“There’s no accounting for stupidity. They thought it would be easy, I imagine. They were wrong…” Patron shook a bejeweled index finger.
“Their course had them passing close to the Purplene, and as the disagreement grew more heated, we understand, Saltuk lost his authority. It got to the point that about half the crew wanted to board this merchant vessel, while the remainder, crucially including Saltuk and his first mate, wanted to sail away, leaving the ship unmolested. And then, by a strange coincidence, the Purplene sent out a signal seeking help from the Barracuda. The ship had encountered bad weather the previous day and had lost precious fuel, which it needed to get to its destination. It wanted to purchase some from the Barracuda.
“Saltuk agreed of course, and as the ships approached each other to unload fuel–”
“Would that be the invisible lightberry?” Cat asked demurely.
“Yes,” Patron replied, “but not invisible there, of course. So, where was I? Oh yes, as the Barracuda readied to transfer fuel, the members of the crew who were in favor of the ridiculous hostage idea declared they were taking over both ships! That was the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of,” Patron scoffed, “But that’s what they did, and of course, they were soon attacked by two Peran fastships.”
“What? What’s a fastship?” Bruce asked.
“They are small hybrid warships. Very quick, but not heavily armed. Pera has a few patrolling the Marble Sea. The captain of the Purplene happened to be proficient in the sense and was able to alert one of the fastships.” she paused, nodding her head knowingly. “Yes, I know you want to know how. Traveling merchant ships are provided a list of the fastships that patrol different sections of the route they will be traveling. This captain actually knew the first mate on one of the fastships and had been able to establish a link – a telempathic link – with him prior to the journey.”
“Ah, and that explanation did not clarify anything for me!” Bruce laughed.
“It will be clear to you in time,” Patron said with a meaningful look. “The telempathy is not part of this story. Orion will tell you all about that…the sense, we call it in Pera.
“Well–” she sighed, “the upshot was that the APC had to deal with the backlash, of course, and the Barracuda was wrecked. Not salvageable–” she paused. “I will say this for him, though,” she said in a more forgiving tone, “Old Saltuk’s ship was sunk because he refused to run away. He decided to stand there and fight, in the middle of the mutiny and everything!
“So it was an absolute and utter mess,” Patron concluded in a kinder tone after a momentary pause. “I don’t want to wrong him, mind you: Saltuk did take full responsibility as a member of the APC and has recompensed the Assembly fully for the damage caused.
“But that is the story of the APCU. After that debacle, we basically merged the two organizations…” she added, concluded her explanation.
“I don’t really understand why you merged,” Bruce said. “Why didn’t the APC insist that the PU shut down?”
“I couldn’t agree with you more!” Patron cried. “Unfortunately it was borne upon us – painfully – that the members of the crew needed more direction.”
“What happened to the PU? Were they simply taken over?”
Patron shook her head. “Not exactly. We merged our charter and our book of Rules and Regulations now contains a chapter on the pirate trainee’s rights and obligations.”
“How interesting… But, Patron, I want to go back to the tax issue. I am curious: you told us how the target’s taxes are calculated, but what about the pirate’s?” Bruce asked.
“It’s very easy. I pay tax in the merchant’s country on the amount I paid for the goods I got from the merchant.”
“What if you paid less than the market price for the goods, which, if you paid anything at all you might well do – being armed and all!” Bruce added with a chuckle.
“Actually, that creates incentive for the parties to negotiate properly,” Patron said smugly. “And the system works pretty well because if a pirate pays too little then the target writes in a greater cost for piracy, which is more costly for pirates in the long run because merchants who are afraid of piracy are apt to obtain more protection. Pirates don’t want more security patrolling the seas, so in a sort of unwritten agreement, merchants and pirates manage to co-exist pretty profitably.”
“What happens if the pirate pays nothing?”
