Kiru shook her head, not understanding.
“And me?” she asked because that was something she might understand.
“You were with him, with John, James, which made you an accessory. You were also with the pirates. They made doubly sure with you, too.”
Kiru did understand, but it was the only thing she did.
“Want some more?” asked Eliot Ness, gesturing toward the table.
She looked down. All her food was gone. She’d eaten it without even noticing.
“No,” she said.
“Clear this away,” said Eliot Ness, as he stood up and slid his seat into the wall. “Strap yourself in and we’ll go into zero gravity. Landing time is fifteen minutes.”
First Earth, her native world; then Arazon, the prison planet; and now Kiru looked out across the surface of her third world, Caphmiaultrelvossmuaf.
Which was wet, as wet as could be. Almost the whole world was covered with water. It was also raining. The rain was pink, drizzling down from an orange sky into the sea. The red sea. The escape capsule had settled on a small atoll, and in the misty distance she could see several more islands. No, not islands, but buildings rising up above the waves.
Turning away from the hatch, Kiru glanced back into the capsule. After the brightness outside, it seemed dark within the cabin, and for a moment Eliot Ness was invisible. Then he stepped forward out of the gloom. He’d stripped off his symsuit and was wearing the same odd outfit in which she’d first seen him: loose dark trousers, long matching jacket, a white shirt, a narrow scarf around his neck. Presumably because of the rain, he was also wearing a hat with a brim. He carried a small black case, which was narrower at one end than the other and probably contained the proceeds of his robbery.
Kiru moved back so he could get by, and he climbed out of the hatch, his shiny black and white shoes touching down on to the red surface of the planet. Without a backward glance, he walked forward until he reached the edge of the water. Fully dressed, with his case in one hand, he stepped into the sea.
“What about me?” said Kiru.
“What about you?” asked Eliot Ness.
“I haven’t got a thing to wear.”
“It’s warm. You don’t need anything. You’re not a native, no one will notice. You’ll get by.”
Kiru watched him wade away through the shallows between the scarlet reefs.
She had come into her own world naked, and now she had arrived naked on an alien world.
Naked and alone. Again.
“Come on,” said Eliot Ness, beckoning to her.
“Me?”
“No, not you. All the hundreds of others in the capsule. Are you coming? Stay there if you want. This isn’t Arazon, Kiru. You’re not a convict here. You’re a free woman.”
If she was free, she didn’t have to do what Eliot Ness said. She could do exactly as she wanted. There were no more orders to obey. She was her own boss.
“Coming,” she said, and she jumped out through the exit.
The ground was soft and damp, and she flexed her toes, luxuriating in the feel of the non-earth. She inhaled deeply, breathing in the fresh, unrecycled air. The rain was so heavy that in under a minute she was soaking wet. She ran forward, enjoying the gentle pull of normal gravity, and dashed into the alien water. It was warm and wet, and who cared that it was red?
Kiru kicked and splashed, slipped and fell, sinking completely under the surface. When she sat up, spitting out a stream of salty water and shaking the drops from her hair, she almost laughed. Almost.
“Good to be alive, isn’t it?” said Eliot Ness.
He’d stopped and turned to face her. The sea was above his knees, but his trousers didn’t look wet, and the rain seemed to have no effect on his hat or his jacket.
“Yes,” said Kiru, “it is.”
“Then make the most of it.” Eliot Ness glanced toward the horizon. “It might not last.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
There was water everywhere.
Water in his mouth, his eyes, his ears, his nose. All over his body. It was horrible. All over his head. It was terrible. All over his hair. It was awful. All over his face. It was—gone…
If it was gone, it meant his head must be above the surface. Wayne Norton spat, coughing up a spluttering stream. His mouth was open, but no more lethal liquid forced its way in. Only air. He breathed in, in, deep, then coughed again, his throat knotting as he spewed up another torrent of water.
He gasped for air, breathed again, and was alive once more.
His eyes were stinging, but he opened them—and discovered he was covered with blood. He may have been alive, but not for long. Blood everywhere. All over him. All around him.
He was in an ocean of blood. Blood was dripping down on to him. It was raining blood. The whole world was red, from the palest of pink to the deepest crimson.
Norton was on his back, gazing up at the sky. The alien sky. The orange alien sky. From which the rain poured down like a shower of orange juice.
He was floating. But he couldn’t swim. His overall was keeping him afloat. He lay totally still, not daring to move in case he lost his equilibrium and slipped back down into the depths where the lifeboat had become a sunken wreck.
The overall had saved his life.
And Grawl had saved his life.
It hadn’t seemed like that at the time. The hand over Norton’s mouth hadn’t been to stop the scream getting out but to stop the water getting in. Then Grawl had pushed him through the hatch, and he’d shot up to the surface.
But where was Grawl?
“Grawl! Grawl!”
Norton turned his head, looking from side to side. The water was relatively calm, but he couldn’t see very far because he was so low down. At sea level.
“Grawl! Make a noise if you can hear me!”
Norton raised one arm above the surface, then brought it down with a splash. He closed his eyes and mouth as he did so, in case the ocean washed over his face. It didn’t, and so he lifted his arm even higher to make a louder splash.
“Like this!”
He watched the pink drops of water drip down his arm. His arm. His skin. Not the overall. He could see his bare arm. His outfit was gone. It must have dissolved in the water.
So what was keeping him afloat…?
Nothing.
As he slowly, carefully began to lower his right arm, he also pushed down with his left to balance himself. His hand sank below the surface, followed by his arm, then the rest of him—and he rolled over.
“Ahh… gug… gug… gug…”
Norton’s mouth filled with water again. This time he couldn’t spit it out because his head was under the surface. There was nothing but water, miles and miles of red water below him. He’d instinctively closed his eyes and was glad he couldn’t see it.
In a blind panic, he kicked his legs, thrashed his arms, desperately trying to stay afloat. But he was floating, he suddenly realised. He wasn’t sinking because he couldn’t sink. The alien water was very buoyant, and it was keeping him afloat.
Afloat but upside down.
By twisting his neck, he turned his face halfway above the waterline. He still couldn’t breathe because his mouth and nose were full of water, and he couldn’t spew it out because his neck was bent. Instead of coming up, the water went down his throat. He swallowed, coughed, swallowed, choked, sucked in a single gasp of air, then a wave broke over his face and his mouth was full of more water.
As he kicked and struggled, his head became submerged again. He wriggled and writhed, twisted and turned, and when he bobbed back up above the surface again his face was upward.