‘No, of course not!’
‘Then what?’
‘I’m just saying there was something there. Something that didn’t feel right. I don’t know where it was sending from, or to whom. That’s all.’
Adrana took my neural bridge and hung it back up with hers on the wall.
‘We’re jumpy,’ she said, taking a conciliatory tone. ‘It’s our first time alone.’
I put one pin between my teeth while I fiddled another into my hair.
‘I didn’t imagine it,’ I said, gritting out the words.
‘Mattice got the door open,’ Triglav said, scratching behind an ear. ‘No surprise there – Mattice is almost as good as he thinks he is, and Loftling’s instructions can’t have been too wide of the mark. They were in contact until that point, but now they’ve begun to descend into the world we won’t hear too much from them again.’
‘Isn’t that a risk?’ I asked.
‘Cap’n’s way,’ Prozor said. ‘Settin’ up repeaters, runnin’ wires through doors, that all takes time. All goes well, they’ll hit the loot in about six, eight hours. Gives ’em time to scope it out, sort the loot from the chaff, get some of it back to the launch, check in with us, and maybe think about going deep again.’
‘Say eighteen hours round trip,’ Triglav stated. ‘But they still need to rest and sleep. Maybe a round trip a day, if they push it. Room for ten of those before the bauble blinks on us, but Rack won’t push it anywhere near that close.’
‘They’d already have been awake for much more than a day,’ I said.
Triglav nodded vigorously. ‘But nothing’ll put a spring in your step quicker than a room full of loot. Believe me, they don’t all share his caution.’ He took a swig from his tankard – it was never very far from him – looking like a man drowning a multitude of sorrows. ‘But caution’s what’s kept them alive until now. Isn’t it, Hirtshal?’
The master of sail glanced up from a puzzle of knotted strings. He ruminated on the question for some moments.
‘Yes.’
‘There: a resounding show of support from the ever-loquacious Hirtshal.’
‘Too much caution, I say,’ Prozor mumbled. ‘Weeks to get out here, why not use all the time we have?’
‘You know why,’ Triglav answered. ‘Sometimes you can push things too far. If anyone knows that, it’s you.’
Hirtshal placed a hand on Triglav’s wrist. ‘Enough.’
But Triglav wriggled out from under the master of sail and helped himself to more bread and beer. ‘Why not? We all know what happened. If the Ness sisters are going to be part of this crew, they’ll end up knowing sooner or later. Why not now?’
‘Are you talking about the Fang?’ I asked.
‘Mattice wasn’t always our Opener,’ Triglav said. ‘That was Prozor. And do you know our dark secret? Proz was the best of them all. Until Captain Rackamore overreached himself, and our old Bauble Reader wasn’t as reliable as Proz is now—’
‘Shut up,’ Prozor said.
Triglav took another swig. ‘They’ve a right to know what can happen.’
‘Not now,’ Hirtshal said.
‘Never will be a good time for it, will there? But it’s part of what we are, and none of it was Proz’s fault. That you can blame on the Bauble Reader we had back then.’ Triglav rubbed a hand across his scalp, as if reassuring himself that it was still hairless. ‘And don’t worry – I wouldn’t stain the ship with his name. Enough to know that the estimate was wrong, the auguries all cockeyed. You tell ’em, Proz.’
She scowled at him – or made more of the scowl that was her normal expression – but now that the story had been dredged half into the light I could tell she needed to finish it off, the way you needed to finish lancing a boil once you had started.
‘You were right,’ she said, nodding at me. ‘It was the Fang. Just a name for a bauble. It’s still out there, somewhere, although I don’t care to remember the orbit it was on. Ordinary enough place, to begin with. Nothing shivery about it. Bone-coloured rock, all smoothed over with no craters. Been cracked a few times, some loot, but no one had ever gone really deep.’
‘Until we hauled in,’ Triglav said. He passed Prozor a beer.
‘Rack wanted to see what was in it, though. Meant going down further than anyone else. We made four trips in, and each time we reached a deeper set of vaults. On the fourth . . . well, we found somethin’. More than a league and a quarter down. Rooms. Lots of rooms. And a different kind of loot than any of us had seen before. Stuff I ain’t heard of before or since.’
