Текст книги "Angel with the Sword"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Trouble's got this sure stink about it. The homeless don't hang round here, honest boats don't stop, and nobody else is hereabouts. Usually six or seven ratty skips and nothing.

They smell it, smell it all over Tidewater.

Lord, are they watching out the windows?

No waterside ledge on Megary either. And above, it showed nothing but barred windows, closed shutters, top story to canal side. She could not, in the way of things looked at and looked past all her life, recall the look of mat building's upper storey on the other sides.

She signaled turn at Megary's north corner, there off West Canal, familiar turn that she had taken many a night, shortcut on the return from Hafiz', down the way. But she had never looked upbefore.

Northside was the front landing. That door looked solid. Windows to either side were barred and shuttered. Not the least sliver of light showed inside. The windows above were barred and sealed with weathered shutters that ought to leak light if any existed,

Suppose they got the windows blacked from inside?

Lord. Suppose—suppose they already took 'im on from here, suppose they sawthat storm from them upper windows, and took him somewheres else and I can't find 'im—

Suppose they never came here at all—

"Ya-hin." She took a deep breath, used it all in a push to slew the skip close to the Isle and around the turn, there where Hafiz' south point showed in the Tidewater canal. She looked up, strained to see the few windows at Megary's narrow end. They were dark as the rest.

Megary's comer bent on round by Southdike. Their bow aimed a moment at the short channel to Marsh Gate, and that was no more than a dark pit ahead with an ominous flicker of lightning-lit dark beyond. Dead Harbor out there. The Ghost Reel.

Storm, stalking up virtually silent the way sea-storms did, pushing the tide before them to flood those earthquake-frozen sea-gates.

They kept swinging, brought the bow round to the buttressed point of the dike, to the narrow bend between Megary and Amparo.

And Megary had a balcony on this side second level, Lord and Glory, a great beautiful balcony without a stairway. Not one damn bridge to anybody. Rostov had had one to Megary from the north, and dismantled it in a feud. The south to Amparo—that fell in a quake and nobody put it back. Amparo went across to Calder. Rostov had its back turned to the slavers.

But there was that hanging balcony, to left of the boat-cut, and that cut had two boats tied up, one a dilapidated skip, one a sleek pleasureboat.

Lord, that's uptown. That's a fancy. Lookat that paint shine.

"Ssst. Ho." She braced the pole to slow. Rahman set his side and the skip's motion ebbed down as she looked up and up that cut. "I got to get in there."

"Yey," Rahman said, and put out the hook, snagging the old skip's bow. She shipped the pole without a rattle, felt her belt for the hook and the knife, then got down cat-footed into the well and pried the lid on the match-can there by the edge of the hidey, put a few in her pocket and glanced over at Ali, who huddled close by.

"You mind what I said."

"Jones, we're going to die."

"Likeliest be your fault, then. Hear?"

"I got ye. I got ye." Ali's teeth were chattering again. He kept his arms clenched across his gut. She looked up at Rahman's sullen face, at Tommy's wide eyes.

"Rahman," she whispered, "that engine, takes three tries, light prime and ye got to hold the choke out by hand, Here." She handed him up the matches, reached down and picked a quiet handful of metal out of a second can. Nuts and bolts and screws. She held one up and pocketed the rest. "I toss one of these, you hear that splash, you put Ali here t' that door. You get that freight door open. Hear? You take one of them bottles. You toss 'er and you get the hell down this way and toss the other right into these boats."

"Yey." Rahman's sullen eyes flickered in the shadow, thinking-moving. Calculating as she got to her feet and the wind skirled in the cut.

Damn, neverdo a Revenantist a favor. He suspects it, he'll hate you for it. Man wantsto die. Wants Mary and his kids clear. Damn, he hates me.

She got to the drop by the engine, took out the gun and pocketed a few extra shells. She held it in plain light to check the chambers, and when she looked up Rahman had a different kind of look.

The kid ain't planning anything small, man. This kid ain't the fool you thought. This kid's her mama's daughter. Figure that, Rahman Diaz.

She rose up off her knee and took off her cap, passed it to Tommy. "Hold that. Lose it and I'll skin ye."

"Yeah," Tommy said. Terrified.

She stuck the pry-bar in her belt, and looked up, up at the underside of the balcony, at the timber bracings mat laced back and forth inside the cut.

A tumbledown boatshed finished off that cut at the back, there by the boatdock door. Windows around the cut were all barred, all shuttered, and no light showing.

