Sam emerges out into the cockpit again a little later. “Asutan, get below. Beni says it’s your bedtime.”

Asuti groans.

“Go on,” I say. “I don’t need you now.” I smile. “Sorry.”

She sighs. “All right.” And goes below.

Sam sits next to me. “You still need to be up here? Can anyone else hold course?”

I think about it. “I guess they could, as long as the wind holds up. How are things downstairs?”

“Settling in well. They’ve made up a bunk for you. You’re sharing with Ateis, just starboard-aft of the bow bunks. Beni and I are in there.”

“Oh. Okay. Ateis being good?”

“Yeah.”

I sigh and lean back and look at the topsail and the stars beyond. Everything’s running smoothly. We’re making good speed.

“There’s just us now,” I say.

“We don’t know Lotan’s dead,” Sam replies. “Listen: We also don’t know we were the only group left on the atoll. If there were any others they’ve probably been captured. Maybe he can do something. We did the right thing. We got the women and kids out.”

“Oh God. Just this morning I told the Satthei she could cast him adrift for all I care,” I say. “And now he goes and does something like this, stupid lump.”

Sam chuckles.

“D’you think he’d have been that brave if he didn’t think it was just a game?” I wonder aloud.

Sam thinks for a moment. “Situation like that, I think people act according to their natures. Existential fuckwittery is too high-level a process when it gets realtime like that.”

I nod, accepting that. Part of me has been feeling relieved that I don’t have to make any recommendations for the Satthei about what to do about Lotan. Ironically, I think I now know what I would tell her. ‘He’s a fighter. He needs an enemy in front of him and someone to defend behind him. Once that situation presented itself he acted according to his nature.’ I’m still not sure there would be a place for him in the marketeer fleet, but somewhere in the world there would be.

“I shot four people on that beach,” Sam says quietly, thinking different thoughts. “Didn’t even stop to think.”

“I got three,” I say.

We sit in silence for a while.

“I keep thinking I ought to be feeling something about that,” Sam says. In over eight months it’s the first combat we’ve been in. Given we jumped into a roleplaying game that’s probably an achievement.

“Maybe he knew there wasn’t going to be room,” she says eventually, obviously thinking about Lotan again. “We’re tight on provisions as it is. I hope this wind holds.”

I have a feeling it might.

It makes me think. We really needed a fast boat, and there was my own sloop, within easy reach. We really needed the right wind, and hey-presto we have a windsinger on board. These coincidences are too good for a gamer not to notice. I try to be reassured by the thought that maybe something or someone is looking out for us; and I try not to think too hard along the lines that when the DM is helping the party get somewhere quickly you can bet something nasty will be waiting.

“What’s the plan?”

Sam sighs. She looks tired. “Ask me tomorrow.”

“What are you doing here?”

That’s Ateis’s voice, up on deck, calling me into wakefulness with the incongruity of what she just said. I’m in my bunk, and it’s very early in the morning.

“You’re not supposed to be here!”

~Who’s she talking to?~ I think, sluggishly. I look around. Sleeping forms, but there’s Sam waking up as well. We look at each other, then she turns herself over and starts opening the forward hatch from the inside, quietly. I get up and move aft to the cabin door, then look back at Sam as she stands up slowly through the hatch, then squats down again.

“Clear,” she whispers. “You need to see this.” She puts her finger over her mouth in a ‘shh’ gesture and stands up again and starts to lift herself through the hatch.

I open the cabin door and go up the steps into the cockpit. Ateis isn’t alone up here, I’m relieved to see. Demele has the tiller, with the twins on either side of her. They don’t look perturbed, only curious.

“Who are you talking to, Ateis?” Sam asks. She’s using that tone of voice that people use with children when they already know the answer.

“Look.” She points at the roof of the cabin over my head.

I get the rest of the way out and turn quietly to look. It’s a beautiful, large, white-breasted falcon.

A gyre falcon. ~Oh shit.~

“He just landed a little while ago,” the Demele says.

“He shouldn’t be here, he’s too far south,” Ateis informs me.