Patron nodded. “Easy. The Law of the Sea decrees that a pirate is honor-bound to pay taxes on his or her loot. If a merchant has had his goods taken without payment, he is entitled to deduct the full market value of the goods in question in his taxes. However, if the pirate involved has not paid corresponding taxes on the same goods, the country of which the merchant is a citizen can make a demand from the pirate’s country of citizenship (if they are not the same) to be reimbursed.”
“And the country pays?” Cat asked, surprised.
“Of course,” Patron replied promptly. “And as you can imagine things don’t go well for the pirate in question,” she added darkly. “If the matter were left up to the government, the affair would probably be handled with a mere fine–” she said dismissively. “But the governments leave it to the APCU to enforce the Law of the Sea…” she smiled.
And all those present felt that to be confronted by Patron for violating the Law of the Sea would be a fate far, far worse than a tangle with the tax authorities.
Patron clapped. “That’s all for now. I have work to do. Dinner should be served in an hour or so. I’ll meet you there.”
* * *
Natalya sighed discontentedly and flung aside a copy of last month’s Vogue. I am bored, she thought irritably. Ten o’clock at night, and here she was stuck with nothing to do except wait for Sinclair to return from his visit with the doctors. With a quick lithe movement she rose from the emerald green velvet sofa and moved to the glass sliding doors leading to the balcony. She pulled aside the glass door and shivered in the cold wind. Hurrying back inside she wrapped a long, thick sweater coat of ivory colored Italian cashmere about her shoulders and stepped onto the balcony for lack of anything better to do.
There was nothing to see: the balcony was situated on the twenty-third floor of Building Delta. In the middle of nowhere, she thought disconsolately. Stuck in this Godforsaken part of New Jersey … and yet civilization was but a short distance away! New York City was no more than an hour and a half away by car, and even if they couldn’t go that far, she would have settled for a brief foray into the tiny town of Princeton. Anything to get away from buildings alpha, beta… and so on. Endless buildings constructed in beige uniformity. The color of sand… Oh how she wished for the touch of sand! Real sand on a real beach…
Sure, it was luxurious, and she had enjoyed the massage earlier in the evening, followed by a long bubble bath. True, the midnight blue eight-carat emerald cut sapphire on her finger had been a pleasant distraction. She did appreciate Sinclair’s gesture, and it did have such a pretty name: Rigel. A blue supergiant. The star that was the foot of the Orion constellation. There was a rendition of the constellation on the jewel box, and as she pouted disconsolately at the night sky she saw it! There’s Rigel, my sapphire, Natalya thought, tracing the form of the constellation.
A timid cough nearby startled her. She looked around and found the culprit standing a few feet away on the adjoining balcony.
“Hello there,” said a greying, middle-aged man with an apologetic half-smile.
“Hello,” she replied with a polite but dismissive half-glance.
“Are you here for the treatments?” he continued hesitantly.
“Hmm…?” Her thoughts had wandered. She had hoped he would go away.
“I was asking if you were here for the treatment?” he persisted.
“No,” she snapped. I wish Sinclair would come back, she thought impatiently.
“I see–” the man continued, undeterred by her obvious rudeness. “Your husband perh
aps?” he hazarded.
How nosey! she thought irritably. “Good night,” she said, not bothering to hide the note of annoyance in her voice. She stepped through the sliding door just as the front door opened.
“Hey baby,” Sinclair smiled good-humoredly from the doorway.
She looked at him. An old man. Not stooping like those people who have spent a lifetime growing old. Not comfortably old as he might have been, in due course.
But aged. Quickly and bluntly, leaving no room for grace or resignation.
Old and angry. She could feel the anger, even now, after the treatment. The rage was ever present. That impotent rage that shrieked ‘It’s not fair!’ This wasn’t the Sinclair she had known a year ago, even six months ago… Involuntarily, she flinched a little as he looked at her. Not with desire, but with pain. It’s not fair!
He is my husband. “Sinclair!” she cried, running to him.
