World of Water (40 page)

59

M
ILGROM SIDLED UP
to him.

“This isn’t going to be easy for me to say...” she began.

“Then I’m going to relish it all the more,” Dev said.

“Yeah, well, screw it. You needn’t have done what you did back there at the
Winterbrook
, when it was going down.”

“No, I did. Nobody else could have. Except maybe Handler. So, nobody else.”

“Yeah. Useless limp-dick fuck, that guy. I saw the way he pushed past Francis, trying to get out.”

“Sorry about the shoulder, though.”

Milgrom flexed the joint, which had been sprayed over with healant-impregnated synthetic skin. “Nano-surgeons are knitting up the damaged tissue, and artificial endorphins are doing the rest. It’s cool. I’m just trying to say I’m in your debt – and I fucking hate that.”

“Being in someone’s debt? Or mine in particular?”

“Both.”

“Tell you what,” Dev said. “We’re quits if you give me a couple of the protein bars you Marines have all got stashed in your emergency ration pouches. I’m famished.”

“Deal.”

T
HE COUNTDOWN TIMER
stood at:

03:51:08

So far, the Ice King had confined itself to prowling around Mazu, nothing more. Every so often Blunt or Milgrom would risk their hoverdrones to the storm and confirm that it was still inspecting the township’s outskirts. Fakhouri had established a closed-loop link between everyone’s commplants, converting Mazu’s principal satellite uplink into a local-network relay hub. They could communicate remotely with one another, just not with the wider world.

Dev felt better almost straight away after wolfing down the protein bars. Hunger and tiredness were what had been making him cranky and unreasonable – not, as Handler had glibly tried to convince him, intracranial bleeding. Once again, the ISS liaison had been trying to pull a fast one.

Dev still couldn’t figure out what Handler’s agenda was. What did he stand to gain by making Dev less efficient at his job? Who did it benefit? Not Handler himself. Polis+? The insurgency? Who?

It was maddening. Behind the scenes, Dev knew, someone was pulling strings. The trouble with fighting an alien enemy who could hide within people, who could pass for human, was that they could be anyone, anywhere. You could never be sure who to mistrust.

“Okay,” said Milgrom. “Looks like the Ice King might be thinking about ditching us.”

“Who’s nearest it right now?” said Sigursdottir.

“Blunt.”

Via commplant, Sigursdottir instructed Blunt to open fire. From Mazu’s northern end came the sound of gunshots.

Did you score a hit?

Blunt confirmed that she had. The Ice King was suddenly interested in that corner of the township.

Then move, Marine! Get out of there!

There was a cacophony of destruction. Blunt had been positioned at Mazu’s tidal barrages. They now succumbed to the Ice King’s pounding claws.

Blunt? Private Blunt? Are you all right? Do you copy?

Blunt’s voice came over the shared link eventually.

I made it out. Skin of my teeth. Ice King’s made quite a mess of things.

03:27:52

The Ice King became curious about a series of small fires that Reyes and Cully had set on the artificial beach on Mazu’s south side. It seemed entranced at first, then it exploded with rage and smashed up both the beach and the adjacent promenade.

03:05:03

The Ice King revisited the ruined marina and began probing there. Something had lured it: the sound of a human voice, shouting and yelling. Fakhouri had rigged up the loudspeakers from a nightclub with a microwave receiver and was transmitting to them from her commplant. The noise fascinated the Ice King until it realised it had been hoodwinked. Then, in what looked like a fit of pique, it demolished not only the speakers and what was left of the marina but a nearby warehouse dome as well.

02:41:14

Some high-ex grenades lobbed into the water by Milgrom from Mazu’s main algae farm brought the Ice King bursting clear of the sea. Milgrom, executing a series of huge augmented leaps from growth bed to growth bed, just managed to get away with her life. The algae farm was a write-off.

02:33:20

Blunt struck again, loosing off a salvo of ultra-velocity coilgun rifle rounds from a vantage point on top of one of Mazu’s taller domes. She aimed for the Ice King’s face with sniper accuracy, and got its attention. She slid down the dome and jumped for safety an instant before a giant pincer crashed upward from underneath, spearing the dome and wrenching it down into the sea.

02:11:10

Reyes and Cully set another fire, a large blaze this time that engulfed an entire residential dome within minutes. The Ice King gave it short shrift. In a show of contempt, it flattened the dome with a heavy stroke of one pincer.

“Let’s tally up what we’ve achieved so far,” said Sigursdottir as the Marines and Dev gathered outside Mazu’s main central dome. There were almost exactly two hours left until the
Astounding
was due.

“We’ve lost about a quarter of the township,” said Milgrom.

“We’ve had a fair few close shaves,” said Blunt.

“But we’re still alive, all of us,” said Sigursdottir, “and Mazu’s still afloat and the Ice King’s still here. That’s a win in my book.”

“But we’re only halfway to the
Astounding
’s ETA,” said Fakhouri. “The Ice King could decide to wander off at any time.”

“Or decide to trash the place completely,” said Reyes, “and us with it.”

“The trick is to make sure it stays curious but doesn’t get bored or frustrated,” said Dev. “A fine line, and so far you’ve walked it. But we need something more. Something else.”

“Ideas?” said Sigursdottir.

“A vague one.”

“You work on that, Harmer. Meanwhile, we’ll carry on as we have been.”

The syzygy storm began to abate. The rain was marginally less torrential, the winds now gale force only, screeching somewhat less deafeningly than before. The storm still seemed to have a few more hours left in it, but a peak had been reached and passed.

