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By midday Jon-Tom no longer cared much if they were
rescued or if he were thrown over the rail to be consumed
by whatever carnivorous fish inhabited this part of the
Glittergeist. He didn’t have much hope left. Already he’d
forgotten about Clothahump’s illness, about returning home,
forgotten about everything except surviving the day.
By late afternoon they’d finished scrubbing every square
foot of the main deck and had moved up to the poop deck.
The helmsman, a grizzled old warhog, ignored them.
There was no sign of the captain, for which Jon-Tom was
unremittingly grateful.
A crude, temporary shelter had been erected off to the
left, close by the captain’s perch. Huddled beneath the
feeble shade this provided was a girl of sixteen, maybe a
little older. Once she might have been pretty. Now her long
blonde hair was so much pale seaweed clinging to her
face. She was barely five feet tall. Her eyes were a
washed-out blue. Excepting the heavy steel manacle that
encircled her neck and was attached to a chain bolted to
the deck, she was stark naked.
It provided her with a radius of movement of about ten
feet. No more. Just enough to get from the shelter to the
rail, where she would have to perform any personal bodily
functions in full view of the crew. Jon-Tom had no trouble
following the whip welts, casual burns, and bruises that
covered most of her body.
She sat silently within the shelter, her legs extended to
one side, and said nothing as they approached. She just
stared.
Jon-Tom used a forearm to wipe the sweat from around