She stepped aboard the old skip, a wary eye to the hidey; but nothing stirred there. She crossed onto the sleek deck of the fancy and walked it to the ledge of the cut.

The door there was locked. Of course it was locked. She looked up at the shed, looked at the old timber piled there.

She laid the gun down and took a plank, set it to the boatshed roof, tested it for angle and looked up again where the bracings kept Megary's upper story true. Right above the shed,

She's going to creak, she's going to squeal the moment I stand on that roof.

But, Lord, ain't that pretty, how they got that brace going from that wall, that's good black upriver timber and the cut wall's all brick, solid as an uptown bridge.

If I don't break my fool neck getting up there.

She picked up the gun, gauged her angle and the traction of bare feet with the grain of the plank going up-wise. Drew a deep breath.

Ain't no different than a deck in weather, is it? Damn lot steadier.

Do I wonder whether that roofs rotten? Where would them roof-studs be?

She ran the plank, hit the roof and a shingle went loose. It fell. Her knee came down on the yielding roof, found a rotten spot and she sprawled, afraid to move while the awful noise of the broken board resounded in the cut. She shuddered convulsively, felt acute pain in her thigh and gasped for air as she dragged her weight up.

Didn't lose the gun, damn, I didn't lose the gun and I didn't drop nothing.

Am I cut? Is that a nail?

She dragged the leg farther and farther off the broken board, spread like a seastar across the rotten shingles as a wind-gust fluttered a loose board and thunder rumbled, the pain blacked her vision, eased slowly. She kept crawling, up and up to the rooftree.

If that gives way, I'm done, I'm dead or worse—

O Lord, Lord, if I can just stand up and reach that timber up there—

She cast a look back, at her skip riding quiet in the dark, like any skip at night-tie. Another hitch higher on the shingles. Another shingle slipped and slid and hit the water with a splash.

Lord, no, no, Rahman, that ain't no signal, don't go for that door.

Climb, you got to hurry, fool!

Breath came hard. She edged up and up and felt the whole building protest.

Don't leave your weight on that rooftree one second longer'n need be, and what you going to do with the damn gun, Altair?

Her mother's voice. Retribution perched up on the tim here, in the big black fork of them where they held tottering Megary's upper section apart.

Blow my damn gut out, mama.

She stuffed her sweater into her pants and tightened her belt till it hurt, pulled her sweater collar wide and stuffed the gun down her front. Then she rose up on her knees, scrambling for that timber with both arms as the shed trembled under her departing feet.

She swung up, hung upside down by arms and legs, edged along and felt the gun slide slowly off her stomach and plunk down into her sweater at the back. Damn. Oh, damn. It swung there.

How'm I going to get rightside up?

You damn well doit, Altair.

Thanks, mama, thanks.

She edged higher with one heel and a knee. The gun swung over farther against her back. The sprained finger shot fire and she lost her vision for a moment, sucked wind as she hung in the old position again.

Won't work. O Lord, I can't hold on, my arms are going to go.

She crept closer to the balcony. Banged her head against the boards where thinner supports were nailed in afterthought.

She transferred one grip to a brace-board. It seemed solid. She risked the lame hand, hooked that elbow around the board, sucked more air and let go the timber with her feet.

Strained arms wrenched under her whole weight. She pulled and pulled and got the other elbow hooked around a brace. Higher, then. She snatched another hold with the right forearm and got a knee onto a board while the gun dragged at the back of her sweater and the damn pry-bar caught on a board.

Another push upward. A nail creaked. She got the second foot on a brace, hooked her left foot up onto the timber again and climbed and inched with her whole mid-section arched up and trembling over nothing.

And a cascade of objects left her pocket and thunked and splashed into water down below.

Oh, damn, damn, no, Rahman, that ain't it either, don't you move—

She hung there gasping. A last flurry of changed handholds and elbow-hooks, one small brace to the next, and she ended up with her head higher than her feet this time and one foot in agony, wedged in the vee of two brace-boards.

She stood on it, grabbed the corner-brace of the balcony and found the next footing. The whole rail wobbled when she touched it. She set her foot carefully sideways on the rim of the balcony outside the rail, used the rail for balance with her weight square-down on it, and snatched a hold with her good hand on the chain that anchored the balcony from the main building face.

O God.

