The Green Odyssey

But no such thing occurred, and at last the tug gangs stopped and began coiling up their ropes, and Green quit chewing his nails. Miran shouted orders, the first mate repeated them, there was the slap of many feet on the decks above, the sound of many voices chanting. A sound as of a knife cutting cloth told that the sails had been released. Suddenly, the vessel rocked as the wind caught it and a vibration through the floors announced that the big axles were turning, the huge wheels with their tires of chacorotr, a kind of rubber, were revolving. The Bird was on the wing!

Green opened the door slightly and took one last look at the city of Quotz. It was receding rapidly at the rate of fifteen miles an hour, and at this distance it looked like a toy city nestled in the lap of a hillock. Now that the danger from it was gone and the odors too far away to offend his nose it looked quite romantic and enticing.

«And so we say farewell to exotic Quotz,» murmured Green in the approved travelog fashion. «So long, you son of an izzot!»

Then, though he was supposed to stay inside until Miran summoned him, he opened the door and stepped out.

And almost fainted dead away.

«Hello, honey,» said Amra.

Green scarcely heard the children grouped around her also extend their greetings. He was just coming out of the dizziness and blackness that had threatened to overcome him. Perhaps it was the wine coupled with the shock. Perhaps, he was to think later, it was just that he was plain scared, scared as he'd not been in the castle. Ashamed, too, that Amra had found out his plans to desert her, and deeply ashamed because she loved him anyway and would not allow him to go without her. She had a tremendous pride that must have cost her great effort to choke down.

Probably, he was to say to himself later on, it was sheer fear of her tongue that made him quail so. There was nothing that a man dreaded so much as a woman's tongue-lashing, especially if he deserved it. Oh, especially!

That was to come later. At the moment Amra was strangely quiet and meek. All she would say was that she had many business connections and that she knew well Zingaro, the Thieves' Guild Business Agent. They had been childhood playmates, and they'd helped each other in various shady transactions since. It was only natural that she should hear about the exurotr a slave hiding on the Bird of Fortune had given Zingaro to take back to the Duke. Cornering Zingaro, she had worked out of him enough information to be sure that Green had escaped to the 'roller. After all, Zingaro was under oath only to be reticent about certain details of the whole matter. From there she had taken the business into her own hands, had told Miran that she would inform the duchess of Green's whereabouts unless he permitted her and her family to go along on the voyage.

«Here I am, your faithful and loyal wife,» she said, opening her arms in an expansive gesture.

«I am overwhelmed with emotion,» replied Green, for once not exaggerating.

«Then come and embrace me,» she cried, «and don't stand there as if you'd seen the dead return from the grave!»

«Before all these people?» he said, half-stunned, looking around at the grinning captain and first mate on the foredeck beside him and at the sailors and their families on the middeck below. The only ones not watching him were the goggled helmsmen, whose backs were turned because they were intent on wrestling with the great spoked wheel.

«Why not?» she retorted. «You'll he sleeping on the open deck with them, eating with them, breathing their breath, feeling their elbows at every turn, cursing, laughing, fighting, getting drunk, making love, all, all on the open deck. So why not embrace me? Or don't you want me to be here?»

«The thought never entered my head,» he said, stepping up to her and taking her in his arms. Or, if it had, he rejected, you can bet that I'd not dare say it.

After all, it was good to feel her soft, warm, firmly curved body again and know that there was at least one person on this godforsaken planet that cared for him. What could have made him think for one minute that he could endure life without her?

Well, he had. She just would not, could not, fit into his life if he ever got back on Earth.

11

MIRAN COUGHED and said, «You two and your children and maid must get off the deck and go amidships. That is where you will live. Never again must you set foot upon the steering deck unless you are summoned. I run a tight ship and discipline is strictly adhered to.»

Green followed Amra and the children down the steps to the deck below, noticing for the first time that Inzax, the pretty blond slave who took care of the children, was also aboard. You had to give credit to Amra. Wherever she went she traveled in style.