by Paul Chafe
“Take her. She's trash anyway.” Moira's voice was thick with rage. She turned and stormed down the stairs, sweeping the doorman in front of her.
Tskombe turned to Trina, but his eyes found her client, his face red with anger. “Hey! I paid…” Tskombe's fist smacked into the fat man's face with the sound of an axe hitting wood, cutting him off in mid complaint. He staggered back, blood streaming from a broken nose.
“Work it out with Moira.”
“Let's go.” Trina was already dressed in a black jumpsuit, a small pack over one shoulder. They left the fat man there, walked out through an empty lobby. Tskombe checked his beltcomp. Twenty-three minutes gone, seven to make it down to the flood wall to catch the ship.
“Why did you come for me?”
“Someone had to. Are you always packed and ready to leave?”
“I packed after you left.”
“Why did you do that?”
“It was time to go. I always know when it's time to go.”
He didn't argue, there wasn't time. There was an ARM cruiser patrolling the slidewalk level, and another one higher up, while a swarm of hoverbots whirred overhead. In his reckless run on the slidewalk level Tskombe had surely been picked up by several cameras.
No sense in wasting time. Tskombe put one hand over an eye, as if he was injured and waved wildly at the nearer cruiser. It was a calculated risk. The cruiser's AI might bust him anyway, but in the dark with half his face covered it wouldn't have much to work on. The cruiser slid over and grounded and the driver got out.
“What's the problem?” The cop reached out.
With combat-trained reflexes Tskombe grabbed the cop's offered hand and pulled, overbalancing him. He stepped back as the man fell forward and rotated his hips, brought his other hand to the man's shoulder in one fluid motion, then used both hands to drive the cop to the ground with his own stiff arm as a lever. The cop grunted in pain and Tskombe dropped down with one knee in the small of his back. Using his left hand to control the trapped arm he grabbed the cop's mercy gun from his holster. The cop's partner was already on her way out of her side of the cruiser and Tskombe locked his eyes on her, bringing the weapon up to his line of sight until the line of the barrel intersected his target. He pulled the trigger and the weapon sprayed slivers of anesthetic. She went down, instantly unconscious as they dissolved in her bloodstream.
The cop under him surged and struggled to get to his feet and Tskombe put a burst into him as well. The heavy body relaxed and he looked up. Two hoverbots were already closing in. They probably hadn't tagged his ident yet, but they were responding to the violent scene and they'd be reporting the situation to their controllers as they moved.
“Get in the cruiser!” he yelled, but Trina was already running. He ran after her and dived into the driver's side, slamming the door shut just as a spray of mercy needles splattered against the glass. Ahead of him the other cruiser switched on its patrol lights, flashing red and blue. They were on to him, and with ARM officers down they wouldn't be alone for long. Dispatch would already be vectoring other units on to him. Most gravcars could only fly automatic over the city, but an ARM cruiser would have an override, hopefully already engaged. He punched the cruiser's throttle and polarizers whined as they shot forward. So far so good. They blew past the other cruiser and it pivoted to follow them. Tskombe took them into the bottom of the eastbound traffic level. Traffic was dense and he edged up through it.
“What are we doing?” Trina's voice was remarkably level, given the circumstances.
“Getting out of here, hang on.” The other cruiser was in the traffic pattern behind them. There was an intersection ahead and he pulled the cruiser up to the top of the eastbound level on the right-hand side. As they entered the intersection he pulled up and canted the thrust sideways, whipping them around a tight left-hand curve and up into the bottom of the northeast-bound level into the northbound level. He held the thrusters there, dodging through holes in the traffic pattern until they broke out the top of the northbound level and plunged into the bottom of the northwest-bound level, still within the confines of the intersection. They missed a heavy transporter by inches, and a second later there was a heavy, jarring bang as they collided with a building. The cruiser kept flying, though, and then they were into the westbound level, merging again to the southwest-bound level, merging with the heavy flow heading down and across the river. Tskombe looked around but the ARM was nowhere in sight. The main worry was that they'd shut down his controls and take the car on remote, but there would be some confusion in the dispatch center, and it would take them some time to figure out just which car he'd taken. That wouldn't last long, but he only needed a couple of minutes. He scanned the skies.
