The Fog Answers #2
The woman's answer followed. "LINE SECURED.
" Jasper took over the tow instructions.
Oliver repeated only what needed to cross the fog clearly.
If the stern flooding accelerated, cut the tow and wait.
If the bow moved free, keep the rudder amidships until the launch cleared the reef.
Nobody was asked to do something merely because he had said it.
The tow line took strain. Timber groaned out in the fog. A long grinding sound traveled over the water. Marin looked at the depth marks. "She's moving." The distant bell rang three times, then twice. The woman's voice arrived almost on top of it.
"FREE!"
The Kraken's deck erupted in relieved noise. Oliver laughed hard enough for his ribs to object. Marin put one hand against his side without looking at him, a familiar pressure that meant both I know and don't be stupid about it. The rescued vessel emerged from the fog twelve minutes later.
First came the launch, ghost-pale at the edges. Then a narrow coastal cutter appeared behind it, bow scarred to raw wood where the shoal had stripped paint. No national ensign flew from the stern. A weathered Sable pilotage pennant hung beneath the yard instead. Eight people remained aboard.
One sailor's arm was broken. Another had a scalp wound that had bled enthusiastically enough to make the injury look worse than it was.
Marin went across with the medical kit while the vessels lay alongside under minimal power.
Oliver followed only after Jasper decided the deck no longer needed his voice and Marin decided the gap between hulls no longer constituted an argument.
The woman from the fog stood at the cutter's wheel while her crew finished securing lines. She pointed at Oliver before he reached her.
"You."
Oliver looked behind himself with enough sincerity to earn a narrowing of her eyes. "There are several of us."
"Blue eyes. Unhelpful face. You." Her voice was roughened by weather rather than age, and the irritation in it sounded healthy enough to reassure him.
"Ah."
She studied him openly. "I heard you from at least half a mile away."
Oliver glanced at the fog still pressed close around both vessels. "That seems excessive." He did not make the line flirtatious. The distance bothered him too much.
"The deckhand beside me couldn't hear half of it. Two others heard everything. Another heard enough to complain about your accent."
Oliver looked toward Marin. She was kneeling beside the sailor with the broken arm, but her attention had already sharpened. The woman noticed the exchange and followed it.
"Is that supposed to happen?" she asked.
Oliver could have answered with a joke and heard Marin disapprove from ten feet away. "We don't know yet."
Marin tied off the splint before looking up. "First question: did the voice change your choices? Did you feel unable to refuse anything he said?"
The woman frowned, not at the question but at the memory. She looked past Oliver toward the invisible stretch of water where the rescue had begun. "No."
Marin waited. "Did you feel that you had to answer?"
"No." The woman rubbed one thumb over the worn wood of the wheel. "I noticed him. Clear as if he were closer. I still thought he might be an idiot until the launch arrived."
Marin's mouth moved almost imperceptibly. "Reasonable."
Oliver put a hand to his chest, mostly for the benefit of the injured sailor who had begun listening. "I am being attacked by survivors." He let the line end when Marin looked at him.
The woman almost smiled. "Captain Yselle Marr."
Jasper came across behind Oliver and stopped so abruptly that even Oliver's interest became secondary. "Yselle."
Her almost-smile vanished. "Rook."
The two names carried enough history to change the air between them. Oliver looked from one to the other. Marin caught the expression before he could ask. "No."
He turned toward her. "I didn't ask."
"Your face did."
Some traditions remained stable even at sea.
Yselle and Jasper possessed the peculiar hostility of people who had known one another too long for any single grievance to remain current.
They spent several minutes establishing that the cutter had grounded because a beacon was wrong, a tide table was old, the fog was early, and each of them believed the other had become less competent with age.
Marin finished the sailor's arm before either admitted that more than one cause could coexist.
That made Yselle useful for reasons beyond surviving Oliver's voice. She knew the old corridor in current weather. Marin came to stand beside Oliver while Jasper and the cutter's engineer inspected the scarred bow.
"How far west were you yesterday?" Marin asked.
Yselle accepted a cup of coffee from one of her crew and studied Marin over the rim before answering. "Sable Reach."
Jasper looked up from the bow. "In this season?"
Yselle did not turn. "Some of us maintain ships."
Jasper pointed at the raw wood along her bow. "You put yours on a rock."
"The rock was badly placed."
Oliver felt the temptation to join the exchange and declined it. Marin was waiting, and Yselle noticed before Jasper did.
"Yes," Yselle said with a sigh. "Sable Reach. Why?"
Marin kept the description narrow. "We're following a transfer route. Large biological cargo. Restricted handling. Likely private escort."
Yselle stopped with the cup halfway to her mouth.
Oliver watched recognition arrive before caution covered it. Marin saw the same thing and did not rush. She let the captain decide whether to speak rather than filling the pause with pressure.
"You encountered something," Marin said.
Yselle lowered the cup. "Maybe."
Marin's expression did not change. "Describe maybe."
The captain looked first toward her injured crew, then toward the fog around both ships.
Her silence lasted several seconds. Oliver liked the silence because it belonged to her.
No strange pull from his voice, no urgency manufactured into consent.
When Yselle spoke, the decision was visibly her own.
"Three ships passed west two nights ago. No flags. Black hulls. Steam auxiliaries running even with a usable wind."
Oliver's attention narrowed despite himself. He kept his next question practical. "Formation?"
"Cutter ahead. Cargo carrier in the middle. Second cutter behind. Tight enough that they either trusted one another or were afraid of losing the carrier."
Jasper straightened from the damaged bow. "Pilot?"
"Aboard the lead cutter. Knew the old corridor well enough not to ask me for marks."
Marin's voice remained level. "What made the carrier memorable?"