Skeen's Return (33 page)

For nearly an hour the Pouliloulou twisted and turned through the reeds, until she reached the transition areas where the trees began, tall furry things, dripping with fungus; she nosed into a broader channel, water that shone a greenish silver in the moonlight. Under the trees on either side glints where the moon reached the water, silver spangles on a silken gown, slipped out and away from them as they moved farther and farther into the Morass. Timka heard splashes, rustles, a few eerie cries from bird, beast or reptile, she couldn't tell which, strange minor ululations that held within their brief existence all she'd ever felt of sorrow, loneliness, wanting, need. Small sounds that only served to make the night's heavy silence yet more intense. Trees and water, even the cloud-broken sky had an ominous feel, as if the Morass was waiting for them, mouth open, and they were sliding willy-nilly into that mouth. Usoq's a worm, Rannah had said, quoting her mother, but a competent worm. Lifefire grant that was true and he knew what he was doing.

She'd felt something like this before when she slipped into Tod's House, a combination of apprehension and excitement that was disturbing but … ah, it could become addicting, she thought. She frowned at the water hissing past the bow. A passenger. Passive. Constrained. She'd waked out of passivity not so gradually as she traveled with Skeen, shaken out of it as much by Skeen's defects as her virtues. Perhaps more. Because Skeen wouldn't, Timka had to assume responsibility for herself. In emergencies she could count on the Pass-Through, but day to day, Skeen just wasn't there; she slid through the fingers like mercury. At first this was frightening and annoying, but Timka nodded at the water, acknowledging that she liked being responsible for herself. She liked it so much she found it very hard to lie back now and let Usoq do all the work. She didn't trust him that much, only to the extent his self-interest merged with theirs. She thought a lot about Skeen and the world on the far side of the Gate, trying to get a better grasp of it from the chaotic chunk of Skeen's memories settling into her own head. Very little made any kind of coherent sense. She had few points of reference to help her; what she did get was a better understanding of why Skeen was the way she was. She'd been broken repeatedly as a child and badly mended. She functioned well enough as long as she limited the complexity of her life, kept to a minimum the connections she had with others. Underneath her surface friendliness and that impressive competence, there was a pool of fear and self-loathing that frightened Timka when she caught glimpses of it—frightened her and gave her a queasy relief. Lifefire's blessing, this isn't me.

In the middle of these musings one of the crew girls came to the bow, waited politely until Timka moved out of her way. The girl crawled out along the stubby bowsprit, hooked her feet in the ropes and began chanting enigmatic syllables, not numbers, no language Timka knew, a soft but carrying sound that slipped back to Usoq at the wheel. Pouliloulou fled on up the channel, water glinting out and out under the trees, the glints smaller and smaller as the moon dropped into and through the clouds, the darkness thicker and heavier, the air thicker, harder to breath. As if the Pouliloulou plowed through gel instead of air, doing this with the delicate grace she used cutting through the water.

On and on, noisy shadow slicing through the water. On and on into that deadly silence. Timka got tired of the tension and began thinking about going below. She drowsed by the rail wondering vaguely how broad the belt of wetlands was, how long they were going to be stuck in the steam and stink and the purported danger. Usoq, she thought, running up his price with claims of jeopardy. The rise and fall of Vohdi's soft chant merged with the boat's song, the chorus of small creaks and groans. Timka dropped deeper into her drowse.

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 had 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.