Decrypted

by Lindsay Buroker

  Rias considered the pair, the discarded coconut cups on the floor, and arched a bland eyebrow. “I see.”

  “We were just looking for a quiet—”

  “Hush, dear.” The woman rose from the bed with more aplomb than her husband, pinched him on the rump, and told Rias, “It’s a fine ship. Thank you for the lovely party. We’ll be leaving now.”

  Rias and Tikaya stepped aside as she sashayed out. Milvet tumbled after her, clanking his head, and a few other body parts, in his haste to hurry after her.

  “What is it about this place?” Rias asked when he and Tikaya were alone. “The people are randier than sailors pulling into port after six months at sea.”

  Amused by the entire exchange, Tikaya said, “Pleasant climate, beautiful scenery, and we eat a lot of oysters. They’re a known aphrodisiac.”

  Rias straightened the bed and picked up the coconut cups. “Perhaps allowing the gathering was inadvisable. I thought, though, that letting so many people onto the Freedom would convince observers that I have nothing to hide.”

  Tikaya’s amusement evaporated at this reminder of lurking spies. “Do you think it’s possible Milvet and his lady were only pretending to be amorously engaged and were, before we entered, in here with their ears pressed to the hatch?”

  “I don’t know. I made the hatches thick and watertight, in case there’s a need to seal off compartments. Come, let’s invite the revelers to move to the dock.”

  The music troupe had already decamped, and it didn’t take Rias long to usher the rest of the people off his ship. That didn’t begin to end the party, though. If anything the crowd had grown larger. Someone had rolled a rum barrel down the docks and was filling cups as quickly as the amber liquid flowed out of the bunghole.

  “Have a seat, my lady.” Rias gestured her to a bench on the deck.

  Tikaya imagined that once they were out on voyages together, she’d have to learn how to share all the duties, but Rias seemed content to have her seated while he hopped about like a cricket, handling all the departure preparations on his own. He smiled every time he passed her, reminding her of a youth getting ready to show off some prized project to his parents. A soft hum vibrated through the craft as the engine started up, much quieter than the rumbles of the ironclad warship on which Tikaya had been a prisoner.

  Rias appeared on deck again, untied the lines securing them to the dock, and hopped into the wheelhouse. Tikaya climbed up beside him. As the Freedom inched away from the dock, a cheer went up among the onlookers. Tikaya leaned into the shadows so she could watch those onlookers without being observed herself. While many people were clearly having fun, a few faces held more serious miens. Kyattese faces, she noted, not surprised but a little sad. One or two might be spies, but some were probably folks who simply loathed Turgonians and hoped Rias’s ship exploded on its maiden voyage.

  The thought sent an alarmed start through her. What if someone had booby-trapped the engine or energy supply? “Rias? Did you ever figure out what those nocturnal visitors did when they came aboard?”

  The grim look he gave her said he’d long since considered the question. “I hope they were just looking around. I hadn’t installed the energy supply at that point, but most of the engine was finished. I went over every inch of it and the rest of the ship, looking for signs of sabotage.” Rias lifted a polished bone swimming mask. “I even pretended to spear-fish in the harbor this morning, so I’d have an excuse to check the hull.”

  Tikaya relaxed an iota, but felt compelled to add, “There are ways one could sabotage a vessel using the mental sciences, possibly ways that wouldn’t be detectable to touch or the human eye.”

  “I feared as much and started the engine this afternoon, before people showed up, to make sure nothing untoward occurred. I wouldn’t want to endanger you if it could be helped. I almost didn’t invite you out for this.” He waved toward the mouth of the harbor.

  “I would have felt slighted if you’d invited my cousin to your party and not me.”

  “I thought as much. In regard to otherworldly sabotage, would you be able to detect it?”

  “I’m... not sure. I didn’t sense anything other than the energy supply during your tour, but it’s such a significant source of power that its field could overshadow lesser devices in the vicinity.”

  Rias turned the wheel to guide the craft around the last of the docks and angle it toward the sea beyond the harbor. “Could that be sabotaged? I have wondered at the wisdom of accepting such a significant piece of equipment from your ex-fiancé’s mother.”

