“Forgive us,” Prescott said, pressing one button, then the other.
Forgive me, Margaret.
And Sera burned.
CHAPTER 14
I refuse to tolerate no-go areas for COG citizens in COG sovereign territory. We are either Citizens or Stranded—there is no middle ground. If we start over with a fragmented society, the divisions will only widen, and I will not allow Pelruan to become an enclave. There will be one community and one law for all.
(CHAIRMAN RICHARD PRESCOTT, RESPONDING TO THE DISCUSSION ON HOW TO DEAL WITH THE EXISTING POPULATION OF VECTES.)
SMALL VESSELS BASIN, VECTES NAVAL BASE, NINE WEEKS AFTER THE EVACUATION OF JACINTO, 14 A.E.
“Damn, that’s a pretty sunrise,” Cole said.
“Weather’s going to be shitty, then. Red sunsets are what you want.”
“Baird, freezin’ your ass off is shitty. A little bit of rain is good for the fields.”
Like every Gear, Cole could sleep anywhere, anytime. Or at least he thought he could. Now he was up at a damn ridiculous hour because he couldn’t, and word had gone around that the Pelruan trawlers were coming into Vectes today. Cole wanted to watch. It sounded interesting.
The naval base was now filling up with warships, fuel tankers, and just about anything that would float. Cole walked along the jetty, noting what had shown up since he last looked, and felt sure that some of these tubs hadn’t been at Merrenat dockyard. He started counting. It looked like Captain Michaelson had found a couple of extra amphib landing ships from somewhere. Some ships were turning right around and heading back to Port Farrall to pick up the last loads of equipment and personnel. It was getting to be a regular taxi service.
Actually, it looked like a pretty damn impressive navy under the circumstances. The little boats hanging around made it look a bit colorful and unmilitary in places, but the big ships had some serious guns. The Ravens Nest carriers were lined up in the big deepwater berth, deck to deck, so that you could almost walk from ship to ship if you felt like it. They were an island in their own right.
Imagine when we had hundreds of them. And now we’re down to maybe a tenth of that.
“They hid those things somewhere,” Baird said. “They were supposed to have turned in a shitload of hulls to the breakers to reclaim the steel. Crafty assholes.”
“Yeah, those crafty assholes sure came in useful, baby.”
Hell, it was only because crazy fish-heads like Michaelson and Fyne hid stuff from the reclaim system that the COG had any navy left at all. Cole wasn’t complaining. A man was entitled to tell a few lies in the paperwork if he knew he could save lives one day. The navy hadn’t had much attention for a long, long time. It obviously got up to all kinds of shit when Prescott’s back was turned.
Cole found himself laughing his head off at the thought.
“What’s so funny?” Baird still seemed to have his eye on the submarine. He wandered across the caisson to admire it. “Share.”
“The navy’s just a bunch of pirates in uniforms. Gotta love that.”
“Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t find all that pirate shit romantic. Stranded are bad enough on land. They’re not any prettier when they float.”
“Go on, make eyes at that sub. You know you want to.”
Anyone who said Baird wasn’t capable of loving much besides himself just hadn’t seen the way he looked at machines. A sailor was working on the sub’s casing, messing around with a hatch, and he looked up at the two of them like he found it funny to see Gears sightseeing at this time of the morning.
“Couldn’t you sleep?” he called to them. “Land crabs don’t usually get up before thirteen hundred, do they?”
Baird didn’t go for the bait. He must have really wanted to scramble over that sub. The name plate on the fin said CLEMENT. “Nice boat.”
“We like Gears smart enough to call her a boat.” The guy went on working. His sleeve badges said he was a petty officer of some sort, all anchors and chevrons. Cole needed to brush up on the navy’s fancy ranks. “In fact, we like you so much we won’t even try to sink you.”
“Never been in a submarine.”
“We can remedy that, for a price … You’re Corporal Baird, right? You repair things.”
“Yeah.” Baird looked on the happy side of smug. Word of his skills got around fast. “I do.”
