Snake motioned him up.
"Huh? Two of us in one of those?" demanded Urson. "Look, if you want someone to keep warm against, go down and sleep with Geo there. It's more room and you won't get squashed against the wall. I'm a thrasher when I sleep."
Snake didn't move.
"Maybe you better do what he says," Geo said. "I have an idea that ..."
"You've got another idea now?" asked Urson, "Oh, damn, I'm too tired to argue." He vaulted up to the top bunk. "Now move over and be very small." He stretched out, and Snake's slight body was completely hidden. "Hey, get your elbows out of there," Geo heard Urson mutter before there was only a gentle thundering of his snore.
Silver mist suffused the deck of the ship and wet lines glowed a phosphorescent silver; the sky was pale as ice; pricks of stars dotted over the whole bowl. The sea, once green, seemed bleached to blowing clouds of white powder. The door of a cabin opened and white veils flung forward from the form of Argo who emerged like silver from the bone-colored door. The whole movement of the scene made it look like a picture imagination fastens in the slow ripplings of gauze under breeze. One dark spot was at her throat, pulsing darkly, like a heart, like a black flame. She walked to the railing, peered over. In the white washing a skeletal hand appeared. It raised on a beckoning arm, then fell forward in the water. Another arm raised now, a few feet away, beckoning, gesturing. Then three at once; then two more.
A voice as pale as the vision spoke "I am coming. We sail in a hour. The mate has been ordered to put the ship out before dawn. You must tell me now, creatures of the water."
Two glowing arms raised up, and then an almost featureless face. Chest high in the water, it listed backwards and sank again.
"Are you of Aptor or Leptar?" spoke the apparitional figure of Argo again in the thinned voice. "Are your allegiances to Argo or Hama? I have followed thus far. You must tell me before I follow farther."