“What of your adoptive clan?”

  Ryllen sighed. He thought of the Jees, who suffered during reprisals after the fall of the Chancellory and made Ryllen pay the price of their shame.

  “To them, I was just the family dog.”

  “I don’t see your meaning. We don’t have dogs on Huryo.”

  “Just as well. Even the ones treated with kindness are really just there for entertainment. When the entertainment stops, they forget about you. I’m tired of being the dog, Captain. Call me Royal.”

  “Then Royal it is.” He whistled, and the other crew reported. Juri Din, on the deck. Mee Ahn, on the bridge. “We are four now. A strong crew. Victims no more. Royal is one of us. Show him the way and let’s make our next haul.”

  “On it, Captain,” Juri said.

  Mee grunted. “Up the ladder with you. There’s work to be done.”

  My new family, Ryllen thought.

  He didn’t expect this one to last long, either.

  29

  T HEY WORKED IN SYNC, their duties never overlapping, the Hannah Lux always on schedule and ship-shape. They walked Ryllen through each task, from manning the nets to working the winches and derricks to dividing, stowing and icing the catch to swabbing every inch of the twenty-meter trawler. He learned how to skin and dress prim. He learned how to replace trax bars in the engine – a ten-step process – and stow the used energy cells for trade-in. He studied the paper navigation charts and grasped how to steer. Ryllen understood a key principle: He would eat as well as the others only if he contributed as much.

  It was hard, repetitive work with the briefest interludes to relax, yet Ryllen did not mind. Dropping to his knees and scrubbing the deck? Retracting nets that weighed hundreds of pounds including the haul? Child’s play, after the pond.

  He analyzed the crew’s body language to build conclusions. Juri Din moved her lips while she worked, her words a jumble. She claimed to be reminiscing about childhood with her long-gone sister. She laid a rag over an ample shoulder to wipe the frequent sweat off her brow and wheezed with regularity. On occasion, she grabbed the siderails and bent over. A moment later, she returned to duty refreshed, but Ryllen suspected she was fading. Did they ever discuss the cough?

  Capt. Benn Noor guided his crew like a man who once led a classroom. Firm, disciplined, but eloquent enough to steer diverse personalities. He spoke at length about his thirty years onboard the “Lux,” and how pond victims came and went. He carried a reflective tone, his empathy running deep but the pain of his own experience evident in wearied features. Though the nav charts pre-dated his captaincy, he treated them with reverence and offered a story about each village dock, about the adventures in following the great schools of migrating prim, and the trickiest rivers and marshes to navigate during low season. Ryllen expected him to die on this boat.

  Yet no one intrigued Ryllen more than Mee Ahn. The first mate was the quietest, reserving his words to the minimum necessary. He completed the work to spit-shine level, did not respond to Juri’s sardonic quips, and followed the captain’s orders without rebuttal. Yet Ryllen knew his agenda did not match the other two. Mee Ahn was a tall, slender man who shaved twice daily and brushed his teeth off the side after each meal. Yet he wore two things that drew Ryllen’s attention. A scar extended from his right ear along the jawline, ending at the dimple. He carried two blades on his hip belt – one, a crawler knife standard to every fisherman; the other, a silver-hilted knife that never left its sheath. It’s not a tool, Ryllen deduced. He keeps it close for another reason.

  That night, at Ryllen’s first dinner with the crew, the knife looked up from close quarters and begged to be the point of discussion.

  Too soon.

  The captain wiped his lips.

  “You had an excellent day, Royal. How do you feel?”

  “For a man who should be dead, I can’t complain, Captain.”

  “The transition is always complicated. Can you see yourself making a home on the Lux?”

  “I have nowhere else to go. If it keeps me free of the pond …”

  “You done said that right.” Juri talked with her mouth full. “It’s a simple life, we got. But we keep dry.”

  Ryllen raised his glass. “I want to thank each of you for showing me the ropes. I’m sure there’s more to learn, but I’m a quick study. Keep throwing it my way.”

