“Legit, yeah,” Martin snorted. “I can just see you pulling down a pay-chit.”
“Well, I have to admit that regular food, the money to buy clothes…” he said, eyeing Martin’s weather-beaten ensemble, “has a certain pleasure to it. Especially since the jobs so far have been… right up my alley.”
“I hate to think of the body count,” Martin said.
“Well, as it happens, I’ve currently got too many projects to handle on my own. So I’ve convinced my employer that I could find suitable… subordinates. Such as yourself.”
Martin eyed him for a moment, then shook his head.
“No. I don’t know what racket you’ve gotten yourself into, but I know I can’t trust you as far as I can throw this inn. I think I’ll just keep going my own way, thanks.”
“I’ll add,” Conner said, more or less ignoring him, “that the offer would include a pardon for any little offenses that you might have, accidentally I’m sure, committed against the caring government of New Destiny.” Conner smiled in an open and friendly manner. “Such as a certain merchant on the Setran road.”
“Who in the hell are you working for?” Martin asked, his eyes narrowing.
“Why, New Destiny of course,” Conner smiled. “Such a fresh and forward looking name, don’t you think. Do say yes, Martin, it would mean the world to you.”
Martin flexed his jaw and took another sip of wine, then nodded.
“Okay, what’s the job?”
“It seems that those rascals from the United Free States are getting concerned about a certain fleet that is building on the coast,” Conner said.
Martin just nodded; the movement of the Changed legions, and all the provisions to support them as well as the building of a fleet of ships, was impossible to miss anywhere within a hundred klicks of the ocean.
“They seem to think that the mer will do them some good,” Conner continued. “I’ve been tasked, among other things, with ensuring that the mer, one particular group of mer to be clear, don’t ally with the UFS. One way or another.”
“Where are they?”
“Well, that’s the nice part,” Brother Conner said. “It seems they’re located in the Isles off Flora. So you can look forward to a relaxing sea voyage and then a pleasant tropical vacation.”
“I’m not going to be able to do much about this by myself.” Martin frowned, but given the cold autumn rains outside, a tropical vacation sounded just about right.
“Of course not,” Conner snapped. “You’ll be… managing a group of orcas and a new breed of Change called ixchitl. You’ll be the control. I’ve a fleet of six ships that will take you to meet them and then carry you to the Isles. They’re some of the first completed and you’ll have Changed marines as well as their leaders under your command. Stop the alliance with the mer, wipe them out if you have to, and destroy the UFS group, and their ships, at the same time. Our information is that they’re sending a new type of ship, a ‘dragon-carrier.’ The dragons, wyverns actually, aren’t going to be a problem; they don’t have a way to attack the ships. Is all of this clear enough for you or do I have to write it down in words of one syllable?”
“No, that’s clear enough,” Martin said, looking at the shutter-covered windows beaten by rain. “When do I leave?”
CHAPTER FIVE
Jason coasted to a stop parallel and slightly above Bruce the Black who was observing a group of mer, men and women, repairing one of the fishing nets. The material available for the nets was horrible, a type of long seaweed, a green algae in reality, whose “stems” were soft and pliable. Braided it was marginally effective as a net unless someone tried to capture, as in this example, a school of dorado, which were some of the fastest fish in the sea.
But between the nets, and scavenging for crayfish and the sea plums, and the occasional large fish that hunters like Jason speared with bone-tipped harpoons, hunger was kept at bay. That was about all that could be said about the happy life of the mer-folk. Oh, and the Work went on.
“Representatives Freedom come,” Jason pulsed. The mer, unlike dolphins or other marine mammals, used gills and had no air available to create sonar. Instead they had a small bone, equivalent in basic design to those of the inner ear, located in the nasal passages in their forehead. They could send commands to the bone that pulsed their words and turned them into high frequency sonar. It was also adequate, barely, to maneuvering in zero visibility, be that in the dark or in a cave or even in light silt. And they could receive and process, to an extent, the sonar images created by the delphinoids, who had a much more advanced system. But for conversation, the mer relied on verbal shorthand.
“Destiny, too,” Bruce answered. The name “the Black” referred to a joke that had circulated early in his years as a mer. He had said that his real purpose was to find the treasure of an ancient pirate named Blackbeard and spent a fair amount of time in the search. He was anything but black. His skin was a nearly perfect white, his hair was blond and his tail-section was covered in golden scales. But someone had called him “Blackbeard” and it had stuck, even after he became one of the leaders of the Work, the apparently eternal project of putting the coral reefs back into a “prehuman” condition.
The Fall had set back the Work, beyond question. Even Bruce the Black had been forced to recognize that hunting and gathering on the reefs was a necessity, not a barbarous hobby. And sea plum, a human-generated weed for all intents and purposes, which had been ruthlessly pruned, was now tended with nearly the same care as mer-children. But the Work went on.
Bruce the Black had been one of the most notable members of the mer community and he had been an outspoken proponent of continuing the Work to the best of their ability. It had been taken up as an article of faith among the mer, that the Work was more important than any temporary squabble among the Powers-That-Be.
Sometimes Jason wondered if there might not be more to life than the Work. Such as, for example, trying not to get trampled by the oncoming war.
“Fight will,” Jason said.
“Fight/lose,” Bruce replied. “Always fight/lose. Neutral are. Neutral stay.”
“Freedom…” Jason replied.
“Destiny! Freedom! Fight/lose! Neutral stay!” The last was said with a blat of sound borrowed from the dolphins. In tonal shorthand it said “I’m the leader and you’re not and you will obey!”
Jason, however, recognized the undertone, that of a porpoise mother chastising her infant, and was less than happy about it. There was, however, not much that he could say in return.
“Freedom representative Talbot. Going am.”
“Where?” Bruce asked, finally turning to look at the younger mer.
“Hunt will,” he said with a contemptuous gesture at the nets. “Food need. Neutral stay.” With that he turned and gave a powerful flick of his tail, enough motion that the water assuredly washed over the older mer.
If Bruce took it as an insult, that wouldn’t bother Jason one bit. He was half tempted to pee in his wake.
Herzer turned down an offer to have dinner with Edmund and gravitated to the officers’ mess instead. For one credit chit he was served overcooked and oversalted roast beef, lumpy mashed potatoes with slightly burned gravy and greens cooked to mush. However, he consoled himself that it was better than monkey on a stick. He didn’t recognize any of the people in the mess, except occasionally by sight. He’d checked around and there were none of his class currently present, not that there had been many survivors. After dinner he drifted back to his room, uncertain about where to go or what to do. He could get all spiffied up and go to the O-club bar and get shit-faced, but that had little appeal. There were always some women hanging around and if he flashed his medals he’d probably get laid. But he liked to think that he was beyond that. He lay down on his bed and tucked his hand behind his head, and tapped his prosthetic in thought. He should have gone to dinner at Edmund’s. He’d barely said hello to Rachel and Daneh, who were two of his favorite people on earth. He should go to the bar; at least with a few belts in him he could probably sleep. The bottom line was that he had gotten so used to having something to do, constantly, that he didn’t know how to relax anymore.