Neurolink (23 page)

They passed a shelter where an old man was stir-frying hardened cubes of Naomi’s pudding in a wok. He watched juvenile girls painting filigree patterns on their feet. The sight of a mother suckling her infant no longer disturbed him.

He trudged on, fighting fatigue and trying to ignore the blisters rubbing under his foot rags. How long had he been walking? Time in this place seemed to stretch and wrinkle by rules Einstein never imagined. At some point, the boy wanted to walk on his own, and as they climbed four levels up a winding stone stairs lighted with candles, Dominic chanted a mantra, “Up. Up. Up.”

When they dead-ended at a metal door, he leaned against the lever and pushed. He was beyond guessing what might be on the other side. The door opened into a large bright space with high ceilings and a bitter oily fragrance. Mechanical thrumming swelled through the air, and the dense ranks of fuel cells gleamed like polished cylindrical mirrors. Someone popped out from behind a cylinder, and Dominic saw the swing of blue-black hair.

She said, “Freaker, Nick-O. What happened to your eye?”

THERE
stood the major. Cocky and smirking as usual—curse her lying heart—she examined his bruises and giggled.

Tired as he was, Dominic was incensed and would have said something rude. But then he noticed the woman standing beside her, a small, stooped woman with a plain face and calm, intelligent eyes. It was the little Asian woman he’d seen talking to Qi and the red-haired engineer in the stairwell that first day.

Behind her, the colossal power plant whispered through its cycles, and dozens of workers moved with frantic haste, yet around this woman, a peaceful stillness reigned. A benevolent half smile played at her lips as if she had all the time in the world to welcome her new guests. Again, Dominic couldn’t help but feel there was something familiar about her. Something sweet and bitter at once. He even remembered her name. Ane Zaki.

“You’re the electrician?” he asked.

The woman bowed. “Hai. And you are the coin giver. Is this your son?”

Dominic blinked. Benito was clinging to his leg, making it impossible to walk, so he lifted the boy in his arms. “My son? No, he’s…”

Right then, Benito did something which surprised Dominic very much. He gave Ane Zaki his treasured yellow pencil. Ane Zaki’s face glowed as she accepted the gift, and Benito made his happy noise. “Zzzh.”

She examined the pencil and discovered with a gentle laugh how to make the lead retract. “How clever! Thank you, child. You have a generous spirit.”

“Zzzh,” Benito gurgled.

Then she offered it back to the boy. “But you will need this to make pictures. Keep it for me, yes?”

Her pale face gleamed with faint moisture. Luminous, thought Dominic. She reminded him of someone, but he couldn’t think who. He couldn’t look away from her.

“Please come, coin giver. You will perhaps want refreshment,” she said.

The NP snarled, and sparks danced across Dominic’s vision. “The son I knew would never waste time like this! You have less than eight hours of air left. What if you pass out before you find the link?”

Dominic ignored the sparks. “Call me Nick,” he said to Ane Zaki. Qi smirked.

The tiny woman couldn’t have been more than forty years old, yet she walked with a slow, dragging step, and her uniform hung loose on her bent body. When a worker approached with a bow and an urgent whispered question, Ane Zaki touched her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut, then gave a brief answer that sent the worker rushing away. She smiled. “Forgive the interruption, please.”

She led them through the power plant to an alcove in the back, little more than a closet. Dominic glimpsed a sleeping hammock neatly stowed away on a hook, a basket of folded clothing, and a low stool made, of course, from a crate. Along one narrow shelf, thumb-sized bits of trash had been arranged in a precise row. When Dominic leaned to see them better, he realized they were tiny tissue sculptures of winged animals, each one as finished as a poem. He was still examining them when Ane Zaki touched his arm and handed him a steaming towel. A precious gift. He held the cloth to his face and smelled its clean warmth.

“The broadcast, remember? Market crash? Lawsuit?
Divestiture
?” The NP shot bright lights through Dominic’s skull.

But fatigue had transported Dominic into a waking trance that verged on stupor. As he pressed the cloth to his eyes, he felt himself drifting loose from everything. In fact, he felt serene.

He watched Ane Zaki’s hands. Slender and white, her hands opened and moved like blossoms. She unfolded another hot towel and washed Benito’s mouth and nose. The boy screwed up his lips and held still. When Dominic cleaned his own face, he was chagrined to find a thick stubble of whiskers covering his chin and cheeks. By the time he’d rinsed his hands, the towel was gray with dirt. He longed to scrub the rest of his body, but he was too self-conscious to do that in front of Ane Zaki. She smiled as she took the filthy towel, and Dominic felt light at heart. She asked if he would accept salve for his bruises.

