by Mike Resnick
The Good Lord must have had His attention diverted elsewhere—probably He was making sure that the belly dancer got tan everywhere she wanted to, for which I couldn't blame Him none—because He wasn't breathing hard over my shoulder. I lost almost three thousand pounds, the only saving grace being that the money itself probably wasn't worth a whole lot more than the cards.
Captain Roberts didn't seem to notice the difference in the notes, though, or else he may have decided that it was simply a normal variation, because he pocketed the money and announced to passengers and crew alike that he was now at peace with the world and would be breaking out a case of his second-finest drinking stuff for dinner at no extra cost, or at most a very nominal one.
I think it would be a fair assessment to say that we all enjoyed the evening meal. Everyone partook heavily of the captain's liquor, it being the only alternative to eating still more tuna. After the last bottle was drained, and the belly dancer had gone off with the actor, and the three German girls were getting kind of chummy with the crew, and the writer and the Korean dermatologist were coming close to blows about whether the world was flat or merely slanted, those of us who remained finally bade each other a fond goodnight and went off to our various cabins.
I woke up with a start a couple of hours later when I heard a scream and a splash in quick succession. It took me just a minute to climb into my duds and get out on deck, where I found a couple of the English crewmen looking over the side of the boat.
“Good evening, brothers,” I said. “Either of you two hear something sort of unusual in the last couple of minutes?”
“Can't say as to how we have, sir,” said one of them.
"Help!” cried a voice that seemed to be coming from a considerable distance away.
“There it is again!” I said. “You sure you don't hear something strange?”
“That's just Captain Roberts hollering for help, sir,” said the second crewman soothingly. “Nothing peculiar about that at all, seeing as how we dumped him overboard and left him in our wake.”
“Do you fellows have any special reason for what, on the surface of it, seems an act sadly lacking in Christian charity?” I asked them.
“Reason enough!” snapped the first crewman. “We all got together for a little game of cards after the party broke up, and he wound up the big loser.”
“So?” I asked.
“The blighter paid us off with bogus money!” said the crewman.
“No!” I exclaimed. “And he seemed like such a nice, friendly fellow when I played with him this afternoon.”
“Did you win or lose, sir?”
“Oh, I won a couple of thousand pounds,” I said, pulling out the last of Von Horst's money and handing it over to them. “Is it any good?”
“Maybe for lighting cigars with,” said one of them disgustedly. “Certainly not for spending. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, sir.”
“Dangblast it!” I swore bitterly. “And he appeared to be such a decent, Christian sort of man, if you know what I mean. Seems a shame to drown him.”
“Oh, he isn't going to drown, sir,” said one of the crewmen.
“He ain't?” I said, startled. “Why the hell not?”
“We tossed him a couple of life preservers, and we're only a mile off the coast. He'll make it ashore, all right.”
“But he definitely won't be coming back aboard ship?” I asked.
“No, sir.”
“Serves you right, you scoundrel!” I cried, shaking my fist over the side of the ship. “That'll teach you to cheat a man of God!”
“Being as how you're a man of God and all, sir,” said one of the crewmen, “I wonder if you could help us with a slight moral dilemma in which we find ourselves.”
“Certainly, my good man,” I said. “What seems to be the problem?”
“While we don't feel particularly mutinous,” he began, “what we done could be misconstrued as mutiny by certain admiralty courts and various other powers of the high seas.”
“And you'd like me to testify on your behalf, is that it?” I asked.
“Oh, no, sir,” said the other. “We wouldn't dream of imposing upon you like that.”
“What exactly do you want me to do, then?” I asked.
“Well, sir,” said the first crewman, “it would go very hard with us, very hard indeed, sir, if it looked like we tossed old Captain Roberts overboard so that we could wrest control of the ship from him, to seize power as it were.”
“Yeah, I can see where that might put a little crimp or two in your defense,” I agreed.
“So we was wondering, sir, if you'd be good enough to take over as captain until we get to the Cape?”
“Me?” I exclaimed.
“Not to worry, sir,” he said. “We'll run the ship for you, and do the navigation, and feed the customers (provided they like tuna) and keep the decks scrubbed down, and make sure everything is ship-shape. But what with you being a man of God and all, it won't go so hard on us when Captain Roberts finally reaches civilization and institutes legal action against us.”
“Which he may never do,” added the other. “It being such a dark and moonless night, he could hardly be sure who it was that pushed him overboard. Or he could die of pneumonia, or of being et by sharks, or any one of a number of similar tragedies could befall him, sir.”
“Sad,” agreed the first crewman, nodding his head.
“Indeed,” said the second.
“I'll do it!” I said at last. “After all, while I been captain of my own soul on its long and heartrending journey through life, I ain't never been captain of a ship before. I might just learn something.”
“Also,” noted the first crewman, “the captain gets to eat steak.”
“That little fact ain't exactly escaped my attention,” I said with a smile. “Well, as long as I got you two to thank, I guess you'll be serving as my executive officers. What are your names?”
“Call me Ishmael,” said the first. “Ishmael Bledsoe.”
“And I'm Luthor Christian.” replied the second.
