“I can think of one additional precaution,” said Aufors. “If you decide to approach Mahahm for any reason, alone or otherwise, I’d remove the cannon before you go. Mahahm might consider a life for the cannon would be an appropriate trade-off. The life might be the Marshal’s, or the Prince’s.”
The Captain paled. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“As for the rest of it, I agree with your reasoning. It’s probably best that I don’t start my mission from outside the gates of Mahahm-qum. Have we any kind of small craft aboard? A skiff? Some kind of inflatable boat?”
The Captain nodded, relieved that Aufors had adopted a reasonable tone. Casting a quick look about to be sure they were not overheard, he said, “We do, yes. We have inflatable lifeboats in case of accident over the sea. They have electric motors with no very great range, but one of them has a solar regenerator. If you steal one, it would be only by accident that you might make off with that particular one. I, of course, would have no advance knowledge of your plans.”
“I understand you completely, Captain.”
“Get the steward to provision you, but try to keep me out of it. Be sure you have enough drinking water. You’ll need that most. By the way, did you talk to the doctor?”
“I tried, on and off, between episodes of badgering you. He has some kind of professional oath standing betwixt him and telling me what I need to know, so he says. I think it’s more fear than honor. He turned quite white when I opened the subject. Where is he from, anyhow?”
“The man is from Chamis. His homeworld is dying, its people are streaming off in all directions. He came here, with his wife and family, trading his expertise for permission to stay. You could probably frighten the information out of him if you threaten him. He has no stomach for violence, that one.”
“Nor have I, Captain,” murmured Aufors. “If I thought he could lead me to Genevieve, I’d do it, stomach or no, but the doctor knows no more about her whereabouts than I do, and cruelty for its own sake has no attractions for me. The very fact that there’s something evil about the P’naki trade tells me where to begin looking. I’ve picked up hints of my own, and since you’ve indirectly affirmed most of them—though I’ll never disclose that you did so—the rest will fill in.”
“Where are you really going, Colonel?”
“After my wife and son.” He raised his eyebrows. “Though, if anyone asks, it may be more expedient to say I have gone to rescue the Prince and the Marshal.”
Aufors had already taken time to dye his hair and eyebrows. The dye was among the supplies he had fetched from Haven, for he had had a notion, even there, that the time might come when he would wish to pass for a Mahahmbi, and there were absolutely no redheads among them. While the Captain kept his crew busy elsewhere, Aufors gathered his supplies together and set off across the sea toward Mahahm, getting the boat out of sight as quickly as possible. He did not wish to come ashore near the Frangian port or anywhere that could be seen from the Mahahmbi towers. His only real plan was to find the old woman who had been in his house, and though the house had been blown up, the subterranean ways to it still might be intact. If he could get into and through the city. If.
When Melanie left her, Genevieve fell into an exhausted and troubled sleep. At some later time she wakened to a sound that fell through that high window into the tall, narrow room, filling it, making it reverberate: the song of the sea. Surely, she thought, this would bring the whole refuge awake.
Seemingly, it did not. No one rose or scurried about. No one called in response to that song, not even Genevieve herself, who pinched her lips together and purposefully withheld response out of indecision whether it was wise or prudent to let her voice be heard.
Still, this was a stronger singing than she had ever heard, and even if she wouldn’t reply, she felt a need to listen without walls in the way. Though the refuge was dark, with only a pale square of moonlight marking the window far above her head, she rose and went out into the corridor, feeling her way along the rough wall, scarcely aware of the chill of the stone on her bare feet. She made her way to the atrium, lighted from above by a dangling lantern. When she had come this way earlier in the day, she had seen stairs slanting upward along the base of the tower, rising upon themselves without a railing, with only a deep groove worn in the inner wall to show where people had trailed their hands as they went up and down. She climbed slowly, silently, moving from the upper step onto the flat roof of the lower story where a door was cut through to the inside of the tower.