Tatja Grimm's World

exactly one ship tied up at the village: the Science.

Three

Crew and publishing folk spent the next few hours speculating: Why was the Science ambushed? What would Tarulle do about it? The barge stayed several miles offshore, but rumor held that fastboats were doing close recon under cover of the midday eclipse. The only word from the executive deck was that there would be no immediate landing.

Top management was not asleep—just terribly indecisive. Rey Guille bluffed his way onto the bridge shortly before eclipsend. All the biggies were there, both from Ownership and Operations. The atmosphere was that of an incipient brawl: consensus time had not arrived.

“—and I say, sail into catapult range and burn their filthy village to the ground! Barbarians must learn that ambushing merchants is a dangerous sport.” The speaker was one of Tarulle’s nephews, an arrogant pip-squeak who’d be scrubbing decks if it weren’t for his relatives. The little man looked angrily around the room, daring anyone to disagree. Fortunately for the company, there were some strong personalities present:

Barge Captain Maccioso stood near the helm, facing the rest. His form was a vague, intimidating shadow in the eclipse light. Maccioso was a huge man; the bridge itself had been rebuilt to accommodate his six-foot eight- inch height. He was in his early fifties and only just beginning to go to fat. The first twenty years of his career had been spent in the Chainpearls Navy. The man had retired an admiral, and the greatest hero of the Loretto Bight affair. Now he crossed his ham-like arms and seemed to lean toward Tarulle’s nephew. “Warlike talk coming from…” a wee wimp who couldn’t cock a how, the pause seemed to say, “from those who need customers to live. It’s true, I could torch the village. It would be expensive; we wouldn’t be left with much reserve. And what would we get for it? The Termite Folk are isolated, Master Craeto. There would be few to learn from the lesson. The Tarulle Company would lose one—admittedly minor—customer. The barge has visited here four times since I’ve been Captain. We’ve had less trouble than in some civilized ports. These people are not pirates. The Science crew did something, broke some taboo. …”

Maccioso turned to look into the harbor; sunbreak was almost upon them. The land was bright with washed-out pastels. When he continued, his voice held more frustration than certainty. “Sure. We have the power to raze the place. But we could never bring off an assault landing. There’s no way we can rescue the survivors and find out how to avoid such a debacle in the future.”

Survivors? Someone had lived through the pet’ bombing. Rey felt a surge of joy. No one else seemed moved by the news; they already knew. This must be a major point of the debate. “We can’t just leave them there!” The words popped out of Guille’s mouth without conscious thought.

Dead silence greeted his words. The people closest to him moved slightly away, but didn’t look at him; it was as though he had made a bad smell. Maccioso turned and his gaze swept the bridge. “Master Tounse!”

“Sir!”

The barge captain pointed at Rey Guille. “Take this man out and …” Rey’s guts went cold; there were stories about Ked Maccioso’s command of the Chainpearl Armada, “brief him.”

“Yessir!”

Brailly Tounse emerged from the crowd and hustled Rey onto the open walkway beyond the bridge. The printmaster shut the hatch and turned to face him. “ ‘Brief you?’ The commercial life is turning Ked soft.” It took a moment for Rey to realize that the other man was suppressing laughter. “Don’t you understand that a rescue is what Ked is dying to do? For almost an hour, he’s been trying to trick these flightless bats into backing one.”

“Oh.” Rey was both embarrassed and encouraged. “Maybe my, uh, little outburst will start something.”

“I hope so.” Brailly stopped smiling. “But even by Ked’s standards, it would be a risky operation pulling those Science people out.”

He led Rey to the forward end of the walkway. All around them, twilight brightened suddenly into day as the sun came past the edge of Seraph. Swarms of daybats rose from the harbor. They swept around the towers, their cries coming clear and reedy across the water.

Brailly gestured at the bridge binoculars. “Take a look to the left of the harbor towers. That’s where they’re holding the survivors.” It was some kind of pit, probably the root of a fallen tower. Rey saw Termite Folk camped around the edge. Tounse continued, “They’re in that hole, out of sight from this angle. See how the locals have set petroleum vats along the edge? They could light and dump those in a matter of minutes…”

…incinerating the prisoners. The Tarulle people would have to sneak in a large party, and overpower the guards at those vats all at once. One slip and a lot of company people would share the fate of those in the pit. “We could offer a ransom, Brailly. It might be expensive, but the Science home universities would probably pay us back. … And there’d be lots of good publicity.” The spinoffs from such an adventure could fill several issues of the Tarulle magazines.

“You don’t understand: the Science people aren’t hostages. The only reason they’re still alive is that an appropriate method of execution hasn’t been decided on. The local bosses tell us that no ransom will save the prisoners. They won’t even tell us what ‘blasphemy’ the poor suckers committed. The whole matter is closed. And you know, I think the gooks actually expect to continue business as usual with the rest of us!”

“Hmm.” Rey had dealt with the village’s rulers. Their interest in certain types of pulp fiction had always made them seem relatively civilized. They had not seemed religious—and now he saw that was just a sign of how damned secretive their religion must be. He stared through the binocs a moment more. Beyond the edge of that pit were some good people. “We’ve got to do something, Brailly.”

“I know. Ked knows.” The printmaster shrugged. After a moment, the two men walked back to the command bridge. Inside, Rey saw that the tension had drained from the meeting; consensus had finally been reached. Brailly smiled sourly and whispered, “But we also know how it’s going to turn out, don’t we?” Rey looked around, and with a sinking feeling he understood. The Tarulle Publishing Company had existed for seven hundred years. Few islandbound companies were that old—and yet Tarulle had been sailing the oceans of Tu all that time, contending with tempests and pirates and religionists and governments. There had been disasters; three hundred years earlier, the old barge was burned to the waterline. Yet the company had survived, and prospered. One doesn’t last seven hundred years by rushing into everyone else’s fight. The barge and its hydrofoils were well armed, but given a choice they simply avoided trouble. If a village or even an island chain turned to religious nuttery, they lost Tarulle’s business. The years would pass, and the regime would fall—or decide that it needed trade more than its crazy convictions.

Kederichi Maccioso had done his subtle best to bring another outcome, but it was not to be: The talk now was of delivering a few threats and—if that did not help the Science people—weighing anchor and sailing off.

There must be some way to stop this! Then he had it: Brailly said the Termite Folk wanted business as usual. For the second time in fifteen minutes, Rey interrupted the meeting. “We can’t simply take off; we have magazines to sell here, and customers who want to buy.”

This outburst was greeted with the same silence as before. Only this time, it was not Ked Maccioso who responded. There was a croaking sound from somewhere behind the Tarulle inlaws. The owners looked nervously at each other, then stood aside. Out of the shadows came a very old man in a wheelchair: Jespen Tarulle himself. He rolled far enough past his relatives to get a look at Rey Guille. It was only the third time Rey had seen the man. He was wrapped in blankets, his hands clasped and shivering in his lap. Only one eye tracked and it was starred with a cataract. His voice was quavery, the delivery almost addled. “Yes. These folk haven’t done us harm, and our business is to do business.” He looked in Rey’s direction. “I’m glad someone still understands this.”

Maccioso didn’t sound quite so enthusiastic. “It’s risky, sir, not your average sales landing. … But I could go along with it, if we can get the volunteers.” Volunteers who might wangle the prisoners’ freedom, or at least discover their exact situation; Rey imagined the wheels turning in the Barge Captain’s head.

“Sirs. I volunteer for the landing.” It was Brailly Tounse, barely hiding a smile.

“I—I volunteer.” The words were coming from Rey’s own mouth. He mumbled the rest, almost as a