There! A vertical streak in the sky, like a shooting star in slow motion, falling away from the full moon overhead. He banked the thrusters and pulled the car up, taking it out of the traffic flow and over the city in a ballistic curve. Down below he could see dozens of flashing red and blue lights. The ARM were out in force, on full alert. He concentrated on the glowing line as it plunged to the waterfront, adjusting course to intersect its projected endpoint.
“They're behind us.” Trina was looking backward, still sounding calm.
“How close?”
“Maybe a minute.”
“They can't do anything until we stop.”
“Let's hope not.”
He could see the ship now, a rapidly growing cross at the end of its ionization trail, almost directly overhead in its vertical descent trajectory. It was impossible to tell at that distance, but he guessed it would be a courier, the same type of ship as the Swiftwing he'd stolen to escape from Kzinhome, but with the straight-angled lines of human design. He turned his eyes back to the ground, searching along the south Manhattan shoreline for the container terminal. They were less than a minute away. More flashing red and blue lights lifted out of the traffic pattern, rising on intercept trajectories. It was going to be a very close race between the ship, themselves, and the ARM.
The courier ship was just touching down as they came in to land. To shave seconds Tskombe didn't decelerate as they fell toward the rendezvous. That turned out to be a mistake. The cruiser didn't have the power reserves of the combat cars he was used to. He dumped full power to the polarizers at the last instant before touchdown but it wasn't enough to fully arrest their descent. The cruiser hit the top of the seawall hard and slid, plasmet crumpling. An instant later they were airborne again, arcing out over the water. Instinctively he fed power to the polarizers to prevent a second impact but they were wrecked, scrubbed off the bottom of the vehicle when they hit. The water came up hard and they were stopped. There was a second's pause while the vehicle rocked and the spray of their impact rained down around them, and then he felt water swirling around their feet. The car was sinking fast, bubbles already boiling up from the shorting forward batteries. He undid his harness buckle, realizing he didn't remember doing it up in their flight, and then reached over to undo Trina's.
“We're going to have to swim for it.”
“I know.”
But there was already too much water pressure against the doors to open them, and the windows wouldn't open without power. The river swirled over the front of the canopy as the vehicle nosed down and under. Frantically he kicked at the windows but the transpax didn't yield. The pale moonlight faded and turned murky as they slid beneath the waves and the water boiled up higher inside.
“We're going to drown!” For the first time Trina's voice held an edge of fear.
Tskombe started to say something reassuring, was cut off by a hard bang as the overloaded batteries exploded. The shock drove his head against the canopy and when he looked up he felt wetness on his face, whether blood or water it was now too dark to tell. “We just have to wait for the pressure to equalize.” He managed to keep most of the panic out of his voice, pushing hard on the door as he spoke. It might as well have been welded to the frame. The pressure wouldn't equalize until they wer
e sitting on the bottom. How far down would that be? They couldn't be that far from the seawall, but the ship channel was dredged deep to clear the hulls of the superfreighters. The seawall sloped at forty-five degrees; every meter away from the shore meant another meter down. Too far down and they had no hope of survival. That thought galvanized him and he slammed his shoulder hard against the door, but it didn't budge. They were angled steeply forward, and the water in the foot wells was halfway up his thighs.
“Remember to breathe out all the way up. If you hold your breath you'll rupture your lungs. You'll have lots of air.” He breathed deep himself, trying to sound calm. “I'll say ready, and you'll have time for three deep, quick breaths to get lots of oxygen into your blood, and then I'll say go. We both open our doors then. Just swim up and keep breathing out.”
