World of Water (33 page)

The first time they did this, Dev was startled to see just how much distance lay between them and the gargantuan crab.

Hardly any at all.

The Ice King was hot on their heels, its pincers aloft and flared, waving like titanic battle-clubs. Its eyes glinted with an avaricious inner light. Dev had been hoping the manta might have a lead of at least fifty metres on the behemoth, but in fact it was more like a dozen.

That wasn’t anyone’s idea of a safety margin.

He and Ethel somersaulted the manta sub to face forward again and urged it to flap harder and faster than ever. The manta, to be fair, needed little encouragement. In its dim, stunted brain it might have been asking itself why its pilots had voluntarily placed it in harm’s way, but its overriding imperative was sheer survival.

When Dev and Ethel next turned the sub for a look back, the Ice King was that little bit further away. Still not far enough for comfort, but at least it wasn’t hulking directly behind them.

Then it was.

The Ice King had been between kicks. As its hind legs gathered for each thrust, its forward momentum briefly slowed and the manta sub gained ground. The next kick made up the difference.

The manta whirled round once again, while the great chitinous cliff that was the Ice King continued to hurtle after it. The crab was as remorseless as any bloodhound, as implacable as any shark. Dev felt that in some way the hunt had become personal. The Ice King did not wish to be cheated of its prize. It was honour-bound now to catch the manta sub, come what may. Nobody, nothing, should escape it.

The third backward look they took was the briefest yet, a mere glance, that was all. The Ice King was no further away, but no nearer either, which was a relief.

Dev also observed that none of its worshippers were with it anymore. He couldn’t see them tagging along in its wake. The only Tritonian sub anywhere in sight was the other manta with Ethel’s Nautilus allies in it, keeping just to the Ice King’s rear.

Reflecting on this as the manta resumed its desperate flight, he could only conclude that the worshippers’ subs were unable to keep up.

That or, more likely, the Ice King’s unexpected and unprovoked assault on the drift cluster had taken the worshippers by surprise and they were still trying to process the turn of events. What did it signify? Why had their god mauled a Tritonian community when it was supposed to be attacking only ungilled settlements? Where was the divine justice in that? What was the Ice King thinking?

God moves in mysterious ways
.

Dev vaguely recalled hearing that line some time back. It came, or so he thought, from that book which no one read or owned anymore, the Bible. Whoever had quoted it would have been using it ironically or for shock effect. Even just mentioning God – as in capital-g God – could provoke outrage in the Post-Enlightenment era, a blasphemy against rationalism, a heresy in an age of atheism.

God moves in mysterious ways
. You weren’t supposed to question your deity’s actions or motives, you were just supposed to accept them. Unthinkingly. Unblinkingly. Like a sheep.

But this particular ‘god’ had behaved so out of character, so wrongly, that its worshippers were bewildered and taken aback. Maybe, even now, a chill of doubt was creeping into their hearts. They were beginning to ask themselves if they had made a mistake, if their faith was misplaced. Unfounded, even.

As the manta sub swept onward, Dev looked across at Ethel and said,
How much longer can we keep this up?

As long as necessary
, was the reply.

But we’re well clear of the drift cluster by now.

We’ll carry on until we’re absolutely certain the Ice King won’t return there.

And when our manta subs get tired...? They will sooner or later.

Ethel’s response manifested as a dim, ambiguous mix of cobalt and charcoal-grey.
The Ice King may tire first.

Rendering the phrase “And pigs might fly” into Tritonese was tricky. The nearest Dev could get to it was
And flying fish mightn’t fly,
which made very little sense even to him and was met with stony incomprehension from Ethel.

As the chase continued, Dev wished he had some way of communicating with the
Admiral Winterbrook
. He was confident the catamaran was still overhead, doggedly tracking the Ice King. Sigursdottir may well have deduced from the sonar imagery what the manta sub was up to. At the very least she would realise the monster and the sub were locked in a deadly pursuit.

What she ought to know was that there was a Polis+ conspiracy afoot on Triton and that a passenger on her boat, Xavier Handler, was involved somehow. Handler might well be a mere pawn. He might, though, be instrumental in the plot.

He might even be a Plusser himself.

The notion, as soon as it popped into Dev’s mind, made his stomach go sour. A Polis+ agent masquerading as an ISS liaison. The Plussers somehow managing to infiltrate Interstellar Security Solutions. Putting one of their own right into the heart of the corporation that made a profit from combating them.

Shit.

That would be a kicker, wouldn’t it? The ultimate inside job.

And yet, if true, there was a certain bravura audacity about it. You almost couldn’t help admiring the Plussers’ nerve.

The manta seemed to sense something. Dev felt it faltering, as though it was in a quandary.

He looked across quizzically at Ethel, who was also puzzled.

They turned the sub, only to find that the Ice King had dropped back. A gap of over two hundred metres had opened up between them and it.

The Ice King simply floated. It looked inconceivably cunning to Dev just then. Inscrutable and calculating.

What’s it waiting for?
he said.

I don’t know,
said Ethel.
But I have a very bad feeling about this.

Think it’s had enough? It’s going to head back to the drift cluster?

It better not.

They nudged the manta towards the crab with a few tentative wingbeats.

The Ice King remained put, observing them with those dark, leeringly knowing eyes.

Is it... messing with us?
Dev said.
Trying to sucker us in?

You mean beat us at our own game? Not sure, but I wouldn’t put something like that past it.

