In the morning, Stander knocked on the door and informed them that Captain Inu was making his way through the maze, so they all went down to meet him. At the dock Major Hardwin had his soldiers in formations to meet two ships. Inu and the other ship’s captain came down their gangplanks to listen to Hardwin’s speech. When Inu explained that they had traveled together from Fort Dillson, Lewis paid for both of them with credit vouchers. Once he was sure that they had both complied with regulations, Hardwin and his soldiers left.

Inu introduced Captain Selena Huber to Lewis and the team. She explained that her father had purchased the ship for her from a retiring captain in Jaldob. Most of her current crew were on the Jortl when the ship changed hands. Captain Huber was blonde, as tall as Roquette, and thinner than Lewis had seen anywhere. Inu and Huber were hauling cargo for the Dontil base. Once the base personnel had offloaded their goods, Inu could load his holds with the grain. Huber planned on taking a load on to Awad and then proceeding to Jaldob.

Lewis had Derrick move their gear from the Windrider to Inu’s ship and then met with the captains on the Windrider. Inu called the meeting to order and introduced Huber to the others. She was treated like an honored guest by everyone. They created an agenda for the next few days and developed some long term plans. Churro, Waymer and Inu would proceed to Port Mist. The plan was then to deliver the grain from Inu and Churro’s holds, and then send Waymer and Churro on to Ascore. Inu would deliver Team Romeo to Fort Dillson; from there the team could easily continue their journey. When Lewis asked about that, Inu told him that Captain DeLeah wanted him back in Ascore as soon as possible.

“It’s probably faster anyway,” Inu assured him. “They have a train that travels to Farside, after that you can travel by boat to Landee. Sorry, I thought you knew.”

“No, I thought you were going to Landee,” Lewis said. “But that sounds fine.”

Captain Huber said that Inu had convinced her that she should at least meet the DeLeahs. When she was finished in Jaldob, she planned to continue on to Ascore to do just that.

They sat and had a few drinks while Inu and Waymer, who had traveled the most, told stories of things they had seen along the way. Huber asked about Vakum, and Inu told them about long, sandy beaches and great farms that produced food for export. He said the people were proud and noble, despite their reputation for being bloodthirsty pirates. He told of a Captain Markup, who had boarded a defender longship and taken possession of her. Markup had hidden the ship in an alcove and disassembled the ship. He had parts made that were copies of the originals and used them to make new ships. It took five years to assemble his fleet, but in the end he was a formidable force. Markup preyed on merchants, fishermen, and warships alike. One day he was pursuing a trade ship that he thought was laden with gold, when he sailed his entire fleet into a defender trap in Awad harbor. That was the end of the great pirate, though it cost the defenders plenty. Awad also suffered a large fire in the battle. There are no pirates like him on the waters anymore, Inu pronounced, but that doesn’t stop reputation and paranoia.

“But we still get accounts of pirate attacks,” Huber said. “I’m not saying that the pirates necessarily came from Vakum, but they must come from somewhere. For instance, what about the missing grain?”

“The defenders don’t think that was pirates,” Inu replied. “Their councilors prevent them from talking about it until they know more, but people talk anyway. They seem to think it had something to do with those mercs over in Temple, what’s that organization? The dark lanterns, I think.”

“OK,” Huber persisted. “But there have been others recently, like that ship that caught fire off the coast near Awad. It’s said that there was only one survivor, a little girl who was found drifting in the water the next day. Do your defenders have a theory on that one?”

“No, not that I know of,” Inu sighed. “It could have been pirates. I’m not trying to say that there are no pirates, just that there are none out there like Markup. Anyway, my point is that Vakum gets a bad rap mostly because of one bad man who could have come from anywhere, really,”

The talk continued for hours, like folks will do when they have nothing better to spend their time on. Lewis finally left in the middle of the afternoon. He made his way to the warehouse, and found Roquette, Gomez and Stander there with a few locals. The afternoon gloom was beginning to thicken as Stander introduced Lewis to the locals, one was a cousin, two were old friends of his, and the fourth was a woman they picked up on the street who was looking for some work. Everyone was cleaning together, so Lewis moved boxes and helped clear the floor. The work felt good and he pushed himself, the others followed his lead. In a few hours the main room was looking much better, so they moved on to the office. Lastly, they cleaned the little two bedroom apartment at the back of the building. Lewis gave them each a silver piece, and asked them to come back in the morning. All of them agreed to return.

