G. Edmondson - The Ship that Sailed the Time Stream

He thumbed his nose as the Alice walked away from the undermanned galley. Once more he was heading south, toward the mouth of the Aegean. One right turn at the Sea of Crete and they wouldn’t stop till they reached the Azores. Saving the diesel for emergencies, he could outrun anything the Romans could send against him.

Water tanks were still full, thanks to the Roman ignorance of pumps. He wondered what would have happened if they had discovered all that wine. While the Alice’s men traced out lines and undid the Roman snarls in standing and running rigging, Cookie squared away the galley and put girls to grinding flour.

They were a mile ahead now and the galley was turning back toward the oarmaster and captain, who still clung to a floating spar.

Raquel hadn’t said a word to Joe since boarding, yet some instinct told him their relationship had changed.

Bloodthirsty savage, he’d called her. How could he have known what lay so close beneath his own civilized exterior?

Then the engine stopped.

The quinquereme was completing its pickup, about a mile and a half behind them. Joe wondered if the engine’s noise could carry that far upwind. His question was answered when the immense striped sail dropped from its yard and bellied. The bronze ram lifted and began throwing twin wings of spray. “Make sail!” Joe shouted.

“Be a few minutes yet,” Gorson answered. “Those sons of bitches unrove the mainsheet.”

Dawn was a little brighter now and the island was clearly outlined some five miles astern. “None too soon,” Dr. Krom was saying. “Look at that smoke.”

Joe went to see what had happened to the engine.

“Day tank ran empty,” Rose explained.

“I didn’t know how to fill it,” Joe apologized.

“The engine drives the transfer pump.”

Joe began to worry. “And without fuel to start the engine you can’t pump fuel into the day tank to run the engine to—”

Rose laughed. “I’ll drain a cupful somewhere.” He grabbed a wrench and crawled deep into the Alice’s bilges. “Don’t worry,” his muffled voice came back, “I’ll find a plug soon.”

The galley had closed to less than a mile. Joe studied its bow wave and wondered if the Alice could outrun this light drafted vessel downwind. If it came to that the Alice could come about and tack until the oarsmen were exhausted.

“How much longer with that sail?”

“Any minute,” Gorson said cheerfully. The galley was making a good nine knots now and the plume of smoke which rose directly behind her gave Joe the momentary impression of a destroyer preparing to ram at flank speed. He was starting down the after scuttle again when he heard the starting motor grind. The diesel coughed raggedly and the glass tube on the side of the day tank began filling. He went on deck to see what the galley would try.

“Not going to conk out again, is she?”

“If she does I’ll turn Christian,” Rose promised.

The galley was within three hundred yards, gaining rapidly. Joe opened throttle and headed crosswind to take the weather gage. Instantly, the sail brailed up and oars flashed as the galley turned. But the Alice was faster now and had no difficulty staying on the larger ship’s stern. He caught a glimpse of the Roman captain, livid with rage as he shouted orders.

A catapult twanged and the stone splashed short.

This is ridiculous, Joe thought. He didn’t want to waste fuel playing tag, yet the Roman wouldn’t give up. The quinquereme was more solidly built than that Scowegian dragon ship. Joe might get the worst of it in a ramming match. To hell with it. He’d lead them off cross wind for a while, then set every stitch.

Another stone plunked short of the Alice. Joe cracked the throttle a trifle wider. “Look!” Dr. Krom was pointing at the island, now dead ahead.

It reminded Joe of the Bikini movie. A visible shock wave moved through the clear morning air. A mile high pillar of smoke was already beginning to mushroom.

How long before the tsunami reached them?

“All hands below!” he screamed at the spellbound deck force. “Dog everything tight!” He pushed Dr.

Krom through the scuttle and dived after him. Thank God they hadn’t set sail! And the Alice, at least, was heading into it. “In your bunks,” he yelled. “Shut it off, Rose.”

The shock wave struck. There was no sound, just a feeling like the end of the world. Somewhere in the loudest silence he had ever known Joe heard a tinkle of broken glass.

There were ominous creakings and groanings, a hum which ended with a snap like an overturned guitar string. If that’s the backstay we need a mast. The nearest suitable timber would be in Gaul. How many weeks to find a stick and shave it down? No, by Mahan—the Bible mentioned cedars in Lebanon. But there wasn’t fuel even to reach there.

The tsunami struck—a vertical wall of water which poured over the bow before the yawl could lift. Water poured through the slide behind him. Floorboards tilted slowly from beneath his feet and he hung from the ladder. Girls screamed. The bow raised slowly, majestically skyward. Joe surveyed the wriggling mass below him and wondered why in hell they hadn’t gotten in their bunks.

He heard water gurgling down the cockpit’s self-bailing drains. The Alice came to an even keel and after a moment he opened the scuttle and scrambled on deck.

The others streamed behind him and surveyed the turbulent, mud-colored sea. There was neither splinter nor corpse of the Romans.

He turned ruefully to Dr. Krom. “I see why you wanted to leave.”

The old man grinned, looking suddenly young. “All my life I have lived with fear. First, it was the simple fear of starvation. Then came Hitler and new fears. All my life I have fought fear, seeking only to align myself with the lesser evil. Did you know the Communists also tried to buy me?”

What kind of confession was the old man leading up to?

“Freedom began the day I realized you were in command—that I could in no way influence events.” The old man smiled inwardly. “To be a leader is always to be alone. Chained to an oar, I suddenly knew I was free—for the first time in my life. I knew the island would explode but I could not act so I did not care.”

Ma Trimble crowded up. “Quite a band, sonny,” she said. “Did you shoot off one of them atomizer things?”

Dr. Krom laughed and probed layers of fat with his forefinger, poking in the general direction of Ma Trimble’s ribs. “Do you realize,” he asked Joe, “that this blithe spirit has never heard of Hitler, Stalin, or Krushchev?”

Ma Trimble gave the scientist a kittenish glance and they moved off together.

The island was visibly changed. The mushroom had torn and was streaking over the Alice. The wind blew due south and deposited a fine ash over the Alice and the surrounding sea.

“Make sail,” Joe said. “First reef until things settle down.”

It was nearly noon before they sighted land, ten degrees off the starboard bow. Joe reflected a moment.

The Roman had been heading due west for Athens.

They were possibly fifty miles south of that position now. He studied the inadequate pilot chart and cursed.

Here he was, a historian professor traveling through the islands where so much of the western world’s history had been made. Which was this? Was it the Paros which shuttled back and forth between Athens and Persia so many times? Could it be Naxos, where the god Dionysus picked up Ariadne after Theseus stood her up? Maybe it was Amorgus, where the Roman emperors sent their poor relations, or Kinaros, famous only for its artichokes. It couldn’t be Kos, birthplace of that father of quacks, Hippocrates, or he’d have run aground long ago.

“Freedy,” he yelled, “fire up the fathometer.”