G. Edmondson - The Ship that Sailed the Time Stream

There were a couple of hundred feet of nylon between them and Joe had been keeping a careful eye on its floating mass lest the Alice foul her screw again.

“Here we go,” he said, and shoved the lever into forward. The Alice gathered way rapidly. Joe made sure she was headed for the harbor mouth and would clear the pinnacle, then squatted in the foot-deep cockpit to study the tachometer and ammeter. “If you’re interested …” he hinted. The Roman knelt beside him.

The marines fingered their swords nervously and stood on either side of their chief.

“Let me know when it comes taut,” Joe yelled at the hooded vultures. At that moment it did. There was a sputter like a string of wet firecrackers as marline stops tore loose along the rail. Line whiplashed over Joe’s back where he knelt with the Roman commander. Marines and nautae gave startled yelps.

Joe had thought the closing loop would whip them overboard, but he’d underestimated the power and stretch of nylon. The Alice took up the full dead weight of the galley and shuddered. The line stretched its full twelve percent. The slipknot closed before vultures and marines had time for another yell. The vultures made strange sucking sounds as their insides burst and splattered over the Alice’s deck. The two marines had been standing a foot lower in the cockpit—they merely lost their heads.

Joe stared. He hadn’t imagined it was going to be so messy. The Roman captain took in the situation almost as quickly as Joe, but not quickly enough to duck the steel reversing lever Joe wrapped around his fine Roman head.

Bisected bodies jerked and quivered about the Alice’s stern. Thanking Mahan the torch had gone overboard, Joe corrected course. They were just passing through the harbor mouth. He stumbled and cursed and kicked a pair of legs. They skidded overboard, dragging bloody viscera with them.

He wondered if anyone aboard the galley knew what had happened. They’d find out soon enough. He throttled down. How much fuel could he save without slowing enough to encourage some inquisitive soul to haul in the tow line?

The Roman captain groaned and stirred. Joe did things with short pieces of line. Then he snapped the end of the main halliard to the line joining the Roman’s wrists.

The Roman came to. He tried to sit up as Joe began cranking the winch. He pronounced several words Joe had never heard before as the halliard came taut and began dragging him across the deck. “What do you expect to gain by this?” he demanded.

Joe continued cranking until the Roman was lifted into a sitting position. With feet lashed to the bottom of the mizzen mast and wrists over his head, the Roman could sit but was forced off balance if he tried to stand and lower his arms. When Joe was sure his captive wasn’t going anywhere he throttled down and began hauling in line as the galley coasted up to the deep drafted yawl. It drifted within fifty feet of the Alice before its speed matched that of the idling diesel.

What was going on aboard the galley? He waited tensely but no face peered down over the bow. With an uneasy glance at the bronze ram which pointed straight at the Alice’s screw, he cracked the throttle another notch. Now what?

They were a mile south of the island by now and the wind was offshore. One less worry. He was going to have to attract an audience. He went below and rummaged. The Romans had stolen the trouble light along with everything else but he thought he’d seen a marine bring it back.

God must have been on his side, Joe decided, for it lit when he plugged it in. He snaked the cord back up on deck and hooked the caged lamp between the Roman’s wrists.

“Hail them,” Joe said. “Good and loud. Tell them to send my people back. You might also mention that if that galley unships one oar I’ll sink it immediately.”

“And what do I get out of the deal?”

“If my people are alive and well you might live. If not I’ll vivisect you.”

“Won’t work,” the Roman snapped.

Joe considered the Roman a moment, then kicked him where it would do the most good. The ropes would not let the Roman bend double. He writhed and twisted like a maimed snake, and after a moment vomited.

“You don’t understand,” he explained. “Those blood-thirsty pirates wouldn’t give a plugged drachma to ransom the whole Roman Empire.”

“Whose life would they value?”

The Roman thought a moment. “The quartermaster’s a Roman too. But maybe the oarmaster.”

Joe reached for the light between the Roman’s wrists and cursed when he burnt his fingers trying to unscrew it. Incredibly, there was still no one looking down at them over the galley’s bow. Were they all asleep? No, there had been a murmur of voices somewhere aboard the larger ship. Abruptly, a man screamed. His voice rose slowly through soprano and ended with an abrupt, rabbit-like whistle.

Joe grabbed the Roman by the forelock and they faced each other in the moonlight. “If that’s one of my people,” Joe promised, “you are going to make several noises like that. Even then, I may not let you die.”

The Roman said something short and pungent which Joe didn’t understand. Joe pulled a belaying pin from the mizzen ring and brought it down sharply on the Roman’s kneecap. When the Roman had caught his breath Joe began a steady gentle tapping on the broken kneecap. “All right,” he finally gasped. “What do you want?”

Joe spun the wheel hard right and paid out line.

When the Alice had drifted around broadside to the galley and headed in the opposite direction he declutched. “Now yell. Tell that quartermaster and oarsmaster to get over here in the skiff, alone, and on the double.”

“I don’t know whether I can make them come alone,” the Roman hedged.

Joe began tapping on the kneecap again. The Roman began shouting. Minutes passed before the rope ladder tumbled down from the galley’s stern castle and moonlight silhouetted one man climbing down into the skiff.

“Why only one?”

“I don’t know. I told them both to come,” Joe hefted the belaying pin. “I did,” the Roman insisted. They sat in uneasy silence until the skiff bumped beneath the Alice’s stern.

A cloaked and hooded figure tossed up a painter.

Joe cleated it and extended his left hand. As the man grasped it and swung up on deck Joe jerked. He brought the belaying pin down smartly on the other man’s neck.

The oarmaster came to dangling back to back with the Roman.

“Where’s the quartermaster?” Joe asked.

The oarmaster gave a short hard laugh. “Dead,” he said. “One of your trollops did him in a few minutes ago.”

“Which one?”

“The blackheaded one that kept herself so filthy no man would touch her—until Harpalus got suspicious and caught her smearing herself in fish and seagull blood.”

A great light burst in Joe’s mind. So that explained the gamy stink. Whenever things got dangerous Raquel copied the skunk and kept her person unclean but inviolate. He laughed involuntarily. But now she was in real danger! “Yell back and tell them not to harm her!”

“Not on your life,” the oarmaster grunted. “Old Harpalus deserved a cleaner death than she gave him.”

Joe remembered the welts on his shoulders. “Have you ever felt a whip?” he asked.

“Yes, damn you!” the oarmaster replied in his Greek-tainted Latin. “I’ve been a slave in my time.”

Joe hooked the light between their wrists. He cranked the main halliard winch until they dangled, swinging gently through the catenary arc which suspended them from maintop to mizzen butt. “Tell them to get my people over here in one piece.” He tapped the Roman on the kneecap again.

The Roman started yelling orders, and after the oarmaster had considered the situation for a moment he joined in.