"All right," Delagard said finally. "If they're still afloat, maybe they'll find a way to get in touch with us. If they aren't, they won't. But we can't sit here forever."
"Will we ever find out what happened to them?" Pilya Braun asked.
"Probably not," Lawler said. "It's a big ocean full of dangerous things that we don't know a goddamned thing about."
"If we knew what it was that got them," said Dann Henders, "we'd have a better chance of guarding against it ourselves if it showed up again to try to get us."
"When whatever it was that got them shows up to get us," Lawler said, "that's when we'll find out what it was. Not before."
"Let's hope we don't find out, then," said Pilya.
7
On a day of heavy fog and rolling seas big unfamiliar diamond-shaped creatures with thick, heavily ridged green shells covering their back came up alongside the ship and accompanied it for a time. They looked like floating storage tanks that had equipped themselves with swimming flippers. Their armoured heads were flat and squat with pointed snouts, their eyes were bleak little white slits, their underslung jaws seemed extremely unforgiving. Lawler was at the rail watching them when Onyos Felk appeared at his side and said, "Can I talk to you for a minute, doc?"
Felk was First Family, like Lawler, a distinction that meant nothing at all now that the Sorve Island community had taken to the sea. The mapkeeper was something like fifty-five years old, a dour little short-legged heavy-boned man who had never married. Supposedly he knew a great deal about the geography of Hydros and the way of the sea, and if things had gone differently over the years it could easily have been Felk and not Nid Delagard who controlled the Sorve shipyard; but the Felks had a reputation for bad luck and, sometimes, poor judgement.
"You not feeling well, Onyos?" Lawler asked.
"You won't be either, when you hear what I've got to say. Let's go down below."
From his compartment in the forecastle Felk produced a small greenish globe, a sea-chart, though nothing much like the elaborate clockwork one that belonged to Delagard. This one had to be wound up with a little wooden key and the position of its islands had to be reset by hand every time it started up: a joke, compared with Delagard's spectacular device. After a few moments spent adjusting it Felk held it out toward Lawler and said, "All right. Look closely, here. This is Sorve, over here. This is Grayvard, all the way around here to the northwest. This is the route we've been travelling."
The lettering on the chart was cramped and faded and very hard to read. The islands were so close to one another that it wasn't easy for Lawler to make clear sense of what he was seeing even where he could make out the labels. But he followed the line of Felk's pointing finger westward around the globe, and as the mapkeeper retraced the journey Lawler began to translate the symbols on the chart into an understanding of the shape of their journey.
"This is where we were when the net grabbed Struvin. Here's where we saw the Gillies building that new island. Now, this here is where we entered the Yellow Sea, and this is where we were when the rammerhorns attacked us the first time. We ran into that big tidal surge over here, and it knocked us a little way off course, like this. You following me, doc?"
"Keep going."
"This is the Green Sea here. Just beyond it is that place where the coral was growing. Here's where we passed those two islands, the Gillie one and then the one that Delagard said was Thetopal. This is where we hit the three-day windstorm that scattered the fleet. The hagfish were swarming over here. This is where we lost the Golden Sun." Felk's stubby finger was far around the curve of the little globe by now. "Are you beginning to notice anything a little strange?"
"Show me where Grayvard is, again?"
"Up here. Northwest of Sorve."
"Am I reading things wrong, or is there some reason having to do with the currents why we're sailing due west along the equator instead of on a northerly diagonal toward Grayvard?"
"We aren't sailing due west," Felk said.
Lawler frowned. "No?"
"The chart's very small, and it's hard to see the latitude lines unless you're used to them. But in fact we're not just going due west, we're actually veering southwest."
"Away from Grayvard?"
"Away from Grayvard, yes."
"You're absolutely sure of this?"
