The Navigator, page 53
Mordecai was standing next to Rho, off toward the side of the stage. The Sea People Congress was taking place in his settlement since it was considered to be a neutral no-man's-land, and he, having no traditional alignments, had been selected to preside over it.
Mordecai was the only person in the amphitheater who was armed. The rusted assault rifle prominently slung over his shoulder peacocked his authority. He shifted back and forth on aching legs. He'd been standing at attention like a master-at-arms, as each representative gave a speech on the stage to his right. Their debates had been going on continuously for thirteen straight hours.
Rho coughed, trying to catch his breath. He'd been speaking for about twenty minutes, and his audience was falling asleep. He watched as a few of the other Khans slouched on their benches and closed their eyes.
Sanima, Queen of Syracuse, rested her chin on her palm and studied her vibrantly painted fingernails. When Rho locked eyes with her, she gave him an exaggerated yawn followed by a devious smile.
"We cannot sit here and do nothing - return to our islands and our hordes as if the attack on Mann never happened!" Rho began speaking with renewed force, trying to snap his audience out of their stupor. "The P.R.K. has slapped us across the face and you all seem to suggest that we sit on our hands and take no action! That we appear impotent in the eyes of the leviathan!"
"And what shall we do?" King Anu of Atium groaned. He was an elderly man with a long, gray beard. He gently tapped his fingers on his crown, a steel helmet capped with walrus tusks. "The P.R.K. has five battle fleets, each one outclasses the combined strength of all of our hordes and Island forces. They have Krakens, land-based aircraft, and antediluvian submarines. We stand no chance against them."
"And we no longer have Yong or their fleet to aid us," Sanima added.
"We have you to thank for that, Khan of the Sand Tigers," Khan Swei scoffed from the backbenches.
Rho nodded at each comment, mentally ticking off his retort.
"All of the P.R.K. battle fleets but one are still tied down in Yong, stamping out the last flickers of guerilla resistance. Most of their army and marines are there too, mired in the Southern jungles. The one fleet that's separated from the rest - the 42nd - is the same fleet that razed Skrae! It is a logical, poetic, and most deserving target for our vengeance!"
"The 42nd Fleet is harbored in Khai Shen," mused the ambassador from Sol. He was a squat, piggish little man wearing a Yong-style smock and hooped earrings. "Are you suggesting we sail into the lion's den?"
Khan Jellico nodded vigorously. "I too am appalled by the actions of Kudu, but you want us to send our ships to the P.R.K. capital? That's suicide. I, for one, will not send my men to their slaughter."
"It's not as hopeless as it seems," Rho responded. "Not only will our attack catch them completely by surprise, but it will arouse such fear among the P.R.K. populace, that they will pressure their leadership to avoid further escalation. Their people are tired of war, but as of now, they don't fear us. If we show them our strength, they will not want to begin a new confrontation that will span every ocean!"
"Or we will simply stir up a hornet's nest," a nobleman from Bimany shouted. "The P.R.K. elite needs an enemy to keep their people anxious and loyal to their regime. Why provide them with one? And a dire one at that, if we are to sail right up to their doorstep. Our spies insist that the attack on Mann was inadvertent. Perhaps there is still time for reconciliation."
"Inadvertent! The torching of Skrae and the massacre of its peasants was just an accident! What sheep we have become! How can the representative from Bimany be so deluded?"
"You will not stand a chance once you enter Khai Shen Bay," Khan Jellico repeated. "Without even mentioning the might of the 42nd Fleet, Baffin Island's shore guns will reduce your ships to shivers before you even make sight of land. Any attack would be fruitless."
"Have we all become cowards? Our odds are long but not impossible! With courage, cunning, and the aid of darkness we could overcome their guns and technology. Remember, we are the SEA! We are the chosen ones! We are-"
Before Rho could finish, the double doors that lay at the top of the theater were thrown open with a violent crash. Everyone ducked their heads at the noise and turned around in their seats, staring up at the entrance.
