Dunes over Danvar - Страница 6

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“You didn’t answer my question,” the Poet said.

“You haven’t asked one worth answering again. And it would be ‘again,’ since you asked it when you first gained consciousness and the answer hasn’t changed.”

The Poet dug his heels into the sand and pulled himself forward until he was closer to the small fire, though it provided him with no warmth. “Why keep me with you?” The old man pointed to the wrap around his head. “I can only hurt you. I know where I was when you picked me up; I can describe you, your sarfer. That’s info some folks would like to know. With what I know, people can figure out who are, find you. And hurt you. Or they can just figure out where you must’ve been diving when you pulled up that salvage.” The Poet looked back at the small fire and paused for a moment before continuing. “I know too much. You should have let me die. In fact, you should kill me now.”

Peary stopped stirring the pot and reached into his tool bag. He eyed the old man, who looked on closely as the diver’s hand came back out of the bag. Peary wondered if the old man thought he was going for a dive knife. He pulled out a small spoon, put it into the pot, then walked the three steps over to where the Poet sat and placed the pot in front him. “Eat that, and shut up.”


Chapter Ten

The old Poet finished his bowl and lay back against the sand. He didn’t feel well, what with the blow to his head and the resulting crack in his scalp, but he wasn’t as sick as he was showing. He wasn’t sick at all. He was still trying to see all the angles.

Don’t let on and show strangers your strengths or your weaknesses, boy. That’s what his daddy would say. Keep somethin’ extra. Give ’em less or more than what they expect, dependin’ on what you need to say to maximize the situation.

He still didn’t know what to think about this diver. This Peary. This hero. His savior. The surface story didn’t add up. No diver went to such extremes to save a tinker. Especially no diver with a secret the whole world of the sand would kill to know. At first, when he still had the spins and wasn’t all that right in the head, he’d felt something for this diver. What was it? Thankfulness? Maybe. But no man acted in another man’s best interests unless those interests wedded with his own. That’s what the Poet’s daddy used to tell him.

Besides, what did this diver gain from heroics? Had to be something. There was an angle here. He just needed to get his fingernail under the edge somewhere. Something. Pick at it until it all made sense. The Poet just didn’t know what it was yet, what made this diver tick. And who needed that much money? Surely not some low-life sand fish, probably living in a shanty a meter deep in drift and sinking fast. What did this Peary have to spend coin on? Whores and liquor? Had a diver ever spent his salvage coin on anything more than whores and liquor? What a waste.

“We’ll need to push on in the morning, old man,” Peary said.

The Poet didn’t rise. Didn’t lift his head. “I can’t go no more,” he said. “Won’t make the night, for certain. Think I got the sickness in me from the wound. I feel my blood running hot.”

He could hear Peary exhale sharply.

“Your skin’s not even warm,” Peary said. “I’ve checked you every half hour for two days.”

“I’m an old man and I know my ways. I’ve seen the sickness take a man looked full healthy to a diver like you. Back when you were still digging grit out of the ker your momma used for a diaper.”

Peary hit the sand with his open palm. A flash of anger. “You just want to die, and I’m not going to let you.”

There was silence again for the space of a half hour. The Poet had his back turned, but he heard the diver scratch at the sand with his dive knife, and then relieve his bowels.

The diver whistled for a bit, then stopped, and somewhere in the distance the Poet heard a sand-hawk call. If he were in his home, the old man thought, he’d pull out his skrendl and play a tune to the night. But he didn’t have his skrendl, so instead he spoke…


An ancient song of sand and sift,
of rush and spill and grit.
As some exotic land and gift,
’til turned o’er hell and spit.
Dive deep oh friend, and spare
the top of lack; and may fair
winds drive thee
atop the ancients’ lair.

“That’s why they call you the Poet?” Peary asked.

“A long time ago, diver. A long time ago they did. Maybe you just heard my last poem, writ just now in my dyin’ head.”

“Tell me another one over a meal tomorrow in Low-Pub.”

“Just leave me here and move on. Go sell your salvage and take that woman and go to the west. Leave an old man to die.”

“You’re not going to die,” Peary said. “You’re not even sick.”

