by Steve White
After the articles were finalized and signed or marked by all the captains, there followed a brief discussion on their supplies of fresh meat. This too had an air almost of routine. Their favorite was tortoise—and, indeed, the time travelers had found it delicious. It was agreed that they would supplement their supply of it with pork, obtained along the south coast of Hispaniola by nocturnal raids on Spanish hog yards, where Roche Braziliano’s reputation would doubtless help predispose the proprietors to a cooperative attitude.
Finally, Morgan stood up with an air of getting down to the real business. “And now we must choose our destination.” He motioned to a pair of men, who set up a large cowhide map of the Caribbean. It was crude, but it looked to be about as accurate as the current state of cartography permitted. “Everyone may have his say, of course, in accordance with the rules of the Brotherhood. But I want to hear no cautious, timorous ideas.” He swaggered over to a rail and theatrically pounded Oxford’s heavy timbers with his fist. “This is a true fighting ship—the greatest ship any of us have ever had. Now is our chance to show the Dons that we can strike them where we will. This is a time for boldness! Let no one propose small, easy targets.” Abruptly, his eyes twinkled and his tone turned mischievous. “Let no one propose Portobello either. I don’t think we’d find much there.”
There was general predatory laughter at Morgan’s pleasantry—which, of course, was his way of reminding them of his coup of the previous year, when he had done what Francis Drake had failed to do. “Campeche?” Captain Dobson suggested hesitantly after it had died down.
“Come, I said no lesser towns,” Morgan reminded him.
“Havana?” someone else offered, in a French-accented voice that suggested he himself didn’t take the idea seriously.
“Bah!” spat a third captain. “That’s not a city, it’s a fortress. One of my men was once held prisoner in one of those three great castles that guard it. He says it would take fifteen hundred men to even attempt it. We’ve got less than two thirds of that.”
Other names were tossed back and forth. Finally, Roche Braziliano spoke up in a basso whose Dutch accent was so thick as to be almost incomprehensible. Hey, he can talk! Jason thought. “You don’t fool me, Henry. You already know where you want to go. Why don’t you just go ahead and tell us?”
“That’s right, Captain, let’s hear it!” Zenobia called out. “Don’t keep us waiting.”
Morgan let a dramatic pause last just long enough. Then he drew his cutlass, placed its point on the map at a spot on the northern coast of what would one day be called Columbia, and spoke one word. “Cartagena!”
The stunned silence was followed by a flabbergasted hubbub.
“Hear me!” roared Morgan. “It’s the greatest port in all of Spain’s empire. It’s where they collect all the treasure of Peru! Imagine the booty! And remember, Drake took it. If Drake could do it, so can we.”
“But that was in our great-grandsires’ day!” Captain Norman protested. “The Spaniards learned their lesson from it. Since then they’ve ringed the lagoons with castles, bristling with guns.”
“L’Ollonais tried it, and failed,” rumbled Roche Braziliano lugubriously.
“L’Ollonais didn’t have this ship! Oxford’s guns can silence those batteries, and afterwards warehouses full of silver will be ours for the taking! And besides, the strength of Cartagena’s defenses works to our advantage, in a way, because it’s surely made the Dons overconfident.” Morgan’s dark eyes darted around and spotted Jason. “Isn’t that so, Jason? You spent time among the Spaniards, so you know how they think.”
“Aye, Captain!” Jason felt he ought to add something. He recalled a story Grenfell had related. “They say that one day the king of Spain was looking out a window of his palace toward the west. When his courtiers asked him why, he said he expected to be able to see the walls of Cartagena across the ocean, considering how much money he’d spent on them.”
“There! You see? You see?” urged Morgan after the laughter had subsided. “The Dons will never dream that we’ll dare to attack Cartagena, because they don’t know we’ve got Oxford. Shall we pass up this chance?”
“No! No!” came the shouts.
“We’ll lose a lot of men,” one pessimistic soul demurred.
Morgan’s eyes sparkled with Welsh devilment, and he spoke with his irresistible Welsh lilt. “Well, the fewer of us who’re left afterwards to divide the spoils, the larger the shares!”
