Lightning feinted once, twice, thrust at Wrenn’s sword arm. Wrenn had anticipated it and bound Lightning’s blade. They grated together with a sound like knives sharpened on a steel.

Wrenn angled his blade and thrust down; his rapier point bounced off Lightning’s thigh. Lightning knelt but before he hit the deck the round padded button was under his chin. Lightning spread his arms wide, his sword loose in his right hand.

Wrenn froze. His blue Summerday FC shirt had turned black with sweat; his face was crimson. He looked at Lightning straight and whispered, “You’re dead.”

Bodies in white shirts sprawled all over the ships. A gust buffeted Petrel and Melowne; water sloshed under their bows. There was complete silence.

Lightning brought his hands together in applause. Wrenn saluted him with his rapier on which new scrapes and scratches shone bright.

Everyone began to cheer. The beaten sailors got to their feet, brushing down their clothes, grinning at each other and staring with envy and respect in Wrenn’s direction. The Swordsman concentrated on stretching his back and robust limbs in his customary sequence. His rapier stuck upright between the planks.

I vaulted to the Melowne, climbed to the forecastle and shook his hand. “You’re amazing.”

Wrenn bowed to me, and the audience; drops of sweat fell from his hair to the deck. Lightning shook and flexed his sword arm. It must have felt like lead from the strain and vibration.

Mist clapped her hands briskly; her high voice carried over the ships. “On your feet, crew, and to your stations. Double rations tonight of rum and beer if you drink to the health and genius of Serein Wrenn.”

Wrenn turned to Lightning and said effusively, “Thank you. That was a great idea. Thanks for letting me show the Zascai my flair.”

“Indeed. I admit I’ve never fought on a ship before, but one thousand years ago I saw the then Swordsman take on three hundred men in the Castle’s dining hall. Not just sailors, either; six lamai sections of a Select Fyrd division.”

Wrenn’s smile faded instantly, his pride deflated. However I saw a teasing gleam in Lightning’s eye; I think he was making it up.

Into the second month every sailor and passenger on the Stormy Petrel and Melowne started to become possessive about their property. I knew with detailed intimacy the few items I had brought on board; I mended and cared for them jealously. I put a keen edge on my axe. I polished my mirror. I kept my wings preened and oiled in perfect condition. The ocean yielded nothing so the neatness of my cabin and the conservation of materials took on a great importance. I protected my private space thoroughly; we all became territorial. Lightning acted as if he had condensed his entire palace into a ship’s berth. He spent too much time talking to Wrenn and seemed not to have noticed that I was taking cat again.

As a passenger I felt powerless and incarcerated. There were few chances to be of use but Mist employed me to carry messages between the ships. Every morning I tried to instruct her in Old Morenzian but she wasn’t comfortable with formal study.

Something about the precise figures in Mist’s ledger, her neatly complicated compasses and the vermeil astrolabe fascinated me almost as much as the glassware and herbs in the chemist’s shop where I once worked. She had a quadrant made of incised ivory, a shining brass sextant and a very accurate sea clock in a cushioned casket. For all Mist’s expertise she couldn’t see from the air as I could, so every afternoon I checked the coastlines of her portolan charts. The sheer distance we were sailing frightened me, but there was no way I could bring her to confess the danger we were in.

Every dusk I went below deck to check on the Insect. Immediately it saw me it attacked, crashing into the bars of its cage. I crouched behind my axe, enjoying the adrenaline surge, and watched until it tired itself out. Everybody knows that Insects can’t be trained; if it had been any other wild animal I would have dedicated the voyage to bringing it under control. It didn’t understand my signals. It only sensed me as food. It raged and starved.

One evening I managed to loop a leather strap around the Insect’s foreleg, but it tore off the tether and ate it. It chewed bones and layered them onto the smelly hard white paste spread around the edges of its cage. The concretion grew thicker over days and weeks. When it reached six centimeters high, I realized that the Insect was building a wall. I think it wanted to find other Insects, after all they are animals that work together. Since it found it was inexplicably alone and trapped, it began walling itself into a cell in which it presumably felt more at home.

I hoped that the Insect didn’t have the ability to call others through, from whatever Shift world it hatched in. I imagined thousands of Insects popping into the hold, the ship gradually lowering in the water with their weight. Or our Insect finding a path to vanish back into the Shift, leaving an empty cage. That would raise some questions.

Each night, I stayed inside my cabin with the door bolted. I tried to meditate into the Shift, but every time I was unsuccessful and extremely frustrated. I tried to relax and empty my mind but I couldn’t concentrate for more than a couple of minutes before I started on another line of thought, for example Tern’s infidelity. After a week, I gave up.

I put red and yellow wraps in my hair and threaded fat jade beads onto my dreadlocks. I swigged rum. I masturbated myself sore. I lived immersed in sensation for weeks on end until the scolopendium stashed in my paper wraps ran out. I tried to ration it but that just made the craving worse. Since I’ve been addicted in the past, my body recognizes cat and knows how to use it. I knew I could become quickly hooked again and had to be careful, but it was the only thing that stopped me thinking of Tern.

I slid down the scrollwork to the orlop deck and started searching among the supplies. The strength of the craving is difficult to describe to someone who has never been an addict. It is like an intense hunger, the same deep, terrible need a starving man has for food. It gnaws all the time, from the moment of waking through to the night, a tiny whisper or a cold gale that will push you into the most bizarre behaviors. It made me creep down here to the lazaretto lockers at the stern. Most of my willpower was spent on coping with the constant fear of floating in the middle of the ocean; I no longer had the strength to stand against my yearning for cat.

The ship’s medical supplies were in a wooden trunk. Unable to pick the lock, I took my axe to it. I sorted through all the various pieces of equipment, steamed-clean scalpels, folded bandages and ointment jars, and came across a cardboard box with struts separating corked glass ampoules. I ran my hand over them and they rattled. I pulled one out and looked at the label. A little skylark logo; Scolopendium. 3% aqueous solution. Do not exceed the dose prescribed. Export interdicted.

Skylarks. I counted across a row and down a column; there were fifty tubes, a great deal too much for this ship to be carrying. I was convinced that the Sailor must expect a fight on Tris. There were also a number of slender glass syringes in clean paper packets. I tore the end off one and shook it out. It’s a better rush than I’ve had so far. No! God, honestly, Jant, you have no self-control. I put it down, feeling as if I wasn’t in my body, with denial so great I wondered if I were actually here at all.

I have a choice. I’ll just use it once and then throw all these ampoules overboard. I gave in-yes, I’ll do it-and a flush of relaxation spread through me, a warm feeling of relief as if I had taken the shot already. I hadn’t even noticed how on edge I was, how tightly I had been holding myself.