until the day came when we knew we were in the true trade winds. We hoisted the big square sails on the foremast and Esmerelda picked up her heels.
These were Kane's home waters and, while we didn't depend on him, he was free with his advice on weather conditions to be expected. 'A bit further on we'll get revolving storms, 'he said. 'Not to worry – they're not very big – but my word they're fast. On you like a flash, so you've got to keep your eyes peeled.'
Campbell turned out to be a poor sailor and spent a great deal of time on his bunk regretting that ships were ever invented. It was unusual for him not to be the master of the situation, and he said he felt like a spare wheel on deck, surrounded by men who were doing all sorts of mysterious things fast and well without his guidance. He must have been hell to his mining engineers on land.
Clare, on the other hand, was a good sailor. She worked hard on deck, wearing the battered sailing gear she had promised us and a healthy tan, and was greatly appreciated by all the crew, who had found her an unexpected bonus on this leg of the voyage. She did help cook and kept watch like the rest of us, but she also absorbed the books in our small library like blotting paper, becoming especially interested in Geordie's collection of small boat voyages, many of which dealt with the Pacific.
One evening she and I talked together and I got another look at my brother, through Clare's eyes.
It was one of those incredible nights you find in the tropics. There was a waning moon and the stars sparkled like a handful of diamonds cast across the sky. The wind sang in the rigging and the water talked and chuckled to Esmerelda, and a white-foamed wake with patches of phosphorescence stretched astern.
I was standing in the bows when Clare joined me. She looked across the sea-path of the moon and said, 'I wish this voyage would go on forever.'
'It won't. There's a limit even to the size of the Pacific.'
'When will we get to Minerva?'
'Perhaps never- we've got to find it first. But we'll be in the vicinity in a week if the weather keeps up.'
'I hope we were right about that drawing,' she said. 'Sometimes I wish I hadn't tried interpreting them. What if we're wrong?'
'We'll just have to think of something else. Figuring out Mark's mental processes was never an easy job at the best of times.'
She smiled. 'I know.'
'How well did you know Mark?'
'Sometimes I thought I knew him pretty well,' she said. 'In the end I found I didn't know him at all.' She paused. 'Pop doesn't think much of what you've said about Mark – about his honesty, I mean. Pop thought well of him – mostly.'
I said, 'Mark had many faces. He was working for your father and he wanted something out of him so he showed his cleanest, brightest face. Your father never really knew Mark.'
'I know. Speaking figuratively and with due respect to your mother, Mark was a thorough-going bastard.'
I was startled and at the same time unsurprised. 'What happened?'
She said reflectively. 'I was a bit bitchy the other night and then you pulled me up with a jerk when you called that singer 'just another of Mark's popsies'. You see, I suppose I could be regarded as 'just another of Mark's popsies'. It was the usual thing. It must happen a thousand times a day somewhere in the world, but when it happens to you it hurts. I went overboard for Mark. I was all wrapped up in rosy dreams – he was so damned attractive.'
'When he wanted to be. He could switch the charm on and off like a light.'
'He let it happen, damn him,' she said. 'He could have stopped it at any time, but the devil let it happen. I was hearing the distant chimes of wedding bells when I discovered he was already married – maybe not happily – but married.'
I said gently, 'He was using you too, to get at your father. It's not surprising behaviour from Mark.'
'I know that now. I wish to God I'd known it then. Mark and I had a lot of fun in those days, and I thought it was going to go on forever. Do you remember?'
'Meeting you in Vancouver? Oh yes.'
'I wondered then, why you didn't seem to get on. You seemed so cold. I thought you were the rotter, and he said things…'
'Never mind all that. What happened?'
She shrugged. 'Nothing – nothing at all. And I found out at about the same time that Pop was having his troubles with Suarez-Navarro, so I didn't tell him, or anyone – though I think he guessed something. Have you noticed that he only praises Mark as a scientist, not as a person?'
'And then Mark vanished.'
'That's right. He'd gone and I never saw him again.' She looked ahead over the bows. 'And now he's dead – his body lies somewhere out there – but he's still pushing people around. We're all being pushed around by Mark, even now-do you know that? You and me, Pop and the Suarez-Navarro crowd, your friend Geordie and all your commando pals – all being manipulated by a dead man with a long arm.'
Take it easy,' I said. She sounded terribly bitter. 'Mark's not pushing anyone. We all know what we're doing, and we're doing it because we want to. Mark is dead and that's an end to him.'
Ill
It was time to change the subject. I used the standard approach.
Tell me about yourself, Clare. What do you do? When did your mother die?'
'When I was six.'
'Who brought you up? Your father was away a lot, wasn't he?'
She laughed. 'Oh, I've been everywhere with Pop. He brought me up.'
That must have been some experience.'
'Oh, it was fun. I had to spend a lot of time at boarding schools, of course, but I always went to Pop during the vacations. We weren't often at home though – we were mostly away. Sometimes on a skiing holiday, sometimes to Europe or Australia or South America during the longer vacations. I was always with Pop.'
'You're well travelled.'
'It was tricky at times though. Pop has his ups and downs -he hasn't always been rich. Sometimes we had money and sometimes we didn't, but Pop always looked after me. I went to good schools, and to college. It was only last year that I found out that once, when Pop was on a crest, he'd put aside a fund for me. Even when he was busted he never touched it, no matter how much he needed money.'
'He sounds a fine man.'
'I love him,' she said simply. 'When the Suarez-Navarro mob put the knife into him it was the first time I was old enough to understand defeat. I got down to studying stenography and so on, and he made me his confidential secretary when he couldn't afford to hire one. It was the least I could do – he'd lost faith in everybody and he had to have someone around he could trust. Although I didn't feel too trusting myself just about that time.'
'He seems to have survived.'
'He's tough,' she said proudly. 'You can't keep Pop down, and you can bet that in the end Suarez-Navarro will be sorry they ever heard of him. It's happened to him before and he's always bounced back. I still work for him. I'
'Whatever it is, say it.'
'I had you checked out in London, when you were preparing for this trip. I didn't want Pop stung again. Besides…'
'My name was Trevelyan?'
'Oh, I'm so sorry,' she said. 'But I had to. You checked out fine, you know.' For the first time since I'd known her she was a little shy. She went on. That's enough about the Campbells. What about the Trevelyans – about you?', 'What about me? I'm just a plodding scientist.'
We both laughed. Plodding certainly didn't describe this airy swooping progress, and it eased her tension.
'Most scientists seem to be looking up these days, not down.'
'Ah, space stuff,' I said.
'You don't seem very enthusiastic.'
'I'm not. I think it's a waste of money. The Americans are spending thirty billions of dollars to put man into space; in the end it could cost ten times that much. That works out at about twenty thousand dollars for every
