G. Edmondson - The Ship that Sailed the Time Stream

Dr. Krom crowded up again, waving a test tube and spouting Magyar. “Later,” Joe said, but the excitement had blown a fuse somewhere in the old man. “Cookie, fix him up.”

Cookie nodded and returned a moment later with a half cup of cloudy liquid. Dr. Krom took the cup absently and drank it. He coughed and abruptly spoke English. “Most urgent,” he began. Abruptly, his eyes crossed. He sat heavily on the settee.

“Foreigners just ain’t got no stomach,” Cookie observed.

“Did we leave anything ashore?” Joe asked.

Gorson shook his head. “What’re you gonna do with him?” he asked, pointing at McGrath.

“How should I know?” Joe snapped. He knelt again.

McGrath’s pulse was steady and regular. He peeled back eyelids and both pupils were the same size. No blood from nose or ears. “Lapham!” he yelled.

“Sir,” that young man asked, “what did you give Dr. Krom?”

“A drink. Get the hammer, saw, and find some nails.”

“I’ll try, sir.”

The young civilian had suddenly started sirring him.

Why? He caught Cookie’s eye and they bore the young god shouter forward. “Any of your things in the chain locker?” he asked Raquel.

She shook her head.

They made McGrath as comfortable as possible atop the jumble of nylon line. Lapham reappeared with some odds and ends of lumber. “Leave room between these slats so we can feed him,” Joe said.

Where was Gorson? Joe went on deck and found the chief fumbling in the darkness, trying to shackle the mains’l headboard onto its halliard. “Girls were sewing this afternoon,” he explained. “It’s unbent.”

It was nearly midnight. Working in the dark, they could take all night bending on the mains’l and then run the risk of tearing it. In daylight it would only take minutes. “Get some sleep,” Joe said. “We’ll get underway at dawn.” The bos’n nodded and went below.

Joe took a deep breath and reached for a cigarette.

When would he remember there weren’t any? He needed a shave too but they’d been out of soap for three weeks and he kept putting off the thought of another scrape with that same old blade.

Were they ready for another try at the Azores? He wandered around the yawl’s deck, testing the standing rigging with his hand. It was stainless so there was no rust problem, but the Alice had taken several hard knocks. Were there any incipient cracks in shackles or turnbuckles? He meandered up into the bows and ran a speculative hand over the forestay. Someone scooted aside to keep from being stepped on. He squinted and saw Raquel. “Sorry about crowding you out of the chain locker,” he said.

“I have not slept there for some time.”

“Oh?” Too hot, he supposed.

“I do not enjoy what goes on in the forecastle.”

“Nor I,” Joe agreed. “Perhaps they’ll settle down when we get to sea.”

“Haven’t we worked hard enough here?”

Joe sighed. He hadn’t realized how weary he was. He sat and leaned against the anchor winch. Ought to go below, he knew, but all that rustling and giggling filtered into his cubicle. It was cooler up here and the moon was just setting beyond the harbor mouth. His head was resting on something soft but he was too tired to see what.

Somewhat later he heard people moving quietly along the deck but again his exhaustion wouldn’t let him care why anyone would be throwing things into the caique he’d salvaged that morning.

He woke to the bleary realization that Raquel had sat all night cradling his head in her lap. She felt him move and dumped him unceremoniously on deck. He scrambled to his feet and started yelling the Alice’s crew awake. He stopped with an “all hands” choked crossways as he saw what Raquel stared at. Less than twenty feet away a large bireme was moored. At least eighty oars were visible on Joe’s side. Through the oar ports he caught glimpses of rowers. They looked mean.

He dived down the forward scuttle, dragging Raquel after him. “Stay below,” he shouted. “Let’s get the hell out of here!” Hurling blondes like a berserk snowplow, he lifted the floorboard over the engine.

Rose spun valves. He opened fuel cocks, water cocks, and exhaust cocks. The starter began grinding. Nothing happened. Rose gave a disgusted grunt and reached for the ether bottle. He poured a capful into the air intake. The diesel gave a shuddering explosion and roared into life.

“Full ahead!” Joe yelled.

“We’re tied up.”

“It’s light line. Try to break it.”

The Alice trembled and moved a foot or two. Joe stationed himself at a porthole. “Reverse!” he yelled.

The Alice took up slack in the bow line which stretched to the midharbor pinnacle. “Now full ahead!”

The yawl lunged forward again. She made all of six feet. Aboard the bireme Romans stared at this ship which roared and moved without oarsmen. Joe wondered if fear of the supernatural would keep them from boarding. Then he remembered the fixed Roman policy of destroying everything they mistrusted or misunderstood.

Cook was edging around the open engine compartment. Joe took the cleaver from him. “But Mr. Rate—”

He saw Joe’s face and abruptly stopped. Joe eased the hatch open. The line came through an eye in the middle of the stern and ran across the afterdeck to a cleat portside of the cockpit. He oozed out into the foot-deep cockpit, hoping the Romans couldn’t see him. Abruptly, he burst from the cockpit’s shelter and streaked across the six feet of open deck to whack at the line. He chopped frantically and the line snapped. A javelin thunked into the deck behind him. Joe dived back into the shallow cockpit.

The Alice was moving out now, far faster under power than the bireme. Joe made silent prayer for the helm to be centered. How far would those Roman javelins carry? He had to run forward and cut or take in the bow line before they breasted the midharbor pinnacle.

Spears still thunked into the Alice’s woodwork. A poorly cast pilum clattered slatwise into the cockpit.

The Romans would be casting off their own lines soon.

Would he ever outrange those damned spears?

Abruptly, the Alice’s diesel strained, gave a tremendous racking sneeze, and stopped. With a sinking feeling Joe realized exactly what had happened. The slack in his own bow line was tangled in a stranglehold around the Alice’s screw. Forgetting the spears, Joe dived for the after scuttle.

“Get the rifle, Cook. You Moors—” He remembered they didn’t understand English. He turned to the imam.

“Fight! Tell them fight quick!”

Ma Trimble loomed huge and quivering in his path.

“Keep those damned girls out of the way!” He dived into his cubicle, searching for the pistol. Damn it! I knew I’d face spears sooner or later. Why didn’t I have some shields made? The revolver wasn’t under his pillow. Finally he remembered where he’d hidden it after Howie’s crusade.

He scrambled for the after scuttle. The Moors were already on deck; javelins whizzed past them as they disdained cover to yell insults. A spear struck one in the shoulder. He jerked it out and cast it back before sitting to examine himself.

The korax unhinged from the bireme’s stubby mast and struck the Alice’s deck with a splintering crash. The spike in its tip nailed both ships firmly together. Marines surged across the portable gangway onto the Alice. The second Moor gave a falsetto shriek and charged, trying vainly to force his sword between their immense semicylindrical shields.

Short Roman swords flickered like serpents’ tongues.

The Moor was on his knees now. Joe emptied his pistol into Romans who still charged across the gangway. He ducked into the shallow cockpit to reload. A short sword struck the Moor on the back of the neck and in the corner of his mind Joe said a prayer for all men who die not for honor or patriotism, but because some s.o.b. tells them to.