Amok: An Anthology of Asia-Pacific Speculative Fiction (21 page)

The boat came closer and, just ahead of it, a distinctive fin broke the water.

“
Mako
!” breathed Maui, unconsciously sending the message over his brain-jack.

Grace smiled at his reliance on technology as she lifted her feet out of the water. They had only just completed their own naval service and were finding civilian life as different as the steaders had warned they would.

“Be careful,” Grace said quietly, “It’s not a good idea to show-off just how Commonwealth we are so far from Jo’burg. Especially if this bunch’ve been to Fair Isle or Titokowaru.”

She named their nearest, anti-Commonwealth opponents but Maui only nodded absent-mindedly. His attention was on the approaching fins—another had now joined the first—and he watched with the intense interest of an apex predator watching competition. More distant enemies held no interest for him at the moment.

Grace laughed and stood up, untangling herself from him.

“Relax,
maki
,” she said, tapping the stylised orca on his shoulder.

Something in what the steaders were doing, perhaps the sounds of metal structures being put together, had already drawn the sharks’ attention. The two great grey and white fish moved close enough for their markings to be clearly seen, their distinctive dorsal fins breaking the ocean’s surface repeatedly. The larger raised its head from the water and then raised itself on its tail for a good view of Grace and Maui.

“Very clever,” Grace said to it as if it could understand.

“You follow any kind of
mako
, man, or just these?” called Maui to the researchers, now close enough to hail by voice alone.

Two, Grace noted, male and female with the steady gaze that came of a long time at sea and so tanned their dark skin almost was black. The two of them exchanged looks before the man responded in the clipped, precise tones of a Jo’burg Patrician. He was a long way from home.

“They’re great whites, not
mako
.”

“All sharks are
mako
here,” said Grace with a shrug, “We use it as a general term.”

She watched the couple look the whole steading up and down, taking in the mix of skin colour. Their eyes caught on and widened at the
moko
displayed by frayed cut-offs and flapping shirts. The designs were not wholly traditional and were confined to shoulders, torsos and thighs as facial markings didn’t mix with naval service. Halcyon was Commonwealth, and proud to give its young to the service for the reward of arms, technology and food, but it was also Māori.

“This is the Halcyon sea steading?”

“We’re that obvious?” Maui asked with a lazy grin.

The man stiffened. “We have a good chart.”

There was something about the researcher’s tone that put Grace to wondering if she could find a market for his little craft. It would have to be a steading the researchers hadn’t been to for plausible deniability.

“Please, come aboard and welcome.”

Grace was careful to extend her hospitality in English. Using any other terms from the steading’s mixed heritage would be too binding in this pair’s company.

“I think I’d rather have the
mako
in,” muttered Maui.

Grace agreed. “The meat would certainly be more useful.”

“We could always eat the researchers.”

“We don’t know what they’re carrying,” she said.

§

The two great whites hung around, which meant that the disagreeable researchers also had to stay in the area. While the sharks moved with ease, the humans kept to their pitiful little cat. The researchers’ dark skins got more grey and drawn with each hour the sharks stayed in the area.

“Something wrong?” Grace asked after the second day.

They stuttered and spluttered their way through nonsense thinly disguised as science before retreating to their cat in a hurry. These two had to have done something.

“Get someone looking at the systems, Maui,” Grace ordered.

On the third day, she went to talk to the sharks again.

“With all respect,
mako
,” Grace said, “Swim off. You are eating my few wild fish and I’d rather you didn’t.”

One of the sharks regarded her for a moment, holding an eye out of the water as it swam lazily about the dock. If it was paying attention it was only because she was a stranger to it, not because it understood her words.

“She’s not listening to you,” said Maui, joining her on the dock walkway.

“There are
maki
that come here,” Grace said to the shark, “A pod of orca that will eat you if they see you.”

The shark flicked its tail as if in disdain.

“If I see you again, I will eat you,” Grace swore.

Maui laughed at her.

“You sure no one ever trained a shark for military purposes?” she asked him.

