Deathlands 118: Blood Red Tide

by James Axler

  Ricky awaited his fate.

  Manrape buckled to the sand.

  The sob that tore from the titan’s throat was one of the worst things that Ricky had ever heard in his young life.

  Another and another and another followed in waves of inconsolable loss crashing on the rocks of desolation. Miss Loral and the crew were absolutely horrified.

  “Mr. Manrape” Miss Loral put both hands on her AK. “Are you satisfied?”

  Manrape fell to his face in the sand, sobbing.

  Miss Loral cleared her throat. “Mr. Ricky?”

  Ricky looked to Doc. Doc had theorized that Mr. Manrape would not hurt him. Ricky had protested that Manrape intended to ensure that he never crapped correctly again. Doc had countered yes, but to shoot Ricky, to hurt him, much less mar him, was not within Manrape. Like when Doc sang or spoke eloquently, Ricky was something beautiful to the golden giant and, given his proclivities, something to be possessed. Doc had once more admitted that terrible suffering had turned him into the broken man that he was, yet he could not imagine the suffering that had molded Manrape. Plan B had been forged.

  Doc nodded.

  Ricky handed his spent blaster to J.B. and walked across the sand. The ship’s knife Jak had palmed him in parting burned a hole in the small of Ricky’s back beneath his jersey. Ricky’s shadow fell over the bosun.

  “Bos’n?” Manrape pushed himself up to his knees like the weight of the broken world was above him rather than beneath him. Tears drew trails through the sand coating his face. Ricky took a long breath. “You’re the mightiest among us, the best of us, our bos’n, the Glory’s backbone and her almighty right hand. You are the keeper of the creed and code, and I thank you for showing me mercy this morning.”

  Manrape shuddered.

  “But for the good of the ship. I must ask you to forgive me for not loving you.”

  Everyone assembled jumped as Manrape lunged forward. He seized Ricky’s legs in his mighty arms and buried his face against his thighs as fresh sobs racked him. “I do!”

  Ricky flushed beet red as his appalled shipmates watched the spectacle.

  “Miss Loral?” The young man found himself saying the most inconceivable thing of his short life. “I think Mr. Manrape and I need a moment alone.”

  Chapter Ten

  Ricky’s return stopped just short of being a celebration. The story of the duel ran from stem to stern, orlop to the tops and then back again in ever greater and glowing detail. Oracle had weighed anchor, ordered just enough sail raised to generate forward momentum and declared a make and mend day, which Ryan learned was pretty much an afternoon off.

  Crewmen sat about making and mending clothing. The crew with long hair sat about in small circles combing out each other’s coifs and rebraiding them. It turned out Purser Forgiven was also the ship’s barber. A barrel cut into a chair for the purpose was brought up from the hold and a line of crewmen stood to be shorn or shaved. Other crew played at dice or other games. Many just lolled about, sipping from the last barrel of small beer, smoked pipes and took the rare moment to relax. Ryan and Krysty celebrated by sneaking down into the cable tiers. They were not the only ones, and moans, groans and downright caterwauling echoed around them in the dark of the hold.

  Ryan left Krysty smiling asleep in her hammock and went above deck. Crewmen nodded and acknowledged him. The one-eyed man glanced about. Ricky held court by the mainmast, surrounded by crewmen as he told the tale of the duel yet again. Jak stood nearby with his hand casually resting on the hilt of his ship’s knife. He stood watch at Ricky’s six for any fallout from the duel. There didn’t appear to be any.

  After declaring make and mend, Oracle had gone back to his cabin. He had ordered that he not be disturbed unless there was an emergency, and Ryan had learned the windows in the captain’s cabin had been covered. Ryan also learned this was not at all unusual on this ship. He spied Manrape and Sweet Marie by the foremast. They spoke quietly, but Manrape’s eyes constantly strayed to Ricky. Ryan noted that the leer on the bosun’s face and the gleam in his eye were gone. It seemed to have been replaced by something far more tender and requited. Ryan decided to take a gamble. He walked over and put a knuckle to his brow. “Begging the bosun’s pardon.”

