A Daughter of No Nation Page 9

  “Totally,” she said, more coldly than she intended.

  It was silly to be hurt. They’d hooked up for a week, six months ago, and she’d rejected him last time they were together because … well, she’d begun to think maybe Parrish …

  She shook that thought away. At least Lais hadn’t slept with Verena.

  Yet. That I know of. “You want my mother’s contact information while you’re at it?”

  “Pish? A married fraud artist? Not my style.”

  Now she was hurt and insulted. And embarrassed, somehow, that she cared at all. She tried to laugh, and it stuck in her throat. “Sorry, Lais. I don’t mean to freak out. I mean, I was warned that you’re from the Island of the Anywhere, Anytime, Anyone.”

  “Tsk. We’re sluts, true, but none of us is—and certainly I’m not—undiscriminating.”

  Okay, now he was offended.

  “I just didn’t think—”

  “You’re from a conservative culture.” He bowed. “Perhaps they’ll make a Sylvanner of you after all. Fair winds, Sophie.”

  “Thanks. And for, you know…” She gestured back at Mensalom’s inner door, but Lais was already gone, striding away, offering her one last look at his well-muscled leather-clad backside before disappearing through a hatch on the starboard side of the ship.

  Way to go, Sofe.

  “Come on,” she muttered. “If nothing else, shouldn’t he be bragging about his conquests? I mean, she’s a congresswoman.”

  In for a penny, in for a pound. She went back to Nightjar, seeking out Verena.

  Her sister was in the cabin that had once belonged to Gale, pacing it from the look of things, and reading a bunch of dispatches about Tibbon’s Wash, snow vultures, and joint ventures at sea. “You about ready for your big adventure?” From her tone, Verena was looking forward to having the ship—or possibly Parrish—to herself again.

  “Yeah,” Sophie said, “But I want something.”

  “What a surprise.”

  “You must have a stash of the magical two-ply message paper—if only so you can keep your father up to date on what’s happening to Beatrice.”

  Verena tensed but did not deny it.

  “I want a few sheets—no, I want ten sheets—and I want their … counterparts?”

  “Otherply.”

  “I want them sent to Bram.”

  Verena pulled at her ponytail, thinking.

  “Come on. It’ll save you going back and forth just to tell him I haven’t drowned. My mom is freaking out every bit as bad as your dad, and presumably he knows what’s happening to Beatrice, that she’s safe. My parents don’t have the slightest idea where I am.”

  With a sigh, Verena opened a locked cabinet and drew out a roll of paper. She sliced twelve pages with an obsidian knife. On the first she wrote, Dad, please send the following pages to:

  She added the street address of the Dwarf House. “What’s his zip code?”

  Sophie recited it. Verena added it to the note, then started numbering blank pages, one through eleven.

  “One page for you?” Sophie asked.

  “Yes.” Verena handed over page one. “Want to write him a starter message?”

  Sophie took the pen and started in the very top corner. BRAM—ALL OK SO FAR. GOING TO SYLVANNA WITH CB. REPLY BELOW, WRITE SMALL. LOVE SOFE.

  “Okay?” Verena said.

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “Here’s a couple sheets from me, so you can stay in touch with Nightjar.” She handed them over. “You think there’s a conspiracy afoot with Corsetta?”

  “Hopefully not another outbreak-of-war conspiracy, but something crimey is up there. She and the cat were aboard that derelict. It doesn’t mean she was involved with disappearing its crew, but—”

  “You haven’t already figured it out? You’re not sending me off to keep me busy or gather two last clues on your behalf so you can sweep in with the answer at the end, like Sherlock Holmes?”

  “What?” Sophie was a little stung.

  “Are you?”

  “I have no idea what’s going on with Corsetta,” Sophie said. “But she stinks of scam. I saw you’re having … you know, job issues. I thought, since Annela’s coming down on you, maybe there’s a win there.”

  Verena kept frowning.

  “Okay! If it helps, I won’t say a single thing more about it. Do it all yourself. If Corsetta comes to me and spills the beans, even, my lips will be sealed.”

  “Yeah, right.” That almost got a smile.

