act. We headed downwards, wound up on a jetty, and stole this boat. Finding you was chance and nothing more. End of story.”
The woman nodded slowly. There was a smile on her face. “And quite a story it is. Parts of it could even be true! Well, never mind. You really pissed ’em off, that’s obvious from the condition of the boat, and that makes you okay with us. Here, take your cannon back.”
I accepted the.38 and stuck it down the back of my pants. Sasha’s.44 had been confiscated as well. A man handed it back. The woman offered her hand. It was strong but cold. “My name’s Murphy. What’s yours?”
There wasn’t enough time to think of a good lie, not for me anyway, so I told the truth. “I’m Max Maxon…and this is Sasha Casad.”
“Max…Sasha…glad to meet you. Now stand by while we bring some pumps aboard.”
Sleds bumped the hull, pumps were handed up, and two of the floaters headed below. Within minutes the hoses were connected, the pumps were started, and water gushed over the side. It was all done with a minimum of motion and conversation, as though they’d done similar things many times before.
Murphy looked over the side and nodded her satisfaction. “That should do it. I’ll take the wheel if you have no objection.”
Neither of us had been all that excited about steering to begin with. We shook our heads in unison. Murphy smiled, waved the sleds off, and inched the throttle forward. The bow came up in one smooth motion, steadied, and hung there as if suspended from above. The sleds roared along to either side, dashing back and forth across our wake, narrowly avoiding the pillars. It looked like fun. Murphy yelled over the sound of the engine, “What will you do now?”
Sasha was unaware of our travel arrangements, so I took over. “We need to get topside as soon as possible.”
Murphy nodded thoughtfully. “You owe my family for the cost of our fuel, and the use of our pumps, but the boat is yours. By our laws, anyway. What will you do with it?”
I was about to give it to her gratis when Sasha took over.
“We plan to sell it, pay our debts, and keep the balance. Would you like to make an offer?”
Murphy flicked the wheel to the right, skidded the boat around some floating debris, and straightened it out again. “Boats like this are hard to come by. We use them to run contraband in from the ocean. The corpies try to stop us, but we usually outrun them. My father will give you a good price.”
Sasha looked skeptical. “No offense, but others might offer us a good price as well, and we owe it to ourselves to listen.”
Murphy nodded, as if Sasha’s comment was not only appropriate but expected. “True, but that would take time, and Max says you’re in a hurry.”
I wanted to say something agreeable, but Sasha sent a scowl in my direction. “We’ll listen to any reasonable offer.”
These people had saved our bacon, but when it came to business the girl didn’t have a sentimental bone in her body. A little gift from her corpie-type parents, perhaps? But it didn’t bother Murphy. She nodded and pointed towards the bow. “That’s Floater Town. We’ll be there in five minutes or so.”
I looked and saw a collection of lights that seemed to hover just off the water. Reflections zigzagged across the surface and shattered as the water undulated up and down. The engine noise dropped to a rumble as Murphy eased the throttle back and allowed the boat to settle in the water.
There was a single approach to Floater Town, and it carried us through a maze of mines. Some were submerged while others bobbed near the surface. How Murphy was able to pilot our boat through the maze was a mystery. Perhaps she had memorized the route, or maybe the small earplug she wore had something to do with it. Whatever the method, she proceeded slowly, as did the sleds, which formed a single line behind us.
Floater Town boasted other defenses as well, including a number of heavily armored barges, attack sleds, and automated weapons blisters that clung to the ceiling like concrete limpets. And later, as we cleared the mines, I saw four sixty-or seventy-foot submarines, all moored side by side and painted to resemble sea monsters.
Murphy maneuvered the boat alongside the dock with nary a bump. A burst of reverse power was sufficient to neutralize our forward motion. A gang of cheerful-looking children, as sleek as seals in their rubber suits, ran to handle our lines. Murphy slipped the gearshift to neutral, switched the bilge pump to shore power, and killed the engine. Water continued to spill from the hoses. “The pumps will hold her for now.”
Sasha nodded impassively and followed Murphy over the side. She winced as her feet hit the surface of the dock. Murphy saw that and frowned. She gestured towards a gear locker. “Sit on the box. Hold your feet up one at a time.”
Sasha shrugged but did as she was told. The bleeding had stopped, but the lacerations were easy to see. They were red towards the center and edged with blue. Shame swept over me like a wave. I had meant to remember her feet, I really had, but my memory, fickle as always, had betrayed me once more.
Murphy called for help. A pair of muscular young men appeared, swept Sasha off the locker, and carried her down the dock. Standards had been placed every twenty feet or so and cast interlocking circles of light. A wave rolled in out of the darkness and the dock shifted beneath our feet. The rest of Floater Town did likewise, undulating up and down before settling down.
None of the buildings were more than two stories tall, and all rested on some sort of flotation system. Some were built on barges, some squatted on rafts made from fifty-gallon oil drums, and others rode homemade pontoons. Most were rather dilapidated, having the appearance of well-maintained shacks rather than formal dwellings. Still, there was lots of elbow room, and that was attractive, in spite of the unending darkness and the press of a barely seen concrete sky.
The men carried Sasha into one of the more prosperous-looking structures, and we followed. I barely had time to see the hand-lettered sign that said “Murphy Enterprises,” and the metal booster tanks that held the place up, before I was ushered into a combination living room and warehouse.
Coils of nylon line hung next to all manner of floats, fishing gear, spear guns, nets and other less identifiable items. And there was furniture too, shabby-looking stuff for the most part, but solid and comfortable. Everything was in shades of gray, as if the external darkness had managed to reach in and leach the color out of the walls, furniture, and fittings.
Sasha was receiving better care than I could provide. People ran hither and yon and yelled insults at each other as they gathered medical supplies and worked on her feet. I used the time to examine what seemed like an anomaly. A large, rather splashy painting, blue the way the ocean is supposed to be, and full of tropical fish.
“Do you like it?”
I turned to find Murphy at my side. The rubber hood hung between her shoulders. Her hair was so short that it was little more than brown fuzz. She wore gold studs in both earlobes.
“Yes, I do. Is it yours?”
She smiled. “If you like it, then yes, it is. Come. My father wants to see you.”
I turned and saw Sasha trying on a pair of black, high-topped sneakers. They were more practical than the high heels had been, and would be good for shipboard use. Or so I assumed, because in spite of the fact that I had spent several years in space, I couldn’t remember a thing about it.
It was then that I noticed that the two young men still hovered in the background, and realized that Sasha was more than a girl; she was an attractive young woman. An urge to separate her from her male admirers bubbled to the surface. “Sasha…Murphy’s father wants to see us.”
Sasha said, “Be right there,” turned to her fan club, and said something I couldn’t hear. They laughed and headed for the door. I wondered what she’d said but didn’t dare ask.
Murphy led us in the direction I least expected to go, downwards. A short flight of stairs carried us down into an underwater room. It hung between the massive booster tanks that provided the building with buoyancy. Armored glass enclosed three of the four walls, and underwater floods illuminated the surrounding area. I watched in open- mouthed amazement as a big ugly fish swam through the brightly lit water, flicked its tail, and disappeared into the surrounding gloom.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
The voice came from the man who sat with his back to the single solid wall, separated from me by a semicircular desk, which, judging by the cables that squirmed out the back of it, housed some rather sophisticated electronics. He had thinning hair, a high forehead, and bright blue eyes. They seemed lit from within and capable of
