“I recommended against going in the first place.”
“No, Captain; you recommended that you go in my place. Then we compared how many times we’ve each been on, er, underwater operations. Added to the fact that I can fit into tight spaces easier than you can.”
“Evidently, whatever caused you to decide against further dives has not diminished your propensity to argue. Find anything?”
Veriden cut an annoyed glance at Riordan but said nothing; he suspected that even she saw the irony in starting an argument over whether she was argumentative. “The engineering section is pulling itself free of the fuselage. We must have taken a hell of a whack back there. Besides, I think I’ve seen everything there is to see.”
“Any updates, forensically speaking?”
She nodded. “Yeh. I haven’t been able to find the pistols you mentioned, but it’s a mess back there: gaps in the bulkheads and the deck where they could have washed out, or they could still be mixed in with the heavier debris. But I got a look at the bodies.” She shook her head. “Between the wound patterns and the tight quarters, I just can’t make a picture of a gunfight that would produce those results. If Danysh was discovered trying to tamper with the engines or the hatchway, then how did he get shot from hip to neck from about a meter’s range? And why would he tamper with the engines at all? That would have killed him, too. And if he was simply trying to close the hatch before you got on, then why did that turn into a gunfight at all? He could have acted like it was all a misunderstanding until the other two let their guard was down. Then he could have shot them. And what the hell was Mizrahi doing with a gun?”
Caine shrugged. “I wish I knew the answer to any of those questions. In large part, because they are exactly the ones I’ve been turning over in my mind since I saw those three bodies. Now, let’s get out of here before—”
“There’s one more thing you should see. And probably only you should see it, for now.” She held something out in her hand. It was a small vial of unusual manufacture, almost as if it were handmade.
“What’s this?” Riordan held it up, saw what looked like a large, cubical tissue sample lumped at the bottom.
“Don’t know,” Veriden admitted. “But it was in Danysh’s pocket.” She waded past Caine, glanced upward as the top of the fuselage groaned faintly. “We’d better get out of here.”
* * *
Ben Hwang, who seemed to be moving more easily, gestured at the collected salvage. “It’s mostly food and combopioneer tools. Have you found any of the inflatable rafts?”
Caine shrugged. “What was left of them. They were stored ventrally, for easy deployment. They didn’t handle that belly landing too well.”
“Maybe we could make use of the plastic, though,” Qwara Betul mused.
Caine nodded. “It’s a good thought, but without those rafts, we’re on foot. That means we’re going to be leaving behind a lot of potentially useful objects. First priority is food and water, and stocking up on it is going to slow us down.”
Hwang nodded. “And, dividing the ration packs ten ways, that still only gives us about five days. Less water, though: a lot of the containers didn’t handle the shaking too well.”
Salunke stared at the rear of the shuttle, where a sizable rent had caused the majority of the on-board flooding. “That hole, back near the ship’s locker. We lost a lot of stores from there.” A few of the darker orange lily pads had drifted up against the aforementioned wound in the hull; the wreck looked like it had thrown off vermillion clots before dying.
“That is probably where the extra food supplies were kept,” Xue agreed.
Dora shook her head. “There’s nothing there. I dove and checked.”
Esiankiki Salunke was still looking at the water and the lily pads. “No. I mean that the ration packs might have fallen out of the shuttle. Into the surrounding water.”
“Which might have any number of dangerous species in it,” Ben Hwang pointed out.
The voice that rose in polite dissent was that of his assistant, Hirano Mizuki. “We have not seen any so far, and we have been wading to and from the shuttle for over an hour. If any local fauna was going to be attracted by our movement, or by what little of our scent enters the water around the cuffs of our duty-suits, I believe it would have appeared by now.”
Dora screwed up her almost elfin features. “Yeah, but even if you’re right about the food being lost through that hole in the fuselage, that means it could have fallen out at any point along the two kilometers we bumped and skittered over before coming to a stop.”
