16. Rayko

 

Daniel did not drop the suitcases. Brinno and Bilk arrived just in time and took them from his hands.

"Carry the young lady up to deck." Daniel repeated the words and knew he was not helping his situation. "Of course."

"Are your hands clean?" Miss Dandra ko Galem asked.

"They are, Miss," Daniel said. "Now, if you allow me..." He lifted her up in his arms, ignoring the little squeal she let out as it happened.

"Do be careful with my dress," she said, "it costs more than you earn in a year."

Daniel did not respond. He walked towards the ship and seriously thought about how it would be to dump her in the water of the harbour. As he carried the woman upwards, she kept warning him what he had to be careful of, and where and what to watch.

"And don't drop me. We are up scarily high!"

"Don't worry, miss, I've been up this ship many times. I know my way around here."

"My father told me you are not a proper sailor, sir, so I will worry if and when I choose to, thank you very much."

Daniel suppressed a sigh of relief when finally he could put the woman on her feet. He just knew she would have problems with her footwear on the ship too. He also thought she should eat more, she was much too light.

Brinno and Bilk came up with suitcases. And boxes. Ulaman and Xandree were right behind them, and Xandree steered the young woman to the staircase that would bring her below deck. Daniel frowned. She did not seem to have problems walking here.

"More suitcases there, I guess?" he asked the skipper, who nodded. "Of course..."

-=-=-

Gaguran Slindris had made sure all the carriages returned to wherever they came from, riding in one of them. All the luggage was loaded and stowed. Another carriage had arrived, with a special assortment of food that should be served during the trip, and a cook.

Draiky, a calm person most always, had become very hostile when she heard she would have to share her galley with the strange cook. "If he so much as smears something on the stove in my caboose," she threatened, "I'm using his face to wipe it off."

After setting that straight, everything was ready for departure. The hawsers were released and brought in. The men had set a minimal sail as there was quite some wind, and the Pricosine moved away from the quay. Daniel was on the bridge, walking around to keep an eye on everything, Ulaman happily yelled commands into the tube, sailors on deck ran to follow them. Lidrin muttered something about the rudder and then they set course for open sea.

The first few hours the entire crew was working hard. Variations in sails were made, the new sail was severely tested as the wind was so favourable. Daniel wondered where the Dandra princess was, when suddenly he saw a yellow and beige spot at the far end of the boat, near the stern. His electronic eye made it easy to identify her.

"Our guest has drifted off to the stern, Ulaman. I'll go bring her back," Daniel said.

The captain nodded. "Keep an eye on her, Daniel. The Seigner will have our necks if something happens to her."

Daniel left the bridge and walked down the length of the ship, to find miss Dandra ko Galem leaning against the side of the ship. Her dress flapped about her as a tempered flag, her hair was flying in the wind. She did not hear him approach, so he said: "Miss Dandra ko Galem."

She looked at him. "Oh. It's you again." Then she turned her head back towards the water.

"Will you please come back with me, miss," Daniel said. "It is not all that safe here."

"It is nice here," she said. "The wind feels nice."

"Miss, I would really appreciate it if you were coming with me. The wind here can be treacherous."

The woman turned and looked at him, leaning against the railing. "Don't you lecture me. This is my father's boat, and he only has good boats."

"Ships," Daniel corrected her.

"Boats," she insisted.

Daniel picked up the remains of a command Ulaman issued, but couldn't understand it. Anything could happen now.

"Changing tack!" someone overhead yelled. Slowly the ship tilted. The spanker, the last mast on the ship, caught the new wind and the immense rigging rushed over their heads, with a hard airflow following it.

The airwave almost hit the woman. Daniel grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her against him as the rush went past them.

"I'm sorry, but I had to," he said as he let her go again. He saw how she trembled. The experience had shocked more than she would have thought.

"I - ehm - I was not prepared for this," she said in a timid voice. "I assume I owe you gratitude." She held on to Daniel's arm as they walked back towards the bridge, but as they came closer to it, she let go and went to her cabin, holding on to the side of the bridge as she rounded it.

Daniel shook his head. This was had the makings of a disaster, and they were out of port for mere hours.

The evening had another small disaster in store. The cook that had come aboard for Miss Dandra ko Galem was not feeling all too well. Draiky had helped him, so the food that had been brought on board was not a total ruin, but the end result was far from what the aim had been.

The crew, who were eating with in the sailor's canteen, heard about that from Draiky. A lot of laughing and snickering went around.

"I think the man will be sick tomorrow," their cook declared. She was right.

The next day, the winds were up quite high. The Pricosine was under small sail again and Lidrin had a field day making the ship dance as he directed it with the new rudder. All his reservations against the new mechanism melted as ice as he learnt that the ship responded better.

The Seigner's daughter did not show on deck as long as the tests were on the way. Ulaman told Daniel that he had warned the woman about the tests, and advised to keep to bed. "Looks like she listened. Also looks like we have to force-feed her cookery boy. That landlubber is sick as a dog, and there is not even a breeze."

"Feeding a sick cook is not a security issue," Daniel declared. "Ask Bilk or Stroro. I'm busy." Ulaman's laughter followed him as he left the bridge, heading for safety.

Later in the afternoon, Ulaman ordered the tests for the day over. All sails were stricken and the Pricosine floated calmly on the water.