An expression of barely suppressed fury appeared for a moment, but only for a moment, in Felk's small dark eyes. In a tightly controlled voice he said, "Let's assume for the sake of the discussion that I understand how to read a chart, all right, doc? And that when I get up in the morning and look at where the sun's coming up, I can remember where it came up the day before and the day before that and where it rose a week ago, and from that I can form at least an approximate idea of whether we're sailing northwest or southwest, okay?"
"And we've been sailing southwest all this time?"
"No. We started out on a proper northwest course. Someplace around the coral sea we levelled off back into tropical waters and began heading due west, right along the equator, getting farther and farther off course every day. I knew something was wrong, but I didn't realize how wrong it was until we went by those islands. Because that wasn't Thetopal at all. Not only does the real Thetopal happen to be in high temperate waters right now, up toward Grayvard way, but it's a round island. This one was curved, remember? In fact the island we passed was really Hygala. Here it is down here."
"Practically on the equator."
"Right. We should have been a long way north of Hygala if we were on a Grayvard course. But it was north of us, actually. And when Delagard recalculated our positions after the windstorm broke up the fleet, he got us going again in a sharp southerly veer. We're down below the Equator now a little way. You can tell that from the position of the Cross, if you know anything about the night sky. Maybe you haven't been looking, I guess. But for at least the last week we've been travelling precisely ninety degrees off our proper course. Would you like to see where we're heading now? Or have you already figured that out for yourself?"
"Tell me."
Felk turned the chart. "This is what we're currently sailing toward. You don't notice any islands shown here, do you?"
"We're going into the Empty Sea?"
"We're already in it. Islands have been sparse ever since we set out. We've only passed two, two and a half, on the whole trip, and since Hygala there haven't been any. There won't be any, now. The Empty Sea is empty because the currents don't bring any islands that way. If we were on course for Grayvard, we'd be all the way up here north of the equator, and we'd have passed four different islands by this time. Barinan, Sivalak, Muril, Thetopal. One, two, three, four. Whereas way down over here there's nothing at all once we're beyond Hygala."
Lawler contemplated the quadrant of the chart that Felk had turned toward him. He saw the little crescent shape that was Hygala; to the west and south of it he saw only nothingness and nothingness and more nothingness, and then, far away around the bend of the little globe, the dark splotch that was the Face of the Waters.
"You think Delagard's made a mistake in figuring our course?"
"That's the last thing I think. Delagards have been running ships around this planet since the days this was a penal colony. You know that. He isn't any more likely to set us on a southwesterly course when he wants to go northwesterly than you are to start spelling 'Lawler' wrong when you sign your name."
Lawler put his thumbs to his temples and held them there, and pressed hard.
"Why would Nid want to sail us into the Empty Sea, for Christ's sake?"
"I thought you might want to ask him just that very thing."
"Me?"
"Sometimes he seems almost to have a little respect for you," Felk said. "He might actually give you an honest answer. Then again he might not. But he sure as hell isn't going to tell me anything, is he? Is he now, doc?"
* * *
Kinverson was busy arranging his hooks and tackle, getting ready for
the day's fishing, when Lawler found him, a little while later that morning. He looked up grudgingly, regarding Lawler with the sort of absolute indifference that Lawler might have expected from an island, a hatchet, a Gillie. Then he went back to doing what he had been doing.
"So we're off course. I knew that. What's it to me, doc?"
"You knew?"
"These don't look like northern waters to me."
"You knew all along that we were heading into the Empty Sea? And you didn't say anything about it to anybody?"
"I know we're off course, but I don't necessarily know we're heading into the Empty."
"Felk says we are. He showed it to me on his chart."
"Felk isn't always right, doc."
"Let's say that this time he is."
"Well, then we're heading into the Empty," said Kinverson calmly. "So?"
"Instead of heading toward Grayvard."
"So?" Kinverson said again. He picked up a hook, pondered it, clamped it between his teeth and twisted it into a different shape.
This was getting nowhere. "Don't you give the slightest damn that we're going the wrong way?"
"No. Why the hell should I? One stinking island's just like the next one. I don't care where we wind up living."
