The Second Reginald Bretnor Megapack

by Reginald Bretnor

  “Captain,” I said, “you look sort of worried.”

  He frowned thoughtfully, sipping his Pusser’s Rum. “Andrew,” he answered, “I am, and I might as well tell you as anyone. Truth is, this bloody old place has a ghost. Doesn’t really bother me—just the guests, and especially young couples who have something else very much in mind. He—I’m sure it’s a he—hangs around two or three weeks at a time, sighing and moaning and groaning distressfully, usually when they are just going to it, and of course he manages to ruin it for them. Sometimes they pack up and move out immediately, and naturally I refund their money if they’ve paid in advance. But then he’ll go away for months—once it was actually a couple of years—but invariably he returns.”

  I looked over at a group just two tables off: Jean-Pierre Danziger from the French Department, who was into all sorts of New Age stuff, a tall, stringy stranger in late middle age, who looked annoyed about something, a couple of grad students I didn’t know, and a weird woman called Ludmilla Gooch, a very large woman wearing heavy braids, a sort of cross between a monk’s habit and a holoku made of corduroy, and all sorts of heavy charms and beads. I’d heard that she’d taken up channeling, was writing a book about it, and had attracted quite a circle of followers. I saw that their conversation had lapsed, and that they were doing their best to listen to ours.

  I alerted the Captain. “From what I know of her, if she hears about this spook of yours she’ll start pestering you and insisting she can get through to him, and she’ll make enough noise to have the whole place wondering what cooks.”

  “Well, that we don’t want, but I know her type. The species is indigenous to Berkeley, and seems to recur generation after generation. But—well, thunder! I’ve tried everything else. I even had Father Halloran, the police chaplain, down here trying to exorcise him. Who knows? Do you suppose…!”

  “Uh-uh!” I shook my head. “Would you believe anyone who claims that a Phoenician sailor who died about 700 B.C. speaks through her with the Wisdom of the Ages, and does it in English? To say nothing of French and all sorts of unknown languages?”

  The set of his jaw told me he had come to a decision. “Andrew,” he said, “I think I’ll give it a try. It’s that Phoenician seaman who’s convinced me. If she’s faking him, I should know in a minute. Would you be kind enough to ask her for me? Don’t tell her why. Just say I’m interested and that I’d appreciate it if she and her party joined us in that little cuddy behind the bar. Besides, that way we’ll keep her from noising it all around.”

  “Well, if you say so,” I replied dubiously, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  I rose and went over to their table. “Dr. Danziger,” I said, all politeness. “You may remember me—Andrew Lochead? I took a course from you three or four years ago. Perhaps you’ll introduce me to your company? Captain Crankshaw has heard a great deal about Mrs. Gooch, and he’s extremely interested in her research. He asked me to invite all of you to join him in his private room behind the bar. He’s already told Mickey to bring you another round and we’ll be able to talk without being disturbed.

  “Bah!” exclaimed the stranger, “Research indeed!”

  Danziger cleared his throat. “Well, er—well, that’ll be up to Ludmilla,” he said, “as she seems to be the center of attention. Um—this gentleman, Mr. Homer McWhinney, is a friend of hers. But I myself regrettably can not attend. Actually, I am with some other people,” and he pointed to an even odder group three tables away.

  I could hear Ludmilla shuffling her feet back into her sandals under the table, and knew that the invitation was accepted.

  “I can see by looking at him that the Captain’s a very old soul,” said she. “I’ll be happy to channel for him.”

  She stood up, holding a poisonous-looking drink in one hand, swaying her braids and clanking her beads and things. The two grad students, male and female, agog at the prospect of free drinks, declared they were delighted to meet me, even though Danziger never did formalize the introduction, and Mr. McWhinney grunted disgustedly but did not abandon us. I saw the Captain rise, smile a gracious smile that immediately dissolved the severity of his countenance, and, bowing to the lot of them, led the way past Mickey and the figurehead to the cuddy behind the bar.

  Mickey had already set their drinks out before their assigned chairs, and Ludmilla gratefully took both her glass and the recliner which unprotestingly accepted her more than ample weight. She kicked off her sandals, sighed, and wiggled her toes.

