Katya's World

CHAPTER 9 Friendly Foe

Uncle Lukyan had often spoken of the comradeship of combat. It was a universal truth, he said, that when men and women are in the thick of the fighting, it is not love of their country, their political beliefs or even of their families that drives them on. “Nothing makes a better cement to hold together a fighting force than looking out for your comrades. Shoulder to shoulder or back to back. You keep them alive, they keep you alive. That is what welds an army together and makes soldiers commit great acts of bravery — fear of letting your unit down. Ah, my little Katya, you look at me as if I’m sullying some great romantic ideal, but it is true. Perhaps one day, although I pray not, you will have reason to understand what I say.”

Now she did have cause to understand him and he’d been right. He’d also been right to pray that it wouldn’t happen. But, here she was, running through tunnels trusting her life to, and willing to risk her life for, an arrogant Fed and a war criminal. It was, as her Grandfather Vanya would tell anybody who stopped near his chair for more than a few seconds, a funny life.

They were passing signs for the secondary docking area more frequently now and Katya was relieved that they had seen no sign of any further drones. It was impossible that something as large as the Leviathan only carried the one. It was more of a mystery why the corridors weren’t full of hovering cigar-shapes eager to evaporate any human that crossed their laser sights. The Leviathan was being very careful with its resources it seemed, but why? She knew they were relying on Kane having the answers. Tasya seemed confident that his knowledge was available simply for the asking, but Katya had her doubts; he’d been very cagey about everything up until now. Sometimes he behaved as if the Leviathan would simply go back to sleep if nobody spoke about it. Katya, on the other hand, knew perfectly well that ignorance was not safety.

They arrived at the docking area to find it apparently deserted. “Get up!” barked Tasya at the old crates lying around the staging area. “Do we look like a combat drone?”

There was no reply, and then Lukyan stood up from behind a tarpaulin covered stack of cargo pallets. His face lit up when he saw Katya and he rushed over and gave her the second painful bear hug of the day. As she wriggled her way loose, other faces were appearing from behind cover.

“Where’s Kane?” demanded Tasya.

“Behind you.” They spun around to find Kane standing there with a metal cylinder in his hand. “I’ve been behind you for a while, in fact.”

“You’ve been following us?” said Katya.

“In effect, but I wasn’t shadowing you, I was trying to catch up. Previous to that, I had been shadowing, but that was when I was following the drone. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to see you kill it. Very good work, incidentally.”

“Don’t patronise me, Kane,” said Tasya. She pointed at the cylinder. “What’s that?”

“What is it? It’s ant pheromone… a password… our golden key to the kingdom of wonders. This is why it took me so long to catch up with you. Fancy killing something like that drone and not taking a trophy. I stayed a minute to get this little beauty.”

“Did a rock fall on your head when you were in the mine workings?” asked Katya, losing patience.

Kane looked at her, disappointment on his face. “Oh, Katya. I thought you had a poetic heart. Very well, if you want to reduce everything to the bare bones, it’s the drone’s IFF unit.”

Katya thought she had a vague memory of the letters from her uncle’s war stories. “Identify Friend or Foe?” she hazarded on the faint recollection.

“Exactly. This is the best bit of luck we’ve had since that monstrosity woke up.”

It bothered Katya when he spoke like that. She wanted some definite information. Apparently Tasya felt the same. “For God’s sake, Havilland, what exactly is the Leviathan? You talk about it as if it’s a machine one minute and a living creature the next. Which is it?”

Kane’s expression sobered. “From one minute to the next, I’m not sure.”

The docks on this side of the complex were more conventional docking bays then the extravagant moon pool on the far side. Tasya led the way to the one they’d used to dock the Vodyanoi and opened it. Inside the otherwise empty bay sat a small forlorn form.

“The Baby!” cried Katya, almost as pleased to see the redoubtable vessel as she’d been to see her own uncle. Lieutenant Petrov went over to inspect the damage while Tokarov crossed his arms and looked at the little sub with a jaundiced eye.

“This plan is insane. The Leviathan will sink you the instant it sees you.”

“Not so,” replied Kane, patting the IFF cylinder. “It will send an interrogation signal, this splendid device will reply with the correct response and the Leviathan will welcome home its drone with open docking hatches.”

“Even if we do get inside,” said Petrov, “what do we hope to accomplish? We do not know what the vessel, if it is a vessel in any conventional sense, contains. How can we formulate a plan when we are entering entirely into the unknown?”

“Or you could just tell us what to expect, Captain Kane,” said Katya. Kane looked sharply at her. “You’ve been hinting and dancing around the point ever since you saw that thing on the Novgorod’s screens. All our lives are in danger now and I’m getting sick of it. Just tell us what you know and we might stand a chance of getting out of here alive.”

