Left of Africa

by Hal Clement

  The sentry had reached the bottom of the hatch ladder and was striding across the compartment toward a door. Gizona knew perfectly well that the door led into the compartment where the captains were gathered. He gathered his strength for one effort.

  The watchman was still carrying him by the neck, using only one hand-apparently from sheer cruelty, since that is not the easiest way for even a very strong man to carry a boy barely twelve years old. Gizona’s feet were just clear of the boards, so that he had no leverage. His hands could reach the man’s belt, but the sword hung on the other side, well beyond reach.

  There was one other possibility, though, and Gizona took advantage of it. As the man’s weight came on his left foot and the right one left the deck, the boy kicked sideways with all his strength. If the man had not been half running, it would never have worked; but as it was, his right foot was deflected a trifle sideways. Its toe ran into his own left heel and the man lunged forward, tripped neatly on his own feet. He would hardly have been human if he had managed to hang on to his captive through the fall.

  Gizona felt himself hurled forward as his captor’s arms swung to take up the shock of the fall. The man hit the deck almost silently, taking the blow on his forearms, and was back on his feet with catlike speed. Gizona was less lucky, or possibly less skillful; he struck the door with a resounding thud, spreading the force among both knees, his right shoulder and hip, and his skull.

  It was dark in the hold, and for a moment the watchman failed to see where his captive had landed. That was the fact that saved the boy. He saw the man dimly, as Gizona tried to clear his own ringing head, looking around; saw him turn his head toward the crouching boy, and spring instantly with a bellow of anger.

  Gizona also leaped, trying to go under the flying body. The man knew better than to leap that high, however, and his knee caught Gizona’s chest, throwing him backward once more. The Phoenician was thrown a trifle off balance by the collision, and though he landed on his feet he staggered into the door-or where the door would have been had not one of the captains opened it from the other side at that instant. Since the sailor had been counting on it to get back his balance, he disappeared through the opening, carrying with him to the deck the man who had opened it.

  There was a lamp in the council cabin, so the opening of the door made it easier for Gizona to see. He did not wait to watch what went on in the other cabin, which might have amused him greatly at any other time; he headed for the ladder as rapidly as his bruises would permit. His speed was increased by the arrival of a bronze dagger, which thudded into the wood of the ladder just as he reached it; Gizona was through the hatch before another could be thrown. He decided later that the dagger must have belonged to the watchman, though he had not seen the weapon in his belt before, and that none of the captains were angry enough to use that means of stopping him. After all, they had no reason to suppose he was anything but one of the beach-imps.

  He did not think of this at the time, though. He could hear angry voices below, and heavy footfalls on deck and ladder. He ducked down toward the stern of the ship, concealing himself behind the stores which had not yet been stowed below, and tried to decide whether it would be safer to hide on the ship or go overboard. It was not as dark as it had been, the third-quarter moon having just risen; if they chose to pursue him they stood a rather good chance of succeeding. On the other hand, the ship was only so big, and if they searched it carefully they could hardly help finding him.

  The solution seemed plain enough. He heard voices clearly enough to suggest that men were getting up on deck; without hesitation, Gizona braced his arms about a bundle which lay beside him, heaved upward with all his strength, and sent it over the side. Then he ducked back into cover, and listened to the splash with satisfaction. He was sure the others would have heard it too.

  They had. A yell arose from the hatchway. "There he goes!" It was the watchman’s voice; evidently he had recovered his feet in time to be one of the first on deck. "Get into the boat— we'll catch the little devil!"

  "What do you mean, "little devil?"’ came a calmer voice.

  "It was one of those shore-boys, came out to sleep away from the flies. I was bringing him to you as you had ordered, Captain."

  "Hmph. A boy seems nothing to worry about. Don’t blame yourself for losing him, Ephraim; those youngsters are harder to hold than live fish. He’s probably half way to shore by now. Let’s see if he can be seen."

  From his hiding place, Gizona peeked out cautiously. The watchman, his captain, and three others were approaching the shoreward rail and peering curiously into the night. Naturally, they saw no sign of a swimmer.

  "It doesn’t matter," the captain said again. "You probably put a good scare into him. Go back to your watch; you'll be relieved in an hour or so. We still have business below." He turned away from the rail, the others following. The sentry was last, and as he did so he happened to glance downward.

  "Captain!" he exclaimed. "What’s that?" He pointed to an object only a few yards from the ship’s side, bobbing sluggishly in the water. The others came back to look.

  "I’d say it was a wrapped bale of some sort— it’s hard to say in this light, with most of it submerged," one of the other captains said. The officer of the ship where the meeting was being held was quicker to recognize the object, however; Gizona had had the bad luck to choose a package that floated.

