Asparagus pursed her lips, unconsciously mimicking the statue's expression. "Wonder what it's made of."
They all three advanced to the base of the statue.
Diamond Lil rapped it with her knuckles and it gave off a peculiar sound that went on until all three visitors were dizzy. Finally it faded into silence. "Sounds like a gong," Lil commented. "Felt like polished metal to me. Definitely hollow."
Amber Annie was the tallest of the three. By standing on her tippy-toes and reaching as far above her head as she could, she was able to run her hand along the bottom of its chin. The statue quivered. "Feels like flesh to me," Annie said. "I wonder if it goes down into the ground. Maybe there's a whole statue here, neck deep in this—whatever this planet is made out of."
She fell to her knees and tried to scrape away the white stuff from around the base of the statue, but she couldn't budge it.
Asparagus pressed her ear to the statue. She stood unmoving for a long time. Finally she moved away.
Diamond Lil asked, "You hear anything?"
Pair o' Guts nodded affirmatively.
"Well?" Lil demanded.
"I can't tell you."
"Can't tell me? What do you mean, can't tell me? What did you hear? Machinery? Voices? A sinister buzzing? The music of the spheres? What?"
Pair o' Guts said, "I can't tell you. Try it, you'll understand what I mean."
Standing ten meters apart Lil and Annie tried it. They pressed their ears to the statue for a long time. Then they moved away. They both nodded. Nobody said anything.
One place was as good as another on the outside of this featureless globe but one place was a lot more interesting than anyplace else and that was by the big red sculpture, or whatever the heck it was. The three travelers ate a picnic dinner by starlight, raiding their ship's stores for foodstuffs.
The temperature was comfortable so they sat around after eating, swapping lies and singing old songs that they half-remembered and drinking some wine that they'd packed with the intention of consuming it on the surface of Earth's moon, toasting the planet of their birth. In the pale light of Sakti's night the wine looked black. It tasted very good and they all got mildly drunk and fell asleep.
Diamond Lil shuffled the deck of cards and looked around the table as she dealt. The gamblers tonight were the usual crew of cowpokes in town for a wild night, merchants who'd closed up their shops for the day and were looking for some entertainment, and a couple of professional gamblers. Lil didn't like the gamblers. They upset the house's take, and that cut into Lil's income. It was tough running a gambling hell in a town like this.
After a couple of hours of rough poker and faro and maybe a few spins of the roulette wheel, and a goodly intake of rotgut, the cowgirls would head upstairs for a tumble with Lil's whores. The merchants would head for home and the bosoms of their families. The professional gamblers would want to keep playing.
What the hell, it was a living.
But it wasn't time for that, not yet. The house had to make its cut of the card table action first.
One of the cowgirls, an oversized, ill-smelling, dirty-faced lug Lil had had to handle before, reached for a card and knocked her whiskey glass over. The whiskey splashed onto the table as the glass rolled off the wood and tumbled to the floor. The cowgirl cursed and leaned over to pick up the bouncing glass.
Opposite the cowgirl sat a professional gambler. Lil recognized her as the only pro at the table. She wore a string tie and a patch over one eye. She squinted at the cowgirl, shot a glance under the table herself, and slid her chair back, reaching for her Samantha Colt.
The cowgirl came back up with her own iron in her hand.
Lil flung the deck of cards at the cowgirl and at the same time aimed a wad of spittle at the gambler. She caught the gambler square in her one good eye. Temporarily blinded, the gambler dropped her gun and wiped frantically at her eye.
While she did that, Lil launched herself across the table. Cowgirls and merchants scattered. Lil had her hands on the big cowgirl's neck, pressing long red-painted fingernails into her throat, going for the vagus nerve. She got it. The big cowgirl fell over backwards.
Standing above the cowgirl, Lil lifted the hem of her lavender satin skirt and kicked her twice, very hard, with the metal-clad, pointed toe of her boot. Once in the ribs, once in the face. The kick to the face tore a gash in the cowgirl's cheek.
"Huh, hardly matters," Lil muttered. "Little scar won't make that ugly mutt any uglier than she is already, but maybe she'll remember me and learn to behave herself."
