The Tang Dynasty Underwater Pyramid

by Walter Jon Williams

  I pulled my mask down around my neck and worked my flippers off my feet. At this point Sztephan’s sun- bleached head appeared above the deck, looking at me wide eyed: I’d told him to wait a moment or two before following me, and wait to hear if there was gunfire. Apparently this warning had made an impression on him.

  I helped him aboard, hoping he wouldn’t make too much noise, and he was about as silent as the situation permitted. While he stripped off his flippers, I rose to a crouch and chanced a look through the open door into the boat’s pilothouse. No one was visible, so I crept inside, and then froze.

  Two figures were visible, and though I hadn’t met either one I recognized them from photographs that my uncle Iago had made me memorize. They were both members of Fidel Perugachi’s band, the bass player and the bombo player to be exact. It appeared that Perugachi had brought his whole rhythm section. One crouched in a wet suit on the after deck, working with some cylinders and a B.C., readying the outfit for a dive. Every few seconds he’d glance aft, to make certain that bubbles were still rising from our decoy cylinder. The other Ayanca, in shorts, baseball cap, and a Pokari Sweat T-shirt he must have stolen from the wreck, stood forward of the pilothouse by the port rail, watching whatever was going on in the launch.

  A pistol was stuck casually into his shorts at the small of his back, and I recognized the distinctive toggle of a German Luger. The century-old Luger had been the standard sidearm of the P.R.C. police until recently, and when it was replaced by another weapon, the thrifty Chinese had sold tens of thousands of Lugers all at once. Perugachi must have picked up this one in the Hong Kong or Macau black market.

  At least Fidel Perugachi hadn’t been able to bring his own weaponry into China with him, and this gave me hope that his resources were fairly limited.

  If I attacked the man with the Luger, it would be in full view of everyone on the launch; whereas the bombo player in the stern was crouched down out of sight. I gestured for Sztephen to be quiet, then slipped further into the cabin in search of a weapon. I suppose I could have slit the drummer’s throat with my little knife, but that seemed drastic, and I hated to set that kind of precedent unless I needed to.

  I was considering one of the five-pound lead divers’ weights when I noticed that the drummer had his tool box open. Two crouching steps took me to the box, where I found a large wrench laid out neatly in its own compartment. Another two steps took me to the bombo player, who I promptly whanged behind the ear.

  I probably hit him much harder than I intended to, as he only began to wake a couple hours later. Blame an excess of adrenaline if you will.

  After checking my victim to see if he was still alive, I slipped to the rear corner of the boat, where a line had been tied holding the catamaran to the launch. I slipped the line off the cleat, then moved forward again, back to the pilothouse, where I had a quick whispered conversation with Sztephen about whether he felt he could steer the boat. He gave a quick scan of the instrument board and said that he could. The engines were idling, and all he had to do was put them in gear and shove the throttles forward.

  As we hadn’t heard any shouts or complaints that we were drifting away from the launch, I surmised that there was another mooring line, and that this one was forward and under the supervision of the bass player.

  I told Sztephen to shove the throttles forward when I yelled, then slipped out of the pilothouse on the port side, the side away from the launch. I intended to use the pilothouse for cover on the approach, come up behind the bass player, then pull his own pistol and stick it in his back. If Perugachi’s crew saw me at that point it wouldn’t matter, as I’d have a ready-made hostage.

  It didn’t work out that way. I crept around the pilothouse and approached my target, using as cover a big galvanized storage compartment. I looked around the corner of the compartment and saw the bass player a few paces away. His back was to me, and he was chatting in Aymara with a man in the launch.

  My heart gave a sudden thud against my ribs as I realized that this second man was Fidel Perugachi himself, and then another great knock as I saw Perugachi’s heavy-lidded demonic eyes drop from his bass player to look straight at me. I suddenly realized how hot it was inside my wet suit, and how odd that was considering it was still full of seawater.

  Before the loathsome offspring of the Ayanca moiety could cry a warning, I crossed the deck in three strides and kicked the bass player with both feet in the small of the back. This catapulted him over the safety line and— he most satisfying part— on top of Perugachi himself. Then, yelling demented abuse at the Ayancas in our native language, I sprawled forward on the deck to reach for the remaining mooring line.

