The Lord of the Plains (44 page)

‘Hey, Vann, you’re back early.’ he heard
from one of his friends, Gavann.

He groaned into the pillow. Then he pulled
it out and over his head. ‘I’m never seeing Teila again.’ he
mumbled.

‘Oh, really? Can I see her then?’

‘Sure, fair warning though, she doesn’t
listen to a word you say.’ and with that he pulled the pillow
tightly over his ears.

At that moment, the subs didn’t seem so
bad.

Vann spent the rest of his shore time with
his male friends. He had female friends, he just couldn’t bear
female company at the moment. He spent most of his time going over
conversations with Teila in his head wondering if he had been
unclear. He wasn’t the type of guy who made girls cry. He didn’t
want
to be that guy.

Then his week on shore duty was over and it
was time for another month on the subs, and he was done with
thinking about her. When you were in the subs, you focussed. It was
hard to think about women who made no sense when you were too far
under the surface of the ocean to swim should a gemeng cut the sub
in half. That was how his mother had died. His father had died in a
mining accident before he was born. He’d never known either of
them, though he wondered. But he could handle fear, otherwise he
wouldn’t be a submariner.

He scarcely thought of Teila in the four
weeks on the sub, and when he arrived back in Coastside he was
perfectly happy not to get in another sub for a week.

His first stop back on land was
uniforms.

‘Hey, Vann.’ The man at the shop greeted
him. ‘How’d it go?’ he asked.

Vann placed his carry sack on the counter
and slid it over to Jeris. Before answering he asked, ‘why are you
on uniform duty again?’

Jeris grinned. ‘I electrocuted the Commander
accidentally.’

Vann gaped, his jaw dropping as Jeris
grinned inanely.

‘How?!’ he demanded finally.

‘Well I thought my rod was broken so I was
you know,’ he made a shaking motion with his hand, ’shaking it
around when the Commander came ‘round the corner and I whacked him.
And what do you know! It worked!’

Vann needed a few moments to regain control
of his voice. ‘And now you’re in the uniform shop.’ he said
carefully.

Jeris nodded. ‘Yup. I don’t think they’re
gonna give me my lightning rod back.’ his smile faltered. ‘The
Commander said I could just fight the gemengs without it.’

Vann closed his eyes and tried not to wonder
how Jeris had made it through training.

‘Anyway, how’d the tour go?’ he asked again
and started pulling things out of Vann’s bag. ‘Shit! What happened
here?!’

Jeris held up what had once been Vann’s
uniform.

‘A longtail slammed us. We sprung a leak in
the locker room. Once it was drained we couldn’t dry the clothes
properly.’ he shrugged. ‘You’re gonna get a lot of business, Jeri,
the only clothes any of us have left are what we were wearing.’

‘Damn.’ Jeris’ wide eyes were travelling up
and down what looked more like a clump of mould than a uniform.
‘Why didn’t you just throw out the bag? How many do you need?’

‘Radann always wants proof.’ Vann said,
referring to the man who usually worked here, with occasional help
from disgraced submariners. ‘Two sub and one shoreside.’

‘Sure.’ he put the thing carefully back in
the bag and carried it over to the bin and dropped the whole thing
in. ‘Plus a bag.’ Then he disappeared into the back. ‘So what else
happened? Did you get just one leak?’

‘No, we had one other. It was pretty
quiet.’

‘Lucky! Davi just got back yesterday. They
found the splitter’s nest and ran out of the delay bombs! They had
about five of the things on their tail for three days!’

‘I know. We ran into them and finished the
nest off. The nest wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near there.’

‘Ok, here you go.’ Jeris said, returning
from the back, ‘New bag. New uniforms. New boots. Now go take a
shower, you smell!’

Vann smiled. ‘Thanks, Jeri. I wanted to get
here before the rush. Good luck.’

Vann left just as a group of five of his
submates entered, smelling just as bad as he did.

Vann had a few days to himself before his
shore duty started and he intended to spend them alone. The usual
routine for a submariner was a few weeks of sub time followed by a
few free days and perhaps half the amount of time spent on a sub on
shore duty. That meant either patrolling the bay and surrounding
islands, or getting on one of the ships the subs protected. Vann
preferred to take a month of sub duty followed by a week of shore
time.

Vann didn’t mind the company of others, if
he did he would have gone crazy, spending his entire life living in
small dorms stuffed with other boys in the military blocks or on
cramped, suffocating submarines.

But he enjoyed his own company too.

