The Hyperion Cantos 4-Book Bundle (213 page)

De Soya looks over to where Corporal Kee is dozing in the warm sunlight coming through his thopter blister.

“It’s pretty obvious that there’s nothing permanent to build something big like those portals on … and you’ll see ’em in a minute, sir, they’re
big
. Well, I mean, there are the coral rings—but they’re not secured to anything, they float, and the yellowkelp islands, but they’re not … I mean, you put a foot on them, it goes right through, if you know what I mean, sir.… There, to the starboard side, sir. That’s yellowkelp. Don’t get too much of it this far south. Anyway, what the old Hegemony engineers did is, they rigged the portals sort of like we’ve been doing with the platforms and cities for the last five hundred years, sir. That is, they run these foundation bases a couple of hundred fathoms—big, heavy things they’ve got to be, sir—and then run big, bladed drag anchors out on cables beneath that. But the bottom of the ocean here is sort of a problematic thing … usually ten thousand fathoms, at least … that’s where the big granddaddies of our surface ’canths like Lamp Mouth live, sir … monsters down that deep, sir … klicks long …”

“Lieutenant,” says de Soya, “what does this have to do with why the portals are so far apart?” The high, almost ultrasonic hum of the thopter’s dragonfly wings are threatening to put the priest-captain to sleep. Kee is now snoring, and Rettig has his feet up and his eyes closed. It has been a long flight.

Sproul grins. “Getting to that, sir. You see, with those keelweights and twenty klicks of cable trailing to rock, our cities and platforms don’t go very far, even in the Big Tide season, no, sir. But these portals … well, we have lots of submarine volcanic activity on Mare-Eye, sir. Whole different ’cology down there, believe me. Some of them tube worms’d give those gigacanths a battle, honestly, sir. Anyway, the old Webdays’ engineers fixed those portals so that if their keelweights and cables sensed volcanic activity under them, they’d just … well, migrate, sir, is the best word I can think of.”

“So,” says de Soya, “the distance between the River Tethys portals has widened because of volcanic activity on the ocean floor?”

“Yes,
sir
,” says Lieutenant Sproul with a wide grin that seems to suggest both pleasure and amazement that a Fleet officer can comprehend such a thing. “And there’s one of them now, sir,” says the liaison officer with a flourish, banking the thopter into a descending spiral. He brings the machine into a hover just a few meters above the ancient arch. Twenty meters below that, the violet sea churns and splashes against the rusted metal at the portal’s base.

De Soya rubs his face. None of them can throw off the fatigue any longer. Perhaps if they had a few more days between resurrection and death.

“Can we see the other portal now, please?” he says.

“Yes,
sir!
” The thopter buzzes just meters above the waves as it covers the two hundred klicks to the next arch. De Soya does doze, and when he wakes to the lieutenant’s gentle nudging, the second portal arch is visible against the sea. It is late afternoon, and the low sun throws a long shadow on the violet sea.

“Very good,” says de Soya. “And the deep-radar searches are still being carried out?”

“Yes, sir,” says the young pilot. “They’re widening the search radius, but so far they haven’t seen anything but some hellacious big Lamp Mouths. That gets the sports-fishing guys worked up, I can tell you.”

“That’s a major industry here, I take it, sir,” rumbles Gregorius from his place on the jump seat behind the pilot.

“Yes, Sergeant,” says Sproul, craning his long neck around to look at the bigger man. “With kelp harvesting way down, it’s our biggest offworld source of income.”

De Soya points to a platform only a few kilometers away. “Another fishing and refueling platform?” The priest-captain has spent a day with the Pax commanders, going over reports from small outposts like this all over the world. None have reported any contact with a ship, or sight of a child. During this long flight south to the portals, they have passed dozens of similar platforms.

“Yes, sir,” says Sproul. “Shall I hover for a while, or have you seen enough?”

De Soya looks at the portal—arching high above them now
as the thopter hovers meters above the sea—and says, “We can get back, Lieutenant. We have a formal dinner with Bishop Melandriano tonight.”

Sproul’s eyebrows rise toward his crew cut. “Yes, sir,” he says, bringing the thopter up and around in a final circle before heading back north.

“That platform looks as if it’s been damaged recently,” says de Soya, leaning farther to his right to look down from the blister port.

