Blood Red Tide

by James Axler

Ryan frowned at a vaguely remembered word. “What’s the Falklands?”

  Strawmaker scowled ferociously and muttered beneath his breath. “You mean the Malvinas.”

  Mildred stared incredulously. “You’re still upset about that? After a century?”

  Strawmaker stuck out his lower lip. “Las Islas Malvinas, they’re ours.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake!”

  Strawmaker pouted. “They’re ours...”

  Clearly something predark was going on. Ryan ignored it and looked to Forgiven. “What’s the Falklands, again?”

  * * *

  “WHAT’S THE FALKLANDS?” Krysty asked. Ryan reclined into his hammock and Krysty spooned into him.

  “Islands,” Ryan replied. “Big ones. Pretty far south and east of here. And rough from what I hear. Strawmaker’s all radded up about them. Seems his people think they own them. The locals don’t seem to agree, not before skydark and not now. The main ville is supposed to be big. Except for the one airbase they had, the islands didn’t get nuked. The people there aren’t above raiding the coast, though mostly they do it for ship-worthy trees and things they can’t grow on their own—and slaves.”

  “So they might have a timber stockpile?”

  “And rope and cable, possibly sail material of some kind. They’re seafarers. Problem is they’ll know the state we’re in, and word is they’re bastard cold when it comes to trading. Most ships plying the South Lantic don’t put in there unless they have no choice.”

  “And we have no choice.”

  “None.”

  “Well, did you bring me anything from shore” Krysty asked.

  Ryan made a rueful noise. “There was some jewelry, but I know you’re not one for carrying around useless baubles. Besides, I remembered what you said about gems and crystals having their own energy, their own vibration, and how they can pick them up from their surroundings.”

  Krysty’s shoulders twitched. “It was that bad?”

  “Even Manrape found that cellar tragic.” Ryan took a butane lighter out of the ditty bag he had packed for Krysty. “Got you a light. It’s pink.”

  Krysty smiled. “Thanks.”

  Ryan pulled out a rectangular package with a predark gaudy slut pouting on the pink wrapping. The package read Lux. “Got you some soap.” Ryan pulled out a washcloth and bath towel. “And wash rags, pink too. So’s your new toothbrush.”

  Krysty smiled at her loot. “Are you saying I have hygiene problems?”

  “I’m saying their aren’t many comforts on this ship. My girl deserves all of them.” Ryan pulled out a flattened roll of toilet paper. “Plus I got this.”

  Krysty’s green eyes glowed from within.

  “Mm-hm.” Ryan nodded. “The package was all in Mex, but Strawmaker said it’s diamond weave.” He brushed the roll against Krysty’s cheek. “Feel that? Quilted for strength, absorbency and softness.”

  Krysty crushed her lips against Ryan’s.

  He smiled. “Got more where that came from.” He held up her new boots.

  “So do I—if you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I get the picture, and I’m not one to turn down that offer.”

  “Word is they’re boiling water down on the beach.” Krysty waggled her bar of soap. “And I have wash rags and soap. Do you think we might be able to requisition a couple buckets of hot water and go down by that creek in the dunes?” Krysty’s hand moved down Ryan’s stomach. “Mebbe take a couple of blankets?”

  Ryan made a pretense of considering the idea. “You’re talking a little good, clean fun?”

  “Soap’ll be involved,” Krysty purred. “But the fun’ll be dirty as fallout.”

  “I’m in.” Ryan rolled out of the hammock. “That reminds me, I’ve got a present for J.B.” He emptied the ditty bag. “Meantime here’s a new hairbrush, a bandanna, a few rounds of .38 and some wool socks.”

  “Yay!”

  Ryan grabbed his pack. “I’m going to distribute a little goodwill around the ship. Meet me before the mast at the next bell?”

  “Miss Krysty and Mr. Soap.” Krysty touched Mr. Soap to her brow. “Volunteering for shore duty, shore commander.”

  Ryan walked away grinning. “See you by the mainmast, seaman.”

  “I got a mainmast in mind...”

  * * *

  RYAN SPIED J.B. crouched over a carronade. The armorer worked the trunion and squinted across the primitive sights. Ryan had a small, terrible temptation to keep the Glock, but he and his SIG Sauer were very old friends, and he didn’t need to learn a new manual of arms for the joy of squirting off eighteen rounds in one second.

