A group appeared on the pier. One shouted: "Half, in the name of the Heshvavu! We have warrants for the arrest of your passengers."
Mjipa's heart skipped a beat. Although the figures were too distant for details, the sparkle of lantern light on their gilding proclaimed them King Vuzhov's soldiers. If Captain Farrá obeyed the command, Mjipa did not see how he could escape again. He was too exhausted and his leg was too painful for effective fighting. He might threaten the captain as he had Khorosh; but he could not keep that up for a whole voyage. The other officers and the crew would pounce upon him, disarm him, and probably pitch all their bothersome passengers into the Banjao Sea.
"Captain!" said Mjipa. "My last fifty karda say you cannot hear him."
The captain grinned slightly. Raising his speaking trumpet to his mouth, he shouted shoreward: "I cannot hear you!"
By now the ship was far enough from shore so that the royal officer's shouts could no longer be distinguished. As the ship reached deep water, the two triangular sails were hoisted. The dawn breeze was just beginning, in little puffs, to waft the Tarvezid northward.
As the sky lightened, Vuzhov's tower took form from the darkness. Then, it slowly dwindled, as the stuccoed houses shrank to a row of little beige boxes, and the shore became a single dark line between sea and sky.
IX
RANCOR
"When do we reach the Sadabao?"
Answering Percy Mjipa's question, Captain Farrá said: "If this wind holds, we should sight Fossanderan by tomorrow night. With the best winds, Kalwm to Fossanderan can be sailed in four days. With winds adverse or calm, it may take a fiftnight."
Following departure from Kalwm, Mjipa and Alicia Dyckman had spent the following day and night either sleeping or lying about resting. Their exertions had left them dishrag-limp, and their wounds made movement painful.
Now they began to perk up. Using a wooden tub hauled out on deck, the three passengers bathed and scrubbed off the Khaldonian body paint. The Terrans resumed their khakis. The paper antennae had been discarded; but there was no way to speed the growth of hair on their shaven pates.
Mjipa prowled the deck, limping and using a boarding pike from the ship's small armory as a walking stick. On the fan tail, Isayin in borrowed sailor's garb dissected a fish he had caught and made notes about its anatomy. Overhead, rank after rank of clouds marched past, with an occasional glimpse of Roqir between them. The light southerly breeze that had taken them away from Kalwm had changed to a brisk northeaster, into which they sailed full and by.
Alicia, wearing her Kalwmian straw hat against the sun on her nude cranium, sat on deck with her back to the bulwark, writing in a notebook. As Mjipa passed, she said: "Percy, when we get to Majbur, you must take me shopping again. I want another of those divine kilts!"
"What's wrong with the one you have?"
"I cut so much off .the hem for bandages that now it hardly covers me decently."
"Couldn't you sew the bandages back on, once the blood's been washed out?"
"It would look simply awful. And by the way, what'll we use for money from Majbur on? Captain Farrá's about cleaned us out."
"Gorbovast will cash a draft on Novo. What's that you 're working on?"
"My report on the economics of Krishnan innkeeping."
"You mean you interviewed Irants after all? I thought I told you—"
"Sure you did, but you didn't think I'd let that stop me? I figured if you didn't know, they couldn't hold you responsible."
"Oh, yes they could! You don't know these blighters."
"Anyway, I told Irants it was against orders and swore him to secrecy. He enjoyed being part of a conspiracy. I worked with him late at night, while you were asleep."
Mjipa let out a long sigh. "Lish, you're incorrigible! I suppose I ought to grab your notes and tear them up; but you'd only think of some other dodge, and what's done is done." He peered aft off the stern and spoke to Farrá: "Captain, what's that sail behind us?"
The captain glanced aft, where the triangular tooth of another lateen sail pierced the horizon whenever a wave boosted the Tarvezid aloft. "Can't tell at this remove."
An hour later, Mjipa said: "Captain, I'll swear that ship is closing upon us."
The captain leveled his spyglass. After a long look, he said: "Fry my guts, but methinks that's the Yur, of Kalwm City. When we left port, she was still up for sale by the government. I know her well; she's been lying in her dock for a couple of moons. 'Tis no wonder she gains upon us!"
"Why? Is she a fast sailer?"
"Aye, having more sail and less beam than we. She came from the Sunqar when the allied Sadabao powers destroyed the nest of pirates there, her people avowing they were reformed and pardoned and enlarged by the leaders of the attack on the floating citadel.
"The Phathvum took them at their word, since the Kalwmian navy hath gone to rot since the Heshvavu took to spending all the kingdom's revenues on his tower fantastical. Kalwm, thought the minister, might need seamen and ships some day when this visionary monarch goes to Heaven, whether by his tower or, more likely, at the hands of a mob of insurrectionists. Belike ye heard rumblings of revolt whilst ye sojourned in the kingdom.
" 'Twas not long, howsomever, ere these ex-pirates proved not so ex after all. As Nehavend hath it, once a fruit goes rotten, neither piety nor prayer nor weeping nor wit shall restore its former ripeness. Slipping out of Kalwm Harbor, they began to seize the ships of Peihné and Suria and to raid coastal towns in those lands.
"Receiving complaints, the Phathvum, to maintain friendship with neighbors, seized the Yur and such of her crew as he could catch. Their heads presently adorned the spiked wall around the palace grounds. To raise more gold for his folly architectural, Vuzhov the Visionary insisted on offering the Yur for sale. Not being designed to turn a profit, she hath stood in her berth, unsought, unloved and un-wooed."
Captain Farrá bent a scowling visage on Mjipa. "Now, Terran, riddle me this. Ye departed the shore in utmost haste, fleeing not only King Vuzhov's soldiers but also a ging of rogues. Hath the government put the Yur back into service, with a crew scraped up anywhere, to settle accounts with you and yours? Or hath this band of knaves bought the ship and set out .after you?"
Mjipa shrugged. "I don't know yet. May I see your spyglass?"
Farrá handed over the instrument. Mjipa got the pursuing ship in his view and held it there. He could not distinguish individuals, but to judge by her bow wave the ship was making good speed.
"They're using oars," he said at last.
"Then 'tis certain it be ye they're after. The water's too rough for sweeps in any but an exigent cause."
"Can't we use oars, too?"
"Aye, and so we shall." The captain called to his first officer: "Sweeps out, Master Ghanum. Two men to each." He turned back. "But think not they'll not catch us long ere we sight Fossanderan and the Straits of Palindos, unless Bandur smites them with's thunderbolts. We have but six oars; they, twelve or fourteen. The Yur is no proper commercial craft, being wrought to Serve as a pirate, smuggler, rich man's yacht, or royal patrol vessel. She's shrewdly crafted to give her points of speed o'er honest merchantmen like this whereon ye stand. My glass again, pray."
After staring some more, Farrá said:"She gains hand over fist. She rides high in the water; they must have put to sea too hastily to ballast her." He shut the telescope with a snap. "I tell you, Terran, if this be Vuzhov's gilded popinjays, I'll not resist. 'Twould but get my ship seized or sunk and, belike, me and my bullies slain in the bargain."