There was no doubt in my mind that we were picking up desperate communication between the two ships, or more accurately between the wreck of one and the vessel that we considered spared. There could not be much left of the former, I thought. But bone rooms were often the best-protected part of any ship, and would hold pressure even after the rest of the hull was a splintered ruin. Not out of any consideration for the welfare of such talents as us, but a simple consequence of the protection afforded the skull, which was often the most valuable, temperamental and delicate of any ship’s possessions.
Fura and I looked at each other, not needing to articulate our mutual discomfort. The voices that came through the bones were usually robbed of inflection, as cold as newsprint. It was very rare to pick up emotions, and still rarer for something to come through as clearly as the terror and distress of the first voice. It was true that we had been through our share of that as well, but far from hardening our feelings, our experiences had only made us more acutely aware of the cruel things that could happen to a person when they were alone on a wounded ship. Fura was lifting her bridge from her head, and I felt the same helpless impulse. We had not invited this trouble upon ourselves, but that did not mean we were immune from sympathy. A ship was made up of many sorts of people and I doubted that all of those distant crews could be held fully accountable for what had happened to Strambli.
Just as Fura was about to lift off the bridge, though, I allowed a word to drift across my consciousness.
Lagganvor.
Perhaps she heard me anyway, or sensed the shape of that unvoiced name. It was as if I had pricked the edge of her storm-cloud, making it twitch away from me. Recognition, I wondered, or puzzlement, the significance of the name lost on her?
I watched her eyes, as she watched me and wondered if I saw the tiniest lift of her brow, signifying curiosity or some cold amusement that I had penetrated her secrets. At the same time I felt her own scrutiny lying hard on me and our minds engaged in a kind of bloodless, passionless duel, stabbing and parrying, neither bettering the other.
If you are holding something from me, now would be the time to confess.
It was my inner voice and it was also Fura’s, the statement equally applicable to both of us.
Nothing you need worry about. Nothing you need worry about at all.
Simultaneously, as if we were two dolls in a puppet theatre, being worked by the same strings, our hands moved to the input sockets. We disconnected in the same moment. That alien wind chased itself out of my head, leaving a ringing emptiness that only slowly filled with normal thoughts.
Fura finally removed her neural bridge, then took mine from my head as well, as gently and sisterly as you please. She spooled the contact wires back into their housings and put the bridges back on their hooks.
“I’m sorry for what they’re going through. If I could send them lungstuff I would. But if they think they’ve seen the sharp side of me, they’ve a lot to learn.”
“So have we all,” I answered, low enough that I could not be sure she heard me.
11
A large, blurred object swam into view and I overshot before adjusting the sighting dials to bring it back into alignment, centring it against the illuminated crosshairs. I turned the focus screw just enough to snap the fuzzy shape into sharpness. It was a four-spoked cog, bristly and corroded-looking, like some metal ornament that had been left underwater for too long.
Wheel Strizzardy. Ten thousand leagues out, but we would be there soon enough now. It could be our salvation or our undoing, I thought, or more likely some murky business in between. I was starting to see that matters were rarely as clear-cut as those stories we used to read in the nursery, where ever-afters were always either happy or tragic, where the virtuous were rewarded and the bad punished.
In fact, I was starting to think that quite a lot hinged on one’s point of view.
*
The grille crackled. A male voice buzzed out of it.
“This is the Port Authority of Wheel Strizzardy, calling the sunjammer at eight hundred leagues, approaching from the outer processionals. Identify your vessel, your point of origin and your intentions by immediate return of squawk.”
Fura took the hand-held microphone and held it to her lips as Prozor and I watched.
“Good day, Port Authority. This is Captain Marance of the privateer Grey Lady out of Indragol. We’ve been scouring baubles on the Emptyside since ’98—nearly two years since we made port. Our stores are low and we’d like permission to run our launch over and conduct free trade, as your terms dictate.”
