The Orpheus Machine

Chapter 2

Five crew came running down the side deck only a moment after Nisa and Dolmaero had gotten settled on the center seat of the lifeboat and wrapped a disguising square of canvas around them. “What shall I do?” whispered Molnekh.

“Nothing, until I tell you.” Ruiz held the splinter gun ready under his oilskins.

Of the five, Ruiz identified only the second mate Gunderd, who steadied the gunwale of the boat while his people boarded, then swung himself in. “Come on,” he shrieked. “She’s going.” Apparently he didn’t recognize Ruiz in the wild darkness.

Ruiz shrugged and climbed in, giving Molnekh a hand up.

Gunderd immediately went to the aft fall and uncleated the line; he gestured at Ruiz to take the forward fall. “When I give the word, lower away smartly,” he called.

One of the crew, a wide-eyed boy, protested. “What about the captain and the rest of the port watch?”

“Too late for them, boy — they’re on the wet side of the number two collision bulkhead. Might be too late for us. Jeric, you get the motor turning.” Gunderd looked at Ruiz. “Ready?”

Ruiz nodded, pulling his hood forward around his face as if to block out the spray, which now blew hard enough to hurt.

Gunderd waited until the barge had rolled her rail under, so that the boat was as far outboard as possible. “Lower away!”

Ruiz let the fall run, and the lifeboat dropped into the sea with a jarring crash. Gunderd and Ruiz jerked the shackles loose and the boat churned away from the crushing steel wall of the barge’s hull.

“Good job, Jeric,” said Gunderd to the crewman at the tiller, who was a tall rawboned man with a scarred face. “Head her off; try to move with the crests — but watch out for cross seas.”

“Aye,” said Jeric, without noticeable enthusiasm or alarm.

Ruiz looked back. The Loracca was already receding into the darkness, her lights dimming. He could no longer hear the screams of the Immolators, and it struck him that the screaming of the wind was a far cleaner sound, easier on the ears.

The lifeboat’s motion was very quick, but she rode the waves buoyantly and little solid water came aboard. They seemed for the moment to be as safe as they could hope to be. He pulled his foul-weather gear tight and settled down beside Molnekh.

Gunderd didn’t discover their identities until dawn painted the wave tops red.

The storm had moderated slightly by then, and the waves were no longer as steep. Gunderd rose from his seat and braced himself against the radio mast for a look around the horizon. When his eyes passed over Ruiz Aw, he jerked in astonishment. “You’re not Drinsle,” he shouted, and drew a nerve lash from his jacket.

“No,” admitted Ruiz. He produced the splinter gun, and then pushed back his hood. “Be calm,” he said.

Gunderd’s mouth dropped open. “Ruiz Aw? Is that you? Where are your Immolator robes?” Another thought struck him. “More to the point, where are Drinsle and Modoc?”

Ruiz shrugged, and glanced aside at the rumbling seas.

Gunderd sat down abruptly, the weight of his amazement apparently too heavy to support. Ruiz held the splinter gun steady. “I’ll have to ask you to throw your lash overboard, Gunderd.”

Gunderd did not immediately respond. “Ruiz Aw. How strange. Are you a pirate, then, and are these your fellow buccaneers?”

Ruiz gestured sharply with his gun. “Pitch the lash, Gunderd. Now.”

“Yes, whatever you say, Ruiz.” Gunderd threw the lash away as if it had grown too hot to hold.

Ruiz was distracted by the face of the seaman Jeric, who watched from his post at the tiller. Jeric’s eyes were incandescent with sudden hatred; had one of the dead crewmen been his special friend? Ruiz decided to disarm Loracca’s survivors.

“Molnekh,” he said, “search them carefully — and stay out of my line of fire. Keep their knives; all the other dangerous stuff goes overboard.”

Molnekh moved nimbly aft, and in a moment his clever conjuror’s fingers had picked them clean. Several lashes, a brass knuckleduster, and an antique iron cestus splashed into the sea. From Einduix the cook, Molnekh took a small flute of some silvery metal, decorated with delicate carvings. He held it up questioningly.

“Let me see,” said Ruiz. Molnekh tossed it to him, and Ruiz examined it. It seemed harmless, unequipped with hidden weaponry. The carvings appeared to be of bosomy mermaids with lasciviously arch expressions. Ruiz tossed it back to the cook, who gave him a smile of gratitude.

Molnekh came back with a handful of clasp knives.

Ruiz considered how best to deal with the crew. If they were to survive, they would need each other, and besides, he’d have to sleep sometime. “I mean you no harm. I’m sorry about the others, but there was no time for discussion.”

