Tantamount

by Thomas J. Radford

  “Years,” Violet said, starting to work at the splinters.

  “Tell that one to the marines.” Sharpe winked. “Either you mean Kitsune years or you're the worst cabin girl ever.”

  “Feels like years,” Violet muttered.

  “On the Falchions they had Draugr do stuff like that.” Sharpe pointed at the still present puddle of water. “Not always a good thing when you're out here in the Free Lanes and might end up needing to drink that same water.”

  Violet recalled the frozen creatures out in the ship wreckage. “What are Draugr?” she said. That and thaumatics had been tagging at her mind for explanations of late. Violet figured Sharpe was more likely to answer than the crew. He owed her and the skipper for his rescue. “Skipper said the Alliance runs with them on their ships.”

  “Skipper used to be Alliance, didn't she?” Sharpe said.

  Violet shrugged. The last thing she needed right now was for the skipper to come along and catch Violet talking about her.

  “It's all right,” Sharpe said, “I can figure things out for myself. What was I saying, then? Draugr? No easy answer there, little princess.”

  “That's what everyone says.” Violet made a face. “About everything.”

  Sharpe chuckled. “But I'm not everyone. Didn't say I minded if things weren't easy. Here, look.” He knelt down on the edge of the water spill and started drawing patterns with his finger.

  “This is where we are.” He sketched a wide circle near the middle of the pool. “Way out in the Free Lanes, sparsely populated, unregulated, a big free for all with lots of opportunity for people who are smart and capable and trouble for those who aren't. Here,” he pointed to the centre, “we have the High Lanes.”

  Sharpe made a number of patterns, zigzagging his finger back and forth only for the water to quickly flood back in. “Dense, lots of people, lots of rules and laws. It's all Alliance territory. There are trade routes all over the place, industry and more. It takes a lot of labour, a lot of manpower, to make a machine like that. The Alliance is made up of nations, planets, guilds, and companies. A lot of those . . . members use Draugr as labour. They don't sleep, don't complain, and don't ask for pay. Half the High Lane trade routes are built off the backs of Draugr labour. To some people they're the perfect workers.”

  “To some people,” Violet repeated.

  Sharpe waggled his finger at her. “Yes, some people. Don't make the same mistake most do. Don't look at a group, especially a big group like the Alliance, and assume they're all working together. Most . . . they're like this ship.”

  “What about this ship?” Violet said quickly.

  “Well, there's you,” Sharpe pointed. “Everybody always telling you what to do. And,” he said before she could interrupt, “your cook and your navigator, always at each other's throats. Why doesn't your captain do something about it?” Sharpe waved towards the hold, covered by latticework. “Your friend Jack there has had enough whippings to be married to the gunner's daughter. He's got the scars that prove it, but I don't think he got them on this ship.”

  “Captain doesn't like flogging,” Violet told him. “Says it don't prove anything.”

  “And is the captain the one in charge?” Sharpe folded his arms across his chest. “Because it looks like Nel is running this ship. Why does she put up with some of this crew?”

  The thing of it was, he wasn't wrong. Violet hadn't been on a lot of ships, only the Tantamount, to be honest. But from the moment the captain brought her aboard it had been clear that Nel was the one who ran the ship, even if she deferred to the captain. But if it were up to the skipper, Violet could imagine a lot of the crew getting the boot the next time they made port. It was the captain that had decided Violet could stay aboard in the first place.

  “Why don't you ask them?” Violet told Sharpe. It wasn't her job to explain to him why the Tantamount worked the way it did.

  Sharpe thought about it. He grinned suddenly. “Maybe I will. Thanks, princess.” He turned to go.

  “Hey!” Violet called after him. Sharpe turned.

  “You never explained what Draugr are,” she reminded him.

  Sharpe grinned at her and winked. “That's right, I didn't.”

  Violet stared at his departing back, then gave a small scream of frustration and pitched the mop after him.

  “I hate you!” she yelled. Her only answer was a laugh drifting across the deck. So much for gratitude.

