Kobboz’s watch.
She spun toward the way out. He had seen her. She lunged away but he caught her by the ankle.
Twisting, she broke free. The big man moved between her and the hatch. She was already shivering in the cold. She said, “Uhama, listen to me.” Her lips were stiff.
“If you tell him, he’ll lock me in the hot closet,” he said, and came toward her.
“He’ll do worse than that if you hurt me—” She backed away, banging into the tanks. His arms spread to corral her, the big man followed her into the back of the compartment, into the dark.
“Nobody knows but you.”
“Tanuojin knows—”
His hands closed around her throat. She clutched his wrists. A white light burst in her eyes.
“Paula!”
Uhama thrust her away, wheeling around, and she bumped into the wall. She gagged for breath. Locked together with someone else, Uhama banged into the tanks along the wall and caromed toward her. The other man was Ketac. She slipped past them toward the shaft of light coming through the hatch. Her throat hurt so much she could hardly breathe. In the corridor she flew down to the nearest call screen and pressed the lever up.
“Bridge.” Her voice wheezed.
“Yes—who’s this?” Bakan said.
“Ketac and Uhama are fighting in the number four storage bin.” She looked back that way. The hatch flew wide open and Uhama tumbled out. He started in her direction, saw her, and whipped around to go the other way. Ketac shot out to meet him. He caught the fleeing man by the shoulders and slammed both feet into Uhama’s back. Uhama clawed at him, grunting with effort, his eyes white-ringed. Saba raced around the bend in the corridor. Ketac sprang back. Uhama hung still in the air, half-conscious.
“What’s going on?” Saba asked.
Ketac’s chest heaved. He pointed to Paula, ten feet down the corridor. “I was coming around here, and I saw the hatch open, and he was in there strangling her.”
Saba raised one arm across his body and struck Uhama. The other man hit the wall face-first. “Take him to the brig.”
“Yes, sir.” Ketac towed Uhama away by one foot.
Paula touched her throat. She was alive by seconds. Her bruised muscles refused to swallow. Saba lunged at her, bad-tempered.
“What were you doing in there with him?”
In a croaking voice she told him about the fish, Tanuojin, the bottle of whiskey. He went into the compartment and came out again, the lamp in one hand, and shut the hatch.
“That son of a bitch,” he said. “He knew you’d go in there alone.” He herded her down the tunnel. One bell rang: the end of his watch. He pushed her into his cabin. She felt of her throat. In a rising temper, Saba circled once around the little room. He stopped at the call screen.
“Bridge.”
“Yes, Akellar.”
“Call my watch into the Tank.” He wheeled around and pushed her, hard. “I warned you. You stay with me from now on. Or in here with the hatch locked.” He flew to the hatch. His wake was heated with his rage. She gave a quick glance around the room and followed him.
They went through the warren of the ship into the yellow corridor. One of the men from Tanuojin’s watch was coming the other way, and Saba attacked him. The other man never tried to fight back. He rolled to one side, his arms up to protect his face, and Saba slashed at him. Tanuojin’s man dodged behind the blow and raced away. Saba let him go. Paula went after him through the curtain of their scents. He swerved up into the Tank.
Sril and Bakan were at the far end of the long dim room. Near the hatch, Saba’s helmsman was talking to Marus, Tanuojin’s helm. Without a word, Saba flew at Marus. All three of the men of his watch charged at the man they had just been tolerating and clawed at him. Paula flinched back to the wall. Marus burst free and fled out the hatch, leaving a smoky trail of blood behind him in the air.
Sril came up to her. The gold wire winked in his nose. “Mendoz’, this is how innocent sailors die in space.”
Saba circled in the middle of the room, below the posters of naked women. Ketac had come in; he floated over beside Paula.
“Thank you,” she said, low.
“You helped me,” he said. “I pay my debts.”
“Listen to me.” Saba looked around at his men. “My lyo thinks he can run around me in my own ship. I’m going to kick him into shape, so stay away from him, unless you want some extra stripes.” He lunged at Ketac and got him by the shirtfront. “That means you, clothead.” He pushed his son backward away from him.
Paula sidled down the wall. Bubbles of Marus’s blood bobbed in the air around the hatch. It was the low watch, when Saba and Tanuojin were both off-duty. She looked both ways into the tunnel. A few yards away on either side, its kinks took it out of sight. She went out the hatch.
There was nowhere she could go to hide from them. The ship was like a maze. She flew down toward the red corridor. A sound ahead of her made her stop sharp. Tanuojin came around the next bend.
He flew at her, and she raced back the way she had come, into the S-curves below the Tank. Just out of his sight, she flattened herself against the wall. He sailed past her. She went back the other way. He struck at her and missed her by inches, his claws like knives. She was faster than he was. At the mouth of the red corridor she paused and looked back and saw him stopped ten feet up the tube, watching her. She went down to her cabin and locked herself in.
She was too jittery to play her flute. She prowled around and around the room. The cold and dark closed over her. The Styths on watch swam through the monitor screens. Her throat was still sore. She was tired. Her eyes burned in their sockets. Taking out the bedrug, she clipped the ring to the wall and wrapped herself up in the thick shag.
Saba woke her, banging on the door. She let him in. He came past her into the room. When he turned she saw four deep scratches down the side of his jaw.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
The wounds were marked in dried blood. She put one hand on his shoulder, holding her blanket around her with the other. “What happened to your face?”
“There’s nothing wrong with me.” He brushed her off. Unbuckling his belt, he peeled his overalls off. She backed away from him.
“Was that Tanuojin?”
“No. I can’t find him.”
They rolled the bed around them. The wings overlapped and clung to one another. She squirmed until she was comfortable. He ground the heel of his hand into his eyes.
“I’d like to wrap his damned dirty tongue around his neck.”
They lay quiet a moment. The floating bed rocked slightly back and forth. His fingers moved in her hair. Usually he was asleep before she was even settled enough to close her eyes.
“Why does he do this to me?” he said.
“How long have you known him?”
“Since we were neophytes.”
“Then you know what he’s like.”
He barked a flat laugh. “Yes. He knows what I’m like, too, which is why he’s staying out.”
“How did you meet him?”
“I don’t remember.” He squirmed around in the bedrug. “It was while I was loading. He was always around, being creepy. I couldn’t stand him. He’s nobody, and he has that nasty mouth—Anyhow, I got sick, and my friends decided I was dying and left me in an alley. He found me and took me to his trap. When I had the fits, he put his hands on me and I stopped kicking. He kept me alive all the time I was shedding my joe. As soon as I could stand up, we swore the irelyon.”