There was a short, awkward pause. Her uncle was having trouble repressing a smile at Kane’s evident discomfort, while Petrov merely raised an eyebrow. Unexpectedly, it was Tasya who nodded slightly at Katya, her approval for Katya’s outspokenness evident.

“It’s not that easy,” said Kane.

“Yes, it is! You just say what it is; and how we can sink it or cripple it or just put it off the idea that sinking boats is fun. It is that easy! It is that simple!”

Kane’s eyes were flicking back and forth as he looked around him at the surviving members of the Novgorod and Vodyanoi crews. He suddenly looked very uneasy. “Very well,” he said finally. “You want to know what the Leviathan really is?” He walked to the Baby and sat on her starboard ballast tank housing. The crews silently formed a semi-circle around him. He sighed, and said, “It’s a warship. It’s a Terran warship. It was sent here as a last resort during your war of independence. If all else failed, the Leviathan was to engage and destroy the entire Russalkin fleet. It could do it, too.”

“Why wasn’t it used then?” rumbled Lukyan. “Why did the Terrans die in battle when they had this thing all along?”

“Because this particular devil needs a bargain made with it before it will do its worst. That bargain was never made.”

“No riddles,” snapped Tokarov, “just tell us the damned truth!”

“This is the truth, and it’s more damned than you’ll ever know. It needs a sacrifice to be made to it. The sacrifice was too great…”

“What does that mean? What sacrifice?” butted in Petrov.

“…foul machine, it should never have been built. You don’t know what it’s like on Earth, you don’t know what they’re capable of…”

“How could it be worse than what it’s already doing?” demanded Lukyan.

“…a generation of collapse, three generations of barbarism, one of totalitarianism, people don’t count for anything…”

“You said it would destroy settlements,” said Tasya.

“…neither a machine or a synthetic intelligence, they made their monster and then they wanted to give it a soul…”

“What sacrifice?” persisted Petrov.

“…silicon-woven synapses, quantum neurones, not better or worse than a human brain, just different, very different…”

“The sacrifice?” Tokarov asked.

“…a new biology, a new life form, unknowable, a tabula rasa…”

“The sacrifice, Kane,” said Katya. He stopped suddenly, his eyes on her. He seemed very old suddenly, an echo of fear in his eyes.

“Yes,” he said almost in a whisper, “the sacrifice. Kane. Me. I was the sacrifice.” He took a deep breath and looked at them slowly in turn. “The Leviathan is currently nothing more than a very clever robot ship. It was intended to be an extension of a human will, a Terran will. It was built to… use… a human to fire its mind, to become a living creature.” The others had grown very quiet. “A human who would become bound to it, become the Leviathan, even as the Leviathan became that human.”

In the silence, Katya asked, “But, if you didn’t want to do it, if you didn’t want to become this thing, why would they choose you? You’d be a thousand times more dangerous. They’d choose somebody they could trust, somebody who wanted to merge with it.”

“Perhaps I did want that once, Katya Kuriakova,” he said darkly. “Perhaps I wanted that more than anything else. To burn and destroy all Russalkin resistance, to sink your boats and drown your cities. Perhaps I dreamed of that every night.” In his eyes, Katya saw he meant every word and she unconsciously took a step back.

“But you didn’t,” said Petrov in cool tones that verged on cold. “Why not?”

“Things change,” said Kane vaguely. “When I left my home, I wanted to burn Russalka so thoroughly it would appear as a new star in Earth’s sky. By the time I arrived, I wasn’t so sure. Then I saw our troops go in, wave after battering wave. They came back, patched themselves up and dived straight back in again. Again and again and again until they were all dead or deserted. And then there was just me.”

“They didn’t all die, they went home,” said Petrov.

Kane looked at him like Petrov had laughed at a funeral. “Yes, that must be it,” he said bitterly, “they all went home.” He lowered his face. “So it was just me in the Leviathan. The power to kill you all right there in my hands. And I thought,” he looked up, “’Stuff it. I declare this war over. No more deaths.’ I should be in the history books, really. The only man to decide to stop a war unilaterally just like that. So I escaped from the Leviathan and took up the happy life of a rollicking pirate. And look where it’s got me. Telling fairy stories to a bunch of people I wanted to kill ten years ago who now think I’m mad.”

“Good enough for me,” said Petrov. “We’ll carry out this mission, Kane, and disable the Leviathan. You’re coming.”

Kane blinked with mild astonishment. “I was under the impression it was my idea in the first place.”

“What internal defences does it have?”

