Rorqual Saitu: Karnish River Navigations, #9

By Sean Monaghan

When Kumi Saitu's difficult mission to wrest vital data from Hundstein's criminal network almost kills her, she faces a critical decision.

The maelstrom of danger and intrigue draws in Kumi's old friends, Flis and Grae.

Facing an ancient harvester and a far-reaching illicit web, they must fight the clock to set things right.

Might they have met their match?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Triple V Publishing
• Release date: Aug 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223842651

Sean Monaghan

Award-winning author, Sean Monaghan has published more than one hundred stories in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and in New Zealand, where he makes his home. A regular contributor to Asimov’s, his story “Crimson Birds of Small Miracles”, set in the art world of Shilinka Switalla, won both the Sir Julius Vogel Award, and the Asimov’s Readers Poll Award, for best short story. He is a past winner of the Jim Baen Memorial Award, and the Amazing Stories Award. Sean writes from a nook in a corner of his 110 year old home, usually listening to eighties music. Award-winning author, Sean Monaghan has published more than one hundred stories in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and in New Zealand, where he makes his home. A regular contributor to Asimov’s, his story “Crimson Birds of Small Miracles”, set in the art world of Shilinka Switalla, won both the Sir Julius Vogel Award, and the Asimov’s Readers Poll Award, for best short story. He is a past winner of the Jim Baen Memorial Award, and the Amazing Stories Award. Sean writes from a nook in a corner of his 110 year old home, usually listening to eighties music.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Kumi Saitu struggled from the jam in the pipe. She was pinned.

Not a good way to start the day.

Should have known better.

The pipe wasn’t that narrow, really. Steel-ceramic blend walls, neatly curved. There were scallop patterns in the face of it, left from the worker robots that had installed the pipe. Sixty, maybe a hundred years back. The patterns glinted in the light from her hat lamps.

This was all Iain’s fault.

Break into a stronghold, relieve a nasty crime lord of his ill-gotten gains.

Fat chance. Her brother’s ideas were often a stretch. And she just let herself get sucked into them. Sucked in, because she had the tech skills he simply didn’t.

The pipe reeked of bleach and algae. A thin trickle of slimy water ran along the base of the curve. Bug larvae swam around. Little black specks. Some gold. Some blue. They were seemingly oblivious to the current. Some of them had arms like little oars.

And around the sides, air-breathing bugs settled. Some could fly, and buzzed around her ears sometimes. She swatted at them.

Some marched along in long lines. Amber-colored ants, stopping to talk to one another, half of them carrying a load in their jaws. A pupa or a chunk of something edible.

Where could they be going? Surely the pipe was sealed. The integrity had to be high, so there shouldn’t be holes in it.

There were niches in the curve’s apex, filled with sensors. Little aerials and lenses and the slits of miniature sample vents. All ensuring the pipe’s integrity. Some of them glinted with red telltale lights. Very few were green.

Perhaps that’s where the ants were going. Up through one of the slits to some nest exploiting the warmth and light and complexity of the sensors’ operating circuitry.

Kumi backed up a little. Twisted.

Tried to move forward.

Choke point.

The pipe was about seventy-five centimeters across. Easily space for her. But there was this crooked join with a set of impellors mounted on the crook. The kinds of things that self-maintain, but power up when the system detects a jam, or even when there’s just too much liquid and it needs to move faster.

Above her, the streets of Turneith, the half-inhabited capital city of Karnth, bustled with people. Strange how parts of the city were crowded while others were near abandoned.

Iain had said that it was best to go in around three AM. Fewer people about, and Hundstein’s crews would be sleeping. On minimal watch.

But she’d talked him out of that idea. Who was going to see her when she was stealthily making her way through the stink of pipes and crawl spaces? Early afternoon suited her better. At least she’d had lunch.

Better to do this kind of job on a full stomach.

Creg Hundstein. Money launderer, filcher, philanderer, tech hustler, smuggler, and murderer. Out of reach of the police.

And right now he was sitting on a bale of tech that could be used to improve things for a whole lot of people. Nanoimplants, food synth brains, vehicle navigation, and self-maintenance systems.

