Everybody turned to look at the inconspicuous metal panel on the bridge's inside wall. "Once the charges are armed, any kind of disturbance could set them off," she said. "They're supposed to be on a hair trigger."
A new salvo of gunfire sounded outside. "That would be your men, shooting at the bikes," said Venera. "You know there's going to be return fire."
One of the pirates was crouched over the control box. "It does appear to be a scuttling panel. Captain," he said. "And there's a key broken off in me lock."
Dentius swore softly.
"Close your mouth, you look like a fool," said Venera.
"Belay that message!" Dentius dove for the semaphore chair. "Tell them we request a ceasefire!"
"But… but…" Dentius's lieutenants looked at one another; at him; at Venera.
"Those five ships have no idea how fragile the Rook is right now," Venera pointed out. "And they've just watched their own men be set on fire. Do you really think they're going to be polite?" She shook her head. "It's time to come to terms, gentlemen.You can always threaten to blow us all to smithereens, so your situation's not hopeless. In fact, I'm betting you can escape with your skins and maybe even your own ship. But you'd better start talking fast."
Dentius's eyes were bulging and his face was bright red. He drew his sword and launched himself toward her.
She ducked behind the navigator. "You'd better negotiate with my husband, the admiral," she said quickly. "He's, ah, waiting outside. And Dentius, he'll be more inclined to accept your proposal if he knows I'm alive."
Dentius snarled. Then he turned to the semaphore man. "Send this: 'Request immediate ceasefire. Admiral to negotiate disengagement.' And somebody tell our men to stop firing!"
He glared down the length of his sword at Venera. "Be as smug as you want right now, lady. But I'm putting a price on your head that'll have every thug and cutthroat in Slipstream after you. I'll see you dead in a year, one way or another."
She shrugged out of the navigator's grip. "It'll be just like life back home, then," she said insouciantly. "But I wouldn't count on you living to put out that contract. Not once your own men are done with you."
There was silence after that, and then the outside hatch was opened and one of the lieutenants went out to fetch Admiral Chaison Fanning.
SLEW, THE HEAD carpenter, nodded in greeting as Hayden eased the bike into the hangar. The man was standing with the hatch gang, who all waved. One of them even grinned at Hayden.
Come to think of it, there hadn't been the usual delay in getting the hatch opened when he returned from his search run.
What was all that about?
Hayden was bone weary, having logged ten hours in the air at his own insistence. All the Rook's bikes were out looking for the pirates; so far there had been no sign of them. Dentius and his mates had made a clean getaway, having negotiated a small head start as part of their terms of disengagement. None of the other ships had been seen either; Travis's theory was that they had a hideout somewhere among the icebergs.
Venera's racing bike was riddled with bullet holes and made an odd whisting noise now when it ran. It hadn't lost any performance, though. The thing was developing enough character that Hayden was beginning to think he should give it a name.
"Here, let me." One of the hatch gang whose name he didn't know reached out to help him hook the bike to its winch-arm. Hayden blinked at him in surprise.
"Thanks." He didn't know what else to say, so he ducked his head at the gang and left the hangar. Sick bay was at the back of the ship; he went that way.
A small mob of airmen, silhouettes in the lantern light, crowded around the angular box that was the sick bay. Somebody must have died, Hayden drought—and in a sudden rush of anxiety he elbowed his way through the crowd.
But no, he heard Martor's voice well before he got to the door. The boy was awake and talking. Not just talking: his voice wove up and down in pitch and volume, like a master storyteller's.
"… So we's got this bag of mines, now, see. And Hayden sez, 'Let's take 'em and blow those icebergs!' So there we are weaving our way in and out of the rest of the mines, voom voom, and we're in the clouds. And sure as itches, there's this great awful wall of ice comes at us out of the mist. Got this little tiny neck holding it to the wall of the world and Hayden sez, 'Let her rip!' so I do. Boom—ow! Oh, that smarts."
"In my report," came the surgeon's dry voice, "I shall state that Master Martor died of an excess of hand gestures."
"Yeah," somebody shouted over the laughter, "tone down the jumping about, boy. I want to hear how this ends."
Hayden paused at the doorway, uncertain of whether to go in. He didn't like that Martor had been talking about him, although that might explain why the hatch gang had been so polite just now.
Suddenly worried about what the boy had been saying, he tapped the man in the doorway on the shoulder. "Well, here he is, the man hisself," said the airman as he shifted to let Hayden past. He glided into the sick bay and grabbed the back of a cot to stop himself.
Wounded men tiled the floor, walls, and ceiling of the place. Nearly all of them were awake and apparently listening to Martor, who had pride of place, propped like some parody of a doorman by the entrance to the surgery.
"Hayden, I was just telling the guys how we blew the icebergs and saved the fleet!" Martor's ferret like face was twisted into a quite uncharacteristic smile. "The pirates flew right into 'em, blam blam blam!" He laughed and immediately winced. "And then," he said to the general crowd, "he sez, 'Now let's go back and save the Rook!' Just the two of us, can you imagine? But he—"
"I did no such thing," Hayden said sternly. "I wanted to get the hell out of there."
"But Hayden," stage-whispered Martor. His eyes darted at the listening men. "Tell 'em how we attacked the pirates, huh?"
Hayden crossed his arms and gave his best adult's frown at Martor. "I don't remember us attacking the pirates, because after we saw that the Rook had been taken, this little snake rapped me over the head with a rocket when I tried to fly him away to safety."
He couldn't have said what he expected, but Hayden was vastly surprised as the assembled men broke into peals of laughter.
Someone clapped him on the shoulder. "Ah, Martor, I wondered just how far your lying instinct would take you this time," said one of the officers. "Too bad you had a witness this time."
"But it's true about the icebergs," Hayden said quietly. "At least—we did blow them. I can't vouch for whatever else he might have worked into the tale."
"Like the emergency stop at the whorehouse?" someone asked.
"Or the sword fight with the hundred pirates on bikes?"
"Or the—"
"I never said that stuff!" Martor tried to get out of his bed, grimaced, and let the elastic sheet flatten him back against the wall.
"This has gone too far!" shouted the surgeon. "The lad really is going to bust a kidney if you all keep this up. Out! Out! That goes for you too," he said, waggling a finger at Hayden.
Hayden couldn't suppress his grin. "Since I know you're not dead, I'll be on my way," he said to Martor. "But no more lies about me, you hear?"
"Yes, sir," said the boy sullenly.
Hayden headed for Aubri Mahallan's little workshop. All around him the ship was abuzz with talk. He knew this, he'd seen it before after the few one-sided fights he'd been in when he was a pirate himself. The trauma of the battle and captivity had to be exorcised somehow; there were some fights, the settling of scores, but mostly, the airmen were exchanging their stories. In the process they were building a whole mythology around the battle.