The bartender strolled over from her station and picked up the cowgirl by the back of her shirt. She dragged the cowgirl out of Lil's place and threw her in the street. Lil picked up the cowgirl's revolver and when the bartender came back she tossed it to her to add to her collection.
"Come on, girls," Lil announced, "a round of booze on me and then start losing your money again. The whores are getting impatient."
There was a chorus of yells from the wooden balcony. Half a dozen whores were leaning over the railing, flaunting tits and ass and pussy at the customers.
All in all, it was the best night Lil's place had ever experienced.
Diamond Lil woke up along with Amber Annie and Asparagus. She was lying in a big featherbed in a rough wooden room. The bed was huge, big enough to sleep four people easily. In fact there were three people in it right now. Amaterasu cast her rays through the window, a brilliant cobalt-blue mirror. Lil was wearing a skimpy nightgown. Amber Annie lay beside her on one side and Asparagus on the other. They were similarly garbed. Lil climbed over Annie and took a couple of steps to the window. There was a livery stable across the street, a newspaper office next to the stable, and an undertaking establishment next to that. The whole scene could have come straight out of some ancient drama.
Amaterasu hovered overhead and the Niña stood at the end of the street, its small bulk and insect-like landing legs stark against the dusty landscape. Blue sunlight glinted off its ports.
"Wake up! Wake up! Eleanor, Mamie and Bess!" she growled, "what the hell is going on!" She gave Asparagus's long, loose hair a tug and landed a loud slap on Amber Annie's smooth, round ass. "What the fuck is going on!"
Annie and Pair o' Guts sat up, yawned, stretched and looked around. Annie yelped. Pair o' Guts leaped out of bed, leaned out the window, pulled her head back in, jumped back into bed and pulled the comforter over her head.
"Won't do any good," Lil hissed. "We have sure as hell pulled ourselves a shitload of trouble, sisters! Where are we, Dodge City? Is this a crazy dream? Don't pinch me anybody, I'll wake myself up if I'm asleep. But our little Niña is right out there, that's Sakti's crazy blue sun up there, what the fuck has happened?"
There wasn't much to do about their wacko situation but deal with it. They washed up as best they could, donned whatever clothes they could rummage out of a closet and chest of drawers, and trooped downstairs. They found a little restaurant next door to Lil's place and they trooped in and sat down for breakfast.
A big woman wearing gray hair pulled into a topknot strolled over to them and plunked a coffee pot down in the middle of the table. "You ladies sure slept in this morning," she said. "Good night at Lil's?"
Lil grunted and the big woman said, "Got the usual coming up for you."
The breakfast was delicious, fresh eggs scrambled with cream and butter and fried ham and honey and rough black bread.
Asparagus leaned over and whispered in Diamond Lil's ear, "How are we going to pay for this?"
Lil said, "Don't worry. Eat."
When they got up to leave Lil turned to the big woman and said, "Goes on my account, right?"
The big woman looked mildly annoyed. "Certainly. Why not?"
Lil smiled. "No reason. Just appreciate it, that's all."
A few minutes later they huddled in a corner in Lil's place. The saloon was empty at this hour. There was no sign of the bartender or the whores. Lil said, "Any ideas, siste
rs?"
Amber Annie said, "What if we stay here?"
Lil shook her head. "I guess I could run a saloon for a living. You two girls make a living upstairs, looks like. You feel good about whoring for a few years?"
Annie said, "Not a chance, Lil. My life on Earth wasn't exactly lilacs and lollipops but I enjoy things like running water and solar power and—what if we get sick? What kind of doctors do you think they have in a shithole like this?"
Lil nodded. "Asparagus?"
"We don't know what happened, how we got here, right? How stable is this world? Yesterday it was just a black blob, then it turned white, then we found that statue, then it turned into some kind of neo-primitive restorationist's wet dream Old West amusement park. It might last or it might turn into something else. Maybe something better, maybe something worse. I say, let's climb back in our little spaceship and blow town."
The others agreed.