“Okay.” Trina's voice was calmer, but the fear was still there. His ears popped painfully. It was totally dark now, and the pressure was still going up. How far had they bounced from the seawall top? He tried to think back. It was ten meters at least, maybe more than twenty. From ten meters they might make it, from twenty they probably wouldn't. There was a sharp, metallic spang overhead and his ears unpopped. Reflexively he put his hand up in the darkness, to discover the gravcar's roof bowed in from the inexorably building pressure. He shoved against the door again, but it didn't move. At this depth the water pressure against the door would be measured in tonnes. If the vehicle weren't flooding fast enough to counterbalance some of it, that pressure would have already crushed the passenger compartment like a mealpack under a boot.
How far to the bottom? Even as he thought it they grounded with a jarring thump and tilted backward, the water sloshing around his chest. He expected them to settle to an even keel but they didn't, a second, softer jolt halting their descent still pitched steeply nose down. Why was that? An instant later a grating sound and a lurch told him the reason. They had landed on the steep sloped seawall, slick with mud and algae, and now they were sliding down it. The door was still held closed by the water, but they would slide more slowly than they sank, slowly enough that the pressure would equalize and they could get out. Maybe.
The water was up to his chin when he felt the door give a little. “Trina, ready…” He heard her breathe in-and-out, in-and-out as he did it himself. On the last breath he said “Go!” and shoved his shoulder hard against the door. There was a rush of bubbles and the dark water flooded into the tiny remaining airspace. He pushed out hard into the blackness to clear the car so he wouldn't get snagged on anything. His feet found the seawall and he kicked up, breathing out and swimming hard. How far to the surface?
Something whip thin and steel strong grabbed him by the arm, wrapping around it tight enough to hurt and pulling hard. He screamed, precious air bubbling free, grabbing at it with his free hand. Another something wrapped itself around that arm and then he was being hauled through the water fast enough that the current sucked his jump boots right off his feet. With strength born of the drowning terror he fought against whatever it was. His foot connected with slick flesh over powerful muscles, but that made no difference at all to whatever had taken him.
Suddenly light blazed and he broke the surface, splashes echoing close, something solid against his belly. Whatever had him by the arms let go and he fell forward, breathed deep and opened his eyes. He wasn't on the surface, he was in a transpax sphere better than two meters across, lit from above and full of air, open to the water at the bottom, a diving bell. Outside it a tooth-grinned face operated a large buttoned control panel. Dolphins! The dolphin was wearing a set of dolphin hands, but used its nose to run the panel. An instant later Trina arrived in another splash, thrust into the bell by the manipulator tentacles of another set of dolphin hands, a dolphin trilling behind her, as it pushed her up the bell's side enough to hang on. A second later it vanished with a splash. Was that Curvy? Did she anticipate this outcome in her strategic matrix and have help standing by, or was the dolphin dive crew there anyway? Trina coughed and gasped, shaken but alive. The dolphin controlling the bell nudged a lever with delicate precision. A motor hummed and bubbles began to spill out the bottom of the bell as it rose through the murky water. There were no handholds; the bell was simply a place for dolphins to grab a breath while working on a deep-water site. They were forced to brace themselves awkwardly on the slippery, curved sides on the bell to stop themselves from falling into the water. A large, mechanical shape loomed in the murk and vanished again — some other piece of dolphin hardware, maybe a submarine. It occurred to Tskombe that the dolphin world was one where ARM not only had no control but had almost no knowledge. Their civilization numbered in the millions and occupied three quarters of the planet's surface. What did they do with the technology they bought?
His ears popped again, and overhead light began to filter in from the surface. They seemed to be rising slowly, but their ascent rate would have been enough to kill them both with the bends if they'd been under pressure any longer than a few seconds. How long were we down? How deep? He'd never know the answer. Deep enough that we would have died without the dolphins. The top of the bell broke the surface and city light flooded through the transpax. The bell's waterline was well above his head, so he couldn't see what direction they were moving, but then his feet touched solid ground, hard and slippery. They were back to the seawall. The bell driver touched the control panel again and they stopped. End of the line. He looked across to Trina, saw her nod in understanding, and ducked back underwater and out of the diving bell. He floundered up the seawall slope, found himself alone.