‘Such as?’ I asked.
‘Nasty stuff. Gold boxes. Like cases of treasure, except engraved with skulls and bones, done like corpses with the meat comin’ off them. Crouching lions, with fizzogs half gone. All grinny and sockety. Monkey faces, too. Put the deep shivers in us all. Something about those boxes said keep away. Got worse, the closer you got to ’em. But Rack had the spur in him then. Had to know what was in those boxes. So he cranked one open. Cove was shaking just to be that near, but credit to ’im, he did it. Wasn’t no lock on it or anything, just a hinge. And inside . . .’
‘What?’
‘Ghostie stuff,’ Prozor said. ‘More of it than you or me or anyone else has ever seen in one place. And there wasn’t just that one box. There were dozens of ’em. We opened a few, when we could stomach it. Wasn’t easy.’
‘Ghostie stuff?’ I said.
‘The Ghosties go back a long way. First or Second Occupation, maybe earlier. They were people . . . maybe. But not like us. They did things we can’t do or even think of doin’. Wrong things. Things against the common laws of nature. Mostly they didn’t leave much behind, just a shivery reputation. Some coves say the whole reason for baubles is to keep Ghostie stuff from spilling back out into the worlds again, except now the baubles ain’t doing such a peachy job of it. You ever seen Ghostie stuff, Fura?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Queer thing is you don’t really see it. Ghostie stuff’s sly. When you stare at it right on, it ain’t there. You only catch a glimpse of it side on, when you’re not trying.’
‘Is there Ghostie stuff on the ship?’
‘Jusquerel wouldn’t touch it if there was. It’s powerful. Useful, sometimes. Weapons and armour we can’t even dream of now. Some coves’ll take a chance on it. But it ain’t to be trusted.’
‘But you brought some of it back.’
‘No. Wasn’t time. Rack thought there was, but the auguries was off. We were still down in those vaults when the field started thickenin’ up again. Whatever fear that Ghostie stuff put into us, it was nothin’ compared to the fear of being locked in a bauble.’
‘But you had time,’ I said. ‘To get out. Even if you didn’t have time to bring out the loot, you could still save yourselves.’
Prozor met my eyes. ‘Most of us.’
‘A surface can snap back like an eyelid, quicker than a blink,’ Triglav said. ‘That happens, there’s no chance of getting out. But it can be slower too. In this case, they had about an hour to get off the world.’ He glanced at the other man. ‘You feel like chipping in, oh loose-tongued one, don’t hold back.’
‘No,’ Hirtshal said.
Prozor sank more beer. ‘Fang was always a difficult bauble to crack. Half the reason Rack’s never returned to it, even though he’s the only captain knows what’s really down there, and what it might be worth.’
‘Tell them the other half of the reason,’ Triglav said.
‘I made Rack promise we’d never go back. He wants to, I know. Cove’s got unfinished business there. But he can leave it unfinished while I’m on the crew. I ain’t reading the patterns for him on that one, not after what it did to us the first time.’
‘What was so bad?’ I asked.
‘Everything. Wasn’t a staircase on it l
ike this one, just a shaft. Maybe there were stairs once, but they got worn away, and all that’s left are the walls of that shaft. Straight down, all the way to the swallower. Cap’n rigged up a winch, braced it off the top of the shaft. Now, a winch is a nice thing, but you can’t always use one. Bulky, for a start, and if you’ve got doors to get through before you hit the shaft – like they have here – then a winch is just too big to carry with you. But the Fang was easier, with the shaft open to space, so all we had to do was slide the winch in over the top and get it anchored good and solid. Had a bucket on it, so we could go up and down, and bring back the loot. But there wasn’t room in that bucket for more than one of us at a time. When word came in that the bauble was closing ahead of schedule . . .’ Prozor gave a little shivery shake of her head, as if the horror of that experience were coming back anew.
‘And the rest,’ Triglav said.
