There was movement at their side; a scuff of a leather sole. Mondragon tugged at her arm and she went where he led. Someone led him, someone else crouched down waiting for them at dock-edge where a shadow-plank went up to that barge—no, two someones, one on a side, who knelt there and reached out to keep them steady as Mondragon headed up that plank—Damn. Unexpected cross-boards and the shoes made her feet slip with their unaccustomed heels: she felt Mondragon falter and recover on the tilted, moving surface; felt a hand reach up the inside of her knee and close hard, nothing familiar, a man trying to keep her upright. A second shove steadied her on the other side, and she caught her balance, clutched her bundle and made a quicker, steadier step as the plank rose and fell with the surge, sure of the cross-board interval now. Two more Gallandrys waited at the deckside end of the plank to steady them as they came off it; and as they hit the narrow wooden sideboard that ran around the huge cargo well. She knew these craft. She walked that narrow rim carefully, shook her arm to free it of Mondragon's assisting hand as she walked after the shadow-figure to the deck-edge and the ladder. The guide waited there, stopped her and gripped her sore arm. "Step," the man whispered, and gave her unwanted help, hauling her along down the short railless ladder to the well. Then he pushed her head and shoulders down and shoved her onto her knees toward the barge's version of a hidey, which was a cavern compared to a skip's.
She went in pushing her bundle of spare clothes in front of her on the slats, and crouched there facing the dark inside with the panic fear someone in that black hole might be waiting to grab her and do God knew what, and her not knowing whether to defend herself or not. Her teeth started to chatter and she clenched them. She heard faint footsteps thump overhead and on the boards outside and turned around as someone else came in after her.
A hand groped out, brushing her leg. "That you?" she whispered, hoping it was Mondragon, stifling a reaction if it was not.
"It's me," the whisper came back; and it had better be. The owner of it crouched down and felt his way up her leg and put his arm around her, hugging her close against him. She had not been shivering since upstairs. She began to men, and tried to stop. It was the hour, it was being roused out of bed and bundled out without breakfast, a body always shivered when she was waked prematurely and had to work in chill. His arm tightened as if he thought it was terror, damn him. He trusted this lot of pirates and knew where he was going on their barge.
"Yo," someone called out, meaning they were starting to make natural noise now, just a barge going out of Gallandry the way big barges had to, by night. A lantern flared, bright after ail that dark: the deep empty well of the barge showed bare slats and a clutter of folded tarps and coils of rope. Shadows moved crazily across the narrow view of vaulted ceiling and disappeared into the dark of the canal. Steps thumped on the deck overhead, bargemen cursed and made ordinary conversation.
"They'll know," she objected to Mondragon.
"They'll know, I don't doubt. But they'd have to do something about it."
The engine coughed and coughed under its crank. Caught and tunked away till the helm engaged the screw and the resistance brought the engine down to a steady low thump and echo in the confined Cut. Water surged and washed aft. "Ware cable," someone yelled, which meant they were casting off. Altair felt the motion and put her arm about Mondragon's waist, her head against his shoulder. Cold. Lord, this place was cold. The engine beat and beat its power into her bones.
Big barge could ride a small boat under. Engine noise lumping through the night was no strange thing: biggest barges always moved by night, avoiding traffic. Their lonely sounds haunted the dark—rare, thank the Ancestors; from time to time a bell tolled on darkest nights: Ware, ye little folk, give way, give way, the giant'll roll ye down, grind ye to splinters, send your bones to old Det. Moor a skip too wide beneath the bridges when such as this wanted through and it was ruin; she had seen the like once. Man, woman, and a boy ridden down one rainy night that canalers tied up too numerous beneath the Midtown Bridge; voices screaming, canalers trying in chorus to make themselves heard—Fools, her mother had said after, couldn't have stopped that barge nohow, they knew it. But a body yells anyhow. Makes the gut feel better. —A horrid scrape of wood on iron. Splintering sounds. Cries of rage; and that great black shadow chugging on through the rain, wreckage bobbing near Midtown pilings.
That great black shadow held them in its gut now, and eased out of its berth in the bowels of Gallandry, engine disengaged for the moment as they slewed round up Port Canal.
The engine took hold again, lump, lump, lump. She shivered again. Mondragon's arm tightened around her.
"Where's this thing going?" she asked.
"Right now, to the Grand. It slows and you step off—??
"The hell I will."
"—at the turn. It'll bring up a few seconds on the far bank. You can do it. I know you can."
"You with me?"
"I've got other business. I told you. You go back to your boat."
"The hell I can. You trying to kill me?"
"You go somewhere and lie low then. The noise won't last. I swear to you. Look." Mondragon shifted and fished after something about his middle, took her hand and put two round, flat metal objects into it. "That's gold, Jones. That's two sols, it's the best I can do: hide yourself and hide that boat awhile—buy some supplies and go anchor out in the bay. Buy yourself an anchor while you're at it. They can't come at you out there: this is city trouble."
She thought she had run out of shivers finally. One sharp tremor ran through her. The gold pieces lay in her hand, huge and heavy and unfamiliar. She had never so much as touched a gold piece like that. Not one. It was a fortune in her palm. "I can't use these damn things, I show these round, they'll call the law on me, I can't walk in a place they'll change these pieces. Dammit, Mondragon, you got no sense! Hide me, hide my boat—man gives me what I can't use and gives me advice how to keep away from trouble—how good's your advice, from a man who'd dump my best and only skillet in harbor water?"
"Hush." He touched her face, laid a finger on her lips. Tipped her chin up and followed it with a kiss, the night all giddy with the thumping of the engine, this crazy business of hiding in a barge's gut. She caught her breath.
"Jones," he said. "You'll do all right. I have confidence in you."
"I ain't going."
"You're going," he said softly.
"Maybe I'll just find the law, maybe I'll tell the blacklegs just what—"
He stopped her mouth with a hard grip. "You could die. You could die, Jones. You hear me?"
She bobbed her head. He took his hand away. It had bruised her jaw.
"So you get off this barge," he said. "You take what I gave you, go take care of yourself. I haven't got time to."
"Where was my time? Where was my 'haven't got time to' when I fished you out of the harbor, where was me shivering my teeth loose keeping you warm all night and maybe losing the only damn customers I got while I'm keeping you away from them damn killers, huh?"
The engine chugged on. Water whispered under the hull.
"I can't ever pay you," he said. "That's all. I can't ever pay you. Do what I told you."
"In a—"
Water showered and thundered down into the well, over the deck, pouring down from above; Lord, no, not water: there were fumes. "Damn!" Altair cried, wiping her eyes from the splash and scrambling to her haunches. And: "Ware, hey!" from a bargeman above. Fire meteored down into the well, a lantern that shattered, glared, and licked out fire, fire running in instant tongues, serpents of fire flaring up in the bilge, through the wooden slats toward them. "My God, my God," Altair cried, and shoved at Mondragon in panic fear: out, out of this hole!