Lindsay Buroker - Encrypted

Ottotark lunged into the shadows. Tikaya flinched, expecting the meaty thud of that baton striking flesh. A scuffle and grunt sounded. Someone threw the baton and it clattered against the gate before dropping to the floor. The sergeant growled and drew his arm back, but he halted mid-blow and skittered backward.

Five was on his feet.

“ Don’t move!” one of the marines inside the cell barked, pistol arm straight and rigid. “We will shoot you.”

“ Doubtful.” But Five stopped short of grabbing Ottotark and turned toward the guards, his features still in shadow.

“ Cursed bastard, you presume much,” Ottotark growled. “We can shoot you without killing you.” A speculative note entered his voice, as if he were truly considering it.

Tikaya gripped the bars of her gate, trying to think of something to say to help him. After all, Five had come to her defense.

“ Or we can just beat you into oblivion for the rest of the trip.” Ottotark hooked a punch into Five’s face.

With pistols pointed at his chest, Five could only accept it. Ottotark grabbed his baton and lifted it to deliver more damage.

“ I thought Turgonians were supposed to be brave warriors,” Tikaya blurted. “Abusing someone who can’t fight back is cowardly.”

“ Sew that yap shut, woman. Nobody wants your opinion.” Despite his words, Ottotark lowered the baton and prowled out of the cell. “Let’s go, ugly.”

Five shambled into the corridor. Thick, tangled black hair hung around his cheeks and half way down his back. A matted beard and mustache engulfed the lower half of his face. Torn, faded trousers with ragged hems reached his calves, and a crudely sewn hide vest covered his torso, leaving muscular but lean-too lean-bare arms visible beneath a layer of grime. Shackles bound his wrists before him, and blood trickled from his nose, adding menace to his already savage appearance. Even slumped, head hanging, he stood a half foot taller than Tikaya.

He glanced at her, almost wincing, and she had the impression his state embarrassed him. She met his eyes with a respectful nod. Criminal or not, he was the most obvious person to turn into an ally.

“ Let’s go.” Ottotark sent two men ahead, then shoved Five after them.

After the group had gone, Agarik nodded to Tikaya’s food and water. “Do you need anything else?”

Everything else, she thought, and a trip back home. “Can you tell me who that is I’m sharing the brig with?”

“ Nobody knows.”

“ Some body must know.”

“ The captain,” Agarik said. “He doesn’t confide in anyone. I don’t think Sergeant Ottotark even knows, and he’s the captain’s adjutant.”

“ What happens if the captain gets shot and no one else knows the mission?” Tikaya supposed it was uncharitable to enjoy the thought.

“ The orders are locked up somewhere. The officers know where to find them.”

“ Ah.” Tikaya pointed to the vacated cell. “Why are your people so careful with him? Is he that dangerous?”

Agarik worked his tongue against his cheek and gazed toward the ladder, perhaps considering whether it would be a breach of duty to answer. “He’s a prisoner from Krychek Island, and we lost four men getting him off the beach.”

“ He killed them?”

“ No, the lunatics on the island attacked our party with spears and clubs. Men gone savage. They wanted to escape, and if they couldn’t escape they’d kill those who originally brought them there months and years before. Ancestors’ wrath, we had to shoot a bunch of them. Seemed they’d rather die than stay there.”

“ And Five attacked you too?” Tikaya rested her arms on the gate and watched the corporal’s face in the flickering light of the single lantern. His gaze had grown thoughtful and distant.

“ No, he stood back and watched. You got the sense he didn’t want anything to do with us, but he didn’t hide either. At first it seemed he’d come along peacefully-he got in the longboat once the captain spotted him and called him over. He didn’t give us any trouble rowing back to the ship, but he attacked a guard the first night, got out of his cell, stole a pile of food from the galley, and slipped by everyone on duty.” Agarik frowned. “Including myself. Without anyone seeing him, he swiped a sextant, compass, chronometer, nautical almanac, and spare sail, and he was about to drop a lifeboat. He would have been long gone by morning, but Captain Bocrest got an itch, and he was waiting with a loaded rifle.”

“ So he-Five-surrendered?”

“ Not exactly.” Agarik rubbed his jaw as if recalling a blow. “Captain threatened to shoot him but didn’t, and it took a full squad to wrestle him belowdecks and get him locked up again.”

“ Where he’s been chained ever since.”

“ Yes, ma’am.”

So, whatever the imperials wanted their prisoner for, it seemed he was also too valuable to kill. His first escape might not have worked, but he had that goal in mind too. Good. Two people rowing a longboat would be more efficient than one, and it heartened her that Five had known exactly what to grab. She knew how to sail and navigate in theory but had never been out of sight of her islands.

“ One thing’s a mite peculiar,” Agarik mused.

“ Just one?” Everything thus far struck Tikaya as peculiar.

“ He didn’t take a pen or paper.”

“ What do you mean?”

“ You need to do some figuring to account for the errors and adjustments that come with using a sextant. Not many could do ‘em in their head and keep them straight from day to day without a log.”

“ Maybe he forgot,” Tikaya said, though she already had a hunch Five had a background in mathematics. Maybe he could do the calculations in his head and remember the results.

The corporal grunted noncommittally. He seemed as curious about the mystery prisoner as her.

More footfalls rang on the deck. Now who?

“ Your duty, Corporal,” the captain said, eyes cool as he descended the steps. “It is not here.”

“ Yes, sir.” Agarik ducked his head and trotted away.

This time, Bocrest wore his black uniform jacket with a handful of badges and medals adorning the breast. A fresh bruise swelled on his temple, and dried blood crusted on his chin beneath a swollen split lip. Had someone whaled on him as part of a training session? Or maybe he had already started questioning Five, and it wasn’t going well. Either way, the bumps would probably not improve his personality.

Nonetheless, she lifted her chin and met the captain’s eyes. Bravado would likely get her further than meekness on this ship.

“ Well?” Bocrest asked. “You working with us or are my men taking target practice on your family members?”

It was a moment before she could unclench her jaw. The man had the diplomacy of a stinging jellyfish. “I will help you, captain,” she said, forcing a civil tone, “but I can’t work in this dark pit, and, surely, if you expected me to translate this language, you brought some basic references and primers. Hodtolk’s? Fisher and Grist? Merk’s Hieroglyphics Compendium? More samples of this writing would help as well. And I’ll certainly need better lighting, paper, pencils, a table. I’ll also need the freedom to walk around. That’s when I do my best thinking.”

Tikaya expected denial, especially over her last request, but after glaring at her for a moment-it seemed his normal way of looking at people-he said, “I’ll get you paper and better lighting. You may have one daily exercise period. Beyond that, pace your cell if you need to ‘think.’”

He started for the hatch.

“ One more question, captain,” Tikaya said, wondering if he would answer it honestly or not.

“ What?”