Sound

by Alexandra Duncan

  “How kind.” Herr Tsukino gives a stiff nod and locks eyes with two of his crew. “Shun. Alvar. You have the watch. Everyone else with me.”

  “This way.” Fru Rangnvaldsson beckons us, kimono sleeves billowing.

  I fall in close behind Freja and Herr Tsukino as we make our way down the hall, Cassia, Rubio, and the others following after. The walls glister like mother-of-pearl, and glowing nests of lights hang from the high ceiling.

  “I can’t tell you how delighted we are to renew trade with you, Tsukino-san,” Fru Rangnvaldsson calls over her shoulder as she walks. “It’s been so long since you had such interesting cargo.”

  A tinge of purple-red flares along Herr Tsukino’s jawline. “Hmn,” he grunts.

  Freja doubles her steps to keep up with her grandfather. “Shun and Alvar?” she hisses under her breath. “You shouldn’t have split us up, Jiiji.”

  He slows his pace ever so slightly, lengthening their distance from Fru Rangnvaldsson, and speaks low. “Steady, Freja-chan. If things go badly, you make for the sub, understand?”

  “Yes, Jiiji,” she mutters, then glances back at me and scowls. I concentrate on the floor and try to keep up the polite fiction that I’m not listening.

  “Take the tinker girl and her friends, too,” Herr Tsukino says. “No one’s going to say I let Rangnvaldsson or anyone else do harm to my guests.”

  Freja nods stiffly.

  Ahead, the hallway opens onto a vast dining room with vaulted ceilings rising some twenty meters above our heads, a long table draped in snowy linen, and Lucite chairs lined up for the meal. More light nests shine above us, and glowing panels line the walls, chasing away any hint of shadow.

  “Forgive the formality.” Rangnvaldsson places a hand to her chest and waits as one of her attendants draws out the chair at the head of the table for her. “We were so thrilled to hear from you again, Tsukino-san. Perhaps we have gone too far?”

  Herr Tsukino clears the phlegm from his throat. “Not at all. We all love a good fish, don’t we?” He glances down the table at the rest of us, a warning in his eye.

  “Of course,” Freja says a bit too loud. The rest of us nod along together.

  We take our seats. A young woman in a powder-blue yukata circles the table, pouring a sour-smelling liquid the color of skimmed milk into each of our glasses. Circular panels at the center of the table slide back, and silver platters loaded with buttered turnips and what look like enormous rings of pale calamari rise into place. A pungent vinegar smell rolls off the plates.

  “Please, help yourselves.” Fru Rangnvaldsson smiles at us.

  I slide a ring of fish onto my plate. To my right, Rubio attempts a bite and gags. Cassia and Freja glare at him.

  “This one must be new to your crew.” Fru Rangnvaldsson smiles. “Offworlders often tell me whiteroot is an acquired taste.”

  “Yes,” Herr Tsukino agrees. Beads of sweat dot his hairline, even in the cool air of the dining room. “I have several new indentures I’m training.”

  “You’ll come to like it, young man.” Fru Rangnvaldsson nods knowingly at Rubio. “Your body needs the protein.”

  I lean close to Cassia and eye the not-calamari. “What’s whiteroot?”

  “It’s a tuber worm that grows on the seafloor,” she whispers back. “They harvest them when the summer currents come through and preserve them for later in the year.”

  “A tuber worm?”

  “Don’t be such a snob.” Cassia takes a bite of her whiteroot and makes a face. “It’s much better fresh.”

  “How is your daughter, Fru Rangnvaldsson?” Herr Tsukino asks. “Still seeing that luxuries trader in Ny Kyoto?”

  Fru Rangnvaldsson smiles down at her drink. “Engaged.”

  “Congratulations,” he says.

  An awkward silence falls, full of the clink and scrape of forks. Freja nudges her grandfather. Cassia and I exchange a glance, and I bite the inside of my lip. Will he do what we’ve agreed?

  Herr Tsukino scowls at her but turns to our host. “I wondered, Fru Rangnvaldsson . . . we’re finding ourselves short on the labor end of things.” He throws a meaningful look at the servant hovering behind her. “We thought you might have contacts that could help us turn up some extra warm bodies.”

  Fru Rangnvaldsson places her fork gently beside her plate, folds her fingers, and stares over them at him. “You’re interested in sponsoring more indentures?”