  He called out to J.B. “Hey! Gunny!” J.B. continued staring at the carronade’s trunion fixedly, doing some kind of cannon math. The armorer still didn’t quite register his new title.

  “Master Gunner!” Ryan called.

  “Ryan!” J.B. looked up. “You’re back.”

  “I brought you a present.”

  J.B. blinked at this unexpected development. “Oh?” Ryan held up the blaster in his right hand. J.B.’s brows bunched. “A Glock?”

  Ryan turned the weapon to show J.B the selector lever. J.B. squinted slightly through his glasses. His jaw dropped. “Glock 18! Full-auto!”

  Ryan grinned and tossed his friend the weapon. J.B. caught the machine pistol and held it as if it were a holy relic. He took in the top slide cut and the ported barrel. His eyebrows shot up. “Glock 18C!”

  “J.B., I figured you might need a handblaster, one that can put out a lot of lead when things get close.”

  “You sure?” J.B. was clearly moved. “You sure you—”

  “No,” Ryan said with a shrug. “You know me, J.B. I pick my shots, and I count them. I couldn’t keep up with that thing.”

  “You’re a good friend.”

  Ryan reached into his coat and pulled out the loaded spare magazines. “You’re the best I ever had.”

  J.B. gazed at the weapon, clearly mesmerized.

  “You need a moment alone with it, mebbe?” Ryan teased.

  J.B.’s eyes never left the blaster. “Mebbe.”

  “Right” Ryan turned and walked to the gangway.

  “Ryan?” J.B. called.

  He nodded without turning and said, “You’re welcome.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Ryan ran his longeyes across Stanleyville. It was big. A seawall of boulders and broken rock girded the shoreline. Nearly all the predark architecture was gone, replaced by a substantial maze of lumpish, black and gray stone houses with sod roofs. Nearly every chimney sent up thin gray smoke that instantly bent and shredded in the nonstop wind. A number of larger buildings had multiple chimneys and generated the harder blacker smoke of industry. Ryan lifted his nose and tested the air. The Westerlies that had filled their sails once they had turned from the Argentine coast blew across the ville from landward. The overwhelming smell of the ville was the turf and dung they burned for fuel. He also took in smoked fish, the smell of a slaughterhouse and the hard burn of ironmongery.

  A squat, three-story concrete fortress with a watchtower stood uphill from the ville, and four concrete towers of similar squat design stood at intervals along the sea wall. Ryan could make out cannons far larger than the Glory’s pointed her way in the embrasures. People ashore had noticed the Glory’s sails in the strait and were rushing to the pier. Ryan noted none were armed.

  Mildred frowned. “There are no trees.”

  Miss Loral smiled as she looked through her binoculars. “Those are pretty.”

  Ryan had to admit they were. Seven wooden ships sat in concrete quays jutting into the harbor. They were barely half the size of Glory and not built to the same standard, but they were two-masted and had rakish lines. “What would you cal
l those, Doc?”

  “Too small to be called a sloop or a brig. It would be imprecise, but they might be best described as a Bermuda rigged ketch.” Suddenly the entire crew within earshot was hanging on Doc’s every word. “A ketch was just about the smallest ship of war in the 1800s, and it was used in nearly every commercial maritime venture. Look there in the boat houses!”

  Ryan looked and saw open boats made of hide and whale bone.

  “Behold! Those are dear Shisho’s big canoes. The good people north of here, the Eskimos, call them umiaks. One of those ketches could tow numbers of them into fishing or whaling grounds and then process their catch. They are also large enough to bring in useful cargoes of timber or coal.”

  “Or slaves.”

  “Yes.” Doc’s face fell. “I fear there may be a reason that slaver caravan was headed for the coast.”

  “Commander Miles!” Oracle called out. “See the Mapuche stay belowdecks until further notice!”

  “Aye, Captain!”

  Doc finished his ketch lecture. “As you can well imagine, they are also large enough to raid up and down the Eastern Coast of the South Americas. Indeed, I suspect they are far more nimble tacking into the Westerlies than we shall be when we round the horn.”

  Ryan spotted a dozen predark pleasure boats that had seen all manner of extreme modification. He also noticed a number of motorboats that looked to be in serviceable condition. All of them had suspicious tarpaulins covering something blaster-like on their prows.