  Sophie put her nose in the air and tried to sound snooty. “As it happens, Kir, I have plenty of other questions to keep me busy.”

  “A whole notebook full. I noticed.” A chuckle. “Okay, I’ll hold you to that. Though, with the way my luck’s been going, the Cessation will depend on that kid and I’ll only figure it out when she’s burned Tibbon’s Wash to the ground.” Verena closed the paper box, her expression broody.

  Sophie found herself blurting, “And, listen, maybe we should talk about something else. Someone, I mean.”

  “There’s nothing to say.” Verena shook her head so fiercely that her ponytail whipped into a momentary blur. “Come on, I’ll escort you to His Honor’s ship.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Sawtooth was a caravel, square-rigged and immense. It was crewed, or so it appeared, by kids in their teens and twenties, all in new-looking Fleet uniforms.

  Her Judiciary flag was flying, as were the Fleet colors and the two-toned green flag of Sylvanna, a clear symbolic representation of verdant hills.

  Cly was waiting as she came aboard. He was dressed down, in breeches and a white shirt, with a comparatively narrow rapier—it seemed to be made made from bamboo—slung at his hip. He looked like he was about to bound onto a stage and start declaiming Hamlet.

  “Welcome!” he said, wrapping an arm around her. “It’s good to have you back.”

  Sophie surprised herself by planting a kiss on his cheek. “Thanks.”

  Beside Cly was a teenage girl Sophie recognized from the night of Fleet graduation. “Kir Zita, right?”

  “Tenner Zita,” She smiled to show there was no accusation or anger in the correction. “It’s my rank.”

  “And Krispos, our memorician,” Cly said.

  Krispos had a full-on Moses beard, bushy gray follicles so dense they seemed to be growing from his neck and chest as well as his chin. He was clad in a scarlet robe, newly purchased from the look of it, but his belt was worn and had several new notches. His skin was a bit slack: Sophie would have bet he’d been heavier at some point than he was now. His feet were bare. The left had the look of having been gnawed by something; neither foot had any nails.

  Zita, meanwhile, was long of limb, hazel-eyed, and had the compact musculature of an Olympic gymnast. She was studying Cly’s particular brand of lawyering, which meant court cases that ended in formal duels.

  Sophie looked beyond them to take in the ship, whose decks were strangely quiet. “Last time I was here, the whole ship was given over to combat classes.”

  “I’ve got six sword fighters aboard, including Zita,” Cly said. “The grapplers and boxers are training with an assistant, aboard another craft, while I am on leave. May I present my captain, Lena Beck? Captain, my daughter, Sophie Hansa.”

  Beck was maybe fifty, a stocky and intense-looking woman with jet-black skin, wiry salt-and-pepper hair, and a gold tattoo, a pattern of interlocking spirals, that ran up her neck in a choker.

  “Beck was busy with other duties or you’d have met her the last time you were here. We’re childhood friends.”

  Beck wore elbow-length calfskin gloves, though it was a warm day. One of them, the left, was cinched tight at the wrist and inflated around her hand like a balloon. As Sophie’s gaze lingered there, she twitched a look at Cly, got the faintest of nods in reply, and removed the glove.

  Her hand was gone from the mid-forearm—an amputation, and an old one from the look of the scar. Stubs of her radius and ulna extend
ed about a centimeter beyond the skin.

  Around the remains of Beck’s wristbones there was more tattoo in gold, but this was in spellscrip. A spectral hand extended beyond the truncated pieces of real bone. It was three-dimensional but colored in photo reverse, its bones glowing palely through the shape of flesh and fingers like a hologram of an X-ray image.

  Sophie looked up at Beck, who seemed untroubled by having exposed her … prosthetic? “May I?”

  “Of course.” She extended the spectral hand and Sophie clasped it in a handshake. The hand felt solid but where it met Sophie’s skin there was a tingling, as of millipede legs. The nails had the same photo-reverse whiteness. Sophie turned it, palm upward, so she could have a better look. The palm was lined as anyone’s would be; the creases in its surface were the deep gray of ash.

  “Normal function and strength?”

  Another hesitation, before Beck said: “A little stronger.”

  “The hand. You lost it?”

