"So you're still in one piece?" Rat studied her partner in the light of the lantern. "I saw that cute splash-up on the Grand, but wasn't close enough to help. Who were they?"
"Can't be sure," said Rif, unlashing the crates. "Got enemies enough on this trip. It's getting pretty fierce. Best split the cargo."
Jones snorted at that, remembering that there was still the third barrel waiting, leaving her the heavy work.
Mintaka rolled rheumy eyes at Jones, unseeing but expressive. "Fancy company you keep, Altair," she cackled. "Moving up in the world, you are."
"I don't do this every day," Jones shrugged, quietly vowing that she wouldn't be doing it again, either.
Rif hauled the top crate to the gunwales and handed it to her partner. "You take these," she said, reaching for the second crate, "And I'll finish with the barrel."
"Sure that's safe for you?" Rattail asked, stowing the crates.
"I've got your little roof-rat for warning, haven't I?"
"He can't help you in the harbor."
Jones sucked her teeth. The harbor? Was that where they were going next?
"I'll move fast and trust my hand-iron," Rif promised. "Now get out of here."
Rattail untied and obliged, poling off silently in the reeking dark. Rif watched her go, then turned the lantern-light inboard and checked the barrel-ties.
In the passing light Jones noticed something dark on the slats, something like coarse glossy powder, framing the space where the lower crate's corner had been and dribbled thinly over to the gunwale. She reached down and picked up a pinch of the stuff. Hard, smooth, discrete grains. Not powder, no....
Rif loosed the bow tie-line and pulled it in. "Now for the last of it," she said. "Out to Dead Harbor, by Wharf Gate.. . . Jones?"
Jones had unracked the pole, but didn't pull lose the aft tie. "I'll risk my boat and my neck for money," she fumed, "But damned if I can see doing it for a bunch of seeds!"
Rif laughed softly in the dark. "Okay, answer-time," she said. "They're a special kind of weed. Now let's go empty the last barrel."
Jones pulled the tie loose with a savage yank. "For what?" she insisted, knowing she was pushing dangerously. "Some new kind of get-you-high weed? Is that why the blacklegs're after us? I ain't asking for a cut, and I can keep my mouth shut, but I'd like to know what I might get killed for tonight!"
Rif sighed. "Something a little more important than funny-weed," she said. "Water-weed. Water-cleaner, in fact."
"Water-cleaner?" Jones almost missed her stroke on the pole.
"A kind of special-bred water-weed. Roots on the bottom, floats on the surface—and feeds on water-garbage. A kind of Living water-purifier, hey? Grow all over town."
"Lord and Ancestors," Jones muttered, thinking about that. Imagine the water clean. Imagine the Tidewater not stinking, the canals safe to swim in, good fishing up and down the city, food free and abundant everywhere. Imagine— "Then why in all hell is somebody tryin't' kill ye?"
"Because it'll make change." Rif s voice was grim with years' worth of cynical knowledge. "In a town like this, there's people who profit—in money and politics—from the way things are. Even from dirty water and disease and lots of poor folk dying. Damn priests in the college they don't want to see that change. Besides. ..." A passing bar of window-light showed a wry smile on Rif s face. "The people who bred that weed mean to take the credit, and their competition wouldn't like that."
"Shit," Jones whispered, spearing her pole into the water as if the scummy fluid were a living enemy. What kind of world was this, what kind of city, where people had to hide and sneak and fight just to do a little bit of good? What damned kind of world? "Dammit to hell! Ahh, this is hell. What did I do to get born here?"
"Prob'ly nothing at all. Life ain't fair unless you make it." Rif automatically checked the bridge ahead. "So, here's to some changes in hell."
Jones rubbed her eyes and steered on, just as grateful that at this hour the water here was mostly empty. Smooth and steady now under the looming shadow of Southdike, around the west corner toward the Wharf Gate.
Oh, hell, the gate was closed and locked! How had that happened? Nobody ever locked Wharf Gate, especially not during Festival. "Now what?" Jones asked, poling to a smooth stop in front of the ancient gate-grill.
"Shit, we'll just have to empty it here." Rif reached for her bag and felt inside it for the mallet.