  Oracle sliced his monkey’s paw down. “Fire, Mr. J.B.! All guns!”

  J.B.’s ordered rang out below. “Fire all guns!”

  Every gun along the sides as well as the stern and bow chasers belched empty smoke with no ball. Ryan knew that to J.B. it was a terrible waste of precious powder, but the “all guns” salute of a ship coming into port was more than just a sign of respect. Given the time it took to reload a muzzle-loading cannon, it meant that the incoming ship was nonhostile, and it was putting itself at the mercy of the weapons guarding the port.

  The shore battery staid laid and ready for the Glory. The crew relaxed as small blasters up on the walls of the fortress crackled in a ragged, return string of salute. Ryan watched as people on shore waved, shouted and threw their hats in the air and surged toward the docks with excitement. He was reminded that a full rigged ship under sail was something that most ports never saw.

  Wipe sidled up to Ryan. “Mr. Ryan?”

  Ryan deliberately kept his tone neutral. “Wipe.”

  Wipe pulled what looked like a mail packet from under his jersey. “From the cap’n.”

  Ryan took it. It read in block script. TO BE READ NEXT TIME YOU ARE IN THE CAPTAIN’S CABIN. He tucked it away. “Thanks, Wipe.”

  “Welcome.”

  Ryan snapped up his longeyes as a score of armed men mounted on shaggy ponies road out of the fortress. They wore brown leather dusters, except for the man in the lead, who wore black. As they reached the ville proper, people scattered to get out of the sec men’s way. The men rode to the boat houses and ran out a umiak rather than any of their other boats or ships. Ryan took this as a goodwill gesture on their part.

  The brown-jacketed sec men began a deep-voiced chant as they paddled out the gleaming white hide and whalebone canoe. Their black-jacketed leader stood at the prow. They back-paddled and stopped neatly at the Glory’s Jacob’s ladder. The sec leader gazed up. He was very tall, a head taller than Ryan and quite gangly. The man had huge hands. Ryan stared at his blaster and suddenly realized the weapon was a Steyr AUG missing its scope and with all of its plastic furniture replaced by carved whalebone. All of his men bore a similar weapon. The leader wore a brass hilted saber at his side that looked predark. His thin, platinum-blond hair clung to his head in the wind and drizzle. Huge features jutted from a face that was seamed all over from wind and saltwater. Ryan’s first impression was the sec man was about as hard as they came. Pale gray eyes squinted upward.

  His accent was kind of like Atlast’s. “Permission to come aboard.”

  Oracle nodded. “Permission granted.”

  The leader handed his longblaster to the man behind him and came up the ladder with agility, drawing himself up to full height. He ran his gaze around the Glory and grinned. “Bloody, blue blazes, you’re back!” The sec man was missing his two front teeth, and it made his sudden smile strangely childlike and disarming. “Oh, I was just a little lad the last time this ship weighed anchor in Stanley. Now here you are and here I am standing on her deck. And they say the days of wonder are past!”

  The crew murmured appreciative noises at the man’s respect.

  The sec man reached out a worshipful hand and squeezed a bit of rigging like he couldn’t believe it was real. “She was the Starsailor when I was a boy. What’s her name now?”

  “The Hand of Glory, sir,” Oracle replied. “I am Captain Oracle. May I present my officers, Commander Miles, Miss Loral and Mr. Ryan?” Ryan was surprised to learn he had made officer without knowing it, but he kept it off his face. Oracle extended his hideous ape prosthesis. “May I present Koa Kanaka, Prince of Molokai?”

  Ryan hadn’t seen Koa behind him. The Hawaiian was naked except for his multicolored cape, a loincloth and his crested helmet. The Hawaiian held the most horrible war club Ryan had ever beheld. It appeared to be a short, incredibly heavy paddle lined with giant, serrated mutant shark’s teeth around the blade. Koa was stone-faced and grunted once. “Mahalo.”

  The sec man gaped.

  Oracle gestured at the barrel. “And may I present Baron Squid, subaqueous ambassador of the Caribbean Sea depths and warlord of the littoral waters.”

  The sec man goggled as Mr. Squid bubbled up out of his barrel to his full eight feet. The Kelper jumped as Squid spoke. “I bid you greetings, sir.”

