Deathlands 118: Blood Red Tide

by James Axler

  “I believe that is what our captain intends, and I need not remind you, for the moment we are in the summer. When we cross the equator, we descend into winter. In my day, in the era of wooden ships and before the breaking of the world, winter passage around the Cape of Storms was considered extremely dangerous. I cannot imagine the risks have done anything other than multiply.”

  “How long?”

  “Three months perhaps, assuming disaster does not strike.”

  “Long trip.”

  “And arduous in the extreme.”

  “Long trip to make unsigned or proved otherwise.”

  “I believe if we are offered the chance to sign on as crewmen and refuse, we will have proved ourselves otherwise and find ourselves considered unreliable at best and a danger to the ship and her crew at worst. At best we will be stranded at the next available spit of land. But we were taken on because of a desperate need of crew, so hostages may be taken from among, or, how shall I put this delicately, the harshest methods available, indeed, imaginable, that will not directly prevent us from doing our assigned duties will be inflicted upon us. Once Oracle and the Glory come into ports of call where he can find eager recruits, our final, proved-otherwise fate may be quite grim.”

  Ryan stood on the bowsprit of the Hand of Glory with the wind in his hair and the vast southern Lantic before him. “Tell Oracle you’ll sign the book. Tell him I’m applying for training on the quarterdeck.”

  “I shall make it so at the first opportunity, dear friend.” Doc smiled slyly for the first time in a long time. “Or should I say, shipmate?”

  Mr. Squid’s flesh suddenly flashed to the electric green of Doc’s trunks. Ryan again knew he was assigning human emotions to the nonhumanoid, but he could swear the cephalopod was pleased. Mr. Squid’s left eye muscles suddenly contracted and covered the golden orb. Ryan almost thought Mr. Squid was winking at him, but then an oval of skin turned black over the enclosed eye. Two thin black lines suddenly shot like tracery from either corner of the oval to encircle the cephalopod’s head-body.

  Ryan was genuinely startled. Mr. Squid had just simulated an eye patch.

  “You know,” Doc proposed, “I believe this is going to be a very interesting voyage.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Ryan applied for officer’s training on the quarterdeck. He found himself on his hands and knees on the main deck. He knelt shoulder to shoulder and sandwiched between Gallondrunk and Onetongue to port and Sweet Marie and Hardstone to starboard. Each held a worn and rounded brick of sandstone and furiously scrubbed the deck white with a mixture of sand and seawater. Manrape stood behind them. When he judged the section of deck clean, he shouted, “Shift!” and the stoning team moved backward to the next section of boards.

  In tribute to her continuing mostly uselessness, Krysty was assigned the bucket to sluice the section. Normally, scrubbing the decks was a task assigned to new sailors, to old ones as punishment, or to crewmen who had proved themselves useful for little else. This was not a normal Sunday morning scrubbing.

  This was a race.

  Life aboard ship was with rare exceptions unending toil. Captain Oracle, like the captains before him, had turned much of the work into competitions, and he’d assigned tiny bits of privilege—leisure, trophies, totems or extra rations or jack—to teams or watches that excelled. All members of the crew were required to be proficient with a pike when called on, but Ryan had earned the brass ring and joined the Phalanx. These competitions went from the lowliest of menial waisters’ tasks up to the shifting of sails, the speed of the cannon crews or personal marksmanship. Back in the day, when they had been new to the Glory, Gallondrunk, Onetongue, Hardstone and Sweet Marie had been the fastest deck scrubbing team in the Glory’s recorded history. They had worked with another new sailor named LonelyLane, but he had died in a chem storm long ago and the rest of the team had since risen to higher tasks aboard ship.

  Now the champions had been called to battle once more. Ryan had been assigned to fill the missing slot—and not without a great deal of grumbling by his teammates.

  Sweet Marie snarled and threw an elbow into Ryan’s ribs. “Rad-blast it, Ryan! Keep up!”

  Ryan struggled. In his life he had engaged in some of the hardest, dirtiest and most dangerous labors the Deathlands had managed to birth. Nonetheless, scrubbing floors had never been part of his purview. An emotion in Ryan that he recognized as pride rebelled against the task. At the same time he knew that was exactly why Oracle had ordered him to it. If Ryan hoped to someday be an officer aboard the Glory, he needed to know every aspect of the ship, as well as every aspect of every single crewman’s duties, and know it from personal experience.