“I can’t be moved again,” the old Poet said. “I’m already losing feeling in my feet and hands. Sickness has me.”

“Then we’ll go in tonight.”

“I can’t go. I’m finished. Just leave me here,” the Poet said.

“Not gonna happen, Poet.”

“You and your lady gonna die tryin’ to sell Danvar goods in Low-Pub. Can’t you see it?”

Peary cursed, then snatched up the old man again and carried him to the sarfer. He placed him in the craft and piled the haul packs on and around him, then went through the steps of readying the sarfer and raising the sail. After attaching the wind generator and plugging in his suit and visor batteries, he shook the Poet, whose eyes were closed. “I’ll grab the pyrinte ring and the pot, and we’ll be on our way. We’ll be in Low-Pub in an hour and a half, and Marisa will tend to your wound.”

The old man didn’t respond. He looked through Peary, as if his mind was somewhere else. Maybe deeper in the Thousand Dunes, or on some woman he used to call wife.

“You got that, Poet? I’ll be right back.”

No answer, and now the old man’s eyes were closed.

Peary dashed over the dune to grab the ring and the pot, then searched around to make sure he’d left nothing that might be used as a clue, or that could be traced back to him. When he was satisfied that he’d left no trail, he turned to head back to the sarfer. That’s when he heard the telltale ring of the rigging hitting the mast, and a pop as the sail filled, and the crunch of sand. He ran back toward the sarfer, and as he topped the dune he could just see the top of the mast as the sarfer disappeared from view.


Chapter Eleven

Peary had not seen Marisa since he hit Low-Pub. It was morning now, and the cool gray was starting to give way to the sun and heat. He was too angry to see her, yet. Too embarrassed to tell her he’d lost everything because he’d chosen to help an injured old tinker half-dead. And he’d also have to tell her that the money she’d staked him for the trip was all lost… not to mention his sarfer, his dive suit and visor, and all of his gear. How could she love a man who let a pirate take everything from him? A thieving pirate, old and sick… was the old bastard even sick? Peary kicked at the sand and muttered under his breath. Marisa always told him that his kindness to strangers, more often than not, tended to hurt him. She said she loved him for that, but still she said it.

So he walked the town, from alley to alley, up and down the sandy rows of shops and sheds, looking for the Poet. Hoping to catch a glimpse of the old bastard. Wanting to kill him. His hands shook as he thought of the prospect of taking a man’s life. Then he squeezed his hand into a fist and struck his thigh. I’ll do it, though.

That’s when he saw it. The solitary piece of sand he was searching for in all the dunes of Low-Pub. He saw his sarfer, half hidden behind a shed structure that itself was mostly buried. One that used to be some kind of shop. The roof had collapsed, and someone had already begun to salvage the materials but hadn’t quite finished. The sarfer was tied down, but the haul rack was empty and the gear was gone.

He banged on a door and shouted, and eventually a woman, worn down by sand and life, hobbled to the door and glared out at him without saying a word. He felt his feet sink into the mush, probably wet from the drained wash, or the piss pot being dumped.

“I’m looking for the old man who came in that sarfer.”

“Look at the bar around the corner. Don’t know nothin’ here. Look down at the pub.”

* * *

The pub was thick at that hour with the regular kinds, the sand-stained refuse of life in the dunes. Morning drinkers and souls left over from the night before. A diver here and there, but not many of that kind, since most were up north or west looking for Danvar. The inevitable coin-changers were here though, and the clerks were too, drinking early after a yesterday with little trade. Up on the balcony were whores and their clientele, and here and there a seamstress or sandal hop plied the customers for work. There was a raising of voices, and then a clatter as a man who’d been playing cards was kicked backward and he and his chair toppled and slid across the spill and spit. This was met with laughter, and then the embarrassed man smacked a sandal hop for not moving fast enough to get out of his way, and everything reverted to type: shit flowing downhill.

Peary kept his head down, but his eyes worked the crowd, looking for the telltale sign of the old poet’s bandage. He’d walked the room several times before he realized he was starting to get some notice. A card player looked at him and then snarled. “You gonna walk, drink, or what?”

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