"I saw 'em—Yow!" Ali wobbled, hanging his pole, and flailed wildly for balance on the edge of the deck. She crossed over and grabbed him by the back of the shirt.
"Who? How'd they get up there?"
"I dunno!" He swung about and his elbow grazed her ribs as she sucked air and skipped back. "I dunno!"
"I'll give that report to Moghi," She gripped the pole crosswise as she faced him. He had the boathook, but no landsman could use it right. "You want to try me with that thing?"
"You gone crazy?"
" How'd they get in? Why'd my partner have his boots on?"
"I dunno, I never saw—"
"Was it Moghi himself?"
"Front door." Ali's teeth chattered. "D-d-amn door was open, they walked in—"
"Smoke went off in the upstairs hall too. Didn't it?"
"Jep—Jep—done it."
" Youdid, ye damn sneak!"
He swung the boathook at her. She swung. Down. Ali slumped on the deck like a sack of meal, and she hit him with the pole-end when he showed signs of getting to his knees. The boathook rolled aft. She stamped on the pole and stopped it, No further sign of movement from Ali.
She gathered up the boathook and shoved Ali with her foot, thump, down into the well. He landed on his shoulders and twisted up.
"Damn! Moghi?"
No. Moghi weren't lying, that weren't no lie, I knowhim, I ought to take this traitor back to Moghi and let Moghi get truth out of him.
Lord, Lord, they got Mondragon somewheres, they want him alive—
What'll they be doing to him?
The timbers of Southtown Bridge hove up ahead. Canalers were night-tied there, along by Calliste. She put the pole in and shoved off in that direction, driving on pain in her ribs and pain in her arms. She came gliding in and fended off a poleboat with a clumsy scrape of hull against hull.
"' Damn fool!" a male voice yelled, a sleeper startled out of slumber with collision and damage to his boat,
"Name's Jones," she gasped, and squatted down there in the dark and tried to keep the skip immobile. "'I got to have help."
"Help— Jones, Jones, is it? There's a word out on you. You set that fire."
"Damned if I set it! I got that straight with Jobe an hour ago!"
"I ain't having no part of your business!"
"Go on!" someone else cried from another boat. "That's Jones, a'right. That's her what burned Mars Bridge!"
"You keep your distance!" She shoved with the pole and put water between her and the poleboatman. "This lander tried to kill me. There's been a fight down to Moghi's. This baggage of mine poisoned a dozen canalers, he's took a bribe from someone—Oh, damn!" There was life from the well. She sprang up and swung the pole, a sweeping crack across Ali's ribs—"Yow!" Ali screamed, and cartwheeled right out of the boat with a great splash of water.
"There," she said, "you better fish him out, I don't know if he swims!" She put the pole in and shoved off, and shoved again, with Ali flailing the water and choking in great shouts and gulps. "I don't think he does swim!" she amended that. "You tell Moghi ask him how come my partner didn't put up no fight and why that door weren't broke in! That fellow's worth money, there!"
More and more water between them. She faced about and kicked the engine cover up, primed it and pulled the choke and made the first try while shouts rose behind her. Thump, into a piling. The skip slewed around, dizzily following the current.
"Get after her!" someone yelled. "She's trying to start that engine."
Second try. Cough, tunk.
Come on, engine.
She heard the splashes, heard Ali screaming, heard boats moving. She never looked. She reset the choke. Tried again. Cougn-cough-chug-tunktunk.
She feathered it down, engaged the propeller and it faltered. Held. The skip lumbered forward, aimed at open water. Screams diminished over the noise of the engine.
She pulled the pin and got the rudder down; pulled the second pin and got the tiller up and home. She leaned on the bar and swung round as two canalers moved their boats out to stop her, stringing out from moorings.
Not fast enough. She put the throttle down and the engine lumbered away with more and more way on the skip. She let the pole lie abandoned on the deck, slanted into the well, put the tiller over hard to choose a clear way through the pilings of Southtown Bridge, and powered through. She looked back, where an unaccustomed white wake showed in the moonlight, and ahead where Foundry Bridge was.
All about her, boats were moored along the bridgehead, wherever the projection of pilings gave them shelter out of the Grand channel. All about her, eyes would peer into the dark and the commotion would spread. She thought of dodging round into Foundry Canal, getting at Boregy the quiet way—but there wasno quiet way, canalers could cut her off, block any canal but the wide, free-flowing Grand.
She put the throttle in full and spent fuel recklessly, took time to rack the poles when there was a moment's straightway between Foundry and Hightown bridges, and got back to the tiller before it slewed in the current.
Boregy had already been hit once. Opposite the Signeury. So much for town authorities and the governor and all his militia. Damnfool and his clockmaker son and his whole damn pet police.
The night kept its false quiet, with only the sound of one boat engine running hard through the town heart, alerting every enemy that might be watching and listening.
Chapter 8
THE engine-sound echoed off the walls of the Signeury, those big blank walls that showed nothing but rifle-slits to the outside, and had precious few bridges for all its great bulk. Stone was under its foundations; it was all of stone itself, and while Merovingen-above glittered with its night-lights, while the high houses had their windows shining into the night and casting their reflections down into Merovingen-below, the Signeury crouched like a baneful giant in the dark water of the Grand, turning engine-sound into hollow thunder. No boats sheltered under Signeury Cross: it was prohibited. Nothinglurked about those bridges but the law themselves. Altair hugged the tiller under her arm, kneeling on the deck, and took the throttle down, letting the skip glide for Golden Bridge and Boregy. There was plenty of way on her, no need of the pole, here where the Grand itself went treacherous with Greve-current and none so far upcanal they had to sink great slabs of upriver stone to keep the bottom from washing. It was strange territory, uptown; it was all blank walls and high, suspicious Isles without the under-the-bridges conglomeration of shops and manufactories that was canalside life belowtown.
Boregy hove up beyond the dark web of the Golden, dark as the Signeury, merest shadow excepting a light or two in its uppermost levels. Its sides were deserted, It hadno tie-rings, being the Signeury's neighbor. It had one of the Signeury's bridges going to it alone; and by its balconies was the walk eastern hightowners had to take to council and to the Signeury: thatwas influence. That was the kind of place Boregy was.
But it got attacked, and people got killed; and the governor just arrested Gallandry, who was one of the victims.
O Lordand my Ancestors, I got to go inside this place, I got to make 'em help—
She wobbled to her feet, cut the motor and used the pole the last few feet, fending off a drift into Boregy's wall with a jolt that near took her off the deck. The pole shed a splinter into her palm with a faint far pain somewhere lost in the buzzing of her brain, the throbbing of a headache. She saw the gardeporte, a grim little pierced tile with a devil-face that was Boregy's canalside window. A bell-pole dangled a cord there in the reach of a skip deck. She maneuvered up to it and pulled.