25.

Six Lights

AGH 118

In the Lourhaven workshop, Carden Folt had six labels laid along the bench and a letter that would not stay open. Every time he took his hand away, the bottom folded up over the signature.

He put a mounting bolt on it.

The harbor would continue to use its own maintenance book. Its keeper would continue to maintain the light. It would supply information necessary for the paid service, including the measurements requested in Carden's previous letter. It would not copy its entries onto his form.

“You've copied them onto two sheets of paper,” he said.

Neri Voss, who had come to collect him, looked at the letter, then at the unclosed case.

“Is something missing?”

“They've given me the replacement. I asked for the old foot as well.”

“Ask again.”

“I did. That's the previous letter.”

Neri drew the case toward him and lifted it, his coat pulling tight across his broad shoulders. He was the boat's owner and master, and Carden had already discovered that he would listen to a complaint while continuing whatever he had come to do. He set the case on the floor beside the last wrapped fitting, its open lid against Carden's shin.

“Are you waiting for that measurement before we go?”

“No. The part for them is right.”

“Then put it aboard.”

There was an accepted form beside the refusal, completed in a large, uneven hand. Carden set the two next to each other. He could follow the same part from the first entry to the repair without turning the sheet over or guessing which date belonged to which operation. That was all he wanted. A person receiving a component ought to be able to tell whether it was the one they needed before it had crossed the water twice.

“I don't see why they object to doing something useful.”

“They've agreed to the service,” Neri said. “You can talk about the book when you get there. You can't keep my boat here until they agree with you.”

“I said we could go.”

“I'm helping.” Neri tapped the case on the floor with his boot.

Carden took a fresh sheet. He asked for the dimensions of the old mounting foot alongside those of the replacement, and for the keeper to indicate which entry described the change. He read it once, removed a sentence about the convenience of a common form, and folded the request.

The labels went onto their cases. Two Serrin approaches, two Lourhaven installations, Nevira's inspected shelter, Sabik's. Six lights in the paid service. Some of the work would be carried by other boats; the parts for Neri's circuit stood nearest the door. Carden checked those against his list, including the carrier for Sabik, then shut the case Neri had moved.

At the wharf, a hand took it from him before he could decide where to stand. Another case came down behind it. Neri's boat already had commercial freight in the hold. Its sealed crates had occupied the better part of the morning, and the hands were impatient to get the service gear stowed where it would not have to be moved again.

Carden's papers went into an old escort-signal chest fixed beneath the cabin window. The narrow divisions were a nuisance, but the lid kept out spray. He laid his working drawings on top of the refuge instructions and the account of the Sabik trial he had read the night before. Olin Marek's entry had been unusually clear about what was taken ashore and what remained aboard. Carden had put a small mark beside the clerk's name.

The pilot arrived carrying her coat over one arm. Oda Blen stopped beside the open hatch, looked down at the freight and asked Neri how far the load had brought the boat down. He showed her. They spoke about the first approach while Carden found a place for the last bundle of tools.

One of the hands shut the hold. The other passed up a length of line and asked Neri whether they would be back before his next booked work.

“Ask Carden,” Neri said.

“If people stop moving my cases.”

“They're aboard now. I won't have to.”

The hand laughed and went to the bow. Carden held the cabin door while Oda put her coat inside. She had close-cut black curls and long forearms, one already marked by a broad streak of wharf dust. She wiped it on her trousers without looking at it.

“Are all those your drawings?” she asked.

“Some of them.”

“I'll want the approach sheet.”

He took it from the chest. By the time he had found a dry board to put beneath it, they were moving away from the wharf.

*   *   *

On the first Lourhaven approach, Oda kept them outside the turn Carden had expected to make.

He looked from his sheet to the low harbor wall. There was room inside it. The end of the wall stood almost exactly where he had drawn it, beneath the square corner of a storehouse farther inland. Neri had already reduced their speed.

“There's the opening,” Carden said.

“Where?” Oda asked.

He pointed. She came to the rail beside him, planted her feet wide as the boat lifted, and looked along his arm.

