At first, Laureline suspected the Doghan Daguis were leading her on a merry chase. Her impatience rose with every step as they led her south, the part of the station designed to accommodate aquatic species. She realized they were in an area called Galana. Its underwater plains were supposed to be magnificent, but she had not come here to play tourist.
“You’d better not be trying to send me on a wild goose chase,” she muttered at one point.
“What is—”
“—a wild goose?” asked Burgundy.
“And why would you chase it?” Yellow finished.
Laureline rubbed her temples. Adrenaline was still surging through her and it did not make patience any easier. “Never mind,” she said. “Just remember my weapon is fully loaded and I’ll be happy to use it if this starts to go south.”
“We are—” said Blue.
“—already going—”
“—south.”
Laureline did not reply. She knew if she opened her mouth it would be to emit a shriek of outrage, and that would not help Valerian at all. Though it would make her feel better.
At last, followed by Laureline, the Doghan Daguis reached a concrete dock on the banks of a murky green inland sea. There was a smell of brine mixed with rot, and Laureline tried not to wrinkle her nose at the stale stench. The area was derelict and deserted, and various odd sounds echoed in a weird and sinister fashion.
No, Laureline thought, not quite deserted. She could see the conning tower of a very small submarine, which appeared to be moored to the dock. Not that much of it was visible, but what she could see did not inspire confidence. The metal looked ancient and likely to spring a leak any second.
The Doghan Daguis seemed to know exactly what they were doing. They marched toward a red mechanism perched on the end of the dock, which, like the submarine, appeared to have seen better days. Laureline’s best guests was that it was a crane of some sort. Blue pulled a lever and a small hook descended. Burgundy produced a bottle from one of the myriad pouches around his waist and attached it carefully to the hook. Blue pulled another lever and the crane swung around, then lowered the bottle so that it clanked against the side of the submarine without breaking.
There was a grinding noise and the conning tower lid flipped back.
One of the strangest-looking men Laureline had ever seen poked his head out. He squinted, seized the offering, opened it with his teeth, chugged the contents in a single gulp, and threw the empty bottle overboard into the murky green water.
He had long, wild, curly gray hair and a thick beard to match, and his face was as weathered as old leather. His nose looked like it had been broken about eight too many times, and the eyes that turned to regard them were mismatched. One was deep, dark and brown, the other an unnaturally pale blue Laureline suspected was artificial. Some sort of implant was affixed to his upper left brow, and his oddly shaped ears had earrings.
“I’ve got a sinking feeling about this plan of yours,” Laureline muttered.
The pirate—or so she assumed him to be—leered at her with his strange eyes. Gruffly, he growled, “Whaddya want?”
The first Doghan Daguis spoke. “We’d like to go fishing—”
“—for cortex jellyfish,” said Burgundy.
Yellow added, “Male, if possible.”
Blue lobbed one of Laureline’s diamonds toward the pirate. His left hand shot up and caught it more deftly than Laureline would have thought possible—until she realized the arm was completely cybernetic.
The pirate examined the gem and grunted. Peering up, but keeping the diamond, he called, “It’s not the season.”
Burgundy tossed him another gem. Again, he plucked the tiny item out of the air. This time, he said, “Males are harder to catch.” He was clearly wondering how far he could press his luck.
Yellow sighed and tossed him a third jewel.
The pirate graced them all with his golden smile. “Welcome aboard,” he declared.
Laureline wasn’t having second thoughts; she was onto fifth, sixth, and seventh thoughts by this point. The sub was as small as she had guessed and even more rickety than she had feared. It could accommodate two humanoids, but only just, and the pirate with whom she’d just decided to ally herself took up a lot of the room. About a third of the ship was the cockpit, with a large viewing bubble. The rest was where the pirate slept and supposedly ate, though Laureline suspected he drank most of his calories, and the tail end was a surprisingly brisk engine. A small claw crane was affixed to the base of the sub, presumably for the previously mentioned purpose of fishing.
The small submarine scooted across the underwater plains of Galana. Laureline’s anxiety about Valerian contrasted with the serene beauty on display all around her. She had to admit, what she was seeing was pretty amazing. Any other time, she might actually have enjoyed herself.
They passed through the famous cobalt fields of song and story; a cool, green-blue depth where dark blue flowers grew, gently waving in the water. Their edges were lined with a pale blue light. As Laureline watched, a Poulong farmer swam over the field. They were one of the first aquatic species to settle on Alpha, and they were a gentle people. On land, he would have seemed skeletal and awkward, his body hunched and unattractively angular. But here, he belonged. His skin was blue, mottled so that it looked like light from the surface was always dappling it. A light was affixed to a helmet that covered the top of his skull, with a tether back to a main hub. Laureline realized she was seeing the Krikbang, an advanced computer that linked all the Poulongs and controlled the activity of the field workers. She allowed her gaze to linger on the scene of the tranquil farmer gathering aquatic blossoms; the long, delicate fingers reaching around the slender stalk and plucking it from the seabed. As the stalk snapped, the luminescence that outlined the flower flared, blue-white and very bright, for a moment. The bloom floated helpless as the farmer tucked it into the gathering sack on his back and moved on to another. The glow was beautiful, but Laureline couldn’t help but wonder if it was the plant crying out in pain.
She did not like that thought, so she turned to look ahead. The pirate had turned out to be taciturn, which suited her just fine. She sat in the seat beside him as the submarine passed through tall, half-crumbled columns, as if they were traveling through a gate into a lost world. It was all lulling and hypnotic, but soon enough, something jarred Laureline to full attention.
Something large was moving, a dark green smudge against the lighter background of the water. A few heartbeats later, she reclassified the motion from “large” to “gigantic,” with a bit of “monstrous” thrown in for good measure.
The pirate stabbed a finger in its direction. “There!” he said triumphantly. “Bromosaurs.”
They were drawing closer to the massive beasts, who were swimming about placidly enough. To her inexpert eye, a bromosaur looked like a cross between a reptile and an insect, with large plates layered along its back and down its tail and eight comparatively tiny legs dangling below its great bulk. It looked to her like it could curl in on itself nose to tail, with the plates providing protection. Laureline didn’t want to know what was in the water that could threaten a creature that was seventy yards long if it was an inch.
“Are they dangerous?” she asked.
“Not really,” the pirate answered. “You just have to be careful they don’t inhale you.”
Laureline relaxed, ever so slightly, watching now with more curiosity than concern as one of the Bromosaurs slowly sucked up the mud from the sea floor and everything it contained.
“We’re lucky,” he said. “That one’s a male.”
“How can you tell?” Laureline asked.