“Sloth? Is that you?” Did it have a name other than Sloth?

“I thought you might like to pay me a visit.”

Quentin couldn’t imagine what would have given the sloth that idea. The Muntjac’s hold was dark and smelled of damp and rot and bilge, and for that matter it smelled of sloth. All in all he would have been fine talking to the sloth just where he was. Or not talking to it at all.

And Jesus, if he could hear the sloth that clearly it must have overheard everything that happened in this cabin since they’d left Whitespire.

But he did feel bad about the sloth. He hadn’t paid very much attention to it. Frankly it was a tiny bit of a bore. But he owed it some respect, as the shipboard representative of the talking animals, and it was warm down in the hold, and it wasn’t like he had somewhere more pressing to be just now. He sighed and peeled the bedclothes off himself and fetched a candle and found the ladder that went down below.

The hold was emptier than he remembered it. A year at sea would have that effect. Black water sloshed around in a channel that ran along the floor. The sloth was a weird-looking beast, maybe four feet long, with a heavy coat of greenish-gray fur. It hung upside down by its ropy arms at about eye level, its thick curved claws hooked up over a wooden beam. Its appearance smacked of evolution gone too far. The usual pile of fruit rinds and sloth droppings lay below it in an untidy heap.

“Hi,” Quentin said.

“Hello.”

The sloth raised its small, oddly flattened head so that it was looking at Quentin right-side up. The position looked uncomfortable, but the sloth’s neck seemed pretty well designed for it. It had black bands of fur over its eyes that gave it a sleepy, raccoony look.

It squinted at the light from Quentin’s candle.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been down to see you very often,” Quentin offered.

“It’s all right, I don’t mind. I’m not a very social animal.”

“I don’t even know your name.”

“It’s Abigail.”

She was a girl sloth. Quentin hadn’t realized. A hard wooden chair had been brought down to the hold, presumably in case someone was enjoying their conversation with the sloth so much that he or she just had to sit down to enjoy it even more.

“And you’ve been very busy,” she added charitably.

A long silence ensued. Once in a while the sloth masticated something, Quentin wasn’t sure what, with its blunt yellow teeth. It must be somebody’s job to come down here and feed it. Her.

“Do you mind if I ask,” Quentin said finally, “why you came on this voyage? I’ve always wondered.”