“So what’s a letter between brothers more or less? Is the news out there that bad?”

“It may be good, or bad, or the usual scary mix of things. It’ll still touch off the crazies.”

“Oh, God, everything touches off the crazies. That’s why they’re crazy. Give me your letter, silly brother. I don’t have that much paper, but I’ve got a computer aboard, for my charts.”

He opened his coat and took out a disc from an inner pocket of his coat, where he carried that, and Tabini’s letter. He gave the right one to Toby. He was extremely careful about that transaction.

“This little thing,” Toby said. “Doesn’t look dangerous to me.”

“Don’t let anybody see it until you’ve read it end to end. That’s all I ask. You’ve had a rough enough time being related to me, brother. I really, really don’t want to make it worse.”

Toby pocketed the disk and patted the pocket. “I secretly enjoy it.”

“God, I don’t know how you could.”

“Oh, look at us, now. Good excuse for a fishing trip, good view of a forbidden coast, breaking the law with a naval escort off beyond that horizon… and knowing there’s something useful I can do about the current messed-up state of the world. What more could I ask?”

“A brother who shows up when it’s really important.”

Toby grabbed his arm, hauled him around, never mind the boatful of atevi that went from relaxed to high alert. “Don’t you ever say that, Bren.”

“A discussion of brothers, nadiin-ji,” Bren said over the rush of the water, and more quietly, to Toby, who had let him go. “I won’t say it, but I still think it. Don’t meddle with my load of guilt, Toby. It looks like hell, but I’ve got it pretty well balanced by now.”

“Don’t joke.”

“I’m not joking.”

“The hell. What happened with mum was what had to happen, sooner or later, the course of nature, happens to us all, and no, as happened, you couldn’t possibly have been there, or you couldn’t have gone and done whatever you’ve done out there. What happened between me and Jill was my doing, my business, our business—Jill undertook a warfare the same as mum, to have me disavow everybody but her own circle. I must have picked her out of my subconscious, a familiar style of dealing with people, something I understood by upbringing. God only knows. But she and mum were a real bad match.”

“I won’t argue with you.”

“And Barb’s not like that. She’s not Jill.”

Oh, God, he most of all didn’t want to tread that territory. He didn’t want to claim to know her the way he did. But he did know her. “The reason we didn’t get along was the job, brother, just the job.”

“She’s not possessive.”

Not possessive yet, he thought, Toby was wrong about that: Barb was exactly like Jill, exactly like their mother. At least—he said to himself—she had been of that stamp. She’d gotten along perfectly with their mother, understood exactly what grief their mother had, at war with Jill.

But he carefully, determinedly, gave Barb credit for improvement over the years, most of it a matter of growing up, dealing with the consequences of her choices, after he’d gotten as far from Barb as he could get. She was entirely agreeable, if she was getting what she wanted, exactly like their mother. She was adept at making the environment constantly tense if she wasn’t getting what she wanted, exactly like Jill, and on one level his conscience told him he was a coward not to say exactly that to Toby, right now, while he had the chance and before Toby got himself into another bad relationship. But half of all that had been wrong in his relationship with Barb… was him, and his being constantly on the mainland; and constantly resenting the demands their mother put on him, and recognizing that game all too well—he knew that, too. If Toby and Barb shared a boat and were never apart—they might be happy. They could be happy. Could he help, by breaking that up with what he thought he knew?

“Is there a problem?” Toby asked, going defensive, and worried.

“She’s Barb, that’s all you can say. The fire’s completely cold between us, not even an ember left alight. That’s no problem of that sort; but we never got a chance to make a decent friendship after we broke up. I’ll do my level best to do that now. For your sake. You can tell her that, if you like.”

Toby let go a breath, so wonderfully open, so transparent and honest, all the way to the depths, his brother, two things which he wasn’t, and couldn’t be for two minutes running.

“I’ll do better than my level best,” he said. “We’ll work it out. Don’t worry about it.”

But he worried about it. There was one more thing Barb liked, different than their mother, and Jill. She liked the spice of drama in her life. She couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a little excitement. And if Barb pulled one of her shifts of attraction from Toby to him, just to see the sparks fly, he didn’t know what he’d do. The stability Barb demanded in her partners had never had to apply to Barb.

A thought which he shut down, except the determination to have a talk with Barb and lay down the rules of engagement—or non-engagement, as the case might be.

“Tell you what,” he said to Toby, “if you have any lingering doubt, believe this: Jago will keep us honest. I have an attachment. You know that.” Half humorously: “And believe me, Jago’s not to cross.”

Toby shifted a glance aft. Jago was not in view. But his shoulders relaxed as he leaned against the rail. “I hope you’re happy, Bren. And I’m not criticizing. Jago is special. She’s very special. And I really hope you’re happy. Contented, in the human sense.”

“Mutual,” he said, glad to escape the topic, and leaned there beside his brother, while Barb steered the boat and Jago—did whatever Jago did. Rested, perhaps. Perhaps just watched Barb like a predator watching prey. One never forgot, either, that Jago’s hearing was far more acute than humans were used to reckoning, and she understood Mosphei’ much better than humans were used to being understood.

Had she overheard? The rush of the water was very loud. Probably she hadn’t. He let it go. There was honesty between him and Jago, such that he could outright ask her, and they could discuss what Toby had said—remarkable, wonderful in relationships he’d had. He let go the tension.

Peace, for about half a minute.

A commotion, Cajeiri’s exclamation, and a sharp word from Ilisidi, involving venom, and cutting a line.

“Stingfish,” Bren cried, without even seeing the situation, and shoved away from the rail to get back past the deck house, which blocked their view. Toby was right behind him.

Cenedi had snagged the fishing line, it seemed, and with a flash of a knife sent Cajeiri’s orange-spotted, finny prize back into the sea, hook and all, to the relief of all aboard.

“But I had no chance to see it!” Cajeiri protested.

“Fortunate,” Ilisidi said dryly, from her seat against the cabin wall. “Foolish boy.”

“But, mani-ma, Cenedi cut my line!”

“Nand’ Toby can show you how to rig another hook to the line, young sir,” Bren said, “a valuable skill for a fisherman.” Water was scattered over the white deck, right across Ilisidi’s sitting-area, from what must have been a considerable inboard wing of the snaky animal in question, with lethal side spines and an equally lethal bite of needlelike teeth, had the boy attempted to disengage the hook. “And when we have an opportunity, I shall show you a detailed picture of the creature—which, if it had bitten your great-grandmother, would have grieved us all.”

A stamp of the formidable cane on the deck. “We would not be so foolish as to be bitten. One does not say the same for a willful boy.”

“Mani-ma.” A bow. A very measured bow. Oh, we are not behaving well today, Bren thought. The boy was as tired as the rest of them, and desperately trying, after the frantic habit of youth, to be entertained, but patience and good humor was in very short supply.