Didn’t seem right that he should steal it and sell it off.

Kumi backed up. Twisted again. Pulled forward.

Usually she was much more limber.

She’d gained a few years and a couple of kilos since the last time she’d tried something like this. The Waterston heist. They’d bungled that one too, but at least they’d been able to get some evidence to hand on to the cops. Waterston’s people trafficking ring had been shut down.

Amazing that those kinds of operations still existed.

Didn’t look as if she and Iain were going to manage to shut something down this time.

Kumi pulled her little kit bag around. Slid it through the gap and lay it out on the base of the pipe. The bag splayed out four legs to keep itself out of the water.

With a little swipe, the upper fabric turned into a display and Iain’s face stared back at her.

You’re not moving. His voice filtered quietly through her earbud.

I’m stuck is what, she said. Can you send me a servicebot to haul me out?

Um, yuh. Nope. I can’t send anything. There are security pings on you right now. It’s taking everything I can do to keep you cloaked from it.

The red telltales?

Exactly. All that stuff that’s supposed to just be for pipe maintenance, well it looks like Hundstein has keyed it back into his security networks.

Because he knows that this is exactly the right place to come into his vault, right?

I suppose.

"You suppose? You were meant to have this planned out to the millimeter and the millisecond."

I did. I swear.

From somewhere along the pipe ahead of her came a dull, distant rumbling.

That couldn’t be good.

Kumi shone her hat lamps along, but only saw the diminishing lines of the pipe.

I’m going to try to back up, she said. I’m calling it. Getting out. If we’re going to do this, we’ll–

More sounds came. A thunk and a clunk. These ones from behind her.

Like one of the service hatches opening.

Iain? she said. Have you got eyes behind me?

Some of those feeds are failing, he said. Nothing close by. Oh, wait. A service hatch has opened.

That’s what it sounded like. Should I be worried?

You might be able to use it as an exit. If you’re getting claustrophobic in–

I’m not claustrophobic. She could get how people might be. There wasn’t a whole lot of room, and she was stuck fast.

Back up and... oh, wait.

Wait for what?

The rumbling from ahead of her was growing louder.

There’s something, Iain said, climbing through that hatch.

Something? What kind of a something?

Oh, it’s a service bot. Just coming to... oh, wait. It’s kind of modified.

Modified?

Now the rumbling sounded really close. Something was coming along at her. Another robot? It sounded too squishy.

Yes, Iain said. It looks like it has weapons. Sizzlers and a static charge gun.

What is a sizzler?

Electrical snake coils. It fires them out and they wrap around you. Give you a jolt.

Well that sucks.

I’m trying to hack into it at the moment.

Now she saw movement ahead. Just at the edges of the hat lamps’ range.

Not another robot.

Liquid.

Dark, but splashing and surging with foam leading it.

Coming fast.

CHAPTER TWO

Creg Hundstein’s face was lined and rugged in a way that suggested a life outdoors. As if he forwent rejuvenation treatments. He seemed to wear his skin as if it was a badge. As if he was proud to be aging and wearing out.

But it was an an illusion Flis Kupe could see through right away.

She and her investigative partner, Grae Sinder, were visiting Hundstein’s office on the sixtieth floor of his swooped building.

The views from his office were fantastic. Looking out across the Karnth canal lands, to the west and north, and toward the River Haxley’s mouth to the southwest. From the other side, Flis had been able to just see the coast out east, and, if she squinted, whitecaps on the choppy ocean.

The window wrapped right around the circle of the floor, a cylinder supporting the roof and the levels above. There was no other physical connection. No stairs or lift shaft. No central column.

Easily fifteen meters high, the space felt like a bubble, floating away in the Turneith breeze.

From the outside, the building formed an elegant curve–a swoop–with the upper floors almost reaching back above the foundation and lower floors.

She and Grae sat in comfortable Venturi easy chairs, across a low wooden table from Kassermin. The table was elegant. Made from a pitted and knotted slab of probably elm, and standing on a set of asymmetrical legs.

Things like these cost plenty. But then, Hundstein was swimming cash.

