The Captain’s wife, monitoring the screens, started the engine and steered them out of a gap in the reef. Taro suffered a moment of queasy panic as the little vessel, which didn’t have a skim-boat’s gravitics, surged up and down, fighting the waves rolling through the worryingly narrow passage, but the boss-lady brought them to a stop a safe distance off the reef, in water several shades darker than that of the lagoon. The Captain went over to have a quick word with her.
Nual looked uneasy.
Taro was about to ask if she felt all right when the Captain called over, ‘In now! They’re coming!’
People jumped, slid or fell off the boat according to their skill and preference. The water was a lot colder out here, and Taro could feel the current pulling at him. In his earpiece the Captain said, ‘Follow me!’ and swam past them. People formed up behind, keeping close. The sea out here was very different to the warm, still waters of the lagoon. The reef was a colour-splotched wall on their left; to the right the land dropped away sharply into a blue-black abyss.
The captain dived, and at the same time Taro heard his voice in the earpiece. ‘Everyone down now! Down and turn!’
Taro obeyed, though the open sea was making him feel vulnerable and he wasn’t sure he wanted to leave the sunlit surface. For a moment he hung in the blue void. He made out Nual, waiting nearby, and Mo further off, turning on the spot in an attempt to be the first one to see the spirit-rays.
Suddenly the light was blotted out by a great triangle of darkness overhead - no, not darkness: the underside of the creature was covered in twinkling blue lights, glowing patterns extending down the long, translucent streamers trailing behind it.
Taro felt a deep sense of peace. His earlier concerns about the depth of the sea, about Nual, about . . . anything: all gone. He knew that the animal above him knew he was there and - as the Captain had said - wanted him around.
The Captain, his voice a whisper of wonder, said, ‘Swim with them. For as long as they stay near the reef, they wish our company. ’
Taro flipped over and did just that. He could make out more spirit-rays now, perhaps a dozen of them. He knew they’d slowed down to allow the swimmers to keep up, and he swam along with them on his back, watching the light-show, aware that he was in the presence of an ancient creature of great wisdom.
All too soon, he sensed a change. The spirit-rays wanted to leave. In his ear the Captain said, ‘Let them go on their way now.’ A moment later the
ahuatai
above him turned, heading slowly off into the deeper water.
Taro watched it leave, feeling a sweet mixture of regret and fulfilment. He wouldn’t have missed this for the world.
The spirit-rays sped up, flapping gently like great graceful birds, angling down towards the depths.
One of the divers was still with them.
Taro knew instantly what had happened. His cry was both mental and physical:
NUAL! NO!
He felt a soft echo return: she’d heard him, but he mustn’t worry. He should let her go now.
She’d found the unity she’d lost. And it was going to kill her.
Taro hesitated. This was what she wanted. And if he granted her wish then he’d truly be free.
The Captain was shouting in his earpiece, ‘Turn around, lady, please, come back now!’ He swam past Taro, kicking hard, but the rays were already far ahead, moving faster than any human could.
Any ordinary human.
Taro turned, put his arms by his sides and flexed his feet. His implants cut in at once and before he could even think he was flying diagonally down. The water pushed against the top of his head, making his neck ache. His ears popped. He pointed his toes until his feet threatened to cramp, driving the implants harder. He hoped he was still heading the right way. Around him the water was getting colder by the moment. Pressure began to build in his head and chest.
He broadcast a mental shout, over and over:
No response. He slowed, just enough to look around. Shit and blood but it was dark down here! He glimpsed vague shapes in the gloom off to his left, and caught a brief blue flash. He changed course. Though he could hear and feel himself breathing hard, he couldn’t get any air into his chest. His heart beat slow and heavy, and a piercing headache was building behind his eyes.
He made out a smaller shape, closer than the rays. Nual had fallen behind. He kept calling, kept flying, though dark spots speckled his vision and his breath had been reduced to quick, painful gasps.
A faint buzz sounded over the near-constant popping in his ears. A moment later he realised what the sound meant: he was running out of air. Adrenalin flooded his system. He strained harder against the building water-pressure.
The spirit-rays were gone, swallowed by darkness, leaving Nual behind. She hung limp in the water, sinking slowly.
Taro, his body disobedient under the stress, ran into her, then rebounded. Her head swayed, rippling her dark halo of hair. Her eyes were closed and what he could see of her face above the mask was relaxed and serene. If he left her, she would happily die down here.
As if.
Taro turned and wrapped his arms around her, pointing his toes down.
All too slowly, they began to rise.
Taro tried to take a breath, but nothing happened. A tight band was squeezing his head and his chest felt like it was about to implode.
No way was he going to die now, not when he’d come this far! That would be unfair, and he wouldn’t put up with the universe giving him that sort of shit any more.
He stared up at the glittering surface above them, heading towards it with all his remaining strength.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The answer came to Jarek while he was eating a solitary supper on board the
Judas Kiss
after another tedious day in the archives. As he shovelled gloop into his mouth he found his mind wandering, half-consciously linking the idea of beacons with that of transit-kernels. There were plenty of parallels: both beacons and transit-kernels interacted with shiftspace, both were powerful artefacts necessary for human culture that didn’t take well to being tampered with, and both came from an unknown source.
