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25: Negotiations

The catamaran's twin pontoons were running low in the water, and Tym cursed at the craft's sluggish response as she tacked toward the inlet.

She had thought old Sey-Waage was napping there in the webbing, his eyes closed, his graying beard poking skyward like the tuft of some drab jungle bird. But the old Healer was chuckling now, a sound something like creaking deck wood—only the catamaran had no deck.

"If all goes well," Sey-Waage said, "we will be lighter than a water spider on our way out. If this Fungus Person shares our wisdom."

"And if he does not?"

Again the creaking laugh. "Then perhaps you and I will share him for dinner."

Tym smiled. Cannibalism was somewhat rare these days among the islanders, but the practice always showed a resurgence during desperate times. It was amusing to contemplate—the insult of consuming one's enemy. In a way, that was easier to accept than what they were actually about to do: Ask an enemy for assistance.

Tym checked that her knives were still snug in her thigh straps and the tosser disks were sheathed in the leather pocket stitched to her G-string. She let out the rope tethered to the corner of the blue-gray expanse of sail, colored to blend with the morning's first light. She corrected the rudder and grimaced at the clumsy rush of water twelve inches below her bent knees.

This little sea fly should barely touch water, she told herself. But look at it drag.

To enter the cove, the catamaran had to round a spear-point of beach, and as they did so Sey-Waage flicked his right hand and clapped his pointing fingers together. "Ah, there," he said.

Tym looked at the elder, puzzled that his eyes still seemed to be closed, and followed the line of his bony fingers into the underbrush. A Fungus Person stood in the shadows with a rifle, his face smudged dark green in a pathetic attempt at camouflage. She drew a disk from the sheath and cupped it in her right hand as a precaution. She judged the throw to be seventy-five feet—even moving, she probably could thok his throat out; undoubtedly strike his chest. Unless he sights with the rifle, she decided, she would do nothing.

The catamaran rounded the point without a shot fired or a disk flung. Beyond, in the center of the south-facing beach, another Fungus Person stood at the end of a low dock, its wood weathered to gray. An old dory was lashed to the dock, apparently belonging to the thirty-foot skimmer anchored a dozen yards out, a bulky, unremarkable craft. Perfect, in its unassuming appearance, for a black marketeer.

The man wore high black boots, faded denim trousers and a billowy white blouse. His face was sun-reddened, the eyes surrounded by a permanent web of wrinkles.

The man propped a rifle against one knee, an automatic, Tym guessed—the kind fed by a rounded clip. The sight of its vile steel made Tym sick. She had seen many, always in the hands of Fungus People who did not mean well. Her tosser disk was still very much ready.

Tym threw him a dock line, and although it had a satisfactory loop on the end, the stranger tied it in a square knot around a piling. This made Tym even more uneasy, but if a quick escape were necessary, she would just whack the rope.

The Fungus Person motioned them up onto the dock and said something in the tongue that sounds like barking dogs. When they returned blank stares, the stranger fumbled with the Rafer language: "The man who sells your people's, uh, ganja to me said that you would come." It seemed to hurt his lips to make understandable sounds.

Up beyond the trees, Tym could see a wooden shelter on stilts. Fungus People seemed to abhor even harmless forest animals as much as Rafers detested the banger weapons.

The man flashed a quick, ceremonial smile and pulled the clip out of his rifle. "I know that your people do not like guns," he said, "that having one here might be an insult. But I must take, uh, precautions."

Sey-Waage was still scanning the woods. "We also know that this is not the only banger among us," the old man replied.

The Fungus Man shrugged. "My name is Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jones," he said politely. "Your people prefer to call me Delano, as it is a sound most at home with your way of speaking. It is an honor to be visited by a Rafer elder, and I hope that the guns do not offend too much. So. Why have you come?"

"We want a ship," Tym blurted, and Sey-Waage winced that she would be so undiplomatic as to get to the point right away. "We want a skimmer faster than any in these waters," she added.

Delano pointed with his chin. "That little two-stick you're sailing—they've done Rafers nicely for centuries."

"And there are many among us," Sey-Waage said, "that would say we should not attempt anything more—that to build larger, to embrace the complexity, the technology, would be sacrilegious." The elder grinned and scratched absently at his bare chest. "I am not among them, of course. I am of the opinion that if our people are to survive among the islands, we must have skimmers that will outrun and outmaneuver Big Tom."

Delano hoisted his right leg and planted his foot atop the piling where he had tied the catamaran. Tym backed away casually, wanting to put distance between herself and Sey-Waage in case a fight started. The Fungus Person was starting to sound surprisingly fluent in the civilized tongue, and she could not shake the feeling that something was wrong.

"Hoo. To hammer up a proper skimmer—hunnerd, two hunnerd feet?—well, timbers like that just aren't grown on these islands," Delano said. He was directing his comments at Sey-Waage, which further irritated Tym. "And the wood whits for it. . .."

"If we must build the skimmer we want, the Rafers will learn to do the work," the elder said. "We have specific capabilities and design requirements with which you may not be familiar. But to obtain the knowledge for the building of these larger vessels, to obtain the timbers and hardware that we would need from the mainland—that would take a Fungus Person, one who knows trading, one who is not particularly allegiant to the wishes of the mainland Government. That, Delano, would be a person such as you."

Delano laughed and tossed his ammo clip up in the air and caught it again. "I appreciate your directness," he said. "You don't skin a pig with a penknife, do you?"

Sey-Waage nodded.

"But it wouldn't be news to you," Delano said, "that I do frequent business with Big Tom, a powerful man who would not be amused to have such a skimmer whisking around the islands if he didn't own it. What makes you think I wouldn't tell him that the red-leggers were building a ship like that?"

Tym's eyes had squinted almost closed and her words quivered with mounting fury. "Red-leggers, Delano, are runners from the mainland. Or they used to be, until Big Tom decided his flesh harvest wasn't big enough and started to take islanders, too. Red-leggers. . .."

"Tym. Tym." Sey-Waage was wagging his pointing fingers at the catamaran, uneasy with this angry talk. "Just show him."

Tym sighed and leapt onto their skimmer's near pontoon. She slid back the cover to the storage hold and removed a gold brick, which she thumped onto the dock. "This is how we will pay," she said. She unloaded the gold bars from alternating sides of the boat, maintaining balance to keep it from flipping. When she was done there were ten bars in a neat row at Delano's feet.

The Fungus Person's eyes were wide. "I. . .heard. . .a rumor that. . .."

"Yes," Sey-Waage broke in. "The gold was Big Tom's. The reason that you will not tell Big Tom about our desire for a skimmer faster than his fleet is simple. You will take a share of gold in return for helping us build the kind of skimmer that we desire, and for training our people. And Big Tom is the last person you would tell about it. I suspect he still considers the gold to be his, no?"

Delano was nodding rapidly. "He'd rip my gizzard out with his teeth to get it back. Wouldn't matter how I came by it."

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Framed