Khione's Prisoners Read online

  Tanaka sat cross-legged on the floor, the pieces of a cavitation rifle spread out before him.

  “I can handle this,” Tanaka said. After being introduced as ‘Tanaka-san’ Zima expected a Japanese accent. Tanaka’s English sounded American.

  “I brought ya help anyway,” Meacham said.

  Tanaka smiled at Meacham, then looked at Zima. “I heard you talking about the weapons. If you want to take Meacham hostage that’s okay, but two francs won’t go far in the commissary.”

  Meacham’s frown deepened at Tanaka’s comment. Instead of shouting or threatening Tanaka, he acted liked he hadn’t heard it. He used a magnetic key to open a locker. He took out a rifle and handed it to Zima. “Get started.” Meacham walked off.

  A couple dive lockers stood open. Zima wasn’t surprised to see Tanaka’s locker was as neat as the man’s dressing habits. Had Tanaka been a Belter? He’d heard the orbital workers had a fanatical habit for keeping their ships orderly.

  More surprising was Reece’s locker. Zima was impressed at how organized her locker was, her professionalism finally showing. Then he realized every item was laid out the same way as Tanaka’s locker. So either Reece copied Tanaka or Tanaka maintained her gear for her. Zima had a good idea it was Tanaka taking care of her. So in addition to protecting her from Meacham, he made sure her gear didn’t fail in mid-dive.

  Zima sat down near Tanaka. He struggled to remember what Japanese phrases he knew. “Ah, konichi-wa, Tanaka-san.”

  Tanaka looked disgusted. “I was born in San Diego.”

  “Oh. With what Meacham said…”

  “Meacham’s an ass.”

  “Yeah. I’m from the West Coast too. Little Russia in—.”

  “Didn’t ask.”

  Pridurok, Zima thought. His Russian may have been halting, but he had the swear words down cold. He studied the weapon in his lap, trying to figure out where to start.

  Tanaka frowned as Zima fumbled with the weapon. “You ever use one of those before?”

  “We trained on a different model.”

  “‘Trained?’” Tanaka said, drawing out the word. “You’ve never used one on a real dive.”

  Zima shook his head.

  The tiniest grimace crossed Tanaka’s face. “What about Poulsen?”

  “We were on the same ship from Earth.”

  Tanaka let out a small sigh, then focused his attention on his weapon. With practiced hands, he set each piece in place, slid the bolt into the chamber, then folded the stock up and locked it into place. He worked the bolt lever, squeezed the trigger and nodded when the firing pin clicked home.

  Meacham came back holding a paper carton of cookies. He leaned against the hatchway, watching the two work. Zima tried to ignore the sound of Meacham chewing.

  Tanaka took Zima’s weapon. He unhinged the stock and pointed inside the chamber. “Go heavy on the oil. Saltwater is always rough on equipment, doubly so from the ammonia in the seawater here.” He squirted a heavy dose into the chamber. He closed the stock, then ratcheted back the bolt a couple times before pulling the trigger. Snick.

  “There.” He handed back the weapon. “As soon as we finish a dive, we take apart the weapons and oil them again.”

  “Have you had to use these?”

  Tanaka didn’t answer, so Meacham answered for him.

  “Bet your ass he has.” Meacham said. “There are a lot of nasty things out there.”

  “What about the Keto?” Zima said. On Earth, his instructors teased their students about the predators.

  “Keto are a whole nother order of trouble,” Meacham said. “You give a Keto a choice between a steak dinner and an armed human, it’ll go for the human every time.”

  Zima’s instructors on Earth had made the Keto sound scary, but manageable. Nothing more than an odd looking shark. Now they sounded like serial killers on steroids.

  “They’re supposed to be smart.”

  Meacham cackled. “Don’t know about smart. Tricky? Oh yeah, they’re damn tricky.”

  Tanaka shrugged. “I’ve heard stories describing how intelligent they are. You can fool them, but they only fall for it once. Worse, they tell each other about the tricks. A dive team at Pandosia Station used a noisemaker to draw off the Keto before harvesting a pretty rich field. Worked great. The Keto rushed the noise maker while the divers filled their baskets. A week later and fifty kilometers from there another dive team tries the same thing. Instead of racing for the noisemaker, the Keto spread out. They searched the whole area. Killed two of five divers.”