  Manrape gazed upon Ryan mildly. “Mr. Ryan?”

  “You seen Doc?”

  What appeared to be a genuine smile appeared on Manrape’s face. “He’s forward.”

  Ryan glanced at the forecastle. Doc was nowhere to be seen. Sweet Marie threw back her head and laughed. “All the way forward, Ryan! Just keep walkin’ till there’s no deck beneath you and then look down!” Several nearby crewmen laughed.

  Ryan considered what this might mean and took a walk forward. Atlast, Hardstone, Koa and DontGo sat on their sea chests playing some variation of cards and passing a copper snuff box. There was no sign of Doc as Ryan passed. He came to the bowsprit and the end of the ship. Ryan suspected the joke was on him but took Sweet Marie’s advice anyway. He stepped onto the bowsprit, grabbed a sheet to steady himself, walked out over the water and looked down.

  Ryan blinked.

  He knew that Doc and Mr. Squid were spending a lot of time together, but Ryan’s eye was torn between two sights that even in the Deathlands one didn’t see every day. One was that of Mr. Squid hanging by one elongated arm from the lowest sheet below the bowsprit. The octopod’s head and mantle bobbled beneath the waves while its remaining seven arms twisted and fluttered in the apex of the Glory’s bow wake like suckered streamers. Ryan was oddly reminded of a dog sticking its head out of a moving wag. Far more disturbing was the sight of Doc lying in the safety netting, naked except for what appeared to Ryan to be a pair of extremely skimpy, very tight, electric lime-green underwear. Doc seemed genuinely at ease as he absently gnawed on a piece of salt beef and paged through a book with a bullet hole in it.

  “Doc?”

  Doc squinted up happily. “My dear Ryan!”

  “I have to say you’re the last person I thought I’d see wearing gaudy house clothing.”

  “I found them in stores! There are a number of things there good Purser Forgiven has asked that Mildred and I might identify. Mildred says the garment is called a Speedo and assures me its a garment for men. I find they fit rather well!”

  Ryan found it would have been better had Doc simply been naked. “Doc, what are you doing?”

  “Why, I am air bathing! A practice much recommended by our good founding father Benjamin Franklin.” Doc blinked. “Of course, according to rumor even the French thought he smelled terrible. Nonetheless, soap and fresh water are in short supply and I must admit I find the wind, sun and spray most invigorating. I wear this twentieth century swimsuit, as it were, for modesty’s sake.”

  “What’s Squid doing?”

  “I believe the subaqueous inverse of myself!”

  Ryan took in Doc’s pale body, the bulge in the front of the swimsuit and his inversely meager buttocks just about spilling out between the netting. “Doc, are you sure you want to parade around like that with this crew?”

  Mr. Squid’s hanging arm contracted and it drew itself mostly out of the water to peer upward at the humans. “I have never observed that color before.” Mr. Squid’s skin rippled and suddenly turned a brilliant electric green in solidarity. “I find it very attractive.”

  “Thank you, dear Squid, and I appreciate your concern, dear Ryan.” Doc looked down on himself with a sigh. “But I fear even our good Mr. Manrape would find little to allure him in this, how does dear Mildred describe it? Sad sack of chicken bones?”

  “Actually, Doc, the crew seems kinda taken with you.”

  Doc smiled. “I do find myself well caressed. I believe the crew finds me amusing and thinks of me as a good luck charm.”

  “Are you okay with that?”

  “I believe I have little choice in the matter, yet, as you well know, I have found myself the butt of a great deal of amusement in this brave new world of yours, Ryan.�
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  Ryan’s face tightened at the things Doc had suffered.

  “However, since my redemption from the shrouds, even at its roughest, the humor here upon this ship toward me is affectionate, and it is appreciated. As to being lucky, the only fortune I lay claim to is the day my beloved Emily said ‘I do.’”

  Ryan waited.