Kane frowned at him. “How would I know? I was on good terms with it.”

“You must have seen schematics?”

Kane laughed humourlessly. “You really don’t get it, do you, lieutenant? I wasn’t along as a trained and trusted executive officer or something. I was along as potting mulch for the Leviathan to plant its intellect in.”

Now it was Petrov’s turn to frown. “I don’t know what that means.”

“It means, lieutenant, that it was a suicide mission. I’d be a god, if only of war, for a few months and then I was to destroy the Leviathan and myself, not that there’d be much difference between us by that time. Nobody knew what the effects of being bound to a synthetic intelligence for very long would do. As I said, using the Leviathan was supposed to be a last resort.”

Tasya was looking at Kane oddly. “Let’s get that minisub repaired and seaworthy,” she said in a strange, uninflected voice. Petrov looked at her, then at Kane and nodded.

Kane walked away without looking left or right. Katya followed him to a crate by the far wall where he sat and watched the technicians from both crews examine the Baby.

“I have a feeling I know what you’re going to ask me, Katya,” he said, watching them work.

“I doubt it.” Inexplicably, she felt herself growing angry. She couldn’t understand it; here was a man who hadn’t unleashed certain death on Russalka and yet she somehow found herself resenting him. “You said you knew your duty.”

“I did. I do.”

“Then why didn’t you… merge or interface or whatever it was you were supposed to do with that thing out there?”

He looked at her, raising his eyebrows warily. “If I had, you’d probably be dead now.”

“Not the point. Your duty was to Earth; to Terra and all the Grubbers. You were supposed to mop us up so they could have our world. But you didn’t.”

“I couldn’t.”

“You betrayed your own people and then turned pirate here.”

“Looks like I’ve got quite a death wish.”

“So why didn’t you fulfil it in the war like you were supposed to? Do you like letting people down?”

Anger flickered across his face in a spasm. Katya was surprised to see it shadowed by sorrow. It gave her a small thrill of pleasure and that made her ashamed. She was getting to him.

“You don’t know what I wanted then or what I want now.”

“Why didn’t you just go home? Come up with some story about the Leviathan malfunctioning and then just go home? Why did you stay here?”

“And why would I want to do that?”

“I don’t know. To be with your Grubber friends, with your family.”

His face whitened and for a second she thought he was going to hit her. “You think I should stay with my family?” he said in a tight whisper that sounded nothing like his normal voice.

Katya was very aware that she’d travelled into dangerous waters. “I just thought…”

“I’m with my family, okay? I’m with them.” He stood up and walked quickly away, through the open air lock and into the complex. Katya watched him go with a sinking feeling that she’d just said the most stupid thing she had ever said in her life, though she didn’t know why.

She turned and almost walked into Tasya. “What did you say to him?” she demanded.

“Nothing,” Katya replied, confused. “Well, nothing much. I just asked… if he’s a Grubber… a Terran, I mean, why didn’t he go home?”

“What makes you think this isn’t his home now?”

“He doesn’t have family here, does he? They’ll be…”

Tasya interrupted her.

“Tell me you didn’t ask him that.”

Katya found that if she didn’t tell Tasya that, she had nothing to say at all. Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times.

“Stupid little girl,” said Tasya and ran after Kane.

Katya watched her go. She felt wretched. She couldn’t even manage to be resentful. Tasya was right; she was just a stupid little girl. She had no idea what she was doing. She walked over to where they were already patching the Baby. Uncle Lukyan looked over at her and frowned.

“Are you all right, Katya?”

“Yeah,” she replied, not feeling anywhere near right at all. “I’m fine.”

The work progressed rapidly. The laser-cut holes in the Baby’s hull were neat and hadn’t gone through any vital systems. Her electronics were sealed against water anyway, so the flooding of the compartment was of little consequence. After an hour and a half, Lukyan was sitting in the pilot’s seat and running a diagnostic test. Katya watched the Judas box light green apart from a few ambers further down the board.

One of the pirates had pointed out that, as their vessel had recovered the Baby it was technically theirs by salvage right. Lukyan had told the pirate he was wrong on two counts. Firstly, Lukyan had never abandoned the vessel but had still been aboard when it was picked up. It was therefore never legally salvage. Secondly, and more telling to most of those listening, Lukyan had offered to tear the ribcage out of anybody laying claim to his boat. The pirates collectively agreed that these were good arguments and renounced their claim.

“Will she swim, Mr Pushkin?” asked Petrov from the aft hatch.

