The Barbary Pirates eg-4

by William Dietrich

  “We’re working with Ethan Gage,” Pierre warned. “Do not expect precision.”

  “No, he improvises. But that’s good, too. I see you have fetched your woman and child, Gage, and by the sound of it have woken half of Tripoli doing it, and maybe the dead as well. Perhaps the distraction will give us enough time.”

  “We emptied their prison.”

  “How helpful. Now, I’ve constructed a small version of a simple medieval war machine the French called the trebuchet. I attach the bomb to this end of my pivoting beam here, tie that end to the terrace floor, and weight the other end of the beam. When I cut the rope holding the lower end, the counterweight comes plunging down, the missile end goes flying up, and our mine with its fuse flies over these houses. We destroy the mirror, run to the harbor, and make our escape.” He counted us. “I thought by now that one or two of you would be dead. It’s going to be very crowded in my submarine.”

  “My son doesn’t take much room.”

  “Well, I’d include him before you in any event—and your pretty woman, too.” He grinned. “But we’ll squeeze in Ethan Gage as well! Now, the sun is climbing. Are you ready? They haven’t spied us yet.”

  “Ready for what?”

  “Notice that the opposite end of the trebuchet has no counterweight. Nothing came readily to hand. Then I realized three adults represent a good five hundred pounds. So what you must do is climb up to grasp the very end of my makeshift catapult. When I cut the rope from this other end you will crash down, the bomb will fly up, and my experiment will be completed.”

  “Crash down?”

  “Think of it as fun.”

  Sunlight was flooding the rooftops of Tripoli.

  “What about Horus?” Astiza asked.

  “I’ll hold him,” Fulton said. “I’m good with children.”

  She looked from one of us to the other. “Absolutely not. Not one of you men has been good for him yet. And this is just the kind of stupid device boys would invent. You three climb up there and I’ll cut the rope. I’ve already had to leave my son with his father, and he’s had so much misadventure it will be a miracle if he doesn’t grow up as disturbed and incorrigible as Ethan.”

  “I’m not incorrigible. Just improvisational.”

  “I’m heavier anyway,” Fulton conceded. “It’s as you say, Gage: your wife is smarter than any of us. Here, let me cut the fuse to length.”

  She glanced at me. “Did you call me your wife to your friends?”

  I swallowed, and grinned. “Possibly.” Had I? I couldn’t remember.

  “Without informing me?”

  “Just as you neglected to tell me I was a father.”

  She considered our mutual miscommunication, her expression inscrutable. My grin was growing anxious. I worried that I’d annoyed her—or the opposite, pleased her! Both seemed risky, even calamitous. It’s easier for women, I thought jealously. In our world they need a provider and protector. So a man provides, giving up a variety of quim for one, and gets…what? Love, help, constancy, and a sum greater than its parts: a family. He gets a son, and a lifetime of pride, worry, and responsibility. He gets the half of him that’s missing.

  Not such a terrible bargain.

  I swallowed, as afraid of Astiza as a janissary regiment.

  So I turned to look at the mirror of Archimedes. It was dazzling, a beautiful golden sun in itself, a sight that must have terrified the Roman galleys by its brilliant sheen alone. I realized that if Lieutenant Sterett was returning for us as planned, the schooner Enterprise would already be in sight. The mirror would look like a glowing lighthouse. Would he dare come close?

  “How will we ignite the fuse?” Pierre asked.

  The inventor stopped. “I hadn’t thought of that.” He peered eastward. “Does anyone have a glass we can focus in the sun?”

  “For the sake of Apollo, this is the nineteenth century,” I said. “We’re also in the shade. Pierre, prime the pan of your pistol. That will give flash enough to light the fuse.”

  “Of course,” said Fulton. “Such a modern man you are, Ethan! All right, up we go! Gage, you’re biggest, out to the end. Yes, yes, we’ll hug each other, no time for squeamishness.” I clung like a monkey to the end of the beam. Pierre wrapped around me, and Fulton half dragged himself on top of both of us while looking backward. “Astiza, light the fuse and then use my cutlass to cut the rope.”

