The Seelenjäger grabbed him by the shoulder. “I can carry you, but not far. Is there someplace nearby to land?”

Jean-Claude hadn’t the foggiest idea where they were. The odds against them being anywhere near a safe landing spot were enormous. For the Seelenjäger to carry him was just suicide with a better glide path. Yet a new idea blossomed like a canker sore, inescapable and maddening. He pointed to the fallen turvyman then to the Seelenjäger, and made carrying motions. He pointed to the ship and then to his eyes and held up two fingers.

The Seelenjäger’s lizard eyes rounded. “You want them to see two people flying away.”

Jean-Claude nodded vigorously, handed him his wallet, and jabbed the thundercrown embossed on the front. If he could get this to any Célestial authority and tell his story, at least Isabelle would learn what he’d done.

The Seelenjäger took the wallet. “I understand.”

Jean-Claude saluted him and ran, climbing a ladder into the hold. He’d just pulled his feet up when a Sanguinaire lieutenant leapt down onto the turvy deck.

The Seelenjäger had picked up the turvyman. He shouted, “Hold on, my friend!” and leapt out the turvy hatch. The Sanguinaire’s bloodshadow lashed the space where he’d just been.

Jean-Claude drew back farther into the shadows as the Sanguinaire raced to the hatches with a whole squad of marines.

“Shoot them!” he shouted. “Don’t let them get away!”

The marines raced to the gun loops and opened fire. Smoke filled the chamber, but judging by the Sanguinaire’s increasingly agitated shouts, not one of them scored.

He shouted, “Sergeant, get topside and light the shadowpults. Breaker be damned!”

Jean-Claude retreated from the hatch and crawled deeper into the hold, to the long-term stowage, where the rats and the cats lived but men seldom ventured.

If Travers believed Jean-Claude had gotten away, he might not have the ship searched down to the rivets. If Jean-Claude could empty out a crate, he might hide out for some time, and if Dok was brought on board, he might find a way to save them both.

CHAPTER

Twenty

“What can I do for you, Lieutenant?” Bitterlich asked Malgiers, who had sent for him down at the dock, where he stood in conversation with the capitaine and crew of a recently arrived fishing vessel.

Malgiers saluted. “Major, Capitaine Elliott here has information I think you’ll be interested in.”

“Good news would be welcome for a change,” Bitterlich said, although, on second thought, interesting and good were not often synonymous.

Capitaine Elliott was a spare man with a brush-bristle beard who smelled of aerofish as if they had anointed him their king. He goggled at Bitterlich as one might who had never seen a Seelenjäger before.