“Which of those is the end of the wall?”

“That lower corner.”

“That's still the storehouse.”

He lowered his hand. The corner seemed plain enough until he tried to follow it down. Pale stone lay against pale stone; a thin dark edge that he had taken for the wall continued upward into the building. He bent his knees, bringing his eye nearer the line of the rail, and lost the distinction altogether.

“Keep on,” Oda said to Neri.

The coast shifted slowly across the bow. Carden could feel the movement under his feet before the two edges separated. Then a narrow wedge of water appeared between the end of the wall and the storehouse behind it.

“There,” she said. “Now you can see what you're turning around.”

Neri brought the boat toward the entrance. Water lifted over a dark shelf of stone outside the wall and slid away again. From the first position, Carden had taken that whole stretch for the water beyond the entrance.

“How far does that shelf come out?”

Oda pointed to the edge as another wash covered it.

“You see it at lower water. Today you have to wait for the wall.”

He looked down at the plan. The shelf was on it. So were the building, the wall and the channel. He had drawn every one of them from a position no one on this boat could occupy.

“I need another view.”

“Yes. Hold that for a moment.”

She put the loose end of a line into his hand and went forward. He kept it clear while the hand at the bow brought a fender around. By the time they were beside the landing, Carden had a streak of wet rope across his drawing.

He blotted it with his sleeve. While the crew made fast, he turned the sheet over and drew the low view, first with the two corners together and then with the end of the wall clear. He marked the shelf, though from this position it was almost entirely covered.

Oda came back for her coat.

“That one,” he said, showing her the second sketch. “Is that far enough?”

She put a finger beside the wall.

“Give me a little more water there. This load turns slowly.”

He moved the line. She looked again and nodded.

“Keep the other view too.”

“I was going to.” He turned the sheet to his original plan.

“No. The one where you can't tell them apart.”

He turned it back. She tapped the first sketch, then picked up her coat. Carden put a short warning beneath it before gathering the sheets.

The keeper at this light had already set out the work for him. Carden changed the worn fitting, checked the replacement and showed how the same piece could be taken out without disturbing the rest of the housing. The keeper tried it, caught a sleeve on the opened cover and asked him to hold that farther back. They did it again. When Carden brought the form, the keeper wiped a wet ring from the table and made room for it.

Back aboard, Carden found Oda studying their next leg.

“Can we go inside the point?” he asked. “It would save bringing all the way out.”

“Not with this load.”

“The boat clears it.”

“The bow does. I need room for the stern.”

He followed the turn with his finger, this time using the boat's length rather than a dot. He could see where she would have to begin it.

“All right.”

She took the sheet from beneath his hand and folded it where she could hold it open against the wind.

*   *   *

At Sabik, the light stood above a short flight of steps on the inside of the harbor wall. On the way in, Carden watched Oda keep a dark post at the landing clear of the end of a white shed. Neri followed her call until the steps came into view. Beyond them, the light's window faced the approach they had just made.

The keeper was eating bread beside the open door. She wrapped what remained and put it on a shelf when Carden introduced himself.

“You brought the carrier?”

He lifted the case.

“Good. Put it there. That table's dry.”

She had cleared a space around the mounting. On a shelf above the table, the new lamp stood in its wrapping, waiting for the carrier. The ordinary lamp was still in place, its old fittings cleaned and secure. Carden took the new carrier out of its wrapping while she showed him the fastening at the back.

They lifted the old lamp away together and set it on a folded cloth at the far end of the table. The new carrier went onto the base. Its front touched down. Its back remained high.

Carden pressed it once, then stopped. He put his face nearer the mounting. A raised edge ran along its rear, hidden from the position in which he had first stood. The foot of the new carrier struck it before reaching the bearing surface.

“Has that been added?”

“It's always been there.”

“The old foot clears it.”

“Yes.”

She reached for a book beneath the table. Carden checked the number on the carrier against his order. It was the right component. The listed dimensions were right too. He had allowed for its height, the width of the fastening and the space it needed to open. His sketch showed a flat base.

The keeper turned the book toward him.