Xandree went below deck and checked on their guest. The young woman was doing better than the crew had expected; she came to deck with Xandree, wearing a new dress.

"Now, miss, you stay close to Daniel- I mean Mr. Zacharias, and you will be as safe as you are in your own bed."

"You can call me Rayko," the young woman said with a smile. "I really appreciate how good your care is, Mrs. Xhylor."

"Please, call me Xandree then."

Rayko smiled and nodded. "I will go and watch the sea." She walked to the railing and leaned against it, staying well in view of the bridge.

Daniel was sitting a hundred and twenty feet up in a mast, together with Stroro. They were checking how the rigging of the new sails had withstood the ordeal Lidrin had put them through.

"She does not appear to be sick," the sailor remarked as he peeked down at the woman.

"No, true. Good for her." Daniel yanked a rope. It held.

"You don't like her, do you?" Stroro asked.

"I don't. She is so stuck up, so pampered, so snotty and stubborn." Daniel pulled another rope. It held too.

"She is a woman." Stroro displayed all his knowledge about the other gender.

Daniel looked at the man and sighed. "I know."

"We're done here," Stroro said.

"Yeah." They climbed down and jumped the last stretch down to the deck.

The thuds made Rayko look at the sound. She saw the two men and frowned. "Where did you come from?"

Stroro pointed at the mast. "Up there, miss." Then he walked off.

Rayko looked up the mast. "Oh." As she looked down again, there was only Daniel. "That is high."

Daniel groaned. "I know."

"Uhm... I gathered that." Rayko turned towards the water again. She wanted that man to just go away. He annoyed her to no end. And he was far too tall also. There was no beauty in that.

Daniel walked up to her. "Are you feeling well, Miss Dandra ko Galem?"

"Yes. Fine."

"I mean, the ship was tilting and rolling quite a lot earlier," Daniel tried.

"I am fine. Thank you." Why did that man not take a hint? Did she have to swing a club at him to make him leave?

"Very well then. I'll be seeing you, miss," Daniel said, glad he could leave. He started for the bridge.

"Not if I can help it," Rayko muttered into the wind.

Daniel's enhanced ears caught it. "Stupid stuck-up," he mumbled. As he reached the bottom of the stairs, Ulaman was just coming down.

"Ah, Daniel. Come with me," the bear-shaped captain said, clapping him on the shoulder. "We are in a very nice area with lots of wildlife in the water. I will explain some to you, and to Miss Dandra ko Galem."

"Ulaman, I was just-"

"That can wait, Daniel. Come and learn something." He dragged the security man along, to where he had just been. "Miss Dandra ko Galem, how nice to see you outside."

"Hello, captain," said Rayko. "It feels nice to be here."

"Yes, good, good. There are many animals in the waters here, I thought it would be interesting for you to learn something about them?"

Rayko tried to look at Ulaman without noticing Daniel. Why did he have to be here again, she wondered. "If you would be so kind, captain, I'd be very interested."

Ulaman was pleased. He pointed out dark spots in the water, which were a kind of rays that lived ninety feet under the surface. "Nasty animals, they are very poisonous. Good thing they live so far down."

There were eels, dozens of feet long, big round fish that came to the surface and bobbed around after which they simply sank down again.

Rayko and Daniel both laughed at the antics of a species that looked like white seals who jumped up from the water like dolphins or floated around like otters.

Ulaman noticed that both stopped laughing as soon as they noticed the other one was laughing as well and wondered about that.

Then, after a while, their attention was drawn to a large bulk that moved through the water. It looked like a big rock, lacking its habit to sink.

"What is that?" Rayko asked as she pointed at the thing.

"That, Miss Dandra ko Galem, is a Fringy. It is a kind of fish, but it never leaves the surface. Nobody knows where they came from. Nobody knows what they live on. They seem to be fairly gentle, except when they are in the mating season."

Rayko's face coloured. "I see."

They spent another half hour discovering animals. Then Daniel said he was going to make his round again and quickly paced off.

Rayko relaxed a bit as the man left. She wondered why she had become so tensed up with Mr. Zacharias around...

Daniel had laid down for a nap. He was going to do a night watch again. As he woke up he stared through the porthole, looking at the stars. and thought of his sister Cynthia. Now there was a smart kid. Never got married, as far as he knew, free as a bird, like himself. No kids, as far as he knew, just like himself. Maybe he should write to Cynthia someday. There were too many 'as far as he knews' in that last thought. From his sister his thoughts crawled over to this brother. Married, two children, and not a single moment of his life unplanned or disorganised.

The man on the bed shook his head slightly. That could not be a life. Life without freedom and adventure, it was unimaginable for him. The idea of being married... to whom, he wondered. He knew hardly any women. Rhonda was not the kind to marry and settle down either. Too much of a free spirit. And the women he had seen in Skarak and the other places he had been were not candidate material for someone like himself. He tried to recall some of them. He grinned at some of the memories. And then somehow the Seigner's daughter popped into his head and that had all the properties to make his skin crawl. But Bactine skin did not crawl.

As a little worry started gnawing at him, asking if this life was really what he wanted, he got up to shake off that thought. He did not want to deal with that now. There was a night shift waiting for him, and the certainty that the spoilt girl was put away in her bed was a comforting thing. He would not run into her.