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Updated: June 9, 2025
As Ross hesitated just within the doorway Torgul glanced back at him. "You have your life and that of your man, stranger. Do not ask more of me, unless you have that within your hands to enforce the asking." "I want nothing, save to be returned to where you took me, Captain." Torgul smiled grimly. "You are the sea, you yourself said that. The sea is wide, but it is all one.
His gamble had paid off; by the present signs he had won his freedom. "And my swordsman?" As he buckled on the belt Ross nodded at Loketh still lying bound where they had pushed him at the beginning of the fight. "He is sworn to you?" Torgul asked. "He is." "Loose the coast rat then," the Rover ordered. "Now tell me, stranger, what manner of man are you? Do you come from the Foanna, after all?
They had no hair on their heads, and their bodies were of this hue " She plucked at one of the coverings they had heaped around her; it was a lavender-blue mixture. Ross sucked in his breath, and Torgul was fast to pounce upon the understanding he read in the Terran's face. "Not your kind but still you know them!" "I know them," Ross agreed. "They are the enemy!"
Torgul drew lines with the point of his sword on the table top. "And here is Kyn Add. Salkars have a great hunger at this time. Show them bait and they will follow; especially will they follow swimming bait." There were a great many holes in the plan which had only a halfway chance of working. But the Rovers seized upon it with enthusiasm, and so it was set up.
"What is that?" Torgul demanded. "A type of ship which goes under the waves, not through them, carrying air within its hull for the breathing of the crew." Torgul's eyes narrowed. One of the other captains who had been summoned from the two companion cruisers gave a snort of disbelief. "There are no such ships " he began, to be silenced by a gesture from Torgul.
This was a gesture of ceremony, but he wanted a steady head and a quick tongue for any coming argument. Torgul, Afrukta, Ongal the three commanders of the Rover cruisers; Jazia, who represented the mysterious Power of Phutka; Vistur and some other subordinate officers; Karara; himself, with Loketh hovering behind: a council of war. But summoned against whom?
Suppose, just suppose Torgul could be persuaded that this attack on the gutted Kyn Add was useless. Would the Rover commander take them back to the Foanna keep? Or with the dolphins and the skiff could Ross himself return to make the try? That he could make it on his own, Ross doubted. Excitement and will power had buoyed him up throughout the past Hawaikan day and night.
"And you believe?" Ross asked as Torgul finished his résumé of the new dangers besetting his people. Torgul's hand, its long, slender fingers spidery to Terran eyes, rubbed back and forth across his chin before he answered: "It is very hard for one who has fought them long to believe that suddenly those shore rats are entrusting themselves to the waves, venturing out to stir us with their swords.
Torgul nodded. "They shall meet the Justice of Phutka after the Law. I think they will wish that they had been left to the boarding axes of angry men." "They are worth more alive than dead, Captain. Do you not wish to know why they have carried war to your people, how many of them there may yet be to attack and other things?
Not yet has he risen high enough to turn the hook of his sword against them. But would the Foanna do so?" "If not the Foanna, then others wearing like robes," Ashe said slowly. "Others wearing like robes?" repeated Torgul. Now his frown was heavy. "No man would take on the guise of the Foanna; he would be blasted by their power for so doing.
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