Peary glared at him and then pointed. “I don’t need to hear from you, Poet. You were out cold, and would be dead and coffined if I hadn’t pulled you up.”
“…And thanks for that,” the Poet said. “But that is immaterial, really. I am here now. I have a brain that still mostly works, and I can see, too. I’m not blind yet, you know? I can see what happened here, and it looks like maybe the rascal saved Marisa from those pirates.”
The Poet could see that Peary strained against the revelation. The diver’s finger was still tight against the trigger, and the Poet could see that pulling that trigger would release something in Peary. Whether that something was good or bad, the Poet didn’t know, but it seemed like Peary needed to take his frustrations out on someone. He’d just killed a handful of men, and here he was almost anxious to kill another. Peary’s finger loosened, but only a bit. “Just be quiet, please, and let us figure this out,” Peary said.
The old man pushed himself up until he was standing. The gear weighed heavy on him, so he released the tank from his back and lowered it to the sand. He’d forgotten he was wearing it. “Diver… think about it. If he was working with these men, he’d have just let them kill her. No need to risk himself.”
“She had a gun,” Peary said. He waved the gun in the air as if he were emphasizing the obvious.
“And for that—if they’d seen it—they would have killed her first,” the Poet said. “Take it from me. I’ve run with pirates.” The Poet crouched down again, resting on his heels. “They are not the kind of people that will let a woman with a gun slow them down.”
Peary didn’t move. It was obvious to the Poet that the younger man was considering what he’d been told.
“Work it out, diver,” the Poet said. “Looks to me like he did the same kind of thing I tried to do when I stole your sarfer and your salvage. Tried to keep someone from making a mistake that would cost them their life.”
Peary didn’t blink. His finger was still on the trigger. Not exactly tensed, but still ready. He was unconvinced.
The Poet continued. “Put yourself in his place, Peary. If you’re him, and you’re with them, why do anything at all? You wouldn’t. You’d wait until they killed her—which they would have done right quickly—and after they did, you’d claim your reward, whatever that would have been. Hard to know something like that.” The Poet picked up a handful of sand and let it slide out of his hand, like water pouring from a canteen. “Instead, he’s shot and she’s alive. Just work through it, diver—like maybe it’s your job to think things out. Can you come up with any other scenario that ends up with her alive? You don’t have time to save me down deep and then get up top to save her if she’s waving a gun around when they show up.”
Peary took his finger off the trigger and moved his head until he was looking at Reggie face to face.
“Looks to me like he saved her,” the Poet went on, “and just as I have you to thank for my life, you have Reggie to thank for hers.”
Peary lowered the weapon, took his finger off the trigger, and stared down at Reggie.
“Glad you thought it out,” the Poet said. The old man stood and walked over to where Reggie lay on the ground, wounded. He waved a hand at the sandal hop—a wave of derision, as if to say this man isn’t bright enough to be dangerous. The Poet knelt down until he was able to look Reggie in the eye. “He’s a low-life sandal hop, living on the fringes of life. Getting by on scraps and playing all sides against the middle. Why risk his miserable life for strangers?” The Poet stood again. “He wouldn’t.” Even as he said it, the Poet had to wonder if maybe he wasn’t talking more about himself than about Reggie. Hard to know a thing like that, too.
Reggie pressed the palm of his hand against the wound in his side, winced again, and looked over at the old man. “Thanks for that, by the way,” he said. “Glad to know I’ve made such an impression.”
“Shut up!” Peary and the Poet shouted in unison.
“Shutting up,” Reggie said.
Marisa moved to check Reggie’s wound, and Peary let her.
The diver’s thumb once again found the safety and re-engaged it. He waved the gun at Reggie. “Get him patched and ready, and we’ll load up and get out of here before someone starts looking for these pirates.”
Marisa looked up and smiled. “So you’re convinced?”
“Not convinced of anything, yet,” Peary said. “But if he saved your life, I’ll be thankful later. For now, we need to move.”
Trade Town
Chapter Seventeen
Peary directed the work as the mess was cleaned up and the sarfers reloaded. He kept the pistol at the ready, just in case the old man had been wrong about Reggie. “Use the visor and your suit to unbury the pirates and take them down deeper,” Peary said to the Poet. “Just sink ’em down. Can’t leave a trace here in case we ever need to come back and get your treasure.”
“Come back?” the Poet said. “We’re leaving it here?”
Peary nodded. “We can’t get it now, and we don’t need it.” He pointed the pistol at the sand, indicating the down deep. “The salvage from Danvar—along with information about its location—is going to make us all richer than we’ve ever imagined.”
The Poet cut his eyes from the sand up to Peary. “You obviously don’t know my imagination, diver.”
“Don’t care,” Peary said. “It’ll be here if we need it, but I don’t think we will. Let’s sell what we have to Marisa’s uncle and just head west. We’ll have enough coin to take care of us for the rest of our lives.”
“That’s if her uncle—or his men… or some other brigands… or pretty much anyone else in this world of sand—doesn’t kill us first.”
Peary laughed. “You’re already dead, Poet. Dead and coffined down there in the deep. Every minute up here is just bonus for you.”
“Here’s to old men and bonus minutes,” the old man said as he activated his suit and began to loosen the sand around one of the dead pirates. “I suppose you have a point,” he added, before biting down on his mouthpiece and pushing the dead man down. Both poet and pirate disappeared, and Peary walked over to where Marisa was finishing up her work on Reggie’s wound.
“He gonna make it?” he asked.
Reggie looked up and smiled, “Oh, I’m right as rain, diver. Nothing but a scratch, really.”
“Shut up, sandal man,” Peary said. “I was talking to the lady.”
“Will there ever be a time, no matter whose life I save, that someone won’t be telling me to shut up?” Reggie asked.
“Shut up!” Marisa and Peary said in unison.
“Gotcha,” Reggie said and rolled his eyes.
Marisa pulled down the man’s shirt and then rubbed her hands with sand. “He should be fine if infection doesn’t set in. Enough other things out here to kill a man. The infection—if he gets it—might kill him last.”
“We go to your uncle’s place and do the deal,” Peary said. He looked off into the middle distance, trying to calculate unknowns that were piling up like the sand. “Can you get us there from here?”
Marisa nodded. “Three days south. No problem.”
Peary looked at her and smiled. “I’m so glad you’re alive, Marisa.”
“Thank him,” she said, pointing at Reggie, who smiled and bounced his eyebrows for effect.
Peary narrowed his eyes. “Not yet. We’ll see about him.” Then he walked over to where the Poet had resurfaced.
“A rousing show of support,” Reggie said, with a laugh.