“Here. That was the last change.”

The entry described the raised rear edge and a foot shaped to pass over it. There was a small side view, drawn beside the words. He had asked her for the carrier dimensions. The information about the mounting had remained in her book.

Carden put his own sheet beside it. There was nowhere on the entry he had sent for that side view. He had written the model number in the space he had made for a local difference.

He lifted the carrier back onto its wrapping. With the base clear, he measured the raised edge and took a tracing of the old foot. The keeper corrected the place from which he had taken one measurement. He entered the revised dimension beside the profile and set the sheet next to her book.

“Can you use the old foot?” she asked.

He examined it. The fastenings were different.

“I'd have to alter it.”

“I need that one to go back.”

“I know.”

He turned the new carrier over on its wrapping. There might be enough room to raise its front and clear the rear edge without changing either part. He had packing pieces for small adjustments. He took them out and laid them on the table.

The keeper fetched a second cloth for the ordinary lamp. Rain had begun to blow through the doorway.

Carden tried a pair of packers beneath the front of the new foot. The rear cleared. The carrier stood nearly level. He moved it gently, checking how much of the foot rested on the base.

“Hold that,” he said.

She held it while he started the first fastening. It caught. He felt a small, unreasonable surge of satisfaction, as though the whole job had agreed to behave.

Neri appeared in the doorway. Water shone on his short beard and darkened the shoulders of his coat.

“We have to go.”

Carden looked at the second fastening.

“I've almost got it seated.”

“Oda wants us around the point while she can still see it.”

“Give me one fit with these under it. I won't touch the old base.”

The keeper shifted her grip.

“It still has to hold when you tighten it.”

“That's what I'm trying.”

Neri took out his watch. Carden could hear rain running off the edge of the roof. He wanted Neri to look at the part, at how nearly it was in place, but the master was looking down toward his boat.

“Ten minutes for that fit,” Neri said. “I'm keeping twenty to put the lamp back, check it and get you aboard. We leave in half an hour.”

“If this goes in, it won't take twenty.”

“Then we'll be early.”

Carden bent over the fastening. The keeper held the carrier square while he took up the slack. For a moment it seemed firm. He moved his hand to the opposite edge and pressed. The foot rocked. One of the packing pieces shifted against the metal with a sharp little sound.

He loosened the fastening and changed its position. When he tightened it again, the load came onto the same narrow edge. He could raise the front or seat the rear; he could not make the flat foot bear properly across the stepped base.

“It wants a shaped foot,” the keeper said.

He stared at the gap. He could see the piece he needed, solid across the front and cut away at the rear. There was enough metal in the new foot to make the clearance if he had the time to cut and finish it properly.

“With a file, I could...”

“No,” Neri said. “Take it off.”

Carden kept his hand on the carrier for another moment. Then he reached for the tool.

The keeper lifted it clear as he released the last fastening. He set it back on its wrapping and helped her bring the ordinary lamp from the other end of the table. Its shaped foot settled over the raised edge at once. He hated the ease of it. He had measured so many things, and the part he needed had been here all along, attached to something he had intended to replace.

They secured it. The keeper lit the lamp and worked the cover while Carden held a hand against the mounting. It remained steady. She checked the opening from outside, came back and adjusted the lamp once more. She left the light on in the darkened afternoon.

Carden marked the replacement work incomplete and read his copied dimensions back to the keeper. She checked them against her entry. He put the tracing and measurements in the dry part of his case.

Neri was waiting at the top of the steps.

“How much time?” Carden asked.

“Enough if we go.”

The keeper returned to her doorway. Her bread was still on the shelf. Carden thanked her, lifted the case and carried the unused part down to the boat.

*   *   *

They had cleared the harbor when the far point began to disappear.

At first it went in pieces. The lower stone was lost behind a gray sheet of rain while the top remained dark against the sky. Carden looked back toward Sabik, then forward again. The whole point had gone.

Oda stood beside Neri with one hand braced against the cabin. Her coat flapped hard against her legs. Neri asked her something Carden could not hear. She shook her head and pointed back along their wake.