"Greetings and salutations, fellow ocean elites." Sejanus waltzed into the theater, slowly walking down the stairs toward the stage. He took a deep bow and then spoke with vigor. "I apologize for my lack of punctuality and for interrupting this Great Congress whilst it's in secession."
"I am so sorry." Lhan scurried into the theater just behind Sejanus. Two Jan-Jus were shadowing him, jostling him, keeping him out of reach of their leader. "I tried to stop him, but he brought these thugs!"
"Oh my God." Sanima's eyes sparkled at Sejanus's ostentatious entrance. Her face went flush and she swallowed a giggle.
"You have no right to speak here," Khan Swei barked, his bench a mere two feet away from Sejanus's men. "You are not from the sea. You are a P.R.K. outcast, a slave-owning barbarian, and an out-and-out lunatic."
Sejanus ignored Khan Swei and spoke, instead, to Mordecai.
"I am the rightful ambassador of the sea people island of Smaaland. And I was invited to speak at this Congress."
"The Congress recognizes the right of the ambassador of Smaaland to speak," Mordecai announced. "As long as his men leave this place - immediately."
"My apologies." Sejanus turned around and shooed the two Jan-Jus away.
"Go on Sejanus." Mordecai grit his teeth. "And speak quickly. We're preparing to hold our final vote."
"The Grand Barrister."
"Excuse me?"
"My name is D'Alanzo Sejanus, the Grand Barrister of Smaaland." Sejanus took another deep, medieval-style bow. His metal armor jangled.
"Fine. Once Khan Rho is finished, you have the floor." Mordecai waved Sejanus forward. ". . .Grand Barrister."
The other Jan-Jus exited the amphitheater like automatons, in a loud, clanking shuffle.
Sejanus skipped up next to Rho, who glared at him for a moment. Rho then walked off the stage, taking a seat in the front row.
"Ahem, as you are all aware, my isle is but a rank and festering swamp without any natural resources or dry land to speak of. Many other settlements believe us cursed; a detestable backwater, home to only miserable cannibals and shipwrecked castaways. Yet the oldest Jan-Jus on my isle knew from the time of the Flood of a certain prophecy - that the Khoi who shepherded the sea people's pitiful ancestors to the last remaining specks of land would one day return, to gloriously lead them back to the Continent."
"Khoi?" Sanima laughed. Her giggle echoed across the amphitheater. "What are we to you, madman? Little children or ignorant fools like the savages who live on your swampland?"
"Khoi indeed. The great sky ones who climbed down from the stars just as Yacob ascended the trells to Tian Shri Ha. Those enlightened nymphs and nereids who look down on our primitive lands from the comfortable bosoms of heaven."
Khan Jellico leaned forward in his seat. "You come with news of the return of the Khoi? Have you gone completely mad?"
Sejanus put both his hands over his armored heart.
"I come merely as a herald - a barker - an announcer - an introductory orator. I shall yield the rest of my time on the floor to the keynote speaker - a fellow Kudian ex-patriot just as myself. She is the ambassador of Terra Australis Incognita, the hidden southern land. She is the human avatar of the lost sea nymph, Clymene, and the harbinger of the Great Seer's long prophesized return of the Khoiano!" Sejanus motioned to the entrance doors in a frenzy. "I present to you, oh Great Sea People Congress - MS. QUILL ALMEADA!"
"Quill?" Rho, Sanima, Mordecia, and Lhan all muttered the name aloud. Their voices mingled into a confused choir.
Quill slowly walked into the amphitheater. She was followed by four Jan-Jus who were holding up her Khoi scallop-shell survival pod as if it was her royal litter. She was still wearing her Khoi clothing too; its tinfoil-like fabric now clinging tightly against her belly, which had just begun to swell from pregnancy.