They started down the wooden sidewalk, boot heels clattering on the planks, passing closed business establishments and vacant lots. The street was made of hardpacked dirt. Amaterasu blazed. There wasn't a soul in sight. When they got to the end of the street the Niña was about thirty meters away from them. Asparagus stepped off the end of the sidewalk and saw a bright shimmering in front of her. She put her hands out and they sank into something that felt like warm jelly.
She leaned into the barrier. It gave but it didn't open. Beyond the barrier the surface of Sakti was still white and blank, as it had been before they found the giant statue. And of course the statue was gone, now.
Asparagus and Annie and Lil put their backs to the barrier, joined hands, and pushed for all they were worth.
Lil grunted. "Fuck! Eleanor, Mamie and Bess! Fuck!"
The shimmering barrier let them through and they tumbled to the ground. They were wearing their own tee shirts and shorts and shoes. Their long dresses and sharp-toed boots stayed behind.
They picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, and started all over again.
The scent of the sea hit Ambergris' nostrils like a double dose of cocaine. She squeezed her eyes shut savoring the sensation of salt-laden moisture, fresh and clean. She couldn't contain the great smile that burst from inside her chest. She could feel her heart beating like a Taiko drum and the blood rushing through her veins like a million ecstatic school kids turned loose for the summer.
She dropped her hands to her sides and felt her cutlass on her hip, flintlock pistol on the other.
Tyche's canvas cracked like a whip in the tropic wind. The blue Caribbean leaped and frothed as Tyche drove west sou'west. Amaterasu's blue rays danced across the choppy sea.
Dead ahead of Tyche a royal galleon wallowed, hull down and heavy with loot. Spices and gold from the new lands, and Amber's for the taking. Amber knew this galleon, the Princesa Alejandra Olga, and her captain, Doña María Elizabeta Francesca Esperanza Cortez y Gonsalvo.
"Signal-wench," Amber called, "send the Princesa this message. Tell her that Captain Ambergris presents her compliments to Doña Cortez and offers the courtesies of the Tyche to herself and the mercies of the sea to her crew. Tell her to haul up the flag of surrender or face my wrath!"
Tyche's signaler called back, "Aye, Cap," and began her wigwag.
What happened next was just what Amber expected. Princesa Alejandra Olga dropped her gun covers, exposing a row of black-muzzled iron cannon. Tyche rushed head-on toward the Princesa. There was no way for Tyche to fire her own ordnance against the galleon while the Princesa could bring her entire port compliment of cannon to bear on Tyche.
It was a dangerous maneuver, but Captain Ambergris was known for her willingness to risk her ship and her life for the grand prizes of the ocean trade. To date she had won at every throw of the dice.
Nor was Amber's courage mere foolhardiness. Tyche was fitted with a bowsprit in the form of her namesake, the dispenser of riches and poverty, pleasures and misfortunes, blessings and pain. Painted in bright colors, Tyche's own Tyche was fitted with hands as sharp as razors and as strong as rails.
Princesa's cannons boomed and hot flaming balls flew across the narrowing distance between the ships. Most fell short and dropped hissing and steaming into the sea. Some flew overhead, sparking and sizzling as they passed Tyche. Several slapped against Tyche's canvas, ripping holes as they flew onward. Small fires broke out in several places and well-trained girls scurried up the lines, furling flaming canvas and hurling it overboard into the sea.
With a crash and a crunch Tyche made contact with Princesa, her bowsprit plowing into the galleon's hull and lodging deep in her side. Ambergris's well-trained pirates hurled grapnels across Princesa's railing and with the precision of a London timepiece boarders swarmed onto the deck of the galleon.
Ambergris knew Doña Cortez. Their paths had crossed before. Once, long ago, Amber had been María Elizabeta's prisoner, and she had learned that Doña Cortez had a fondness for the barbed whip and the white-hot prod. Amber bore souvenirs of that encounter, scars that crisscrossed her back and memories of indignities less visible but far more painful.
Amber had survived that encounter, escaped from a dungeon in the dead of night, leaving the corpses of a dozen warders and pike-bearers in her wake, vowing to wreak revenge on her tormentor.
The time for that revenge had arrived.
Amber bared her teeth in a fierce vulpine grin.