Dev hopped the rail of a footbridge and went looking for Ethel below.

He stayed in the shadow of Mazu, casting a watchful eye around him, making sure he knew where the Ice King was at all times. The township clanked and creaked and groaned overhead. He swam through clumps of wreckage and detritus, including a miasma of mucus-green sludge from the disintegrated algae farm.

The search seemed fruitless. He presumed Ethel had quit the area, and he wouldn’t have blamed her if she had. Mazu was not a safe place to be, as long as the Ice King was loitering around.

It even crossed his mind that the Ice King might have caught and eaten the manta sub and its two occupants. The Marines had been keeping it busy with their diversions and their harrying attacks, but there’d been periods when the monster had submerged out of sight and its whereabouts had been unclear. Maybe during one of these intervals Ethel had unwarily strayed into its path.

He rejected the idea. She was too canny to allow that to happen.

He came across the manta sub almost without realising. It was using Mazu for cover, hiding right up under the base of one of the domes, next to an anchor column, dark amid darkness. Ethel spotted him and beamed a greeting, a flicker of warm welcome brightness like a lighthouse on a cloudy night.

You’ve stuck around,
he said through the cockpit’s corneal membrane.

I told you. I want to see the Ice King get its comeuppance.

Dev outlined the methods the Marines were using to ensure the Ice King stayed put.

Sounds dangerous,
Ethel said.
Can they manage it much longer?

If they don’t, it won’t be for lack of trying. I’m wondering if you’d be willing to draw the Ice King back here if it decides it’s had enough and leaves. I know that’s a lot to ask, but...

I can do my best. The manta’s worn out. I’m not sure how much more I can ask from it today. Another sprint might kill it.

The kid chipped in.
We could fetch help. Reinforcements.

Who?
said Dev.
Who do you have in mind?

People. Anyone in the region. Seems to me a single manta sub isn’t much compared to the Ice King, but if there are dozens of subs, hundreds of them...

Ethel looked at the kid, and there was no hiding the surprise she was feeling, or how impressed she was.

How quickly could you gather these reinforcements?
Dev asked.
Where would you find them?

I don’t know. Depends. Back where the drift cluster was destroyed would be a good place to start looking.

Then what are you waiting for?

Ethel turned back to Dev.
It may not be enough. I can’t guarantee we’ll return with anyone at all.

Frankly I’d prefer it if you weren’t here anyway,
he said.
In case things go belly up and the Ice King pummels the entire township to pieces. Don’t want you getting caught up in that.

Noble of you, but I can take care of myself.

I know. It just had to be said.

Good luck, ungilled. Survive this if you can.

You too. Both of you.

The manta sub pivoted about and winged downward. Just when it was almost too deep to be seen, it levelled out and began swimming horizontally, on a course that would take it back towards Opochtli.

It was a slim hope that Ethel and the kid would find Tritonians willing and able to pitch in and help. Even the faint prospect of backup, though, beat the thought of having none whatsoever.

60

T
HE
I
CE
K
ING
whittled away at Mazu, responding to each and every provocation the Marines threw at it.

Soon the township was pitted with gaps where domes had stood, and dotted with charred, smouldering wreckage. It was like an organ that had turned cancerous, riddled and rotten.

The Marines ran, goaded, evaded, ran again, sometimes singly, sometimes in pairs. Sigursdottir orchestrated the sorties, reacting to airborne reconnaissance intel offered by either Milgrom or Blunt.

The Ice King didn’t appear to tire, but the law of diminishing returns set in. More and more dramatic stunts were required from the Marines to spark retaliation from the gargantuan crab. It was growing wise to their ruses.

Then, perhaps inevitably, the Marines started taking casualties.

Fakhouri was the first.

No one could be quite sure what happened to her. No one saw. Fakhouri was on her own, hatching some new scheme for attracting the Ice King’s attention. There were spurts of gunfire, followed by a scream that was cut short.

Fakhouri!

“Fakhouri!”

The other Marines called for her, both aloud and via commplant. She didn’t answer.

“Fuck,” said Milgrom eloquently. “Fuck the fucking fucker.”

At Fakhouri’s last known position they found a footbridge broken in two, and blood. Blood on the bridge. Blood in the water. Much too much blood.

Reyes was next. She and Cully had been dispatched to set up a perimeter around the largest remaining intact section of the township, a pair of medium-sized apartment domes. Sigursdottir intended to use this area as a last refuge, a redoubt they could retreat to if – more likely
when
– Mazu became dangerously unstable. Explosive charges could be remote detonated to sever the section’s ties to the rest of the township and isolate it. That way, should Mazu sink, it wouldn’t drag this makeshift life raft down with it.

Reyes was underwater, attaching one set of charges to the end of a footbridge. Cully was on lookout duty. Both she and Reyes had an amplified lung capacity and an enhanced oxygen capture efficiency rate. They could hold their breath for three minutes with little difficulty.

Reyes was due to come up for air when Cully noticed that the sea had taken on a strange, unnatural texture. It had developed a kind of turbid smoothness, like a saucepan of water on a rolling boil.

An immense shape passed below. Cully saw the reddish-brown of the Ice King’s carapace. It was so close she could make out the bumps and craters that covered it, like the surface of some uncolonised desert planet.

Then it was gone, and she waited for Reyes to show her face. She gave her a full minute, knowing that, in emergency, Reyes was just about capable of staying submerged for that extra length of time.

Then she dived in.

Reyes was easy to find.

At least, half of Reyes was.

She was clinging to the underside of the footbridge, arms hooked over the support braces.