Strange Noises Fiction by Rachel Greenham

The lead boat reaches the sloop and I can see Sam's about to climb aboard over the stern. "Bring us alongside their boat," I say, and stand up. "Kids, move aft." "But I---" "Ateis, just do it." Thankfully she does, and even chivvies the other two small children into the stern while I move forward with my bow. "And stay quiet." "Do we still have to keep down?" Ateis asks me in the loudest stage-whisper I ever heard. "Yes." *And behind the sail if there is anyone on the sloop,* I think to myself. I get into position on the deck forward of the mast, keeping clear of the bottom of the yardarm and its stay line and nock my bow. I don't draw, yet, keeping the arrow pointing casually into the water in front of the boat. "Ready about," Asuti calls quietly, behind me. We're closing fast with the other boats. "Ready," I say. I'd positioned my feet so the yardarm forward of the mast will swing away from my feet. "About we go. Bad tack." The boat sways onto the other tack and turns. I keep my footing easily, staying focused on the sloop as Sam climbs in over the stern. "Stupid," I mutter. "I should go first." I see her open the door and immediately step away from it. I'm there. The bow's come up against the bow of the other ship and Beni's reaching across to grab our mooring line. I rock both boats by jumping over the sloop's stern from a standing start. "Show off," Sam says, grinning. "Don't think there's anyone." "I'll go," I say. "No, you wait here---" "My eyes adjust to the dark quicker, and if I get shot I'm more likely to recover. You're leader now," I point out. "You don't get to take stupid risks if you can avoid it." She looks at me. Then, amazingly, she nods. I'd expected her to argue it out. But then, like I told Asuti, she's smarter than that. "Forward hatch," I say, and jump out of the cockpit and move forward. "Shit, I forgot about that." It's the covered grille just forward of the mainmast and over the bunks in the bow, where I had slept on our first voyage, to Denhall, next to Kerilas. I reason I can jump straight down onto the bunk, crouching, see if there's anyone there, and jump right back out again. The rigging looks tidy anyway; as tidy as can be expected after weathering a storm. I unclip the cover to the hatch and lift it, stepping out of the way of any arrows that might come through the grille. Nothing. I raise the grille and drop down. Dark, resolving in a second to a neat, empty cabin and a lingering smell of menfolk and cooking and a faint whiff of bilge water. I get a weird flashback to when we first stole the boat. It's weird because that was Before. I had to roll dice for observation. Sitting on a hard wooden chair, feeling slightly mellow from James's spliff. But this is so damn familiar. Only that time there were two of the enemy on board. I'd killed them. Roll of the dice, but I remember it now. I did it with a spell, a shamanic version of magic missiles I think, and I flash back to a charm in my flesh, then shards of ice flying out from my fingers like shrapnel. One of them had blood spurting from his impaled eye, and I'd jumped forward and kicked him down and stamped on his throat to stop him screaming. That detail, like so many others, hadn't been in the gameplay. "Fuck!" I say aloud. "Tani, report!" I hear Sam's voice from above. "Cl--- Clear!" I stammer. *Oh shit, I did that. I'd forgotten.* I sit heavily on the fur bedding, shaking. I can hear people stepping onto the deck above me; another old flashback, but I push that back; it's just the little children and the mothers, climbing aboard. Sam swings down into the cabin through the main door from the cockpit and sees me. "Tani, you okay?" We still have to get out of the lagoon, I remember. We have to get the sails up and beat hell out of here. "We have to move," I say, and climb straight back up out through the overhead hatch. "Is everyone aboard?" I call out. "Yes," someone answers. I don't know who. I don't pay attention to a detail like that. "Better be right!" I step around the mast. The gaff is down, lashed to the boom. I quickly start taking the tarpaulin cover off. "Count heads! And someone come forward and get the anchor!" That someone is Asuti. She gets on the winch and starts turning. I can just her singing something I don't recognise. "What do you need?" Sam says, appearing at the hatch I'd just climbed through. "Jib. It's stowed under the forward bunks. And put this somewhere." I shove the tarp sail cover at her and clamber aft into the cockpit. "Everyone else get below!" I look around. Everyone else is already below. "Ten!" Someone calls from below. "Eleven!" Sam shouts back. She's on deck, forward. "Did you count the baby?" Pause. "Eight below," the woman's voice calls, with a little exaggerated precision. "Three on deck," Sam answers. That's eleven. Good. "Stand fast, hoisting mainsail," I call, and start hauling the lanyard to pull the gaff up the mast. "Asuti, did you get the anch---" "Yes!" I check forward, past the raising sail. She and Sam are mounting the jib onto the front of the mast. She's still singing. The boom comes across and the sail fills. We're moving. I grab the tiller and get us moving in the right direction. Close-hauled, the boat starts to heel over. "Sam! Need you on tactical!" Sam appears, coming around the mast and dropping into the cockpit. "Where's Asuti?" I don't hear her singing any more. Sam looks around, suddenly concerned too. "Asuti?" I yell, afraid she's gone overboard. "Here," she calls back, suddenly at the door to the cabin. She must have dropped through the