Gunderd’s eyebrows rose to the top of his forehead. “Really? And who is the primary?”
“Probably a slaver named Corean Heiclaro. Have you heard the name?”
Gunderd went slightly pale. “Does she own a big Moc and a famous face? Yes? Then I know her.” He drew the splinter gun from his waistband and pointed it forward. “Duck, Svin,” he barked.
It almost happened too fast for Ruiz to react. He slammed the tiller across just before Gunderd fired, catching the second mate in the ribs with enough force to catapult him overboard. The gun flew in a bright arc and plopped into the sea.
Ruiz sighed regretfully.
Gunderd’s head popped up in the white wake. The mate was floundering ineffectively, apparently losing the struggle against the weight of his gold chains.
After an instant’s hesitation, Ruiz came about and heaved to. “Toss him a line,” he told Svin, and the cabin boy threw the mate a rescue buoy.
When Gunderd was back aboard, shivering and clutching his ribs, Ruiz let the sails draw, and the boat returned to her course.
Minutes passed in silence, except for the crunch and whisper of the boat, making her way over the waves.
Finally Gunderd raised his eyes and attempted a wry smile. “I begin to believe in your effectiveness, Ruiz Aw. It seems your woman doesn’t exaggerate. But I was only acting sensibly. Kill them all and we’re sure to get the Genched one. It was a sensible plan.”
“Perhaps so,” said Ruiz.
“Well, I see that considerations beyond naked pragmatism move you, Ruiz Aw. I should find this reassuring, shouldn’t I? At any rate, thank you for fishing me out.” He took a handful of clasp knives from his sodden pocket and offered them to Ruiz. “Here. I don’t think they give me a significant advantage.” His smile grew crooked. “I may as well try to curry favor while I can.”
Ruiz took one of the knives and pocketed it. He returned one to Gunderd and pitched the others overboard.
Gunderd qurked up his eyebrows. “Well, then,” he said. “Let’s be allies. I promise to make no more precipitous decisions, if you’ll try to do likewise.”
“I’ll try,” said Ruiz, somewhat ambiguously.
Gunderd shot him a sharp glance, but then he smiled and pocketed the knife. “That’s as fair as I could ask,” he said. “Given the circumstances. I was attempting the direct solution to the problem.”
“I understand that,” said Ruiz. “But it may not be true, and I value these people.”
“Ah,” said Gunderd. He lowered his voice to a confidential whisper. “The value of the woman is obvious, even to me… though for a fact she seems not too friendly. A lover’s quarrel?”
Ruiz scowled.
Gunderd held up his hands. “None of my business, of course. But after all, even if one of them is Genched, it’s not the decay of the universe. I once had a good friend who was Genched.”
It was Ruiz’s turn to look surprised.
“Oh yes. It was an odd situation, no doubt of that. He was a soldier in the Triatic Wars, outbound for Jacquet’s World. He was an assassin, aimed at the High Poet of Bist, and Genched for the part of a talented minstrel, so as to gain the confidence of the Poet. The war ended before he was given his final instructions, and then the lander crashed during his recall to Soufriere. They thought he was dead, so no one attempted to retrieve him and he lived out his life there on Soufriere’s Midsea. A fine fellow — a voice like sea foam and moonlight. He was a better man than most men, because he acted as he believed he should act, and not as he wanted to.”
Ruiz found this an odd story — he thought of Genching as an end to humanity, and of the Genched as organic machines, unalterable and dead. “Interesting,” he said. “So you’re from Soufriere?”
Gunderd nodded. “Yes. Can you believe it? I was a fisherboy on the warm Midsea; all I knew was nets and longlines and fishergirls. How I ever came to this terrible world… well, we all have our stories, don’t we? But to return to Genching, do you know of Aluriant the Ambitious, who had himself Genched into a saint? The Gencha will take anyone’s money.”
“I suppose so. It occurs to me that even if one of mine is Genched, then it’s very likely that they’ve never been in contact with their primary.”
Gunderd’s eyes brightened. “Really? Then we may have no great problem. The person will have to act as he supposes Corean would wish him to act. Were any of your people close enough to the slaver to have a good idea of what she would wish?”
“Possibly not,” said Ruiz. “They were her slaves, kept in the Blacktear Pens with others of their culture.”
“Better and better!” But then Gunderd looked perplexed. “Something doesn’t fit here. If one of your people is Corean’s creature, why did they protect you from Jeric?”
Ruiz shivered involuntarily. “I suppose it seems clear to him that Corean wants me alive, so that she can redress the wrongs I’ve committed against her.”
“Makes sense,” said Gunderd. “What, if I may ask, did you do to earn Corean’s enmity?”
Ruiz answered distractedly. “I stole her slaves and her airboat, killed several of her people, ruined her business, stranded her in SeaStack… maybe got her killed, though that’s probably too much to hope for. This and that.”
Gunderd’s eyes grew large. “Oh. Well, if she’s in Sea-Stack, we won’t have to worry about her coming after you any time soon. The city’s in a terrible ferment.” He still looked puzzled. “All right. Jeric died because he was about to steal Corean’s fun. But why Marlena? She was harmless.”
Ruiz didn’t answer. He was thinking about that long-ago day in the pens, when Corean had come into the paddock and casually destroyed an incapacitated slave.
Suddenly he found himself believing Publius’s dying words. One of the Pharaohans was no longer human.
A terrible pressure squeezed his heart. He looked forward at the three of them huddled in the bows. Molnekh seemed his usual bland cheerful self, which meant nothing. Dolmaero stared at his feet, a dour empty expression on his broad face. Nisa watched Ruiz with an unnatural intensity, her lips trembling between a frown and a smile.
Which one?
Ruiz turned back to Gunderd. “Say nothing that might alert the creature to our suspicions. We may as well try to keep it off its guard.”
For Ruiz, the afternoon passed in a haze of sad speculation. He kept his eyes fixed on the tiny grid of the steering compass, shutting out the sounds and smells and sights of the sea through which they passed, though it was a beautiful day, with a soft steady breeze, the sky a lustrous peacock green, the sea a deep silvery azure.
Who was it?
Now Nisa’s withdrawal, the absence of that warmth that had always glowed between them, took on a different aspect. True, she had gone through unhappy events in Sea-Stack, but others had suffered as much, or worse. Did it mean anything, beyond the possibility that she was a weaker and less faithful person than he had supposed her to be?
And Dolmaero, who had always before seemed so steady, so unflappable, and who was now so darkly pessimistic — did his illness account for all of the changes in his manner?
Even Molnekh’s unchanged persona took on a sinister quality. Was he less affected by their trials than the others, because he was no longer driven by human considerations?
Ruiz’s thoughts scurried in circles, like dancing mice, reaching no useful conclusions.
By the time Gunderd took the tiller again, Ruiz had exhausted his capacity for speculation. He found that his hands had clamped the tiller so tightly that they had become stiff and painful.
He massaged blood back into them and looked around, oddly surprised by the change in the light. The sun drifted toward the western horizon behind them. The swells seemed shorter and steeper, as if they had come onto the shelf of the Dayerak Archipelago — and the sea was a different color, a murky green, wormy with floating brown weed. He looked at Gunderd questioningly.