  “Parkonis’s mom wouldn’t blow you up. She’s read your books.”

  “My what?”

  “Lieutenant Starcrest and the Savage Saboteur, among other titles. She seemed to have the whole collection.”

  “Those are here?”

  “Specially ordered. It seems Iweue is a fan.”

  “That’s.... unanticipated,” Rias said. “I did wonder how you convinced her to craft me such a powerful artifact.”

  “She expects a ride later. It definitely didn’t sound like she wanted to blow you up.” Tikaya scratched her chin. “She might blow me up if Parkonis moves back in with her, but that’s a concern for later.”

  “Hm.”

  Tikaya could no longer make out individual faces amidst the crowd on the dock, but the torches burning in the area pushed back the darkness, so she could see bodies turned in their direction, watching intently. Rias slipped something into her hand. A spyglass. For all his excitement over sharing this moment with her, his mind seemed to be running down the same railway track as hers.

  Tikaya leaned farther into the shadows and arranged the spyglass so she could skim over the revelers. She lingered on anyone watching the ship, especially those who seemed to be alone and who weren’t enthusiastically enjoying their rum. Near the back of the crowd, she spotted a familiar face.

  “I don’t suppose you invited High Minister Jikaymar?” Tikaya asked.

  “No.”

  “It seems he invited himself then.” Tikaya returned the spyglass. “Why don’t I take another tour of the vessel and see if I can sense anything?”

  “Good idea.”

  Tikaya hesitated, feeling she should remind him that, as someone who’d never trained in the Science, her senses were of limited use, but decided to wait and see if she discovered anything first. She climbed down to the cabin and started at the front, touching the bulkhead Rias had said hid the submarine navigation controls. From there, she worked her way back, trying to open her mind and stretch out her senses, the way she’d heard practitioners describe the act. All the while, she wished she’d thought to invite one of her more skilled family members, though, with locks mysteriously being fastened to attic doors behind her back, she didn’t know who to trust.

  A half hour passed while Tikaya checked every bulkhead, then moved into the engineering area and poked around the copious numbers of securely fastened potted plants. The energy source emitted light and power like a small sun. Reluctantly she admitted that if someone had tinkered with it, she’d never know. Lastly, she came up to the deck and leaned over the railing, getting as close to the propeller as she could without jumping into the water. She closed her eyes, trying to sense anything suspicious, but felt nothing more than the spray of the sea splashing her cheeks. They’d pulled out of the harbor and moved into more vigorous waters.

  “Anything?” Rias asked when she rejoined him in the wheelhouse.

  “Not that I could tell.”

  “At this point, we can disengage from the top and descend. Do you want to continue or wait for another night?”

  Tikaya eyed their surroundings. They’d headed east from the harbor mouth. Rocky hills hid the docks and the city from view, and the moonless night cast the Freedom in shadow. Thinking of the dark gray paint Rias had chosen, she decided they’d be nearly impossible to see out there, especially given the vessel’s low profile. Without masts or sails to be visible against a starry
horizon, observers would have trouble distinguishing them from the waves.

  Tikaya picked up the spyglass again. This time, she searched the dark hills. Here and there, a torch burned. People watching their craft? Or simply folks heading home after a day spent in town? Lush vegetation grew along the hilltops, and even with the spyglass, Tikaya couldn’t make out the details of the torch bearers.

  “I doubt they can see us,” Rias said, “but either way, they’ll continue to see the top of the vessel. I’ll drop its anchor before we detach. People should just think we’re out here canoodling.”

  “If the submarine doesn’t work, we can give that a try.”

  “Doesn’t work?”

  He sounded so affronted at the possibility that Tikaya had to laugh. A mechanical error would probably leave him far too consumed with troubleshooting to consider canoodling. “I mean due to sabotage, not because of any failing on your part.”

  Rias’s hmmph sounded vaguely mollified. He checked a couple of gauges on the console. “Are you ready? We’ll only go down a few meters and for a short time on this first run.”

