by Ron Miller
“Were there eunuchs for guards?”
“Yes, a whole troop of them, under the chief eunuch, Bobasnyda.”
“Tell me, is it true that . . . ”
“Damn it all. You know, I never was able to find out.”
“Oh.”
The twilightless night fell like a heavy, opaque curtain. The air was, fortunately, warm, even muggy, as though the cloud were a blanket containing and compressing the massive, overheated atmosphere. Beneath the heavy air the water surrounding the rock was as still and sluggish as crude oil. The only lights visible were the twinkling lights on the nearby vessel and Rykkla had been quite correct: now all of the amphibious refugees, with the exception of Wittenoom, clearly heard faint sounds from the ship.
Near midnight, or as nearly so that the princess could estimate, the clouds suddenly parted to reveal an astonishing sky. It was filled with the overwhelming disk of what now seemed inappropriate to call the smaller moon since it seemed to overflow the sky like a bloated, incandescent, distorted balloon. It was shedding meteors like a hot coal throwing off sparks; they zigzagged the sky like a swarm of fireflies, from white-hot streaks to roaring fireballs that lit the seascape like magnesium flares and dazzled the eyes with their lurid explosions.
It was too late, Bronwyn decided. They had failed to stop Tudela in time and the moon was falling to the earth. The only consolation she could imagine was that Tudeland would be named posthumously. Her only regret was the necessity of finishing her days as a fish.
No, she realized, not days. She was sitting on a bullseye that was about to be struck any moment.
As they all watched in silence, the moon’s great, orange disk began to warp. It had not been perfectly round when first revealed, but now it became even more distorted, like a soap bubble wobbling in a breeze. Waves seemed to ripple its surface, then it suddenly shattered, like an exploding lightbulb. With a silence that was as uncanny as the event itself, the moon was pulled apart like a single pancake torn between a dozen hungry breakfasters; it crumbled like a huge wheel of cheddar cheese or an old cookie. Vast, irregular chunks split away, which in turn split into smaller pieces, which disintegrated even further. In fewer minutes than anyone, least of all Bronwyn, would have suspected, the moon was gone, replaced by a broad, coarse band of grey particles that rapidly grew narrower, denser and brighter until a brilliant stripe bisected the sky in a line running from east to west and passing through the zenith.
“Well,” breathed the princess after a long silence had passed, “what do you think of that?”
“What happened?” asked Rykkla.
“The moon was caught by the earth’s tides,” explained Wittenoom. “Interrupting Tudela’s broadcast prevented it from passing through a critical zone quickly enough to avoid being torn asunder by the unequal pull of gravity. The mass of the moon was disintegrated and spread into a band, each particle in its own particular orbit circling the earth. I suspect it will eventually spread into a thin, broad ring that should look spectacular from higher latitudes. But the moon itself is gone forever.”
“That was real pretty!” said Thud, admiringly. Then, “Oh! look!” like an overawed spectator at a fireworks display.
The larger moon was rising, divided by the shining semicircle, like a bead sliding along a string. Its lambent glow illuminated the sea, the rock and the ship as clearly as day, in the peculiar, colorless way of moonlight.
“I think,” said Bronwyn, “that we need to get aboard that ship, see if Tudela is in fact alive and deal with him. We cannot take any chance on his going free.”
“I have to agree,” said Wittenoom. “The man is absolutely dangerous, and mad, to boot.”
“What do you plan to do?” asked Gyven.
“How should I know?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
TUDELA & BRONWYN
It was finally agreed that Thud, Bronwyn, Rykkla and Gyven would swim to the ship and at least reconnoiter, reserving any further action pending upon what they might discover. The professor was not up to such exertion and was grateful to be left on the islet.
Traversing the relatively short distance to the ship was easy compared to their swim of the previous day and was accomplished with little effort. When still fifty yards distant from the ship, they raised their heads tentatively above the gently swelling surface.