For a second panic gripped him. Trina! But Trina was out on her side and coming up, coughing and cursing. He grabbed her and hauled her up, the fibercrete tearing at his bare feet. The courier was there, its underhull glowing red and radiating palpable heat, actually floating over the water, its boarding ramp extended to the seawall. A big empty bowl had formed in the river beneath it where the polarizers were holding back its weight in water. He ran for the ramp just as the first of the ARM cruisers braked to a stop on the top of the seawall, blinding spotbeams swinging to pinpoint them. An amplified voice demanded that they halt, and an instant later Trina collapsed. Without breaking stride he picked her up and ran. He slipped and fell on the steep, slick surface, tearing flesh while mercy needles spattered where he would have been if he hadn't fallen. He picked her up again and ran for the courier as more ARM cruisers dropped to the seawall top. He was actually on the boarding ramp when a dozen wasp stings stitched across his back. Numbness spread where they hit and he felt his knees going weak. He staggered forward a few more steps and then collapsed, spilling Trina onto the rough-surfaced metal. Everywhere he looked there were blinding spotbeams. He squeezed his eyes shut and crawled up the ramp, trying vainly to roll Trina up the slope. There was a roaring in his ears, and in the distance the sound of barked commands. He couldn't make out what they were saying, and darkness fell.
Now Chil the Kite brings home the night
That Mang the Bat sets free.
The herds are shut in byre and hut—
For loosed till dawn are we.
This is the hour of pride and power,
Talon and tush and claw.
O hear the call! Good Hunting, All
That keep the Jungle Law!
— Rudyard Kipling, “Night-Song in the Jungle”
The jungle had changed as they pressed deeper into it, and Ayla Cherenkova found herself awed. Spire trees soared a hundred meters or more overhead to widespread crowns, their huge trunks buttressed like ancient fortresses. Beneath their canopy it was perpetually twilight, the air humid and rich. The ground was covered in something halfway between moss and fungus. For the most part the undergrowth was scattered and the going was easy. They had followed the valley to its heart until they came to a vast, coiling river and were tracing its course steadily downstream. The Tzaatz had long since given up pursuit. She'd lost track of how long it had been — a month, two months, maybe m
ore. More important, there had been no sign of grlor for days. Without grove trees or thorn bushes for cover, she, Pouncer, and T'suuz would be sitting ducks for the predators. There were lesser hunters, still huge and fearsome by Earth standards, but none who would attack two adult kzinti when they had a better option, though they might have made an easy meal of a lone human. She was careful to stay with her guides.
She had lost weight since entering the jungle, but her skin was taut over muscular ripples she hadn't seen since she was a cadet, and she no longer noticed the higher gravity. Her UNSN uniform was gone, rotted and torn until it was unwearable. She'd replaced it with zianya skin tanned in a blend of myewl juice and resin trapped from the short, bushy shoom trees, then sun cured in a clearing and stitched together with sinew. Her boots were holding up well, thankfully, but already she knew how she was going to make their replacements when they finally succumbed to the rugged terrain. I am adapting to this environment. She knew now where to look for the fresh vlrrr shoots that hid pulp as sweet and thirst quenching as watermelon beneath their tough exteriors, knew how to hide her trail with myewl leaf, and knew she had to climb out of the river bottom to a dry sandy ridge to find it. Given any reasonable approximation to a blade she could skin, cut, and fillet a kz'eerkti or one of the rabbit-like vatach with skill and efficiency. She could track the larger fauna, like the huge but slow-moving czvolz. They were supremely docile, and would be easy meat save for the putrid oils that pervaded their flesh. They, and seemingly they alone, grazed the moss-fungus from the forest floor, and she reckoned it was this that gave them their distinctive stench. Even grlor would not touch them, so said Pouncer. She could navigate without a compass, for a short distance anyway, using just the contour lines of the land. The jungle was becoming less an impenetrable tangle and more a world she could move through. She still itched everywhere, still longed for a bath, and she had no illusions that she would ever come to enjoy this lifestyle, but she was surviving, and on Kzinhome that was something.
