The Prophecy Machine

4

“He never even asked about the lad. Was he hurt? Was he maimed? Was the poor boy alive or was he dead? I tell you, Letitia, I am not even certain this Sabatino fellow remembered what he'd done.”

“Why, how could he not?” Letitia pressed a delicate finger to her chin, a gesture Finn always found enchanting. “Of course he did. The boy was a Newlie, so the man didn't care.”

“Maybe,” Finn said, pacing the small cabin from one end to the next. “I'm not too sure of that. When it was over, he was rude, pompous, nasty, terribly overbearing, but quite a different fellow from the frothing lunatic he'd been….”

“Lunatic or not, he's a human person, and that's the way they think.” Letitia wrinkled her nose and smiled. “Not you, of course, dear Finn. Sometimes I think you're simply too nice to be a person at all.”

“I appreciate the thought.”

“Well, it's true, my dear.”

“Nicely put,” said Julia Jessica Slagg. “You'll never get a finer compliment than that. Or likely deserve it, I fear.”

“Be quiet,” Finn said, “nobody asked.”

Julia gave a rusty cackle and clawed up the bed to Letitia's lap. “If this poor lizard had to wait for someone to ask, she would never get to speak at all.”

“I'm grateful you reminded me of that,” Finn said. “That switch is not working as it should. If the ship would hold still for a moment, I could remedy that at once. Of course, with all this rolling and such, vital cogs and gears could spill out and roll about …”

“Stop it, both of you,” Letitia said. “I have to spend our vacation in this-tiny, stuffy room, but I do not have to listen to you two bicker all the time.”

She sighed then, and reached out to touch Finn's hand, as she nearly always did when a single cross word had passed between the two. And when Finn looked into those enormous, glossy black eyes that swirled with iridescent color like opals drowned in warm and fragrant oil, his heart near swelled with joy.

Granted, her ears were perhaps a bit long, but they came to a soft and lovely curve, peeking like furry pink secrets through her long ashen hair. Her lips were small and shapely, and, while her nose was somewhat pointy, Finn found it to be a very nice nose indeed. Her form was quite slender in all the proper places, and not too slender where slender wouldn't do at all.

How, he wondered, could he not love Letitia Louise? What she had been was not what she was now. An animal was one thing, a Newlie something else again. Many, of course, couldn't see the truth of that. Many, he knew, likely never would.

And who, in the end, was blessed with more kindness and love? Fair Letitia, or Sabatino Nucci and that vile and scrawny pair with little but stone in their hearts? All three were human through and through, and what did that gain them but cold and empty lives?

The world was full of questions, and Finn, Master Lizard-Maker, knew the answers to very few at all …

He brought their supper from the galley, a meal Letitia hardly touched-watery oyster soup, oat-bread and fish. Letitia nibbled on the bread, but, as ever, wouldn't touch the soup or fish. Meat was meat, whether it came from land or sea. Her kind had never been predators, they'd always been the prey.

“Did you see anyone?” she asked, her precious pink tongue finding crumbs at the corners of her lips. “Does everyone go and eat there? I mean, it must be interesting, meeting new people at sea …”

“Not especially,” Finn told her. “There were quite a few diners, but no one of note, as I recall.”

“Passengers, you mean. But not the crew.”

“Oh, no, not the crew. They have their own quarters forward, quite a distance from here.”

He couldn't miss the little shudder at the mention of the Yowlies. That encounter had shaken her to the core.

“And the man who attacked you wasn't there? Truly, Finn?”

“Truly, Letitia. I didn't see the man.”

“You could have been killed. A man like that has no love for humans, either. He only cares for himself.”

“I should say that's true. But you needn't worry. He'll not bother me again.”

Finn was glad he'd slightly edited his adventure with Sabatino Nucci. He hadn't mentioned that the loony had challenged him to a duel, and asked him to supper as well. He could scarcely fathom the man's bizarre behavior, and saw no reason to share it with Letitia Louise.

“I think,” Julia put in, scratching herself with sharp iron claws, though, as Finn knew, there was no way she could possibly itch, “as the captain suggested, I could use some lubrication. This salty air is not beneficial to creatures of the metal persuasion. You might, while you're at it, oil that sword in your pack, Master Finn. I expect it's been affected too.”

“Thank you for the advice,” Finn said, tossing the lizard a frosty look that Letitia couldn't see. She flicked her brass tongue and pretended she'd dropped off to sleep-which, like itching, was a talent reserved for creatures of skin and bone, not those of copper, iron and scraps of tin.

“I almost wish we hadn't come,” Letitia said, taking up her thoughts again. “I miss our house and my kitchen. I even miss the smells of Garpenny Street. They are odors less than sweet, to be sure, but they are our odors, Finn.”

“Yes, well, you'll like Antoline Island when we get there,” Finn assured her quickly. “I understand the hotel is practically new, and the beach is quite grand …”

“That boy,” she said, as if he hadn't spoken at all, “he was injured, you said. And no one, certainly not his-his masters, or the captain of this horrible vessel, seem to care. I feel so sorry for the lad. The Foxers are very nice folk. Several of them clerked at Counters Hall, you'll recall. I'm sure you've seen them there.”

“I have indeed,” Finn said.

“Before the Change, they were as hungry for my kind as the Yowlies were, Finn. But that's not their way now. They're different, but the Yowlies are the same …”

She paused, and held him with her magnificent dark eyes.

“We remember sometimes, all the Newlies do. It's there in our heads from those who came before. Sometimes I'm running through a burrow, squeezing through a musty hole running for my life. It isn't me, Finn, but it is. It's there, and it doesn't go away just because you want it to.”

“I'm sorry,” she said, shaking her fears away once more. “I can't help being what I am.”

“There is nothing else I want you to be,” he told her. “Nothing but what you are.”

“Yes, I know. And I thank you, Finn.”

He wanted desperately to take her in his arms, hold her, and assure her the world would surely change, that all that was wrong would then be set aright. He knew, though, that this wasn't so, that Letitia knew it as well as he.

Newlies had the same rights as humans, but laws are only as good as people want them to be. The Foxer boy was a servant in name, but in truth, little more than a slave. The counselor couple had “hired” him from someone who dealt in such things, and the boy could never get away.

Things should change, and they would, Finn knew, but not today or tomorrow, not when Letitia wanted them to …

“I should have stayed to help,” Julia said, when Letitia had dropped off to sleep, and a candle made shadows on the walls. “I could have bitten that lout's hand off and saved you a little time.”

“For once,” Finn said, “you did exactly what you should have done. If you had joined the fray, they'd all know now you are neither an ornament nor a toy. We've been through this before. Many people are not quite ready for talking hunks of tin.”

“Hunks of tin, is it?”

“So to speak. I suppose one could word it another way.”

“Surely one could.”

“Do not be quick to take offense, Julia. I am not in the mood for this.”

“Don't be quick to give it, then. I've got feelings too, you know.”

“Yes, I do know,” Finn said with a sigh of resignation, not far in truth from a sigh of regret. “Whatever came over me to fill you with emotions, like a baker squeezing custard into a tart? I must have been reeling drunk to do such a fool thing as that.”

“You were quite sober, as a fact,” Julia said. “A glorious moment, a brilliant achievement, the high point of your life, the-”

“That's quite enough. Be still, now, I'm taking a nap.”

“Then I will too.”

“We are both aware that you can't do that.”

“Sleep well,” Julia yawned. “I shall wake up promptly at six …”