A gunshot boomed, loud as a cannon, erupting a small geyser just off the bow.
"Deck!" Jones yelped, dropping flat. The pole clattered down beside her, almost bouncing away. Lord, another ambush, and no help anywhere near; the ears on Southdike and Amparo might hear, but nobody would so much as lean out for a good look, not down here. What in hell to do?
"What the fuck?" Rif squeaked, tumbling back among the barrels, pawing at her bag and trying to see where the shot had come from.
"This isn't your lucky day," snarled a voice from the top of the eastward gate-pier.
A quiet tenor voice.
Even before she looked up at the tall silhouette on the pier, Jones knew who it was.
"Black Cal, you gone crazy?" Rif gasped, poking her head out from between the barrels. "What're you shooting at us for?"
Black Cal leaned out over the edge of the gate, one hand keeping a good grip on the gatehouse ladder, the other holding his gun steady. It looked as big as a cannon, too. "Suppose you tell me what's in that barrel," he said, nothing soft about that quiet voice now. "And what was in the barrel you emptied under the Spur?"
Rif took fast glances over both shoulders. No help, no back-up, no percentage in lying to Black Cal when he was in a shooting mood—and anyone's guess how many listening ears to catch the news. Couldn't be worse. "It— it's plague-prevention," she confessed. "It kills the bugs that cause the plague. Nothing else, I swear."
"Sure. Tell me another."
"It's true! It's true! There's enough in those barrels to kill the bugs in the water, all over the city! That's why I had to throw it in where the current would carry it best, like under the Spur. Carry the stuff downstream, kill plague in the water all over town." Rif pulled her hair out of her eyes and gave him a brief glare of defiance. "Goddammit, man, I've got to live here too, y'know. Think I want to die of fever-season?"
"Mhm." Black Cal didn't sound entirely convinced. "So you saved up your little copperbits and bought enough disinfectant to clean up Merovingen, out of the goodness of your heart. Sure."
"No, dammit, I'm being paid." Rif squirmed audibly on the deck-slats.
"Who? And why?"
Jones raised her head, wanting to hear this herself.
"The Janes, goddammit!" Rif had never sounded so desperate. "The Janes! They want a foothold in this town, and they figure to get it by healing, stopping the plague—and then taking the credit.'
Jones remembered the brown-robed priestess prophesying from Hanging Bridge. Prophesying the minute Rif took off to get the cargo. Not wasting any time.
"And now, thanks to you," Rif added, "everybody who hates the Janes will know where we are, and what we're up to."
Janes' cargo, Jones thought. Plague-killing disinfectant, also the so-named water-purifying seeds that Black Cal still didn't know about. Janes: a healing-and-fertility cult, started in farming country clear over to the Liger. They'd bred those plants, made that stinking disinfectant-stuff. And somebody wanted to stop them. They hadn't figured on Black Cal, but then, nobody could. He wasn't stupid, but not all-wise, either.
Black Cal paused a long time, probably thinking along much the same lines. "So where's the last barrel going?" he asked.
"Into Dead Harbor, clean up the water there."
Right. Jones remembered the way the currents ran: Grand Canal, west-flows, everything ending in Dead Harbor. Dead Harbor, with all its accumulated city garbage: fever-season's surest breeding-ground. Now the whole crazy path of this trip made sense, with just one thing left over.
Black Cal holstered his gun and
stepped back to the gatehouse. A moment later the gate creaked, the locking-arm slid back, and the grill squeaked open.
Scarcely daring to breathe, Jones picked herself and the pole up from the deck, cautiously stuck the end in the water and shoved the skip forward. Rif crawled out from between the barrels, looking pale and glancing around to see who else had overheard.
"Best place to dump it," that quiet tenor voice echoed over the water, "would be off the end of Dead Wharf."
"Oh, right. Yes...." Jones bit off further words, sure she'd start gibbering otherwise, and steered through the open gate. Once through it, she dared to look back. There was no sign of Black Cal, not anywhere.
"Damn that man," Rif muttered, quietly, quietly. "Nothing that big should make so little noise. Moves like a goddam shadow. And how'd he get here ahead of us, anyway? Like he wasn't entirely real, or at least not entirely human. Maybe he's a sharrh in disguise, or maybe not even in disguise. Ever think of that?"
