Strange Noises Fiction by Rachel Greenham

Sam emerges out into the cockpit again a little later. “Asutan, get below. Beni says it’s your bedtime.”

Asuti groans.

“Go on,” I say. “I don’t need you now.” I smile. “Sorry.”

She sighs. “All right.” And goes below.

Sam sits next to me. “You still need to be up here? Can anyone else hold course?”

I think about it. “I guess they could, as long as the wind holds up. How are things downstairs?”

“Settling in well. They’ve made up a bunk for you. You’re sharing with Ateis, just starboard-aft of the bow bunks. Beni and I are in there.”

“Oh. Okay. Ateis being good?”

“Yeah.”

I sigh and lean back and look at the topsail and the stars beyond. Everything’s running smoothly. We’re making good speed.

“There’s just us now,” I say.

“We don’t know Lotan’s dead,” Sam replies. “Listen: We also don’t know we were the only group left on the atoll. If there were any others they’ve probably been captured. Maybe he can do something. We did the right thing. We got the women and kids out.”

“Oh God. Just this morning I told the Satthei she could cast him adrift for all I care,” I say. “And now he goes and does something like this, stupid lump.”

Sam chuckles.

“D’you think he’d have been that brave if he didn’t think it was just a game?” I wonder aloud.

Sam thinks for a moment. “Situation like that, I think people act according to their natures. Existential fuckwittery is too high-level a process when it gets realtime like that.”

I nod, accepting that. Part of me has been feeling relieved that I don’t have to make any recommendations for the Satthei about what to do about Lotan. Ironically, I think I now know what I would tell her. ‘He’s a fighter. He needs an enemy in front of him and someone to defend behind him. Once that situation presented itself he acted according to his nature.’ I’m still not sure there would be a place for him in the marketeer fleet, but somewhere in the world there would be.

“I shot four people on that beach,” Sam says quietly, thinking different thoughts. “Didn’t even stop to think.”

“I got three,” I say.

We sit in silence for a while.

“I keep thinking I ought to be feeling something about that,” Sam says. In over eight months it’s the first combat we’ve been in. Given we jumped into a roleplaying game that’s probably an achievement.

“Maybe he knew there wasn’t going to be room,” she says eventually, obviously thinking about Lotan again. “We’re tight on provisions as it is. I hope this wind holds.”

I have a feeling it might.

It makes me think. We really needed a fast boat, and there was my own sloop, within easy reach. We really needed the right wind, and hey-presto we have a windsinger on board. These coincidences are too good for a gamer not to notice. I try to be reassured by the thought that maybe something or someone is looking out for us; and I try not to think too hard along the lines that when the DM is helping the party get somewhere quickly you can bet something nasty will be waiting.

“What’s the plan?”

Sam sighs. She looks tired. “Ask me tomorrow.”