After a short, shallow sleep, Sayuri woke in the early hours of the morning to Fukuzawa making tea. She walked to the bridge, her blanket wrapped around her.

  “When is breakfast?”

  “I don’t figure we’ll be eating it. We’re gonna leave as soon as I fix the morning tea.”

  Milly was awake and perched on the bow watching the forest. She came down when the tea was ready and poured some apple wine into the bottom of the tea and set it aside. Fukuzawa and Sayuri finished theirs quickly and they departed.

  Thomas roused after they had been on the river for an hour or so and Milly went to take care of him while Sayuri bombarded Fukuzawa with questions about driving a boat. It seemed the sort of skill she might need if she wished to make good on her vow of being useful.

  In training her, Fukuzawa showed Sayuri the depth sounder and had her point out where in the real river the little troughs and peaks corresponded to. He then showed her the engine gauges and refused to proceed until she could describe what was happening in the pumpjet when he pulled the throttle. He showed her the radar and made her call out the obstacles that blipped across it. Finally, he showed her the ZCKSI unit.

  “I know what that is,” Sayuri said. “My family’s planes all have one.”

  “Do you know how it works?”

  “I am ashamed to say I do not, merely its function. Is it not based on radio technology?”

  “Basically. But do you know who is sending what where?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well, lass, this little thingamabob,” Fukuzawa tapped the black rubber antenna in the piloting console, “is talking with space. Or some of our machines up there.”

  “I know what satellites are, Mr. Fukuzawa.”

  “Huh, and I thought you whippersnappers forgot we’d gone to space after they canceled the Kaguya Program.”

  “You may recall the Ueichi clan was involved in grants and parts production.”

  “And pulling those grants later. Anyhow, this little radio sits and listens for our five satellite friends up there who then tell him where he is. Maybe it seems pedestrian to you, but I think it’s incredible what we accomplished.”

  “It is, Mr. Fukuzawa, but if five satellites do the job just fine, why should we have flown more missions? It would be pointless to spend a hundred times what we already invested to visit a moon which we can confirm by spectroscopy has no return on investment.”

  “The lass knows the word spectroscopy, does she? Well, Ms. Ueichi, some things are worth paying for even if you don’t make any money out of it, don’t you think?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, we ought to have gone to the moon anyway.”

  “The clan-conglomerates would’ve had to explain to family and investors why they were wasting money on the Kasetomi Emperor’s pipe dream. For all we know it may not be possible to go to the moon due to material constraints, even with unlimited energy.”

  “Our race could’ve done it, Ms. Ueichi. I know that.”

  “The Kaihonjin?”

  “No, the human one.”

  The lesson ended at that. She expected an awkward silence to follow, but instead they came upon the sight of a woman at the end of a cement pier waving a yellow garment and yelling something at them.

  “You mentioned river pirates, Mr. Fukuzawa,” Sayuri said.

  “That’s Birch Home. They’re not pirates, but they’re also not friendly to outsiders.”

  “They do not own the land they live on,” Sayuri guessed.

  Fukuzawa nodded.

  As the boat drew closer, more people appeared, adding their voices to the woman’s until it seemed all of Birch Home had come out. There was no doubt in Sayuri’s mind this village was in trouble if they were forfeiting productive work hours to flag down a strange boat.

  “We ought to see what they want.”

  “No. Awful idea,” Milly said.

  “But— Mr. Fukuzawa, please talk sense into her.”

  Fukuzawa shook his head. “They’re not pirates, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to get involved. Best to mind our own business.”

  “What harm is there in mere inquiry? Perhaps they will request something it would hardly put us out to give.”

  Milly shook her head in disbelief. “Did we forget about the conglomerate chasing us? How about the dwindling supplies? And I can promise you, they’re not waving us down to ask for an itty-bitty, tiny favor.”

  “Was that not how your brothel was run?” Sayuri asked.

  “What?”

  “Was it not the case that you all looked after each other? This seems precisely the sort of moral imperative which you now object to.”

