“It was a change of fortune,” Lagganvor answered, casting a sidelong glance at Doctor Eddralder. “For several of us. But tell me—how in all the sundered worlds did you ever take her?”
“It was easy,” Fura said. “She took something of mine without asking, and I took it back—with interest.”
Twenty further minutes brought us within easy visual range of Revenger. Fura fired the rockets again, slowing down our approach. Then she wheeled us around in readiness for docking tail-first. Lagganvor pressed his face to the porthole as the ship came into view, her dark hull pinned at the focus of many radial lines of rigging, invisible except where some trick of reflection and angle caused them to gleam back at us, like a pattern of fractures in the thin ice of space.
“Credit where it is due,” Lagganvor said. “She might almost be a different ship.”
“If you know her as well as you say,” I answered, “you should be able to state the points of deviation.”
“I can. Very easily. You have applied some stiff but thin material to soften her lines—canvas or tarred sail-cloth, I should imagine. Metal would be too heavy, and she certainly has no need for additional armour beyond her original specifications. You have cut away some of her crueller embellishments, including the corpses. I do not envy you that task.”
“You oughtn’t,” Prozor said.
“You have disguised her true weapons complement. She has two rows of flanking coil-guns, with breech-loading capability and water-cooled solenoids for maximum rate of fire, as well as fore and aft chasing pieces. But you haven’t gone so far as to make your ship appear toothless. That would look just as questionable as a fully-armed marauder. I must also remark on the disposition of your sails. The bulk of your manoeuvrability must still depend on the catchcloth, but you have spread enough acreage of conventional sail to deflect the uninformed eye, at least from a distance.” He seemed done, but he was merely drawing breath. “She is four hundred and eight spans from bow to stern, although that may have altered since you made your amendments. The bone room is aft of the coil-gun batteries, with the kindness room just a little forward of it, under the batteries and tucked behind the main sail-control room, which in turn abuts the main airlock, although that saw very little use during my service, Bosa preferring that we came and went via the docking bay.”
“A lot of ships are laid out on similar lines,” I said.
“But not many have a kindness room,” Fura said, working the steering jets with both her hands, so that we backed in to the red-lit maw of the open docking bay, like a little fish willingly sacrificing it to some gape-mouthed monster.
“It has been more than two hours,” said Eddralder. “I should very much—”
“Not yet,” Fura said.
We made contact, the jaws clamped shut, and a moment or two later Tindouf hammered on the outer lock. I was the first through, not needing my helmet since the connection to the rest of the ship was pressurised, and I clasped my gauntlet around Tindouf’s big scarred hand, wondering how and where I ought to begin with the things he needed to know. “We have some guests, Tindouf,” I said, feeling this was as good a start as any. “The tall one is Doctor Eddralder, and the girl with him is his daughter Merrix. The other man is Lagganvor. He used to serve on this ship under its former captain, but it appears we can trust him.”
“Appearses?” Tindouf asked.
“He could be useful to us,” I allowed. “We’ll make him welcome, and treat him as one of our own—for now.”
Lagganvor had come up behind me. He moved easily in weightlessness, and nothing about his manner suggested any degree of unease in these surroundings. His fingers found the handholds with ease, and he needed no assistance into Revenger.
“I understand your misgivings, Adrana,” he said, his tone one of intimate confidence. “They are natural, and I would be surprised if you did not entertain a doubt or two. But I assure you there is nothing about my past to conceal.”
Was it my imagination, or had he put the slightest stress on the “my” in that sentence, as if to contrast his own provenance with that of the physician?
“We’ll learn soon enough,” I said. Then, to Tindouf: “We’ll need to find new rooms for them all. Doctor Eddralder can advise as to the best arrangements for Merrix.”
“Why’s is Strambli still in that box? I thoughts she was going to be fixed.”
“She was,” Fura declared. “But she still needs to recuperate. The kindness room is still the best place for her. Surt, why don’t you show Doctor Eddralder there directly? He can square away his potions, and start thinking of the place as his own.”
