World of Water (17 page)

His commplant was down, too, which was a more pressing concern. The electric shock had overloaded it and knocked it out of commission. It was rebooting, but he had no idea how long that might take. Until the commplant was functioning again, he couldn’t send a distress call to Reyes and Cully aboard the URIB. He was on his own.

He didn’t even have the hypervelocity pistol anymore; not that he could have used it, hogtied as he was. It hung in its holster belt from a tool rack on the far side of the repair shop.

“Question is,” said McCabe, “why have you come back? And where are those Marines?”

“That’s two questions.”

McCabe hit him once more, this time with a closed fist.

It hurt.

“Tell you what,” Dev said, spitting out blood. “Let the Tritonian go, and Marines don’t descend on this location all guns blazing. They’re already here, waiting for the go from me, and they can bring a shitstorm down on your heads. All it’ll take is a single message. I can call them in or call them off. Your choice.”

McCabe studied him carefully, and Dev took the opportunity to check McCabe out in return. He was looking for Uncanny Valley, the weird vacancy in the eyes which was the mark of a Polis+ agent wearing an organic human form. Plusser infiltrators often set themselves up as agitators and firebrands. People like McCabe, in other words. People well placed to stir up discord and discontent. If Polis+ was behind the Tritonian insurgency, then they might have agents rabble-rousing among the settlers as well. After all, tensions heightened more quickly if both sides were being goaded from within simultaneously.

“What are you looking at?” McCabe said, squinting.

“Nothing,” Dev replied.

And there
was
nothing. Nothing untoward, that is. McCabe’s eyes were normal. No absence of emotion in them. None of that telltale, vaguely indefinable unrealness. No Uncanny Valley.

There were other tests Dev could apply – he could ask a series of questions about faith and divinity designed to provoke an extreme response from the religiously pious Plussers – but he didn’t feel he needed to. He was satisfied that McCabe was wholly human.

“I’ve given you my terms,” he said. “The Tritonian goes free, and you and your friends get to live.”

At present, it was still an empty threat. His commplant remained out of action. There was at least a progress bar now, however, informing him that the commplant was getting its shoes back on. The bar currently stood at 30%.

McCabe considered Dev’s statement, then said, “Bullshit. I can tell when people are lying. Your Marine pals aren’t anywhere near. Where’s their boat, that catamaran? Someone would’ve said if it had been seen. Any of you guys heard anything?”

Headshakes all round.

“See? What I think, fish-face, is that you’re alone. The Marines left, and you stayed behind to save this guy.” McCabe jerked a thumb at the Tritonian. “I don’t know how you found out we had him. I’d guess maybe there’s some kind of sea monkey grapevine that you’re plugged into. It doesn’t matter. Here you are, on this little solo rescue mission of yours. Not going so well, is it?”

Dev shrugged as much as the chains would allow him to. “Now that you mention it, no. At least put the kid back in the water. Can you do that much for me? He’s going to die if you leave him exposed to the air much longer.”

The Tritonian’s head had sagged and his gills were twitching fitfully, barely moving.

McCabe assessed the indigene’s condition, then gestured to one of his cronies. “Okay. Stick him back in the tank. He’s no use to us dead.”

As the hoist whirred into life, he said to Dev, “We can get a few more days’ entertainment out of him if we’re careful.”

“Keep him just alive, you mean?”

“Exactly. That’s the trick. Mess with him as much as he can bear but no further. Let him rest in between. Feed him. Pump air through the water in the tank to re-oxygenate it. We can make him last.”

“You’re a sadistic motherfucker, you know that?”

McCabe just laughed. “I’m not the one who started all this. Us settlers, we were prepared to get along. Live and let live. There aren’t even that many of us, relatively speaking, and the planet’s big enough, right? Got more than enough resources for everybody. Plenty of fish in the sea.”

He jabbed a finger in the direction of the tank. The Tritonian was submerged again and his breathing appeared to be normalising, the beat of his gills becoming regular.

