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bang against the timbers. "Want the darter? Just in case?"
Lipitero was digging into her pack. She brought out one of her robes. She
folded it small, tucked it into her harness. "No, you might need it a lot more
than me. If they turn mean."
"Urn& mind a suggestion?"
"Never."
"Push it a little. Wait for this flight, start an hour later. Be darker then.
Urn& sniff the air, see how it 'feels, you could be a bit edgy. Let the
Nagamar know you're a bit tired of showing yourself off like this, lay a trail
for disappearing. Might tip the scale to us. Just a hint though, and not if it
doesn't feel right."
Lipitero found a small pouch, filled it from her cache of dried fruit and
nuts, tied the pouch to her harness so it dangled beside her thigh. "I hear.
You know, Skeen, I'll be pleased to pass the Gate." Her fur roughed, she
shuddered. "I don't like this& this covetousness. It was bad enough in Cida
Fennakin, but it was the sort of thing you expected from Angelsin and her
kind. You can deal with being a commodity. This is different. I feel like I've
got fingermarks, no, eyemarks, all over me. I want to scrub myself for hours
to get rid of this& " She twitched again, settled on the floor beside her pack.
Timka rubbed at her eyes, curled up and went to sleep again. Nothing she could
do; it was simpler to sleep and let the time pass.
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Lipitero fidgeted about the deck ignoring the Nagamar squad leader who started
getting edgy when the time for Lipitero's rise came and passed. As the
afternoon slid on, the Nagamar started getting shrill. Finally Lipitero
shrugged, threw off the robe she'd been wearing and rode the lift field high
enough to catch some wind and began her long loops over the river. The loops
stretched gradually longer until the last one broke and the Ykx vanished into
the frizzled clouds.
The squad leader waited till the sun was coloring the western sky, then she
laid hands on Usoq and warbled at him. He writhed in her grip, signed
one-handed and gabbled out a flow of Trade-Min, word tripping over word; to
Skeen (who was sitting unnoticed, she hoped, with her back against the mast)
it was mostly nonsense, half-disclaimers, broken protests, other things,
perhaps words to remind the Nagamar of other times, old debts, whatever. It
sounded like babble, but it worked, the squad leader let go of his arm, not
exactly calmed down, but her anger was no longer focused on the furry little
man. She tromped about the deck hissing to herself, stopping to glare at Skeen
and Pegwai. Around and around, out to the bow to gaze unhappily into the gaudy
clouds. Around and around, stopping by Rannah and the young guard. She kicked
the guard off the boat, pulled Rannah to her feet and dragged her over to
Usoq. She pushed the Aggitj girl against him and began snapping through angry
signs. Skeen got quietly to her feet and moved so Usoq could see her and she
could see the girl. She unsnapped the holster. "Peg," she murmured, "watch the
crew girls. They'll be dangerous if they see him going down." She felt at the
darter, switched to spray. Djabo's weepy eyes, why can't I teach these fuckin'
eyes of mine to aim straight:&
Usoq patted Rannah on the shoulder. "Calm, calm, there's no problem here. No,
no, no problem here. Rannah love, tell the kurshup here what you know about
the Ykx, why she's not here, tell her and me I'll translate."
More patting, more flickers of his hands telling the squad leader what he was
saying. Skeen watched the lean musuclar shoulders of the woman, saw their
contours soften a little and knew he was translating accurately. As she'd
suspected, the Nagamar knew more Trade-Min than she admitted to. Clever little
man.
Rannah blinked, turned to stare at the darkening clouds. "Oh. She didn't come
back?" She swung round to gaze wide-eyed at the Nagamar. "I didn't notice, I
was talking to Kisri, you saw me. You want me to guess. I'd say she didn't
like all these people staring at her. She said she felt like a bird in a cage.
I think she must have decided enough was enough and took off, but I don't know
that." She stopped talking, stood looking as dewy and innocent as a downy
chick. Skeen disciplined a smile away. Maggi's daughter, yes, indeed.
Usoq finished his translation, paused a moment, then added some more. At the
same time he nudged Rannah with his elbow, urging her away. The squad leader
ignored her and started a silent elbow-swinging wrangle with him while Rannah
ambled over to Skeen and Pegwai.
Skeen rested her shoulders against the mast and slid down it till she was
sitting. Rannah dropped beside her. The girl touched Skeen's wrist, tilted her
head, her whole body a single wordless question.
Skeen winked at her. "The veritable daughter of Maggf Solitaire," she
murmured. "You do learn fast."
Rannah grinned happily. She lifted her bowside shoulder, dropped it. "Not
coming back?" she murmured, taking pains to move her lips as little as
possible. "What will they do?"
"No. I don't know. Urn& in a minute or two, go down and let Ti know what's
happening. Peg and I had better stay in sight for a while longer."
The night slipped down on them. The squad leader paced around the deck a
while, went overside into the water, came flashing back a short while later,
paced some more, her movements angular and filled with irritation. Skeen
stayed on deck until moonrise, watching two more of those departures and
returns, then she went below, leaving Usoq at the wheel and the crew girls
taking turns bringing him food and scrambling to follow his orders as they
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worked to ride the edge between racing and recklessness.
Morning. No Ykx rising. Moaning mourning whistles from the trees. Louder.
Louder. Grieving. Demanding. The Nagamar squad leader crouched in the shadow
of the sails, watching, suspicious, unhappy. Skeen came on deck briefly,
looked around, winced at the volume of sound directed at the ship, the number
of dark silent forms in trees on either side, and went back down.
The Morass began changing, the change increasing as they fled battered by the
sound, Usoq and the crew working harder as the winds grew more erratic while
clouds gathered overhead, graying the day, underlining and intensifying the
dolor of the griefsong coming from under the trees.
Skeen fidgeted with a bit of wood but couldn't concentrate on it; the sound
was muffled down here but that didn't seem to help much. As if her skin had
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