  Sharpe liked to talk. That much had been obvious to Nel from the moment he'd regained his voice. His first lesson to Violet wasn't the last. Over the next few days Nel would often come across the two of them, Sharpe telling ever more outlandish tales, Violet torn between fascination and frustration. And if he wasn't with her he was with the captain, playing endless rounds of cards. Conveniently, that kept him from helping out in any other manner, but it seemed to please Horatio, so Nel didn't object. Much.

  What Nel hadn't figured on was how much the rest of her crew liked to listen to Sharpe as well. Boredom was a factor on long voyages, an odd, blissful boredom that crews on shore leave started to long for. But they never remembered that longing during the boredom—they craved novelty and entertainment only to quickly tire of it in turn. For now, Sharpe was that novelty.

  Nel had been looking for Jack to ask about the results of his inventory. She'd found Sharpe holding court on the main deck, Jack being one of the few not present. The crew had been asking about the Draugr, Cyrus in particular, who'd had to man the forecastle and push some of them away from the ship while Nel had been amidst the wreckage. He had the shakes every time he talked about one getting caught on his boat hook and almost ending up aboard.

  “This one time,” Sharpe leaned forward from his perch on a water barrel outside the galley, “we were out on the Lanes, been at sail for a few days, three bells after the midnight watch. There I was asleep in my hammock, dead to the world, when someone starts to climb in with me.”

  He grinned round at the crew. “Well, you all know what that's like, your hammock is the only thing on a ship that's yours, your own little haven and you don't let nobody in it. Unless it's cold.”

  The crew laughed.

  “As it happens it was a cold night and I was feeling a bit lonely so I didn't object at first. I roll over and start snuggling up the way you do and I'm relieved to find out my new friend is a lady, if I can use the term.”

  More laughter.

  Sharpe grinned, getting into his own story. “At this point in my dreamy state I'm thinking to myself, Castor, there's some mighty fine women on this ship and we all love a woman in uniform, don't we, lads? Yeah, that's what I thought. So I start to get things warmed up and plant a kiss on the old girl.”

  He leaned back, shaking his head. “Her breath, let me tell you . . . well, no, don't let me. It was awful, but us beggars can't be choosers. Then I'm starting to wake up a bit, I realise maybe it's not just her breath, I'm thinking her skin's a bit rough and I start thinking this isn't as good as I thought it would be and I'm trying to figure out who's in my hammock.”

  Nel snorted, shaking her head. She'd heard enough tavern tales to recognise this one. Enough of the crew were wide eyed and slack jawed though. Sharpe had them.

  “So I open my eyes and there she is, in all her glory. We called her Gammy on account of her having no teeth. One of the ship's Draugr and she must have been feeling lonesome as even those lot do. And it was then that I realised something.”

  “What?” Violet demanded when Sharpe didn't say anything else. “What?”

  Sharpe blinked at her, as if it were obvious. “That was when I realised that it wasn't even my hammock.”

  The crew roared with laughter, except for Violet. She looked annoyed at the punch line, then indignant as Sharpe tousled her already tangled hair.

  “Back to work, all of you,” Nel called out, allowing the crew a moment to have their joke. They jumped when they heard her, leaving with a mix of grins and backslapping. Gabbi ushered Viol
et away, the girl's frown deepening. Gabbi was shaking her head in answer to whatever questions had been raised by the indignant, young Kitsune.

  “Skipper,” Sharpe greeted her from his perch. He held two steaming mugs in his hands. “Coffee?”

  Nel took the proffered mug, a quick sniff confirmed the contents. She grinned at Sharpe. “So who's hammock was it?”

  “It was my mate Stoker's,” Sharpe said, shaking his head. “I figured he might have been mad about me sleeping in his hammock so I never told him. He came back and found Gammy snoring away, happy as you please.”

  He raised the mug, drinking deep from the piping contents. Nel raised hers too, but didn't sip, watching Sharpe. His expression changed, becoming uncertain, then pained. She watched him consider his options, the discomfort becoming more evident. Finally he swallowed, reluctantly.

  “That,” he coughed into his hand, “was different.”

  Nel smirked. “Too hot?”