Grenfell had mentioned that Morgan had used this appeal, at once devil-may-care and cold-blooded, before Portobello. Now it worked its magic again, with the aid of the man’s sheer force of personality. The shouts of agreement drowned out any remaining voices of caution.
“Cartagena it is!” Morgan beamed, thrust his tankard into the punch bowl and, after a swallow, poured it out. “Away with this treacle! What a way to ruin perfectly good rum! Captains, you must later come to the great cabin, where a feast is being set out for us. But first, I see the rum-barrels are being hauled up from below decks. Let us all toast the new year, and the certain riches that lie before us!” To uproarious shouts, Morgan and the captains began to lead the toasts.
Jason hardly noticed. He had spotted the Transhumanist Mondrago had previously identified. He had some kind of bionics, as the sensor in the butt of the pistol tied securely to Jason’s belt confirmed. And he was looking very intently in Zenobia’s direction.
“Alexandre,” he murmured, “keep that man under close but inconspicuous surveillance. And Henri, whenever you can get Zenobia alone, warn her of him.”
“Right, Commander,” said Boyer. Then, after a slight hesitation: “Do I have your permission to tell her what’s going to happen to this ship tonight?”
“You do. She needs to know anyway.” Jason glanced at the Transhumanist again. He wasn’t looking after Zenobia anymore, but seemed to be anticipating something else. “I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The tropical dusk fell on a scene of revelry.
The toasts Morgan led—including one to His Majesty the King, which he proposed with a deadpan seriousness that everyone was careful to emulate—were only the beginning. The company toasted anything they could think of, including the whores back in Port Royal, bless ’em. This led to a debate among several loyal clients as to which lady represented the gold standard of the profession.
“Salt-Beef Peg, she’s the best,” declared one buccaneer stoutly. His explanation of the appropriateness of her name left Nesbit looking as though he was in shock.
“Ah, you’re daft!” scoffed a skeptic. “Buttock-de-Clink Jenny will wear you out!” He proceeded to illustrate his case in terms that made even Mondrago blush.
“You’re both wrong,” said a third with condescending certitude. “No-Conscience Nan is the one.” He was only a few words into his supporting arguments when Da Cunha excused herself, telling Jason she’d observe the Transhumanist from somewhere else.
None of this intellectual disquisition led to an actual fight, for everyone was far too merry for that. Guns began to be discharged, as was permissible in circumstances such as these, as long as they were above decks and fired into the air. Likewise, candles were brought out as the black-velvet tropical night descended. The sounds of fiddles and guitars, and voices raised in song in various languages, arose. Grenfell had mentioned the fondness for music of seamen, who had to make their own entertainment.
Jason was almost hypnotized by the sea-shanties—not to mention the ongoing explication of the qualities of No-Conscience Nan—when he felt a tug on his sleeve. It was Grenfell. He pointed forward along the rail against which they stood, not far from the forecastle, where no one was paying any attention. The Transhumanist, unnoticed by the drunken revelers, was helping two drenched men over the side.
It drove all thoughts of No-Conscience Nan from Jason’s mind. He activated his sensor display. Two tiny blue dots flashed. Do they have artificial gill i
mplants? he wondered. Or are they just very good swimmers? It depends on how far they’ve had to come. Not that it mattered. One way or another, they were here, and now were beginning to move inconspicuously aft, sidling through the merrymakers. And Jason could think of no way to do anything about it without interrupting the party with a conspicuous commotion.
“I don’t understand,” Grenfell was whispering in his ear. “Zenobia may not be an historian, but they have historians working for them. They must know what history says is going to happen to this ship tonight. So why are they trying to get on rather than off?”
“They all look like they belong to the low-initiative castes that can be suicide-conditioned. But there’s something else that’s puzzling,” Jason whispered back, more to himself than to Grenfell. The new arrivals had belaying pins—the club-shaped batons used to secure running rigging, and secondarily as cudgels when the need arose—stuck through the belt-ropes around their waists. Now why bring those? he wondered. There were racks of them all over Oxford’s main deck.