  "That’s one of our bales, that came aboard this afternoon!" he cried. "That boy must have thrown it over to make the splash we heard! All hands on deck, and hunt him down-no

  CHAPTER 13

  Gizona thought rapidly-not for fun, now, but from necessity. Everything he had decided before was still true, except for the fact that they would now be certain to chase him in the water instead of merely liking to. He would have been better off swimming in the first place.

  It was possible to get into the water without a splash, of course; he could climb down any of the three anchor ropes. The problem was to do this unseen, and it was hard to imagine that the Phoenicians would be stupid enough to leave the ropes unwatched. A quick look from his hiding place showed that they weren’t; men were at each of them, waiting for him to appear. He noticed that all three of these watchers were captains, and judged that there could not be many common sailors on board. This might be helpful. Also, from the sounds, he gathered that the search was starting below deck, they must have thought he had ducked back down through another hatch-which he might have done if he had thought of it earlier. Of course, the deck would also be searched, sooner or later. The problem came down to very simple terms; he had to get over the side and into the water without being either heard or seen. The first limitation meant that he could not dive, and the second that he had to leave somewhere amidships, where the bulge of the side would hide him from the anchor watchmen. On galleys there would have been no trouble, since he could have gone down an oar; but the oars of the merchantman were belayed along the rails and not in the water. He could not have put one out silently, and in any case it would have shown et once which way he had gone.

  That line of thought proved helpful, though. Why should he not leave evidence of his way of flight-and go some other way? True, he had tried that once already and failed, but that didn’t mean he must always fail.

  And then he saw another object on deck, and grinned broadly in spite of his danger.

  Two minutes later a resounding splash brought yells from the men at the anchors, and answering ones from below decks.

  "He’s gone over the side!"

  "Where?"

  "Port-somewhere amidships. We couldn’t see him."

  "Stand at your posts-it may be another trick!" The captain appeared on deck as he called this order, and glanced quickly around him. Then he ran to the port side. "There’s a cask in there, still bobbing. Everyone but the anchor watch-go along the starboard rail. Look into the water for a swimmer, and along the rail for the rope he used to get down without splashing. He must have t
hrown the cask over to get us all to port, but wasn’t quite smart enough— he threw it out on the seaward side."

  "I don’t think there’s been time since the splash for him to climb down," put in one of the captains at the bow anchor. "We may have given the alarm too quickly for him. He may still be aboard, and finding a new hiding place in some spot you have already searched. Have you been fastening the hatches over each section when you finished searching it?"

  "No," the captain replied. He said more than that, but the rest was bad language which didn’t really help. "We’ll have to start over again."

  Gizona heard most of this conversation, but not too clearly. The cask contained something-he never knew just what-and didn’t float as high as he had hoped, so to be hidden by it he had to be almost entirely submerged himself. His ears were frequently under water as the barrel bobbed in the swell, so the talk on shipboard came in bits and patches. It also grew fainter as the cask drifted away from the vessel, which pleased Gizona greatly.

  He was pretty sure that the Phoenicians would sooner or later take a boat to recover their property, so he did not dare stay with his concealment too long; but by the time he was three or four ship’s lengths away from the great hull he was sure that they could not see him and struck out silently for shore.

  It was a long swim, and his arms were already strained from the brutal task of heaving the barrel over the side; but he was able to float from time to time and finally came ashore. The feeble current in the gulf had carried him almost all the way to the edge of the settlement, and he had a long walk to the inn, but the moon was well up now and even without his memory he would have had little trouble finding the way.

  He had a little trouble with the guard the innkeeper kept at the entrance to the inn yard, but finally convinced the fellow that he had the right to go in. Once in, he went directly to the corner belonging to his masters. They were both asleep, and Gizona decided not to awaken them. True, the news he had was important; but Nimshi at least would probably resent greatly having his sleep disturbed. Besides, Gizona wanted to straighten out in his own mind exactly what to tell them.

  As a result, it was he rather than Nimshi who was shaken awake.

  "What’s happened to you?" asked the Judean. "You look as though you’d been caught by some soldier who really dislikes sand in his food."

  "I had a fall," the boy replied, truthfully enough. "I was on a ship, as I told you I would be. I was caught, and fell while I was getting away."

  "Did anyone see you?" asked Nimshi, going right to the heart of the matter. "I suppose, if you were caught, we’ll never be able to use you for a spy again."

  "No, it’s all right that way. The man who caught me was a watchman who thought I was just one of the beach boys, come out to sleep on the ship because it was cooler or something. That’s not the important part, though. I did hear part of the meeting."

  Both men looked around hastily to see whether anyone was paying them particular attention.

  "What did you learn?" hissed Sargon.

  "You have a chance to go with the fleet. Captain David-the one we travelled with coming down from the Bitter Lakes, you remember-said something about wanting a couple of soldiers for special work he had in mind. He spoke of you and Nimshi, and seemed to think you would be useful. I suppose it wouldn’t be very smart to go asking him for a job today, but if he should happened to find you, you will know what he wants."

