Gudsriki (36 page)

“I do. I best not abuse it.”

“Migh' need to. Tully's got visitors. Visitors from 'e Hall o'e Slain.”

“No such thing.”

“Same wi' 'e Valkohai.”

“Tully really thinks they're from the Hall of the Slain?”

“Aye.”

“What do they want?”

“They 'ave t'e Ares an' Loki Turunen.”

Pytten stared at him. He nodded. He was there about the mythic Ares device. The human couldn't know that name was Risto's brother. Pytten had been told that in confidence, and no landlubber would know. But Tully might. He'd served under Risto himself as special ops on the Proteus. He might have been the assassin Risto sent after Loki. And Tully would not send Solomon to them unless he had serious suspicions of a serious matter. Pytten had seven hours until the next session with the admiral.

It was time for a trip back to Pohjanlahti. Pytten followed Solomon to the docks and boarded his subtrimaran. They sat in silence for thirty minutes. Then Solomon spoke.

“Turunen. ‘Ink 'ere's eh relation?”

Pytten only knew to stay silent.

“'En it's 'e Ares tha' so important? What is it?”

That Pytten could talk about; after all, it wasn't real. “A magic tree that can flood the globe. Child's tale.”

“Ih Tully sent me for ye—”

“Have you ever heard of a real magic tree that can flood the globe?”

“No. But 'ith respect, s—m….” Solomon paused. He meant to speak to Pytten formally but wasn't certain how.

“I'h sorry, but do I call ye sir or ma'am?”

“Neither is accurate, but call me what you will.”

“Will do, uh… Officer. It'll be a bit of a problem if ye e'r get a command, though.”

“I suppose it will.”

“But, Officer, Tully doesn't—forgive my Finnish—fuck around. Are ye sure this isn't about Turunen? Whichever?”

“I don't know what it's about. But I trust Tully.”

“Aye. Tully's a good fish. Love the tattoos.”

 

 

K
TEAM
rendezvoused with T team as they made the southernmost point of the lowest floor—the airlock outside of LeChuck's Groggery. Having swam down to the airlock and broken in, T walked in fully armed with their suits and stared at K's sealskins until Kabar grunted at them.

“We've checked near every damn open door in this place and no sign of V. This is the last one here.”

They entered the Groggery. Kabar stepped in first and barked as he had in every other joint, “Have you seen anyone like us around here? Two girls?”

Solomon was present. “Aye.”

Finally
, Kabar thought. “Where are they?”

“Perhaps ye'd sit with us for a drink?”

Kabar knocked the grog out of Solomon's hand.

“Perhaps you'd tell us where the fuck they are before I kill you.”

He drew his Tikari. Half the room stood. Tahir stunned half of them with his microwave. Tasha knocked out the other half, leaving Solomon.

“Where are they?” shouted Kabar. “We need to find our friends.”

“I don't think they wanted to be found, matey.”

“What might change your mind?”

“Oh, nothing might change my mind. Ye can wait here for them if they come back, as they migh', but I'll not be sending ye to my friend.”

“You can take us to them or you can die.”

“I'll die, thank ye.”

“What kind of human are you?”

“The only kind that dwells down here. A decent one. One with scruples.”

“We will torture you to death to find them.”

“Aye, you'll torture me to death, but ye'll not find them. They were a rude couple, but ye make 'em look like angels.”

Kabar grabbed Tahir's microwave and knocked him out with a stunning beam, then applied a bore to his head. With the link dead, he tied in by wire and began to dig through the man's recent memories. Violet and Vibeke, going with a Cetacean. Kabar dug deeper into his memory of the Cetacean. Jeremiah Tull, living in boat 778, the route formulated in the man's head. Kabar detached the bore and unplugged and headed for the home as the teams followed.

 

 

“Y
OU
REALLY
did it: you fucked her.”

“Fuck off, Veikko.”

“I fucked her once too.”

“No you didn't.”

“I hacked her, what makes you think I didn't program her to fuck me and forget? What makes you think I didn't nail Violet too?”

