“Not to me.” The nimble-fingered vervet secured a package of supplies to the inside of the boat.
In an hour they were done. In addition to receiving the mast, the zodiac had been stocked to overflowing with provisions. Jon-Tom brought out his purse and turned to pay the first mate. The sloth raised both massive paws.
“The captain says that the company will absorb the difference.” He nodded toward the zodiac, winked through sleepy-lidded eyes that were nevertheless quite alert. “He’s putting it in the manifest as part of the cargo that was taken by the brigands. If you should find them and rescue the otter’s lady and by chance manage to cut a few throats in the process, he says to tell you that will be repayment enough.”
Still he hesitated until Mudge tugged insistently at his arm. “Wot are you waitin’ for, mate? Didn’t you ’ear the bleedin’ sailor? Don’t look a gift badger in the mouth.”
The money might come in handy elsewhere, Jon-Tom told himself. “Give Captain Magriff our thanks and tell him we’ll thank him in person when we get to Orangel.”
“If you ever get to Orangel, which all of us doubt most sincerely. We wish you all our luck.” He hesitated, then said in a slightly different tone, “The otter keeps saying to everyone that you’re a true spellsinger.” Jon-Tom nodded. “Good. Magic’s the only thing that might get you away from where you’re heading alive. Don’t see how it can help you track those ruffians, though.”
“But it can,” He had one leg over the railing preparatory to climbing down the sea ladder into the bobbing zodiac. “We’ll just ask the locals which way they went.”
“The locals?” Another sailor indicated the open ocean. “What locals?”
“The local yokels, o’ course,” shouted Mudge as he helped cast off.
Crew members crowded the railing as the zodiac fell behind the catamaran. A few waved farewell. The expressions they wore were not reassuring. It took three tries before the engine caught. Then Jon-Tom swung it sharply to the right and the zodiac leaped into the night like a flying fish breaking foam.
The catamaran’s running lights were swallowed up all too rapidly by the open sea. It was very empty out on the ocean. Fortunately the sea was calm, though they felt the swells more strongly in the much smaller boat. Jon-Tom hadn’t really considered how they might cope with a real storm. He prayed they wouldn’t have to.
Mudge was relaxing in the bow. “Which way, master mariner?”
“East, I guess. Until we can find some help.”
“No time like the present,” the otter said pointedly.
Jon-Tom sighed resignedly. “Here.” As they switched places he showed Mudge how to keep the zodiac on course. Then he settled himself in the bow and slid the suar into playing position.
The zodiac boasted a built-in compass. All they needed now was a proper heading. But which way in the darkness besides east? Once while sailing to distant Snarken they had encountered the only intelligent inhabitants of the open sea. Now he would have to try again, knowing that even a successful effort might be doomed to failure. Porpoises were notoriously uncooperative. They tended to spend all their time telling anyone they could get to listen to them the most excruciatingly bad jokes.
He had to try, because they could help. If they could identify the pirate ship and provide directions, he and Mudge might actually have a chance to save Weegee. But what to sing? He leaned back against the inflated wall, reflecting that if nothing else the zodiac was a comfortable boat to ride, and began to murmur a gentle seasong. His voice would not carry far, but porpoises had exquisitely sharp hearing. Perhaps they’d be lucky.
It seemed it was not to be. The sun was rising and he was nearly sung out when a surge almost lifted them out of the water. Jon-Tom’s expectations were dashed when he saw that they had been dumped not by porpoises but by a vast school of far smaller swimmers.
Doffing his clothes, Mudge went over the side, as at home in the water as he was on land. Jon-Tom was beginning to get anxious when the otter finally reappeared, licking his whiskers and holding up two small fish from which the heads had been neatly removed.
“Sardines. Tasty, but they ain’t much for givin’ directions.” Climbing back aboard, he set the rest of his snack aside as he shook himself off and picked up a towel.
“Sing like that, mate, an’ we’ll never starve, but we won’t find wot we’re looking for either.”
The surface of the sea was silver with schools of the tiny fish. “Suar works all right,” Mudge continued,” but don’t seem to ’ave the power of a regular duar. You sing for a big boat, you get this floatin’ mattress. You sing for porpoises, you get sardines. Proportional magic, I expect.”
“What’s proportional magic?” a new voice squawked quite unexpectedly, nearly causing Jon-Tom to jump out of the zodiac. The slick grinning head had emerged right behind him. It was joined by a second, then a third, like so many toofs lining up at the feeding trough.
“It did work,” Jon-Tom said triumphantly to Mudge, who nodded grudging assent.
“What worked?” one of the porpoises inquired.
“My spellsinging. My music. I used it to call you up, and here you are.”
“Call us up?” They looked at one another, then back at Jon-Tom. “You didn’t call us up, man. We came for the fish. Never have seen so many in this part of the world.” Two of them dropped back beneath the surface.
“Well, it worked, anyway,” Jon-Tom mumbled. “I called up sardines instead of porpoises, but the porpoises came after the fish.”
“You don’t need to draw pictures for me, lad.” The otter was slipping back into his shorts. “Main thing is they’re ’ere an’ we’ve made contact of a sorts.”
“Contact,” squeaked the remaining porpoise. “Speaking of contact, have you heard the one about…?”
Jon-Tom put an arm around their visitor and patted it affectionately on top of its head. It was rather like slapping a bulging hot water bottle. The sound was sharp and hollow, the porpoise’s skin smooth and solid as an off-road tire.
Thus greeted, the porpoise glanced over at Mudge. “Tell me, citizen of both worlds, is the man always like this?”
“’E’s just a friendly soul, ’e is.”
“My turn first,” Jon-Tom said, having decided on his line of attack earlier. “This story concerns the shipmaster and the eel.”
“Wait, whoa!” The porpoise let out several short high-pitched squeals that sounded like miniature train whistles. In seconds the zodiac was surrounded by bobbing heads wearing attentive expressions.
“Better make it funny, mate,” Mudge whispered warningly.
“Don’t worry.”
He spent the next half hour repeating every old Richard Pryor and Woody Allen joke he could remember, adding cetaceanic gags whenever possible. His audience roared at every one.
There was only one drawback. Every time he told a joke he was compelled to listen to one from his audience. These were invariably as bad as they were filthy and risque. Whether they understood them or not, Jon-Tom and Mudge laughed uproariously at all of them.
The steady supply of fresh food and jokes combined to put the notoriously mercurial porpoises in a convivial mood. Finally convinced he’d gained their confidence sufficiently to talk as well as joke with them, Jon-Tom made the request. It was batted around from one cetacean to the next and a reply was not long in forthcoming.
