On Blue's waters (45 page)

She shook her head; Sinew said, “Sure, Scleroderma did it. You and Mother talked about it a lot.”

“No doubt. Well, I can report that I’m in the gods’ good books, since they’ve provided an unmistakable sign of their favor. I ought to be ecstatic, but I don’t feel particularly ecstatic at the moment.”

Seawrack kissed me. When we parted, I gasped for breath and said, “Thank you. That’s much better.” (I can feel her lips on mine as I write. Seawrack kissed me many times, but in retrospect all her kisses have merged into that one. It may have been the last-I cannot be sure.)

“I don’t see why you’re so down,” Sinew muttered. “We’re here, aren’t we? Pajarocu? This is it. They kept stalling around when I was here before, but now they say they’ll take off any day now.”

“Providential,” I told him bitterly. “It’s almost as if they’d been waiting for us, isn’t it?”

“You think so?” He grunted skeptically, or perhaps I should say thoughtfully. “Why should they?”

“Because there are three of us.”

“Four, with Krait.”

“Exactly. Four, if you count Krait, and three if you don’t. Three of us risking our lives to bring back Silk, when only one of us was sent to do it. That’s bad enough, and I haven’t even begun to deal with that. What depresses me tonight is the quality of the rest, the nature of our companions-to-be. You saw them in there, and you must have seen a good deal of them when you spent a week here earlier. Tell me honestly-what do you think of them?”

Seawrack murmured, “They are not kind. Not like you.”

“You’re wrong about that,” I told her. “I’m one of them, and that’s the most depressing fact of all.” (At that moment, I nearly confessed what I had once done to her in Sinew’s hearing. Whoever has read this knows.)

He said, “What’s the matter with them?” He was challenging me, as he had so often on Lizard.

“They’re drinkers, brawlers, and troublemakers. That man you were with-he said he’d rescued you-the one who took our old boat. What was his name?”

“Yksin. When he was mad at me, he told me it meant alone. He was fixing to go off and leave me then, only I didn’t know it.”

“It’s a good name for him, and it would be a good name for all of them. They’re outcasts who believe that it’s some failing in their fellow townsmen that has made them cast them out.”

A moment later I smiled, and Seawrack said, “You’ve thought of something, what is it?”

It was that forty such men would be quick to seize control of the lander as soon as they suspected that it was not bound for the
Whorl
. But I did not tell her, then or ever.

Oreb has been pulling my hair. “Go now? Go Silk?” (Or perhaps it is “Go, Silk!” I cannot be sure.) I feel exactly as he does, but Evensong still has not returned. I am going to try to snatch an hour’s sleep.

* * *

The clock just struck. The hour is two, to the minute.

It has always been like this for me. Once I have decided to leave a place (as I decided, for example, to leave the hopeless little farm that had fallen our lot) I cannot wait to be away. No doubt I felt just the same way that night, as I sat before our fire in the sloop with Seawrack and Sinew, trying to put my thoughts in order.

Seawrack asked Sinew whether he was a drinker, a brawler, and a troublemaker, too; I doubt that she had any very clear idea of what those words represented. He grinned and said no to the first and yes to the others, adding, “Ask my father. He knows me.” I did indeed, and that was when I decided not to give him the second knife, although I had gotten it for him, until he had need of it.

Seawrack wanted to know more about the woman who had been bitten; and I, needing desperately to speak to Sinew in private, suggested that he and I might be able to bring her back to our sloop so that Seawrack could talk with her in person, adding that she and Sinew might be able to help her in some way after the lander flew.

“No! We will be on it with you.” She turned to Sinew. “Or will you stay?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t come all this way to get left behind. When I was waiting here, I thought that if they were going to go and Father didn’t come I’d go by myself and bring back Silk if I could. Only they didn’t fly and didn’t fly, and so I went looking for you.”

I stood up. “We’ll argue about this later. Meanwhile, Sinew and I are going back to the Bush and get her. We’ll come back as soon as we can.”

Sinew said, “She’ll be looking after her husband. They’re going to whip him or something.”