  Tikaya lowered the spyglass and noticed a tremor in her hands. Nerves at the idea of diving into the ocean depths? Or from knowing she hadn’t been able to perform as thorough a check for booby traps as this deserved? “Ready,” she said, despite those nerves.

  Rias slipped a hand under a console, and something clacked. “Time to go below.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Tikaya and Rias entered the main cabin, and he shut the hatch behind them, spinning a wheel several rotations, his arm muscles flexing as he tightened it. In addition, he threw two heavy latches. A twinge of claustrophobic unease ran through Tikaya. Without access to the deck, the cabin suddenly felt tighter, the lights dimmer. Several clinks emanated from within the bulkheads, followed by a soft tremor and a last resounding thunk-clang.

  “Those noises are normal, right?” The hatch lacked a porthole, or Tikaya would have had her nose pressed to it to check the results.

  “Yes.”

  She touched the hatch. “Is this the only way out?” Given how much muscle he had thrown into tightening the wheel, she wondered how hard she’d find it to open on her own, should some emergency require her to do so. “What if there’s a leak and we have to escape quickly? A leak due to sabotage, that is.”

  Rias took a couple of steps, reached above his head, flipped a hidden switch, and slid aside a panel between two beams. An escape hatch, the other side of which must have been buried beneath the wheelhouse, was set into the hull. “If we’re at the surface, this won’t be underwater. We’ll enter and exit this way.”

  “And if we’re not at the surface?”

  “You’d flood the submarine if you tried to get out. Also water pressure is problematic to the human body below certain depths.”

  Problematic. As in instantly deadly. “Let’s hope for no leaks then.”

  Rias regarded her gravely. “Do you still want to go forward with this?”

  “Oh, yes. I just wanted to be aware of the options.” Or lack of options, Tikaya added to herself. Then, deciding she wasn’t showing enough enthusiasm for the adventure—and his new craft, smiled and said, “If we get bored in the confined space, there’s always that canoodling.”

  Rias returned the smile. “I doubt you’ll be bored. There’s a porthole in the science station as well as the navigation chamber, and lighting outside to illuminate our surroundings. You’re about to see the ocean in a way very few have. Perhaps no one in the world.”

  “Can glass withstand the pressures of water down... however deep we’re going.” She pointed in the direction of the ocean floor.

  “I wasn’t planning on skimming the bottoms of deep sea trenches in the Freedom—it’d take some of that black alien metal to withstand that kind of pressure—but there may be times when we want to drop a couple hundred meters to reach a wreck, and the hull should be able to handle that. As for the windows... Milvet arranged for the glass, and he claims a Maker enhanced it, but he couldn’t give me specifics as to how many PSI it could withhold. I would have preferred real glass, as formulas tell me what to expect. As is... I’ve made my best guess and factored in as much redundancy as possible.”

  Rias thumbed a hidden switch, and the forward bulkhead split vertically down the middle, each piece sliding away on a concave track. He fastened a couple of latches, securing them to the hull. In the bow, controls and instrument panels had come into view, along with two chairs mounted to the deck. One of the portholes he’d mentioned allowed a view of the black waters outside.

  “It’s going to be dark down there,” Tikaya said, then realized she was stating the obvious.

  “Yes.” Rias sat in the seat with the majority of the gauges and controls in front of it and flicked a few switches. “I want to wait until we’re beneath the surface before turning the lamps on. We don’t want to be visible to onlookers. We’re close enough to the top that you could use the periscope I installed if you want to check on the upper shell of our ship. We should have cleared it by now.”

  “It looks like you’ve planned for every contingency.”

  Rias paused and tilted his head thoughtfully. “There’s at least one thing I just realized I forgot. Allow me to apologize for that in advance. You didn’t drink much of that rum, did you?”

  “No... You didn’t forget to build a head, did you?”

  “It’s there. It folds out of the wall next to our cabin. But I might have forgotten to... stock it.”

  Tikaya smirked. “Well, it can’t be much worse than trying to find leaves on a frozen tundra in the Turgonian Northern Frontier.”

