by Clayton, Jo;
A watervine slapped around the rail beside Timka; a few seconds later wet gleaming figures came up and over the rail, Nagamar females, fighter class, five of them. Silent except for the water dripping off their leathery scales. Menacing. Usoq snapped an order; the crew girl Cepo slipped off the bowsprit and joined Vohdi dropping anchors overside fore and aft, then they glided along the far rail to crouch beside the wheel. Usoq touched one then the other on the head, walked round the wheel and went to confront the intruders.
He saw Timka by the rail and hissed with impatience and fear. “Get below,” he shrilled. “Get, woman, you’re in the way here, get, get.”
Timka rose slowly to her feet, yawned and strolled below. She stopped in the shadows of the passage, dropped to her knees; she wanted to keep a wary eye on Usoq; if he tried anything, at least the Company would have a few moments’ warning.
Moonlight gleamed on long long fingers flickering through angry signs. Usoq replied, his pudgy fingers dancing through dexterous combinations, his pudgy body bent over his hands, radiating his eagerness to convince. He finished, waited. One of the warrior women made a chattering angry sound and went into signs that needed little translation. The Nagamar was telling Usoq to turn himself and his boat about and get out so fast he set his tail on fire, and if he didn’t he could feed the needlefish in the mud below. Usoq hunched himself up yet more and went into a series of swift signs, protesting the order, or so Timka thought, trying to persuade her to listen to his offers. He worked body as well as hands. Like a puppy wagging his tail, Timka thought, but she quickly cut off that disparaging thought. Whatever it takes. Go, little worm, talk her round.
When the Nagamar started signing again, she was calmer, her hands slipping with easy fluidity through her silent speech. She paused, looked thoughtful, began signing again.
Usoq relaxed. He watched intently, picked up the thread the moment she dropped it. Bargaining begins, Timka thought. She relaxed too. She continued watching, fascinated, as the silent dispute went on, a dispute now over the fee for passage. Odd, in its way; like the arrangement the Sea Min and their Land Min cousins had with the Captains crossing the Halijara. A way of the world she hadn’t suspected for all she prided herself on knowing more of the world than most. Individuals and groups found ways of dealing with each other that had nothing to do with official pronouncements. She yawned. The ominous night had turned simply oppressive. She took a last look at the bargainers. Close to the end, yes, there’s satisfaction in each of those bodies. The four other Nagamar had grown restless; they were moving about the boat, hadn’t shown signs of coming below yet, but that might happen at any moment. She got to her feet, moving as silently as she could, unwilling to pull their notice her way before they came on their own. She ghosted along the passage to the cabin door, eased it open and slipped inside.
Skeen sat up. “Anything happening?”
Timka settled onto the floor, her back against the wall. “Usoq’s friends. Not so friendly. He’s working out the passage fee right now.”
Pegwai leaned forward. “Not so friendly?”
“Started out that way. Usoq calmed them down.” She smiled at Rannah. “Competent worm.”
Rannah ducked her head. She looked tired. She should have been asleep, but the closeness in the cabin and her general excitement at getting this far into the Morass had kept sleep away from her; no doubt there’d been a lot of tension in that room too, tension Timka had walked out on. The girl sat on her pallet, watching the other faces with a shy avidity. A scholar in the bud. Maggí was right, Lumat is where that one belongs. By the time she’s Pegwai’s age there won’t be a hair’s worth of difference between them.
Lipitero was looking tired also; she was wearing one of her robes of concealment, though the cowl was pushed back. Her fur was sticky with sweat, standing out from her head and neck in damp peaks; she was breathing with some difficulty, but not in serious trouble, at least, not yet. The glow from the single small lamp sank deep in her crystal eyes, its fire burning down there in tiny gold-red shimmers. She said nothing, content to let the others ask the questions.
Skeen rubbed at her stump. “They coming down here?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. Calmer they might be, but they still aren’t all that happy letting this boat cross the Morass.”
“How many?”
“Five. Fighter caste.”
Skeen sighed, took out the darter, checked the drug and water level, handed it to Pegwai. “In case,” she said. “No use asking for trouble, better to be ready than sorry.”
