Celia Friedman - When True Night Falls

He wondered why all these men and women weren’t crowding at the front of the ship, since the object of their scrutiny clearly lay in that direction. Perhaps the captain had threatened them back from the bow, to reserve that space for himself. If so, it served them right. He had once likened the Golden Glory ’s passengers to a passel of kittens, who tended to be underfoot no matter where you went. Overhead, Damien caught sight of the Glory’s few sailors scurrying about like so many spiders, their hands and feet grasping the knotted rigging only long enough to get their bearings, then scrambling free across the hempen webs again. A figure clung to the mast itself, fingers and toes gripping salt-cured wood without visible support. He grinned, noting that Hesseth had found herself the best vantage point of all. White sails snapped in the wind all about her as the complex winch—and-wire system that controlled their position began to draw them in, denying them a grasp on the westerly breeze. Also giving her a clearer view. At moments like these he envied her the claws and agility that gave her such freedom. How much simpler and safer would his life have been if he had been armed likewise?

The captain was in uniform, and on him it seemed even more alien. Woolen jacket, black breeches, high leather boots; the clean, formal line of his garments did nothing to refine him, merely made him look coarser by contrast. And yet powerful, doubly powerful, with a raw, unfettered agression that was its own authority. Little wonder he had managed to scare the passengers back from the bow.

“She’s armed,” he said, as Damien came to his side. “No doubt of it. Take a look.”

Did you expect any different? he wondered, remembering the cannon they had seen a few days earlier. He raised his own telescope up to his eyes and scanned the sea before them. By now they must be within . . . what, forty miles to the gateway of the inland sea? Fifty at the most. That made contact very likely. It surprised him, in a way, that it hadn’t occurred before.

At last he found the object of the captain’s attentions and focused his own lenses upon it. And gazed upon the face of their welcoming committee.

It was a ship, all right, and a damned big one. Even to his untrained eye it looked impressive; others would no doubt find it intimidating. He scanned its twenty-odd sails, wishing he knew enough of ship-lore to read meaning into their various shapes and settings. He studied the deck, looking for things that he could interpret. There were columns rising from the middeck that might lead down to a furnace: steam power for backup? Few cabins meant it wasn’t a passenger liner, which left at least a dozen possibilities. The smooth, sleek hull cut through the waves with fine precision, but was that any better or worse than his own ship’s performance? He couldn’t begin to judge. He had never liked sea travel, had assiduously avoided it most of his life; now he was paying the price for that.

Tarrant would have known. Wasn’t Merentha a port in his time? He probably has every fact we’d need, right at his fingertips.

And then, scanning lower, he noticed the holes which pierced the ship’s side: perfectly square, evenly spaced. Distinctly ominous, even to his untrained eye. He felt something inside him tighten as he recognized the only thing they could possibly be, as he finally voiced the impossible.

“Cannon,” he whispered. The word was cold on his tongue. Cannon, on a ship. “Is that it?”

“Figure so,” the captain confirmed. “Never seen ’em like that myself, but I imagine that’s how they’d be placed. If one was going to fight,” he added.

Cannon on a ship. That one phrase embodied the impossible. Gunpowder might have limited use on land—mostly in the hands of those whose luck or power permitted them to control it—but it had no place on the open sea, not where a single mishap might doom a ship full of men and goods to a sudden watery grave. Misfires happened with the best of guns; the early wars had taught them that. Naval warfare had been rare and piracy all but unknown for how long now . . . six hundred years? Eight hundred?

But not here, Damien thought. An unaccustomed chill began to take root in his soul. Any culture that armed its ships Earth-style must be very foolhardy, or very confident . . . or both. And deadly. That was without question. And it had enemies. Powerful enemies.

He swung his sight upward, to the pennant that fluttered atop the mizzenmast, and waited for wind to favor him by stretching the fabric taut so he could see. The emblem of the foreign ship fluttered, folded . . . and then snapped westward and held. Just long enough. His breath caught in his throat.

“Reverend?”

Two circles, interlocking. In one was a shape that might have been the Northamerican continent. An Earth-disk? In the other was a serpentine form that it took him a minute to identify. He struggled to remember the shapes on Tarrant’s map, and tried to reconcile the distortions of the space-born probe with the viewpoint of land-bound cartographers. Yes. That was it. Without a doubt. He recognized it now.

This land. This continent. Bound to the Earth (if he read it right) by the same kind of symbol that his Church would use to signify the One God, the One Faith . . . what else could that flag be, but a symbol of his calling?

A fervent prayer echoed in his soul, one he had never dared voice in all the long months of their travel. Oh, God, let this land be Yours. Let its people be sanctified unto You, keepers of Your Law. Let them but serve the same dream that I do, and I know that we will prevail - we will triumph! - we will scour the evil from this planet so that Your followers may worship in peace and safety forever . . .

“Father?”

“Might be Church-sign,” he murmured. “Or might not.” Now that the first flush of optimism was fading, cold pragmatism took its place. Our enemy has tricked us before. What if this sign is but another example of his scheming? Or if (it is possible) you’re reading it wrong? Be careful, Damien. Don’t let your own hope make you careless. “Can’t be sure.” He looked up from the telescope, saw that Rasya had joined them. Against the deep blue of her pilot’s uniform her sun-bleached hair burned like fire.

“It’s a coastline vessel,” she informed him. “Those sails’d give it good maneuverability, but it can’t net the ocean wind like this can.” She nodded back toward their own square sails, now tightly reefed to their spars. “Of course, here by the coast that’s to their advantage. No way we could outrun them. And if I’m right about the engine . . .” She hesitated.

“What?” Damien asked, and the captain prompted, “Go on.”

She glanced back at their own midship section, where two slender columns would serve to vent the turbine’s smoke high above the deck. Only two columns. Slender. She gazed out at the alien ship, whose four thick columns seemed to dominate the entire deck. Was that fear in her eyes, or envy? “I’d guess that it’s more than a backup,” she said at last. “In fact, judging by the design . . . I’d guess that sailpower is secondary.”

“Gods’v Earth,” the captain murmured. “A true steamship? She’s under sail now, sure enough—”

“The wind’s with her,” Rasya supplied. “But I’d venture a guess she doesn’t slow down when it turns. Wouldn’t have to.”

“Gunpowder over water,” Damien murmured. “Dependable engines. Mechanized travel.” Tasting the words. Testing the concepts.

“It’s like a different world,” Rasya agreed.

“A world your people hoped to create—eh, Reverend?” The captain’s eyes, narrowed against the sun, were fixed on him. Tell me these are your people, they seemed to beg. Tell me you know how to talk to them.