The vessel was not a large one, a two-masted schooner-rigged steamship with paddleboxes mounted amidship. It was as large as a three-masted vessel might have been but the mainmast had been replaced by a single tall, narrow funnel. A feathery wisp of smoke drifted from it, like a pirate’s black flag. The hull was painted dead black, which made it difficult to see even at the merpeople’s proximity. There were no running lights showing, the lights they had seen were from two or three deckhouse ports. They could hear voices, but none distinctly enough to distinguish words.
“What should we do?” whispered Gyven. “How can we get aboard from here? and in our, ah, condition?”
“Shut up: I’m thinking,” replied Bronwyn.
“Your friend Sithcundman did us the favor of turning us into fish,” said Rykkla, “for which I am grateful, naturally, even if the novelty has been short-lived. Perhaps he can just as easily undo the process. Apparently he did it for you once before.”
“True, but I have no idea where he is nor how to find him.”
“Don’t you want to be a fish any more?” asked Thud.
“No,” replied Rykkla and Bronwyn.
“I’m glad,” he answered. “I was tired of it, too.”
“What do you mean, ‘was’?” asked Bronwyn, always quick to pick up a nuance.
“Well, I didn’t want to be the only one with legs.”
“What are you . . . “ began the princess, but Gyven anticipated her. “My stars!” he said, “My legs are back!”
“So are mine!” cried Rykkla.
“Hold it down!” cautioned the princess. “They’ll hear you on the ship!”
Her friends were nevertheless correct, she realized, as she kicked with her newly rebifurcated appendages, treading water.
“That solves one of our problems,” she said.
They swam, unfortunately with considerably less grace, to the side of the ship. There were not too many obvious ways to get on board; the outcurving black flank looked altogether too much like a slick basalt cliff to suit Bronwyn. The anchor chain with its broad links was one possibility and Rykkla, with her acrobatic training, naturally opted for that route. She grasped a pair of the slippery iron doughnuts and swung her long legs out of the water and around the links above. Bronwyn felt a sudden ungenerous pang of envy at the sight of the girl’s glistening muscles, the black chain could have been some twisted jungle liana and Rykkla an anaconda basking in the moonlight. With the quickness and agility of a monkey, Rykkla scrambled up the chain and disappeared over the cat-head. For their route, Gyven and Thud chose the intricate woodwork of one of the paddlewheels and its enclosing box. Bronwyn, meanwhile, swam around to the opposite side of the ship where she discovered a huge, shapeless black mass hanging from its side, from bulwark to water. At first she thought, illogically and with a sudden queasiness, that it was the half-flensed carcass of a whale but then recognized the deflated envelope of the scientist’s balloon. He is aboard, then! she rejoiced.
The network that still covered the heavy, rubberized silk provided an excellent ladder and the princess clambered up it like the experienced sailor she was not. As her head reached a level with the coaming, she peered over it cautiously. The deck was deserted, as far as she could see. She was at a point midway between the raised poop and the aft deckhouse. The latter as well as the bridge that connected the two humped paddleboxes obscured her view further forward. She swung her legs over the rail and carefully stepped across the thick folds of the balloon until she reached the deck. There was still neither movement nor sound and she quickly moved into the shadow of the deckhouse and out of the strange moonlight. She heard a rustlin
g and her heart clenched like a fist; she heard her name whispered. She answered not without considerable trepidation was relieved when Gyven and Thud emerged from the shadows.
“Have you seen anyone yet?” Gyven whispered.
“No. Have you seen Rykkla?”
“She must still be forward. There’s been no sound, so she must be all right.”
“The crew must be below. Can you and Thud take care of them?”
“Sure,” said Thud. “No problem.”
“You don’t know how many there are, though.”
“So? How many could there be?” he answered, with a shrug. “Besides, Gyven is here to give me a hand if I need it.”
“All right, then. Do you know how to get below?”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Gyven, “we’ll find a way.
You find Rykkla and Tudela.”
Bronwyn had no intention of searching all over the ship for Rykkla, no matter how much she thought she might need her. If she could locate a weapon, then she was sure she could handle Tudela until someone else showed up. It was only his mind that frightened her.
