They were too late. Teldin's own "boarding party" was already moving.
Beth-Abz floated over the foredeck rail and headed forward along the length of the ram to where it pierced the battle dolphin's hull. Teldin saw Beth-Abz reorient itself slightly as it adjusted for the slightly different gravity plane of the other vessel. A green beam flicked out again, blowing a gaping hole in the planking. Then Beth-Abz disappeared through the gap.
"Stand by to repel boarders!" the Cloakmaster yelled.
*****
A beholder? A gods-cursed beholder! And it's aboard my ship.
From below him, deep in the "head" of the Shark, Berglund could hear his crew members screaming, dying. There was no way they could fight an eye tyrant.
The Shark was lost; he knew it, and the knowledge was a cold, sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach. And if he didn't act soon, his life would be lost, too.
A captain owed loyalty to his crew, as they owed loyalty to him-that philosophy had been drummed into him when he'd served with the military. But that loyalty didn't extend to sacrificing his own life for them.
"Separate the shuttle!" Berglund screamed.
*****
Some few of the pirates had swarmed over their own rail and were trying to board the Boundless, Teldin could see. But their attempt was halfhearted at best, and Teldin's own crew was holding them off with boarding pikes. On the afterdeck, Djan-seemingly little hampered by his arm wound-was pumping crossbow quarrels into the attackers. Dranigor, the secondary helmsman, was doing his part, raking the would-be boarders with magical projectiles that burst from his extended fingertips. The wave of attackers faltered, then broke, fleeing back toward the dubious safety of their own ship.
Even with his enhanced senses, Teldin couldn't see Beth-Abz anymore. He could hear, however, the screams from within the battle dolphin as the beholder rampaged around within it. As he watched, a section of the larger craft's lower hull blew out into space-presumably struck by the eye tyrant's disintegration beam.
Something was happening to the battle dolphin's open main deck, he saw suddenly. The lines of the ship seemed to change, as though it were breaking up…
But then he realized just what he was seeing. A section of the battle dolphin-most of the upper portion of its "tail," in fact-was lifting free under its own power. As the gap between it and the rest of the ship opened, he could see it resembled a two-masted, open-decked sailing ship. Much smaller than the battle dolphin as a whole, this new vessel was no more than forty feet long, and couldn't hold a crew of more than fifteen to twenty, if that. It had to be a kind of lifeboat, a captain's gig, or perhaps some combination of the two. Obviously the enemy captain was making his escape, leaving the remainder of his crew to their fate. If Teldin had anything to do with it, the pirate captain wouldn't make it.
But the Cloakmaster couldn't have anything to do with it. The Boundless ram was driven deep into the battle dolphin, effectively immobilizing the squid ship and preventing it from giving chase. The catapult was broken, and the lifeboat-gig-whatever was taking care to stay out of the firing arcs of the ballistae. Already the escape craft was out of effective bow range. The captain was going to get away with his unprovoked attack, and Teldin would never know who he was or what his motivations were….
Then, without warning, the familiar line of burning green lanced up from the battle dolphin. Angling up out of the space recently occupied by the gig, it struck the stern of the smaller ship, blowing much of it into fragments. The gig instantly began to corkscrew slowly, obviously unpowered and out of control.
*****
Berglund rose slowly back to consciousness like a man swimming to the surface of a night-black lake. The side of his head hurt abominably where something-a fragment of his ship, he thought-had struck him. He felt warm wetness spreading down from above his hairline on the right, blinding his right eye. He wiped the blood from his eye, but didn't bother to tend to the wound, or to any of his other minor injuries.
The dolphin shuttle was virtually wrecked, he saw at once. The aft quarter of the sterncastle deck was just gone, blown into dust by the beholder's magical ray. Amidst the wreckage trailing behind the ship, he could see the tumbling body of his second mate. From this distance he couldn't see whether Rejhan was alive or not. He rather thought not, but there was no way to be sure. Certainly, the helm was down and the ship crippled, leaving him no way of retrieving his lost crewman.
