Already the fringes of the storm lay hard upon them. Forward of the staysails, the margin lashed and billowed under the seething assault, throwing off globes of coruscation wherever its energies doubled over upon themselves. The starship heaved and pitched, her entire fabric shuddering in endless, only partially successful adjustment to the asymmetric stresses. The great mast of the Osprey dipped and swayed in a titanic figure eight. The yards swung with a peculiar complex rhythm of their own, thrashing against the
Standing rigging straining to hold them, carrying the crewbeings clutching at them in swooping, stomach-wrenching ellipses as they struggled for sanity and survival.
As he fought to clear and reef his portion of the twisted starsail, Henry Martyn kept a part of his attention upon the §-field chasing itself about the ship in an orgy of swirling color. More significance, he thought, lay in its pattern than could be accounted for by the storm, and he was right. As he bent the gaskets into place about the folded mesh and began edging inboard toward the comparative stability of the forecrotch, he heard a voice, pitiful and piping against the screaming energy of the storm. He could not quite make out the words, but hearing them was sufl&cient to confirm his judgment. Osprey's course was being intersected by another starship.
He shouted against the storm, which seemed to gather strength with every second, ordering his topmen to the mast, but reversed himself until he clung again to the outer extremity of the yard. Seizing a shroud running parallel to a great diagonal staysail which spanned the gulf between dorsal foreyard and maintier, he leapt from the yard, mindful of the now unstable §-field margin, and, twining the shroud about one leg, let it pass through his hands. He fell swiftly aft to the outboard end of the starboard mainyard. A similar route took him to the crotch of the mizzentier, where he climbed the more conventional ratlines to Krumm's side upon the quarterdeck. Shielding his eyes against explosions of light, he peered aloft, shouting at the giant struggling with the tiller-ball. "Where away, Mr. Krumm?"
The man shook his shaggy head, never taking his eyes from the binnacle, stooping as he watched to shout into the captain's ear. "No tellin*, sir! Nor who or what she be! 'Nough trouble upon our hands as is!'*
Staggering against a sudden lurch of the deck, Henry Martyn nodded exaggeratedly so that Krumm could see it in his peripheral vision. "I would be pleased to hear you call General Quarters, Mr. Krumm." Krumm's head turned against his will. He stared at the boy, openmouthed. "If you will."
"Aye, sir. Mr. Willis, call General Quarters!"
Throughout the already embattled starship, alarms struggled against the overwhelming noise of the storm as crewbeings, looking about at one another in stunned disbelief, appeared at their appointed stations. Ordering those in charge upon the several gundecks, mostly his canny seporth projecteurs, to thrust when they found something to thrust at, Henry Martyn determined to remain upon the quarterdeck, requesting Mr. Krumm to stay beside him. Both allowed themselves preparatory glances at their personal thrustibles and at once returned their attention to management of the Osprey.
Nor were they a moment too soon. The corsair reeled under another sort of onslaught as the impact of projectibles was felt everywhere throughout her. Rigging, mast, and spars held through the pounding. They had been stripped and reinforced before the storm. It was soon apparent from the pattern and direction of the kinergic thrusts that Osprey had more than one pursuer.
"Four'd be me guess, sir, 'less it's fewer ships better projectibled. 'Pears they chose t'spring their trap a mite earlier than we reckoned."
Henry Martyn shook his head, weary of the need to shout each word. "We have it yet to arrive at the trap, Mr. Krumm. Someone jumped the queue, likeliest that Skerry two-decker. By the Ceo's bright blue balls, we shall make that rapespawn SuUers-Masen pay the price of impatience!"
The corsair's many projectibles began speaking for themselves, following his standing order to anticipate, when possible, the enemy thrusting and meet his energy with theirs, so that the annihilations might do greater damage than kinergic power alone. This time, they were only partly successful, although the unseen enemy's rhythm became disturbed and erratic and his rate seemed to fall off. Being a hundred klommes aft of the Osprey, they were only beginning to appreciate the full intensity of the weather. A runner, unable to push his small voice past the double fury ojf neutrino storm and battle, tugged diflftdently at the captain's tunic. Henry Martyn turned. Being scarcely more than a boy himself, and slight of stature into the bargain, he did not have to bend far to place the boy's mouth at his ear.
