Lukyan said nothing but glared at them both.
“The Novgorod’s captain,” said Tasya, “Zagadko. Where is he?”
“We’re telling you nothing,” spat Lukyan.
“He’s dead,” said Katya. She caught her uncle’s furious glance. “So what if I tell them, uncle? None of us are ever leaving this place.”
Tasya laughed, a pleasantly throaty sound. “This sea monster Havilland has been telling me about?” It took Katya a moment to remember that was Kane’s first name. “We travelled from the North docks right around the mountain and came into the moon pool at speed, making plenty of noise. We weren’t attacked. Whatever it is, it’s long gone.”
Kane shook his head slowly like an old man. Katya couldn’t believe the change that had come over him so quickly. It was as if he was dying before her eyes. “Oh, Tasya, no. Whatever it is, it’s outside. It has cunning, you see.”
Tasya gave him an exasperated look and, Katya realised, one with some underlying affection. “So why didn’t it attack, hmmm? Tell me that.”
Kane opened his mouth, but it was Katya who answered. “Now it only has to watch one docking tunnel. It’s got both boats trapped in the same moon pool. You won’t get out as easily as you got in.”
“She’s right,” said Kane. His voice was so weak that even Tasya, who’d seemed blind to his rapid deterioration, noticed.
“You ought to go aboard,” she whispered urgently, moving closer to Kane in an attempt to make the conversation private.
“I will,” replied Kane in a croak that wouldn’t have seemed out of place coming from a man in his last minutes. “Don’t fuss so, Tasya. I’ll be fine.”
“Captain!” the shout floated across from the pirates who were securing the Novgorod.
“Damn,” said Kane. “Now what?”
Kane had insisted on coming aboard the Novgorod to see what the problem was, overriding Tasya’s increasingly forceful demands that he go back to the pirate boat. They’d been gone for a few minutes when the pirate who’d called across came back up on deck and called to Katya that Captain Kane wanted her present. With a few calming words to her uncle, she climbed up the gangway that had been placed up against the prow, walked down the tilted deck and climbed back down the hatch into the bridge.
It was very different from the last time she’d seen it. The lights were out, illumination now being provided by work lanterns and torches the pirates had brought. A cluster of pirates was grouped around the captain’s chair, speaking quietly. They moved aside to allow Kane through.
“Something you should see, Katya.” He looked back as if internally debating something. “Though you won’t thank me for it.” He stepped back and parted a way for her. She took a step forward and stopped, horrified.
Lit obliquely by the harsh white lights of the work lanterns, Captain Zagadko sat in his command chair quite at peace. He seemed so serene, almost happy with a faint smile on his lips, that the realisation that he was dead was a long time coming. “Oh, captain,” said Katya in a tiny whisper. “Oh, Captain Zagadko.”
“It looks like he was hit by a round from the Gatling gun,” said Kane. Out of the circle of light, Katya realised that the captain’s uniform was glistening slightly, soaked. She took an unconscious step back and was appalled when her boot stuck to the floor for a moment. “Yes,” Kane spoke again. “I’m afraid it’s blood. The floor’s thick with it. At a guess, the femoral artery in his leg was nicked. He bled out quite quickly.”
“Why,” said Katya, her voice shuddering with revulsion, “are you showing me this?”
For his answer, Kane shone his torch on the dead man’s left hand. It lay on a panel of the captain’s status board; a security plate over the panel had been unlocked and lifted.
“You recognise a handprint scanner of course. This one’s special. Between needing a key to access it, requiring the handprint of a senior officer and then the inputting of a code, it’s very secure. Not the sort of thing you can do by accident.”
“A code…” Katya knew what the captain had done and so she knew why all the lights were out.
“The scuttle code. The captain crawled back in here after being blown off the deck with half his leg dangling off by a thread — don’t look, it really isn’t a pretty sight. He must have come in by one of the rear locks. I can’t even imagine swimming while that badly injured. Then he crawled forward, straight past the sickbay where he might, just conceivably, have managed to save his own life by getting into the automedic. Of course, that would have drugged him into a dreamless sleep where we’d have found him. He knew that and that’s why he kept crawling. All the way back to the bridge and into his chair, to open that panel and issue the scuttling code, killing his beloved ship rather than let her fall into our hands. Then he sat back and fell asleep.” Kane drew strength from somewhere and straightened up. “In a fairer universe, captain, they’d sing songs about you. I salute you.” He snapped a salute of a type she’d seen in the same stupid dramas that said the Grubbers had no honour, that showed them spitting on the corpses of their enemies. He held it for a long moment and then finished it, and seemed to age even as he did it. “Organise the funerals for tomorrow morning, please, Tasya. Ours and theirs. I want a full turn out.”
He started walking slowly, almost shambling towards the hatch. “Why did you show me this?” asked Katya again.
“Duty, Katya Kuriakova. He knew his duty, as I know mine.” He paused to look back at her. “Do you know yours, Katya Kuriakova?” He turned to continue walking but paused instead, touching his brow with his fingers. “Oh dear,” he said to himself, and collapsed.
The crew of the Novgorod and the Baby were moved off the waterside and put into a large low room that appeared to have been an open plan office at some point in the past. It only had two exits and the pirates welded one of them shut, putting a chain and lock on the other. Petrov and the other surviving commissioned officers gathered around and listened grim-faced as Katya told them what had happened aboard the crippled war-boat. They showed little reaction, but the way Zagadko had chosen to die seemed to give them some satisfaction. Petrov nodded when she told them the Novgorod was dead at her captain’s hand and another officer muttered, “good man” under his breath. They seemed uninterested in Kane’s health beyond hoping that, whatever was wrong with him, it was terminal. In this they were to be disappointed.
A couple of hours later, the door was unchained and Lieutenant Tokarov and the marines were escorted in at gunpoint. Once they were clear of the door, Kane entered with Tasya the Chertovka close behind, flanked by guards. “As you’re doubtless aware,” said Kane, “your captain is dead.” His voice was strong again and he carried himself with authority. “I regret that. I had a little time to know him and, well, I regret his death. You also know that he issued the Novgorod’s scuttling code. Your boat is dead. It will take months to strip out all the systems permanently damaged by the code and replace them.” A ragged cheer went up from the Novgorod crew. Kane waited until they’d quietened down again. “He did the right thing, as far as he knew. We, however, know the bigger picture. Beyond these stone walls is the Russalka ocean and somewhere in that, very close at hand, is the Leviathan. It sank their boat,” he pointed at where Katya and Lukyan sat, “it crippled yours. Now it has our boat, the Vodyanoi, stoppered up too. Before long, it will realise that we haven’t run to a settlement after all and there will be no more boats coming and going. When it realises that, it will go on and search for settlements. Lemuria’s closest; it will probably be the first. Before the Leviathan leaves here, though, it will make damn sure we’re all dead. Novgorods, Vodyanois, it really doesn’t care.”