  “Sluice!” Hardstone grunted.

  Krysty sent a bucket of seawater sheeting across the section.

  Manrape nodded at the gleaming white deck. “Shift!”

  Ryan and his teammates crab walked backward to a new section of filthy deck.

  Bosun’s mate DontGo called out from starboard. “Shift!”

  Ryan risked a glance across the deck.

  Mr. Squid was a section ahead.

  To the delight of the crew, Mr. Squid had announced that the Glory’s bottom was free of seaweed and barnacles. Atlast had dived off the bowsprit with a quarter pike and emerged two minutes later at the stern. He’d happily gasped he had never seen the Glory cleaner. Mr. Squid had nipped every strand of seaweed down to the hull and drilled into every clinging mollusk with his beak and eaten them for rations. All admitted the ship was sailing faster and steering better. When Mr. Squid had searched about for a new task and announced he could scrub the decks faster and more efficiently than the waisters, this had sent shock waves of indignation through the crew.

  Captain Oracle had arranged a contest for Sunday morning. Bets had flown.

  DontGo stood behind Squid happily shaking his head. Mr. Squid had five of his eight arms churning stones before him in dizzying, interlocking circles. When DontGo called “Shift,” the three arms Squid kept behind him contracted him back like bungee cords to the next section of deck. Wipe happily alternated sluicing the deck and sluicing Mr. Squid. Ryan scowled as Doc clapped fresh stoops of seawater against Squid’s siphon when called upon.

  Oracle stood at the rail of the forecastle like a black, unblinking statue. Commander Miles stood next to him holding a gleaming silver hand chron. Miss Loral strode from rail to rail gauging the progress of the race. “I swear I’d let my mother eat off Squid’s deck!”

  The majority of the spectating crew were backing the humans, and they would boo and shout insults. Mr. Squid’s small, hardcore group of adherents howled expectantly.

  Ryan’s team redoubled its efforts. Onetongue glanced back at Squid. “Hee’th out of hi’th barrel! He can’t lath’t!” Ryan wasn’t so sure. “Sluice!” Hardstone snarled. Krysty heaved the bucket. Manrape nodded. “Shift!”

  Ryan’s feet hit the gangway to the quarterdeck. “Stay where you are, Ryan!” Sweet Marie hissed. The rest of the team rotated and hit the stairs seamlessly by twos. Ryan was grateful for the respite. He looked over. Mr. Squid was mostly obscured, but he seemed to be in snake-ball mode and having problems with the steps.

  “Sluice!” Hardstone called.

  “Lover!” Krysty called out in consternation. Ryan tensed as he suspected what was to come. A second later a good portion of her bucket hit Ryan’s back. “I’m sorry! I’m—”

  “Shift!” Manrape ordered.

  “Get your ass up here, Ryan!” Sweet Marie yelled.

  Ryan charged soddenly up the gleaming gangway and retook his position. It was not lost on Ryan that his first visit to the quarterdeck was on his hands and knees and hard at labor. The team scrubbed as if a chem storm was inches in front of them. “Shift!” Manrape ordered. The team passed the binnacle and the wheel.

  “Shift!” DontGo called. Mr. Squid snapped up onto the quarterdeck like a giant rubber band. Ryan’s team had to spread out to cover the small
but far more open space. Mr. Squid took the opportunity to throw a sixth scrubbing arm into the mix. Captain Oracle and Commander Miles retreated to the end of the ship, grabbed a sheet and pulled themselves up on the stern rail out of the way of the contestants. Ryan glanced up as Mr. Squid passed the binnacle. It was the structure right in front of the wheel that held the ship’s master compass, master chron and barometer. The binnacle contained twin lamps under glass so that the steersman and conman could read it by night and in all weathers. The binnacle had shelves below that held master charts. Ryan slowed for one second as he beheld the glass dome atop the binnacle. A human, skeleton hand floated in a swirling blue and red miasma of liquid.

  Ryan froze as the skeleton hand turned in its suspensory fluid and pointed at him.

  Manrape’s rope slammed between Ryan’s shoulder blades. “Eyes to the deck and the task at hand, Ryan!”