  “They’re smart and they talk to each other,” Zima said. “And they hate us.”

  Meacham laughed. “No, son, they don’t hate you. They love you. Y’all taste like chicken.”

  “Let’s go people!” Meacham’s voice rolled up the passage. “Ya ain’t gettin paid by the hour.”

  Zima followed Poulsen into dive room. Tanaka was already pulling on the inner liner of his dive suit. The one piece clothing resembled old fashioned long underwear.

  Zima and Poulsen hurried to catch up with him. Zima was about to ask where Reece was when Meacham, in his own way, beat him to it.

  “Where is that bi—” Meacham cut himself off. He glanced at Tanaka, who glared at him. “Zima, go wake up Reece.”

  Zima paused long enough to pull on his thick socks, then padded to her berth.

  “Reece?” He tapped on the door. He knocked louder, then hammered the side of his fist against the panel. Tanaka came up the passage. He knocked as well. “Anne?”

  Tanaka slid the door open. Reece was sprawled face down on the clothes scattered across the floor.

  Tanaka stepped over her. “Help me,” he told Zima. They rolled her onto her back. Reece’s eyes were closed. Zima relaxed when her chest rose and fell. Reece didn’t react when Tanaka patted her cheeks.

  Zima felt Meacham and Poulsen looking from the doorway.

  “Medical kit,” Zima said. Poulsen hurried to the galley.

  Tanaka peeled back Reece’s sleeves. He hissed in disgust when he uncovered her right arm. A purple slug nestled in the crook of her arm.

  Glaring at Meacham, Tanaka got to his feet.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Meacham stepped back, raising his hands. “Don’t look at me. I don’t pass that shit and I sure as hell wouldn’t be dumb enough to give it to one of our own.”

  Tanaka snorted. “If you did, Pilot would be the least of your worries.”

  “I’m not that stupid. Hey, we’re all in this together. Right?”

  Tanaka’s fist uncurled. He squatted beside Reece. To Zima, “Help me get her on the bed.” While the two men lifted her, Poulsen came back with the kit.

  After putting on nitrile gloves, Tanaka pulled the slug free of Reece’s arm. The slug twisted back and forth as it hunted for its next meal. Tanaka crushed it in his fist. He wiped the purple slime on a dirty t-shirt. He stripped off the gloves.

  Poulsen looked at everyone. “So…we still diving?”

  Tanaka rubbed his face. “Yeah, we’re going.”

  NOW

  Poulsen fired.

  His darts left trails of bubbles behind them. The darts rapidly lost momentum and after fifty meters the darts drifted through the water. Despite Tanaka’s shouts, Poulsen kept the trigger mashed down, burning through his whole clip.

  The click of the bolt locking to the rear might have been the signal to attack. Both Keto inhaled water, then jetted toward the humans. The beasts twisted and turned in a corkscrew pattern. Their skins flickered from one color to another, brilliant one moment, dull the next.

  His rangefinder turned green. Zima fired in the short bursts his instructor’s recommended. A dart grazed the Keto, ripping its skin and leaving a narrow blue cloud of blood behind it. The Keto kept coming and closed with stunning speed. Its grasping tentacles flared out to each side of it, ready to wrap around Zima.

  Still twisting and jinking, the beast was almost on him. Zima kept his trigger down, using up the last
of his clip. It was impossible to hit the thing!

  Poulsen was cursing and crying, kicking away from his Keto while he fumbled a clip of darts from his belt. Zima heard Tanaka’s gun fire. Lines of bubbles zipped past Zima’s helmet.

  Brilliant blue pockmarks dotted the Keto’s skull and ripped open one eye. The beast shuddered, the smaller tentacles around its mouth whipped about.

  The beast slammed into him, spinning him through the water. Zima couldn’t see anything in the blue cloud surrounding him. He kicked and emerged into clear water. Below his feet the Keto tumbled toward the ocean floor, streamers of blue blood coming from its head.