Or relieving the ones I left behind to die, he reminded himself dully.
Berglund had never-quite-considered himself a pirate, preferring the term "privateer." Because of that sophistry, he'd never sailed under the neogi skull ensign favored by many other wildspace pirates. Now he found himself regretful. It would be so much more symbolic to officially strike his colors, so much more dignified. And dignity might be all he'd be able to salvage from this. Everything else was lost, maybe even his life.
Oh, well…. He sighed.
"Run up a white flag, if you please," he ordered quietly.
One of his few surviving crewmen hurried to obey.
*****
The din from inside the battle dolphin's main hull had fallen silent. Either the crew members left aboard were all dead, or they'd given up their resistance as useless. The Cloakmaster hoped the latter.
He focused his enhanced senses on the stricken gig, trailing its cloud of space flotsam. As he watched, a crewman ran an improvised white flag-it looked like half a bedsheet-up to the masthead.
"They're surrendering," he called back to Julia. "Get Beth-Abz back aboard. And see what we can do to get the Boundless moving again."
The beholder was back aboard the squid ship in a matter of a minute or two. Using its disintegrator ray to carve pieces of the battle dolphin's hull away, it freed the squid ship to back away from the drifting hulk.
Teldin kept the Boundless moving dead slow, maneuvering gently toward the wrecked gig, where the white flag still flew. As he came in alongside, he turned to Julia. "What in the Abyss do we do now?" he asked. "I don't know the protocol for this kind of thing."
"I do," she said grimly. "Send a prize crew aboard and bring the captain back here so you can accept his surrender personally."
The Cloakmaster nodded slowly. That'd give him the chance he wanted to question his attacker. "Do it," he instructed.
*****
Teldin was waiting on the foredeck when Julia, Djan-his forearm heavily bandaged-and two others escorted the enemy captain aboard the Boundless a couple of minutes later. He wasn't a particularly prepossessing man, the Cloak-master thought, a finger's span or two shorter than Teldin, but with a similar build. His hair and beard were a couple of shades darker than the Cloakmaster's own. Blood from a scalp wound was drying on his right cheek. Teldin found himself staring into the man's eyes, looking for some flash of hostility, some taint of evil, but there wasn't anything like that to be seen. His opponent looked like any other tired, wounded, defeated man, desperately trying to ding to those, shreds of his dignity that remained.
"I'm Teldin Moore," the Cloakmaster said. "And you are…?"
For a moment, Teldin could see the steel of command in the man's manner. "Captain Henric Berglund," the other answered formally. "I offer you my surrender."
"Accepted."
"What will happen to my crew?"
You weren't thinking about that when you escaped in your gig and left so many of them to their fate, were you? Teldin thought. He suppressed his distaste for the man and said simply, "Their lives are spared."
"Are any still alive in the hull?" Berglund asked.
"Some," Teldin responded. "Those who surrendered."
Berglund accepted that without comment. "Prisoners?" he asked.
The Cloakmaster shook his head. "I've got no space for prisoners, and nowhere to take them. You should be able to repair your gig"-he gestured to the small vessel alongside the squid ship-"and you're free to take it anywhere you want." He paused. "If you answer some questi
ons."
"Like what?"
"Why?" Teldin asked earnestly. "Why attack my ship? You were after me, weren't you?"
The shorter man shrugged. "It was a contract," he answered. "Business."
Teldin pointed to the four cloth-wrapped bodies lined up along the port rail-Allyn, Merrienne, and two others slain by the battle dolphin's catapult shots. "Business!" he spat. "You killed my crew!"
"You killed mine," Berglund shot back.
"It's different."
Berglund remained silent.
It took immense effort, but the Cloakmaster forced himself to calm down at least a little. "All right," he allowed, "business. So who contracted you for this business?"
The pirate's lips twisted in a sarcastic smile as he shook his head.
Teldin ground his teeth. "Then what-exactly-were you contracted to do?" he asked. "Blow us out of space? Take us prisoner? What?"