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  “Sayuri, shut the fuck up,” the woman said. “You’ve never done a gods-damned thing for anybody but sit on your ass and get treated like a princess, so you do not talk to me about any fucking moral imperatives!”

  The outburst startled Sayuri and made the blood run out of her. Yesterday, she and the woman had appeared to reach a place of mutual respect and understanding, but her words now suggested otherwise. Was this what she had spent the day brooding upon? It was as though the woman had completely different dispositions which she oscillated wildly between.

  Fukuzawa sighed. “It’s free to hear ‘em out, no? Might as well.”

  The woman stomped off to lean against the stern gun mount. Sayuri thought there was something humorous about trying to stomp off on a boat only 12 meters long.

  Fukuzawa eased the Daisagi-Maru towards the pier until they were within speaking distance and shouted, “Hullo!”

  “Please, you must help! Th-they— they took—”

  The woman with the yellow handkerchief paused to wipe tears from her eyes. When she tried to speak again, her throat choked closed.

  “Pirates kidnapped Hilda’s child for ransom,” said an older man at the front of the crowd. He carried with him a subtle aura of authority which Sayuri immediately perceived. A village chief? She wasn’t sure how their peculiar, sub-legal municipality was hierarchically arranged.

  The village head stepped up beside the woman and placed his hand on her shoulder. “We know you folks got no stake in our affairs, but there’s nothing we can do. We don’t have the money to pay them, and we don’t have the guns to get her back ourselves.”

  “I’m certain we can help,” Sayuri said.

  “No! You shut your mouth right now!” Milly said, barging to the side of the boat facing the hapless villagers. She looked at them with a hard face. “I’m sorry this happened to you, but we can’t help.”

  “Milly, they—”

  “Enough, girl! We don’t have money to pay the ransom, and we can’t fight pirates.”

  “But what about…” Sayuri circled her powdered face.

  “No. End of discussion.”

  “We have to help them.”

  This last murmur came from a half-conscious Thomas. Sayuri wasn’t entirely sure if he knew what he was saying, but that wouldn’t stop her from capitalizing on it.

  “You heard him! He said we should help.”

  In a choking sob, the mother said, “please! We don’t know if anyone else will come down the river!”

  “We’ll see what we can do,” Fukuzawa said, “but don’t get your hopes up.”

  The mother covered her mouth. “Oh, thank you, thank Ethylturf!”

  Once they were moored and the villagers let down a gangway, Fukuzawa and Sayuri disembarked. Milly stayed behind partly to seethe and partly to look after their resident lump of brain damage.

  As Sayuri and Fukuzawa followed the crowd up the shore, the headsmen asked, “Who are you, sir? I recognize your boat, but you’ve never stopped here.”

  “Shuuichiro Fukuzawa. Call me Shuu. I go up and down the river, mostly ferrying folks, like this young lady here. She’s headed down to Barton-upon-Gl?r. The other two are a couple I'm taking to éstfyr,” he said.

  The headsman held out his hand. “Bada of Suigen. Nice to make your acquaintance. And the lady you agreed to help…”

  “Hilda,” the mother said, having regained her voice.

  Fukuzawa shook her hand as well. According to Sayuri’s textbook, ?frian etiquette had it that men bowed and women curtsied when interacting. Perhaps it was a matter of class. It appeared the entire village, including its elite strata in Bada, adhered to a common, working-class code of conduct.

  “What is your position, if I may inquire, sir?” Sayuri asked.

  “My position? Hel, I guess I’m the receptionist. I’ve been out in the world a bit more, though I haven’t been back to Suigen in decades. It’s been all hands-on deck since IMR pulled out and left us with no jobs and a lotta pirates.”

  “IMR, eh? They owned the logging camp?” Fukuzawa asked.

  “Until freight went overland. Technically it’s still Imperial land we’re standing on, but they’re not using it. I see that Imperial flag of yours, but we’re not harmin’ nobody or nothin’ out here and we always replant His Augustness’ trees. He takes His cut by taxes at point of sale anyhow.”