“We’ve got a lot that needs repairing.”
“Don’t encourage him, baby,” Cole said. “He’ll never hand the keys back.”
“We’re heading out to search for a trawler as soon as I’m done here. Seeing as Gears got nothing to do now except overeat and chat up women, come along for the ride and make yourself useful.”
Sometimes Cole really did feel he didn’t have anything worth doing now. It wasn’t that he missed grubs; he just liked winning, and there wasn’t much he did lately that felt like hard work.
“What’s happened to the trawler?” he asked.
“The last radio message was weird. The skipper thought he was on a collision course with another boat, and the others lost contact after that.” The chief bolted down the small hatch. “They go around in flotillas for safety, apparently. No wreckage yet, so we offered to help. Might get a few choice fillets out of it…”
“Okay,” Baird said. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”
Man, Baird was pleased with himself. Cole had to laugh about the barter system that seemed to be operating here. The navy did tricks for fish, like some goddamn seal. Still, it was decent of them. Families would be worrying themselves sick about the trawler crew.
“You’re just dyin’ to fire the torpedoes, ain’t you?” Cole said.
“If that trawler’s been hit by Stranded, you bet. They need to find out who’s in charge now.”
Baird squinted, staring out to sea at the inbound fishing boats, all bright colors like oversized bathtub toys. As they drew closer, Cole could see that one still had its catch strung up in nets on the deck. One by one the boats tied up alongside, and a crewman jumped onto the quay.
“Nothing so far,” he said, as if Cole and Baird knew what was going on, and headed for the submarine.
Cole peered down from the quay as the rest of the crew started sorting their catch. They pulled a cable and the contents of the net spilled onto the deck, some of it still crawling and flapping. There was a regular party going on there.
Cole called down to the crew, just to be sociable. “Boat’s still missin’, then.”
“Yeah. We searched for a few hours. It’s pretty calm out there. So something’s wrong.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“It’s damn Stranded. They want the boats, not the catch.”
“If it is, baby, they’re gonna regret it.”
Baird leaned over the rail and looked at the fish being sorted. “Shit, I don’t think even Bernie would eat that.” He tilted his head on one side to get a better look. “That one reminds me of an old girlfriend.”
“The one with the big mouth?”
“The one with the tentacles.”
“You thought the Locust queen was classy. You need help, baby.”
“She didn’t look like the other grubs, man.” Baird pressed his earpiece. “Control, you awake? … Yeah, we want to go check out that missing trawler … It’s Stranded.”
Cole wasn’t really listening now. He was much more interested in whatever was going down on one of the boats. The fishermen had started to cluster around something really big and weird on top of a pile of other fish scattered on the deck. As far as Cole was concerned, most of the things down there looked weird anyway. He sure as hell hadn’t seen them on a plate in any restaurant he’d been in.
But there were all kinds of freaky things in the water down in the Locust tunnels, and flooding the Hollow could have flushed out a lot of them. That thing on the deck did not look natural. It was two meters long, like a big length of scaly pipe, with a mouth where its chin should have been. Did fish even have chins?
br />
Shit…
Cole didn’t like the look of it, and he’d seen enough weird shit to know when to worry. The trawler crew didn’t seem bothered. But then they’d never seen grubs or the variety of shapes the things came in.
“Man, that looks like it came out of the grubs’ tunnels,” Cole said. “Don’t touch it. Hang on—I’ll get Baird to take a look at it, ’cause he knows more about Locust than anyone.”
An old guy—who’d probably seen everything in the sea by now—hooked his fingers under the creature’s gills and hauled it up. He needed both hands and help from two buddies to lift it. “You never seen anything like this before, then?”
“I’m not jokin’, man. You ain’t seen the freak show the grubs had.” Where the hell could he even start with explaining about things like Reavers and Brumaks? You couldn’t make that shit up. Maybe the folks here hadn’t even seen the grub menagerie on TV before they lost the link on Hammer day. The COG didn’t hand over many ops recordings to the media guys. “Don’t touch it. Some of that shit even explodes. They got these other things called Lambent, and they glow, and—”
The fishermen started laughing. They thought it was hilarious. Cole didn’t mind a good joke, but he just couldn’t get across to them that monsters were real. He’d seen them, killed them, seen his buddies killed by them. He’d lived next door to monsters for fifteen years. He’d ridden one. He’d even met the monsters’ queen face-to-face.