  Juri and the Captain raised their glasses, while Mee lifted his an inch off the table to complete the toast. He poked at the last of his dinner without looking up.

  “Speaking of the ponds,” Ryllen continued, “I was wondering about protocol. Captain, you told me to leave behind whatever I brought. But the ponds are something we have in common. Are we allowed to talk about them?”

  “Yes, but only to the extent that others wish to engage. The ponds removed our humanity. Time lessens the agony but never destroys it. I myself am thirty years removed, but I’ve never shaken free. It was two months of my life, but I remember nothing before it. Your pain is fresh, and we can help you through it. Be understanding of our own.”

  “I will.”

  Juri wheezed and gathered herself.

  “Out with it then! Tell us what’s on your mind.”

  “When you called us to dinner, Juri, I was on the bow. I froze. I started saying my mantras. The ones the Scroll taught me.”

  “Oh, them lot. The ones where you confess to being a sorry piece of filth.”

  “You know them?”

  All three nodded.

  “Standard practice,” Captain Noor said. “It’s a central part of the dehumanization process.”

  “The Scroll said I had to be destroyed in order to be remade.”

  Juri tapped her fork.

  “Them bastards come across high and a’ mighty, you see. Look down on us from their perch. But it’s a show. They follow a script and beat us with it.”

  “But what if the mantras are true? Mine are.”

  The captain sighed. “They usually are, if you focus only on the context of your crimes. I’ve compared mantras with many crew over the years. The language uses similar verbiage – especially for killers like the four of us. But it is honed to fit the individual case file. Otherwise, the Scrolls follow a predictable series of lessons. They are contracted to the Justice General’s office to follow procedure.”

  Juri laughed. “Justice, they call it!”

  “My point, Royal, is that they define your humanity by your criminal behavior. You do not exist in any other capacity. Pond justice, as they say, was created to forcibly remove the criminal from the human. It was supposed to be a full-proof method to ridding crime from Huryan society. Centuries later, it remains a thriving industry. The entire system is based on a false premise, and yet there is little to no effort to replace it.”

  “Why?”

  No one jumped to answer. Mee Ahn rose from his seat and reached for the plates. His turn to clean. For a second, Ryllen caught his eye. The man was holding back his words. He needed a cue. The captain spoke instead.

  “There’s not a simple answer, Royal. I could say it’s a matter of corruption. The Scrolls are paid handsomely and have considerable sway in Quanteel. The Parliament is stacked with old guard Huryans who haven’t passed progressive legislation in a century. But the larger truth is scattered across the moon. We live in villages, on small boats, in isolated enclaves. Huryo has one city, but eighty percent of us are scattered across the marshes and swamps. We live small. We move at a careful pace. Life has not changed in five hundred years. We have no wish to be bothered.”

  “And don’t you go thinking nobody done tried. Used to be protests back in the old days. Holding up signs and what not.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing come of it. Only Huryans who stood up were ex-ponders and a few kids with ideas bigger than they got smarts for.”

  The captain seemed amused by the memory.

  “The irony is, the Scrolls never would have come to be had the Chancellors cared about Huryo. But we had no mineral wealth, no strategic value. They left us alone, which most of our ancestors appreciated. They were opportunists and imperialists, for certain, but they were also civilized. They could have forced us out of barbarism.”

  “Maybe, but I grew up on Hokkaido. The Chancellors affected our lives in ways most Hokkis don’t realize. They left behind a disaster. Probably best they stayed away from Huryo.”

  Steps creaked. Ryllen watched as Mee ascended to the deck.

  “He’s quiet, Captain. Does Mee not talk about the ponds?”

  “He’ll speak when it suits him.”

  Ryllen looked toward the deck but managed to take in the captain’s awkward side glance with Juri.

  “You said the ponds were thriving, Captain. Do you know how many there are?”

  “More than a thousand, but that’s unofficial. Many are kept in reserve, isolated on private properties. At any given time, perhaps a third are in use.”

