Gardner Dozois: The Years Best Science Fiction, Vol. 20

“Jotah…” she said.

“We see it, Naqi. We see it but we don’t understand it.”

“Weir must have used some kind of… weapon against it,” she said.

“We don’t know that he’s harmed it… He might just have precipitated a change to a state we haven’t documented.”

“That still makes it a weapon in my book. I’m scared, Jotah.”

“You think I’m not?”

Around her the sea was changing. She had forgotten about the submerged tendrils that connected the nodes. They were as thick as hawsers, and now they were writhing and thrashing just beneath the surface of the water. Green-tinged spume lifted into the air. It was as if unseen aquatic monsters were wrestling, locked in some dire, to-the-death contest.

“Naqi… We’re seeing changes in the closest of the two remaining nodes.”

“No,” she said, as if denying it would make any difference.

“I’m sorry…”

“Where is Weir?”

“We’ve lost him. There’s too much surface disturbance.”

She realised then what had to be done. The thought arrived in her head with a crashing urgency.

“Jotah… You have to close the sea-doors. Now. Immediately. Before whatever Weir’s unleashed has a chance to reach open ocean. That also happens to be Weir’s only escape route.”

Sivaraksa, to his credit, did not argue. “Yes. You’re right. I’ll start closure. But it will take quite a few minutes…”

“I know, Jotah!”

She cursed herself for not having thought of this sooner, and cursed Sivaraksa for the same error. But she could hardly blame either of them. Closure had never been something to take lightly. A few hours ago it had been an event months in the future-an experiment to test the willingness of the Jugglers to cooperate with human plans. Now it had turned into an emergency amputation, something to be done with brutal haste.

She peered at the gap between the towers. At the very least it would take several minutes for Sivaraksa to initiate closure. It was not simply a matter of pressing a button on his desk, but of rousing two or three specialist technicians, who would have to be immediately convinced that this was not some elaborate hoax. And then the machinery would have to work. The mechanisms that forced the sea-doors together had been tested numerous times… But the machinery had never been driven to its limit; the doors had never moved more than a few metres together. Now they would have to work perfectly, closing with watchmaker precision.

And when had anything on Turquoise ever worked the first time?

There. The tiniest, least perceptible narrowing of the gap. It was all happening with agonising slowness.

She looked back to what remained of the node. The mound had consumed all the biomass available to it and had now ceased its growth. It was as if a child had sculpted in clay some fantastically intricate model of a city, which a callous adult had then squashed into a single blank mass, erasing all trace of its former complexity. The closest of the remaining nodes was showing something of the same transformation, Naqi saw: it was running through the frantic cycle that had presaged the emergence of the mound. She guessed now that the cycle had been the node’s attempt to nullify whatever Weir had used against it, like a computer trying to reallocate resources to compensate for some crippling viral attack.

She could do nothing for the Jugglers now.

Naqi turned the boat around and headed back toward the cut. The sea-doors had narrowed the gap by perhaps a quarter.

The changes taking place within the Moat had turned the water turbulent, even at the jetty. She hitched the boat to a mooring point and then took the elevator up the side of the wall, preferring to sprint the distance along the top rather than face the climb. By the time she reached the cut the doors were three quarters of the way to closure, and to Naqi’s immense relief the machinery had yet to falter.

She approached the tower. She had expected to see more people out on the top of the Moat, even if she knew that Sivaraksa would still be in his control centre. But no one was around. This was just beginning to register as a distinct wrongness when Sivaraksa emerged into daylight, stumbling from the door at the foot of the tower.

For an instant she was on the point of calling his name. Then she realised that he was stumbling because he had been injured-his fingers were scarlet with blood-and that he was trying to get away from someone or something.

Naqi dropped to the ground behind a stack of construction slabs. Through gaps between the slabs she observed Sivaraksa. He was swatting at something, like a man being chased by a persistent wasp. Something tiny and silver harried him. More than one thing, in fact: a small swarm of them, streaming out the open door. Sivaraksa fell to his knees with a moan, brushing ineffectually at his tormentors. His face was turning red, smeared with his own blood. He slumped on one side.

Naqi remained frozen with fear.

A person stepped from the open door.

The figure was garbed in shades of fire. It was Amesha Crane. For an absurd moment Naqi assumed that the woman was about to spring to Sivaraksa’s assistance. It was something about her demeanour. Naqi found it hard to believe that someone so apparently serene could commit such a violent act.

But Crane did not step closer to Sivaraksa. She merely extended her arms before her, with her fingers outspread. She sustained the oddly theatrical gesture, the muscles in her neck standing proud and rigid.

The silver things departed Sivaraksa.

They swarmed through the air, slowing as they neared Crane. Then, with a startling degree of orchestrated obedience, they slid onto her fingers, locked themselves around her wrists, clasped onto the lobes of her ears.

Her jewellery had attacked Sivaraksa.

Crane glanced at the man one last time, spun on her heels and then retreated back into the tower.

Naqi waited until she was certain the woman was not coming back, then started to emerge from behind the pile of slabs. But Sivaraksa saw her. He said nothing, but his agonised eyes widened enough for Naqi to get the warning. She remained where she was, her heart hammering.

Nothing happened for another minute.

Then something moved above, changing the play of light across the surface of the Moat. The Voice of Evening’s shuttle was detaching from the tower, a flicker of white machinery beneath the manta curve of its hull.

The shuttle loitered above the cut, as if observing the final moment of closure. Naqi heard the huge doors grind shut. Then the shuttle banked, and headed over the circular sea, no more than two hundred metres above the waves. Some distance out it halted and executed a sharp right-angled turn. Then it resumed its flight, moving concentrically around the inner wall.

Sivaraksa closed his eyes. She thought he might have died, but then he opened them again and made the tiniest of nods. Naqi left her place of hiding. She crossed the open ground to Sivaraksa in a low, crablike stoop.

She knelt down by him, cradling his head in one hand and holding his own hand with the other. “Jotah… What happened?”

He managed to answer her. “They turned on us. The nineteen other delegates. As soon as…” He paused, summoning strength. “As soon as Weir made his move.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Join the club,” he said, managing a smile.

“I need to get you inside,” she said.

“Won’t help. Everyone else is dead. Or will be by now. They murdered us all.”

“No.”

“Kept me alive until the end. Wanted me to give the orders.” He coughed. Blood spattered her hand.

“I can still get you…”

“Naqi. Save yourself. Get help.”

She realised that he was about to die.