A Darkling Sea (18 page)

Dickie hunkered down behind a rock, waiting, barely breathing. He pressed the deadman button to shut off his APOS for extra quiet—the oxygen inside the suit would last him a few minutes if he didn’t exert himself.

The Sholen meandered along, stopping from time to time to pick up rocks or bottom- dwelling life. Finally the alien reached the nets and began taking out the various swimmers and flotsam caught there.

Dickie considered his strategy. If he took out the hydrophone first, the Sholen might hear and come to investigate. But if he tried to neutralize the Sholen, it would certainly make enough noise to alert the aliens inside Hitode Station. The urge to strike back at one of them was strong, but in the end Graves restrained himself. Concentrate on the job you came to do, he told himself.

He let go of the deadman button and took on some oxygen, then pressed it again and pushed off against the rock, launching himself at the hydrophone. Halfway there he had to let go of the button and start swimming. The phone was certain to hear him.

The hydrophone was just where he’d installed it, a bright orange casing taped to a boulder, with a long optical cable trailing off through the silt. He slashed the cable and pulled the hydrophone off the rock. No sense in wasting it; properly set up it could be an early warning system for the new camp.

He swam hard, trying to get away from Hitode before someone came to investigate. His own external pickup detected a sonar ping. The Sholen was swimming toward him. Damn.

GISHORA heard the noise of something swimming rapidly and checked the helmet display. He could see no icons indicating other divers around Hitode. So either the noise came from one of the renegade humans, or an Ilmataran organism. Either way, he ought to investigate.

It swam toward a clump of rocks. He gave it an active sonar ping, to get a better image of whatever it was. Four limbs, about half the length of a Sholen, bulbous head and backpack. A human, then. Gishora felt a little bit disappointed at that.

“I want you to stop swimming away,” he called out. “I see no way for you to escape.”

The human ducked behind the rocks and Gishora swam faster to catch whoever it was. In the human’s wake the water contained a great deal of silt. All Gishora could see was the cloudy cone of light from his helmet lamp. It made him feel disoriented and a little frightened. He had to keep checking his faceplate displays to be sure to stay level.

The rock outcropping was a welcome bit of firm reality in the dark chaos of the silty water. Gishora touched it, holding on as though some powerful current might sweep him away.

Something struck his head hard, knocking him down. The displays went crazy, and he could hardly make sense of the text and symbols flashing across his vision. He tried to get up, but felt something land on top of him, clinging to his back.

Gishora gave a cry of surprise, then tried to reach behind him to dislodge the human. He felt cold water against the back of his head, pouring into the suit, separating the clinging inner membrane from his skin. It was so cold it burned. He couldn’t see anything. The water was full of silt and bubbles.

Then he felt a sharp pain in his abdomen, and more cold water. Amid the flashing lights in his hood he saw the M
EDICAL
A
LERT
icon and the O
XYGEN
S
YSTEM
F
AILURE
symbol. Behind them, half- obscured by the swirling silt, he glimpsed a face. It was the human Richard Graves, baring his teeth inside his helmet and raising his utility knife for another stab.

The blade jabbed into Gishora’s upper right shoulder. He tried to grab the human, but the cold and the pain made it hard to move, and his suit was filling with water.

Gishora couldn’t see Graves anymore, but he felt the blade slice into the muscles of his back, and again into his side behind his midlimbs. He couldn’t hold his breath any longer, and coughed and choked as the burning cold water entered his lungs.

BROADTAIL hurries back to the shelter and wakes Oneclaw. “Those bandits want to take the students!”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes. I recall Strongpincer suggesting I kill you and join his band with the students.”

“I assume you choose not to?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I ask because it is not illogical for you to be in league with the bandits. I remember worrying about that when rescuing you.”

“I am no bandit!” says Broadtail indignantly. “I am a scientist!”

“You might be a bandit scientist. But never mind that now. I trust you. We have more important problems. How can we stand against a whole gang of them? Perhaps we should flee.”

“In cold water they can snatch us one at a time. Fortifying ourselves within the shelter is the only way. Two of us with spears can hold the entrance.”