Gunderd rubbed his salt-sore eyes wearily. “Nor was there any need for you to kill them. The lifeboat is only half-full; I would have given you and your people places.”

“I appreciate that, Gunderd — but I didn’t know this would be your boat. The captain might have arrived first. I wasn’t sure I could count on his generosity.”

“I see your point,” said Gunderd. “Well, what will you do with us?”

“Nothing dire. When we reach land, we’ll go our separate ways.”

“Oh. When we reach land.” Gunderd looked sourly amused and said no more.

As the light grew, Ruiz examined the others. He didn’t know the boy, and didn’t remember Jeric; perhaps the seaman didn’t play cards. The fourth oilskin-clad shape was a woman with heavy shoulders and a coarse jowly face, who at the moment seemed to have sunk into a blank-eyed trance. He didn’t remember her name, but she had attended several of the kanterip games as a kibitzer. The last survivor was the ship’s cook, a tiny shriveled man with burnt-orange skin and a long white pigtail. His name was Einduix; he spoke a language no one in the crew understood. If Einduix knew a word of the pangalac trade language, he found it convenient not to admit to the fact.

Einduix had been a frequent focus of Gunderd’s complaints about the Loracca.

Ruiz sighed. The lifeboat held an unpromising company. On the other hand, their prospects were indisputably better than those of the other folk who had traveled on the Loracca and were now probably drifting down through lightless waters, transformed into fish food.

The wind was definitely moderating now; Ruiz no longer had to shout to be heard. It should soon be possible to steer a course back toward land. “Gunderd,” he said. “Come sit with me and tell me what you plan now.”

Gunderd shrugged and crawled forward to sit on the thwart beside Ruiz. “It would seem you’re in command, Ruiz.” He nodded at the splinter gun. “What is your wish?”

Ruiz slipped the gun into his belt. “No, no. I was merely taking precautions against rash impulses. You’re in charge. Now, where will we go?” Ruiz glanced out over the sea, which was still lumpy. A big swell was running, so that the boat rose and fell in great stomach-dropping swoops, but it no longer seemed dangerous. “Will we head directly back toward land?”

Gunderd laughed hoarsely. “Not a good idea, unless you truly are Immolators. We’re well east of the Namp frontier. Without Loracca and her ruptors, we’d be nothing but groceries to the Blades.”

“Where, then?”

“Well…” Gunderd rubbed his whiskery chin thoughtfully, “Difficulties beset us in all directions. For one thing, the Loracca’s owners were improvident beyond reason. The boat’s fuel cell is old and weak; shortly it will cease to supply power.”

“What about the radio?” asked the boy.

Gunderd gave him a pitying look. “This is Sook. Who could we call?… Where was I? Oh, yes. There’s an emergency sailing rig, but I fear the boat will prove unhandy. To return to SeaStack against the prevailing winds and currents… impossible.”

“And so?” Ruiz fought the return of a familiar pessimism.

“I see two possibilities. We could continue east, until we pass beyond the Namp domain. That course has perils in plenty. Margar hunters frequent these waters, and if they catch us they’ll sell us to the first Namp galley they meet — though they might keep the women. Onshore gales blow often, and might beach us in Namp. And once beyond Namp, the shore is desolate and uninhabited for almost a thousand kilometers, except for Castle Delt.” Gunderd made a curious gesture with his forefinger and thumb, which Ruiz took to be a charm against any bad luck that might be attracted by the mention of the notorious Castle, which trained mercenaries, assassins, and enforcers for SeedCorp.

Ruiz shook his head. “And if we survive all that?”

“Well, eventually you come to a market town at the mouth of the Soaam River, where transport south can be had.”

“What about the other possibility?”

“We could sail northeast. With a bit of luck, we’ll reach the Dayerak Archipelago in two days. You know anything about the islands?”

“Some,” said Ruiz in a somber tone.

Gunderd nodded. “I see you do. So, the islands have their perils, too. And even if we manage to reach a freehold before pirates or cannibals or cultists take us, we might have to wait for a long time before safe transport could be arranged. Where, by the way, were you hoping to end up?”

“Off Sook,” said Ruiz.

Gunderd raised his bushy eyebrows. “Oh? Well, good luck.”

“Thank you,” said Ruiz. “Which course do you recommend, then?”

“Neither beckons irresistibly. But I suppose the islands offer the best chance — though it’s a slim one, I’m afraid.”

“I agree,” said Ruiz.

Gunderd gave Jeric the order. The lifeboat swung off and began to quarter the swell.

As the wind dropped, the boat started to roll violently in the leftover slop. Dolmaero was seasick again, clinging to the gunwale.