“I must disagree.” Nasr Eid looked around the impromptu group which had been attracted by the discussion. “If that hole in the fuselage had been inflicted during the initial impacts, the subsequent shocks should have torn off the shuttle’s entire tail, no?” He glanced around the group.
After some delay, Keith Macmillan agreed. “Almost certainly.”
“And either way, it does no harm to look in the shallows around the wreck,” Hirano finished. “Does it, Captain?”
Caine had let the debate continue because he himself was of two minds on the matter. On the one hand, the armpit-deep water into which the tail of the shuttle had sagged was a complete unknown, and in new environments, the unknown was to be presumed hazardous until proven otherwise. On the other hand, moving on foot with only five days of food meant they were not going to get very far on their own rations. And there was simply no way to know and no reason to presume that any of the local flora or fauna was safe for human consumption. They could cut rations, sure, but that would cut their rate of progress. So if there was any reasonable chance of locating some additional food—“Let’s be clear about this: there is one excellent reason not to search the surrounding water for ration packs. All hypothesizing aside, we just don’t know what might be lurking in there.” Hirano seemed ready to pout. “But our ability to survive and keep moving is determined by our caloric intake. So we’ll take the risk to search for the ration packs but on a volunteer basis only.” Caine removed his filter mask, handed it to Ben Hwang: the air smelled of musk, marsh, and loam, with hints of something akin to a mix of cloves and cinnamon. “Who else will go?” Xue started to put up his hand; Caine shook his head. “Sorry, Mr. Xue. I appreciate your eagerness, but you are not eligible. You are both anchor watch and, for the time being, Dr. Hwang’s attending physician.”
Macmillan kicked at the lichen streaked shore. “I never have gone swimming on an alien world,” he observed. “Might as well go home being able to say that I did, though.”
Salunke, Hirano, and Betul signaled their willingness also.
“Okay,” said Caine, “let’s go fishing.”
“Let’s hope you’re not the bait,” Veriden muttered from her seat on the bank. Just before she frowned and rose to join them as they waded back into the water.
* * *
Caine slogged up the bank, blowing out water that smelled, perversely, akin to fresh cut grass with a hint of coffee.
Ben Hwang squinted at him. “You realize, of course, that you could be killing yourself. The microbes in that water—”
“May finish me, and the rest of us, more quickly than starvation. Yes. But unless we want to trust in fate and an early rescue, I don’t see that we have much choice.”
Xue, glancing at Hwang, nodded faintly. “I have been having that very debate with the honored doctor from the first time you submerged.”
Hwang huffed diffidently. “I very much hope I am wrong. In the meantime, I thank your for your services, Mr. Xue.” Caine did not hear the tone of polite dismissal, but evidently Xue did. With a shallow nod, he rose, walked the short distance to the line of packs that were being restocked according to the group’s most urgent needs, and set about removing most of the useless elements of each combopioneer set. Even when communicating in English, the Chinese retained subtle social and rhetorical codes which allowed persons of different—or the same—station to send a variety of cues. In this
case Hwang’s message had obviously been: “please leave me alone with Captain Riordan.”
Caine waited until Xue was fully involved in his task. “What’s up, Ben?”
“You asked me to look at the vial Ms. Veriden ostensibly recovered from Danysh’s body. I did.”
Caine glanced at Gaspard. “Have you shared your findings with the ambassador?”
Gaspard continued to watch the heads of various team members rising and sinking beneath the water at the midpoint of the craft. “This is the first moment that we have had any privacy. Please update us, Doctor.” Having found nothing immediately alongside the jagged gash in the vehicle’s side, the searchers were moving further aft, examining the lily pads before resuming their search.
Hwang nodded, winced as he reached into his pocket. “This is what happened when I tried to take a sample.” He produced the vial. The vaguely cubical, fleshy mass at the bottom had been replaced with a brown ooze. “As soon as I uncapped the container, it deliquesced. With extraordinary speed. Gave off a nasty smell; like rotting patchouli. I recapped the vial as quickly as I could.”
“And did that stop the reaction?”
“Not immediately. It slowed, but continued for as long as there was air left in the container.”
