by Zoë Ferraris
The force of Emma’s words seemed to convince Laika, but she still looked dissatisfied. “Well, you’re going to have a problem doing that on the Argh,” she said. “We don’t have any way of communicating with the outside world. We’re fugitives from the navy, so it’s too dangerous to use mesmers.”
“What’s a mesmer?” Herbie asked.
“You’ve never seen a mesmer? What part of Monkey are you from? Mesmers—gosh, they’re everywhere…. ”
Herbie shrugged.
“It’s a talking glass,” Laika said. “And trust me, they’re too dangerous. They all talk to each other, and we can’t risk anyone finding out where we are.”
“Why?” Emma asked.
“Well,” Laika said, taking up a broom and sweeping the floor, “because Lovesey stole the Argh, didn’t he? And he saved our lives. If he hadn’t stolen it, the Queen would have killed us like she killed our parents.” Laika’s cheeks were flushed. Emma and Herbie exchanged a guilty look.
“I’m sorry,” Herbie said. “I kinda figured you were orphans, but I didn’t know the Queen killed your parents.”
“She killed them all when she destroyed our planets.” Laika’s sweeping began to intensify. Behind her, one of the eagles gave a startled flap of wings. Clouds of dust from the bird droppings rose in the air, making Emma’s eyes water. “And Lovesey saved us. So if he says we shouldn’t use a mesmer, then we shouldn’t. He gave up everything to protect us.”
“Is that why he’s burned?” Emma asked.
Laika looked disapproving as she said, “Yes, he got burned. He used to be one of the greatest admirals of the Leo fleet, but when he saw that the Queen destroyed a whole bunch of rebel systems and was about to kill all the orphans who were fleeing from the planets, he stole the Argh and helped us escape. The galaxy’s a big place, and we can avoid the navy most of the time, but there are bounty hunters who are searching for us, and they’re allowed to do whatever they can to reclaim the ship—even if it means killing us. So no, you can’t communicate with anyone outside, and we can’t help you figure out where your parents are.”
Emma was chagrined. She hadn’t fully realized until now that the Argh was full of fugitives and that they were hiding from the navy. Quietly, she had to admit that having the Pyxis on board might very well put the whole crew in greater danger. The entire navy might be coming after them now. It further disturbed her that the Arghs were orphans, and that the Queen had destroyed their planets. It was no wonder Laika was hoping the pirates would show up to fight the navy. Emma wanted to ask how the Queen could destroy a planet in the first place, but she sensed that Laika was uncomfortable talking about it.
“You’re going to have to figure out where your parents are when you get to the next port,” Laika said. “That’s Cygnus. And it’s going to take at least a week to get there.”
“That’s a long time,” Herbie said.
“I’m sorry,” Laika replied, “but there’s nothing we can do.”
Diffidently, she gave each of them a broom and put them to work. They spent the rest of the morning sweeping the floors and changing the bedding and doing every bit of grunt work she asked them to do. Herbie seemed to feel bad that Laika was upset, and he asked a few questions about the birds and the aerie. He was genuinely curious, but Laika gave only terse replies. Finally, he said, “Well, I can see why you like working up here. You’ve got the best view on the Argh.”
Laika seemed to soften a bit. “Yeah, you can see all kinds of things that you can’t see from the main deck.”
“Like what?” Herbie asked.
“Well, the dragons are the best.”
Herbie nearly dropped his broom. “You mean, real dragons?”
Laika snorted. “Of course. What other kinds are there?”
“I didn’t think they were real.”
“Oh, they’re real. You should see them on Draco,” Laika said, her voice picking up a little more enthusiasm now. “We sail there sometimes. We sneak into the edges of the system because we’re not technically allowed in, but the dragons flock really high up, so you can only see them from the aerie. It’s amazing. And they’re not really flocks—maybe just two or three at a time, but that’s a lot for dragons.”
Herbie was wide-eyed. “Are they only on Draco?”