  Zima kicked to turn. He choked when he saw Poulsen’s remains. The diver’s buoyancy vest was lifting his chest, head and remaining arm toward the distant icepack overhead. The smaller Keto crammed Poulsen’s legs into its feeding orifice. Zima could swear the thing was shivering in delight.

  Tanaka slapped a fresh clip into his gun. He took a moment to aim into the cloud of red blood. He emptied the clip at Poulsen’s killer.

  The Keto spasmed as the darts ripped into it. Its blue blood mixed with Poulsen’s red, making a swirling purple cloud.

  The two men drifted in the water, digesting what happened.

  “We were lucky,” Tanaka said.

  “What? What?” Zima couldn’t think straight. That was lucky?

  “Poulsen’s killer was a young one. It stopped to eat him. An older, wiser Keto would have turned on us before we could reload.”

  Zima realized that the real luck had been the mature Keto attacking him and not Poulsen. Tanaka must have had the presence of mind to kill that one first, hoping that the immature one would stop to enjoy Poulsen’s death. Which it did, giving Tanaka time to reload and kill it. If Zima had been attacked by the younger one, he’d have been the one ripped into a red cloud.

  He took their half full baskets and started back toward the Cyrene. Tanaka swam down to recover Poulsen’s gear and rifle.

  Meacham took their weapons as they climbed up through the dive hatch. The mechanic racked their rifles before giving grumbling help with their tanks and helmets.

  “Where’s the ugly one?” he asked.

  Zima glanced at Tanaka, who sat down and began unsealing his boots.

  “A Keto got him,” Zima said.

  Meacham frowned. “Damn.” He slammed the weapons locker shut, then headed for the passage. Half talking to himself, he said, “Being shorthanded won’t get us any bonuses this trip.”

  Zima lunged after Meacham. Tanaka caught his wrist. He easily held it despite Zima’s pulling. He didn’t let go until Meacham was gone.

  “He wants you to hit him,” Tanaka whispered. Zima shut his eyes, concentrating on taking deep breaths. He sat down and pulled off his boots.

  The next day the Cyrene swam through the icy waters heading for the next harvest site.

  Zima sat in the galley, rolling a glass of orange drink in his palms. Tanaka walked past him. He got two packets from his bin, emptied them into mugs and jetted steaming water into them. Zima’s head came up at the aroma of coffee.

  Tanaka sat down across from him. He pushed a mug across the table.

  Zima nodded his thanks. He cautiously sipped the coffee. He waited for Tanaka to ask how he was feeling. ‘Was he doing okay?’ The usual bullshit people asked after a tragedy.

  “How did you end up here?” Tanaka asked.

  Or he could ask that. Zima had to think for a moment. “I barely remember the end of the night. A bunch of us went bar hopping. You know, celebrating our first night on Khione. And we really celebrated. We picked up these girls somewhere along the way.”

  “Ah.” Tanaka nodded over his coffee.

  “There was this girl, Monique. God, she was stunning. Those lips, the way she looked at me.”

  “Really?”

  “We found this quiet spot. I bought her drinks and we talked for hours. I thought we had a connection.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Then we went to this club she knew. She warned me they made strong drinks, real strong.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Like I said, I don’t remember much of what happened there. I saw the security vid at my sentencing.” Zima took a breath. “This guy showed up and started hitting on Monique. He didn’t care what she said, didn’t care what I said, he just kept after her. I don’t get pissed easily but I guess I had too much to drink. In the vid, I decked the guy, smashed his nose. He went down.” Zima frowned. “Then I hit him a few more times. The bouncers tackled me, then called the station cops. I was sentenced to a year, a whole fucking year. Fortunately, Dumas S.A. offered a work contract so I only have to do three months.”

  “Yeah, you’re lucky. Hey, when you met her, did you mention to Monique that you were a diver and just arrived on Khione?”

  “Well, yeah. We were getting to know each other.”

  “Uh huh. Ever hear of a drug called tormasin?”

  “No.”

  “The Uzbekistan military came up with it. Not for the regulars, but for militia and reserve units. The troops they use as cannon fodder.”

  “What?”

  “It clouds judgment and heightens aggression. One dose of that and you wouldn’t take shit from ten linebackers.”

