"None of us can reach that lantern," said Fanning, as if nothing had happened. "But you're young and lanky. Care to try? We need these splinters heated but not burned."
"Ah." He took them in one shaking hand. "Okay." Drops of Martor's blood were drifting past his nose, scented of iron. Hayden carefully ducked around them and pressed his shoulder to the bars of the cage. Once again in middistance he heard grating, accented voices: that was not the crew of the Rook. The pirates might see his hand groping around the corner of the crate—it was going to be brightly lit, after all—but he'd be damned if he was going to seize up like a busted engine every time one of them sneezed. He had to try his part to save Martor.
By straining until spots appeared in his eyes, he was able to get his hand around the corner of the crate. He knew the shape of the little lanterns intimately: they were like tiny bikes, open-ended cylinders with a wind-up fan at one end to move air past the lamp's wick. He pictured the device in his mind, and moved one of the splinters until he figured it was near the flame. He waited a moment, then brought it back.
The splinter was still cool. He tried again, shifting position slightly. Five tries and he put it right into the flame, making it catch light so that he had to quickly blow on it while Carrier cursed him for a fool. But he was getting the hang of it now.
A few minutes later he gingerly handed two hot lengths of wood to Fanning, who grunted in approval. Hayden felt proud of himself, happy for the implied praise, and then angry at himself for valuing Fanning's opinion.
Now that Fanning was at work, Hay den felt he could finally ask the questions that were burning in him. "Who shot him?" he asked Fanning's staff member. The man looked over Martor's arm at him with a bemused look on his face.
"We were going to ask you the same question," he said. "They threw you both in with us an hour after we lost the fight. I'd heard a shot… Were you outside the ship?"
Hayden nodded. "Clearing mines… Now I remember. He hit me on the head because I refused to return to fight. You'd… already lost."
"Wisdom is often rewarded with a blow to the head," said the other. "My name is Travis. This is Carrier. You probably know the—uh, Ensign Fanning, here." Travis smiled ruefully. "You have the privilege of being stuck in the cage reserved for troublemakers. Fanning and I were caught sneaking outside the ship. Carrier made it all the way into the bridge of the enemy ship and killed six people before they subdued him. And apparently, you two attacked a fully armed pirate ship with one bike and two pistols. We're a pretty worrisome lot, I guess."
"But we're alive," said Carrier in a flat voice. "Stupid of them."
"They don't know—" Fanning's voice was distracted "—which of us might be valuable."
"They don't know who he is," Travis whispered, jabbing a thumb at the admiral. "But they know there was an admiral on board. His ransom might be the only profit they see off his escapade."
"Thought I was him," said Carrier with the first trace of amusement he'd shown. "Why they didn't shoot me on the spot."
"Ah!" Fanning hunched over, gritting his teeth as he slowly inched his hands back. At last he drew a gleaming metal slug into the dim light. "That's it. Let's patch him up."
They'd each torn strips off their shirts. Hayden reached to hand some to Fanning, and his hand faltered. "Just a sec—" he said. Then the black wing descended again over everything.
"I'M NOT SURE that's such a good idea," said somebody. Hayden felt his body twitch once, then he was blinking around at a half-familiar vision of dimly lit bars and crowded bodies.
"Travis, I let you talk me out of surrendering myself when these criminals started torturing our men and now I feel ashamed of myself." Admiral Fanning sat on the air, knees up and his hands tightly gripping them. His breath misted in the cold air as he spoke.
Martor drifted, face pale and limbs akimbo, in the center of the cage.
"But it was to protect the details of the mission—"
"Hang the mission! These men are my responsibility. If I can spare just one of them the agonies we heard earlier, then I have to."
"Not if that ultimately kills them," murmured Carrier. "Quiet, someone's coming."
Hayden had been about to ask how Martor was. The sound of someone hand-skipping off the beams of the ship silenced him.
After a moment a lean, pale face appeared outside the cage. The pirate was young, almost grotesquely spindly, and dressed in layers of patched jackets, vests, and pantaloons. Keeping a safe distance, he shoved a couple of flasks in the general direction of the cage. "One's fer pissing, one's fer drinking," he said as they sailed over. "Don't get 'em mixed up."
Admiral Fanning cleared his throat. "Where are we going?" he asked in a calm tone.
"Voyeur's palace," said the pirate. "After we catch up to the rest of our fleet." He pushed off from the cage and began climbing away like a four-limbed spider.
"What's the voyeur's palace?" whispered Travis.
"I think he meant the tourist station," said Fanning. "That's bad news. It means they found out what we're up to."
Travis sighed. "Great. So you're telling me the pirates know the purpose of our mission in winter, while your senior staff still do not?"
Martor was breathing regularly, Hayden saw. He turned his attention to Fanning, who was looking chagrined.
"The revelation that we were looking for a famous treasure was to be kept from the men until we were actually there," said Fanning. "We felt it might… affect discipline… among the press-ganged members of the crew."
Carrier guffawed. "They might mutiny so they could set themselves up like kings, you mean."
"Yes, Mr. Carrier. That is what I mean."
Hayden stared from one man to the other. What was this about a treasure?
"But why undertake such an expedition now?" Travis shook his head. "We're at war with Mavery. There's indications that Falcon Formation is going to take advantage of the fact and stage an invasion. Why go running halfway around the world for gold? Unless…"
"Belay that thought, Travis," said Fanning. "We're doing this for the survival of Slipstream, and our present client nation." Hayden started at this mention of Aerie. "The fact is," Fanning continued, "our navy is no match for Falcon's. We need an edge, and since our Pilot has successfully alienated all our current neighbors, that edge can't be diplomatic. It has to be military."
"But a pirate's treasure?"
"Oh, forget the treasure, man. We'll divide that up between the men, I don't care about that. It's what's said to be kept with the treasure that interests me. Something that would be valueless to any of these men—or to pirates, for that matter."
"And that is…?"
Fanning smiled enigmatically. "We sometimes forget, Travis, that we live in an artificial world—a world sustained by mechanisms so vast that we seldom realize that's what they are. And mechanisms built by man have doors, and locks… I've said too much. Suffice it to say, if we find what we're looking for, Falcon Formation should be easy to handle."
Travis—and Hayden—waited. When nothing more was forthcoming, Travis said in annoyance, "Didn't you say 'hang the mission' a few minutes ago? Now you're being protective of it again."
"That's because our benefactor there," Fanning nodded in the direction the pirate had gone, "gave me an idea."
Hayden decided to reveal the fact that he was awake. "How's the kid?" he asked—though he also wanted to hear more about this treasure. His voice came out as a croak; he realized as he spoke how terribly thirsty and hungry he felt.
"The boy will recover," said Carrier. "What are you thinking, Admiral?"
Fanning reached up to pull on the bars of the rocket rack where they were riveted to the hull. "This ship wasn't originally designed for winter," he said. "It's a retrofit. Now, I once saw a rack like this pull free of the wall during a maneuver in winter. It was due to frost-heaving in the planks."