PoraBora

Chapter Twenty

There weren't many parts of the ship that afforded privacy to Akoni and his men. Their rooms were open to the halls, and metal did not buffer the traveling of voices. But privacy was afforded when destruction drew men to the deck. The syphons would be missed. Someone would come looking.

But in that time....

"Just as well we're not going up," said Poka, who was Tua's age, too young to be cursed to the rig, and too young to know to complain about it. "I don't think I can stomach anymore. Knowing we did that."

"It is presumptuous to take credit for a god's actions," said Noo'omu. The man was Akoni's senior, but his large frame made no suggestion of it. He'd once asked for pillar coral for his shelf. It was a common hope, for those who'd spent enough time on the rigs, that the coral would make up for Keasau's blessing.

It had not worked for Siosi. Akoni doubted it would work for the rest of them.

"It is responsibility to take the blame for your own," said Poka.

Kepuni was silent, hands in the pockets of his rigsman jacket. The six of them had gathered in a hall on the lowest floor. No munitions nor weapons were stored there, which Akoni figured would surrender some suspicion on their being found.

He had considered commandeering the ship, and considered it regularly in the days since their boarding. It would start with any one of the warriors, down in the hull. A jab to the throat out of nowhere would get them their first weapon. Two, if the man had a spear in hand and firelock at his belt. The spear would be too long for the hall: in close-enough quarters, it would be worthless, while at its ideal range, it was bested by the firelock.

Of course, a firelock would be loud, and if voices traveled in the metal halls, the sound of a shot would announce them like a breach.

They might as well put their fin to the surface now and save Makaia the trouble of waiting.

"Forget the god," said the last syphon, Yetamika, who had also come from Henoue. "I want to know what we're going to do."

They all looked to Akoni.

"Nothing," said Akoni. "For now."

"I was worried you would say that," said Noo'omu. "Ule Ule is gone. Chief Simusi has left Kuhunau without a navy or a captain. What else needs to fall for us to do more? Kehoa?"

"We aren't doing nothing to stop Keasau," Poka said. "That's what this whole expedition is."

"This expedition is going to fall just the same as Chief Simusi," said Noo'omu.

"Come on, now," said Poka, glancing at Kepuni.

The man just shook his head.

Noo'omu at least had the decency to stop talking.

He had not been brought along for his decency, though. He'd been brought because he had spent twenty years at sea, and many of them at war.

"What does nothing look like?" asked Yetamika. "Eat pig and sleep? Or is it wait while you...you know."

"Wait," said Tua.

Each of the syphons looked over their shoulders.

"What did you think 'for now' meant?" snorted Poka.

"How long?" asked Noo'omu. "Share some of that dragon-eye with the rest of us, why don't you?"

"If I had a plan, I'd have shared it with you," said Akoni.

"You've shared nothing with us since we came aboard," grunted Yetamika.

"And how much more has Makaia spent time with you for it?"