Blood Red Tide

by James Axler

  “I had a dream that could be interpreted that way.”

  “So why did you?”

  “Why do you think?”

  “You saw we would save the ship, or something that could be interpreted that way.”

  “I won’t deny it.”

  “And now?”

  Oracle stared at Ryan with a new and terrible intensity. “I see the threads of fate surrounding you like no other man.”

  Ryan did not believe anything was written, but neither could he deny Oracle’s power. “So what do you see?”

  “It isn’t clear.”

  “It hardly ever is.”

  Oracle’s voice dropped. His black eyes seemed to look through Ryan like he was a lens into another world. “I see a fate where you and your friends die unsung and unknown in a place far from home, which may be these distant seas. I see another fate, where your names are revered in the Deathlands and your actions reverberate through the centuries, and I see a fate where you and your friends’ names are cursed and reviled and your actions bring untold death and destruction upon the Deathlands and the world around it that shall last for a thousand years.”

  Ryan met Oracle’s prophetic gaze. “There are a million possibilities for any man.”

  Oracle suddenly smiled and relaxed. “I agree, except that the son of Baron Titus Cawdor is no ordinary man.”

  “You can see that?”

  “Doc told me. Regardless, you have only three paths. I suggest you choose your actions wisely.”

  Ryan didn’t care for this talk at all. “And what’s your fate?”

  Oracle let out a long sigh. “I will die, like all men, and when that happens, if you still live, you must take the ship.” He took another sealed note out of his desk and pushed it across the table. “Open this when I am dead. If you open it before, you will die with me and the entire ship.”

  The captain suddenly raised his head. “Ah.”

  The roll of the ship ceased. The moaning in the riggings died off. The darkness outside the window turned to purple and then orange. Cheers sounded abovedeck. Oracle watched as golden light began to spill in through the cabin’s stern window gallery. “I knew the Horn would not kill us.”

  Ryan watched the miracle of dawn happen out the windows. “You saw that?”

  “No.” Oracle smiled disarmingly. “I just had faith in my crew.”

  Ryan found himself smiling. “So we made it.”

  Oracle contemplated the light as it played across the black skin of his remaining hand. “No, this will very likely kill us.”

  Ryan frowned.

  Oracle lifted his chin. “What do you notice, Officer Ryan?”

  Ryan lifted his chin. He felt a terrible sinking feeling in his guts. “The ship’s still. There’s no wind.”

  Doc spoke with grave worry. “These are the Doldrums?”

  “What is that?”

  “We are a sailing ship, and we are becalmed, Mr. Ryan, and shall be for some time, I fear.”

  “What do we do?”

  Oracle watched sea and sky turn metallic. “We shall have to row.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Ryan rowed. The Glory was dying. Scurvy was chilling the crew. The maté leaves had turned to powder of little effect. For whatever reason, perhaps being born in the Deathlands, Ryan’s people were holding up better than most, but the horror of the passage around Horn had been better than this. The air in this latitude was hazy, hot and humid and utterly still. It promised a storm whose winds never came. The ocean was a flat plane of copper glass beneath a greasy, shimmering brassy sun.

  Ryan felt the ache and exhaustion of malnutrition in his bones. Four wooden boats rowed to try to pull a square-rigged ship to fair winds. Aboard ship the remaining Mapuche heaved against the sweeps. The med was full of crewmen who’d failed. They had ample food and water, and ship and crew had borne the passage around the Horn remarkably well. The horrible fact remained that the Glory was a sailing ship, and now there was no wind. Every nonessential item had been thrown overboard to lighten the ship, but there was very little fat to cut in the first place. There was talk of throwing the cannons and shot overboard. Disease swept the decks. The sense of doom was palpable.

  “Aw Jee’th...” Onetongue dropped his oar and clutched his mouth. Everyone else groaned as the whaleboat lost momentum against the hideous weight of the ship behind them.

  Ryan could feel his own teeth loosening in his head. “Tongue, it’s all right. We’ll—”

  Onetongue gobbled forth about half a tot of blood. “I’m th’orry, Ryan! I’m th’o th’orry!” The mutant wept in agony. “But it hurt’th tho bad!”

  The crews in the dinghies shouted as the whaleboat stopped.