He came closer, holding the rail.

“Are we turning?”

“Back to Sabik,” Neri said.

Carden thought of the distance they had already covered. His case was beneath the bench where he had shoved it on coming aboard. He could still feel the useless foot of the carrier through its wrapping. Now they would carry it back over the same water.

The cove before the point was nearer. It was marked among the excluded places; he had read the account of the failed trial. But Oda had known what his first drawing left out. He looked at her, hoping there was a way in she could show him.

“There's the cove before the point.”

Oda looked at him.

“No.”

“It's nearer.”

“I haven't taken a boat into it. Have you?”

He looked toward where the cove must lie, though he could see no opening in the rain.

“We'd be out of this sooner.”

“We don't have an approach or a mooring for this boat there,” she said. “I have both at Sabik.”

“Back,” Neri said. He raised his voice to the hand forward. “We're going back.”

The boat turned slowly. Carden caught the rail with both hands as the movement brought the weather across them. Spray struck his face and ran down inside his collar. Neri was watching Oda, and Oda was looking for the coast they had left.

Something knocked beneath the bench.

Carden looked down. His case had moved against its first restraint. The small cleat holding that line lifted slightly from the timber when the boat rolled.

He crouched and pushed the case back. A hand brought him another line.

“Use the bench support. That one's coming loose.”

Carden fed the line behind the case. Before he could draw his right hand out, the boat moved and caught his knuckles between the case and the support. Pain ran across the back of his hand. He pulled it free and swore.

“Hold it there,” he said.

The hand braced the case while Carden passed the line around with his other hand. He drew it tight and secured it. They waited through the next roll. The case held. The other man went forward again, taking the spare line with him.

Carden sat on the bench for a moment. His fingers would close, though he did not want them to. A dark mark was beginning across two knuckles. He rubbed rain from his eyes with his wrist and stood when Neri told him to keep the space clear.

He could not tell how far they had come back. The water close to the boat was visible, streaked with broken pale lines, but the distance kept drawing in and opening again. Once he thought he saw the wall. It was gone before he could decide.

Oda moved to the other side of the cabin.

“There.”

A light showed ahead of them. Carden saw it, lost it behind rain and saw it again. He leaned forward involuntarily.

“Keep her as she is,” Oda said.

The light grew steadier. A low dark shape appeared beneath it, and farther along, the white of the shed. Oda waited until the post at the landing separated from the building behind it. Then she gave Neri the turn.

It was Sabik. Carden could place the steps now. The light above them came from the lamp he and the keeper had put back less than an hour before. He remembered the shaped foot settling into place, the warmth against his hand during the test.

The bow began to come around.

“Carden, that fender.”

He went where Oda pointed. The fender had swung inboard; he lifted it with his good hand and let it down between the boat and the stone. A figure on the landing caught the line thrown from the bow. Another came out from the shed. Carden stepped back as the hand beside him took up the slack.

The boat touched the fender and moved away from it, then came back more gently. Neri held them while the second line went ashore. There was shouting from the landing, ordinary directions made loud by the rain. Carden could see the keeper standing above the steps with her coat pulled over her head.

He put his sound hand flat on the cabin wall. The boat still moved under it, but they were alongside.

*   *   *

The shelter clerk had a place out of the rain beneath the shed's overhanging roof. Neri went to him with the vessel's list. Carden stood a little behind, dripping onto the stone and trying to open his coat without bending his bruised fingers.

“Water,” Neri said. “And I need to repair a lashing cleat before we go out again.”

The clerk wrote it down.

“What are you bringing off?”

“Repair timber, rope, the tools we need. The commercial load stays aboard.”

“Sealed?”

“Yes.”

The clerk put a line through an empty space in the unloading entry and asked which people would be staying ashore. Neri worked down his list. He pointed to Carden when he reached the light-service mechanic, and Carden gave his name again because rain was striking the roof too loudly for the clerk to hear it.

