Seeklight

“Faugh,” snorted the translator. “Ask a hard one. Skinny, odd-looking kid like you—gashed up like that, and why else would they be in such a storm mucking about to find you? You’re some busker that tricked a few coins out of some subthane’s pocket, and got caught at it. The fact that you know more than one language only cinches it.” The old man nodded sagely.

With a small sigh, Daenek relaxed and leaned back against the wall. “Well,” he said, smiling. “I guess you’ve found me out.”

The translator stood up. He spoke to the first mertzer, who turned and hurried down the aisle. “We’ll see if we can’t come up with some food,” said the old man over his shoulder as he followed after the other figure.

Safe, thought Daenek. The door shut and he was alone again in the room, except for the yellow disc of sunlight, now oval-shaped upon the blanket. But for how long?

Daenek swabbed the last trace of gravy from the plate, then swallowed the piece of bread in two bites. He still felt hungry, even though the food had seemed to expand inside him like a slow, comfortable explosion. He knew he probably would have eaten himself sick if he had been given more.

He laid the metal plate beside himself on the bed. With his thumb he rubbed out a spot on the rough-textured pants the old translator had brought him. Daenek’s own had been too badly shredded to save, but his shirt was on his back, carefully washed and mended by someone aboard the caravan. And his boots, scraped clean of mud, had been returned as well.

His hands flew suddenly to his throat as he re-mebered the fine-linked chain and the little square of white metal. Until now he hadn’t noticed that it was missing. A momentary surge of despair welled up inside but he quickly pushed down the feeling.

It had only been a key after all, he told himself—what did it matter if it was buried in the mud on some irretrievable hillside?

When I come to that door, he thought, I’ll find a way in. No matter what.

The door at the far end of the room opened and the translator came in again. Daenek watched the bent-shouldered figure passing between the rows of beds towards him. His mind was intent, furiously plotting out what to say and do next. Even if they kick me off, he thought, I’m still better off than I was—as long as they don’t know who I really am. But if I could get on here, stay on board for a while—

“Ready to see the captain?” said the translator.

Daenek nodded and stood up. He brushed some crumbs from his shirt, then followed the translator out of the infirmary.

Several flights of metal steps that rang under Daenek’s boots, and they emerged through a hatchway onto the caravan’s wide, level deck. Daenek blinked, looking about in the dazzling sunlight. Beyond the guardrail a dozen meters away the landscape of hills slowly crawled past. Behind the caravan, its sister machines followed, a convoy receding into the distance as they breasted the land.

The deep bass vibration of the caravan’s engines was stronger out in the open. It pulsed through Daenek’s body like a new heart. A shrill sound from above, and he looked up to see great-winged birds outlined against the sky as they glided past the struts of the towering cranes and hoists.

A group of mertzers, lounging idly around the gaping mouth of an open cargo hold, looked with mild curiosity at them.

Daenek hurried to catch up with the translator on the narrow walkway. Ahead he saw the looming mass of the caravan’s control tower, surmounted by the wide sweep of glass that was the bridge.

Daenek followed the translator into the base of the tower and up the flights of stairs leading to the bridge. He noted that here the lights and ventilation worked, in contrast to the dim, musty-smelling infirmary and other sections through which they had passed.

At the top of the stairs the translator motioned for Daenek to wait, then rapped on the rivetted metal of the door before them.

“Captain Sather was born in the Capitol and speaks the tongue, too,” whispered the old man. “So watch what you say.” The door swung open and he led Daenek into the bridge.

Through the bank of windows Daenek could see the land before the caravan, the wide stretch of brown dirt that was the roadway flowing under the prow. There were four mertzers already in the glass-walled room, three of them wearing dark blue coats and stiff caps. The fourth, a compact but solidly muscled figure standing with folded arms at the far end of the bridge, wore the usual leather jacket and battered cloth cap.

The blue-coated mertzer who had opened the door closed it behind them and then joined his companion in front of the gauges and controls that extended nearly the width of the room.