“That is very kind,” Eddralder said. “But I cannot rest until I have set things right by Glimmery. I will serve you very well as a physician, but you must allow me to discharge my outstanding obligations.”
“You’ll never see the cove again,” Fura said, shaking her head. “He’ll be dead before long whatever happens. You were the one who poisoned him! Why would you give two squints for him now?”
“I was his doctor,” Eddralder said. “And I would extend you the same courtesy.”
She turned to Tindouf. “We have sail and ions?”
“Yes, Miss Ness. We’s making headway very handsomely. I had Mister Paladin set us an anti-Sunward course, because I thoughts that what you would’ve done.”
“You are right, Tindouf,” she said, with a grand commanding wave. “Sail on. Lagganvor and I will discuss our next heading, but in the meantime it won’t hurt if we put our backs to the worlds for a little longer.”
“We have nothing,” I said quietly. “No more fuel than when we left the Rumbler—less, after what we wasted here. The supplies we bought are still in the hotel. We don’t even have a replacement skull for when ours finally cracks on us. I doubt that we have rations to make it through two months, let alone the time you doubtless have in mind.” Now my voice began to rise, and I did nothing to counteract it. “We have escaped Glimmery, and by some miracle disentangled ourselves from the attentions of the Crawlies. But we are in no state to go chasing baubles again, or quoin caches, or whatever you would have us do. We are finished, Fura, and the sooner we submit ourselves to justice the less protracted and painful it will be.”
I had thought my angered tone might provoke her to similar spirits, or even draw a reaction from the glowy. But she met me with a disarming equanimity.
“You are right, by the usual measures. But since we have been declared outlaws, and our protestations ignored, I see no great disadvantage in living up to the image they would insist is our true nature. I do not mean that we will slip into Bosa’s habits—not at all. We will not murder, nor predate for the sake of profit alone. The Miser remains our chief objective, Crawlies or no Crawlies, and since those quoins were already stolen, we can hardly be accused of theft if we retake them. But in the service of that end, if there are ships out there that have the items we require …”
I stared at her with frank astonishment.
“You’re saying that we … take them?”
“Why not? The worlds have delivered their verdict on us. Would you not agree, Lagganvor? That incentive is just the start, is it not?”
“I think worse will come,” Lagganvor said. “The plan for a squadron raised against you will be expedited, now that Restral’s party are free to offer their testimonies.”
“We were already hunted,” Fura said. “We shall be hunted. Our enemy was once Bosa Sennen. Now it may as well be every ship under the Old Sun.” Her fingers worked, squeezing onto nothing. “We take what we need, but we do so with clemency and restraint. We will leave their ships operable, and their crews unbloodied—provided they offer no resistance. But we shall have our supplies, and our bones.”
“I’m glad you’ve thought this through,” I said, before adding, with a dark and intentional irony: “Captain Ness.”
“It does pay to think ahead,” Fura said, offering no contradiction of the title I had just bestowed on her,
as if it were both fitting and timely.
*
Fura and I brought Lagganvor to the Glass Armillary. I watched his reaction carefully. It was a rare and delicate instrument, as I have intimated, and any ordinary spacefarer, even one who had seen and examined many precious items, might have expressed delight or admiration at the possession of such an exquisite piece. I doubted that Lagganvor would be quite so foolish as to act as if he had never seen the device before, if he had not in fact been part of this ship’s crew, but it was possible that his mask might slip in the face of such beauty, even for an instant. It did not, however. He studied the Armillary for a few moments, impassive more than dazzled, then moved his hands to it, stroking an edge of glass here or a fine-threaded gear there, all with perfect and intimate familiarity.
“A less prudent captain would have broken it by now,” he said, in a low respectful tone. “Especially one who had been through recent action. I congratulate you, both of you, on having the wits not to damage it through carelessness or inattention. You would struggle to replace it, even if you could move with impunity through any port of your choosing. Given her rages, it’s a wonder it survived Bosa.”
