What the Vessel Asked

The ancient vessel took the *Morrowfin*’s lift before it took anything else.

The patched sails sagged against their yards. A low groan passed through the deck as the ship settled toward a black stone quay inside the vessel. Orra caught the rail and looked up at the crystals mounted beneath the mainmast. Their blue glow had thinned to a dull thread.

“Vey,” she called. “We’re losing lift.”

“I know.” He fought the wheel, though the ship had no wind to answer it. “The helm’s gone slack.”

Brask climbed down from the rigging, a coil of line over one shoulder. “If the thing wants our crystals, it can ask for them.” He took in the sinking sail. “Or it can try harder.”

Nima was already at the starboard rail, laying her constellation cards flat against the boards. Their marks glimmered, then slid out of alignment. “It’s drawing through the keel. The whole vessel’s connected to us now.”

Orra looked to the brass keel-instrument fixed into the deck. Light ran from it in a narrow seam, disappearing beneath the planks toward the stone quay. The ancient ship was drawing power through the very route that had brought them here.

The tall figure remained on the bridge inside the glowing chamber. Its raised arm had not moved. “CARRIER,” the keel said, and the word rattled the fittings. “COURSE MUST RISE.”

Vey shoved the wheel hard to starboard. The *Morrowfin* swung a few inches, then stopped as if held by invisible chains. “What does it mean by rise?”

Orra set one hand on the instrument. Heat pressed through her glove. “It wants us to carry something upward.”

“Something,” Brask said, “or all of us?”

A band of light spread across the quay and climbed the hull. It passed over the *Morrowfin*’s name, the scarred gunwale, the patched sail. The letters carved into the inner wall changed as it moved. Orra could not read them, but the keel translated in a voice without breath.

“VESSEL RECEIVED. CREW: CARGO. CARRIER: ORRA PELL.”

Brask’s mouth tightened. “I’m nobody’s cargo.”

The light reached his boots. He stepped back, and the band stopped at the edge of the deck. It had found the ship; it had not found a way aboard.

Nima leaned over the cards, following the shifting marks. “It’s classifying us. The vessel knows the *Morrowfin* as a carrier, and it knows you by the instrument.”

“Then tell it we’re not leaving without the crew.” Orra glanced at Vey. His hands had gone white around the wheel. The crystals under the mast were dimming by the second. “And tell it to stop taking our lift.”