Trapped (28 page)

A groan came from the bony white bundle.

"No one's dissecting anyone," the Caryatid said in a Children-must-not-misbehave voice. "I don't know why you brought Zunctweed up here at all," she told Pelinor.

"Because Impervia didn't want him staying with her."

"Where
is
Impervia?" Myoko asked. "What's she doing?"

"Standing guard," Pelinor said.

"Over what?"

"Over what Zunctweed didn't want us to see." He waved toward a companionway that led below. "Take a look for yourselves. I'll watch the captain."

Gretchen didn't have to be told twice—she headed immediately toward the stairs. Oberon, the ever-faithful bodyguard, raced to go down ahead of her... only to find he couldn't fit through the companionway's narrow opening. He stood there squinching his whiskers in agitation until Gretchen rapped on his shell: "Move, slave. You're in my way."

"Mistress Gretchen, you don't know what's down there. You don't know whether it's safe."

"Oh, it's safe," called Pelinor. "I think. Yes. I'd definitely say it's almost certainly safe."

This didn't reassure the big red lobster... but Gretchen wouldn't tolerate slaves telling her no. She banged again on Oberon's shell. "Move. Now. That's an order."

"Don't worry, dear," the Caryatid told Oberon. "We'll look after her."

Still reluctant, Oberon shuffled away from the opening. Gretchen went down without hesitation, though she did it in the landlubber way: facing the steps and holding the iron banisters, like climbing down a ladder. The rest of us followed close after. (Just for the record, the Caryatid descended à-la-landlubber too; Myoko slid down like an old salt, back to the steps, face out, feet barely touching the treads; I attempted to do the same, though without much grace; and Annah almost seemed to teleport—one second she was at the top of the companionway, then her cloak billowed and she was standing beside me. Making me feel ridiculous for having poised myself at the bottom, arms out and ready to catch her if she needed help getting down. I really had to stop underestimating that woman.)

The corridor below-decks was short, but had four doors leading off: one forward, one back, one each side. Cluttering came softly from behind the closed side doors. The NikNiks must have gone into hiding when Impervia chased Zunctweed—the little monkey-things had fled into the crew quarters till the furor died down. NikNiks didn't like other people squabbling; it distressed them mightily, not from fear but embarrassment. They ran at the first hint of confrontation and would stay out of sight for days if necessary.

The forward door was open and lamps burned within. Though the room was appallingly small, it was clearly the captain's quarters—it had a real bed (narrow but mattressed) and a small table whose legs were secured to the floorboards. Gretchen, the Caryatid, and Myoko stood before the table, blocking my view of whatever lay on top... but it had to be something of interest, because one of the women had just gasped in surprise.

Annah and I squeezed into the room. Impervia was off in the corner, dour as usual and surreptitiously pressing her hand against the side of her chest. She always held herself that way when she'd cracked a rib but wanted to pretend it didn't hurt. Obviously, Zunctweed wasn't a total pushover when it came to fighting. I sidled toward the good sister, ready to tape her up—I carried first-aid supplies for just such contingencies—but Gretchen thought I was trying to get close to the table, so she made room for me.

That's when I saw what Zunctweed had been hiding: a helmet of bright orange plastic. Featureless, except for a smoked glass plate in front of the eyes. It might as well have had PROPERTY OF SPARK ROYAL printed all over it.

Gretchen let out her breath. "That's Spark armor, isn't it?"

The Caryatid nodded. "It's the same style as Dreamsinger's."

Annah glanced at me, as if I could confirm what Dreamsinger's outfit looked like. I only shrugged. Still, the helmet on the table was undoubtedly of recent manufacture—it had none of the scratches or weathering you see on plastic from OldTech trash heaps—and these days, the Sparks were the only people who could mold plastic so flawlessly. This helmet had to come from them.

"Orange," Gretchen said, still gazing at the helmet. "Orange is for Mind-Lords."

Everyone in the room turned toward Myoko. Mind-Lords were masters of psionic power... and they spent their spare time getting to know other psychics. Especially psychics of first-class strength. Just as the Science-Lord had visited the best students at my university (completely ignoring
me),
a Mind-Lord must have visited Myoko's school occasionally to chat with those who stood out.