  “That's not like any coffee I've ever had before,” Sharpe said diplomatically.

  “Got it from Jack, didn't you?”

  Sharpe made a face.

  “Next time ask Gabbi,” Nel advised. “Jack sometimes . . . experiments.”

  She walked over to the edge of the ship, flinging the contents of her own untouched mug over the side. The hot liquid flash froze into a storm of dark snow the moment it hit the edge of the envelope.

  “What was that?” Sharpe followed her example. “Or would I rather not know?”

  “Probably the latter.”

  “Could have been worse, I suppose.”

  “Probably could.”

  Sharpe grimaced. Nel was content to let him suffer.

  “Your navigator, the Kelpie,” he said.

  “What about him?”

  “Watches me a lot.”

  “Makes a change,” Nel muttered. “You have a problem with Quill?”

  “Not Quill as such, no.”

  “Kelpies in general then?”

  Sharpe hesitated. “No, least, not on this ship. Was just saying, feels like he's watching me.”

  “Then stop distracting my crew,” she told him. “They've got work to do.”

  “Aye, Skipper,” Sharpe told her, all smiles now. “Whatever you say.”

  “And make yourself useful.”

  “How?” Sharpe grinned. “I already admitted to getting lost on the way to my own hammock. How do you think I can be of service, Skipper?”

  “Take these back to the galley,” Nel tossed her mug in his direction. His hand jumped out and caught it. Nel frowned at that—the man was fast.

  “Such a waste of my talents,” he sighed. “If you had another mug, I could juggle. But you don't, so I can't. To the galley then.”

  A moment after Sharpe was gone Nel realised that much as he liked to talk Sharpe said very little about who he was or where he was from. Even what his talents were, as he put it. She wanted a word with Horatio.

  The captain's cabin was the largest private accommodation on the Tantamount, the great cabin as such things were called, spanning the width of the stern of the Tantamount, with large windows covering the back wall, providing a vista out into the void. The cabin covered the same area as the galley and the two cabins above it, one of which was Nel's, the other Quill's. Unlike their cabins, Horatio's was as spacious as the layout of the ship allowed, divided into two sections: the chartroom and Horatio's private quarters. And unlike Nel's cabin both of those rooms had actual doors. Both Nel and Quill were on call as first officer and navigator respectively, at all times, and their cabins reflected that. Personal accomodation yes, but directly underneath the bridge and open to the deck.

  The captain was counting coins. Stacks of them balanced atop ledgers and receipts, a precarious construction of towers that threatened to topple over at any second. What concerned Nel was the small denomination of most of the currency.

  She grabbed a second chair by the neck, slamming it down backwards on the other side of the small counting table. Coins shuddered, then fell like gleaming dominoes, a cascade of money that spread out over the table. She straddled the chair, resting her arms over the back as her captain looked at the mess she'd made of his collection.

  “I was counting those,” he said plaintively.

  “They don't need counting,” Nel said. “There's not enough of them to need counting.”

  Horatio sighed, pushing loose coins towards the pile. “There's never enough, Nel. Join me in a drink?”

  Nel nodded and retrieved the iced brandy from Horatio's liquor cabinet.

  “What happened to the advance for this run?” she said, pouring two tumblers of golden liquor over ice.

  “This is the advance.”

  Nel froze, the brandy halfway to her lips. “You're joking.”

  Horatio shook his head sadly. “This is my last bottle of brandy too. Sheridan, the good stuff.”

  Nel took a sip from her glass. Horatio was right, it was the good stuff. Burning all the way down and spreading out from there.

  “That's what happens when you pay off debts, Nel,” the captain said disapprovingly. “You run out of money.”

  “We'd have more money if you'd stop getting us into debt,” Nel countered.

  “I'll get us out when we reach Cauldron,” the captain predicted. “I know some places, easy money. Never fails.”

  “I've heard that before.”

  “This time will be different,” he promised.

  “I've heard that before as well.” Nel drained her glass, dropping it down on the table. “Captain, I wanted a word about . . .”

