The Jewels of Aptor Part 9

One dark spot was at her throat, pulsing darkly, like a heart, like a black flame. She walked to the railing, peered over. In the white was.h.i.+ng a skeletal hand appeared. It raised on a beckoning arm, then fell forward in the water. Another arm raised now, a few feet away, beckoning, gesturing. Then three at once; then two more._

_A voice as pale as the vision spoke "I am coming. We sail in a hour.

The mate has been ordered to put the s.h.i.+p out before dawn. You must tell me now, creatures of the water."_

_Two glowing arms raised up, and then an almost featureless face. Chest high in the water, it listed backwards and sank again._

_"Are you of Aptor or Leptar?" spoke the apparitional figure of Argo again in the thinned voice. "Are your allegiances to Argo or Hama? I have followed thus far. You must tell me before I follow farther."_

_There was a whirling of sound which seemed to be the wind attempting to say, "The sea ... the sea ... the sea ..."_

_But Argo did not hear, for she turned away and walked from the rail, back to her cabin._

_Now the scene moved, turned toward the door of the forecastle. It opened, moved through the hall, the walls, more like polished steel than weathered wood, and went on. In the forecastle, the yellow oil lamp seemed a white flaring of magnesium._

_The movement stopped in front of a tier of three berths; on the bottom one lay a young man with a starved, pallid face. His mop of hair was bleached white. On his chest was a pulsing darkness, a black flame, a dark heart, s.h.i.+mmering with the indistinctness of absolute shadow. On the top bunk a great form like a bloated corpse lay. One huge arm hung over the bunk, flabbed, puffy, without muscle._

_In the center berth was an anonymous bundle of blankets completely covering the figure inside. On this the scene fixed, drew closer ... and the paleness suddenly faded before darkness, into shadow, into nothing._

Geo sat up and knuckled his eyes.

The dark forecastle was relieved by the yellow glow of the lamp. The gaunt mate stood across the room. "Hey, you," he was saying to a man in one of the bunks, "up and out. We're sailing."

The figure roused itself from the tangle of bedding.

The mate moved to another. "Up, you dog face. Up, you fish fodder. We're sailing." Turning around, he saw Geo watching him. "And what's wrong with you?" he demanded. "We're sailing, didn't you hear? Naw, you go back to sleep. Your turn will come, but we need experienced ones now."

He grinned briefly, and then went on to one more. "Eh, you stink like an old wine cask. Raise yourself out of your fumes. We're sailing!"

CHAPTER IV

"That dream," Geo said to Urson a moment after the mate left. Urson looked down from his bunk.

"You had it too?"

Both turned to Snake.

"I guess that was your doing, eh?" Urson said.

Snake scrambled down from the upper bunk.

"Did you go wandering around the deck last night and do some spying?"

Geo asked.

By now most of the other sailors had risen, and one suddenly stepped between Urson and Geo. "'Scuse me, mate," he said and shook the figure in the second berth. "Hey, Whitey, come on. You can't be that soused from last night. Get up or you'll miss mess." The young sailor shook the figure again. "Hey, Whitey." The figure in the blankets was unresponsive. The sailor gave him one more good shake, and as he rolled over, the blanket fell away from the blond head. The eyes were wide and dull, the mouth half open. "Hey, Whitey," the black sailor said again, and then he stepped back, slowly.

Mist enveloped the s.h.i.+p three hours out from port. Urson was called for duty right after breakfast, but no one bothered either Snake or Geo that first morning. Snake would slip off somewhere and Geo would be left to wander the s.h.i.+p alone. He was walking beneath the dories when the heavy slap of bare feet on the wet deck materialized in Urson. "Hey," greeted his friend. "What are you doing under here?"

"Nothing much," Geo said.

Urson was carrying a coil of rope about his shoulder. Now he slung it down into his hand and leaned against the support shaft and looked out toward the fog. "It's a bad beginning this trip has had," he said. "What few sailors I've talked to don't like it at all."

"Urson," said Geo, "have you any idea what actually happened this morning?"

"Maybe I have and maybe I haven't," Urson said. "What ones have you?"

"Do you remember the dream?" he asked.

Urson scrunched his shoulders as if suddenly cold. "I do," he said.

"It was like we were seeing through somebody else's eyes, almost."

"Our little four-armed friend sees things in a strange way if that's the case."

"Urson, that wasn't Snake's eyes we saw through. I asked him, just before he went off exploring the s.h.i.+p. It was somebody else. All he did was get the pictures and relay them into our minds. And what was the last thing you saw?"

"As a matter of fact," Urson said, turning, "I think he was looking at poor Whitey's bunk."

"And who was supposed to be sleeping in poor Whitey's bunk?"

"Snake?"

"Exactly. Do you think perhaps White was killed?"

"Could be, I guess. But how, and why, and who?"

"Somebody who wanted Snake killed. Maybe the same person who cut his tongue out a year and a half ago."

"I thought we decided that we didn't know who that was."

"A man you know, Urson," Geo said. "What man on this s.h.i.+p have you sailed with before?"

"Don't you think I've been looking?" Urson asked. "There's not a familiar face on deck, other than maybe one I've seen in a dockside bar, but never one whose name I've known."

"Think, Urson, who on this s.h.i.+p you've sailed with before," Geo asked again, more intently.

Suddenly Urson turned. "You mean the mate?"

"That's just who I mean," said Geo.

"And you think he tried to kill Snake. Why didn't Snake tell us?"

"Because he thought if we knew, we'd get in trouble with it. And he may be right."