  “I was hoping I’d improve your life, not force you to reminisce about hard times. We won’t stay down long. I just want to see...” Rias flicked another switch, and a faint sound reached Tikaya’s ears—water gurgling? “Have a seat.” He gestured toward the other chair. “Water is filling the ballast tanks. We’ll start descending shortly.”

  Tikaya sat on the hard metal chair and promptly decided to suggest cushions as a later upgrade. She interlaced her fingers in her lap, crossed her legs, and tried to appear calm as she gazed through the viewport, waiting for the promised descent. The tightness of those interlaced fingers might have betrayed her nerves.

  “Five feet,” Rias said. “Ten.”

  At first, Tikaya didn’t notice a change. The floor didn’t tilt, nor was there any increased thrumming of the engines. The view of black water outside of the porthole remained the same as well—she imagined it’d be a much more intriguing view by day. Rias was watching a gauge—something like an altimeter? Except for depth? Tikaya leaned closer for a better look at the instrument panel.

  Rias flicked a switch and a soft bong echoed from somewhere. He tapped a nearby display. “This is a version of that echo ranging device I mentioned.”

  “That the young captain invented?”

  “Indeed so.”

  “For taking bathymetry readings of the ocean terrain?” Map-making practice shouldn’t prove necessary, as the waters in front of the harbor were well-documented—and traversed often enough that Tikaya doubted any legerdemain-practicing cartographers could have fudged the maps.

  “We could do that,” Rias said, “but I’m more concerned about not crashing into said terrain.”

  “Ah.” Good plan. That sole porthole didn’t offer much of a view. There was a reef that circled a good part of the island and who knew what else out there? Numerous ships had been wrecked during the war, and while some had been salvaged many of the deeper ones had been left to gather barnacles on the sea floor.

  “We’ve reached a depth of twenty meters.” Rias checked all of his gauges again and seemed satisfied by what they told him. The soft bongs continued. “The floor isn’t much farther down. I’m going to keep us at this depth. We’ll turn on the lamps, I’ll show you the science station, and we’ll—”

  A shudder ran through the craft.

  Tikaya gri
pped the edges of her seat. “Double check the readings to make sure we’re not running into things?” Her gaze latched onto the viewport, but darkness still reigned outside of it.

  “Hm.” Rias checked the gauges again. “We shouldn’t be.”

  Another shudder coursed through the Freedom.

  “Could there be a hiccup with the engines?” Tikaya asked.

  It was amazing how much indignation a former Turgonian marine could infuse into one quick glance. “I think something’s bumping us.”

  “We’d hear scraping sounds if it were a rock or a part of a wreck, wouldn’t we?” Tikaya asked.

  “I’d imagine so.” Right, it was his first submarine ride too.

  “Then what—wait, did you say something is bumping us? Not that we’re bumping something?”

  Rias lifted his hands from the controls. “I’ve stopped all forward and downward propulsion.”

  “The currents would move us some though, wouldn’t they? Maybe we’re snagged in seaweed.”

  “No. Something bumped us.” Rias flicked a new switch, one labeled lamp.

  For the first time, the darkness outside lessened. Tikaya left her chair and leaned her hands on either side of the viewport. From somewhere beneath the glass came a beam of yellowish light the same hue as Iweue’s energy source. It illuminated less of the water around them than she would have wished. They weren’t deep enough for her to see the sea floor, though a large coral nodule covered in colorful polyps rose at the edge of the light. She was surprised they’d traveled out far enough to reach the reef. Were they close enough that they might have hit a stray coral colony? That might account for the shudders.

  “See anything?” Rias asked.

  Tikaya pressed her face as close to the glass as her spectacles would allow.

  A snake-like appendage slapped the viewport.

  She shrieked and leaped away. Her leg caught on her chair and she fell backward, tumbling to the deck.

  “I’ll assume that means yes,” Rias said.

  From her back, propped on her elbows, one leg hung over the chair, Tikaya managed an inarticulate grunt and pointed at the viewpoint. Nothing was there.