Princesa Alejandra's crew put up a better fight than Amber had expected, but Tyche's crew were freebooters to the heart while Alejandra Olga's company were mere merchant sailors, some of them volunteers looking for a way to support themselves and their families in Iberia, others the scum of the docks and grog-houses of Santiago de Compostela and La Coruña, Cartagena and Alicante.
Some battled with belaying pins, others with curved swords or needle-pointed dirks. The fabled steel of Toledo lived up to its reputation, but a weapon is no better than the woman wielding it, as Amber well knew.
Blood ran across Princesa Alejandra's decks and into her scuppers. Cries of pain and the moans of departing souls filled the air. Princesa Alejandra's officers were armed with flintlock pistols. The sound of their discharges and the stink of their powder smote Ambergris's senses.
The battle seemed all but over when a second wave of defenders rushed from below deck, Princesa Alejandra's cannoneers scrambling up ladders to come to the aid of their comrades. These were tougher characters than the ordinary seawomen Tyche's boarding party had faced until now. The battle raged back and forth across Princesa Alejandra's decks, decks now slippery with the spilled guts and splashing gore of boarders and defenders alike.
But the final outcome was foreordained.
Within the hour Captain Ambergris has put a prize crew aboard Princesa Alejandra. The bodies of the dead and the seriously wounded were flung overboard. Hungry sharks caught the scent of blood, circled and feasted on fresh meat. Most of Princesa Alejandra's sailors were happy to sail on under command of prize officers from Tyche. Those few who refused to cooperate were given a boat, a supply of hardtack and a cask of water and set adrift.
Only Doña María Elizabeta Francesca Esperanza Cortez y Gonsalvo remained unaccounted for.
It wasn't hard for Captain Ambergris to decide where to look for her arch foe. She found her way to Doña Cortez's cabin. She paused outside. She stood before a mirror that Doña Cortez had caused to be mounted on the bulkhead. Her tricorn hat had been lost in the battle, carried away by the ball from a defender's flintlock. Her blue-black hair curled and swayed around her face. She wore a loose satin blouse and skintight trousers that disappeared into floppy-topped boots. Her face was flushed with excitement and exertion, her tongue flicked out to taste the perspiration that made her face shine.
She tried the door to Doña Cortez's cabin and found it unlocked. She stepped inside and confronted Doña Cortez.
Ambergris laughed at the sight before her.
The noblewoman had donned full court dress, a floor-length gown of cr
imson silk and kid gloves that reached above her elbows. Her face was powdered a deathly white with spots of rouge on both cheeks and smears of blue above her eyes, a beauty mark fixed to one cheek. Most absurd of all, she wore a tall wig.
"A fair fight, Captain Ambergris," she hissed.
"As you wish, my lady."
"As you see, I am unarmed." The noblewoman held her hands to her sides.
"Very well." Amber carefully laid her cutlass and flintlock in a corner.
When she turned back she was startled to see that Doña Cortez had doffed her gloves and gown. She stood stark naked, defiant, clad only in boots and silvery wig.
"As you wish, my lady," Ambergris said again. She swept herself out of her clothing.
They closed, grappling for advantage. The cabin was cramped and their motion was limited. Amber managed to grasp her opponent by the elbow, spun and twisted.
Doña María moved with her action, slipped from Amber's grasp and delivered a backhand slap to the side of her head.
Amber's ears rang with the blow. She lowered her head and launched a head-butt at her enemy.
Doña María dodged, partially avoiding the attack. Amber's shoulder collided with Doña María's midriff and sent her staggering backward to fetch up against a bulkhead. With one hand she reached upward and grasped a Turkish scimitar that was mounted on the wall. With her other hand she reached beneath her wig, sending it tumbling to the floor.
Amber clutched Doña María's wrist, smashing it against the wall, sending the Turkish scimitar clattering and bouncing across the cabin. At the same moment she felt a red-hot agony lance across her ribcage. Crimson spurted as Doña María screamed in triumph, a blood-dripping dagger in her hand.
"Traitor!" Amber gasped. "The dirk was concealed in your wig."
Doña María stood laughing in triumph.
Amber felt her very consciousness failing as blood flowed from her wound. She gathered her remaining strength and launched herself once more at her opponent. To her surprise, Doña María threw open her arms.
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