Tides of Maritinia (25 page)

“Rescuers? That's how you think of yourselves?”

“Of course,” she said, her tone indicating she was surprised it was even in doubt. “These ­people aren't capable of self-­determination. Humans like these are savages at heart. After what you've witnessed, you know that better than anybody. They require structure and stability. They need society and culture. Only then, when their wild sides are caged, do their better qualities emerge. Qualities like respect, nobility, and charity.”

If I could've rolled my eyes at Pol, I would have. “Maritinians are nobler than you think.”

“Save it, Mr. Bryce.” Her voice was suddenly lacking any patience. Apparently showing some respect for the ­people of this world was a sore spot. “I've worked with dozens of undercover operatives, and they all find themselves sympathizing with the locals to one degree or another. So trust me, I've heard the noble-­savage argument many times before. Let me do you a favor and smother this nonsense while it's still in its crib. Maritinians were given the chance to govern themselves, and they decided to slaughter each other by the hundreds of thousands. Excuse me if I don't find any nobility in that. The sooner you get these misguided notions out of your head, the better. Now can we get back to the topic of the Falali Mother?”

Biting my tongue, I slowly nodded.

“Do you think setting her free is a good idea?”

I nodded a second time. “She means much to her ­people. They'll never trust you as long as you keep her locked up. You have to let her go.”

“We have another choice, you know.”

My heart darkened at the thought of it. “You want to kill her, don't you?”

“It would give me no pleasure, but the thought has crossed my mind. We can say the admiral killed her like he did so many Jebyl.” She shrugged her shoulders. “We merely found the body.”

I shook my head. “You have nothing to gain from killing her. She'll just be replaced.”

“Agreed. So the question is: Will she work with us? Or can we get a better deal from her successor?”

“What kind of deal?”

“Reconciliation is the goal. From what you've told us, the admiral has been spewing plenty of paranoid fantasies about us. We need to gain the trust of the ­people. The Falali church is the most respected institution on this world, is it not? Her endorsement would cement our legitimacy.”

“Have you asked her for her endorsement yet?”

“I have, but I'm still waiting on an answer.”

“She's a principled woman. She chose imprisonment over supporting the admiral's government.”

“That is why I need you to reason with her.” She pulled a comm unit from her pocket to check the time. “The show of force begins in about three hours. I'll be doing my speech soon after, and one way or the other, I will make a statement about her. I hope to have the opportunity to announce her support. Otherwise, I'll be forced to announce her unfortunate demise.”

Without giving me a chance to speak further, she stood and went to the door. Opening it, she leaned out to wave the Falali Mother in before returning to her own seat.

Emmina stepped through the doorway, her chin held high above sagging shoulders. The last few weeks had taken a toll. Silk robes hung loose on a withered frame, and her cheeks had narrowed below swollen bags under her eyes.

“It's good to see you, Emmina,” I said.

She took the chair next to the governor, the glint in her eye bright as ever. “You look horrible, Colonel.”

“I can't look worse than you,” I said with a grin. “You need to eat.”

Her eyes went to my carving tools and the unfinished cuda on my lap. “You found a hobby, I see.”

“More of an obsession,” I said.

“I fear-­ed they'd kill-­ed you.”

“Sali convinced her father to let me go. She saved me.”

“How is Sali?”

My grin burned to ash. I couldn't say the words.

Emmina mercifully saw to it that I didn't need to. She covered her heart with a hand. “I'm sorry for that, Colonel.”

“Be sorry for her, but don't waste your sorrow on me. I've made a real mess of things.”

“Tell me what it's like out there.”

With my thumb, I ground a tear into my cheek. “I can't.”

“Tell me, Colonel.”

I shook my head, “There are no words, Emmina.”

She leaned forward in her chair. “I beg you, Colonel. If I agree to endorse the governor, I need to know what I'll face when they set me free.”

I lifted the wood off my lap and laid it on the table. “I don't sleep anymore. I close my eyes, but I don't sleep. The visions are always the same. I see vast lakes of blood, but the blood is perfectly still. Stiller than a fetid pond. And I cross bridges made of bone that lead to a mountain of death. A mountain of bodies piled up high to the sky. And on this mountain, there are babies crying, and mothers weeping. I see ­people trapped and tangled between all those dead arms and legs, and they call for help and try to dig their way out, but they don't realize that they are dead, too.”