Marek's account came back to him. In 116, the rescue clerk had entered the passengers and emergency repairs while refusing the transfer of sealed civilian cargo. Carden had read that paragraph for the shape of the entry, pleased by how plainly the record separated one thing from another. Here Neri stood with the hold key still on his belt. The clerk had a list of people to accommodate and a repair to place.

“That case?” the clerk asked.

Carden looked down. One of the hands had brought it to the landing.

“Mine. The light fitting and my tools.”

“Is it for the boat repair?”

“Some of the tools are. The fitting's going back with me.”

The clerk added the case to Carden's entry and pointed out the dry room where he could leave it. The repair wood went to the covered workbench. Neri checked the hold before the last hand came ashore, then returned with a small bag of clothes and the account for the water.

Carden helped carry the wood. He had taken one end before remembering his hand, and the first pressure against it made him stop.

“Other side,” the hand said.

They lowered the timber; Carden went round to take his end in his left hand. Under the roof, he put his tools out where the crew could reach them. The damaged cleat came ashore wrapped in a piece of wet cloth. Neri examined the old fastening holes, spoke to the man at the workbench and agreed on the repair. The man already had another job clamped there. He finished the cut he was making before clearing space for theirs.

Oda had gone to arrange food. When she returned, she was carrying a jug and three cups by their handles.

“They're serving in the next room,” she said. “Leave that.”

Carden was trying to spread his tracing beneath the edge of the case lid.

“It's wet.”

“So are you.”

She put the jug beside him. He drank from a cup with his left hand, then held the paper up. The lines were intact. He laid it flat on the dry shelf and followed her.

The room smelled of soup, wet coats and bread. Someone had strung a line across one corner, too low for Neri, who caught it against his forehead on entering and had to back out from beneath a row of sleeves. Oda took one of the remaining places near the wall. Carden sat opposite her, where he could put his hurt hand on the bench beside him.

For several minutes he wanted nothing except to eat. The soup was thick enough to make the spoon stand against a piece of potato. He broke bread with his left hand, failed to tear the crust cleanly and bit the piece off instead. Oda pushed the loaf nearer him when he finished it.

Neri arrived with his coat off and his beard rubbed dry. He set a small bundle of receipts beside his bowl and moved them away again when water dripped from his sleeve.

“How is the hand?”

Carden showed him.

“Can you move it?”

He opened and closed his fingers once.

“It'll bruise,” Neri said. “Don't use it to carry that case.”

“I had noticed.”

Neri began to eat. At the next table, two people were arguing about whether a third had already been dealt a card. The accused person held both hands over the table and told them to look. Neither seemed willing to take his word for it.

Carden listened until the argument was settled by starting again. He had been holding the next spoonful without eating it. He put it into his mouth and found it had cooled.

“I can make the foot in the workshop,” he said.

Neri looked up.

“The rest of the carrier's right. I need the shape underneath changed.”

“When we're back, tell them which call you need. I have other work booked.”

“I know.”

“Tell them anyway. Before they send it to the wharf and expect a boat.”

Carden nodded. He had imagined returning to finish almost at once, as though the paid pilot and crew would remain assembled around his unfinished fitting. He reached toward the receipts, stopped short of touching them and asked which of Neri's next calls would take them back to Sabik.

Neri told him. There was room if the return service was booked when they got home.

Oda was looking into the bread basket.

“Do you want that end?” Carden asked.

“Yes.”

He pushed it across. She tore it into the last of her soup and ate it while Neri explained the available call. When Carden began to answer, she held up one finger, finished chewing and asked Neri what time he wanted her aboard in the morning.

“After I've spoken to the repair man and you've looked outside.”

“Good.”

She went for more water. Carden leaned back against the wall. His clothes were drying unevenly; the front of his shirt was warm while the collar still lay cold against his neck. Beyond the doorway, rain struck the harbor without any lessening of force. He was relieved to hear it from here.

Later he put his tracing beside the bed, weighted flat beneath his empty cup. He had meant to finish the corrected entry before sleeping. There was a narrow strip left at the bottom of the page, and he began to fit the side view into it, then stopped. He turned to a fresh sheet and drew the mounting at the size he needed.