Sam is moving slowly aft, around the cabin roof. The bird is watching her, stepping away to keep on the other side of the roof from her until Sam steps down into the cockpit. “Is this the same one?” she whispers to me.

“Don’t know. Same species definitely.”

“Once is just a coincidence. Twice and I seriously get the feeling someone’s trying to get our attention. Especially as it’s so far out of its range.”

“Why now?”

“First time we’ve been outside the Satthei’s influence since Denhall?” Sam speculates. I sigh. “Message like this probably couldn’t penetrate her shields, you know? I’m more interested in who, or what, sent it. Gyrefalcon himself wasn’t a magic user.”

“What is it? What’s going on?” Asuti asks loudly, suddenly emerging from the cabin. The falcon takes off, alarmed, and heads away north-north-east, flying low over the waves.

“He’s going home,” Ateis says.

“He’s not going to make it,” Sam replies. “They live on the coast. He needs a thermal to get height so he can cross between islands.”

We’re nowhere near any islands.

“Sorry,” Asuti says, and climbs out of the cockpit and goes forward to sit against the mast, as if to sulk.

I look at Sam, sensing her already looking at me. I know what she’s thinking.

She nods.

“Ready about!” I yell. “Stand by for jibe.”

“What?” the Demele objects.

Asuti starts making her way back along the side of the boat to the cockpit. Sam’s untying the tiller while I do the same for the main sheet and start tightening it, pulling the sail in so when we put our stern across the wind it doesn’t slam across with too much force. The jib will look after itself; it’s on a runner.

Everyone’s in the cockpit. “About we go!” I call, and turn the boat. The boom swings across hard above our heads and steadies, caught by its stay line. I start letting it out again and the boat picks up speed, following the course taken by the gyre falcon.

Three minutes later everyone is on deck. Then Beni goes downstairs again, because her baby is crying.

“But we’ve got to go to Taka’utuk!” Chirasel is insisting. “The Satthei will go there!”

Sam just looks at me.

I point forward. “The falcon bears a message. I have to follow where it leads.”

“Is it sent by the Satthei?” Chirasel asks, full of hope.

“I don’t know,” I prevaricate, sure that the Satthei has nothing to do with it; that in fact the Satthei has been preventing us receiving this message again for the last eight months, whether wittingly or not I can’t guess. “But I know we have to follow. This is a spirit guide. I don’t know if it will lead us to the Satthei, but I’m sure it will lead us where we need to be.”

I’m not sure at all, of course. It’s a wild instinct. Gamer logic, I hate to acknowledge even to myself. It’s entirely possible the bird, once released from whatever spell brought it here, was just trying misguidedly to go home and by following it we’re just going to condemn ourselves to a slow thirsty death in a vast expanse of open water.

But I’m a Neri; and, while apostate, they all know I was once learning to be a shaman. They could argue with Sam, but four hundred generations of trust in the wisdom and intuition of the Neri is hard for them to fight. I use that. I use it shamelessly, now I need it.

I take myself forward to sit against the mast myself. I don’t want to look at anyone right now. After a few seconds the falcon swoops in and alights on the windward bow clear of the jib, just a few feet from me.

“Does this mean we’re going the right way?” I ask it, not expecting an answer. I don’t get one. “Or did you just come back because there’s no-where else to land?” It just steps around and faces forward, its head darting this way and that, as if looking for prey. I have a horrible thought. “Was the whole attack only to get me far enough away from the Satthei so you could reach me?”

I sigh and lean my head back against the mast and close my eyes. I didn’t get enough sleep, having finally gone to my bunk very late. I try to recall the charts I saw in the Satthei’s cabin, trying to remember what if anything lay on this heading. Eventually, of course, most of the larger volcanic islands of the heart of Jeodin, and their busy, prosperous cities and principalities of which I’ve heard and read much; but what there might be within reach of our provisions I’m less sure.

I’ll talk to Asuti later, and see if we can get up the fastest wind we can take all the way to wherever we’re going.

Tim Manor is torturing my hands again tonight. The cold aching pain as the clamps are pressed shut around my fingers is, as ever, only the harbinger of what follows.