14
Unaccustomed to living on the inconsistent, ever moving medium of water, and with a thousand thoughts whirling through his mind, Father Griffith could not sleep. Seasickness, he was happy to note, had not so far assailed him to any great degree, leaving him the energy to contemplate other, less personal, more weighty matters, such as…
Here I am on a pirate ship! A true pirate ship… It had not occurred to him to question Patron’s explanations. There was something eminently truthful about the woman. Somehow he could not imagine her lying. Here is a pirate who insists on paying her taxes and we are journeying to a land in which trees create light, which is used for fuel, invisibly stored on this ship… And in order to protect this precious tree that is the lifeblood of Pera, they constructed what they call a Light Veil.
Tomorrow we will meet on the deck after breakfast for our first lesson with Orion on this thing they call ‘the sense.’ He announced it at dinner, quite casually as though it were the most normal thing in the world that we have to learn to read each other’s minds! And Patron didn’t seem to think it odd. She even warned us that we would be at a serious disadvantage without the sense.
Dear Lord, I take this journey into a strange land. What will I find there? Whom will I find? Are they all like Orion and Patron. Likable, charming even, but … odd?
But I must be mindful, for is it not written in the Book of Hebrews, Lord?
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares…
Just as we must not fear the stranger in our midst, but rather love and honor him as we would our own brother, we should approach the unknown with the same love and grace for it may be the angel in our midst…
Father Griffith rose from the bunk and looked out of the porthole to a windswept vista of dark water under a clear sky. I wonder if Patron is awake. I should like to hear more about this place we are sailing towards.
He made his way quietly to the deck where Patron had indicated she spent a good part of the night. “I enjoy sitting under the quiet stars,” she had said.
Father Griffith wandered around the deck searching for Patron, when he was startled by a loud, “Helloo!”
He looked about him in confusion, attempting to locate Patron as he had recognized her voice.
“Up here. Up here!”
Father Griffith looked up to the poop deck. “Oh there you are.”
“Come on up!” Patron commanded, waving energetically.
Father Griffith obeyed, approaching the lone figure of the woman sitting on the upper deck at the stern. Hazel was comfortably dozing at Patron’s feet in an arrangement of cushions and blankets, and barely raised a sleepy head at the sound of the newcomer. “I’m sorry to disturb you,” he said, noting that Patron was engrossed in a lap full of knitting by the light of a gas lamp.
“Not at all,” she replied, motioning him to take a seat. “I’m knitting another coat for Hazel.” She lifted something colorful and shapeless for his inexpert perusal.
“Oh…how nice,” he hazarded. “Really, I’m sure it will suit her very well.”
“Do you think so?” she asked with genuine concern. “I think this color is called burnt orange. I don’t know. I hope it’s not too bright for her–”
“I’m sure she’ll look beautiful,” Father Griffith smiled kindly.
“Are you all right, Father?” she asked, worried. “You couldn’t sleep? Aren’t you feeling well?”
“No, no! I’m perfectly well,” he said. “I couldn’t sleep but only because this voyage seems … I don’t know, it seems so different… I feel an excitement that I haven’t felt in a long time. Perhaps it’s the ocean. I don’t really get out on the water too much, I’m afraid.” He breathed deeply and looked up into the sky filled with stars. It was a moonless night, and quiet except for the sound of the waves and the soft snore of the little dog.
“There’s Orion…” he said softly, pointing out the most prominent constellation.
“Yes. He is with us now,” Patron said gently, putting aside her knitting.
“What do you mean?”
“Come with me,” she answered. “I wanted to show you one particular room in the ship before, but forgot. If you are not too tired, of course–”
“Please, lead on, captain!”
As Patron rose from her seat, the little dog at her feet lifted a sleepy head and with a soft sigh, emerged from among the blankets and looked up at her human expectantly.
“We’re going to the library,” Patron told her.
With a soundless yawn the little dog jumped out of her blankets.
“Take us to the library, Hazel,” Patron said fondly.