  Ryan fought his own pain and exhaustion. Onetongue was one of the strongest and least complaining crewmen the Glory could boast. This was bad. “Open your mouth.”

  “I’m th’orry, Ryan—”

  “Open your mouth!” Ryan ordered.

  Onetongue opened his mouth. Ryan flinched. Mildred had said that when the scurvy got bad old scars would break open. Onetongue’s name had once been Twotongue. The last captain, who could not be mentioned, had cut one of them out. The left side of Onetongue’s soft palate was an open wound where the scar tissue had broken open. “You need to get to the med now. Have Mildred disinfect that and stitch it.”

  Onetongue wept and shook his head at Ryan. “But you’re bleeding too!”

  Ryan ran a finger along the scar on his cheek. It came away bloody. “It’s an old wound. It’s nothing.”

  “No, Ryan!” Even now Onetongue was thinking about someone besides himself. “It’th coming out of your eye!”

  Ryan started. He raised a hand to his eye patch and lifted it up a hair. A thin rivulet of blood and fluid trickled against his hand. Ryan stared at it. He’d felt the discomfort but had chalked it up to the sting of sweat, exhaustion and illness. The scars in his closed, empty eye were breaking open.

  Manrape laid down his oar. His physique sagged like a suit of armor whose interior straps had all loosened. “We’re dying.” The titan’s chin fell to his chest and tears spilled out of his eyes.

  Wipe sobbed like it was the end of the world.

  Ryan knew it was. He could not begin to recall the odds he had fought and won in the Deathlands. But this was no baron and his army of sec men. This was no chem storm that could be sheltered from, no horde of muties that could be outfought. This was the open sea. Vast beyond imagining. Implacable. Without mercy. There was no recourse other than to hurl human flesh and will against it, and the flesh and will of the Glory’s crew failed before it.

  Ryan felt the heat and itch of the preinfection in his empty eye socket that would lead to his brain, as well as the avalanching breakdown of every cell in his body from the scurvy. He gazed up at the horrible brass-colored sun and the endless, metallic sea on all horizons. He was done. He couldn’t save the ship. He couldn’t save his people.

  He couldn’t save Krysty.

  It was not the first time Ryan had felt it, but it had been a very long time since despair had wrapped its terrible hands around his heart. Hardstone rocked and cradled his lame leg. It was swelling. Sweet Marie wept openly. Atlast held his head in his hands. Doc spoke with a strange calmness. “Dear Onetongue, exchange places with me.”

  Onetongue crawled to the tiller and moaned as Doc crawled over him to take his place at the bench. The crew stared at Doc as if he were insane. The old man cleared his throat. “Gentlemen, we are heroes. We are the first ship in living memory, since the breaking of the world, that has rounded the Horn in winter under sail. We are titans. Gods. Compared to us, Jason and his Argonauts punted upon the Thames on a summer idyll.”

  No one on the whaleboat knew what that meant. But every man kn
ew what Doc was saying and knew he was right.

  Doc’s voice rose. “If we die this day, I have no shame. Serving upon the good ship Glory, with this crew, has been my greatest pride! I tell you now I have penned the tale of our odyssey in the ship’s log and sealed it. What we have done shall be known. The journey of the Glory shall be legend. We shall be legend! All good sailors shall speak of us—her crew—in awed whispers as immortals. This I swear!” Doc laid his torn hands to oar. “But in this time between, in this little time that remains to us with beating hearts and will, I pray, shipmates, row a little more.”

  Ryan took up the rum.

  They had no remedy for the scurvy, and Oracle had ordered straight liquor issued as a last, desperate painkiller. Ryan pulled up his eye patch and tilted the jug over his empty eye. “Fire...” The word “blast” never left his mouth. Ryan bellowed like a gored ox as 150 proof cane liquor scalded his eye socket.

  He shuddered, knowing it was a remedial solution at best. His hands shook as he put his eye patch down. His knuckles were white as he took a swig and grabbed his oar. “Row.”

  Onetongue took the jug and made one of the worst sounds Ryan had ever heard a grown man make as he swigged firewater into his wounded mouth, swirled it around and spit it out. The mutant took up his oar. The jug passed from hand to hand, and everyone took up their oars and rowed. They rowed with purpose with their eyes on the horizon. Doc had lit the fire. When they dropped it, would be because their bodies had broken, not their wills.

