The officer on the boat drew himself up, concluding his speech.
“For this long and atrocious history of criminal activity, the Osiris Council has condemned Eirik 9968 to death by drowning.”
The kid leaned forward over the boat rail, eyes wide and eager.
Vikram felt a rising panic. It couldn’t happen. Eirik was innocent. Vikram knew he was innocent. Where were Nils and Drake? If he could find them — he had to explain. It was as though he had emerged from hibernation. How could he ever have imagined that Eirik could be involved with the NWO? The idea was insane. What had he been thinking?
There was still time for a miracle. The speaker would reverse his statement. He would declare that the execution had been a warning to the west, and Eirik would be freed. They couldn’t — they couldn’t kill him.
He willed Eirik to look his way. A moment of contact — he needed Eirik to know he was here—
“Pardon.”
The call came from the other side of the crowd. Quiet at first. Then another voice joined in.
“Pardon.”
The call rose, each voice creating a new bubble of sound. Vikram added his own plea, but his throat was tight and his voice hoarse and barely audible.
“Pardon. Pardon.”
The executioner stepped forward and zipped up the hooded suit, concealing Eirik’s face completely.
No—
One of the guards opened a door in the tank. They pushed Eirik inside. He fell against the side of the tank and slumped to the floor. The skad banged the door shut. Vikram felt the reverberations shudder all the way down his spine. You didn’t believe him, they said. You didn’t believe him, believe him, believe him…
Wild ideas raced through his head. If he could get to the tank underwater — hold his breath long enough to swim—
Chatter skittered through the crowd, small sounds of distress, quickly choked, others muttering in anticipation. The people around him were faceless and alien. The man on his right had lifted the kid to sit on his shoulders and someone behind was complaining that their view was blocked. Vikram could not see Nils or Drake anywhere. He was on his own.
Two skadi went to their stations at the pumps. The executioner checked his watch, gave a curt nod. A stifling quiet fell over the crowd.
It was so still that Vikram could hear water guzzling through the bilges. The first load splashed into the tank.
He heard disjointed words behind him.
“I can’t watch—”
“Don’t look. Come here, just don’t look—”
“Dad, the water’s going in — I can see it—”
Behind the glass the water trickled, greenish in colour. It foamed and swirled with the pressure. Strands of floating kelp were sucked inside. A small fish was flung out of the pipe. Eirik lay prone against the tank wall, his hands still manacled.
Stars—
Help him!
The water gathered around Eirik’s legs. At last he seemed to stir. The shock of the icy water must have jerked him from his state of comatose. He moved his head. He drew his knees to his chest. Every movement he made was infinitely slow.
“It’s going to take ten minutes,” said someone on the next boat.
“Ten? Fifteen at least.”
“No, not fifteen. Not as long as that.”
“I’ll bet you on it.”
A girl began to scream, a long and eerie sound, rising and falling. A skad lifted his rifle and fired a warning shot into the air. The scream stopped abruptly. The crowd rippled with alarm. He saw several people duck, some hunching protectively over their neighbours, but no one shouted; no one dared to protest. It would have to be Vikram. If he spoke up, he could incite the crowd — they must be angry enough to act — surely they must want to stop this — surely they didn’t believe, as Vikram had—
His body had turned to lead. Some part of his mind knew that this was self-preservation. That there was nothing he could do for Eirik now. He could only give Eirik the dignity of a witness. Someone to remember, to throw salt in Eirik’s name.
The skadi bent and straightened as they worked the pumps, first in time, then in an almost comical seesaw motion. One paused to wipe his brow before he bent to the task again.
“Get on with it!” a westerner shouted.
“Why don’t they just shoot him?” muttered a girl on Vikram’s boat.
The water swilled, a foot high.
The woman beside Vikram gasped and let out a long sigh as she fainted, her weight a sudden heaviness against his own too-light frame. The man lifted the kid off his shoulders to help Vikram support the woman and the kid climbed up onto the boat rail to see better and stared and stared.
The girl who had spoken before knelt to give the woman water. The woman’s eyelids were violet. Her lashes fluttered as she regained consciousness.
“Is she alright?” Vikram’s voice came out ragged. He cleared his throat. The noise sounded as loud as a slap.
“I’ll look after her,” whispered the girl. Her eyes met Vikram’s and for a moment held, whilst a slight frown creased her forehead. He froze, suddenly terrified that she had recognised him. Did he look like an insurgent? Could she ever have seen him with Eirik? He turned stiffly away.
“Dad, look, the water’s up to his neck,” said the kid. “He’s going to die now.”
“They’re killing him.” Vikram couldn’t stop himself. It was important that he said this, that this definition, at least, stayed with the kid, even if his father gave Vikram a peculiar glance and placed his hands protectively on the boy’s shoulders.
Eirik tried to stand but slipped and crashed back. He tried again. His legs could not support the weight of his torso.
“Well you know… if the NWO really had come back… maybe it’s better this way…”
“You think..?”
“The skadi would have crucified us… if you were old enough to remember what happened after Osuwa, you’d know…”
“Please, don’t talk about Osuwa.”
The snippets of conversation drifted from all sides like small feathers. Vikram could no longer tell where they came from.
The water lapped at Eirik’s chin. He got clumsily onto his knees. The movement must be an exertion. Perhaps he was in dreadful pain. The black overalls hid his body; whatever previous tortures had been inflicted upon him were invisible. Vikram imagined the prison guards entering Eirik’s cell, taunting him, with words at first, the jeers giving way to cigarette burns, blows, worse. He winced.
Time was winding down. The two skadi at the pumps seemed to move in slow motion. What kind of man could kill another in this way? Vikram looked around at the crowd. Every one of them was complicit. He was complicit himself, because to do nothing was to aid in the working of the pumps.
Eirik floundered on his knees. His gloved hands slipped at the sides of the tanks. He fumbled to remove the gloves and they came adrift. Vikram saw Eirik’s bare hands slide against the glass, feeling to his left and right, reaching up to the top of the tank, finding this too blocked.
Vikram folded over the rail, his head buried against his clenched hands. He did not care now who saw. He wanted to cry. But his eyes remained obstinately dry, and even if the tears had come he knew that they would be for himself, for his own stupidity and his failure to believe in a friend, as much as for Eirik who in many ways was already dead. The impulse shamed him. He lifted his head; he would make himself watch the end. It was the last thing he could offer Eirik.
He heard the skadi at the pumps grunting with exertion. The water level rose and rose. It reached Eirik’s shoulders. Eirik was trying to undo the hood. His bound hands flapped ineffectually around his head. He didn’t seem able to bend his fingers.