She put her hand out to the machine. “I hope you will not have cause to regret this,” she said, smiling.
It gripped her hand gently. “Regret is for humans,” it said.
She laughed. “Really?”
The machine shrugged and let go of her hand. “Oh, no. It’s just something we tell ourselves.”
20 The Quiet Shore
Trees stood in dense, dark-massed profusion from mountain-top to tideline. The ocean lay flat, black and still against the silent shore as though it had fallen under the heavy green spell of the forest. A bird flew slowly across the water parallel with the land, like a pale sliver of the soft grey clouds cast out of the sky and searching for a way back.
Half a kilometre out from the fjord mouth, the surface of the ocean swirled and frothed, then swelled and spilled from three dark, bulbous shapes.
The tri-hull submarine surfaced and floated stationary for a moment, water streaming from its fins and stubby central tower. Then a series of dull clanging noises chimed out across the water and with a swirl of wash churning round its smooth black flanks the central section and starboard hull slid slowly astern, leaving the port hull floating alone and facing the shore.
When it had dropped just behind the single hull, the submarine went ahead again, using delicate surging pulses of power from its bow to snick its rounded snout into the hull’s stern. A great slow stream of water washed out behind the submarine as it drove quietly for the shore, pushing the hull ahead of it.
The leading hull grounded in the shallows of a small sandy beach on the southern edge of the fjord’s mouth, its hemispherical black nose rising as it pushed a broad bulging wave across the few metres of water towards the crescent’s pale slope. Surf washed up the beach and along the rocks on either side.
“I do hope you understand; I have of course given much thought to this, but in the end I have the safety of my ship and crew to consider. Of course this is covered in our contract-”
“Of course.”
“- but it really would be asking for trouble to take you any further in. The fjord is quite deep-though there are underwater ridges in places according to our deep scan-but it’s just so narrow; a boat this size just wouldn’t be able to manoeuvre at all. With the obvious danger of hostile action, it would be foolhardy to venture further. As I say, I have my crew to think about. Now, if I could just have your signature… I mean, many of them have families…”
“Indeed.”
“I’m so glad you understand. Our underwriters have been blowing very cool in this last financial year, I can tell you, and even switching the log-graph off is going to make them suspicious. You can turn that trick only so many times, believe me. Ah… here and here…”
The captain held his clipboard up for her to sign the release papers. She took off one glove, picked up the stylo and scribbled her name. She was dressed in insulated combat fatigues and knee boots; a warm, ballisticised fur cap covered her head, the ear-pads clipped up. She and the captain were standing on deck near the bow of the grounded port hull; its single hemi-door had swung open and a ramp had been extended from the interior to the shallows. The first of the two big six-wheel All-Terrain trucks fired into life and rumbled slowly out of the hull, down the ramp, through the water and up onto the white-sand beach. The deck beneath them shifted as the vehicle’s weight was transferred from hull to land.
The AT’s grey and green camouflage flickered uncertainly for a few moments as it adjusted, then settled to a suitably nondescript set of interleaved shades that exactly matched the colour of the sand and the shadows under the trees. A heavy stub-nosed cannon sat stowed above one of the two cab hatches.
The captain turned over a couple of pages. “And here and here, please,” he said. He shook his head and made a clicking noise with his tongue. “If only the fjord was a little wider!” He stared concernedly at the mouth of the fjord, as though willing the ridge-straked slopes of the mountains to draw back from the dark waters. He sighed, his breath smoking in the cold, still air.
“Yes, well,” Sharrow said.
The second All-Terrain lumbered out of the front hull section and onto the beach, making the hull bob again. Zefla waved from one of the vehicle’s roof hatches.
“And one last one here…” the captain said, folding the flimsies back over the clipboard. Sharrow signed again.
“There,” she said.
“Thank you, Lady Sharrow,” the captain said, smiling. He put his gloves back on and bowed deeply. The sunglasses he hadn’t needed when they’d surfaced fell out of a pocket in his quilted jacket. He stooped to retrieve them, his gloves making the operation difficult.
He straightened to find her smiling bleakly at him, holding her hand out. He stuck the sunglasses in his mouth, the clipboard under his armpit and took one glove off again. He shook her hand. “A pleasure, Lady Sharrow,” he told her. “And let me wish you all the best in…” his gaze flicked round the quiet forests and the tall mountains, “… whatever you may be undertaking.”
“Thank you.”
“Well, see you in four days’ time, unless we hear from you,” he said, grinning.
“Right,” she said, turning away. “Until then.”
“Good hunting!” he called.
Sharrow made her way down a thin, metal ladder to the hull’s interior, where the sub’s deck crew were getting ready to retract the ramp and close the door again; she checked there was nothing left behind, then walked down the ramp to the shore, her boots sinking into the sand.
Just as she turned to look back at the gaping round mouth of the hull, a white jet of steam flew up into the air behind it from the submarine’s conning tower. The shriek of the vessel’s emergency siren shook the air above the beach, then cut off as the white feather of the steam plume stood, just beginning to drift in the air. The men in the mouth of the opened hull section froze. A voice boomed out above them; the captain’s, breathless and panicky. “Air alert!” he shouted through the speakers. “Aircraft coming! Repeat; aircraft approaching! Abandon the hulls! Scuttle both!”
“Shit!” Sharrow said, spinning on her heel.
The men in the hull swarmed up the ladder to the deck; Sharrow clambered into the cab of the second AT. Zefla was standing on her seat, head and torso out of the hatch above, watching the seaward skies through a pair of high-power field-glasses. Feril was at the vehicle’s wheel, poised and delicate amongst the AT’s chunkily business-like controls.
“Fucking hell,” Miz’s voice said over the Comm, “that was quick. Thought they didn’t bother much with the surv-sats these days.”
“Maybe we were misinformed,” Sharrow said, glancing at the android as the AT in front sprayed sand from its six big tyres and lumbered up the beach for the rocks bordering the saplings and grass at the edge of the forest. “Follow MIZ,” she told Feril. The android nodded and slipped the vehicle into Drive.
The truck lurched forward, following the leading AT towards the trees. Sharrow looked back through the side window to watch the last few crewmen jump from the sub’s beached section to the main hull, then saw the water froth round the rear of the fat boat as the vessel abandoned both hulls and powered astern, surrounding itself with foam. The small figures sprinted along the hull and disappeared down a hatch, swinging it shut. The submarine surged back through its own wake, starting to turn and submerge at the same time; the grounded hull section bobbed in the wash while the jettisoned starboard hull rolled back and forward, gently rising and falling in the waves.
“There’s no fucking way into these trees!” Miz yelled.
“Then make one,” Sharrow told him.