Let’s hold back. I’m not letting myself get played by a string-of-shit-hanging-out-of-a-fish’s-anus crab.

Ethel showed amused surprise.
You’ve picked up some bad language.

It’s the company I’ve been keeping.

The strange standoff stretched on. The Ice King exhibited nothing but a steady, enigmatic patience, as imperturbable as a granite monument. If Dev hadn’t known better, he would have thought that its mouth parts were fixed in a sort of smile.

The Polis+ agent inside it had an ace up his sleeve. That was the only conclusion Dev could draw. The Plusser knew something Dev and Ethel didn’t.

Hold on
, Dev said.
Where’s the other manta? Where are your friends?

Ethel scanned the sea immediately surrounding the Ice King.

They were riding its wake, last time we looked
, she said.
Right behind it.

Where are they now?

Ethel’s face went a sickly shade of green, the colour of dread.

They wouldn’t have abandoned us
, she said.
Never. “The more of us there are, the greater we are.” What’s happened to them?

It was as though the Ice King had been waiting for her to ask. This was its cue.

Its mouth parts unfurled, revealing that they were clasping an object, something they had been masking from sight.

The other manta sub.

The Ice King loosened its grip on the sub tauntingly, just a fraction, to give Dev and Ethel a better view. In the manta’s eye socket cockpits, the two Tritonian pilots exuded panic and terror, jaggedly jarring hues of red and green. The manta itself squirmed in the clutches of the crab’s mouth parts, stuck fast, trying in vain to break free.

No!

Ethel rammed the steering stalks forward. Dev wrenched his pair of stalks back.

Don’t
, he warned her.
That’s what it wants.

Their manta dithered, paralysed by the conflicting commands it was receiving.

We can’t leave them to the Ice King’s mercy
, Ethel insisted.
We have to go and help them.

The Ice King doesn’t have any mercy. This is a trap. It must have known all along your friends were there, at its rear. It spun round, grabbed them, and now this. It wants us to move in. It wants us within pincer range.

Let go of those stalks
, Ethel demanded.
Now.

We’ll all die if I do.

We can save them.

I doubt it.

They’re not your friends. They’re mine. Do as I say, you heartless ungilled bastard.

It was one of the toughest calls Dev had ever had to make.

I can’t
, he said.
The Ice King is going to kill them whatever happens. Don’t you see that? They’re as good as dead.

The crab’s mouth parts tightened somewhat, forming a cage around the manta and its pilots, an inescapable imprisonment. The two Tritonians peered out through the bars of their jail like condemned convicts, and Dev watched their agony of fear turn to resignation. They, too, had realised that their situation was hopeless.

No
, Ethel said, desolate.

The Tritonians signalled fatalistic defiance across the space between the Ice King and Ethel’s manta.

Don’t forget us
, one said.

Make sure the monster pays
, said the other.

I promise
, said Ethel.

Wearily, reluctantly, she eased back on the steering stalks. The manta edged away from the Ice King.

The gargantuan crab saw that its bluff had been called. The manta in front wasn’t coming to the aid of the one in its maw.

The mouth parts moved sideways and apart so as to grasp the manta by the wings. Then, with a slow, cruel deliberateness, as though making a point, the Ice King proceeded to tear the sub apart.

First it tore the manta in two, like a wishbone. Then it dissected the still twitching halves piecemeal, ripping through cartilage, rending inner organs, splintering bone.

It managed to save the cockpits, and the Tritonians inside them, for last.

There was an expression of almost palpable malice on the Ice King’s face as it clamped its mandibles around the manta’s eyes and crushed them.

The corneas burst.

Then, as the Ice King continued to apply pressure, the Tritonians burst too.

Ethel displayed nothing but fiery red loathing.

Dev felt much the same.

In a final act of spite, the Ice King did not actually consume any of the manta or its pilots. Instead, as if in sheer contempt, it spat out the whole mess in a churning billow of sundered flesh and ruptured innards.

Not good enough even for me to eat
, was the message.

And Ethel received it loud and clear, and her hatred curdled to blind rage, and she slammed the steering stalks forward again, and before Dev could counteract the command, the manta was flying straight at the Ice King.

49

D
EV TRIED TO
pull the manta out of the kamikaze divebomb run it was making. He wagged the steering stalks this way and that, but the manta only wobbled, didn’t deviate. Ethel had pure, furious determination on her side. Of the two of them, she was imposing the fiercer will on the manta. Her face screamed revenge.

The Ice King filled Dev’s field of vision from end to end, every crevice and craggy contour of its front end visible in sharp relief. It looked eager to greet them. Its mouth parts yawned wide, exposing the cavernous, toothless grotto that was its gullet. Moments from now, it would be feasting on the manta that had led it such a merry dance.

There was method in Ethel’s apparent madness, however.

At the last possible instant, just as it seemed the manta was going to pitch headlong into the Ice King’s mouth, she thrust the stalks out to either side and squeezed a nodule on the control column with one knee. The manta veered downward.

The crab’s mouth parts gesticulated wildly as the sub shot past them, plummeting on a perfect perpendicular trajectory. Down into the depths it went, travelling at such speed that Dev lost his grip on the control column. He sprawled against the rear of the cockpit, pinned by the force of the water jetting in through the rift in the eye’s outer membrane.

The sea darkened. The silvery light filtering down from the storm-tossed surface faded to grey, then to the colour of ashes, then to a thin, feeble gleam like dawn on a cloudy day.