Jones decided she didn't want to think of that. Think of something else. Like barrels and seeds. "Why didn't you throw them seeds in the water, too?"
"Huh? Oh. Wrong time of the year for them. They go in autumn." Rif sat up, brushed her hair back, and hunted in the bag for her mallet. "In a month or so, me and Rattail'l spend a couple days cruising all over the city, singing for pennies under every window, scattering seeds in every canal and backwater. Want to take the ferrying job?"
"No thanks. This here's enough." Jones peered at the mass of deeper darkness in the gray mists ahead. "There's the end of Dead Wharf."
"Ah, right. Stop a dozen meters off it, where the stink's the worst.'
Stink was an understatement. The water was greasy and lump-strewn with all Merovingen's garbage, the last dumping ground of refuse that a cityful of hereditary scavengers couldn't use. The stench was like a smothering blanket, rising in visible curls of oily fog. Caught in the stagnant eddy of Dead Harbor's crooked currents, the sargasso of garbage floated here until it rotted enough to sink, scatter or blow away. Ghost Fleet, scavengers, fish and all stayed on the far side of the harbor. Not even dung-flies came here.
Rif muttered something about 'the heart of darkness' as she tied a bandanna around her nose and mouth. Jones tugged a mostly clean rag out of the hidey and did the same, then tossed out the tied-stone anchor—the cheap one, that she could afford to cut loose and throw away afterwards. Rif got up and went to the barrel with her mallet.
The first blow on the lid boomed across the reeking water, waking odd echoes in the fog. Rif hitched her shoulders uncomfortably, and struck again. The king-piece broke with a crack like a light gunshot. Jones winced at the noise.
The echoes were wrong. Too many, lasting too long, and not quite like breaking wood.
Something out there, hard to tell where. To starboard? Ancestors, toward the Ghost Fleet? Jones froze, glanced at Rif, saw that her eyes were wide.
"Shit," Rif muttered, yanking at the barrel-lid. "Jones, dump this thing!" She scrambled back toward the bow and crouched among the empty barrels, pulling something else out of her bag.
Jones swore, hurried to the barrel and dragged the lid free, then the ties. Now roll it—heavy, hard to manage alone—two steps back, and tilt. Damn, heavy. She glanced again at Rif.
The cloaked singer was crouched at the bow, peering into the streamers of fog, her hands clear of her cape and something filling them. Jones looked closer and saw why it was that nobody had ever seen Rif use her gun. The thing was big enough to fill two hands, dead-dull black all over: hard to see, and certain to kill whatever it hit. Waiting now, waiting for something that required it.
The odd sounds were closer, and definitely to port. Steady splashing. Poles in the water. A boat, skip-size or bigger. Another minute and Jones could see it: definitely the squared shape of a skip, loaded
with crowding figures. From the way they held their hands, they had guns, too. Oh, damn, damn.
Jones dropped to the well beside the barrel, wondering how long the thing would take to drain, whether the oncoming crowd would see them or not, whether they'd pass by in the mist on other business.
The first gunshot cracked over her head, slugging into the top of the barrel.
Jones tried to spread herself flatter on the deckslats, and heaved at the barrel's bottom rim. It moved a little, the contents draining faster, but not by much.
Rif s gun roared, flashing an instant's orange light. Someone in the attacking boat yelled and went splashing into the water. Whether it was the poleman gone or caution, the craft stopped and erupted a hail of gunfire. Muzzle-flashes flickered like fire above the water. Most of the shots went wide in the uncertain mist, but a few of them thudded into the skip.
Jones winced, wondering if any shots had breached the hull, and if so, how bad the holes were. She scrabbled crabwise toward the hidey and her own gun. How many bullets did she have, anyway? How many of them reliable?
Rif, arms braced on the foredeck, fired again. She'd taken time to aim, and a screech of pain followed the shot.
Whoever was left in that skip decided not to sit back and continue being picked off. Someone aboard grabbed a pole and shoved the craft forward, straight on, the rest of the crew firing in a steady, covering barrage.