“Yes, Ane Zaki. I wouldn’t mind a little salve.”

“Yes, Ane Zaki,” Qi mimicked. She gave his chin hairs a playful yank. “Hoo-hoo. Aren’t we cooperative.”

“Salve!” the NP scoffed.

Ane Zaki made him sit on the stool, and when she smiled, Dominic felt as if she’d singled him out for a special kindness. Qi paced outside the alcove. She seemed irritated, and Dominic vaguely wondered why. As Ane Zaki dabbed his cheek with cool green ointment, he caught her scent. Why had he thought her plain? She was angelic. All at once, he remembered whom she reminded him of.

Dominic hadn’t known women in his childhood—he’d grown up among men. But once, as a boy, he had seen a woman’s photo in his father’s office. Richter kept photos of many women, like a collection of souvenirs, but this one was different. Not glamorous, not glittering with gems. This woman was plain. Why did Richter keep this picture among so many fashionable beauties? Dominic thought he knew.

While his father wasn’t looking, the child Dominic stood on tiptoes, stretched his short round arms and took the photo off the shelf. He studied her face. She had soft, curling brown hair and mild gray eyes that seemed to speak to him. While Richter paced in front of the window and haggled in his video conference, the young boy cradled the picture against his cheek? He imagined telling this woman what he had learned at school. He imagined how she would smell. As soon as his father was free, Dominic stepped forward and asked with a boy’s hope, “Is this my mother?”

Richter laughed, one short, hard syllable. Dominic could still hear it echoing. “You don’t have a mother. You grew in a tank.”

Dominic remembered how he dropped the picture and ran, and how his father rushed after him. Richter tired to comfort him with words. “I made you outta my own flesh. It’s you and me, boy. We don’t need anybody else.”

Dominic never saw the photo of the plain woman again, though for years afterward, he dreamed of her gentle face. Even when he knew she could not possibly be his mother, he still dreamed of her.

“I’ll make you a little energy shot,” the NP said. “You’re tired, and you’re getting stupid.”

Dominic barely heard. Beyond the alcove, workers moved steadily through the power plant, and he saw two children coming their way. The girl in front carried a steaming teapot by its handle, stooping and holding her arms out straight to keep it from bumping her leg. A smaller girl brought tiny cups and a rolled mat. When they saw Ane Zaki, they bowed and spread the tea things on the floor.

Ane Zaki lowered herself carefully to the mat and invited the others to join her. Benito immediately curled in her lap. She laughed and stroked the boy’s hair, and Dominic found himself wishing he were small enough to sit in her lap, too. He nudged Qi aside and squeezed into the narrow space next to Ane Zaki, though he had to sit with his knees drawn up to his chin.

“Comfy?” Qi stepped on his foot.

Benito kept flashing his yellow pencil for Ane Zaki to admire.

“Ah. Will you draw me a picture?” she said. “Please, draw here on the mat where I will always keep it.”

Benito wet the pencil point in his mouth, then began to scribble, and Dominic found himself wishing he had a treasure to give Ane Zaki. On impulse, he drew the laser torch from his waistband, but men he didn’t know what to do with it. Ane Zaki didn’t need a broken laser torch. He put it away and drained the tiny teacup in one sip.

Qi punched him in the ribs. “You wanna ask about fuel?”

“Forget the fuel. You don’t need to ask these bitches anything,” the NP said.

Ane Zaki took the cup from his hand. “Nick, this tea will restore your strength. May I show you my power plant?”

“Yes please, Ane Zaki.”

“Yes please, Ane Zaki. Hoo-hoo!” Qi sounded annoyed.

Benito wanted Ane Zaki to carry him, but she was clearly not strong enough, so Dominic hoisted the boy onto his shoulders and offered Ane Zaki his arm. Qi stalked ahead, jerking her elbows as if she were jabbing her way through a hostile army. Dominic watched her. He would never learn to read the major’s moods.

The floors of Ane Zaki’s power plant were spotless, much cleaner than Naomi’s supposedly “sterile” vat room. Recessed light tubes illuminated every corner with a soft indirect glow, and as the group strolled through the ranks of fuel cells, each cylinder gleamed as if polished by hand.

