Thistle in the Sky | #NONC2022 | ✔

Chapter Four

Farah lay awake long after Kaz's breathing in the next bunk over evened into the easy rhythm of sleep. The day had left her as tired as any other, but no matter which way she turned or how long she closed her eyes, sleep remained obstinate. Her tossing eventually annoyed crewmates in neighboring bunks. Unwilling to give them any more reason to hate her, she lay on her back and gave up trying. Still restless, her eyes wandered instead, up and down the light metal girders that ran from floor to ceiling at regular intervals across the room, holding back the bulge of the gasbags that pressed down overhead.

One by one, the other crew members' conscious thoughts winked out. Dreams had always been inaccessible to Farah, though she often wished otherwise. If nothing else, it would give her something else to distract herself on nights like this, when the day's events weighed heavy on her mind. She rolled over with a sigh as the last thoughtspace disappeared from her vicinity. That left only farther ones, audible now over the room's mental silence. Gemi was holed up alone in the radio room, her mind an anxious nest of thoughts like half-felted wool. The pilot currently at the helm stood alert but at ease. Behind her was Esfandiar. He fiddled morosely with the ship's compasses as he nursed the sting of having been kicked off the greeting team. If the memories he pulled up were to judge, he'd deserved it. 

Captain Jhaṛa and her first mate were still up. The captain's mind was a stilted jumble of the day's events. Each fused with its neighbors and whipped by so fast, even Farah could not distinguish them. Typical.

The first mate proved steadier. He too was an experienced sailor with a foothold along the coasts, but unlike Jhaṛa, he thought with the measured, deliberate pace of a barge or a desert caravan. In many ways, it made him more dangerous than the woman he served under. Jhaṛa thought quickly and responded to situations at electrical speed, but she was not a schemer the way Baskoro was. He was the type of man who would spend a year waiting patiently, building up the right circumstances in which to make a move. Farah had seen it in action before. It was the way he executed trade deals: the culmination of a hundred tiny words and actions calibrated to gain the attention, trust, and loyalty of the people he set eyes on. They always believed they thought up the deal. It was never the case.

Right now he was making his way towards Jhaṛa on the other side of the ship. Farah had always known he wanted to take over her captaincy, but tonight the thought lurked particularly close to the front of his mind. Whatever he and Jhaṛa were about to talk about, he planned to use it as one of those subtle nudges towards his goal.

He was also headed out of telepathic range. Farah pushed herself up and weighed the benefits of eavesdropping against the risks of getting caught. The appearance of her name in Baskoro's thoughts sealed her decision. She slipped out of bed. Her belt would jingle if she grabbed it, so she took only her knife from under her pillow, sheathing it and wedging the sheath into her waistband. She'd go nowhere without it, especially where Baskoro was involved.

The crew's quarters' exit let her out into the ship's starboard corridor. This ran like a hallway the length of the Ariomma, with a foot-wide catwalk and walls in the shape of an inverted triangle. More metal girders held back the gasbags above and beside her. On her other side was the outer skin of the ship.

She had to get to the axial catwalk; the one that ran like a fish's spine through the center of the envelope. If Jhaṛa and Baskoro took to walking and talking like they so often did, there was a one-in-two chance they would take the same path Farah now skulked along, and she had few options for escaping them if they did. Moving too quickly made everything here creak, and there was nowhere to hide.

Luckily, Baskoro was taking his time. Even when he reached Jhaṛa's cabin door, he stopped outside it to rehearse his talking points. Farah reached the first bulkhead ladder and bounded up it in relief. Sound-numbing silence enveloped her. Thoughts remained clear, but all other noise was deadened by the gasbags that now lurked beyond the girders on all three sides, turning the axial catwalk into the throat of a giant, sleeping animal. Every twenty feet, a lightbulb bathed the corridor in dim orange light. Girders, suspension cables, safety netting, and the catwalk itself cast skeletal shadows.