Revenger 9780575090569 (34 page)

‘It catches the wind,’ I said. ‘Like our photon sails. A different wind, maybe, but it still catches it.’

‘Your point being?’ Strambli asked.

‘If you had enough of it, you could rig a whole ship with catchcloth. It would be black as night. No one would ever see you coming.’

‘She’s right, you know,’ Drozna said. ‘You’d only need a thousand square leagues of the stuff! I don’t know why anyone hasn’t thought of that before.’

They laughed. So did Prozor. So did I.

But inside I didn’t find it anything like as hilarious.

19

‘If it would make life easier for you, Captain,’ I was saying, just inside the door to his quarters, ‘I could switch to just bringing you daily reports, rather than after every watch. At least that way I wouldn’t have to keep telling you there wasn’t anything worth mentioning. Or even every other day . . .’

‘It’s all right, Fura,’ he said, raising a hand from his charts and papers. ‘I’d rather have a steady stream of no news, believe me. At the very least, it tells me that the bones are still singing. Well, come in and don’t be shy. Whatever you have for me, it can’t be any more of a
let-
down than that bauble we just opened . . .’

I eased into the room. Connected to both the galley and bridge by separate doors, Trusko’s quarters were done up in reds and golds, properly plush. It was a grander space than the one Rackamore had given himself, and there was something about it that felt more solid and dependable than any other part of the
Queenie
. ‘You seemed pleased with it, sir, when you came back on the launch,’ I told him.

‘We’d all made it back, and no one had jumped us. That was reason enough to lift my spirits, albeit temporarily. The loot looked good, as well, until we started the grim business of accounting it. I’m afraid Gathing had the right of it, when all is said and done. Trinkets. Gimcrackery. Nothing of substantial value or practical worth.’ He made a show of brightening. ‘Still, a streak of bad luck can’t run for ever. We’ll be cutting orbit for the third bauble, shortly, and there I hope for a twist in our fortunes.’

‘I hope so too, sir.’

‘So.’ He looked at me expectantly. ‘Anything to mention? Out with the worst of it, Fura.’

‘There isn’t really anything,’ I said. ‘Nothing bad, anyway, and that’s a sort of good news, isn’t it? The skull’s peachy, and there ain’t any other ships within jumpin’ distance.’

‘Perhaps they know their targets better than we know ours,’ he said
self-
pityingly, as if he wanted me to lean over, pat him on the hand and say ‘there, there’. ‘We were given the intelligence on these baubles at a steep
mark-
up, you know. Our last Bauble Reader was confident these would shift things for us. All rests on the third, I suppose.’

‘If you had better intelligence,’ I ventured, ‘would that change your plan?’

He looked at me with only mild interest. ‘What intelligence?’

‘Well, supposin’ . . . what I mean is, if I got a squeak of something over the bones, and it seemed to point to a bauble that was worth the cost of cracking, and wasn’t too far away . . . would that make you reconsider?’

‘It might, in the unlikely event such a thing were to happen.’ Then his interest sharpened. ‘Wait. What have you picked up?’

‘I doubt that it’s anything, sir.’ I brushed a hair from my brow, trying to look winsome and innocent. ‘Oughtn’t to have brought it up, not when you’ve got so much on your plate, and everythi—’

‘Spit it out, Fura. I’ll be the judge of whether it’s useful or not.’

‘It wasn’t much,’ I said. ‘I just got this intercept, two ships whispering to each other down in the Sunwards. Combine ’jammers, I think. They were sharing gossip, the way we all do.’

‘Yes, yes.’ He waggled his pudgy fingers at me. ‘Of course. Go on.’

‘It was something about a bauble no one put much stock in. The auguries said it wasn’t due to pop, and the lore was that there wasn’t much worth the bother of going in it for anyways.’

He slumped. ‘If you’re going to throw me crumbs, Fura, at least make them tasty.’

‘There’s more, sir. Thing is, the coves on these ships was trading the idea that the auguries was all wrong, at least the common ones, and that the bauble was all set to pop. Like, soon. But that wasn’t all of it.’ I grimaced. ‘Really, sir, I’m sure it’s all chaff.’

‘When you say “wasn’t all of it” – what do you mean?’

I sighed. ‘These coves were saying there was dark rumours, sir. That there was some righteous loot stashed in the bauble, only no one’d had the spuds to get it out. No stairs, you see. Just a big plungey shaft, going all the way down, with rooms off it. Most crews see that and think it’s too much bother rigging up winches and buckets and so on.’ I swallowed, sensing I might have gone too far. ‘That’s what the coves were saying, is all.’