Her knees wobbled worse than the rail. Her legs wanted to go out from under her. She swung a leg over the rail and onto solid planking, clung to the chain with arms gone almost limp and dragged the other leg over the shaky railing. A row of shutters showed light along the balcony, a door shed a little glow from the bottom out onto weathered boards. The whole balcony had a precarious, twisted look, tilted toward the canal, slung by chains from the roof overhang. Wind whistled round the corner. And the cloud-mass showed above Amparo roof, closer and ominous with lightnings.

She leaned out from the corner. The end of the skip was visible. Still there. She gulped air and fished the gun around under the sweater until she could pull the sweater loose by main force and get the gun out. Her hands trembled with fatigue; she needed both to support the weight of the pistol. Her brain reeled this way and that in blind panic.

Door, fool! Try the door.

She edged back on the rickety balcony to the brick of the face, clenched the gun in both hands and padded over to the door, put an ear to the paint-peeling wood and heard male voices. Heard a sound then that sounded like something else. It turned into a moan that sent ice through her nerves.

Damn 'em, damn 'em. Her heart spasmed. Her hands shook as she gripped the gun in the right and tried the latch ever so softly.

Locked.

But they're here. They're damn well in there, the Sword and all, with that fancy boat down to the dock. Thatain't nothing Megary owns. You got a chance. Think, Jones, get your brain to work and shake the trembles out, who's going to save him else?

Careful steps, one and another down the balcony that girded Megary's topmost level.

Creak.

She recovered her pulsebeat and made the next step, walked closer to the brick, where the boards were firmer underfoot, as far as the first shuttered window and a crack that let light out.

Men inside. Moving figures in that little sliver of vision the crack afforded. A body passed right in front of the window and she ducked down a moment, holding her breath.

Then a voice shrilled out on the canal below the balcony: " Who you be? Who you be?"

God, it's Muggin!

Steps crossed the room inside. "Leave that alone," somebody said, somebody with a hightown voice, "Don't show a light."

"It's just some canaler ruckus—" Another. While her heart beat and beat against her ribs.

From below: " What you doing sneaking round here? Ain't up to no good, I seen you, Ali! I seen you too, Tommy-boy! Where you get that there skip?"

More steps. A door opened and shut somewhere to the right in the room.

O Lord, if they're coming out here—Where's that wall end? O if I'd holed them boats down there first, if I'd drained them tanks-She looked frantically for a hiding-spot. There was none, Even the door itself opened inward. She clutched the gun and aimed toward the door, hands shaking.

Quiet from below then. The slap of water.

More quiet.

It's gone askew, it's all gone askew, Rahman ain't going to get that back door open now, I got no help coming, I should've done for them boats. O Lord, maybe Rahman c'n do something. Maybe he'llthink of it.

Whatcan he do? He's got Muggin.

Water splashed, the gentle sound of a pole at work through the thunder of wind and loose shingles.

" Well, I'msorry!" Muggin's voice drifted up.

She put her ear to the shutter. The voices inside came fainter now.

"—find out. —Megary will see to it. —harbor. —aren't going to get anything—"

Thunder muttered from the clouds, nearer than it had been.

Where is he, dammit, is Mondragon even in there? I daren't look, man's probably looking out that crack, I'll go eyeball to eyeball with 'im if I go in front of that shutter.

"—forget it," someone said. "—storm moving in—out there—tide—"

"—through the harbor—"

Another voice.

"—damned—"

A sudden outcry, quickly muffled. A groan.

She clenched her hand on the gun.

" Yo!" came from far below. And there was hammering, fist on distant door. " It's Ali, dammit, let me in! I got news—"

"—What's that?" From inside.

"Damn. What are they doing out there?" From near the door.

"You'd better go down and see."

A door opened and slammed. The hammering kept up at the freight-door.

O Lord and Glory, Rahman's give me the best he can.

She ducked under the first window, headed for the next and straightened up slowly, drawing her knife left-handed. She spotted the latch, shadow across the slit, put her eye to the crack to be sure. Big vault of a room, plaster walls, a door, scant furniture. Three men moving about. She shifted her vantage, got sight of a brick wall, of—

–Mondragon slumped there on the floor, just lying. One of the others kicked him in the gut and he curled tighter to protect himself, blond head tucked in chained arms.

She swallowed hard. Sucked several breaths like preparing for a deep dive. Think. Think, Jones. Get the blood moving. Her hand sweated on the gunbutt and her eye went on scanning, cold now, quick and all-inclusive, while thunder muttered up in the clouds.