She didn't speak. Nobody did. Not even the little bastard in my head.

I reached for the wood, set it back on my lap, and took up one of my tools. Besides the insistent scrape of wood, the room stayed silent for a long time.

Emmina spoke first. “I've spent the last five and a half weeks cursing Falal for locking me up at a time like this. Now I'm beginning to understand she might have been protecting me.”

“The survivors need you.”

“Endorsing the Empire is not a small thing.”

“I don't care what the Empire wants. All I know is your ­people need you. You remember when I talked to your Council of Interpreters?”

“Of course. You try-­ed to convince them to help you unseat the admiral.”

“Yes, and they chose their principles over averting disaster. You know that was a mistake now, don't you?”

“They did what I taught them to do.”

“They did nothing.”

“It's not our place to act. Merely to interpret.”

“The act of doing nothing is still an act. You and your council failed our ­people. Like me and every other person on this world, you share responsibility for what happened. The time for sticking to principles is past. When our ­people need leadership, inaction is not an option.”

“The will of Falal is not always clear.”

“If Falal has even an ounce of kindness inside her, she could not have wished the horrors I've seen.” I paused to give my next words the gravity they deserved. Every hope I had for Maritinia's future depended on her decision. “I repeat, inaction is not an option.”

Emmina didn't nod, but I could see acceptance in her eyes.

“You have to take the deal,” I said. “More than anything, the ­people need your help.”

“What is your answer?” asked the governor, her face devoid of emotion after listening to our exchange.

Emmina faced her. “I agree to your terms.”

I relaxed into my chair, knowing that the Falali Mother wouldn't be another senseless casualty.

Keep thinking that, my friend.

 

CHAPTER 35

“Beyond vengence standsa better place.”

–
J
AKOB
B
RYCE

I
leaned over to look in the aquarium. “Is anybody feeding you?”

Scummy surface water stirred and broke. A suckered tentacle snaked along the surface before sinking back into the murk.

I set my satchels filled with carved cudas on the floor along with the weighty table leg I'd been carrying on my shoulder and moved down the corridor, past the air lock, past a rack of air tanks to find a bucket filled with masks and snorkels. Dumping the contents on the floor, I returned to the aquarium.

I dunked the bucket into the tank and filled it halfway before setting it on the floor and plunging my hand into the aquarium. Suckers latched onto my wrist, and I pulled the first creature from the water.

I lowered my hand into the half-­filled bucket, and the creature uncoiled itself.

Reaching back into the aquarium, I felt a second set of tentacles wrap my wrist, and I repeated the process of relocating the animal. Noticing I hadn't put enough water into the bucket to cover them both, I hurried to open the air lock and made it back to the bucket just before one of the octopi pulled itself over the lip.

Using one hand to wrestle the octopus and the other to grip the bucket handle, I walked into the air lock and set the bucket on the floor. Releasing my hold, I watched the top octopus's egg-­shaped body flop over the bucket's edge and inch its way down the side. The second octopus seemed content to stay in the water.

Remembering the last time I'd been in this air lock, I looked to the outer door, knowing the admiral's underwater graveyard sat not far beyond it. That was where I'd found the arms dealer's corpse. Where I found his chewed-­off ear in the grasp of hungry crab claws. I would've thought the freshness of the memory would send shivers up my spine, but my body didn't react that way. No, the horror of the graveyard now paled in comparison to the horrors I'd seen since. Now all I felt was sadness. A sadness that pressed on my chest with the weight of the sea.

Feeling tears well in the pockets of my eyes, I had to remind myself I'd come into the air lock for a reason. I steered my gaze toward the water intake near the floor. Covered by a screen, the intake allowed seawater to enter the air lock after the air pressure was increased to match the water pressure outside.

Worried Pol would become suspicious if I stared at the vent too long, I turned back to the octopus, who was now on the floor, its tentacles worming across the steel in an effort to pull itself toward the outer door.

I looked into its black eye and patted its head. “You can smell the ocean outside, can't you?”

Tentacles continued to stretch for open water as the eye gazed back from a bulbous socket of bumpy, blood orange flesh.

“Okay, I'll let you go now.” Stepping around the tentacles, I went out to the corridor. Turning back, I stole a final glance at the water intake, verifying that it was attached by no more than a pair of simple handle locks. Thankful the designers had the forethought to make the intake so easy to clean, I hit the main switch.