Ruiz settled himself beside Nisa, where he could keep an eye on the crew members in the back of the boat. Once again he found that her nearness brought him a warm uncomplicated pleasure. “How are you?” he asked.

“A little better,” she answered. “And you?”

“I’m fine.” And in fact he found himself in remarkably good spirits, considering the situation.

She nodded, unsmiling. He realized that she still hadn’t forgiven him for his unwilling neglect in SeaStack. He resigned himself to patience; why did he expect her to instantly put aside all the unpleasant events of their time together? Corean’s catchboat, the Blacktear Pens, the dungeons of SeaStack — these were hardly romantic locales. He had long before promised her that they would escape from this terrible world — and here they were, further than ever from that goal.

A silence ensued, during which the sun began to glimmer through thin spots in the overcast. “At least the weather’s improving,” she said.

“Yes.”

She looked around the lifeboat and sniffed. “But I find the situation confusing. Sometimes we flit along in miraculous flying machines, with engines that make scarcely a sound. Now we wallow about in this crude and dangerous device. It seems inconsistent.”

“It is,” Ruiz said. “Inconsistency is the norm on most worlds. Pharaoh is different, because the habitable area is so small. But Sook is large and circumstances vary. Some people on Sook flake their knives from stone and wear animal skins. Others control technologies I’ve never heard of.”

“It still seems strange,” she said. “Can you tell me where we’re going?”

“To some offshore islands.” He might have preferred to leave it at that, but she pointedly looked away, as if she didn’t expect further explanation. “The Dayeraks.”

“And what is an ‘island’?”

“A small area of dry land, surrounded by water.”

“Does it toss about like a boat?” She spoke warily, as if she thought he found her ignorance amusing.

“Oh no. Most islands are firmly anchored to the seabed. Some are quite large, others no more than rocks that barely break the surface.”

“These Dayeraks… what are they like? Your friend didn’t seem too enthusiastic.”

“No,” he admitted. “Dangerous people live on some of the islands.”

She sniffed. “Is there anywhere on this terrible world where there are no dangerous people?”

“Probably not,” he said. “Probably not.”

Corean floated in Yubere’s silver and gold bathtub, enjoying the steaming fragrant water… and her successful occupation of his stronghold. Yubere’s troops had been almost pathetically eager to accept her leadership. She had simply presented herself at his security gate, as if she had every right to enter. They had quickly succumbed to her presence and her assurance.

The fact that Yubere had welcomed her into the fortress on her last visit, had freely allowed her the use of his brother Remint, had treated her as an important ally… all these things disposed Yubere’s people to seize joyfully upon her advent, to regard her as their salvation. They had been particularly impressed by her Mocrassar bondwarrior — of a higher lineage than Yubere’s Moc, a creature which Ruiz Aw had apparently killed in the course of assassinating Yubere. They seemed to see a hopeful omen in her Moc’s superiority.

Yubere had evidently believed himself immortal and had made no attempt to select an heir. Indeed, he had gone to great pains to discourage any initiative among his henchmen.

“Paranoia is its own reward,” she said, turning on her side. With her fingertip she traced the black opal butterflies set into the backrest of the tub.

“What?” asked Marmo, who for once watched her, instead of playing his endless processor games.

“Nothing,” she said, and slid her hands up her torso, enjoying her own beautiful flesh. Did the old cyborg still hide a remnant of sensuality somewhere deep under the metal? She laughed and submerged herself up to her chin.

“You appear to be cheerful enough,” said Marmo. “Why is that? The situation still seems dangerous to me.”

“You worry too much, Marmo. Your rumor-mongering campaign has succeeded brilliantly. The pirates look everywhere for their great treasure — especially in each other’s pockets. They settle old scores, they spy on each other, they bay after Ruiz Aw. No one suspects us, or at least no one suspects us more than they suspect everyone else.”

“It can’t last,” said Marmo dourly.

She laughed again, and thereafter ignored him.

At midmorning Gunderd distributed a meal from the boat’s emergency stores: dried fish, starchy biscuits, fruit-flavored glucose tablets. “We won’t dry or starve… for a while, anyway,” he said. “The boat was stocked for twenty — and the watermaker works well enough.”

They ate in silence — except for Dolmaero, who gave his share to Molnekh. The crew woman now seemed catatonic.

When Ruiz had finished, he decided to make a diplomatic gesture. “Gunderd, perhaps we should become better acquainted with each other. Will you introduce your people?”

