The Glass Galago (2 page)

After Parrish had caged the galago for the beleaguered secretary, they went to have a nose around the Patents office. They had barely left when Gale saw they were being followed.

“This'd be your fault, Parrish.” She pointed out their shadow.

He smiled—he knew she wasn't serious. “What do you want to do?”

“She can't follow us both. I'll loop to starboard, pretend I'm off to check on the Convene. How about you find some excuse to loiter up there, by the Virtue of Cooperation?” She indicated the statue with the barest flick of an eyebrow. “I'll come up behind her.”

“What if she goes after you?”

“Same game, different leader.”

He nodded assent—reluctantly, she thought.

“Relax, cub, nobody's going to be knives-out on
Constitution
.” With a servant's bow, she peeled off.

She knew what was eating at Parrish. The reason her parents had Gale scripped as unmemorable in the first place was that prophets, back home, had predicted she would one day be murdered.

But the person skulking along after them was no killer. Her relaxed posture said civilian: her coat was expensive but tattered. She had no idea Gale had fallen behind.

Constitution
‘s decks were busy; Gale bulled her way through the throng as Parrish paused to study the statue.

The stranger reached into her coat, striding to catch up. Like that, Parrish caught her by the wrist.

“Careful, Kir,” he said.

“Steady, beautiful—I just want to show you my press tag.” She pulled it out, a thin curl of mother of pearl, cut into a stylized horn.

“Langda Pyke,” Gale read. “From
Foghorn
, no less. Well, Langda, this is a novelty, if not an honor. What is it you hoped to glean by following us?”

She threw a grin to Parrish, looking for the answering gleam of good humor she was coming to expect. But the boy had set his face into an emotionless mask.

It's as though he vanishes
, she thought.
Dies, almost.

And Langda was speaking to him, not her: “You've come up in the world, Kir, since you left the Fleet.”

“Is that a question?”

“You're visiting Convenor Gracechild?”

“We've never met,” Parrish said. “I work for her kinswoman.”

“Her … who?”

“Kir Gale Feliachild,” Parrish said.

Langda looked blank.

“He means me,” Gale said.

She peered into Gale's face.
Still
blank.

“This Patents debate must be getting nasty if you're digging for smut about Annela,” she said.

Langda dismissed her. “Kir Parrish. You were with Convener Fells when he committed suicide, weren't you?”

“I was.”

Teeth! I really should have gotten that story
, Gale thought.

“Tell me what happened; give me your side of the tale.”

“I'm afraid I must decline.”

“There are those who say you killed him.”

“Are there?” By now, Parrish might as well have been the brass statue towering over them all.

Gale cleared her throat. “Run along, Pyke. There must be a deficit of nuisance somewhere in the Fleet.”

The reporter stared at Parrish hungrily, as people did. Then she threw up her hands, rejoining the surging throng on the walkway.

“You all right, Parrish?”

He looked at her sidelong, expressionless. Angry? “I haven't murdered anyone.”

“I believe you.” She didn't add that her own life held enough ambiguities that, if he had, it might not matter to her. “Maybe while we're here, there's some sorting I can do. Salvage your reputation?”

“
No
,” he said, locked within himself, seeping only a trace of misery. They continued on to Patents without another word.

*   *   *

Every island nation that had signed onto the Fleet Convene was legally entitled to do as it pleased within its borders and territorial waters. They could work any spell, make any law. But to use an inscription elsewhere, they had to get it certified. In the case of a scrip that affected a person, that meant working it on a willing volunteer so its effects could be studied and documented.

The glassine woman, Rasa, was abed reading stories to her daughter. Doctors hovered uselessly in her berth. Like the galago, she had hairline cracks in several of her joints.

They only caught a glimpse of her; as soon as she realized Gale had come from Annela's office, Rasa had them ejected.

“I guess she favors increasing Patents regulation,” Gale said as the hatch slammed behind them.

“Now what?” Parrish asked.