Shit. They don’t get it. They never saw it. Any of it. I just can’t explain it to them. How they ever gonna understand us?
“Son, this is a shale eel,” the old guy said kindly. He seemed pretty pleased with it. “We rarely catch them. Real delicacy. You’d love it. Want a fillet piece when we cut it up?”
A goddamn eel. Was that all? Shit, he’d be crapping himself about every animal he didn’t recognize now. He felt stupid, but also worried. The nightmare had been real on the mainland, but folks here couldn’t begin to imagine what the grubs had been like, so they’d never understand why Gears reacted badly to the simplest, dumbest things. Everything was dangerous until proven safe. Every rumble and vibration was grubs, nothing harmless. It was going to take years to change that.
“Thanks,” Cole said, “but I think I’ll pass.”
The crew laid the monster eel back down on the deck and debated how to divide it up fairly so that everyone got a decent portion. Cole hoped he hadn’t offended them by turning down their offer. Baird came back and watched the operation, frowning.
“Looks like a frigging grub,” he muttered.
“Glad it’s not just me, baby.”
The wheelhouse door swung open and a guy leaned out, a radio headset in one hand. “Fairhaven’s found debris from the Harvest. Fenders, floats, no actual wreckage. So we’ve got a position.”
That killed the interest in the monster eel right away.
“We might not need the submarine, then,” said the old guy.
Baird looked seriously disappointed. “Ah, shit.”
“If they’re out there, we’ll find ’em, son.” He’d totally misunderstood why Baird was pissed off. “Don’t you worry.”
“You’re gonna need some armed backup if that’s Stranded misbehavin’ out there,” Cole said. “We do that stuff. Want a hand?”
“If you’re willing.”
Baird paced up the quay, hand to his ear, talking to Control, and seemed satisfied. “Control decided to test the sonar anyway,” he said. He’d got his boat ride, then. “Plus a patrol boat.”
“Which one makes you more seasick?” Cole asked.
“Depends how deep you dive.”
It was turning out to be an interesting day. Man, the Stranded out here were a lot wilder than the land-based variety.
Vectes had its own real-life monsters to worry about.
VNB MAIN PARADE GROUND, 0930 HOURS.
About six hundred Stranded from the coastal settlement showed up at VNB’s main gate that morning.
Hoffman looked them over, comforting himself with the thought that most of the Operation Lifeboat men had turned into decent Gears, so maybe there was some hope for this rabble once they were separated from their criminal element. Apart from some nervous glances over their shoulders when the inner gates were locked behind them—Hoffman had no intention of anyone signing up, getting their clothing issue, and then slipping away—they looked pretty docile. They’d all been searched for weapons anyway. The worst they could do was bite.
He opened his radio link. “Lieutenant Stroud, I need a bot. And get Fenix and Mataki down here.”
“Sergeant Fenix is still out with the patrol boat looking for the missing trawler, sir. Ready for the ID parade?”
More damn trouble from the Stranded; it made it hard to think of any of them as model citizens. “As ready as we’ll ever be. Get the bot images back to Pelruan and see what shakes out.”
“Yes, sir. By the way, remember that the councilmen from Pelruan are visiting at the moment. You said you’d meet with them.”
“Damn, did I?”
“They’re wandering around with one of the Jacinto representatives. You’ll be able to spot them by their dismay when they see the line of Stranded.”
“That’s not a joke, is it, Lieutenant?”
“No sir, it is not. I’ve had … comments.”