Both groups looked at him as though he had succumbed to some incomprehensible insanity. But finally Gunderd smiled crookedly. “If you like, Ruiz. Well… this member of the vegetable kingdom is Marlena, our purser,” he said, patting the woman on the arm. “She was making her last run before retirement — and she’s been sure that we would meet with some disaster since the hour we sailed from SeaStack. Of course, she felt the same way on every voyage, but since this was to be her last trip, her various dreads seemed more pitiable than usual. Irony indeed.”

Gunderd waved his hand at the boy. “And this is Svin, paragon among cabin boys, nephew of our late captain — and general layabout. He knows nothing of any importance whatever, and is quite proud of the fact.”

Svin smiled uncertainly.

“Einduix the cook needs no introduction, except to say that we are fortunate to have no cooking facilities aboard — else our chances of survival would be considerably lessened.”

Einduix, hearing his name, executed a jerky bow, pigtail bouncing.

“Finally, Jeric, able-bodied seaman and one of the few competent crew on the lost Loracca. Also your deadliest enemy, at the moment. His lover Modoc was one of those you gave to the sea.”

From his post at the tiller, Jeric watched Ruiz with small hot eyes, teeth bared in a strange grimace.

Ruiz considered apologizing, then rejected the impulse. Jeric would receive such an apology with the contempt it deserved, and Ruiz would gain nothing useful.

“We’re all pleased to meet you,” said Ruiz brightly. “With such a crew, we’re sure to survive.” His words sounded somewhat hollow and rather foolish, even to himself, but he went on, attempting to inject sincerity into his voice. “So. I’ll introduce my friends.”

He gestured at Molnekh. “This is Molnekh, a master conjuror of Pharaoh, where the best magicians in all the worlds are bred. Later he’ll perform some amazing sleights, to help us pass the time.”

Molnekh bowed theatrically and showed his cadaverous grin.

“And this is Dolmaero, Guildmaster of Pharaoh, an able man in all respects: trustworthy, intelligent, courageous. Though he’s presently indisposed, we can rely on him for sage advice.”

Dolmaero raised himself from the rail and made a feeble gesture of greeting.

Ruiz touched Nisa’s shoulder. “And this is Nisa, a princess of Pharaoh.” He almost added, and my beloved—but he restrained himself. She nodded distantly and looked back out at the sea, as if she expected to find something of interest in that tossing gray waste.

Gunderd’s bushy eyebrows twitched quizzically. “And yourself, Ruiz Aw? What is your specialty?”

Ruiz shrugged. “You know my name. I’m something of a generalist; I’ve tried several trades and achieved no great distinction in any of them.”

Gunderd looked dubious, and the Pharaohans looked surprised. But at first no one seemed willing to contradict Ruiz’s assessment of himself.

But then Nisa tossed her head and spoke. “Ruiz Aw is much too modest. And I’ve grown tired of listening to him tell lies, though he does it wonderfully well. He’s a notable enforcer and slayer; he’s killed more people than he can count, loved more women than he can remember, lived more years than he’s willing to admit. Recently he slew the mightiest man in SeaStack…. Remint was this latest victim’s name.”

Mouths fell open and eyes grew wide. Gunderd seemed especially affected; he wore the expression of a man who, playing with what he had supposed to be a harmless garden snake, has just been told that it is actually a deadly viper. “I had no idea,” he said slowly. “Are you sure? Remint has a potent reputation, to say the least.”

Ruiz shifted uncomfortably, surprised by Nisa’s testimonial. He would have preferred to maintain a lower profile. “She exaggerates a bit. Remint may be dead, but I didn’t see his corpse. In any case, I’ve retired from my former profession.”

Gunderd looked unconvinced. “Tell that to Modoc and Drinsle.”

Ruiz found it difficult to defend his actions. The two crewmen he had killed were hardly soldiers; they could not be described as casualties of any legitimate war. True, they weren’t notable humanitarians themselves; they’d been engaged in ferrying human beings to a dreadful fate at the hands of cannibals. Still, the Immolators wanted to be delivered to the abattoirs — and this was Sook.

No, his only justification came from one basic consideration. He would kill again with as little hesitation — if it allowed Nisa and Ruiz to live a little longer.

“I regret their deaths,” said Ruiz. “Were you in my shoes, would you have done otherwise?”

“Perhaps not,” said Gunderd after a moment.

No one spoke again for a long time. Loracca’s survivors seemed to be digesting Nisa’s revelations with reluctance, but they all watched Ruiz with a greater degree of wariness — even Jeric. That might be for the best; perhaps they would think twice before attempting any treachery. Maybe Nisa’s rash claims would turn out to be useful.

Jeric drove the boat northeast, across the diminishing swell.

By midafternoon, the wind had fallen to a light breeze, barely enough to ruffle the great green backs of the leftover storm swell. The sun had broken through, and only a few wispy clouds marked the verdigris sky.