The lights she had seen were from the forward deck house, and they still shone out brightly. As she passed by the after house, however, she came to a door and tried it experimentally. It opened and after her eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom, she found herself in the ship’s galley. A large wood-burning stove was against one wall (she touched it and it was still warm) and cupboards lined the other walls. Pots and pans hung from hooks, along with other more or less familiar culinary implements, instruments and apparatus (nothing she had ever had anything to do with, of course). She browsed through the cabinets and found an open package of biscuits, the remaining contents of which she immediately devoured. Even more delightful was the pitcher of lemonade. It was only half full and tepid, evidently a remnant that the cook had neglected to throw away, but Bronwyn gratefully drained it. It was like spring water to her parched throat and she thought about how pleased her friends would be when she told them about the well-provided galley she had found. Under a cloth she discovered a slab of cold ham and she quivered like the true carnivore. She pulled a long, broad knife from a rack and sliced off a huge slice of meat. While she was swallowing this, giving it only the most cursory of chewings, she looked at the knife in her hand, turning it so that it caught the moon that streamed in through the deadlight. It winked at her like the eye of a conspiratorial reptile.
Nothing had changed when she reappeared on deck. She moved toward the illuminated cabin on silently padding bare feet. She still gripped the long, broad knife. She passed through the shadow beneath the bridge, then sidled alongside the central deckhouse to the doors which she assumed must lead to the engine room. She tried one and it was locked.
Ahead was the forward deckhouse, which was at the break of the poop. There was a single deadlight in its aft wall and she crouched beneath this. She could hear voices clearly, one of them distinctly possessing Tudela’s lubricated syllables. There was at least one other present, which was a not unwarrantable assumption since it was certain that the doctor, however mad he may be, did not indulge in passionate soliloquys. From the tones with which Tudela was evidently haranguing this hypothesized individual, who replied in humble tones, she concluded that it might be the captain or mate. The slurred replies sounded drunken. Cautiously, she raised her head until her eyes just cleared the brass-bound rim of the port. It was open, the glass swung inward and upward on its hinge. Tudela was indeed there and looking scarcely the worse for wear, she was sorry to see.
She went around the corner, where there was a single door. She was at a loss as to what to do, and briefly considered knocking. Instead she simply opened the door, stepped inside and closed it silently behind her.
If Doctor Tudela was surprised to see Princess Bronwyn standing not five paces from him, in the middle of the night, stark naked and brandishing a long, broad, anxious-looking knife, he didn’t show it. The other man, however, who had had his back to the door, was wholly unprepared for the sudden appearance of a vanilla-colored sea nymph who was not only at least four inches taller than he was, but had serious-looking red hair to boot and emerald eyes that glinted at him like the jewels embedded in the faces of those sorts of pagan idols in honor of whom heathens had their hearts torn out. He had sailed into strange enough parts of the world to know what kind of trouble jewel-faced idols were all about. His reaction, naturally enough, was more extreme than the doctor’s, and perhaps even dangerous, considering his age. This man whom Bronwyn had assumed was either captain or mate was thick-set and would have been described as burly in a very remote heyday, but was now simply obese. His head and face were all but obscured within a shaggy mass of salt-and-pepper hair and beard, through which impediment a pair of brilliant, sky-blue eyes glimmered beneath a beetling brow, like a pair of tremulous mice peering out at a world they knew for a fact was too dangerous to ever consider confronting. At the moment, what little of his face that showed between his eyes and his ears was as red as a beet and he was sucking in his breath with wheezing gasps at the same time that he clutched his breast in a finely melodramatic fashion. His other hand vibrated so rapidly as to send a fine spray of gin from the tumbler it gripped. She realized that perhaps her very appearance was killing the man, which was fine so far as she was concerned. Any friend of Tudela’s was by definition a potential corpse for whom she’d not mourn overmuch.
