Something tugged at him.

"Your father calls for you," Vivacia said quietly.

Of course. He had sensed it through her. Their journey through the storm had affirmed and strengthened the bond of mind and spirit between the ship and himself. He did not resent it as he once had and he sensed that Vivacia did not cherish it as dearly as she once had. Perhaps in this, at least, their feelings were meeting in the middle. Since the storm, she had been kind to him, but no more than that. Like a preoccupied parent with a demanding child, he thought to himself.

"In some ways, we have exchanged roles since our journey began," she observed aloud.

He nodded, having neither spirit nor energy to deny the truth. Then he straightened his shoulders, ran a hand through his hair and set his jaw more firmly. He would not let his father see how uncertain he felt.

He kept his head up as he threaded his way across the deck, avoiding the knots of slaves and the working crewmen. No one met his eyes, no one challenged him. Foolish, he told himself, to believe they all watched his passage. They had won. Why should they care about the actions of one surviving crew member? At least he had come through it physically unscathed.

Vivacia bore the scars of the slave uprising. There were still bloodstains on the decks. The marks had not and would not yield to the sanding-stones the men used. The ship still smelled like a slaver, despite the near-continuous scrubbing Brig had ordered. The storm had taken a toll on her canvas as well; the hasty patching that the pirates had done showed plainly on her sails. In the aftercastle, doors had been forced when the slaves had hunted down the ship's officers. The gleaming woodwork was splintered and awry. She was not the tidy little vessel he had embarked upon from Bingtown. It suddenly shamed him to see his family ship this way, as if he had seen his sister whoring in a tavern. His heart went out to her and he wondered what it would have been like to have come aboard the ship of his own free will, as a boy perhaps, to serve under his grandfather's authority.