Read Watson, Ian - Black Current 03 for Free Online Page B

           "Maybe
not."
                 "That's how we'll do it."
                 "Yes, but we're sending the Sons
north under hatches for security reasons. Now we're going to have men dancing
on deck—not to mention a whole 'jack army on the water."
                 "Ah, but the command in the west
will assume we've made a compact with the current. They won't know what sort,
so long as they don't see their own men benefiting. Actually, it would be really neat if we could fool them into
launching rafts across the current. Maybe we ought to feed some half-truths to
the captives? Stuff they could blab when they got back home?"
                 "Some people can be too clever
for their own good, Chanoose."
                 "I thought that was your speciality, Yaleen." Oh, she
was indefatigable.
                 "So," I said, "We'll
recruit lots of fellows from nearby towns by offering free trips to the Pecawar
regatta."
                 Chanoose looked amazed. "Free?
Who said anything about free? Does it
cost nothing to build your dikes? Or to lay on a
regatta? Plus a balloon—we'd better get hold of a balloon to accustom young
lovers to the idea. Free indeed! What an impractical child you are."
                 "Not quite! Maybe we ought to
discuss the royalties for my next book here and now!" Here I was feeding her a half-truth; for I was pinning my
hopes on the copy, not on the original.
                 She ignored this feint. "I'm
grateful for your comments. You point up the need for tight logistics."
And off she went, humming her time.
                 After this I put on a spurt in my
writing, other duties notwithstanding.
                 Time flowed.
                 I made one trip out of town, suitably
escorted and on a day set by Chanoose, to point out to Tam and herself exactly
where his clays were supposed to lie bedded underwater.
                 Naturally, the night before setting
out, I had reminded the Worm of its promise to shut its man-trap down. Even so,
my heart was in my throat when Tam waded out into the water, wearing
anti-stinger gear, carrying a scoop-trowel and with a safety line around his
waist. Breathing deep and ducking under, he brought up samples from the bottom,
carried them ashore, dissected them with his gloves off, kneaded them, sniffed
them, and even tasted them with the tip of his tongue before pronouncing them
pukka. Probably; he wouldn't be absolutely sure till he had ground and fired
the clay.
                 That evening
Chanoose sent the signal for the 'jack army to set sail from Verrino; and for
the prisoners to be freighted north, in the opposite direction. The
'jacks’ voyage would span twice as many leagues as the captives covered, so the
captives would be carried more slowly. Nobody wanted to erect temporary prison
pens in the pastures by Aladalia.
                 Work commenced on the two dikes, and
proceeded at a leisurely pace as ordained by Chanoose. Tam wasn't idle
meanwhile; nor had he been so before that day when we sought out the clay.
Already, with Peli's assistance, he had rigged up a grinding wheel and a
potter's kick-wheel and had built a kiln to his own design.
                 The kiln was housed in a hut in a
small yard abutting the north end of the temple, the only access to which was
through the temple itself. A high claybrick wall tipped with jagged glass
surrounded the yard, so I wouldn't be able to smuggle anything out by that
route. Since the said area wasn't enormous, Tam stored finished wares in his own
room, and a good number of items spilled into my own quarters. He wasn't
producing porcelain (yet), but I liked his handiwork to be around.
                 To fuel the kiln he relied on quite
costly nuts of coal imported by the sack from Guineamoy. Not for him the oil of
Gangee which most people in Pecawar