Chapter 26

Murrai are empathically empowered. No one uses empathic energy in Pathia anymore, I reminded myself. Except for the occasional litter service. Where do they get their empathic energy? If the murrai don’t need refuelling, then their owners would be cleaning up in the business sense.

“Uhh… If you can understand me, touch your nose,” I instruct­ed. Neither murrai did anything other than continuing to plod and stare up at me. “Voice command isn’t it, then,” I murmured. With an exaggerated gesture, I touched my nose with a fingertip. Going cross-eyed trying to see past my elbow, I saw the murrai repeat the gesture.

“Physical gestures. Well of course, you are machines. You know, it would be so much easier if there was a control panel or a keyboard, or something that could be used to transmit instructions to you!” I had started waving my arms in frustration. It was embarrassing seeing the two murrai mimic the gesture.

“Fine.” I marched back through the ship. The deck gave me the sense it had been constructed by throwing a pile of scrap wood and leather into a heap and then hammering it all together.

Coils of braided leather rope lay piled in various places. None of them seemed essential, so I took one and waited to see if Goat would voice any concern from his position behind the wheel.

The murrai were still keeping pace with the ship. I explained what I was doing as I prepared the rope. I tied a loop at each end. Then, I tossed each end at the feet of the stone men. They kept walking. The rope dragged through the sand ahead of them. The mid-point of the rope I kept for my demonstration. Lifting it up, I looped it around myself. The murrai followed suit. Now I had two murrai on the end of a rope.

Line of sight seemed to be important, so I climbed around the outside of the rigging—hardly a challenge, as the airship had more places to put your hands than a glove shop.

The murrai dutifully followed, like two massive dogs on a leash. Goat glanced sideways at me as I worked my way past. I waved at him with a free hand and saw the two stone men wave in response. Goat took a second, more careful look. His grip on reality seemed tenuous at the best of times. I hoped he would assume I was just another hallucination and dismiss my odd behaviour out of hand.

I reached the pointy end of the ship. This end had a name, like the back end. Not the same name, of course, and given how this craft had never seen water, the semantics of sea terminology seemed uncalled-for.

“Whagh!” I yelled, and almost fell off the railing. The woman with the enviable black hair was sitting at the end of the ship. Not seeing her for a while had let me think she might have been a hallucination that Goat would laugh cynically about.

I flailed, arms waving in a desperate attempt to regain my balance. She stretched like a cat and casually extended one perfectly pale hand, catching me as I tipped over the edge. Her grip was cold, and it brought me onto the right side of the rail without apparent effort.

“Thanks,” I gasped. Sweeping my own hair out of my face, I blinked. She had vanished again. Unwrapping myself from the cord, I looped it around a protruding bit of wood. The two murrai had caught up with me and were now walking slightly ahead of the ship. I pulled the slack in and tied it off.

The ship twitched and followed the two murrai. Where they were going was up to them. Maybe they were wandering as aimlessly as the rest of us.

“Okay,” I announced. “I know you can’t understand me, but I have a talent when it comes to empathically empowered devices. Which I think includes you. If it doesn’t, I’m sorry for the inconvenience. And now I’m babbling.” I stopped, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. The murrai were still striding along. We crested the ridge of a dune and started down the other side.

The murrai made better time than the desert breeze. I watched them walk and tried not to feel guilty.

“Goat!” I called from the pointy end of the ship. “Where are we heading, do you think?”

“Have you tried turning it off and turning it on again?” Goat hollered back.

There is a suggestion that some people who don’t fit in are in fact geniuses operating on some entire other level. It is not clear if they are geniuses on that plane of perception as well.

If this idea had merit, then Goat might be trying to tell me something. If only I had the smarts to work it out.

“Drakeforth, do you know where we are going?”

“We are going to sit in the moonlight and drink this hot cuppa,” Drakeforth replied. “Less ceremony, more spice,” he added, and handed me a steaming mug.