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What came late was Salap's hoarse cry that he saw a ship. _Of course he does,_ I thought. _It_'_s
inevitable. If we_'_re not going to die, there must be a ship._
"One, two, three," he said. "Four ships. Two steamships, and two schooners, fore and aft rigged ...
Must be from Athenai. They like schooners there."
I looked with little interest in the direction of his finger. Two stripes of smoke rising high over the
cold stale sea, and in tow perhaps, sails slack or furled, two sailing ships. They were quite close --
perhaps a mile off. Salap stood. Shatro tugged on his ragged black pants, imploring him to sit down.
"If they have steamships, they're Brionists," Shatro insisted, hunching his neck.
"They're our only hope, wherever they come from," Randall said, and stood awkwardly, making the
raft sway, to join Salap's arm-waving.
Shirla watched them, mouth open to keep from pressing and splitting her dry lips. We were ghostly
things, crusted white with salts, hair standing up thick from our heads.
"They won't see us," Shatro said miserably.
"They're turning," Randall said, and grinned down at us like a small boy who sees his father coming
home.
"I believe they see us," Salap agreed.
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All inevitable.
It took the ships half an hour to surround us and send out a lifeboat to pick us up. The steamships
were a hundred meters in length and about twenty-five meters across the beam, the largest ships I had
seen on Lamarckia. Their broad, bulbous white-painted hulls were made of thick planks, but long
sweeps of metal formed much of the superstructure. Each ship carried two-barreled guns fore and aft,
and a single smokestack put forth an opaque cloud. Within their hulls sounded the great thumps of
powerful engines. The ships were blocky and ungraceful, but they looked sturdy.
Men and women in gray and black uniforms stood by the rope railings and near the bows, watching
and talking among themselves as a boat was lowered from one of two schooners.
The schooners had dropped the towlines. The wind was picking up, and crews were setting the
broad sails on each of their three trees, getting ready to proceed once we were aboard. They were
longer than the _Vigilant_ but not as thick across the beam, and they looked fast, like slender greyhounds
beside the powerful barrel-chested mastiffs of the steamships.
Shirla kneeled on the planking as the boat approached, her arms crossed over her breasts. Five
occupied the boat, four rowers and a plump man in the prow, dressed in white and wearing a small black
cap.
The steamships displayed numbers on their white-painted bows, _34_ and _15,_ but no names. The
schooners were simply labeled _Khoragos_ and _Cow. Cow_ seemed an odd name for so graceful a
ship.
The plump man in the bow of the boat waved to us, smiling cheerfully enough. "What ship, and from
what port?" he asked as the boat came within twenty meters.
"From _Vigilant_ out of Calcutta," Randall said.
"What happened?"
"Sunk in a storm," Randall explained.
"How long ago?" the man asked, face showing great sympathy.
"A day. Maybe two."
"Three-treed full-rig?" the man asked.
"Yes," Randall said.
"We saw her, and we saw the storm. A terrifying thing. We pulled out of its paws just after we lost
sight of you."
"Your ships?" Randall asked, and the boat pulled up beside our raft. "We did not see any
schooners."
"We were way behind. The steamships look ugly, but they're fast, especially when the wind's
asleep."
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"Who are you?" Shatro asked.
"We're out of Athenai," the plump man said, looking uncomfortable. "Bound for Naderville. The
steamships are escort. They came from positions off Jakarta, I understand. My name is Charles Ram
Keo." He offered his hand and Randall shook it. Then they helped us aboard. Once on the boat, we saw
how flimsy our raft had been. But it was the last we saw of any of the _Vigilant,_ and as the rowers
pulled us toward the _Khoragos_, I felt sad at the sight. Shirla stayed close to me, accepting a cup of
water poured from a jug, while a thin woman with a worried face asked about our health, what we had
had to eat, and other questions. She was Julia Sand, a physician aboard the _Khoragos._
"They wouldn't have sunk us," Shatro murmured. Salap seemed very solemn, unwilling to speak
much. I wondered if he had guessed at something we were missing.
Randall was ebullient. "You're a true gift of the winds," he told Keo, sipping from his cup as
instructed: small swallows.
We were near the larger of the two schooners when Salap leaned forward and whispered in my ear,
"_Khoragos._ That means a leader of a chorus. She is Able Lenk's boat."
He pulled back. Keo and Randall had caught part of his whisper and the plump man looked even
more uncomfortable. "You'll have to come with us, of course," he said. "You know what's happening, I
suppose."
"Is Lenk on board?" Randall asked.
"He is," Keo said.
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