WARP world (13 page)

“No,” she said, holding a rag to her wound to stop the bleeding, “just talking to myself. I’m used to being alone.”

The kitchen was small, the ceiling low; he was not ignorant of how his tall frame loomed over her, how she might perceive herself as penned or cornered. A theory confirmed by the subtle shifts she made to distance herself from him.

“Can I assist you with anything?” he asked, keeping his tone deliberately light, non-threatening, as he inched forward another step.

“Uh…no, thank you.” She wiped the knife clean, then made a show of lighting the stove and moving some pots and pans around on the stovetop.

He waited another few beats before speaking again, “Well then, I shall retire to my quarters and let you finish.”

It had been a pleasing bit of indulgence, studying the girl, but there was work to consider. He wasn’t here to sightsee or frolic with the locals; Kerbin’s warning echoed in the corners of his mind. He could not fail.

The Outer had provided him with detailed maps of Alisir and there was time, before the wretched looking meal was served, to study them.

After a night of tossing and turning, Ama had woken before the sun. The winds were perfect and she pulled anchor.

You didn’t battle the Big Water, Fa had taught her that. People tire, water never does. If you want to ride Nen’s back, you learn to read his moods. When he is sweet, you can relax, catch your rest. When he is ornery, you stay vigilant and respectful, you let him direct you. He was being sweet now but Ama knew she would have a hard time convincing poor Manatu of that.

The wind had picked up slightly since the previous day, blowing at about 15 knots and gusting higher. They would make good time to Alisir. Unfortunately for the sick flatlander, bigger wind also brought bigger waves and since the rollers were running north-south and the waves were hitting them from the west, the
Naida
was dipping and rolling as she cut through the blue water. Manatu’s stomach was obviously doing much the same, as he clung to the rails, heaving up nothing but air and foam until exhaustion claimed victory and he sunk down into a giant heap of flesh.

Seg, to Ama’s surprise, was making a decent showing of himself, even taking on some of the minor tasks she had demonstrated for him. Not bad for a flatlander. Nevertheless, water legs took more than a day to develop and his discomfort appeared in brief flashes that were quickly and consciously subdued. He was at the mercy of her world now and that obviously didn’t suit him.

Her world
. Ama licked the salt spray from her lips as she gripped the wheel and concentrated on keeping them on course.

Seg stared down at Manatu, who was sprawled out on the deck, half dead and useless. Some bodyguard.

The menial work the Outer had shown him was far more suited for Manatu’s ideal combination of strong back, weak mind, and agreeable servility. For that matter, Manatu might as well be caj himself.

The notion actually surprised Seg, who had been raised on the sharp class distinction. There were People and there were caj. To believe otherwise was to betray the People; to speak such a belief aloud would be treason.

Admittedly, some of the work Ama had asked him to do was not unpleasant. He especially enjoyed manning the wheel, and learning the basics of the geometries of the skins gave him a whole new respect for her learning capacity.

In truth, he was finding it difficult
not
to think about her and this new world she was showing him. The only daydreams he had ever allowed himself revolved around his career and tangible, achievable objectives. And yet he had caught himself, the previous evening, wondering how far this vessel could travel and then entertained visions of directing Ama and her boat on a course of exploration beyond the boundaries of the mission.

These imaginings had offered a pleasant two-minute contemplation before he had finally gained hold of his senses again and resumed calculating potential vita loads from the preliminary data Kerbin had transmitted through the digipad. Using the comm, in such tight quarters, was too risky but from the text of her dispatches he could tell she was flogging the squad hard, covering tremendous amounts of ground on foot. Lacking his direct supervision, they avoided making any public appearances; they had made their first read at a distance. This was not as reliable as the sort of close-in readings he would be taking, but it would give him a rough picture.

House Haffset had a limited resource base but excellent credit accounts. His plan would take some convincing but, if they were willing to gamble boldly, they could strike at least a half-dozen choice targets in a single go. It was up to him to winnow out the richest sources.

He grasped the handrail and left Manatu to his misery as he returned to the rear of the boat–the
stern
, as it was referred to.

“Getting close,” Ama said, as Seg arrived at her side, then pointed to a large, rocky outcropping in the distance. “There’s the Killing Cliff.”

A small wave blew sideways across the stern, soaking them both. Ama’s second eyelids were up before it hit. Seg ducked away from the spray.

“Sorry about the ride,” she said, glad for her Kenda eyes, so well adapted to water, “Price you pay for speed.”

“Never mind the ride. Comfort is secondary to getting business done. Tell me more about this Killing Cliff.”

The Killing Cliff, Ama knew two versions of that story–the accepted one everyone spoke out loud and the darker one, whispered among her people.

“Before the Unification, before the Shasir brought us together in peace, some of the Welf tribes around Alisir used to practice human sacrifice. Usually it was a single infant and no one really knows why, since the Welf have no written history. The story says that the Welf believed their gods required servants, so they would ‘send’ one of their children to live with the gods and serve them. That cliff was a holy place to the Welf, a meeting of mountain, water and sky; that was where they would…”

She stopped, assuming Seg could fill in the missing detail.

“In their legends, in return for the sacrifice of a child, the Welf would have a season of healthy crops and protection from plagues and storms. When the Shasir came to our land, they put an end to that kind of barbarism.” Ama lifted her palm skyward, hating the gesture but determined to put on a good show, “Praise to the Shasir’kia.”

After the previous evening, she was even more convinced that her passenger, if not a spy for Corrus, had some equally threatening Shasir alliance.

