by Chris Howard
Captain Teixeira stood, folding a white cloth napkin. He placed it next to his plate, pulled out the chair to his right for Corina, and held it while she tried to figure out how to use one. She gripped the seat as if it was going to buck her off it. She had trouble sliding it closer to the table. Wedged between the chair's back and table's edge, she picked up the dessert spoon, staring at it, an inch from her nose, put it back in its place. She shifted the forks, clinking the salad with the entree. She looked around the dining room as if she had never seen one before.
"Is everything fine, dear?” Captain Teixeira leaned toward her. “You look lost."
Aleximor snapped straight, sliding up in the seat. “Yes, Captain Teixeira. As well as any can expect after the journey I have had. I understand that I have you and your generous crew to thank for finding clothes for a wayfarer on such limited notice. Please pass on my gratitude."
"I ... will,” said the captain roughly, put off balance by her formal tone. “I would ask you a few questions, Miss—"
Aleximor put one hand on the white linen next to his arm, folding the web of skin between each finger neatly into the palm. “Please call me Corina."
Are you flirting with the old man?
"I am Martim.” He bowed his head formally, his gray brows curling into each other, as if to say that it was perfectly acceptable to use his first name. He lifted his head, his rust-colored eyes fixed on her face, thinking that he had been at sea for three of this young woman's lifetimes. “I have worked on ships of every type on every ocean in this world, Corina. I have the sea in my soul. I have lived near the water or on it over sixty years. So long, that I cannot help but imagine ocean in all directions, and the sight of brown rock and steel cities standing above the blue always surprises me. I won't say that anything I have witnessed in the last two days surprises me because I know the Sea, I have felt her fingers, and her clay. The medium in which she works, is the unimaginable."
Aleximor tensed up at the mention of the Sea, taking his hand off the table and placing it in his lap.
Teixeira picked up her tension and patted the table where her arm had rested. “You have nothing to fear now. I have alerted Interpol and the American embassy in S?o Paulo. We are scheduled into S?o Lu?s in three days and P?rto Alegre in eleven. I will see to it that you have transportation from there to S?o Paulo."
"That is very kind of you,” said Aleximor in a whisper, eyes on the empty ornate china, his fingers absently pleating the hem of the black T-shirt. Corina heard the stream of thoughts flowing in his mind, a waterfall's noisy rush for the bottom of the gorge.
Corina answered a couple of his obvious questions. Interpol is the international police. They will question you about the killing. And they will mean business—not like the officers on a merchant ship. That talking to earlier was more likely a standard questioning with witnesses for insurance purposes. If Interpol doesn't like what they hear, we could end up in jail.
Aleximor twitched at the last word, making fists and curling his toes into the plastic tiled floor.
Captain Teixeira went on in a calm grandfatherly tone. “When you have settled in, I would love to hear your story.” His eyes met Aldrich's on the other side of Corina. “We all would. We have asked ourselves how is it that you managed to swim close to eighty kilometers offshore? We have found no acceptable explanation.” He hoped this would be enough to spark the answers to questions he felt uncomfortable asking, such as how she had managed to survive the drag beneath the ship. “Do not answer now, or give thought to it. Please eat. Mr. Wilkins has made excellent chicken salad sandwiches. There is also a green salad, apple pie."
The captain waved for the tray and poured ice water into the glass in front Corina. The sandwiches looked good, even with the wilted lettuce and skimpy amount of chicken.
Damn, I'm hungry. I love chicken salad—you love chicken salad. Take two.
Aldrich sat on Corina's right, his face impenetrably serious. He picked at a couple potato chips, pushing them around his plate, breaking them one at a time with his index finger.
Aleximor held a triangular cut half a sandwich inches from Corina's face, sniffing it, fingers sinking into the bread, swallowing dryly at the thought of putting it in his mouth. What was this hideously creamy chunky mixture squeezed between two wedges of a stiff foamy substance? This did not even look like food.
