Asimov's Future History Volume 2

by Isaac Asimov

  Steve and Jane moved toward the bow, away from the others, when they could. They didn’t want any of the buccaneers getting a good look at Jane in their free moments. So far, however, all had gone well except that they had seen no sign of MC 2, Rita, or Roland on board.

  “We gambled wrong,” Steve said finally. “Rita, Roland, and MC 2 are on one of the other ships.”

  “Maybe Hunter lucked out,” said Jane. “I don’t doubt that he can find them, but I wonder what he’ll do. I don’t think he’ll take MC 2 back home without us.”

  “Good.”

  “But as a robot, he can’t use the Second Law to order MC 2 to cooperate. I don’t know if he’ll be able to hold onto him forcibly or not.”

  “At least if he gets MC 2 into custody, that will be a start. We can all join up in Port Royal.”

  “Yes, that shouldn’t be long. I hope indecision doesn’t hit him too hard. If he’s paralyzed by indecision because he feels he isn’t following the Laws of Robotics, we’ll have a bigger problem than ever.”

  “He seemed okay last night, didn’t he?”

  “I think so, or I wouldn’t have agreed to split up.” Jane shrugged. “But he still has doubts about his competence. I hope he’ll be okay without me to help him interpret the Laws in a constructive way.”

  “Ahoy! Ship ahoy!”

  Steve looked up. The man in the crow’s nest, up on the highest mast, was waving and shouting to the crew below. Everyone on the ship looked up at him.

  Captain Jacques Duveau, a tall, lanky man with a black beard, looked out to sea, then yelled back up to the lookout. “What flag?”

  “No flag. Can’t see the make of her yet.”

  Steve could see that everyone was excited and curious, wanting to know what nationality and type of ship they had found. He suspected they would flee from a Spanish warship, which would have them outgunned. So far, he couldn’t see the other ship at all.

  For some time, the crew waited anxiously to learn what ship lay ahead. Finally, the lookout turned to call again. “Spanish, by the look of her! Another merchant, Captain, and riding low in the water!”

  Cheers rose up from the crew. Captain Duveau jumped up on a rolled sail lying on the deck. Steve grinned, anticipating what he would say.

  “All right, men! What say you? Shall we pluck this fat bird or not?”

  Another roar of cheers sounded. The crew raced around, preparing for another attack when they drew close enough. In a moment, Captain Duveau had raised the captured Spanish flag. They wanted to lull their prey into believing the original Spanish crew was still in control.

  “It must be another ship from the same convoy as the Cadiz,” Steve said quietly, leaning on the rail. “I guess it was blown off course here in the storm that separated all the ships in that convoy.”

  “Can they take it? With only a skeleton crew on board?” Jane stood next to him, the breeze tossing her hair.

  “Sure. With the Spanish flag flying, they can probably come right up alongside.”

  “We’d be better off just getting back to Port Royal,” Jane said doubtfully.

  At the same time, Hunter was on board the Hungry Hawk. Early that morning, he had finally seen MC 2, Rita, and Roland. He had also realized that the First Law would not allow him to return Rita and MC 2 home and leave Steve and Jane on board the Cadiz. If Rita saw him, however, she might flee again and take MC 2 with her.

  For the first time, Hunter had ‘used his ability to alter his appearance. Since he had only the clothes he was already wearing, he did not significantly change his height or his build. However, he altered the blond, blue-eyed, square-jawed appearance he had been given at manufacture. Now he assumed brown hair, a deeply tanned look as though he had spent years in the Caribbean, and a short, brown beard. Most important, he narrowed and lengthened his face.

  Since making that change, Hunter had spent all day moving among the crew, sharing in breakfast and helping with the rigging when he saw a need. He stayed relatively close to Rita and MC 2 when he could, always appearing to ignore them while eavesdropping with his enhanced robotic hearing. For the moment, he only planned to remain nearby and look for an opportunity to make a move.

  The Hungry Hawk was just a short distance behind the Cadiz. When the lookout on the Cadiz reported another target, Hunter was the only one aboard the Hungry Hawk who could hear him. Within moments, however, the lookout on the Hungry Hawk made the same report. Captain Quinn and his crew enthusiastically chose to join the attack on the new Spanish ship.