“Bye, you two,” I said to the octopi before the mechanical hatch sealed them in, and the air lock started to pressurize.

He was referring to the Falali Mother. Thanks in part to my advocacy, she'd been allowed to leave the Ministry late last night. Her absence would be short-­lived since she'd committed to come back tomorrow to participate in preliminary discussions between the governor and the spokes­people of Maringua. Although nothing could be formally decided until after the representatives from all of Maritinia's cities and farthest pontoon towns arrived, it wasn't too early to begin negotiations.

The meetings would be held topside, but I'd made Emmina promise to find me. I'd told her I was going to write her a story.

That had earned me an odd stare, but I was getting used to odd stares.

The air lock finished cycling, and I opened the hatch. The strong smell of ocean clung to wet walls, and the now-­brimming bucket sat where I'd left it. Stepping though the bulkhead, I used a bootheel to topple the pail and verify the resulting rush of water was octopus-­free.

Exiting to the corridor, I gathered my satchels and hoisted the large cuda carving over my shoulder. I'd worked on him all night, and although he was taking shape nicely, I'd need another all-­night session to add the finishing touches. My journaling would have to wait until later. Assuming I lived that long.

I walked down the corridor. Reaching a T, I looked to the left, where the hatch to admiral's torture chamber stood about thirty feet away. I'd been dragged though that hatch just a few weeks ago to face the lampreys. Dreadful images washed through my mind. The pool filled with waterlogged flesh. The silent agony of lives sucked dry. My eyes started to itch with visions of the bloodsuckers.

I knew where I had to go. Who I had to see.

Turning the opposite direction, I started counting my steps. One. Two. Three.

Ahead, I spotted the same engineer who had brought news of the water pumps' power situation. Standing with two female soldiers, he was outside the hatch that led to Stairway 4. Previously flooded, that section was being drained of water and would soon be ready to open.

Upon seeing me, the engineer said my name. I ignored him. Didn't want to lose count. Nine. Ten. Eleven.

“Somebody came to see you,” he said.

Again, I didn't respond. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen.

I now stood face-­to-­face with the engineer, so close the wooden cuda propped on my shoulder hung next to his right ear. “Who?” I asked.

Uncomfortable with my being so close, he leaned back and tilted his head to the side like he was trying to figure me out. “Um, I didn't get his name, but he was a local.”

A smile stretched most of the way to my ears. “Young and heavyset?”

“That's right. I was standing on the pier when he argued with the guards. Somehow, he had gotten his hands on a comm unit, which they confiscated before turning him away.”

I dropped my satchels. Invading farther into his space, I looped my free arm over his shoulder and pulled him into an embrace. “That is great news! Thank you.”

He squirmed before giving in to the embrace. “You're welcome.”

I said to Pol.

I let go of the engineer and slapped the shoulders of the other two soldiers, who smiled weakly back. “He survived,” I told them.

The one on the left said, “Yeah, sure he did.”

I took up my satchels and slowly strode away. No rush to get where I was going. I wanted to savor the news before I faced Admiral Mnai.

I
set my satchels and cuda carving on the floor and stood aside to watch the guard spin the hatch wheel. My eyes tried to focus on the metal spokes as they circled like the thoughts in my mind. The admiral and Mmirehl. They'd spilled so much blood. Brought so much death. Rage bubbled up inside me. I could feel it squeezing my heart and pressing against the backs of my eyes.

The guard cranked the latch handle, and the hatch clanged open.

I didn't move. The cell door was open, and my pent-­up rage was ready to break loose in a fit of righ­teous justice.

Not now. I closed my eyes.

I concentrated on the reason I'd come. To talk to Sali's father. Not the admiral. Sali's father.

Refocused, I opened my eyes and stepped inside. My nostrils flared at the ripe stink of excrement. The guard reached for a bucket sitting to the right of the hatchway and took the worst of the stench with him before closing the hatch behind me.

A pair of stools stood under a drippy, rust-­caked porthole. Captain Mmirehl perched on the left stool, bootheels resting on the stool's lowest rung. The admiral's bulky frame balanced atop the stool to the right, his feet stretched wide for support. Their shirts were buttoned to the top. Caps on their heads. Emerald flags tied around their necks in proud defiance.

The admiral showed off the gap in his teeth. “Welcome, Colonel. I knew it was only a matter of time before they capture-­ed you. You best ask for another stool. These two are claim-­ed.”

