Six: Melicont

There was a saying that ships sailed the Sea of Dreams, but gelders floated on an ocean of Palymyran tea.

The Blue Oriole was moored at the harbormaster's station in high orbit above Melicont.

It was an ancient structure of stone and teak, in the style of the Seventh Restoration, with sweeping pagoda roofs and thick leaded windows.

Extending from every side of the building were wharves and gangways. A half-dozen dream ships were moored to the structure.

It seemed that a small, ramshackle village had been thrown into the sky above a dusty, weather-beaten looking world.

The Harbor Master himself was tending the massive samovar, which sat in the a corner of the audience chamber like a hulking creature.

It huffed and sighed and gave a scent of jasmine and charcoal.

Captain Marsh, First Mate Falconer, and the Cargo Steward, Mr. Stern, sat awkwardly on threadbare satin cushions.

The Harbor Master brought them each a tiny, delicate cup of steaming broth, distributing lumps of black anise sugar with a flourish.

He was an ugly, pug-faced man. When he grinned, his mouth seemed to devour his own face.

His eyes swiveled about in their sockets, in the half-blind way of Melicontian noblemen.

"It is a great privilege," the Master crooned, "a great privilege to treat directly with the great and may I go so far as to say the legendary Captain Marsh."

Captain Marsh made a gesture that was something between a nod and a shudder.

It was the habit of Melicontians to express their dissatisfaction through courteous flattery.

If the Harbor Master were satisfied that the Blue Oriole's paperwork was in order, he would never have invited her officers to tea.

"May I also express some surprise and perhaps even a hint of dismay," he continued, "that so many of our lovely and, yes, our important and vital parrots are now lying dead among the offal in the bowels of your vessel?"

The fellow blinked at them, leering idiotically.

Mr. Stern, whose idea it had been to accept the birds as cargo, cleared his throat. "The creatures were diseased before they came aboard."

"Ah." The Harbor Master nodded, as if in real delight. "And I suppose this pertinent and might I suggest even vital bit of information was recorded prominently in your cargo manifest?"

"No, I'm afraid not. We didn't realize, you see, until after we had left port."

"So you are saying that the moment of realization, of enlightenment, came after the signing of the very explicit and perfectly legitimate contract? Which is to say, after you thoroughly inspected the goods which you so kindly agreed to deliver to our humble world?"

Mr. Stern squirmed. He was a Tarisian, with a yellow oiled moustache and the tattoo of an ankh above each eye. Like allTarisians he loathed losing money.

It gave him a physical pain in his intestines.

Captain Marsh put his tea cup on the floor with a rattle and said, "Come to the point, please, Harbor Master. What will you pay us for the birds that are still alive?"

The Master wrung his hands painfully and after hemming and hawing for another minute mentioned an abysmally low price.

"You realize that with so many parrots dead, the information we can glean from the surviving creatures will be of minimal value."

"Minimal," repeated the Captain.

"I am afraid so. It is as if you had delivered to us a book with most of the pages ruined or torn out. I ask you: What good is a book with half the words missing?"

Captain Marsh nodded. He rose and went to one of the small, thick-paned windows. He stood with his legs slightly spread, hands clasped behind his back.

Beyond the window spread a view of Melicont, its gray deserts like a dirty expanse of pavement. Ochre rivers twisted and turned and seemed to vanish into the dust.

It was a wretched little world. No wonder so many of its people chose the expatriate life.

"I couldn't help noticing," said the Captain, "that a fair number of your parrots were speaking melphik. And in the cursed tongue of the Breathless."

"You must have misunderstood," cooed the Harbor Master. "Our birds are trained to speak in every manner of gibberish. To confuse and mislead our competitors."

"I know a little of the melphik speech," said Captain Marsh. "I also know that congress with their race is expressly forbidden by the Admiralty. It might interest them to see one of these birds."

The Master splayed his fingers and said, "As a great navigator and seaman, you must know the importance of gathering every possible clue about the Dream. We require information, whatever the source."

The Captain nodded. "It has also occurred to me that the information in those parrots must have come at great expense if the melphik had anything to do with it."

The Harbor Master reached a hand and took a lump of black sugar and tucked it nervously between his teeth.

"The price you quoted," said Captain Marsh, "isn't enough to pay my costs. I might as well wring their necks, the lot of them."

"We could have a feast, sir," said Falconer. "Stew the little buggers maybe, or roast them on a spit."

"And their feathers," agreed Mr. Stern, "could be sold to the haberdasheries on Wipa. They don't care if the birds are dead."

The Harbor Master sucked noisily and seemed to be counting the knuckles on his fingers. His eyes rolled like casters.

"It might possibly be," the fellow concluded, "that I was premature and yes even hasty in my earlier offer. Perhaps Mr. Stern and I might inspect the cargo one more time, collegially as it were, to determine a satisfactory compensation."

The Captain and Falconer returned to the Oriole.

The negotiation continued for several more hours but in the end, Mr. Stern felt that he had reached an equitable, though far from generous, price.

"It still sounds damned low to me," said the Captain, sitting glumly in his chambers at the stern of the ship. "We lost a baker's dozen of souls."

"And they lost half their birds," said Mr. Stern.

"Fair enough. Just get us our gelders, Mr. Stern, and let's get away from this place. And we'll have no more to do with talking parrots, is that understood?"

"Aye, sir."

When Mr. Stern went back to conclude the deal, he was accompanied by Marcus Barkle.

The Harbor Master looked at him sourly and said, "Why have you brought this child with you?"

"Barkle here is our Lord of Shrouds," said Mr. Stern. "He is in need of, ah, new recruits. To replace some of our dearly departed."

The Master placed a limber hand over his hypothetical heart and said, "Oh, no. Oh dear, my good sirs. The Melicontians don't allow their children to go before the mast under any circumstances. No, no -- we are not sailors. Only mapmakers."

"Why not, then?" said Marcus. "I thought your lot liked to travel and learn about the world."

"We are scribes, not adventurers," said the fellow. "What's more, we never serve masters other than ourselves. It wouldn't be wise. Even our young children know things, you see. Proprietary things. Secret things. It wouldn't do for a young Melicontian to find his loyalties as it were divided."

"What are we to do then? You can't sail a dreamclipper without kids."

The Harbor Master made a pantomime of thinking deeply about the problem. It was certain that he had been confronted with this question many times before.

"We are," he said at last, "only a short hop away from a rather awkward little planet called Nail. Perhaps you have heard of it?"

"I've been there before," said Barkle. He looked at Mr. Stern and nodded. "We might make that kind of haul with the crew we got, so long as the weather holds. I'm betting there's some good hunting on Nail."

Mr. Stern shrugged and said, "Perhaps we can convince the Captain to make a few repairs while we're at it. The Oriole's due for a proper landfall."

Next: The Pilgrim's Daughter