Decrypted

by Lindsay Buroker

  “It was an honor and my duty, my lord,” Milvet said.

  “Rias, please.”

  “Yes, my lord. Er, sir. Uhm, Rias.” Milvet shrugged sheepishly.

  Yosis had not risen from his chair, but he observed the exchange with narrowed eyes.

  “Look what I won,” Rias said to Tikaya and stretched an arm toward the vessel.

  “You won it?”

  “In a game called Cockroach, a board game that pits two people against each other. You can choose to be either the plantation owner defending his crops or the insect army attempting to decimate the fields.” He grinned again. “Who would have thought I’d find military strategy games on the Kyatt Islands?”

  “Military strategy?” Tikaya asked, bemused. Cockroach was a game children played, and it surprised her to learn there was a gambling-hall version.

  “Of course. As the plantation owner, I had to deploy my troops and use my resources to stave off the invading insect armies.”

  “Troops? Do you mean the... family members?” Tikaya asked, thinking of the freckled blond boy, girl, and spouse board pieces.

  “Yes. Once I learned the rules—and that laying a trap in one’s own silo to blow up the captured invaders isn’t acceptable—winning was a simple matter.”

  “Did you say... blowing up the silo?”

  “An undesirable tactic since preserving one’s assets is preferable, but sometimes a small sacrifice is worth making if it facilitates the winning of the war.”

  “How do you blow up a silo, my lo—Rias?” Milvet asked.

  Rias winked. “Spontaneous combustion. That’s usually accidental, but one can certainly hasten it along by providing oxidation through moisture and air. Bacterial fermentation also works. The rules in Cockroach, however, do not appear to allow for such creativity.”

  “Yes,” Tikaya said, “we don’t like to encourage our children to go around blowing things up.”

  “A shame. Such skills can prove useful in life.”

  “Turgonian life,” Yosis muttered. He produced his notepad and scribbled a few lines.

  Rias only grinned, and Tikaya wondered if he might be deliberately provoking the professor.

  “I better get ready for work,” Milvet said. “Though there’s not much going on there during the nightshift.” He didn’t say it to anyone in particular, though he widened his eyes slightly, and Tikaya assumed that was an invitation for Rias to come and do... whatever it was he intended to do.

  Rias gave him a comradely wave, then offered his hand to Tikaya. Perhaps out of habit, Milvet saluted Rias before striding off. Yosis made a note.

  “Do you truly think he’d be so obvious about all of this if he were planning something inimical?” Tikaya snapped at the professor.

  “Perhaps,” Yosis said, without bothering to look up from his notepad, “it is by being obvious that he seeks to lull us into a false sense of safety.”

  Tikaya opened her mouth, another retort on her lips, but Rias tugged her gently toward the gangplank. “Come see my prize.”

  She took a deep breath and followed him. If Yosis didn’t bother Rias, she shouldn’t let him bother her. Still, she couldn’t help but grit her teeth when the professor followed them onto the old tug.

  The rusty deck creaked ominously when they stepped onto it. Tikaya could scarcely identify the warped cranes and other lifting apparatuses. Aside from the rust bejeweling the hull, a slimy green coat covered much of the deck, and she had to walk carefully lest she slip more often than usual.

  “Are you sure you won this?” Tikaya asked. “Maybe the other fellow pretended to lose so he’d no longer be responsible for the moorage fees.”

  Rias lifted his chin. “I’d know if someone sandbagged in a strategy game. The fellow had already lost his coin in previous rounds, and this was all he had left with which to gamble. Normally, I don’t partake in such ventures, and I did feel underhanded in acquiring his belongings, but I have few resources myself these days and must think of our goals. Given how expensive it is to purchase metal here on the islands, I estimate the scrap here to be worth nearly forty thousand ranmyas.”

  “And you think you can turn this scrap into your new... project?” Tikaya figured Yosis knew about the submarine, but was reluctant to mention it out loud regardless.

  “I’ll need to recruit helpers to provide the manpower, but with the use of a shipyard—” he waved at the slender channel next to his dock, “—I’m certain I can build... something. Whether it’ll be quite as ideal as what I drew on paper, that remains to be seen.”

