Emerald Sea

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Herzer was actually glad to get out of the water. He had been losing weight, too, on the high-protein diet and constant cold. The warm sun of the Isles felt good on his back.

“After the Fall, I fell in with a guy named Dionys McCanoc,” Herzer said as the group dragged itself onto the shore.

“Met him,” Bast said. “Bastard.” She sat down behind Herzer and started massaging his neck. “Let me handle the orcas, lover. But if you have to fight one, remember they’re really sensitive about their blowholes. Get them by that and it’s like holding a man’s balls. I mean, in a fight, not, you know…”

“I know,” Herzer said, smiling. Bast could make everything a joke, which was just about the only way to live life he decided. “Anyway, McCanoc.”

“Didn’t Edmund mention him?” Pete asked, as Jason dragged himself out of the water.

“This sucks,” Jason said, crawling over to the group. “I wanted to stick a spear in that arrogant New Destiny fisker.”

“Didn’t we all,” Jackson replied. “Bast, that was unbelievable. I never saw you move, you were just there.”

“Bast is an elf,” Bast said, then raised a hand to forestall comment on the apparent non sequitur. “Everyone seems to think that elves are human. Not. Elves were constructed from ground up. No haphazard evolution for us. Look, somewhat, human, but are not. Better, stronger, faster, which is a very old joke. But also… happier. Less… serious than humans. Humans with their short lives always live in the now, which is good in a way. But elves are half the time in Dream, only way to spend a millennia or so. Me, I tend to spend most of my time in the now. Sometimes it hurts. I’ll live on when Herzer gets gray and dick goes all flabby and then he dies. And I’ll remember him, as I remember scores, hundreds, of others. And love them all. As long as Bast lives, they live on in one heart,” she said, tapping her chest.

“But Bast is not a human, nor a Changed human. Bast is an elf. And what is impossible, even for most Changed, is normal to elves. Be glad elves so happy. If not, there be no more humans on earth.”

“So you’re not a Change race?” Antja asked. “Like the mer or the delphinos?”

“No,” Bast said, shaking her head. “We’re a made race, like the dragons. And, like the greater dragons, we have abilities that were, finally, recognized as just too dangerous to let breed unchecked. So most of us retreated to Elfheim and live in Dream.”

“What abilities?” Jackson asked.

“That is for elves, and Mother and the Council, to know,” Bast said with a grin. “But know this, I can take an orca, any single orca and probably more than one, in the water, mask or no mask. I’ll give you one: I can hold my breath as long as delphino. Mask is really unnecessary so far.”

“Damn,” Jason said.

“I am as fast as a mer in the water,” she added. “And can keep it up as long or longer.” She nodded at a rock in the sand by Jackson. “Throw rock.”

“This?” Jackson said, picking it up.

“Throw. Hard. To hit.”

“I don’t want to hit you,” Jackson temporized.

“Won’t,” Bast said. She waited, leaning on one arm, the other hand languidly at Herzer’s side, until Jason threw. She caught the hard-flung rock out of the air and, in turn, tossed it against the bluff so hard it cracked and left half of its mass buried in the limestone.

She stood up and pointed about a hundred yards down the beach.

“See big rock?” she asked and took off.

Her speed was phenomenal, especially since she was running on sand. The sand flew up behind her like a rooster-tail and by the end of the run she was striding nearly five meters at a time, bounding more like a gazelle than anything human. But she slammed to a stop at the end and then began cartwheeling and back flipping nearly as fast back to where the group was sitting with open mouths. She ended in a multiple flip and twirl that had her lowest point no less than two meters off the ground; she had jumped nearly twice her own height into the air.

“Not human,” Bast said, dropping back to a lotus position and not even breathing hard. “Look, somewhat, human, but less human than chimpanzee.” She smiled at Herzer. “Will not comment on what that means for mating, morality wise.”

