Jonathan Howard - Katya's World

Another light flashed on her display, more insistent, brighter. At the same moment she realised what it was, the telltale pulsing tone started to sound through the hull.

“Torpedo!” called Lukyan. He was already pulling the steering yoke over and down. “Evading!”

Katya remembered the last time he’d done this, he’d trusted the Navcom to perform the evasion. Of course, on that occasion they were hit multiple times and almost died.

She felt the Baby pitch sharply and perform a corkscrew descent as Lukyan made for the next deepest thermal layer scattering noisemakers in their wake. Through the din in her headset, she could still plainly hear the fast pulses of the Yagizban torpedo’s sonar and the hiss of its impeller motor until, abruptly, it stopped. The pinging ceased altogether and the hum of the impeller turned to a dying shriek even as it diminished in amplitude.

“There’s something wrong with it,” she reported. “I think it’s sinking?” She checked for an IC resolution and it confirmed that the torpedo was tumbling into the depths. A moment later it exploded. She looked at the others. “I have no idea what happened there.”

Kane looked around as if he could see through the hull. “I can make a guess.”

Lukyan nodded and killed the Baby ’s engines, neutralising their buoyancy so they coasted along for a few metres under no power. Katya suddenly understood.

“The Leviathan ?”

Lukyan looked grim, and there was misery in his voice when he said, “Why didn’t I try harder to leave you behind, Katya?”

“Where there’s life, there’s hope,” said Kane. “They say that where I come from.” He coughed. “Of course, they say all sorts of rubbish, but I think that one’s true. While we live, nothing is certain. We walked out of the Leviathan once; perhaps we can do it again.”

Lukyan was unconvinced. “And what if it just sinks us?”

“You’re a cheerful soul, aren’t you? Think about it; if it had wanted us dead, it would hardly have bothered stopping that torpedo. It saved us for a reason.” They gripped the sides of their seats as the Baby was abruptly jerked upwards. “We’re about to find out why.”

“What exactly are those cables?” asked Lukyan as the Leviathan withdrew its grappling tentacles into the metallic hemisphere in the ceiling of the docking bay. A moment later, the chamber started to empty of water.

“Biomechanics. Biological principles applied to technology. I never liked it. I like my machines to look like machines.” Kane patted one of the Baby ’s structural ribs almost fondly.

Inside a minute the chamber had been pumped so dry it was hard to believe it had been full of water anytime in the previous hour. Without discussion, they cracked the seal on the minisub’s aft hatch and clambered out. The exit door slid soundlessly open and they climbed the slight incline to reach it.

On the other side of the door, Kane stopped them and pointed at the floor by the hatch’s edge. “There. That’s been worrying me.” Katya followed his finger and saw a quantity of dark powder. She started to bend to touch it, but he stopped her. “I wouldn’t get it on you, if I were you. Too easy for some to get in your mouth and that wouldn’t do you any good.”

Katya stepped away from it, unsure. “What is it?”

“I had my suspicions when we were last here so I took enough for an analysis. It’s a very, very fine powder made up all sorts of metals and metallic salts, some of them very heavy and very toxic, that’s why it’s not a good idea to risk ingesting it. Some very rare minerals in it.”

“So what is it?”

“Soup,” said Lukyan. “Dried out Soup from the ocean bed. Is that right, Kane?”

Katya thought back. “We detected the Leviathan in the middle of the Weft. There’re lakes of this stuff there. It must have been lying in one. Maybe its airlock seal isn’t as tight as it should be and some of the stuff leaked in” She shrugged. “Okay, it’s interesting, but why should we care?”

Kane sighed in sharp exasperation. “Why should..? Katya, use your eyes. We’re not in the airlock! How is it in the corridor but there’s not a trace of it in the airlock itself?”

“Maybe there was but it washed out when it picked us up the first time,” she replied sharply.

Kane opened his mouth and then shut it again; he hadn’t thought of that. “That’s possible. I’m just trying to understand why the Leviathan ’s been behaving so oddly, even before Tokarov joined with it. I thought perhaps the matrix of its synthetic intelligence had been contaminated with particles of Soup.” He looked so crestfallen that Katya felt sorry she had snapped at him and even sorrier that she had shot down his theory. “I’m just trying to understand.”

“If the airlock seal failed under the pressure,” she offered, “maybe some other seal did too. Perhaps Soup did get in and poison the AI.”

That cheered Kane up. “Yes. Yes, of course, you’re right. If your idea’s right, that doesn’t mean mine isn’t right too. Or at least, some of it.”

Lukyan was eager to get on. “Some of it?” he grumbled. “There’s more of it?”

Mistaking Lukyan’s sarcasm for interest, Kane nodded. “Yes, I was also wondering if the trace of Soup was simply evidence that the airlock had been used after I left the first time and before coming back with you and Tokarov.”

Lukyan’s disinterest faded slightly. “Are you suggesting somebody might have come aboard and sabotaged the Leviathan ? Who? When?”

“Why?” added Katya.

“Three excellent questions and I have a single answer for all of them. I don’t know. It was just a thought. It just occurred to me that an accidental contamination would be more likely to cripple the Leviathan . What happened seems so…”

“Deliberate,” finished Katya. She was beginning to think he had a point. “But we don’t know who or how or why or when. You need motive, opportunity and method before you have a case, and you have nothing.”

“No,” he admitted, “I don’t. Just an ugly sense of purpose behind everything that’s happened. That’s not much.” He sighed. “Oh, come on. Let’s get this over with.” The three of them continued walking up the blank white corridor towards the interface chamber.

They paused at the door as Kane stopped them. “Do we have anything that, in poor visibility, might just possibly be mistaken for a plan? Once we’re through that door, things might happen very quickly.”

“Talk to Tokarov,” said Katya. “We have to talk him around.”

“I doubt there’s much of Tokarov left, at least mentally. It’s still worth a try. And if his personality has been completely destroyed, what then?”

“We kill him,” said Lukyan.

“Uncle!”

“I’m sorry, Katya, I know that sounds cold. There’s no choice, though.”

“You can try killing him, but you’d be wasting your time,” said Kane. “If the Leviathan has finished processing him, it will just be using his brain for extra storage space. If he dies, it’s a nuisance to the Leviathan , but that is all.”

Lukyan crossed his arms. “What, then?”

Kane looked uncomfortable. “Let’s just see how it goes, shall we?”

“That’s it then? If there isn’t enough of Tokarov left to talk to, we don’t know what we’re going to do next?”

“In a nutshell, yes.”

Lukyan shook his head. “We’re doomed.”

“War’s have been won on thinner plans than that,” said Kane.

“Not as many as have been lost,” retorted Lukyan. He stepped up to the door. “Not much point in asking if we’re ready, is there?” He tapped the control and the hatch opened.