“Your first stop, the Temple of Shasir’Pei, in Alisir, was constructed shortly after the arrival of the Shasir. So now, instead of murdering babies, the Welf sacrifice food, gifts and whatever pitiful amount of coin they manage to put away during the year.” Damn it, why couldn’t she ever keep her tongue under control? That last part was unnecessary. No wonder her family worried about her. That kind of blasphemy could get her sent to Correction.

But she couldn’t pretend she didn’t know the other half of the legend. Yes, the Welf, brutes that they were in the black times, had sacrificed an infant every year and the Shasir had stopped that practice but that had not put an end to the murder at the Killing Cliff. The Shasir used Welf labor to construct their temples, their skyships and devices for their magic, but they forbid anyone outside of the Shasir to know their secrets. Any workers privy to Shasir magic, when they were no longer useful, were herded off the Killing Cliff, their disappearances explained as magical ascensions to the Cloud Temple in the realm of the Above–one of the reasons many Welf made the yearly pilgrimage to Alisir, in hopes of their own magical ascension.

Ama had no proof of this, no one did, but the Kenda had strong memories and their own secret history.

“Good fishing in front of that cliff, too,” she added, to lighten the mood. “Maybe there’s some magic there, after all. Alisir has a large Welf village, so I’ll be able to get some decent food for us. There should be lots of kembleberries still on the vine. I’ll make sure to get more genga root for Manatu, though I don’t think it’s helping him much.”

And maybe I’ll have some free time to paddle the Gwai tributaries
, she thought with no small degree of anticipation. Her paddleboat was strapped to the stern. The water level wouldn’t be as high as she would like but tackling some whitewater would be just the diversion she needed to shake the tension her latest passenger stirred within her, and the Gwai’s secondary rivers had more than enough monster waves to do the job.

“You study history, do you?” she asked, now curious, against her better judgment, to decipher Seg’s intentions.

“I enjoy local lore,” he said noncommittally. “
Folk tales
, legends and myths. A hobby of mine.” He waved a dismissive hand, but there had been a gap, a hiccup in his response, large enough to suggest his interest was more than a hobby. “So, you feel that perhaps the Welf would be better-served by being allowed to keep more of the coin they earn?”

Now she was having a hiccup of her own. Her honest answer to his question was one she would never share with a stranger, especially a non-Kenda stranger.

“I feel…” she considered her words carefully, if this man was a Shasir spy the wrong words could mean Correction, “I feel that all people would do well to improve themselves and sometimes that takes coin.” Treading dangerous water. “However, spirituality
is
the core of life, the Shasir’kia are powerful gods, and the Welf seem happy with their lives, so perhaps it’s best they place more value on worship than on material goods. And they’ll be well rewarded in the Cloud Temple, when their days are over.”

What a pile of dung.

The invasive stare; he was making her twitchy again. That and the wind was picking up even more. They were coming down some of the rollers too fast for her liking. If the
Naida’s
nose dipped under she could drive them underwater and that would put an abrupt end to this cultural tour of Seg’s.

Damn, maybe she should have given up some of the coin and taken on a deckhand for this charter. At the thought, a sudden push of wind prompted her to turn her head to the stern. A wall of black was bearing down on them, one of the late spring squalls that drop out of the sky with no warning.

“We’ve got weather coming in,” she told Seg, her tone firm but not panicked. “Take the wheel for a drop,” she ordered, dashing to the stern locker as soon as his hands were in place. She pulled out three oilskin coats and pressed two into Seg’s hands as she repositioned herself at the wheel.

“We need to lock down the secondary skin and close the hatches. Do you think you can do that on your own? I need to keep us pointed into it.” Manatu was still crumpled in a heap at the rail. “Move Manatu back to midship, put the extra oilskin over him, and lash him to something solid so he doesn’t get washed overboard.”

Seg nodded but paused. He laid his hand on her arm, opened his mouth as if to speak, then just as suddenly he closed it again. His body stiffened and he hurried away.

Ama stared at the spot where Seg had grasped her arm, as if there might be a mark there, an imprint of his hand. Where had that come from? Like a jealous lover, the Big Water demanded her attention, though, and she slipped into her oilskin and pulled her eyes to the horizon once more.

She shivered, but not from the wind.

As he slid into one of the coats, Seg berated himself for the impulsive act. He had stopped himself just before speaking, thankfully, but had he not, he would have offered her some kind of reassurance. When he had asked her about the Welf, she had quite obviously censored herself for his benefit, believing him—well, not
him
but his current incarnation—some kind of threat and he had been moved to assuage her fear.

A ridiculous impulse; in reality he comprised a much worse threat than any she might imagine him to impose. The timing couldn’t have been less appropriate.

The pitch of the boat was frightening and yet exhilarating in a way he had never felt before, and he was torn between a self-interrogation over his impulsive move and the realization that they were perhaps getting into something dangerous and therefore exciting.

He secured the open hatches and turned to make his still-clumsy way back to Manatu. It would serve the parentless wretch to let him drown, but in addition to their gear, there was a load of superfluous junk tacked on for their cover that Seg had no intention of lugging around himself.

“Hold still, you lackwit,” he muttered as Manatu twitched and expelled more bile onto the deck. Hands hooked under the large man’s armpits, he dragged him toward the center of the boat. At least he had managed to maintain his cover of being mute thus far. Be thankful for the
small favors
.

Ama gripped the wheel; the squall was almost on them and things were about to get tricky. Likely it wouldn’t last more than an hour but it would be a fitful hour. The secondary skin was locked off and the main was almost fully retracted–it wasn’t about speed anymore, it was about control.