  “You’re certain of your aim?”

  “I’ve spent the night in calculations.”

  “Then I’m ready.” She carefully cradled our snoozing Harry on one shoulder and picked up Pierre’s gun with her free hand.

  “Hold the pan of the pistol next to the fuse and pull to let the hammer fall.”

  There was a flash but no sizzle.

  “It didn’t catch.”

  “Try it again.”

  The sun was climbing higher. Across at the fort, men were starting to yell and point at the spectacle we made, knotted at the end of a beam like an octopus. More figures appeared in long robes. Egyptian Rite! How would they react when they learned their intended queen was dead, her body mangled?

  Astiza poured more powder on the pan of the pistol and pulled the trigger again. Another flash, and this time the fuse caught. The burning cord was very short, just enough for a quick flight through the air.

  “Now, now, cut the rope holding the trebuchet arm! Hurry, before we blow up!”

  She swung and the sword bounced, only chopping partway through.

  “Saw it! There’s a hundred pounds of powder there!”

  She began desperately slicing the strands. We tensed. Now more men at the fort were yelling and gun smoke blossomed. Bullets thudded into the stucco around us. The fuse let off a bright hiss and wink of sparks.

  “Please!” Fulton shouted. “We make a perfect target!”

  Finally the rope snapped, we plunged, and the other arm of the fulcrum jerked up. The bomb shot skyward, leaving a thin trail of smoke. Men began shouting warning, and running from the mirror. The mine plunged down, a lovely parabola…

  And fell just short of the mirror’s parapet, landing on a lower ledge fifteen feet below.

  We waited.

  There was no explosion. We could see the bomb sitting impotently.

  “Damn,” Fulton hissed. “The fuse went out!”

  “Mon dieu,” Pierre groaned, picking himself up off the ground where we’d fallen. “Why do I get involved in the schemes of the donkey? I might also point out that you missed the mirror completely, Monsieur Inventor. Just what calculations did you make all night long?”

  “If the beam were two feet longer…”

  “Ethan, use your rifle!” Astiza said. “Maybe we can set it off with a bullet!”

  “My piece was smashed in the dungeon. And Robert’s pistol won’t hit anything at that range, even if a bullet could by a miracle detonate the charge.”

  “We’d better retreat,” Fulton said. “They’ll signal the other janissaries to trap us here.”

  “Wait,” Astiza said. “Look! They’re turning the mirror.”

  And indeed the Egyptian Rite’s robed warriors had run back to the contraption and were beginning to swing it toward the climbing sun and, coincidentally, toward us. Where before it had seemed to gleam, now it positively blazed, the petal-like arms beginning to twist and bend as they were hauled on tackle to help focus the power of the rays. They were going to aim Archimedes’ death ray at our little party.

  “Retreat!” I had my family.

  “No, this is our chance!” Astiza seized the sword and began hacking at the cords holding the beam to the trestle.

  “What are you doing?” Fulton cried.

  “We need to hammer that shield onto the beam and catch the heat ray when it comes this way,” she said. “If we hold the shield itself we’ll be burned, but we can use the beam as its handle. Ancient records in Memphis and Dendara suggest just such a countermeasure.”

  “You want to reflect their beam ba
ck at them?”

  “Yes, until they scatter. Then I want to aim it at your bomb.”

  “Ah!” cried Pierre. “It is the pretty woman who is the sorcerer, not you, donkey!”

  “Well, I’m the one who found her.” And I remembered just how much I was in love.

  We fetched an iron nail and used the butt of Pierre’s pistol to pound it through the shield onto the beam, crouching below the parapet. I glanced over. Ropes, gears, and pulleys were sharpening the mirror’s focus. That would be necessary, I realized, to hit a moving target like an enemy ship. The Egyptian Rite savants had figured out the old design of Archimedes, and perhaps improved it.

  “Stand! Let them aim at us!” said Astiza.

  “And risk burning?”

  “So we can burn them.”

  There was a flash and a ray of light pulsed across the rooftops and hit our terrace. The heat was instantaneous and terrifying. Astiza twisted away to shield Harry with her back, wincing, my son waking with a start. “Now, now, pick up the beam and use the shield!”

