Alastair Reynolds - Poseidon's Wake

A Regal suddenly stationed itself in front of the command-deck window, grappling on with plate-sized suction clamps. Kanu had a much better view of its armour and equipment now. It was a very muscular creature, with a powerful tail and torso, strong-looking arms, wide, webbed hands and barely any neck. It was hard to see its face behind the partial mask covering its nose and mouth, which he guessed was either a breathing apparatus or part of some water-intake and oxygenation system. Its eyes were hidden by strap-on goggles, pushed into the dough of its face like two black eggs. Its visible skin, where the armour did not cover it, was an off-white or pale green.

The Regal unclipped something from its utility belt that looked like a smaller version of the suction clamps, which it pushed against the glass before fiddling two tubes into holes on either side of its skull. Then it took another item from the belt, a metal cone, and jammed the open end of it hard against the glass. Kanu flinched as the Regal bent its face to the narrow end of the cone.

Indistinct, watery sounds came through the glass. It was language, possibly even one of the common tongues, but mangled beyond recognition by cultural isolation and the forbidding physics of this environment. Kanu thought he could make out a word or two, in what might have been Swahili — identify, ocean, exclusion, anger — but it was very difficult to be sure. He began to open his mouth, but Nissa raised a cautioning hand.

‘They can hear us now, through that stethoscope,’ she said in a low voice. Then, projecting her voice with theatrical clarity: ‘I am Nissa Mbaye. I have come to Europa on peaceful business under a Consolidation permit. The Margrave of Underthrace is expecting me. May I have safe passage?’

An answer came back. To Kanu’s ears, it was no more comprehensible than the first. But Nissa must have prepared herself for dialogue with the Regals.

Speaking for Kanu’s ears only, she said, ‘They say the Margrave won’t speak to me, so I’m wasting my time.’

‘That’s a good start.’

‘They also say they’re happy for me to waste my time provided I pay a tribute or a toll for passing through this part of the ocean.’

‘Were you expecting to pay a toll?’

‘I anticipated the demand.’ Nissa shifted her voice into her louder register. ‘I am honoured to offer tribute. I am opening my dorsal cargo hatch. Please take what you will, with my respect and gratitude.’

She made the hatch spring open. Kanu watched her silently, impressed by her preparedness. The Regal detached its stethoscope and unsuckered itself, then swam around the ship to join its fellows by the cargo hatch. The knocking and scraping had intensified around that area.

‘What did you bring?’ Kanu asked.

‘Medicines. Vitamins and food supplements.’ But in her voice he heard trepidation. It was all very well speculating on what the Regals would consider an acceptable tribute; it was quite a different matter to put that idea to the test.

Angry thumps and knocks sounded along the hull.

‘Could they damage us?’

‘Jam the thrusters and steering gear, maybe. Block the water-cooling intake. Not much else.’

‘That already sounds bad enough.’

Nissa’s expression tightened. The main Regal had returned to the window holding a fistful of small white pills, which were already beginning to dissolve into the water. The Regal mashed the soggy pills and hammered the pulped remains against the glass. It barked some oath into the water, the sound strong enough to reach Kanu even without the speaking cone. Then it gave a jerk of its tail and flicked away into the water.

The hammering and scraping abated. One or two strikes more, a dismissive final clang, and then they were free of the Regals.

‘Did we pass or fail?’

‘If we’d failed, we’d know it,’ Nissa said. ‘That was just their way of letting me know they were being generous, that my offering was at the lower threshold of what they consider acceptable.’

She touched a control and the window glass cleaned itself. The Regals had departed. They were alone again, still moving ever deeper into the ocean. Kanu did not allow himself to relax — there was too much on his mind for that — but they had cleared one hurdle and Nissa’s ingenuity led him to hope they would be capable of clearing more if they arose. If all else failed, he supposed, they always had the option of drilling their way back out of Europa. The Regals would not be so foolish as to try to hold them hostage… would they?

But they could only have travelled another few kilometres closer to Underthrace when their lights picked out a familiar masked and goggled face rising in the waters before them, as if to block their passage.

‘No,’ Nissa said, with anger this time. ‘We did a deal. We had an arrangement!’

But her concerns were misplaced. It was the same Regal, certainly, but there was no actual body accompanying its face. The Regal’s head had been cut off and skewered on a pike.

Holding the pike, hovering before them, was another humanoid aquatic creature. It carried no lights and its mostly black armour was both more functional and less ostentatious than that of the earlier Regals. It looked, to Kanu’s eyes, no less dangerous or forbidding.

But the creature waved its arm, indicating that they should follow it. With one flick of its tail it was under way, the Regal’s skewered head still in its grasp.

‘Finally,’ Nissa said. ‘Someone with manners.’

Goma rose early, by routine, with Ru still deeply asleep on her side of the bed. She had slept only fitfully, knowing that her mind would not be fully at ease until she had picked up the thread of last night’s aborted conversation. Not wishing to disturb Ru, she washed and dressed quietly before leaving the room. She went to one of the galleys and poured herself coffee. The galley was empty and she had passed hardly anyone else on her way there. Travertine ’s lights were still dimmed to their nocturnal level, encouraging its human crew to continue following a diurnal sleep pattern. The ship was all shades of brown and amber now, and as quiet as a spacecraft could ever be. Non-essential life-support systems had been turned low or switched off completely and the noise of the drive — conducted through the fabric of the ship — amounted only to a distant, waterfall-like roar, as lullingly soporific as a white-noise generator.

Mposi would be awake, though. He was a creature of extreme habit and always up and working before anyone else. Granted, he no longer had the duties of his political life on Crucible, the pressures and obligations of high office. But he would find enough to keep himself busy no matter where he was, and Goma knew he currently had the matter of the saboteur to occupy his thoughts. No, Mposi would be awake by now and probably anxious to resume their conversation.

When the coffee had restored some clarity to her thoughts, Goma moved through the ship until she reached Mposi’s cabin. She knocked quietly on the door, not wishing to disturb anyone in the adjoining cabins, presuming they were occupied.

She waited a decent interval, then knocked again.

Two possibilities presented themselves: Mposi was profoundly asleep or had already left his room. She risked a harder set of knocks but there was still no sign of life.

Fine: he was already up and about.

Goma searched the obvious alternatives — the galleys, lounges and public spaces — and still there was no sign of her uncle. She went to the gym and found it empty. She checked the medical bay, just in case, but there was no one inside the glass-doored area.

By the time she got back to her own cabin, Ru was drowsily awake.