Ocean of Dust (22 page)

"What was that about colors?" the navigator
said.

"Not now," the physiker told him.

"Purples," she murmured. "Oranges and blues.
So pretty..."

Numbness washed through her body and she
realized the humming whispers had stopped a while ago. The tingling
and pain faded. The men's voices receded into the distance. Her
eyelids drooped. Maybe she could take a short nap.

"This is no time to sleep," the navigator
hissed in her ear.

His sweaty hands yanked her up. The black
pits of his eyes bored into her. Two thick veins on his nose
ballooned. She cringed and tried to pull free. Purple flashes
etched on the back of her eyes, causing the globelights to flicker
and die, only to brighten again.

"Come with me," he croaked, and dragged her
toward the door.

She resisted. "Where are you taking me?"

He opened the door and the wind seized it,
smashing it against its hinges. Dust billowed into the room. A
whirlwind danced on the deserted main deck. A fork of purple
lightning erupted from the low clouds and struck both winches
forward of the mast. Torrents of purples and blues splashed across
the deck, flattening the whirlwind that flung dust into a far
corner. The ship heaved side to side.

He stared up and she followed his gaze,
marveling at the eddies of orange weaving through the clouds. The
colors were so vibrant that she felt empowered with magic eyes.
Each flare crackled and snapped, until she realized that there was
no sound; it was all in her mind. Her body tensed and her teeth
clenched, but only a dull throb tickled the back of her head and it
no longer hurt.

The navigator faced her and shook her
shoulders.

"What do you see? What do you feel? Tell me."
He winced with each exploding flare. She chewed her lip. "I see
what you see. It's the flux storm isn't it?" She clutched her
belly. "And it makes me sick."

"How is this happening to you?" He gave her
another shake. "It can't be. You're just a little girl."

He let go of her and stepped back. Why was he
staring at her in horror? She wasn't a monster.

"See me later," he said, walking away.
"You'll work extra hard on copying those pages." His green robe
contrasted the orange explosion above him.

She turned toward the infirmary, its bright
open doorway beckoning. Then she doubled over, gagged and threw up
again. Spitting sick and licking her teeth, she lurched back inside
and collapsed onto a cot bed. Branda and Pete had gone.

The physiker appeared with another vial. "Sip
this, slowly this time, or you'll bring it up again."

"You don't see the colors, do you?"

"No," he replied, and sat on the cot
opposite. "Oban told me about them a couple of Sunturns ago."

She drained the vial and rolled onto her side
to face him. "You give him this potion too?"

His eyebrows rose. "Why do you say that?"

"It makes the craziness go away.” She
blinked. “So you know I see the colors like he does."

He nodded and peered over his spectacles. "I
suspected a long time ago. Today's events confirmed it."

"What does it mean?"

"I think you know."

"That I'm like him?" she whispered.

"You see and feel the flux," he said, as if
that explained everything.

Her mind raced. Why her? She wished she could
talk to the Klynaks right then. They would be able to answer all
her questions, but they remained silent. She had expected them
to.

"But I can't be a navigator," she said. "He
said so. He won't teach me."

"No, that doesn't surprise me," he replied,
nodding slowly. "Lay back and let me tell you a story. Once upon a
time-"

Lissa groaned and gave a thin smile. He
grinned and continued.

"A physiker on a ship once spent many an
afternoon treating a small boy for cuts and bruises. The boy was
always in trouble with the deck master for doing the wrong thing.
He wasn't much of a sailor, you see. But he admired the skill of
the physiker and asked a lot of questions." The physiker chuckled.
"He was like you in that respect."

A crash of thunder interrupted him and
lightning lit the room.

"Needless to say the boy was miserable. The
physiker wanted to cheer him up, so he told him that if he set his
mind to it, he could be anything he wanted to be. The boy and the
physiker became good friends. Eventually, the boy learned
everything there was to know about being a physiker, and became one
in his own right, aboard another ship."

Lissa moved into a cross-legged position.
"And?"

"You can be anything you want to be."

"Did you ever see him again?" she asked. "The
boy I mean."

