neetha Napew - The Time Of The Transferance

Enlightenment came not from one of the searching sailors but from a passenger who happened to overhear their concern. She was immediately escorted to the bridge to tell her tale to Jon-Tom, Mudge, the captain and his first officers. The jerboa belle was still clad in a lacy pink nightdress which had been torn in several places. As she spoke she nervously preened the black tuft at the tip of her tail. Her eyelashes were nearly as big as her feet, Jon-Tom noted.

“The otter you speak of was near me. We shared cabins by the place where the pirates first came on board. She went out on deck with her knife.”

Mudge nudged his friend in the ribs. “Told you Weegee weren’t the one to pass up a good fight.” He raised his voice slightly. “Bet she’s restin’ in somebody else’s cabin right now, wot?”

“I’m afraid she may not be,” said the jerboa sadly. “I am sure now that I saw her go over the side in the arms of an agouti.”

Jon-Tom swallowed. “You mean you think she’s on the pirate ship?”

The jerboa nodded, her whiskers trembling. Obviously a high-strung type. “If she is still alive, the poor brave thing. I told her not to join the fight until the rest of the crew appeared, but she would not listen to me.”

“That’s Weegee for sure,” Mudge muttered. “You’re sure now, lass, that this agouti took her onto the boat and that they didn’t just land in the water?

“As sure as I can be, for I listened and there was no splash.” She put her narrow bewhiskered face in her hands and began to sob. “It would have been so much better had she died on board here. A nasty business, nasty.”

“You didn’t see them kill her?” Jon-Tom asked the question because he knew Mudge couldn’t.

“Why should they kill her?” The jerboa looked up at them, wiping at her tears. “A live prisoner is worth infinitely more than a dead one, especially a brave attractive one. I think I saw the pirate captain order the poor thing taken below decks to keep her from escaping.” She shuddered. “He was a frightening looking fellow. I think he must have been the captain because he was standing atop the center cabin giving orders. A leopard, big, nearly as big as you.” She nodded toward Jon-Tom. “Almost handsome he was, but there was nothing attractive in his demeanor.” A finger went to her lips as she continued playing with her tail.

“You know something—I didn’t think of it at the time, but his tail didn’t look quite right.”

“A strange thing to say,” commented Magriff. “How do you mean, madame?”

“Well, it looked as if the last half of it was stiff and frozen. It didn’t twitch once, didn’t move at all. Almost as though it was artificial, yes, that was it. Artificial.” She looked pleased at finally puzzling it out. “I am sure that at some time that leopard’s tail had been cut off and that a false end has been substituted for the missing piece.”

Jon-Tom listened in disbelief. He and Mudge had once made the acquaintance of a leopard with half a tail. It was not an acquaintance either of them wished to renew.

“Mudge?”

“Anythin’s possible in the world, mate,” said the otter grimly. “Old Corroboc’s dead, but we watched ‘is bastard crew go sailin’ off in another direction on this very same ocean not that many months ago.”

Jon-Tom remembered their narrow escape from the blood-thirsty pirate parrot Corroboc. His first mate had been a muscular, sadistic leapord named Sasheem. Sasheem of the prosthetic tail. There could not be two of them, not even on an ocean as big as the Glittergeist.

“I wonder how many others of the original crew are with him?”

“Don’t matter, mate. Sasheem’s who matters. That cat would remember us for sure. Get ‘is claws into us and ‘e’d disembowel us as slowly as possible, lookin’ into our eyes all the while. Not out o’ any misplaced sense o’ loss over ‘is late unlamented captain but to satisfy ‘is own sense o’ revenge. Made a fool of ‘im, we did, and a cat like that don’t forget.”

“We’ll just have to deal with him as best we can. If our fuel holds out I think we can catch them in the zodiac.”

“Now wait a minim, mate. Wot about wot I just said about Sasheem, and that murderin’ lot? You know wot’ll ‘appen to us if they get their paws on us?”

Jon-Tom hesitated. “All right. This is your decision to make, Mudge.” He nodded toward the dark water. “That’s your lady out there, not mine.”

The otter stared blankly back at him, then turned and stumbled over to the railing. “Weegee!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “You ‘ear me, Weegee? Damn you for gettin’ me into this. Damn you from your whiskers to your bloody beautiful tail, an’ double-damn you for makin’ me fall in love with you!”

Jon-Tom put a comforting hand gently on the otter’s shoulder. “You really mean that, Mudge? Or is it just another term of convenience for you?”

“ ‘Ow the ‘ell should I know, mate? I ain’t never felt like this before. ‘Ow the ‘ell do you tellT’

Jon-Tom stared down into the otter’s eyes. “There’s one simple way. Is she worth dying for?”

“Dyin* for.” The otter looked past him. The captain and officers remained discreetly behind on the bridge. It was lonely on deck now, lonely and quiet enough to hear the sound of the waves slapping against the catamaran’s hulls.

“I never thought a lady were worth gettin’ excited over, much less dyin’ for—but this one, Weegee. I dunno.”

“How do you feel, inside?”

“Angry. ‘Urt, upset. ‘Urt outside too, far as that goes. Shit. This is a ridiculous position to be in.”

“Another fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into, Stanley?”

“Wot? Wot’s that ?”

“Forget it.” He waited another minute, then turned toward the nearest gangway. “I’m going back to sleep. It’s still a ways to Orangel and I’m flat worn out.”

A furry paw grabbed him by the belt. “Now ‘old on a minim there, mate. You ain’t goin’ nowheres.”

“Oh?” Jon-Tom was glad he was facing the other way so that Mudge couldn’t see the grin spreading across his face. “We going someplace else then?”

“You bet your bald arse we are. We’re goin’ after me true luv, that’s where we’re goin’.”

Jon-Tom looked back and down. “ ‘True love’? Am I hearing these words from that mouth or am I imagining them?”

“We’re wastin’ time. With just the pair of us in a small open boat you’ll ‘ave all the opportunities you want to snigger at me an’ make jokes.”

“What do you mean ‘the pair of us’?”

“You’re comin’ with me. Remember? Friends to the end, you watch my backside, I watch yours?”

“Let me see now.” Jon-Tom struck an exaggerated pose. “Am I listening to the same otter who’s always having a fit because he’s stuck tramping all over the place with me? Who can’t stop cursing his ill luck at being my companion on similar journeys? Who is constantly bemoaning the fact that fate has made me his friend?”

“There’s only one Mudge ‘ereabouts, an’ it ‘appens to be the selfsame one you’re foamin’ at the mouth about, only maybe just a titch changed. Even an otter can change, you know. Let’s not babble on about past disagreements. You owe me, this time. I’ve pulled your arse out o’ the fire often enough, an’ I’ve the singe marks to prove it. You really think this boat o’ yours will run out of fuel somewheres in the middle o’ the sea?”

All business now, Jon-Tom considered. “I don’t know. I wish I’d paid more attention to Clothahump’s hydrocarbon spells. I’d take a shot at it with the duar, but with this suar I’d probably just gum up the engine.”