  “Childhood leech infection,” she confirmed. “The old Springtime spellscribe saved my life but not the limb.” She pulled the glove back over the ghostly hand. “Do you fight, Ch—Kir?”

  Sophie shook her head.

  “You might care to learn while you’re here,” she said. “Those prying eyes’ll get you taken for a spy.”

  “Not aboard Sawtooth, they won’t,” Cly said.

  Beck bowed, at once acknowledging his point and extricating herself from the conversation. “I’d like to get under way.”

  “I’ve got all I need.” He beamed at Sophie. “And you, my dear?”

  “If I don’t have it, it isn’t coming,” she said. “Any chance you got my cameras out of Annela?”

  A smug expression crossed Cly’s face. “Come with me.”

  He led her belowdecks, Krispos and Zita following, down to a corridor with officer cabins.

  “Your quarters are there, child,” Cly said, indicating a hatch. “Here, across the hall.”

  He ushered her into a cabin that smelled of new white paint and Sophie saw …

  “Is this a laboratory?” She wasn’t entirely sure. There were counters fixed to the bulkheads and at a good height for lab work. The whitewash gave the room a sterile look. But the equipment, if it was equipment …

  There was a rack filled with colored candles that looked like a giant’s crayon box. There was a boa of bird feathers in every size and hue, hung beside a pair of rattles. There were calipers—they’d be useful—next to a box of finger paints. A little cushion and a bowl of polished quartz crystals sat beside a case filled with worms, a ratty Goth rag doll straight out of Tim Burton, and a series of nested cups—measures.

  Great, there’s an astrology chart.

  “I couldn’t quite be made to understand which branch of the sciences might be your particular specialty,” Cly said, as Sophie tried to look pleased. “These are a few basics for temperamentalism, aetherism, sympathism—”

  “It would help to know your bent,” Krispos put in. “I should like to read texts most of use to you.”

  “Books? There are books here?”

  Krispos looked offended. “I shall do the reading.”

  “You may find Kir Sophie a bit unorthodox,” Cly said.

  “Don’t worry, Krispos—if there are books here, we’ll fill your head.”

  “But your specialty?” Cly said again.

  “Ah,” Sophie said. “I’ll have to figure out what they call it here. I’m a biologist by training, but I’ve been boning up on my chemistry and physics. Atomic—”

  Krispos looked horrified. “Not an atomist, surely?”

  “Of course not,” Cly said before she could answer. “That would be terrible.”

  Worse than being a nosy, prying spy? Off Cly’s warning glance she said, weakly, “No, of course not. No atomism.”

  “Child—I’m sorry, Sophie. The laboratory is a work space, that’s all. Clear out whatever you don’t need. My feelings won’t be hurt if you have the colored candles packed away.”

  Atomism is bad, hmmm? She had spotted a promising cabinet; opening its wooden doors, she found it was indeed, and blessedly, full of books.

  Next to the cabinet was her trunk.

  She cracked it open with a glad cry. Her DSLR camera was atop the pile, the digital video recorder next to it. Bram’s massive surveying gadget was there, along with flasks, denatured alcohol, slides.

  I wonder what they’ll think if I ask for a microscope?

  “I’ll let you get settled,” Cly said. “Krispos is at your disposal at any time, day or night. Zita has duties aboard ship and must practice her swordcraft, but otherwise she’s available to you, too. I’d like you to see my tailor, so we can fit you with one or two Sylvanner garments. Would you wish a valet or hairdresser?”

  “Seriously not.”

  “I had somehow doubted it. May I show you your cabin?”

  “Sure!”

  He conducted her back across the corridor to a decent-size berth, perhaps twice as big as her guest closet on Nightjar. Her clothes were already stowed in the wardrobe. There were five little netted bundles on her bunk.

  “What are these?”

  “Traditional wayfaring presents,” he said. “One each from Annela Gracechild, your half-sister, Verena, that man Parrish, his first mate, and the Tiladene, Lais Dariach.”

