The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol. 20

He was headed toward the closest node.

For an agonising few moments she did not know what to do. He was going to attempt to swim, she thought, just like she and Mina had done. And he would be no better prepared for the experience. She had to stop him, somehow. He would reach the node in only a few minutes.

Naqi sprinted back to the tower, breathless when she arrived. She reached a communications post and tried to find the right channel for the boat. But either she was doing it wrong or Weir had sabotaged the radio. What next? Technically, there was a security presence on the Moat, especially given the official visit. But what did the security goons know about chasing boats? All their training was aimed at dealing with internal crises, and none of them were competent to go anywhere near an active node.

She called them anyway, alerting them to what had happened. Then she called Sivaraksa, telling him the same news. “I think it’s Weir,” she said. “I’m going to try and stop him.”

“Naqi…” he said warningly.

“This is my responsibility, Jotah. Let me handle it.”

Naqi ran back outside again. The closest elevator down to sea level was out of service; the next one was a kilometre farther around the ring. She didn’t have that much time. Instead she jogged along the line of railings until she reached a break that admitted entry to a staircase that descended the steep inner wall of the Moat. The steps and handrails had been helpfully greased with antirot, just to make her descent more treacherous. There were five hundred steps down to sea level but she took them two or three at a time, sliding down the handrails until she reached the grilled platforms where the stairways reversed direction. All the while she watched the tiny white speck of the boat, seemingly immobile now that it was so far away, but undoubtedly narrowing the distance to the node with each minute. As she worked her way down she had plenty of time to think about what was going through the delegate’s head. She was sure now that it was Weir. It did not really surprise her that he wanted to swim: it was what everyone who studied the Jugglers yearned for. But why make this unofficial attempt now when a little gentle persuasion would have made it possible anyway? Given Tak Thonburi’s eagerness to please the delegates, it would not have been beyond the bounds of possibility for a swimming expedition to be organised… The corps would have protested, but just like Naqi they would have been given a forceful lesson in the refined art of political compromise.

But evidently Weir hadn’t been prepared to wait. It all made sense, at any rate: the times when he had dodged away from the party before must have all been abortive attempts to reach the Jugglers. But only now had he seen his opportunity.

Naqi reached the water level, where jetties floated on ceramic-sheathed pontoons. Most of the boats were suspended out of the water on cradles, to save their hulls from unnecessary degradation. Fortunately there was an emergency rescue boat already afloat. Its formerly white hull had the flaking, pea-green scab patterning of advanced rot, but it still had a dozen or so hours of seaworthiness in it. Naqi jumped aboard, released the boat from its moorings and fired up the thruster. In a moment she was racing away from the jetty, away from the vast stained edifice of the Moat itself. She steered a course through the least viscous stretches of water, avoiding conspicuous rafts of green matter.

She peered ahead, through the boat’s spray-drenched shield. It had been easy to keep track of Weir’s boat when she had been a hundred metres higher, but now she kept losing him behind swells or miniature islands of Juggler matter. After a minute or so she gave up trying to follow the boat, and instead diverted her concentration to finding the quickest route to the node.

She flipped on the radio. “Jotah? This is Naqi. I’m in the water, closing on Weir.”

There was a pause, a crackle, then: “What’s the status?”

She had to shout over the abrasive thump, thump, thump of the boat, even though the thruster was nearly silent.

“I’ll reach the node in four or five minutes. Can’t see Weir, but I don’t think it matters.”

“We can see him. He’s still headed for the node.”

“Good. Can you spare some more boats, in case he decides to make a run for another node?”

“They’ll be leaving in a minute or so. I’m waking everyone I can.”

“What about the other delegates?”

Sivaraksa did not answer her immediately. “Most are still asleep. I have Amesha Crane and Simon Matsubara in my office, however.”

“Let me speak to them.”

“Just a moment,” he said, after the same brief hesitation.

“Crane here,” said the woman.

“I think I’m chasing Weir. Can you confirm that?”

“He isn’t accounted for,” she told Naqi. “But it’ll be a few minutes until we can be certain it’s him.”

“I’m not expecting a surprise. Weir already had a question mark over him, Amesha. We were waiting for him to try something.”