G. Edmondson - The Ship that Sailed the Time Stream

The gap closed to half a mile. The Vikings waited, spread evenly before the route the Alice would have to take. Joe took the wheel and bore steadily for the gap between the two middle ships. They were less than a hundred yards apart and he would be exposed to spears and darts from both sides. “Everybody go below,” he said, “except Cook. I want you here with the rifle.”

Joe and Cookie crouched in the foot-deep cockpit, waiting for the first spear to fly. The Alice floundered along, much more slowly than Joe had thought possible. The two center ships were about seventy yards distant on either flank They aren’t even closing in, Joe thought.

The Norse could see that, although his rig was a trifle strange—from somewhere in Arab country by the looks of those crazy three cornered sails—she was not rigged for rowing. Once around the headland she would have to moor or breech and they could finish her off at leisure.

The engine sputtered and caught. Joe waited a moment to see if it was going to keep running. The Vikings were a quarter mile behind them now and the Alice was nearing the turning point if she was going to moor in this bay. Heads peeped cautiously out of the fore and after scuttles.

“All clean,” Joe yelled. “Come up and take a sail.”

And what were the Norse going to think when they saw the Alice running dead into the wind without oars or sails?

The channel was narrower here and the Norse were following them in. The Alice turned and there was a scurry to go below again as men remembered the rain of spears from their first Viking. She was making her full ten knots now and Joe hoped the lightly built dragonships would not be eager to ram. He lay face up in the cockpit, steering with a foot on the wheel. Cookie rested the rifle over the cockpit coaming. They’d have to rig some kind of shelter over the cockpit if this was going to keep up.

A bearded giant threw the first spear. It thunked into the Alice’s foredeck and stood thrilling. The rifle cracked and he crumpled. Joe glanced the other way and saw a longship racing in. They were going to ram after all!

Suddenly there was a keening wail. Raquel stood atop the after scuttle, making snakelike movements and shrilling something with a poetic rhythm. Abruptly, the Vikings sheered off, leaving the Alice to chug her placid way around Erris Head where she could set sail again.

The girl disappeared below.

At least he had longitude. It galled Joe to think that this information had cost an hour’s fuel. Red Schwartz relieved him at the wheel. “Mr. Rate,” he asked, “you know anything about doctoring?”

Something began to shrivel inside Joe’s stomach.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Well, Howie ain’t much for talking but he’s been acting funny all day.”

“Howie?” Then Joe remembered: McGrath. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said, which he admitted to himself was practically nothing. He went below and drew a cup of coffee. The Bible spouter was stitching a reef point into the mains’l, along with everybody else. His thin, ascetic face seemed no more drawn than usual.

Joe wondered if Schwartz were imagining things. Still, they were buddies …

It rained that night and sheet lightning flashed about the horizon. Lightning had got them into this, Joe remembered; he wondered if another bolt could get them out. But the lightning came no nearer. He looked at the clock and decided it was time for another sight.

The deck watch was sitting in the galley. When Gorson saw him with the sextant he got up and followed Joe. They waited until a wave had passed over, then dashed up the scuttle. Gorson grabbed Joe about the waist as he wedged himself against the mizzen. At that moment the Alice essayed one of her more spectacular rolls and green water swirled over their heads.

“You all right?” Gorson yelled as they breathed air again.

“Yeah,” Joe shouted. “Let’s go below.”

“Aren’t you gonna take a sight?”

“Can’t. I just lost the damn sextant.”

Dr. Krom looked up when they came below. “That was quick,” he said.

“Practice makes perfect,” Joe said absently. He shot a glance at Gorson and the chief followed him into the tiny cabin. Gorson’s broad brow was screwed into thoughtful wrinkles.

He squinted shrewdly at Joe and said, “You know, Skipper, I think I’ve finally figured the angle on this operation.”

“Oh?”

“It’s one of those drills, isn’t it? Like that thing the army’s always pulling with a bunch of dogfaces in screwy uniforms sneaking around. You know—they let the air out of the C.O.‘s tires and slam everybody in the brig to prove the whole lashup’s not paying attention. It is just a drill, isn’t it?” He said grinning.

“Nobody told me,” Joe grunted. “If it is, I’d like to know how they doctored up the whole damn ocean.”

The glint went out of Gorson’s eyes. “Yeah,” he said glumly, “they wouldn’t kill that many guys unless it was for real.” There was a long pause. “So what do we do now without a sextant?” he finally asked.

Joe shrugged. “Sailors got by for four thousand years without them.” But I didn’t, he added to himself.

“Gonna tell them?” The chief gestured toward the galley.

“They have enough worries now.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Have you any ideas?”

The bos’n looked at Joe for a long half minute. “No sir,” he finally said. “You’re the captain.”

So I am, as long as they believe in me. And now if I believed …

They went back into the galley and Joe drew a cup of coffee. “Cookie, did you wash your socks in this?” he sputtered.

Cookie looked hurt. “Tain’t much as coffee goes but it ain’t bad for burnt rye.”

“Ah wish we had some chicory,” Guilbeau added.

Joe looked at him.

“We just about outa coffee,” the Cajun said.

Joe sighed and took another sip. He was trying to drink it when Raquel came to sit beside him. “Forgive me,” she said. “I wouldn’t have used the knife if I’d known it was you.”

Joe thought this over for a moment and decided he didn’t have an answer. Instead, he asked, “What did you say to those Vikings?”

“I told them you would—” The rest trailed off into something Joe couldn’t understand. She repeated it and he learned that he was a sorcerer who could call down lightning. Raquel was silent for a moment. “By the way,” she finally said, “who are you?”

Joe put his cup down. She was not, he realized, going to be fubbed off with any Great White Father routine. She nodded at Villegas who played poker with Schwartz and Freedy. “The dark one hailed in my language,” she explained. “I thought you were of my people.”

“How much has Villegas told you?”

She shrugged. “He is foolish and thinks only of love.”

“I haven’t observed him pestering you much.”

“I told him I belonged to you and that you would be angry.”

“Oh my God!” Joe moaned. He took another sip of bitter rye and thought of the inevitable Board of Inquiry he would someday face.

“He say’s women vote,” Raquel continued.

Joe waited.

“What does vote mean?”

Joe explained briefly about elections.

“So the women choose your prince and banish him if times do not prosper?”

“Wellll…” Joe began.

“Did women make you captain?”

“Not intentionally,” Joe said, remembering Ariadne Battlement. “Where did you come from?” he asked.

She said something and he caught Burgos. He nodded absently, his mind on the new noise which had suddenly added itself to the Alice’s creakings and groanings. It was a rhythmic clank-bang as if a piece of chain were sweeping across the wet deck. Wearily, he buttoned his oilskins and started up the ladder. Just as he opened the hatch it stopped. To hell with it, he thought, and came back down to the galley. Raquel still sat where he had left her. “But Burgos is over a hundred miles from the sea,” he said, suddenly remembering. “How did Vikings catch you?”