Quill tried not to blush at her ridiculous appearance. Sejanus had insisted on it all during their brief journey over to the Raft; the scallop shell, the Khoi clothes, the grandiose introduction. While she ridiculed his ideas at first, he convinced her that politics was theater. She would have to play a part if she wanted to convince anyone of anything, and Quill, unlike anyone else, had the props and credentials to put on a good show.
Quill still had her doubts about the idea, but Sejanus's madness had frightened her into sheepishly nodding along with each of his suggestions. Now, standing before a crowd of tired and cynical aristocrats, she wasn't sure she had the courage to go through with it.
"As some of you already know," Quill began, a little shocked to see Lhan and Sanima among the audience. "My name is Quill. I'm from Kudu, an exile like Sejanus. Once I was banished to the sea, I settled here on the Raft, and eventually became friends with Khan Rho's daughter, Petal."
Khan Rho was staring at Quill intently, without blinking. His face had gone from beet red to bleach white.
"Petal was looking for her sister. I took her to the Isle of Mann to see the Seer. The Seer told us to travel to Terra Australis Incognita to find her."
"What happened to our ship, you conniving spy?" Sanima cackled. "The Polar Wanderer - where is it? And where's our Prime Minister! That ship was the pride of our navy!"
"Be quiet!" Rho hissed."You've had your turn to speak. Now shut up for once and listen!"
"The ship was lost." Quill blinked, still terrified of what she was about to say. "But Petal and I reached the hidden land. . .and there. . .and there. . ."
Quill closed her eyes and swallowed her fear, deciding at the last moment to fully embrace Sejanus's advice, and abandon all logic.
"And there I received a prophecy from the Khoi. They told me to bring you this message: If you attack Kudu in exactly twenty eight days, your navy will be victorious against the P.R.K.. If you attack on any other date, your navy will be destroyed - no matter how cunning your tactics or how great your armada."
Quill stood mute after she finished, trying to keep a poker face, while scanning the audience for their reaction.
"Is that the entire prophecy?" The ambassador from Sol cocked his head.
"Yeah. That was - is my purpose. That's what I've come here to tell you. I think that's why I've already met so many of you, and why I survived all of. . .this. The Khoi told me other things, but that was the prophecy. That was their message to you."
"What happened to Petal?" Lhan asked, now standing by the entrance doors, a few feet behind Quill.
"Petal was Khoi." Quill glared at Rho and then glanced back at Lhan. "The Khoi took her to be with her kind. She's gone. She's in Amanahora."
The amphitheatre was silent. For several minutes, no one said a word.
"This is a fairy tale." Sanima broke the tension. "She thinks we're foolish enough to believe her - again. She's probably set up another ambush for Rho and the rest of us. Why are we entertaining these two lunatics? Let's take our vote now. I'm tired of endless debates and theatrics."
"That's all I have to say," Quill snapped at the queen. "Believe it or don't. In the end, you'll be the ones to benefit. . .or suffer."
The Congress sat mute. No one added on Samina's remark.
Sejanus skipped off the stage and took Quill by the hand.
While the Congress gaped on, mystified, he delicately led her up to the entrance doors and out of the amphitheater.
- 82-
Petal ran her fingers across the access pad on the hangar's far door, trying to figure out a code or an algorithm she could use to get it open.
Cynax had locked her in the hangar, somewhere deep inside the Kingfisher, and she wanted out. Now. She shouted her throat raw at first, hoping that someone aboard the starship would hear her, but no one responded.
The door controls seemed to have been overloaded. They refused to input any of her commands. She racked her brain, and her mother's databank of alien computer knowledge, for any idea as to how to open it.
"Why won't you open!" Petal kicked the door and beat her hands against it. "Open! Goddamnit! Open! OPEN!"
"Please refrain from damaging C.G.G. property," a feminine voice chided. "I have compensated for the overload and will grant you access to the rest of this deck, but you will remain confined to this level for the remainder of your voyage."
