Seeklight

“Sure.” She scratched idly at one of her teeth with a fingernail. “I’ll find out what it is. I’m good at finding things.

You’d be surprised.”

The thoughts in Daenek’s head seemed to race faster and faster. No women on board the caravans—all back in the mertzers’ home village. Like sailors’ superstitions on Earth, that I read about in Stepke’s old books. Only worse. So that’s my hold on her. But why do I need it? What’s she got on me? Nothing—but just the suspicion could crack it all open. Pieces there for anyone to see. And then what? Kicked off, or turned over to the subthane after all. He glanced at the girl’s smug face, the hooded but probing eyes. Thane’s son. The hatred, the fear. No losing it. Be careful.

“You know,” said Daenek slowly, “I wouldn’t necessarily have told anyone about you.”

She smiled, a ferocious grin. “Real buskers make sure of things like that. We learn to cover ourselves first, and then talk.”

Silence. Daenek shrugged and gestured with one hand. “It looks like we’re going to be sharing this room, then.”

“Looks like it.” She watched as Daenek packed his jacket and the bag of clothing into one of the footlockers.

He closed the lid and looked up into her hard-eyed, penetrating gaze. “If you’re right,” he said, “if I’m not what they think I am, I’m not going to tell you.”

“You won’t have to.” Her voice had a trace of amusement in it.

“Believe me.”

Daenek stood up. He was starting to feel angry. “We’d better get on down to the engine room. They’re probably waiting for us.”

“Yeah?” The girl laid down on the other bed and yawned extravagantly. “I didn’t sign on this thing so I could play nursemaid to some machine.”

“You haven’t stopped being a busker, have you?”

She turned her head and looked at him without smiling.

“Don’t say busker like you’d say crook. It’s a life like anybody else’s.”

Without replying, he crossed to the door. He halted as he stepped out into the corridor. Over his shoulder he said: “By the way, my name’s Daenek.”

“Rennie,” said the girl, her eyes closed. “Greetings.”

He closed the door and strode towards the stairway, a bitter fury building up around his heart. There was more thinking to be done—a great deal more. He was sure of that.

Chapter X

The engine room was a pulsing universe of noise and black grease that coated every surface. The grinding roar of the engines could be felt like a pressure on the skin. Ducking his head beneath clusters of pipes and wires, Daenek finally located the mechanics. In a little open space surrounded by clattering machinery, the head mechanic was checking a bank of gauges—the glass covering the dials was nearly opaque with the dust and grease—and making notes on a clipboard. A few meters away several other mechanics crouched around an overturned box, engaged in a slow card game. None of them looked up as Daenek squeezed between a pair of enormous, rust-caked cylinders and into the open space. The whole area was lit by a dull yellow glow that filtered down from somewhere far above, murky with dust and shadows.

The chief mechanic finished whatever he was doing with the clipboard, turned away from the gauges and noticed Daenek. He nodded and motioned Daenek to come closer. “My name’s Benter,” he said, shaking Daenek’s hand in large, calloused fist.

He pointed to the cardplayers, none of whom seemed to notice as he rattled off their names. His hand swung around the space in a sweeping gesture. “As you can see,” he said, “there’s not much to do around here when everything is running right. When they first built these things, they built ’em to pretty much look after themselves. It’s only when some part breaks down that we have to get to work.”

Daenek looked around himself. The floor of the engine room was discolored and splotched with drying spills, and what looked like scraps of food growing furry with mould. He found it hard to believe that there was nothing to do but play cards in the middle of all the disorder. A tiny whisp of steam leaked into the air from a sagging pipe.

“Well,” said Daenek, “what’s my job then?” His skin was beginning to feel itchy from the dirt and constant mechanical vibration in the air.

Benter paged through several sheets on his clipboard, each bordered with dark thumbprints. “We’re putting you and the other new guy on the night watch.” He pencilled a mark on one of the papers. “We cut back on the power loads at night, so there’s less that can go wrong. All you have to do is watch these gauges and get hold of me if anything goes wrong. Sound OK?”

Daenek nodded.