  “And that’s the entire prison population of Huryo?”

  “Once a criminal has been sentenced, he is moved to a pond within ten days.”

  “How many Scrolls are there?”

  “Less than five hundred. If Huryo ever had a major crime surge, we’d have a problem. Then again, a surge might be the perfect remedy to remind everyone that the ponds do not work.”

  “How do you find ex-ponders to keep a crew going?”

  “Referrals are not difficult to obtain. Most come to me by way of their inability to assimilate back into society. Despite what the Justice General promises, few Huryans see those who completed their sentences as having been remade. Nor are they. A man does not return to his family intact if he has been tortured in water for weeks or months. For many who learn of the Lux, this lifestyle is the only way to avoid recidivism.”

  “Does it work for everyone who comes here?”

  “No. Some can’t manage the repetition. For others, it’s the isolation that drives them mad. And others … the urges that led them to the pond in the first place return with considerable force.”

  “What happens to them?”

  “Most head home to try again. Some disappear into a coastal village and never return before we shove off. I’ve known two cases where they slipped overboard dead of night. Preferred to be buried at sea than go on.”

  Juri grunted. “And then there was Lin Paal. A fine man, if ever I knew one.”

  The Captain bowed his head. Clearly, he didn’t want to go there.

  “The original captain,” he told Ryllen. “Started it all. Twelve years ago, we found him one morning with a crawler knife full in his chest. The man who did it actually loved Captain Paal. Thought of him like a father.”

  Juri tapped her noggin.

  “Got off his right mind and had no idea what he done.”

  “We gave two bodies to the deep that day. It almost broke us.”

  Juri massaged the back of her captain’s neck.

  “That what Captain Benn meant when he said we can talk about them horrible places, but only when others want to engage. It’s never a’ easy topic. Some days it digs deeper than others.”

  Footsteps descended in the cabin with a great rush. As Mee Ahn approached the empty table, he unfurled the navigation charts and spread them out.

  “Stop dodging,” he told the captain. “Tell him the rest.”

  “Not now, Mee. We had an understanding.”

  “Not a contract.”

  “It’s his first day. It will serve no purpose.”

  “I don’t agree.” He ran his hand over the coastline, spanning an area of several hundred kilometers. “Tell him, or I will.”

  “You are much too emotional, Mee. I’ve told you my thoughts on the matter, but if you’ll have a seat, I’ll cover the broad strokes.”

  Juri leaned back and finished her liquor. Ryllen couldn’t tell whose side she supported for this point of contention.

  “Royal, there are two reasons why we fish the Sea of Nam, and neither has to do with its remoteness from Quanteel. Lin Paal chose this region because he knew prim were plentiful, and the competition was light. All our markets are small, but there are thousands.” He pointed to the many tiny dots at or near the coast. “We pull in at thirty docks along the peninsula and sell our entire haul every run. Top price. They know us and trust us.

  “The second reason to fish this region is because of who lives here. Many villages have no economy to speak of. Some survive because of the goodwill of their local lords. These are Huryans who made their fortune in Quanteel and retired to a quiet life of luxury and more land than a human need possess. They buy the villages whole, including the people within.”

  “Like a feudal system?”

  “Exactly like one. The villagers don’t mind because they’re fed and clothed. In return, they supply fealty and compete for whatever meager work the lord sends their way.”

  When the captain paused, Mee jumped in.

  “Say it, Captain. Tell him the rest.”

  “The lords live in palatial homes on stilts called poitnois. These homes are distinguished by their wraparound balconies, which give the lord and his staff the chance to keep a permanent eye on all movement in and around the village.”

  “And …” Mee insisted.

  “The majority of these lords are retired Scrolls.”

  “Retired, so they say,” Mee added. “They jump back into the game when they have the urge to torture.”

  “That is speculation, Mee. Here’s what you need to know, Royal. Scrolls spend their careers in judgment over others and amass a fortune doing it. Many celebrate their success by continuing to stand in judgment but away from the stench of the ponds.”