“Find the scribe who wrote the spell.” Gale waved Annela's briefing. “He's sailing in the Wake.”

They caught a dinner ferry to the rear of the Fleet, splitting a fist of bread and a large bowl of chowder as they rode back to the residential ships in mid-Fleet. In the forty-five minutes they were aboard, three sailors sent Parrish drinks, which he declined. Two others bumbled their way through attempted pick-ups, which he gently rebuffed. People stared and murmured.

A trio of officers, one of them the woman they'd encountered earlier—Septer Birch—glared at them from a corner booth.

If Parrish's mood had been cheerier, Gale might have teased him about all the attention. As it was, their silence held until they found the spellscribe.

He was at a public concert, seeming not to hear the string quintet as they sawed through a concerto. He had that tear-soaked look that Gale associated with grief or prolonged stress. Hunched forward, hands locked, he rocked out of time to the music.

She sat beside him. “Kir Bosh?”

“I have nothing to say to the press.”

“I'm a cousin of Convenor Gracechild's,” she said. “I'm looking for the stolen inscription.”

“The Watch is on that.”

“They haven't succeeded, have they?”

“How could anyone find something so small in this…” He swept out an arm, a gesture meant to encompass the whole of the Fleet and its followers. Lanterns glowed from the rigging of hundreds of ships, steady gold interspersed with the multicoloured firelight flicker of enchanted scrip on sails and prows. The sun was setting behind them, so the rearmost ships were silhouetted against the darkening ribbon where sea met sky.

“You're not a resident, I take it?” Gale said. “You're visiting, working the spell through Patents?”

“I developed the spell, but I'm not licensed to practice at sea. A Patents scribe performed the glassine inscription on Rasa.”

“Were you present?” Parrish asked.

“Of course I oversaw the Patents scribe. It's required.”

Gale said: “What happened to the inscription?”

“Rasa locked it in her personal safe at Patents. A week later, when the spell was approved, she tried to retrieve it … the safe was empty.”

“When was that?”

“Two days after she was inscribed.” His eyes welled. “We followed the rules. I don't know how it was stolen, but creating new regulations … that's not going to change anything.”

Gale considered explaining that politics and reality were, at best, distant cousins. But cynicism wouldn't comfort him.

Parrish interrupted: “What is the point of the spell?”

Bosh stared. “The point?”

“The woman and the test galago—they're dying as a result of this scrip. What good is it?”

“The galago's lived longer than it would have; it had parasites. They died first.”

“It extends life?”

“If you're seriously ill, it can. The intention was never meant to be sustained for weeks on end.” Bosh said.

Gale said: “The spell is medical?”

“Yes. It's for patients with mysterious illnesses … ailments that resist identification. When you scrip someone glassine, it allows doctors to look within, to determine what's wrong. Aetherists and aura readers find this useful.”

“Spot the problem, destroy the spell, and treat the patient?”

“On my home nation, we see seventy patients a year. With the technique Fleet-certified now, we might help a lot more. But this … fuss…” He flapped a hand. “Who'll risk it?”

Parrish said: “There are other diagnosis spells.”

“Most require radium, which is rare and dangerous to work with. This is safer and less expensive.”

“What does the inscription look like?” Gale asked.

“It's etched on the inside of a flask of blown glass. The etching crystal is affixed to—”

“A flask, you say?” Gale interrupted before he could get into components, inks and ingredients. Scribes were tiresomely detail-oriented. “Empty or full?”

Bosh produced a corked bottle, filled with black sand and sealed with an amber plug. The mystical letters etched inside had a white-hot glow.

“This is for the galago. The bottle for the patents tester is bigger—”

Parrish plucked it out of his hand.

“Tell me,” Gale said, before Bosh could object to the appropriation. “Is it your sense that any of this is about you, or your homeland? Someone looking for revenge?”

“No. I'm just a convenient scapegoat.”

“You seem very sure,” Parrish said.