I said, “It will be difficult, I know. That’s why I’ll need your help.”

When we were some distance from the sloop, I halted in the shadow of a towering tree. “I can’t make you obey me. I know that.”

He nodded and glanced around suspiciously. “What are you whispering for?”

“Because it’s just possible that Seawrack may have followed us. I doubt it, but I can’t be sure, and it’s very important that she not overhear us-that no one does, especially the inhumi; I have reason to think there may be inhumi about. Do you remember how He-hold-fire told us in the lander than nobody would be permitted to bring slug guns, needlers, or even knives? That no one was to bring so much as a stick?”

“Sure, but I’m hanging on to my knife just the same.”

I hoped that he would not be going at all, but that was not the time to say it. “When he said that, I thought it a prudent precaution. I reminded myself that we would be a week or more on the lander. Clearly it wouldn’t be unreasonable to suppose we might fight among ourselves. Now I know that what they have in mind is something much worse. Listen to me, Sinew. If you’re ever going to listen to anyone in your life, listen now. That lander’s not going back to the Whorl. It’s going to Green.”

I had expected him to ask what led me to think so, but he did not.

“It is controlled by inhumi, and it will go to Green unless I can redirect it with the help of the other men who’ll be on it with me.”

I waited for him to speak; when he remained silent I added, “You know that the inhumi fly here from Green. Maybe you also know that the passage is a very difficult one, and that many of those who try it are killed.”

“Good.”

“No doubt it is, but not for us. Not now. They like human blood; and because they do, they do their best to steer human beings to Green to supply it. Your mother and I have told you many times how Patera Quetzal deceived us. He was an inhumu, and he would have directed our lander to Green if he could, even though he himself was dying.”

“It’s in your book.”

“As I said, the inhumi-other inhumi-control this lander. It must bring them from Green, and it must carry hundreds at a time. Then-”

“They trick us into getting on it and bring back a bunch of us.” Slowly Sinew nodded. “Pretty clever.”

Knowing his skepticism and stubbornness, I had thought that it would be practically impossible to convince him. I was weak with relief.

“There’s a whole lot of inhumi around here, that’s what I think. Maybe I should have said something sooner. I saw a bunch together one time when I was here before.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, three. They didn’t know I was there, so they weren’t bothering to look like people. I watched for a while until one flew away. Then I got away myself and went looking for somebody, and I found He-bring-skin and said there’s two inhumi over there, and if you’ll give me a knife I’ll help kill them. That’s when he told me they didn’t bite anybody-that was what he said-in Pajarocu.”

“I see.”

“He said they had a deal. They don’t bother them here, and they don’t bite. Father…?”

“What is it?”

“You’re going on their lander just the same?”

“Yes, I am. Krait and I will board it, as we have planned from the beginning.”

I had promised that I would not betray Krait’s secret and I did not, although I knew by then that Krait was betraying all of us. The memory of the pit, or perhaps only my twisted sense of honor, remained too strong.

“To me this is a high and holy mission,” I told Sinew. “That hasn’t changed. New Viron needs the things I’ve been sent to bring back very badly. Most of all, it needs someone like Silk.”

“You’ll get killed.”

“Not if I can seize control of the lander-and I think I can.” I paused, collecting my thoughts. “If I can, I’ll have it in which to bring Silk back. When we return, I can order it to land at New Viron. What is even more important, the inhumi will no longer be able to use it to come here in relative safety, or to transport human beings to Green.”

He shook his head and repeated that I would be killed.

“Perhaps, but I hope not. I said I couldn’t make you obey me, and I can’t. I know that. All that I can do is beg you to help me keep Seawrack off the lander. Will you do it?”

He swore that he would, and we shook hands; and after that I hugged him as I had when he was a child.

Evensong has returned!

Just a moment ago I heard the sentries at the main entrance challenge her, and her reply. Time presses.

Next day, Sinew and I circulated among the other travelers, telling them that we suspected that the lander might actually be bound for Green, and urging them to bring weapons they could conceal when they boarded. That night, he and I decided that the best plan would be for him to sail some distance down the river with her after telling us about a good place to gather wild berries. I would excuse myself at the last moment, saying (quite truthfully) that I had to bargain in the market for the food we would need on the lander.

