The Roman captain erupted from the stem castle. “I’ll castrate the next man who awakes me!” he promised, then caught sight of Joe.
“Why doesn’t a Roman keep his word?” Joe grated.
“And what do you mean by that?”
“I mean everything small enough to hide is hidden. If you want that ship to run, give it back!”
“What specifically do you want?”
“Everything. At the moment I’m looking for a faceplate.”
“A what?”
Joe tried to describe it. The Latin for glass didn’t mean the kind you could see through. What had they called mica? Lapis specularis! “If I don’t get it your thieving thugs have stolen a ship from you.”
The Roman captain sighed. The marines were Romans; if he couldn’t keep them in hand he might as well open an artery. “Fall in!” he trumpeted.
Seconds later he scowled at them. “One article of loot is missing. You will fall out and return with full packs. You will march single file around the capstan. If this barbarian does not find the article he needs you will all swim home. DisMISS!” The Roman spun sharply, still at attention. “And you,” he said to Joe, “will wait aboard the prize.”
To his own infinite surprise, Joe saluted. He turned bemusedly and ambled forward along the catwalk. Gorson was awake now. Joe caught his eyes but the chained chief’s look was expressionless. Where were the women?
The sun was nearing noon before a work party clumped across the korax and deposited a small pile of odds and ends in the cockpit. The faceplate was there. His watch was not. So be it, he decided—a life for each jewel, a hundred for the hairspring. He turned to the nattlae who watched. “Give me a knife.”
The stupid act again.
“God damn you all! He rummaged through die pile again, and found one of Cookie’s boning knives. Someone had apparently been trying to cut wire rope with it. Where in hell was the stone? Twenty minutes passed before he found it and another twenty in honing. He stripped, tied the knife to his wrist, and donned the face plate.
The water was warmer than usual, and oddly murky. Tiny bubbles rose from the bottom. He remembered Dr. Krom and his test tubes. Was the old man still alive?
He pawed his way downward and was shocked to feel barnacles. When had the Alice been hauled out last? The water was ungodly murky. He could scarcely see his hand before the faceplate. He swam under her keel and swore, blurping a gob of water inside his faceplate as another barnacle snagged his back. He came up on the far side and breathed. No wonder he couldn’t see; the Mice was in the quinquereme’s shadow.
Resignedly, he climbed back aboard and crossed the korax again. The Roman captain was busy with lunch. “Don’t bother me,” he said. ““Tell him your troubles.”
Joe explained to the quartermaster.
“So what do you want me to do?” the quartermaster asked.
“Put a gang ashore. Warp her around until I can see.”
The quartermaster considered a moment. “All right,” he grunted. “Go back aboard so I can raise the korax.”
By the time the Alice was relocated, nearly two hours had passed. Joe dived sporadically, working by feel. The tightly wound nylon was not as hard to cut as he had expected.
And now the Alice, at least, was out from under the korax’s iron spike. All afternoon he racked his brains but no plan came to him. The pistol was not among the items returned. He wondered if they recognized it as a weapon or if it had gone overboard. The rifle was gone too. They’d had experience with the weird and wonderful weapons of barbarians. A rifle was not so far removed from a blowgun that Romans could not deduce its purpose.
The water was muddier now. Bubbles rose until each wavelet Was capped with dirty brown foam like the dregs of a Bockfest. Dr. Krom must’ve seen something of this in his test tubes. Joe wondered if it were a periodic phenomenon or whether something unusual was abuilding.
From time to time he brought up strands of nylon, mainly to satisfy Roman curiosity and convince them he was not whittling holes to scuttle the yawl. The nautae remained on deck and didn’t help him aboard when he came up for a rest.
Line had whipped round and round the shaft until the ball was bigger than the screw. The outer layers had been easy, for each blind stab had severed a strand. Closer to the shaft each miss dulled th.e knife. He tried once to get the nautae to sharpen another knife so he could alternate but they were putting on their stupid act again. Diving in the tepid water had done away with much of his stiffness from rowing but he’d only had that one small loaf to eat in the last twenty-four hours. When would he be fed again? It was late afternoon before he hacked the final twist and felt the wheel turn free. He surfaced and crawled wearily back into his clothes.
