30. Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty
“There’ll be less hair in the shower,” one of the men said—I think his name was Mark? “That’d be a plus.”
It was the first response given after Tobago explained the entire situation to the crew and left it up to a vote to decide our fate—whether we would continue on the Trojan Horse as planned or part ways here on Amazonia.
Of all the complaints I’d expected to have lobbed at me, I confess this one took me by surprise. I gaped at the man who’d spoken. “I resent the implication! I always clean up after myself.”
“Not your hair,” said Mark,1 pointing a finger at Ursa. “His.”
I cast back a surreptitious look at my companion. He was rather hairy—much less hairy than when I’d first met him, but I suppose he was probably due for a trim. And though Ursa is wonderful in many ways, cleaning up after himself is not, I will concede, one of his strengths.
“They’re good workers,” Val spoke up in that quiet, authoritative way of hers. “And things run smoother with two extra pairs of hands.”
“But so much drama.” To my surprise, it was Burt who grumbled it. “Fighting at the dinner table and all the men squabbling with each other about who gets first dibs on her if she dumps the Neanderthal—”
That was news to me. I pulled a face, not much liking the idea. And I assumed the men who’d been squabbling really wouldn’t like the answer to who would get first dibs, which was none of them. Ever. Not ever.
Burt was not quite finished, it seemed. “—and all the loud sex.”
LeFleur cleared his throat pointedly. “Some of us don’t mind that!”
Good Havens. I hated both extremes of what had just been said, and didn’t know how to defend either, so I didn’t. But for the record, I thought we’d been rather discreet . . . mostly.
Zenny surprised me by speaking up next. “I had as much a part in that fight as she did, so don’t hold it against her. We should, you know, strike it from the record, or whatever you call that.”
My heart warmed. I was touched by Zenny interceding on my behalf. And Val before her. I very much liked this women-sticking-together pact that we’d made, and vowed to myself I’d do whatever I could to uphold my end of it, too.
“We might need ’em for the SuperVegas job.
” It was Indy speaking up this time. He was looking much better these days, even from such a small dose of the bear algae.
He had more color in his face, and his body wasn’t coiled as tightly as it usually seemed to be.
“The plan you were making centers around Ursa.”
Tobago shrugged. “Plans can be rewritten.”
He had not made eye contact with me the entire meeting. I knew what he was doing, what he’d always done. Tobago was not good with emotion. In happy, easy times, he was a happy, easy friend. But when things became tense, heavy, he shut himself off, removing himself completely.
I recognized his behavior. I understood it, but it still hurt. Tobago was the captain, but he was also my friend. I wanted him to speak up on my behalf, as Trini would have done for me. As I would have done for him.
“If they stay,” Croydon hedged, stroking his chin thoughtfully, “do we get any input on wardrobe for Mina?”
Luckily, everyone ignored the question. Val fixed her gaze on Tobago, the two of them communicating something silent for a long moment. Out loud, she said, “We shouldn’t leave them here. Not with that reward out on them. Someone else’ll pick ’em up in less than a day.”
I appreciated her advocating on our behalf, despite the rather unflattering assessment of our ability to survive. My eyes tracked Tobago’s expression, searching for a hint of what the final verdict would be.
“Let’s put it to a vote,” he said at last. “All in favor of them staying on board?”
We had the majority, that was easy to see: Val, Zenny, Indy, Croydon, LeFleur, and several of the other men, who likely had grown to respect Ursa’s strength and stolid work ethic.
Of those I knew who did not vote on our behalf, Burt and Alexei were the most prominent.
But they’d lost in the end, so I suppose I couldn’t hold it against them . . . much.
Val cast her gaze about the group pointedly, noting the clear majority of hands. “They stay?”
After a long moment of silence, Tobago nodded his agreement. “They stay.”
I’m very displeased to report that the Brethren took it upon themselves to find the old wanted holo of me that I’d last seen looping in Amazonia.
I’m further displeased to report that my memory did not exaggerate just how unflattering an image capture Rawley chose to send out to all the intergalactic settlements.
The Brethren found it hilarious, particularly the moment when I sneezed and wiped my nose on the edge of my sleeve,2 and they watched it again and again on repeat, despite my warnings to throw myself out of the air lock if they continued this in front of me.
Looking on the bright side, though, at least it was a piece of evidence—a legal document, no less—that corroborated part of my story. Not that many of the Brethren seemed disbelieving of me, but I knew at least Orion had his doubts. Perhaps seeing the bulletin would prove that my story was real.
After their millionth or so viewing of the wanted holo,3 the general mirth at my expense finally began to die down.
Once that happened, the Brethren became much more irate as they drank and talked amongst themselves.
I didn’t know what about this portion of the story could have made them so incensed, but I soon learned: They were less than impressed with the crew of the Trojan Horse for being so squeamish about keeping us onboard.