“She will, lieutenant,” replied Lukyan. “She’s quite well considering what she’s been through. Is that IFF device wired in properly? Then let’s try it.” He reached over and flicked a switch that started feeding power to the cannibalised drone component. Nothing obvious happened. “Hmm,” grunted Lukyan, “if this thing only works when the Leviathan sends an interrogation signal, how do we know it’s working properly beforehand?”

“We don’t,” answered Petrov. “If it isn’t working, we’ll find out soon enough.”

Lukyan looked up at the patch over one of the laser holes. “That’s comforting.”

“Glad to be able to put your mind at rest.”

“So, who’s going on this fool’s errand with me?”

Petrov didn’t argue with Lukyan volunteering himself. “As few as possible. You’ll pilot, we’ll need Kane for his special knowledge and one or two FMA personnel along to keep him honest.”

“With respect, Lieutenant Petrov,” said Tokarov, “you shouldn’t go.”

“Oh?” said Petrov, who clearly had been planning on doing just that.

“You’re acting captain here. You can’t just hand off command because you’re curious to see inside that thing.”

Petrov pursed his lips; he knew very well Tokarov was right but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

“Besides,” added Tokarov, “my specialisation is engineering. I’d probably be more use.”

“All right, all right,” said Petrov wearily, “you’ve made your point. You’re going.”

“I’m going too,” said Katya. Both lieutenants looked at her with surprise and Lukyan started to open his mouth. “I’m still the Baby’s navigator. She needs a co-pilot and, short of Sergei just wandering in, I’m the only other person here with hours logged on her.”

She neglected to mention that the vast majority of those hours were simulator time, and she was grateful that Lukyan didn’t point that out. Instead he said, “She’s right. She’s crew.”

“It’s dangerous,” Petrov said directly to her. “The chances are that this plan won’t work. I’d give it a 40% chance of success at most. Nobody would think any less of you if you don’t go.”

“I’m going. I’m crew.”

Petrov heaved a sigh of exasperation. “Breed them awkward in your family, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” smiled Lukyan.

The waiting was by far the worst part. Between the excellent training of the Novgorods and the ingenious jury-rigging of the Vodyanois, the last of the repairs proceeded far more quickly than would have seemed reasonable, but time still crawled by for Katya. She passed back and forth itching either to be seaborne or to back out of her insistence that she go. She knew Petrov was right; nobody, not even her uncle, would blame her if she dropped out. It wasn’t as if the short trip around the mountainside even needed a navigator. “The pride of the Kuriakovs” her grandmother had called it, speaking of it half as if it were something glorious and half as if it were a curse. Right then, it felt very much like a curse; Katya had the uneasy feeling her pride was about to get her killed.

And then, with the abruptness of a shot, the work was done and the Baby was being rolled into one of the smaller locks.

Kane had come back with Tasya. He looked drawn and upset still, and wouldn’t look at Katya. That was fine by her; she felt she should be apologising for something but she wasn’t sure what it was. Whatever the problem, she couldn’t quite bring herself to look him in the eye.

She took her position, Lukyan his, Tokarov sat behind him and Kane behind her, just as he had — it was hard to believe — only just over twelve hours before. The main lock door closed behind them and the chamber started to flood. “Here’s where we find out if the welds will hold,” said Tokarov with an attempt at gallows humour. He found no response and settled into the same silence as the others.

The water boiled and frothed on the other side of the main port as the level rose, the crew and passengers watching it without comment, past the level of their eyes and over the top of the plasteel port. Kane looked up and watched the small dorsal port grow dark as the water rolled over it.

“Sonar to passive,” said Lukyan. After a moment he repeated it.

“Eh? Oh!” Katya reached for her control board. “Check.”

“Wayfinder… offline, I think.”

“Check.”

They went through the same sequence they had a few hours before, when life was a great deal simpler. They worked down the list until Lukyan came to, “IFF transponder.”

“Ah,” said Katya uncertainly. “It’s powered up and that’s about all I can say for it. I don’t know if it’s actually working.”

“Good enough, I suppose,” said Lukyan.

“Yes? In that case, check.”

“Check list complete.” He toggled open the radio link to the FMA ensign who was at the dock controls. “We’re set, I think. Open the lock doors, please, son.”

“Opening external lock doors,” replied the ensign in the crisp tones they taught at the academy for making voice transmissions clear. It always sounded a bit theatrical to Katya, as if the speaker was on stage declaiming Chekov or something. “You’re clear to depart, Pushkin’s Baby.” A moment later he broke protocol by adding, “Good luck.”

Lukyan smiled wanly. “Thanks, control. Going to radio silence. RRS 15743 Kilo over and out.” He closed the link as the Baby lifted from its landing skis and nosed her way out into the open sea. They were on their own now.