Man by those shutters. And a bright brass lock and bolt on that shut door.

She slipped the thin knife into the shutter-slit, lifted, caught the wood with the knife-tip and pulled it outward.

Damn'em.

She flung the shutter open on dirty glass and a shut window, opened fire right through it, and the first man dropped on the second shot. The second man ran for the door and the third, uptown-dressed, dived for cover behind a couch.

She dropped him, shot at the second and leaned through the shattered window for a shot at the fourth. Winged him. He spun with the shot and she shot again. Man-two got the door open and made it out as she raked glass from the window and threw a leg in, winced at a cut and hopped to both feet inside. She stumbled once, found her balance on one foot and ran.

She hit the door bodily, snapped the lock shut and shot the bolt.

" Jones!" Mondragon screamed.

She spun about, saw the man on his knees behind the couch; and blasted him over backwards.

Five, is that five bullets? No, six, dammit! She snatched at pockets, felt them desperately.

Nothing. Not a shell left. She flung herself to her knees by Mondragon as he dragged himself up agaist the bricks. His white face was all sweat-beaded and stained from a cut on his forehead. His hair was plastered against his temples and bloodstain spread through the sweat. "Jones," he said—Steps came thundering up the stairs inside. He grabbed with manacled hands at the collar-chain, jerked at it frantically where it connected to the brickwork. "Jones– shoot the damn chain!''

"I'm out!" She dropped gun and knife, jerked at the pry-bar at her belt, working it loose as blows hit the door. "I got this."

"Oh, damn, damn—give it to me, get out that window—"

" Shoot the lock!" someone yelled outside.

"Jones, get out of here! You can't help me!"

"Damned if I can't." She got the pry-bar free of her belt and jammed the hook-end under the edge of the chain-bracket while shots splintered away at the solid door.

"God," Mondragon said and twisted round on his knees to get his own hands on the bar, threw all his strength into it till the veins stood out and his face turned dark.

Bolts squealed loose from the mortar, one and two. The other two loosened. Blows hit the door again. More shots outside, deafening. She put her weight with his and the bracket flew free, pins and all.

"Come on!" She grabbed up the gun and sheathed the knife. "F' God's sake, get up!—"She pulled at him. He staggered up, reeled and kept his feet. " Come on!"

He was behind her when she got to the door. She fumbled desperately with the latch and lock. Behind them the inside door was giving way, crack after crack of wood splintering under repeated battering.

The door stuck in the frame. She jerked and it came free. "Jump," she yelled on her way to the rail.

And tried to vault it. The whole rail cracked and gave way, spilling her outward.

She yelled in shock at the rush of dark air, tried to compose herself for the landing, and went into the water somewhere toward rump-first, water driven up her nose in the tumble, her wits nearly knocked from her as another large impact whumped into the water.

They'll be on us, they'll have us in the water, they got guns up there—

Is he swimming? That chain could've knocked him cold, broke his neck, o Lord! Mondragon—

She hit the canal bottom on her back, righted herself and kicked off the mucky bottom for the surface. Her head broke clear of the water—she sucked a foul breath, spat Det-water and stared wildly at the side of a skip, at a ragged-canopied skip bobbing there in front of her. Mondragon broke to surface, lost it again. A hook came out in the hands of a raggedy figure on the skip-deck and snagged him by the sweater, hauling him up to air.

"Dammit!" Jones choked, spitting water.

"Damn near hit my boat," old Muggin yelled in his cracked voice. "Ye damn fools!"

An engine coughed from off in the dark. Coughed again. A third time. Took. And fire flared up across the water, off the walls, off Muggin's ragged canopy, flinging his features into demonic highlights.

She kicked and turned as a skip bore down on them under power, and Tommy was there in the bow trying to find them.

Explosions. Shots kicked up little plumes in the firelit water.

"Jones!" Tommy was yelling, waving one hand wildly as the bow came up toward her head and she kicked desperately out of the way, clawed her way up Muggin's side and got a hold on that rim as her own skip rode close, throttled back. "Mondragon—Damn, let him go, Muggin!"

Muggin shoved hook and Mondragon down, and Mondragon flailed out desperately with chained hands, turned and caught her skip in one wild lunge. She flung the gun aboard in a sweep of water, hurled herself for her skip rim. "Help him!" she screamed at Tommy, who abandoned Mondragon to sink. "Damn ye, help him, he'll go under the damn bow!" She bounced underwater, hurled herself up and got her arms over the side with the last of her strength as the skip started to move. A shot slammed into the well. Another kicked up water beyond. Tommy got

Mondragon in and Rahman put the throttle in full.