  Koa suddenly shouted. “Ship oars!”

  Ryan wondered where this authority was supposed to have come from, but the tone of Koa’s voice was clear that he was onto something. “Ship oars!”

  Koa leaned out over the oarlock and reached into the water. “Present for you, brah.”

  Ryan stared at the coconut in Koa’s hand. The three dimples stared back at him like a face. Koa smiled and found the soft one of the three with his thumb. He stabbed it with his marlinspike and shook it. “One sip.”

  Ryan took the coconut and sipped. It took every ounce of will not to drain it as every cell in his body cried out to drown the nutritional famine.

  Wipe clapped his hands. “There’s hundreds of them!”

  Ryan handed the coconut to Onetongue. The mutant sagged as coconut juice and oil coated his mouth. Ryan looked out on the water and saw scores of small brown spheres floating in the water. Koa took a sip and held it out to Hardstone disdainfully. “Not from my islands.”

  “You can tell?” Ryan asked.

  Koa looked at Ryan like he was stupe. “Maybe Tahitian. I’ve never been this far south or east on the Cific.” The Hawaiian dipped his hand into the water and wiggled his fingers contemplatively. “But the current might be right, and the wind.”

  “There’s no wind, Koa.”

  “You’re wrong, brah.”

  Ryan lifted his chin. He felt the faintest of breezes evaporating the sweat and blood on his face. “You’re way-finding.”

  “Yup.”

  “Doc,” Ryan ordered, “slip the cable to the ship. We gather every coconut we can. Manrape, use the speaking horn and tell the dinghies to do the same. Koa, I am recommending you to Commander Miles as acting navigator until proved otherwise.”

  Koa nodded. “About time.”

  * * *

  Tahiti

  THE GLORY LIMPED into harbor. She’d arrived to find the predark capital of Papeete a half moon of obsidian blast crater falling into the ocean. What remained of her once-famous black sand beaches was fused black glass that gleamed and rippled in the sunlight as Ryan’s rad counter crept upward. They sailed around the coast and found another bay. They’d been spotted from shore, and about half a hundred war canoes lay arrayed before them, blocking the entrance. Koa stood at the Jacob’s ladder in his full Hawaiian regalia. Everyone aboard wore their cleaned, best clothing, and all the officers and specialists were in uniform.

  The coconuts had been a temporary stay of execution, but the crew was still in bad shape. Ryan scanned the opposition with his longeyes. Most of the warriors were bare-chested, bore clubs and spears and were covered with tattoos. A few had single-shot blasters that looked homemade. Behind the canoe line a pair of working motor launches sat with machine blasters mounted. Like a queen surrounded by soldier ants, a massive double canoe bearing a platform formed the middle of the Tahitian line. About a dozen men in massive feathered headdresses stood in a semicircle bearing predark blasters. Standing in prominence was a regal and magnificently bare-breasted woman. She was scanning the Glory’s cannons through binoculars.

  “The Tahitians of hundreds of years ago were known to have queens and female chieftains,” Doc said.

  Miss Loral nodded. Commander Miles bullet wounds had reopened, and he was in the med in nearly as bad a shape as the captain. “Thank you, Doc. Mr. Koa?”

  Koa bellowed out across the water in Hawaiian. The Tahitians glared uncomprehendingly as a unit. One very large individual bellowed back something and pointed at Koa while pantomiming an unmistakable act of oral outrage with a war club. Laughter rippled across the canoes.

  “I don’t think they speak Hawaiian,” Manrape concluded.

  Koa folded his arms in disgust. “They don’t speak any civilized language.”

  Miss Loral quirked an eyebrow. “Didn’t Tahitians speak French before skydark?”

  Atlast spit off the side. “Last French-talker we had was that Haitian cook, Marcel. Right, Skillet?”

  The Jamaican grunted sadly. “Damn fine madeleines. Never could replicate them.”

  “Miss Loral,” Ryan asked. “With permission?”

  “Indeed, Mr. Ryan. Do something.”

  Ryan nodded at Doc.

  Doc considered. “Something like, greetings and we come in peace?”