‘Six of us had to go back up that shaft. Cap’n insisted on being the last one out. I went up on the first trip – that was Rack’s order. He needed to save his Opener. I was golden.’ She paused, swallowed hard. ‘But there was a disagreement. Githlow was supposed to come up next.’
‘Tell them who Githlow was.’
‘My husband,’ Prozor said.
‘Githlow was an Assessor,’ Triglav said. ‘Damned good, too. Even Trysil’ll tell you that, and getting praise of out Trysil’s like trying to warm your toes by starlight.’
Hirtshal lowered his puzzle. ‘Githlow. Good man.’
‘Githlow was already in the bucket, ready to go back up the shaft, when Sheveril spooked.’
Sheveril was another new name to us.
‘Who was that?’ Adrana asked.
‘Mattice’s apprentice Opener,’ Triglav said. ‘Rack ran to a bigger crew then, and some of us were training up apprentices. Sheveril was green . . . too green as it happened. Got the shivers in the blood, and it did rum things to her. Hell, we’ve all known the shivery. That’s no admission. We’re all cowardly deep down. But it’s how you act on it, that’s what separates one bastard from another.’ He dragged a hand across his lip. ‘Sheveril tried to jump into the same bucket Githlow was already in. It tipped, and they both went down. No easy way to end that fall. One saving grace.’
‘Which was?’ I asked.
‘No lungstuff in that shaft. They went down fast.’
‘Why was that a mercy?’ Adrana asked.
‘Because once we were out of squawk range,’ Prozor said, ‘I didn’t have to hear my husband’s screams as he carried on down.’
They’d been in the bauble for eighteen hours when we heard back from them. They were tired, but very pleased with what they had found.
‘Tell Hirtshal he can ruin another set of sails,’ Trysil said, her voice coming out of the secondary console in the galley. ‘And another, if he fancies it. Loftling’s charts paid off well enough, but Mattice got us into two vaults Loftling never even cracked. There’s a lot here, more than we can ever bring back, but what we’ve already brought to the surface ought to bring us a thousand quoins, maybe more.’
Triglav cocked an eyebrow by way of appreciation. ‘What sort of prizes, Trys?’
‘Mostly from the last five Occupations, maybe one or two earlier than that. Thirty sheets of Prismatic Ironglass – tougher than any we’ve seen. A pretty jade box with a pair of duelling pistols, Empire of the Atom. A space helmet, done up with horns. A sword that teaches you how to swing it. Half a robot. A skull or two – Cazaray thinks he might be able to squeeze something out of ’em. Oh, and . . . well, you’d better wait. Cap’n wants a word.’
‘Hello, Captain,’ Triglav said.
‘Do we still have the bauble to ourselves?’ Rackamore asked.
‘Nothing close on the sweeper, and we’ve been checking it like you said,’ Triglav said. ‘It gives Hirtshal something to do.’
‘What about Jastrabarsk?’
‘Keeping his distance, like the good fellow he is. Looks as if he’ll be content to pick over our scraps, once we’ve left the table.’
‘We haven’t left it yet,’ Rackamore said. ‘Maintain the watch. Thirty-minute intervals.’
Hirtshal glanced at Prozor, but said nothing. I didn’t think they had been bothering to check the sweeper more than once or twice a watch.
‘Well, of course,’ Prozor said.
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Rackamore said. ‘If the sweeper’s clear, I see no reason not to chance another trip into the rock, once we’ve rested a little.’
‘Whatever you think best,’ Triglav said.
‘Oh, and one other thing. Our new Bone Readers – the estimable Ness sisters. Cazaray is most anxious to hear from them. Have there been any developments?’
I glanced at Adrana, and Adrana glanced at me. ‘Everything’s all right, Captain,’ I answered.
But there was a strain in my voice that I could not quite disguise.
‘Really?’ Rackamore asked. ‘No new messages coming in?’
‘We haven’t picked up anything,’ Adrana said, sounding much more sure of herself than I was.
‘No news is good news. But Cazaray says to keep on listening. I know it’s a burden of responsibility, but if there’s anything you’re not sure of, I’d sooner know it.’ He made a sniffing sound. ‘Well, we’ve work enough to do here. I’m sure I leave the Monetta’s Mourn in capable hands.’
