by Robert Brown
“Thanks!” interjected Lilith. “It was really my idea. I’ve been dressing them, and drawing pictures for them to copy…”
Kristina shot a glance as if to say, “Like hell you did,” but a small crowd was now surrounding Lilith, and marveling at her genius.
“Of course, I didn’t write the music. Honestly, the music sucks. Its not what I’m into at all,” Lilith said casually, adjusting her small breasts in her corset in a very intentionally revealing way.
Still, I was just thrilled all these musicians liked it. I was afraid the result of our homemade gear, and make-shift clothing would be laughter, or even worse. But people thought it was a new feature. “Um, yeah. We’ve got a new gimmick. You like it? And wait till you hear how our songs have…changed.” This was a perfect cover. We have a new gimmick! Meanwhile, after the one rehearsal we fumbled through this morning, I was not confident we could sound anything like what was expected of us.
“I’m a bit curious myself as to how they will turn out,” I mumbled this last bit to myself.
A huge, burly man with a tattooed neck and triple pierced nose appeared in the doorway. “Abney Park, Five minutes,” he growled at me.
We headed onstage, dragging our own gear. Copper guitar amplifiers, a two-hundred-year-old violin, rusty brass resonator mandolin, a bass guitar with copper tentacles coming out the sides, and synthesizer with tesla coils firing in the center.
The audience stood baffled and confused, and silent – but at least they hadn’t left!
The first song began. It was an old guitar driven piece I wrote years ago called “The Death of the Hero”, but this time the guitar rhythm was replaced with violin, sounding more like a gypsy dance, than a rock song. Lilith spun and twirled, and writhed to it, and soon the audience was jumping in beat to the Sufi-style rhythm.
Then onto a bit I had written the day before: a song about an airship full of pirates, sneaking into town stealing parts for their ship. Again, instead of guitars, it lead in with a mandolin, and puff organ duet between Kristina and Tanner. It was rapid fire, unexpected, and the audience was going wild! This new gimmick as they saw it was so fresh, so novel, and so thorough! “I almost believe it,” they told themselves. “Its like I can hear a story running through the lyrics, song for song!” they said to their friends. We just smiled nervously, played our music, and hoped they didn’t figure it out, which of course they never could. People have a hard time departing from what they know to be true, and this couldn’t be true.
After the show, and several encores, the crew and the audience were buzzing with excitement over the concert. They loved the high energy of the music, the excitement of being in a strange place at a strange time, and the thrill of being onstage.
Again Lilith stood in a crowd of fans taking credit for our changes, as the rest of us packed up our heavy equipment. The fact is, onstage she didn’t do much more then swing her hips, but the fans enjoyed it so I had no complaints.
This was the crew’s first exposure to the Twentieth Century, and modern music; and this was the Twentieth Century’s first exposure to our bizarrely anachronistic mix of sounds. Both were in love with each other.
VIRAL PIRACY
For a few days after the concert we remained aloft, trying to stay in a bank of clouds that was drifting slowly east, while Dr. Calgori calculated the return trip to 1906.
When he’d finished his calculations, the crew began to “batten down the hatches” as they put it, tying down anything that was precariously attached. Most of the crew had dread in their eyes. From what I heard, jumping through time wasn’t easy. On the maiden voyage, the ship was so battered by the journey that she was nearly unrepairable. We had basically spent the last week repairing the damage from the first jump, and now we were about to do it again. The return jump would be equally as hard, although Calgori assured us he had braced the weaker parts of the structure. I consoled myself with the thought that they all knew what to expect now and should be better equipped to handle anything that might happen. The crew however, knowing what it would be like, fortified themselves with rum.
Finally, the hour came to make the jump. I stood at the massive Captain’s Wheel, in what had become my quarters, having been warned that manning the “on deck bridge” was too dangerous. Daniel was at my side, holding onto two large brass handles that were attached to the ceiling. And Kristina and Tanner were sitting at the newly bolted down table and chairs to my right, throwing back shots of whiskey in order to prepare themselves for the turmoil of time travel. (I later learned this was the way of this crew: Daniel standing diligently ready to help, while the rest of the crew got drunk enough to overlook anything that needed doing!) Lilith was, confusingly, applying makeup with an air of complete confidence and lack of concern.
