「Oh, God, Pan, were safe!」 she sobbed, but then a thought rushed into her mind:
it was the Costas boat shed hijacked that day. Suppose he remembered?
「Better e along with us,」 he said. 「You alone?」
「Yeah. I was running away....」
「All right, dont talk now. Just keep quiet. Jaxer, move them bodies into the shadow. Kerim, look around.」
Lyra stood up shakily, holding the wildcat Pantalaimon to her breast. He was twisting to look at something, and she followed his gaze, uanding and suddenly curious too: what had happeo the dead mens daemons? They were fading, that was the answer; fading and drifting away like atoms of smoke, for all that they tried to g to their men. Pantalaimon hid his eyes, and Lyra hurried blindly after Tony Costa.
「What are you doing here?」 she said.
「Quiet, gal. Theres enough trouble awake without stirring more. Well talk on the boat.」
He led her over a little wooden bridge into the heart of the al basin. The other two men were padding silently after them. Tony turned along the waterfront and out onto a woodey, from which he stepped on board a narrowboat and swung open the door to the .
「Get in,」 he said. 「Quiow.」
Lyra did so, patting her bag (which she had never let go of, even i) to make sure the alethiometer was still there. In the long narrow , by the light of a lantern on a hook, she saw a stout powerful woman with gray hair, sitting at a table with a paper. Lyra reized her as Billys mother.
「Whos this?」 the woman said. 「Thats never Lyra?」
「Thats right. Ma, we got to move. We killed two men out in the basihought they was Gobblers, but I re they were Turk traders. Theyd caught Lyra. Never mind talk—well do that on the move.」
「e here, child,」 said Ma Costa.
Lyra obeyed, half happy, half apprehensive, for Ma Costa had hands like bludgeons, and now she was sure: it was their boat she had captured with Roger and the other collegers. But the boat mother set her hands oher side of Lyras face, and her daemon, a hawk, bely to lick Pantalaimons wildcat head. Then Ma Costa folded her great arms around Lyra and pressed her to her breast.
「I dunno what youre a doing here, but you look wore out. You have Billys crib, soons Ive got a hot drink in you. Set you down there, child.」
It looked as if her piracy was fiven, or at least fotten. Lyra slid onto the cushioned bench behind a well-scrubbed piable top as the low rumble of the gas engine shook the boat.
「Where we going?」 Lyra asked.
Ma Costa was setting a sau of milk on the iron stove and riddling the grate to stir the fire up.
「Away from here. No talking now. Well talk in the m.」
And she said no more, handing Lyra a ilk when it was ready, swinging herself up on deck when the boat began to move, exging occasional whispers with the men. Lyra sipped the milk and lifted a er of the blind to watch the dark wharves move past. A minute or two later she was sound asleep.
She awoke in a narrow bed, with that f engine rumble deep below. She sat up, banged her head, cursed, felt around, and got up more carefully. A thin gray light showed her three other bunks, each empty aly made, one below hers and the other two across the tiny . She swung over the side to find herself in her underclothes, and saw the dress and the wolfskin coat folded at the end of her bunk together with her shopping bag. The alethiometer was still there.
She dressed quickly ahrough th