“Yes, it’s a pretty bit of glass,” Fura said, with her customary dismissiveness. “Fancy to have, but not essential, not when you’ve got charts and almanacs and a good robot to plot your crossings. What interests me is The Miser, and its whereabouts.”
“Pardon my frankness. But if I divulge such intelligence, I am surrendering most of my usefulness to you.”
“Some,” I said. “Not all. You said you knew the access code, access passwords and so on.”
“I do.”
“Then get us off to a fine start and give Paladin something he can sail for,” Fura said.
Lagganvor sighed, taking in the entirety of the Armillary with his hands planted on his hips.
“She never allowed me this close to it. There was no need: I was her negotiator, not her navigator. She dropped me on a world and sent me off on my business, but there was rarely any need for me to know how we sailed, or for how long.”
“You’d better know something,” Fura said.
“I do. Starting with this. These red marbles signify baubles, do they not?” His hand moved gently from one of the stalk-mounted marbles to the next. “Each is marked with a set of engraved ephemeris numbers—identifying the world by its orbit. You’ll have cross-referenced them against the baubles in your books, I assume?”
“It was the first thing I did,” Fura said. “And none of ’em is The Miser. Anyway, these baubles all have fields and auguries. You said The Miser had dropped its field long ago.”
“If it ever had one. One of these baubles is an impostor, though. Or did you not look closely enough?”
“What should we have looked for?” I asked.
Lagganvor took one of the marbles from the Glass Armillary, unscrewing it from its stalk so he would know exactly where to replace it. “One of these has a double inscription. There’s the obvious one, which is a false identity, and then a secondary inscription engraved on a deeper layer of the marble. Very hard to see, unless you know it’s there, and even then you could easily mistake it for a blemish in the glass.” He held the marble to his good eye, squinting hard. “Not this one. But it’s here somewhere. It’s just a question of examining them all, until you see that dual inscription. Disregard the outer numbers. The inner engraving contains the true ephemeris for The Miser.”
“And you know this … how, exactly?” Fura asked.
“I said she didn’t let me near the Armillary. I didn’t say I wasn’t privy to some of its secrets. There wasn’t much the physician didn’t know—there’s not much people won’t say under the influence of drugs.” He replaced the marble and moved to another, unscrewing it with Fura’s tacit permission. “Not this one either. Onto the next.”
Fura looked at me, and then bent her face to the nearest speaking grille, flicking the switch next to it. “Tindouf. If you are satisfied with the set of our sails for the moment, you may come to the control room and show Lagganvor to some suitable accommodation.”
After a silence Tindouf’s voice crackled back through the grille. “On my ways, quicks as I can. Will you be wanting Doctor Eddralder? He’s very consternated about something.”
“He may wait a while longer,” Fura said, before flicking off the speaker. Then, to Lagganvor: “Leave the Armillary. I’m quite capable of examining those baubles for myself.”
“Are you done with me for the moment?”
“Almost. But since Tindouf has mentioned Doctor Eddralder, I thought I’d push a little harder for your opinion on him. In the hotel you said he was a decent man, working under intolerable conditions. That was before you knew you were likely to share a ship with him. Is there anything else you ought to add?”
“Should there be?”
“Adrana—the young man from the other ship, with the wounded party. What was his name, again?”
“Chasco,” I answered, with a catch in my throat, for I could still feel the force of his judgement, a hard, cold slap against me.
“Yes. He said something about Doctor Eddralder, didn’t he? How we shouldn’t ask too many questions about his association with Glimmery.” She switched her attention back onto Lagganvor. “Then you told Adrana that there was nothing about your own past which you wished to conceal, as if to contrast yourself with someone else. Did you have Eddralder in mind?”
Lagganvor seemed to debate with himself before answering.
“I would not wish to pour fuel on rumour.”