“Not a name known to us, Captain Marance.” The speaker had a slow, phlegmatic manner of talking, as if he had all day to deal with us. “Yours or your ship’s. Why would you wish to trade with us, with the rest of the Congregation at your disposal?”
“I wish the rest of the Congregation were at our disposal, sir,” Fura said, putting on a hard-done-by tone. “The honest truth is that we’re not exactly spoilt for choice, with an injured party aboard. We wouldn’t make the thirty-fifth processional, let alone the Sunwards. We’ve done well with our baubles, but a holdful of quoins is no consolation when you’re down to your last few drops of medicine.” Fura paused, and I could almost see her counting out seconds before she continued, playing a part just as surely as if she had a script before her. “If the photon winds are kind, we might just be able to limp to Kathromil, and I know they’re receptive to free trade—”
“No need, Captain Marance. We would, of course, wish to be of assistance in a medical matter … provided there is no danger of contagion?”
Fura smiled at us.
“It’s nothing like that, sir—just a shipboard injury that we don’t have the means to heal. The rest of us are quite hale and hearty, I assure you.”
“How many shore permits would you require?”
“Five sir, including one for the wounded party.”
“You’ll squawk over the names and particulars. They’ll be cross-checked, so make sure everything’s in order. If there are no irregularities, you’ll be given docking permission. Expect to be boarded and inspected prior to disembarkation, Captain Marance.”
“I’d expect nothing less, sir, and I’ll have my second-in-command squawk you those names immediately. Thank you for your cooperation. I can tell it’s going to be a pleasure doing business.”
I winced, thinking her sarcasm would get that door slammed in our faces just as it was opening. But the detection of sarcasm demands a certain wit on the part of the recipient, and I do not think that faculty was present.
“Hello, sir,” I said, taking the microphone. “This is Tragen Imbery, Bone Reader on the Grey Lady. I have those particulars for you, sir, starting with Captain Tessily Marance …”
*
By the time we were ready to load her into the launch, Strambli was semi-delirious, her brow boiling with fever and her wound so hot and swollen that it hurt to look at it, even when it was bandaged. I’d done my best to school her on her invented history, and on some level I knew she understood something of the situation, and how careful we had to be not to hint at a link to Bosa Sennen, or for that matter any of our true pasts. But it had been several watches since Strambli was properly lucid, and lately her babblings were becoming more florid, spilling out of her at all hours, not just when she was in the obvious throes of nightmare. So Surt injected her with additional sedatives from the medicine store, and when she was so insensate that we could move her, we got her onto a stretcher and transported her to the launch.
“How longs will you be stayings?” Tindouf asked, as we made ready for departure.
“At least day or so, to start with,” Fura said. “Time to get Greben sorted—” she nodded at the woman on the stretcher “—and to pick up some supplies, at least enough to justify the fuel we’ll burn just coming and going. Glue yourself to the sweeper and the squawk, Tindouf—if you hear so much as a squeak about that ship, I want to know it. We’ll check
in regularly, but don’t be too alarmed if you don’t hear from us for a few hours. We’ve all got errands to run.”
“Aye, Cap’n … Marance,” Tindouf said, stroking his chin. “I do hopes you gets help for Stram, I means Greben.” He cocked his head, regarding her fondly, and I thought of how much I liked Tindouf, and how little esteem I’d had for him in the early days, and felt a little prickle of self-recrimination.
We were all suited, save for our helmets, and once Strambli was lashed down for the trip we cast off, popping out of the mouth of Revenger like a bad-tasting minnow. Fura swung our nose around to face Wheel Strizzardy and poured on the rockets like fuel was going out of fashion.
I gave our ship a farewell glance as we sped away, trying to look at it with fresh eyes and judge if we’d done a handsome enough job of disguising her nature. To me she still looked like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and not very convincingly attired at that. But I knew too much of her history to be reliable judge. At least we’d made her lines a little less belligerent, and thrown out enough square leagues of normal sail to trick the gaze into not noticing the catchcloth. You might say that the prudent thing would have been to haul in all the sails completely, just as if we were in tight orbit around a heavy world, but to do that around a wheelworld would have invited questions and suspicions all of their own, so we wisely kept some sails deployed. We were all happier with that arrangement as it meant a quicker getaway if we had cause to run.
