"If I had my blaster I'd chill that stinking bird," Ryan swore.

"And what good would that do thee or poor, lamented Seaman Hill?" asked a familiar voice from just behind them.

Ryan half turned. "No good at all, ma'am. Not to him and not to me."

"No, outlander. Now, the pleasures of the first day at sea are over. And we must be to the business of catching the great whales. I think that ye both have keen sight?"

Donfil and Ryan nodded.

"The mist is lifting and the wind freshens from the north." She sniffed appreciatively. "I can taste it."

Even as she spoke, the ship heeled over, timbers creaking, as the morning breeze caught her sails. Both men balanced against the sudden movement, without staggering.

Quadde noticed that and managed a thin smile. "Got your sea legs, already, lubbers? Good enough. Now go test them. Up the masthead with ye both. Get your glims raking the seas for a sign of the whale. Shout down and burst your lungs. And point where away ye see 'em."

Ryan looked up, seeing the spidery-thin rigging almost vanishing in the tattered remnants of the mist, the twin barrels fixed to the very top of the mainmast for the two lookouts.

"Aye, ma'am," he said, beckoning for the Mescalero to climb with him.

"Quickly, outlanders. Ye see how a poor seaman can perish of the cold through disobeying my orders? It might be your turn next if ye don't jump, jump and jump!"

Ryan thought of the strangler's marks on the cold corpse. And began to climb toward the light.

Krysty Wroth stood with her face pressed against the cool glass of their attic room, staring out through the murk, toward the tops of the masts that peeked through the fog. She'd hardly slept at all, and her night had been racked with dreadful visions that jerked her awake in a shivering sweat.

Ryan had been at the center of all her black night dreams. He was walking through an echoing, deserted castle. A dank, ruined place, standing at the center of a dreary expanse of sedge and stunted willows. Broken glass daggered in every window, and the stairs were slippery with bright moss.

She'd watched him, hanging at his shoulder like a shade of pending death.

Ryan had moved slowly and painfully, like a man suddenly tired and old, his back stooped and his feet scraping along the worn stones. His head never turned from left to right as he trudged wearily through the dim passages.

But that had not been the worst.

There had been a shadow.

Insubstantial, like some blasphemous entity from beyond time and space, of all colors and of no color at all. It was following Ryan, floating like a ragged sheet carried on a strong wind. Though it didn't seem to move with any speed, it closed in on the stumbling figure, rising in the air and hovering, seeming, to Krysty, to be about to strike at him.

As it plummeted toward Ryan, Krysty had woken, mouth dry, palms sweating.

Now she looked across Claggartville, conscious of the others around her climbing out of sleep.

Jedediah Hernando Rodriguez brought their breakfast up the narrow stairs himself, passing the pair of lounging sec men, who were engrossed in a game of chess on an old plastic hand set. The tray contained a loaf and a half of new-baked bread, with a crock of butter and some oversweet blueberry jelly. A chipped enamel pot held a simmering brew of acorn coffee.

He laid the tray on the rickety table between two of the beds, turning to leave without saying a word. But Krysty stopped him with a hand on his arm, making the innkeeper jump and become even more pale.

"What? There's guards that I shan cout for and... I mean I can shout for them and thee wilt..."

Krysty laid a finger to his lips, hushing him, managing a smile through her seething hatred of the traitor.

"Quietly. I'm not going to hurt you."

He licked his lips, whispering, "I had to do it. Thou knowest that. She'd have done... Thou knowest not what Pyra Quadde's like. She... I didn't mean harm. Thy tall friend'll be safe... long as he strikes truly with the irons. And ye will all be safe. Once ville council decides what work ye will be given."

"We know that," J.B. said.

Doc muttered something that sounded like "lickspittle," but nobody took any notice. Lori was sitting on one of the beds, sulkily picking at rough skin around her heels.

Krysty pulled the innkeeper toward the window. "Do other ships sail where the Salvationgoes?"

"Aye, mistress. That they do. But they keep away from the waters where Pyra plows the furrow. No man wishes to rock that boat, thank 'ee very much."

"But could a good captain track down where she'd gone?"

"Pyra always goes to the Great Banks. Everyone knows that. There's a ship out there now from this ville. The Bartleby. Captain Delano at the helm."

"I saw men on that ship there." She pointed to the second set of masts along the quay.

Rodriguez squinted where she pointed. "My seeing's dim at such a distance. The one with the white jack flying at her masthead?"

"No. The red flag next to it."

"Red?"

"Yes," Krysty grated, fighting to keep the impatience from her voice.

"Your fingers are creasing my good satin shirt. It cost a deal of..."

"The ship, Rodriguez," the Armorer persisted, quietly and calmly. "It's name?"

"It be the Phoenix. Named so as it was built from the burned shells of three other vessels, in the cold years after the time of the darkening skies. Aye, the Phoenix. Captain Will Deacon."

"I saw men busy about her. She is a whaling ship, like the Salvation?"

"She is. She sails on the first tide tomorrow. It'll be around three in the morning. But why do ye ask?"

"Just idle curiosity, Rodriguez, that's all," Krysty replied. "Nothing else. And thanks for the food."

The landlord of the Rising Flukes left the room, looking slightly puzzled.

Chapter Twenty-Two

After two more days at sea, the crew — including both involuntary members — had settled down into a regular regime. Each man was part of a watch that served eight hours on duty, then eight hours off, their duties rolling on day and night. The only occasion when this would change would be in the event of one of the lookouts spotting the telltale signs of a whale, broaching in a gren-burst of frothing white spray and foam.

But so far, there had been no such sighting. Pyra Quadde kept to her cabin, occasionally pacing the quarterdeck, stick beating out a discontented tattoo on the scrubbed and holystoned planks.

Ryan was surprised how he and Donfil had been so easily accepted. The whispered talents of the Indian with the harpoon had ensured he would be welcome. A good ironsman meant more dead whales and less risk to lives. And Ryan's going unarmed into the forecastle after Kenny Hill had brought him a similar measure of respect.

The food continued to be terrible, but the weather stayed fine — bright blue skies and the cleanest air Ryan had ever breathed, free of the bitter chem taint that still lay across so much of the Deathlands, marring its old beauty.

Though some of the seamen hated being mastheaded at lookout for its boredom, Ryan loved it, and would volunteer to the first mate when it wasn't his turn to scramble aloft. Ogg gave him clues to watch for.

"The leviathan is not like any other creature, Outlander Cawdor," he said. "He has a cunning beyond our knowledge. I have read old books in what was once the liberry of the ville, telling of the whales and sharks and their ways; of a great white that frightened a town, and of its hunting; of how the whales can call to one another across a hundred miles of teeming ocean; of their mating and of their killing. I have studied them."