They hadn’t arrived empty-handed or without doing some research.

An offworld importer, there were plenty of ways his business could hide transactions.

In the same way as he was allowing his appearance to hide his health. From the outside he looked well into his nineties or even beyond a hundred. On the inside he’d been rejuvenated to something more like thirty. Plenty of people his age looked much younger, of course. There were documentaries out there which extrapolated how people would appear without treatments.

Human life spans now pushed two hundred years, with supervision and treatment, so it could be near impossible to tell someone’s age.

I’m glad you could come, Hundstein said. I fear complications should I use my internal security staff.

We do things by the book, sir, Grae said.

Oh, I know, I know. Hundstein waved the comment off, then turned the wave into a command to the building. A slot opened beside the Kassermin table and a robotic arm with a tray wound out. Setting the tray on the table, the arm began the process of molding glasses. The arm was quiet as it worked, the gears and joints near silent.

Tea? he said. Something else. There an excellent Osterie grape juice this year. A vintage. Most of the crop was turned into wine, but I was able to convince them to make me a reserve of juice. I find I prefer a clear head for meetings of this nature.

Grape juice would be excellent, Flis said.

Hundstein was wearing black slacks and a black button shirt, with a crisp white jacket. Doubtless all labels. Fancy and expensive. It made Flis conscious of her very practical leggings and boots and shirt. She and Grae were more like street waifs compared to this man.

And yet, she didn’t like him. He came across as slimy and condescending, under a veneer of affability.

Everything is above board, of course, Hundstein said.

Three glasses were finished and a spigot appeared at the robot hand’s tip. Dark maroon liquid flowed from it, quickly filling the glasses.

What is the problem? Grae said.

That you can’t share with your own security people? Flis said.

You’ll laugh, Hundstein said.

Always like a good laugh, Grae said.

So long as you don’t balk when you see our rates, Flis said.

Flis.

No, Hundstein said. Your rates are immaterial. Look around. You could charge me ten times your regular fee and I’d never even notice.

We wouldn’t do that, Grae said.

Another reason I would employ you here. Integrity. Hundstein leaned forward. He picked up one of the glasses.

Please, he said, gesturing to the others.

Flis and Grae took one each. Flis sipped and the juice was quite delicious. Sweet, but with a tartness and a substance.

So, she said. Go ahead and make us laugh.

I have vagrants, he said. People who are trying to break into my systems. It’s been very entertaining watching them, but I feel that my own security teams are taking it too seriously. I’ve asked them to stand down and that I will bring in some people who will be more effective.

Ouch, Grae said. They’re not offended?

Initially, of course, but then I explained that this pair attempting to work their way in are known to you.

To us? Flis said.

Exactly. And, as it happens, they’re making an incursion right now. I’d like for you to head them off. Please.

Head them off?

Can you do that?

Sure, Grae said. Who are they?

Kumi and Iain Saitu.

Flis’s heart flipped.

Hundstein smiled. Smug. As if he’d won a little something there.

He had.

Kumi and Iain should have known better.

CHAPTER THREE

The stench of waste liquid blasted into Kumi a split second before the main torrent slammed into her.

With her hips jammed, the force smashed her head into the pipe’s side. She saw stars

Iain said something in the earbud. She didn’t hear. But she did feel the earbud sluice out of her ear canal.

Gone.

Kumi gasped in a tiny pocket of air right at the pipe’s crest.

There wasn’t supposed to be water. Not any liquid It was supposed to be all shut off. Iain had seen to it. He’d shown her on a display. Multiple levels of ensuring that the pipe would stay dry.

She got another breath. She had her arms pressed backward, holding her in place. The current was shoving against them.

Then the air was gone. Carried away in the rush of water.

What was the escape plan? Get back down along the pipe? That was more than two hundred meters off. Could she hold her breath that long?

Academic, really. If she couldn’t get out of this jam, then she would drown right here.

Well, it had been a good ride, really. Iain might miss her.

Then again, maybe he would just get so focused on projects that he would go days without thinking about her.

Without thinking that he’d put her in this situation.