  “Wonders...” the man whispered. The sec man suddenly snapped to attention. “Except for the gov’nor, we don’t stand on title here. My friends call me Big Ian. So do my enemies.”

  “Big Ian, would you join me and Commander Miles in my cabin for a glass in friendship? And would you allow me to invite your men aboard to take a tot of hot grog against the chill?”

  “A kindness well received, Captain. I would be honored.” Big Ian followed the captain and Miles below. Ryan rolled his eye at Koa. “Prince of Molokai?”

  “And what are you, brah? Officer Fourth Mate? Surprised the captain didn’t announce you as cabin boy Bellywarmer. Me?” Koa grinned smugly at his newfound title. “I’m a prince! Show some respect, haole, and stay in character until we’re off this barren rock. Seems even Squid can do that.”

  One corner of Ryan’s mouth twitched upward. “You know, I’m going to make officer on this ship long before you do.”

  Koa lifted his chin imperiously. “Make me a sandwich, primitive Deathlands scum.”

  Ryan was torn between laughing out loud or letting his fist coincide with the Hawaiian’s jaw and see which one broke first. He spoke quietly as the sec men came up the ladder and wondered at the Glory’s main deck. “You know you’re chilled.”

  Koa nodded at the main hatch. “Wait for it...”

  Sweet Marie came up and genuinely curtsied to Koa. “The captain respectfully requests Prince Koa and Baron Squid join him in his cabin.”

  Mr. Squid oozed out of his barrel and did his scuttle walk thing to the hatch. Koa flung a careless hand. “Tell the captain I shall join him anon.”

  Sweet Marie blinked. “Anon?”

  “I read it in a book.”

  “You can read?” Ryan asked.

  “And get Mr. Ryan flogged next time he does not show me proper obeisance.” Koa strutted to the hatch.

  Sweet Marie muttered, “What’s obeisance?”

  “What’s the first part of the word?” Ryan prompted.

&nb
sp; Sweet Marie suddenly smiled. “Obey!”

  “Yeah.”

  Sweet Marie frowned at the hatch. “Koa knows some big words.”

  Ryan frowned too. “Yeah.”

  * * *

  Governor Laird’s Hall

  SEAWEED WINE TASTED like the heady mix of iodine, tide pool leavings and fishermen’s feet Ryan had expected. In counterpoint, the seaweed, oatmeal and oyster stout beer was bitter, black as a redoubt with the lights off and so thick a man might be forgiven for mistakenly trying to chew it. The Kelpers, man and woman alike packing the smokey, peaty hall, drained horn after horn and cup after cup of both. Ryan realized they lived on a windswept rock and had to make do with brewing what they had, but he would have done anything for a glass of grog or ship’s small beer. He figured asking for a glass of water would not exactly cover him or his shipmates with glory in this company. Ryan noticed Doc putting a good pinch of salt in his horn and smacking his lips with relish as he drank. The one-eyed man took a chance and followed suit. Ryan smiled. The salt cut the bitterness and turned the black beer into a mildly pleasurable drink to sip by a warm fireplace to good music.

  Strawmaker was earning his keep. He played his Takamine 400S with passion and sang out in a clear tenor. No Kelper in living memory had heard a real guitar. The islands’ whalebone flautists, bagpipers and lap harpists sat leaning forward and as still as statues as they hung on Strawmaker’s every note. He sang in Spanish and pushed his emotions out so boldly the entire hall was moved. Women wept openly. Hard men wiped their eyes and swallowed with difficulty.

  Ryan took in their host. Governor Laird wasn’t large, and he was getting on in years. Most of his hair had moved backward across his head. What he had left was a grizzled salt and pepper and clipped short. Laird had a strong jaw shaved clean, and he had a positively wolfish cant to his eyes. They called him Gov, but there was no mistaking that he was a baron, a very powerful one by Deathlands’ standards, and he was utterly feared by his people.

  It had been a hard day of negotiations. Gold had been making a comeback as currency in recent years. Oracle had a substantial amount of it, and he had to give nearly all of it to Laird, as well as one of the gasoline generators, and far more blasters than they could spare. In return they had gotten rope made on the island and timber from the Amazon, and wherever Laird got sailcloth from, he wasn’t telling.