The five nautae watched him silently. Their dirty black headcloths and bloused up, topheavy himations gave them an odd, birdlike look, like hooded vultures. He went below, mentally running over the engine starting procedure again.
The sun had gone down but they would have moonlight in half an hour. He checked the valves again to make sure the nautae’s curiosity hadn’t sabotaged his arrangements. The engine was ready. Or was it? He ran through everything once more and finally, with a silent invocation to Mahan’s ghost, threw the switch. The engine spun vigorously until he whanged over the lifter bar, then groaned nearly to a standstill. He was reaching for the ether when it suddenly roared into fullthroated life.
A glance at the ammeter showed how hungry the batteries were. He wondered about Rose’s wind charger, then remembered there had been practically no wind inside the sheltered harbor. After a couple of tentative surges the diesel settled down to its steady racketing pound. Joe went on deck and threw in the forward clutch.
The Alice tugged at her stem line. He reversed and was satisfied that no line remained tangled. He pulled the lifter bar. In the sudden silence a sound came clearly from the quinquereme. A girl was screaming. The hooded vultures regarded him speculatively in gathering darkness. Joe found a length of nylon line.
He made it fast to the mainmast and tailed the strand aft, along one rail, tying it down with marline stops every yard of so. He tailed the line across the stem, up the opposite rail, up and around the mizzenmanst on the same side, then back to the rail and almost to the mainmast again. There he tied an overhand knot before running the line aft through the mooring eye.
A light bobbed on the harbor’s surface. It neared and Joe recognized the galley’s longboat Still in armor, the Roman captain stumped aboard the Alice. He was backed up by a pair of particularly ugly marines. One of the oarsmen handed up a basket and lit another torch before handing up the one in the longboat’s bow. “Ready?” the captain asked.
“I can make the ship move. Where were you going yesterday?”
“Piraeus.”
“How far?”
“Five hundred stadia.”
Eight to the mile, Joe thought and calculated rapidly. To keep the Roman from disbelieving him, he doubled his estimated time. “If we leave right now, I can have you docked tomorrow afternoon,”
The hooded vultures were gobbling bread from the basket Joe kicked them sprawling and helped himself to three loaves.
“One apiece,” the Roman captain snapped.
“They’ll get their share when they work for it!” Joe snapped back. “Are you ready?”
The Roman decided not to make an issue of it.
“Have them cast off their stem line.” While the Roman shouted orders Joe uncleated the line which tethered the Alice’s bow to the galley and bent it onto his previously strung line.
“Cast off and ready,” the Roman said. “What makes all the noise?”
“Have you seen the oil which flows from the earth and makes burning springs?”
“Yes, near Sinai.”
“The noise of its burning pushes the ship.” Joe threw the switch to demonstrate and the arm diesel started immediately. He backed slowly around the pinnacle, taking care not to foul the stem line. The mo
on rose over the jagged crater top and he hoped his maneuver would come off properly before it got too light. “Douse the torch,” he said.
“Like hades I will! You must think I trust you.”
“All right,” Joe growled. “But tell those useless sons of bitches to stand back astern and sing out when that line comes taut. I don’t want to tear something out by the roots getting under way.”
The Roman captain condescended the tremendous gap which separated him from a nauta and relayed Joe’s order. The Alice had drifted backward until her stem was within a length of the galley’s bronze ram. There were a couple of hundred feet of nylon between them and Joe had been keeping a careful eye on its floating mass lest the Alice foul her screw again.
“Here we go,” he said, and shoved the lever into forward The Alice gathered way rapidly. Joe made sure she was headed for the harbor mouth and would clear the pinnacle, then squatted in the foot-deep cockpit to study the tachometer and ammeter. “If you’re interested . . .” he hinted. The Roman knelt beside him. The marines fingered their swords nervously and stood on either side of their chief.