  “Allu!” I yelled. “Umata urqu!”

  Taking my invective as his cue, Sztephen threw the catamaran into gear and shoved the throttles forward. Impellers screamed, jets boiled, and the craft lunged into the next wave, taking the launch with it.

  This was fortunate, as it turns out, because the Ayancas were in the process of organizing a response just as the sudden acceleration jerked them off their feet. I untied the mooring line and let it fly through the chrome-plated cleat and off the boat.

  Luger bullets flew wild as the launch, checked by its anchor, came to an abrupt halt astern, and everyone on the boat took another tumble.

  I rose and shook a fist. “Jallpi&nTilde;a chinqi, you lunthata llujchi!” I shouted.

  It was only then that I noticed the dive boat had another passenger. Leila was crouched in the shadow of the pilothouse, where I hadn’t been able to see her, and was looking in alarm at the Ayancas, all of whose arms were suddenly waving weapons.

  I got to my feet and ran to the pilothouse, where Sztephen was crouched down in cover, steering the boat with a wild expression on his face.

  “Good work,” I said and took the controls.

  Fidel Perugachi still had the launch, which had a powerful motor and could quite possibly outspeed the heavily laden catamaran once they got the anchor up.

  I swung the boat into a wide circle, aimed straight at the launch, and let the boat build speed. There was a fusillade of shots from the Ayancas— I had to wonder what possible good they thought it would do— and then the white splashes of five bronzed Apollos making perfect entries into the water. The Ayancas stared at the twin-hulled doom approaching at flank speed, and then most of them followed the Apollos.

  Fidel Perugachi was made of sterner stuff. He stood on the boat’s thwart, arms folded in an attitude of defiance, glaring at me with his ferocious eyes until the catamaran thundered right over him.

  Showy, flamboyant, and self-dramatizing. What did I tell you? Just like his flute-playing.

  I didn’t want to cut the launch in half, so I struck it a glancing blow with the left hull, which was strong enough to roll the craft under. It came bobbing up astern— it was a tough boat, stuffed with foam to make it unsinkable and suitable for use as a lifeboat— but we lost most of our diving gear.

  I slowed and began to circle. That provided me an opportunity to step out of the pilothouse and glare at Leila, who was still crouched against the pilothouse, paralyzed with shock at the bullets her erstwhile allies had been volleying in her direction. She seemed otherwise unharmed.

  “Young lady,” I said, shaking a finger, “I’m very disappointed in you.” She looked up at me.

  “Fidel met my price,” she said. “We needed money to start the Fabulous Femmes Water Ballet of Zuma.”

  My indignation at her being on a first-name basis with Perugachi only heightened my disapproval. “You’ll get nowhere through this kind of imitation,” I said. “Look at where it got the Ayancas.”

  We picked up the Apollos first, and they sat wet and bedraggled on the stern deck— I believe it was the only time in our acquaintance when at least some of them weren’t posing— and then we brought aboard the Ayancas, one by one. They hadn’t hung onto their weapons, but we patted them down just in case and tied them on the afterdeck and put them under gu
ard of the Apollos, who soon regained their swagger.

  Fidel Perugachi came aboard last, having survived the collision intact save for a dramatic and bloody cut on his forehead. He glared at me as we tied him and dropped him like a sack on the deck, and I flashed him a grim smile.

  “Serves you right for killing my employer,” I said.

  “That wasn’t my idea,” he said, “and I didn’t do it. I advised against it, in fact. I knew it would only piss you off.”

  “So whose idea was it?” I asked. I didn’t expect him to reply, and he didn’t.

  We took the waterlogged launch in tow and headed for the People’s Republic, where we dropped the Ayancas on a deserted rocky shore after making them bail out the launch. We also took their clothing.

  Stranding them naked in a deserted corner of China, with no papers for crossing back into Hong Kong and no way of communicating with their employers, seemed likely to keep the Ayancas out of our hair for a while.