“Aw, no, they’re all over,” Laika said. “We saw one last month on Regulus…. ”
They kept talking. Emma was relieved that Laika was warming up to them. And she had to admit it was pretty cool that there were dragons in space. But she couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d learned: there was no way to find out what was happening to her parents. It seemed pointless now to talk to the captain—if he couldn’t communicate with the outside world, then he certainly couldn’t tell her anything either. They had lost any trail they might have had, and now they were stuck on the ship until they landed on Cygnus. There had to be something else she could do….
At the end of the day, they climbed down from the aerie. It was even more difficult than going up, and when they reached the bottom, Herbie looked rattled.
“Maybe we should ask Santher to give us some other work,” Emma said.
“Like what, swab the deck?” Herbie said. “I’m not going to do that. Besides, I want to keep working in the aerie.”
“I thought you were afraid of heights,” Emma said.
“Not really,” he said. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea to put your life in danger unless there’s a really good reason.”
“Like dragons,” Emma said.
He smirked. “I just have to find a safer way to climb these ropes.”
The next morning, Emma was surprised that Herbie wasn’t waiting for her outside her room. She searched for him in the corridors and the dining hall, but he wasn’t there. Midway through breakfast, he came into the dining hall with a long coil of rope slung over his shoulder.
“I woke up early so I could rig up a safety cord for climbing to the aerie,” he said. “A couple of the monkeys helped me, and I think we worked it out.”
“Wow,” Emma said. “How did you get the monkeys to help you?”
“They just came up to me and started helping. They’re really smart and they seem to understand what I’m saying. Anyway, you can use the safety line too. But we have to go one at a time.”
At the ratlines, she saw what Herbie and the monkeys had done: they had tied ropes to the lines at twenty-foot intervals. Now, as he climbed up, he would be able to tie a line around his waist, climb twenty feet, and switch to another line. This way, he could be secured the entire way.
Herbie went first. He was still a little nervous when he grabbed the first line, but as he got higher, she saw that he was moving with more confidence. He even waved to one of the monkeys dangling near the mast. The monkey replied with a happy hoot.
They spent the next two days working in the aerie. Twice a day they sent the birds on scouting missions, and Emma and Herbie both became quite good at handling the hawks. The rest of the time was spent cleaning and talking.
As the days passed, Emma grew more frustrated being stuck on the Argh, and she spent more time staring out the aerie’s windows, scanning the Strand for stars or planets or even navy ships. She wasn’t sure what she would do if she did see a ship, but it kept her hopes up to see that the Argh was making good progress down the Strand.
Laika had become more friendly, but she wasn’t ready to give up her quest for the truth, and she continued to sneak in questions about why the navy was after them while Herbie tried to answer without revealing who Emma’s parents were. Emma began to notice just how attentive he was becoming to Laika. Every time she gave them a new assignment, Herbie jumped to do it. And every time she talked about the ship, Herbie asked a dozen questions, which Laika answered enthusiastically.
On the third afternoon, they were waiting for the hawks to return when the room grew suddenly darker.
“Uh-oh,” Laika said, rushing to the window. “I think those are s
creech bats. They flock this high up.”
Herbie and Emma both dropped their brooms and went to the window. About fifty yards ahead, they could see a dark shape in the sky above them.
“What are screech bats?” Herbie asked.
“They’re like regular bats,” Laika said. “But they make this horrible screeching sound that will knock you out. We’d better get earplugs.” She went to a cupboard near the door and began rooting around.
“They’re not making any noise right now,” Herbie said.
“They will if the mast disturbs them,” Laika replied. She came back to the window with a handful of cloth scraps. “We usually sail below the colonies, but this one is pretty low. We might hit them. And the babies are the worst. They’re louder than the adults. One time a baby knocked out the whole ship…. ”
A terrific thump shook one side of the room. Laika quickly handed them the cloth scraps. “Here, put these in your ears.”
“I thought bats had good navigational abilities,” Herbie said. “Why are they hitting the wall?”
