“One other thing.” He hesitated. “You're all right? Your hands, I mean?”

“I think so.” She flexed her fingers for him. She waited.

It took a time before he spoke. “I want you to know-” His voice went quiet. “I wanted to kill Artu. I still do. You know that.”

She smiled crookedly. “So did I. I tried.” She pondered an instant. “But it was better as it came out. I beat him. He knows it. The crew knows it. If you had jumped in, I'd still be trying to prove myself to them. But it would be worse now.” She suddenly knew what he had to hear from her. “You did the right thing, Captain Trell.”

His real smile broke through briefly. “I did, didn't I?” There was real satisfaction in his voice.

She crossed her arms and held them tightly against her chest to keep from going to him. “The crew respects your command. So do I.”

He sat a bit straighter. He didn't thank her. It wouldn't have been appropriate. She walked quietly from the room. She didn't look back at him as she quietly closed the door between them.

AS SHE CLOSED THE DOOR, BRASHEN SHUT HIS EYES. HE D MADE THE RIGHT decision. And they had made the right decision. They both knew it. They had agreed that it was better this way. Better. He wondered when it was going to get easier.

Then he wondered if it would ever get easier.

“THERE'S TWO OF us.” PARAGON DIVULGED THE SECRET TO HER AS HE HELD her in his hands. She weighed so little. She was like a doll stuffed with millet.

“So there is,” Amber agreed. “You and I.” The rasp moved carefully over his chest. It reminded him of a cat's tongue. No, he corrected himself. It would have reminded Kerr Ludluck of a cat's tongue. That long-dead boy had liked cats and kittens. Paragon had never had one.

Paragon. Now there was a name for him. If only they knew. The secret he held slipped from him again. “Not you and I. Me and me. There's two of us.”

“Sometimes I feel that way myself,” Amber replied easily. Sometimes, when she was working, he felt like she went somewhere else.

“Who is your other me?” he demanded.

“Oh. Well. A friend I had. We used to talk a lot. Sometimes I hear myself still talking to him, and I know how he would answer.”

“I'm not like that. There has always been two of me.”

She returned the rasp to the tool sling. He could feel her do it, and felt the shift of her weight as she searched for something else. “I'm going to use sandpaper now. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

She went on as if she had not interrupted the conversation. “If there are two of you, I like both. Keep still now.” The sandpaper worked back and forth against his chest. The friction made heat. He smiled to her words because they were true, even if she didn't know it.

“Amber? Have you always known who you were?” he asked curiously.

The sandpaper stopped. In a guarded voice, she replied, “Not always. , But I always suspected.” She added in her normal voice, “That's a very odd question to ask.”

“You're a very odd person,” he teased, and grinned.

The sandpaper moved against him slowly. “You are one spooky ship,” she said quietly.

“I haven't always known who I was,” he admitted. “But now I do, and that makes it all easier.”

She set aside the sandpaper. He heard the clink of tools as she rummaged for something else. “I have no idea what you mean by that, but I'm happy for you.” She was distracted again. “This is an oil pressed from seeds. On ordinary wood, it swells the fibers and can erase a scratch. I have no idea what it will do on wizardwood. Shall we try a little and see?”

“Why not?”

“A moment.” Amber leaned back in his arms. Her feet were braced against his belly. She wore a safety line, but he knew she trusted more to him. “Althea?” Amber called up to the deck. “Have you ever used oil on wizardwood? For maintenance?”

He felt Althea stand. She had been lying flat on her belly, drawing something. She came to the railing and leaned over. “Of course. But not on painted surfaces like the figurehead.”

“But he's not really painted. The color is just . . . there. All through the wood.”

“Then why is the chopped part of his face gray?”

“I don't know. Paragon, do you know why?”

“Because it is.” It was odd. When he tried to tell them something about himself, they didn't listen. Then they pried into things that were not their business. He tried again. “Althea. There are two of me.”