  We also stranded the Fabulous Femme of Zuma, though we left her a towel for modesty’s sake.

  Leila was sullen and tried to bum a cigarette, but Perugachi did not take it well. He waded into the sea after us and shook his fist, filling the air with colorful Aymara oaths.

  “Allu!” he called. “Jama!”

  “Don’t mess with the Hanansaya moiety!” I shouted back at him. “Our ancestors were kings!”

  Which in our democratic age may seem a bit of aristocratic pretension, but quite frankly I thought it was time that Fidel Perugachi was put in his place.

  *

  “A pyramid,” murmured Dr. Pan. “A white pyramid.”

  “Tetrahedron,” I corrected helpfully.

  His assistant Chun ignored me and gave Pan a desperate, hollow-eyed look. “The culture wasn’t supposed to be able to survive in nature,” he said.

  “Didn’t test it in the nutrient-rich effluent of the Pearl River, now, did you?” I asked.

  Again Chun ignored me. “I can't understand the part about the pyramids. That’s not supposed to happen at all.”

  “Tetrahedrons,” I said again, “and what culture?” I focused on him a glower that would do Fidel Perugachi proud. “I was exposed to it, after all. If I'm about to turn into a four-sided polygon, I have the right to know.”

  We were in Pan’s luxurious suite aboard Tang Dynasty, all silk hangings and rich furniture inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and air thick with tobacco smoke from Chun's pipe and Pan’s disgusting little cigars.

  Those of us who had returned from the Goldfish Fairy— minus Deszmond, who had been assigned to run the catamaran hard around in Aberdeen harbor and then take the bus back— had decided it was time to confront Dr. Pan and find out just what our little mission was all about.

  Pan caved in without resistance. “Our colleague, Dr. Jiu,” he said, referring to Jesse, “was working with a type of diatom. These are small one-celled algae that live in colonies and create crystalline structures.”

  “Divers know about diatoms,” Laszlo said.

  Pan nodded. “What Dr. Jiu managed to create was a diatom modified to excrete polycarbon plastic instead of a silicate. Since our current lines of plastics are created from fossil fuels, our company was quick to see the economic advantages of a far cheaper plastic that was created from, well, nothing, and we acquired both Dr. Jiu and his, ah, creation.”

  “And now the sea’s got it,” I said.

  “The plastic structure is itself organic,” Chun said added hopefully. “Sooner or later, other microorganisms will eat it. And in the meantime it's a very nice sink for carbon dioxide.”

  I looked at them. “Is that before or after the white tetrahedron breaks surface in the shipping lanes?”

  Sometimes it is necessary to be blunt in order to shock some of these more cerebral types back to reality.

  Both Pan and Chun winced.

  Pan combed his distinguished white hair with his fingers and looked at Laszlo. “What is normally done to stop an underwater contamination?”

  Laszlo stared at his right biceps while absentmindedly flexing it “Well,” he said, “in cases of seaweed, like that caulerpa taxifolia that can infest whole ecosystems, you cover the infected area with plastic, then pump in something that will kill it, like chlorine. You have to keep coming back at regular intervals to make certain it hasn’t come back.” He shrugged. “But how you deal with a diatom, I don't know. Wouldn’t the little critters be carried off by the current? Shouldn't it be all over the South China Sea by now?”

  Sometimes it’s possible to be too blunt: Chun looked as if he were about to cry, and Pan seemed profoundly cast down and gave a deep sigh.

  “We are dealing with a specific diatom,” Pan said, “a bilaterally symmetrical organism that reproduces sexually through the fusion of protoplasts. It won't survive long on its own, but will do well in its colony.”

  He looked at Chun for reassurance. “We don’t think the organism will spread far.”

  “How much plastic sheeting can you get on short notice?” Laszlo asked them.

  They looked dubious.

  “Oh come on,” he urged. “You're in the plastic business.”

  “That would involve contacting another division of the company,” Pan murmured in a subdued voice.

  “It would involve explanation,” Chun murmured back.

  Pan gave another profound sigh. “So very awkward,” he said.

  “Awkward,” Chun agreed.

