finger: there was a sigil embossed on it, silver on a black gemstone, but Avery couldn’t make it out, exactly, though he had a suspicion as to what it must be. A different manservant entered, a woman this time, and Idris ordered a pot of tea and four cups. He asked Avery if there was anything else they could get him, and Avery said no, again wondering at the fact that it was Idris, not Ajaun, who ordered the servant woman about.

  A pot of tea was shortly served, and after the drinks were poured the servants withdrew, solemn looks in their faces—not out of sadness, Avery sensed, but esteem. They respected their employers greatly, or at least Idris.

  “Now, will you please tell me what all this is about?” Avery said, blowing on his tea.

  “Of course,” Idris said. Steam wreathed his aged but handsome face, and his blue eyes sparkled with vigor. “Your wife Marisela was my cousin, if somewhat distantly. I am Idris Gehalan Vorys. Does that name sound familiar?”

  Avery nearly dropped his tea. “Vorys—the prince—the one who escaped?”

  Idris nodded sadly, casting a look at his ring, and Avery now saw that the sigil was indeed that of the Drakes, a worm-like dragon. “I was the only one of the ruling house to escape in the madness of the Revolution. I was only a fourth son, I never would have been king, but after that bloody madness ... I was. At least, according to the ways I was raised in. The Revolution changed all that, of course. Democracy!” He chuckled. “I hope they enjoyed it.”

  “The bad times are over,” Avery said.

  “So you would believe. But that’s not the case. Even now we have a government divided, with one half against the other.”

  “Haggarty is a liar and—”

  “He’s winning.” Idris said it so firmly that Avery did not bother denying the truth of it. “Haggarty will prevail, Doctor. Denaris’s government, or the pitiful remains of it, will fall. You see that, don’t you?”

  “The Army will protect her.”

  “For how long? Something must give.”

  Avery did not like the thought of that. “How did you survive—the Revolution, I mean?”

  Idris indicated Ajaun. “Friends.”

  Ajaun actually blushed, obviously pleased at the honor. “I wasn’t even born then,” he said, as if Avery couldn’t have figured that out.

  “No, but your parents were, and others that shared their ideals,” Idris said. “The government was a fragile, beleaguered thing. Certainly, the notion of democracy was a noble one, one worth the experiment, but ultimately, without a guiding personality and the vision to back it up, it would fail. And when that happened, there I would be, waiting in the wings, to take control. To restore order.”

  “And reward those who had protected you, no doubt,” Avery said.

  “Naturally. And they would have deserved it,” Idris assured Ajaun. “But do not make their loyalty sound so crass, Doctor. The ones who protected me did not do it for money or power. Surely, you can see my friends have plenty of that. They did it out of patriotism. I know that may sound odd, as you would no doubt label them traitors, but it is the case. They only wanted to restore order to Ghenisa.”

  “And you think that time has come.”

  “When Haggarty officially seizes power, there will be even greater bloodshed, Doctor. Many who support Denaris and the New Dawn will continue to revolt against him. He is strong, but unpopular. There will be chaos.”

  “Soon there may not be any country left to fight over.”

  Idris nodded eagerly. “Yes yes, the thing from the sea. Well, obviously I’m assuming that the world goes on, somehow, someway, that Ghenisa endures, however battered and bloodied. If it doesn’t, none of this matters. But if it does, it will need a firm hand. To that end I have been finding all the scattered survivors of the royal line. My branch almost ended completely, and I have not been successful in bearing children—though I have tried.” He smiled, and it was unexpectedly ingratiating. “I have tried. There are many branches of the royal house, though. Your wife was the remnant of one, therefore so is Ani. There are others here, in this house.” He indicated Oris. “Over a dozen. Some had lived in alleys and ghettos, some had found suitable accommodations like myself, but most had gone into hiding among the middle class, like Mari’s parents. Ajaun has graciously agreed to play host to what I laughingly call the Royal Hotel.”

  “Why would you show me this place? I could inform others.”

  “Denaris? Certainly. But I would be gone before the first Army boot set foot on the property, and they would find no trace of me.”

  “Is your influence that extensive?”

  “Ask yourself that. I found you.”

  In the Parliament Building, no less, on the very day I arrived. “And you want Ani to join you.”

  “Of course. We want to present a solid face to the pubic when we reveal ourselves. A strong face. And Ani belongs to a branch that is higher up than many. She could not be queen after me, nor after the one who is in line behind me, or the one after that, she is not that highly placed, but she would be an important aspect to the new, reenergized and repurposed royalty. Moreover, she belongs with us. We are her family.”

  “I’m her family.”

  “Of course.” Idris raised his hands placatingly. “And you would join us, as well. After all, you’re my, what, cousin-in-law?” He smiled. “What say you?”

  Avery set his tea cup down and stood. “It’s time for me to go.”

  Idris did not look upset. Instead, he rose to his own feet, and the others followed. “I understand it’s a shock. I know you’re loyal to the Prime Minister, and I sympathize with you for it. But it’s important to bring Ani to us now. If you wait until Grand Admiral Haggarty makes his move, she could get hurt in the violence that that will entail. I would not want that. No one would.”

  “I will not give up on the Prime Minister.”

  Idris dropped his charm and said bluntly, but not meanly, “Denaris’s government is living on borrowed time, Doctor. What organization is left is running out of money. The war emptied its coffers, as did feeding the refugees and the rebuilding afterward, and this second war against the Navy is taking what’s left—what do you think has been keeping the Army in line?—not to mention Haggarty was able to make off with a substantial amount. He got the gold and left the Prime Minister with the bank loans from foreign countries. All of which is to say that Denaris’s governm
ent can’t sustain itself.” He indicated Ajaun. “But my friends can renew those coffers. We can provide the solidity that Ghenisa needs. And ... we have other sources. The Ysstral Empire, for example.”

  Avery failed to find words.

  “You need time to think,” Idris said kindly. “That’s fine. Personally, I like Prime Minister Denaris quite a lot, and I admire her greatly. No harm would come to her. In fact, once we have Ani I have no problem waiting for Denaris’s government to run its course, for Haggarty to take over before I make my own move. I would much rather topple him than the Prime Minister. I will not have her blood on my hands.”

  Avery moved toward the door.

  Idris, in a very low voice, almost above a whisper, said, “Has Ani been having strange dreams?”

  Avery spun toward him. “How did you know?”

  Idris spread his hands. “Bring her to me, Doctor. Bring her to me.”

  Chapter 9

  The next day Avery and Layanna set to work cataloguing and analyzing the pieces of Starfish tissue in the laboratory they had been given, teams of junior scientists working under them. They all worked relentlessly, trying to find some weakness of the material. They exposed it to heat, cold, radiation, anything they could think of. Days passed, but the material seemed impervious. They knew the creatures had blood and flesh beneath all that armor, even some sort of vascular system—a heart, perhaps. If they could pump a poison into a main artery, or anywhere deep enough inside it, they might just be able to kill it.

  They tried arsenic, strychnine, cyanide, and numerous other obvious lethal agents, failing to even so much as weaken the blood cells, or what approximated blood cells, in the sample tissue. They kept trying, searching for more esoteric compounds, even reaching out to the non-humans in the city; Hissig only had a few small populations of non-human intelligent races, but they were there, and their leading minds, some enemies of Haggarty, eagerly lent their assistance in response to Denaris’s (albeit secret) entreaties. Though they were able to provide poisons unique to their cultures and physiologies, these too proved ineffective.