“Maybe. When I push, I get an overall sense of—I’m not sure. It might be an appeal to the gods.”

Avery felt a ball form in his gut. The gods of the R’loth ...

“There’s ... no chance they could answer, is there?” Little frightened him more than that notion.

“I doubt it, not in this set of dimensions. The only gods around, at least in this region, if they were gods ... well, they’re gone now, so it doesn’t matter.”

“Are you sure?”

“We’ve been searching for them for years. Centuries. Ever since we arrived on your world. Remember when I told you, that night on the dirigible after fleeing the ngvandi city in the Borghese, that there were two reasons we chose this world—the sea and one other?”

“Yes. One thing that your people wanted, and one that you needed. You never explained.”

“Well, these gods, the Ygrith, are that other reason, the one we wanted. It was more than you needed to know at the time, and it would only have confused things.”

“And your people couldn’t have found them now?”

“After all these years? Unlikely. Besides, like I said, they’re gone.”

“What does that mean?”

“Gone from this plane. Just ... gone.”

He let it go. He knew it was wrong, especially with Ani right across the cabin (although he could begin to hear her snoring softly), but he found himself relishing the feel of Layanna’s backside against him. We could move to the other cabin, Janx and Hildra might be gone ...

She sort of chuckled and turned to face him, her blond hair spilling across the spots of color dancing in her cheeks.

“No,” she said, and though her expression was warm her voice was firm.

“Still?”

She nodded. “Still.”

He sighed. She’d refused to sleep with him since the night he rescued Sheridan. “Layanna, you have to know I didn’t save her for that reason.”

“No?”

“It was for Ani.”

Her voice turned brisk. “For Ani, of course.”

“I want no part of Sheridan, and I mean that literally. She’s the enemy.”

“An enemy whom you defend at every turn. Whom you slept with in Ayu. And with whom you insist on meeting privately on the deck.”

How does she know these things? “I would hardly call that private. Listen, Lay, I—”

“You brought her into our encampment in Golna, nearly costing us everything, and now you bring her amongst us once again. What will she cost us now, I wonder? She’s bewitched you, Francis.”

“I did both of those things for Ani—”

“No.”

He held back a curse. As lightly as he could, he said, “Then I’ll see you girls tomorrow.” He kissed her on the cheek—which she permitted—and climbed out of bed.

“What was the commotion out on deck?” she asked before he could leave. “I heard gunfire.”

“Oh. Sheridan shot a squid.”

Layanna frowned, as if trying to decide if this meant something, then dismissed it.

“See you in the morning,” she said, and there was some warmth, however forced, in her tone, which he was nonetheless relieved to hear.

He made his way down the corridor, his guard trailing him. Another stayed at the women’s door, and another waited several doors down where Sheridan slept. At least one guard still followed them everywhere, and they were under a strict curfew. The members of Avery’s party weren’t prisoners, exactly, but they were, to use the captain’s phrase, under my eye. Captain Greggory had saved their lives by taking them aboard, and he had listened to their story, even seemed to believe much of it (after all, the Over-City had fallen and Octung was in retreat, and Layanna was undeniably ... other, as she had been forced to demonstrate in order to elicit his cooperation and partial faith in their story), but that did not mean he trusted them. He trusted them even less when Sheridan woke after the surgery and pointed the finger at them as traitors and liars, while they had at the same time pointed their fingers at her. Unable to decide between the two camps, Captain Greggory suspected them all.

Avery entered the cabin he and Janx shared to find the big man deep in his cups, eyes bleary, face drawn and yellow. He had looked bad on deck. He looked worse now, curled up on his cot against the wall, beer clutched in his burned right hand. He barely glanced at Avery as the doctor shut the hatch and shrugged out of his jacket. Bottles of beer nestled in Janx’s bed next to him, some filled with cigarette butts. The room stank of smoke, and Avery coughed as he sat down and regarded his friend. Avery had expected to find Hildra here, but he immediately saw why she wasn’t.

The whaler indicated an unopened bottle. “Help ‘erself.”

Avery hesitated, then took a sip. It was an exotic brew he had never tried before. Janx had bought it in the Sigdan Islands during a brief stop. Avery had cautioned against it—the only money they had had come from selling the contents of the ruined air yacht, or what was left of it, to Captain Greggory—but Janx would not be denied.

“We need to talk again about what we’re going to do when we reach Hissig,” Avery said.

Janx just sipped his beer, his large hand so tight around the bottle the glass seemed as if it might shatter. Then he relaxed somewhat, and his gaze slid to Avery.

“We’ve been through all this before, Doc.”

“Yes, but you keep getting ... distracted ... before we can solidify a plan of action. We need to contact someone in the government as soon as we arrive home. The moment our feet touch shore, we’ll be arrested, Captain Greggory has assured us of that—we’re still wanted fugitives, after all, until we can get the charges dropped—and we need to get somebody on our side, somebody opposed to Haggarty.”

Janx’s eyes flickered with dim interest. “So you checked? e’s still there?”

Avery nodded, heartened at Janx’s attention. “Yes. Grand Admiral Haggarty still runs the Navy.”

“But he’s Sheridan’s stooge!” Janx coiled his arm to hurl his bottle against the wall, and Avery tensed, expecting an explosion, but the big man dropped his arm, too morose even to be furious.

“He is,” Avery agreed. “Or at least she is the one who recruited him for Octung. But our fellow Ghenisans don’t know that. From what Captain Greggory tells me, Haggarty and Prime Minister Denaris are still at each other’s throats, just like when we left, but worse. We need to contact her or her people. You were a well known figure in Hissig among certain circles. You likely know someone.”

“I tol’ ya before, Doc. I’m gonna call Garvis Main.”

“A fight promoter? Surely—”

“’e’s the best man for the job. He’s tight with some of the cabinet. Tried to sign me on a time or two. He’ll talk to me.”

“Would he help us?”

“He might. With some incentive.”

“Fine, then. Promise him all the money he wants. We can get it later from one of your cash drops, if you don’t mind, assuming any are still there. Are any of your cash drops still around, do you think?”