Ruiz sat in the bow, watching a seabird wheeling high above the mast. He remembered earlier, less complicated times: the dusty roads of Pharaoh, the Expiation at Bidderum, the paddock in the Blacktear Pens where he had nursed Nisa back to health and where they had become lovers, Corean’s silk-upholstered apartment where he and Nisa had spent their longest time alone together… and best of all, the barge trip through beautiful wild country to SeaStack.

It occurred to him that he had never completely enjoyed those sweet lost days — at the time, he had been so full of schemes, so taut with violent anticipation, so wary of his enemies, that the best times had slid away from him, leaving only a sketchy residue of memory. Of course, he and Nisa were still alive because of these relentless preoccupations, so perhaps he had made a fair bargain. Still, he wondered briefly if it was the best possible bargain. He thought of that starry night on the barge, when he lay in Nisa’s arms. He remembered feeling that if he were to die in that moment, he might never find a more suitable moment in which to depart his long strange life — that a measure of safety from future evils could be found in such a death.

Ruiz shook his head angrily. Such thoughts were a slow poison, a weakness that would steal away his future with Nisa. He must cling to his wariness, his treachery, his brutality — until a time came that those qualities no longer served them, until they could finally escape from Sook and return to some less dangerous world.

He looked at her as she slept, her head pillowed on her hands, her features obscured by a tangle of thick black hair. All he could see of her were her slender strong arms and the white vulnerable curve of her neck. He felt an odd constriction of his throat, a mixture of grief and tenderness so powerful that his vision swam with tears. He was astonished; he hadn’t cried since his long-ago childhood.

He was distracted by a sudden change in the pitch of the boat’s engine, which then rapidly lost speed and began to emit an unpleasant grinding sound.

“What is it?” he asked Gunderd, who had leaped to the nacelle and flipped up the latches.

Gunderd grunted noncommittally and ducked his head into the engine compartment.

The engine fell silent. From the compartment came a series of peevish clatters, and then Gunderd emerged, face blackened with grease. “Dead,” he muttered. “Wasn’t the fuel cell, after all.”

“Now what?” asked Svin the cabin boy, suddenly looking even younger.

“Now we put up the sail and hope this wind holds.”

Ruiz helped Gunderd retrieve the gear from the cuddy. They assembled the jointed spars and set the brown lateen sail. Gunderd sheeted it in and the boat moved off, though more sedately than before.

Ruiz looked over Gunderd’s shoulder as he fiddled with the boat’s minimal navigation module. “Just enough juice left to run this for a few hours,” he said, adjusting the scale of a small electroluminescent screen. Gunderd’s thin brown finger stabbed at a cluster of wavy lines at the upper right-hand corner of the chart. “Here, the edge of the Dayerak Shelf.” His finger moved down. “Here, us.” A tiny green dot marked their position, two hundred kilometers off the Namp coast.

Gunderd shut down the display. “We’ll save the power until we get into the shoals — that’s when our piloting must be accurate.” He grinned. “There’s not enough juice for the radio — but that’s a small loss, since at the moment our only potential rescuers have pointy teeth and big appetites.”

Ruiz smiled back. “Have you always been a philosopher?”

“Always. But back to the matter at hand… can you steer a course?”

“More or less.”

“Good!” Gunderd patted Ruiz tentatively on the shoulder. “Will you stand a watch at the helm? Jeric and I have been alternating since Loracca foundered, and we’re both tired. Svin is unreliable — we might wake to find ourselves sailing back to the Blades — and Marlena seems to be present in body only. Einduix… well, he is as he is. Whatever that is.”

“I suppose so,” said Ruiz. He was tired, too; he had been unwilling to test Jeric’s restraint so early in their association. Still, he couldn’t refuse to do his fair share; that would only inflame the resentments against him.

He shifted aft and took the tiller from Jeric, who relinquished it with a grimace of barely restrained violence. The seaman went forward, where he glared truculently at the Pharaohans before settling himself on the floorboards. Dolmaero, who was apparently recovering at last from his bout with seasickness, returned an expression of wary reserve. Molnekh grinned cheerfully and nodded a greeting.

Nisa, who had awakened during Gunderd’s examination of the engine, looked bewildered… and then disdainful. She rose unsteadily and came aft to sit near Ruiz.

He couldn’t help smiling.

But then his attention was caught by the glitter of Jeric’s eyes within his hood, and by the ugly comprehension that came over Jeric’s face as he looked from Ruiz to Nisa. A chill touched Ruiz, and he wondered how best to deal with the seaman. Sooner or later he must sleep, and what would happen then?