forward hatch. "What are you doing down there?" I ask, querulously, as if that would hide the relief I feel. "I need more hands up here." "See, Beni? I _told_ you!" Asuti says into the cabin, and quickly climbs the steps back out into the cockpit, her long smock gathered up in front in one bunched hand until she's out. She's wearing a huge, vindicated grin. I grin back. I can fill in the rest of what must have happened. Sam's where I want her, across the cockpit from me, looking astern, to see if we're being followed. "I can't see a damn thing," she says. "It's too dark." I can still see without any problems. "Tani Tani I want to come up!" It's Ateis. I don't need this now. She's already climbing the steps. Asuti has started singing quietly again. "No, get below." "But I want---" "Ateis!" I glare at her, and she stops. "Get below and do what the grown-ups tell you or I'll tell the Satthei you're a little mutineer." I make sure I say it loud enough for the grown-ups below to hear me too. Ateis stares daggers back at me for a moment, then her eyes widen and look incredibly soulful. "Ah-ah, no chibi," I say. "No chibi. Get below, I mean it. You're supposed to be setting an example to the little ones." She slumps and sulks back down into the cabin, flouncing her bunches. I shove the door shut with a foot. Sam catches my eye. She was clearly amused by that last exchange. I flash her a grin and look forward again, re-orienting on the reef I have to get us through. Two dark shadows in the water. "Asuti, stand by topsail first, then jib. Not yet. Do you know which ones they are?" "Um..." I point. "It's getting seriously dark, Tani," Sam points out. "Don't want to set a light." My night vision is a tactical advantage now. At least, as long as the slavers don't use flares. "Agree." We're coming up on the reefs. "Ready about," I say. Sam drops into the cockpit. She's already on the right side. "Asuti, ready?" "Yes." "’Bout we go." I bring the boat about to get the right line through the gap in the reefs. We immediately start to get rougher water. "We're out," Asuti says, right by my side. "I found the topsail," she adds. Her eyes must be adjusting properly now. "Good girl. Haul it." I don't have to look; I can feel her, right next to me and still singing, as she pulls the line to open the topsail. The little triangular sale linking the gaff to the topmast unfurls, and I can feel the added bite. Sam briefly ducks down and opens the cabin door. "Everyone be quiet," she says. I hadn't been aware of the noise. I think there was noise, I was just ignoring it. There's a brief ongoing conversation which I also ignore. "Asuti, raise the jib now," I say. I concentrate on our heading for a moment as the jib goes up and make the necessary correction. It leaves us on a broad reach, and about as fast as this sloop can go on a course diagonally away from the island towards the East. I can sense the water deepening under our keel as the sea bed falls away beneath us. "Is this the right heading?" Sam asks. "Yes. We're stable." "Good. I'll go below, see what's up. Call me if---" "Of course." Sam opens the cabin door again and drops down inside, closing it behind her. "Thanks to the Goddess for a good wind," Asuti says. "I didn't ask for it, but I'll take it," I say, tying off the main sheet. "I did." I look down at her, putting it all together at once. I can see her grinning at me in the dark. "Anyone else know you're a windsinger?" I'd read about them in one of the books the Satthei gave me in Denhall: One of the rare humans -- always female -- who could summon weather with song. Windsingers in modern times tend to attribute their gift to the Goddess. Neri opinion is that the ability is innate and primitive; more like a kind of savant magery. "Only my brother. You're not going to tell anyone are you?" she asks. "I only do it when the Satthei goes off hunting, so she won't notice. It's just to help the fleet stay on course without her. My brother says the Satthei would take me onto the familyship if she found out." I grab her impulsively around the shoulders and kiss the top of her head. "I won't tell anyone," I promise. Fareis would encourage her and train her in how to make best use of her gift and be an asset to the fleet, and do it all with kindness and love. Asuti would have a rich, full life, but most of all she would be kept close by, monitored and controlled and, living on the familyship, she would never have children and never fully grow up, if she went to Fareis still a child. Having read the stories of what used to happen to feral windsingers, I'm half persuaded it's a good thing. Only half, by something that might be propaganda. "Do you really think the Satthei's been sunk?" Asuti asks quietly, flicking a look at the cabin door. "I don't know," I say. "Your Satthei got sunk, didn't she?" she says. Flashback. "Burnt," I say. I can feel Asuti shiver next to me, and I put my arm back around her. My other hand still rests on the tiller, but I could be tying that off now, I think. "Why would someone want to do that?" I don't have any answers to that, so I don't say anything. "Is it the Reki?" "I don't think so. Those were men on the beach," I point out. "Slavers." But slavers have always been a minor annoyance to Jeodin. A handful of kids and young adults vanish every year from the outlying islands, and occasionally turn up in a market on the mainland. Nobody imagined slavers had the means or inclination to attack the big market fleets directly. It makes me feel cold and sick just thinking about it. Why is someone trying to take out the Sattheis _now?_