Tides of Maritinia (20 page)

I asked Pol.

I once beat the Empire all by myself. I risk-­ed my life and the lives of my family to defeat them. Me. I show-­ed them exactly what one righ­teous man could do in the face of unthinkable power.

One man? Clearly, the erasure of Kell's role in history was already under way. I looked to see Sali's reaction, but she didn't meet my eyes. Her gaze was aimed upward, as if she were trying to spot the ships in orbit.

One man cannot stop them. Not this time. But one world can. One world unite-­ed in a common cause. One world embolden-­ed by the taste of freedom. This is Free Maritinia. And it will remain free.

If you love freedom, you will fight. If you love your ­people, you will fight. Look to your sister and your brother. Look to your son or daughter. And if you find love in your heart, you must fight.

Fight, and you commit an act of love. Sit idle, and you watch your babies drown.

The voice went silent for long seconds. Then another voice took its place, the timbre fluid as silk sliding across skin. Mmirehl said,
Fighters report to the closest water-­purification plant. Fighters report to the closest water-­purification plant. Fighters report. . .

A holler sounded from somewhere far off. Then another, this one close by, a lonesome-­sounding howl followed by shattering glass. Soon the air was thrumming with war cries. The primal forces struck a chord up my spine, and the resulting reverberations gradually harmonized with the war cries until my nerves sang the same eerie tune.

Swept up like a leaf in gusting wind, I was ready to fight the Empire myself. But the Empire wasn't in orbit.

Nobody was.

 

CHAPTER 26

“I shhould've knownn.”

–
J
AKOB
B
R
YCE

I
rolled onto my side, and with one eye pressed into my pillow, I lifted the other eyelid to take a peek at the window before quickly closing it like a reverse wink. Dawn was almost here, the charred black of the night sky finally giving way to an ashy gray.

After the party, I'd easily fallen asleep, but it hadn't lasted. The sound of a crab scrabbling across the floor had woken me, and unable to shake the fear of its pincers plucking out my eyes, I'd lain awake the rest of the night, passing the hours by secretly writing in my journal.

Finished for now, I silently tucked the comm unit into the pocket of the pants heaped next to the sleeping mat. Then, for Pol's benefit, I feigned my usual wakeup routine by scattering a few slow blinks before rubbing my eyes.

I almost responded with the truth that I had every intention of seeing the admiral's army for myself. But I held the words back from traveling between our two minds. I didn't want Pol to think I was his to boss around anymore. It was time to start establishing my independence.

I paused like I was mulling it over.

Satisfied to have won the assurance, I sat up and looked at Sali. She didn't stir. Her eyes were closed below bunched brows, her upper lip twitching at a dream. Wherever she was, I wished I could join her.

She and I didn't have much time left. I didn't want to leave her behind when I went home. She just might love me. Me. Jakob.

She'd faced down her father to save me from the lamprey. That had to mean she cared for me, didn't it?

I remembered the coldness when I first met her. The stern looks and knifelike tongue. Yes, we'd had sex the morning we met, but that was an act of hunger. An act absent tenderness and emotion.

At the time, she'd thought I was Kell. But she'd learned to see the real me underneath. She'd said as much when she told me it was like I'd become a different person. That was when her attitude started to soften. When her kisses became more about love than need.

I didn't have to lose her three weeks from now. I could tell her the truth. I could tell her who I was and how much she meant to me. I could take her home with me.

I could.

I no longer saw any reason to hide my feelings. My mission was over.

Reluctant to let the argument drop, but curious myself, I gathered my uniform and walked downstairs to dress. After a short trip to the bathroom to wash my face and drain myself of last night's wine, I stepped outside.

Mnoba and Mmuro were still on duty. Surprised, I asked why nobody had come to relieve them last night.

Mnoba shook a fatigued head. “The captain must've forgotten about us.”

“He must be too busy organizing the defense,” said Mmuro.

I strode past them. “Let's take a walk.” I didn't know exactly where the closest water-­purification plant was, but it had to be south of here, near the waterwheels.

With my guards lagging a few paces behind, I ambled slowly down the streets, the buildings occasionally parting to afford us a view of the sun birthing on the horizon. I stopped to buy Mnoba and Mmuro dollops of fish eggs wrapped in kelp leaves. Even balls and chains needed to eat.

Speakers crackled, and we simultaneously turned our heads toward the skyscreens. Footage of last night's short speech ran forward, the admiral's words making a repeat call to arms. For the first time, I saw the picture of the ships in orbit, three of them, long and flat like floating warehouses.

said Pol.

Looking at the screen, Mmuro tut-­tutted and shook his head, while Mnoba chewed his food with eyes locked in a persistent glare. I was about to ask their opinions, but my attention was drawn by a large group of Jebyl teenagers crossing in front of us. The boys marched with their chins held high and proud. Volunteers for the cause.

Realizing they were going the same place I was, I followed them through a tented glass market, early-­bird hawkers setting bowls and bottles on display. Exiting from under the tarps, I looked up to see a series of capillary-­like sluices converging into broad arteries. Following the largest channel for a way, I saw the first waterwheel, its topmost buckets reaching above the rooftops.

The air grew dense with the pungent smell of mammoth dung, and turning a corner, we found ourselves at the base of the wheel, one of several spread across an open square. Rings of yoked mammoths trod in circles, turning massive stone gears that cranked the waterwheels around.

I stopped for a moment to watch the woolly beasts work. With each determined step, powerful shoulders bulled unrelentingly forward. Feet shaped like the barrels of cannons tracked around furrows worn deep in the stone. Amazing what they could do. Even more amazing that the ­people on this world thought land-­based animals such as these could be native to this world of water. Gifts of Falal according to the Falali Mother.