Trusko ruminated on what I’d told him. He was quiet for longer than I was expecting. It gave me a better chance to drift my eyes around the room, taking in the framed charts and documents he had up on the walls. There were instruments and
knick-
knacks and gubbins I couldn’t name, but all of it was shiny and
expensive-
looking and arranged just so. It was like someone’s
idea
of a captain’s quarters, more than the thing itself had any right to be.

‘It’s interesting enough, Fura,’ he mused. ‘But it begs the question of why these two ships weren’t setting sail themselves.’

‘I only got the edge of it, sir. What I know about sails and orbits you could scrawl on a stamp.’

The fingers waggled again. ‘Go on.’

‘They weren’t in the right place, to begin with. Starting off from down in the Sunward processionals, with all the worlds you’ve got to dodge around . . . even with full sail . . . they couldn’t make it, sir. Wasn’t going to be time, while that window was open.’

‘But you don’t even know where this bauble is, or whether it’s within sailing range of the
Queenie
.’

‘I don’t, sir – I mean, not in my own head. But I got some orbital parameters, sir, and a name that might go with the place. It’s called the Fang.’ I squinted at him. ‘That mean anything to you, Cap’n?’

‘No,’ he answered slowly. ‘It doesn’t. Except . . .’

‘What, sir?’

‘Rumours, Fura. That’s all. Snips and scraps. The kinds of thing I wouldn’t ordinarily be so foolish as to put stock in, except . . . you say you had parameters?’

‘I’ve got the numbers, sir. Don’t mean much to me, but then you might know better.’

‘Show me them.’

There are plans that come off the rails as soon as they start moving, and plans that get you frightened because they seem to be going too well, too smoothly, picking up a scary speed, like a tram going down the steep part of Jauncery Road with the brakes off.

I’d floated the Fang past Trusko. I expected him to sit on that intelligence for a day or so before acting on it, if he acted at all. But within an hour of my briefing him, he had called the entire crew into the galley. He hadn’t needed to go far from his quarters for that. Now he had some of his charts and books with him, and the nervous,
over-
excited air of a spoilt child told they were getting a special present ahead of their birthday. The cove could hardly contain himself.

‘A little while ago,’ he began, puffing himself up all pompously, ‘I took my usual intelligence briefing from Fura. Fura thought nothing of it, but in among the commonplace gossip was what I immediately knew to be a nugget, the kind of singular information that crosses your desk perhaps once in a decade, if you’re fortunate.’

Most of us were prepared to hear him out before settling our minds. Gathing was already shaking his head with a supercilious look about him, like he knew better than the rest of us simpletons.

‘What sort of gossip, exactly?’ Drozna asked, in an encouraging tone.

‘It concerns a bauble. The name’s the Fang.’ Trusko searched our faces to see if it rang any bells, excepting me of course. ‘It’s been a rumour, long enough, but no one’s ever had the name and the parameters at the same time. Well, now we have. And the auguries – if they relate to this bauble – say there’s a chance of it opening shortly. The scuttle says we might find something worth our trouble, if we’re prepared to go deep.’

‘It could be half a year from us,’ Surt said.

‘It isn’t,’ Trusko said. ‘It’s in a steep ellipse and at this point in its circuit it’s nicely situated for us. Obligingly, you might say.’ He cast a nod at Drozna. ‘I’ve . . . run the calculations. We could be on it in four weeks, if I haven’t dropped a stitch. You’ll glance over the numbers for me, Droz?’

‘If you think it worth our while, Cap’n.’

I was glad when Prozor interjected. ‘Wait. You’re getting ahead of yourselves. Gossip about baubles ain’t worth the cost of lungstuff. What’d you say the name of this place was?’

‘The Fang,’ Trusko said.

‘I may be addled in the grey,’ Strambli said. ‘But that ain’t the kind of name that invites casual curiosity.’

‘It’s just a name,’ Surt said, with a shrug. ‘Heard worse. The Poison Heart, the Widow’s Clutch, the Grimgate, the White Gallows. Coves give names to baubles all the time.’

‘You’ve read more surfaces than most of us,’ Trusko said, directing his remark at Prozor. ‘Have you run into the Fang before?’

‘Can’t say it’s ringing bells.’ But Prozor gave her own barely interested shrug, coupled with a
long-
suffering sigh. ‘I’ll check my books, if you really think it’s worth our time. We’re still doing the third one, though, ain’t we?’