  “Do make yourselves comfortable,” said the Captain, a bit redundantly, and I made the introductions.

  Rather to my astonishment, Ludmilla came right to the point. “Captain,” she declared, “as I told our young friend here, you’re an old soul, and these days I don’t get to meet too many of ’em. So I won’t beat around the bush. You’ve got problems on the Other Side? Right?”

  “Rather,” replied the Captain.

  “I thought so. I can feel it all around us. Two-three more of these—” She looked thirstily at the greenish fluid in her glass. “—and I’ll go into a trance and let Marduk come in. “He’ll help you if anyone can.”

  She was, I’m afraid, an unattractive woman. Her nose had a porous look about it. Her eyes were muddy. But somehow I knew that over the years she almost certainly had had any number of lovers, of whom the obnoxious McWhinney was probably the latest; and oddly enough I began to wonder whether her channeling was as fraudulent as I had believed.

  We had three rounds of drinks, Captain Crankshaw sipping his Pusser’s Rum, I myself going easy with my usual, McWhinney hypocritically guzzling expensive Scotch, and the grad students eagerly ordering drinks they’d read about but couldn’t afford.

  The Captain sat there very patiently, making small talk about the Dryad Hotel, H.M.S. Dryad, the Gold Rush, and the California Historical Society.

  Finally Ludmilla tossed off what remained in her glass, belched delicately, and announced that she was ready. The two students looked at their own glasses disappointedly; so did Mr. McWhinney, who started from his seat, muttering something about not putting up with a lot of drivel.

  “Dammit, Homer, shut up!” snapped Ludmilla.

  “Surely,” murmured the Captain, “you will not abandon us after putting up with our company and my Scotch?”

  McWhinney sat down again.

  Now Ludmilla was lying back in the recliner. Her eyes were open, but they had lost something of their muddy look and whatever they were focused on did not seem to be in the room with us.

  There was a long silence, Then, abruptly, a voice issued from her throat. It was not her voice. It was male, harsh and deep and powerful. “I am Marduk!” it proclaimed. “Marduk the Admiral, Marduk who conquered the sea, who explored the vast waters of the world. What do you want with Marduk?”

  The voice was unbelievable. Its English, grammatically correct and clearly understandable, was spoken with an accent—or rather a melange of accents—so strange that I was at a loss to place it. It evoked images of Carthaginian soldiers prodding reluctant elephants over the Alps, of Honest Abdul’s Used Camel Mart in Beirut, of shouted orders along a hundred far-flung waterfronts.

  “I, Marduk, greet you—especially you, Captain Crankshaw, master of this unfortunate vessel, sunk in this Bay very much like my own so many years ago.…”

  “Are you trying to tell me Phoenician spooks speak English?” snorted McWhinney. “I can’t understand why Ludmilla allows herself to—”

  “Who in Baal’s name is this old fart?” shouted Marduk. “Throw him out!”

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to,” said the Captain, just as Mickey stuck his head in the door, showing all his teeth. “Or Mickey will.”

  Ludmilla’s lover subsided.

  “Admiral Marduk,” the Captain said. “Your knowledge of our language astounds me.
Forgive me, but how the devil did you learn it?”

  Marduk’s laughter roared throughout the cellar. “Captain, I have had two thousand, six hundred, and some odd years to learn languages. Because of my mistakes—some might call them sins—I have been forbidden to reincarnate, and my destiny has been to follow the sea. I have been in battle on I know not how many men-of-war—Revenge, Bonhomme Richard, Victory. I have listened in their wardrooms in fair weather and foul. At Lepanto, the Armada, the Battle of the Saints, Trafalgar, Jutland. I have paced the quarterdecks of merchantmen, and listened to their sailors’ yarns in ten thousand fo’castles. And almost never have I been able to manifest myself, to join them in their chatter.