I plead. I beg. But I don’t resist. There was never any question of resisting.

Later I remonstrate. “You’re so weak,” I tell my parents. My voice is shaking. “You always let them do it. You’re so… weak. And you’re weak too,” I say to Tim Manor. “You’re such a weak little bureaucrat.” I put so much disdain into that word I can’t believe it doesn’t make him at least flinch.

For a while I scream obscenities. Then I cry.

“You’re being a bit fractious tonight, aren’t you?” Tim Manor says lightly, and carries on. That means it’s going to take a long time before he’s finished. I try to be still, but I can’t. Not tonight. Soon I’m swearing and insulting him again, my voice still shaking.

“How does it feel to be so weak you’ll do this to an innocent just because someone told you to?”

He does glance at me then, a little meeting of eyes, but no explanation, no excuses; he can’t even contradict my description of myself as innocent. It simply doesn’t make any difference.

So it goes on. I know he won’t stop until I’m quiet and passive. In a way it’s comforting to know that I can trust him to get me to that place again, because right now it feels like the hate and anger is going to go on forever.

“Tani, wake up! Wake up!” And a light touch on my hand. A real touch.

I wake up, crying out in pain and withdrawing my hands protectively to my chest. I swear loudly at whoever touched me, crying.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you!”

Asuti’s voice. Finally I get my eyes open and see her backed up to the bunk opposite. “’Suti,” I say thickly. She nods. “Hey girl, what’s up?” My hands won’t stop shaking, and my arms, all the way to my shoulders.

She smiles, seeming to brighten the cabin. “Sam said to come below and wake you. We’ve sighted land.”

“Oh. Good.” ~We won’t die of thirst then. Probably.~ I close my eyes for a few moments and try to get myself steady and stop shivering. “Everyone else on deck?”

“Yes. It rained and Demele and Beni decided it’s washday.”

I open an eye and look at Asuti again. “Thought you looked suspiciously clean,” I observe dryly. She grins. I notice this time how her hair is in damp ringlets and her smock isn’t entirely dry. I’m glad the opportunity was taken. All the human bodies in fairly tight proximity was starting to get a bit whiffy, and there was a baby too. The atmosphere had been getting a little high in the figurative sense as well, in the last few days. The grown-ups keep snapping at each other about things that don’t matter. It was easier most of the time to just stay up on deck and find ways to keep busy.

“Aw and I missed it too,” I add.

“No you haven’t. We saved some, and Beni washed your stuff anyway. Sam said you needed to sleep, but then we saw land.”

“Meh.” I could have borne being woken earlier this time. “Okay, get back on deck and finish drying off. I’ll come up in a bit.”

“Okay.”

Left alone I can just give myself over to the shivers again for a while, and a little crying. Then I have to get up and somehow teach myself to use my hands without screaming.

Not only did we sight land, I see when I get on deck, but we’re in sight of a pretty sizeable city port. Tall watchtowers stand over the harbour mouth, and terracotta walls and arches and verdigris domed rooftops and trees and pleasant-looking green spaces stretch away from the hidden quayside up and over the valley walls, where it looks like palaces and temples are surveying their domain.

“Whoah,” I comment. “Anyone know where we are?” I still feel shaky, and try to keep it out of my voice. The view looks familiar. I’ve been here before, in Taniel’s former life.

“’Course, that’s Jeoda,” Chirasel says. “We used to come here every year, usually in winter before going to the Northern Isles.”

Jeoda. What passes for the capital of Jeodin. It looks the part anyway, almost glowing in the late summer light. I can see a single ship tacking in through the harbour mouth as I watch.

“That’s impossible, we can’t be that far north,” Sam says.

“We had a good wind at our back the whole way,” I say, covering my own surprise. It wouldn’t do the other women any harm to think I meant to do this all along. I flash Asuti a grin and she grins back.

“And you had something to do with that I suppose?” Sam asks.

I remember Asuti didn’t want anyone to know. “You might very well say that,” I say. “I couldn’t possibly comment.” I grin at her too. “I guess our little bird led us true after all. Talking of which, where is he?”