“A good plan, worthy of Shortleg 88. But we cannot fit all the students inside.”

Broadtail looks around and makes a quick inventory of their supplies. “I imagine bringing in the two best and leaving the rest.”

“Which ones?”

“The two females. Holdhard is small but clever. Sharpclaw is strong. I imagine both fetching a good price as apprentices.”

“I agree.”

The two of them go out to fetch the two students. Broadtail can hear one of the bandits—probably the big one—moving with them about half a cable away. But nothing happens and they return to the shelter with Holdhard and Sharpclaw. Oneclaw takes them inside and secures them while Broadtail begins fortifying the doorway and plugging gaps in the walls of the shelter.

He hears someone approach, and takes up his spear. It’s Strongpincer.

“Do you accept my offer?”

“Rob Oneclaw and join your band? No. I refuse.”

“Then I plan to take what I want.”

“And we plan to fight you.”

Strongpincer moves a couple of steps toward Broadtail, who swings up his spear, keeping the point between the two of them. Broadtail handles his spear well, like a landowner who hunts and drills with a town militia. Strongpincer backs away.

Broadtail waits until the bandit is half a cable away, then goes inside.

He gives food to the students, to keep them quiet while he and Oneclaw prepare. The old teacher has all his weapons piled in the middle of the shelter. It isn’t a very good arsenal.

There are four hunting spears, but one of them has only the sharpened end of the shaft instead of a proper obsidian head.

He has a couple of hammers, a single bolt-launcher for close-in work, and the noisemaker.

“Do you imagine this working?” Broadtail asks Oneclaw, holding up the noisemaker.

“I cannot remember ever actually using it in combat. It does give us the advantage of surprise—I doubt coldwater bandits ever read Swiftswimmer.”

“Then I suggest using it only in the direst emergency.”

“Agreed. Do you hear them coming? That is the worst part of any fight like this: waiting for the enemy to actually do something.”

STRONGPINCER knows about attacking a fortified shelter, and what he knows is that surprise is the best tactic. Drop down out of the water onto a farm without being heard, cut off the landowner and apprentices from the shelter, and the battle is all but won.

But when the defenders are barricaded inside, everything changes. Even if there are gaps in the shelter—and Oneclaw’s shelter is old stonework—anyone attacking an opening risks a spearpoint in the head.

But even that is better than the alternative of trying to wait out the defenders. Doing that requires enough food and patience to outlast them, and Strongpincer has neither.

There are the students in the pens, and a few bits of gear left around the school worth taking, but Strongpincer knows all the really good stuff is inside the shelter. He suspects the two students inside are the best of the lot, as well.

Strongpincer decides to attack. His band has three good fighters against a couple of schoolmasters and two students, and one of the masters is deformed. He knows that getting Shellcrusher inside the shelter is all he needs to win.

He lets Shellcrusher and Weaklegs rest a while before attacking. The schoolmasters won’t come out, and he wants to give them the chance to be bored and sleepy themselves.

When he judges they have slept enough, he wakes his team and the attack begins. The three of them surround the shelter and come at it from different sides, probing for weaknesses.

Shellcrusher has the door. It is barricaded with all manner of junk, but that makes it hard to defend as she gets her powerful pincers into seams and starts to pry the door apart.

Weaklegs and Strongpincer attack small gaps in the stonework. They have spears, and Strongpincer instructs Weaklegs to probe the hole and draw the attention of those within. He himself is less aggressive, keeping to one side where a bolt- launcher cannot hit him, jabbing with his spear at the opening and making a lot of noise.

He gets a response: a spear thrusts out from the opening, probing the open water. Strongpincer tries to grab it but whoever is at the other end is quick enough to pull it back out of reach.

After a bit more poking with his spear, Strongpincer risks trying to pull away some of the stones around the opening. He drags down some smaller chunks and gets no reaction. Perhaps those inside are occupied trying to keep Shellcrusher from breaking in the door.