“Yes, sir,” agrees the lieutenant. “I have a friend who just rotated in from that plat … Station Three-twenty-six Mid-littoral, it’s called sir … and he told me about it. They had a poacher try to blow the place up a few tides ago.”

“Sabotage?” says de Soya, watching the platform recede.

“Guerrilla war,” says the lieutenant. “The poachers are the indigenies from back before the Pax got here, sir. That’s why we’ve got troopers on each of the plats, and regular patrol ships during the height of the fishing season. We have to keep the fishing ships sort of herded there, sir, so the poachers don’t attack them. You saw those boats tied up, sir … well, it’s almost time for them to go fishing. Our Pax ships will escort them out. The Lamp Mouth, well, sir, he rises up just when the moons are just so … you see the big one rising there, sir. So the legal fishing ships … they have these bright lights they shine when the moons are down, luring the big ’canths up. But the poachers do that too, sir.”

De Soya looks out at the empty expanse of ocean between the thopter and the northern horizon. “Doesn’t seem like too many places for rebels to hide,” he says.

“No, sir,” says the lieutenant. “I mean, yes, sir. Actually, they’ve got fishing boats camouflaged to look like yellowkelp isles, submersibles, even one big submarine harvester that was rigged up like a Lamp Mouth, believe it or not, sir.”

“And that platform was damaged by a poacher attack?” says de Soya, speaking to stay awake now. The drone of the thopter wings is deadly.

“Right, sir,” says Lieutenant Sproul. “About eight Big Tides ago. One man … which is unusual, the poachers generally come in groups. He blew up some skimmers and thopters—common tactics, although they usually go for the boats.”

“Excuse me, Lieutenant,” says de Soya, “you say this was eight Big Tides ago. Could you translate that into standard?”

Sproul chews his lip. “Ah, yes, sir. Sorry, sir. I grew up on Mare-Eye, and … well, eight Big Tides is about two standard months ago, sir.”

“Was the poacher apprehended?”

“Yes, sir,” says Sproul with his youthful grin. “Well, actually there’s a story there, sir.…” The lieutenant glances at the priest-captain to see if he should go on. “Well, to make it short, sir, this poacher got apprehended first, then he blew his charges and tried to get away, and then he was shot and killed by the guards.”

De Soya nods and closes his eyes. In the last day he has reviewed over a hundred reports on “poacher incidents” spread over the past two standard months. Blowing up platforms and killing poachers seems to be the second most popular sport—after fishing—on Mare Infinitus.

“The funny thing about this guy,” says the lieutenant, finishing his story, “is how he tried to get away. Some sort of old flying carpet from the Hegemony days.”

De Soya snaps awake. He glances at the sergeant and his men. All three are sitting up, staring at him.

“Turn around,” snaps Father Captain de Soya. “Take us back to that platform.”

“And then what happened?” says de Soya for the fifth time. He and his Swiss Guard are in the platform director’s office on the highest point of the platform, just beneath the radar dish. Outside the long window, three unbelievable moons are rising.

The director—a Pax captain in the Ocean Command named C. Dobbs Powl—is overweight, florid, and sweating heavily. “When it became apparent that this man was not in either of the fishing groups we had on board that night, Lieutenant Belius took him aside for further questioning. Standard procedure, Father Captain.”

De Soya stares at the man. “And then?”

The director licks his lips. “And then the man managed to escape temporarily, Father Captain. There was a struggle on the upper walkway. He pushed Lieutenant Belius into the sea.”

“Was the lieutenant recovered?”

“No, Father Captain. He almost certainly drowned, although there was quite a bit of rainbow shark activity that night—”

“Describe the man you had in custody before you lost him,” interrupts de Soya, emphasizing the word “lost.”

“Young, Father Captain, maybe twenty-five or so standard. And tall, sir. Real big young guy.”

“You saw him yourself?”

“Oh, yes, Father Captain. I was out on the walkway with Lieutenant Belius and Sea Lancer Ament when the fellow started the fight and pushed Belius through the railing.”

“And then got away from you and the lance private,” says de Soya flatly. “With both of you armed and this man … Did you say he was handcuffed?”

“Yes, Father Captain.” Captain Powl mops his forehead with a moist handkerchief.

“Did you notice anything unusual about this young man? Anything else that did not make it into your … ah … extremely brief action report to Command Headquarters?”