Take a bite! I'm starving! Are you the Bone-gatherer or aren't you? You work with rotting human corpses for a living—you raise them from the dead! And you're going to let a little chicken and mayo hold you up?
He took a bite, teeth sinking through bread into the fibrous meat. The gush of tart creamy mayonnaise over his tongue made his stomach lurch. A slippery piece of lettuce poked at his gag reflex. He clamped his mouth shut tearing the rest of the sandwich away, fingers shaking as he dropped it onto the plate. He held his face still with intense concentration and chewed, crushing the mix with his molars, grinding it into smaller swallowable lumps of sour buttery fibrousness.
He managed to get one bite down, and by the way he glared at the remains of the sandwich on his plate, it was clear that he wasn't going for seconds.
The potato chips, on the other hand, he adored. He munched them, snapped them into pieces between his front teeth, licked his fingers, let them soften into a salty potato-y paste on his tongue.
"These are divine!” Aleximor declared, sliding another pile onto his plate and devouring them, ignoring the stares from around the dining room.
Officer Aldrich, Corina's unofficial escort, led her to Maria Draughn's bow to show her the coast of Panama off the port side. The ship was enormous to Aleximor's mind, even with Corina telling him that, as far as modern ships went, it was relatively small. Like Officer McHutcheon's cabin, everything was flat and angular, painted dull red or yellow.
"That is Cambutal and there's Venao coming up.” He pointed over the bow. “We're heading into the Gulf of Panama."
Aleximor was silent, content to listen to Aldrich's geography lessons, astounded that the surfacers had managed to carve a channel through the land, joining two seas in the process.
Officer McHutcheon made his way through the containers on the deck to the bow. “Miss Lairsey, the captain has asked me to check on your wounds."
Aleximor turned, and Corina hoped her own effort to put a questioning scowl on her face helped. “What wounds?"
McHutcheon looked at Aldrich with a puzzled expression. His gaze swung back to Corina. “Your back, Miss. I stitched four lacerations and bandaged the rest. You don't appear to be in discomfort. I can provide medicine if you like."
Tell him to stop calling me “Miss.” Corina's fine. So, you managed to “lacerate” my back on your devil-and-the-deep-blue-sea hull-length joy ride? Why don't I feel anything?
"You may call me Corina. Please do. And I feel fine, Mr. McHutcheon.” Aleximor tilted his head back, which Corina realized was what sea-people did to mean the same thing as shaking the head. “What would you have me do?"
McHutcheon looked at Aldrich again for approval, but spoke to Corina. “If you could come back to my—well, your cabin for a few minutes, I'd like to see if the stitching is secure. I'll also change your bandages and check for infection."
"Very well."
She followed Aldrich and McHutcheon along the hatch covers, through shadowy passages between deck-mounted containers, forty-foot long orange and blue metal boxes.
Some nice dark hiding places there, said Corina in mock suspicion as Aleximor took in every detail of the ship's crowded deck. He didn't answer her.
McHutcheon shut the cabin's door and Aleximor—apparently without thinking—pulled off the thin black T-shirt.
What the fuck are you doing! Cover yourself. McHutcheon wants to look at your back. Not your front. Corina collected her anger, and commanded Aleximor. Ask him where he wants you to sit.
"Where would you like me to sit, Mr. McHutcheon?"
"Daniel, ma'am,” he said, eyes averted,
cheeks a little red. “Anywhere is fine.” He pointed to the edge of the bed and opened a kit of first aid supplies and stainless steel tools, mainly tweezers and scissors.
Aldrich, who had stopped just inside the door, took a few steps closer, frowning and jutting his chin at Corina's back. Two strips of cotton gauze with thin brown lines of dried blood ran at opposite angles across her scapulas. Seven clear adhesive strips crisscrossed her back. There had been other scrapes and bruising when they hauled Corina from the Pacific.
They were gone.
McHutcheon nodded to Aldrich with a scowl, peeling off one of the bandages for a three-centimeter long gouge that he'd sewn together. His mouth parted, dropping all the way open by the time he worked halfway through the gauze removal. “Th—the stitches are gone?"
