“Bridge.”
“Yes, Akellar.”
“Call my watch into the Tank.” He wheeled around and pushed her, hard. “I warned you. You stay with me from now on. Or in here with the hatch locked.” He flew to the hatch. His wake was heated with his rage. She gave a quick glance around the room and followed him.
They went through the warren of the ship into the yellow corridor. One of the men from Tanuojin’s watch was coming the other way, and Saba attacked him. The other man never tried to fight back. He rolled to one side, his arms up to protect his face, and Saba slashed at him. Tanuojin’s man dodged behind the blow and raced away. Saba let him go. Paula went after him through the curtain of their scents. He swerved up into the Tank.
Sril and Bakan were at the far end of the long dim room. Near the hatch, Saba’s helmsman was talking to Marus, Tanuojin’s helm. Without a word, Saba flew at Marus. All three of the men of his watch charged at the man they had just been tolerating and clawed at him. Paula flinched back to the wall. Marus burst free and fled out the hatch, leaving a smoky trail of blood behind him in the air.
Sril came up to her. The gold wire winked in his nose. “Mendoz’, this is how innocent sailors die in space.”
Saba circled in the middle of the room, below the posters of naked women. Ketac had come in; he floated over beside Paula.
“Thank you,” she said, low.
“You helped me,” he said. “I pay my debts.”
“Listen to me.” Saba looked around at his men. “My lyo thinks he can run around me in my own ship. I’m going to kick him into shape, so stay away from him, unless you want some extra stripes.” He lunged at Ketac and got him by the shirtfront. “That means you, clothead.” He pushed his son backward away from him.
Paula sidled down the wall. Bubbles of Marus’s blood bobbed in the air around the hatch. It was the low watch, when Saba and Tanuojin were both off-duty. She looked both ways into the tunnel. A few yards away on either side, its kinks took it out of sight. She went out the hatch.
There was nowhere she could go to hide from them. The ship was like a maze. She flew down toward the red corridor. A sound ahead of her made her stop sharp. Tanuojin came around the next bend.
He flew at her, and she raced back the way she had come, into the S-curves below the Tank. Just out of his sight, she flattened herself against the wall. He sailed past her. She went back the other way. He struck at her and missed her by inches, his claws like knives. She was faster than he was. At the mouth of the red corridor she paused and looked back and saw him stopped ten feet up the tube, watching her. She went down to her cabin and locked herself in.
She was too jittery to play her flute. She prowled around and around the room. The cold and dark closed over her. The Styths on watch swam through the monitor screens. Her throat was still sore. She was tired. Her eyes burned in their sockets. Taking out the bedrug, she clipped the ring to the wall and wrapped herself up in the thick shag.
Saba woke her, banging on the door. She let him in. He came past her into the room. When he turned she saw four deep scratches down the side of his jaw.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
The wounds were marked in dried blood. She put one hand on his shoulder, holding her blanket around her with the other. “What happened to your face?”
“There’s nothing wrong with me.” He brushed her off. Unbuckling his belt, he peeled his overalls off. She backed away from him.
“Was that Tanuojin?”
“No. I can’t find him.”
They rolled the bed around them. The wings overlapped and clung to one another. She squirmed until she was comfortable. He ground the heel of his hand into his eyes.
“I’d like to wrap his damned dirty tongue around his neck.”
They lay quiet a moment. The floating bed rocked slightly back and forth. His fingers moved in her hair. Usually he was asleep before she was even settled enough to close her eyes.
“Why does he do this to me?” he said.
“How long have you known him?”
“Since we were neophytes.”
“Then you know what he’s like.”
He barked a flat laugh. “Yes. He knows what I’m like, too, which is why he’s staying out.”
“How did you meet him?”
“I don’t remember.” He squirmed around in the bedrug. “It was while I was loading. He was always around, being creepy. I couldn’t stand him. He’s nobody, and he has that nasty mouth—Anyhow, I got sick, and my friends decided I was dying and left me in an alley. He found me and took me to his trap. When I had the fits, he put his hands on me and I stopped kicking. He kept me alive all the time I was shedding my joe. As soon as I could stand up, we swore the irelyon.”
He yawned. The wounds down his face were ridged with dried blood. Grouchy, he said, “Now he thinks I’m his sole property.” She watched him fall asleep. For a long while, she lay in the air beside him, thinking of Tanuojin.
At three bells she went after him down the winding tunnel to the bridge. The rest of his watch was gathered around the hatch. Saba pushed the hatch open, and she followed him into the hollow bridge.
The other men streamed in behind them. On the perches along the wall, Tanuojin’s watchmen started up, intent. Saba dropped feet-first toward the cage. Tanuojin circled around it. His yellow eyes were fixed on his lyo. Saba ignored him. Tanuojin shot up to the hatch and plunged out. His watch followed him.
Paula settled down to the space of clear wall before the holograph. Ybix sailed thin as a blade through the green void. Saba was in the cage. He sat unmoving, his shoulders bowed. She watched him through the bars. He rubbed his hands; at the tips of his fingers the claws clicked together. Sril brought him a watchboard and hung there holding it out for half a minute before Saba noticed him. Paula fixed her eyes on the holograph.
The watch dragged along. Saba would not let her leave the bridge. She went around to the other stations to watch what the crew did. Bakan let her wear his headphones while he made up his log. His little finger stuck out crooked from his hand, swollen like a sausage. All she could hear in the headset were beeps and squeaks, half-animal noises.
Finally she said, “I’m hungry.”
“Wait.” Saba was writing on a watchboard. He did not look up.
“I’m starving.”
“Ay. Sril. Go with her.”
She thrust herself up through the bubble of the bridge toward the hatch, not waiting for Sril. He met her in the corridor just beyond, and they went side by side down to the black-white tunnel.
“How long will this last?” she said.
“Until it stops.”
The tunnels were empty. They flew along looking over their shoulders, furtive. In the slot of the galley, she breathed a trace of a scent, like a feather from a peacock’s tail. Peeling off the wrapper, she ate a food tablet. Sril was braced in the hatch, keeping guard.
“Does this happen often?” she asked.
“Depends on the ship. On the ship’s master. Yekaka used to start watch wars just to keep his crew in shape.”
“Did you serve under Yekaka too?”
He shook his head. “My father was his prima gunner. My grandfather was gunner under Yekaka’s father. Hurry up and eat.”
She took a protein strip and a tube of water and followed him out along the corridor. A head popped through a hatch before them and ducked back out of sight. Sril grabbed her arm.
“Move!”
He pushed her along through a bend in the tunnel. Just in front of her she smelled someone coming, and she pulled back out of his grip. Marus shot toward her. Sril lunged between them. The two men tangled together, their claws fixed in each other’s faces, their legs milling. One of them whistled. She ducked away from them. Beyond Marus, another of Tanuojin’s men appeared. He and Marus flung themselves on Sril. Their locked bodies packed the tunnel. Sril’s face was ripped. She wanted to help him but she could not think how.