“You're not as good a liar as you think you are.”

“Yes, I am. I'm the best.”

“You're not a rapist.”

“Maybe not. But Violet was. Your brain is a rapist's brain.”

“Violet was told about souls once by a kid at school, a kid who believed in them. She never did, but—”

“You do?”

“I don't ‘believe' anything. But I'm not Violet. There's something different between us. I'm not her, not at all.”

“You're the worst of her. Vibs got the best of her killed, and you just nailed the murderous cunt. That's loyalty for you.”

“You're one to talk about loyalty.”

“One thing's for sure, if we have souls, you don't. You're the very definition of a soulless robot. You don't have one, you can't earn one, whatever makes us human, you lack it.”

“I never cared to be human.”

“What do you care about? Vibs? Pussy.”

“Both, now.”

“Cute, robot. And all the better. I'll take both away from you. I'll take everything you care about from you in the worst way. I'll kill your maker, your lover, and I'll rip out what you love her with.”

“Why do you hate me so much, Veikko?”

“I don't hate you. You're not worth it. You're Vibeke's toy. I just want to play with you too.”

Vibeke woke to find herself entangled with Nel and victim to the worst headache she'd ever had. There was a whistle at the door.

She shook Nel until she got up and pulled on her sealskins. Vibeke put on the same and walked to the door, opening it to find the Cetacean.

“They're here,” he said.

He led them out to a curious, tiny round mess hall where a gray Cetacean with a white belly and a black eyepatch met them.

“Show Pytten your bug trick,” said the Cetacean.

Vibeke hesitated, thinking of Bob, but knew it was necessary. She disgorged her Tikari, which fluttered to the table. The gray Cetacean examined it, and then observed the faint slit in Vibeke's chest as it returned.

“So you are something from a fairy tale?” it said.

“We're quite real,” replied Vibeke.

“But you're hunting something from another fairy tale.”

“We both know the Valkohai are real.”

“So we are. What do you want with us?”

“Do you know what the Ares device is?”

“You speak in nothing but fairy tales. Yes, a magic tree that floods the Earth. I suppose now you'll tell me it's real as well.”

“It was a terraforming project meant for Mars, and yes, it can flood the planet. Pelamus Pluturus had—”

The Cetaceans made a hissing noise.

“Do not speak to us of that pirate!” said Tull. “If ever the Valkohai were to act, and they have never acted before, it would be to eradicate that bottom-feeding monster. He shamed our kind! He did not speak nor fight for us!”

“That may be, but he assembled the Ares before he died.”

“Why do you think he's dead?”

“One of us killed him.”

“What evidence have you of any of this?”

“We can take you to it.”

“Why would landlopers give us the Ares, if it truly existed? You would be ending your race.”

“But you wouldn't use it, would you? You don't kill billions for no reason.”

“No, we do not.”

“Right now it's under the control of a nasty boy, Veikko, born Loki Turunen.”

“If you lie, you know us too well.”

“He went renegade and now he's the only thing keeping the Ares from hitting the ocean. We want you to control him.”

“Renegade or not, why would you give us control of your fate?”

“Because he's an asshole.”

The Valkohai considered it. The admiral would surely want to know about the Ares device. He would surely not want to know his brother was part of the matter. But Pytten had to inform him. It wasn't a decision for an administrative assistant to make. It was a decision for the admiral.

The admiral who had specifically forbidden him to mention his brother. But who had also spoken of audacity. The will to do what's right despite it being against the rules.

Pytten stood motionless before the girls for a solid minute. They wondered if the fish had frozen up, crashed somehow.

Pytten would take them. Take them and face the consequences, whatever they were. It was too important to do otherwise. Pytten couldn't just ignore the intel they offered. It was as critical as intel of the first nuclear weapons, of the first wave bombs.

“The man you need to meet is in Itämeri Kaupunki, in the Baltic Sea. The capital of the Cetacean empire where the Valkohai are massed.”

“Take us there,” said Vibeke.

“No.”

