Katya's War (Russalka Chronicles) (25 page)

That sense of something always on the very edge of happening haunted Katya’s days. She waited for the inevitable day when she would be escorted off to the Secor interrogation centre, to be tortured and killed, but now they had her safe and secure in the Deeps they seemed in no hurry at all to get on with it. For the first few days she was on a knife’s edge of terror, every guard walking her way seeming to be the angel of death come to collect her.

Then she decided that this was all part of their plan, to keep her nervous and disorientated, to weaken her defences for when the blow finally fell. She felt angry that they could play such games, and the fear abated as she adjusted her view of her future. She imagined herself having some fatal disease that had shortened her life to days or weeks, yet had no symptoms until the final one. It was a grim prognosis to give herself, but a sensible one under the circumstances and, most importantly, it allowed her to function. Indeed, it made every day precious.

The Deeps looked roughly circular from the outside, but internally was based upon a regular pentagon, the only external expression of this being the five outrider ballast tanks on their dual pylon mounts. One of the five sectors comprised the docking areas, the guards’ barracks, and the administration sections arranged over four decks. Another three sectors contained the male prisoners, and the last was the female sector. Each of the four decks in the prisoner sectors was called a “wing,” although it was nothing of the sort. Dominika told Katya that at least once a year there was a “shakeup,” when all inmates were randomly assigned new cells. The official explanation was that it was to disrupt any long-term escape plans, but nobody believed that. It was believed the shakeup procedure was purely to break up any friendships that may have formed and to keep the inmates feeling stateless and with no control over their destinies.

Once a month, however, the wings within a sector were allowed common time, a brief hour to spend with friends split up by the spiteful churning of the shakeups. Katya had been in the Deeps for just under three weeks when she experienced the first of these. Immediately after lunch had been completed in the communal hall of her wing, the guards withdrew, leaving them under the watchful eyes of the security cameras with their coaxial masers, ready to burn down any troublemakers.

Then the access doors at the outer end of the wing opened automatically, sliding up into the walls. Several women who had gathered by the doors ran through as soon as they opened, while others hung back, waiting. Moments later, women from the wing below were running in to be greeted with cries of delight. Katya watched them embrace and wondered if their number would include her one day. She saw Dominika waving at a short woman with her cropped hair grey at the temples, and their joyful reunion. Feeling that she was intruding, she picked up one of the media pads that gave the inmates something to do, and went off to a bench to read.

She had been reading for perhaps ten minutes when a woman came to sit by her. Katya felt awkward, and looked fixedly at her screen in the hope the woman would take the hint.

“Don’t worry, Kuriakova,” the woman said. “I’m not here to make a woman of you. I doubt either of us are that desperate for human contact yet.”

Katya looked up sharply. Tasya Morevna, hair cropped and in prison uniform, sat by her side.

“They captured you?” said Katya, whispering in shock. “You? I always thought…” She dithered to a halt.

“You thought right. They’d kill me on sight. That’s why I’m…” she turned to Katya so she could show the name printed on her uniform,
LITVYAK, T. THIEF
“The T stands for ‘Tasya,’ still,” she explained. “I wanted to be a murderer, but Havilland thought that might draw too much attention. I wasn’t very keen on his counterproposal either, so we compromised on me being a thief.”

Katya was still having problems with the entire situation that extended far beyond which particular crime Tasya had decided to have on her uniform. “What are you doing here?” she whispered.

For once Tasya looked uncomfortable. “I’m here to help rescue you.”

“From the Deeps? How? It’s impossible! Tasya, it’s suicide! Kane’s crazy for sending you in here.”

Tasya looked at Katya for a long moment, wrestling with what she was to say next. “Kane didn’t send me, Katya. This is my plan.”

Katya could only gawp at her.

Tasya hurried on. “I screwed up. You should never have been left without support at Atlantis. Kane’s got this idea that you’re blessed, or lucky or something, and that you’d exfiltrate the Beta levels without any trouble. It went against my instincts, but I agreed. I shouldn’t have. Even if we couldn’t have gone onto the Beta corridors ourselves, I could have led a team to cover you going up to them and coming back. I
should
have led a team to cover you.”