  Herr Tsukino’s face darkens. He shifts his eyes to Cassia. “I was looking for something more . . . permanent.”

  The clinking of cutlery stops short.

  Fru Rangnvaldsson raises an eyebrow. “Tsukino-san, I’m surprised at you.” She wags a finger. “I thought you were against such practices. If I remember correctly, you called them barbaric, no?”

  Herr Tsukino clears his throat and shoots a look at his granddaughter. I’ve seen Soraya give me that look before. I’m doing this because I love you very much, but I also want to kill you a little bit. “We’ve found it’s . . . an unpleasant necessity.”

  “Yes, well, I can see that.” Fru Rangnvaldsson nods slowly, as if she’s considering Enceladan economics for the first time. “You spend time and money training indentures, and then you have them for, what? Three years? Five? That’s quite a hit for small traders such as yourselves.”

  “That’s . . . the whole of it.” Herr Tsukino’s face has turned a dangerous shade of purple red. He balls his dinner napkin in his fist.

  Fru Rangnvaldsson picks up her fork and toys with it, studying Herr Tsukino. I try to focus on my plate and pretend not to be interested, like the rest of the Tsukino crew. Everyone is studiously chewing their food, except Cassia. She stares at Fru Rangnvaldsson, nearly vibrating. I find her hand beneath the table. It’s cold and clammy, as if she has a fever. Please give us something, some small clue. . . .

  “I’m sorry to say, Tsukino-san, but I can’t help you. We only deal in indentures here.” Fru Rangnvaldsson spears another ring of whiteroot. “Small dealers can fly beneath Earth’s notice, but we have contracts to keep. The International Orbital Patrol Authority, the Obremski Group, DSRI—”

  My head snaps up. “DSRI?”

  Rubio kicks me beneath the table, and Freja and her grandfather give me a death glare. Fru Rangnvaldsson looks at me as if I’ve merely lost my mind.

  “You see what I have to work with.” Herr Tsukino waves a hand at me. “Indentures!”

  “I truly wish I could help you,” Fru Rangnvaldsson says. “But the flesh trade isn’t in our line.”

  Cassia pulls her hand from mine and wipes it furiously with her napkin. Vaat. Even if our hostess knows where Nethanel is, she’s never going to admit it.

  “In fact,” Fru Rangnvaldsson says, “I had to turn away a group of gentlemen selling exactly what you’re talking about not three weeks ago.”

  Beside me, Cassia stiffens.

  “Did you?” Herr Tsukino leans forward and attacks his turnips. “Any idea where they were bound, these gentlemen?”

  “Someplace to the south.” Fru Rangnvaldsson waves her hands vaguely. “Ny Skaderna, I think. But that’s too far to be worth your while.”

  Ny Skaderna. That was on the dakait’s list. I force myself not to look at Cassia or Rubio, not to betray anything. Ny Skaderna, Ny Skaderna. Don’t forget.

  Herr Tsukino shoots a look at Cassia and grunts. “Hai. Too far.”

  Fru Rangnvaldsson picks up her cloudy white drink and examines it. “If you’re short on funds, though, I have a proposition that might interest you.” She takes a delicate sip and smiles at Freja’s grandfather.

  Herr Tsukino and Freja exchange a look. “What’s that?”

  “Yes, well . . .” Fru Rangnvaldsson pushes away her plate. “We’re having a bit of a problem with harrows, you see.”

  “Harrows?” His eyebrows shoot up.

  “One in particular. He’s a big one. Smart. Not afraid of our perimeter lights.”

  “And you want us to
. . .” Herr Tsukino trails off.

  “I’m afraid we’ve reached the point where he needs to be destroyed.” Fru Rangnvaldsson locks eyes with Freja’s grandfather. “We’re prepared to offer you a contract. Eleven hundred upfront, plus a twenty-five percent share in the profits from the rendered carcass.”

  “That’s illegal, isn’t it?” Herr Tsukino frowns. “Hunting harrows?”

  “I have a special permit, of course.” Fru Rangnvaldsson’s smile is tight. “As I said, everything here has to be aboveboard.”

  Herr Tsukino kneads one hand into the other and looks down the table at his crew. “Fifteen hundred and a fifty percent share.”