  Sayuri was genuinely curious what Fukuzawa’s reaction would be to tree-poaching, but he gave the same noncommittal shrug he always gave and said, “if it’s important to His Augustness, I’m sure someone’ll come along and requisition it.”

  Bada’s face wasn’t fully at ease, but he slapped Fukuzawa on the back anyway. “Aye. And people are taken care of here, better than in the city under the Shroud.”

  Sayuri, Fukuzawa, and the villagers piled into a one-room cottage partitioned by a flimsy wooden wall into a dining area and a bedroom with a large bed and a crib. It appeared a man lived here, though none of the men seemed intimate with Hilda. Upon the kitchen table was an unraveled scroll onto which was sketched trees, a river with a few boats, and a small, diamond-shaped camp with around 40 tents inside an unmarked wall.

  “Here’s what Edgar returned with,” Bada said. “They’re camped four kilometers downriver. There’s around 60 of them, but there could be more. Four boats, all motorized. They’re on a hill and they’ve got cars surrounding the camp for walls.”

  “They’re armed I take it?” Fukuzawa asked.

  “To the gills,” said a young man who was probably Edgar. “They’ve got three 14mm machine guns and the rest have rifles. And I’m not talkin’ any Zukunashi black-powder trash, I’m talkin’ continental surplus.”

  Sayuri was familiar with the gun he was referring to, though its name escaped her. It was an ugly, gray thing resembling two metal pipes welded together with a trigger, magazine, and pinewood stock glued on. It was ubiquitous in news broadcasts because the continental states across the channel from ?fria manufactured and exported their variations on the assault rifle to whomever would buy. Mostly terrorists and insurgents.

  “And how much are they asking?”

  “100 gin,” Hilda said, her face now more furious than upset, “as though a little woodcutting village like ours would have even half that much in all our pockets!”

  Fukuzawa whistled. “Hell of a price, even for river pirates. They’ve gotta know ya can’t pay it. D’ya think they’d lower it to whatever ya have?”

  Hilda shook her head. “No, they’re desperate because they’ve been paying off Kintoki for this stretch of the river. We think Kintoki raised the price cuz of the fighting with Genji.”

  “That’s gotten all the way down here, has it?” Fukuzawa asked.

  “Been planes comin’ up and down the river for days now,” Bada said. “We’ve been followin’ it on the radio. Genji’s holed up in Suigen, Kintoki in éstfyr, and both are staying on their side of Burnehithe. Kintoki’s handed the pirates a price tag they couldn’t pay so their impressment’s legal on paper as ‘labor in lieu of payment’.”

  “Well, our crew will have a talk about what we can do,” Fukuzawa said, standing up.

  “Anything, Mr. Shuu, anything at all! Even if it’s negotiating an extension,” Hilda said.

  Sayuri was silent on the return trip to the Daisagi-Maru. A sincere wish to help, it seemed, was not necessarily much of help at all.

  At the boat, Sayuri cleared her voice and spoke in Kaihongo, “erm, regrettably, any newborn plan has yet to emit its birth cry.”

  Fukuzawa chuckled. “I sussed that, lass.”

  “What is she saying now?” Milly said.

  “Would you like to translate for her?” Fukuzawa asked.

  Sayuri huffed. “I said we don’t have a plan yet.”

  She finally looked Milly in the eyes. There was no point in playing these games with her. However, the fury in the woman’s eyes surprised her.

  “You gave these people false hope! That is far, far worse, than just passing them by. Do you understand that?”

  “We have all night to—”

  “Do you understand!?”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  At that, Thomas emitted a hideous sounding moan like a death rattle.

  “Sorry, Thomas. Didn’t mean to wake you,” Milly said.

  “Izmgay,” he babbled.

  After this, Fukuzawa started the grill and roasted some potatoes and carrots. Sayuri tried her best to eat, but her mind was on how they were to save the woman’s baby. She knew it could be done, because it must be done, and that was enough.