“We’d never have got out. The lock defences…”

“There wouldn’t have been any lock defences by the time I’d finished with them. There’s no excuse. I failed you, Kuriakova.”

Tasya was apologising. To her. The She-Devil, the terror of the World Ocean, was apologising to her. And she’d broken into the most secure location in the world to do it.

Katya had sworn not to let the Deeps make her cry, ever, for any reason, but she had to swallow now. “You could just have said sorry,” she managed to say.

Tasya grinned wolfishly and lightly backhanded Katya’s arm. “This
is
my way of saying sorry.”

“How did you get in here?”

“There’s a lot of detail you don’t need to know right now. It’s best if you don’t hear it at all. From your point of view, you don’t have to do anything. There will come a time when I come and get you. When I do, you do as I tell you without questions or hesitation. Understand?”

Katya nodded, and said, “They were expecting you to try and rescue me on the way here. They set a trap.”

Tasya raised an eyebrow. “What? They told you that?”

“I worked it out.”

Tasya laughed. “I keep forgetting what a clever one you are. Yes, the
Novgorod
no less, and a couple of patrol boats in wide flanking positions a couple of isotherms above. We shadowed the
Novgorod
right from the minute it passed beyond the range of the picket sensors. We could have killed it easily.” She pulled a disgusted face. “That was a really boring three days.”

“So, why didn’t you?”

“The volume would have filled up with torpedoes. Ours, theirs, the patrol boats weighing in. Sooner or later one would have lost its lock, gone onto a search pattern and perhaps locked up your shuttle. It was too dangerous to risk.”

“I’m glad you didn’t, and not just for me. Petrov’s still an officer aboard her.”

“Petrov?” Tasya nodded appreciatively. “A worthy foe.”

“Maybe he made captain? The FMA fawned over everybody else who had anything to do with the
Leviathan
and
FP-1
. Medals and promotions for everyone.”

“Maybe so. If he is the master and commander of the
Novgorod
these days, I’m glad we stayed well back.”

Before Katya could ask any more questions, Dominika walked over with the woman she’d greeted earlier. “Katya!” she said smiling. “This is my friend, Naida.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Naida. She seemed like a very nice person at first impression, but her uniform carried the word
MURDERER
.

“Good to see you’re meeting people, too,” said Dominika, looking at Tasya. Tasya said nothing, but rose to her feet, smiling slightly. Dominika looked up at her and frowned slightly, as if victim to a nagging half memory. “Have we met before?” she asked.

Then the skin on her face grew taut and her eyes widened as she finally located the memory.

“I don’t know who you are,” Dominika said tonelessly.

“That’s right,” said Tasya. The slight smile was still there, and Katya recognised it as the contemplative one she wore when discussing favourite acts of violence. “You don’t know who I am.”

Dominika glanced at Katya, and Katya thought she saw fear and pity in her eyes. Dominika made some mumbled farewells and almost dragged the confused Naida away with her.

Tasya watched her go. “What sort of treason is she in here for?”

“She worked in a news service. Wrote something the FMA didn’t like. What was all that about, Tasya?”

“News. That makes sense. She recognised me.”

“She what? How can you be so calm about it? What if she...”

“She won’t say a thing. She’s scared of me. That friend of hers, though, that Naida, she might be trouble. She’s in my wing. I know her sort. She’ll be sniffing around trying to find some sort of advantage.” Tasya fell into a thoughtful silence.

Katya noticed the slight smile had reappeared. “Don’t you dare kill her!” she whispered.

“Can’t promise that, Kuriakova,” said Tasya with an easy complacency that frightened and sickened Katya. “Only as a last resort, though.” She smiled a little mockingly as she sketched a cross over her heart. “Promise.”

Katya knew Tasya’s list of alternatives to killing people who might present problems was very short, so it wasn’t much of a promise. It was, however, the best she was going to get.

