She had barely let herself think of him in all the time she had served as Gundhalinu’s Chief Inspector, keeping herself endlessly busy with the details of her work. She felt his absence from her life so profoundly that to remember his presence in it had been unbearable. She had walled herself off from her grief, she realized now; shut away her personal needs behind a barrier of official business, as she had done all her life before she met him.
To be here today in the middle of this strange sea was a kind of catharsis, giving her emotions an outward focus, and a meaningful goal. He should have been here today, she thought. And, thinking it, she knew that he was; because she had become the keeper of all that he had believed in, not just under the law but in her soul.
She looked down over the catamaran’s rail, checking again on the position of Silky, who had been ranging farther and farther from their position in the water, disappearing but always returning just as she began to grow concerned. Silky blew spray, sneezing noisily in the ship’s shadow just below her, and submerged again as she watched. It reassured her to see the merling in the flesh, even though she could track Silky’s location any time with the ship’s instruments, from the sonic tag the young mer wore.
She had had dreams—nightmares—of the Hunt every night for weeks, even though she had had plantation hands following the colony’s course by boat ever since she had learned that the mers were traveling north; trying in the only way she knew to protect her adopted child from Vhanu’s hunters. So far she had been successful.
But now the mers had gathered here at Carbuncle, just as BZ had predicted. She had no way of knowing how long they would choose to remain here, any more than she could say why they did it, or how long Moon would be able to maintain this level of support from her people. The offworlder’s threats and restrictions had only made the Tiamatans more stubborn; but soon the real pressure would come from the need of people to get on with their work and their daily lives.
The comm bug in her ear came alive suddenly, and a voice said, “Commander, this is Fairhaven. Commander Vainoo is coming your way, in a hovercraft; just so you know.”
“Thanks, Fairhaven,” she murmured, with an involuntary chuckle. The common local mispronounciation of Vhanu’s name had rapidly become the only one, since he had declared martial law. She shrugged at the curious stare of one of her deckhands. “Prepare to repel boarders,” she said.
“Commander?” The woman’s expression grew even more uncomprehending.
“A joke.” Jerusha shook her head, looking out across the sea. She watched mers ripple the water surface off to starboard; saw them submerge, as a hovercraft passed over their heads, just above wave height, heading directly for her ship.
She stood where she was, leaning against the rail, feeling a fine mist that was part cloud, part sea, clinging to her face as she waited for Vhanu to come. The hovercraft slowed, settling with uncanny precision until its door was directly beside her. The bug in her ear came alive again, on the Police frequency this time. “Permission to come aboard, Commander PalaThion?”
“Granted,” she said. She smiled, with an irony she knew would not be missed by the watchers behind the mirrored windshield that loomed like a predator’s eye above her.
The door rose and Vhanu climbed out, landing awkwardly on the pitching surface of the deck. The hovercraft remained protectively beside him as he saluted her, punctiliously correct, as always. “Commander PalaThion.” She heard in his voice how it annoyed him to have to address her by a rank equal to his own, when in his mind she was no more than the head of a local constabulary.
“What can I do for you, Commander Vhanu?” she said, not returning his salute; refusing to participate in his charade of Technician propriety.
He frowned. “You can tell me what you’re doing here, in the middle of this unlawful assembly, to begin with,” he said.
She raised her eyebrows. “To begin with, this is not an unlawful assembly. Your restrictions only specified gatherings of more than ten people within the city. It said nothing about boats on the open sea. As for my part, professionally I’m ensuring that order is maintained, while at the same time, as a private citizen, I’m observing the Lady’s miracle, like everyone else.”
“You don’t believe that rubbish,” he said flatly.
She stared at him. “What I believe, or don’t believe, is no business of yours.”
His frown deepened; she saw him searching for a trace of sarcasm in her voice, a hint of it in her eyes. She showed him nothing. “You and the Queen have strained my patience long enough with this harassment,” he said, his own eyes turning cold. “The Police are beginning a sweep even as we speak. I have ordered my people to arrest everyone who refuses to disperse and remain outside of a five-kilometer radius of the city, and to sink their ships. That includes you, PalaThion, if you remain here.”
“More people will take their places,” Jerusha said.
His mouth twisted. “Then we’ll go on arresting them. You can’t keep it up for long. This miserable world doesn’t have enough population.” He hesitated, as her expression did not change. “And what population it has is extremely centralized,” he said slowly. “These ignorant technophobes have no idea what kind of position that puts them in strategically. But I don’t have to tell you what we could do to you, if you give us any real trouble. I’ve been lenient so far. You know that—”
“Commander Vhanu! Sir—” The voice of the hovercraft’s pilot came over her own comm link, even as she saw Vhanu react. “Carbuncle has just lost all power.”
“What?” Vhanu said.
“Everything has gone down there, sir. It’s like someone threw the master switch. They have no lights, no power—nothing.”
Vhanu swore, looking toward the city, his face suddenly naked. Jerusha had never seen him show an emotion as spontaneous as the disbelief, and then the fear, that filled his eyes. The fear frightened her more than any threat. “Take me back to the city,” he muttered, into his own link. He turned away as if he had forgotten that she existed, and climbed into the hovercraft.
Jerusha watched the craft rise, bank sharply, and soar away toward Carbuncle. The city looked unchanged to her, from where she stood, in broad daylight. But that was the thing about Carbuncle—it held its secrets well. She wondered what would happen when night came … wondered if Moon had done this, somehow. She was certain that was what Vhanu must be thinking. Her hands tightened on the rail as she remembered the look in his eyes.
She called on her link, alerting the constables who were out on the sea with the locals, ordering them back to the city. She tried to raise her headquarters in Carbuncle, getting only static; her skin prickled suddenly, as if the sound had invaded her very flesh.
She glanced down over the rail again, searching the water beside her for Silky The mers nearby had scattered as the hovercraft came down; some of them were returning to fill that gray, restless space now, although suddenly the entire surface of the sea seemed to have grown almost empty of them. “Atwater,” she called, glancing into the ship’s cabin. “Get me a reading on Silky, will you?” She waited, her hands tapping a silent rhythm on the rail as the time stretched and still she got no answer. “Atwater—?” she demanded.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Atwater said, at last. “I can’t trace her beacon. It’s gone.”
Hegemonic Police Commander NR Vhanu was met at the gates of the Summer Queen’s palace by an escort of two city constables, carrying lanterns. They studied him and his escort with guarded expressions, saying only, “Come with us, sir,” as they led the way back through the heavy doors. He felt their hostility like a wave of heat as soon as they turned their backs on him.