Berglund still didn't answer.
"Interesting," Julia said. Teldin turned in surprise to look at his second mate. She was examining Berglund curiously. "Interesting that you have such loyalty to the people who hired you. After all, they sent you into battle against overwhelming odds, didn't they?" She nonchalantly indicated Beth-Abz, who was easily visible on the afterdeck.
"Your masters, the ones who hired you… they're the ones who killed your crew, aren't they?" she pressed. "I think you owe them nothing, least of all your loyalty."
The pirate was silent for a moment; Teldin could almost feel the intensity of his thoughts. Then he nodded. "I don't know who hired me," he said quietly. "I didn't recognize him, and I didn't ask. All that mattered was that his money was good."
Teldin took a step forward, intent. "What did he want you to do?"
"Take you prisoner," Berglund said flatly.
"And the others?"
"Put them to the sword, then scuttle your ship."
Business, Teldin thought. He struggled to keep disgust out of his voice. "And what was to happen to me?"
"I was to take you to a planet where I'd hand you over to some people who apparently want you quite badly."
"What planet?"
"Falx," Berglund answered.
Chapter Six
"Falx," Djan said.
He, Teldin, and Julia sat in the Cloakmaster's cabin. The half-elfs wounded arm was swathed in bandages, supported by a sling. The ship's healers had done a little for it, but the first mate had insisted that they concentrate their attentions on the several crew members who were more sorely wounded.
"So where-or what-is Falx?"
Teldin glanced over at Julia. From the drawn, pinched look to her face, she knew all too well. "It's a planet of illithids," he told Djan simply. "They've tried once before- maybe more than once-to get the cloak."
Djan's eyes widened slightly. "Mind flayers, too?" he asked. Then he smiled faintly. "You certainly cast your net wide when it comes to finding enemies."
"Apparently," Teldin said dryly.
"So, what now?" the first mate queried.
"On to Nex," the Cloakmaster replied. "There's not much else to do, is there?"
Djan accepted that without comment.
Julia still looked troubled. "How did they know?" she asked. "How did they know we'd be coming? And how did Berglund know as much as he did about us?"
Good question, Teldin thought. It was one he'd been chewing on a lot during the day since they'd left the surviving pirates packed aboard their damaged gig. He shrugged. "Spies on the docks, I'd guess." His lips tightened. "Maybe even spies on board." He paused. "You know, now that I think of it, weren't the 'accidents' with the boom and the catapult a little coincidental? Djan," he said, turning to his first mate, "maybe you should look into that."
The half-elf looked back with a mirthless smile. "The crew's repaired the gaff boom," Djan said, "and they're working on the catapult. I had a chance to examine the damage before they began."
Teldin felt his skin grow cold, as if a chill wind had blown through the cabin. Even though he'd expected it, he didn't have to like having his suspicions confirmed. "Sabotage?" he asked quietly.
Djan didn't even bother replying, and he didn't have to. His expression was answer enough.
Wonderful, the Cloakmaster thought. "You know what that means, then?"
"Of course I do, Teldin," Djan said, his voice as quiet as the Cloakmaster's. "We have a saboteur on board, maybe more than one. I personally checked the rigging and the weapons before we set sail. Everything was fine then."
"One of the hadozee?" Julia asked plaintively.
Djan shook his head. "I meant, 'before we set sail from Starfall,' after the hadozee had gone ashore. The saboteur's still aboard."
Teldin was silent for a moment, digesting this news. Then, "Have you told anyone else about this?" he asked.
The half-elf shook his head again.
"Don't," Teldin said firmly. "We don't want to tip off the saboteurs that we're on to them." He gave a grim smile. "And I don't even want to think about the effect this would have on morale."
"So what do we do?" Julia asked, her voice quiet.
"What can we do?" the Cloakmaster asked bleakly. "We'll watch the crew as closely as we can…" He paused, the enormity of the situation only now dawning on him. "We'll watch them. But there are only three of us-four if we include Beth-Abz-and there are twenty of them. The saboteur could wreck just about anything on board, and we'd only spot him if we were extremely lucky. Still," he sighed, "it's the only thing we can do at the moment." He ground his teeth with-frustration. There had to be something else they could do-something active instead of reactive-but he could think of nothing.
