by James Axler
“A what?”
“Julius Caesar,” Doc explained. “A mega-baron of long ago.”
“Powerful?”
“One of the most powerful the world has ever known. When he sent a message that was private or of military significance he would encrypt it with a substitution cipher.”
“A what?”
Doc remained patient and pointed at the strings of meaningless letters. “Those are words. For example, here is the alphabet.” Doc wrote out the alphabet A to Z on a sheet of paper. “Let us assume I am so foolish that my own, personal substitution cipher is simply the alphabet backward.” Doc wrote the alphabet Z to A directly beneath.
“Now...” Doc swiftly wrote eight words of Z to A backward nonsense. “Match each letter in the alphabet above, each letter corresponding to the letter of my cipher below it.”
Rood looked at Doc like he might be losing it but swiftly matched letters and scratched out a sentence below Doc’s. “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog?”
“It is a panagram.”
“A what?”
“A phrase that contains all letters of a given alphabet. In this case it is the most commonly used panagram in predark English.”
“What does it mean?
“It means you have deciphered my code, Mr. Rood.”
“Rads, thunder and fallout!” Rood was amazed. “That’s incredible!”
“Clever but not incredible. The concept is thousands of years old. It seems in your bold new Caribbean someone has rediscovered it.”
Rood’s face fell as he scanned his own notes. “But the tech men, out there, they ain’t using the alphabet backward.”
“Indeed not. I fear they have devised an alphabet of their own. Julius Caesar, for example, was known by historians for using a left shift of three.”
“Well, if they have their own cipher, how do we decipher it?”
“We must break it, my friend.”
“Break it? How?” Rood asked.
“Frequency analysis.”
Rood tapped his radio dial. “I already got his frequency.”
“I speak of the frequency of letters, shipmate. Though perhaps our first, best course would be pattern words.”
“Pattern words...”
“Let us surmise that these voices out in the ethers are speaking about us. Thusly, I might be tempted to subscribe the word ‘Glory’ to the more frequent, identical, four-letter words. Since we are aboard ship, and being pursued, we might also look for ‘latitude’ and ‘longitude’ or their Latin abbreviations. Now, should he also have a word substitution code atop his cipher, or be engaging in multiple alphabet shifts, then you and I, good Rood, will be burning the midnight oil.”
Rood’s eyes seemed in severe danger of glazing over.
Doc held up a calming finger. “However, let us, you and I, just as a starting point, assume that our opponent has dreadfully underestimated us and assumes that we, along with nearly everyone else in the Caribbean Sea, has never heard of a Caesar cipher.” Doc spread out a sheaf of Mr. Rood’s notes.
The old man’s eyes danced across the pages and his long finger followed and tapped. “See! Here, here and here! I detect the corresponding patterns of latitude and longitude. The U, D and E all correspond, and the two words between them have given us all the vowels except the sometimes Y. I believe much of these communications are coordinates!”
“I see it.” Techman Rood’s world visibly expanded. “I see it!”
“Indeed!” Doc picked up a pen. “With your permission?”
Rood leaned in like a hound on the scent. “Break him!”
Doc swiftly began scratching beneath Rood’s lines of copied code. “Yes, this can only be Glory! And here, this, this and...” Doc’s pen hand wilted.
“What?” Rood asked. “What happened?”
“My worst fear. Everything made sense until it made no sense.”
“You ain’t making no sense.”
“I am afraid we have fallen into a trap. It was too easy, and now we are confounded by translations in the code that make no sense, which means we are on the wrong tack entirely or have been duped.”
“You’re still making no sense,” Rood reiterated.
“Perhaps not. Then I pray you, good techman, do the words ‘war’ and ‘pig’ in any conjunction mean anything to you?”
Rood straightened.
Doc sighed. “I fear we must start anew and—”
“Captain!” Rood shot to his feet and nearly slammed his head into the beam above. He burst out of the cabin and ran shouting across the blaster deck. “Captain!”