The Stranded line was mostly made up of women, children, teenage boys, and elderly men. At least Prescott would be happy to see more women of childbearing age joining the remnant, but Hoffman wasn’t convinced they’d take kindly to the do-your-duty-and-get-knocked-up philosophy of the COG. Plenty of women were happy to keep popping out babies, even women he’d have thought would have objected to being treated like broodmares, but some kind of reproductive instinct kicked in that said the species was in trouble. On the other hand, lots of women objected to the baby farms. The Stranded females were probably the independent kind who’d tell Prescott where he could shove his repopulation program.
And not enough adult males here. I need to replace the Gears we lost.
Stranded men were probably the wrong material anyway. Humankind had lost a generation of its best, and that was going to take a long time to put right.
VNB was filling up. Another accommodation block would be ready by the end of the week. People were gradually coming off the ships, which made Michaelson happier, but he was going to have to put up with them in the Raven’s Nests for months while extra housing was built.
And that took some organizing. Royston Sharle had his shopping list of urgent tasks, and he expected Hoffman to make them possible. Hoffman delegated it to the civilians playing at councilmen and gave them three companies of Gears to make a start on it.
Okay, we need housing built. We need land cleared for farming. We need sources of raw materials identified and secured. Need, need, need …
Michaelson ambled across the parade ground to look over the Stranded. He’d shaved off his beard; the trawler skipper disguise from his piracy interdiction duties had been replaced by his old NCOG officer persona, crisp and … Hoffman settled on raffish. He seemed to be relishing his new task.
“You’ll be lucky if you find a pretty one in that line, you old predator,” Hoffman said. “Admit you’re past it.”
“I’m not on the prowl, Victor.” Michaelson straightened his collar. “But the navy has standards. Just checking out the potential recruits.”
“Are we competing for manpower now?”
“Oh, we don’t need anyone that big and strong in the navy.”
“We noticed.”
“Seriously, are you recruiting from Stranded again?”
“Not unless I’m desperate.”
“The land battle’s over, Victor. It’s going to be a maritime world now.”
Hoffman managed to laugh. It was true, but that didn’t make him feel any less redundant. “Pirates. Transport. Cruises.”
“Resource investigation—we’re going to have to mount missions back to the m
ainland to find imulsion and other raw materials. Projection of power—because, eventually, we’ll need to recolonize the continent. Defense—because this is still a tiny population compared to what might be lurking out there in holes across Sera.”
He obviously had his sales pitch ready for Prescott. “And you don’t mean grubs,” Hoffman said.
“There’ll still be a few grubs, but we have no idea how many of our free-range Stranded friends are out there. Nor do they, I suspect. Looks like we’ve lost a civilian vessel today. It won’t be the last.”
“So you sail the high seas, and we provide the muscle when you go ashore.” I know you’re right, Quentin, but damn it, it still hurts. “Prescott will have to appoint you admiral.”
“We’ll always need marines.”
“My Gears will be greatly comforted by that. Especially as the navy hasn’t projected power in recent history.”
“We’re fast learners.” Michaelson turned to look past Hoffman. “Ah, here come your charming enforcers.”
Anya and Bernie walked down the ragged four-deep line of Stranded, followed by one of the bots that was going to be used to send mug shots to Pelruan for checking. Halfway down the queue, Bernie must have spotted something that worried her; she walked back a few paces, grabbed a man out of the crowd by his collar, and marched him across to a nearby wall to search him. He was a big guy, so she might have been making the point that she wasn’t going to be intimidated by that. Anya watched intently as if she was making mental notes on how to scare and demoralize a man correctly.
Michaelson suppressed a smile. “You always did go for the leonine type, Victor.”
“Female Gears need to be able to handle themselves,” Hoffman said, avoiding the issue. “Stranded don’t make concessions to ladies.”
You should have told me what they did to you, Bernie. Why didn’t you? Damn it, we’ve known each other long enough.
Anya handed Hoffman a piece of paper, signed by Milon Audley, Attorney General. For a moment, Hoffman thought the old shark had come back from the dead, but it was just an archive document she’d pulled from the files. Hoffman was still being surprised on a daily basis by what had been saved and not saved when Jacinto was abandoned.