It was late afternoon before Corean caught up to them. Ruiz and Nisa sat together at the taffrail, gazing out at the flat landscape. The spires of SeaStack had drawn close enough to tower menacingly over them, and Ruiz had begun to hope that they would reach the city before Corean found them.
Then Corean’s sled swooped past, ten meters off the ground, fifty meters out. It veered around and burned past again, and Ruiz imagined he could see Corean’s dark hair through the armorglass bubble.
He jerked Nisa to her feet and ran for the pit, where they might get some protection. As he ran, he shouted for the others, who tumbled into the pit just moments after he and Nisa arrived.
“It’s Corean, I’m afraid,” Ruiz said.
Flomel tugged at his leash and fixed Ruiz with red eyes. “Now you’ll get what’s coming to you, casteless one,” he said, gloating.
Corean laughed with genuine pleasure. “Wonderful,” she said. She had seen Ruiz Aw and his Pharaohan slut running to hide under the testicles of the grotesque statue atop the barge. “You saw them?”
“Yes,” answered Marmo. “Do you recognize the barges? I wonder who they belong to.”
“No… but what does it matter? What should we fear from creatures who decorate their craft with such leering monstrosities? They must be primitives.”
“Possibly.”
She laughed again. “Though you must admit, Ruiz Aw’s hiding place is strikingly appropriate.”
Marmo made a noncommittal noise.
“Well,” she said. “Let’s see if they’re stupid enough to surrender. If I can get the Pharaohans back in one piece, I can still salvage something from this fiasco.”
She slowed her sled until it paced the barge and activated a loudhailer.
“Ruiz Aw! I see you; no point in hiding. Come out empty-handed, and we’ll put this unpleasant episode behind us.” Corean’s amplified voice was light and easy.
Ruiz peeked over the rim of the pit. The survey sled floated a mere twenty meters off the port gunwale; if only he had a ruptor, or even a heavy portable graser….
“Come now… I admit to being hasty, before. I was very glad you managed to shut down the boat before my little fit of temper resulted in an unhappy accident. My people tell me the damage is not so bad.”
A moment passed, then she resumed her persuasions. “I was hasty in sending you to the Gencha. Clearly your cleverness is too valuable a commodity to risk so foolishly. Now I understand what an enhancement to my business you’d be, truly I do. We’d make such a formidable team.
“You won’t come out? Well, I don’t blame you for not trusting me. I want to make amends, truly. The Pharaohans belong to me; send them out and you can go your way, no hard feelings — though I hope you’ll change your mind and enter my service someday.”
The sled withdrew a short distance. Flomel was smiling, as if he actually expected Ruiz to release him into Corean’s custody. Ruiz was tempted to; Flomel deserved it richly.
“What next?” asked Dolmaero.
“She’ll talk some more; then she’ll start shooting. I don’t think she’s stupid enough or crazy enough to come on board after us — she’ll content herself with cutting us to pieces from a distance.”
Nisa clung to him with both arms, eyes shut tight.
Flomel gasped. “You won’t let us go? Why? Why? You insist that we die with you?”
Ruiz sighed. “The others are free to turn themselves over, but you and I, Flomel, we must live or die together. Besides, the barge won’t let us go.”
Molnekh shivered. “I’m not brave enough to risk her kindness, anyway. Guildmaster?”
“Nor am I.”
Ruiz felt a black resentment against the slaver — not so much because she was about to kill him; he had never expected to die in bed. No, he hated her because she was stealing a life he might have spent with Nisa. He pulled her close and concentrated on the precious sensations of the moment: the touch of her body against his, her scent, the sound of her breathing. He succeeded in shutting away the thoughts of what might have been.
Corean spoke again, and now her voice was ragged with anger and anticipation. “All right. Keep the woman — my parting gift to you. But send out the others. You know they’re my property!
“You won’t?” A long moment passed, then the survey sled’s weapons pod swiveled and its muzzles twinkled.
Ruiz pressed Nisa to the floor of the pit, covering her with his body. The barge’s containment field flared brilliantly as the projectiles struck and an earsplitting screech assaulted them.
The attack ceased for a moment, and Ruiz felt the vibration of machinery, transmitted through the deck. He raised his eyes cautiously, and saw yellow fire lance out from the barge and touch Corean’s sled. It tilted and wheeled away, staggering through the air in short uncertain arcs. It crossed several fencerows before plunging into a small bog.
Ruiz was on his feet, watching, fists clenched. With all his heart he hoped for a secondary explosion; it didn’t come.
Soon the wreckage was lost to view behind them. On the barge, several impressive arrays of energy weapons rotated their barrels up and sank back into the deck, which closed seamlessly over them.
“Damn!” he said, caught between uncertainty and the elation of survival.
“What is it?” shouted Dolmaero, who still crouched in the pit with the others.
Ruiz sat heavily on the edge of the pit. “We’re safe, for a time. But I’m afraid Corean may still be alive.”
The afternoon moved toward sundown, and another dinner appeared. This time Ruiz was watching, hoping for an opportunity to penetrate the barge’s interior. But the platter descended from a closed-off recess, big enough to hold the platter and nothing else.
Near dusk the barges neared the border between the freeheld lands of the coastal plain and the city of SeaStack. A customs fortress squatted above the canal, a fat armored spider of a building supported on delicate curving pylons.
“What is that?” asked Dolmaero.
“Customs. They won’t bother us.” The pirate lords who controlled most of the activities in SeaStack cared little who entered their watery city — newcomers were fair game, valued for what goods and skills they might bring. But the lords were much less easy about allowing folk to leave SeaStack… who knew what treasures they might try to steal away?
In fact, as their barge passed under the base of the customs fortress, they saw, in the outgoing channel, a small rusty barge tied up to one of the several inspection piers. Its crew stood facing a wall, hands on heads, watched by armed guards. Dozens of uniformed inspectors swarmed over the barge, waving detectors, prying up the barge’s plating, burning probe holes here and there.
Their barges weren’t stopped, as Ruiz had predicted, though as they moved out into the sunlight again at the far end of the fortress, several hard-looking men came out onto an overhanging balcony and gestured ambiguously at them. The pirates spoke together in soft voices, laughing softly, then went back into the fortress.
Finally they passed through a tidegate, out into the labyrinthine waters of SeaStack. Overhead, the towers twisted up into the darkening sky, blotting out most of it. The origins of the stacks seemed even less imaginable, seen up close. In places they rose from constructed bases, or at least shaped metal shone through the crust of age that covered everything. In other places, they seemed wholly natural in their random upward growth, stone and dirt and ancient trees hanging from the terraces that overhung the channels. The bases of the towers were riddled with caves and entryways, some at water level and some higher, some lit by brilliant security lights, others dark and forbidding.