Finally Calgori’s voice could be heard through the ‘yelly-phone’, as I called it; a copper pipe that ran between the helm and the map room with a megaphone on each end. It really only worked if both parties yelled.
“With your permission, Captain, I’m ready to throw the switch.”
I glanced to Tanner. He and Kristina threw back the contents of their shot glasses, before he stored the glasses and bottle. I then glanced back to Daniel, who pulled the rope of a steam whistle which notified the rest of the crew we would soon be off.
“At your leisure, good Doctor!” I said, perhaps too enthusiastically.
At first there was no noise, but out of my periphera, I could see the two glass orbs that hung outside my windows fill with pink glowing gas - a dark pink - the color of the sky during a lighting storm. Then came a shudder in the ship, followed by a slight and unnatural sense of anxiety. It was not like a panic attack, but like a feeling of acceleration that had nothing to do with moving or dropping. My ears popped painfully.
Instantly, a huge wind hit the ship, as if a wall of stone was thrown against us! Windows smashed, lanterns swung and shattered against the wall, a rack of decorative swords and rifles crashed to the ground and flew across the floor.
Daniel swung nearly perpendicular on his handles, and hung there as the ship lurched to one side.
There was a massive groaning of ropes from outside the cabin, and the huge “pling!” of at least one rope snapping loose. From elsewhere in the ship I could hear men yelling back and forth to each other.
Rain was now pelting the glass. Doctor Calgori later told me the rain was from a change in air pressure between the time we left and the time we arrived and the varying altitudes we could be at. As the two different air pressures collided, a small but dramatic weather system would form. Occasionally, this would even cause snow.
Finally, slowly, almost as if in slow motion, a bookshelf toppled from the wall, and crashed to the floor, spilling books everywhere.
This was too much for Kristina and Tanner, and they burst into drunken laughter.
Within a few minutes, the swinging and shaking slowed to a gentle back and forth rocking, like a ship on mild waves. Daniel relaxed his grip on his handles, let his feet back to the floor, and sarcastically said, “Well, that was fun! Let’s get on deck and see when we are, because at this point I totally trust the Doctor to stick to the plan!”
As we left the cabin, Tanner was already pouring Kristina and himself another round.
We left the cabin at the same time most of the rest of the crew was coming on deck. The clouds around us were burning off as fast as ice melts on a stove top, and they soon gave way to a warm and beautiful day. There were blue skies around us, and emerald green seas below, in the very far distance to our rear we could see a coast lined with palm trees.
Below and just ahead of us, sailing away from the coast was a large three masted ship low in the water, and heavily laden with cargo. It had four cannon ports per side, and the deck was crowded with black-skinned, nearly naked African tribal people, sitting so tightly packed it seemed at first as though we were looking at a shipload of carved statues.
Daniel and I extended our spy glasses. A cl
oser look showed that the dark-skinned people were captives, chained to each other, and chained to the boat itself.
Then we saw a horrendous sight! At the aft of the ship, four clothed and fair-skinned men were struggling with one of the captives. His back was criss-crossed with blood: he had obviously been whipped, and the blood was running down his legs and arms, making it hard for the fair-skinned men to hold him. They each had an arm or a leg, and as we watched, they tossed the body of a struggling man right off the ship!
A mother held her screaming toddlers tightly to her naked breast, turning their faces away. One small boy of perhaps eight ran to the men screaming in rage, and was stopped by the sole of a boot that shattered his nose and covered his face in blood. This was obviouly the ejected man’s wife and childern. It was her turn to be a strong mother and quiet her childern: so she grabbed the eight-year-old, and held him down with the others. Toddlers didn’t become useful for many years, so they had no value. Later, when they slept, this young mother now a young widow, would allow herself to cry, but not now. What was left of her family relied on her keeping control.