  Ryan remembered his promise to Krysty, took the blow, put his mind to his fellow teammates and tripled his efforts. They moved steadily backward and passed the skylight of the captain’s cabin. Mr. Squid steadily caught up. Crewmen on deck and in the rigging shouted and cheered. Hardstone snarled. Krysty sluiced. “Shift and turn!” Manrape called. The team turned to find the last, short section abutting the stern rail. Ryan’s team scrubbed for their lives.

  “Finished!” Manrape shouted. “Fit for Captain’s inspection!”

  Ryan and his team collapsed.

  Mr. Squid squelched up against the stern rail seconds later. His normal gray color was ashen. Wipe shoved a bucket of seawater under his siphon and it bubbled over suspiciously like a man gasping for breath.

  Captain Oracle and Commander Miles hopped down lightly and strode to the quarterdeck rail. “Miss Loral?” Oracle questioned.

  The first mate stood on the main grating and opened her arms. “Clean as a whistle, Captain! Port and starboard!”

  Oracle nodded. “Commander?”

  Miles strode the quarterdeck, giving a rare smile. “Captain, Glory’s deck hasn’t been this clean in years.”

  The crew cheered.

  Oracle took a slow walk down the starboard gangway and back up the port. The crew on deck and in the riggings held their breath. “Very good, Commander. Very good indeed. A fine race and congratulations to port and starboard crews.”

  Commander Miles continued to enjoy the gleaming decks. “And I am sure they thank you, Captain.”

  The crew cheered.

  “Mr. Squid is the winner,” Oracle declared.

  The cheering stopped. Sweet Marie detonated. “We beat the squid! Fair and square! Right beneath your feet, Captain!”

  Oracle turned his gaze on able seaman Sweet Marie. The mono-block of sailing woman paled. Oracle extended his left hand toward Commander Miles, who reached into a pocket of his blue coat and pulled out a white glove.

  “Oh, here we go!” Miss Loral called.

  Cheers once again erupted from deck to rigging. Captain Oracle slowly walked down the starboard side of the ship. He held the white glove behind his back as his black eyes took in Mr. Squid’s work. He walked the full length of the ship and returned back up the port side. His gloved hand did not move. The captain stopped at the port gangway to the quarterdeck. He extended one gloved finger and stroked it beneath the step at shoulder level. Oracle raised his finger high. The fingertip of his glove was black with grime. “Mr. Squid scrubbed the undersides of the treads.”

  Sweet Marie couldn’t contain herself. “Beggin’ the captain’s pardon!” Crewmen who had lost bets shouted out. Even Hardstone was incensed. “The undersides? We never scrub the undersides!”

  Ryan rose. “Permission to speak!”

  Oracle nodded. “Granted, Mr. Ryan.”

  “My team gave one hundred percent.”

  Mutters of assent greeted the statement. Oracle nodded again. “I acknowledge that, Mr. Ryan.”

  Ryan lifted his chin to starboard. “Mr. Squid gave one hundred and ten. Today he was a better sailor than me. Starboard beat port. I concede defeat.”

  “Here! Here!” Doc applauded. Mr. Squid’s supporters cheered.

  Oracle ran his gaze over the rest of the port team. Sweet Marie blew a lank, sweaty lock of red hair out of her face and shook her head. “Not a sweet, willing face to sit on for a thousand leagues, and now I am schooled in my sailor’s duty by a squid? I swear it’s enough to make a girl go back to trawling on her father’s barge!”

  Laughter broke out.

  “Commander,” Oracle grated. “Is there any beer left?”

  Miles made a face. “Just a half cask of that banana beer we picked up in the Dominicas, and it’s turning fast.”

  “I doubt the portside crew will complain. A stoop each.”

  “Aye, Captain!”

  The captain regarded his subaqueous specialist. “You are victorious, Mr. Squid. I know not what spoils to give you.”

  “I am tired,” Mr. Squid replied. “I would like to rest in my barrel.”

  “Of course. Nothing else?”

  “I would like Doc to sit with me. If the ship can spare him.”

  A number of very rude, man-on-squid suggestions rang out. It was difficult to discern in his stygian dark face, but Oracle might have been amused. “Doc?”

  “Captain, you reward me as much as Mr. Squid, if you find I can be spared.”

  “You can be spared, Doc. But I will require two errands of you while Mr. Squid’s barrel is emptied and filled with fresh water.”

