Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2)

by Josiah Bancroft

Senlin stamped the deck with his aerorod. His sometimes map, sometimes club rang like a gavel. Everyone startled at the noise. “Where is my crew?” he said, searching their eyes that turned and shied and blinked. “Where are the brave souls who once drove off the Ararat without a ship or a single cannon to assist them? Where is that audacious gang who shrugged off their masters and reclaimed their right to pursue their will and whim? This company of mercenaries we face today fight for nothing. They stand for a wage. They stand for ambition, for promotion, for medals on their breast. They fight for a man who commands no respect, a man who must wear a mask because he is allergic to the world. He hides because he is afraid—afraid of us, and well he should be! We fight to be free, and we war for one another. Our friendship makes us dangerous; we take courage in our fidelity. So, I ask again: Where is my crew? Where is my crew?”

He had to say something in response to Iren’s confession, but he didn’t possess the captain’s vocabulary or Mister Winters’s authority. He was afraid that one wrong word would snuff the little candle of their friendship.

“You’re not going to faint again?” “I have never fainted in my life,” he said, stretching his legs over the blankets on his

bed. “Well, you’ve taken some abrupt naps,” Edith said through a yawn.

“I blame myself,” Mister Winters said, though her expression suggested otherwise. “For months, I have overlooked your disregard for any order that did not amuse you. I let you run wild about the ship and through the harbors. I let your impertinence and rashness pass without rebuke. I am sorry. Forgive me. I will make amends.”

“I can imagine what you’re thinking,” Edith continued at a deliberate clip. “You

came to the assistance of the captain and me. You couldn’t have done that if you’d followed orders. And that’s true. But if you want to take credit for that, then you must also take responsibility for taunting the port official in Pelphia and for the cannons they fired at us. And don’t forget our barring from the Windsock, which your thievery ensured. And you must take credit for failing to spot the Ararat until it was on top of us, a mistake which nearly brought down the ship.”

“So, go ahead and take credit. You have a lot to take credit for.”

“But there is only room for crew aboard this ship. And the crew follows orders without question, without exception. If you would rather not be part of our crew, the captain will pay you the wages you are due, and we will drop you off on the nearest convenient ledge.”

You are our courage, Iren. We don’t look to you for your chains or your might; no, we look to you for your nerve. That is all we need now.”

She straightened his shirtfront, her touch soothing him. “You’re sure you want to keep your coat on? There’ll be no one to see you. You could even leave your shirttail out, if you like.” “Madness.” Senlin smiled.

He returned Edith’s knock, and it came back again, so he played it once more. He rolled his cheek upon the cool door, feeling a surge of gratitude. Though this was just their way of saying nothing, of admitting the existence of things unsaid, it told him at least that their friendship could survive this test as it had survived so many others before it. And so he had no choice but to survive it, too.

But then, what good were clear eyes in the face of bad odds?

“I thought we were friends,” Byron said in a voice that shivered with emotion. “I thought we were sharing a drink. I was flattered.

I didn’t know I was in the way. You could’ve just asked me to leave, to look the other way. Instead you had to humiliate me.”

I suspect that a society might endure for ten thousand years and still fall apart in the span of one day.

Again and again, I thought not of Marya, but of Edith: her patience, her resilience, her poise, and her sound advice amid all of my bad. I thought of the coincidental embraces we shared, all the occasions when fate put us in each other’s arms, an innocent thing, but not unaware. Not without feeling. And I wanted to survive, because if I did, I knew I would see her again. Is that wrong? Is it wrong to miss what is attainable?

And the truth is, I don’t want to take it back. I stand by what I have written, and I want to add a further taboo to the record. I think Edith Winters is an attractive woman. There.

If there were some form of verse composed only of ellipses, interjections, and parentheses, I would be a bard!

He had come without a clear purpose in mind, which was an errand in itself. She did not believe in idle visits to the pantry, or idle walks down the lane, or idle appearances outside doors in the wee hours of the night. These were not idle things. They were urges too inconvenient or unseemly to admit: They were hunger, they were frustration, they were yearning. But understanding his urge did not spare her from experiencing her own.

As much as they felt not quite themselves, they seemed a perfect match for each other.

He wondered if he wasn’t overlooking what he was looking for.

There was the sound of knocking, and they both looked to the projection in time to see Edith fuss with her shirt and touch her hair. She opened the door, and over her shoulder, they saw Thomas Senlin, looking ardent. Edith apologized for her appearance, and then they just stood there, staring at

each other.

The kiss interrupted her. Byron could not stop himself from stamping his foot once upon the floor. They watched in silence until the two separated, reluctantly, haltingly. Edith shut the door a moment later and turned to face what she thought was an empty room. At first she looked troubled, and then she began to smile.