He grabs a larger stone and braces his legs against the wall as he pulls. It shifts a little, but then he feels a sharp pain as something jabs his left pincer joint. He jerks back and feels his wounded claw. It is a small puncture, the kind that heals up, but it makes him wary. He jabs at the hole with his spear again to drive back whoever stabbed him.

From inside he hears excited pinging, then a loud crunching noise as Shellcrusher finally tears the door apart. Strongpincer abandons the little opening and swims around to back up Shellcrusher at the entrance.

Just then comes the most awful noise Strongpincer remembers ever hearing. It is a throbbing high-pitched tone that drowns everything else out and leaves him deafened when it stops.

BROADTAIL gropes about, trying to find Oneclaw. He is completely deaf. Someone bumps him and he barely restrains the urge to stab. It tastes like Holdhard, so he places a pincer on her back to calm her. He remembers facing the bandit with Oneclaw to his left, so he moves to the side, feeling with his free claw.

He finds Oneclaw and taps his shell. “No more sound. I cannot hear. We must get out now.” The device makes them as helpless as their attackers; it is useless for defense but he imagines them using it to cover their escape.

Through his feet and tendrils he feels something moving up ahead. Are the bandits coming in? “Make the noise again and then push out of the shelter,” he taps to Oneclaw. He feels around for his spear and picks it up, bracing himself for the awful sound.

Being deaf means the noise isn’t as loud, but it still feels like a pincer jabbed straight into his head. Holdhard flinches but Broadtail holds her steady, then charges, pulling her along. He hopes Oneclaw is following.

The bandit is just outside the doorway, off guard from the new blast of noise. Broadtail jabs with his spear to drive her back, then swims straight up. Holdhard gets the idea and soon is swimming as fast as he is. They go up until he cannot taste the sea bottom anymore, and Broadtail feels mild fear. He has no way to sense his surroundings—there is nothing to touch, nothing to taste, and he still cannot hear. Only his pincer resting on Holdhard’s back gives him any contact with reality. For once it is almost pleasant having another person so close.

He slows and then stops, then concentrates, trying to orient himself. He levels off as best he can by feel, then swims in a random direction. He lets go of Holdhard, but his tendrils can still feel her swimming along with him. He is a little surprised that she isn’t going off on her own, but he doesn’t mind having an ally.

A sound! Broadtail can make it out very faintly. His head still feels like it’s buried in mud. The sound comes again, louder, and this time he recognizes it. It’s Oneclaw’s voice, calling out for help. The old scholar is cut off in mid-cry, and after that Broadtail hears nothing more. He picks a direction at random and swims away. Holdhard follows.

IRONA reached Hitode Station nine hours after Gishora died. He came with two more Guardians, using the last of the rapid-deployment pods as the elevator was still going up with a load of humans. Tizhos gave him a report on the situation as he peeled off his suit and dabbed himself with scent.

“The humans appear to feel very unhappy and contrite about Gishora’s death,” she told him. “Several have spoken to me privately, assuring me that they have no doubts of the incident’s accidental nature.”

“Tell me if you have examined the body.”

“Yes. It appears that some individual stabbed Gishora repeatedly with a blade similar in size and design to a human-made utility knife.”

“That does not sound like an accident.”

“No,” said Tizhos. “Someone killed him.”

“Tell me if any human currently in the station might have done it.”

“I consider that very unlikely. I watched Gishora depart shortly before his death, and I feel reasonably certain that all the humans remained in the station. He refused to take a Guardian along.”

Irona growled a little at that. “It surprises me you even considered one of the Guardians as a suspect.”

“I failed to make my meaning obvious. I meant only that Gishora ventured outside alone, with nobody present who might have seen his attacker.”

“I accept your apology,” said Irona, caressing the underside of Tizhos’s neck. “So it seems the rebellious humans killed Gishora.”

“Yes,” said Tizhos sadly. Irona’s sexual overture was proper for a leader, especially at a time of transition, but Tizhos felt absolutely no attraction. She did her best to respond, if only to avoid conflict.

“Tell me if you expect more violence.”

“I do not know. The rebellious humans may attempt more raids, or they may feel as shocked by this as the others. Certainly the humans here at Hitode seem very unlikely to commit any violent acts.”