Bolutu and even Rose, somehow-to stay and fight together to the blary end. Besides, you and Thasha-” She puffed out her round cheeks, angrily. “It’s like magic. You love her despite the invasion of Ormael, despite her father. I think you even managed to love her father. And if she wants to throw all that away just because some handsome-”
“Handsome?” cried both boys. “He’s not! He’s a goon!”
Marila looked from one to the other. “Hopeless,” she sighed.
Neeps turned back to Pazel. “Hercol must be in on it,” he said. “But why are they doing it, and why won’t they tell you? That’s what you have to figure out.”
“Right,” said Pazel. But Neeps could see that his heart had gone out of it. Marila’s argument had struck home; he was at last considering the possibility that Thasha’s change of heart was real.
All at once he seemed to reach a decision. “Get up, you two,” he said. “You’ve wasted almost your whole hour on me. Go and eat something, walk around. And wash off that blood, mate. Go on, right now. I mean it.”
Neeps felt like a heel, but his guilt at keeping Marila from enjoying any of her furlough was gnawing him, and Pazel was unyielding. All three got to their feet. Pazel linked hands with them through the bars.
“Every other time, she trusted me,” he blurted. “Even when she was scared or ashamed. Why would she start hiding things now?”
Marila looked Pazel in the eye. You had to know her well to realize how much sympathy she felt. “That’s my point, Pazel. She wouldn’t, and she’s not.”
But as they walked away Pazel was still shaking his head.
The ten-minute bell clanged its strident warning. In the stateroom, Neeps and Marila jumped up from the table, and the little feast their friends had assembled. Hercol and Bolutu rose as well. Neeps looked across the room and stifled a growl.
It just kept getting worse. Thasha and Fulbreech were standing by the windows, close together. She had brought him through the invisible wall. Since its sudden appearance three months ago they had found that Thasha alone controlled access to the stateroom, merely by commanding the wall to admit chosen friends. Uskins had marked it with a red line of paint on the deck; it ran from port to starboard, straight down the middle of a cross- passage twenty feet from the stateroom door. No one but those Thasha named could cross that line. They had no idea where the wall had come from, or why it answered only to Thasha, but they were all glad of its protection. Now without consulting anyone she had added Fulbreech to their circle.
She had tried to make peace between them. Fulbreech had been willing; but Neeps had turned his head with a bitter laugh, and Marila’s look made Jorl and Suzyt whimper deep in their throats. After a moment Fulbreech had simply withdrawn to the other end of the stateroom. Thasha had tried to talk to them-about the attack of the dlomic army, the council meeting, the fruitless search for Arunis. Hercol and Bolutu had urged them to eat. Felthrup, in nervous agony, had babbled like a soul possessed, now and then stopping to chew his stumpy tail. At last he had burst into tears and fled into Admiral Isiq’s old quarters. Hercol had followed him inside, and emerged minutes later, shaking his head.
“Are you sure it was wise, Thasha, to indulge his request?”
“I’m not sure of much these days,” she responded, her voice suddenly hardening as she glanced at Hercol.
“What are you talking about?” said Marila. “What request?”
Thasha sighed. “Felthrup believes that he’s accomplishing something vital-in his sleep. You know he used to have those terrible nightmares, the ones he’d wake up from squealing and shaking? Well, they’ve stopped, thank Rin. But he has an idea that they weren’t normal dreams at all. He thinks they were sent by Arunis.”
“What?” said Fulbreech, touching her elbow. “Your rat friend thinks the sorcerer was attacking him through dreams?”
“That’s his suspicion,” said Thasha, “although he’s never been able to remember any details. When the nightmares were happening he was so afraid that he stopped sleeping at all-for ages. I think it nearly killed him. And now he’s just obsessed. He’s been reading about sleep and dreams and trances in the Polylex-you know, my particular copy-”
“Right,” said Marila quickly as Fulbreech raised his eyes with sudden interest.
She’s cracked! thought Neeps. She practically just told that slimy bloke that she’s got a thirteenth edition! Why doesn’t Hercol put a stop to this?
“He wanted a place to sleep in the daytime,” Thasha continued. “He asked for a dark nest, and I provided it- found an old hatbox, lined it with scarves, placed it with the open side facing the back of the closet. Then I hung a curtain over the closet door to keep light from leaking in. With all of Father’s uniforms and Syrarys’ dresses still hanging in there, I guess it’s about as dark and quiet as anyplace on the ship.”
“He retreats to that nest for hours at a time,” said Bolutu, “and when he emerges, he is strange and preoccupied, but he never tells us why.”
“I don’t like this at all,” said Neeps.
“Nor do I,” said Hercol, “but I have come to trust that rat’s intuition almost as much as my own. He often senses far more than he understands. But we must be off, my friends. The hour is ending, and it is a long walk to the forecastle house.”
“Thank you all,” said Neeps. “You’re first-rate, I mean it.”
Thasha came forward, her eyes bright, and took his hand in both of hers. “We miss you,” she said.
“Yeah,” said Neeps, glancing around, as though for someone who wasn’t there.
“We’ll go with you, of course,” she said. Then she added awkwardly, “Greysan’s going to stay here.”
A difficult silence. Marila turned to look at the Simjan. “Alone?” she said.
“Yes, alone,” said Thasha, a bit sharply. “Why shouldn’t he?”
Neeps took a deep breath, and held it. Because it’s insane, that’s why. Because you’re out of your mind if you let him poke around in the stateroom. The magical Polylex was here, and so was Mr. Fiffengurt’s secret journal, and the letters he’d written to his unborn child. There were also Bolutu’s notebooks, and Thasha’s own, and even some jottings Pazel had made in the back of an old logbook.
“We’ll go back by ourselves,” said Marila suddenly. “You can all stay here.”
Neeps quickly agreed: it was as if Marila had read his mind. The others protested, but he and Marila stood firm. Wishing their friends a last hasty goodbye, they bolted from the stateroom.
What occurred next shocked them both. Just beyond the red line that traced the invisible wall they found Rose waiting, terribly tense, fingering something in his pocket. “What kept you?” he barked. “Come along, quickly!”
“We have to get back, Captain,” said Neeps. “I can already feel the pain beginning.”
“Save your breath,” said Rose. “Come with me, that’s an order.”
He plunged across the upper gun deck, not looking back, confident of being obeyed. Neeps and Marila stood rooted to the spot.
“He’s going the right direction,” said Neeps at last. “We can start off following him, and break for the topdeck if things get strange.”
“Things already are,” said Marila.
Nonetheless they followed the captain as he barreled past the startled carpenters and gun-repair teams, around the tonnage hatch and into the starboard lateral passage. “He’s still aiming for the forecastle house,” whispered Neeps. “In fact we’ll probably get there sooner this way. No crowds to slow us down. But would it hurt him to-”
Rose stopped dead. Neeps and Marila skidded to a halt behind him, and both cried out in amazement. Just ahead, a passage intersected their own, and at its center was a huge red cat. It crouched for an instant, startled by their voices, and then with a twitch of serpentine tail it vanished down the right-hand passage.
“That’s Sniraga!” said Neeps. “She survived the blary rats! How did she manage, where has she been?”
“Nothing can kill that animal,” said Rose. “It will never leave off, never cease to plague me, until I answer for its wounds.”
He was trembling, hoarse with fear. Then he shook himself back to life and pounded on. The Holy Stair was just ahead, and it was with immense relief that they watched Rose enter the ladderway and start to climb. He moved swiftly, raising himself by the handholds as much as the steep steps.
But one flight below the topdeck he stopped again. “Have a look at these,” he said, bending down.