I dropped my glass from my now red and moist eyes, and turned to Daniel.
“Where the hell are we?” I choked out. “What the hell is this?”
“I think that’s a slave ship. That coast must be Africa, and this is a ship headed for the Carribean.”
Doctor Calgori hobbled in between us “Then I’m afraid I have made some minor mistake in my calculations. This is the location I was targeting, but I did not intend to travel this far back in time. The slave trade was outlawed in 1806. If that’s a slave ship, we are one hundred years past our target, or say, one hundred years too early.”
I turned to Daniel and said, “Daniel, get to the lower crows nest…and loose the rope ladder!” Being a soldier, he was immediately in motion, but he yelled back over his shoulder as he climbed over the side rail, “Robert, what are we doing???”
“We are saving a father, then a family, and then we are going to hurt some bad guys!” I replied.
In retrospect, this was a rash move. There are times to think, and times to move. This wasn’t the time to think – this father would be dead soon. Perhaps my rash actions were the result of dormant and, as of yet, unneeded heroic tendencies. Or perhaps they were the result of the rum in my belly, put there to calm my nerves. Perhaps the rest of the crew were so easily swayed to this new task because they themselves had been drinking.
Or perhaps we are all born to be hereos.
I sprinted to the bow-helm, and pushed on the elevator wheel, which lurched the huge airship into a steep dive. “Easy Captain, nearly lost Daniel there!” yelled Jean-Paul as he watched over the railing.
From where I stood, I couldn’t see the underside crow’s nest, but I could see the surface of the ocean approaching rapidly. “Jean-Paul, tell me when the lower mast is a few feet from the water, then get down there and help Daniel.”
Jean-Paul watched for a few seconds, then yelled “THREE…TWO…ONE…LEVEL OFF!”.
I heaved the elevator wheel, and the ship slowly began to arch towards a level positon, but much too slowly! There was a hard jerk, followed by a spray of foam at the back of the ship, as the mast dipped in. Water was tossed twenty feet high behind us, and a hugh crack! sounded from deep in the hull as the mast splintered.
The African that had been tossed overboard was vainly swimming toward the ship that had dropped him. I saw him quickly dissappear from my view under our bow. I just had time to think “Shit, that was quick! I hope Daniel and Jean-Paul had time to…”
“HUZZAH! They got him!” yelled the crew watching from our side. I pushed a little harder and our airship began to climb again, then I handed the wheel to one of the other pilots and ran to the edge.
As he climbed over the airship’s railing, I could see the African was tall, even taller then me, and rippling with blue-black muscles like a race horse who had just finished his race. He had tattooing, or a sort of decorative scarring on his face and shoulders, and his eyes burned with fear and anger as his arms shook with adrenaline from the cold of the sea water in the wind of our forward movement.
He stood dripping on the deck in a circle of our crew. Not knowing who this new group of strangely dressed men were, there was a brief moment when it looked like he would spring on us. Since nobody could translate our intentions to him, I spoke to him in a language a father could understand: I put my sword in his hand, and pointed toward his family’s captors.
Then I turned and yelled to the crew, “Full speed ahead! Daniel, you’ve got about forty-five seconds to assemble twenty of your toughest fighters! Each man should carry three swords, and at least two men will need bolt cutters or very large hammers.”
“I think I understand you. I’m on it!” Daniel yelled, and the entire crew was in motion.
I ran back to the stern-helm and noticed that although this slave ship was the first ship, this was not the only ship in the water. Five hundred yards to port was a gunship, an escort to the other. It was altering its course now to converge on us. “Shit,” I thought, “this is not going to be easy.”
Daniel and twenty burly armed sailors were starting to climb over the side, and down the ladders to the lower crow’s nest. One of them was Tanner. I grabbed him by the shoulder, “Theres a lot of whiskey in you my friend, can you do this?”