The director puts the handkerchief away, then pulls it out again to mop his neck. “No, Father Captain … I mean, well, during the struggle, the man’s sweater was torn a bit in front. Enough for me to notice that he wasn’t like you and me, Father Captain.…”

De Soya raises an eyebrow.

“I mean he wasn’t of the cross,” Powl hurries on. “No cruciform. ’Course, I didn’t think much of that at the time. Most of these indigenie poachers’ve never been baptized. Wouldn’t be poachers if they had, now, would they?”

De Soya ignores the question. Pacing closer to the seated, sweating captain, he says, “So the man swung down under the main catwalk and escaped that way?”

“Didn’t escape, sir,” says Powl. “Just got to this flying dingus that he must’ve hidden there. I’d set off the alarm, of course. The whole garrison turned out, just like they was drilled to do.”

“But this man got the … dingus … flying? And off the platform?”

“Yes,” says the platform director, mopping his brow again and obviously thinking of his future … or lack of it. “But just for a minute. We saw him on radar and then we saw him with our night goggles. That … rug … could fly, all right,
but when we opened up on it, it come swinging back around toward the platform—”

“How high was it then, Captain Powl?”

“High?” The director furrows his sweaty brow. “I guess about twenty-five, thirty meters above the water then. About level with our main deck. He was comin’ right at us, Father Captain. Like he was going to bomb the platform from a flyin’ rug. Of course, in a way, he did … I mean the charges he’d planted went off right then. Scared the shit out of me … excuse me, Father.”

“Go on,” says de Soya. He looks at Gregorius where the big man is standing at parade rest behind the director. From the expression on the sergeant’s face, it appears that he would be happy to garrote the sweating captain in a second.

“Well, it was quite an explosion, sir. Fire-control teams started running toward the blast, but Sea Lancer Ament and some of the other sentries and I stayed at our post there at the north catwalk.…”

“Very commendable,” mutters de Soya, the irony audible in his voice. “Go on.”

“Well, Father Captain, there’s not much more,” the sweating man says lamely.

“You gave the order to fire at the flying man?”

“Yes … yes, sir.”

“And all of the sentries fired at once … upon your order?”

“Yeah,” says the director, his eyes glazed with the effort to remember. “I think they all fired. There were six of them there besides Ament ’n’ me.”

“And you also fired?” pressed de Soya.

“Well, yeah … the station was under attack. The flight deck was a burning mess. And this terrorist was flyin’ at us, carrying God knows what.”

De Soya nods as if unconvinced. “Did you see anything or anyone on the flying mat other than the one man?”

“Well, no,” says Powl. “But it was dark.”

De Soya looks out the window at the rising moons. Brilliant orange light floods through the panes. “Were the moons up that night, Captain?”

Powl licks his lips again as if tempted to lie. He knows that de Soya and his men have interviewed Sea Lancer Ament and
the others, and de Soya knows he knows. “They’d just risen,” he mumbles.

“So the amount of light was comparable to this?” says de Soya.

“Yeah.”

“Did you see anyone or anything else on that flying device, Captain? A package? A backpack? Anything that might be construed to be a bomb?”

“No,” says Powl, anger moving under the surface of his fear now, “but it only took a handful of plastique to blow up two of our patrol skimmers and three thopters, Father Captain.”

“Very true,” says de Soya. Pacing to the brilliantly lit window, he says, “Your seven sentries, Sea Lancer Ament included—were they all carrying flechette guns, Captain?”

“Yes.”

“And you yourself carried a flechette pistol. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“And did all of these flechette charges strike the suspect?”

Powl hesitates, then shrugs. “I think most of them did.”

“And did you see the result?” de Soya asks softly.

“It shredded the bastard … sir,” says Powl, anger winning over fear for the time being. “I saw bits of him fly apart like gull shit hitting a fan … sir. Then he dropped … naw, he flew backward off that stupid carpet like someone being yanked by a cable. Fell into the sea right next to pylon L-3. Rainbow sharks, they came up and started feeding within ten seconds.”

“So you did not recover the body?” says de Soya.

Powl looks up with defiance in his eyes. “Oh, no … we recovered it, Father Captain. I had Ament and Kilmer sweep up what was left with boat hooks, gaffes, and a hand net. That was after we’d put the fire out and I’d made sure there was no further danger to the platform.” Captain Powl was beginning to sound confident of his own correctness.