396 HENRY MARTYN
"C-compliments of the liftdeck chief projecteur, sir. WeVe damage to the lift and stern chasers. Two functional, one out of it altogether."
"And the crewbeings?"
"Seventeen dead, sir, as I was sent forward, wounded as yet uncounted. Chief's a replacement, himself, sir. Travis, the cook's helper."
Henry Martyn set his mouth in a grim line. The pursuers imitated his use of heavy bow chasers, hanging aft of Osprey where he might not bring as many projectibles to bear. As he opened his mouth to reply, she lurched in a manner telling him she had taken another deadly blow.
"Very good, Mr. Nolan. Compliments to Mr. Travis. If he lives, he may consider himself warranted. Inform him and the other chief projecteurs upon your way aft that they will have targets soon enough. Now get you below."
The boy stepped back and saluted. His captain could only see him mouth his next words. "Aye, aye, sir."
Henry Martyn turned to Krumm who had spared half an eye for the previous conversation. "Alert all hands aloft, Mr. Krumm. I want the starboard forestaysail loosed, also the port mizzensail, after which they will have to look to their lives. We shall veer and wallow and, if lucky, end up ftill aback. But we shall get in some thrusting as our main projectibles bear! I shall summon the watch oflftcer myself to assemble a boarding party."
Krumm grinned. "Aye, you want her figurehead among his mainyards?"
Henry Martyn nodded. "Pick us a good fight, Krumm, to the Ceo with the tariff. Choose the largest of our foe. Let her run full upon us. And mind, as she murders us, that you ruin her for life!"
Chapter XLllI: Battlestorm
"Steady, now!"
Braced with a motley dozen crewbeings upon the narrow platform at the maintier crotch, Henry Martyn awaited the collision. Osprey's projectibles had already spoken to good effect, delivering themselves of a full, rotating broadside before the corsair swung onto a course opposing that of her pursuers and could, before the coming impact, use only her bow chasers.
The captain had made an everyday habit of carrying a second thrustible. He chose now for his boarding party only crewbeings adept at fighting with two weapons (while entertaining certain doubts about his own skills upon this score). He had decided upon the maintier as their jump-off, having evacuated all riggers and topmen from the mast and yards further forward, calculating that little of the structure above was likely to survive catastrophe. In truth, he would be lucky not to drive the mast throu^ the Osprey's hull, spitting her like a homelier fowl about to be roasted.
For once he was unaccompanied by one of the nacyl who ordinarily took turns as his advisor, liaison with the other flatsies through the medium of the virus with which they were infected, and something of an extra shadow in Krumm's stated opinion. The creatures were, by virtue of their odd anatomies, unsuited to the rigors of combat. The young captain felt it a shame that his first officer (and wives) were ill disposed toward the aliens. This was one reason for keeping that stalwart ignorant regarding his overall strategy. Nor were any of his comrades of the moment seporth, the roUer-ballers' mass being too great to survive the initial stages of his plan.
Three of the attacking vessels, whoever they had been, were well out of the fight, the struggle between Osprey and
what he presumed was the frigate Skerry having swept beyond them. By the time they returned, as they surely would, the issue would be settled. Had it not been for the
neutrino storm still raging all about them in undiminished strength, he would have put auxiliaries off to seize those vessels as prizes. He would still do so, given a chance, if only to pay the bill for this fight and make up to his crew for opportunities they would lose should this endeavor prove successful and they continued to moonringed Skye.
Henry Martyn peered aloft, shading his eyes against the storm-glare. Even with all starsail taken in it was difficult to see forward. Before he was quite aware of the distortion it created, the §-fields of both vessels coalesced and the yards and rigging of each began to tear themselves apart upon those of the other. The racket was unbearable. Both masts groaned, sending a horrible shudder into the hulls of their respective ships, crumpling like foil tubes into their own lengths as foreyards and mainyards tore loose or were smashed from their crotches like the branches of saplings. Standing and running cabelles, loaded far beyond their capacities, tightened with a dissonant thrum into rigid bars, stretched with heartrending screams and let go, free ends lashing about the mast like deadly whips, trailing sparks where they struck the §-margin.