Chapter Twelve
The entire crew had seen or heard about Mr. Rood bolting out of the tech room and charging for the captain’s cabin waving a sheaf of papers. Doc swiftly followed. Commander Miles and Miss Loral had been called, then Gunny, Manrape, Movies and Atlast. All had been within for quite some time. The crew sat around in groups, muttering. Ryan sat in a rope coil-cum-lounge chair by the mizzen with Krysty sipping banana beer that was getting downright skunky. She wrinkled her nose as she drank. “What do you think’s going on in there?”
“Strategy.”
J.B. and Mildred came up from belowdecks and joined them. Miss Loral approached from the gangway. The first mate’s normally lupine, grinning face was sober. “Mr. Ryan, Mr. J.B., you are requested in the captain’s cabin, if you please.”
Ryan and J.B. gave each other a look and followed Miss Loral down the gangway. Crewmen by the cannons and those slung in their hammocks all watched them like hawks. The two men crossed the invisible line on the stern blasterdeck, went to the door and entered the captain’s cabin. Compared to every other space in the ship it was spacious. Ryan could stand to his full height without hitting his head. The stern was full of windowpanes, and Ryan had just scrubbed the deck around the skylight. At the moment most of the glass was open.
The cabin was bright and zinging with natural light and fresh air. A pair of cannons pointing backward took up a fair share of the space. Between them was a couch, and charts and artifacts covered the walls. The captain and his remaining officers and specialists stood around a heavy table.
Oracle looked up. “Mr. Ryan, Mr. J.B.” He nodded at the ship’s book open on a separate lectern with a pen lying in the spine. “Be so kind as to sign the book, or if not, clap onto something heavy and hurl yourselves overboard. Failure to choose one or the other will be regrettable all the way around.”
J.B. looked to Ryan.
The one-eyed man shrugged. “Admit it. You can’t wait to get your hands on those cannons.”
The Armorer signed. Ryan followed suit.
Oracle gave a brief nod. “Mr. Ryan, Mr. J.B., thank you for signing and in doing so forgiving the circumstances surrounding it. Forgive also the lack of ceremony. Time is short. Come, join us.” Ryan and J.B. joined the circle and glanced down at pages of code and innumerable charts and maps.
“Permission to speak freely.”
“This one time, Mr. Ryan. Until you make officer and earn the right to address the captain on anything other than ship’s business.”
“We signed. We’ll serve. Me and all of mine. But we’re not slaves. From what I see, neither is anyone else on this ship. Assuming we survive to see the Cific, we have the right to leave. If you intend to slave us, I’ll throw a match in the powder room at the first opportunity.”
The assembled crew was horrified. Oracle smiled. It was disarming. His white teeth blazed out of his face, and at close range you could see the crow’s feet carving out from the corners of his eyes. “Had you given me a few seconds more, I had intended to extend to you nearly the exact same contract. I can get all the crew I want in the Cific. You and yours have proved yourselves. Have the rest of your companions sign. You shall be protected by the creed and code and have full shares in all trade, and should we reach a place in the Cific where you wish to debark, you shall be allowed to leave, sorely missed, yet every canteen, mag and knap
sack full.”
Ryan held out his hand. “Deal.”
Oracle held out the leathery, cracked palm of his twice than human size monkey’s paw. He slammed it into Ryan’s palm and Ryan grimaced at the force of it. The one-eyed man’s skin itched as the orange fur and dead leathered flesh scraped his palm, and his spine prickled. He squeezed the hideous prosthesis to seal the deal, then let it go. Oracle sighed dramatically. “This is why I never drop anchor in the Deathlands.”
Commander Miles snorted. “And why none of us from there ever want to go back, Captain.”
The tension around the table broke.
“Mr. Ryan,” Oracle rasped.
“Captain.”
“Dorian Sabbath and the War Pig descend on us.”
“I’ve never heard of Sabbath. The War Pig’s a ship?”
“Yes, a powerful one.”
“Can we take her?”
“That, Mr. Ryan, is the question before us. The War Pig can’t sail like us, but she has engines. She can’t shoot with anything like our crew’s speed and accuracy, but she has bigger blasters and more of them. Should it come to a boarding action we will be badly outnumbered, and all of these things would be true even if the Glory were fighting fit and at full strength.”
“Fight or run?” Ryan asked.