Maui shook his head. “Why would they want to serve humans? Anyway, it’s the researchers that follow them that’ve broken Commonwealth law. A worm in the weapons systems.”

“We caught it?”

“No. Not yet. The eyes and turrets are dead. It doesn’t seem to have a taste for brain-jacks and it hasn’t got to the
Connaught
, yet. We’ve isolated the ship’s systems.”

Grace felt both sick and excited. Sick that another senseless battle in the Steadings War was about to start and excited about the chance to fight, to flex muscles, to prove herself.

“Who’re we looking at? It’s got to be an opportunist strike.”

She tried not to think about what it cost to get a worm, in food or people or materials.

“Piripi said the worm tastes Wa-ry,” Maui said with a shrug.

“Bloody Titokowarus,” said Grace with weary anger, “Have Sean keep the main eyes on their heading—in case we get the eyes back on line—but keep the low levels going all around. Everyone’s to take watch shifts with bins. Don’t want to get snuck up on.”

“Weapons?”

Grace looked around at the Halcyon steaders. “Cutlasses. No firearms until we see something to hit. Can’t afford to lose the bullets. Keep the turrets down as if they’re dead. If we get them back on-line, they can react fast enough if the Wa-ries follow their worm for it to be safe. I don’t think they’re rich enough to be much of a threat without the worm.”

It still wasn’t enough to settle the sickness or the excitement.

“We breaking out the
Connaught
?”

“Give me half an hour,” she answered, “Then we’ll go hunt the hunters.”

§

The researchers jumped when she stepped into the cabin of their little cat.

“Nice place,” she said with affected carelessness, “Bit small.”

The male stood as if to warn her off—“You can’t—”—and stopped when he clocked the Commonwealth combats.

Grace smiled and wished she was still allowed to carry the old Jack on her left arm. It was unlikely that these two would realise the lack made her less than official. She had some authority as the head of the steading but that that only extended half a mile out on the ocean. All the researchers needed to do was get away from the steading and she would be breaking the Commonwealth law that Halcyon was pledged to uphold.

“Oh, I think you’ll find it’s physically possible for me to board your… vessel,” she said.

They blinked at her, silent. They were probably exchanging comments over their brain-jacks. She didn’t care. They had brought this on themselves. This was their fault.

“You’ve attacked the Commonwealth state of Halcyon in an act of war,” Grace said evenly, keeping her fury over the attack to herself, “Have you anything to say in your defence?”

“An act of war?” the female demanded, “We haven’t done anything like that! We just—”

“Shut up!” the male cut in.

“You brought invasive software from another steading,” Grace explained as if to a slow child, “Another state.”

The female laughed dismissively. “But rivalries between steadings are nothing to do with Commonwealth law!”

“Wrong,” replied Grace, “The Sea Steadings War still rumbles on and Titokowaru, the rival steading you did this for, is not a member of the Commonwealth. Therefore, it is an act of war.”

The female shrugged. “We didn’t do anything. They’ve attacked us just as much as you. They infected the cat’s dry-brain and we’re down to manual.”

“So you knowingly entered another state with infected systems and didn’t declare it?” Grace asked sweetly.

“We didn’t do anything,” the female insisted.

“You can’t do anything!” the male said at the same time, “We’re citizens of Jo’burg!”

“Who are Halcyon’s allies as we are both Commonwealth states. Now, if you would just come onto the dock, we can proceed through the legalities.”

Grace gestured towards the hatch and, wordlessly, the two researchers did as they were bid. Their body language spoke of anger with a small amount of fear. They didn’t like the gun and cutlass she carried but hadn’t touched, fearing the backwater nature of the sea steadings. Coming from a more settled state made them trust the uniform and the goodwill of the Commonwealth.

They were also convinced they had a basic right to life without trying for it, a belief that no steader would ever hold. Anyone who was familiar with steading life or living this far away from full Commonwealth control would have known to flee.

When they were on the dock, Grace managed to manoeuvre them so that their backs were to the artificial reef without them realising. This business would be easy to conclude. She put on her best captain’s voice to begin their sentencing.

