Finally, the landing gear bumped onto the deck and Tekela closed the throttle, stilling the thrum of the engine, before slumping forward with a soft sigh. She sat with her head resting on the dials in what Lizanne suspected was a theatrical pose until she heard a very faint snore emerge from the girl’s nose.
“At any other time signing this would be an unconscionable act.” Trumane sighed before tossing the contract onto his desk. “One the Syndicate would most likely punish with a prison sentence. Now, however.” He shrugged and sank into his seat. Lizanne had expected more resistance from him but divined that his pragmatism outweighed any ingrained corporatist abhorrence for such a patently poor deal.
“There is something else to consider,” she said. “The contract makes no mention of you.”
Trumane frowned at her. “So?”
“It stipulates just about every aspect of our arrangement, including my role and the role of our coterie of inventors, and the employment of the refugees, but says nothing about you, the man they refer to as Captain Noose. I believe this to be a deliberate omission. Captain, I must advise you not to accompany us into Varestian waters. Take the Viable Opportunity and head north, along with Mrs. Griffan. If you can make it to a Mandinorian port you can enlighten what’s left of the Syndicate hierarchy on the true nature of this crisis. Such understanding appears to be sadly lacking at this juncture.”
“No.” Trumane gave a stiff shake of his head. “I have not led this fleet so far to abandon it . . .”
“They’ll hang you,” Lizanne broke in. “The Okanas family, and many of the other clans, feel they owe you a blood debt, something Varestians do not forgive.”
“I have never run from pirates, Miss Lethridge,” he replied in a quiet but steady voice that told her this discussion was over. “I do not intend to start now.” He lowered his gaze to the charts unfurled on his desk, reaching for a pen and compass. “Now, I have a course to plot if you’ll excuse me.”
“The whole composition has eight distinct movements,” Makario said, handing her a partially crumpled sheaf of musical notation. “It was realising this that proved the key. The Artisan certainly had a passion for the number eight.”
Glancing over the papers, Lizanne found them covered in a mostly illegible scrawl of notes interspersed with comments in the musician’s often-tiny script. Lifting her gaze to him, she was struck by the redness of his eyes and the jittery tremble to his hand as he ran it through a mop of unkempt hair.
“How long since you slept?” she asked.
His brow bunched in genuine bafflement. “Why would I sleep with a puzzle like this to solve? I once thought Illemont would be my sole consuming passion, but this.” He turned his gaze to the solargraph and Lizanne found herself wondering about the ability of this device to capture the hearts of those cursed to study it. “The Artisan was as much a musician as he was an inventor. To have met him would have been to know greatness.”
“You’re sure this is all of it?” she asked, setting the pages down on the work-bench.
“I’ve tested it several times, out of earshot of our fellow convict, of course.”
“Very well.” Lizanne turned to regard Tinkerer, who stood at another bench near the starboard bulkhead. He was engaged in completing a prototype redesign of the rocket projectile that had been so useful during the march from Scorazin. This one was larger with a greatly increased range and, thanks to an internal clock-work apparatus of dizzying complexity, would possess a remarkable level of accuracy.
“We’ll wait until he’s finished his new toy,” she said. “In the meantime, please get some rest.”
Three days later she watched Tinkerer’s face closely as the solargraph played the tune, deciding Makario had been right about the Artisan’s musical gifts matching his inventiveness. After he tapped out the first three movements on the chimes the device began to play on its own. Cogs whirred and dials turned as it gave voice to something of such sombre precision that it couldn’t help but tug at her heart. Tinkerer sat through it all with an expression of interest but no particular concern and when he was done his only reaction was to blink at her.
“Have you . . .” Lizanne ventured, “anything to tell me?”
“Yes,” he said with an earnest nod that caused her to lean closer. “I need more brass for the rocket-guidance mechanism.”
“About this,” she grated, stabbing a finger at the solargraph. “About all of this.”
“Oh,” said Tinkerer. “Then no.”
“It’s the right tune,” Makario insisted as Lizanne turned her gaze upon him.
She thought back over her interactions with Tinkerer, all mentions of the Artisan and his shared memories in the trance. The trance. “Here,” she said, taking a vial of Blue from her wallet. “Play it again,” she instructed Makario after she and Tinkerer had both imbibed equal portions of the product.
This time the reaction was immediate. As soon as the tune began Tinkerer’s gaze took on the unfocused cast that told of an imminent trance. However, it wasn’t until the fourth movement that the full effect took hold. Tinkerer’s eyes closed and he slumped to the floor, limbs twitching. Lizanne began to rise from her seat to check on him . . . and found herself standing waist deep in the middle of a fast-flowing river.
She had never experienced such a seamless transition into the trance state before and found it jarring. The sudden switch in surroundings, complete with a change in temperature, sights, smells and sounds made her stagger in the water. She would have lost her footing on the loose shingle of the river-bed if a pair of hands hadn’t reached out to steady her.
“Careful now,” said a voice in soft, cultured Eutherian. “You really can drown in here, you know.”
The woman who had hold of her arms was trimly built of average height with shrewd dark eyes peering at Lizanne from behind a pair of spectacles. She wore sturdy clothes of strong fabric, the kind worn by someone who spends a good deal of time outdoors. A heavy pack was slung over her shoulders and a short-brimmed felt hat sat on her head, tilted back to reveal a shock of close-cropped black hair. She was also, Lizanne noticed, possessed of a high-cheek-boned beauty normally reserved for the imaginary heroines found adorning the covers of cheap romance novels.
“This . . .” Lizanne closed her eyes and shook her befuddled head before taking a more fulsome look at her surroundings. A swift river, thick jungle on both banks. “This is the Arradsian Interior.”
“It is indeed.” The woman gave an apologetic smile and released Lizanne’s arms from her gentle but firm grasp. “Though I have always preferred the Eutherian name for the continent. Kilnahria, it derives from a serpent god of the pre-Imperial era. Quite apt, wouldn’t you agree, miss . . . ?”
“Lethridge,” she said, straightening and extending her hand. “Lizanne Lethridge. And yes, very apposite.”