  Hunter understood immediately that he would have to find a way to witness the fight without interfering. Finally he decided to stay close to MC 2 and Rita. He could make protecting them a priority and leave the buccaneers to do whatever they must.

  Rita watched with rising excitement as the sea chase continued. MC 2 stood on one side of her. Roland joined them, smiling broadly.

  “Ah, sweet lady. We shall have easy picking this day. Do you see what is happening?”

  “Well, we’re chasing another ship,” said Rita. “Is that what you mean?”

  “Nothing so simple. You see, as the Cadiz sails toward her sister ship, the one in front assumes we two buccaneers are still chasing the Cadiz. At first, the new ship just wanted to flee. But now, as we draw closer, it appears that the Cadiz cannot possibly escape.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “If you look closely, you can see that they have altered their tack.”

  “What for?”

  “I believe they have some misguided notion about helping. Even these Spanish merchants mount a few cannon on board. Most of them don’t have the courage of that captain, though — or his recklessness.”

  “He doesn’t realize that three buccaneer ships are after him, then.”

  “No, he doesn’t.” Roland grinned and gave her a wink. “Not yet.”

  Still at the rail, Steve and Jane watched anxiously as the Cadiz finally drew close to the Sidonia, the Spanish ship just ahead. The buccaneers were still flying the Spanish flag. Many of them were hiding up in the rigging, while others lay flat on deck, all trying to stay out of sight.

  The Hungry Hawk and the Old Laughing Lady were both bearing down hard, as well. Always faster than the merchant ships, they had caught up during the course of the day. The buccaneers had already taken their places, holding their weapons ready for the attack.

  Steve took a couple of belaying pins from their holes in the rail. Thick and heavy, they were not holding ropes at the moment. He handed one to Jane.

  “We should stay right here,” he said. “If anyone gives you trouble, hit him with that. And don’t be shy about it. These guys are tough.”

  “All right,” said Jane, looking at it doubtfully. “I never had one of these in my office job. I wanted one occasionally, but I never had one.” She smiled weakly.

  “If we’re lucky, in the confusion nobody will notice that we aren’t really participating.”

  The Cadiz had drawn close to the Sidonia. At the same time, the Sidonia was coming about to fire its few cannon broadside at the two ships to the rear. Suddenly Captain Duveau pointed to the man at his helm.

  “Bring us around!” Captain Duveau shouted. “Fire at will!”

  The buccaneer at the helm spun the wheel and held it hard. The Cadiz changed direction to match the tack of the Sidonia and slowly came up alongside it. As the first cannons came into position, the individual crews began to fire.

  Cries of shock and alarm rose from the Sidonia, as its crew suddenly realized that they had been fooled. Before their ship could change direction, however, the buccaneers were flinging grappling hooks over the side of their ship. When the hooks had caught, the buccaneers on deck threw gangplanks forward between the ships and began to run across them. At the same time, the buccaneers hiding in the rigging began to swing across to the other ship on ropes.

  Steve crouched, putting a hand on Jane’s shoulder to bring her down too. The rail protected them on one side and
a couple of barrels were in front of them. On the far side of the Sidonia, the Hungry Hawk was coming into position to grapple it. The Old Laughing Lady was coming up last, toward the Sidonia’s stern.

  Steve and Jane remained where they were. The crew of the Sidonia were outnumbered, of course, but they had fight in them. This was not going to be over quickly.

  Suddenly a tall, brawny, laughing buccaneer now on the Sidonia leaped up on the gangplank near Steve and Jane.

  “Ahoy! Stop your cowerin’ there, you two! Come out and fight with the rest of us!” He laughed and whacked Jane on the back of her head with the flat of his cutlass.

  “Hey!” Steve stood up, holding his belaying pin ready for a fight.

  “I’m on your side, remember?” The big buccaneer laughed. “Come and join old Ned, now. Come on!” He stood over them, clearly not intending to go without them.

  “All right.” Steve climbed up on the gangplank with him. “Let’s go.”

  “You, too,” said Ned, grinning down at Jane. “Hurry it up there!”