“Lacking the resources to try and sentence you here—”

“Well, at least you’re civilised enough not to just kill us outright,” the female said in a cutting tone. She didn’t truly believe she was in any danger of being killed, despite her fear of weapons.

Grace smiled and continued smoothly, “Means we also lack the resources to take you to somewhere else that might. The nearest settlement of any size is on North Island. And there’s nothing to say they can deal with you, either.”

She hadn’t thought it possible for their skin to go any greyer. They looked as if they were seriously ill and the beading sweat on their brows did nothing to dispel the image.

“The Commonwealth treaty says that, in such circumstances, we can deal with outsiders who break the law as we would our own.”

With a swift movement, she drew her cutlass and swept it across their necks. The force of contact, so unexpected, had the bodies falling into the artificial reef even as the last remnants of life clutched at their throats and tried to prevent the blood spurting. The surprised looks disappeared under the blue Pacific waters.

“Dinner is served,” Grace said to the fish inside Halcyon’s artificial reef. They seemed excited about it. It was a while since they’d had blood and flesh to feed on.

In the dock, on the outside of the reef, the larger shark raised itself on its tail again. Grace was unsure whether it saw two sources of blood it wanted to get to or two people it recognised dying. It was hard to say how any
mako
felt about humans.

“Maui,” she called out across the docks, “We need to line up a buyer for a standard two-man cat.”

It wasn’t like they could afford to keep it or patch it, even if it weren’t identifiable.

“Right-o!” she heard him call back.

Now it was time to get the idiots who had thought to hook a sweet fish with their digital worm and caught themselves something much more dangerous instead.

§

“
Kawa
? An old war canoe?” Maui asked with an incredulous tone.

“Like we’re any better with just the
Connaught
,” Grace said, thinking of the ships they’d had before their last campaign, and of the damaged ships they’d won and had to trade for new fish and plant stocks to replace the resources raided when that last campaign had started.

But Maui wasn’t thinking of things like that. He laughed, deep and from the belly. “Maybe we should paddle their arses and send them home for stealing our culture.”

She leant over the side of the
Connaught
. It didn’t look as if the Titokowaru warriors had noticed them or, if they had, recognised the ex-patrol ship for what it was. Nor had they seen the two
mako
that had decided to follow her. That said, the distinctive dorsal fins would be very small points from this distance.

“Do we need to have olive skin to be Māori, now?” she asked with a raised auburn eyebrow. “Aren’t we Māori because it’s our way?”

The crew laughed and Maui flushed. “They just look—”

“As if they should be in something dragon-prowed and beating on shields,” Grace said, grateful there wasn’t enough readily available iron to supply that sort of low technology culture among the steadings.

“We need to conserve ammo,” she said, “So it’s good they are as they are. We could get away with one shell to dazzle them and then an old-fashioned boarding.”

It might be another twelve months before they could get to a proper Commonwealth naval base to trade ammunition for more service. A fight with cutlasses was better than a shoot-out.

“Or we could go round them and take their steading,” said Maui, “Let those left behind take care of these Wa-ries.”

Every adult on Halcyon had seen naval service. Everyone left behind was capable of defending themselves.

“But the best fighters are here,” said Grace, unwilling to leave what was probably the harder battle to the worm-ridden Halcyon.

“So?”

“And these are bound to be the best of the Wa-ries fighters,” she said.

Maui frowned. “Their steading’s resources will be worth more to us and Halcyon should be able to cope with these… losers.”

“There are three types of steading,” Grace intoned in the same voice her father had used to teach them their history and then added in a more normal voice, “And they’re the wrong type.”

She’d known Titokawara was poor, of course. They all had. They’d even known the Wa-ries were weird for their perceived history. But this was a bit more than she’d expected.

Maui crossed his arms. “Enlighten me, oh great captain.”

Grace raised her eyebrows. She could feel the others in the crew pausing in their jobs to watch. If she didn’t come up with an understandable, acceptable reason not to follow Maui’s advice, she could end up watching them sail for Titokowaru steading anyway. Even though the ruins of that other steading wouldn’t actually do them any good.