  “I am at your service, Captain.”

  “Go down to the tech room and bring me Mr. Rood’s report about the radio transmissions he has been receiving.”

  “At once.”

  “Before you do, sign the book.”

  The ship got quiet.

  Doc bowed low. “Humbly, and with honor, my captain.”

  Forgiven took the massive book from under his arm and presented Doc with a pen. Doc signed on the indicated line. Manrape’s voice boomed, “Hip! Hip!”

  “Huzzah!” the crew roared.

  “Hip! Hip!”

  “Huzzah!”

  “Hip! Hip!”

  “Huzzah!”

  Gypsyfair came forward with a deep blue garment draped over her arms. “This is for you, shipmate. I sewed it myself.”

  Doc unfolded a blue coat much like that of Commander Miles, Miss Loral and Purser Forgiven. His eyes stung and his throat tightened. “Oh my stars and garters...”

  “You serve in the captain’s cabin, you shall keep the captain’s log and serve as well as purser’s assistant,” Miles intoned. “You must look the part. Your pantaloons, hat and shoes will follow shortly.”

  Atlast and Koa peeled off Doc’s coat and helped him don the ship’s jacket. It was common knowledge that no one sewed better than Gypsyfair. The coat fit perfectly. Doc felt overcome with emotion. “Oh dear, oh dear...”

  “Doc,” Oracle said softly but firmly, “I believe I gave you an order.”

  Doc straightened. “Aye, Captain! The tech room and Mr. Rood’s report. At once!” Doc strode swiftly to the main gangway with a genuine swagger. Krysty shot Ryan a bemused look. Ryan accepted a stoop of past-its-prime banana beer from Wipe and nodded at her.

  For good or ill, he and his companions were aboard the Glory until she saw the Cific.

  * * *

  DOC STRODE JAUNTILY to the tech cabin. Crewmen grinned, whistled, gave him the thumbs up and called him shipmate as he passed. None seemed surprised. Apparently the fix had been well in. Doc stuck his head into the tech room. Mr. Rood sat at his worktable hunched over logs and making notes. Three radio transceivers of different makes and ages dominated the room. Doc found the soft glow of their dials pleasing. Rood had both a fuel and a hand crank generator, although Doc noted smaller cables snaking up the mizzenmast next to the antenna, and he knew there were some solar panels and small, cobbled together wind-turbines up in the tops. Doc rapped politely on the thin wooden doorframe set into the canvass divider that formed the r
oom. “Mr. Rood, are you free?”

  The ship’s techman glanced up from his worktable. Unlike many of the crew, he kept his hair cut short. The sleeves of his jersey were rolled up and tied. His eyes were red rimmed from long hours in not particularly good light, but he grinned. “Hello, Doc. Nice coat!”

  Doc flushed with pleasure.

  “What can I do you for?”

  “Captain’s business. He asks if you have intercepted any more transmissions and wishes your report.”

  “Half a dozen just today, and just like all the days before, they make no sense.”

  “Are they in a foreign language?” Doc asked. “I am familiar with several.”

  “No language at all, unless I’m missing something.”

  Doc stepped inside and peered at Rood’s extensive log entries. They consisted of many long series of dots and dashes with corresponding letters written beneath them. “Well,” Doc observed, “whomever our chatty friends may be, they appear to be using Morse code. I gather most sailors of this time use it?”

  “Most don’t. Most ships don’t have radios, and most ships’ complements right up to captain are illiterate.” Rood made a derisive noise. “Some of the more sophisticated types use semaphore. This stuff makes no sense. Must be some broken piece of tech on auto.”

  “Hmm.” Doc frowned. He and his companions had encountered numerous pieces of technology that had survived skydark and kept on operating, some in endless loop, some having jumped their original programming, some chilling deadly and others heartbreaking in their mechanical devotion to duty. “I see three possibilities, my good Mr. Rood. One, you are correct and there is a piece of tech somewhere beyond our horizon, emitting gobbledygook. Two, there is a monkey, or an illiterate child chained to a desk similar to yours, with nothing better to do than randomly pound upon a transmission bar day and night.”

  Rood laughed.

  “Or three,” Doc continued. “Let us assume willful, perhaps hostile, intent behind these transmissions, and, for the nonce, let us assume this is a simple Caesar cipher.”