“The elves were created as super-soldiers, by the North American Union,” Herzer amplified. “Bast…”

“Bast was created by Nissei Corporation during height of AI war,” Bast said. “Is old joke, old even then, ‘cheap Japanese knockoff.’ ” She grinned at the joke. “But not so bad knockoff, no?”

“Not bad at all,” Jason said. “Jesus.”

“Bast, I’ve got a question,” Herzer said. “What was that… horrible sound you made when you were holding Shanol.”

“That was the hunting scream of an orca,” Jason said, shuddering. “I’ve heard it before.”

“There are two types of orca,” Antja amplified. “There are pods that generally stay in one area and hunt fish. And then there are nomad tribes, which hunt marine mammals. They’re practically identical, but the nomads use that… sound when they are hunting. And for all they look the same, they’re pretty much two distinct subraces of orca. And that sound… it’s eerie as hell.”

“It is indeed,” Bast said. “Often thought that it was original of banshee’s cry. But Herzer was explaining some of what Edmund and dolphin-eater were talking about.”

“Yeah, Herzer,” Antja said. “I want to know what he said that set you off the first time. Something about Doctor Daneh.”

“As I said, I fell in with Dionys McCanoc,” Herzer said, for a moment reliving those days and seeing the house-broad McCanoc as if he were alive. “This is… I have to give you the background, sorry. I… knew he wasn’t the greatest guy in the world. No, I’ll be more honest. I’d discovered shortly before the Fall that he was a bug-house nuts bastard. But… when I was growing up, I had a genetic problem that screwed up my nerves. I shook all the time, had a hard time speaking. And it was just getting worse and worse. So I didn’t have many friends. And when it got worse I ended up with almost none. McCanoc… picked up on that and drew me into his circle. Generally as the butt of his jokes. But when I got better, when Dr. Daneh cured me, finally, I still hung around with him. Right up until just before the Fall, when I decided to give him a wide berth.”

“What happened?” Elayna asked, cocking her head to one side.

“Dionys-fisker set up rape of homunculus,” Bast answered. “Little girl homunculus, program to hate and fear sex.”

“And… he invited me,” Herzer said. “The problem being, as he had realized, I was… very tempted.” He looked up at the group around him and saw responses ranging from disbelief to anger. “As I said, I have my demons.”

“And very fine demons they are,” Bast said, patting him on the leg. “Love it when you let them off leash.”

“Bast!” Antja said.

“Hey, is fun play rough sometimes,” Bast said. “Herzer very gentle lover when wants to, right Elayna?”

Elayna blushed bright red but nodded.

“Very nice,” was all she said.

“Everyone demons have,” Bast said, looking off to sea. “Question is, do we run demons or demons run us?”

“Don’t get too angry with Herzer,” Jason said, looking at Antja. “Unless you’ve never thought about some of the play that we do. ‘Who’s my pretty little baby?’ with her hair tied up in pigtails?”

This time it was Antja’s turn to blush but she just nodded at Herzer to continue.

“Anyway, that was when I started avoiding McCanoc. Up until the Fall,” Herzer sighed. “I found him, or he found me maybe, shortly after. And… we were wandering with a group. No, not even wandering, waiting for something. McCanoc was always talking about his friends coming for him. And then we ran out of food and McCanoc decided that we needed to… take some from passersby.”

“Bandits,” Jason said.

“Oh, yes,” Herzer replied. “He almost made it sound romantic. If it hadn’t been for the constant rain and the hunger. I was thinking more in terms of begging food from them until whatever manna McCanoc expected dropped from heaven. Or, probably, just leaving the group, although McCanoc had said he considered that desertion. But before I could decide, one of the lookouts caught their first passerby. Who happened, by awful coincidence, to be Dr. Daneh.”

“Oh, shit,” Pete said. “What did you do?”

“Well, McCanoc, big-hearted guy that he is, offered me first rape,” Herzer said, his face hard and cold. “There were eight of them, McCanoc was armed with a sword, others had knives. I was unarmed. So I did the only thing a true hero would do in the situation; I ran.”