Then his attention was distracted again, this time by Mondrago. The Corsican was pointing aft, where Morgan was waving farewell to the celebrants and leading the captains toward the hatch leading down to the great cabin where their feast awaited. Zenobia was starting to follow, at the back of the procession. All at once, the three Transhumanists started working their way stealthily in that direction.
Then Jason saw that Boyer had maneuvered himself onto the quarterdeck and now was moving swiftly to intercept her.
* * *
“Zenobia!”
She halted at the sound of Boyer’s low voice and looked back over her shoulder. He gestured to her to come. She hesitated a second or two, then said something to one of the other captains before turning around to join him.
“What do you want?” she hissed. “I’ve got to get below to the great cabin with the others or they’ll think I’m—”
“Zenobia!” he cut her off. “Remember the Transhumanist I told you about? Well, he’s up there toward the forecastle, watching you carefully. My mission leader thinks something is about to happen.”
“I told you before: I’ll deal with them in my own way, and I don’t want you people’s help.” The look she gave him wasn’t quite as harsh as her words. “But thanks for the warning. And now I have to—”
“Listen to me! There’s something else. Our party includes an historian specializing in seventeenth-century piracy, and he’s convinced that this ship is going to blow up sometime tonight with the loss of two or three hundred lives.”
Her eyes grew round, then instantly narrowed with suspicion. “If you think that, then what are you doing here?”
“There are questions about the cause of the explosion—historical puzzles we’d hoped to solve. But we’re going to be getting off the ship very soon. Come with us!”
“Ha! Your mission leader doesn’t care if I live or die!”
“I care!”
Their eyes met for a couple of heartbeats before hers slid aside. “How do I know this isn’t some trick to make me put myself in the hands of your party for interrogation?”
“Do you believe I’d lend myself to something like that? Do you truly believe it?”
He could barely hear her “No,” just before . . .
* * *
“I think I have it, Commander!”
“What?” Jason turned away from the Transhumanists he had been watching intently, to meet Grenfell’s excited face.
“Yes! The accounts suggest that Morgan and the other captains survived the explosion because they were sitting down to dinner in the great cabin, whose sturdy construction shielded them from the blast and allowed them to be thrown free. So if the Transhumanists want Zenobia dead—”
Realization burst on Jason. “Yes! Then they’re here to make sure she isn’t in that cabin! And,” he added, looking across the main deck and abaft where Boyer had Zenobia in deep conversation, “we’re helping them!”
Without pausing to formulate a plan, and ignoring the odd looks they were starting to get from those nearby, he turned to Mondrago, Grenfell and Nesbit. “Let’s move!”
They stared at him. Nesbit spoke up. “Commander, I must protest! We’ll give ourselves away, and create an unhistorical—”
“Irving,” said Jason with a chilling grin, “I don’t think any witnesses are going to be alive for long.” He turned and shouted athwartships to Pauline Da Cunha, where she stood against the port rail on the far side of a hatch, open to allow air below decks. He shouted in Standard International English. “Let’s grab Zenobia and then get off this ship!” Then, ignoring the stares of the startled pirates around him, he went into action without waiting to see if he was being followed.
The nearest Transhumanist swung toward him, and in another fraction of a second Jason understood why they had brought their own belaying pins.
* * *
Boyer spun around at the sound of Jason’s shout, just in time to see Jason grasp a Transhumanist by his right arm, the hand of which held a belaying pin, and twist the arm upward. As he did, a spear of light, crackling with ionized air, shot out the end of the belaying pin and struck a yardarm, which burst into flame.
Disguised laser pistol flashed though his mind, as pandemonium broke loose among the suddenly sober pirates, face to face with the manifestly supernatural.
He glimpsed another Trasnhumanist level a belaying pin in their direction, seeking a field of fire through the chaos of panic-stricken pirates. He threw himself against Zenobia, knocking her off-balance, just as the laser beam flashed past, burning a hole in a bulwark. He saw the Transhumanist prepare for a second shot. . . .
* * *
It was no time for sublety. Jason wrenched the arm sideways, almost dislocating the shoulder, and pushed the Tranhumanist forward, delivering a punch to the kidney with his free hand while bringing a knee up, hard, into the face. But the man, with gene-enhanced tenacity, continued to struggle while maintaining his grip on the belaying pin.