“Took off a little while ago. Gone hunting I think.”

“Are we going to find Satthei?” Ateis asks.

“I don’t know, love.”

“Well at least this time we have some money,” Sam comments.

~Wait a minute. I missed something.~ “We used to come here?” I ask Chirasel. “It used to be on the Satthei’s route? Why did she stop coming here?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“It’s the capital. You don’t just…” I stop, thoughtful. Fareis could have had any one of a hundred private reasons for dropping Jeoda from her route, and I could well imagine most of them not being ones she’d make known to the whole fleet. Someone would have to have discussed it though. The ship Masters would have needed some kind of explanation. But none of them are here. “How long ago were you last here?” I ask Chirasel.

“Oh, it must be–”

“Ten years?” Demele speculates.

“More than that. I was… I must have been ’Suti’s age.”

Guessing Asuti at ten and Chirasel at maybe twenty two, makes it twelve or thirteen years ago.

“If things look like they’ve changed to you, point it out,” Sam tells Chirasel and Demele. She gives me a look I know. Wondering, as I am, why Fareis would abandon such an important port. “Well, are we going in?”

At least this time we have some money, as Sam said. Even better, at least this time we have some clue.

“No!” Sam calls out to the guy in the robe approaching the bows. “No binding! We’re paying fees in advance. Be useful and tie this off.” She throws him the bow mooring line.

I climb over the side in time to face the official who’s come down to the marina portion of the harbour to greet us. Not the harbourmaster himself, by his dress. I’ve changed into my more formal wear, that I last wore to interview Lotan, I remember.

“Welcome to Jeoda,” he starts. “Mistress…”

“Taniel,” I say, “of the Satthei Encelion.”

The name gets his attention, at least, a half-voiced ‘ah’ holding his mouth open. We had decided not to mention our connection to Fareis for now.

“What’s your name?” Sam asks him, appearing next to me.

“Lemior, Mistress–”

“Good morning, Lemior, we need to find good lodgings. We’d rather it wasn’t an inn, somewhere more private and suitable for small children and a nursing mother and baby. Can you help us?”

“Y– Actually yes I can.”

Sam smiles. “And we’ll come down to the harbourmaster’s office with you afterwards to sort out the paperwork. How’s that?”

Lemior really came through for us. Less than an hour later we’re settling into a lovely little boarding house with a courtyard. It’s even got a proper bathroom, for Jeodine values of. There are no other boarders. Lemior introduced the middle-aged woman who seemed to own the place as his aunt Jalsone, which was immediately reassuring, especially as it also meant he was happy to stay and keep her company while he waited for us to get ourselves settled in.

I open the shutters in the room I’ve been given. I’ll close them again shortly to keep the sun and the heat out, but I want to take a look. We’re a little way up the valley, and I get a view over rooftops and the harbour itself, the water glittering in the sun. “It’s perfect,” I say to Sam. “Can we afford this.”

“For a while. It’s surprisingly cheap.” She joins me by the window and hitches herself up to sit on the wide windowsill. I can hear the children running around already, happy to be on land and with room to go a little wild. Beni’s pretty much taken charge, being the one of us most used to living shoreside. “And we’re marketeers. We’ve got enough currency to keep us going for a month or two, I reckon.”

“It’s funny,” I say suddenly, surprising myself with the thought.

“What?”

I point at the water in the harbour in the middle distance. “I think this is the furthest I’ve been from the sea since we got here.” For the large value of ‘here’. “Feels weird.”

Sam turns on the windowsill-seat to look where I pointed. “Yeah, me too. Got your land-legs yet?”

“Not really.” It always takes me ages to stop thinking the ground is moving. I look down at the street we’re overlooking. It’s quiet, off the main routes through the city. It looks clean, if a little dilapidated, rather like the boarding house itself, and the whole city: like it had seen more prosperous days.

“Chi said there aren’t enough ships,” Sam says, almost as if following my thoughts. “Well, she was only here when Market was, of course, but she said it was more than that.”

“This harbour’s big enough Market wouldn’t fill it,” I agree.