  Fru Rangnvaldsson smiles. “We both know that’s not fair market. What do you say to twelve hundred and a thirty-five percent share? More of my people will be in the water than yours.”

  Herr Tsukino works his jaw as if he’s grinding something between his teeth. “Done.” He sticks out a hand, and Fru Rangnvaldsson shakes it.

  Too late, I realize Herr Tsukino’s crew includes me. Which means I’m going harrow hunting.

  Chapter 21

  “I don’t think I can do this.” I stare down at the armored board I’m supposed to pilot through the water.

  “It’s not like you’re out there without a shell,” Freja says. She taps the controls on her own board, and a clear aerodynamic dome slides into place, enclosing her inside it. She trails her hand across the surface again, and it retracts. “See?”

  “It’s not that. I . . .”

  “What, are you afraid?” Freja stares at me, half disbelieving, half delighted.

  “Come on, cut it out,” Rubio says. “Miyole’s a scientist, not a big-game hunter. She’s not used to this kind of thing.”

  I grit my teeth. “Thanks, Rubio.”

  “What?” He blinks at me.

  “If you don’t want to help, you can stay here,” Cassia mutters.

  Freja looks up. “No, she can’t.”

  “No,” I agree, gripping the board. “I can’t.”

  I lie down on the board, seal the dome over me, and try to breathe deep. I will not hyperventilate. I will not throw up. I will not cry.

  We exit Rangnvaldsson’s spindle and glide through the warm-water docks. My hands won’t stop sweating. The perimeter lights illuminate the skeletons of ships growing in the ocean’s natural nutrient bath, the new ones no more than a spiderweb-thin scaffolding, the older ones beginning to develop the sheen of mature nacre. They’ll be sold as modular replacement grafts. Some of them are probably even marked for the DSRI already.

  “Five hundred meters west, twenty fathoms down,” Herr Tsukino’s voice crackles across our open coms. “Big bioelectric signature.”

  I glance back. Rangnvaldsson’s people make up the left flank, with Cassia, Rubio, me, Freja, and the rest of the Tsukino crew on the right, all of us on boards. Freja’s grandfather follows behind us in the submersible.

  “I want a net formation,” he says. “We come in quiet, surround it on all sides, and close in slow. No one fires until it notices us.”

  We pass over tube-worm groves blanketing the ocean floor. Their bodies flare white in the beams from our boards, with a bloodred portion protruding at the tip, like an engorged tongue. I shudder and concentrate on the water before us. It makes it easier to pretend it’s the familiar darkness of space, not an icebound sea.

  “Coming up ahead,” Herr Tsukino says. “Be ready to cut your lights and go to heat vision on my signal.”

  The seabed drops down, and the pressure inside my dome increases, like a blood pressure cuff squeezing my entire body. Jagged rock formations appear in the periphery of our lights, venting a great dark flume into the water above.

  “What is that?” Rubio’s voice comes in at a whisper. “Smoke?”

  “It’s blackwater,” Freja answers. “It’s full of minerals.”

  “That’s what keeps everything down here alive without any sunlight, right?” I say. “The water gets superheated by the geothermal vents and the sea stays warm.” I know I’m babbling, but I’m too nervous to stop.

  “A-plus, bureaubrat,” Freja says, but I hear a note of surprise in her voice.

  “Too much chatter,” Herr Tsukino’s voice breaks in. “Heat vision, everyone.”

  I toggle the controls like Freja showed us. At once, the world is a deep black blue, with white-hot streams shooting up where the blackwater vents were before. The other boarders are a dimmer red, silently angling through the water like Humboldt squid. And then, beyond another cluster of vents, we see it—a thick, sinuous body laid across the abyssal plain, lit up in cold, spectral blue.

  “Chaila,” I whisper. The harrow could easily swallow the submersible, to say nothing of the forty or so of us in the water. It lies between a series of smaller vents, warming itself against them. It might be asleep, but the heat vision makes it impossible to tell whether or not its eyes are closed. If it has eyes. I wipe my hands on my sleeves.

  “Fan out,” Herr Tsukino says quietly.

  I guide my board up into position. We form a sort of domed net around the harrow. No matter which way it swims, one of us will be there to fire on it. The beast lifts its head, maybe sensing the subtle vibrations in the water, and opens its mouth as if tasting the current. I kill my board’s propulsion power. Maybe I’m not in exactly the position Herr Tsukino wanted, but it’s close enough.

