"If you live," she said.
"But my dear child," said Derech, "can you, sitting there, guarantee to me that you will be alive tomorrow?"
"You will have to admit," said Carey slowly, "that her odds are somewhat better than ours."
II
The barge was long and narrow, buoyed on pontoon-like floats so that it rode high even with a full cargo. Pontoons, hull, and deck were metal. There had not been any trees for ship-building for a very long time. In the center of the deck was a low cabin where several people might sleep, and forward toward the blunt bow was a fire-pit where the cooking was done. The motive power was animal, four of the scaly-hided, bad-tempered, hissing beasts of Martian burden plodding along the canal bank with a tow-cable.
The pace was slow. Carey had wanted to go across country direct to Barrakesh, but Derech had forbidden it.
"I can't take a caravan. All my business goes by the canal, and everyone knows it. So you and I would have to go alone, riding by night and hiding by day, and saving no time at all." He jabbed his thumb at the sky. "Wales will come when you least expect him and least want him. On the barge you'll have a place to hide, and I'll have enough men to discourage him if he should be rash enough to interfere with a trader going about his normal and lawful business."
"He wouldn't be above it," Carey said gloomily.
"But only when he's desperate. That will be later."