  Grunting, we lifted our crude reflector into the path of the death ray, the head of the Gorgon flaming in the light. Immediately there was another flare of illumination, a counterbeam bouncing back as we struggled to aim, and then we tilted the shield just enough to run the reflection across the Egyptian Rite technicians at the mirror.

  They screamed. Two robes burst into flames. Men began running from the controls.

  “Now, now, the mine!” Fulton ordered.

  Carefully tilting, we deflected the mirror’s ray onto the torpedo we’d hurled. In seconds it began to smoke again. Flame curled. We waited, praying.

  And at last a roar!

  The mine and its hundred pounds of gunpowder blew up in a great gout of fire, smoke, and stone, the wall just beneath the mirror blown to pieces. The platform the wall had supported tilted and sagged, and the mirror lost focus and abruptly dimmed, as if there were an eclipse of the sun. Several soldiers and technicians on the opposite side had been knocked down by the blast, and one or two controlling ropes snapped.

  But that was it. The mirror was tilted, not destroyed. Hurled chunks of rock clattered down on the city’s rooftops, the smoke blew away, and our failure was plain. There was a gaping hole in the wall beneath the mirror and small fires burning inside the fort, but no serious damage.

  “I should have brought a second torpedo,” Fulton groaned.

  “No,” I said, “it’s enough to keep them from roasting us and the Enterprise while we escape, if we go quickly enough. Let’s run, and maybe we still have a chance!”

  “A fulcrum of Archimedes can prop up that damaged rooftop in seconds,” the inventor insisted. “Look, they’re already running to fix it. Not only are we doomed, but so is Sterett.”

  “I’ll go down fighting before I go into that pit with that lizard,” Pierre muttered.

  “As will I before I lose my wife and son to slavery,” I vowed, realizing I’d said wife again without thinking. By the eye patch of Odin, was I making a commitment? Ethan Gage, rootless adventurer, tireless womanizer, who thought too often only of me?

  “Ethan?” Astiza asked. Women do like to know. Yet what could we say when there was so much unsaid, because we hadn’t had time to say anything yet?

  And then there was a truly titanic explosion, a thunderclap that knocked us over and sent mirror, Rite, and the top half of Yussef’s fort skyward in a monstrous fountain of fire and smoke. Glittering golden shards of an ancient weapon flew apart as if a rock had been hurled into a glass mirror, and they glinted like stars as they radiated. Bits of rock and metal and human beings flew in all directions, raining down on Tripoli. There was a rattle as bronze fell like hail. Our ears ached from the punch of air.

  Fulton swayed to his feet, looking in stupefaction at the smoking stump of ruins where the mirror had been. “They stockpiled powder and guns to protect it,” he said dazedly. “Our fires reached the magazine, and it went off.” He looked at our shield, bent by the heat. “Medusa turned them to rubble.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  We escaped through chaos. The dungeon was empty, gates hanging wide, and in the streets escaped slaves and prisoners had fanned out in a frantic riot to try to break free of Tripoli before janissaries caught them again. A huge pillar of smoke was roiling up from where the mirror had been, and secondary explosions were still going off as kegs of gunpowder ignited. We ran in our Arab robes through confused, milling crowds without drawing fire. There were sharpshooters boiling on the roof of Yussef’s palace and I thought I saw Karamanli himself, head bare of his jeweled turban as he shook his arms and furiously shouted orders. But he didn’t spy us, or recognize yet what I must be carrying away in my pocket.

  Just as we dashed through a water gate onto the harbor quay, there was another roar and a docked pirate corsair blew up. A geyser of water shot up from the vessel’s bow and then it began to sink at its moorings. Its rigging and that of pirate craft nearby caught fire. Sailors spilled off the boats in fear and confusion, not knowing where the attack was coming from. As they did so, some of the escaped prisoners began stealing smaller feluccas.

  “Splendid,” Pierre said, marveling at the havoc. “Donkey, you’ve done it again.”

