PoraBora

Chapter Twenty-Six

Pe did not know the flag, or the ship, or the warriors whose bodies were painted with vertical black lines and tiny, white dots. Her hiding was unsuccessful (the manta only had three compartments to be checked), but Pora was neither mentioned nor found.

Iumili had come back, and Pe wasn't sure it was the right decision.

The ship that took her aboard was significantly thinner than the whale shark and half as long, painted a yellowing green. A jaw extended beyond the hull, lined with hand-crafted teeth each a foot long. Giant, blue discs made for beady eyes with their black irises. The ship was low to the ocean, with a skeleton of ribs and rails that reached to an overhanging spine above the hull to maintain the creature's shape. If she couldn't guess based on the gills, the flag made it easier: it was an eel.

Pe would have thought it was just one more vessel of the fleet, based on its size, except that when they were brought aboard, the man who greeted them was dressed from head to toe as a chief.

His headdress was defined by coral, fragments of blade-fire made small enough to be worn and mixed with centered pillar, cup, and soft. The dried husk of a starfish was mixed among them, and it was all heavy enough to require a bone-frame to hold it in place. The artist had chosen porpoise.

His wrap was dyed in eight colors of the reef, orange, purple, reds, greens, and dark yellows mixed in shapes to match his top. Tattooed along his arm, the man had straight-lined eels among sharp-angled corals, and, Pe noticed keenly, no visage of a god.

"I like your flag," the chief said. He was much older than U'ekeo, but not as grizzled as Ila'i's Navigator of Commerce. The idea of wrinkles had started, but his face seemed to have decided against them. His grey eyes were centered on his broad features, bordered by big ears and a wide chin. He was a big man, if not the biggest Pe had ever seen, and strong in all the right places. In the whole, Pe's estimation was that U'ekeo struggled to do his role, and this man lived for it.

They met on the deck, warriors scattered around. Some sat. Some leaned over the railing. One laid atop the skeletal frame. Most watched, speaking to each other in lowered voices that didn't make it to Pe over the engine motor. She had a pretty good idea she didn't like what they were saying, and if she had a chance she was pretty sure she was going to do something about it.

The chief lowered himself to one knee and looked Iumili in the eyes. "Did you draw it yourself?"

"She did," said Iumili, pointing to Pe.

Some warriors chuckled.

"Now," said the chief, "Art comes in the abstract as well. How often do we say our tattoos look like something they're not?"

The warriors silenced with smiles.

"It is a perfect blobfish," the chief said to Pe.

Iumili almost kept a straight face.

"So," said the chief, "What are two young girls, such as yourselves, doing all the long way out here?"

"We were looking for a shark," Pe said.

"A shark?" asked the chief. "Whatever for?"

"Personal satisfaction."

"It killed her parents," said Iumili.

"I am sorry to hear that," said the chief. His eyes went down to Pe's peg leg. "Some time ago?"

"Three years," said Pe.

The man was silent, and the warriors maintained quiet too. "The water's deep," he sighed eventually, when Pe was going to demand he get on with it. "The ocean can be cruel, despite its beauty. How will you know when you've come upon the right shark?"