His fingers ached by the time the measurements were in. He set the pencil down. Across the room, someone was trying to pull a boot off without sitting on a bed that belonged to someone else. Carden moved his case out of the way with his foot.

“There,” he said.

The man sat on the corner of Carden's bed, pulled off the boot and thanked him. He carried both boots to his own place, leaving two wet marks on the floor.

Carden lay down with his hurt hand outside the blanket. He could hear the rain and, nearer, the small movements of people finding room for their belongings. He intended to look once more at the drawing. He woke much later when someone closed a rattling window. For a moment he thought they had come to tell him the boat was leaving. Then he saw the dark room, remembered where he was and went back to sleep.

They left for Lourhaven after the weather eased. The point was visible again, and Oda watched the water beyond the harbor wall before agreeing to the departure. Neri checked the repaired cleat and brought the vessel's list to the clerk, who entered their departure in the public log. Carden's case went back beneath the bench. This time he watched it secured before going to the cabin for his papers.

*   *   *

The correct foot took less time to make than Carden had spent trying to avoid making it.

At the workshop he set the tracing beside the new carrier, marked the clearance and cut the rear to match the raised edge. He checked the bearing surface against a small model of the mounting made from his measurements. It sat square. He took it off and put it back twice before wrapping it.

The return call was booked and paid for. Neri had two other deliveries aboard and wanted the service case where it could come off without disturbing them. Carden put it there. The bruise on his hand had spread and changed color, but he could close his fingers around a handle without the sharp pain of the first evening. He carried the case with the other hand anyway.

Oda asked whether the part was ready.

“It's ready.”

“Good.”

She went forward to see the lines clear. Carden took his place out of the crew's way.

At Sabik, the keeper opened the door before he reached it. The ordinary lamp stood where they had left it. She had a clean cloth ready on the table.

They took it down together. Carden brought the new carrier onto the mounting and felt the foot settle flat. He did not tighten it at once. He pressed each side, checked the clearance at the rear and asked the keeper to look from her usual position beside the window.

“Is the fastening clear?”

She put her hand beneath it.

“Yes.”

They secured it. The keeper took the new lamp from its shelf, unwrapped it and fitted it into the carrier. She opened the cover, reached the part she would need to remove for ordinary work and tried the fastening herself. She paused, changed her grip and did it again. Nothing caught against the base. She lit the lamp and checked its light from outside while Carden watched the mounting.

“Again,” he asked when she came back.

She looked at him, then worked it once more. The foot did not move.

“That's in,” she said.

Carden let go of the carrier.

He had brought a page with the original component entry at the top and the side view beneath it. The keeper read it at the table. She turned the sheet slightly to bring it out of the window's glare.

“Put the warning here,” she said, pointing beside the drawing.

He gave her the pencil. She wrote that the mounting was raised at the rear and required the shaped foot. Her last word ran beyond the neat edge of his box. He moved the line when he made the second copy.

The ordinary lamp went back into its dry place with its own fittings. They checked that those were together before Carden closed the service case. He entered the completed fitting and the retained fallback, and the keeper added the date to her book.

Down at the landing, Neri was finishing his other delivery. Carden sat on the case while a cart came for the last items. The keeper had gone back up the steps. He could see her moving something away from the window; then she was gone from view.

The papers in his chest now accounted for all six paid installations. His own entries lay with those brought back by the other boats: completed calls and the remaining local differences. The harbor that had refused his form had sent the old foot's measurements on another sheet of its own paper. Its lamp was working. Carden had written the comparison he needed and left the question of the common form for another letter.

Neri called him aboard. A hand took the case while he stepped across, then passed it back so he could stow it. The hold was closed for departure. Oda waited for a small boat to clear the approach before giving Neri the way out.

Carden stood beside the cabin as Sabik opened behind them. The light remained above the steps, visible for a while against the stone and then by itself as the wall grew less distinct. He watched that one. Near him, the hand who had helped with the case was telling Neri about the loose cleat on the last voyage and the different fastening now beneath it. Neri bent to look.

Carden kept his place while they checked it. The boat went on, and the light grew smaller.