Looking over the side, Barnevelt saw a flash of motion. It was a spotted eel-like creature, about as long as he was, swimming beside the Shambor.
"A fondaq," said Chask. "Their venomous bite is swift death, and they swarm hereabouts."
Barnevelt followed the creature's graceful motions with fascination.
After half a day of this, Chask called into the cabin: "Ship ahead, sir."
Barnevelt came out. It seemed to be a galley, long and many-legged. The Shambor's crew muttered and pointed in the manner of frightened men. Barnevelt and Zakkomir went back into the cabin to put on their expressman's costumes, for the Krishnan had procured one too. Zakkomir did not want to wear his vest of fine chain mail under his jacket, arguing speed and lightness, especially if they fell in the water. But Barnevelt insisted, adding: "Don't forget our new names. What's mine?"
"Gozzan, sir. And my lord: To you do I confess that terror's grip again lies heavy on my windpipe. Do I falter or flinch, strike me down or ever you let our-plan miscarry on account of my despicable timidity."
"You're doing pretty well, son," said Barnevelt, and went out again.
As they neared the galley, Barnevelt saw that this ship lay just outside the mouth of the channel he sought into the interior of the Sunqar. A pair of cables ran from the stern down into a large mass of terpahla, which at first seemed to be part of the Sunqar. As they came closer yet and heard the «, ratchety sound of a catapult being wound up, it transpired that the mass to which the galley was attached "was separate from the rest. Barnevelt wondered if this mass of terpahla might not be kept there as a sort of floating plug for the channel, to be pulled into the mouth of this waterway as a defensive measure in case of attack.
The galley was a deck higher than the little Shambor and over twice as long—thirty or forty meters, Barnevelt judged. When a face looked over the rail of the galley and challenged the Shambor, he leaned carelessly against the mast and called back:
"A courier of the j^Iejrou Qurardena, with a consignment and a message from Queen Alvandi of Qirib for Sheafase, chief of the Sunqaruma."
"Heave to alongside," said the face. Presently a rope ladder tumbled down to the Shambor's deck and the owner of the face, a man in a helmet and pair of dirty white shorts, with an insigne of rank slung round his neck on a chain, followed. Several other Sunqaruma leaned over the galley's rail, covering the Shambor's deck with cocked crossbows.
"Good afternoon," said Barnevelt pleasantly. "If you'll step into the cabin, sir, I'll show you our cargo. And perhaps a drop of some of Qirib's worst falat wine will lessen the tedium of your task."
The inspector looked suspiciously at Barnevelt but carried out his inspection, accepted the drink with a grunt of thanks, and sent the Shambor on its way with one of his men to act as pilot.
Up the channel they crept, the oarsmen looking nervously over their shoulders between strokes towards the mass of ships and other floating structures that loomed a couple of hoda ahead. From among these structures several thin plumes of smoke arose, to hang in the stagnant air, veiling the low red sun.
To one side of the channel, a tubby little scow was engaged in a curious task. A chain ran from the scow to the shell of a sea creature, something like an enormous turtle, flipping itself slowly along the edge of the terpahla and eating the vine with great chomps of its beak. The men in the scow were guiding the creature with boathooks. Barnevelt aimed his Hayashi camera at the creature, wishing he could stop to get better acquainted with it.
"That," said Zakkomir with a glance over his shoulder to make sure the Mourya Sunqaru at the tiller in the stern was not within hearing, "is how these villains keep the vine from overunning their channel and trapping 'em. What shall we do if our scheme miscarry? Suppose, for ensample, the Shambor be fprced to flee ere our mission be accomplished, leaving us in the strong-thieves' hands?"
Barnevelt thought. "If you can, try to rendezvous near that derelict sailing raft we came to early this morning. You know the one, Chask?"
"Aye, sir. But how'd one trapped in the Sunqar win to this glace of meeting? Ye cannot fly without wings."
"Don't know. Perhaps if we could steal a light boat we could pole it through the weed…"
And then they came to where the channel opened out into the most astonishing floating city any of them had ever seen: the stronghold of Sheafase.
CHAPTER XVII
The Shambor passed another scow, a big one, piled high with harvested terpahla. The smell of the drying vine reminded Barnevelt of a cow-barn back in Chautauqua County. A man sat on the end of the scow, smoking, and idly watched the Shambor go by.
Then came the war galleys of the Morya Sunqaruma, moored in neat rows according to class. Adjacent to them, and spreading out in all directions through the mass of weeds and derelicts, were the hulks the Sunqaruma had converted into houseboats. Among these were rafts and craft made of timber salvaged from older hulls. This timber, by reason of variation in its age and origin, came in divers hues and gave such vessels a striped look.
Beyond the nearer craft, and barely visible between them, lay a complex of rafts and boats whose nature was indicated by the smoke and stench and sounds that issued from it. It was the factory where terpahla was rendered into the janru drug.
A web of gangboards and ladders interconnected the whole great mass of ships living and ships dead. On the decks of the houseboats, women moved and children played, the toddlers with ropes around their waists in case they fell overboard. The smell of cooking hung in the still air.
Barnevelt whispered to Zakloomir: "Remember, the go-ahead signal is: 'Time is passing.' "
Now there were Sunqaro ships on all sides. Barnevelt, looking sharply at them, concluded that the surest way to tell which was still capable of movement was to observe whether the vine had been allowed to grow right up to the sides of the ship or whether a space of clear water, wide enough to let oars ply without fouling, had been maintained around it. He estimated that the Sunqaruma had twenty-odd warships, not counting dinghies, supply ships, and other auxiliaries.
The Sunqaru in the stern guided the Shambor towards a group of the three largest galleys to be seen, moored side by side: ships comparable to Majbur's Junsar in size. By directing the Shambor to starboard, the pilot went around this group to where a small floating pier rested on the water beside the nearest quadrireme.
"Tie up here," said the steersman.
As the crew of the Shambor did so, the man who had piloted them jumped to the pier and ran up the gangway leading to the galley's deck to converse with the sentry there. Presently he came down again and told Barnevelt: "You and such of your men as are needed to carry yonder chest shall mount this plank to the ship's deck and there await our pleasure."
Barnevelt jerked his thumb. Four of his sailors took hold of the ends of the carrying poles along each side of the chest and straightened up with a grunt. Barnevelt, followed by the men, stepped onto the pier, Zakkomir bringing up the rear. At the gangway there was some fumbling and muttered argument among the sailors, because the structure was not wide enough for them in their present formation, and they had to crowd between the ends of the poles to make it.
On the deck of the ship they put their burden down and sat upon it. The rowers' four-man benches were empty, and the oars were stacked beneath the catwalk, but there was some sort of activity in the deckhouse forward. Presently a man wearing the insigne of a higher officer came to them and said: "Give me your letter to the High Admiral."