Jason managed to spare an instant for a glance around. Nearby and slightly forward, Mondrago was struggling with another Transhumanist, and that one’s faux belaying pin was spinning across the deck to a scupper, where it fell into the sea. Across the deck, on the far side of the open hatch, Da Cunha tackled the third Transhumanist, who was drawing a bead on Zenobia and Boyer, and sent the shot wild.
“Henri!” Jason yelled, as loudly as possible in the midst of his straining efforts to keep the Transhumanist immobilized. “Tell her to come with you or else get down into the captain’s cabin right now, if she wants to live! And everybody, over the side!”
But Boyer couldn’t hear him over the general uproar. He grabbed Zenobia by an arm and tried to pull her over to the quarterdeck’s starboard rail.
Mondrago placed a knee in the small of his face-down opponent’s back, wrapped an arm around the man’s neck, and jerked viciously back and upward, breaking the spine. Then he jumped up and scrambled to obey Jason’s orders, going to the rail. Grenfell did the same. Nesbit was still stunned into immobility.
Boyer was clearly having trouble getting Zenobia to starboard—she still seemed confused and uncertain. But then Da Cunha finished off the Transhumanist she had tackled with a precise and economical punch to the temple, then sprang to her feet and rushed diagonally across the quarterdeck through the milling crowd. She grabbed Zenobia’s other arm and, together with Boyer, hustled her forward.
All of this Jason took in within the space of a moment. Then the Transhumanist, with a sudden surge of strength, reared up and almost got his right hand free. His exertions sent another laser bolt skyward. Jason slammed him back down and they rolled across the deck toward the open hatch. Jason managed to bring them to a halt inches before they fell in, with himself on top. He managed to get his left knee atop the Transhumanist’s left wrist, immobilizing it. Then, grabbing the right wrist with both hands, he slammed it down hard on the edge of the hatch, seeking to dislodge the b
elaying pin.
He succeeded. But just before the belaying pin fell down into the gun deck, the Transhumanist’s right hand convulsed once more, and another laser bolt flashed . . . this time downward, through the hatch.
Jason heard a crackling sound from below decks, and his nose caught the rotten-eggs smell of burning black powder. Looking over the edge of the hatch, he saw flame running along the line of what must be a carelessly spilled trail of powder, leading to the forward magazine.
All around him, the panic rose to crescendo, for the pirates now knew themselves for dead men.
Jason raised his right hand, stiffened it into a blade, and brought it down on the Transhumanist’s upturned throat, crushing his larynx, then leaped to his feet before the man had finished spasming in death. “Over the side—NOW!” he yelled as he sprinted back to the starboard rail.
Mondrago and Grenfell began to scramble over the rail. Nesbit still stood paralyzed. Da Cunha rushed to obey, leaving Zenobia still standing confused with Boyer urging her on.
Jason grabbed Nesbit’s arm and practically flung him over the rail, his arms and legs flailing. Then he jumped himself, a fractional second after Mondrago, Grenfell and Da Cunha. As he went over the side, he shot a glance toward the quarterdeck, barely in time to see that Boyer was in a position to jump but that Zenobia still hesitated.
He saw Boyer turn back and push Zenobia overboard, just before the world turned to fire and noise.
* * *
If they had still been on deck, the concussion would have killed them. As it was, they were all in midair and the shock wave propelled them further out, ahead of the blast that engulfed Boyer as it broke Oxford apart. The sound that accompanied it was more than a sound; it was like a physical thing that stunned and shattered them. But then they hit the surface and were frantically treading water and praying that none of the flaming debris that rained from the sky would fall on them.
They could all swim—it was one of the abilities the Authority required of would-be time travelers—so Jason was confident that they would all survive. Except, of course, Henri, a ghastly inner voice reminded him. He couldn’t let himself think about that. Not yet. He swam in the darkness until he found a floating yardarm to cling to. Presently, two others joined him. One was Grenfell, bleeding from a wound to the side of his head and seemingly half-stunned. The other was Nesbit, who had grasped the historian and was swimming for both of them.