Involution Ocean

cu­rious and I perverted the use of the memory banks. I looked through them for those who had vanished at sea. Not to remember their spirits, but just for me. And there were hundreds of them. Sinners mostly. Sinners like me– .”

“Oh?” I said. “Go on.”

“That was only the beginning,” Murphig said feverishly. “I studied history. I neglected the story of the True Faith for other things, the mysteries. Like the Sundog Year, and the douds of St Elmo’s Fire. There are dozens of things. The floating islands. The things that crawled up the cliffs during the Hungry Year. Then there was that thing that washed up in the Pentacle Islands, in the old days. They said it was an old dead anemone, all battered and thornless—but there were no stumps. Just four digits like fingers, huge things, and a thumb and a kind of boneless wrist. Fifty feet across. It was a hand, a giant hand” Murphig was breathing hard. He was still clutching his sides.

“I stopped praying. That was a sin, too, my despair. I thought no Fragment would listen to me or my impieties. I tried everything, too—I. even prayed to Growth, like the rebels did. That was my worst sin. I’llnever forget the shame. But that didn’t stop me. Instead I went to sea for myself. With an alien captain. I wanted to find out, you see? I would have been ashamed to go to sea with pious men.

Then there was the drug. For a while I thought some Fragment of God had sent me that keenness of mind. But instead it was you. You and your friend.”

“That’s true,” I said frankly. “It was a criminal act It seemed necessary at the time, though.”

“It was a sin. You should be punished.”

“Maybe so,” I said. “And no doubt you could cause me a great deal of pain and embarrassment by revealing my actions. However, you just killed a man, so now you’re equally vulnerable. That leaves us at a stalemate. I suggest we leave justice to the afterlife. You see how much simpler that is?”

“Your arrogance has made you deaf and bHnd,” Mur­phig said. “You don’t know what the captain is doing—if you could hear his insane plans you would know. I’ve sinned many times, but never like that. Never like he wants me to. I could never do what he asks—not against Them.

“We have a common enemy, us Nullaquans and Them. It’s you, you aliens. They need us to cover them up, to hide them from the prying eyes of men. And we need them, to get people like you, to stop you from changing us, so we can still keep faith with God. IVe ginned against stability, and so have you. But I admit it freely. I repent! Do you forgive me?”

I looked at him, feeling an odd stirring of sympathy. “You look terrible, Murphig. Don’t worry yourself—it’s destructive. Calothrick stumbled overboard, and there’s plenty of Flare for both of us. We should be allies; we have more things in common than our sins. Now we’d better get you to your bunk.”

Murphig had a coughing fit and there was a wetness to it that alarmed me. “Do you forgive me?” he demanded hoarsely. “Grant me grace! Do you forgive me?”

“You idiot!” I said. “Of course I forgive you.”

“Thank God. I feel so sick.” He swayed on his stool.

“Look out!” I said, and half caught him as he fell off.

I eased him to the floor. It looked like an overdose—his face had turned as gray as whalehide. He was breathing shallowly. As I checked his pulse I saw a spreading stain on his left side, where his hand had hidden it as he hugged himself. I opened his jacket and shirt, quickly, and I saw the worst . . . the nasty gleam of the broken-off edge of Calothrick’s jackknife, jagged and shiny in the blood.

I grabbed the aid of the blade with the plierslike grip­ping edge of a can opener and pulled it out of the wound. I put pressure on the wound with a folded potholder, and stopped the bleeding. I propped up his feet on the lower rung of the stool to help with the shock, and when he stopped breathing I gave him artificial respiration. But he died.

“This is the worst,” I told myself. “The absolute worst” I took a small shot of Flare to stop my hands from shaking. I spread my quilt over the body and sat down on the kitchen stool to thinlr my way out of the situation.

There was no help for it I was going to have to throw Murphig overboard. I couldnt hide him anywhere safely, and there was no sense in leaving him on board with the mark of murder on his side. It was far easier to dump him, so that he could join Calothrick as another mystery of the deep. The double disappearance was not a happy solution to my problem, but it was the safest and simplest.

Once I bad made up my mindl saw no point in stalling. I took the quilt off, making sure it hadn’t touched the small puddle of blood. Then I heaved the body over one shoulder and climbed ponderously up the stairs. I opened the hatch and looked out I saw nothing suspicious, so I reeled slowly toward the port rail. I was about to dump him when I thought that the splash might possibly be loud enough to attract attention. It wasn’t likely, but I lowered him quietly to the deck and got ready to slide him out head first under the railing.

I heard heavy footsteps. A lantern flared up by the cap­tain’s hatch. I froze, but it was too late; he had been watch­ing me.

“What have we here?” the captain said.

Chapter 14 Desperandum Conducts an Experiment

I didn’t say anything. Desperandum stooped to peel back Murphig’s eyelid with one thick thumb. He brought his lantern close to the dead man’s face and studied the eye for a moment. Then he straightened up.

“Syncophine overdose,” he said, with a sort of morbid satisfaction. “Written all over his face. Did you murder him, Newhouse?”

I pried my mask slightly away from my face, just enough to make my voice audible. “No,” I said, too stunned to dissemble. “He drank too much of it He was upset because he just killed Calothrick.”

“For death’s sake,” Desperandum said, sounding more annoyed than shocked. “What a stupid, reckless act Well, Newhouse? Don’t just sit there like a lump of suet Explain yourself.”

“Well,” I said.

“Don’t bother to lie. I know you much better than you think I do. I know all about Flare—do they still call it that? I know about the still in the kitchen, too. And Calothrick’s addiction was obvious, at least to an initiate.”

I was red-handed and we both knew it, so I said quite frankly, “They got into a fight over Flare. Calothrick stabbed him, but Murphig threw him overboard and the sharks got him. I saw it and offered to help him hide the murder so the Flare thing could stay under cover. But Murphig drank too much Flare and died, and now I have to throw him overboard or be found out It’s not honest but it’s easiest Captain.”

Desperandum mulled it over. “It’s a dirty shame about Murphig. He could have been very useful to me. Now I’ll have to find a replacement for him.’’

There was a weighty silence. The implication of his state­ment was obvious.

“What do you want me to do?” I said.

“No conditions,” Desperandum said flintfly, quite secure in his power. “Are you willing to take his place?”

“Is it honorable?”

Desperandum chuckled in quiet contempt. “By your standards, you mean? Yes. As honorable as anything you’ve ever done. Now, yes or no?”

“This is absurd! I want to know what—' The captain’s expression changed, and just as quickly I said, “IH do it Yes.”

His cry of alarm was cut off before it was ever uttered, and a bemused expression crossed his face for a few rapid heartbeats. Then Desperandum said, “Very well then, over he goes,” and we shoved Murphig under the railing.

The gnashing of the sharks was half-muffled in the roil­ing dust. Desperandum spoke with loathing. “Death, I hate those monsters. Damn their teeth! But we can’t let hate stop progress, can we? I’m going back to bed—as soon as I finish looking over the craft, that is.”

“Captain, now that I’ve agreed—'