He chuckled and took off his spectacles.
"Every day."

"Oh," she said, then "Oh!"

Chapter 19 - The End of Alice

The next day, the physiker handed Lissa an
opaque, stoppered bottle. His eyes flicked between hers and to the
men shoveling dust around them. She nodded and slipped it into her
pocket.

The wind had died away, leaving the ship
draped in a grey carpet, with drifts several feet deep. The clouds
no longer hung so oppressively over the ship. The violent flashes
had subsided to muted colors meandering in wide bands; placid
rivers of purple, orange and blue, mixing into sickening colors
where they crossed. She tried hard not to stare but to watch from
the corner of her eye. Earlier the men had muttered about her
gawping skyward for no apparent reason and she didn’t want them to
think she was crazy.

Her fingers ran along the jagged line of hair
at her neck. If only she could sit down with Branda and tell her
everything, about the Klynaks, the colors, the navigator, and why
she felt sick and crabby all the time. Branda would think she'd
gone mad. She sighed, hating to keep secrets from her best
friend.

The clouds echoed with a deafening crash, and
a blinding spear of lightning struck the mast. Fragments of the
lookout platform plunged to the deck. The ship's bells tolled three
times and men came running. She fled to the navigator’s cabin.

A bottle identical to her own sat on his
desk, and she stared at it like it had forged a bond between them.
He, the gnarled and ill-tempered man, and she the galley girl;
physically unalike but sharing a secret. Her gaze shifted to the
pulsing veins covering his skin. Were they caused by the flux or
the potion? She cringed against the door. Is that how she would
look as she grew older? She shivered.

"Is that where we are?" she asked, pointing
to the pin he had just pushed into his chart. It pierced an
intersection of three lines.

"No matter. Get to work. You have plenty of
pages to copy."

She smiled as she took her place, kneeling
before the table. Only a handful of pages remained to be copied and
she found herself slowing down, prolonging her task, realizing she
didn't want to lose her access to him.

A page later, she asked, "How long will the
storm last?"

"You'll see as well as I when it's over.
Tonight or tomorrow."

"When I'm finished, I can copy other books
for you, or even charts. I see yours have holes in them. You know
I'm neat."

"Hmph. I confess your hands are steadier than
mine, and I do have a fragile chart that I've never replaced, but
don't get any stupid ideas that I'm teaching you, girl. Is that
clear?"

She said nothing, and continued her work.
Later, when he told her to leave, she stopped in the doorway, took
a deep breath and turned back around.

"Mister Oban, sir, where do the whispers fit
in to all this?"

"What are you saying now, girl?

"You know, the voices, the Klynaks. What do
you talk to them about?"

He slammed his ruler onto the desk. "What
nonsense is this? Voices? Whispers? I don't hear any madness like
that. I told you before, stop meddling with things you don't
understand."

He pointed to the door.

"The storm is messing with your head.
Leave."

She hurried into the darkness and shivered in
the chill air. She guessed it to be late afternoon, though neither
sun had pierced the overcast for a couple of days, and she hadn't
paid attention to the watch bells. There was very little dust
underfoot and the ship had settled into a gentle rolling motion.
Once again, the crew had set out globelights to mark the hatchways.
Not yet tired, she sat in a dark corner, against one of the
winches, and glanced up at the undulating bands of color overhead.
They had dimmed to shades of pastel. Had she adjusted to them, or
was the storm almost over?

Did the navigator really not hear the
whispers or was he lying? Come to think of it, why did she imagine
that he would? The Klynaks had to be something to do with the ship,
or the flux. His reaction betrayed that he knew more than he chose
to tell, but that still didn't explain why they were speaking to
her.

The sound of boot steps broke into her
thoughts. They came from behind, but stopped short of her hiding
place.

"Make it quick," a man hissed, "before
someone sees us."

"Farq wants to know who's with 'im," another
said. She didn't recognize either voice.

"Six of us, but I can get more."

"Be careful who you trust."

The other man grunted, and they returned the
way they had come. She waited several moments, then got up and
headed toward the hatch. Goosebumps covered her body.