“They must be babies.”
Emma and Herbie pushed the cloth into their ears just as bats began fluttering into the room. Emma shrieked. They didn’t look like bats—they were more like large insects. Laika motioned to the windows and mouthed: We’d better shut them! The three of them raced around, closing the shutters while the bats fluttered around them. The thumping continued outside.
Herbie was saying something. Emma had to pull the cloth from one ear to hear him, but the moment she did that, she was jolted with pain. It felt as if someone had stuck a Taser in her ear. A horrific SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEE filled her head, and she fainted.
When she came to, she was lying on the floor of the aerie. The air reeked of dung and feathers, and Herbie and Laika were standing by the window, arguing.
“We can’t kill it!” Laika said. “It’s just a baby!”
“It’s a killer baby,” Herbie said. “Look what it did to Emma.”
They noticed that she was awake.
“Are you okay?” Herbie bent over and helped her to her feet. “Why did you take the cloth out of your ear?”
“Because it looked like you were saying something important,” she groaned. Feeling ridiculously woozy, she sat back down.
“Oh. Sorry. When you fell, you landed on one of the babies.” He held up a small glass jar filled with water. There was a bat inside. It looked dead.
“You saved it?”
“It’s not dead,” Herbie said. “Its wing is broken.”
“Why is it in water?”
“Apparently this is the only way to get it to stop screeching.”
“They like being underwater,” Laika explained. “It’s where they sleep.”
Emma took another look at the creature—it was tiny indeed, no bigger than her thumb, and she thought she detected a grimace of pain on its little face. “I’m sorry I hurt it,” she said.
“He’ll be okay,” Laika said. “We’re going to let him heal. Then we should keep him as a pet.”
Herbie remained silent.
Once Emma stopped feeling dizzy, they left the aerie for dinner. Emma climbed down more slowly than usual, watching Herbie and Laika joking around below her. Emma didn’t mind that Herbie was becoming such good friends with Laika, but it bothered her that they seemed to be having such a great time when all Emma could think about was where her parents were and how to find them.
By the time they got to the dining hall, Emma realized that she wasn’t hungry. In fact, the only thing she wanted was to do something. She couldn’t stand waiting anymore. Telling Herbie and Laika that she had to go to the bathroom, she turned on her heel and walked out.
It took quite a while to find it, but after getting lost down a dozen dead-end hallways and stumbling into the shipwright’s workshop, Emma finally found a staircase that took her to the cargo hold.
The Markab was still near the cargo door, and still lying in pieces. She spotted a few monkeys working along the many rows of stacked cartons and barrels, but otherwise the room was quiet. It brought tears to her eyes to see the Markab so damaged. She walked around the broken yacht, picking up shrapnel and loose bits of plastic and trying her hardest not to cry. She had come here thinking she might be able to repair it, but seeing it now, she realized it was going to be impossible. She simply had no idea how to fix it.
Overwhelmed, she sat down on the floor, pulled her knees to her chin, and stared at the boat. Her dad had bought the yacht when she was five years old. It was the only boat they’d ever owned, and it had never been damaged before. What would he say if he saw it now? “The one time you and Herbie take the boat yourselves, and you’ve destroyed it!” At the very least, they’d lose their “ordinary seaman” status.
But if he were here now, he’d also have a lot of explaining to do. He’d have to tell her where he and Mom were really from, and why they were pirates, and why they never told her about the Pyxis or outer space. The Markab looked like any other ship on Earth, but what if Dad had bought it on the Strands? Maybe he’d even used it to travel to space….
He and Mom had been hiding out for years without getting caught, so how did the kidnappers find them? This question had been bothering Emma, and now, after everything that had happened in the past four days, she figured that Herbie was right: Dad had lied about going to Phoenix. He’d probably gone to space instead. That was when Caz and Laine had seen him. They must have followed him home. Even though she didn’t want him to see the Markab like this, she desperately wished he were here to explain himself, because if felt like she didn’t know him at all anymore.