Like Myoko?

She said nothing—just stared at the helmet. After a while, the Caryatid touched her on the arm. "Are you okay?"

"They called him Priest," Myoko whispered. "He never gave any other name. Mind-Lord Priest. The saddest man I ever met."

She lifted her head, accidentally caught my gaze, and immediately lowered her eyes again. "He was constantly talking about religion. All religions. New ones, old ones, bizarre ones. He wanted to believe in something, but he was too, oh,
inhibited
to make a leap of faith. The sort of man who reads books full of prayers but never says a single one; who could describe fifteen different meditation techniques, but had never sat down and closed his eyes. I think he was afraid of being disappointed. The saddest man I ever met."

Myoko reached out as if intending to touch the helmet. A few centimeters short, she let her hand drop limply to the table. "He came to our school several times a year. Spent a day with each class: exactly from dawn to dawn. I don't know when he slept. Maybe he didn't need to. He'd just talk, let us ask questions. But he didn't give direct answers; more like sermons on whatever came to mind. We loved him deeply. I suppose we couldn't help that because of his power, but still..."

"What was his power?" Gretchen asked.

"You felt what he felt. Whatever made him angry made you furious; whatever made him happy filled you with joy. It seemed like you'd touched his soul and fully comprehended the wisdom of his opinions. Whatever he thought was right—whatever he considered
necessary
—you believed the same, as if everything in your life had led you to that conclusion." She shook her head. "As if you understood exactly who Priest was, and saw that he was
holy."

Myoko suddenly clenched her fist. "I've told myself it was all just fake. He was a Spark, right? You can never take Sparks at face value. Wouldn't a Spark Lord enjoy people thinking he was sweet and sad and poignant? He could wrap us around his fingers. But Priest never tried to exploit us... though, God knows, we were ripe for it. Young, idealistic, infatuated. Every last one of us would have walked through fire just to ease his terrible sorrow..."

Her voice trailed off. The rest of us didn't speak. Finally, Impervia broke the silence: her words brisk, trying to dispel the deep melancholy that had gripped us. "I don't know why we're jumping to conclusions. Yes, this looks like a Spark helmet; yes, orange stands for Mind-Lords. But there can be more than one Mind-Lord at a time; why think this belonged to your Priest?"

"It's his," Myoko said. "I can feel it."

"No, you can't. You're not the sort of psychic who feels things."

"With this I can." Myoko reached out again and this time touched the helmet with her fingertips. "That was Priest's power: making people
feel.
I can feel his essence, and I know something happened to him. Something deadly."

"You're being ridiculous—" Impervia began, but Myoko cut her off.

"It's his
helmet!
It couldn't just fall off. I've seen Priest's armor, and everything locked securely..."

Myoko picked up the helmet as if she was going to show us whatever mechanisms kept it attached to the rest of the suit. But the moment she lifted it off the table, something fell from the helmet's neckhole, plopping softly onto the tabletop.

Gooey white nuggets like curds of cottage cheese. Spilling from the Spark Lord's helmet.

"Eww," Gretchen said. "What's that?"

Nobody answered. Myoko set down the helmet, carefully covering the curds that had fallen onto the table. She stepped back quickly, bumping into the wall behind her.

The rest of us did the same—even Gretchen, who hadn't heard the details of Rosalind's death. There was something about those moist white nuggets that made you shy away.

"I think," Myoko said, "we should ask Zunctweed where he got the helmet."

Nods all around. We tried not to leave the cabin in an undignified stampede.

Up on deck, Oberon and Pelinor stood on either side of Zunctweed. The captain was still folded into a peeled-potato lump, headless, legless, armless. Impervia crouched beside the alien's origamied body and rapped on his bony hide. "Open up! Now!"

A muffled voice answered, "Shan't."

"Shall,"
Impervia told him. "Otherwise, we'll tie a rope around you and toss you into the lake. Tucked in like this, you'll sink like a stone... and the lake water here was ice a week ago. We'll leave you until you start drowning, then we'll drag you out. We'll keep doing that again and again, leaving you under a bit longer each time till you're ready to cooperate."

Annah gazed admiringly at Impervia. "You have such a gift for teaching."