  She picked one up and untied the ribbon, unwrapping a scrap of colored silk. Its contents recalled a Christmas stocking: a collection of goodies. There was a twist of lemon candies, some tobacco, two little waxed packets of loose tea, a hoop made of shell—she’d seen sailors wearing necklaces of the things—and a sachet of spices, rock salt with dried basil, in one case, dill and grated citrus peel in another. By the time she’d examined everything in it, the combination of scents was overpowering; she found a linen handkerchief and wrapped the tobacco in one and the spices in another.

  One of the smoke packs had a distinctly skunky smell.

  “Is something wrong, Sophie?”

  “No. I just … I think Lais gave me pot as a going-away gift,” she said. “Cannabis?”

  “Ah,” Cly said, clearly not getting the point.

  “At home, marijuana’s illegal.”

  “I’m surprised. It’s such a versatile crop.”

  “Yes. Well. It’s weird, getting a baggie of it in front of a judge.”

  “Oh! It’s not an offense here,” Cly said, taking the packet and giving it a sniff. “I don’t use it. Dull’s one’s fighting edge.”

  “Right.” That was a whole other avenue of investigation, she thought. Did they have coca here? Opium? Was anything illegal? She knew all the islands were allowed to do as they pleased within their twenty-five-mile limits: everything must be permitted somewhere. Parrish had mentioned a substance once: maddenflur?

  Add it to the question book, Sofe.

  Cly gestured at the arrangement of packets. “There’s a casual trade in the bits and pieces you don’t want. Spice packs are traditionally given to the ship’s cook. A sort of offering of thanks.”

  “Okay.”

  He fingered the packet of marijuana. “The Tiladene owes you a debt. It’s appropriate for him to send an offering of friendship.”

  “Friendship, absolutely!” she agreed with too much enthusiasm. “Nothing odd there at all!”

  Okay, way to go. She could feel her cheeks getting hot. If Cly didn’t know about your shipboard fling with Lais, he does now.

  And he was putting it together, she could see it. The brightness had gone out of his face—there was a second where he was utterly blank and unreadable, as if there was nothing there. Then a flicker of something … anger?

  Finally he settled into an expression that might have been watchful, quizzical. Like that of a cat that had whiffed its paw through a candleflame.

  Definitely not amused.

  For all I know, Sylvanner men skewer people who screw their daughters. I should shut up, change the subject, let the moment pas
s.…

  But when had that ever happened? “Okay, look. The thing about Lais. He’s nice; we get along. He’s a scientist at heart, which makes him my type.”

  “Your type of what?”

  Don’t say lover, don’t say lover.… “I was warned about Tiladenes being poly. They hook up and move on, right? No big deal. And he has moved on, to Annela, apparently, which I do have to say kind of blows my mind—crap, now I’m gossiping.”

  “Then…” Cly struggled, visibly, to put it delicately. “In the outlands are you all … was the word you just used ‘poly’? You behave like Tiladenes?”

  “We behave like everything, Cly—straight, gay, monogamous, serially monogamous, polygamous. We have celibate priests and adultery and casual sex. And so do you! Don’t pretend. You aren’t going to try to tell me people don’t cheat and bed-hop and generally behave like primates here.”

  He glitched again, processing.

  At least we’ve drifted a little from “My daughter had sex with the cover model from Hot Horse Racers Weekly.”

  It was a damned good reminder that she knew sweet toot about Sylvanners, even though she was thinking of becoming one. Somehow every time she started to dig into what the country was like, something came up.

  Or someone changed the subject.

  Tonio had been about to say something at one point, and Verena shut him right down.…

  And Parrish, not so subtly trying to remind her that politics mattered here, that she shouldn’t just focus on ecosystem stuff.

  “I know your people aren’t keen on divorce,” she began.

  “A Tiladene? Did you even think, Sophie, how your parents would feel?”

  “Okay, hold up. My parents have no clue what a Tiladene is, and they know full well that I’m not a nun.”

  “I don’t know ‘nun.’”

  “Celibate. I’m not celibate.” She gave that a second to sink in, steeling herself against embarrassment—it wasn’t as bad as having this same conversation with her dad at home would be. “And you told me Sylvanna wasn’t one of those places where women had to creep around with their heads bowed and their legs together.”

  “That isn’t quite what I said,” he replied. “But I can assure you I’d be just as—”