He did not want to believe that, either. I did not pursue it. Each of us must learn to respect the Annals in our own way, in our own time. The Company's diminished circumstance makes it difficult for anyone to grasp tradition. Only two Old Crew brothers both survived Soulcatcher's trap on the stone plain and the Kiaulune wars afterward. Goblin and One-Eye are haplessly inept at transmitting the Company mystique. One-Eye is too lazy and Goblin too inarticulate. And I was still practically an apprentice when the Old Crew ventured onto the plain in the Captain's quest for Khatovar. Which he did not find. Not the Khatovar he was looking for, anyway.

I am amazed. Before long I will be a twenty-year veteran. I was barely fourteen when Bucket took me under his wing... But I was never like Tobo. At fourteen I was already ancient in pain. For years after Bucket rescued me, I grew younger... "What?"

"I asked why you look so angry all of a sudden."

"I was remembering when I was fourteen."

"Girls have it so easy—" He shut up. His face drained. His northern ancestry became apparent. He was an arrogant and spoiled little puke but he did have brains enough to recognize it when he stepped into a nest of poisonous snakes.

I told him what he knew, not what he did not. "When I was fourteen, the Company and Nyueng Bao were trapped in Jaicur. Dejagore, they call it here." The rest does not matter anymore. The rest is safely in the past. "I almost never have nightmares now."

Tobo had heard more than he ever wanted to about Jaicur already. His mother and grandmother and Uncle Doj had been there, too.

"Goblin says we'll be impressed by these buttons," Tobo whispered. "They won't just make spooky lights, they'll prick somebody's conscience."

"That'll be unusual." Conscience was a rare commodity on either side of our dispute.

"You really knew my dad?" Tobo had heard stories all his life but lately wanted to know more. Murgen had begun to matter in a more than lip-service fashion.