07-340 The Shallow Sea

  A hangover would have explained the room’s nauseous movements, but not the too-narrow bed or the thick blanket. Jonathan was sure he hadn’t drunk yesterday, but habit made him probe around the floor for a bottle. Instead of a bottle, his fingers touched a shoe. It was attached to a leg.

  “Wake up, Bird, unless you want to fly. Take-off is in twenty minutes.”

  Memories aligned with the perceived reality, and Jonathan recognized Bladewater’s voice. They had met in Giza, and Jonathan had taken the navigator for dinner. Afterward, he felt sick. Bladewater had suspected food poisoning and had forced him to her cabin in the airship Odysseia. The airship was anchored at a mast in Giza's western airfield.

  Bladewater was sometimes like a stubborn grandmother guiding Jonathan towards what she considered a good life. She still called him Bird, even if Viper had been dead for two years and Jonathan had left Haven and his gangster alter ego behind, although they still clung to his heart. The nickname dropped from Bladewater’s lips like a warm hug, and Jonathan liked it.

  Jonathan opened his eyes and estimated it was still early morning. The thick curtains covered the cabin’s window, for it was the first day of the light time. The flight preparations made the airship sway gently. Its steel and carbon fiber skeleton carried echoes of sounds from the loading of the ship and the pressurizing of its gas cells. He had been onboard a few times, always accompanying Bladewater, and the woman had explained the technological details more enthusiastically than she had ever talked about her personal history.

  “Are you feeling better?” Bladewater folded down a chair from the wall to sit down.

  “I am doing well. I am even hungry.” Jonathan pushed the blanket away and sat up. He was wearing only briefs, and his skin looked very pale against the dark panels of the cabin wall. “Sorry for stealing your bunk.”

  Bladewater waved the matter away with a gesture of her hand. “Decisions, Bird. If you stay, you can continue sleeping. Otherwise, dress yourself and get lost. Odysseia leaves for a patrol.”

  “Doesn’t my presence cause rumors?” the man said, locating his trousers. The Navigator frowned before understanding what he was implying. Her mind moved within natural phenomena, ideas, and concrete issues: their reasons and consequences, and catching social nuances was a challenge for her.

  “Speech is like the wind. It comes and goes. You are my friend, and they can think whatever they want. Besides, you have a reason to be here.” Bladewater smiled at Jonathan without minding his near nudity.

  Jonathan made a questioning sound while pulling his tight pants up. He didn’t turn his back on the woman while dressing. Lack of modesty was the Navigator's normal behavior, and Jonathan had learned that she thought literally what she said, without hidden meanings.

  “The cruise ship Serenia has crashed on the Shallow Sea. A fishing boat found her remains. Miss Ohanu sent a request to check the situation and look for survivors. I wonder if some of her entertainment specialists were onboard,” Bladewater continued.

  Jonathan considered it hilarious how Bladewater used the word ‘entertainment specialist’ without any additional meanings. On the other hand, it was clear Miss Ohanu was not buying a patrol flight to save a random singer or a courtesan. Something else was going on. After escaping the chaos Viper’s death ignited, Miss Ohanu had moved her base of operations to the Shibasa islands. She even expanded her businesses to include a network dealing with information about the reefs’ appearances and bloomings.

  “Very sad, but I am not involved,” Jonathan said.

  “You are Miss Ohanu’s contact person in Giza. Her message specifically stated that your services may be used.”

  “Sea rescue is not my core service, you know.”

  “Maybe she has grown tired of financing your drinking problem and wants you to do something useful.”

  Jonathan almost denied everything, feeling insulted. He had no problem; it was just the nightmares and memories that haunted him. “The last time I did something useful, she told me to sit down, do nothing, and keep quiet until things cooled down. I have been carrying out those orders literally.”

  “You freaked out when Viper died, and the situation was developing towards an extended suicide,” Bladewater said dryly.

  “You know my life would be much more interesting without the elder ladies constantly meddling in it,” Jonathan muttered while buttoning his shirt. In truth, he agreed that he would be dead without Ohanu, who had taken care of him in that time of turmoil.

  “Freedom does not suit you. You are healthier and happier when you have a set of rules to rebel against. Miss Ohanu burned a lot of money and contacts to get the mission accepted by the Trade Union. Time for decisions, my Bird. Do you stay or do you go?”

  “I’ll fly with you unless DeLangre throws me over the board.”

  “Samuel will not do such things this time. I’ll explain your participation. We are operating with a short crew, so you can make yourself useful.”

  “Is it common?”

  “Is what common? We landed yesterday, and we were scheduled for a three-day break. Both extra missions and crew getting lost on drunken adventures are normal items on this ship of fools. You, on the other hand, are the only person Samuel has ever threatened to drop to the Shallow Sea.”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  ***

  Half an hour later, Odysseia was lifting off towards the sky, guided by the anchoring masts. It was a small and agile vessel compared to the Union’s carrier and cruise ships. When the anchoring ropes were released, the airship ignited its silent engines and turned southwest. The motor technology utilized in the airships was one of the few reliable remains of the technology used before the end of the world. The dimly shining gas trail generated by the engines was too inefficient to speed any land-based machinery, but it provided enough thrust for an airship. Bladewater insisted that such engines were used to power the small ships cruising the orbit.