"Tom-mm-my!" Altair yelled, holding by bom arms over the rim. Water dragged harder and harder at her legs.

Her arms bruised themselves on the rim and muscle-strength faded. " Tommy, dammit!"

A shadow loomed up. Someone grabbed her sweater in the middle of the back, hauled, grabbed the seat of her pants and slipped her up and over the rim in a sprawl of his limbs and hers.

She clambered over the body, heard a grunt of pain, caught a firelit impression of All's sweating face as the skip sped around the comer of Amparo west. ' 'Boats!" she screamed at Ali as they rounded the turn. "Boats, dammit– go round again!" And in the protected interval as they raced behind Amparo: "Mondragon," she gasped, scrambling over the well-slats, where he lay sprawled on his face. "Mondragon—"

He moved. He got up on his hands and she scrambled aft again to get to the firebomb. Behind Amparo, echoing off the dike, another engine roared to life; one, and a second.

"Rahman!" She looked up where Rahman crouched by the tiller, hanging on for all he was worth. "They're going to cut us off!"

"Yey," Rahman yelled. The throttle was already in full.

"Get the damn chain off," Mondragon was saying. "Get the chain—"

"Ax." Wits came back. She abandoned the move for the bomb and dived instead for the ax at the edge of the well, laid hand on it and scrambled over the slats where Mondragon had positioned himself, manacled hands on either side of the boat-rim. Ali took the ax from her, brought it down with one great whack that parted the links and drove into the wood.

Amparo's brick-and-shutters gave way suddenly to West Canal, to a fancy boat roaring down on them broadside.

"Deck!" she yelped, and hit it in a tangle with Mondragon and Ali as shots whined over the side. Rahman gave a strangled sound, and the tiller swung over. "Rahman? Rahman!"

"Deck!" Rahman yelled hoarsely, and the high walls of

Southdike swung front of them, the sea-gate and the Old Harbor in the lightning-flicker. ' ' Damn, she' ll bottom!''

" Seawind!" Rahman yelled, naming his bet, and Altair hit the deck on her face, clung to the slats waiting for the shock to take the skip apart.

The engine roared off the dike, and sound receded into clear space.

She put her head up and saw harbor around them, the Dead Wharf, the chop of shallow water ahead in a moment of lightning-flash.

Ghost Fleet shallows. She scrambled to her knees and saw Rahman slumped on the tiller, the skip skewing wild. "Jones!" Mondragon yelled as she clawed her way up onto the deck. She looked, grabbed the tiller under Rahman's failing arm, wrenched the bar over as a black wall loomed up where none had a right to be. She slewed it, passed between high-prowed fisher-boat and its anchor-cable; and shots spanged and splintered off the stern, engine sound still behind them. Light flared. More shots. She got as low behind the engine box as she could, swung wild, over to the shallows, and veered off them—veered off where the wind-borne smell of dead weed and the drifting hulks of rafters warned her of shallower and shallower water. A bigger engine thumped to life. "It's that fisher!" Ali yelled. "That's the slaver! Get away from it, get out of here!"

"I'm trying! Tommy, get a rag in that damn leak, we got drag!" Beside her, Rahman moved, tried to help, slumped down again. A rafter loomed up, spiny with hooks. Wild cries hooted through the night. Crazies, it's crazies!

Rahman moved again, got to the side of the deck, strobed in lightning. "Get back!" she yelled as shots popped behind them. Dead Wharf was off portside. She shoved the throttle for any last fraction she could get out of it, swung the tiller and saw what Rahman was after. Ali had seen and crawled up there. The last bottle. Fuel-smell came over the wind and the rot.

"Get down!" she yelled at them. "Get down in the well—"

As the engine gave a fuel-out cough and died.

"What happened?" Tommy yelled. "What happened?"

They kept gliding, wind-battered, tossed by the chop. She got to her knees and tried the prime, hurled the crank over. Dry cough. Again.

O God.

"Gimme my gun!" she yelled. "Tommy! My gun! In the well!"

Shells in the drop. She flung the lid up and groped for the heavy little box among the rags, cast a look at the boats coming up fast, at the crazies closing on them from one side and the big shadow of the fisher coming up from behind.