  Jane got up on the gangplank behind Steve. He hurried across and jumped down to the deck, then turned to wait for Jane. She hopped down next to him, still holding her belaying pin, and shrugged.

  “Go get ’em!” Ned leaped down to the deck with a thump and ran toward a couple of brawling sailors and buccaneers. He had apparently lost interest in Steve and Jane.

  Steve glanced around. “Let’s just stay here as long as we can. It should be over soon.”

  “It’s okay with me,” said Jane.

  With growing anxiety, Hunter had been watching the coming fight from the deck of the Hungry Hawk. He was successfully resisting his First Law imperative to stop the entire attack. His enhanced vision and hearing gave him a comprehensive picture of events on all sides.

  Suddenly Hunter heard Steve’s voice in the crowd. He quickly tracked his location and saw a large buccaneer herding Steve and Jane over the gangplank to the Sidonia. Instantly, the First Law took over his thinking.

  Hunter glanced upward for the fastest route not only to the Sidonia, but to its far side. He spotted a long rope that was not in current use; it was fastened high on one mast. Then he picked out a climbing sequence to reach it. Almost as fast as he saw where to go, he began to shinny up a mast.

  As the buccaneers shouted and fired their flintlocks on board the Sidonia, Hunter reached a spot on the mast about nine meters above the deck. Then he reached up to grasp a hanging net. On it, he climbed another seven meters to where he could grab the dangling end of the long rope.

  He tied the rope loosely to one wrist to keep his hands free and moved up to a yardarm. There, at last, he checked the knot on the high end of the rope. It was tight and would hold his weight.

  Next, Hunter untied the loose end from his wrist. All the ships were far below him on the tossing sea. He took a careful look at the rigging of the Sidonia, to pick his destination. Then, taking a firm hold on the rope, he jumped, swinging hard.

  Using his robotic calculations of the physics involved, he released the rope at the top of his swing. He sailed through the air high above the decks but quickly grabbed a rope on the Sidonia. Once his hold was secure, he quickly climbed hand under hand down the rope to the deck.

  Hunter found himself in the middle of a wild melee, fought with pistols, belaying pins, boarding pikes, and swords. He looked around quickly and found Steve and Jane standing in a corner, avoiding the worst of the action. Even as he saw them, however, a determined Spanish sailor snatched up a fallen cutlass and swung it at Steve.

  Grimacing, Steve blocked it with a belaying pin, and the blade glanced off the scarred, hard wood. He had a determined but desperate look on his face. The sailor advanced on him again.

  Hunter frantically worked his way through the crowd toward them.

  A Spanish sailor jumped in front of him, brandishing a rapier. Hunter, bare-handed, waited for him to make the first move. As soon as the sailor began a feint, Hunter judged his motion and anticipated the sailor’s complete motion and weight shift.

  Too fast for a human to match, Hunter leaned slightly to his right and grabbed the man’s wrist in one firm hand. With his other hand, he took hold of the sword by its hilt and flung it away to clatter on deck. Then he pushed the sailor down flat on his back and hurried past him.

  Instantly, another Spanish sailor leaped on him, grabbing his shoulders. The human was much smaller than Hunter, but his angle and momentum pulled Hunter around. Hunter regained his balance, shoving the man away. When the man swung a fist at his head, he only ducked, then lifted the sailor under his arms and tossed him onto a rolled sail lying on the deck.

  Ahead of Hunter in the crowd, Steve now held his belaying pin in both hands. He swung it wildly, each time blocking a sword stroke from the Spanish sailor’s cutlass. The impact of each blow forced him back another step; chunks of wood had been chopped out of his dwindling weapon. Jane was shuffling behind him uncertainly, also holding a belaying pin but not sure what to do.

  Hunter had to stop abruptly. Two men, wrestling with each other, fell to the deck in front of him and rolled. He stepped over them and ran toward Steve and Jane. As the sailor swung his cutlass back and forth at Steve, Hunter judged the arc of his swing, intending to wrench the cutlass from his hand as soon as it came within reach.

  Suddenly Jane stepped out from behind Steve. While Hunter was concentrating his attention on the sailor fighting Steve, Jane raised her belaying pin. She swung high, clubbing Hunter over the head hard enough to snap the wooden belaying pin in half with a loud crack.