"There aren't any islands in the Empty Sea, Gabe."
"Then we'll live on the ship. What of it? I can live okay in the Empty Sea. It isn't empty of fishes, doc, is it? It's not supposed to have much, but it's got to have some, if there's water in it. If a place has fishes, I can live there. I could have lived in my old little boat, if I had to."
"Why weren't you living in it all along, then?" Lawler asked, starting to get annoyed.
"Because I happened to be living on Sorve. But I could live in my boat just as easily. You think those islands are so fucking wonderful, doc? You walk around on hard wooden boards all the time and you live on seaweed and fish and it's too hot when the sun shines and too cold when it's raining, and that's life. At least that's our kind of life. It isn't much. So it's all the same to me, whether it's Sorve or Salimil or a cabin on the Queen of Hydros or a fucking rowboat. I just want to be able to eat when I'm hungry and get laid when I'm horny and stay alive till I die, okay?"
It was probably the longest speech Kinverson had ever made in his life. He seemed surprised himself that he had said so much. When he was done with it he stared at Lawler coldly for a moment in evident anger and irritation. Then once again he went back to his hooks and tackle.
Lawler said, "You don't mind that our great leader is leading us right into completely unknown territory and that he can't take the trouble to let us in on whatever it is he's up to?"
"No. I don't mind. I don't mind anything, except people who bother me too much. I take one day at a time. Let me alone, doc. I've got work to do, okay?"
* * *
Dag Tharp said, "You want to make your calls now, doc? You're an hour early, aren't you?"
"I could be. Does it matter?"
"Whatever you like." Tharp's hands moved over his dials and knobs. "You want to call early, we'll call early. Don't blame me if nobody's ready for you out there."
"Get me Bamber Cadrell first."
"You usually call the Star first."
"I know that. Call Cadrell first today."
Tharp looked up, perplexed. "You got an eel up your ass this morning, doc?"
"When you hear what I have to say to Cadrell, you'll find out what I've got up my ass. Call him, will you?"
"Okay. Okay." From the bank of radio equipment came sputters and clicks. "This fucking fog," Tharp muttered. "A wonder the equipment doesn't rot. Come in, Goddess. Come in, Goddess. Queen calling. Goddess? Goddess, come in."
"Queen, this is Goddess." A boy's voice, high-pitched, squeaky. Nicko Thalheim's boy Bard was the radio operator aboard the Sorve Goddess.
"Tell him I want to talk to Cadrell," Lawler said.
Tharp spoke into the microphone. Lawler wasn't able to hear the tinny response clearly.
"What was that?"
"He says Bamber's at the helm. His watch has another two hours to run."
"Tell him to get Bamber down from the wheel and on the horn right away. This needs to be dealt with."
More sputters, more clicks. The boy seemed to be objecting. Tharp repeated Lawler's request, and there was a minute or so of silence at the other end.
Then came the voice of Bamber Cadrell: "What is it that's so goddamned urgent, doc?"
"Send the boy away and I'll tell you."
"He's my radio operator."
"Fine. But I don't want him to hear what I'm about to say.
"There's a problem, huh?"
"Is he still there?"
"I sent him outside. What's going on, doc?"
"We're ninety degrees off course, in equatorial waters, heading south-southwest. Delagard is steering us into the Empty Sea." Dag Tharp, listening at Lawler's side, caught his breath sharply in amazement. "Are you aware of that, Bamber?"
There was another long silence from the Sorve Goddess.
"Of course I am, doc. What the hell kind of seaman do think I am?"
"The Empty Sea, Bamber."
"Right. I heard you."
"We're supposed to be going to Grayvard."
"I know that, doc."
"It's perfectly okay with you that we're sailing the wrong way?"
"I assume Delagard knows what he's doing."
"You assume?"
"These are his ships. I just work for him. When we started to veer south I figured there must be some trouble up north, a storm, maybe, something bad that he wants to get around. He's got all the good charts, doc. We're simply following the lead he sets."