It was Mondragon came up with the gun, came clattering onto the half deck at a slithering crawl, chain trailing. "Sword's in the hidey," she said. "I brung it—"

He shoved the gun at her and scrambled down into the well again backward. She broke the chamber and began to load, precisely, hands a-tremble and way falling off the skip by the second. She kept the bow to the waves, kept gaining what she could. No more shots back there. They knewtheir prey was slowing, knew that engine had to be dead.

She snapped the chamber shut, saw the spiny hulk of a raft closing nearer and nearer to portside, lightning-lit. Ragged figures worked a score of poles, doggedly and slowly revolving the raft in that way that rafters moved. And the engines of the lighter boats behind them drowned in the heavier thump of the fisher-engine as the big boat gathered way and came on them.

Closer and closer, till it filled everything aft and throttled down for the overtake.

"Rahman!" she yelled.

"I got 'er," Ali yelled, and fire sparked in the wind, a rag caught, and that fire-spark went sailing up and over that high bow.

Fire broke on the slaver-deck, Men screamed and cursed. One appeared in sight and she fired. He fell back. More came, and the skip came round to the side, engine dying. Men stood ready with boathooks, and she picked another off as the skip crashed bow-on into their side and men leaped aboard. "Mondragon– dammit!''

The sword flashed in firelight, a dark-clothed, blond streak swung into the boarders and dumped them into their own boat. One swung a hook for him and she blew that man off the boat. Rahman yelled and she fired into the fancy-boat coming up on his side as boarders kept trying and Mondragon kept discouraging them on the one side with the sword and Ali on the other with the axe. Tommy got the boathook unracked and nearly took Ah' in the back with it.

"Ware aft!" Rahman yelled. She looked up as he did and popped a fire-limned rifleman off the fisher-bow as a thunder grew in her ears, like engines, like one big engine, bigger even than the fisher.

A bow arrived out of the fire-glare and the lightning-shot dark and crunched the fancy-boat to splinters, rode it and the men down; and of a sudden their last boarders dived for the remaining boat and tried to start it. Shots from elsewhere toppled them into the water.

The big boat rode past like a moving wall, came to a powered slow that churned the sea to chop. Shots popped and whined overhead, aimed at the burning fisher and the crazies. Howls went up from the raft. And all along that towering side men appeared with rifles aimed down at them.

Ali froze. Tommy let the pole down. Only Mondragon kept the sword a moment. And slowly, slowly let it sink to his side and drop to the deck.

She slipped the gun back to the drop-box, covering what she did with her knee. She let the lid down, all little motions, while Rahman rested on an arm, staring bleakly up at the dark-clothed men who held the guns on them all. The fisher went on burning,

'Take a line!" a voice shouted down at them. "Canaler, take a line!"

"The hell!" Altair stood up and shouted up at the faces and the guns. "The hell! You going to give us a tow, say where!"

A pale face appeared along the rim among the others. Firelight glittered off his collar, red as blood or rubies. "There are other choices," white-face called down. "And none of them favor you!"

"Trade'll have a say in it!"

"Take them," white-face said, pointing with a long, jewel-cuffed arm. And turned and vanished from the rail, leaving only the guns and the boarding crew.

"Dammit, I'll take the line," Altair cried. " I'll take the tine!"

The deck was huge, smooth pale wood, brass fittings, a lofty quarterdeck aft. She gaped about her dazedly, standing at Mondragon's side, looked back left as they hauled Rahman aboard, all strapped to a board and wrapped up with blankets.

They going to save him or what?

Tommy and Ali came last, under their own power. They began to take Ali away, a man on a side. They took Tommy, who belatedly began to struggle in panic. It did no good. They were big men. And there was not much of Tommy.

Guns were on them. They carried Rahman off, never taking him loose from the board they had tied him to, and disappeared belowdecks.

She shivered, wanted to lean on Mondragon, wanted to hold onto him. But he kept apart from her. She guessed why. It was about the only favor he could do her.

A man searched him for weapons. Mondragon stood still, swaying on his feet. The same man laid hands on her and she saw Mondragon's face go hard. She looked past that man's shoulder, looked at him, shut her eyes and opened them again.

Don't do nothing stupid, Mondragon. Please.

"Whose boat is this?" she asked hoarsely, "Whose?"

But no one answered.

And the fisher kept burning, black skeleton sinking down to join the Ghost Fleet. With all hands.