“Damn,” Jason said, shaking his head. “Not much else you could do. Except die pointlessly.”

“You didn’t tell us about this,” Antja said, looking at Rachel. “This was when you were on your way to the town, Raven’s Mill?”

“Yeah,” Rachel replied, tightly. “I didn’t tell you. It’s not something I tell everyone I meet. Even people I like. And… it took me a long time to admit it, but Jason’s right, there was nothing that Herzer could have done except die and maybe get Mom dead in the process. In a way it took more courage, more sensible courage, to run and try to find a weapon than to stay and die.”

“I guess we both had our secrets,” Elayna said, looking at Herzer oddly.

“Yeah, but it doesn’t make it a lot easier in the deeps of the night,” Herzer said, his jaw working. “I was looking for a weapon, anything solid, but I got back after they were… done. I helped Dr. Daneh, and Rachel, on the way to Raven’s Mill and then joined the Raven’s Mill military at the first chance I got. I’ve always been into war games; I used to do enhanced reality before the Fall. But… I won’t say that my demons weren’t on my back about it, either. I’d gotten very good at being angry at that point. I wanted to kill something, to gut something, preferably McCanoc, but anyone like him would do.

“A few months later, lucky me, McCanoc turned back up at the head of a small army. We’d been training hard, but we were still outnumbered ten to one and most of the army was Changed, who are no joke to fight. They’re strong, aggressive and very hard to kill. But we beat them, mostly by maneuvering them onto fixed positions and slaughtering them; McCanoc was no tactician. In the end, though, he attacked, himself, and he had powered armor and some sort of draining nannite field. I tried to stop him, and got this,” he said, holding up the prosthetic, “for my pains.”

“I tried to stop as well,” Bast said. “Armor was too tough. Sword, any sword, just bounces off field. I hate powered armor. Unless I’m wearing it.”

“Anyway, Edmund took him out,” Herzer said.

“How?” Jason asked. “Powered armor, nannite field? What the hell did he do, drown him?”

“Ever hear of Charles the Great of Anarchia?” Herzer asked with a sly grin.

“Took over Anarchia, oh, a hundred years ago or so?” Jason asked, to a nod. “Ruled in peace for ten years, set up a representational government and left, disappeared?”

“He didn’t disappear,” Herzer said. “He took his dead brother’s name. Edmund.”

“Holy shit,” Jackson said. “You’re joking!”

“Nope, you’ve been dealing with him every day,” Herzer chuckled. “Let’s just say that the greatest master-smith in the world was not going to be fighting with unpowered armor and weapons. Bast, how would you take out Duke Edmund?”

“Strong crossbow,” Bast replied seriously. “Two hundred meters, minimum. From behind. Only way be sure to live.”

“Well, this is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into,” Daneh said.

“That it is, love,” Edmund muttered, “that it is.”

They had parked themselves in one of the swim-throughs and now watched the suddenly much more nervous mer moving around in the square as the antenna of crayfish waved at them from just too deep under the ledges to reach.

“The ship’s late,” Rachel said.

“That’s not what has me worried,” Edmund replied.

“And dealing with orcas, in the water, is not going to be easy,” Daneh said.

“And that’s not what has me worried,” Edmund replied.

“All right, Solomon,” Daneh said, in an exasperated tone, “what does have you worried?”

“When I got here, I knew the name of Bruce the Black, but not what he looked like,” Edmund replied. “I knew none of the other mer by name. And I didn’t know that New Destiny was sending a mission.”

“Damn, I didn’t catch that,” Daneh said. “He knew Bruce by sight. He knew Jason’s name. He knew about Herzer and me.”

“That indicates one damned effective intelligence agency,” Edmund said. “And intel is half the battle. I’d let Sheida handle that end, assuming that she was doing as well as the enemy. No such luck. Damn!”

“What are you going to do about it?” Rachel asked.

