Chaos Space - Marianne de Pierres [71]
Djeserit didn’t join Trin on the island but fished throughout the day, returning more food to shore.
‘You must tell her to stop, Trinder. She is exhausted,’ said Joe Scali. ‘She will not listen.’
But Trin remained distant from her. Instead, he ordered that the strongest refugees should scoop out hollows under the thorn bushes to reach the wet, cool sand beneath, while the weakest were charged with cutting up the fish, using the few knives they had pooled or the edges of broken shells.
When it was done, they crowded away from the rising sun into the shade and ate the fish raw. Those too listless to chew sucked at the pink flesh for moisture and for the salve of oils on their burned lips and throats.
Gusts of moist salt wind tempered the unbearable heat but Trin worried about their lack of fresh water. He dozed fitfully in his hollow, unable to sleep properly because of thirst and the press of the exhausted bodies packed in around him.
At suns set he walked alone to the water, opening his fellalo, to lie in the shallows. Even the stinging of sea lice couldn’t deny the refugees the balm of the sea. But could they live off it until help came?
Trin looked along the darkening beach line to the clumps of survivors. Vespa Malocchi sat crying between Juno Genarro and another. He had wanted to bring his fratella’s body but Trin had forbidden it. The yacht had barely been able to carry the weight of the living. So Vespa had scraped the burning sand over Seb’s body and left him.
Trin sat recalling the fire in Loisa and how he had risked his life then to help Seb Malocchi. The futility of it made him want to laugh but he had no heart for such things.
Then a movement in the water made him shift uneasily. The shallow seas of the coastal islands harboured few predators but occasionally a xoc would find its way in from the deep. He had seen one at the holiday palazzo; speared by the Cavaliere and left on the beach to die. When he had dug Djeserit from under Seb Malocchi, the sluggishness of her gills had reminded him of that xoc—gasping as it expired.
‘Principe?’
It was her. She had surfaced alongside him and was lying with her face raised from the water. Her voice was thick as if she had already forgotten how to use it. Her skin was no longer flaking, though, and the burns had faded, leaving her gleaming like the wet flesh he had eaten during the day.
‘You provided food for us. Grazi,’ Trin said stiffly. ‘Another night and we must move south to the bigger islands. There will be more shade and the Saqr will not bother to search for us there.’
‘Yes,’ Djeserit agreed. ‘The sea will care for us.’
‘For you,’ he said with a tinge of bitterness.
She heard it in his voice and moved closer. ‘It is better if I stay in the water. I can fish for us and my skin—my body—will heal.’
“Until when?’ Trin asked.
‘Until we are safe, Principe. I will rest for a while now and then I will swim to the Palazzo for fresh water.’
Trin’s heartbeat quickened. ‘That is too dangerous. I forbid—’
‘You did not forbid Juno Genarro,’ Djeserit said softly.
Trin hesitated. She was right. Their water supplies had dwindled to almost nothing and he had not thought ahead clearly. ‘There are several huts around the back of the palazzo that are used for storing leisure equipment. One of them will have a desalinator.’
He waded back to the hard wet sand above where the waves lapped and drew for her a rough diagram of a small machine that consisted of tubes and cylinders.
Djeserit rolled in the shallows like a seal, watching. ‘I will need something to float it back.’
‘They may be guarding the marina now.’ Trin thought for a moment. ‘But there is an inlet on the northern side, a tidal tributary. There is a pinnace for fishing trips moored in there.’
He sank to his knees and slid into the water alongside her again. ‘Please, Djes . . .’
Her hand grasped his and pushed sharp round buttons into his fist. ‘I have saved these