Riordan kept his voice low. “That’s what happened to the organism they took out of Nolan Corcoran’s body during his autopsy, just a little more than a year ago.”
Gaspard started but said nothing.
Hwang nodded. “So I recalled. But you reported that the Dornaani—well, Alnduul—told you that they had put that organism in his body. To help his heart.”
That and possibly other things, as well. “Correct.”
Gaspard stared hard at the slime in the vial. “Are you suggesting that the Dornaani might be behind this sabotage? And the attack?”
Caine shook his head firmly. “No. If the Dornaani wanted us dead—which makes no sense—we’d be dead. Most of our sensors can’t even see their ships if they don’t want to be seen. So whatever attacked the Slaasriithi shift-carrier wasn’t their technology. And Danysh’s screening indicated that he could not have been contacted by the Dornaani beforehand, so I can’t see how they could possibly be behind his sabotage.”
“So is it just a coincidence, then?” Gaspard wondered. “Or could someone else have the ability to geneer an organism that destroys itself after it has been used?”
“It certainly is a possibility, so we can’t conclusively assign this biotechnology to any one of our neighbors’ flags. We only know that something analogous has been employed by the Dornaani. Ben, do you have any idea how this thing”—Riordan aimed his chin at the vial—“manages to deliquesce so quickly? It was already looking pretty sloppy when Veriden found it.”
“If Veriden ‘found’ it,” Hwang corrected with signal emphasis. “Actually, if one’s xenogenetic science is advanced enough, and one chooses the right organism, it would not be so difficult to build a failsafe switch into its basic biology. You could create a hormone or protein that activates when the creature’s autonomous functions stop. Those hormones could work like triggers to initiate changes in the membranes that protect the life form from it’s own digestive juices.” He shrugged. “That’s only one possible method of achieving this outcome.” They both looked into the vial; faint misty wisps rose up from the formless goo.
Gaspard cleared his throat. “The question is, how did Mr. Danysh come to have it in his possession?”
Hwang’s tone was deferential but firm. “I must once again point out, Ambassador, that it is impossible to verify Ms. Veriden’s account of how she came to possess this vial. It is possible that she, not Danysh, was in possession of this vial.”
Gaspard nodded impatiently. “So, lacking any concrete evidence, Captain do you suspect that other saboteurs are involved, or is it possible that Danysh was working alone?”
“Let me answer your last question first, Ambassador. Since we can’t know that Danysh was working alone, then we have to presume he wasn’t—and so we have to remain alert for further sabotage. Beyond that, too many details at the crime scene almost shout ‘set up.’ For instance, those two handguns I discovered along with the bodies: we’re presuming they were the weapons used. Just as we’re presuming that any of those three people used them. It’s entirely possible that there was a fourth person—the real shooter—who killed them all and staged it to look otherwise. And it does make operational sense that there would be a second saboteur, one unknown to Danysh.”
Hwang nodded. “That way, the second agent could kill Danysh and thereby prevent us from acquiring any knowledge about how he crippled the shift-carrier, how he received the orders to do it, or from whom. The other two victims might just have been convenient means of misdirecting us, of allowing us to presume that Danysh had been working alone.”
Whether by spoken or silent consensus, the searchers were now returning, their duty suits soaked. One person remained in the water, as far to the rear of the wreck as the encroaching lily-pads allowed: Hirano Mizuki. Of course. Despite her mild demeanor, she had a stubborn streak a mile wide. She wasn’t about to give up on her notion of finding the missing food, not until someone made her do so, Caine realized. He stood up: “Ms. Hirano!” She either could not, or chose not, to hear him.
Riordan walked down to the water’s edge. “Ms. Hirano, you’ve done everything you can. There’s nothing to find.”
She half-turned. “I think I feel something, just down here.” She had made the same claim three times in the past ten minutes. She pointed further aft. “I am going to take one last look.” The others on the shore had stripped out of their duty suits; they’d dry faster that way, and the air was warm.