“It’s them. His kind. Their fault. They wouldn’t play ball, would they? Wouldn’t share. They had to get uppity. Turn terrorist. And even then, after the troubles started, we gave them the benefit of the doubt. We tried to be decent about it.”

He leaned close to Dev.

“Well, no more Mr Nice Guy. That stops here. It’s time to teach the natives a lesson. Show them we’re not to be fucked with. If the powers-that-be aren’t going to fight back – if the Marines who should be protecting us won’t do their
job
– then people are going to take matters into their own hands.”

“Is torturing one Tritonian to death really going to make that much difference?” The progress bar on Dev’s commplant had reached 63%.
Come on
, he urged it.
Hurry up. What’s taking you so long?

“Who said anything about ‘to death’?” said McCabe. “We’ll stick him back in the sea eventually, when we feel we’ve made our point. He can return to his people and explain what happened to him. He’ll be an object lesson. A message.”

“Oh, that’ll work. The Tritonians will back right off then. I can just see it. They won’t – y’know – regard it as a provocation and come and attack Llyr in force, or anything.”

“Sneer all you want, but I’ve thought this through.”

“No, you haven’t. You’re pretending it’s a cunningly laid plan. You may even believe it. But all it really is, McCabe, is cheap, spiteful playground tactics. Dietrich managed to snag a Tritonian, and you saw a chance to demonstrate how big and bad you are. Toughest dude in town. ‘Not scared of Tritonians, me. Watch me beat this one up. That’s how much I hate them.’”

“Hand me that fish stunner, Kelso,” McCabe said.

“You going to zap me?”

“Crossed my mind.”

79% on the progress bar. Nearly there. Dev had to keep stalling.

“To shut me up, I suppose,” he said. “Because I’m saying stuff you don’t want your friends to hear. Because you know it’s true.”

“Or it could just be I find you intensely annoying.”

84%. If McCabe jolted him with the fish stunner, the commplant would fritz again.

Dev had to delay him just a little bit longer.

“Listen, McCabe. Here’s the deal. I’m with Interstellar Security Solutions.”

“ISS. One of those mercenary spooks. Is that so?”

“Yes. I’m on Triton to defuse the situation, the unrest, before it spirals out of control.”

“Good luck with that.”

“I’m appealing to you, human to human – don’t do something really regrettable, something you can’t come back from. Release me, release the Tritonian, before it’s too late.”

90%. Getting there.

“Too late for what?”

“You can still walk away from this, with no repercussions.”

“Hate to say it, but he has a point, McCabe,” Kelso piped up. “If he’s ISS, that’s something else. A whole level of hot water we don’t want to end up in.”

“
If
,” McCabe said. “He’s lying, ya idiot! Anything to save his skin.”

“This body is a host form,” Dev said, “a vehicle for my downloaded consciousness, purpose-built so that I can interact with Tritonians as well as with you lot.”

McCabe shook his head slowly. “No, I reckon what you are is what you look like, an interspecies ambassador. Another one. Chlumsky says he and Dietrich faced off against two of you. You’re the other guy’s replacement, that’s my guess. He’s training you up before he steps down from the job. Or vice versa.”

“Sounds plausible,” Dev said, “but I assure you it’s not the case. I
am
ISS.”

96%. Almost. Almost. Just a few seconds more.

McCabe brandished the fish stunner, hefting it in his hand. “I doubt a real ISS operative would admit it so openly. Aren’t they supposed to be secret agents or some such?”

“Field operatives. Not necessarily covert. We advise, participate, recruit and develop assets, collaborate with locals, forge alliances. We don’t like to advertise ourselves, but we don’t hide in the shadows either.”

98%.

McCabe pondered.

“Nah,” he said. “You’re someone who’s got too inquisitive for his own good, that’s all. Ambassador or not, you’ve made a major mistake.”

“And you’re going to kill me for it? To cover up what you’ve been doing here?”

“Kill you? Probably not. Maybe just show you the real state of interspecies relations on Triton right now.”