"Nice hair," Alice said. "Makes you look like
a boy."

Lissa whirled around just as Alice stepped
from the shadows, a sneer spread across her grimy face. Lissa
glanced at her thin, bony body hung with ragged clothes, smeared
with dirt.

"How did you escape?" she said.

"How do the boys like your beautiful hair
now?" Alice snarled.

"I hate you," Lissa screamed and struck Alice
in the nose with the heel of her hand.

Alice stumbled to the deck, fresh blood
dribbling down her chin. She stayed down and laughed. "Oh! Miss
goody goody's got claws now."

Lissa leaped on her, kneeing her in the
stomach, her whole body quivering with adrenaline. Alice clawed
back and rolled hard, ending up on top. Her blood dripped onto
Lissa's face. She pressed her thumbs into Lissa's eyes. Lissa
howled in pain, slipped her arm under Alice's and shoved her
away.

They faced each other, glaring and pouting.
Lightning stabbed from the sky with a deafening crack, striking the
nearby chain winch. Both girls jumped.

"I'm getting tired of this," Lissa said.
“What do you want from me?”

"Are you kidding? Beating you up is the
highlight of my day."

"Just leave me alone."

Alice raced after her and grabbed a handful
of her hair. "Barely enough to hold on to."

She closed her hands around Lissa's throat
and squeezed. Lissa tried to scream but only gurgled and gagged.
She kicked and scratched. How could such an under-nourished and
frail girl have such a grip? Gasping for breath, she flailed her
arms. Her gaze flicked around the empty deck. Couldn't anyone hear
them thumping around and yelling at each other?

Her eyes met Alice's steely, unblinking gaze.
Her vision faded. Alice's sneering face lurked at the end of a
narrowing tunnel. She gasped, uttering a rattling noise. A calm
numbness claimed her.

A flash of white blinded her.

The pressure about her throat had ceased.
With a long and drawn out rasping noise, she gulped air. Coughing,
she rolled over and sucked in cold night air. Her limbs tingled, so
she shook them vigorously. When her sight returned, Alice was on
all fours, teetering, blinking, and nursing a black gash on her
arm. The smell of burned flesh assaulted Lissa's nostrils. Alice's
hair spiked crazily, crackling as it settled.

Alice shook her head and got awkwardly to her
feet. She touched her burn, winced and withdrew her hand. She
turned to leave, then whirled, grabbed Lissa around the waist and
rammed her toward the ship's rail. Lissa squealed, trying to catch
her footing but Alice threw her over the side. At the same time,
Alice tripped on a coiled rope and tumbled after her, screaming
wildly.

Both girls plunged into the darkness.

Lissa's mind flashed with the memory of her
falling over the rail during the deluge and how she had saved
herself. Her hands shot out and wrapped around one of the railing
posts, snapping her body to a stop and yanking at her arms. Her
grip slipped and she continued to fall, fingernails tearing at the
smallest seams in the hull planking.

Another flash of lightning illuminated a rope
dangling to her right. Straining every muscle, she stretched as
hard as she could, until her fingers snatched it.
Please, Anjan,
let it be tied to something.
Once again, her body jarred to a
stop. Her head snapped back and she smashed against the hull, but
the rope held.
Thank you, thank you.
She took hold with her
other hand and wrapped both legs around it. She had seen how the
crew climbed ropes.

Slowly, painfully, she heaved herself up
until she could get one knee onto the edge of the deck and roll
onto the safe side of the rail. She flipped around onto all fours,
and peered into the dark ocean rushing by below. There was no sight
or sound of Alice.

"Help," she called out, still hoarse, her
neck raw. "Alice fell overboard. Help us."

The Klynaks would save Alice, like they had
her. She rushed up and down the deck, squinting at every patch of
light on the ocean surface. No Alice. No creatures.

"Alice?" she shouted.

Thunder rumbled across the sky, and then she
heard boots thudding up the ladders behind her.

"What's going on?" the crew chief
bellowed.

"Alice fell overboard. We have to find her.
Stop the ship. Go back."

"She can't 'ave. She's locked up," he
said.