Nisa slowly opened her eyes, afraid of what she might see. It was bad enough. Gunderd, white with shock, clutched at the stump of his arm, trying to stop the blood that spouted from it.
But Ruiz was gone. When she started to lean toward the gunwale that he had rolled over, to see if there was any blood in the water, Molnekh jerked his gun toward her. His eyes weren’t human, not at all. Apparently he had taken his owner’s criticism to heart. “Sit still,” he hissed.
Ruiz swam downward through the black water, trying to get as deep as he could. He didn’t know why. Shortly he would be forced to surface and Corean would take him; he was only postponing the inevitable.
He took some small comfort from the fact that he had at least been decisive. His old self wasn’t entirely gone, apparently, even if in this case he hadn’t made a very good decision.
When he crashed into a crumbling slab of ancient melt-stone, he cracked his wrist painfully enough to force a cloud of bubbles from his straining lungs. He flailed helplessly for a moment, disoriented; then his hand caught the edge of the slab and he held on. Barnacles cut his hand. He floated to an angle that suddenly allowed cold salt water to fill his nose. He almost choked, but some long-ago training supplied a reflex that allowed him to clear his nose without losing all his air, and he managed to keep his grip on the slab.
He began to feel the chill of the water. His ears hurt and he swallowed to equalize the pressure. His chest was already aching with the need to breathe, and he felt a dismal certainty that he had only prolonged his freedom by a few insignificant moments. He attempted to investigate the underside of the slab, to see if he might somehow wedge himself under it and stave off capture until he was thoroughly drowned, but his hand encountered something unpleasant, a stringy mass of pulp — and he drew back hastily. Then he wondered how salt the sea was on Sook. Were it no saltier than Old Earth’s, his densely muscled body would sink, once he had filled his lungs with water. No, he would probably float to the surface. Sook was a very old world, her seas thick with antiquity…. Ruiz realized his mind was wandering, and tried to focus his attention outward.
He listened. At first all he could hear was the pounding of his own blood, and then an odd squeaky sound. It was, he realized, his own throat, trying to open and let the sea in.
Corean watched her exterior screens in familiar disbelief. How many times would Ruiz Aw escape her before he gave up, before he realized who he belonged to?
“He won’t get far,” she told herself. She consulted her infrared detectors and quickly located the slayer fifteen meters below, his body a hot crimson shape against the cold blue-green of the rubble-strewn bottom. He floated head down, clinging to a stone like a man-shaped oyster.
She smiled at the image. “I can wait longer than you can hold your breath,” she said.
She glanced back at the exterior screens and saw that Marmo was hustling the survivors aboard. The wounded man tried to climb up onto the sponson shelf with the others, but the old pirate shoved him casually back into the sea and secured the longboat.
She touched the switch that carried her amplified voice on deck. “Wait,” she said. “We’ll pick up the slayer when he comes up for air. Take a catchwire and a stunner.”
Marmo looked up at the camera, and his head gave a slight weary shake. Still, he started to follow her directions, though without any visible enthusiasm.
Alarms wailed, and most of Corean’s screens shifted viewpoint to show the Roderigan submarine rushing up over the horizon. Almost immediately, she saw the twinkle of ranging lasers from the Roderigans’ deck guns.
They hailed her. A harsh voice demanded her surrender.
She slapped at the main touchboard, closing the sponson armor, charging her heaviest weapons, cranking up her defensive screens.
One last longing look she gave to Ruiz Aw, still clinging to his rock. None of her weapons were small enough, delicate enough, to use against him. The water was too shallow; her vessel could be damaged by reflected energies. Besides, that wasn’t the sort of death she wanted for Ruiz Aw. She wanted the slayer to die from the touch of her hands, with the sound of her laughter in his ears. She would have to let him go, this time. What a sorry thing, she thought.
“Don’t die yet,” she said to him, almost tenderly, before she engaged her engines and fled.
Ruiz’s awareness had contracted to the burning in his chest. His fading volition struggled to keep his throat closed. He had almost decided to breathe the sea, to attempt to die purposefully, rather than in an unconscious spasm… when he heard the rumble of engines. He was only dimly conscious, but it seemed to him that the sound meant something, that he might as well try to live.
He let go and rose with agonizing slowness toward the surface, now silvered by the strengthening daylight. He tried to relieve the pain in his lungs by allowing the air to trickle from them, and it was almost a fatal mistake. By the time his lungs were empty, he was still several meters below the surface and with the loss of buoyancy his ascent had slowed. His vision darkened, but he thrashed upward with the last of his strength.
He burst through the surface and the sweet air shrieked into his lungs.
Of all the breaths he had taken in his long strange life, this, he was sure, was the finest. He marveled that he had never before truly noticed what a wonderful thing it was to breathe. Just to breathe.
At that moment he didn’t really care about anything else.
But after a few blissful moments, he regained his sanity and swirled around, trying to find Corean’s sub.
A glare lit the sky to the west, drawing his attention, and there he saw the larger Roderigan vessel pursuing Corean’s sub, both boats speeding over the sea on hydrofoils, throwing plumes of spray high. Occasionally a beam would flash between the two combatants, to no obvious effect.
Corean’s sub had apparently reached the edge of the offshore trench, because it came off its foils and sank below the waves. A moment later the Roderigan followed.
Ruiz floated alone, two hundred meters off the beach.
Was he alone? He heard an odd gasping sound, and his mind filled immediately with thoughts of margars and other large pelagic predators. But then he saw a head bobbing amid the waves. After a moment, he realized that it was the scholar Gunderd.
It took Ruiz three minutes to approach the scholar, who, without his gold sailor chains, was apparently floating without great effort.
When he reached Gunderd, Ruiz noticed with dismay that a red cloud stained the water, spreading from the ragged stump of the scholar’s left arm. “Gunderd?” Ruiz said.
Gunderd lifted his eyes, and Ruiz saw that the man was almost dead — he wore that look of calm regretful acceptance that the best soldiers took into oblivion.
Ruiz wondered how many times he had seen that look. Far too many, he thought.
He swam close to Gunderd, ignoring the possibility that predators might be attracted to the blood. He put a supporting arm across Gunderd’s chest.
“Ruiz,” said Gunderd, in a voice almost inaudibly faint. “Glad you survived.”
“For the moment, anyway,” Ruiz said, and started to sidestroke toward the shore.
Gunderd struggled feebly. “No,” he whispered. “Don’t drag me… foolish waste of strength.”
“I’m just trying to get you away from the worst of the blood,” said Ruiz. “I don’t want the margars to eat us.” And maybe, he thought, you’ll live to reach the beach, and can die a less frightening death. He remembered that conversation he’d had with Gunderd on the Loracca, when the scholar had explained why he wanted to die swiftly if he were ever lost overboard. The long slow falling away from the light… Gunderd had said.