Julia turned to Djan. "Any ideas who it might be?" she asked.
The first mate shook his head firmly. "None," he said flatly. "I don't know any of them well enough to even guess." He shrugged. "They all have good experience, they all came well recommended, they all seem trustworthy. But, offered enough money-and I assume a planet full of illithids can offer a lot of money-even the most trustworthy person might succumb to temptation."
The Cloakmaster looked at his two officers, his two closest friends. He could see anxiety written plainly in the lines of their faces, but there was something else there as well as they looked back at him. He thought it was trust, mixed with hope. They trust me to do something about this, he realized grimly. I'm the captain; I'm the gods-damned Cloak-master. It's my responsibility. I've got to do something… but what'
He stretched a painful kink out of his neck. I'll think of something, he told himself. "Well," he said aloud, "we'll do what we can on this issue." He turned to Djan with a wry smile. "Have you got any good news for me?"
"As a matter of fact, yes." Djan's face brightened a little. "Blossom tells me we've entered a phlogiston river. A fast river, one that doesn't appear on our charts… but does appear on yours." He smiled. "Maybe Nex isn't a myth after all."
The voyage continued with no further incidents-a pleasant surprise, Teldin told himself; we've had all too many incidents recently. As captain, it had been his unpleasant duty to officiate at the funeral services for the four slain members of the Boundless's crew. He'd known he'd have to say a few words before their canvas-wrapped bodies were put overboard-'consigned to space"-but at the time the words just hadn't come. Staring at the bodies-Allyn, Vernel, Manicombe and little Merrienne-his eyes had filled with tears, and his throat had tightened so much that he'd felt as if he was choking. All he'd been able to manage was a croaked, "Good-bye. And thank you." To the crew, that had seemed to be enough-a fitting tribute from a captain who so obviously cared for those who served with him. The burial crew had taken over, and the bodies had slid over the rail. For a few minutes he'd watched the pathetic bundles drift out along the squid ship's gravity plane. More deaths added to the tally, he'd told himself. But then Julia had appeared at his side to lead him away, down below to his cabin.
Julia had been there for him during the hours and days after the funeral.
Never had she pressed her presence on him, but when he'd wanted someone to talk to-or someone just to silently be with him-she'd been there. The intense, confusing emotions he'd felt for her when they'd both been aboard the Probe hadn't returned. In their place he felt a growing kinship, a calm acceptance of each other's strengths and weaknesses, of needs and desires. It was friendship, but a different kind of friendship than he'd experienced before, more intense, yet also somehow more subtle. The two had been lovers aboard the Probe, and both seemed to accept that they'd be lovers again. But neither felt there was any need for haste in consummating matters.
While the captain had been coming to terms with the changes in his emotional landscape, the crew had been busy. Under the close scrutiny of Djan Alantri, they'd gone over the whole ship-supposedly checking for hidden damage the Boundless might have taken from the recent engagement, but actually looking for more signs of sabotage.
They'd found nothing, the half-elf had reported. While they'd been at it, they'd reinforced the mountings for both booms-mainmast and mizzen-since Djan had recognized that that was a weak point in the squid ship's design. They'd also patched and reinforced the bow where the pirate's catapult shot had struck. In what Teldin had considered a meaningless exercise, they'd even repainted the scores and scratches left on the ram from when it had pierced the battle dolphin's hull. Now those areas gleamed a bright blood red, a strong counterpoint to the dull, space-faded hue of the rest of the ship.
The Boundless was seventeen days out from the Heart-space sphere. A new crystal sphere loomed ahead of the squid ship, right where Teldin's copied chart had said it would be. Nex is within it, the Cloakmaster told himself. It bas to be. The ancient book had been right about everything else. And if Nex were there, were the Juna present also? He'd know soon enough.
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