Jones felt a splash of water on her leg just as she got her hand on the pistol. A glance back showed nothing but shadows, no telling how big the hole was. She felt for it with her foot, touched a small rough-edged gap at the waterline. She crammed her heel into it, and the flow stopped. Small hole: she could patch it fast, given the chance.
Make the chance. She squirmed around to face the oncoming skip, reared up and fired at the top of the dark mass in the fog.
Rif fired at almost the same instant.
If either shot hit, there was no sign of it. The attackers were crouched under the gunwales, still coming on, still firing. Lord and Ancestors, barely a pole-length off.
Pole!Jones grabbed for it with her unencumbered hand, stuffed the pistol in her belt and wondered, fast, where to swing. Straight shove, probably. At least keep those bastards from board-and-storm.
Again Rif fired, this time angled down toward the water. The approaching boat thudded hollowly at the impact, maybe holed but still moving, and too close.
Jones poked the end of her pole overside, purely guessing from sound where the attacker would be, and shoved hard.
Contact! The attacker echoed like a dull drum, and both skips jittered away from each other. The unseen assault-team scrambled and swore.
They'll be ready when I try again, Jones realized. Maybe stand up and shoot down at me.... That would also give Rif a clear target, if she knew what was coming. "Rif, ware! Hin!" she yelled, stabbing out with the pole. "Port!"
The pole jabbed hard on the attacker's hull. A half-second later, Rif fired.
That one hit. Someone yelped, something fell heavily on the other skip's deck, somebody else swore. More gunfire answered, a barrage that didn't let up.
More bullets thwacked the hull. A few of them had to be getting through. Rif cursed and fired until her gun clicked empty.
Buy her time to reload! Jones pulled out her own pistol and fired a blind shot overside. No sign that it hit, and the other skip was so damned close, they'd collide in a minute. Then it'd be board-and-storm for sure, anyone's guess how many of them against only herself and Rif, and that would be the finish. She fired again, heard the bullet hit wood.
A booming like a small cannon thundered out over the water.
Someone gave a choked gulp and went overside.
Another roar—too big, too distant to be anyone on these boats—and the sound of another body hitting deckboards. Whose shots? For an instant Jones had visions of the Harbor Angel coming to life.
Rif reared up on her knees, reloaded gun clicking shut, and fired three times fast into the enemy skip. A howl showed that at least one shot had hit. Rif dropped again and crawled back toward Jones, between the barrels.
Another
booming roar, another thud, and whoever was on the other skip stopped firing.
Silence fell, shockingly fast and total. Jones could hear herself panting, and Rif as well. They looked toward each other, wide eyes meeting. "Who the hell. . . ?" Rif whispered.
Jones only shook her head. She could feel water pressing at the hole under her heel. No matter what else, she had to patch that thing fast. Nothing handy but her cap. Cursing the loss, she squirmed about on the boards, found the hole with her fingers and jammed her wadded-up cap into it.
"Shit," Rif murmured almost reverently, up on her knees now, staring at the other boat. Nobody shot at her. The reeking water was quiet.
Jones risked sitting up, then standing, to look at the other skip.
It was filled with corpses. Dark-cloaked, faces shrouded—some with no faces left at all. A few had small, still-bleeding holes in them—others had pieces blown off. Holes in the hull gurgled heavily, letting in enough steadily-rising water that the bottom was awash. Bits of bodies began to float on the blood-thickened deepening bilge.
Even Rif s gun couldn't have done damage like that. Neither had Jones' few shots, let alone pole-jabbings. Who had a weapon that could do that?
From somewhere near the end of Dead Wharf, someone whistled part of a tune: the chorus from Rif's song for Black Cal.
Who else?
Barely visible in the sky-glow and mist, a tall lean silhouette stood on the end of Dead Wharf, still holding a very large, long revolver in one hand.
"Nice shooting, Black Cal." Rif somehow managed to sound cheerful. "Very good, in the dark and all."
"Went by sound, mostly," replied that unnerving quiet voice. "Finish your business and go home."
"Right." Rif went to the barrel and tugged at it. Jones shoved the pole out of the way, got up and helped her. The barrel was almost half-empty, and the draining went fast.
The other skip floated sluggishly away to die elsewhere.