Philip Farmer: The Green Odyssey

«That's right.»

«Hmmm.» Miran ran his fat, ring-studded finger over his hook nose and the square gold ornament hanging therefrom. His single eye glared pale-bluely at Green. The other was covered with a white patch to hide the emptiness left after a ball from a Ving musket had struck it.

«It's four weeks until the very last day on which I can set sail from here and still get to Estorya and back before the rains come. It's just barely possible to have the tanks built, get them convoyed down to the seashore, get the fish in and bring them back. Meantime, I can be having the deck altered. If my men work day and night we can make it.»

«Of course, this is a one-shot proposition. You can't possibly keep a monopoly on the idea, once the first trip is over. Too many people are bound to talk, and the other captains will hear of it.»

«I know; don't teach an Effenycan to suck eggs. But what if the fish should die?»

Green shrugged and spread out his palms, «A possibility. You're taking a tremendous gamble. But every voyage on the Xurdimur is, isn't it? How many windrollers come back? Or how many can boast your list of forty successful trips?»

«Not many,» said Miran.

He slumped in his seat, brooding over his goblet of wine. His eye, sunk in ranges of fat, seemed to stare through Green. The Earthman pretended indifference, though his heart was pounding, and he controlled his breathing with difficulty.

«You're asking a great deal,» Miran finally said. «If the Duke were to find out that I'd agreed to help a valued slave escape, I'd be tortured in a most refined way, and the Clan Effenycan would be stripped of all its rights to sail windrollers and would probably be exiled to its native hills. Or else would have to take to piracy. And that, despite all the glamorous stories you hear, is not a very well-paying profession.»

«You'd make a killing in Estorya.»

«True, but when I think of what the Duchess will do when she discovers you've fled the country! Ow, ow, ow!»

«There's no reason why you should be connected with my disappearance. A dozen craft leave the harbor every day. Besides, for all she'll know, I've gone the opposite way, over the hills and to the ocean. Or to the hills themselves, where many runaway slaves are.»

«Yes, but I have to return to Tropat. And my clansmen, though notoriously tight-lipped when sober, are also, I must confess, notorious drunkards. Someone'd be sure to babble in the taverns.»

«I'll dye my hair black, cut it short, like a Tzatlam tribesman, and sign on.»

«You forget that you have to belong to my clan in order to be a crew member.»

«Hmmm. Well, what about this adoption-by-blood routine?»

«What about it? I can't propose that unless you've done something spectacular and for the profit of the clan. Wait! Can you play any musical instrument?»

Promptly, Green lied, «Oh, I am a wonderful harpist. When I play I can soothe a hungry grass cat into lying down at my feet and licking my toes with pure affection.»

«Excellent! Though it would not be an affection so pure, since it is well known that the grass cat considers a man's toes a great delicacy and always eats them first, even before the eyes. Listen well. Here is what you must do in four weeks' time, for if all goes well, or all goes ill, we set sail on the Week of the Oak, the Day of the Sky, the Hour of the Lark, a most propitious time…»

TO GREEN, the next three weeks seemed to have shifted to low gear, they crept by so slowly. Yet they should have raced by quickly enough, so full of schemes and plots were they. He had to advise Miran on the many technical details involved in building tanks for the fish. He had to keep the Duchess happy, an increasingly difficult job because it was impossible to pretend a one-hundred-per-cent absorption in her while his mind desperately looked for flaws in his plans, found oh, so many, and then as anxiously sought ways of repairing them. Nevertheless he knew it was vital that he not displease or bore her. Prison would forever ruin his chances.

Worst of all, Amra was getting suspicious.

«You're trying to conceal something from me,» she told Green. «You ought to know better. I can tell when a man is deceiving me, There's something about the voice, the eyes, the way he makes love, though you've been doing very little of that. What are you plotting?»

«I assure you it's simply that I'm very tired,» he said sharply. «All I want is some peace and quiet, a little rest and a little privacy now and then.»

«Don't try to tell me that's all!»

She cocked her head to one side and squinted at him, managing somehow even in this grotesque attitude to look ravishingly beautiful.

Suddenly she said, «You wouldn't be thinking of running away, would you?»

For a second he became pale. Damn the woman anyway!

«Don't be ridiculous,» he said, trying hard to keep his voice from cracking. «I'm too much aware of the penalties if I were caught. Besides, why should I want to run away? You are the most desirable woman I've ever known. (This was the truth.) Though you're not the easiest one in the world to live with. (A master understatement.) I would have gotten no place without you. (True; but he couldn't spend the rest of his life on this barbarous world.) And it is unthinkable that I would want to leave you.» (Inexpressible, yes, but not unthinkable. He couldn't take her with him, for the simple reason that even if she would go she would never fit in his life on Earth. She'd be absolutely unhappy. Moreover, she'd not go anyway, because she'd refuse to abandon her children and would try to take them along, thus wrecking all his escape plans. He might just as well hire a brass band and march behind it out of the city and onto the wind-roller in the light of high noon.)

Nevertheless his conscience troubled him. If it was painful to leave Amra it was hell to leave Paxi, his daughter. For days he had considered taking her along with him, but eventually abandoned the idea. Trying to steal her from under Amra's fiercely watchful gaze was almost impossible. Moreover, Paxi would miss her mother terribly, and he had no business exposing the baby to the risks of the voyage, which were many. Amra would be doubly hurt. Losing him would be bad enough, but to lose Paxi also…! No, he couldn't do that to her.

The outcome of this conversation with her was that she apparently dropped her suspicions. At least she never spoke of them again. He was glad of that, for it was impossible to keep entirely hidden his connection with the mysterious actions of Miran the Merchant. The whole city knew something was up. There was undoubtedly a lot of money tied up with this deal of the wagon caravan going to the seashore. But what did it all mean? Neither Miran nor Green would say a word, and while the Duke and Duchess might have used their authority to get the information from their slave, the Duke made no move. Miran had promised to let him in on a share of the profits, provided he gave the merchant a free hand and asked no questions. The Duke was quite content. He planned on spending the money to increase his collection of glass birds. He had ten large rooms of the castle glittering with his fantastic aviary: shining, silent and grotesquely beautiful, all products of the glass-blowers of the fabulous city of Metzva Moosh, far, far away across the grassy sea of the Xurdimur.

Green was present when the Duke talked to Miran about it.

«Now, Captain, you must understand just exactly what I do want,» warned the ruler, lifting a finger to emphasize the seriousness of his words. His eyes, usually deep-sunk in their fat, had widened to reveal large, brown and soulful orbs. The passion for his hobby shone forth. Nothing: good Chalousma wine, his wife, the torture of a heretic or runaway slave, could make him quiver and glitter with delight as much as the thought of the exquisitely wrought image of a Metzva Moosh bird.