He thumbed the switch on the fish stunner, activating the power cell.

99%.

Come on, come on
.

“So you won’t forget,” he continued. “And you’ll never be able to pin anything on us, by the way. Go whining to your TerCon paymasters, it won’t help you. You won’t be believed. No one in this room will have seen anything. Your word against ours. There’s a dozen of us, and we’ll deny it ’til we’re blue in the face.”

McCabe didn’t look round to check that he had his cronies’ consent. They were browbeaten, in his thrall. Whatever he told them, whatever rules he laid down, they would go along with.

His grin was broad and cruel.

100%.

Commplant online.

Reyes! Cully!

McCabe brought the fish stunner forward and poised the electrodes beside Dev’s neck.

“Brace yourself,” he said.

I’m at McCabe’s Mechanics and Chand –

Lightning exploded in Dev’s head.

26

M
C
C
ABE HAD DIALLED
down the voltage on the stunner. Now, instead of producing a knockout-level charge, it merely caused pain.

Excruciating pain.

Dev writhed, the muscles in his neck and chest contorting. The chains dug into him as he twisted and strained spasmodically against them. The chair legs rattled on the floor.

It may only have lasted a handful of seconds, but for Dev it was a white-hot, timeless forever. When McCabe eventually withdrew the stunner, he continued to twitch and shudder for a full minute afterward.

The involuntary movements gradually ebbed and faded. Dev tasted metal at the back of his throat. His ears were singing.

He was just starting to catch his breath when McCabe shocked him again.

This time he felt his eyeballs bulging as though they were going to erupt from their sockets. His teeth clenched so tightly together that three of his molars cracked.

As the pain and convulsions subsided, Dev heaved air in and out his lungs, coughing and wheezing. A string of drool leaked down from one corner of his lips.

“How’s that?” McCabe asked. “Sparky enough for you?”

“Not as bad as... your body odour,” Dev panted out raspily. “Personal hygiene... not a big thing... on Triton?”

McCabe chuckled as though this was one of the wittiest remarks he had heard in a while. Then his smile dropped and he jabbed the stunner into Dev’s groin.

Dev nearly blacked out. It felt as though a hand was reaching up from between his legs into his abdominal cavity and giving his innards a good, hard twist.

“You know,” he said when the pain had abated and his thoughts were no longer a senseless jumble, “there are certain people... who’d pay to have that done to them... and you’re
giving
it away.”

“What does it take to shut you up?” McCabe said wonderingly.

“I don’t know... big guy. Nothing you’re capable of.”

McCabe looked set to use the stunner on Dev a fourth time, but then had a better idea.

“Haul the sea monkey out of the tank again,” he said, and his cronies scurried to obey. “You care about the natives,” he told Dev. “Maybe more than you care about yourself. Why else would you have risked your neck to save this one?”

“Don’t,” Dev said.

“Don’t give him a going-over with the stunner? Why not? I was planning to anyway, but I just realised it’ll be a lot more enjoyable if you’re still awake and watching. You’ll feel it almost as strongly as he does. Two for the price of one.”

Dev lunged at McCabe, teeth bared. A futile gesture. There was a tiny amount of slack in the chains but not nearly enough. He didn’t even get close. All he succeeded in doing was thrusting the chair forward a few centimetres.

“Ah-ah!” said McCabe. “Easy, boy. Bad dog. What were you hoping to do? Chew me to death?”

“If it came to that. Leave him alone, you bastard. Carry on electrocuting me, by all means, but the Tritonian – he’s suffered enough. He’s just a kid, for fuck’s sake.”

“A kid who’s a terrorist. Once you decide to be a terrorist, age ain’t nothing but a number.”

Dev seethed impotently as the Tritonian was set dangling before McCabe. His commplant was offline once more and stubbornly refusing to reboot. He suspected it had gone into enforced hibernation, executing a shutdown protocol in order to preserve itself against the electric shocks. External reactivation would be required, probably a full software reinstallation too.