SIX
"On the whole, we have approved of what you have been doing of late. This is why we have been leaving you alone as much as we have. But now something in you seems to have changed, and we feel it is our duty to correct you." Number One Grandfather hovered over the small table—or, rather, his head and upper torso did; the rest of him had faded to vapor in a way that made Wen feel slightly queasy.
"I don't understand what you mean," Wen muttered, "and I wish you wouldn't feel compelled to explain." They were going to anyway, of course. He knew the relative quiet of late had been too good to last.
"We don't really have to explain anything," said Number One Grandfather, sounding smug and entirely too pleased with himself. "Your subordinate Lum has spelled it all for you; all you have to do is read the scroll he's left you."
Wen glanced at the paper roll. He didn't want to unroll it. For one thing, he already had a pretty good idea of what was written there, and he didn't want to be reminded.
"Each weekly total," Number One Grandfather said, "is smaller than that of the previous week. You are never going to be able to afford the right doctors and medicines and sutras at this rate."
Wen made a show of looking at the chart that Lum had assembled. Sure enough, the weekly totals were shrinking, and too much of each of them was treasure in kind rather than in cash or silver. "Obviously," he said, "the authorities are afraid of us. They're cutting back on shipping, or sending it in better-defended ships."
"Another theory we have considered is that you are not finding enough of a challenge in the sorts of vessels you are encountering. This is not acceptable behavior, ungrateful one. It is past time for you to correct it." Wen bit back on his retort. It had been rather pleasant, the past few weeks, to be left alone by the grandfathers for the most part, and to not be addressed as "wretch" when they did speak to him. Please, he thought, don't let those happy days be over.
"The books," he said, "suggest that we're just not encountering that many ships. It's not my fault."
"You know perfectly well that these 'books' you refer to don't record all the vessels you see," a second grandfather said. "They only list the ones you capture."
Number One Grandfather glared down at Wen, moustache and scraggly beard practically vibrating. "You have stopped trying, grandson, and that we cannot allow. Why, after your promising start, have you begun to neglect your duty?"
Because I'm bored with stealing salt fish and rice and never enough silver, Wen thought. But if I tell you that you'll start hitting me again and give me another lecture about filial duties and my responsibility to my lineage. He looked up at Number One Grandfather. "It is possible the government knows about my Dragon Emerald Eye now," he said. "It's not as if the crew don't talk, when we're at Penglai or trading with the coastal villages." They had even found the waiguoren, the natives, willing to trade with them where government-sponsored merchants remained unwelcome. "If they know how far I can see when we're sailing, it's possible they are avoiding sending the real treasures by sea."
Wen looked out the cabin window. Another perfect day in southern Fusang. Blue sky; emerald sea; exactly the right number of cotton-ball clouds. It could have been yesterday. So, in all likelihood, could tomorrow.
"Perhaps you are right, then," Number One Grandfather said, his head floating down until he was looking Wen directly in the eye. "Perhaps you are a victim of your own success." Wen was immediately suspicious; Number One Grandfather had only agreed with him once before, and that was when he had explained about his plan to turn stolen treasure into a renewed lease on life for Father.
"Perhaps you have been going about this getting-rich thing in the wrong way," Number One Grandfather said. "Perhaps a steady accumulation of small treasures isn't the most efficient way to go. Especially," he added, "since you seem to spend more than half of what you take."
The Jade Maiden gurgled as she breasted a larger wave. It sounded as if she was agreeing with Lum. "I think it's important that we all live well," Wen said. "I am most anxious to avoid making the sorts of mistake Chin Gwai made. And speaking of our erstwhile general, is it possible that he is the reason receipts are dropping? The word in Penglai is that he has stolen himself a bigger ship and has a larger crew now than ever before. Perhaps he's taking the bigger prizes, the ones that belong to us. What do you hear? Or, if you don't exactly hear, what have you learned as you have haunted my every move?"
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