Jonathan Howard: Katya's World

“Then tell her to set a direct course.” The officer moved aft without waiting for a reply and strapped himself in.

Katya looked to Lukyan. He plainly had murder in his heart, but crushed it down by effort of will. He nodded.

As Katya scrubbed her previous plot and started inputting the insane new one, her uncle hailed Traffic Control to explain what was happening. “Tell Lemuria they’ll get their parts a few hours late,” he finished.

“We’ll try but the comms hardlink is down, has been for a week. I’ll try to get a slot on the long wave array but I don’t fancy the chances. The weather-buoys have been squawking all day about an electrical storm up top. Not too choppy for a change, but there’s a lot of interference.”

Lukyan heaved a sigh. “Today’s not been easy so far. I can see it’s not going to improve. Do what you can, please, Control. Katya, how’s the plot coming along?”

She leaned back and spread her hands in disgust. There was no art and precious little science to a straight-line plot. It had taken her perhaps twenty seconds to complete it, most of which had been for the Petrograd departure and the Deeps approach waypoints. It was impossible to dignify it as “navigation.”

Uncle Lukyan looked at it for a moment, sighed in sorrow and relayed it to Traffic Control’s computers for the records. After a moment, the controller spoke. “You’re going straight through the Weft,” he said in a careful monotone.

“Not my choice or my navigator’s. Our Federal commodore here ordered it.”

“Does he know it will take you off the FMA patrolled routes?”

“I don’t think he cares very much. I could ask, if you like?”

“Would there be any point?”

“None. Are we cleared for departure?”

A pause. Then, “You’re cleared for departure, RRS 15743 Kilo.”

“Thank you, Control. Opening lock now.” Uncle Lukyan reached up and toggled a switch. Ahead of them, a crack of dim light appeared in the pitch darkness. Katya watched it widening in expectant silence until her uncle ordered, “Wake her up, Katya.”

“Aye-aye, captain,” she said, almost light-headed with excitement. Despite the change in plans, the idiotic Federal officer and his prisoner and the insultingly simple course she’d had to lay in, this was still her first time out and it would never be repeated. This was the first time she’d prepared to leave dock and she wasn’t about to mess it up. “Sonar to passive. Check. Wayfinder online. Check. Trim adjusted. Check.” With each “Check,” the Baby ’s computer marked off another box on the list. “Navigational lights, on.” She flicked the switches and the inside of the lock suddenly illuminated. Just beyond the port, she could see plankton floating, so close she could have reached out and touched it. “Check. Status lights,” she looked up at the Judas box. All its lights glowed a reassuring green. “Check. We’re clear to disengage, captain.”

“Thank you, Katya.” He swept his gaze over his own screens. “Confirmed. Disengaging… now!”

With a dull thud of metal on metal, RRS 15743 Kilo Pushkin’s Baby was seaborne, moving out of the docking lock under her own impellers. Within moments, Petrograd Station was lost in the submarine gloom behind them.

Uncle Lukyan gave Katya the helm until they reached the first waypoint. She steered the little submarine cautiously, very aware of the responsibility the steering yoke gave her. The Federal officer made impatient noises from the back but they both ignored him. The prisoner, apparently seeking another beating, asked the Fed — with great concern if little sincerity — whether he was feeling ill?

When they reached the waypoint, the officer insisted that they go to automatic pilot. Katya regretfully gave up control to the wayfinder. Now that the boat’s computers were in charge, there wasn’t a great deal to do except monitor systems that were automatically monitored by other systems anyway. Every time she’d been aboard the Baby in the past, switching onto automatic pilot would have been the cue for one or other of the crew to unstrap and come back for a chat or a game of chess. With the compartment full of passengers and cargo, that would have been difficult. With the stifling presence of the Fed, who seemed to carry the full powers of the FMA around with him like a bad smell, it was impossible. Katya and her uncle were reduced to reading checklists off to one another until that got boring. Then they lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. The trip to the Deeps couldn’t be over fast enough for either of them.

The prisoner, on the other hand, kept trying to start conversations with everybody. He asked Lukyan how long he’d owned the Baby . He asked Katya what her favourite subject had been at school and why she’d liked it. He even asked the Fed what the interview for the FMA officer’s job had been like as he was considering applying himself.

“Shut up,” said the Fed.

“Just wondering. Once all this misunderstanding is sorted out, I was wondering what I might do for a job and then I thought, don’t just go for a job, go for a career. It’s a man’s life in the FMA . Since you and I have been acquainted, Officer Suhkalev, I’ve become very impressed with the FMA. Specifically its low standards. I thought to myself, well, if he can get in…”

He stopped suddenly with a cough of pain. Katya looked back to see him doubling up; Suhkalev had elbowed him hard by the look of it. “Hey!” she called back. “Cut that out!”

“Don’t tell me my business, girl,” the officer snapped.

“How about I do?” said Lukyan. The officer was silent, his expression resentful. “You’ve got your gun on your right hip. You’re sitting to the left of your prisoner. Did it ever cross your mind that he can reach your gun at least as easily as you can?”

Suhkalev glared at Lukyan, but he drew his gun and put it to his left all the same.

“Damn,” said the prisoner, “I was looking forward to getting that. Oh,” he added in a different tone, “I’m very sorry but I seem to be bleeding on your deck.”

“Hell, that head wound has opened again,” growled Lukyan. “Katya, could…”

But Katya was already out of her seat and taking down the first aid kit from its locker. She looked around for somewhere to rest it while she opened it and the prisoner indicated his lap. “Put it here, it’ll be handy.”

“I didn’t say he could be treated,” said Suhkalev.

“You don’t need to,” replied the prisoner. “It’s in FMA regs on the treatment of and conditions for prisoners. You ought to read it sometime.”

Katya rested the box on the prisoner’s lap and opened it. “How do you do?” he said, peering over the raised lip of the lid as she pulled on surgical gloves and located the necessary medications. “We haven’t been introduced. I’m Havilland Kane.”

Katya looked up sharply. Had he just said… “Havilland Kane?”

He smiled, amused. “My infamy precedes me.”

“You’re the… pirate?” It couldn’t be? This bedraggled, painfully polite man couldn’t be Kane.

His eyebrows rose. “Am I? Perhaps I am. I’ve been accused of so many nonsensical charges it becomes difficult to keep track.” His smile broadened but — and perhaps it was just Katya’s imagination — seemed to grow colder. “And your name is?”

She didn’t answer, instead busying herself with a swab. She cleaned his wound quickly but carefully. He barely winced though the cut was deep and was already showing some signs of a mild infection. “I’m going to close it up now. I’ve put in some antibiotic matrix,” she said, carefully neutral, “but it needs seeing to properly. Make sure the medics at the Deeps know about it.”