Look for another way out.'
Vanity said doubtfully, 'I don't think people build secret passageways on boats.'
'Look for one nonetheless.'
There was noise from the corridor. I could hear voices, calm, loud, authoritative. It sounded as if a gang of the ship's staff were going from door to door, reassuring people and asking if anyone needed help.
Victor said, 'Amelia, keep an eye on Echidna.'
Vanity yelped. 'She can hear it. When you say her name!'
Victor said calmly to the rest of us, 'No one say her name again. Say 'fishmonger.''
Victor stepped over to the door. When the officers knocked, he called out that everything was fine in here. I did not see whatever energy or particle-beam left his body and flashed through the door at them, but I sensed its utility to Victor, and its internal nature. Glassy-eyed, the men turned and continued on down the corridor.
Victor looked over his shoulder. 'Progress?'
Colin said, 'I am doing a whole fat lot of nothing here.'
Vanity said, 'Found it. The air duct. For some reason, they built it large enough to crawl through. You would think they'd only make it wide enough to let air pass, wouldn't you? But here it is.'
Vanity had her head halfway into a square hole which had opened in the wall above the wet bar. With a click, electric lights came on in the hole, and shone around her body. 'There is a switch,' she said.
I said, 'Something is distorting space-time. That undersea mountain is no longer far away. Now it is almost directly underfoot. We are about to pass into the intersection zone.'
Colin looked at the porthole, as if to see outside.
Blackness pressed up against the glass. The roaring waves of rain beat a tattoo on the glass.
A whisper came from the light-encircled Quentin. It sounded like his voice, as if he were doing ventriloquism. His voice seemed to be coming from the mirror at his feet. I could sense it was useful to someone other than Quentin, that voice, and its internal nature was alien to this time-space.
'Death, painful death, is all fate holds in store; some will die for want of air, some for terror, hunger and despair. Death if you approach her, one or many, of your four. And yet among your number there are five. Let her return what she has stolen, and she may yet return a…'
Colin cried out and put his hands up as if to ward off a blow. The mirror at Quentin's feet cracked. The mirror above the wet bar turned into a spiderweb of shatter lines with a noise like a gunshot. From the bathroom, I also heard tinkling glass and the clatter of falling shards.
The stone on Vanity's necklace gave off a lancing green dazzle, like a flash of summer lightning. And she shouted. Her shout was a shout of joy, however.
I turned to look at the bathroom, expecting to see the mirror broken there. But instead, walls and surfaces blocked my view. For a moment, I was confused. How could a merely three-dimensional surface prevent me from seeing 'over' it? Then I squinted, letting out a low moan of fear and annoyance.
I had been girlified again. Three-dimensionalized. Ameliorated, so to speak.
Victor said, 'Report.'
Everyone started to talk at once.
Victor said, 'Oldest first.'
I said, 'Powers shut off.' Keep it brief.
Vanity said, 'I sensed what she did. We just passed over a boundary. It is so obvious! I should have figured it out before! This necklace has a boundary stone in it, just like the green table, just like Boggin's ring on his toe. All you are doing is attracting or deflecting the attention of whatever enforces the laws of nature. That is why I can sense when people are paying attention to me, you see? It is so I can do what I do. That is the principle the ships are built on; that is why they can read minds! I know how to do it now!
The trick I did with Bran's Head to turn people's powers off and on! I know how to do it!'
Victor said, 'Do so. Do it now.'
Vanity said, 'Well, I can't do it now. My power is off. But if my power got turned back on, I could turn it off. Other people's, too. You have to be near a boundary for this to work. Something decides where boundaries are…'
Victor said, 'Later, please. Colin?'
Colin said, 'I had a dream while the voice was talking. Knowledge just came into my head out of nowhere. Were you guys wondering what I am supposed to be able to do, like Amelia seeing through walls and Victor seeing molecules and magnetic fields? I saw something with my heart. I saw the future.
Fishmonger is going to capsize the ship and trap an amount of air in it. She is going to push it to the bottom. She is going to eat the people a few at a time. She is going to keep them alive, keep the air fresh, for a long, long time. Like a crab tank in the restaurant. I saw an old couple, lying in bed in an upside-down room. I thought they were hugging each other. At first, I thought they were kissing. You know, saying good-bye because they both knew they were both about to die. The old gal was already dead. The guy must have been very hungry because he was eating her face…'
Vanity said, 'Ugh! Stop! No descriptions of cannibal face-eating! No! Ugh!'
Colin said, 'A lot more will kill themselves, or each other. It's going to be pretty bad. You know that scene I never translated right in the