Impervia almost broke into a smile... but her face went blank again quickly. Impervia hated to seem too human.

We never got to see how Zunctweed responded to ice-water. Impervia trussed him up with a rope Pelinor found—I hoped the rope hadn't been attached to something important—and Myoko lifted the alien over the side by sheer force of will. We could have done the lifting by hand, but we thought Zunctweed would loosen up more if we went beyond the mundane: so Myoko put on an impressive show, furrowing her brow with fierce concentration, spreading her hair into a great intimidating sphere (hip-long tresses stretching to arm's length in all directions), then shakily levitating Zunctweed off the deck, banging him against the rail as he went over the edge, bumping him repeatedly against the hull on the way down... at which point he moaned, "I know it won't help if I beg for mercy; but consider how bad you might feel about this if someday you acquire a conscience."

Myoko stopped his descent. Impervia called down to the hovering alien, "I have a conscience; what I don't have is information. Where did you get the orange helmet."

"Is that all you want to know? And you couldn't ask before this? No, I don't suppose you could. It's more fun tormenting a slave than asking direct questions. What if I answered them willingly? Then you'd have no excuse for entertainment."

Oberon, standing by the rail, gestured impatiently with his pincers. "Shut up and start talking."

"You self-righteous claw-thing," Zunctweed muttered. "Go back to licking your mistress's boots."

"Stop whining," Gretchen said. "Are you going to tell us what we want?"

"Didn't I say I would?"

"No."

"Lift me up and I shall disclose the whole story."

"We'll get better answers," Impervia said, "if you stay where you are. Provided"—she turned to Myoko—"you can hold him?"

"For a little while," Myoko answered in a strained voice. "I'll manage if he speaks quickly." She winked at us all; we'd seen Myoko hold a human in the air for more than five minutes. But she let Zunctweed wobble a bit, just to center his thoughts on cooperation.

"I said I'd tell!" he protested.

And he did.

Dainty Dinghy
had spent the winter offshore: far out in the lake where the water didn't freeze. Zunctweed wasn't the only captain to anchor in that neighborhood—he was part of a small contingent, nine boats this year, that spent the cold months afloat rather than going into dry dock or risking the ice in the harbor. With the first snowfall,
Dinghy
and the other ships offloaded all but a skeleton crew, filled their larders with provisions to last till spring, and sailed out to meet each other at a spot reputed to be the best winter fishing ground on the lake. The boats were lashed together in a cozy floating village, then the crews passed the season amicably: fishing with hook and line, playing endless games of Deuces High, and getting sozzled on whatever rotgut they'd stowed in their holds.

Thus the flotilla passed winter's short days and long nights: taking a holiday from smuggling rum and netting small-mouth bass. Gossip was shared over the card table, including critiques of the Ring of Knives—everyone loved to expound on Warwick Xavier's stupidity—but it was understood such opinions would never be repeated back home. The winter anchorage was a time apart... a season outside the real world, when you could tell your greatest secrets and know they would never come back to haunt you.

There was one secret that never came out amidst all the drunken confessions. Most of the company believed Zunctweed and a bevy of NikNiks were the only aliens among them; but Zunctweed knew differently. To Zunctweed's inhuman eyes, a captain named Josh Jode was clearly not native to Earth. Humans saw Jode as the perfect skipper: a grizzled veteran, sunburned so thoroughly from years on the lake that his skin was parched clay and his hair bleached to dirty white. But Zunctweed's alien retinas perceived far outside the spectrum visible to humans; he saw down into infrared and up to ultraviolet, at which frequencies Josh Jode bore no resemblance to
Homo sapiens.

Zunctweed had no words for the IR and UV colors that gleamed from Jode's flesh. He could only say Jode's skin must have evolved on a very different world than Earth: a world where a different atmosphere filtered different wavelengths from the light of a different sun. Zunctweed instantly recognized a fellow extraterrestrial... but he never revealed what he knew, to Jode or to anyone else.

Zunctweed was an infuriating curmudgeon, but he wasn't stupid.

So Jode never realized Zunctweed knew his secret—which is why Zunctweed was still among the living and why the winter anchorage passed uneventfully until five nights earlier.