Somehow the young star-raider and his boarding party survived, clinging to the shivering mast, waiting until both vessels ground themselves to a mutually destructive halt. Fragments of rigging and other objects, including several bodies, plummeted past them, whistling in funereal warning as the frigate—being larger and carrying more starsail upon her mizzenyards than the Osprey's officers had thought well advised in the teeth of the storm—pushed the double tangle of wreckage along, reversing the influence of acceleration onboard the corsair. Following his own advice, Krumm had ordered the maindeck crew to tie themselves to every cleat and bollard they could find.
Taking ragged breath, Henry Martyn arose and, without further preparation, flung himself from the platform, spread weapon-heavy arms, and free-fell three hundred measures toward the frigate's triangular port mizzensail, tucking himself into a ball at the last moment to land upon his back,
hoping the expanse of sailmesh would hold him lest he break throu^ and incinerate himself upon the after portion of the §-field.
The mizzensail held. Having finished half a dozen diminishing rebounds, and without waiting for his companions, but desiring to get out of their way as they, too, alighted, he scrambled awkwardly toward the crotch of the maintier and down the shrouds to the maindeck. He and his fellows were confronted there, as expected, by a well-armed repelling party. At their head was Ballygrant Bowmore.
The former captain of the Gyrfalcon raised an arm in the salute of death, protecting his torso with the secondary field about the axis of his thrustible. Even without the eyelid stitched over his grotesque empty socket and the accompanying scar along one dark cheek, Bowmore's nasal, rasp-edged voice would have been all too familiar. "We meet again, Master Islay. Rather sooner than you expected, I would imagine!"
The ring upon his one pierced ear glittered in the stormlight. Here was an individual who experienced no difficulty making himself heard above the neutrinos' wail. Disdaining his enemy's salute, Henry Martyn put a hand into his coverall pocket, grinning at the man with long, gray, stiff-braided hair in dozens of polished metal stops.
"Boatswain Ballygrant! More appropriate than I might have dreamed! Days ago, I paid a visit to this vessel's captain during which, never being one to discard anything useful, I took pains to conceal aboard her the explosive you attempted to use against the Peregrine."
He removed the hand and held up a small squarish object. "As you recall, this is your remote, now rigged in such a manner that, should I release it, these ships and everyone aboard will be blown into incandescence. Give it up. Take off your weapons and advise SuUers-Masen to surrender."
"I have no need of such advice, lad!" A tall, deep-voiced man with only a pair of metal-studded braids to boast of, hanging past a heavy jeweled choker down his naked chest, had just arrived from the quarterdeck and now stood, with a degree of obvious reluctance, beside Bowmore. "I agreed to help," he told the man, "after we pulled you from the Deep, because this young fellow refused to join our Council,
declaring himself outlaw among outlaws. I think better of it now. What is the universe coming to? He can destroy my starship with that little thing?"
The murchan shook his head. "What it controls. But not before I've settled him personally!" He cast off his deck-length cloak with its furred collar and edging. A look of horror and denial crept across the frigate captain's features.
"Madness! Better to lose a battle, even a ship, than all our lives! I shall of course surrender. Captain Martyn, what are your terms, sir?"
Henry Martyn grinned again and turned to climb back up to his own vessel. "The best I can afford to give, sir, I assure you. And that, my former captain," he offered to Bowmore, turning to face him a moment, "settles that!"
Bowmore sprang forward in pursuit. "No you don't!"
"No, Captain—" Sullers-Masen attempted to interpose himself.
"Stand aside," cried the murchan, pushing at him. At Henry Martyn he shouted, "Wait! You will not take leave of this ship while I live!"
The young captain hurled himself back to the frigate's maindeck. "Then I shall take it when you are dead!"
Bowmore ripped at the jeweled studs of his billowing, throat-ruflfled blouse until he wore only thrustibles, loose-fitting trousers, and knee-high, exotic-leathered boots. His breathing was already furious, from anger rather than exertion. The two rushed together, ready to kill or be killed, but again Sullers-Masen was between them, pleading. "There is no shame in surrender, Captain! The issue has been honorably settled!"