Pegwai pushed the sleeves of his robe down over his hands and sat with them in his lap, the darter hidden by the thick folds of cloth. “Eleven days from the coast to Spalit,” he mused. “If I remember the map correctly, it’ll take five of those days to cross the Morass. That’s a minimum, granting the wind keeps steady.”
Timka sighed. “And granting the Nagamar don’t change their tiny minds.”
They sat in silence after that, the lamp filling the room with the smell of burning oil. Wet fur from Lipitero, thick and musky. Tart lemony odors from Pegwai. A harsher darker smell from Skeen who was sweating as copiously as Lipitero. A faint herbal scent from Rannah, mostly overpowered by the other smells in the room. Timka couldn’t smell herself. She thought about that for a while, wondering what her body was contributing to the melange. Surreptitiously she sniffed at her wrist, wiped her hand in her armpit and sniffed it, but she couldn’t smell herself. That bothered her. The others were so powerfully present to the nose, she had to be too, but there was no way for her to know how the others were receiving her. She began wondering how they thought of her. How did Skeen see her? She closed her eyes and riffled through Skeen’s memories but there was nothing about her there. Maybe that was telling her something, maybe Skeen didn’t give a curse about her, couldn’t be bothered about what she was like. No, that wasn’t true. Unless I’ve been totally wrong about her. She shook her head.
Skeen chuckled. “Not so bad as that.”
Timka bit her lip to hold back the questions she couldn’t possibly ask. “No,” she said finally. “It’s just that I don’t like waiting without knowing what’s happening.”
“Me, I’ll put off knowing just as long as I can. Give me peace and ignorance and I’ll wallow in both.”
“You don’t mean that. Not you.”
“Well, in a way I do. Long as the Nagamar are up on deck, I’m fairly sure we’ve got no problems Usoq can’t handle. Let one of them stick her nose down here, then it’s toss the coin and hope it comes down Bona not Mala.”
Skeen’s last word was still lingering when the door burst open. The Nagamar female who’d done the bargaining above stood in the doorway, a feral menacing figure. She looked from face to face, lingering on each, lingering longest on Lipitero’s, startled to see an Ykx. Her eyes flicked over Rannah, she wasn’t interested in an Aggitj child, went back to Lipitero. With a series of gestures she ordered the Ykx to strip. As Lipitero came to her feet, the Nagamar stepped back into the passage and produced a shrill whistle that shattered eardrums and brought Usoq running. Her hands fluttered through angular signs, a command for him to explain. Lipitero stripped off the robe and stood hunched over in the low-ceiled cabin, clutching at a bunk post with one fur-backed hand. Her metaled harness glistened and glowed in the shifting light from the small lamp, her crystal eyes held fire again. Usoq cleared his throat. “Ykx,” he said and reinforced the word with a flutter of his hands. Another whistle, demanding, angry. Long fingers closed into a knot, hand whipped side to side. “No,” he said, his voice shrill with fear, “no Min. No, Ykx.” His hands moved emphatically, broke off when she made a slicing incisive move of her bladed hand. She beckoned Lipitero over. Skeen hunched over, rubbing at her stump; she’d contrived an arm sheath for her boot knife, the one with the metal blade. Her fingers were close to its hilt as she scratched aimlessly at the gray film over the end of her arm. Pegwai shifted position a little, making sure he ha
d a clear shot at the Nagamar. Usoq saw both and grew measurably shiftier. His eyes darted from Timka to Skeen, skidded hastily from Skeen’s cool measuring eyes, skittered to Pegwai, swung off him almost as quickly, came back to the confrontation between the Nagamar female and the Ykx.
The Nagamar was running her overlong fingers along the Ykx harness, plucked painfully at the hair on Lipitero’s arms. For a long moment, Lipitero endured this, then she stepped back, pushed the Nagamar’s hand aside. She produced a chirping tweetling sound that rose beyond the hearing of all but the Aggitj girl. Rannah looked startled, grimaced with pain, pressed her arms over her ears, crossed her forearms over her not-hair. The Nagamar hissed with anger and surprise, leaped back, crouched, squealed at her in a similar series of sounds.
Lipitero spoke slowly after that, fumbling for the little Namarish she knew, began moving her hands, stiffly, slowly, through her meager assemblage of signs.
