sleeping had beds built into the wall, and cabinets for storage, so there were a lot of doors and cubbies to investigate. It didn’t help that many of them were still filled with possessions. Clothing made of heavy fabrics, leather boots and shoes, more books in unfamiliar languages, some printed and some handwritten, strange tools that Moon couldn’t guess the purpose of. Everything was as rich as the living area, with fine wood, polished metal, painted ceramic sconces over the lights. There were tiny rooms for bathing, the walls covered with painted ceramic, with basins for the water to be piped into.
Moon found a room that was meant for preparing food, with a long table and chairs, and a larger stove of metal. The cabinets there held white pottery dishes, and metal cooking pots and utensils, and containers of flour, salt, and other dry foodstuffs he couldn’t identify. Some of it had been sitting long enough to get moldy. There was a bowl on the table, filled with fruit so old it had turned into desiccated husks. Moon poked it thoughtfully, trying to estimate the age. Six changes of the month, maybe seven? Stone walked in, saw it, growled, and walked out again.
Down below there were strange rooms filled with machinery, all of it cold and silent. One of the rooms held blocks of a mineral, with a scent and texture not unlike the one used as fuel for light and warmth in the Turning City, back in the eastern mountains. Moon assumed the blocks were used to make the ship move, somehow. But searching those areas told them nothing except that the seed wasn’t hidden there. They found signs that the crew had left abruptly but meant to return: a jacket tossed over a chair, tools scattered on the floor in front of one of the machines, a writing book left out on a table with a wooden pen and an open ink bottle. The beds all had blankets and cushions, some tumbled as if the occupants had just gotten up.
They ended their search in the bridge at the very top of the ship. It was round, with big windows giving a nearly panoramic view of the harbor. They had to wrap their lights up again to keep the glow from being seen from the docks, so they had to search the large area by starlight.
Not that there was much here to search. There was a brass-bound wheel for steering and other devices Moon didn’t recognize, and papers covered with unintelligible writing strewn carelessly around. Some of them had been stepped on and torn or stained with dirt.
In the center of the room was a narrow, waist-high pillar of polished wood, the top formed into a heavy glass hexagon. It reminded Moon of the mechanism that steered the Golden Islanders’ flying ships, but there was nothing inside it and there was no handle to steer with.
Stone hissed in frustration. “The damn seed isn’t here.”
“It’s the only thing that isn’t here.” Moon straightened up from peering into the bottom of the empty pillar. “They left food behind, and their books, their writings, clothing. If they left voluntarily, they meant to come back.”
“Or somebody came aboard and killed them.” Stone shook his head and paced to the window that looked out at the harbor and the misty city rising above it. “And took the seed away somewhere. Flower didn’t say the seed was on the ship, just that the ship would lead us to it.”
Moon scratched the back of his neck, thinking it over. “But somebody still pays to keep this ship here.”
Stone turned back, frowning. “What do you mean?”
“Trading ports don’t let ships dock for free.” He had heard enough captains and sailors complain about this in the trading cities along the Crescent Coast to know it was a fairly universal practice. “Somebody has to own the pier, or be paying for the ship to stay here. And what about when the monster moves? The bigger ships can’t just be dragged along, they’d get damaged. Somebody has to sail this one. Or tow it.”
Stone turned to look out toward the city again. “So somebody must come down here to keep an eye on it.”
They wanted something fairly dramatic, something that would catch attention quickly. Setting the ship on fire was the first thing that occurred to them, but that might rouse the whole harbor. So Stone climbed down the hull again, slipped underwater and shifted, and used his claws to