The Dark Design by Phillip Jose Farmer

“Nur-ed-din el-Musafir,” Farrington said. “Nur for short.”

Frigate said, “In Arabic that means Light-of-the-Faith the-Traveler.”

“You know Arabic?” Farrington said. “I never could get the hang of any foreign language except Esperanto.”

“I picked up a lot of words from Burton’s Arabian Nights.”

He paused. “Well, what about it? Am I eliminated?”

Farrington said, “Yes and no.” He laughed at Frigate’s puzzled expression, and he clapped him on the shoulder.

“Can you keep your mouth shut?”

“Like a Trappist monk.”

“Well, I’ll tell you, Pete. Tom and I had picked out that big Kanaka there.” He pointed at Mauf, a giant Marquesan, looking very Polynesian in a white cloth around his waist and a big dark-red bloom in his thick, black, curly hair.

“He was top’s’l man in a whaler and then a harpooner for thirty years. He looks like he’d be a hellcat in a fight. Tom and I agreed that he was easily the best qualified. But he doesn’t know anything about books, and I need educated people around me. That may sound snobbish, but so what?

“I’ll tell you now. I just changed my mind. You’re signed up-as far as I’m concerned. No, wait a minute! Don’t look so happy. I have to talk to Tom about this. You wait. I’ll be right back.”

He plunged among the dancers, caught Rider by the hand, and dragged him off protesting to one side. Peter watched them talking. Rider looked at him several times but did not seem to be arguing.

Peter was glad that he had not had to play his trump card. If he hadn’t been chosen, he would have told the two that he knew their true identities. What would have happened then, he couldn’t guess. The two had some good reason to go under fake names. Perhaps they would have rushed off, leaving him behind if he had threatened to expose them. Or perhaps they would have taken him along, just to keep his mouth shut, and then thrown him overboard far up The River.

Possibly Farrington had caught on to what he was doing. He must have wondered why a man so familiar with London’s works would not recognize him. In which case, Farrington would have decided that Frigate was playing some kind of game. He would go along with it until they were well up The River and then find out just what he was up to.

However, Peter did not think he was in any danger of being killed. Neither Farrington nor Rider were murderers. Still, if some changed for the better on this world, others changed for the worse. And he had no idea how deep and desperate this game was.

Rider came over, shook his hand, and told him he was welcome aboard. A few minutes later, Farrington stopped the music and announced his choice of the new deckhand. By then, Peter had taken Eve outside and given her the news.

Eve was quiet for a while. Then she said,” Yes, I knew you were trying to get on that ship. It’s not easy to keep a secret here, Peter. I do feel bad, though mostly because you hadn’t told me you were going to go away.”

“I tried to get hold of you,” he said. “But you had gone off without telling me where.”

Eve began to cry. Peter’s eyes were moist. But she wiped the tears, sniffled, and said, “I’m not grieved because you’re leaving me, Pete. I’m full of sorrow because our love died. I once thought that it would last forever. I should have known better, though.”

“I’m still fond of you.”

“But not fond enough, is that it? Of course it is. I’m not blaming you, Peter. I feel the same way. It’s just that… I wish we could have gone on feeling like we first did.”

“You’ll find someone else. At least, we didn’t part with hatred.”

“It would have been better that way. It’s bad enough when you love each other but can’t get along. But to have love just die out, cold! I can’t stand indifference.”

“You’ve stood a lot more than that,” he said. “If we’d still been in love, I would’ve stayed here or I would’ve tried to get them to take us both.”