  We spied a ripple and shadow in the water as Cuvier and Smith steered the Nautilus away from the ship they’d stalked. For a moment I feared they were steering straight for sea, leaving us, but then the shadow slowed and Fulton’s little windowed tower broke the surface. The submariners paused, no doubt peering out, and then the hatch popped open and fell back and Cuvier appeared. He waved cheerfully.

  “Don’t call attention to yourself!” I warned.

  And indeed, muskets began to crack and bullets began to kick up spouts near the submarine. Cuvier ducked back down and the vessel turned hard to starboard and made for where we were standing. I longed for a rifle to answer back, but my piece belonged to a well-fed dragon. I felt naked.

  Harry, whose moods flickered with each calamity, was looking around the harbor with bright interest. Apparently he was getting used to cacophony. People were running in all directions, smoke roiled up, and cannon balls were making splashes in the water. “Fire, Papa!”

  “Bad men,” I said. “You’ll never play with fire, will you, Harry?”

  “Can you play with it?” The idea intrigued him.

  “Certainly not!” said his mother.

  “Fire hot!” He held up his little fingers.

  “Very hot,” I said. “Very dangerous.”

  “No danger!” he said. He thought. “Bad big dog.”

  “The big dog is dead.”

  “Good.”

  “You give every indication that you are brighter than your father,” Pierre observed. “Must be your mother’s side.”

  And then with a bang and a clunk the Nautilus was at the quay. Astiza handed a squirming Harry to Cuvier to drop inside and then we four adults followed, filling the little craft to bursting. Harry began crying again at this confinement, quite reasonably, and the palace gunfire coming our way was increasing. A couple of musket balls pinged off the tower.

  “We’ll have to go underwater until we get out of range,” Cuvier said. “How far will the mirror reach?”

  “We destroyed it,” Fulton said. “It was Astiza who figured it out.” He seemed as impressed with her as he’d been dissatisfied with me, and was good-looking enough that his compliment made me feel a little jealous.

  “My congratulations, madame,” Cuvier said. “And allow me to apologize for the discomfort. Our American inventor here seems to have forgotten any amenities.”

  “Escape will be amenity enough.” She looked uncertainly about the metal tube, sweating with moisture and stinking of confined men, but smiled bravely. “I’m sure this is just the first draft of his experiments.”

  “And the next few minutes will determine if it is to be his very last.” Cuvier winked.

  “I have a new design that will hold twenty men
!”

  “Let’s finish with this one, first.”

  We submerged and Pierre and I took over from the winded Smith to crank the propeller. All too clearly we could hear the eerie whoosh of cannon balls as they plunged into the sea nearby. The garrison of Tripoli seemed to be firing at everything and nothing.

  “Have you seen Sterett and the Enterprise?” Cuvier asked.

  “Not yet,” I replied. “We have to get clear of these reefs and surface.”

  We had no way to gauge our progress except by studying the compass and counting minutes, which Fulton was doing under his breath. With so many people and the hard exertion of the crankers, the air was quickly getting stale. Horus has solved the problem by nodding off to sleep again, and we all looked at him with envy.

  “How about some of your compressed air, Robert?”

  “I’m saving that for an emergency.”

  “Seven people crammed into an underwater craft designed for three, and being bombarded with cannon balls, is not an emergency?”

  “I think we’re already out of range.” The plonk of the falling cannon balls had ceased. “Let’s come up to reconnoiter and crack the hatch. Gage, I’ll spell you on the propeller. Take a look when the tower breaks free of the water.” We squeezed past each other while Cuvier pumped some of the water out of our buoyancy tanks. Our chamber lightened as we neared the surface, illumination glowing as the thick windows broke above the waves.

  I looked behind us through the glass. A haze of smoke hung over Tripoli and several xebecs and feluccas had caught fire. The quay and walls were boiling with men, but the gunfire had stopped. We were either too far away or they’d lost sight of our shadow passing underwater. Fulton’s submarine had promise after all.

  So, could we see the Enterprise? I turned around to look toward open sea. And almost yelped! A Barbary ship was bearing down on us, sails bellied, spray dancing at the bow, and Hamidou Dragut balanced on the bowsprit, face bloody, pointing frantically at our form.