“She said it’s quieter than she remembers, like there’s not as many people. She says she doesn’t remember there being people living on the streets. I don’t know, she was just a kid…”

I shrug. “And a place like this going empty and cheap. In a capital.”

Sam nods. “Would Fareis dropping this place from her route affect it that much? This is a big city.”

“Maybe she wasn’t the only Satthei who dropped it.” It stood to reason a city like this should be on the routes of several Satthei-led marketeer fleets in any given year.

“Jesus, what did they do to piss them off?”

“Well, it’s supposition,” I say. “Shall we see if Lemior wants to tell us more?”

We go downstairs, and find Lemior in a talkative mood, helped a little by his aunt’s tea, I wonder. “Will the Sattheis be coming back here?” he asks, right off.

Well, that’s one question answered. “What do you know about why they left in the first place?” Sam asks.

“Nothing. Nobody knows. They just… One by one they stopped coming back.”

“Who was the first?” I ask.

He looks right at me. “Encelion, Mistress. Excuse me, but you look like you might be old enough to remember why.”

I shake my head. “How long ago?”

“Twenty three years, I think? I was only a boy–”

He stops, seeing the way Sam and I are looking at each other. We don’t say it in front of him. It looks like Encelion didn’t come back because she was destroyed, but Fareis and the others? Fareis stopped coming thirteen or so years ago.

~Does he even realise Encelion was destroyed,~ I wonder.

“On an unrelated matter,” I say carefully, “have you ever heard of someone who calls himself ‘the Gyrefalcon?’”

Lemior looks at me blankly.

“He was involved with the conflict with Kaleshha, a few years ago,” Sam prompts.

“Oh I don’t know, that was years ago, wasn’t it?”

“He married the princess Hanima,” Sam adds. “I understand she came from here.”

“Ohhhh. The Lady Hanima,” Lemior says. I can feel my pulse quickening. “We don’t have…”

“No monarchy. Of course, my mistake. We’ve been following stories, you know how things get exaggerated.” Sam smiles disarmingly. “Is she still married?”

“Yes of course. Lord Hajarean–”

“Hajarean! Of course!” Sam exclaims, snapping her fingers. I’m not sure if she’s pretending, or if she’s remembering something from that game played so long ago. Thinking about it, it must only be a couple of years ago in her memory. “He used the name Gyrefalcon on his adventures. They say he helped save the world. You didn’t know?”

Lemior shakes his head.

“A little bird told us we might find him here,” Sam continues. “How long ago did they marry, do you know?”

“Oh it was before I was born. Aunt?”

“It was more than thirty years ago, I’m sure.” Lemior’s aunt says.

It takes Sam and I a little while to get past that. Thirty years. More than thirty years.

Gyre Falcon is going to be an old man.

“Hey, let’s get down to the office and pay the harbour fees, shall we?” Sam offers.

The next morning Sam and I round up the kids and take them shopping for new clothes; and for clothes for us too; in the daily market. I get the impression Beni and Jalsone and the other mothers are glad to have some time alone away from the kids for a while.

Before too long we split into two groups, with Asuti and Ateis coming with me and Garelan and the twins going off with Sam.

The usual manner of obtaining clothes in Jeodin is to buy fabric and then make it up into clothes yourself, or pay a seamstress to do it. If you’re really rich you just hire a dressmaker to do the whole thing. There are some nice mainland fabrics I haven’t seen before, which I order to be delivered to the boarding house, where I know Chi and Beni can do something with them.

But we also need some clothes now. Fortunately there are merchants who sell ready-made clothes. They’re usually secondhand and in variable condition, especially when it comes to children’s clothes, grown out before they were worn out by their previous owners. So the whole experience does remind me slightly of rummaging around charity shops and new-agey market stalls. Most of the stuff on offer is just dreadful, but if you keep at it you can find something unexpected and lovely. My fashion sense being a little skewed probably helps in this case, as the loveliest things to my eye aren’t necessarily those that have been priced up.

I don’t care. We have money and it’s a pleasure to buy pretty dresses for two little girls who appreciate it. Three if I count myself, I think with a little smile. I don’t want this ever to get old and boring.