Evensong has bought me a boat that sounds like it is exactly the sort I need. She smiled proudly as she described it, and even borrowed this quill and a sheet of paper so that she could sketch it for me, small enough for me to handle alone and even row if need be, with a little shelter like a hut at the waist, and a mast that can be taken down, or put up by one man to spread a small sail. It is newly painted, she says; crimson and black, which in Han are thought to be the luckiest colors.

Best of all, she said that she was very tired and asked if I would mind terribly if she slept in the women’s quarters, offering to send Chandi or Moti to me if I wished. I said that I was half asleep already after having waited up for her. When Oreb croaked loudly, “Silk go!” I explained that he wanted me to go to bed.

A line or two more, but only a few.

They collected our weapons, promising to return them to us as soon as we reached the
Whorl
. I gave up the slug gun Marrow had given me, ignorant of the fact that the inhumi were arming their slaves to subdue the human settlers on Green and supposing that I had seen the last of it. Ironically, everything we had surrendered was loaded into one of the freight bays-exactly as promised.

I should have anticipated that some of us would believe the inhumi, and side with them. They were proud and stupid men, too proud and too stupid to believe that they could have been so badly deceived. Many, I would guess, had believed that the lander could not fly, and had hoped to loot its cards when it failed. When it took off, crushing us into our rough wooden cradles with a speed that seemed liable to persist long after we were dead, they were ripe to believe anything that He-hold-fire told them. The monitor, too, said we were bound for the
Whorl
.

The inhumi would not let us into the cockpit, as it was called on the Trivigaunti airship. I do not know what it should be called on a lander.

Yes, I do. Silk said Mamelta had called it the nose, and that is what you and I called it when we wrote, Nettle. We on the lander simply said “the front” or “up front.”

There were three inhumi among us, besides Krait. They called themselves the first three travelers to reach Pajarocu, and said that He-hold-fire had put them in charge of us. One was the one I had seen on the other boat, I believe. I demanded to know why they would not let us into the nose one at a time. I should have killed him (it was he I was arguing with) but I hesitated until it was too late. He looked like a man, and I was still not certain I was correct. Krait pretended to side with me, which made me doubt my conclusions. I reproach myself now, as I should.

All this took longer than I have indicated-a day, at least.

Except for Sinew, the others thought I was insane, or most did. They offered to tie my hands, but those who had believed Sinew and me would not allow it.

But I am far past our leaving Blue already, and that was as much as I intended to write. Before I leave Gaon as well, I should explain that Sinew had cut the halyards while Seawrack was ashore picking berries, and returned to Pajarocu in his hollow-log boat, arriving in the nick of time to be taken on the lander, the final passenger to board it. My heart leaped for joy when I saw him and heard the airlock slam shut behind him. I am ashamed of that even now-I thought that he was going to his death and that we all were-but how glad, how very glad, I was to see him!

I feel sure that Seawrack made what repairs she could and that she and Babbie tried to sail the sloop back up the river. They must have arrived much too late, if indeed they arrived at all. She has returned to the sea now, for which I would be the last to blame her.

That is enough. The inhumi struck me, tearing my cheek with claws. Everyone knew after that, and Sinew stabbed him for it. I had forgotten how it was when Patera Quetzal died, although I would have sworn that I remembered everything. He appeared to be a human man still, for some time after his death agony.

The illusion is the last to die. I must bundle up this paper and put it into my bag at once. Good-bye, Nettle. Good-bye to all of you.

THE LAST SHEETS

A
fter what I wrote last night, what right do I have to take up the quill again? None, to be honest; but it will be two or three pages at most. I am going to write as long as we are in quiet water, but no longer. Evensong wants to trim the little sail and steer, and this is an opportunity for her to learn. (I am pretending not to watch her.)

Yes, she is with me, having deceived me most thoroughly and hidden herself in our little hut until we were well away from Gaon. “Good girl!” proclaims Oreb. “Clever girl,” I tell him.