Fura flashed her teeth for a single fierce instant.
“I suggest you do.”
“Wait,” I said, raising a hand. “The situation is transparent. Doctor Eddralder was coerced into working for Glimmery. We saw the evidence of it—Glimmery had Merrix as a hostage and his patronage kept the infirmary running. That doesn’t make the doctor a bad man—just one who did what was needed, to protect his patients and his daughter.”
Lagganvor was silent for a few moments. But then something could not be held back.
“If only it were that simple, Adrana.”
“In what way isn’t it?” I asked.
“As I said, I don’t wish to pour fuel—”
Fura clenched her fist. “Just answer her, you slippery piece of—”
“Doctor Eddralder is an excellent physician. Of that I have no doubts. I also believe he only ever acted in the best interests of Merrix and his patients. But his usefulness to Glimmery went far beyond the services you witnessed.”
“Explain,” Fura said.
“Glimmery had need of a man who could inflict pain, as well as relieve it. To enforce his reputation, and extract information, when it was needed. Who better than a surgeon, to turn torturer?”
“No,” I said, in flat denial, for I still remembered the care and devotion he had shown to Strambli. “He isn’t like that. We saw enough of him to know his kindness.”
“I didn’t say he wasn’t capable of kindness,” Lagganvor answered. “Just that there’s more to him than that.”
There was a knock on the bulkhead frame behind us. Tindouf had come to show our guest to his quarters and Fura waited until he had taken Lagganvor away, then invited me to the Glass Armillary.
One by one we began to search the marbles. I was on my dozenth when a tiny, sub-glacial blemish snagged the light, something I might have noticed a thousand times without ever once questioning its significance.
I held the marble closer to my eye. The blemish was a milky patterning, floating just beneath the outermost inscription. It was composed of lines and angles, faintly formed but beyond any doubt writing.
“I think I have it,” I said, marvelling that it had been so close to us all the while. “I think I have The Miser.”
22
Fura closed the door, then moved to her desk, buckling herself into the chair, and setting her elbows on the leather surface, facing me with a knowing t
ilt to her head, a skeptical set to her jaw. Her glowy shone softly in the red light coming from Paladin’s busily calculating globe.
“Eddralder first, then The Miser. I’m concerned about the doctor, Adrana. Who have we brought into our midst?”
“Don’t tell me you believe a word of that.”
“Lagganvor has no reason to lie.”
“He has every reason, especially if there’s some aspect of his own past he’d rather we didn’t dig into too closely. What better way to deflect our attention, than to start making us think badly of Doctor Eddralder?”
“You were there when Chasco made a similar allusion.”
“Allusion’s all it was. Chasco wasn’t from Wheel Strizzardy, so everything he picked up was hearsay. Of course Doctor Eddralder’s had to do some things he’d rather he hadn’t. But that’s not the same as saying he’s a torturing monster.”
“We’ll speak to him presently,” Fura said. “And if there is a stain on his past, then we will act upon it as we see fit. Are you acquainted with the Inter-Congregational treaties on space law? Beyond the jurisdiction of a world or port, a captain may exercise a variety of punishments if the immediate well-being of her crew and ship have been jeopardised by someone trading under a false past. Up to and including abandonment or execution, if there are particularly pressing circumstances.”
“Let’s hope there are enough ropes to go around, then. Which one of us hasn’t got something to keep quiet about?”
She pursed her lips ungenerously. “There are degrees of falsehood—our little lies hardly amount to anything as serious as torture in the service of a criminal.” But some tiny trace of doubt creased her brow, as if she was not quite convinced by her own words. “In any case, my immediate concern is with Lagganvor.”
“Good. So is mine.”
“I mean, it lies in your evident distrust of him. After all this trouble, would you deny me the pleasure of finding the man I sought?”
“I’m not denying you anything. I want to believe his side of things just as much as you do. But it’s not as if he came to us with glowing credentials, is it?”
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