Sometimes, though, I think I miss the malls back home. I can imagine setting myself loose in Bluewater — me the way I am now, able to wear all the pretty clothes teenage girls wear and look good in them and not have to imagine getting funny looks for even stopping to look at them.

And knickers! Fresh cotton undies! My God, I do love Jeodine fashions, but they have no idea when it comes to underwear. Someone born here, given a pair of knickers and told what part of the body to wear them on would probably just say ‘won’t they get smelly quickly?’ Yes, but we have washing machines! You wear a fresh pair every day!

Alien. Profligate.

But that aside, I do love Jeodine islander fashions. They’d look old-fashioned back home, in a that doesn’t match any specific historical period; but with all the petticoats and bodices and corsets and headpieces, and bright iridescent colours and velvety blacks and filigree lace and everything done up with laces, they would seem like costumes, I’m sure. I love the shapes they make; the lovely full skirts and the ruffling noise they make as I walk, the lightly-corseted postures (I’ve never seen anyone tight-lacing). They’re so feminine. You can’t wear that sort of stuff working or just getting around on board a ship; then it’s just the kind of practical tunic-and-leggings wear that everyone wears, so I always take shore-time as a chance to really dress up, and I usually steal the chance to dress Ateis up too.

And now I have Asuti too! I actually start giggling to myself right there in the middle of an aisle in the market.

“What’s funny, Tani?” Asuti asks, pretty in her new light blue day-dress and looking as happy as I feel.

“Nothing. I’m just happy. Come on, my turn. Remember that grey shimmery one we saw back there?”

“Don’t forget, Beni said we had to get some sensible clothes too.”

“Yeah I know. Boooring. We’ll do that later.” I’m thinking tomorrow.

For some reason Asuti seems to find that funny.

When I think about such things I also daydream about how it would be, to be a Neri back in that modern, technological world, in modern clothes; denim skirts and tights, mobile phones, that kind of thing. I would pass for human, I think. Especially if I wore a top that said “HUMAN” across the front. I grin at the thought. If asked about my eyes I can just say ‘Contacts. D’you like them?’ If asked about my ears I can say ‘Latex, I’m a big Lord of the Rings fan. Sad, innit.’ Or if I’m feeling cheekier, ‘I caught them in a mechanical rice-picker.’ Or I could just take to wearing hats as a fashion thing. It would work. Even if I didn’t hide them and didn’t explain them, people would give one second glance, shrug and accept it.

No such deception is possible here, nor necessary. Apart from the obvious, there must be a hundred or so little signals that my body gives out all the time even just standing still, that means anyone here can just tell I’m a Neri from distance; signals that would all be missed back in the other world because there’s no such thing as what I am and no-one’s attuned to those particulars of difference.

Asuti struggles with the unfamiliar buttons on the back of the dress I’m trying on. I think it’s the first time I’ve seen buttons anywhere since coming here. A Jeodan invention, the woman merchant assures me, and warns me, “You must be careful, dear. Some cheaper merchants are using steel buttons.”

“I’ll watch out for that. Thank you.”

It’s odd, I think, that steel should be cheap here. Elsewhere in Jeodin it’s rare and expensive.

“It’s not as good as laces ’cause you can’t adjust it,” Asuti says, behind me. “Either it fits or it doesn’t.”

As the day heats up and I detect Ateis might be getting bored, we retire to one of the inn forecourts around the market square to wait for Sam and the others. I order a pitcher of what I can closest describe as lemonade, although it’s not made from lemons and it’s not fizzy; but it is refreshingly cool, being pulled up from a deep cellar. I miss ice, at times like this.

“Well, are you two enjoying yourselves?”

“Yes.” Asuti says, smiling. She’s sitting upright in her chair, like a child allowed to sit up at the grown-ups’ table, on good manners.

“I’m tired,” Ateis complains.

“Do you want to have a quick nap here while we wait for the others?”

“No.”

“Well, what about a cuddle then?”

She gives that a little thought, then climbs down from her chair and comes to me, so I can pick her up and sit her down on my lap and wrap my arms around her.