  "All right; we can see how to take care of that," nodded Nimshi. "That is very good news. Did you hear anything more?"

  "Much that we knew already-the time they are to sail, the supplies on each ship, and so on," returned Gizona, still truthfully. Like many other people, he had managed to convince himself that not telling the whole truth was not really lying, and in any case he had no particular qualms about lying to his masters, who had never shown any about lying to others. Gizona had made up his mind not to tell his masters that the fleet was not seeking gold.

  He could not have told just why he did this; or rather, he could have told that he wanted to go along and knew that his masters wouldn’t if they heard the truth, but couldn’t have told anyone why he wanted to go. He had wanted gold as much as Sargon and Nimshi had, and pictured much more clearly the life of comfort and power that it could bring him. Now, however, he found himself thinking that there was plenty of time to find gold later. This was a chance that would never occur again, perhaps-to see places in the world that no one had ever seen before. Actually, it was the same sort of drive that was to urge explorers and scientists of later centuries, and which had already driven men across seas and mountains and deserts to learn new things. It was the urge to fill in the blank places on the picture of the world that every man keeps in his head, and which Gizona painted so much more clearly than most.

  So he wanted to go with the fleet, gold or no gold, and didn’t dare tell his masters the truth for fear they would form other plans. It never occurred to him simply to run away from them and either find a new master among the ship’s captains or simply stow away. He never thought of such things until it was much too late.

  Nimshi was not suspicious; never, to his knowledge, had the boy failed to give a complete report, and he had no reason to suppose the present occasion was different. He sat silent for a long time after Gizona had finished his story and the three had eaten breakfast, apparently planning. Sargon, accustomed to leave the thinking to his younger friend, calmly went back to sleep; Gizona, who had had a hard night, tried to do the same but couldn’t. His bruises ached, and his arm and chest muscles were stiff and sore from the terrific effort of lifting the barrel over the ship’s side. He was lucky not to have hurt himself even more seriously.

  After a time Nimshi looked up and seemed to notice for the first time that the boy was still there.

  "You might as well go out and keep in touch with your usual friends," he said. "We may know all we need, but if anything new happens it will be well to hear about it. You'd better keep away from the ships, though-at least the ones which are afloat. Do you think the watchman who caught you would know you again?"

  "I don’t know. I’d certainly know him."

  "All right. If you see him, keep out of his way-but I don’t need to tell you that. Use your own judgement."

  It was the closest to a compliment Nimshi had ever paid him, and Gizona was rather pleased as he left the inn yard.

  He enjoyed himself most of the day telling his exploits of the night before to his young friends. For those who disbelieved, he showed his bruises as proof. All in all, it was a day of glory, even though he had told only part of the truth to his friends as well as to his masters.

  The next few days were much the same. His bruises faded out, the stiffness left his muscles, and he caught up on his sleep. He could only guess what his masters were doing, but he knew enough to make the guess a pretty good one; and he was not particularly surprised one evening when Nimshi told him, "Stay with us tomorrow. We are going aboard our ship at midday, and you will come with us."

  "It is not the ship on which I was caught?"

  "No. It is Captain David's, as you thought it would be." Nimshi seemed no longer to mind answering his slave’s questions. "He told me the name of it, but I’ve forgotten."

  "She’s the Syrian Sun," replied Gizona. "She was the second ship finished, and is at anchor near the west end of the line— ’

  "All right. You can point her out to us when we go. You’d better eat and sleep now; you'll be working a lot harder from now on. No more running around with those beach-imps finding dead fish to annoy the soldiers with. You had better spend the morning sharpening and shining our weapons; you've been getting out of practice at that."

  "Yes, sir." Gizona was rather disappointed at the end of the fun he had been having, but went to sleep promising himself more when he got to sea. There must, he felt, be many ways to amuse one’s self on a ship, even if there were no one like Orestes to help. He wished again, as he had so many times before, that
the Greek who had taught him so much about ships had lived through the sinking of his own.

  David’s ship was a little smaller than the one on which he had had his night adventure. She was about a hundred feet long and thirty wide, keeping the same proportions as her larger sister. There were ten long oars on each side, but she trusted principally to her large square sail for propulsion. If the wind were not favorable, she simply waited until it was-the idea of rowing that bulky, dumpy mass of timber at any speed or for any distance was ridiculous. The oars were for handling her in a harbor, or getting her offshore into the reach of the wind.

  The crew numbered thirty-enough to man the oars, with a few extra. Gizona was a trifle surprised at first that more were not being taken, in view of the probable dangers of the expedition. He almost asked, which would have been a serious mistake since he was not supposed to know where the fleet was going. Then he did a little thinking on his own, and decided that the problem of supplies for a really long trip would make the authorities keep the crew as small as possible even on a sailing ship-he already knew some of the supply problems on a galley.