“You think I'm moving in?”

“Of course you are.” He clapped his hands. “We shall spend the rest of our lives together. Remember when you came to me with your plan to overthrow the governor? I knew right then that you and I would be forever bond-­ed. Yesterday, we were revolutionaries. Today, we are prisoners. Tomorrow, we will be fodder for their executioners.”

“Tell us how we did,” said Mmirehl. “Did we eliminate all the Jebyl?”

The eagerness with which he asked the question left me speechless.

“Well?” he asked.

I shook my head no.

“So what we've heard is true. There are survivors.” He winced as if he'd been stabbed by the admission.

“The Jebyl will thrive again,” I said, my tone seasoned with a little extra salt for his wound. “You are both failures.”

The admiral brushed my words away with a flick of his thick fingers. “There may be survivors, but the resistance has been crush-­ed. We've destroy-­ed their movement. We've taught those miscreant upstarts that we Kwuba will not sit by and let them take our rightful place as this world's nobility. The Jebyl are laborers, peasants, and that's all they'll ever be.”

“The Jebyl were no threat to you,” I said.

The admiral leveled one of his iron stares. “History has proven you wrong. They were given freedom from the Empire, and they threw it away. They sabotage-­ed our only means of defense and welcome-­ed the Empire's return because they care more about themselves than Maritinia.”

“They were greedy,” said Mmirehl.

“Yes,” said the admiral. “They should've stay-­ed in their place.”

I wanted more than anything to tell them how wrong they were. Wanted to tell them it was me who destroyed the missile system. But Pol wouldn't approve of my blowing my cover. And I'd learned the hard way how vindictive Pol could be.

So I hit the admiral and Mmirehl with the biggest insult I could think of. “Stayed in their place? You two fools sound like the Sire now.” I watched their eyes narrow. “You know what my biggest mistake was? I should've ruled this world myself.”

The admiral chuckled like I'd said something funny. “You may be an honor-­ed hero of this world, Colonel, but you are still a foreigner. You can't lead what you can't understand.”

“
I
don't understand? You tried to exterminate your own ­people.”

“
My
­people?” He shook his head left and right. “The Jebyl cease-­ed to be my ­people when they turn-­ed away from me. I did what I had to do to save the Kwuba from an eternity of slavery. The Empire may execute me, but the Kwuba will forever remember my sacrifice.”

“You're no savior. Just a murderer. You had a responsibility to care for the ­people of this world. Instead, you slaughtered them.”

“Yes”—­he smiled—­“I'm sure the judge's decree will say exactly that. So who sounds like the Sire now?”

I wished the guard had let me bring in my cuda carving. Imagining its heft, I could picture myself lifting it high as I rushed him. Could see myself swinging at his head. Striking a single fatal blow of Jebyl vengeance.

But I couldn't act out of vengeance. This world needed to heal. And to heal, the Jebyl would have to restrain themselves from retaliating. The cycle of violence had to be stopped. The Jebyl would have to swallow their pride. Their fear. Their unbelievable pain.

Their challenge would be monumental. Perhaps even greater than surviving the genocide. Children would have to accept the murders of their schoolmates. Husbands would have to accept the rapes of their wives and daughters. Mothers would have to accept the slaughters of their babies. That would be their burden. And I couldn't expect them to carry it alone.

I hadn't come here for vengeance. And I hadn't come to discuss their crimes, either. I'd come out of love and respect for Sali. She would've wanted her father to know. “Sali's dead.”

I watched him try to hold his pose of fierce authority, but I caught the twitch in the corner of his eye, the subtle deflation of his shoulders and chest.

He was right about us being forever bonded. But I wouldn't travel home or stand trial with him. Our bond was grief.

“How did she die?” he wanted to know. “The Jebyl couldn't get me, so they took her, didn't they?”

I'd already said all I'd come to say. I banged on the hatch and waited for it to open.

“Where do you think you're going?” asked Mmirehl. “They're not going to let you out.”

The hatch opened, and I stepped through.

“I knew it!” shouted the admiral.

I looked back at the accusing finger pointed my way. “You're a filthy traitor!” he yelled. “You were working with the Jebyl the whole time, weren't you? I knew they were too stupid to destroy the missile system on their own.”

I looked at the guard. “Seal it up.”