His companion sneered. "It has not been settled for me!"
"But what is one child more or less? Do not be a fool. Captain!"
Again Bowmore pushed him aside. "It is my affair!"
The Skyan boy had stood by, watching and listening. He was, however, ready when Bowmore charged, thrustible leveled at his chest.
Flash! With a casual sweep, Henry Martyn parried the murchan's enraged and desperate thrust, dodging down and to the left, the deadman's switch in his left hand preventing him from using that thrustible. It was obvious that
Bowmore had forgotten his own second weapon as he slashed downward, attempting to follow his elusive quarry's motion, but—
Flash! Bowmore's second thrust was short, trailing sparks across the smoking deckmesh, missing its intended target by a measure. The two combatants disengaged, guards dropped for a moment, both breathing heavily.
"Twice," the boy asserted, "your life was given back to you. This time you should be hauled to Skye. It is what I intended in the end. But since you prefer it this way, rapespawn, then I shall humor you!"
Again they found themselves en garde, engaged in what both knew was a struggle of life or death. Beam flashed upon kinergic beam, rocking the deck with explosions, as each thrust was hurled and answered by opposing thrust, once, twice, five times, ten times. Henry Martyn broke oflf and leapt forward, colliding with Bowmore, pressing his glowing axis to the man's sweat-trickled throat. Bowmore somehow insinuated an arm beneath it, also slippery with sweat, levered the boy backward, and parried a bolt hurled at him. Before they could disengage, Bowmore slashed out, Henry Martyn countering while edging round and sideways. Neither having intended it, they had exchanged positions. Bowmore's back was to the mast.
His adversary slashed and ducked. The murchan chopped an answer, Henry Martyn thrusting the same instant. Bowmore fell back, losing ground. Henry Martyn lunged, attempting—perhaps foolishly—to grapple with the larger man again. Spine pressed against the mast, Bowmore ducked. He and the boy were, for a moment, locked together, shoulder over shoulder. Both took a breath and the Gyrfalcon's former master ducked from under, reversed, and laughed aloud, crewbeings of both vessels muttering excitedly without regard to whose side was whose. A ball of fire exploded aloft, the storm, as if jealous, reasserting itself.
With a shout, Henry Martyn leapt forward. Again the fighters, clumsy with fat
igue, chopped at one another, both nearing exhaustion, every thought of martial artistry and warrior's finesse long vanished. With nothing more than sheer ferocity, Henry Martyn drove Bowmore backward down the meshing to the break of the quarterdeck. Bowmore
402 HENRY MARTYN
suffered a fall, again reversing the field as he rolled to his feet. Wary, they circled one another, exchanging positions once more.
The older man backed up and paused. Feeling an obstruction behind him, he put a foot upon a hatch cover and in an instant was looking down at his opponent from the height of half a measure. Breathing hard and streaming perspiration, he continued to retreat across the hatch as the shouting all about him increased in pitch and volume.
Sweat running into his ovra eyes, Henry Martyn leapt onto the hatch and, almost by reflex, exchanged a short salute with the man, flash following flash like an exercise in the formal salon of death-dealing which neither had ever attended. They exchanged the salute again, both transformed and somehow beautiful in motion, a long rhythmic series this time, until, having retreated too far, Bowmore fell backward off the hatch, landing upon a coiled cabelle.
Not pressing his advantage, a breathless, panting Henry Martyn gestured. "Up!" Half-blind with fatigue, faces wet as if they had been swimming, they grinned, almost one comrade to another. Bowmore rose, siemme by siemme.
The boy leapt from the hatch, parrying thrust after thrust, flash after brilliant flash, driving the man backward until the axes of their thrustibles jammed upon one another, throwing sparks which singed their clothing and, though neither noticed, burnt their skin. They crashed, face to face, eyes locked, the carrack master's broken, double-baubled nose no more than a siemme from Henry Martyn's. The grin was one of strain now, brute exertion against brute exertion. With greater strength than any larger adversary might expect, Henry Martyn pushed Bowmore backward by gradual degrees forcing the man to retreat to fighting distance, thrust, and thrust again.
Coordinated Arm 01: Henry Martyn Page 44