Harry Turtledove - The Gryphon's Skull

Laughing, Menedemos said, “You want to hang on for a while, do you? Well, I can't say that I blame you. It's like making love to the sea, isn't it?”

That wasn't the comparison Sostratos had thought of, but it wasn't a bad one. And it suits my cousin, too, he thought. “May I stay for a bit?” he asked.

“Why not?” Menedemos said, laughing still. But then he grew more serious: “Probably not the worst thing in the world for you to know what to do.”

“I do know,” Sostratos answered. “But there's a difference between knowing how to do something and having experience at it.”

Before Menedemos could reply, Aristeidas let out a horrified cry for the foredeck: “Ship! By the gods, a ship off the port bow, and she's heading straight for us!”

Sostratos' head jerked to the left. Sure enough, wallowing through the curtain of rain and into sight came a great round ship, her sail down from the yard and full of wind as she ran before the breeze— straight for the Aphrodite . Sostratos knew what he had to do. He pulled one steering oar in as far as it would go, and pushed the other as far out, desperately swinging the akatos to starboard. That wasn't making love to the sea but wrestling with it, forcing it and the ship to obey his strength. And the sea fought back, pushing against the blades of the steering oars with a supple power that appalled him.

Had Menedemos snatched the steering-oar tillers from his hands, he would have yielded them on the instant. But his cousin, seeing that he'd done the right thing, said only, “Hold us on that turn no matter what.” And Sostratos did, though he began to think he was wrestling a foe beyond his strength. “Pull hard, you bastards! Pull!” Menedemos screamed to the rowers, and then, to the men who weren't rowing, “Grab poles! Grab oars! Fend that fat sow off!” He cupped his hands and screamed louder still at the round ship: “Sheer off! Sheer off, you wide-arsed, tawny-turded chamber pot!”

A couple of naked sailors on the round ship were yelling, too. Sostratos could see their open mouths. They were so dose, he could see that one of them had a couple of missing teeth. He couldn't hear a word they said, though. One of them ran hack and snatched up a pole, too, to try to push the Aphrodite away. But the big, beamy ship lumbered on, right toward the merchant galley.

Right toward? At first, Sostratos had been sure she would simply trample the Aphrodite under her keel, as a war galley might have done. But his hard turn gave him hope. He had to turn his head farther to the left every moment to keep an eye on the round ship. Maybe she would slip past the akatos' stern. But she was close now, so close. . .

“Port oars—in!” Diokles yelled, not wanting them broken and crushed by the round ship's hull. With only the starboard rowers working, the Aphrodite tried to slew back to port. Sostratos held her on course against the new pressure.

Poles probed out from each ship, trying to hold the other off. Sostratos felt two or three thud against the merchant galley's flank. With a far larger crew, the Aphrodite had more men straining to push away the round ship. Sailors on both ships cursed and called on the gods, sometimes both in the same breath.

They almost got their miracle. Had the rain been even a little lighter, had lynx-eyed Aristeidas spied the round ship even a handful of heartbeats sooner, the two vessels would have missed each other. But, with a grind of timbers, the round ship's side scraped against the Aphrodite 's stern. Sostratos jerked his arm off the port steering oar an instant before the other ship carried the oar away. Had he been late, he would have had the arm torn from its socket.

The round ship sailed on, as if without a care in the world. Sostratos shook himself, as if waking from a bad dream. But a dream wouldn't have left him naked on a pitching, rolling deck, both hands now on the tiller of the surviving steering oar.

“You did well there,” Menedemos said quietly. “You did as well as anyone could. I'll take it now. Duck under the poop deck and see if we're taking on water. To the crows with me if that fat pig”—a word with a lewd double meaning—”didn't stave in some of our planking.”

“All right,” Sostratos said. “Why didn't you take the steering oars away from me? Maybe the round ship would have missed.”

Menedemos tossed his head. “You had us going hard to starboard. That was the right thing to do, and I couldn't have done anything different. I didn't want the tillers without hands on 'em for even half a heartbeat there, so I just left you alone. Now go see how we're doing under here.”

As Sostratos went past Diokles, the oarmaster clapped him on the back. That made him so proud, he all but flew down the steps from the poop deck to the waist of the ship: Diokles was not a man to show approval when it hadn't been earned.

Ducking under the poop deck, Sostratos found the one drawback to sending a tall man down there—he banged his head twice in quick succession on the underside of the deck timbers, the second time hard enough to see stars. He wished he had some of Menedemos' Aristophanic curses handy.

Then he found more reason to curse than a lump on the head, for his cousin had known whereof he spoke. The collision had staved in three or four of the timbers near the stern, cracking the tenons and breaking open the mortises that held them together. Seawater came through—-not in a steady stream, but by surges, so the damage was close to the waterline but not below it.

Sostratos backed out from under the decking {and, not being the most graceful of men, hit his head once more for good measure). He went up onto the poop deck and gave Menedemos the news.

“I knew it,” Menedemos said savagely. “And what do you bet we didn't do a thing to that stinking round ship? It'll have timbers as thick as its skipper's head. How much water's coming in?”

“It's not too bad,” Sostratos answered. “It's leaking in spurts, not steadily.”

“If we patch it with sailcloth and bail, do you think we can turn back and make Kos?”

“I suppose so,” Sostratos said. “Myndos is a lot closer, though.” He pointed east.

“I know it, my dear,” Menedemos answered. “I'll go there if I have to. But I'd rather not. Damage like that takes a while to repair, and word will get to Myndos that we were the ones who brought Polemaios to Kos. If I have a choice, I'd sooner not be there when it does. If I don't”—he shrugged—”that's a different story, and I'll do what I have to do.”

“Ah.” Sostratos dipped his head. “That makes good sense. As I say, it's not too bad. We got off easier than we might have. You might want to go under there and see for yourself.”

“I suppose I'd better,” Menedemos said. “All right, take the steering oars—uh, oar. Who would've thought we'd lose two on the same voyage? Long odds there, by the gods. Swing her around to southward to run with the wind. We'll make for Kos unless I decide we can't get there.”

When Menedemos came back up onto the poop deck, he was rubbing the top of his head. Seeing that made Sostratos feel better about his own bumps. Menedemos said, “They're sprung, sure enough, but I think we can plug 'em. You're right—that's not too bad a leak. We'll make Kos easy as you please.” He shouted commands, sending a couple of sailors under the poop deck with sailcloth to stuff up the sprung seams and ordering the sail lowered from the yard.

Sostratos peered forward. “What'll we do if we spot the round ship?”

“We ought to ram her,” Menedemos growled. “See how she likes it, by the gods.” In more thoughtful tones, he went on, “If we find out who she is, maybe we can go to law with her skipper or her owner.”