Kumi squirmed. In theory, it should be easy enough to go back. After all, she’d come that way. Squirmed in.

But the water’s pressure held her against the roof of the pipe.

Her lungs strained.

Already. And she hadn’t even moved.

She was going to die here.

Something moved below her. Right at her butt.

The impellors.

Coming online.

The swirl of liquid was different.

Jets, rather than the swirl and twist of the current. For a moment it felt like a nice massage. Firm and stroking.

Then it grew faster. Fiercer.

It hurt.

Kumi squirmed some more. She brought her arms up and pushed back against the roof of the pipe. Tried to get her body to line up with the flow.

The jets from the impellors tore at her legs.

It was painful. Truly. Like blades slashing at her.

She was starting to black out.

She pushed some more. Twisted.

Next time she saw Iain she was going to smack him across the mouth.

Putting her in this situation!

Her knees and feet felt as if the bones were being ground together. As if the jets were shredding her skin away.

Her vision closed in.

Iain, she said, the words bubbling away.

Then something grabbed her hips.

CHAPTER FOUR

Flis and Grae had known Kumi and Iain Saitu when the pair helped them out with an urgent transport issue on another investigation.

They’d stayed in touch. Messages, occasional meetups for a Berlatta choc or a meal, very occasional family gatherings. The pair lived close to each other in a little canal spur town to the west. Guernessa. Rustic and quiet and just how they liked it.

The pair had a large extended family, mostly in the town, but with a few around other localities. Their barbeques could be quite raucous.

And now they were in trouble.

Leaning forward, Flis set her glass of grape juice on the fancy wooden table.

Creg Hundstein was leaning back with a half-smile on his face.

Are you sure you have the right people? Grae said. Kumi and Iain? I know they can be a little...

Erratic? Hundstein said.

Energetic, Grae said. Spontaneous.

Hard to believe they’d be making an incursion, right?

Exactly.

Right now, you said? Flis said. Give us the details. Show us where. We’ll go and talk to them.

She was going to bill this guy up the wazoo. Trying to set them against their friends.

So you’ll take the job?

Billable hours, plus expenses, Flis said. We’re currently billing two thousand an hour. Each.

Fine, Hundstein said, as Grae’s eyes widened.

Should have said three thousand.

Hundstein snapped his fingers and a slot opened in the floor, with a stairway below. Almost right away a middle-aged man without a scrap of hair, save for a graying mustache, strode up. He was slim and fit and wearing a black uniform with red trim. He had a pulse pistol clipped to his belt.

Isaac Kloster, Hundstein said. Flis Kupe and Grae Sinder, of Kupe-Sinder investigations. I’ll leave you to take care of the details.

Very good, Kloster said. Accented. He was from offworld. Not that she would hold that against him, but he was kind of off. The way he stood. The way he half-smiled.

The way he looked her over–up and down with his eyes lingering in places–was creepy.

Hundstein made a scooping wave gesture, as if he was describing the shape of his building. Clearly, though, it was a command. His chair turned and moved away. It slipped down through another slot, which closed up after him, leaving no trace.

Flis and Grae stood.

We don’t want to step on any toes, Grae said.

Not at all, Kloster said. In fact, I suspect we’re too late.

Too late? Flis said.

One of my team noted the incursion Mr. Hundstein is so concerned about. Unfortunately, she has gone ahead and followed procedure.

Which means?

The woman, Kumi Saitu I think, was in a pipe below some of Mr. Hundstein’s vaults. Looking for a way in. There were system overrides in place, so we didn’t initially see it.

Hundstein knew, Grae said.

"Mr. Hundstein has resources of his own to which I’m not privy, despite being the head of security here."

Ahh, Flis said. But back to those protocols.

My team member opened the valves to flush the pipe network. Kumi Saitu has been swept away. Drowned, I assume.

CHAPTER FIVE

Kumi found herself passing in and out of consciousness. She could tell. Things fell dark and bleak and black, and burst with moments of light.

Moments of pain.

The water was cold. But.

Something on her legs was hot. Something on.

Fire.

Burning like some intense.

Arc. Cutting. Chewing