The crossing to Wheel Strizzardy only took an hour, which was just time to settle into our new characters. We talked as much as we could, only addressing each other by our fictitious names, knowing our act would soon be put to the test.
“I hope there’s an infirmary, Cap’n Marance.”
“Why wouldn’t there be an infirmary, Taine?”
“I was just thinkin’ it looks as if the place has seen better days. Don’t you agree, Trage?”
“Oh, I do. But I’m sure there are worse places than this, and even they’ll have infirmaries. Won’t they, Lodran?”
“Even the worst dumps have infirmaries,” Prozor confirmed. “They’re the ones that have the most need of ’em, what with all the scrappin’ and stabbin’. And morgues, too.”
“I ain’t … Fang. Not going near it. Tell Trusko I ain’t! Not for no Ghostie gubbins …”
I moved to Strambli’s stretcher and applied a cold towel to her forehead. “Easy,” I whispered. “Soon be in good hands.” And try not to blab about Captain Trusko, I added to myself.
Then a second, harder voice superimposed itself over my own inner thoughts.
No, try not to blab, dear Strambli, or I might have to press something against your mouth …
I willed her away, trying to make her shrivel and diminish. And, to a degree, succeeded. The rage had approached; I had felt its nearness, but it had not managed to consume me. Perhaps even Bosa Sennen understood that there was a right and a wrong time for her deeds.
I took a deep breath, then I returned to the view, comparing it against the distant image I’d seen through the telescope. I can’t say I was greatly cheered by what I saw. Clarity and proximity only made our destination look less promising, but we’d made our selection and now we had to live with it.
The wheel was four-spoked, with a hub at the middle, but there were only lights showing from the rim, and then only in patches. The rim was circular in cross-section, and other than those lights there were no large windows or areas of skyshell. Pushing up from the rim toward the middle were forests of buildings, almost like spokes that had started growing and then given up before they finished, and there was a similar sort of growth projecting down from the rim’s underside into open space, but again not all of these buildings were lit or clearly inhabited. Since the wheel was six leagues across, even the largest ships were tiny against it, hardly to be seen at all except as dots against those up-and-down pointing structures, which evidently served as docking facilities. They were launches like ours, for the most part, since it would be much too hazardous for a sunjammer to attempt direct docking with the moving rim. But there were a handful of sail-rigged vessels standing off in open space, only a league or two beyond the rim, with the sparks of rocket-propelled craft shuttling to and fro.
One of these sparks grew larger and brighter, putting a fat blob on our sweeper, until it became apparent that we were its intended destination.
“Hold your nerve, coves,” Fura said. “Ain’t no reason for them to think queerly of us, just yet. We stick to our yarns. Don’t embroider ’em more’n we have to, and we’ll be golden.”
I glanced up, smiling with a sincere sisterly admiration, for she could very well have been Prozor speaking those words, so effortlessly did they now spring from her mouth.
As it drew nearer, we saw that the approaching vessel was another rocket launch, about the same size as our own, but conspicuously armed. It had flanking coil-guns on swivel-mounts, an energy cannon, harpoon and net-flinger batteries, and probably six or seven other kinds of nastiness we hadn’t recognised. Our launch didn’t even have a sharp tongue to its name.
“No, Drozna, I ain’t agreein’ to it,” Strambli murmured.
The other ship pulled alongside, its nearside coil-gun tracking us. One shot would have taken care of us from that range, and we didn’t even have our helmets on. After a minute a lock opened and a pair of fully-suited coves floated out and crossed over to us. Boots clanged against cladding and metal fists hammered on the outside of our hull.