“Imagine all that fuss over a little ole wanted holo!” Rumbeard roared with laughter. “And they call themselves smugglers.”
He was, as usual, quite drunk, but his derision raises an interesting point I haven’t yet addressed in this text.
As this document now serves as a sort of hybrid draft for my future storytelling, missive to Ursa in case I don’t reach him in time, and record of my time aboard the Princess Diana’s Revenge,4 I must switch gears for a moment into the last category to note an observation.
One time, as I was recounting something that had taken place aboard the Trojan Horse, I offhandedly referred to the crew as pirates instead of smugglers. In my mind, the two were essentially the same, synonyms for one another.
Not so, it would seem, to the Brethren of Blood!
“Pirates!” Rumbeard had roared then, much as he did today. Well, no, that isn’t entirely accurate. The volume level was the same, but there was much less mirth on that occasion. It was clear he did not like that title being given out freely to others. “Pirates? Those hyenas?”
It had been an innocent slip of the tongue on my part, but after managing to placate Rumbeard with an “Irish” chamomile tea and a promise to sing some of his favorite shanties, I carefully broached the subject once again. “Are pirates and smugglers not the same thing?”
“Not by a long shot!” This from Jim. He was usually so even-keeled that it surprised me how animated and vehement he’d become. “Smugglers are sneaky. They’re all about tricks.”
“They’re liars and plotters and connivers.” Blacktongue took up the thread of criticism with relish. “Scavengers.”
A general murmur of agreement arose amongst the men at this last term, which seemed to be the most damning charge of all.
In confusion, I found myself raising my eyes to Orion, who was sitting off to my side. A silent question passed between us. He shook his head slightly as if to say, Don’t.
I, of course, did, although I at least had the good sense to phrase my confusion as tactfully as possible. “And you . . . don’t do that? Scavenging and tricks and all that?”
It was phrased as a question—a gentle question! Still, Big Red shot to his feet in umbrage. Rumbeard tried to join him, but the whiskey in his tea had finally caught up to him, and he only succeeded in half rising before slumping back into his chair.
“We are lions!” Big Red towered over the room in his righteous fury, and the men roared their assent. “We don’t scavenge. We don’t trick. We are the apex predators of the black. We attack. We invade. We ambush. We are the Brethren of Blood!”
This seemed to be the rallying cry for most of the men to rise to their feet and begin pounding their chests like animals.
I might have reminded them that this was the behavior of gorillas, not lions, but I intuited it would not have been a well-received critique.
Instead, I just watched them all, bewildered.
Orion leaned in closer to me. “It’d be like if someone called you a truffle hunter.”
I blinked at him. “I beg your pardon?”
“Instead of a mycologist,” he pressed on. “Both deal with mushrooms, don’t they? But they serve very different purposes, with very different results. That’s how the men feel when you say they’re like smugglers.”
A truffle hunter? Well, I never! It was, I’ll begrudgingly admit, an apt comparison, but a terribly harsh one. And I never made the mistake of conflating smugglers and pirates again, I’ll tell you that.
All of that to give a rather longwinded pretext as to why Rumbeard took so much joy out of deriding the crew of the Trojan Horse for their (reasonable) caution at traveling with a wanted fugitive.
“We’re all wanted fugitives here!” Blacktongue told me with pride. He motioned toward himself with his thumb. “Arson.”
“Armed robbery,” said Jim shamefacedly.
“Art forgery,” added Big Red.5
I glanced over at Orion to see if he would volunteer what he’d done to set him on this life of crime and general lionesque behavior, but he just smiled that enigmatic smile of his and shrugged as if to say, Wouldn’t you like to know?
“That’s not even mentioning all the murder and pillaging and whatnot since we became Brethren,” Rumbeard continued. “Bet these ugly mugs of ours are looping on holos all over the ’verse.”
Blacktongue stroked his chin philosophically. “Just goes to show the difference between a scavenger and a predator. A hyena lurks in the shadows and picks at the bones. A lion walks in the light and makes his own kills.”
It was, frankly, a moment of astonishing mastery of figurative language from a man I’d once heard belch the entire alphabet, forward and backward.
But I did think the Brethren were being rather harsh on the crew of the Trojan Horse. It took great bravery to pull off some of the heists they did. And I certainly couldn’t begrudge them wanting to keep their ship, their crew, safe from unwanted attention from the law.
Turned out, it might have been better if they’d left us on Amazonia after all.
But I suppose I’m getting ahead of myself.
1. Might as well just commit to it.
2. How mortifying.
3. Perhaps this is ever so slightly hyperbolic.
4. I just realized—I don’t think I’ve listed the name of the ship before? Just more proof of the importance of keeping thorough records!
5. I never have been able to persuade him to tell me more.