The war against Earth had been intense, furious, a new turning point every day, whereas this spat with the Yagizba Enclaves was only slightly more interesting than the fish prices. Specific incidents were barely reported, just the steady drumbeat of “We’re at war and we’ll win after a while” in the news reports. Either the news was deliberately skipping many stories, or the figures Kane had showed her was a lie. She frowned hard enough to close her eyes. They were all such liars. Who could tell?
The yoke felt reassuring under her hand. Uncle Lukyan had sailed thousands upon thousands of kilometres in that very seat. She wished he was here so badly she could feel her heart clench, her eyes moisten. He’d know what to do. He’d trusted Kane, at least a little, but then he’d died. Was that Kane’s fault? Yes, but not directly. Kane hadn’t planned it, but then Kane hadn’t planned anything. Yes, he had, just a few things, and those had worked. Mostly. But people had died.
Katya wished the smooth, non-reflective bubble was just a little bit closer to the pilot’s position. Then she would be able to lean forward, and bang her head repeatedly against it.
So mired in internal debate and self-loathing was she, that it took a minute or two before the shouting filtered through to her consciousness. Glad to be offered some distraction from her troubles, she climbed out of her seat and walked back to the open hatch.
Out on the alley that joined the minisub pens, an argument was going on. No, Katya realised, not an argument. It was far too one-sided for that.
Two pen hatches down from her, a federal officer, a lieutenant, was shouting in the face of a small, plump man, bearded and bald. Katya recognised Filipp Shurygin, a trader who used the same model of boat as hers. Her uncle had known him for years, counted him as a friend, but then Shurygin had shifted his base of operations to take advantage of the trade in high tech items from the Enclaves and they hadn’t seen him very often after that. Still, he was a nice man from what she could recall, and Lukyan had often said Shurygin was the most methodical of the sole traders, envious of the little man’s reputation for never running awry in the dark waters of the Federal bureaucracy. It seemed odd that the officer was so furious with him over what seemed to be a problem with his papers.
“How could you not know about the packaging directive?” demanded the lieutenant, bellowing in Shurygin’s face. “It’s been nothing but the packaging directive all damn morning! How could you not know? How could you not know?”
Packaging directive? Katya had no idea what he was talking about. Behind the lieutenant stood a corporal. Katya could see that he was possibly more confused than she was.
“I’m sorry, lieutenant,” said Shurygin in a small voice. “I hadn’t been told. I’ll comply immediately, of course.”
“All morning!” shouted the lieutenant. Spittle flew from his lips and onto Shurygin. He flinched, which just seemed to make the officer angrier still. “Five times this morning I’ve been told to enforce this blasted directive and the very first, the very first piece of scum I check, hasn’t even heard of it. How is that possible?”
The corporal risked speaking. “Sir, I…”
His superior spun on his heel and roared “SHUT UP!” in his face.
“This morning, sir?” said Shurygin. “I’ve… I’ve been at sea for the last forty hours. I wouldn’t have heard…”
“Been at sea?” The lieutenant said it as if this was very suspicious behaviour for a submarine pilot. He checked his pad. “You’re based out of Tartessos, it says here.”
Shurygin nodded.
There was something about the officer’s stance that bothered Katya. He was leaning forward a little, his shoulders bowed, breathing heavily through his partially open mouth. He looked ill.
“I understand,” said the lieutenant. “I understand how you don’t know about the packaging directive. I understand now.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Shurygin. “I’m sorry about the misunderstanding. I’ll comply as soon…”
“Tartessos is close to Yagizban waters,” the lieutenant said. Then he added as if it were the most reasonable conclusion in the world, “You’re a Yag spy.”
Shurygin’s jaw dropped. It took an effort for Katya to keep her own mouth shut. Even the corporal looked at the lieutenant with unfeigned astonishment.
The lieutenant straightened up and bared his teeth in an expression of pure animalistic hatred and rage. “You’re a stinking SPY!” he screamed, drew his sidearm, placed the muzzle between poor Shurygin’s eyes, and fired.
Shurygin died much as he had lived; quietly and without fuss.
Katya cried out involuntarily and the lieutenant looked wildly at her, ignoring the body of the man he had just murdered. He seemed to become aware that, apart from Katya, there were other submariners standing there in shock, staring at him.
“Spy,” he said in a high cracked voice. “He was a spy. A Yag. A spy. Spies and saboteurs. Can’t you see them?” His voice rose to a scream. “CAN’T YOU SEE THEM?”
He raised his maser pistol again, the barrel twitching as he trembled. He fired a second time, and Katya heard a cry behind her, further down the alley. Then his gaze settled upon her. “I can see them,” he said in a dry whisper, and he levelled his maser at her.
Katya heard the “crack” very distinctly, even five metres away, and watched as the lieutenant fell headlong to lie prone on the deck. The corporal stood over him, his baton raised for a second blow if the first hadn’t done the job properly, but the lieutenant lay motionless. Quickly putting his baton back in his belt, the corporal drew his handcuffs, and placing one knee in the small of the downed man’s back, quickly cuffed his superior officer. Only then did he check for a pulse.
The corporal looked up at Katya. “He’d gone insane! You saw that, didn’t you? I had no choice!” His expression was one of profound horror, perhaps even a kind of grief. He’d overridden a lot of training and service discipline to strike a superior, and Katya could see the panic in his eyes.
“You had no choice,” she assured him. “You saved my life. Maybe his, too.” She looked back down the corridor. A submariner was sitting on the floor, cradling his forearm while his shipmates fussed over him. “You’d better call in a medical emergency,” she said to the corporal.
As he went to a wall communicator and called for help, Katya knelt by Filipp Shurygin. He was lying on his back, looking at the ceiling with an expression of wide-eyed optimism. The deep, dark burn between his eyes that penetrated skin, skull, and brain indicated that such optimism had been uncalled for.
Knowing full well that in a few minutes she would be a trembling wreck herself as the realisation of how close she’d been to death set in, she made the most of the calmness of denial, those precious few moments before you have to accept that something awful and terrifying just happened. She put out her hand to his face and gently closed his eyes.
Poor Shurygin, she thought. What will they put on his post mortem report? Killed while being helpful?
CHAPTER FIVE
Plumbing Supplies
Katya had her second encounter with Secor in one day, although this time they were the real thing. She thought it odd that they should have taken an interest in what seemed to be simply somebody cracking under the stress of war. It was tragic, of course, but it happened.
Katya was expecting the station police to deal with it, but they just took her statement while Secor sat in on the interview, occasionally throwing in questions of their own. Katya had heard that the “packaging directive” that the lieutenant — it transpired his name was “Loktev” — had been so obsessed by had indeed been announced that morning, but was only coming into effect in ten days’ time. All that the directive demanded was that cargo packaging be kept unlocked to speed up security checks. That was all, and for this a man had died.