“If there wasn’t, I couldn’t! In my present condition, however, I’m more than enthusiastic to do this!” he replied with a starry-eyed grin.
“Good point. Hand me your bottle.” I pulled the cork with my teeth, and threw back almost more than I could take without it coming back on me. As it burned in my throat, I vaulted over the railing. God, I hate whisky.
We were converging on the slave ship at a startling pace. Our sails were still down, but our propellers were roaring, and before I had a chance to wonder if I could make it to the bottom before we collided, I saw the mast of the slave ship tangle with our own lower mast. Simultaneously, the rear of the slave ship lifted from the water, while the bow of the Ophelia pitched forward, and several of our sailors were knocked from the rigging to the slave-filled decks below.
The slavers were ready, having watched our odd vehicle grab their discarded slave. They had a few minutes while we approached to get over the shock of a flying ship, and they leaped on our men the second we fell amongst the Africans. But here they got a surprise!
Bear with me while I explain. If the singer of a rock band leaps from a stage into a massive and excited crowd, the crowds put their hands upward and “crowd surfs” him. They hold him aloft and move him around the room as if he was surfing on his back. In fact this is called “crowd surfing”. Likewise, when the slavers leaped into the crowd of chained slaves to attack us, the slaves were not idle. They also had seen us pick one of thir own, and they saw us attacking their captors. So when the slavers entered the crowd of slaves, a hundred hands picked them up and tossed them overboard!
In under a minute, only eighteen slave ship sailors remained, and they crowded into the center of the deck, back-to-back, keeping as far from the Africans as possible. Soon much of the crew of the Ophelia stood on deck too, some starting to cut loose and arm the grateful captives. We cut the slaves’ chains with large bolt cutters we had taken from the hardware store in Idaho in 2006.
The last man to climb down onto this ship was the African we pulled from the water. With no hesitation whatsoever he strode to the captain of the slave ship, raised skyward the heavy cutlass I gave him, and cleaved the captain’s face and chest with one blow.
He then turned and knelt, and embraced his newly freed children as the rest of my crew ran past him and threw themselves into battle.
This was to me my first real sword fight, but before you doubt the likelihood of my survial, let me say that I was on the fencing team both in high school, and college, and I had half a bottle of cheap whiskey in me to keep my mind from telling me that these were actually sharpened blades
!
We, and the now free and armed slaves, took no time whatsoever to mince their captors. As the fighting began to slow, I noticed my left arm was bleeding quite a lot, and as I looked at it I heard a series of deep booms from our starboard side, followed by a shower of wood chips coming from above us!
The escort ship, which I had forgotten until now, had come within range and observed the whole fight. They now were firing on the Ophelia! The first volley had smashed the wood of her belly, and pieces of that wood were raining down on our heads. The ship was a war ship, huge and strong, and its crew where not slavers, but naval warriors. I could only watch as they fired a second round into our beautiful airship!
As I stood there, useless, wondering what I could do from here, wondering how many hits our airship could take, I heard a distant, cockneyed voice above me yell, “Return Volley!” and suddenly the starboard side of the Ophelia erupted in flame and smoke, from OUR cannons!
Daniel laid a hand on my shoulder. “Have no fear, Robert. The Ophelia is an airborn war ship, more than a hundred years newer in design than that ship in the water. She was built to overturn battles. This will not be difficult.”
Our first volley cracked railings and decking on the escort ship, and either by good luck, skill, or fierce and vengeful Karma, one cannon ball went directly through the attacking ship’s captain!
As our crew loaded for the second round, I hoisted myself into the rigging, and yelled, “Surrender now, and be set free. Otherwise, prepare to die! I’ve got fifty cannon (I was not sure if this was true) and a hundred sailors (I’m certain this was not true) and we can sink you from a height your guns cannot reach, if we choose! LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS!”
Instantly the lower ranked sailors began to drop their swords or step back from the cannons. The officers frantically conversed before one yelled back to me, “Hold your fire! What are your terms?” There was obvious panic in his voice.