She had been educated at school to believe that all drug addicts were victims of their own selfish weakness. That a totally addictive drug with fatal withdrawal effects had been developed purely as a method of enslavement was part of a further education she would rather have lived without. That Kane had deliberately addicted himself to it in a vain attempt to prevent an apocalypse — an apocalypse that almost came anyway — only served to impress upon her that life has too many random factors for comfort.
“Well, something happened.” Kane ran the sound file again. A shout of anger? Rage? Pain? Followed by Sergei — probably Sergei — crying out. “That doesn’t sound very friendly.” He leaned back in his chair. “It’s only been just over an hour. They can’t have got far. Set a pursuit course, Number One. Fifty percent faster than the Lukyan’s rated top speed, and broad passive scan in progress.”
“Aye, captain. We’ll pay special attention to the sea bed. There’s a lot of clutter that a little bug like that could hide amongst.” Ocello rose and left.
“That wasn’t very kind, calling your boat a ‘bug,’” said Kane when Ocello was safely out of earshot.
“I’ve heard her called worse,” said Katya.
She looked at the console display that Ocello had been examining and quickly skim read Vetsch’s profile before Kane could object. He didn’t, but just watched. Vetsch seemed exemplary. Apart for a couple of trifling offences that anyone would pick up out of sheer bad luck over a long period, he was entirely clean. Ocello had noted that it was unfortunate that, since the Vodyanoi’s crew had barely changed in the last ten years, there had been no opportunity to promote Vetsch. In the usual run of things, he would have made Chief years ago. That he was stuck as a second engineer was no reflection on his abilities or attitude. Words like “patient,” “tenacious,” “gregarious” did little to suggest Vetsch might suddenly turn into a raging…
“Have you noticed any… odd behaviour?” said Katya suddenly.
“What, with Vetsch?”
“With anyone. Not just in your crew. Just, you know… generally?”
“It’s a war, Katya. It’s all about odd behaviour.”
“I mean… crazy.”
“My last comment still applies.” He frowned. “What are you thinking?”
“I saw a Federal officer shoot an innocent, unarmed man dead in cold blood for no reason at all. He’d have carried on killing everyone in sight if he hadn’t been brought down.”
“It may seem a horrible thing to say, but my last comment still applies. War puts pressures on people. Psychotic breaks happen. People go crazy.”
“I’ve heard about other times it’s happened. The FMA tries to keep it quiet, but there’s gossip. People talk.” She saw Kane seemed unconvinced. “Secor interviewed me about it.”
That made Kane sit up. “They what?”
“They asked me a load of questions, and I really got a strong feeling they had asked those same questions before for other cases. When I asked if it had happened before, they were so keen not to say anything that they all but admitted it. It made me think. There has been that gossip, all that scuttlebutt between captains, but I didn’t give it much attention. I’m starting to wonder, now.”
“That’s strange. That’s really very strange. I’ll ask Tasya to see if the Yagizban are noticing a marked increase in psychosis amongst their people. More than is to be expected, anyway.” He leaned forward towards her. “Are you saying you think either Vetsch or Sergei may have suffered one of these… incidents?”
“Sergei would not go off station without a good reason. I can’t imagine him turning and running like that.” At least, she admitted to herself, unless he felt threatened. There had been nothing to threaten him, however, which left only one possibility. “I think Vetsch has done something to him. He cracked up and attacked Sergei.”
“Not the other way around?”
“Sergei wouldn’t.”
“That’s a coincidence, because I’ve got a lengthy personnel record here along with my personal experience of the man that says that Vetsch wouldn’t either.” He closed the file, revealing a navigation chart, showing the Vodyanoi’s current position, speed, depth, and heading.
“We’re heading deeper into the Red Water,” Katya commented. Kane didn’t answer, but just stared at the screen. There was a subtle change in his manner, as if she was watching his mood change in degrees, right before her eyes. She watched him in silence for some seconds, then asked, “Why is this Red Water still here anyway?”
“The Peklo Volume,” said Kane, watching the symbol representing his boat slowly moving across the map.
“This is the Peklo? I didn’t know. Uncle told me a bit about it, but not much. Who was Peklo?”
“Not a who. A what. It’s a word borrowed from a neighbour of your ancestors. It’s another word for ‘Hell,’ as if humanity hadn’t made enough hells for itself already.”
“Uncle told me that there was a sunken Terran vessel there, full of unstable weapons. They were too dangerous to disarm, so they just left them down there and interdicted the volume.”
Kane closed his eyes as if thinking, or remembering. When he opened them, he was looking directly at Katya. “Is that what he said? Well, he was largely correct. There is a sunken Terran vessel down there, and its contents are very dangerous. We’re heading in that direction, anyway,” he added, talking half to himself. He opened a line to the bridge. “Number One, any sign of the Lukyan?”
“Not yet, captain. If she was trying to get away from us, she’s bound to have changed her heading by now. I’d be running quiet and deep.”
“That’s what I thought. OK, let’s try something different. We’ll try a search grid. One thing, please make the first waypoint at the grave of the Zarya.”
There was a distinct pause.
“The Zarya, sir?”
“Yes. I’m of a mind to show Ms Kuriakova just what her world was up against when Earth first invaded.”
Another pause.
When Ocello spoke again, it was in a quiet and very serious voice. “Captain. You will appreciate why I have to ask twice. Are you sure you want us to go to the Zarya?”
Kane looked as if he wasn’t sure at all. It seemed to take an effort of will for him to say, “Quite sure, Genevra.”
As soon as he closed the link Katya said, “But what about the weapons? We’ll be right over them!”
“The weapons aren’t what you think at all, Katya.” He got up to go. At the doorway, he said, “I’ve already apologised for what we saw in the evacuation site. I had no idea that would be the first thing we would discover. What I will show you at the grave of the Zarya, however, I make no apologies for. You said I kept too many secrets from you. If you’re not already wishing that you could unlearn some of those secrets, you soon shall.”
CHAPTER TEN
Zarya
The hull groaned. Beyond it, Russalka was trying her very best to crush the Vodyanoi into a tattered wreck and drop her to crash beside the Zarya in the lightless deep.
“We’re two hundred metres past test depth. Continuing to descend.”
Kane was back in the captain’s chair, behaving a little too manically for Katya’s comfort. “I like the sound of a groaning hull. Don’t you, Katya?” he asked. “Makes you feel alive, when you think of all those millions of tonnes of water just out there, and how narrow a rope we walk in this life. Just one silly, inconsequential thing — seemingly,” he corrected himself, “seemingly inconsequential thing could kill us all in a tenth of the time it takes to think, ‘Well, gosh, that’s a lot of water.’”