“Control yourself, Captain Waterweed,” said Tudela calmly, settling the question of his companion’s rank. The captain, however, was a superstitious man, perhaps more so than most other sailors, and there had never before in his sixty-odd years been presented to him such dramatic justification of his peculiar and, up to this moment, irrational beliefs. This amazing-looking woman with the fierce expression was certainly some emissary of the sea-gods whom he had obviously, to look at her, affronted terribly in some way (in his heart of hearts he knew perfectly well the hundred indiscretions for which he must now be held accountable). In fairness, he can hardly be blamed for being unable to imagine a no more reasonable explanation for the uncanny presence of a occult-looking nude woman on a ship ten thousand miles from anywhere, especially a woman who, so far as he was aware, had just risen silently through the floorboards.
“I haven’t any idea how you managed to get here, Princess,” said Tudela, coolly, “but whatever it is you have in mind, it is futile.”
“Oh, stop it, Doctor,” she said, weary of his perpetual superciliousness. Then to the other man: “You the captain of this ship?” The only answer she received was an inarticulate gasp and a single spastic nod, but it seemed to indicate an affirmative and she took it that way. The captain’s nervously mousy eyes seemed to have decided to bolt at their first opportunity and they twitched in eager anticipation.
“Doctor,” she continued, “I’m going to put you under arrest while this ship takes me back to Londeac.”
The scientist replied with a single barking snort of scorn. “You have no idea what you’re doing. Put that knife down before you hurt yourself and we’ll talk reasonably. There’s no need for further violence. You can see for yourself that my Project is . . . finished. I have neither motive nor need to do you any further harm. This ship can take us both to land, perhaps Rurik or Kalidassa, where we can go our separate ways.”
“You misunderstand, Doctor. I want to do you harm. Captain Waterweed, please find something to tie the doctor’s hands with.”
The captain, acting like an ill-made automaton, nodded and rummaged in a cupboard until he found three or four feet of light cotton line. In order to get behind Tudela, he momentarily stepped between the doctor and the girl and the second he did so, Tudela kicked him in his substantial stomach. With a wheezing oof! the captain fell backwards into Bronwyn, who was forced to throw her hands up to ward off the heavy body. Entirely unbalanced, the captain fell to the deck and as he did so, Tudela leaped over the prostrate body and grasped the princess by the wrist of t
he hand that bore the knife. With his free hand, he gave her a stinging slap across her face, something that Bronwyn could not countenance, especially when the humiliating blow was accompanied by the cold and condescending words: “You’ll do what I say you will, you interfering bitch.”
She snarled like an animal, her temper having lost all of its restraints, tenuous bonds such as they were, and flailed at the doctor with her free arm and legs, but he had the advantage of coolness and deliberately ignored the insignificant pain her blows cost and grasped her other hand, twisting her around so that the knife-bearing fist was behind her back. He pressed the arm up painfully until she was forced to release the blade or suffer a broken bone. He released her suddenly and she spun around only to meet a fist that struck the side of her head, throwing her half-unconscious onto the captain’s bunk. The captain, rising from the floor, picked up the fallen knife with shaking fingers. The doctor took the knife from him and turned back toward the princess, who was just beginning to stir. She wiped at the trickle of blood that oozed from her mouth, smearing it unattractively across her chin.
“You’ve exhausted my patience and hospitality, Princess, for the last time. The novelty of your presence no longer amuses me.” He glanced at the ficklely winking blade, flirting with whomever might spill blood with it. “You’ll find it fortunate that I studied comparative anatomy at one time. Therefore, this will be far less messy and unpleasant than it might have been otherwise.”
At that moment the door once again silently opened and shut. The captain was the first to glance toward the motion and saw, to his inexpressible horror, another naked woman, almost a twin of the first except that this one was caramel-colored with hair like a tattered rag of midnight sky. She bore a brace of iron belaying-pins in each hand, lightly held like Indian clubs.
The color of the captain’s face went from beet to eggplant; he again clutched his chest, this time with a spasmodic convulsion, his mouse eyes, having had enough, burrowed into their sockets, his tongue bulged from his mouth and he dropped to the deck as dead as a mackerel. Almost simultaneously, in fact, before the captain had half fallen to the floor, Rykkla made a casual gesture with one hand and a pin shot across the cabin like a rocket, striking Tudela squarely in the forehead as he turned to look at the intruder. like the captain, he dropped to the deck as inert as a clubbed tuna.