  Ryllen heard a familiar anger inside Mee’s impatience. He knew what this was all about before the captain said another word.

  “You’re here to spy on them and seek revenge.”

  “After a fashion, Royal, but …”

  Mee took over the moment.

  “It’s the only reason that matters. I can fish halfway around the moon if I please. This is not about prim. We can’t end the ponds, but we can end these monsters for what they did to us.”

  “Killing men like these would draw too much attention.”

  “Which is why,” the captain said, wagging a finger at Mee, “we only track the Scrolls who directly stood in judgment over us. Identifying them is difficult, as they are private men – a few women, among them. The JG’s office kept their names confidential. However, we’ve built contacts in Quanteel and paid off enough villagers with our extra profits to educate ourselves. In the final analysis, we rely on positive facial recognition.”

  The discussion drew Ryllen back to his final year in Pinchon, when he researched, stalked, and murdered many who ambushed Green Sun that fateful night at Ronin Swallows. He made sure to confirm his prey’s identify before ending the bastard with varying degrees of creativity.

  “Have any of you taken revenge?”

  “No. Juri and I tried for years to find our Scrolls but without luck.”

  Mee grunted. “I have luck. I’m telling you, Captain, I know what I saw the last time. It’s him. And now he’s four docks away.”

  Mee pointed to a spot along the coastline a few degrees north of the boat’s current location.

  “We’re two days from D’haan. This will be my best shot.”

  Mee squared up on Ryllen. His eyes appeared to twinkle under the cabin lights. Ryllen needed no explanation:

  “You want me to help. You can’t do it alone because these stilt houses are difficult. You need a partner, at the very least.”

  “These two are afraid,” Mee said, pointing to Benn and Juri. “They gave up because they grew old.”

  “Not true.” Juri pounded the table. “Don’t you go a’ feeding this boy your nonsense. We don’t go in because we won’t come out alive, and you know it. That one you seek is walled up tight.”

  “Four of us can do it. I watched Royal all day. He’s strong and he’s fast on his feet.”

  The captain rose to separate Juri and Mee, who leaned across the table as if ready to fight.

  “Please. Settle. There. Royal, any attempt to assassinate a Scroll requires extensive planning. Nothing can go wrong. If anyone in an attack is connected to the Lux, we’re done. No one will trust us. In the past fifty years, there have only been five assassinations.”

  “How long since the last, Captain?”

  “Seven years. Then, we had great fortune on our side. The Scroll visited the village often to remind everyone who owned them. He was an outlier. Most shelter in place despite their local power. Mee’s Scroll, if it is indeed, has only been seen from the balcony of his poitnois. Mee’s claim is based on observation at forty meters.”

  “I have no doubts, Captain. It’s him.”

  Ryllen called upon his military training.

  “What are their weapons and disposition?”

  Mee grumbled. “A dozen outside. At least. Crossbows and long knives. Not sure about their technology.”

  “And us?”

  “Same weapons. Captain has a Tachtron reader.”

  “That can be used for surveillance. But four against twelve, when they have the high ground? How is that supposed to work?”

  “It can’t. That’s why we’ll have to draw him out.”

  “How?”

  Mee laughed. “That’s what these two don’t want to talk about. They’re afraid somebody might have a brilliant idea. I get the sense you have a background we can use, Royal.”

  “I fought a war, but I had weapons you wouldn’t believe and armor … put it this way, if I was still a soldier, I could wipe out that entire poitnois in ten minutes.”

  “What war? You fought for the Chancellors?”

  “Huh. No. I fought against them. A version of them anyway. Won more than I lost. I know more about killing than the three of you combined, and I’ve probably done a thousand times more of it. But based on your report, there’s only two ways you take out this Scroll. Somebody infiltrates, knowing it’s suicide. Or, you draw the bastard out. I don’t know shit about Huryans or the swamps or these villagers. Don’t think I’m the man you’re looking for, Mee.”