“I s’pose they wouldn’t mind bein’ let in,” Prozor said.
While Fura remained at the control console, I floated over to the lock controls and allowed the boarding party to come through. Just before the inner door opened I looked around at our small number, on the cusp of offering a final word of encouragement concerning our made-up identities, then wisely thinking better of it. If we didn’t know our parts well by now, nothing I said was going to make any difference. All the same, I did mouth a silent prayer in the direct of Strambli, and hoped her mutterings didn’t turn too colourful.
Considering they were officials, our two visitors didn’t cut a very official-looking appearance. Their suits were made of mismatched parts, with the words “Port Authority” painted onto their chests, shoulders and helmets, done through a stencil that had left the letters a bit smudged and lopsided. They were fearsome enough, with armour and weapons, but they looked more like thugs that had been pressed into service than the servants of a respectable institution. This impression wasn’t improved when they flipped up their visors. Now, none of us smelled like roses, not after months on the ship. But when these coves gave us the benefit of their fragrances it was enough to make the eyes water. They smelled like sweat and vinegar and blocked sewers, and those were just the aromas I could put a name to.
They had big, ugly faces, filling their helmets like bread that had been too long in the oven. Their mouths were wide, and when they grinned they showed a variety of gaps where there ought to be teeth. Their noses were flat, or rather flattened, because it was obvious neither had ended up that shape by the quirks of parentage alone. One had eyes too close together, the other too far apart. Both had eyebrows that went right across their foreheads, like single black caterpillars, and both had hairlines that started only a finger’s width above the eyebrows.
“Which of you is the cap’n?” asked the one with eyes too close together.
“I have that pleasure,” Fura said, turning from her controls. “Captain Marance. And you’d be?”
“Never you mind who we are,” said the one with eyes too far apart. “How’d you come by the tin arm, Cap’n Marance?”
“I lost the original.”
Eyes-too-close looked at his companion. “Sounds careless to me.”
“It was,” Fura said. “But I’ve grown accustomed to this replacement.”
“Got a touch of the glowy about you, too,” said eyes-too-far.
“More’n a touch,” said eyes-too-close. “
Any more glowy coming off her, we’d need sun-visors.”
“Fortunately for all of us,” Fura said, “it isn’t infectious.”
“How’d you come by it?” asked eyes-too-far.
“I had to eat lightvine to stay alive.”
“No one’s meant to nosh on the stuff,” eyes-too-close said, with a smirk.
“If I hadn’t noshed on it,” Fura answered levelly, “I’d be dead. But if I can find a treatment to flush out the glowy, I’ll gladly take it. Plus some urgent medical assistance for our friend over there.”
“What’s ’er problem?” asked eyes-too-far.
“An accident while repairing our rigging. Greben slipped with a yardknife, and it went clean through her. We’d hoped to treat the wound ourselves, but infection’s set in.”
“Just an accident, then?” asked eyes-too-close.
“What else would it be?” Fura asked, frowning so hard a notch appeared between her eyes.
“You’ve come in from the Emptyside,” eyes-too-far said. “All sorts of trouble can fall on a ship in the Emptyside. Claim-jumping, piracy. Things worse than piracy.”
“I can assure you we haven’t been doing any sort of pirating,” Fura said with an earnest indignation, as if the very foundations of her moral character had been challenged.
“And did you run into any ships or personages you’d rather have avoided?”
“No,” she said firmly. “We just got about our business. A nice string of baubles—a run of luck, for once. Now we have some items to shift and I’d sooner not tramp around with them clogging up our hold for too long.” She directed a look at Strambli, who’d been thankfully silent since the men had come aboard. “And if we have to pay for her care, then we’ve the means. May we approach, gentlemen?”
“You have a refined way of speaking,” eyes-too-close said. “Suggests you’re from one of the better worlds. There’s speak of a pair of sisters who ran away from Mazarile, and one of them’s s’posed to be down an arm and up a dose of the glowy.”
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