by C. Litka
04
It may've been our third run after KaRaya discovered her dream-man when we had our little talk. I didn't like it, but felt it was my duty. I didn't want to face accusations that I should've said something if, or more likely when, things dropped out of orbit for KaRaya.
'You know, Raya, from everything you've told me, DeVere's the fellow at the beginning of the path that leads to the Bird of Passage or worse,' I said to start.
She shrugged. 'Maybe. Maybe not. You just never know at the beginning. And you'll never find out unless you walk down that path a ways.'
'You'll know when to stop, now, won't you?'
'If I don't, you do, don't you?' she shot back.
'Oh, come now. You can't say I've been sticking my nose in your affairs.'
'You don't like him, do you?'
'Oh, I like him well enough. He's a pleasant, witty fellow, who seems to be treating you on the up and up. While you're around, anyway. So I can't say anything against him, except that when I'm around him, even as I laugh at his jokes and banter, I'm holding on to my coins in my pocket and keeping my fingers on my sissy. I don't think you can get to be like him without having a well-hidden streak of ruthlessness. You can't take money from chumps for a living without it... And no matter how he treats you, it's there.'
'Well, I'm in love, and I can't see it. So tell me what sort of fool I am, if it makes you feel better. Don't think it'll change anything. It's heart over head. My old failing...'
'I can't say anything, Raya. I fell in love with the woman who was trying to kill me. Who's the bigger fool?'
She gave me a look and then laughed. 'Why you are, Wilitang. Thanks. I needed a little cheering up. I can't be a bigger fool than you. We make a good team.'
'That we do. And I hope you can count on me, if you need to. I've been leaning on you all this time. You've earned a shoulder if you should ever need it.'
'I'm sure I can, and will, if it comes to that. But, Wilitang, there's a lot of good in Vere, just like in your Naylea. I think things can work out. Keep your hand on your coins and sissy if you must, but like him.'
Well, I tried. In some ways it was too easy, because he did seem to treat both KaRaya and Hissi with a great deal of respect.
He kept Hissi at a table of serious card players. He warned them that she could likely sense enough of their thoughts to know just how good their hands were, so it was probably unwise to try to bluff her. On the other hand, he warned them that by the same token, she was sure to detect any attempt at cheating, and didn't tolerate it. She was known to grasp the arm of a player with an extra card up his sleeve in her jaws, so that they could be assured that the games she was in were all on the up and up.
She spent far too much time up at MorDae's but there was little I could do, except insist that she only go in the company of KaRaya. Still, I suppose, I could hardly blame her. Old King's passion was piloting the barge, and when it was on the ground, he'd sleep most of the time, so little Hissi, who slept her share of the rounds as well, had little else to do when she was awake but play cards until she ran out of coins to wager. Which, it seems, was unlikely to happen anytime soon, if ever. Her fortune may've ebbed and flowed with the luck of the cards, but she didn't make foolish mistakes and knew, perhaps unfairly, when to fold. And the regulars followed her lead. It was the new players who added to the collective fortunes of Hissi's playing partners.
Besides worrying about my girls, I spent much of my spare time keeping company with the two old engineers who ran the power station in Chasm Lake, who, between my tales, would instruct me on and allow me to work on the various components of their plant, boiler, engine, generator and regulators. I had a future to think of, and since I'd decided to be an engineer in this new life of mine, I took every opportunity to learn my new trade. Someday I might earn enough silver and gold coins to buy a cha garden, but until then, it was running the steam engines and rather primitive electric generators of the Dontas. When I had turned over the captaincy of the Starry Shore to Molaye - which now was a life so different that it has taken on something of the flavor of a dream - it had been a watershed decision. I found I had no desire to command again. The thought that Naylea Cin had been kidnapped and murdered on my watch left its mark. I'd been too lucky as captain to risk being one again. And then, too, there was a practical side as well. It would, I'm sure, take me thousands of rounds to learn ship handling and navigation in the wide-sky seas of the Pela, and likely a slow rise to a position where I might command decent wages and the freedom to search for Cin and Siss. On the other hand, all my years lending a hand in the engineering department of my ship has given me a solid grasp of basic engineering and electricity. All I had to do was to master the Saraime's far more primitive systems. With a thousand rounds, and a little luck, I could be a well-qualified engineer who could land a berth whenever one was needed, and have enough coins to spend time tracking down the DeKan's Talon-Hawk, and perhaps my boat as well. And yet, I'd been a captain too long, and a chief engineer too briefly, to feel free enough to carouse in places like MorDae's, so I wasn't missing anything by spending time in the subtle roar, oil and ozone of the little power station at Chasm Lake.
