World of Water (2 page)

“Three days...” said Dev.

“Three days,” Handler confirmed with a brief, despairing nod. “And there’s so much for you to do. So very much...”

2

D
EV DRESSED UNSTEADILY
in a booth. The clothes – tunic and leggings – were form-fitting, made from a fabric with a glossy texture and an iridescent gleam. The lining was soft and porous.

There was a mirror. With the usual trepidation, Dev studied his face.

His new face.

It was not dissimilar to Xavier Handler’s. High cheekbones, narrow jaw, pronounced lips. That waxy skin, which Handler had told him was less permeable than Terratypical skin and provided insulation against cold.

He tugged at the corner of one eyelid to expose a sliver of the membrane beneath. He tried to close the under-lids but they did not seem to respond to conscious command. It must work autonomically, responding to reflex rather than demand.

Next he examined the gills. Triple grooves, scored into either side of his neck. He probed one with a tentative finger, gingerly, as you might a wound.

His fingertip slid inside the flap. It was painless but odd, a bit creepy, a more intimate action than sticking a finger in your ear, say, or your mouth. The gill was a tight, fleshy,
personal
orifice.

He tried to flare the gills as Handler had done. Again, he couldn’t seem to do it. No matter how he tensed the musculature of his neck, they remained stubbornly shut.

This form was going to take more getting used to than most. Dev recalled telling the xeno-entomologist Trundell on Alighieri that he had yet to experience amphibiousness, but it was surely only a matter of time.

Looked as if the moment had finally come.

A knock at the door. “Mr Harmer? You decent?”

“Never.” As always, the voice issuing from Dev’s throat was unfamiliar: higher-pitched than any he’d had before, something of an oboe in its tone.

He exited the booth.

“Fabric coated with hydrophobic nano particles, right?” he said. “With a unidirectional absorbent lining to wick out stray moisture.”

“What the well-dressed ISS operative is wearing this season,” said Handler. “A drysuit that doubles as fashionable daywear.”

“It really rides up under the crotch.”

“It’ll loosen up with use.”

“Ugh.” A sudden wave of nauseating pain, worse than the normal post-installation hangover. Much worse. Dev clutched his head. “Got anything I can take for this? Feels like my skull’s full of lava.”

Handler fetched a sachet of edible analgesic gel, which Dev squirted gratefully down his throat. Relief was almost instantaneous.

“I’m used to a bit of grogginess and discomfort when I ’port in,” he said. “Goes with the territory. But this is something else.”

“I’m afraid it’s going to keep hurting,” the ISS liaison said, “and it’s not going to get any better. As the cellular breakdown continues, it’ll accelerate and become exponential. A snowball effect.”

“Joy.”

“Pain management is relatively easy, and I think I can also do something to retard the deterioration. Regular shots of stabilising nucleotides should hold the damage at bay.”

“Giving me longer than three days?”

“Unfortunately not. My estimate factored that in. Without the nucleotide shots, you’d be looking at more like two to three hours. A very messy two to three hours, at that.”

“So three days is a best-case scenario.”

“I’d say so.”

“Dose me up, then.”

Handler produced a microneedle-array patch with a sac containing 20 millilitres of a clear serum and applied it to Dev’s arm. A painless procedure – nanites bonded to the serum molecules, then perfused the liquid down through his skin into his bloodstream.

“Any idea how this happened?” Dev asked.

Handler’s shrug was apologetic. “Best guess? The hybridisation of two types of DNA isn’t an easy trick to pull off. Especially when we’re talking about genes from vastly differing species.”

“So I’m half human, half… fish?”

“Not quite. Triton has an indigenous, non-terrestrial population. Like me, you’re mostly human but with chromosomal attributes drawn from the native Tritonians.”

“Great. So I’m part alien.”

“If that’s how you choose to regard it. Before I submitted to alteration myself, I was told there was a chance the procedure might not ‘take.’ The odds were fifty-fifty. In my case it worked.”

“But in my case, it failed. I didn’t develop properly in the growth vat.”

“So the vat readout told me. You sound remarkably sanguine about it.”

“Hey, it’s Interstellar Security Solutions. Shit goes wrong all the time. I’m kind of used to it. Resigned, at any rate.”

Handler laughed. “It’s a huge corporation. Huge corporations aren’t known for the loving treatment of their employees.”

“Yeah, it’s almost as if they don’t care about us.”

Dev’s headache had almost entirely receded. He felt human again. Or rather, to be accurate, human and the other species that was mixed into his host form’s genome.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s get down to business. Robinson D, Triton, whatever it’s called. Where’s that again?”

“Ophiuchus constellation, as seen from Earth.”

“I know. You said. Care to be a little more specific?”

“Well, it’s right on the edge of the Border Wall. In fact…”

Handler held up a hand, fingers rigid and pointing straight ahead, to represent a wall.

