04
With the Outward Islands behind, all that remained was the bright, endless sky-sea and the bright endless day - solitude measured by the steady beating of the propeller and the rhythmic thumping of the little steam engine.
It was not all brightness. My inner outlook could grow dark at times while standing my solo. With nothing to do but sit on the edge of the engine hatch, keeping an eye on the steam pressure gauge and on the boat's bow to see that we were still heading towards the brightness, I could find myself very lonely. I was further from Faelrain, further from everything and everyone I'd ever known and cared for than I ever had been, or could ever have imagined I'd be. I could see no course back to my old life, friends, and family. Given a chance, and seeing how things had turned out, I'd have chosen not to return to the Pela - at least that was how my thoughts sometime ran in those lonely watches. Useless even to think about that. But I did anyway.
It was not so much that I regretted my decision, but that it had carried me so far out of my orbit that I was lost in a trackless universe that wasn't my own. It seemed at times that it may've been wiser to have turned outwards and tried my luck contacting Min, Tenry and Vynnia first, turning inwards only if I was unable to contact them, or they were unable to rescue me. Who's to say that I'd not now be aboard the Rift Raven, starting a long voyage back to the Unity? Of course, how I'd have felt about that was an open question.
I may love Naylea, but I'm not blind to her sharp, dangerous edges, except, I guess, when it mattered most. Like when I gave her my heart. She could be cold, hard and cruel, even to me. I put those traits down to the requirements of her job, and yet she'd come within a millimeter of sending a lethal dart into me. Still, our time together had taken on such a golden glow that I had turned the gig inwards with little misgivings, certain that if I could find her - and if our pasts could be forgotten - things could be very right between us. This loneliness would be a forgotten price paid for a long, loving partnership. But I also knew that if I could find her - and remarkably enough, that was almost a given in my head, so great is my faith in Siss and Hissi - it would be wise not to find her too soon. However little my ancestors meant to me, they meant a great deal to her. She may have abandoned St Bleyth in her conscious loyalties, but the Order in all its ramifications, including family feuds, still had its hold on her. She would need a thousand rounds, or perhaps ten thousand rounds for those ties to become the memory of the person she once was. And in those thousands of rounds, if I survived them, the Unity and the life I'd left behind, would've faded to myth as well. In those dark watches, I regretted that.
I have tried, in this account, to avoid making it a "dear diary" - however, I've also tried to keep it honest as well. I've learned to relate the dangers in the best "old spaceer" style, overlooking or understating the fears that accompanied them, but in this case, I do think honesty required me to set out my doubts and regrets. Hissi and I may've survived capture, the stoke hole, and the attack of savages, but not without fear and dark regrets at times.
And yet, as dark as my brooding may have grown, Hissi would silently wiggle up from the lower deck with her treasure pouch in her jaws. She'd give me a brief dart of her tongue on my nose, and then settle on my lap where we'd select the scarves and broaches from the pouch that she'd wear this round while I straightened out any of her feathers. After that, she'd find her card holder and we'd play cards - without keeping score, for I had no intention of ending this voyage, or our partnership as her indentured servant - until KaRaya awoke. We'd make a meal, and then attack each other with our bamboo swords until I grew tired. After that, we'd talk until I felt like taking a nap. I'd awake to a bright day, fence some more, play cards, exchange stories and perhaps, explore with the ever cheerful and carefree KaRaya, various schemes to retrieve my boat and get fantastically rich. And for a while those plans would drive away the dark clouds of regrets that would sometimes gather in the lonely watches.
Leaving the Outward Islands behind left only two worries - encountering another serrata that would carry us off, if not tearing the boat apart, and engine failure. We did lose steam pressure once that required us to shut the engine down and tear apart the condenser system to find the blockage, but we managed to accomplish that and put it back together again without a problem. However primitive the engine's design seemed, it was built to be durable and reliable and it carried us safely to the Donta Islands of the Saraime Principalities.