Bosh rubbed his eyes. “They had to pick something that would kill the tester, didn't they?”

“Slowly lethal,” Gale agreed. “And it's very dramatic, isn't it? A woman made of glass.”

“I'll never forgive myself for what she's suffering,” Bosh said. “We meant to open a clinic here in the Wake. I promised my people I wouldn't mishandle this.”

“Then take action, Kir.” Parrish looked almost surprised to find himself speaking. “The reporter from
Foghorn
would listen. Talk to someone about the people you've helped. Your silence merely makes it easier to blame you.”

Bosh looked startled. “I'll consider it. Thank you.”

Gale gave him her best approximation of a motherly pat and they said their goodbyes.

As they walked away, she said to Parrish: “You thought he was making monstrosities, didn't you? For fun?”

“I—”

They both sensed something wrong at the same time.

The three sailors from the dinner ferry were following them.

Gale could imagine what was meant to happen next. The trio would harass Parrish, presumably about the dead Convenor that reporter had mentioned. He'd crawl into his shell, forcing them to throw the first punch. All they wanted was to leave him lumped up and moaning on the deck and then scamper away when the Watch turned up.

“Is your pride going to be wounded if we skip the brawl?”

He brightened. “Should we run for it?”

Her respect for him went up another notch. “Never set off the chase instinct.”

“Meaning?”

Letting out a shriek that could've cut bone, she clutched at her chest. The three kids jumped, as if she'd appeared from thin air.

“Somebody—somebody—” she staggered to the rail, dry-heaved, and collapsed.

For a breath, nobody moved. Then Parrish caught on. “Oh no! Someone call a medic! Help!”

He was a terrible actor, but they
had
been drinking.

One of their would-be attackers took off at a run, calling for the ship's medical officer. A second wavered, indecisive.

The septer, Birch, stepped forward. “I'm a medic,” she said. She bent to loosen Gale's collar.

Gale heaved a couple times, hoping to slow her down by threatening to regurgitate warm stew all over her. “Arrrgh.”

No good.

“Faking…?” Birch said, under her breath. Then, louder: “She's faking.”

Too late. She was crouching over Gale, making it an easy matter to snap a knee into her guts. Gale bunted her just hard enough to knock the wind out.

The remaining sailor charged, but Parrish tripped him, slinging him around as he plunged off-balance, then pinning him against the rail.

Gale pushed the gasping sailor off her, climbing to her feet. By now the third guy was returning, but he had a Watchman and a medic in tow. No chance of a fight now.

“Here she is,” Gale said cheerily, and the medic pounced on the winded septer.

Gale tucked her arm into Parrish's and sauntered off.

“You're a coward, Garland Parrish!” one of the men yelled. “Hiding behind an old lady—coward!”

If Parrish was bothered by the rebuke, of course, it didn't show on his face.

“Well. I reckon that saved us twenty minutes, anyway.”

“Only ten, given that you fight dirty.”

“It's how I got to be such an upright old lady.”

A page trotted up. “Kir Feliachild? You're wanted on
Constitution
.”

“Come on, kid. Convene must be taking a break.”

“Shall we taxi back?”

She hesitated: flying at night bothered her a little. Then she climbed aboard. As they lofted upward, she said, “You think we'll be scrapping with your former mates whenever we visit the Fleet?”

“It interferes with your operating quietly, doesn't it?” he said. “I'm sorry for that.”

“You puzzle me, Parrish.”

“Mmm?”

“The effort you make to be unflappable. People fling offal in your face. I've seen it three or four times now. You vanish into silken courtesy.”

“I suppose I take pleasure in denying them a reaction.” He clucked. “It's pride.”

“Those monks who raised you would disapprove?”

A nod. “Pride is a sign of immaturity.”

“Then I can stop worrying that you're wise beyond your years?”

“Little fear of that.” And
that
was a note of regret.

“What's say you let me do something about this mess?”

He shook his head.

“Refusing to accept help when it's offered, that's a sign of pride too.”