‘Be careful, Captain,’ I said.
‘We shall.’
When Rackamore had closed the connection, Triglav set down his tankard with a sharp clack against the magnetic table. ‘You sounded a little unsure of yourself there, Arafura. Or was it my imagination?’
‘We’d best go to the bones,’ I said, before he pushed us again.
Once we were in the room I tightened the wheel on the door, then took the bridges off their hooks. My hands were shaking, and I didn’t mind Adrana seeing it.
‘You’re making too much of it,’ she pleaded at me. ‘It was there and gone and it didn’t come back. Cazaray said that sort of thing happens all the time.’
‘I don’t care what he says. Whatever it was felt wrong.’
‘Yes – wrong, but out there, somewhere in the Congregation. Not necessarily right on our doorstep. Did you hear what they said? The sweeper’s clear.’
‘We have to be sure,’ I said, tossing Adrana her neural bridge while already pushing mine into place. ‘We won’t waste time with the peripherals. We’ll hook in on the same node, at the same time.’
‘Cazaray said that wasn’t a good idea.’
‘He isn’t here. If we don’t show some initiative, no one else is going to do it for us.’
I took the end of my input line, took the end of Adrana’s, and jacked them into the same node on the skull.
Adrana gave me a long, level look. ‘All right. We try it. But we both have to agree about the signal.’
‘Fine,’ I answered, meeting her gaze.
Without a further word we closed our eyes and waited for the skull to speak to us.
There wasn’t anything. The old bones were silent. After an interval, we agreed to try some of the surrounding nodes, just in case the focus had wandered. But they were as dead as the first.
A long silence passed, before I dared pipe up.
‘Something’s not right.’
‘I know.’
‘We should try separate inputs, just in case there’s a problem with using the same node. Maybe there’s more to it than Cazaray told us.’
‘Perhaps . . .’ Adrana said doubtfully.
But it was worth trying anyway. We went back to the old method, connecting at adjacent sites.
‘It’s still dead,’ Adrana said, after a while.
‘Yes.’
‘I mean really dead.’ She was bending over to look into the skull through the eyeholes. I watched
her expression cloud. ‘Something’s wrong, Fura. Those little lights . . . the twinkly alien stuff . . . you can hardly see any of it. We can’t have broken it, can we?’
‘Cazaray warned us against it, he didn’t forbid us. He said we weren’t quite ready – not that we could never do it.’ I took both neural bridges and placed them back on the wall. ‘If it’s our fault, it’s only because we were trying to help the ship. No one’ll hold that against us.’
We left the bone room, tightening the wheel on the other side of the door as Cazaray had instructed. When we got back to the galley Triglav and Prozor were using tankards as game pieces, shifting them around the magnetic hexagons of the table. It looked like the kind of game children play for a season before the novelty wears off. Hirtshal was coming in from the bridge where the sweeper was cycling around. He still had his fingers webbed in the knotty puzzle.
‘We’d like to speak to Cazaray,’ Adrana said. ‘Get him on the squawk.’
Triglav abandoned the game, leaned over to the galley’s squawk console, worked the heavy switches and dials. Static crackled out of the speaker grille. ‘Captain Rackamore? Triglav here. Yes, all’s well. It’s just that your shiny new Bone Readers would like a chinwag with Master Cazaray, if that isn’t too much trouble.’
Cazaray sounded agreeable enough. ‘Hello. Is there something I need to know?’
Triglav invited me to speak into the console.
‘This is Arafura, Cazaray. I’m here with Adrana. We’ve just come back from the bone room.’
‘And – is there something I ought to know?’
‘We’re not sure. There wasn’t anything wrong with the skull the last time, but now it seems to be . . . dead.’
‘Dead,’ Cazaray repeated. ‘And by dead you mean . . .’
‘We thought there might be something wrong with the connections,’ Adrana said. ‘I’m going to be honest: we tried connecting in on the same node. We wanted to see if we could amplify a faint signal . . .’