She also needed him right now. He would know how to repair the boat. He would be able to explain everything about space. He would find a way to communicate with the outside world and get them off this big ship. But he wasn’t here. With a frightened flutter in her throat, Emma wondered if she’d ever see him again.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting there, but the sound of someone coming brought her out of her gloom. Santher was making his way down one of the aisles. He seemed to be looking for something, and when he saw her, he came over.
“There you are,” he said. “Herbie and Laika were getting worried.”
“Oh.” She looked at the Markab. “I wanted to check on the boat. I thought maybe there was some way I could fix it…. ” Her voice cracked and trailed off.
Santher regarded her with catlike interest. “That astrolabe you’re carrying around…it’s not really an astrolabe, is it?”
She was surprised. “How did you know I have an astrolabe?”
“I didn’t,” he said, flashing her a grin. “You just told me. I saw the outline in your shirt at dinner last night and it looked like an astrolabe.” Seeing that she wasn’t going to reply, he motioned to the Markab. “We could try to repair your boat. But we’d have to rebuild the hull. It might take a few days.”
“Wait.” She stood up. “That’s it—just a few days?”
“Yeah. We have a lot of monkeys. They’re really good at this kind of thing.”
“Could you do it?”
“Sure.”
“How much will it cost?” she asked warily.
“Cost? Well, let’s see…how about this: I fix your boat, and in exchange, you tell me more about your astrolabe?” His eyes were bright with curiosity.
“That’s it?” she asked. “You only want to know about my necklace?”
“Yep.” He was holding back a grin. “That’s it.”
“You don’t actually want my necklace,” she said. “You just want me to tell you about it?”
“Right.”
“What if there’s nothing to tell?”
“Oh, I have a feeling there is.”
She knew it was dangerous to tell anyone about the Pyxis, but she was so desperate to restore the Markab that his offer seemed like a very good deal. A sneaky part of her figured she didn’t have to tell him the truth anyway. She would just ma
ke up a story.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll tell you about my necklace. But you have to fix the Markab first.”
“Fair enough,” he said. And with that, he was off. He marched down to the other end of the hold and came back with a chest of tools and a dozen monkeys. They swept over the boat at once, eagerly pulling and prodding every broken part, while Santher unloaded tools from the chest.
Emma still couldn’t believe this was happening. “Are you serious about this?” she asked. “You can really fix my boat?”
“I can,” he said.
“Have you ever worked on a boat before?”
He stopped unloading and threw his head back with a laugh. “Have I ever worked on a boat before! Don’t you know I’m the shipwright’s first assistant? I’ve been repairing boats for three years. I fix the Argh! I think I can handle a little scrap like this one.” Still shaking his head, he ordered Emma to fetch some wood from one of the cargo aisles. She went off in vague disbelief to find the wood.
Santher appeared confident enough, but she still thought he was too young to know so much about boats and tools. The monkeys helped her carry back the great slabs of wood, and the boxes of nails and scrap metal, and the miscellaneous tools, and anything else that Santher needed. Emma stood watching uncertainly. Before long he put her to work as well, sanding down beams and sawing off chipped corners, all while keeping a close eye on her progress.
“Do you think this is going to be okay with the captain?” she asked.
“I don’t see why not,” Santher replied. “We came across a Delphinian corsar a few months ago. It was stranded, as they say, on a Strand near Lyra. We put them back in good form, and they didn’t have anything to pay us with. The captain’s pretty generous, you see. He’s a good man, Lovesey.”
Nevertheless, Emma began to feel guilty about their “deal.” Santher was doing all this work in exchange for what—the truth about the Pyxis? But why would he care, unless he already knew what the Pyxis was? And if he did, then why would he want her to tell him what he already knew? She watched him work, instructing the monkeys in fitting a strip of wood to the hull, and saw that he was happy. Maybe he only wanted to do this because he liked it.