“Hang on, can’t reach my drink…” I lean forward to retrieve it and sit back again. “There we go. Comfy?” The English word slips out.

“Comfy.” She nestles in against my shoulder. I give Asuti a ‘what can you do?’ look and she grins.

“Look, Neri,” Asuti says quietly, pointing her head off to the side. I take a quick glance, enough to see they’re coming into the forecourt, but not apparently heading for us, and face front again to wait until they come into my field of view.

I watch them find a table and take seats; the male pulls out a chair for the female, who’s heavily pregnant. They look hardly any older than me, and just as obviously induced far too early and now fully developed.

They look happy, in love, engrossed with each other. The female’s hand rests on her belly as they order drinks. They look like any young human prospective parents.

Correction: Like teenaged parents-to-be. They look like they should be in school. Like me they lack the grace of adult Neri.

“Interesting,” I say quietly, pitched low for Asuti’s ears.

“I thought only Sattheis could have babies,” Asuti whispers back.

“So did I.” Otherwise why make the sacrifice? Why bind yourself to a living ship, like a dryad to her grove, condemning yourself to its doom? “Better not talk about it here,” I add.

Asuti nods.

“Better not talk about what?” Sam says suddenly behind me, surprising me. Asuti grins; clearly she’s been in on the conspiracy to make me jump.

“Sami!” Ateis crows.

“Heya squirt. Come on you two,” she calls to the other two smaller kids. Garelan is already taking a seat next to Asuti. “Come and sit down. Cold drinks.”

That gets a cheer, and some measure of chaotic compliance.

“Hey, ’Suti, you look pretty!” Garelan says to Asuti. Asuti just preens.

I notice Sam watching them intensely for a moment. “Tani, a word?” she says.

“What?”

“Come on. Hey, Ateis, you want to sit with the others?”

“Okay.”

I help Ateis down and stand up. “Oh, another pitcher please,” I call to the girl who’s come out to see if we want one. She waves and turns back inside before even reaching us. “What’s up?” I ask Sam.

“You think you ought to be encouraging him so much?” she asks me quietly, pulling me away a few steps. She’s speaking in English too.

“What? Who?”

“Who do you think? Asutan.” She gives a look towards Asuti, currently taking charge of the kids.

“Wh–” I just stare for a moment. “What’re you talking about?”

“Beni asked me to talk to you about it. She already thinks you’re indulging him too much with this girl thing, and you’re buying him dresses now–” She stops, seeing how I’m staring at her. “Oh, don’t tell me you didn’t realise!”

“Realise what? You’re trying to tell me Asuti’s a boy? She’s bloody not! You’re having me on!”

“Tani, we were on a tiny boat together for ten days and you didn’t notice anything?” She sighs, actually covering her face with her hands for a few moments. I look at Asuti again. Still all I can see is a little girl showing off her new dress to the younger children. “Jesus, talk about a failed perception roll.”

I just continue staring at Asuti, a long silent ‘ohhh’ starting on my lips, until she senses my attention and looks up. I smile and give a little wave and turn back to Sam, decided. “You’re wrong,” I say.

“And so’s Beni, who’s shared a cabin with him and his brother the last eight months?”

“Yeah, so’s Beni. She’s an islander and you’re talking like a mainlander. Everything’s about that little bit of flesh between your legs, isn’t it? Does that define who you are?”

“And I think you’re projecting,” Sam cuts back, refusing to rise to my bait. “You’re projecting yourself onto this kid, giving him the sort of encouragement you wish you’d had.”

“I didn’t know! She told me her name was Asuti!” I hiss. “All the other kids call her that. So do Chi and Demi. Only you and Beni don’t. I just thought you were–” I stop. I don’t know what I thought about that. I don’t think I thought anything about it, like I just edited it out of my attention. “She never once contradicted me calling her a girl. She’s got all the mannerisms, all the…” I take a breath. “What, d’you think I forced her to wear that dress? And look, the kids are fine with it, what’s the problem?”