"Straight into the Empty Sea?"
"Delagard isn't crazy," Cadrell said. "We'll turn north again before long. I don't have any doubt of that."
"You haven't wanted to ask him why the change of course?"
"I told you. I assume it's for a good reason. I assume he knows what he's doing."
"You assume a fucking lot," Lawler said.
Tharp looked up from the radio desk. His eyes, usually hooded in wrinkled folds of flesh, were bright and big with astonishment.
"The Empty Sea?"
"Looks that way."
"But that's insane!"
"Isn't it, though. Just pretend you haven't heard a thing, for a little while, all right, Dag? Get me Martin Yanez, now."
"Not Stayvol? You always make Stayvol your first call."
"Yanez," Lawler said, and fought back the memory of Josc smiling eagerly up at him.
Some fiddling with the dials, and the Three Moons' radio operator's voice came squeaking through the static-she was one of the Hayn girls, Lawler wasn't sure which one-and then a moment later the deep, steady voice of Martin Yanez, saying, "There's nothing to report, doc, we've got a clean bill of health over here today."
"This isn't the regular medical call," Lawler said.
"What then? You didn't hear something from the Golden Sun, did you?" There was sudden excitement in Yanez' voice, eagerness, hope.
"Nothing like that, no," Lawler said quietly.
"Ah."
"I wanted to find out what you think about our change in course."
"What change in course do you mean?"
"Don't give me that shit, Martin. Please."
"Since when do navigational matters concern the doctor?"
"I said don't give me that shit."
"Are you the navigator now, doc?"
"I'm an interested party. We all are. It's my life too. What's going on, Martin? Or are you so deep in Delagard's pocket that you won't tell me?"
"You sound awfully worked up," Yanez said. "We've made a detour to the south. What of it?"
"Why have we done it?"
"You ought to ask Delagard that."
"Have you?"
"I don't need to. I'm simply following his lead. He turns south, I turn south too."
"Bamber said more or less the same th
ing. Are you guys all such puppets that you let him jerk your strings any way he likes? Jesus, Martin, why aren't we heading for Grayvard any longer?"
"I told you. Ask Delagard."
"I mean to. First I wanted to find out how the other captains feel about sailing into the Empty Sea."
"Is that what we're doing?" Yanez asked, his voice as calm as ever. "I thought we were simply making a short-term detour to the south, for some reason that Delagard isn't talking about. So far as I know Grayvard's still our ultimate destination."
"Do you really mean that?"
"If I said I did, would you believe me?"
"I'd like to."
"It's the truth, doc. As I loved my brother, it's God's own truth. Delagard hasn't said a word about the change, and I haven't asked, and neither have Bamber or Poilin. I assume the Sisters aren't even aware that we're off course."
"You've talked about it with Cadrell and Stayvol, though?"
"Sure."
"Stayvol's very thick with Delagard. I don't trust him much. What has he said?"
"He's as puzzled as the rest of us."
"You think he really is?"
"Yes. But what difference does it make? We're all following Delagard. You want to know what's going on, you ask him. And if he tells you, you tell me, doc."
"That's a promise."
"You want me to call Stayvol next?" Dag Tharp asked.
"No. I think I'll skip him just now."
Tharp tugged at the wattles of his throat. "Holy shit," he said. "Holy, holy, holy shit. You think it's a conspiracy? All the captains up to something weird and not telling?"
"I believe Martin Yanez. Whatever's happening, Delagard may have let Stayvol in on it, but most likely not the other two."
"And Damis Sawtelle?"
"What about him?"
"Suppose that when he noticed this change of course he radioed Delagard and asked him what was what, and Delagard said it was none of his fucking business, and Damis got so annoyed that he just turned his ship around in the middle of the night and went shooting off toward Grayvard by himself. Damis has a pretty hot temper, you know. So there he is, a thousand kilometres north of us by now, and when we send out scanning calls trying to find him he simply ignores us, because he's seceded from the fleet."