  14

  HUNTER WAS NOT physically damaged, but the shock profoundly upset him. Confused, he dared not fight any more for fear of making a serious error. He collapsed into a sitting position on deck, staring at Jane, mystified.

  Even on the original mission to find MC 1, back in the age of dinosaurs, Hunter had suffered from various doubts about his ability to follow the First Law successfully. After being hit, he worried that these doubts had impaired his judgment. Burdened by additional doubts, he slowed down all his processes and lay back on the deck, motionless. He was certain that he must have done something seriously wrong for Jane to have struck him over the head like that.

  Steve was frantically blocking the sword blows of the sailor in front of him with his belaying pin. To one side, he had seen a tall, bearded buccaneer run up and reach forward. The stranger was huge, and Steve had hoped for a moment that Hunter would show up at the last second to stop him. Instead, Jane had stepped out from behind Steve and clobbered the big buccaneer.

  The sailor who was fighting Steve had been distracted for just a moment. Steve swung his belaying pin down on the sailor’s head with a clunk. The sailor collapsed onto the deck.

  “Traitor! Traitor!” A man’s voice shouted at them from the crowd.

  Steve looked around. It was Ned, the buccaneer who had chased them from the Cadiz across to the Sidonia a few minutes ago. He was almost as tall as the stranger Jane had just clubbed, though not as brawny.

  In an instant, Steve understood. Ned had seen the two of them hanging back from the fight, and now he had seen Jane hit one of the buccaneers from behind. He had concluded that they were perpetrating some sort of betrayal, probably to take more than their share of loot.

  “Oh, no,” said Jane, looking down at her fallen opponent. “He’s dressed like a pirate, isn’t he? I thought he was charging at us.”

  “Look out!” Steve saw that Ned was running toward them angrily. He stooped down to pick up the cutlass the Spanish sailor had dropped.

  Ned swung his cutlass at Jane’s head. She ducked under it and Steve slashed at Ned with his cutlass. Ned blocked it easily and Steve was forced backward by the force of the collision.

  “Jane, run!” Steve yelled. Out of the comer of his eye, he saw her slip away. At the same time, he was still blocking Ned’s sword strokes, slowly backing away.

  Steve was scared, and felt trapped; he couldn�
�t possibly win a sword fight with an experienced buccaneer, especially one with a big advantage in height and reach. Still, he also felt exhilarated. He could hardly believe he was fighting a real pirate on a Spanish ship in the Caribbean.

  Steve was inexorably driven back against the rail. Ned swung with hard, regular sword strokes, glaring at Steve angrily. Steve knew he couldn’t fight his way out of the confined space. Finally, desperate, he jumped up on the rail itself.

  “Ha!” Ned laughed and moved forward.

  Steve threw his sword at Ned, turned, and jumped feet first into the sea far below.

  The blue waves came up fast, and he hit the water hard, plunging deep below the surface. He kicked and stroked to break his descent and finally began to swim upward. It seemed like a longer way up than he had expected, and he held his breath desperately. Finally, he broke through the surface of the salt water, gasping.

  “Steve!” Jane was shouting and waving anxiously. She stood at the rail far above him, but well away from the place where he had left Ned.

  From his present position, Steve could only see the steep side of the hull, the rail, and the rigging stretching high above the deck. Jane was the only person close enough to the rail for him to see. He waved to reassure her, but he realized that he had no way to get back on board.

  Then, as he watched, Jane ran to a hanging dinghy swaying horizontally over the edge of the ship. It was suspended from wooden arms by rope. She fumbled with a knotted rope for a moment, then jumped back as the rope came free. The heavy dinghy fell all the way to the water with a tremendous splash.

  Steve struck out for the boat, swimming clumsily in his clothes, but he kept his head above water $0 that he could see. Ahead of him, Jane took a deep breath and jumped feet-first into the water near the boat. When she surfaced, she swam to the boat and pulled herself up and over the edge.

  As Steve neared the boat, Jane extended an oar for him to grab. He took it with relief, finding that he was exhausted from the effort of fighting and swimming. After pulling himself hand over hand along the oar, he grabbed the edge of the boat and rolled over the edge to fall inside.