Buckets almost large enough to be called tubs hung from the wheel. At the bottom of the rotation, the leaky buckets sipped from a broad pool of freshwater, and at the top, the buckets poured onto raised sluices with hardly a splash. Some of the workmen recognized me and stopped to kneel, while those oblivious to my presence kept driving the animals along their circular paths.

I made for an opening in the city's floor, a wide set of stairs leading down to the ocean below. My guards and I started down, the memory of the last time I'd been under the city platform fresh in my mind—­on Beleaux's boat, seeking Kell's trash chute.

I stuck to the center of the staircase, shaded ocean undulating to my left and right. In every direction, support columns reached up like tree trunks in a uniformly spaced forest. Connected by a network of branching arches, the stanchions were topped by the city's massive canopy of stone slabs.

The stairs bottomed out just a few feet above the water level, and I stepped onto a long strip of land. Except it wasn't dirt crunching under my boots. It was crystallized salt. A sprawling salt island sat at the end of the white road. Sandwiched horizontally between the island and the city platform was a large, walled structure with a crowd gathered outside.

Mnoba steered in close enough to bump my shoulder. “Where are you going, sir?”

“Wherever I want.”

He put a hand on the firerod slung across his chest, a subtle reminder that he was in charge. “I'll ask you again. Where exactly are you going?”

I stopped to face him. “I'm going inside the desalinization plant. I want to see what's going on in there.”

“Don't think of trying to lose us in that crowd, I'll—­”

I didn't let him finish. “You want to hold my hand?”

An extended stare eventually terminated with a single word. “Proceed.”

We entered the crowd, the three of us plowing forward in a tight wedge. We forced through the group of teens I'd seen earlier and slowly made our way to the front, where a line of armed black sashes guarded the entrance.

A press of ­people pushed from behind, prompting one of the soldiers to stand on a stool and shout at the impatient crowd. “Wait your turn! There's no more room inside.”

I marched straight through the line of black sashes. Nobody tried to stop me. Inside, I found a hot, thick, impassable mass of ­people squeezed elbow to elbow.

“This way,” said Mmuro, pointing at a guarded set of interior stairs to the right. “You can get a good view of the plant standing on the wall.”

I followed Mmuro up a spiraling staircase that emptied onto a walkway atop the wall. Uniformed soldiers and black sashes hustled about, many carrying crates, possibly the same crates I'd seen being unloaded onto the quay last night.

One of the admiral's lieutenants stepped up to me. Doko was his name. “What in Falal's name are you doing here?”

“I came to observe.”

“Oh, you want to watch, do you?” His tone was downright accusatory, but I couldn't fathom why.

“I do want to watch,” I said with halting uncertainty. “Why shouldn't I?”

He angled his head forward, his eyes hooded in shadow. “You don't know, do you?”

“What are your orders?”

“I can't be seen talking to you.” He waved me away.

“What are your orders? What is the admiral planning?” With each word, my voice rose in volume.

The lieutenant turned his back on me, his gaze now aimed at the mass of ­people crammed into the cistern below. At least a thousand of them stood in hip-­high water, staring upward, the sea of expectant faces lit by sunbeams angling through dozens of openings in the city platform overhead.

“What are your orders, damn you!”

Alarmed by my aggressive tone, black sashes rushed to protect the lieutenant. With puffed chests and harsh shouts, they ordered me to move along.

I stood on tiptoe to see over their heads. “What are your orders, dammit!”

Mnoba grabbed me by the elbow and pulled until I had to move my feet to maintain my balance. “Come, Colonel. You mustn't be disruptive.”

“What is he going to do?”

“Please, come. You're putting all three of us in danger.”

Letting Mnoba usher me away, the fear in his voice enough to get me moving, I struggled to figure out what the admiral had planned. I took frustrated footsteps, my cluttered mind trying to sort out his intentions.

Eyeing an uncrowded spot a ways down the wall, I jerked my elbow from Mnoba's grasp and marched to the bamboo railing. The waterwheels on the far side of the cistern had stopped turning, and a train of mammoths were cutting a path through the crowd just wide enough to make it out of the pool before going out the back exit.

Looking straight down, I saw water pour from spouts protruding from the wall. The spouts ran all the way around the rectangular cistern, ­people taking turns sipping from the chest-­high streams of freshly desalinized water.

Under my boots was a closed bamboo trapdoor. Peering through the slats, my eyes traced a dim beam of light to a patch of glistening skin the color of raw chicken.

A salt gland. Large as horses, the kidneylike organs were inventions of the Empire. Acting as filters, the glands provided Maritinians with a constant source of potable water. Lined up in dark chambers like the one under my feet, the glands ran all the way around the cistern's perimeter.

A pair of eyes moved into the light. Startled, I jumped back. Then the man smiled and lifted a glowgrub so I could see him more clearly. Standing ankle deep in a pool of soupy excretions, the Jebyl man touched his heart. After I echoed the gesture, he went to work scooping salty slurry down a chute that emptied into the ocean.

Turning my attention back on the pool, I watched a line of soldiers slosh and jostle through the crowd. A pair of them passed directly below me, their mission evidently to pick out certain members of the crowd and herd them toward the exits. A recently selected Kwuba man protested but complied, his voice momentarily rising above the din to complain that he wanted to fight the Empire.

said Pol.

I scanned the exits and saw he was right. Only the Kwuba were being culled and herded out. I asked myself why, but was incapable of summoning the answer. So I continued to stand there like the fool I was, my face knotted in concentration like a child staring at a difficult math problem.

I couldn't see the solution. Not until it had already happened.