  Talk of Doc’s wife and children often caused Doc a bout of madness. Doc’s shoulders twitched as it walked past within his mind but didn’t stop to pay a visit. “However,” he stated, “if the crew finds me lucky, then as long as I am aboard this ship they are welcome to every last ounce of fortune that I can provide.”

  “I think you’ve played a big part in our acceptance on this ship.”

  “Indeed.” Doc frowned. “Which brings on us another matter.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Our good Captain Oracle has asked me to sign the book.”

  “And?”

  “And by my lights and honor, should I do so? I cannot do it under false pretenses.”

  Ryan’s eye narrowed. He considered himself an honorable man, but he knew that his Deathlands sense of honor and that of the man from the nineteenth century were miles apart. “What’re you saying, Doc?”

  “I say, dear friend, that should I sign the book and give my loyalty to this good ship, and in the capacity of captain’s servant my direct loyalty to him, and then have that debt of honor come into conflict with the love of my friends, I will—”

  “I will beat your ass, tie you up and carry you along until you come to your senses.” Ryan’s voice went hard. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  Mr. Squid suddenly contracted upward out of the waves with its arms roiling like a snake ball of very large pythons. A swirling pallet of vibrant, rainbow colors rippled across its flesh in what Ryan perceived to be extreme agitation and suddenly went a startling pitch black. Mr. Squid’s arms snaked to the bowsprit and the square-pupiled, golden eyes regarded Ryan in cold, abyssal, alien menace. Ryan kept his hand away from his knife. He’d chilled most nonhumanoid intelligences he’d met. The well-being of him and his companions always seemed to be the exact opposite of what those beings had in mind. Mr. Squid, however, seemed to have definite skin in the game when it came to Doc’s health and welfare. Ryan had taken a chance with Manrape. He doubled down on the Glory’s subaqueous specialist.

  “If it comes to it, Mr. Squid. I’m going to have to ask you to help me.”

  Every inch of Mr. Squid’s skin went from ink-black to what Ryan had determined was its normal slick, wet, slate gray. Ryan knew he was assuming, but it sure as the First Strike seemed like Mr. Squid was nonplussed at the suggestion.

  “A consummation most devoutly to be avoided,” Doc interjected. “However, I also strongly believe that you and the rest of our dear companions shall be asked to sign the book in short order. I believe the question before us is not that of you and Mr. Squid bundling me away in the night, but rather whether or not we are to sign. I would suspect you view this as an all together or not at all proposition?”

  “Krysty suggested I go to school on the forecastle.”

  “Oh, a capital suggestion!” Doc enthused. “You would make a fine candidate for officer. Don’t you agree, Mr. Squid?”

  Mr. Squid sat silently suckered to the bowsprit for several long seconds. “Mr. Ryan is the most capable human being I have ever met. I believe he would excel at any and all human endeavors I am aware of.”

  Doc laughed. “I am in complete agreement!”

  “Mighty kind of you both.”

  “The truth does not always hurt, my friend.”

  “Cephalopods do not lie,” Mr. Squid reiterated.

  Ryan changed the subject. “Have you been reading the logs, Doc?”

  “Indeed I have, and the saga of this ship makes for enthralling reading. As you may have guessed, the Glory, and that is not her original name, was a museum ship, an antiquity, maintained for educational purposes and as a training vessel for naval cadets before the fall.”

  “What was her original name?”

  “To my immense regret and that of the historical record, the logs of the first two skydark captains, and several intervening logs as well, were lost in times of great tumult. She became the Hand of Glory under our good Captain Oracle.”

  “Our good Captain, Doc? He just short of enslaved us.”

  “Tumultuous times, my friend. Throughout her history, men and women have begged to become crew members aboard this vessel. Veterans of this vessel believe Oracle is the best captain they have had in many years. Many consider him their salvation and the right man at the right time for the post. I believe pressing us sits ill with him. What I can tell you is this—the Glory has spent her postapocalyptic career as what we called in my time a Yankee Trader. She serves as a vessel of importing and exporting, a transport, a vessel of exploration, and in many instances she has hired herself out as a mercenary ship of war. According to ship’s logs, what she has never done, despite terrible hardship, was become a pirate ship.”