“I’d better go and wander around. It’s not a good idea for us to be seen too much together,” said Tasya. “Keep watching for anything unusual and, unless things move ahead quickly, I’ll see you next time.”

“I can’t believe you’re fine with staying in this cess silo for as long as that,” said Katya.

Tasya shrugged. “Do you know if the unit activated properly?”

“Yes. They actually showed it to me. The inside was molten slag.”

“Good job, Kuriakova. Then the war’s as good as over. Might take a few months, though, and here’s as good a place to wait that out as anywhere. Take care, stay out of trouble, and I’ll see you in a month.”

“If Secor haven’t got around to interrogating and killing me before then.”

“They won’t. You worry too much, Katya. Be cool.” And so saying, Tasya wandered off amongst the chattering groups.

Katya didn’t know how Tasya could be so confident, but events proved her right. The days after the so-called “Freedom Day” mounted up and still Secor couldn’t seem to develop any sense of urgency.

Dominika had wanted to talk to Katya immediately after the inmates returned to their respective wings (“All inmates have five minutes to return to their correct wings. Any inmate found in the wrong wing or on the stairwells after that time will receive a Level Two demerit and associated punishments”), but the governor called a general appel – the name used for a head count in the Deeps – and there was no time.

After the evening meal, however, Dominika managed to take Katya to one side. “That woman you were talking to, she’s dangerous, Katya. Just a piece of advice, but you should stay away from her, as far as you can get.”

“She’s just a thief. Misallocated food supplies for the black market or something. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

Dominika shook her head emphatically. “Katya, you have no idea…”

Katya took Dominika’s hands in hers and looked her in the eyes. “She’s just a thief. She’s nobody special. I wouldn’t give her another thought if I were you.”

Finally Dominika understood. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Katya.” The evening tidy up was called at that point. Dominika squeezed Katya’s hands and let them go. “Be safe.”

Then, ten days after Tasya had assured her that Secor had lost interest in her, guards came to escort Katya to the interrogation section.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

WHITE DEATH

The guards turned up midmorning during a citizenship lecture. That most of those present would never again be a free citizen was not an irony that escaped them, and the presentation did not go without a commentary from the inmates. They grew quiet when the guards entered, identified Katya, and took her away with them. Katya had believed Tasya, and was so shocked she had trouble standing when they called her name. They led her off and the lecture continued more soberly than before.

It didn’t help that one of the guards was Oksana Volkova, because the other was not Alina Shepitko, and so they could not talk openly. The only comfort to be had from Oksana’s presence was a sympathetic glance from her when the other guard was looking away for a moment. Otherwise, the group walked in silence to the Deeps hub to take a lift down to the lowest level of the administration wing.

Down there the corridors were grey-walled and contained only utility lighting, apparently a legacy of their original intended function as drive rooms. The bleakness of the echoing walls may have been as much a reason for their retention as economy; it was impossible to walk them without sensing something terrible waiting around every corner.

They took her to a room much like the room in which she had been beaten in Atlantis. Two seats, one of them bolted to the floor, a table also bolted down, restraints straps on the secure chair, and a steel hasp on the table surface to hold a manacle’s cable. Sitting in the interrogator’s chair was the pale, fragile-looking woman Katya remembered from her welcoming committee over a month before. The woman looked up briefly when Katya was brought in, but promptly lost interest, studying her memo pad and drinking water from a plastic cup as the guards shackled Katya and then restrained her in the chair, locking her manacles’ cable down, her ankles and waist held in the chair.

When they were done, Oksana and the other female guard stood by the door. The Secor agent looked at them with faint surprise. “You’re dismissed. You’ll be called when I want you to remove the prisoner.”

Oksana looked uneasy at the phrase “remove the prisoner,” an uneasiness Katya shared. It sounded like an order to remove something inanimate. The other guard said, “Are you sure, ma’am? We could wait here in case you need us.”

“I don’t require an audience,” said the interrogator. “Besides, these are early days. Ms Kuriakova and I will just be getting to know one another.” To punctuate the thought, she lifted a medical case from the floor and laid it on the table.