“Would you mind if I talked to you? When we met earlier and you spoke of your home world, I wanted to very much.”

“I’d like to,” I told him, “if you wouldn’t mind answering a few questions.” What I would really have liked was a chance to rest. I was still far from recovered, but an opportunity to gain information was not to be squandered.

“No,” Idas said. “Not a bit — I’d very much enjoy answering your questions, if you’ll answer mine.”

Seeking an innocuous way to begin, I took off my boots and stretched myself upon the bunk, which complained of me softly. “Then what do you call the tongue we’re speaking?” I began.

“The way we’re talking now? Why, Ship, of course.”

“Do you know any other languages, Idas?”

“No, not I. I was born on board, you see. That was one of the things I wanted to ask you about — how life is different for someone from a real world. I’ve heard a lot of stories from the crew, but they’re just ignorant seamen. I can tell that you’re a person who thinks.”

“Thank you. Having been born here, you’ve had a lot of chances to visit real worlds. Have you found many where they spoke Ship?”

“To tell the truth, I haven’t taken shore leave as often as I could have. My appearance…you’ve probably noticed—”

“Answer my question, please.”

“They speak Ship on most worlds, I suppose.” Idas’s voice sounded a trifle nearer than it had, I thought.

“I see. On Urth, what you call Ship is spoken only in our Commonwealth. We hold it a more ancient tongue than the others, but up until now I’ve never been sure that was true.” I decided to steer the talk to whatever had plunged everything in darkness: “This would be a great deal more satisfying if we could see each other, wouldn’t it?”

“Oh, yes! Won’t you use your light?”

“In a moment, perhaps. Do you think they’ll get the ship’s lights working again soon?”

“They’re trying to fix it so the most important parts have lights now,” Idas said. “But this isn’t an important part.”

“What went wrong?”

I could practically see his shrug. “Something conductive must have fallen across the terminals of one of the big cells, but no one can find out what it was. Anyway, the plates burned through. Some cables too, and that shouldn’t have happened.”

“And all the other sailors are working there?”

“Most of my gang.”

I was certain he was nearer now, no more than an ell from the bunk.

“A few got off for other things. That was how I got away. Severian, your home world…is it beautiful there?”

“Very beautiful, but terrible too. Possibly the loveliest things of all are the ice isles that sail up like argosies from the south. They’re white and pale green, and they sparkle like diamonds or emeralds when the sun strikes them. The sea around them looks black, but it’s so clear you can see their hulls far down in the pelagic deeps—”

Idas’s breath hissed ever so faintly. Hearing it, I drew my knife as quietly as I could.

“—and each rears like a mountain against a royal-blue sky dusted with stars. But nothing can live on those ice isles…nothing human. Idas, I’m getting sleepy. Perhaps you’d better go.”

“I’d like to ask you much, much more.”

“And so you will, another time.”

“Severian, do men touch each other sometimes on your world? Clasp hands as a sign of friendship? They do that on a lot of worlds.”

“And on mine, too,” I said, and shifted the knife to my left hand.

“Let’s clasp hands then, and I’ll go.”

“All right,” I told him.

Our fingertips touched, and at that moment the cabin light came on.

He was holding a bob, its blade below his hand. He drove it down with all his weight behind it. My right hand flew up. I could never have stopped that blow, but I managed to deflect it; the broad point went through my shirt and plunged into the mattress so near my skin that I felt the chill of the steel.

He tried to jerk the bob back, but I got his wrist, and he could not pull free of my grip. I could have killed him easily, but I ran my blade through his forearm instead, to make him let go of the hilt.

He screamed — not so much from pain, I think, as from the sight of my blade thrusting from his flesh. I threw him down, and a moment later had the point of my knife at his throat.

“Quiet,” I told him, “or I’ll kill you on the spot. How thick are these walls?”

“My arm—”

“Forget your arm. There’ll be time enough to lick your blood. Answer me!”

“Not thick at all. The walls and floors are just sheets of metal.”

“Good. That means there’s no one about. I was listening while I lay on the bunk, and I didn’t hear a single step. You may wail all you want. Now stand up.”

The hunting knife had a good edge: I slit Idas’s shirt down the back and pulled it off, revealing the budding breasts I had half suspected.

“Who put you on this ship, girl? Abaia?”

“You knew!” Idas stared at me, her pale eyes wide.

I shook my head and cut a strip from the shirt. “Here, wind your arm with this.”

“Thank you, but it doesn’t matter. My life’s over anyway.”

“I said to wind it. When I go to work on you, I don’t want to get any more blood on these clothes than I have already.”

“There will be no need to torture me. Yes, I was a slave of Abaia’s.”

“Sent to kill me so I wouldn’t bring the New Sun?”

She nodded.

“Chosen because you were still small enough to pass as human. Who are the others?”

“There aren’t any others.”

I would have seized her, but she held up her right hand. “I swear it by Lord Abaia! There may be others, but I don’t know them.”

“It was you who killed my steward?”

“Yes”

“And searched my stateroom?”

“Yes.”

“But it wasn’t you I burned with my pistol. Who was that?”

“Only a hand I hired for a chrisos; I was down the gangway when you fired. You see, I wanted to cast the body adrift, but I wasn’t sure I could carry it without help and work the hatches too. Besides…” Her voice trailed away.

“Besides what?”

“Besides, he’d have had to help me with other things too, after that. Isn’t that right? Now, how did you know? Please tell me.”

“It wasn’t you that attacked me at the apport pens, either. Who was that?”

Idas shook her head as though to clear it. “I didn’t know you’d been attacked at all.”

“How old are you, Idas?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ten? Thirteen?”

“We don’t number the years.” She shrugged. “But you said we weren’t human, and we’re as human as you. We’re the Other People, the folk of the Great Lords who dwell in the sea and underground. Now, please, I’ve answered your questions, so answer mine. How did you know?”

I sat on the bunk. Soon I would begin the excruciation of this lanky child; it had been a long while — perhaps before she was born — since I had been the Journeyman Severian, and I would not relish the task. I was half hoping she would bolt for the door.

“In the first place, you didn’t talk like a sailor. I once had a friend who did, so I notice when others do, though that’s much too long a tale to tell now. My troubles — the murder my steward and so on — started soon after I met you and others. You told me at once that you’d been born on this ship, but the others talked like seamen, except for Sidero, and you didn’t.”

“Purn and Gunnie are from Urth.”

“Then too, you misdirected me when I asked the way to the galley. You meant to follow me and kill me when you could, but I found my stateroom, and that must have seemed better to you. You could wait until I was asleep and talk your way past the lock. That wouldn’t have been hard, I suppose, since you’re a member of the crew.”

Idas nodded. “I brought tools, and I told your lock I’d been sent to mend a drawer.”

“But I wasn’t there. The steward stopped you as you were leaving. What were you looking for?”

“Your letter, the one that the aquastors of Urth gave you for the Hierogrammate. I found it and burned it there in your own stateroom.” Her voice held a note of triumph now.