Stolen novel; please report.

Stander went home. When they made it to the house Lewis was surprised to hear music. It sounded like a single guitar. He’d heard that many times growing up, except it would have been wildwood flower or something like that. But this was a rock song, he had to think for a little while, but he finally placed it, it was cat scratch fever. Everyone had stopped dead in their tracks, listening. He was just thinking how perfect it sounded when Roquette spoke up.

“That’s Tony,” she said, striding to the door. “He always misses that note.”

The song ended abruptly as she turned the door handle. Telini and Blair scrambled to their feet as Lewis walked in. Telini was holding a dingy plastic box about a yard long and a foot wide with a neck and strings. It had several openings cut diagonally in rows on either side of the strings. Lewis thought they looked like gills. Blair just stood there with a black ring around his right eye, and a grin that faded to uncertainty.

“At ease,” Lewis said, heading into the kitchen, where he turned and saw Blair lower himself gingerly into his chair. When he came back, everyone was sitting.

“I suppose you have a story to tell,” Lewis said, as he joined them.

“Not really sir,” Blair answered a little too quickly. “Thanks for the time off.”

“You have to do better than that,” Gomez laughed. “You have a shiner and a guitar, are they related?”

Blair looked trapped, with everyone obviously waiting for his answer. “OK, there was this warrior guy. He said that if I could beat him in a fair fist fight, he’d give me the guitar.”

Lewis had to keep himself from sounding as angry as he felt. “How did you fare?”

Blair looked like he was warming up a little. “He was a lot tougher than I’d expected, and fast too. He didn’t hit as hard as Tony, but he had some moves I never saw before. The guitar’s mine though. Oh, hey, look what else I got.” He got up slowly and went into the bedroom, coming back with a primitive looking pistol in a holster. “Looky here, it’s a double action wheel gun,” he said, handing it to Lewis with a twinkle in his eye.

Lewis slid it into his open hand and checked to see that the cylinder was empty before turning it over; he examined the black matte finish and the dark green grips, then held it out and pointed it at a blank wall. He put it back in its holster and handed it back to Blair.

“It’s kind of heavy, is it fast?” Lewis asked.

“Yeah, but the trigger pull is a bit heavy,” Blair answered. “I think that slows it down a little, still it’s faster than the service pistols that the defenders use. Heck, it’s as fast as our rugers.”

“Let me see it,” Roquette requested, holding out her hand.

“Where did you get a Defender pistol,” Lewis wanted to know. “And how much shooting did you do?”

“One of the warriors I met had one,” Blair said. “He said he won it in a card game, and it looked brand new. We sure put a lot of rounds down range. Master Sergeant, what are you doing?”

Roquette had the cylinder out and was unscrewing the grips. “I’m going to find out why the trigger pull is hard.”

”Where can I get one?” asked Gomez.

“There’s a shop in the maze that makes them,” Blair informed her. “And I understand that they make quite a few. These ones,” he nodded sadly at the one that Roquette had in pieces all over the table by then. “Seven shot, eleven millimeter, and a smaller version. That one you could hide in your hand, it’s got a cylinder that holds five, six millimeter rounds.”

“I wonder if Captain Churro’s cousin sells them,” put in Telini.

“We should find out tomorrow, am I right to assume that you arranged everything with the grain supplier?” Lewis asked, watching Roquette put on a pair of glasses that he didn’t remember seeing before. She pulled the spring from the handle frame and peered at it intently.

“Yes sir, the plan is to load Captain Inu’s ship in the morning,” Telini answered. “That should be done by midday.”

“Good, in the morning let’s clean this place up and present it for inspection,” Lewis said as he stood to go.