Caine put his hands on his hips. Although tempted to order her out of the water, he held back. He’d get compliance, but that might also start stratifying this overwhelmingly civilian group into sharply defined leaders and followers, and to disincline spontaneous sharing of ideas while simultaneously stirring up resentment. No reason to go that route until and unless it was absolutely necessary. “Ms. Hirano, we’re going to—”
But she didn’t hear him: she ducked under the water. The vermillion lily-pads bobbed in unison with the ripples made as she passed under them in an effort to get further back along the hull. And they continued to bob. Even once the ripples had subsided.
Before he knew why he was doing it, Caine was sprinting into the water: “Ms. Hirano!”
A meter beyond where Hirano had ducked under, her head burst through the lily-pads, sending up a spray of water and a piercing scream. The water around her churned in fine, ferocious agitation, as if a pot teeming with minnows had been brought to a sudden boil.
Riordan hardly heard the shouts from the shore—“Mizuki!” “No, Caine!”—as he ploughed through the water, saw red blood on the orange water-lilies. Covering her head and her hands, small wormlike fish writhed and burrowed in desperate, ravenous delight. She flailed to break free of the twitching, clutching water plants, went under—
Just as Caine got close enough to plunge his arm under the surface, and—careful to keep the neckline of his duty-suit out of the water—grab for her. He got a handful of hair and pulled upward as more of the ferocious creatures swarmed out from under the water-lilies with which they evidently had some kind of symbiotic relationship.
Hirano Mizuki came up, shrieking, sputtering, gagging. Riordan felt the flutter of the small fish all along his body, felt them pressing and gnashing at his duty suit. He got an arm under hers, started to haul her toward the shore, felt the first stinging nips breach the legs of his suit. Macmillan, Salunke, and Xue were splashing out to meet him, arms outstretched for Hirano, whose face and neck were still speckled with the quivering, fry-sized carnivores, but it was unclear if they would get her to shore in time. Or if he would, either: Riordan could feel more of the piranhalike minnows sawing through the legs and waist of his suit—
On the far shore, a dim form rose up
in the mists, sending a swift, powerful ripple across the river’s central currents. It was five; no, eight; damn, maybe ten meters tall—and it emitted a strident, higher-pitched version of the same hoot the group had heard earlier.
The piranha-minnows immediately sprang off Mizuki Hirano’s savaged flesh and dove deep into the water. Riordan let the rest of the team take her from him, as the strange shape, a gargantuan badger on heavy stilts, hooted again, even more stridently. Riordan felt the insistent rippling of the worm-fish against his duty suit diminish rapidly; the sensation was gone by the time he had reached the knee-depth shallows. The lily-pads, their coordinated undulations working like a wave-generation machine, began to back away from the wreck and push out into the downsteam current. As they did, the immense silhouette across the river sunk down and disappeared back into the mists.
As Caine staggered up the bank, Gaspard was there to take his arm and help him up the slight slope. “Mon Dieu, you are mad, brave, or both, Riordan. But heroics are not your place; you cannot lead us to safety if you are dead. What were you thinking?”
Caine stared at Gaspard, shook off his hand. “I was thinking of saving my team-member’s life.” And he stalked up the silt to where Hirano Mizuki was screaming in agony.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Southern extents of the Third Silver Tower; BD +02 4076 Two (“Disparity”)
Unable to move Mizuki, the group had to stay put for the rest of that day. Her screams diminished into sobs by dinner, and then soft moans when she began drifting off to sleep and losing conscious control over the pain. Besides widespread wounds that looked like horribly pulped flesh, one of the piranha-minnows—or, now, pirhannows—had bored partway into her left eye, breaching the sclera.
During the night, they rested in shifts, each armed watch staring out into dark brush that blinked, waved, and rippled with bioluminescence, particularly at dusk and dawn. Just as dim light began brightening the sky, and the pre-sunrise bioluminescence began to subside, Ben Hwang sat down beside Caine. “Ms. Hirano’s eye could become necrotic if it is not removed.”
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