‘That depends,’ Trusko said. ‘If we decided to turn for the Fang, we’d forfeit this bauble. But given the gains we’ve made on the first two, that might not be much of a loss. My decision will hinge on the auguries, and what Prozor makes of them.’

‘I ain’t promising anything,’ Prozor said. ‘If I don’t like the auguries, I’ll say so.’

‘I’d expect nothing less,’ Trusko said.

Prozor went away and made a show of consulting her notes. She dragged it out for hours, steadfastly refusing to give any clue as to what her verdict was likely to be. She saved up her meanest, sharpest scowl for anyone who tried to squeeze her before she was good and ready.

It was all an act, though. Prozor and I’d already worked out the auguries lay in our favour, provided the
Queenie
could make the crossing in four weeks. I’d known that before I even went to Trusko with my lies about the skull intercept – it was Prozor who’d given me the parameters that fixed the bauble’s position. The only doubt in our minds was whether that crossing was feasible. Prozor knew a bit more about celestial navigation than I did, but she couldn’t say with certainty that what we were asking could be achieved.

‘Sharp end of it is,’ she said, ‘this lives and dies on what Drozna reports back to Trusko. If only we could bend him to our plan a little . . .’

‘We can’t,’ I said. ‘And if he says it’s not possible, we’ll just have to take it.’

‘You’ve cooled on the retribution idea, then. Getting a bit tasty for you, was it, with wrong words comin’ out of your gob? Like
Monetta
this and
Monetta
that?’

‘I haven’t cooled,’ I said. ‘And I only made one mistake. But I know we can’t work the impossible. Trusko’s ship is the hand we’re dealt, that’s all.’

Later we gathered in the galley again. Gathing had his boots up on the table, picking dirt out of his fingernails – although they looked clean to me. Drozna had a concerned look about him, a frown creasing through that forehead tattoo of his.

‘Let’s hear it, then,’ Trusko said. ‘The good news or the bad, whichever it’s to be. Prozor: tell us how the auguries lie for the Fang.’

Prozor studied something in the reflection of her tankard. ‘Maybe hear what Drozna has to say first, eh? If the photons aren’t blowin’ our way . . .’

‘
Twenty-
nine days,’ Drozna said. ‘If we left now, this watch, we could be on station at the Fang, in orbit and ready to drop the launch, in
twenty-
nine days.
Twenty-
seven if we had ion assist and used the reserve sails.’

‘Me ionses is ready for whatever you asks of them,’ Tindouf said, tapping his pipe at the end of his remark.

‘Prozor?’ Trusko asked.

‘
Twenty-
seven’ll cut it,’ she said, after a moment of deliberation. ‘And give you five days of breathin’ room at the end of it. I know it won’t please you to use those reserves, but if there was ever a time . . .’

‘Yes, I understand the risks.’ Trusko felt his way around his chins, touching them delicately, as if they’d been grafted on without him knowing it. ‘
Twenty-
nine would be easier on the ship – I’d sooner not use the reserves, or risk burning the ions – but then that would cut my safety margin down to just three days, and that I wouldn’t be comfortable with, even if we could be in and out in half that time. I don’t think I’m being
over-
cautious . . .’

‘Not at all,’ I said.

‘We’ll chance the sails and the ions,’ he said, nodding in turn at Drozna and Tindouf. ‘And we’ll make all the arrangements we need for the bauble ahead of time. Fura’s intercept mentioned a central shaft, with no stairs. We encountered something like that at the Carnelion, didn’t we, Strambli?’

‘Aye,’ she said, with a little wince. ‘And it caused us no end of grief, rigging up them pulleys and winches.’

‘But we’ll be ready this time,’ Trusko said. ‘The equipment we lashed together then is still in the inventory. We’ll need an idea on the diameter of the shaft, and how far down we need to go, how many leagues of rope . . .’

‘I’ll see what I’ve got,’ Prozor said.

‘Handy for us all,’ Gathing muttered. ‘That you just happen to know all about this place.’

It was settled, then. We were going to the Fang.

We threw out sail and broke orbit from the second bauble, the ions humming for extra boost. If there was disquiet about this decision, only Gathing wasn’t keeping it bottled in. The others seemed content to go along with whatever Trusko decided. They hadn’t been pinning all their hopes on that last bauble, not after the dismal showings from the first two. A different bauble entirely, one that there was at least a whisper of a rumour about, now that was something they could get behind – but even then there wasn’t much sense of expectation or jubilation about what was ahead. This was a crew that had been ground down so hard by bad luck and failure that they couldn’t think beyond it. If I ever came close to pitying them, or even liking some of them, it was then.

But I knew something wasn’t quite peachy.