It was as warm as a summer evening. The front was a warm front, and the overcast held in the day's heat like a blanket.
Juliassa watched another mine disappear beneath the water, then straightened and looked around her. There were only four mines on the platform now, and there couldn't be many left on deck. A marine had one in his hands, waiting to pass it down; she and Jonkka, who'd been working with her, took it from him and set it down on the platform.
The drizzle had stopped; the moisture she wiped from her forehead was sweat. She knelt beside the tray of lagscrews and felt of how many were left. Not more than twenty. There couldn't be many mines left to set. If the other schooners had been keeping pace with this one, they'd sent out more already, by quite a margin, than there were Almaeic ships.
Or were there more than 200 ships? Perhaps even more than 300? More ships than mines to sink them with? In the night she couldn't tell.
Nor did she realize how organized the sullsi mining squadrons were. How did they know which ships they'd mined and which they hadn't? Sullsi were as intelligent as humans, but how were they at planning? At administration? Especially in an activity so utterly different than anything they'd done before. They had four fingers and two thumbs on each hand, and names for numbers to a hundred and forty-four, but how well did they deal with quantities?
(Had she been less rushed and anxious, she'd have known. For the numbers they used reached the square of their finger count! At least they were able arithmetists.)
Would some ships be missed, and others have two or three mines attached? Supposing a half dozen ships survived, or even one. Might they, or it, steam south to the firth and shell Theedalit?
She didn't give worry much time, though. It was too late. The night was half over, and they'd done what they could. It was remarkable that they'd gotten this far without something going drastically wrong; Hrum seemed to be with them.
Straightening, she thanked Hrum for that. She told Jonkka to stand by, to hand out the next mines, then reached up, grasped a handhold, and pulled herself through the gangway onto the deck to see how many mines were left there. Not more than half a dozen, and there shouldn't be any down in . . .
"S-s-st! Miss!"
She turned. The man who stood there in the night was a stranger to her. He had to be the derelict fisherman she'd heard about, the one they'd picked up at sea.
"What is it?"
"Miss, there's one of them things still in the hold, makin' a funny noise. I'll show you."
He turned away before she could reply, and crossing the deck, disappeared down a hatchway. She hesitated, then followed. What he said seemed impossible, but best not ignore it.
It was darker below than topside, the blackness almost impenetrable. Her feet found the deck, and at the same moment an arm circled her neck from behind. A knife blade pricked sharply beneath her ribs, and a voice hissed in her ear.
"Take off your pants, or you're dead!"
She knew who it was, who it had to be, and a chill ran through her. In that instant she thought of Elver and all the things they'd talked about, planned. Without hesitation she reached down, unfastened her belt, pushed her trousers off her hips, felt them slide, got one foot free of them. Oh Hrum! she prayed silently, just let me come through this alive.
He forced her down on her knees then, dropping down with her. His pants had already been open; she could feel his hardness against her waist. Then he changed his grip to her hair, the knifepoint biting deeper to say "I mean it," and pushed her forward till she was on all fours. "Now," he hissed, and told her what to do.
He was like a frenzied animal, almost knocking her on her face, and it was over in less than half a minute. His movements slowed, stopped; she felt him grab her hair again and pull her head back. He was going to cut her throat, she realized, and screaming, twisted, trying to throw herself sideways.
Tirros was taken by surprise, but stabbed nonetheless, felt hot blood gush over his hand, and letting go the knife, he rose, jumped upward, grasped the coaming and swung himself onto the deck, scrambling at once to his feet.
He recognized the face staring at him through the gangway: Jonkka, the guardsman. Tirros turned, and with a single stride reached the far rail and vaulted into the water, plunging deep, stroked strongly to get distance between himself and the schooner before surfacing, sinewy arms sweeping in an underwater breaststroke until his lungs seemed near to bursting.
He surfaced, gasping air with as little sound as possible, and breathing deeply, turned to look back at the ship more than a hundred feet away. It was vaguely backlit by fire-reddened clouds, and he thought he could make out men silhouetted at the rail, as if looking for him. There were voices too, not angry but querying, overlying one another, but he could hear no sound of swimming. Quietly he took two more deep breaths, then submerged silently and stroked another fifty feet before coming back up.
Even looking over the rail toward him, it seemed to Tirros they wouldn't see him now. And this was the side away from the mainland; he'd swim to the long, scrub-grown island and trot to the far end, then take to the water again and swim the channel. They'd never find him.
He turned on one side and began swimming away, quietly, smoothly. The shouting had died. By the time they got a boat lowered, if they did, he'd be on the island and away.
* * *
As the man vaulted over the rail, Jonkka pulled himself through the gangway. The scream had to be Juliassa, and by the sound of it, she was in the hold. There was a moment of hesitation: Should he chase the man or see to Juliassa?
He decided, climbed down into the hold, stared unseeingly around, then stumbled on Juliassa's leg in the darkness. He knelt, found a naked hip, her shirt, her—neck! He recoiled at the thick hot blood, and roared, the sound of it bloodcurdling. Clambering quickly from the hold, he howled like some nightbeast, then jumped through the gangway, landing crouched on the platform. Sleekit, in the water beside it, stared thunderstruck at him, realizing that something must have happened to Juliassa.
"What?" he demanded.
Words in Hrummean rushed from Jonkka.
"Again!" bellowed Sleekit, the demand barely recognizable even to another sellsu.
Jonkka stopped, not having caught the word but realizing what was wanted. He took a breath and repeated in sullsit, was aware that he'd been understood when the sellsu let go the platform and disappeared beneath the surface.
Sleekit dove under the Schooner, flukes driving, his sonar sensing the hull shape, the long shallow keel. The guardsman's sullsit had hardly been intelligible, but there was no doubt of what he'd said: A man had killed Juliassa and jumped over the far rail.
He sensed the movement ahead, and closed on it. There, within reach! Great clawed hand open, his arm thrust straight.
* * *
Tirros was perhaps two hundred feet from the schooner and had seen no sign of pursuit. There'd been no splash of anyone jumping overboard, no sound of anyone lowering a boat. Inwardly he grinned, almost crowing out loud. A hundred yards more to the island. He'd done it, reached Djez Gorrbul and avenged himself.
Suddenly something terrible grabbed his calf, claws biting deeply, and without thought he screamed. What flashed into his mind was sarrka. In mid-scream he was jerked under, swallowing water, choking. The grip released, and arms flailing, he surfaced wild-eyed, strangling. A hand, rough and terrible, grasped his neck then, held his head up. The wet black sword was almost in his face. He tried to kick, to push free with his feet. They found slick, wet fur, smooth sides; the grip tightened. He grabbed the forearm with both hands, but the strength he struggled against was adequate to much greater enemies than he.
Two black eyes bore into him. Tirros stopped struggling, stared, found no mercy. Only, perhaps, recognition.
Suddenly the hand let go, and for just an instant he thought he'd been freed. But even as it released, the head disappeared beneath the water, and the sword thrust through his guts, driving out his back below the ribs. He was driven down into watery blackness, rushing backward, a hard, thick-boned forehead against his chest. He opened his mouth to scream again, spasming, and water rushed in.