Jonathan Howard - Katya's War

She wished she could feel anything at all. She only felt numb, detached, inhuman.

Then she felt something else, something that seeped from the numbness, a sense of order and methodical action, of doing what had to be done. She might be emotionally distanced from what was coming, but perhaps emotion, passion and commitment weren’t necessary. She could see the future mapped out as a series of events, like waypoints on a boat’s course.

She didn’t awaken, because she wasn’t really asleep, but the sense of regaining consciousness was still there. She could feel where her tears had dried. The sensation of them irritated her and she washed her face quickly in the cabin’s little basin. She checked her chronometer and discovered she had been sitting there for half an hour. That was OK, though, because now her mind was settled.

Whereas before, the future had been chaos and fear, now it was bright points on a good chart. Even the point that represented the moment she would be identified as a traitor and probably killed seemed of no more concern than any other. She wondered vaguely if this was how fanatics felt. She had expected more fire, not this cold indifference. She preferred it this way, though. She preferred to feel nothing.

At Kane’s door, she took his vague grunt at her knock to be assent, and entered. He was at his desk, running through what looked like crew timesheets. Beside him were the investigation reports, badly creased from being in his fist but showing signs he had tried to flatten them out.

“Kane,” began Katya, “Sergei’s been under watch for almost a day, now. You said yourself that…”

“He’s innocent,” said Kane, not looking up. “Obviously he’s innocent. Well, of Vetsch’s murder anyway. I can’t speak for what he gets up to in his own time.”

“So… he can be let out?”

Kane looked at her with a baffled expression. “Haven’t I already let him go? No?” He touched a button on his desk console. “Hello? Genevra? Katya’s friend…” He paused, tried to remember, failed, and looked at Katya.

“Sergei Ilyin,” she said patiently.

“Katya’s friend Sergei Ilyin didn’t kill Vetsch. Please release him. Thank you.” He terminated the link without waiting for a reply and went back to studying his screen.

“Yes. Well, anyway,” said Katya, trying to sound nonchalant, “when do you want me to do it? The…” she gestured vaguely, “the treason thing.”

“In a minute,” said Kane, comparing what was on the screen to the reports. He stopped abruptly and looked at her. “I mean to say, we’ll talk about that in a minute. Not that you’ll do it in a minute. You have to be in Atlantis to do it, as you know.” Finally realising he was making a fool of himself, he pointed at the screen. “This is interesting.”

Katya knew from past experience that when Kane was in one of these moods, it was best to indulge him. She looked at the display. “Timesheets. Capitalisation reports. I learned about them when I was studying for my crew card, but I’ve never actually used them. The Lukyan ’s too small a concern to need that kind of detail.”

“Good for discipline on a boat like this,” said Kane. “Good to know who’s been doing what, who’s pushing themselves too hard, and who’s swinging the lead. That’s an old Terran term, you know? Very old. Anyway, recent history has cost me two good men, and I am not very happy about that. I am especially not happy about not knowing exactly what happened to them. If it can happen twice, it can happen a third, fourth, however many times.”

“You’re looking for clues in the timesheets?”

“It tells me what they were doing in half their waking hours, so it’s a start. Now, look here. Vetsch never had the opportunity to enter his time aboard your boat onto his sheet, but look at the last thing he did.”

Katya followed Kane’s pointing finger and read off, “Intake maintenance. So?”

“Now, look at Giroux’s. He was on munitions inventory, but that didn’t take his whole shift. The last hour or so…”

“‘Miscellaneous,’” Katya read, and then Giroux’s additional note, “‘Helped out in starboard drive room.’ Where was Vetsch working?”

“Ah, you’re seeing it, aren’t you? Vetsch was clearing the intake filters in the starboard drive room. He was the only one sheeted as working in there, so that’s who Giroux was helping.”

Katya leaned against the cabin wall and crossed her arms as she considered this. “With respect, Kane, the Vodyanoi ’s no Novgorod . She’s not huge. People cross paths all the time aboard her.”

“Oh, I know, I know,” said Kane. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms too, unconsciously mimicking Katya. “It could well be a coincidence. Probably is a coincidence. I’m just trying to find a pattern where there may be none. Still, I’m going to have a look in the starboard drive room later just to see if…” He shook his head and sighed. “Sounds a bit desperate when I say it out loud; looking for clues. I can’t imagine what a clue that helps explain all this would even look like.”

“Perhaps they were just talking and said something that set one another off. Yes, I know — like what? I have no idea, Kane.”

“This planet of yours, Katya. No other world amongst the colonies is a water world. Well, there’s Novus Hellespont, I suppose, but they’ve got an archipelago they built on there, and it doesn’t storm all the time either. Perhaps extended submarine living drives people crazy after a while.”

“These cases are recent, Kane. We’ve been fine up to now.”

“Ah, but the war. And now another war. A combination of factors, resulting in psychosis. Vetsch, possibly Giroux, the Fed you saw, the other cases they seem to be covering up.” He grunted a semi-laugh. “Even the Leviathan went mad.” He suddenly fell silent. When he looked at Katya again, his expression was serious. “Even the Leviathan went mad,” he repeated. He unfolded his arms and started sifting through files on the console. “There’s a pattern. There’s something going on here. And,” he concluded, “it’s not going to be among the timesheets.”

He switched off the display and turned to her. “You said you’d take the mission, but you said it when you were shocked. You’ve had a chance to think about it now.”

In her mind, waypoints glittered, charting her path through the next few days. It was all she had. “I’ll do it.”

The Lukyan was directed to dock at lock fifteen at Atlantis. This was the same dock where the Lastochka , Shurygin’s boat, had been when he was murdered. When she stepped out of the hatch, her foot came down on the exact spot where he had died. Like many Russalkin, Katya professed a disbelief in omens and portents, yet noted them all the same. This didn’t seem like a very good one.

Not that it mattered; she expected to be dead within the next twenty hours. Completing the mission was all that mattered. She remembered heroes going off to face certain death in the dramas. “My life isn’t important,” they’d say while the romantic interest wept messily over them. Then they’d go off and somehow survive anyway.

Katya couldn’t see it working out that way for her. If she didn’t manage to escape Atlantis and reach her rendezvous with the Vodyanoi , she would either be shot, or captured, interrogated, and then shot. They’d throw her to Secor, and there was no escape from them. When they finally put a gun to her head, it would come as a mercy after a Secor interrogation.

The official checking her permits was frowning. “Where’s your co-pilot, Ms Kuriakova?” He examined the documents. “Mr Ilyin. Where is he?”