Did he know himself at all?
The skadi had not replaced the lid of the tank. Their procedure from this point seemed unclear; they were standing about uncertainly. A seagull landed on the rim of the tank and a skad butted it away with his rifle. The medic had gone below deck.
The show was over. Vikram needed to get out. There were too many people. One by one, the other passengers came into focus, like ghosts emerging from the mist. The waterbus was hemmed in on every side.
“What will they do with the body?” the kid was asking.
Vikram crouched to see if the woman who had fainted was recovering. Some of her colour had returned. Recognising him, she gave a weak smile.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Do you need more water?”
“Thank you-I’m sorry, it was the crowds and so-so horrible-it’s over now?”
“It’s over.”
He wondered what were her reasons for coming today.
There was a scuffle at the front of the crowd. A man had pulled his row boat a little way out, past the barrier of buoys. He was pointing at the tank and yelling. Vikram could make out one word, over and over again. Murderers! Murderers! Murderers!
Seagulls screeched overhead. Their cries merged with the man’sMurderers! Murderers!
Another boat nudged forward. Others were urging the protestor to get back. Now the skadi had seen what was happening. Three of their own boats began powering towards the barrier.
A noise like scraping metal sheets came out of the loudspeakers, before the sound settled into speech.
“All westerners get behind the barrier. Get behind the barrier now.”
“Get back, you idiot,” Vikram muttered.
The skadi arrowed in. A shark-faced prow rammed the rowboat. The protestor clutched the rocking sides of the boat and managed to stay afloat.
“Murderers!” he yelled.
“Get back!” Vikram wasn’t the only one who called out. The shouts converged from every side. It was impossible to know who was saying what, whether they were yelling at the protestor to save himself or at the skadi to retreat.
Still defiant, the protestor raised his arm.
“Mur-”
Vikram saw a parallel movement as the barrel of a rifle took aim at the man’s head.
There was a single shot.
A red fog filled Vikram’s head.
He never knew who made the first move. Maybe it was him after all. Maybe it was Nils or Drake, or someone else in the crowd. He locked his gaze on the speeder where the skad was now lowering his rifle. Vikram had only one intention. He was going to get to that boat. And when he got to it The red fog had him. He took no time to consider the ramifications of his actions. His movements seemed ahead of him as he leapt agilely over the rail of the waterbus, landing in the stern of a smaller rower. It rocked with the impact.
A hand grabbed his shoulder.
“What the fuck-”
Vikram was already gone. Scrambling from boat to boat, he bounded across the unstable carpet. Some tried to stop him. Others joined the push forward. The weight of the crowd was all around him, no longer dormant but a physical, surging force. Gaps of sea widened before his feet. He saw the waves surge as he jumped from boat to boat.
Boats crashed into one another. He was close. There were only three rows between him and the skadi speeder.
He could see the body of the protestor, slumped over the side of the rowboat. He clambered up onto the deck of a waterbus. Over the railings. He hit the deck rolling, vaulted over the other side, dropped onto the abandoned flat of a raft. He could see the skadi faces. He could almost see their eyes.
And then he saw another figure, someone making the exact manoeuvres that he was. Drake. She was headed for the same boat, and a skad had his rifle trained on her lanky figure.
Vikram almost lost his balance using the end of a canoe as a stepping stone. He took a flying leap onto a motor boat.
The skad’s rifle lifted.
Drake saw it. She faltered.
She was one boat ahead of him, on the buoy line between west and skadi. Vikram gathered all of his breath and jumped. He slammed into her. Her body flew sideways. He spun from the boat and plunged into the water.
Explosions boomed above. He opened his eyes underwater. Silvery bubble trails criss-crossed the water where the skadi were shooting freely. Drake’s face was a few metres away. Her arms arrowed as she dove towards him.
A man plunged into the water. His eyes were bared. A red flower bloomed in the water from a leak in his chest.
Stars, what are you doing, get out!
Vikram followed Drake’s lead, diving low, swimming underwater until his lungs were ready to burst.
They were under the boats. The dark was almost total, the occasional slice of light slashing weirdly down. His hands brushed hulls jagged with barnacles, slick with algae. They needed an exit. There was nothing. His lungs burned.
He felt a tug on his ankle. Drake, behind him. She jabbed her hand upwards. He saw the darker shadows of the hulls and understood. They were beneath two small boats, and there was a tiny gap where the sterns almost met. He contracted his body, wedged himself between the two slopes and pushed with his feet. Drake joined him. The space widened, marginally, then enough for her to slither up. He saw her boots exit the water. The boats knocked together once more.
His vision went fuzzy. The water was black.
A hand reached down and pulled his hair. He broke surface and gulped in huge draughts of oxygen. Water trickled from his nostrils. He grasped the sides of the two boats and hauled himself out. He managed to swing his legs free just as the boats collided once more. The crash resounded. His ears were ringing; above surface the noise was mayhem, gunfire, shouts, screams, crashes He saw one boat forced beneath another. A man was crushed to death.
He saw a skad fall backwards with a knife lodged in his throat. Other skadi were pulling masks over their faces, launching canisters into the air. Gas. There was no way of avoiding it.
Drake was beside him. They were lying side by side on one end of a small fishing craft. The other occupants took no notice of them. They were engaged in their own vendetta, pointing and yelling at the skadi. Vikram and Drake exchanged no looks, no words. We’re idiots, Vikram thought. We’re bloody idiots.
He had been turned inside out in a day.
Breathing in chemicals, the gas worked fast. One by one his limbs seized until he lay, immobile except for his eyes.
Drenched, nauseous with the gas, Vikram finally allowed himself to look up.
He had landed up at the other end of the western crowd. Beyond the netting, directly across the square, rose one of the City towers. It was silver and fleeced in greenery. Two floors above the surface was a balcony, and on the balcony, watching, were the elite of Osiris.
He could see the man who had sentenced Eirik to death. Vikram knew who he was. Everyone in the west knew who he was. The man’s name was Feodor Rechnov, Councillor. Head of the first founding family in everything but name. His face was many metres away, disguised and protected by the faint shimmer of a defensive sonar shield. But Vikram knew those features as well as he knew his own.
Two younger men stood next to Feodor: the sons. They were slighter replicas of their father, well-dressed and rigidly postured. The daughter stood between them. Her famous red hair was covered, but her face was as white as salt.
Vikram wondered how Feodor Rechnov would feel if it were one of his own three children floating face down in the tank. Knowing, as every person in Osiris knew, the mechanics of drowning. Knowing that the body would be