“They’re marketeer kids–”

“Yeah, exactly–”

“And we’re ashore. We need to be more careful. People won’t understand–”

“Look at her!” I burst out. “Seriously look, Sam.” Sam does actually turn her head to look. “That is a girl. I don’t care what’s between her legs, I didn’t fail that perception roll, I rolled a fucking twenty, and no-one in this city has to know a thing unless you or Beni start blabbing off.”

She sighs again. “Beni is concerned–”

“Fuck Beni!”

“Okay, fine, whatever. You’re obviously incapable of a grown-up conversation right now. Go and sit with the kids, I need to think.”

She might as well have slapped me. I actually have to hold back tears. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean it.”

“I know. And I know this is an emotive subject for you.”

“Should be for you too.”

She shakes her head. “I haven’t lived with it all my life. I don’t look at a kid like that and remember what I felt like at that age.”

“You admit it then!”

“No, I’m saying–”

“But I’m right, Sam. I know I am.”

Sam sighs. “Beni thinks that Asutan may be imprinting on you.”

“Oh come on. Ducklings imprint. She’s a human.”

“And you’re not.”

“Sam–”

“You don’t understand the effect you have on us.” Her voice sounds suddenly plaintive. She’s looking at me especially intensely. And no, I don’t understand what she’s talking about. “Marketeer kids do gender play, I realise that. They see how Neri kids are and they do the same thing, and that’s okay. But the way you’re getting so close to him is dangerous, because you’re Neri and he can imprint on you. He’ll try to be exactly what you want him to be. It’s instinct.” She fixes my gaze urgently. “Someone you can show all the understanding and support and acceptance for wanting to be a girl that you didn’t get at his age. Do you understand what I’m getting at?”

“But I didn’t know!”

“You must have known,” Sam insists. “Subconsciously maybe. You can’t be on a little boat together that long and not see something.”

“Well maybe I just don’t spend my time peeking at kids’ genitals!” I snap.

Sam’s response is instant. She slaps my face for real this time.

“Leave her alone!” I hear Asuti yelling, coming our way. The initial shock passes, and I become aware of the hot sting of the slap on my cheek. “Stop telling her off all the time!” Asuti yells, and starts laying into Sam, until Sam catches both her wrists in a firm grasp.

“’Suti, stop,” I implore. “Come here.”

“She shouldn’t treat you like that!”

“Come here,” I say again, extending my hand. Sam releases her and she flies into my embrace. I look at Sam. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean–”

“You know? I don’t have to deal with this,” Sam says. She’s almost shaking with fury. “All these fucking tantrums every five minutes, I’m tired of it, Tani.”

“I didn’t mean it!”

“No, you never do, except when you say it.” She turns aside, to the table, where four small children are staring at us, worried. “Come on, kids. Let’s get you home so you can have your nap.”

“She’s a windsinger!” I say suddenly. I hadn’t meant to. It was our secret, mine and Asuti’s. At least I said it in English.

Sam stares back at me, surprised.

“How d’you think we got here so fast?” I push on. “Jeoda should’ve been way out of our range. It’s easy to take fair winds for granted, isn’t it?”

Sam’s gaze flicks from me to Asuti, back to me. “Now that is interesting,” she says tightly. “When were you going to tell me?”

“When you needed to know. It’s supposed to be a secret.”

“The Satthei doesn’t know? Of course not, she only tests girls.”

I nod.

Sam looks away finally, sighing. “Come on kids,” she says again, switching back to Jeodine. “We both need time to think about this,” she says to me.

I watch as she collects them up and dumps a few coins on the table to cover the last pitcher, mostly undrunk. Ateis comes towards me when she gets up, but I tell her to go with Sam. Thankfully she does. Finally Sam is herding them away in the direction of the boarding house.

All except Asuti, still in my arms. I hold her tight and kiss the top of her head.

“You were arguing about me, weren’t you?” she says, as soon as Sam’s out of earshot. “She hates me.”

“No she doesn’t–”

“She does! She’s always looking at me like I’m doing something wrong!”

“No. If anything she thinks I’m doing something wrong.”

“What?”

I sigh. “Come on, let’s go down to the harbour and check on the sloop. Don’t forget the shopping.”