Petal sprang back from the door, shocked by the voice. She peered up at the ceiling, which towered one hundred feet above.
"Chaharta?" Petal glanced across the hangar at the headless, mechanical-men. "Hello? Who - who are you?"
The door that Petal had been struggling with chimed and whooshed open.
Petal walked through it immediately, eager to get out of the hangar. It led to a short corridor that she raced her way through. At the end of that corridor was another door that led into an equally humongous room.
Petal paused in the threshold of that new room, awestruck.
The gargantuan room looked like it was half a mile long. In the center of it was an enormous glass fish tank. On either side of the giant tank were thousands of water-cooler-shaped fish tanks, stacked in twelve distinct copper tiers, all linked together by ladder rungs, similar to those that swirled around the Tear Drop.
Petal slowly walked further into the room, glancing into the glass tanks on either side of her. Inside of the central tank was what at first looked like a submarine. When Petal walked up to it, she realized that it wasn't a submarine or something manmade - it was a whale.
A blue whale.
The whale was relatively still in its tank, its giant rear fluke moving up and down almost imperceptively. Its two side flippers were rigid. The rest of its body appeared to be catatonic, barely moving behind the thick glass.
Petal went further into the room, hugging the side of the giant fish tank. She kept her eyes locked on the whale until she reached its head. Once she came face-to-face with the whale, she pressed her nose against the glass to study it up close.
The whale looked like it was asleep. It stared back at Petal with empty black eyes, fringed by unexpectedly dainty eyelashes. Petal waited for it to move. It didn't budge. It didn't surface for air. It didn't even blink.
Petal put her hand up against the tank glass.
"Hello?"
The whale continued to stare at her blankly. It didn't make a sound.
"Why are you here?"
The whale was so huge, Petal couldn't see its rear fluke from where she was standing. She examined its knotted, heavily creased, blue skin for a few moments, surprised to see that its 'chin' was dotted with long brown hairs. She then backed away from the whale and stared up at all of the other fish tanks surrounding her.
There were thousands of bulbous fish tanks, all sitting on neatly arranged, copper pedestals. Some of the tanks were tiny and goldfish bowl-sized, others were larger than tractor-trailers. Many held familiar fish and sea mammals that Petal recognized from Ea - otters, tuna, marlins, white tip sharks, even manatees. Some of those animals were swimming in endless circles, others seemed sedated like the whale, floating still in their little habitats.
Other tanks held alien, demonic-looking fish, more frightening than anything Petal had seen on her way down to the seabed. One of those fish looked like a neon-red, giant grouper with twelve yellow eyes, four webbed hands, and a mouth full of serrated teeth that were bunched together like a saw blade. Another fish looked like a lionfish - white and brown and covered in razor-sharp barbs - but its body was long and thin like a serpent. A tank on the end held a hideous thing that Petal couldn't even call a fish. It looked like a monkey with scaly, jungle-green skin, three hell red eyes, and four, sucker-lined tentacle appendages. As Petal walked by its tank, it turned its head and put its suckers against the glass, following her movements like an intrigued predator.
Petal backed away from the monkey-fish and scanned the wall of familiar and unfamiliar creatures, mesmerized by the sheer amount of them. Neither she nor her mother had ever seen anything like this, although all of the neatly arranged tanks reminded her of King Hanno's museum.
Specimens. . .?
Petal bit her lip.
Am I a specimen too then?
Petal shook off the thought, continuing to walk along the whale tank, toward the other end of the room. She ran her fingertip along the glass to see if the whale would follow it, but the whale continued to stare outwards, blankly, immobilized.
The door at the far end of the fish tank room opened when Petal put her hand to it. It fed into another corridor that led to a much smaller room with glass walls and an arched glass ceiling. There were tables and chairs set up along a wide brass bar. The shelving behind the bar was empty. The room looked like a mess or lounging area that'd been cleaned out long ago and abandoned.