“Let me know when it comes taut,” Joe yelled at the hooded vultures. At that moment it did. There was a sputter like a string of wet firecrackers as marline stops tore loose along the rail. Line whiplashed over Joe’s back where he knelt with the Roman commander. Marines and nautae gave startled yelps.
Joe had thought the closing loop would whip them overboard, but he’d underestimated the power and stretch of nylon. The Alice took up the full dead weight of the galley and shuddered. The line stretched its full twelve percent. The slipknot closed before vultures and marines had time for another yell. The vultures made strange sucking sounds as their insides burst and spattered over the Alice’s deck. The two marines had been standing a foot lower in the cockpit—they merely lost their heads.
Joe stared. He hadn’t imagined it was going to be so messy. The Roman captain took in the situation almost as quickly as Joe, but not quickly enough to duck the steel reversing lever Joe wrapped around his fine Roman head.
Bisected bodies jerked and quivered about the Alice’s stem. Thanking Mahan the torch had gone overboard, Joe corrected course. They were just passing through the harbor mouth. He stumbled and cursed and kicked a pair of legs. They skidded overboard, dragging bloody viscera with them.
He wondered if anyone aboard the galley knew what had happened. They’d find out soon enough. He throttled down. How much fuel could he save without slowing enough to encourage some inquisitive soirl to hard in the tow line?
The Roman captain groaned and stirred. Joe did things with short pieces of line. Then he snapped the end of the main halliard to the line joining the Roman’s wrists.
The Roman came to. He tried to sit up as Joe began cranking the winch. He pronounced several words Joe had never heard before as the halliard came taut and began dragging him across the deck. “What do you expect to gain by this?” he demanded.
Joe continued cranking until the Roman was lifted into a sitting position. With feet lashed to the bottom of the mizzen mast and wrists over his head, the Roman could sit but was forced off balance if he tried to stand and lower his arms. When Joe was sure his captive wasn’t going anywhere he throttled down and began hauling in line as the galley coasted up to the deep drafted yawl. It drifted within fifty feet of the Alice before its speed matched that of the idling diesel.
What was going on aboard the galley? He waited tensely but no face peered down over the bow. With an uneasy glance at the bronze ram which pointed straight at the Alice’s screw, he cracked the throttle another notch. Now what?
They were a mile south of the island by now and the wind was offshore. One less worry. He was going to have to attract an audience. He went below and rummaged. The Romans had stolen the trouble light along with everything else but he thought he’d seen a marine bring it back.
God must have been on his side, Joe decided, for it lit when he plugged it in. He snaked the cord back up on deck and hooked the caged lamp between the Roman’s wrists.
“Hail them,” Joe said. “Good and loud. Tell them to send my people back. You might also mention that if that galley unships one oar I’ll sink it immediately.”
“And what do I get out of the deal?”
“If my people are alive and well you might live. If not I’ll vivisect you.”
“Won’t work,” the Roman snapped.
Joe considered the Roman a moment, then kicked him where it would do the most good. The ropes would not let the Roman bend double. He writhed and twisted like a maimed snake, and after a moment vomited. “You don’t understand,” he explained. “Those bloodthirsty pirates wouldn’t give a plugged drachma to ransom the whole Roman Empire.”
“Whose life would they value?”
The Roman thought a moment. “The quartermaster’s a Roman too. But maybe the oarmaster.”
Joe reached for the light between the Roman’s wrists and cursed when he burnt his fingers trying to unscrew it Incredibly, there was still no one looking down at them over the galley’s bow. Were they all asleep? No, there had been a murmur of voices somewhere aboard the larger ship. Abruptly, a man screamed. His voice rose slowly through soprano and ended with an abrupt rabbit-like whistle
Joe grabbed the Roman by the forelock and they faced each other in the moonlight “If that’s one of my people,” Joe promised, “you are going to make several noises like that. Even then, I may not let you die.”
The Roman said something short and pungent which Joe didn’t understand. Joe pulled a belaying pin from the mizzen ring and brought it down sharply on the Roman’s kneecap. When the Roman had caught his breath Joe began a steady gentle tapping on the broken kneecap. “All right,” he finally gasped. “What do you want?”