Timka watched, tucked back in the shadows at the end of the bunk, ready to shift if she had to; once she did, they had to be sure they got all the Nagamar, if they didn’t, they could have the entire Morass on their back within hours … well, a day or two anyway. She stayed tense for several minutes, but the Nagamar changed her attitude so fast it was almost comic, would have been comic if she hadn’t felt so much like vomiting.
The Nagamar female whistled again, a series of ear-splitting blasts. The other Nagamar came tumbling down the passage and circled about her in a slippery gleaming mob, bringing with them the smell of mud and vegetation and their own bitter tang, flat webbed feet splatting noisily on the planks, long long fingers fluttering, voices whistling and chirping, dipping in and out of audibility. They signed at her, stroked her, pulled at the straps of her harness, generally making total nuisances of themselves. Finally the squad leader whistled them into order and sent them tail dragging and reluctant back onto the deck. She touched Lipitero a few more times, waggled her head, mimed extreme wonder, then shooed Usoq before her back topside.
“I feel like a plucked fowl,” Lipitero murmured, a plaintive note in her muted voice. She glanced along the passage to make sure no one had heard, then retreated into the cabin and dropped heavily onto one of the bunks. “Hai, Peg, you think this is going to keep on the whole time we’re in this place?”
“Seems likely.” He scratched at his nose, stared into the shadows. After a few sighs and some thought, he said, “I’d talk to Usoq as soon as you can get hold of him, see if he can negotiate some relief for you. Look but don’t touch. Even keep them off the boat, let them watch from the water or the trees. Them, hm. I’ve a suspicion the news is going to fly and Nagamar will be swarming around like flies about a carcass if you don’t mind the unlovely comparison.” He leaned over, handed the darter back to Skeen. “Usoq knows his business. Skeen?”
“Yup. I’ll throw in ten gold if he needs sweetening. Probably won’t, you know. He isn’t going to want the Pouliloulou weighed down with Nagamar and you might point out how much good having you on board is going to do for him in Nagamar eyes. Make life a lot easier. Were I you, I’d bargain for two flights—you can fly in this air? Good. Morning and evening, you go up, show yourself off. Other times, you’re down here, no touch no see. And yes, let him handle that Nagamar female, a bit of time he’ll have her licking honey off his toes.” Skeen tapped her fingers on her thigh, grinned at Rannah, a quick twist of her wide mouth. “A competent worm, oh, yes.”
Lipitero glanced at the door, grimaced. “I’d rather not go up there.”
Skeen clicked her tongue against her teeth, a soft irritated sound. “Can’t you feel it? We’re moving again. He won’t leave the wheel. He’s got to make time now, he knows it, the farther he can get before the flood, Nagamar I mean, the shorter he’ll have to endure that kind of notice. Um … I’d offer to bargain for you, but I don’t think that I’d have the same … um … clout with him. I can try.…”
Lipitero shuddered, sighed. “No.… Toss me my robe, please Rannah? I might as well make the point early that I’ll show what I want when.” She caught the bundle the Aggitj girl lobbed to her, pulled it on. She stood a moment smoothing it down over her body, then she pulled the cowl up over her head and moved away down the passage.
Timka moved out of the shadows and dropped onto a bunk. “Poor Petro, but I can’t regret it. No one’s going to look hard at me and wonder what I am. Which is just as well, given that fighter’s attitude toward Min.” She exaggerated a shiver. “I wouldn’t want her after me, hooo!”
Skeen chuckled. “Poor little Min.”
“Phffft to you, Pass-Through.”
