The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol. 20

Kilometres away, the sea was bellying up beneath the shuttle. The water was the colour of moss, supersaturated with microorganisms. Naqi watched as a coil of solid green matter reached from the ocean, twisting and writhing. It was as thick as a building, spilling vast rivulets of water as it emerged. It extended upward with astonishing haste, bifurcating and flexing like a groping fist. For a brief moment it closed around the shuttle. Then it slithered back into the sea with a titanic splash; a prolonged roar of spent energy. The shuttle continued to hover above the same spot, as if oblivious to what had just happened. Yet the manta-shaped craft’s white hull was lathered with various hues of green. And Naqi understood: what had happened to the shuttle was what had happened to Arviat, the city that drowned. She could not begin to guess the crime that Arviat had committed against the sea, the crime that had merited its destruction, but she could believe, now, at least, that the Jugglers had been capable of dragging it beneath the waves, ripping the main mass of the city away from the bladders that held it aloft. And of course such a thing would have to be kept maximally secret, known only to a handful of individuals. Otherwise no city would ever feel safe when the sea roiled and groaned beneath it.

But a city was not a shuttle.

Even if the Juggler material started eating away the fabric of the shuttle, it would still take hours to do any serious damage… And that was assuming the Ultras had no better protection than the ceramic shielding used on Turquoise boats and machines…

But the shuttle was already tilting over.

Naqi watched it pitch, attempt to regain stability and then pitch again. She understood, belatedly. The organic matter was clogging the shuttle’s whisking propulsion systems, limiting its ability to hover. The shuttle was curving inexorably closer to the sea, spiralling steeply away from the node. It approached the surface, and then just before the moment of impact another misshapen fist of organised matter thrust from the sea, seizing the hull in its entirety. That was the last Naqi saw of it.

A troubled calm fell on the scene. The sky overhead was unmarred by questing machinery. Only the thin whisper of smoke rising from the horizon, in the direction of the Moat, hinted of the day’s events.

Minutes passed, and then tens of minutes. Then a rapid series of bright flashes strobed from beneath the surface of the sea itself.

“That was the shuttle,” Weir said, wonderingly.

Naqi nodded. “The Jugglers are fighting back. This is more or less what I hoped would happen.”

“You asked for this?”

“I think Mina understood what was needed. Evidently she managed to convince the rest of the ocean, or at least this part of it.”

“Let’s see.”

They searched the airwaves again. The comsat network was dead, or silent. Even fewer cities were transmitting now. But those that were-those that had not been overrun by Ormazd’s disciples-told a frightening story. The ocean was clawing at them, trying to drag them into the sea. Weather patterns were shifting, entire storms being conjured into existence by the orchestrated circulation of vast ocean currents. It was happening in concentric waves, racing away from the precise point in the ocean where Naqi had swum. Some cities had already fallen into the sea, though it was not clear whether this had been brought about by the Jugglers themselves or because of damage to their vacuum bladders. There were people in the water: hundreds, thousands of them. They were swimming, trying to stay afloat, trying not to drown.

But what exactly did it mean to drown on Turquoise?

“It’s happening all over the planet,” Naqi said. She was still shivering, but now it was as much a shiver of awe as one of cold. “It’s denying itself to us by smashing our cities.”

“Your cities never harmed it.”

“I don’t think it’s really that interested in making a distinction between one bunch of people and another, Rafael. It’s just getting rid of us all, disciples or not. You can’t really blame it for that, can you?”

“I’m sorry,” Weir said.

He cracked the globe, spilled its contents into the sea.

Naqi knew there was nothing she could do now; there was no prospect of recovering the tiny black grains. She would only have to miss one, and it would be as bad as missing them all.

The little black grains vanished beneath the olive surface of the water.

It was done.

Weir looked at her, his eyes desperate for forgiveness.

“You understand that I had to do this, don’t you? It isn’t something I do lightly.”

“I know. But it wasn’t necessary. The ocean’s already turned against us. Crane has lost. Ormazd has lost.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Weir said. “But I couldn’t take the chance that we might be wrong. At least this way I know for sure.”

“You’ve murdered a world.”

He nodded. “It’s exactly what I came here to do. Please don’t blame me for it.”