“Fine,” I said. “And you can call me Captain Jones.”
“We'll be happy to, Captain Jones, sir,” said Ishmael. “But there may be some amongst our crew—the rowdier elements, you understand—who may not be so inclined.”
“We'll incline ’em against the mainmast for a few days,” I said. “That ought to assuage their doubts.”
“I regret to point out that we don't have a mainmast, Captain Jones,” said Luthor apologetically.
“Some of them,” continued lshmael, “might even wonder what right we had to throw Captain Roberts overboard, them not being acquainted with the concept of personal honor and paying one's debts with legal tender and other such rarefied philosophic points.”
“No problem at all,” I said after a moment's thought. “Mr. Christian?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Give the signal to abandon ship,” I said.
“You're the captain,” he shrugged, and went off to the bridge. A moment later a loud, raucous siren had awakened everyone on board.
“Why don't you go make sure everyone has a life preserver?” I suggested to Ishmael. “And, in keeping with our personal code of honor, we three will go down with the ship.”
He started passing out a batch of little white inner tubes, and within ten minutes everyone except Ishmael, Luthor, and me was in the water.
I picked up a megaphone and held it just in front of my lips.
“Good evening!” I called out. “This is your new captain, Lucifer Jones, speaking. I just want you all to know that this has been one of the better abandon-ship drills that it has ever been my privilege to witness.”
I waited for the screams of outrage to die down a little, and then continued.
“I am afraid that poor Captain Roberts found it necessary to abrogate his command. His last wish was that I take over and make sure that The Dying Quail completed its voyage in perfect safety. He felt t
hat, as a man of God, I was unquestionably the best qualified among all of us to deal with such problems as might arise. Those of you who share his opinion will be allowed back on board; the rest of you are advised not to splash too violently, as that constitutes just the kind of motion that attracts sharks.”
A couple of sharks providentially appeared just then, and within less than three minutes everyone was back on board and I was unanimously acknowledged as the one and only lawful captain, by grace of God and His denizens of the deep.
Well, things went pretty smoothly for the next couple of days, much to my surprise. Nobody seemed to care who was captain as long as they all got to where they were going, and when they heard about how Captain Roberts had reneged on his debts of honor, they actually gave Ishmael and Luthor a standing ovation.
We passed Nigeria and Cameroon without any untoward incidents. Then one morning I strolled out on deck at about noon, having arisen early, and got the shock of my life. Usually we traveled about a mile off the coast to avoid reefs and other menaces to navigation, but now there was a forest about sixty yards off to the left—and as if that weren't enough, there was another one half a mile away on the right.
“Mr. Christian!” I bellowed.
“Sir?” said Luthor, arriving a few seconds later.
“Mr. Christian,” I said, “unless the ocean has gotten an awful lot narrower or the ship has gotten an awful lot wider, I am forced to the conclusion that we are no longer on course.”
“You noticed, sir,” said Luthor noncommittally.
“Of course I noticed!” I yelled. “Little things like losing the Atlantic Ocean don't easily escape my attention. Now where the hell are we?”
“I should have thought that would be obvious, Captain Jones,” replied Luthor. “We're on the Congo River.”
“What the hell are we doing here?” I persisted.
“Some of our crew members threatened to go on a sit-down strike if they had to keep eating tuna,” said Luthor. “Mostly the Slavs, sir; very few of the blueblooded Englishmen.”
“Is that all?” I said, relieved. “Just flog ’em and let's get back on course.”
“My very thought,” said Luthor. “But we do have one little problem, sir.”
“Don't worry about legalities, my good man,” I said. “A captain's word is law onboard ship.”
“That goes without saying,” agreed Luthor.
“Oh? Then what's the problem?” I asked him.
“There are a lot more of them than there are of us, and they're bigger.”
“Yeah, I can see where that does pose a bit of a problem,” I agreed.
“Also, no one who's been eating the tuna right along is in any condition for so strenuous an activity as flogging people, even if the crewmen would stand still for it.”
“That being the case, Mr. Christian,” I said, “it is my firm conclusion that we should seek out a river and put the ship into it.”
“We've done that, sir,” he said.
“Good!” I said. “Next, equip a party of Slavic crewmen and send them out to hunt up some meat.”
“They're doing that right now, sir,” he said.
I couldn't think of any more executive orders, so I dismissed him and took a couple of minutes to examine our surroundings. We had veered a bit closer to the shore, and I could see that it was all covered by trees and vines. It looked hot and full of bugs, and I sure didn't envy the poor men who had to go hunting in there. Everything looked green and damp, which kind of matched the color and texture of the hundred or so crocodiles that were milling around casting hungry glances up toward the boat. Every now and then they'd swim a little too close to a hippo, which sort of reminded me of the Dutchman except that it didn't wear a soiled white suit, and the hippo would just bite one of the crocs in half. It didn't seem to bother the crocodile's friends and relations none, but I noticed that whenever this happened they all kind of moved downstream a little.
Anyway, I got a little tired of looking at all these reptiles and river horses after a while, so I took out Captain Roberts's fishing rod and decided to bag a couple of trout or whatever, but all I kept hooking was crocodiles, so I finally gave it up and went back to my cabin to wait for the hunting party to return, which they did toward late afternoon, and on the run.