Aleximor looked over his shoulder. “I heal quickly, Daniel."
The officer's hands trembled and he let go of the bandage.
Aleximor added an insistent look. “Can you remove them? They itch."
"Sure, Miss ... Corina.” He removed both inch-wide strips of gauze and tape. Her skin was unblemished beneath them. He removed the other bandages, leaned back and attempted, unsuccessfully, to shake his head. “Quick—quickly is one thing. You don't even have scarring. Nothing. Very unusual. It's as if...” His voice trailed off. He started over. “When we took you from the water, the back of your wetsuit was in shreds. The skin on your back—from your shoulders to about your hips, was scraped and ripped in twenty places. I soaked up a towel-full of blood."
"And now they're gone,” added Aldrich, his voice dripping suspicion.
"I hope it will not sink me in your esteem,” said Aleximor with a pause and a tightening at the corners of Corina's mouth, a hint of a smile.
What was that? Are you getting snarky?
Aleximor ignored her. “May I replace my top?"
McHutcheon stuttered something and nodded, packing away his tools.
Officer Aldrich rubbed the back of his bald head, a tired I-really-don't-need-this look on his face. He folded his arms and glared at her as she stood up, walked to the curtain-covered window and put the black shirt back on.
McHutcheon left the cabin in a hurry, and Aldrich, filling the doorway, pointed at Corina. He kept his voice low. “You're trouble. I know it when I see it. I want you off this ship.” His voice went icy. “And I'll do what I think necessary to remove you."
"My thoughts are clearly bent the same way, Officer Aldrich."
He spent a second wondering if she was referring to getting herself off the ship or him. He went with the first and held out his open hands in an I-don't-want-any-trouble gesture. “If you are not the evil I feel you are..."
Aleximor turned. “In which case you may be sure of my pardon."
Boy, he's got you pegged. You're sure McHutcheon's going first?
As soon as Aldrich left the room, Aleximor lifted his eyes to the center I-beam and called down his familiar, the metal crab thing. It dropped to the all-weather industrial carpeting, landing in a crouch. “I am certain, Corina."
* * * *
Aleximor fared better at dinner because the ship's excellent cook, Mr. Wilkins, made a broiled white fish for the captain and his party. The wine went straight to his and her mind, and half an hour into the meal, they were slurring words and making up a fabulous tale of their appearance eighty—no, one hundred—kilometers off the coast of Guatemala.
Corina listened with the rest of the crew—except those who manned the controls—as Aleximor, who was in top form, explained how he had been diving off Southern California and came up to find his boat missing.
Pirates took it?
Corina helped out with modern terms and places, because left on his own he came up with wilder tales: How he was picked up by fishermen—Corina had to reel him in a little at this point—and how they “sailed” to Mexico, where they dumped her overboard when she refused to “...work the fishing nets."
Corina interrupted him and demanded that he change the action to working instead of ... performing something else—knowing that the East Coast Swing and conga lines weren't high on the list in Aleximor's mind of things she was expected to perform with—or on—the crew.
This is getting more ridiculous with every word. But Aleximor plodded on. They dumped you overboard with your wetsuit on?
"...and to my inexpressible vexation, I found myself far at sea—at night!” He made a gasping expression, and turned up the tension. “A shark circled three times. I went very still and he departed without my blood."
Look at them. Do they really believe this crap?
McHutcheon caught Teixeira's eye from the door, and the captain waved the second officer over. Aldrich was right behind him. The officer who doubled as ship's physician looked sick; his fingers trembled, his face bone-pale with sweat dripping from his chin. He held his hands in a surgeon's just-scrubbed arrangement, stiffly in front of him.
Teixeira stood up, looking past the doc to Aldrich. “What is it?"
"He did a prelim autopsy, captain."
Teixeira leaned away from them. “Already? I thought it was just an examination. Where?” With a frown at McHutcheon, “You always are an enthusiastic fellow."