“Not much I can do from here,” the duke replied. “Except prove that it’s only half the battle. But when we get back I’m going to be asking some hard questions, and not trusting the answers. They knew about the carrier. They were able to intercept it. On the other hand, they’ve made damned poor use of their intel so far. Letting slip that they knew that much was just stupid.”

“Maybe there’s even more that they know,” Daneh said.

“I’m sure they do,” Edmund said. “But that’s not the point. How did they know that the ship was taking the northerly route? How did they know where it was? Intercepting a ship at sea is not easy, even if you know where it’s going to be in general.”

“You mean there’s someone on the ship passing them information?”

“Has to be,” Edmund said. “As well as sources on the land. And someone piecing them together and passing on the useful bits.”

“Two guesses who the one on the ship is,” Rachel said, bitterly. “And only one counts.”

“If you mean the rabbit,” Edmund replied, “you might be right. But don’t jump to the conclusion. Admittedly, it fits its programming. But I’m not sure of the means. Does he have an internal sensor? If not, how did he know where they were? What was his means of communication? Why destroy the ship if he’d directed it in?”

“So, who?” Daneh asked.

“I’m not a mind reader,” Edmund said. “But we’ll do some discreet investigating when the ship gets here. We know that it’s close, if the orcas were there and then here. That might, admittedly, be disinformation. But given the way they used the information they had, I doubt it. You can’t always count on your enemies being stupid, but it’s nice when they are.”

Shanol coasted to a stop above the swim-through and then paused as if taking in the seascape.

“They brought dragons,” a voice pulsed out of the darkness below.

“We were informed they would,” the orca replied. “That’s not a problem.”

“That’s what you think. They swim and can hunt underwater. The big one’s developed a taste for bull shark; she bites them in half.”

“Nothing that’s bred for the air can match us in the water.”

“Nothing is to happen to Elayna,” the voice said.

“As promised, you can have your pick of the mer-women when we are done. Although, I must admit she is a toothsome morsel.”

“Elayna and Antja then,” the voice said. “Although Elayna doesn’t have the best taste in the world; she’s been swimming out with that jerk Herzer.”

“An interesting datum, to be sure,” Shanol mused.

“Where are the rays?”

“Nearby, waiting for my signal. If we can resolve this little problem peacefully we shall. If not… other measures must be taken. I’ve tarried too long. Be ready when the time comes.”

“Just make sure the rays know who the good guys are,” the voice said. “I don’t want to get caught up in that.”

“Oh, they know who the good guys are,” the orca pulsed in humor. “That’s who they’re aiming at.”

Bruce had called both of the representatives to a meeting in the town square. He looked at both of them and shook his head.

“You’re like two children scuffling in a schoolyard,” Bruce said. “All around you is beauty, and all you can see is your conflict. Well, I will not let it come to us. I have sounded the feeling of the community, and I hereby give you my decision: The mer will have nothing to do with either of you. We need nothing from either of you that is worth the trouble it would bring. This is my decision. It is final and irrevocable. I request that both groups leave and not trouble us again.”

“For myself,” Shanol said, “your neutrality is all that I sought. My work here is done and I and my pod will leave immediately.”

“Well,” Edmund said. “We’re waiting on our ship. We request to be allowed to stay until it arrives. I have some details to work out with Jackson anyway; I still think that you need more materials and I’m working on a list that I’ll pass to traders. But as soon as the ship arrives, we’ll leave.”

“Very well,” Bruce said. “You can stay until the ship arrives, it will be here soon?”

“Within a day or two, I hope. It is already overdue.”

“It had to stop and burn a peaceful merchant,” the orca said, snidely.

“Enough,” Bruce said. “This is what I want far from here. Shanol, go now. Edmund, as soon as possible.”

“Very well,” Shanol replied. “I hope to see you again in better times.” With that he gave a flick of his tail, which blew water across Edmund, and headed out to sea, whistling for his pod.