  “So she…”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Oh god. Dumas S.A.…”

  “Has that pretty young thing on their payroll. She’s probably has a job title that says ‘recruiter.’” Tanaka studied the bottom of his coffee mug.

  Zima dropped his head into his hands. Over and over he repeated “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.”

  The ads on Earth pictured Khione as a rugged world where corporations paid top dollar for trained arctic divers. After he was turned down by American and Canadian dive schools, Zima’s grandfather had used his old contacts to get him into the school at Vostochny Kildin. Zima’s marginal Russian hadn’t been a problem. Native Russian students were eager to coach him in exchange for English lessons.

  All that work and he’d been suckered as soon as he walked into the station. He lifted his head. “Is that how they got you?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Nope,” Tanaka said. “I’m a whole different breed of stupid.”

  Zima spread his hands. “So how?”

  “I don’t talk about it.”

  “Okay, I get that. But if you ever want to…”

  “Sure.”

  “Did Reece get trapped the same way?”

  “A pretty, pretty boy did her in.”

  “Shit! How much longer does she have?”

  Tanaka cleared his throat. “Reece is on her fifth month with us.”

  “She said she only had to do a couple months.”

  “Her original sentence was three months.”

  Zima whispered, “Jesus Christ.”

  “Jesus is busy enough on Earth, he doesn’t have time for us poor sinners.”

  Pilot’s voice was definitely female, Zima decided. He and Tanaka sat at the scarred galley table. Meacham stood in the hatchway, arms crossed and scuffing the floor with his boot heels.

  “I’m sorry to hear about Poulsen,” Pilot said. There was something wrong with the speakers over the galley table–Pilot’s voice crackled, making it sound like she was broadcasting from 2 or 3 light years, not seated a few meters away.

  Tanaka nodded. “Thank you, Pilot.”

  “Both of you get some rest,” she said. “We’ll be at the next site in a few hours. Meacham?”

  “Yo.”

  “What is the status of Reece?”

  “She’s still out cold. I doused her with a couple buckets of water and she didn’t twitch.”

  “How did she get the Maier slugs?”

  Meacham shrugged. “She had three down days, same as me and Tanaka-san. Probably maxed out her commissary credit and traded everything for the slugs. Damn fool.”

  “We can still have a successful voyage,” Pilot
said. “Especially if Miss Reece ever wakes up.” It sounded like Pilot was trying to be encouraging. Thinking of Poulsen, Zima wasn’t convinced.

  “We took her berth apart,” Tanaka said. “We found two more slugs.” Meacham didn’t look happy at Tanaka’s report. “Both slugs are ground to mush.”

  “Have you searched the rest of the ship?”

  “The rest of the ship?”

  “Reece was a junkie,” Pilot said. “She may have hidden another slug.”

  Meacham perked up. “I’ll get right on that, ma’am.” It was the first time Zima had heard Meacham refer to the Pilot as ‘Ma’am.’

  Pilot must have noticed that as well. Even with the lousy speakers Zima could tell her tone was dry as she said, “Very good, Meacham.

  “The good news is that our next site should be quite workable. It’s not particularly fertile, but Keto are rarely seen there. Even without Reece, we should be able to fill half our cargo holds. It will just take longer.”

  Tanaka shrugged. “As long as we have a successful trip.” He glanced at Zima, then looked away.

  Zima was surprised when the galley’s wall screen flickered to life. He hadn’t thought the wall screen worked.

  Zima recognized the image as a map of the region. In his prep for coming to Khione, he’d studied the areas and gotten familiar with the mapping system and all its coordinates. This map was far more detailed than the maps he’d seen during training on Earth. It must be corporate data, he realized. That sort of information was ‘privileged info’ that Dumas S.A. wouldn’t share unless someone put a gun to their CEO’s head.

  Icons of purple flowers were fields of Tilson’s Reed. Red warning triangles were sites of Keto nests. There was a nest by nearly every patch of Tilson’s Reed. Translucent gray arrows indicated the pattern of currents. A red line traced a path out from Naxos station, meandering its way from purple flower to purple flower, until it turned and worked its way back to Naxos. Presumably other harvest subs had similar routes, each boat covering it’s own fields.