  Jonathan spent the day on slender metal ladders, crawling around the ship’s carbon fiber skeleton. He checked and oiled the cables used to control the valves, accompanied by a taciturn mechanic. Afterward, he slept, and too soon Bladewater woke him for dinner. The table had been set for the captain and his three officers. Jonathan had gotten a place beside Bladewater. Behind the midship windows, the sea sparkled in the light of the twin suns.

  The dinner was canceled after the main course.

  “Captain, observed flotsam at 11 o’clock,” an officer reported from the flight deck. DeLangre left the table and took his binoculars. The others followed him to the windows.

  “Operate us closer. Height 50 meters.”

  The air was calm when Odysseia descended. The valves opened and closed amongst the gas cells, regulating lift, and the exhaust from the silent engines left shimmering lines in the air. Soon, the floating debris was visible to the naked eye. Pieces of an airship were floating near the surface, supported by air and gas trapped in and under the debris.

  The captain ordered his crew to look for the survivors and gestured for Bladewater to come closer, giving her the binoculars.

  ”Thomms, do you see naphtha?” the captain asked.

  “Affirmative, Captain. It must be fresh because it is floating close to the surface.”

  “There is a lot of it,” the captain said. “This is not the monsters’ hatching season.”

  DeLangre was referring to the colossal larvae living and cocooning at the bottom of the sea. They took years or decades to undergo a metamorphosis, pressurize their cocoons, and finally explode themselves into orbit. The stories told the behemoths had been the reason for inhabiting Watergate in the distant past. The larvae fed in the warm seas, their cocoons were harnessed, and they were helped to reach the orbit. From there, the newly hatched adolescent bioships started their long journey towards the other human civilizations. On the way, the ships hardened their skins and grew adults.

  “Can a hatching behemoth crash an airship?” Jonathan asked.

  DeLangre turned and left, not giving Jonathan even a glance.

  “The answer is yes, with bad luck. A ripe cocoon reaches almost the sea surface, and leaks heat and nutrients, attracting the algae to flower. Serenia was probably driven to sightsee them.” Bladewater explained.

  ”But surely the captains know to keep their ships high enough?”

  “My pretty Bird, only a few have witnessed a hatching in person. The forces involved are just incredible. Tons of water evaporate, and the pillar may rise hundreds of meters upwards. The pieces of the cocoon and its inhabitants may scatter even farther. One such shot is enough to crumble an airship.”

  Jonathan nodded slowly. He had heard about the behemoths but never realized the sheer size of these relics.

  “Not every hatching is such a show. Often, they are just small pops or rapid leakage of gas with a horrible smell,” Bladewater continued.

  The remains of the cocoon were easy to spot when they came closer. The outline of a fresh caldera-like formation was reaching over the waves. Some gas was still leaking out, and naphtha was floating inside the caldera. Odysseia sank lower to estimate the deposit that the captain called significant.

  “This one was a remarkable hatching,” the navigator commented to Jonathan while the two looked outside the windows. “Sometimes I wonder how it would feel to rise towards the stars when the sky slowly deepens to black.”

  “The behemoths would know. Do they ever reach orbit?”

  “Never. They needed help with that. The cocoon was harnessed already at the sea bottom, and there was a lift for them.” The woman stared towards the perpetual dusk in the west. It was more a poetic expression than an actual lack of light. The side of Watergate locked towards Abyss got its slim share of sunlight, and the red glow reflected from the gas giant. Abyss was never seen in the sky on Watergate’s light side.

  “The bridge to the stars was anchored between the sea and the orbit. It was made of energy and thin filaments, consisting of light more than any physical compounds,” the navigator said dreamily. “There were also smaller lifts, for all kinds of material were needed in the orbital shipyards.”

  “How do you know this? From the poems?”

  “Some knowledge has been kept under the Abyss. I have personally seen one lifting point. It is over there.” The woman pointed to the west. “There lie the remains of a lift. A single cable still holds. It is thinner than my arm, but alive. When you put a metal pipe against the cable, you can hear voices from the orbit. Machines are still broadcasting their data. Sometimes there are echoes of human voices.”

  “It exists?” Jonathan whispered. The people in Giza talked about the Tower of Madness. Some considered it the route of ascension, an escape from the dead world. Others demanded that the tower be found and destroyed to prevent the end-of-the-world demons from ever again returning to Watergate. The tower was in the middle of an area known for its heavy, erratic currents and rocky waterways, and the remote location and the dangerous sailing had kept it safe from invasion.

  “It exists. The last connection to the orbit. The last link to the great history, to the time we traveled between the stars.” The face marked by the sea and hardships of life softened when Bladewater talked, and Jonathan looked at her, wondering how her dreams had survived through all the years. He had no dreams left, not even the courage to dream. Maybe humans needed aspirations to guide them through the years, something to light the way, to prevent being lost to the shadows of the past.

  “Do you think we will once get back to orbit?” the man asked, thinking about the dragon. Agiisha’s existence was one of the few things he kept secret from Bladewater.

  “We were there, and we will return,” Bladewater said, her voice full of quiet certainty. “I work for that purpose, to get that knowledge back.”

  “You also work to integrate smugglers back into society.”

  “You were never a mere smuggler, Bird. You were a murderer,” the woman said, like it was a joke, and Jonathan laughed with her. Bladewater’s sense of humor was as black as the seas where she was born, as dark as the emptiness of space above, and he loved it.