"Why?"

He shied as if she had hit him. "Prisoners," he said, "taking a constitutional." Bellis’ eyes widened fractionally. "Captain’s giving them a shot of air, and then we’ve to clean the deck-they’re awful dirty. Why’n’t you have some breakfast, ma’am? This’ll be done in a trice."

Out of the young man’s sight she stopped and considered. She did not like the coincidence of this, so soon after her discussion with Johannes.

Bellis wanted to see the men and women they carried below. She could not tell if she was driven by prurience, or a more noble instinct.

Instead of heading abaft for the mess, she wound down side passages through dim space, past poky doors. Bass sounds traveled through the walls: human voices sounded like dogs barking. Where the corridor ended she opened the last door, onto a walk-in cupboard lined with shelves. Bellis looked behind her, but she was alone. She finished her cigarillo and entered.

Pushing aside dried-up, empty bottles, Bellis saw that an ancient window had been blocked by shelves. She cleared them of detritus and wiped ineffectually at the glass.

She started as somebody walked past the pane, outside, barely three feet away. Stooping, she squinted through the dirt, out over the ship. The enormous mizzenmast was before her, and faintly, she saw the main- and foremasts beyond it. Below her was the main deck.

The sailors were moving, climbing and cleaning and winding in their rituals.

There was a mass of others, huddled in groups, moving slowly if at all. Bellis’ mouth twisted. They were mostly human and mostly men, but they defied generalization. She saw a man with a sinuous three-foot neck, a woman with a skein of spasming arms, a figure whose lower quarters were caterpillar treads, and another with metal wires jutting from his bones. The only thing they had in common were their greying clothes.

Bellis had never seen so many Remade in one place before, so many who had been altered in the punishment factories. Some were shaped for industry, while others seemed formed for no purpose other than grotesquerie, with misshapen mouths and eyes and gods-knew what.

There were a few cactacae prisoners, and other races too: a hotchi with broken spines; a tiny clutch of khepri, their scarab headbodies twitching and glinting in the washed-out sun. There were no vodyanoi, of course. On a journey like this, fresh water was too valuable to use keeping them alive.

She heard gaolers’ shouts. Men and cactacae strutted among the Remade, wielding whips. In groups of two and three and ten the prisoners began to shuffle in random circles around the deck.

Some lay still, and were punished.

Bellis pulled her face away.

These were her unseen companions.

They had not seemed much invigorated by the fresh air, she reflected coldly. They had not seemed to enjoy their exercise.

Tanner Sack moved just enough to keep from being beaten. He moved his eyes in a rhythm. Down for three long steps, to keep attention from himself, then up for one, to see the sky and the water.