  “That’s not much of a shipyard.”

  “It’s more than I expected. Since your people aren’t as advanced, er, since they don’t build as many ships as my people, I feared the Kyattese version of a shipyard might be a beach with a nice slope.” He mimicked shoving something big into the water.

  “He’s denigrating us?” Yosis asked.

  “If I have the opportunity,” Rias told Tikaya without acknowledging the professor’s comment, “I can have a prototype done in a matter of weeks.”

  Tikaya imagined sitting beside him as he piloted a submarine made from a patchwork of tin cans, old copper pipes, and Mother’s silverware. She tried to remain optimistic, since he was smiling at the idea of his project. “Well, you have one helper already, it seems.”

  “Two.”

  “Oh?”

  “Milvet you met, and your cousin also promised to help.” Rias stopped before the hatch. Water sloshed around below, and Tikaya hoped he wasn’t going to invite her down.

  “Elloil?” she asked. “He’s promised to do manual labor for you?”

  “In exchange for advice on his upcoming surfboard line. Apparently someone suggested my years of engineering, mathematics, and physics studies should be utilized in designing toys for children.” Rias quirked an eyebrow.

  “Actually, surfing is popular amongst all age groups here. There are even a few spry eighty-year-old grannies who take on the North Coast waves. If you designed a superior board, you might win the love of the Kyattese people, causing them to forget your previous misdeeds.”

  Yosis snorted. It was the closest to a human emotion he’d expressed thus far.

  Rias considered Tikaya with a speculative gaze before sighing and saying, “Just to be clear, you are teasing me, right?”

  Tikaya smirked, imagining him rearranging his mental to-do list to place surfboard design above the melting down of scrap for submarine materials. “About the likelihood of people forgetting your misdeeds, yes, but not about the popularity of the sport.”

  “I see.” Rias extended a hand toward the open hatch. “Would you care for the full tour? Yosis has already received it, due to his unwillingness to let me go anywhere alone.”

  Tikaya leaned over to peer through the open hatch. Rusty holes in a bulkhead, some with warped bolts sticking out of them, were all that remained of what must have been a ladder; their tracks descended into murky water that might have been three inches deep—or three feet. She crinkled her nose at the fishy, mildewy scent wafting up from below. “Did he enjoy his tour?”

  “Oh, yes. I believe he was immensely impressed with the craft.”

  Yosis’s second snort contained even more emotion—and volume.

  Tikaya had little interest in going down, but perhaps Rias wanted her to see something, or maybe he thought they could steal a private moment. She kicked off her sandals, hiked her dress up to her thighs, and tied it so it wouldn’t get wet—so long as the water wasn’t more than a foot or two deep. “After you.”

  Rias gave her bared legs an appreciative look and brushed his fingers down her calf as he lowered himself through the hatch. A delightful little shiver ran up her leg, and she thought again how unfortunate it was that he was staying in that lizard-infested closet instead of on her family’s plantation. Maybe she could slip away one night to visit him.

  With the ladder missing, Tikaya braced herself for a plunge into icy water. Rias caught he
r before her toes splashed down, however, cradling her against his chest. “This way, my lady.”

  Before she could decide whether she wanted to be independent and ask to be let down, he carried her out of the water. The cabin floor tilted as much as the deck above, and about half of the space remained dry, though that hadn’t kept the barnacles, algae, and mildew from making themselves at home on the bulkheads.

  Rias set her down. There weren’t any lanterns, but sunlight seeped through holes that dotted the ceiling like stars and a clear night.

  “If I’d known you intended to carry me to someplace dry,” Tikaya said, “I wouldn’t have taken off my sandals.”

  “Then I would have missed the leg display.” Rias gave her a half smile, though it vanished quickly. He lowered his voice to a murmur and put his back toward the water and the hatch. “Did you get a chance to do any research?”

  “I asked a few questions and tried to visit the Oceanography Wing in the Polytechnic library, but the door was locked with a ‘closed for repairs’ sign on it. I thought that quite unusual.”