Ane Zaki spoke with obvious pride. “These are solid oxide fuel cells, old technology but still very reliable. You hear how quiet the stacks are? That noise comes from our fans. And the air smells fresh, doesn’t it? Our cells don’t pollute. They even reuse their own carbon monoxide.” She paused and lovingly patted the flank of a cylinder. “They’re so elegant. No exotic catalysts. No hot liquid electrolyte to pump. They’re designed to run on ordinary synthetic petrol.” Here, she lay a finger across her lips and fluttered her eyelids. “Of course, we’ve made modifications.”

As they walked on, Dominic felt every movement of her hand on his arm, like a precious, fluttering bird.

“The equipment comes from both the
Pressure of Light
and the
Jedes
,” she said. “We integrated the two systems and hardened this cavern to withstand natural catastrophes. We mean to be permanent, Nick.”

Another young worker ran up to Ane Zaki, bowed in obvious distress and blurted, “Stack ten is depleted, Obasan. What should we do?”

Ane Zaki drew the worker a few steps away and spoke too softly for Dominic to overhear. The worker nodded and raced off, and he glanced back at Qi, who had fallen behind. She was humming a tune and sparring with her reflection in one of the polished cylinders. Apparently, she meant to ignore him. Crazy spook.

Ane Zaki made a remark about the exuberance of youth, but her eyes glittered with strain. “Our Nord.Com execs chose the cheapest grades of fuel,” she said. “We cautioned them about impurities, but they wouldn’t hear us.” Her step faltered, and Dominic gave her his arm again. “Thank you,” she said.

He bent to keep his elbow at the proper height for her, and Benito clung tighter to his neck. He said, “The cheap fuel caused problems?”

“Yes, Nick. Impurities shortened the working life of our fuel cells.” Ane Zaki bowed her head. “Some years ago, we adapted some of. the cells and began distilling our own clean alcohol. In secret, naturally.”

Dominic loosened Benito’s grip on his ear. “How did you do that?”

“Ah. When a thing is necessary, one finds there are ways.” She touched her mouth and tittered softly as if she’d made a little joke. “We began with a small distillery hidden in the ship’s double hull. The crew contributed food rations. We found that protein-glucose ferments rather well.”

“People gave up their food to power the ship?”

“She’s lying,” the NP said.

Ane Zaki nodded. “So much depends on power, Nick.”

Dominic glanced around to see if Qi knew about this, but the major had stopped some distance back to do chin-ups on one of the overhead pipes. He let out a quiet whistle. “You did that even before the spin-off? The
Benthica
didn’t belong to you then.”

Ane Zaki eyes grew brighter. “It’s our home, Nick.”

“Bullshit,” the NP growled. “I don’t believe it.”

As they walked on, side by side, Dominic was troubled. He couldn’t doubt Ane Zaki’s word, yet it confounded him. Even as Nord.Com drove them into bankruptcy, these protes had sacrificed their food to keep their submarine operating. A week ago back in Trondheim, he could not have imagined it. He kept glancing at Qi, but the major trailed too far behind to join in their talk. Benito shifted uneasily on his shoulders.

Halfway down the next row of fuel cells, he noticed three strange contraptions. When Ane Zaki saw where he was looking, she emitted a quiet laugh, covering her mouth with her fingers. “Our new gas turbines.”

As she took his hand and pulled him along, her voice grew high-pitched and eager. “We’ve been cannibalizing our cabin walls for materials. When Dominic Jedes freed us, we devoted all our resources to finishing these three. You notice how they work? The turbines capture waste thermal energy from the fuel cells to generate more power. We’ve increased output from these three cells by 70 percent.”

Dominic examined the devices with interest. “Why not build more?” he asked.

“Preter-keen idea.” Qi walked up and snapped her fingers in his face. “More turbines, Anzie! Are you sitting on your hands, girl? Why don’t you build more turbines?”

“Major Qi.” Dominic stood to his full height and stuck out his chest. Sometimes her sarcasm exasperated him.

“Nick-O, you are so freakin’ dense. If Anzie had parts for more turbines, don’t you think she’d build them?”

“Of course, I—”

Just then, Ane Zaki swayed, and Qi dashed over to catch her. “You’re worn-out, Anzie. Sit down, okay?”

“There’s more that Nick should see.” Ane Zaki began to titter in a hectic, unnatural way, and Dominic perceived at once that she was ill. Qi swept her up and carried her to a bench, while Benito squirmed down and ran to her side. With a sense of his own clumsy ineptitude, Dominic followed.