  “Only when there have been Finns aboard, because in the sailing ship days so many of them were wizards, carrying their bags of wind. And when I have, I’ve usually been taken for Davy Jones or the Flying Dutchman—do I sound like a Dutchman?—and once even for your own Ancient Mariner, but at least they didn’t ask me to prophesy, or tell them about their past lives, or reveal the Secrets of the Universe like most landlubbers would. That is why I am so grateful to this lady for making it possible for me to converse with a fellow shipmaster.

  “Captain Crankshaw, I shall do anything I can to help you. I know your vessel’s history, and yours too. Often I have admired how you have done your duty despite all difficulties. Ah, how I wish I had had you with me when I discovered this glorious bay so long ago. Had you been, my stout ship never would have sunk when my wretched crew ran off, tempted by the native women.”

  At that, my ears pricked up. A Phoenician galley sunk in San Francisco Bay—what a subject for my dissertation! And with photographs of what remained of her, of the artifacts!

  I looked at the Captain. “M-may I ask him?” I whispered. All my doubts had vanished.

  “Presently, Andrew. I know what you’re thinking of. After a bit, I’ll ask him myself. But first I have my own problem to consider.”

  “Ha-ha-har!” roared Marduk. “You have indeed. The matter of your Chief Bo’sun’s mate, the good, devoted William ’Opkins.”

  “You mean—” The Captain leaned forward eagerly. “You mean he’s the ghost who’s been bothering my guests?”

  “That is right,” replied Marduk. “Would like me to bring him in? I’m sure our good hostess wouldn’t mind.”

  “Please do.”

  There was a long silence, during which the Captain whispered in my ear. “Hopkins,” he said, “was one of those who let greed for gold tempt them from their duty. It astonished me—that is, years later, when I finally heard about it. He not only deserted. He took the ship’s cat with him to the gold fields. Her name was Emma, so the crew always called her ‘Lydy ’Amilton.’ You know, after Nelson’s mistress.”

  Abruptly, a new voice broke in, a masculine voice but neither as deep nor as authoritative as Marduk’s.

  “Ow, Capting, Capting!” it cried out. “All these bloody years I been lookin’ fer yer, and now—now—” The voice broke into horrendous sobbing. “Now, at larst, I can tell yer ’ow sorry I am. You wouldn’t believe ’ow I’ve suffered, me and Lydy ’Amilton. It was in a plyce called Second Garotte where they killed me, them Yankee brutes, and arf of ’em Irishmen, and Lydy ’Amilton too. I do believe they et ’er, poor creature!” He broke off once more, overcome by sobbing, and a new voice piped up.

  “Meow,” it said.

  “There she goes, sir!” exclaimed Hopkins. “Remember ’er? She’s rubbin’ agynst yer ’ind leg, she is, purrin’ up a storm. Carn’t yer feel ’er, sir?”

  “I can’t, Hopkins,” said the Captain. “But I’m touched by her devotion. It’s a shame the whole crew couldn’t have shared her dedication to duty.”

  There were more tragic sobs as Hopkins poured out the story of his almost century-and-a-half-long search for someone who could explain his contrition to the Lords of the Admiralty, and to ’Er Majesty the Queen. First, it ’ad tyken ’im years just to find ’is wye back to Dryad, only to find ’er sunk, and ’e styed around a bit but not even the Capting could ’ear ’im…

  “Meow!” said Lydy ’Amilton.

  “Well, now you’ve finally been able to make yourself heard, thanks to Admiral Marduk and this lady here, so what can I do for you?”

  “Oh, sir, If yer please, Capting sir, you can discharge me from ’Er Majesty’s service, so I’ll be free to go on to where this ’ere Admiral Marduk says I ought to be.”

  “Very well, Hopkins,” said Captain Crankshaw. “In my opinion, you’ve pretty much paid for your crime, disgraceful as it was, and there’s certainly no way even the Admiralty could have you hanged from the yardarm. So consider yourself, as of this moment, discharged from the Royal Navy, I suppose without prejudice.”

  “God love yer, Capting! Oh, thank yer, thank yer. Oh, sir, ayn’t there nothin’ I can do to repye yer? I could stye on a while and ’aunt anyone yer sye—”

  “That,” said the Captain hastily, “will not be necessary.”