Midmorning in the days that followed, Lipitero rode the lift field up, extended her flight skins and soared over the Morass, turning in slow spirals so the Nagamar adults and children could get a good look at her. She stayed up there for over an hour (she admitted to the rest of the Company that it was a lot cooler and smelled better up there) then drifted blown-leaf back to the boat and vanished below deck. Midafternoon, she repeated the performance. The original squad of Nagamar swam the waters about the Pouliloulou, keeping off the curious who would have swarmed and swamped the boat given the chance. The crowds increased each day, their whistles, chirrups, grunts and clicks as thick in the air as the damp. The noise never stopped, night and day, day and night, a punctuated muttering, long wavering whistles breaking from the background noise, sinking into it. Timka felt eyes on her always, day and night, night and day. Each breath she took was blown into her out of the lungs in the murmurous trees, she could taste the burning sweet-sour flavor in the air, in the food. She couldn’t escape them even in her sleep, she dreamed of eyes on her, of mouths breathing on her, she wanted to take wing and speed away, but she couldn’t. She was Nemin for the space of the Morass, Nemin because she owed debts to Usoq, to Skeen, to Maggí and through Maggí to Rannah. To Lipitero. She watched Lipitero fly and hated her for a moment until she talked herself out of it. Five days, she thought.
Four days. Three. Two. The land around them was rising very gradually, beginning to dry out, weeds and brush were replacing reeds, the trees grew closer together and were changing from the furry wet-footed growth in the Morass to more ordinary trees, the fungus was drier and grayer, sparser. The water was brighter, more translucent, gathering into channels; the channel they slipped along acquired definition as it acquired recognizable banks. The noise from the trees grew more demanding and at the same time more wistful as if the Nagamar thronging there wanted to weave a cage about the magical creature who’d come to their place, but suspected they could not. Usoq was increasingly nervous. This was a perilous time; if the Nagamar decided to hold onto Lipitero there was nothing he could do; on the other hand, if he capitulated to their demands, he had no illusions about what Skeen, Pegwai and Timka would do to him. And Maggí, once Rannah was safe at the Lumat.
Leaving Vohdi at the helm (the South Rekkah was a lot more forgiving here) Usoq came to the cabin a few minutes before Lipitero was scheduled to start her afternoon flight. Rannah was on deck, talking to the youngest of the Nagamar guards, putting into practice interviewing skills she’d picked up watching Pegwai, enjoying herself thoroughly. Timka was curled up more than half asleep in one of the top bunks. She roused as he came in, rolled onto her stomach and lay watching him.
He pulled the door shut, frowned, opened it again and stood in the doorway and beckoned to Lipitero. As soon as she reached him, he caught hold of her arm, leaned toward her and whispered. “Ykx, I’m telling you, don’t come back. When you go up this time, keep going.”
Skeen unfolded from the bunk where she was sitting, brushed past Usoq and settled herself with her back against the far wall of the passage, her long legs crossed; she pulled on a drowsy mindless look, murmured, “How long till we’re out of the Morass?”
“Tomorrow afternoon. If they don’t try stopping us.”
“If Petro doesn’t keep going, how soon will they try something?”
“Lifefire knows, any time t
he whim strikes them.” He gave Lipitero a sour look. “They aren’t going to like it if she runs out on them, but that’s still better than having her here.”
Skeen patted a yawn, coughed. “So she leaves. She’ll need to wait for us. Where?”
Usoq fidgeted, glanced along the passageway toward the hatch. “Does that matter? I ought to get back, that crazy bitch will be down here stiff with suspicion.”
“It matters. More than Nagamar’d love getting hold of an Ykx. She can’t spend the whole time in the air. Give us a place she can reach but likely no one else.”
“Ah ah ah, no …” he danced from foot to foot like a boy needing urgently to find a handy tree. “Look, there’s an island about a day and a half on, mostly rocks, bad currents both sides, far as I know, no one goes there. That do?”
Skeen raised her brows, Lipitero nodded. “If it doesn’t I suppose she’ll have to look for herself.”
Usoq took off along the passage, scurrying away as if afraid another moment would bring more difficulties.
Skeen got to her feet, moved inside the cabin, stooping so her head wouldn’t bang against the timbers. “Want the darter? Just in case?”
Lipitero was digging into her pack. She brought out one of her robes. She folded it small, tucked it into her harness. “No, you might need it a lot more than me. If they turn mean.”
“Um … mind a suggestion?”
“Never.”
“Push it a little. Wait for this flight, start an hour later. Be darker then. Um … sniff the air, see how it feels, you could be a bit edgy. Let the Nagamar know you’re a bit tired of showing yourself off like this, lay a trail for disappearing. Might tip the scale to us. Just a hint though, and not if it doesn’t feel right.”