Cleaned and thoroughly showered, Vann
strolled along the side beach, a pleasant breeze ruffling his ash
blonde hair.

The bay beach was safer than the side beach,
but it was always crowded. The waters around Coastside had always
been kept clear and clean so the bay beach was now popular for
swimming. It was not for swimming that the bay had been kept clean
though. It was hard enough fighting gemengs under water, it wasn’t
going to get any easier if the water was too dirty to see in. The
bay was mostly clear of gemengs now, though the submariners
patrolled there during shoretime and also trained there. Still, the
Commander had told Vann when he was young, people didn’t swim in
the waters and the few men who fished in the bay were considered
crazy.

These days a lot of people swam at the beach
and the bay was full of enough fishing boats that cave mould was
rarely seen in Coastside anymore.

The top scientist in Coastside, Dr Ralis,
even had his own beach side villa and private section of the beach.
He paid the submariners to keep it patrolled and gemeng free.
Privately, Vann thought he was wasting his money. The submariners
protected Coastside. The fact that Dr Ralis wouldn’t let anyone
else swim on his beach didn’t mean they wouldn’t protect it.
Gemengs moved around after all. It’s not as if they would take any
notice of Dr Ralis’ boundaries. Gemengs near his side of the beach
posed a danger to all of Coastside, not just his little
section.

But Vann wasn’t by the bay. He was on the
side beach, out past the city limits. He stayed a safe distance
from the water and had his lightning rod with him.

The lightning rod was a dusky gold rod about
the length of a grown man’s forearm. The last hand width of it was
a rubber handle. When you squeezed the handle electricity was
released. On the handle there was also a dial to change the
settings. The energy source, which was recharged back at the base,
was inserted at the base of the handle. More advanced settings were
located inside.

Like most submariners, Vann had ambivalent
feelings towards the lightning rod. Whoever had invented it had
probably thought, as gemengs lived in the water, it would be a good
idea to stick it in the water and electrocute everything. However
the effect of the lightning rod declined very fast in a short
distance in the water, so it wasn’t actually very effective if used
that way. Further, just discharging it by squeezing the handle
often sent electricity off in the opposite direction you wanted it
to go. The submariners wore rubber boots and gloves, but during
training they didn’t. Vann had been shocked more than once by the
guy standing next to him during training. Though come to think of
it, he was probably lucky he hadn’t been next to Jeris.

Vann had seen the mistakes the others made
and had not made them himself.

So
he
had never accidentally shocked
his future sub mates.

He felt the lightening rod was most reliable
and effective if you hit someone with it. Then the energy went
directly into whatever you were hitting.

Despite the fickle nature of the lightning
rod, it was a part of the submariners’ image. So they still trained
with them and still carried them everywhere.

Vann held the rod loosely in his hand as he
walked along the beach. He’d met a leaper (so called because they
leapt out of the water to attack) here more than once.

Even though the ocean posed a real danger,
he found his walk relaxing. By the time he was heading back to the
Blocks, he felt refreshed and lively.

That night the crew from Vann’s sub, the
Bad Luck
, celebrated at their favourite restaurant,
The
Porpoise
. It was named after the big, friendly, fish shaped
animals that were sometimes seen out in the ocean.

It was a two story building, though most of
the bottom was open to the night. Lights were strung around the
roof of the ground floor and long, wooden trestle tables were set
up on the clay coloured tiles.

The sounds of happy young people drinking
filled the night. A few people ate, but most were just drinking. It
was cheaper to eat at the Blocks and come here after.

Vann was surrounded by a group of his
friends when he heard someone call out over the noise, ‘hey, Azra,
over here!’

Gavann turned back to find Vann had
disappeared. He looked around, the rest of the group were just as
surprised.

Gavann turned around to have another look
for Vann and came face to face with Azra.

‘Azra, hi,’ he gulped, nearly choking on his
beer. ‘How’s it going?’

Azra was considered something of an exotic
beauty in Coastside. Her hair was such a dark brown it could be
mistaken for black. She kept it long and pinned it up while
working. She had big blue eyes and dark lashes and a face that was
riveting even in repose.

‘Is Vann here?’ she demanded.

‘Uh, I’m not sure where he is.’

She frowned, her perfectly shaped brows
lowering dangerously. ‘If you see him, come tell me where he
is.’

‘Uh…’

Her brows narrowed even further.

He took another gulp of his beer. Then began
choking. By the time he looked up Azra had thankfully left.