  “Unusual as in worth breaking into on the sly because the information housed within might be relevant to one’s current predicament?” Rias asked.

  A soft splash behind them announced Yosis’s presence. Not certain if he’d been there long enough to hear anything, Tikaya said, “Probably not. Besides it’s not as if I’m the type of girl who partakes in midnight breakings-and-enterings. I have enough trouble to deal with right now.”

  “I understand.” An apologetic grimace flattened Rias’s lips.

  Tikaya winced. She’d meant to hint that he could meet her at the library at midnight if he could sneak away, not to imply that he was the cause of her trouble. She’d talked him into coming to the islands, after all.

  By that point, Yosis was staring at them, and she couldn’t bring herself to clarify in front of an audience.

  “The engine room is this way,” Rias said, breaking the silence.

  “Is there anything in there worth salvaging for the new engine?”

  “No, I’ll be designing that from scratch. It’ll need to be extremely compact and efficient.” Rias ducked a drooping ceiling beam and slipped into a cubby full of machinery that hadn’t run in years. Maybe decades. “I will soon need to know specifications of, ah...” He glanced over Tikaya’s shoulder, noted Yosis gamely tagging along, and shrugged and said. “Do you have any suggestions on who might be able to help me with a power source? I’ll need the energy statistics soon.”

  “I can only think of two Makers who specialize in energy sources for powering engines.”

  “Does either of them owe you favors?”

  “Not exactly.” Tikaya grimaced. “One is Parkonis’s mother. She’s retired now and only teaches a few hours a week, but she used to be one of the best Makers on the island.”

  “Your ex-fiancé’s mother? I can’t imagine she’d care to do either of us a favor. Who’s our other choice?”

  Tikaya’s grimace deepened. “My grandfather.”

  “Ah. So, if either of these options agreed to take on the task, I’d have to worry about them building something that would blow up at an inopportune moment, thus ensuring my death.”

  “If it helps, I think they’d both simply refuse to help. Neither has a long history of murdering foreigners.”

  Rias arched an eyebrow. Nobody was appreciating her attempts at humor that day.

  “I’ll ask around,” Tikaya said. “Let me worry about that.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Yosis said, shaking his hand. Apparently he’d been writing so quickly his fingers were cramping. “You don’t seriously believe anyone is going to let you build a spy submarine from within our harbor, do you?”

  “A spy submarine?” Rias asked. “No, but wouldn’t your people appreciate one designed to aid in underwater exploration and salvage missions?”

  “Not by you.”

  “Who better?” Tikaya asked. “Turgonian engineering is superior to ours, everyone admits that, and wouldn’t you rather have him building a submarine for our use rather than for the empire’s?”

  Yosis responded with a glare.

  “If it turns out well,” Tikaya said, “he can make more and sell them here on the islands. I’m sure the maritime archaeology department would love one. Lots of people would. They might prove more popular than surfboards.” She smiled, meaning the last part as a joke, and thinking it might draw an amused response from their stodgy watchdog.

  “He won’t be here long enough for that.” Yosis stalked out of the room, banging his elbow on a warped flywheel on the way past. He cursed in several languages. Unfortunately his curses didn’t fade in a way that would mean he’d left the area. No, he would continue to spy on them from the corridor.

  “Help me out,” Rias murmured. “Was that a death threat or a deportation threat?”

  “Rias, nobody’s going to try to kill you here.”

  “I’d rather face a duel, or even an assassin, than someone who makes threats from the shadows and lights a woman’s lawn on fire.”

  Tikaya searched his face, trying to decide if his words implied he’d been threatened by more than words burned into the grass. Some anonymous enemy that he couldn’t strike? Even if he could identify those lurking in the shadows, would he attack? He might fear the image he’d present to her people if he did so.

  “Do you get to face assassins?” Tikaya asked, hoping he’d prefer levity to grimness. “I thought they plied their trade from behind.”

  “You just have to practice turning around very quickly.” If he meant that as a joke, his face didn’t lighten to show it.

  Tikaya followed him out of the engine room, sad that her visit seemed to have stolen his good humor rather than improving it.

