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don’t just go around to the ships?”
    The woman’s smile deepened at the corners. “Good ones hire at the Harbormaster, all right and proper. I was about your age when I first signed on. A coast trawler it was, but it gave me a taste for the sea I’ve never lost. Have a fair voyage!” She hefted her knapsack over her shoulders and headed down toward the docks.
    “You too! And thanks for the advice,” Wren called.
    As the woman disappeared around an outcropping of rock, Wren glanced up behind her, where she could hear the voices of someone new coming down the trail. This spot was not as private as she’d thought.
    She picked up her knapsack. “Harbormaster,” She repeated under her breath, “Then somewhere to stay, and afterward I can always try Tyron again.”

Five
    The Harbormaster’s building lay on the other side of the bay. It had a big wooden tower, topped by a long flagpole up and down which flags of various colors were run during the time it took Wren to finish walking down the main thoroughfare behind the docks, and then start again up winding, narrow streets. Those had to be signal flags.
    The houses were old, built largely of the red-streaked stone that she’d seen so much of in the rocky mountains northward. The street was paved with dark flat stone, quite worn. Two carts could not have passed one another on most of those streets, but over the many years tradition seemed to have worked patterns of traffic, so some streets were for folk going this way, and some the other direction.
    When the sun sank beyond the mountains, some shops closed, shutters pulled tight, the windows above lighting up with the golden glow of lanterns or the whitish-blue of glowglobes, for those who could afford them; other shops stayed open, lamps and glowglobes inside sending out a welcome radiance to make golden or silvery pools of light on the streets. Wren peered into tiny shops, glimpsing goods from all over the world: fabrics, foods, woods, metal implements, books.
    Books! She paused, fingering the small pouch of money Tyron had given her to last until she got herself a job: six heavy eight-sided silver pieces, and a handful of the thin little copper pieces called clipits. The idea was to work her way along, and only keep the silver for emergencies. Spending them her first day in the harbor seemed a bad idea. You didn’t get books for coppers.
    But! If she could get a berth on a ship, then she could come back and buy a single book for the journey.
    If, of course, she could remember how to get back, she thought a while later, as the old road twisted and turned its way toward the steep bluff on which sat the Harbormaster’s building.
    At last she reached it—and found a vast crowd waiting outside, mostly men and boys. Everyone seemingly talking at once.
    She squeezed between two boys with bulging sacks over their shoulders as she looked for someone in charge. A bell clanged from somewhere, and the noise dropped to a hissing sea of whispers and mutters.
    “Sun’s gone!” a big voice bellowed. “Clear out! Doors open at sunup!”
    The crowd began to surge out, everyone talking in at least a dozen languages. Wren was pressed back against the wall. For an endless time she couldn’t move as a solid wall of people shoved past. Then two girls neared, each carrying a heavy sack. They were speaking Siradi.
    “ . . . longest I’ve ever gone ‘tween cruises,” one was saying.
    The other shook her head. “Hroth is the worst harbor to get stuck in, come spring. M’uncle always told me, you stay outa Hroth during the spring. Everyone in the world is there, lookin’ to hire for the summer ocean-cruises, and boomers everywhere.”
    Boomers? Wren sighed to herself. Of course it wouldn’t be easy. She’d been a fool to think she’d just walk right in and they’d have a ship all ready to take her aboard.
    She followed the two girls, partly to listen, and partly to see where they stayed. Maybe she’d learn some more.
    They