Joe spun the wheel hard right and paid out fine. When the Alice had drifted around broadside to the galley and headed in the opposite direction he declutched. “Now yell. Tell that quartermaster and oarmaster to get over here in the skiff, alone, and on the double.”
“I don’t know whether I can make them come alone,” the Roman hedged.
Joe began tapping on the kneecap again. The Roman began shouting. Minutes passed before the rope ladder tumbled down from the galley’s stem castle and moonlight silhouetted one man climbing down into the skiff. “Why only one?”
“I don’t know. I told them both to come,” Joe hefted the belaying pin. “I did,” the Roman insisted. They sat in uneasy silence until the skiff bumped beneath the Alice’s stem.
A cloaked and hodded figure tossed up a painter. Joe cleated it and extended his left hand. As the man grasped it and swung up on deck Joe jerked. He brought the belaying pin down smartly on the other man’s neck.
The oarmaster came to dangling back to back with the Roman.
“Where’s the quartermaster?” Joe asked.
The oarmaster gave a short hard laugh. “Dead,” he said. “One of your trollops did him in a few minutes ago.”
“Which one?”
“The blackheaded one that kept herself so filthy no man would touch her—until Harpalus got suspicious and caught her smearing herself with fish and seagull blood.”
A great light burst in Joe’s mind. So that explained the gamy stink. Whenever things got dangerous Raquel copied the skunk and kept her person unclean but inviolate. He laughed involuntarily. But now she was in real danger! “Yell back and tell them not to harm her!”
“Not on your life,” the oarmaster grunted. “Old Harpalus deserved a cleaner death than she gave him.”
Joe remembered the welts on his shoulders. “Have you ever felt a whip?” he asked.
“Yes, damn you!” the oarmaster replied in his Greek-tainted Latin. “I’ve been a slave in my time.”
Joe hooked the fight between their wrists. He cranked the main halliard winch until they dangled, swinging gently through the catenary arc which suspended them from maintop to mizzen butt. “Tell them to get my people over he
re in one piece.” He tapped the Roman on the kneecap again.
The Roman started yelling orders, and after the oarmaster had considered the situation for a moment he joined in.
There was hammering aboard the galley. Manacles being unriveted, Joe guessed. “Now hear this,” he said. “All hands report on board immediately.”
Minutes passed and no one came. Joe picked up the belaying pin. They started yelling again.
Still nothing happened. Maybe he should have taken more hostages before showing his hand.
Then there was a faint splash amidships and Joe spun in horror. He’d known these Greek swabbies were divers—why hadn’t he been prepared for something like this? They were probably all around the ship now. And he hadn’t so much as a knife at hand!
X
HE CREPT forward toward the sound of splashing. A head popped up and Joe raised the belaying pin.
“Permission to board sir?” the head asked. Joe released breath in an explosive sigh. Gorson had swum around to the enlisted men’s side. He clambered over the rail, faced aft, and saluted. Then he faced Joe and saluted again. “Good to see you, sir,” the chief said.
Joe returned his salute and nodded.
“Mr. Rate,” the chief asked, “aren’t we going to show the flag?”
The question took Joe by surprise. “Quite right,” he said after a pause. “See to it.”
As Gorson turned Joe saw fresh welts across the bos’n’s back. There was also a crease across his head where the whiplash had gouged a furrow and reopened his mangled ear.
The bos’n found the flag stuffed in a pile of blankets. He was running it up when two more heads bobbed up on the enlisted men’s side. “Permission to board, sir?” Villegas asked. Freedy followed him. As they faced aft and saluted Joe began to understand what power these ceremonials had over the minds of men.
While Villegas was rowing back for a load of non-swimmers more heads popped up. Rose, Cookie and Guilbeau climbed dripping over the enlisted men’s side and saluted. As befitted a civilian, Lapham came over the officer’s-side and faced aft, seeming to be all knees and elbows. He blinked rapidly and blew his nose before facing Joe. “Ready for duty, sir,” he said in a strange quavering voice.
The Ship That Sailed the Time Stream Page 13