“Why not?”

Nel spoke up. “
Please
take us there.”

“Very well.”

Vibeke rolled her eyes. “Please, great undersea one, would you be so kind as to take us to the honorable and superior sir of which you speak if it would so please you to do so?”

The Cetacean looked to the Valkohai and spoke. “She's finally getting it, Pytten!”

He pulled a lever on the ceiling and suddenly the home disengaged from the gangplank, floating free into the water. Then its engines turned on and began to propel it southward.

Arriving seconds later, the Valkyrie teams watched the boathouse depart. Kabar cut open the wall of the gangplank, letting the water flood in. T team forced their way out into the sea and tractored themselves to the rock below, then ran as fast as the water would allow behind the boat.

K ran for dry space and headed upward to collect their belongings. T made it into range before the boat's main thrusters engaged and tractored themselves to its underside. Their estimate of the windows and sensor systems on board gave them hope. There was little chance the boat saw the flooded gangplank or detected them at all.

 

 

R
ISTO
FOUND
his parents' door half-open. Within he found his parents dead. Loki. He knew it was Loki's departing gift. Risto fell to the deck and wept. He shook as he sat up with his mother's blood on his webbed fingers. His father's neck was bruised and black. His mother was impaled on a harpoon. They lay together where they must have fallen.

He called the police and informed them of the murders. But Loki was gone, and they had no power to hunt him on land.

Risto repressed it all deeply. He returned from furlough and threw himself into his duties. And so he excelled, and did so brilliantly. More brilliantly than anyone of his age. He was young, but he was strong, audacious, auspicious. He became the youngest captain in Valkohai history. Then the youngest rear admiral. Then the youngest vice admiral.

Then he saw Loki's face and fucked it all up. He sent Tull's team to kill his brother. Tull requested confirmation, and the fleet admiral heard it. Risto was demoted. He was shattered. He blamed his brother at first, then slowly integrated the anger at himself. His obsession had cost him his career, so he thought for months. He redoubled his efforts, to redeem himself, to show those in charge what he was worth. It worked, and when Admiral Edeltäjä retired, Risto commanded the entire Valkohai armada. His only directives came from the civilian assembly, who showed little interest. And he reported now to the Geki, the terrifying creatures that asked very little. Don't Fuck Shit Up. With the globe at war in a postnuclear apocalypse, Risto imagined they were obsolete. But he'd not break their treaty in any case. All he had to do was protect as many Cetaceans as he could from the effects of the war. To monitor and see that nothing came down below.

He had no idea that Loki—Veikko—had, in his time mutilated in the red empty ravine, used the remains of Alopex to infiltrate the Ulver mainframe. With the Leo programming, he was still a dead-dangerous hacker. With the scraps of net left to him, he had been slowly reeling in intel about Mishka's rise to power, about war with the UKI, and about something he never believed in until he saw it through Ulver's own eyes: The Valkohai.

Ulver's Defense Secretary, a man named Uggs, had been planning a massacre of the Cetaceans. He had found the Valkohai and determined the extent of their forces. He knew the names of their command staff. Including Risto Turunen.

The name hit Veikko like a sore, buried thorn, long infected and neglected. He was bored sick in the ravine, unable to move then unable to leave for more than a few minutes, lest the ravine collapse and deliver the world to the Cetaceans. To his brother.

Veikko began developing new intel on the Valkohai within Ulver's mainframe. That they intended to use the war to seize Ulver land. He had crafted a perfect ruse to send them to battle. Perfect, lacking only one element: he had no way to lure Risto and his navy out of the water to where they'd be weak, where they'd confirm the intel, where they could be slaughtered. Veikko wanted to excise that splinter, but he had only half the equation.

He heard a sound. A voice hurtled deep into his supersensitive new ears. Vibeke's voice. And it sounded like she was talking to Violet. He thought she'd been dead but either way, they were an asset to be used. He only needed to hint to them that he feared the Cetaceans coming to Kvitøya. Then they would naturally, unknowingly handle the rest.