Unknown - until he’d stumbled on Serenein. So now he knew where transit-kernels originated - or rather, he knew what made them what they were: the living mind of a Sidhe boy. But genetic tampering by the female Sidhe had left these minds damaged, apparently simple, even before they were subjected to whatever unholy process transformed them into shift-kernels.
Suddenly it hit him: if transit-kernels came from male Sidhe, then maybe beacons did too. Shiftspace beacons could have been a vital secret weapon in the rebellion against the Protectorate, breaking the female Sidhe’s monopoly on interstellar travel and allowing human rebels in different systems to communicate. Male Sidhe must have provided this weapon to the downtrodden humans. That also explained why beacons had no built-in failsafes: in a war situation all that tedious messing around at safe distances that was required today would be a liability; quick and dirty would have been the only way to operate in a guerrilla war against the Sidhe.
Whether beacons were, like transit-kernels, actually built around the mind of a male Sidhe was another question. Would the free males have been willing to make such an enormous sacrifice for their human allies?
Jarek really needed to talk to one of the old Sidhe males. Unfortunately they’d all been dead for a thousand years.
His com chirped. The number was unlisted, but he hit receive anyway. The line went dead.
It chirped again. The same thing happened.
Normally that kind of weirdness would worry him, but Jarek had been expecting this.
The third time he received a single-word text message:
Tarset
.
Time to get moving.
As soon as Taro broke through to the thin, warm air, he tried to take a huge breath, but the mask was covering his nose and mouth - and he was still going up. When he shot free of the sea, gravity pulled at Nual, tugging her out of his arms, and he grabbed for her with one hand while ripping the mask off with the other. Even as the welcome air rushed into his lungs he felt her slip from his grasp. The bright light began to fade and new points of pain broke out all over his body. He flexed his toes and fell back into the sea.
He felt himself being hauled face-down over something hard, then a pinprick of cold in his arm that quickly spread. He had a growing urge to throw up, and gave into it, spewing hot darkness and cold water, until the two combined to swallow him up—
His next clear memory was of being in an aircar - apparently emergencies let you spoil the view - with someone bending over him. ‘Wh—? Nual?’ he croaked.
The woman said, ‘Try to relax. Your sister will be fine.’ Then she eased something over his mouth and nose. The cold was back, but at least it was dry now.
He decided it was all right to pass out again, and did.
Taro woke up in hospital in Stonetown. He was feeling a lot better. The mask had stopped him getting water in his lungs, but he’d fallen back in and been fished out by the Captain’s wife, who’d given him some sort of shot to offset the worst effects of going down so deep. As a result he had only minor damage: some burst blood vessels, a lingering headache and a ringing in his ears. The doctor said he was lucky he’d been using shallow-dive equipment: apparently anyone coming straight up from that depth using the full deep-dive gear would have been seriously fucked. He started to explain, but it was beyond Taro. He was just glad to have survived.
They let him check out the next day, but Nual, who was in a different ward, was kept in. Her heart had stopped while she was in the water, but the Captain and his redoubtable wife, used to crises like this, had got it restarted themselves. Taro sent silent thanks in their direction.
He was allowed to see Nual, but she was still groggy, her blood-shot eyes unfocused, and she didn’t seem to know he was there. He felt cold all over again, but resisted the urge to try and contact her mentally. ‘Will she be all right?’ he whispered to the doctor. ‘Is there . . . lasting damage?’
The doctor looked at Taro. ‘I’ll be honest: there is a risk, though the tests look positive so far. We’ll keep you informed, don’t worry.’
Mo was at the hostel. He’d brought their stuff back with him from the island, but he was a bit strange when Taro thanked him - as if he felt uncomfortable around him. Kise, on the other hand, had just got an interview with one of the
ngai
, and it was making her unexpectedly sociable. ‘You want to know what’s up with Mo?’ she asked. ‘Just check the chatnets. You’re today’s news, Taro!’
Mo had sold the story of the dive-gone-wrong and Nual’s dramatic rescue to the local media. He’d told the journos he’d never seen anyone move like Taro - and now the hostel’s messaging service had three offers of well-paid interviews, if Taro was interested. He wondered if anyone had worked out he had implants, and what that meant. If not, he sure as shit wasn’t going to tell them.
When he visited Nual the next day she was awake, propped up on her pillows. She looked at him as he came in. ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly.
After his initial surge of relief at seeing her alive and well had passed, Taro wasn’t sure how to respond, but she saved him from having to by continuing, ‘I’m sorry. What I did was . . . unjustified. ’
An odd way of putting it, Taro thought. ‘It’s all right,’ he said, more because it seemed like the right thing to say than because it was.
If they’d been lovers he’d have rushed over and held her close. Instead they talked about small stuff while he perched on the end of the bed. When he told her about Mo selling the story she grimaced and said, ‘Nothing we can do about that now.’
‘Could this tip them off about us?’
She knew who he meant, of course. ‘I don’t think so. They may have my ID after what happened on Khathryn, but they have no reason to look for me here. You are not known to them at all.’