  “Hear something?” Horatio lifted his head, and then a slow grin spread over his face.

  “Rays,” he pronounced.

  The two rose from the table, Horatio still carrying his drink. A loud crooning came from outside the cabin, from outside the ship in fact. Both had heard the sound before and knew it well. Following the song they found more crew above deck, looking out to the side of the ship. At the rays.

  A whole school of them. The void going variant of their sea dwelling cousins, only much bigger. Most of them measured ten feet in body with that much again in tail. Some were bigger; the pack leader was almost as big as the Tantamount. Its white underbelly blocked out the expanse as it banked towards the ship, coming in for a closer look, one massive yellow eye studying the tiny crew scurrying about on the deck.

  “Mister Quill,” Horatio called out. “Take us a few points to starboard.”

  On the bridge above them Quill raised both hands, hands encompassed in blue as he used his power to turn the ship to starboard. The sails filled out, creaking as they adjusted to the sudden strain. Without wind in space the ship needed Quill to fill those sails and he needed those sails as something to push against, something to push and prod, simulating the currents on an actual sea to help the ship sail through a solar sea. The ship cut away from the rays, flying parallel to the pack. The leader banked away, taking the point position.

  The crooning continued. Nel wondered what the rays heard outside of the envelope—sound wasn't supposed to exist outside of the area around a ship, though she had no idea how anyone would have gone about testing that. It sounded too philosophical for her—if a ray sings in space and there's no one to hear it, was it really singing? Nel would have just asked the ray, if rays could talk. All roundabout nonsense that didn't matter, the sort of thing scholars and sages used to justify their pursuits.

  “Rays are like albatross,” Horatio commented. “Supposed to foreshadow good luck.”

  “Superstition, Captain,” Nel chuckled. “Isn't that a bit late-night-fireside?”

  “Doesn't mean it's not true, Nel.”

  “Doesn't make it true, either.”

  Horatio swirled his brandy, casting admiring glances at the rays. One banked away from them, all but disappearing as it showed its topside, a skin as black as the void. Others drifted in and out of the miasma that followed all ships sailing the stars.

>   “They're beautiful, aren't they, Nel.” Horatio sighed happily. “Even you have to admit that.”

  “I like their singing,” Nel admitted grudgingly. “Makes a change from the silence.”

  “What do you think they're singing about then?”

  Someone laughed. “That there's no good fishing around here.”

  “You speak ray, then?” Nel put the question to Sharpe, standing at the lower deck below Horatio's cabin.

  He coughed, covering his mouth. “Sorry, throat's still a bit raw, must have been something I drank. And course I do, Skipper,” Sharpe grinned up at them, hands in his pockets now. “Doesn't everyone?” He winked, turned, and started walking towards the prow of the ship. Nel scowled at the man's back.

  “Nel?” Horatio asked. “Everything ok?”

  “I don't like him,” Nel said, watching Sharpe move along the ship. He seemed sure footed enough, probably no stranger to sailing. There was something military in his background, of that she was sure. He was too fit, had come through the destruction of his ship too well. You wouldn't know what he'd been through to look at him. He claimed he wasn't Alliance, but had been on one of their ships. That didn't sit well with her.

  “Any reason?” Horatio sighed.

  “Not yet.”

  Horatio struggled for something to say. Horatio was an optimist when it came to the people aboard the Tantamount. Nel considered herself a realist.

  “Well, we'll see when we get to Cauldron.” He brightened. “At least we know I'm going to have a good run at the tables now.”

  Nel turned. “We don't know anything like that.”

  Horatio gestured expansively. “That's a lot of rays out there.”

  “Captain,” Nel sighed in irritation.

  “Oh, be positive, Nel. Agree with me for once. You saw the rays.”

  Nel looked hard at her captain. Sometimes she wondered.

  “Let me have a chat with our guest, Nel. Man to man. I'll soon discover if he's got anything to hide.”

  “Man to man?” Nel eyed her captain sceptically.

  “Aye, that's what I said, Nel. You'd be surprised at what a man will tell you after a few drinks and a few friendly hands of Freehold Poker.”