S. Stirling: Against the Tide of Years

"Mom!" A wail of indignation.

Grinning sailors hoisted the luggage and went over the side and down the rope ladder to the Eagle's captain's gig. After a final exchange of hugs and kisses, so did Heather and Lucy. Nguyen shook their mothers' hands after his salute.

"Don't worry, Commodore, Ms. Swindapa. I'll see them and Eagle both home safely."

"I'm sure you will, Mr. Nguyen," Alston said.

Swindapa nodded silently, a single tear track running down the honey-tan of her cheek. It took more than rings on the cuffs to convince a Fiernan that they shouldn't cry when they were sad. The bosun's pipe twittered Nguyen over the side, and Marian stood with a hand shading her eyes. She smiled crookedly as her daughters swarmed up the side-they were agile as apes, and a summer spent rambling the countryside with their Fiernan cousins hadn't hurt a bit-and stood by the rail, waving again and again.

Orders echoed over the water, crisp and precise:

"Up and down!"

"Avast heaving!"

"Anchor at short stay!" There was a clatter of steel on steel, and the capstan crew paused.

Then: "Break out the anchor!" and they heaved again, slowly at first, and then suddenly no longer straining against the flukes' hold on the bottom.

"Anchors aweigh!"

Sail broke out from the bottom of the masts toward the top, and the ebbing tide and freshening offshore breeze took Eagle and heeled her slightly, a wave appearing at her bow.

"Shift colors!" came faint but clear, and the jack and ensign came on smartly; then the steaming ensign broke out on the gaff.

"Mr. Jenkins," Marian said.

He saluted, smiling, and turned to bark orders. The bosun's pipe twittered, and a team bent to the quarterdeck carronade.

Boom!, softer and deeper than a long gun, and the puff of smoke blew away to the south and leeward. The two girls jumped up and down as the signal gun saluted their departure, waving both arms from Eagle's fantail railing until all sight was lost.

"Fair voyaging," Swindapa said softly. "Always fair voyaging, and a fortunate star, and may partings never hurt them worse than this. And may they never have to sail to war."

"Amen," Marian Alston said, and settled her billed cap firmly on her head. She wished that with all her heart, but she suspected it wasn't very likely. "Final dining-in for the fleet captains tonight," she said.

Swindapa nodded. The Republic's fleet would sail to war as soon as the Farragut's final killing tool was installed, and there was a moa pit-roasting ashore for the last gathering of the commanders.

"So much has happened here," she said, looking ashore to where she'd been roped from her collar to a stake, naked and filthy and shivering, when the Eagle first arrived in these waters.

"We'll be back," Marian said. "And we'll be home, and this will be memories, too."

"The war isn't over yet," Swindapa said. "So much at stake."

"But we haven't lost yet either," Alston smiled. "And we're not going to."

For it is not the bright arrival planned

But in the journeying along the way

We find the Golden Road to Samarkand.