Eason settled down in the stern, looking from one to the other, admiring them both, and speculating idly on which would be best in bed. It was going to be enjoyable finding out.
For three hours they moved deeper into the archipelago. Families had been planting the coral kernels around the mainland coast for over two centuries, producing their little island fiefdoms. They numbered in the tens of thousands now.
The larger, inhabited, islands were spaced two or three kilometres apart, leaving a broad network of channels to navigate through. Tiarella navigated Orphée around innumerable spits and reefs without even reducing speed.
Eason gripped the gunwale tightly as vicious jags of coral flashed past the outriggers. Most of the islands he could see had tall palm trees growing above the beaches. Some had just a few grand houses half-concealed through the lush vegetation, while others hosted small villages of wooden bungalows, whitewashed planks glowing copper in the sinking sun.
«There it is,» Althaea called excitedly from the prow. She was on her feet, pointing ahead in excitement. «Charmaine.» She gave Eason a shy smile.
The island was a large one, with a lot more foliage than the others; its trees formed a veritable jungle. Their trunks were woven together with a dense web of vines; grape-cluster cascades of vividly coloured flowers, fluoresced by the low sun, bobbed about like Chinese lanterns.
Eason couldn't see any beaches on this side. Several low shingle shelves were choked by straggly bushes which extended right down to the water's edge. Other than that, the barricade of pink-tinged coral was a couple of metres high.
Orphée was heading for a wooden jetty sticking out of the coral wall.
«What do you do here?» he asked Tiarella.
«Scrape by,» she said, then relented. «Those trees you can see are all geneered citrus varieties, some of them are actually xenoc. We used to supply all the nearby islands with fruit, and some coffee beans, too; it gave the community a sense of independence from the mainland. Fishing is the mainstay in this section of the archipelago. Trees have a lot of trouble finding the right minerals to fruit successfully out here, even with geneering. There's never enough soil, you see. But my grandfather started dredging up seaweed almost as soon as the island's original kernel grew out above the water. It took him thirty years to establish a decent layer of loam. Then Dad improved it, he designed some kind of bug which helped break the aboriginal seaweed down even faster. But I'm afraid I've allowed the groves to run wild since my husband died.»
«Why?»
She shrugged, uncoiling a mooring rope. «I didn't have the heart to carry on. Basically, I'm just hanging on until Althaea finds herself someone. It's her island really. When she has a family of her own, they can put it back on its feet.»
The house was set in a dishevelled clearing about a hundred metres from the jetty. It was a two-storey stone building with climbing roses scrambling around the ground-floor windows and a wooden balcony running along its front. Big precipitator leaves hung under the eaves, emerald valentines sucking drinking water out of the muggy air. When he got close, Eason could see the white paint was flaking from the doors and window frames, moss and weeds clogged the guttering, and the balcony was steadily rotting away. Several first-floor windows were boarded up.
His situation was looking better by the minute. Two women, a drunk, and an isolated, rundown island. He could stay here for a century and no one would ever find him.
As soon as they walked into the clearing, birds exploded from the trees, filling the air with beating wings and a strident screeching. The flock was split between parrots and some weird blunt-headed thing which made him think of pterodactyls. Whatever they were, they were big, about thirty centimetres long, with broad wings and whiplike tails; their colours were incredible—scarlet, gold, azure, jade.
Rousseau clamped his hands over his ears, belching wetly.
«What the hell are those?» Eason shouted above the din.
Althaea laughed. «They're firedrakes. Aren't they beautiful?»
«I thought Tropicana didn't have any aboriginal animals; there isn't enough dry land for them to evolve.»
«Firedrakes didn't evolve. They're a sort of cross between a bat, a lizard, and a parrot.»
He gawped, using his retinal amps to get a better look at one; and damn it, the thing did look like a terrestrial lizard, with membranous wings where the forepaws should be.
«My father spliced the original ones together about forty years ago,» Tiarella said. «He was a geneticist, a very good one.»
«You could make a fortune selling them,» Eason said.
«Not really. They can't fly very far, they only live for about three years, only a third of the eggs ever hatch, they're prone to disease, and they're not very sociable. Dad was going to improve them, but he never got round to it.»
«But they're ours,» Althaea said proudly. «Nobody else has them. They help make Charmaine special.»
Eason walked into the ground-floor study the next morning. He was still kneading kinks out of his back; the bed in the fusty little back room they'd given him was incredibly hard. It was only for one night; Tiarella had told him he would be living in one of the grove workers' chalets.
The study, like the rest of the house, had dull-red clay floor tiles and whitewashed plaster walls. Several black and white prints of various sizes were hanging up. A big brass fan was spinning slowly on the ceiling.
Tiarella was sitting behind a broad teak desk. The only objects on the polished wood surface in front of her were a century-old computer slate, and a pack of cards with a fanciful design printed on the back—from what he could see it looked like a star map.
He sat in an austere high-backed chair facing her.
«About your duties,» she said. «You can start by repairing the grove worker chalets. We have a carpentry shop with a full set of tools. Ross doesn't use them much these days. Are you any good with tools?»
He checked the files stored in his synaptic web. «I couldn't build you an ornamental cabinet, but cutting roofing timbers to length is no trouble.»
«Good. After that I'd like you to start on the garden.»
«Right.»
Tiarella picked up the pack of cards and started to shuffle them absently. She had the dexterity of a professional croupier. «We are getting a little bit too overgrown here. Charmaine might look charmingly rustic when you sail by, but the vines are becoming a nuisance.»
He nodded at one of the big prints on the wall. It was of three people, a formal family pose: Tiarella when she was younger, looking even more like Althaea, a bearded man in his late twenties, and a young boy about ten years old. «Is that your husband?»
The cards were merged with a sharp burring sound. «Yes, that's Vanstone, and Krelange, our son. They died eighteen years ago. It was a boating accident. They were outside the archipelago when a hurricane blew up. They weren't found until two days later. There wasn't much left. The razorsquids . . .»
«It must have been tough for you.»
«Yes. It was. I loved him like nobody else. Ours was a genuine till death do us part marriage. If it hadn't been for Althaea I would probably have killed myself.»
He glanced up sharply, meeting a hard-set smile.
«Oh yes, it is possible to love someone that much. Enough so their absence is pure torture. Have you ever experienced that kind of love, Eason?»
«No.»