"In the cooler on deck three. I think you should hear this directly from McHutcheon,” said Aldrich, pushing the doc forward.
"What is it, Daniel?"
"To rule out some kind of food-borne poison I...
Pinnet's eyes, sir."
Teixeira waved dismissively. “Miss Lairsey gouged them out, I know. It's a horrendous thing, but look what he was about to do to her."
"But the eyes, sir.” It looked as if McHutcheon was going to lose his lunch. All of the blood drained from his face. “I found them in his stomach, sir. Pinnet ate his own eyes."
Teixeira's mouth dropped open, and then he fell back into his chair.
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Chapter Twenty-One
Dreaming
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
That the rude sea grew civil at her song
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid's music.
—A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare
* * * *
Spend your time and thought—and energy—wisely.
Kassandra frowned at her mother's words.
She means spend them on the war, said Praxinos. Not on that young man.
The Wreath-wearers were divided over where she should spend her time and thought and energy.
He is a soldier. Learn from him, said Andromache.
He's gorgeous. Eupheron mimicked Andromache's stern voice. Learn from him.
Kassandra smiled, liking Eupheron more and more. “Nereus."
Her whisper became a shape in the water that darted in the darkness before her. She indicated a direction with a finger and it swam off like a fish seeking Nereus, slipping under doors, passing guards, courtyards, windows, until it found the son of Menophon sleeping in his bed.
Her whisper circled his body, gathering all its remaining power, then drove into his chest and touched his heart.
Nereus woke, clutching his bed, his blood thumping in his ears.
"Kassandra?"
He felt her, an echo of her warmth, as if she had been in his bed a moment before.
After calming his heart, Nereus kicked across his room, changed into something presentable, and left his family's house. He found Kassandra perched on the south facing wall of the Lasthenes Massif, the tower of rock that loomed over the rest of the Rexenor fortress.
He looked left and right as he swam to her. “Where are your guards?"
She didn't turn around. “I sent them away.” Then, understanding his question, she added, “I don't think they're protecting me, so much as protecting the rest of Rexenor from me.” Before he could ask why, she gla
nced over her shoulder and said, “I don't just bite.” Then clicked her teeth.
She just caught his grin before she looked away. He rolled in the water, landing with his toes right on the edge of the wall on Kassandra's right. To a thinling, the move would have been acrobatic, but all the Seaborn moved as he did.
So smooth in the water. She looked down at his feet, and then let her focus wander up to his shoulder before she turned away. “Why aren't you afraid of me?"
"I am. Why don't you ever look me in the eyes?"
She felt her neck muscles tense, wanting to turn toward him. “I want to.” She stared at his open hand instead, the gesture he'd made with the question. “I can't. Because I can turn you inside out with a look, Nereus.” She liked saying his name. “Because I can make you ... do things you don't want to do ... with a look."
Eupheron chuckled in her head. Let's see if we can get him to turn you inside out.
Eupheron! Ampharete shouted and Kassandra bent against the pain in her head.
"Shut up, all of you.” She grabbed Nereus by the arm, and he leaned back to hold her up.
The two of them stood on the edge of the battlement, staring into the pure night of the abyss. Nereus sang softly about seabirds, the wet sand capturing their prints, the hollow roar of the waves, and the cry of a tern flying over the ocean, through storms and arctic winds, a bird that flies away and never returns to land.
There was no magic in him. He did not have a bleed from either of his parents, but there was something in the song. She felt it in the water, then inside her, a fluttering in her stomach, a sweetness in her mouth.
"The air is so weak.” She whispered her thoughts aloud. “It cannot carry a song like the sea does. Music's effect on surfacers is so diluted, yet it still has the power to capture their souls—even my soul."
After a few minutes, Nereus pulled her fingers off his arm and took her hand. “I wouldn't mind it."
"Mind what?"
"If you ... turned me inside out."
Kassandra was silent a minute, then looked down at the Rexenor fortress. “Not here."
"Anywhere. I will follow."
