Tongues of Serpents Page 0,31

desired, they neither of them recognized in any real way the colossal folly of wasting Temeraire in this isolate part of the world.

It was enough to make him look again at Tharkay's suggestion: Laurence could easily long for the sea-wind in his face and the open ocean, and at least the comfort of doing some rather than no good, even if that small and diversionary. Something in his heart curled away from the mercenary life; but he was not certain he ought let that stand in his way, and Temeraire's. If there was no honor in it, neither could he see any here, at best errand-runners for an indifferent overseer, and at worst pawns in a selfish squabbling.

MacArthur's proposal offered, however, at least a temporary escape from all these alternatives; if it could not answer for long, Laurence was at present in the mood to be satisfied with small blessings. "But I would not in the least press it upon you," he added, "and I hope you will not act in any way contrary to your judgment, nor - "

Nor, he meant to add, in excessive haste, but Granby broke in on him before he could. "For God's sake let us go first thing in the morning," Granby said, passionately. "I have been living in mortal terror every day I should wake up and find myself a hundred miles into the interior: she keeps talking of going to look for elephants. What I am to do if Rankin will not come, though, I cannot tell you. No one can argue Iskierka isn't in a different class, but I have no official orders to be here, where he does; and seniority is a sad puzzle: he was a captain first, even if he hasn't had a dragon for years."

"I suggest you do not concern yourselves until the event," Tharkay said, "if it should arise," and shrugged when Rankin, to Laurence's private surprise, made no objections either to the project or to Granby's assertion of rank. "Bligh's support was desirable to him when he thought you might try to deny him the egg," Tharkay said. "Now he can only gain very little and risk much by committing himself; I imagine he is perfectly satisfied to have you provide him a convenient excuse to withdraw, particularly when Granby must soon depart and restore his precedence."

Laurence could of course not look upon the expedition with anything like pleasure, save the meager sort involved in escaping a worse outcome. There was nothing attractive in the prospect of shepherding a gang of convicts, and a month in Rankin's company would have been a most effective punishment in quarters less confined than a small encampment; for insult to add upon these injuries, he might also expect the hostility of the rest of the aviators.

"I know they have made clods of themselves, but you had better have at least one officer," Granby said, scratching out a haphazard list of the aviators on the back of a napkin, in his shipboard cabin, as he chose which men to assign to Temeraire and to Iskierka, as temporary crews. Laurence of course had been stripped of his subordinates with his rank, and Iskierka had left her own back in Britain when she had decamped without permission to follow them, taking only Granby. "Will you take Forthing?"

"Temeraire has taken him a little in dislike, I find," Laurence said.

"Yes, I know," Granby said. "I should like to give Forthing a chance to make it up with him; otherwise we will have a job of it to persuade Temeraire to let him make a try for one of the eggs. Not that Forthing is any less a clod than the rest, but at least he is a competent clod. Most of the rest are the flotsam of the Corps as much as the eggs are. That fellow Blincoln is pleased with himself if he manages to round up half-a-dozen men to put away harness in good order; and I suppose he may as well be, because it don't happen very often."

Laurence nodded. "We will take Fellowes and Dorset, of course; and Roland and Demane can manage the rest, I expect," he said. "We ought not take more men than necessary; there can be no need to burden the dragons."

"I hope," Tharkay said, "that I may form one of your party, as well, if it is not inconvenient."

They looked at him with surprise. After a moment, Laurence said, "Certainly, if you like," forcibly repressing his