The retina above me flashed alight again. “Krina? We’ll be reaching our rendezvous in five minutes. You need to be ready to swim free as soon as you see the ascent capsule. Understood?”
I looked up at the display. It was Marigold: the ’count was clearly preoccupied elsewhere. I nodded. “Ready,” I said, and began to cut away at the restraining tapes that held me in on the mesh platform slung below the ’scaphe. (They’d given me a small cutting disk before departure, perhaps overly confident that I wouldn’t seek to use it to sabotage their submersible or my own circulatory system.)
Off in the distance, something spooked the swarm of fishlike feral ’cyte collectives feeding on the grass. It was vast and cylindrical, looming out of the turbid waters like an ancient vision of a submarine riding on the surface, the keel and stabilizers of a narrow surface ship visible to either side of it, like a whale being ravished by a catamaran. A small, bluntly conical cap sat at one end of it, disturbingly phallic, surrounded by some sort of boarding platform. The capsule, I realized. Probably the very same one we had made our descent aboard. The cylinder behind it must be the freighter the Hadeans had discussed with Rudi.
A roaring rush of bubbles churned the water immediately above my head into white foam, making me flinch: Air was rushing out of the bathyscaphe’s pressure sphere. I swam free and turned to stare as the sphere fizzled and dissolved, disgorging its occupants. A trio of familiar figures dropped into the water, with much graceless flapping of legs and membrane-encumbered arms: Rudi and his cohort had clearly not bothered with more than the most rudimentary water-breathing modifications, presumably because they didn’t expect to be here for very long.
“Ah, Krina! I take it you enjoyed the relaxing ride?” Rudi asked, his electrospeech crackling badly in the water.
I flipped and arrowed toward Rudi, turned and oriented to face him just short of impact. He flinched. “I’ve had better,” I announced. Marigold was flailing, trying to turn to face me, and Dent, the bag-carrier, was clearly in some difficulty. I swam over and steadied them. For the first time since my arrival, I felt as if I had the advantage. “What’s the cover story?”
“There isn’t one,” Rudi buzzed, clearly ill at ease with underwater speech. “It’s just a regular cargo launch by the deep dwellers, destined for rendezvous with their freight broker in synchronous orbit. Which just happens to be where Five Zero is sitting, right now. We paid them handsomely to reduce their payload and look aside while we strap our lander to the front—
“This payload. Would it also happen to be insured by way of a policy backed by your office?” I asked.
Rudi tried to draw himself up, to assume a dignified posture: He failed badly. “I have no idea what you’re implying! In any case, time is fleeting. We need to go on board immediately—”
“Barratry,” I pointed out. “Not to mention insurance fraud, piracy on the high seas, theft of weapons-grade nuclear materials, doubtless compounded by failing to file a flight plan—”
“Because you’re worth it, my dear. Anyway, I purchased the entire cargo fair and square: I have a perfectly legitimate use for it. Now, do you want the ride I’ve arranged? Or would you rather wait here until Medea’s minions arrive, or the Church, or any of the other parasites who are circling?”
Marigold was showing signs of getting her shit together. “Certainly,” I said. “Let’s go.”
As it happened, I made it to the boarding platform beside the capsule end of the vehicle well before Rudi’s crew. I found the chance to swim across a quarter kilometer of open water refreshing after spending so much time in a hammock. As I neared the platform a squid-person jetted toward me. “Ultimatum: Identify yourself!”
“I’m Krina Alizond-114. Who are you?”
The squid spun round, flaring his mantle at me. “Identify: This one is Chi scent-of-skinned-worms-in-the-water. Assertion: Would like to express satisfaction at your accomplishment, and assistance in resolving a small matter.”
“Huh. The small matter. Would it happen to involve a certain privateer?”
“Confirmation: Of course. Assertion: Your sister sent you a gift. She said, ‘Use it wisely.’”
“What—” The squid curled one tentacle back inside his mantle and produced a tiny box of familiar design, then presented it to me. “Oh!” An emotion I couldn’t name made my vision blur for a moment. “Please thank her for me.” I carefully transferred it to my belt, attaching the soul-chip carrier beside the talking box that had replayed my decompression instructions. There would be time to identify its contents later. It might be Ana’s way of politely telling me she thought my suspicions were misplaced; and then again, perhaps its contents would allow us to undertake our study seminar after all. “What about Rudi?”
I glanced over my shoulder: The privateers were bobbing along slowly. “Assertion: Accountant Rudi Five Zero advised The People to short all slow dollar funds. All of them. Assertion: This is, outwardly, insane. Assertion: Accountant Rudi Five Zero knows something. Interrogative: You should ask him why do that?”
“That’s crazy! There’s only two reasons to do that, and there’s no probability of a Slow Jubilee anytime soon. That leaves faster-than-light—” I stopped suddenly, a cold chill running down my lateral lines. “Thank you, I think. Ah, I see they’re catching up. Show me the way on board?”
The privateer’s landing capsule looked very different when viewed through the hatch as it lay attached to the front of the booster stack, itself floating horizontally in its catamaran cradle. I could see signs of modifications made during my absence: a contoured couch that was perfectly tailored to accommodate a mermaid, for example. I suppressed a brief flicker of anger. Doubtless it was an off-the-shelf item here, but it indicated that Rudi had known what was going on for some time. Or anticipated it.
“Can you board it yourself?” Rudi asked me. “Do you need help?”
I glared at him. “I can make it,” I said, pushing myself up on my forearms. The sun hammered down on my skin, drying me, and the weight and bulk of my torso and tail were unwelcome reminders of how I had been mutilated without consent. The sensation of air rushing in and out of my newly decompressed lungs felt breathless and strange. In my pisciform body I was a fish out of water: beached, ungainly, and sluggish. I kicked, pushing against the deck of the boarding platform, forcing myself up on my elbows, then down, dragging my trunk toward the hatch. It was horribly undignified, but I urgently wanted to assert my autonomy. Once we entered free fall, I should be as mobile as ever: Then I could see about having the Five Zero’s surgeon-engineer resect the fishy tail and restore my legs to their original plan.
By the time I managed to crawl into my recliner, Rudi, Marigold, and Dent were already strapped in, and the hatch was closed. (Our surface crew, I gather, remained underwater for the whole process, relying on remote manipulators.) “Are you ready?” asked Marigold, “because there’s a promising minimum-energy window opening in less than a thousand seconds.”
“Go for it.” Rudi looked, and sounded, satisfied. He glanced at me: “Do you need a hand?”
“No.” I stared back, mulishly: When he looked away, I continued to grapple with my restraints. As the capsule was tilted on its side, this meant “lying” almost vertically: With no toes or feet, I dangled from my shoulder straps.
“Well, if everyone’s strapped in . . .” This from Marigold: “I just told them to start the launch sequence. We should be moving very soon now.”
And, indeed, she was right: I felt a faint thrumming run through the floor of the capsule, then a wondrous sense of relief when the floor tilted as the launcher rose toward the vertical. I hastily tightened my restraints. “How does this thing work, again?” I asked.