“On this side,” he said, canting his head to the left, “Diasporan territory. On
this
side” – he bent to the right – “Polis Plus territory. Triton sits here.”

He lodged the forefinger of his other hand a fraction to the right of the hand he was holding out.

Dev let out a low whistle. “We’re over the wall?”

“Debatable. TerCon doesn’t think so.”

“I bet Polis Plus disagrees.”

“It’s on their back fence, that’s for sure. Maybe even in their back yard.”

“And it’s an ocean planet, yeah?”

“Originally an ice giant with a negligible atmosphere, until a slight shift in axial rotation – probably a reversal of the magnetic poles – triggered a warming, melting the ice. Now it’s water all over, hundreds of kilometres deep in places, and the atmosphere’s breathable.”

“I know how ocean planets are formed. Well, I do
now
. What kind of Diasporan presence is there?”

“Not significant. Forty thousand colonists, give or take. Also a couple of military bases.”

“Which the Plussers are no doubt delighted about. Oh, I’m going to have fun here.”

“It’s started well, hasn’t it?” said Handler wryly.

Dev had the feeling that this was someone he could bear to work with.

It was an opinion he would consider revising five minutes later, as they stood outdoors and Handler prepared to give him a crash course in amphibianism.

3

“T
HERE’S ONLY ONE
way to learn how to breathe underwater,” Handler told Dev. “The hard way.”

“And how does that go?”

“I drag you under and you figure out how not to drown.”

They were on a platform jutting out from the dome-shaped floating habitat. Waves lapped and slapped at the platform’s edge. Rolling, sun-brilliant sea stretched all the way to the horizon.

The habitat was one of a cluster of domes, all bobbing sedately on pontoons. The smallest of them, on the outskirts, were single-family dwellings. The nearer you got to the heart of the settlement, the larger the domes. The main central dome was a communal zone some 300 metres in radius, its surface a lattice of clear geodesic plates.

Footbridges linked the domes, constructed from hinged platforms that flexed with the rise and fall of the ocean swell. A couple of residents were walking across one now, negotiating motion with practised finesse.

Areas between the domes were filled with maricultural units – fish ranches, algae farms, phytoplankton cultivators. There was also a desalination plant, a tidal power barrage, and a marina where a variety of seagoing vessels were moored.

It was called Tangaroa, according to Handler. A mid-sized, modular-built township, one of several dozen Diasporan settlements distributed across Triton. Tangaroa was the Maori god of the oceans; Triton, a son of Poseidon in the Ancient Greek myths. Deity-derived place names were common all across the planet – something that was exceptionally rare in the Post-Enlightenment era. The first settlers of Robinson D had had an ironic and truculent sense of humour. They had known what a backwoods, boondocks world they were colonising, and had chosen their lexicon accordingly.

“So I can’t just dunk my head in the water and it’ll happen naturally?” Dev said.

“It might,” Handler replied, “but probably won’t. This is how my predecessor taught me. Sink or swim. Are you ready?”

“No.”

“Neither was I.”

Handler gave Dev a hefty shove between the shoulderblades, and Dev flew headlong off the platform, hitting the water with a spectacular bellyflop. He surfaced, spluttering, just as Handler executed an arrowing swan dive, entering the sea beside him with barely a splash.

Handler vanished beneath the waves. Dev, treading water, peered but couldn’t see him anymore.

A minute passed. Two.

Dev waited, braced for Handler’s reappearance.
Sink or swim
. Any moment, he expected to feel the ISS liaison’s hands fastening on his ankles, tugging him down. He took deep breaths in anticipation. He knew that he shouldn’t have to, but he wasn’t going to leave anything to chance.

There had been a problem with the host form’s assembly, after all. Those sustainability issues. What if the gills failed to function?

Handler burst up from the water right behind him, breaking at such speed that he almost completely cleared the waves.

As he fell back, he brought his hands down on Dev’s shoulders and plunged him under, amid a welter of bubbles.

Far under.

Metre after metre, Dev went down, Handler pushing him mercilessly.

Dev resisted. Couldn’t help it. He thrashed with arms and legs, struggling towards the surface.

But Handler had all the advantages. He was above him, pushing down with powerful frog kicks. He was in his element; Dev was not.

The rippling sunlight patterns above rapidly receded. The further away it got, the more desirable it seemed to Dev – and the more unattainable.

Panic set in. He fought it, but failed.

Ten metres down. Fifteen.

He needed to breathe. He needed to be free.

He punched at Handler’s wrists, but the ISS liaison’s grip was firm, inexorable.

The water darkened. The daylight dimmed.

Dev was convinced he was about to drown.

4

T
HEN SOMETHING INSIDE
him clicked. Some insight. Some instinct.

As though a door was opening in his mind.

Relax
, it seemed to say.
Go with it. It’s all right
.

These weren’t the feelings of a dying man accepting his fate.