I burst out of my door as soon as I heard the rifle shots. Ten crew members were racing for The Dying Quail as fast as their lifeboat could go, and behind them, in hot pursuit, were half a dozen war canoes filled with black savages who were waving spears and shooting arrows in their wake.
Ishmael raced to the bridge and saluted.
“What do you want us to do, Captain Jones, sir?” he said.
“I haven't made up my mind yet,” I said, squinting at the lifeboat. “Can you see if they actually caught any meat?”
“Too hard to tell from here,” said Ishmael.
“Well, I suppose it's our duty to protect ’em,” I said. “Fire a broadside at the canoes.”
“I'm afraid that's quite impossible, sir,” said Ishmael.
“What the hell's the good of being captain if I can't fire a broadside into an enemy every now and then as the mood takes me?” I said, ducking as a couple of arrows flew overhead.
“First of all, we're facing the wrong way to fire a broadside,” said Ishmael.
“Then turn us around!” I commanded.
“And second of all,” he continued, unperturbed, “we don't have any weapons.”
“Why the hell not?” I demanded.
“This is a passenger ship, not a destroyer,” he replied, ducking another arrow. “There were only four rifles on board, and all of them are with the hunting party.”
“Well, just what have we got?” I asked, sidestepping a colorful spear that just missed beheading me.
“There's a rather wicked-looking butcher's knife in the kitchen,” he suggested. “And I've heard the actor bragging about his skill at fisticuffs.”
“And that's our total offensive and defensive weaponry?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Then wait until our party is back on the ship and let's get make tracks out of here,” I said.
The hunting party was on deck within thirty seconds, and Ishmael gave the order to turn the ship 180 degrees and then proceed at full speed. The natives increased the intensity of their attack, and began making very rude sounds when they saw we were hightailing it for the open sea.
“Shoal ahead, sir!” cried Luthor.
Ishmael stood at the wheel, which had about a dozen arrows embedded in it, and steered.
“Shoal to starborad, sir!” cried Luthor.
Ishmael ducked a spear and two more arrows and kept steering. Suddenly there was a terrible crunching sound.
“Shoal beneath, sir!” said Luthor.
“I don't suppose we're prepared to repel boarders?” I asked as Ishmael tried to steer the ship and found out that the wheel wouldn't move.
“We're mostly a pleasure ship, sir,” he said sadly.
“Maybe if we threw some beads at them, or offered them the belly dancer...”
“Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!” I bellowed, mostly because beads hadn't accomplished all that much good with the last few tribes I had encountered, and I had other plans in mind for the belly dancer.
“Oh, very well said, sir!” cried Ishmael. “Words to die for!”
“Who said anything about dying?” I replied. “Have we at least got a flare gun aboard, so we can see them better?”
He walked to a nearby cabinet and pulled one out. I took it from him and fired it, illuminating the sky with red-gold streaks of light. Suddenly all the savages started screaming in terror, and a minute later they were prostrating themselves in their boats, a difficult feat of balance even if there hadn't been a couple hundred crocodiles in the water.
“I think the flares have convinced them we're some kind of gods, sir,” said Ishmael.
“We?” I repeated. “I don't rec
ollect anyone else firing the flares.”
“I think the flares have convinced them that you're some kind of god, sir,” amended Ishmael.
“I think you may have something there,” I said. “Why don't you and Luthor figure out how to get us off this damned shoal while they're busy worshiping me?”
He and Luthor hopped to it, and after about an hour of rocking and lurching, I heard another crunch and suddenly we were moving through the water again. The cheer let out by the crew and passengers was drowned out by the cheer from the savages, who began paddling along in our wake. They were still following us when we hit the ocean and turned left. From time to time one of them would spear a fish and throw it onto our deck as a small tribute, but for the most part they were content to worship me from afar.
The hunting party hadn't managed to bring back any fresh meat. In fact, their first shot had winged one of the natives and precipitated the whole affair of the previous evening. It didn't matter much anyhow; they were so bitten up by bugs that they probably wouldn't have had much stomach for good red meat any time before we hit the Cape.
I posted a new Ship's Regulation to the effect that sunbathing was now allowed only on the captain's private deck. Unfortunately, the belly dancer decided that she was tan enough, and I kept stumbling over the two East Indians every time I went into and out of my cabin until I rescinded the order a couple of days later.
We had no more serious problems until we were almost south of Portuguese West Africa, at which point our Korean dermatologist borrowed one of the rifles, lashed himself to the wheel, and explained that while he had nothing against us personally, we nonetheless had to turn the ship around before we sailed over the edge of the world.
I signaled Luthor and Ishmael to leave me alone on the bridge with him, and the two of us got to talking about one thing and another, and had a friendly little drink to pass the time of day, and I finally convinced him that the edge of the world was somewhere around Brussels, and actually we were going uphill and toward safety. He was one very happy Korean for the rest of the trip, and hardly bothered anyone at all, except for our drunken writer, who was convinced that the edge of the world was more in the neighborhood of Lincoln, Nebraska.