  “Now,” he says.

  Our rough noose of red stars begins to close on the harrow. Fifty meters. Forty. Thirty.

  The harrow lifts its head again.

  Twenty-five. Twenty. Fifteen.

  The harrow whips to the left, then up at the divers above it. It opens its mouth. A deep wave of sound I more feel than hear shudders through my chest. I release the board’s throttle without meaning to.

  In one fluid movement, the harrow rises from the ocean floor and lunges at one of the divers. The coms erupt in noise.

  “. . . ten degrees—”

  “Watch it, Sila—”

  “Pull in!”

  “Firing!”

  A bright flash erupts at my left, and something yellow-warm spills from the harrow’s side. The beast screams—a ripple of sound I feel through my body—and jerks away. Another flash. Another spill of heat that dissipates into the cold water.

  Blood, I realize. It’s blood.

  To my right, Freja surges forward, followed by Cassia and Rubio.

  “Bureaubrat.” Freja’s voice fills my ears. “Keep up. You’re leaving a hole in the net.”

  I fumble at my controls. Below me, the harrow writhes, spouting streams of blood. It rolls left, impossibly fast for something so large, crushing against a low rocky ridge.

  “Watch out!”

  “On your ten!”

  “Up!”

  Quick, too quick, one of the boards disappears beneath the harrow’s body. My coms fill with an animal scream.

  “Cass!” I shout. Please don’t let it be her. Please don’t let it be her. I push my board into a dive. It can’t be her. She can’t die like this, not when we’re so close to finding her brother. It’s impossible to tell which red smudge is who, and the coms are a chaos of shrieks and screams, the harrow’s subaudible howls shaking through everything.

  “Miyole!” Rubio’s voice reaches me through the clamor. “She’s . . .” But then the shouts and static drown him out again.

  I reach for the throttle, but my hand slips on the controls. Heat vision drops away, and my board’s lights flicker on. The beam falls on the horror below me. A great, pale, eel-like creature with blank white eyes writhes against the seabed, stirring up clouds of gray-black silt and trailing plumes of blood. It flinches from the light, then whips around and surges toward me, bellowing.

  “Lights, Miyole! Lights!” Rubio shouts.

  I turn my board and push the throttle, the harrow following mere meters behind me. Turn the lights off, turn the lights off. But how? I start to hyperventilate. Fear has wiped my mi
nd clean. The harrow bears down on me like a lev train.

  “Top right screen, bureaubrat. Externals.” Freja’s voice is firm over the coms. It’s what I need. “The yellow circle. See it?”

  Externals. I see it. I tap the controls and the lights extinguish. Back to heat vision. The water in front of me is a flat, dark blue mass punctuated by the bright, condensed burn of the blackwater vents. The board’s protective dome vibrates as the harrow bellows again, closer than ever. I glance back. Its mouth gapes open, revealing a second set of jaws inside.

  A hot spike of fear shoots through me. I push the board as fast as I can, mind racing. The harrow’s screaming—could that be some form of echolocation? Sound waves rebounding off objects, creating a rough map for the creature. The frequency and intensity of the echoes differentiating me from the vents or the water around me. I look down. If I’m right, I could flatten out the sound waves reflecting back to the harrow by dropping close to the seabed.

  I dive. The harrow snaps at me, the tip of its snout jostling my board. I drop low over the barren floor, but still it follows. Not enough. I maneuver lower, letting my board skim the rocks and silt and sending up cloudy furrows behind me. The drag slows me, but the harrow pulls back, too. I can lose it. If I keep going, I can lose it.

  “Miyole, what are you doing?” Cassia’s voice breaks in on the coms.

  “Cass!” She’s okay. She’s alive.

  “Bring it back around,” Cassia barks. “You’re leading it away from us.”

  “It’s too fast.” My voice pitches high. “It’s going to kill me.”

  “Turn around,” Cassia says. “We can’t help you if you’re moving away from us.”

  My hands are wet on the board’s controls. I pull up, leaving the safety of the silt cloud. The harrow barrels after me. Cassia and the rest of the divers hover several hundred meters away, dim red dots in the distance.

  “Faster, Miyole!” It’s Rubio.

  “I’m not going to make it!” I shout.

  “We’re coming to meet you.” Freja’s voice. “Just keep moving.”