  CHAPTER 7

  Tikaya’s stomach rumbled, eager for lunch, as she bicycled up to the front lanai. She eyed the blackened pieces of earth on the lawn—the fires had burned down in such a manner that the letters were still visible. She’d have to throw some compost out and smother the area with seeds. At least in their sunny climate, it wouldn’t take long for something to grow out of the charred earth.

  An unfamiliar bicycle leaned against the lanai railing. Tikaya hoped it was some innocent visitor, meeting with one of her family members, but an uneasy twinge poked her in the gut. She had a feeling it had to do with her.

  She headed for the door, but a low, “Ho, Coz,” made her pause on the threshold. Elloil sat in one of the chairs at the end of the lanai. “You missed lunch.”

  “I’ve had a busy morning.” Tikaya reached for the knob.

  “Parkonis didn’t.”

  Her hand froze. “What?”

  “He didn’t miss lunch.”

  Tikaya glanced at the bicycle. Yes, it’d be a good match for someone of Parkonis’s height. “Is he still in there?” It’d be cowardly to hide outside instead of going in to see him, but the temptation came to her nonetheless. “Did he seem... well?” The emperor’s assassin might have kept his word to Rias and seen Parkonis returned to Kyatt, but there was no guarantee the time her ex-fiancé had spent with the Turgonians had been pleasant, especially considering he’d been working with those who’d launched an attack on the capital and had tried to thwart the marine sortie into the tunnels.

  “He looked all right, though he had a fancy tale to share. It doesn’t quite match up with the one you told.”

  “I’m not surprised. From what he admitted to me, and what I saw, the truth didn’t flatter him.”

  “He was still spinning his truth when I came out for a smoke. There was a lot of I-knew-its and nodding from your brother, cousins, and father.”

  Tikaya groaned. Of course everyone would believe her lying ex-fiancé instead of her. Under normal circumstances, that might not have been the case, but they all wanted to believe Rias was the enemy. “Not you?” she asked.

  “Nah, Parkonis called my surf shop a quaint hobby the first time he came to din
ner. We’re practically mortal enemies.”

  “Does he know that?”

  “I don’t think he even remembers my name.” Ell stirred in the shadows. “He’s talking to your mother one-on-one now. You might want to interrupt.”

  Tikaya must have been speaking in Turgonian too much of late, for a handful of curses involving Parkonis’s dead ancestors and the smelters he could slag himself in tumbled from her lips before she could stop them. She was glad Yosis wasn’t around with his notepad.

  “Thanks for the warning,” Tikaya said and turned the knob.

  A few voices drifted in from an open door at the back of the great hall, but they sounded young. Guessing Mother would be spearheading kitchen cleanup, Tikaya headed in that direction. A familiar masculine voice drifted out through the swinging door. Her mother responded. Tikaya meant to walk directly in and confront Parkonis, but she caught herself stopping and pressing an ear to the door.

  “Of course he’s acting polite and pleasant,” Parkonis said. “He wouldn’t come in here being abrasive and self-absorbed. He’s a genius.”

  “Most of the geniuses I’ve met are on the self-absorbed and abrasive side, dear.”

  Tikaya held back a snort. She wasn’t sure if Mother was poking arrows at Parkonis specifically, or simply referring to the entire body of colleagues Tikaya had brought by the house over the years. Either way, she didn’t sound ready to turn on Rias. Good.

  “If that’s true, then the fact that he’s not should worry you,” Parkonis said. “He’s a mastermind and a manipulator of people—just look what he’s done to Tikaya. He convinced her to turn her back on me and to bring him here, so he can do Akahe knows what. If the Turgonians get a toehold here today, it could mean the downfall of our people tomorrow. You have to talk to Tikaya. She’s blinded by her infatuation and can’t see that he’s fooling her.”

  Even if Parkonis wasn’t succeeding in winning over Mother, Tikaya figured it was time to enter and put an end to the conversation. When she pushed open the door, she imagined herself striding into the kitchen, thrusting a finger at Parkonis’s nose, and telling him that his opinions weren’t appreciated, but her hip caught on the corner of the counter on her way in, and she stumbled into his back.