  “Then, sir, I’ll be on me wye—and, sir—” He hesitated. “—can I tyke Lydy ’Amilton with me? I know she’s Crown property, but we’ve been together ever so long—”

  “By all means take her, Hopkins. And the best of luck to both of you. Good-bye.”

  “Goodbye, sir, and when yer time comes I’ll be lookin’ forward to seein’ yer agyne.”

  I thought I felt a tiny wisp of cold air pass my face. Then Marduk was back again, laughing his head off. “My friend,” he bellowed, “I’d not have let the man off so lightly. I’d have at least persuaded him I’d found a way to keelhaul ghosts! And now would you like to hear the story of my mighty voyage and its sad ending?”

  “We should be delighted.” The Captain signalled to Mickey for a refill all around, and McWhinney quelled some sort of derogatory comment he had been on the point of uttering. And it was a mighty voyage, so much so that I actually found myself listening eagerly, not even really impatient for the sad ending, when I hoped to learn where the remains of his vessel might be found.

  After they cleared the Pillars of Hercules, a great storm had blown them north and west, so that they almost touched the tip of Greenland; they fought Indians in what were to become Quebec and New England; they traded for rich furs, which served them well along the coast of Mexico, traded in turn for gold and slaves, some female for their delectation, some male to do hard labor and serve as sacrifices when the weather threatened.

  Down the coast of South America they sailed, rounded the Horn at the cost of several slaves, beat out into the Pacific, and apparently reached what was to become Polynesia, then were blown to the continent’s west coast, where they had dealings with the remote ancestors of the Incas, and on past Mexico to California.

  Finally they reached the Bay. They had run out of female slaves, and the natives in the locality turned out to be very friendly and hospitable—so much so that Marduk’s ship suffered the same fate as Dryad, with the one difference that she sank completely.

  At this point Marduk heaved a great sigh. “I often suspected,” he said, “that I was being punished because I did not sacrifice enough slaves to the gods, but in recent centuries I have started to wonder whether it was because I sacrificed too many. Ah, a man grows soft and sentimental in his old age…”

  And then I could restrain my own eager curiosity no longer. “Admiral Marduk,” I said respectfully, “exactly where in the Bay did your ship go down?”

  “Ha-ha!” he exclaimed. “Boy, do you think to get her treasure? By the time she sank, there was precious little left that my scoundrelly crew had not absconded with.”

  “You misunderstand my friend Andrew,” said the Captain, and he went on to explain my interest in undersea archaeology.

  “Hah! That is different,” said Marduk. “Bring me a chart and I will point out the exact spot.”


  “A chart?” The Captain frowned. “I’m afraid we don’t have one, but I’m sure there’s an auto club map of the area somewhere—that ought to do it.”

  “What absolute crap!” sneered McWhinney, who had just downed his drink. “Everyone knows Columbus discovered America, and he didn’t get anywhere near the Bay. Anyhow, what’s all this Marduk garbage? Marduk was a Babylonian god, and he’d have been long out of date by the time this character came along.”

  “Indeenaq!” Marduk yelled. “You—you turtle’s anus! My father named me Marduk. You are named after a Greek poet who, if he ever lived, has been dead longer than I have, and it was not your unknown father who named you!”

  “Well, you’ve got no business pestering my Ludmilla. Hell, she could be channeling somebody useful, like what’s-her-name Shirley MacLaine’s gang and just raking the dough in!”

  Marduk started to say what he would do to him if only he was in the flesh, but as he finished in an unknown tongue we could only guess at the gory details.

  In the meantime, the Captain had risen, called Mickey to the door, given him whispered instructions, and returned with a large-scale map of the upper bay and a fresh drink for McWhinney, who accepted it ungraciously. He winked at me. “An Embarcadero Special,” he said, sotto voce.

  He spread out the map, oriented it carefully, and pointed out salient points to the Phoenician. They commented on minor changes in the topography over the centuries, and he started moving his finger like a Ouija board pointer. Suddenly Marduk cried, “There! There is where those eels’ turds scuttled my ship, my beautiful ship.”

  The Captain’s finger stabbed down, and he used a felt pen to mark the spot with a large red X.