The man halted for a moment, halfway between standing and sitting, but met Peary’s stare. When he finally stood, he looked over at Marisa. “I recognize you,” he said. “You’re Joel’s niece, right?”
Marisa smiled. “I am. We’re just returning some gear he lent us, and letting him know we also borrowed his sarfer from the Sand-Hawk Marina.” She shrugged. “We’re out looking for Danvar, like everyone else.”
The guard looked back at Peary and smiled. “All right, then. Tell Joel I went to get a beer.” He put the knife back in its sheath and fastened the snap. “Wouldn’t want to overhear family business, right?”
“Right,” Peary said.
Just then, the tent flap opened and a man beckoned for them to enter. Marisa smiled at the man, and Peary realized that this was her uncle. Nodding a greeting to the man she and Peary walked into the cool and shade of the trader’s business.
“Threatening my helper?” Joel said to Peary.
Peary shrugged. “You’ll want to keep what we have to tell you just between us, I think.” He held up the cases and watched as Joel’s eyes focused on them.
“All right, then,” Joel said. “No more words unless they’re needed, and then only whispers.”
Peary walked over to a counter and placed the cases on it. He popped open the latches and stood back as Joel opened the cases and examined the contents. The trader’s eyes widened, then darted from the goods in the cases to Marisa and Peary and back again. He reached under the counter and pulled up a bag full of coin. He dropped the bag on the counter to emphasize its heft—maybe a thousand coin—and then opened it for Peary to see the contents.
Peary shook his head, his eyes drooping lazily. No.
Joel smiled, then dumped the two cases of salvage into an empty box and began to fill both cases with coin. Almost four times as much coin as he’d offered in the bag. When he was done and both cases were completely full, he looked at Peary and opened his hands as if to say, “That’s all I have.”
Peary leaned forward and whispered. “Twice that and you get the location.”
Joel leaned forward now, too. He didn’t say anything at first, but after a moment of looking at the salvaged goods from Danvar, he whispered back. “You can’t carry that much. And I’ll need a map.”
Peary nodded.
“A very specific map,” Joel added.
Peary nodded again, still whispering. “We’ll pull up in two sarfers. One of them used to be yours, but now it’s mine. We’ll load up and be gone.”
Joel scowled, but there was a smile on his face. “My sarfer, too?”
Peary smiled back and whispered, “It’ll be a really specific map.”
North, and then West
Chapter Eighteen
As Peary, Marisa, and the old man loaded the two sarfers, Joel’s hired man reappeared, hanging around like a shadow near the tents, watching the others work. Peary gave him a “mind your own business” stare—a wordless threat—but otherwise went about securing the gear and readying for the trip. Only Reggie wasn’t busy: he remained strapped into the carry rack on Peary’s sarfer, except when the Poet helped him to relieve himself in the toilet tent.
Once the sarfers were loaded, Peary gave Marisa some coin from his dive pocket and asked her to go to a supply trader to get food and several skins of water for the journey. While she was gone, he made a show of cleaning his gun as Joel’s man watched and smiled.
“You have a wounded man there, diver,” the man said when the silence became heavy enough that everyone could feel it solid and weighty on their backs. “Been wounded a while, too. I’d say a week at least.”
Peary glared at the man.
“If the man was wounded a week ago, and you were up near Low-Pub… you’d have taken him there and left him.”
“I can see why Joel hired you,” Peary replied sarcastically. “Quite observant… really.”
“Oh, I see all sorts of things,” the man said. “But most of ’em I keep to myself.”
Peary glared at the man again. “What’s your name, brigand, or should I just make one up that fits you?”
The man smiled and spun the knife in his hand. “Most of ’em call me Cord, but I don’t much care what I’m called. Maybe what you come up with will be better.”
“Well, Cord, I suppose if you stay out of the wrong people’s business, then it won’t much matter to me what you’re called either.”
“Your injured man could get treatment over at the pub tent,” Cord said, pointing over his shoulder with the knife. He then began cleaning his fingernails with the tip of the blade. “Strange you wouldn’t try to get him some help if all you’re doing is a little thing like looking for Danvar. I mean… not in Low-Pub and not here, neither.”
“Looking for Danvar isn’t a little thing, but it’s all we’re doing,” Peary said. “Most of the world is out searching for salvage from the lost city right now, so we don’t have time to sit around here waiting for a gear hauler to heal.” He motioned to Reggie with the pistol. “Marisa can handle what he’s got, so don’t you worry your ugly little head about it.”
“You show up this far south this late, with a wounded man? Strange is all I’m sayin’. Some people say Danvar has already been found,” Cord said. His eyes darted up to meet Peary’s.
“Is that what they say?” Peary asked. “Well, whoever found it—if it’s been found—is probably living the high life by now. Probably over in Low-Pub buying drinks for low-lifes like you. Maybe you should go check it out?”
There was a burdensome silence for a while, and then the Poet started up with some lines of poetry that just made Cord laugh. At the end of one sonnet, a sand hawk screeched and landed on Joel’s tent, then took off again to the north on some errand or another.
“Even the sand hawk is heading north looking for Danvar,” Cord said. “Which way are you people heading?”
“Sand hawk can’t be wrong,” Peary said. “Danvar must be up that way somewhere. I reckon we’re all going north.”
“Most of the big Legions headed that way a week ago, diver,” Cord said. “Most of them.”
Peary nodded. “I’m sure we’ll find a place to dive somewhere. We’re late, but Danvar was a big city, and it’s a big world out there north of the Thousand Dunes. You should try it sometime, instead of skulking around a tent city like a stray dog looking for a scrap.”
“You hear about Springston?” Cord asked, ignoring the insult. He still had a menacing smile on his face, so his attempts at small talk only continued to rub Peary the wrong way.
“We’ve heard rumors,” Peary said. “Don’t know anything that you don’t know. But I’m done with the small talk. Why don’t you go find somewhere else to hover before you stretch my patience too thin?”
“Me?” Cord shrugged. “I’m just passing the time.”
Peary thumbed off the safety again and brought the pistol to rest on his thigh. “Find somewhere else to pass it, Cord. I’ve been polite, but I’m done with that now.”
Cord grinned, put the knife into its sheath, and snapped it closed. “We’ll see, diver. We’ll see.” He slowly walked away toward the pub tent, but looked over his shoulder one more time and laughed.
They headed north out of the Thousand Dunes, stopping every few hours to check Reggie’s wound. At each stop, Marisa would take the time to look at the Poet’s head too, but that injury seemed to be on its way to healing up just fine. As she worked, Peary would pass around some dried fat that he cut into chunks with his dive knife, or a hunk of jerky and a handful of berries, and they’d each take a long drink from the canteens. The water was rank and smelled faintly of rotted wood, but they knew it had been boiled, so it should be safe enough. On the fifth day northward, Marisa asked Peary when they were going to turn west.