  “That should do.”

  Doc drew his sword from his swordstick and strode to the Jacob’s ladder. His blade gleamed like a sliver of quicksilver as he saluted the Tahitian horde. The bravado captured their attention. Doc called out in French, “Greetings, valiant warriors of Tahiti. We come in peace and friendship.” The old man flourished his sword and his hat and gave a sweeping bow.

  The effect on the Tahitians was immediate. They grinned and began to applaud. The woman on the platform seemed pleased. One of her warriors handed her a brass speaking trumpet. Her voice came back across the water in clear but accented English. “I fear you bring your war with the Sabbaths to my harbor!”

  Ryan muttered low. “Keep going, Doc,” Ryan muttered. “Be diplomatic.”

  “I fear we do, my queen! We ask not sanctuary or alliance. All we ask is fresh water to slake our thirst and fresh fruit and greenery to fight the scurvy that plagues us. We seek rope, cordage and timber for our poor, battered ship that so bravely rounded the Horn in the terrible face of the westerly winter. We ask not for charity. We have trade goods from the other side of the world and will barter fairly for all. Give us this sun above, the moon tonight and the sun tomorrow, and we shall take our battle with the Sabbath fleet out onto the high sea and away from your fair shores.”

  Miss Loral stared, then said, “You’re good.”

  The smile of the woman on the royal barge lit up the bay. “I have never heard French spoken so beautifully except in old vids. Not to mention your English! Withstanding the laws of hospitality and the wrath of the Sabbaths, I would feast you in my hall just to listen to you speak in any language!”

  Doc bowed low.

  “Bring your ship into harbor and pick your shore party, Silver Tongue. You shall be feasted! Should we come to agreement, tomorrow we shall trade. My name is Queen Tahiata.” The distance was long, but the woman clearly smirked. “And ask Prince Koa to forgive our insult! His name is known here, and while it was a generation ago and not the people of Molokai, the last time Tahiti
ans and Hawaiians met it was not friendly.”

  Ryan turned to look at the Hawaiian. “So you really are the Prince of Molokai?”

  Koa lifted his chin imperiously. “I never denied it.”

  * * *

  RYAN GORGED ON fish and fruit. His body couldn’t get enough of the sweet pineapples and watermelon. After spending weeks against the Westerlies on salted ox and guanaco, Ryan cleaned his trencher board of parrotfish, barracuda, sea urchin, river prawns and raw red tuna marinated in coconut and lime. Suckling pigs, lobsters and breadfruit roasted in an underground pit outside. Rumor was they were almost ready. The Glory crew held their own. Strawmaker played to standing ovations. Manrape outwrestled every Tahitian warrior sent before him to the cries of the crowd. Palm wine and manioc beer flowed.

  Ryan had a better feeling about this feast than the last.

  Male and female dancers swayed and turned to the sound of the log drums. Everyone, including Ryan, wore flowers in their hair and garlands of welcome around their necks. The ville perched on a hillside on top of what had once been a small Tahitian town. The location was strategic. Mountains and winds in the opposite direction shielded her people from Papeete and its radioactive horror. Rumor was that horrors occasionally crossed the mountains or swam down the coast, looking for prey. Every home was a miniature fortress of dressed volcanic rock built to withstand gale-force winds and attacks of the déformé, human or otherwise. Tahiata’s hall had once been a church that might have been built in Doc’s time. She sat with Ryan and Doc at her right and left hand, respectively. She was a beautiful, charming woman, and though she spoke French with Doc she kept flicking glances Ryan’s way. He could have sworn her breasts pointed at him with an aggressive, bronze will of their own. He was glad Krysty was still on the ship while they brokered a deal with the Tahitians.

  Mr. Squid was a huge hit. She’d spent nearly the entire journey around the horn in her barrel. Apparently octopods could get seasick. During that time, her arm had grown back. Once they’d reached The Doldrums she had emerged and began taking on more and more of the ship’s labors as the crew had fallen ill. It turned out she spoke French. She sat in what suspiciously looked like a cauldron. Women, children and even veteran Tahitian warriors giggled, screamed and clapped their hands whenever the octopod spoke or moved or tucked a crustacean beneath her mantle and began crunching.