  Ryan had already guessed the answer to his next question. “Except for the last captain.”

  Doc looked out at the sea. “From the little I can glean it was a terrible time. The crew suffered. Things were done.”

  “Who was he?”

  “His log book was burned. Neither captain, nor officers nor crew speak of him. It is a black stain upon the ship’s history. Oracle brought the ship back to her former glory. He once again made her a ship of the world, and as you may well surmise, he stands contested in this.”

  “You have the captain’s ear?”

  “I do, but mostly as an entertainment. I pour his wine. He asks me questions anyone would ask of a well-read scholar. I tell him of mighty clipper ships sailing under up to seven masts and of New England’s whaling ships sailing the Seven Seas to wrestle leviathan. I do not ask him questions. You may also note that while I am the captain’s servant, I have a great deal of idle time. Captain Oracle spends the vast majority of his limited free time by himself.”

  “I won’t ask you to push it.”

  “I cannot recommend that course.”

  Ryan gazed out at the seemingly endless ocean before him. “We’re headed south.”

  “Indeed, there is already grumbling that our course shall take us past the northern coast of South America without stopping.”

  Ryan had heard those grumbles as well. Once again he considered all of the little he knew about South America. “What’s there?”

  “I do not know. We have been briefly into the Amazon basin upon a jump or two and found but little in those mutated rain forests to allure us. South? You move into the Gran Chaco of Paraguay, Bolivia and Northern Argentina, continue on and you find the vast pampas, further still the seemingly endless steppe of Patagonia. Few from here seem to go there, and apparently vice versa.”

  “So it’s all plains?”

  “Girded to the west by the mighty spine of the Andes nearly its entire length, but mostly, yes.”

  “What happened down there during the nukecaust?”

  “No living member of this crew has been farther south than Brazil, though the Glory has gone farther in times past. As you might imagine their major cities and military bases were bombarded, but in dear Mildred’s time South America did not pose either the strategic threat or value to warrant the wholesale destruction we saw in the Northern Hemisphere. The crew refers to it as a ‘big empty.’ It is rumored South America was deliberately scourged with biological weapons targeted both at the human population and their major agricultural crops. It seemed one or both sides in the final war that birthed the Deathlands decided it would be best to kill most of the population and starve the rest into a subsistence lifestyle.”

  “Why?”

  “I can think of two reasons. One, with the superpowers of the Northern Hemisphere reducing each other to radioactive ash and anarchy, they did not wish the nations of the southern continent to rise up and b
ecome the new world powers. Two, and it disgusts me to even contemplate, there must have been those in the North who expected to win the war, or, more likely, expected to claw their way back up out of the rubble and recover first. The great southern plains of South America, mostly denuded of man and having lain fallow for a hundred years, would be an ark of natural resources to be plundered.”

  Ryan shook his head.

  “This is mostly conjecture on my part based on rumor and scant evidence. The ship’s logs indicate to me indirectly that the decimated populations of southern South America abandoned the hot zones of their cities and returned to the subsistence farming, herding and hunting lifestyles of their colonial forebears. It also appears they are not particularly friendly. Though, should we jump ship, Ricky speaks Spanish. I, with my Latin, have made myself understood on more than one occasion with the Romance language speakers of your present day. It is possible we could make our way.”

  Ryan considered Doc’s scenario of South America. What struck him most was that it meant that any redoubts in the southern plains of South America were very likely few and far between. If they jumped ship there, it might well be the last jump they ever made, and South America would be where he and his companions spent the rest of their lives, short or otherwise.

  “There is another thing to consider,” Doc opined.

  “What’s that?”

  “Until very recently the Pacific was the Glory’s home.”

  As the son of a baron, Ryan had the closest thing to a classical education the Deathlands could generally provide. Through his travels he knew that the Northwest Passage opened up in the Great White North for the short, unpredictable summer months, and the Panama Canal was blasted ruin. Neither offered the Glory a way out. Ryan did the math. “We’re going to round the southern Horn.”