  I began to suspect that huge sheets of plastic were not in our future.

  Which was how, two days later, I found myself the skipper of the ten-thousand-ton freighter Twice- Locked Mountain, a rusting hulk that had been thumping around the bywaters of Asia for the better part of the last century, so ancient and decrepit that it could only have been kept from the breakers’ yards in the hope it might successfully be involved in some kind of insurance fraud.

  I swung the wheel, steadied onto my new course, took dead aim at the anchored freighter Green Snake, and rang Jorge in the engine room for more turns.

  The venerable reciprocating engines thumped and banged, the propeller flailed water, and a shudder ran along the old ship, shaking off a few hundred pounds of rust flakes. I hoped she would hold together just a few more minutes. It would be embarrassing to sink her prematurely.

  “Hurry up,” came Laszlo's voice on the radio. “We’ve got to be in Shanghai by tomorrow night.”

  “I'm doing the best I can,” I said, and reached for the controls of the ship’s siren to signal brace for collision.

  We were probably doing all of ten knots when we hit Green Snake dead abeam in a crash of tormented iron, venting steam, and gurgling water. Since Green Snake was at least as old a ship as Twice-Locked Mountain, and in even worse condition, I half expected us to slice our target in two, but instead we stayed locked together, which wasn't in the plan, either.

  “Get everyone on deck,” I told Laszlo. “You’re about to go down fast.”

  I reached for the engine room telegraph and rang for full astern, which is exactly what you're not supposed to do when your ship has just collided with another. Twice-Locked Mountain backed out of the hole it had torn in Green Snake with another shriek of dying metal, and the sea flooded in. In mere moments the Green Snake was listing, and the water ballet guys, pausing every so often to flex, began piling into their lifeboat.

  Our bow had been caved in, but I wasn’t sure how much water was coming in through the bulkhead that we had so carefully punched full of holes, and I called Rosalinda on her cell to find out. The intake seemed insufficient, so I ordered the sea cocks opened, and then we began to settle fast. I managed some last maneuvering with the aid of my satnav, then signaled Sancho on the foredeck to trip the anchor, which ran out with a roar and clatter and a splash.

  I blew the siren that ordered everyone to assemble amidships, and we watched in some fascination as Green Snake rolled over, then plunged to the bottom amid a roil of water and the thunder of collapsing b
ulkheads. We transferred to our own boats in some haste, as we wanted to get out of the area before the sea turned to poison.

  In our own lifeboat we followed the Outrageous Water Ballet of Malibu toward Hong Kong, while I got busy on the radio and, in the voice of one Captain Nicholas Turgachev of the Green Snake, called in an SOS and issued the first of several environmental warnings, the second followed by the equally fictional Captain Bellerophos Kallikanzaros of the Twice-Locked Mountain.

  The environmental warning was the only genuine part, as both ships had been loaded with sacks of arsenic originally intended to poison China's substantial population of rats. We had carefully anchored the wrecks so that they would bracket Goldfish Fairy when they went down. The arsenic would kill anything: man, woman, fish, plant, or mutated diatom, and the heavy metal would be leaking out of the wrecks and drifting over the site for weeks.

  In the normal course of events, this would be considered an environmental catastrophe. In fact, it was an environmental catastrophe.

  What I hoped was that it would be preferable to white tetrahedrons growing on the ocean floor from here to Panama, a bleak eerie forest like the setting of some early work by J.G. Ballard.

  Soon Sancho, impersonating yet another fictional captain (this one a Filipino named Suarez), got on the radio to inform the authorities that he’d taken the survivors aboard the freighter Ode to Constancy, heading for Taipei, where they would be made available for questioning as soon as the ship docked. Of course the ship would never dock there, and the crews would never be found, and neither would the owners of all the vessels involved. Over the years the Chinese had become very good at obscuring ship registries, and I was inclined to trust them.

  Questions rattled over the radio, but Turgachev and Kallikanzaros and Suarez managed not to find a language in common with the authorities, just scattered words here and there. An emergency helicopter scrambled from Hong Kong got to the wreck site just in time to see Twice-Locked Mountain make its final dive.