Hazel looked up at her human intently for a moment before turning around and trundling off, her silky tail held aloft, towards the lower levels. Patron and Father Griffith followed her to the middle level of the ship.
“Good girl, Hazel,” Patron said approvingly when the little dog stopped in front of a door. “That’s right, we’ve come to the library.”
Hazel looked expectantly from Patron to Father Griffith and sniffed at the side of the door. Patron retrieved a key from the recesses of her coat and unlocked the door. She beckoned to the priest. “Come in.”
“This is the ship’s library,” Patron announced. “It is where I keep my most treasured books of Pera. The room is specially designed to survive even if the rest of the ship sinks.”
“How so?”
“The entire room is encased in glass. It’s the special glass that Diarmid Tanner used for the glass cube: it is indestructible. You can’t tell by looking because the glass is sandwiched between layers of wood–” Patron pointed to the ceiling and walls, which were constructed of a light blond wood.
“The bookshelves are also made of glass, with a covering of wood. You see, here–” Patron tapped the glass front of a shelf. “It slides up into a groove above the shelf, but in the event of rough weather or other hazards, the glass has a self-locking mechanism that seals the books within.”
“Ingenious,” Father Griffith said, running his finger along the bottom of the shelf, peering at the books.
“I wanted to bring you here, partly because you will all be spending time in this room during this journey. Orion and I will give informal classes on the history and society of Pera so that you will be better informed by the time we arrive. You are welcome to borrow any of the books.” Patron waved around her. “They are all about Pera in some way.”
“Wonderful…” Father Griffith said absent-mindedly as he was already engrossed in the titles before him.
“But before you do–” Patron began, tapping him on the shoulder to get his attention. “I’d like to show you a most special book.”
Father Griffith turned to her expectantly.
“Here,” she declared, pointing to an unassuming wooden case set on a pedestal in the middle of the room, “is Pera’s story.”
Patron opened the lid, revealing a layer of glass. “Naturally, it is encased in the same glass as the rest of the room,” she explained.
> Inside the case lay a large leather-bound volume. Upon the cover was the etching of a white crocodile with pinpoint sky-blue eyes. It reminds me of the brooch Cat wears, Father Griffith thought. The one she wore during the LiGa tournament, he thought with an emotion surprisingly like nostalgia.
Patron opened a drawer beneath the case and drew out two pairs of thin gloves. She gave one pair to Father Griffith and donned the other before opening the case and lifting the book out carefully.
“Put the gloves on, and keep them on while you handle the book. Understood?”
Father Griffith nodded and put on the gloves. He reached for the book, but Patron shook her head.
“Go sit at that reading desk,” she said.
Father Griffith did as she bid and waited for her to place the book gently on the desk before him. “Read this,” she said softly. “Afterwards, please place the book back in its case. With the gloves!” she added sternly.
“Of course, Patron. Thank you.”
“Good. Take your time. Enjoy.”
Patron glanced once at the empty case, told Hazel to follow her and left the room, closing the door gently behind her. He was alone with the story of Pera.
Slowly, he opened the cover…
EVENING SONG
Now, the Sun grew tired. She grew so sleepy, my brothers and sisters, that keeping her eyes open took enormous effort. She grew so sleepy that she could no longer stand up in the blue sky and she lost her footing. And into the River she fell. Into our River, winding slow, flowing fast. Into our River below. Our River, both Judge and Forgiver, which we guard below.
We remember, they said. We remember how she fell.
Do you remember what happened then, my sisters? My brothers, what about you?
Tell us, they said. We do not remember. Tell us. What happened after the Sun, all shining and gold, fell into our River that we guard below?
As the Sun fell, so the Land was dark. All of a sudden, brothers, all around was black: blacker than the starling’s wing, blacker than the Dark One sleeping. The earth, the mountains, the trees, the animals. All was within this darkness complete.
the Dark shall do what Light cannot Page 11