“We have Doc to thank for breaking the Sabbath code. We know our enemy’s plans and their dispositions. Emmanuel and his daughter, Blue, take the Ironman and the Lady Evil through the Northwest Passage, while Dorian hounds us down the South American coast.”
Oracle’s silver-clawed middle finger moved over the chart. Ryan was fascinated to see a map that looked recent and skillfully drawn. He was disappointed that so little of the east or west coasts of the Deathlands were marked. Some stretches were little more than dotted line suggestions. Oracle read Ryan’s mind. “I was only partly joking earlier, Mr. Ryan. Few sailors I know make port in the Deathlands, except by accident or desperation. Your Deathlands and their villes have a certain reputation.”
Ryan reserved comment. He looked at the Northwest Passage and then scanned down South America, the Horn and the Cific beyond. “Seems like a lot of empty space for just three ships to hunt one.”
“So one might think, Mr. Ryan. But look at the Glory. We are not a simple fishing boat, an oared longship, galley or oceangoing canoe. We are a full-rigged ship. We have a smithy and a carpenter, yet there are some things, like rope in quantity and sail-making cloth of quality, that we cannot manufacture. The port villes where we can get them are relatively few and well known, and sooner or later we must visit them. Should we survive the Horn, we will be in desperate need. We will have Dorian behind us, his family laying in wait ahead, all knowing the few courses we can take for resupply.”
Ryan had to admit he hadn’t thought of that. “Double back?”
“We could, but Sabbath has turned the Caribbean villes that could resupply us against us. Few of the Caribbean shore villes could withstand the Sabbath fleet if it arrived in anger and began bombarding them.”
Ryan looked at the chart of the Cific with its tiny, scattered dots. “Is the Cific any better?”
Oracle smiled conspiratorially. “I have friends there.”
Ryan’s tactical mind considered the huge ocean, the limited choices they had for resupplying and the enemy’s overwhelming firepower and numbers. “Is this Dorian Sabbath impulsive?”
Oracle grinned from ear to ear. “Indeed, Mr. Ryan. Dorian is hotheaded, bloodthirsty, egotistical and very impulsive. His father instructs him to drive us before him. But Dorian dreams of catching us at anchor and capturing us, and make no mistake, we will have to make landfall several times before we attempt the Horn. Dorian knows that. He would dearly love to engage us at sea, knock away enough of our spars that we can no longer maneuver and board us. He dreams of presenting us to his father in tow rather than being the hound that drives us into his father’s and sister’s arms.”
J.B. scratched his chin. “Find a bay, Captain. Drop anchor. Dismount the cannons from both sides of the ship. Conceal them on shore. When Dorian comes in for the prize, we hit him with everything we got. All at once.”
“Not bad, Mr. J.B., and I have considered it, but should Dorian survive our great broadside, he can maneuver to put the anchored Glory between himself and our blasters. It will take a great deal of the crew to man all the weapons on shore. He could easily take the Glory from those that remain. We could not fire on him without killing our own shipmates. He could then clap onto the Glory and simply steam out of range under engine power, leaving us shipless and stranded on a forlorn shore.”
Ryan stared hard at the charts. “I don’t know enough about fighting this ship, much less sailing it to come up with a trap for Dorian.” He arched an eyebrow at Oracle. “But I think you have an idea, Captain.”
“Gunny informs me that the blaster we found you with has an optic.”
“Aye, Captain, but it’s small, 2.5 power, made for very fast and very accurate shooting in the short to middle distance. I’ve made some long-range shots with it, but it’s a marksman’s blaster, not a sniper, if you know the difference. Begging the captain’s pardon.”
“I do know the difference, Mr. Ryan, and my problem is no crewman aboard the Glory knows how to use an optic. My question is, do you know how to use a long-range scope?”
Ryan suppressed a grin as he remembered some of his blasters past. “I do.”
“Gunny,” Oracle ordered.
Gunny came forward bearing a four and a half-foot long, flat, hard plastic case. Ryan could almost hear J.B. getting excited. Gunny set the case on top of the charts and flipped the latches to open it. J.B. stared at the long, black longblaster within. His jaw went slack. “Dark...night...”
Ryan found the exclamation appropriate. The bolt blaster was more than four feet long; her steel was scratched but much of the black finish remained. Her forestock flared after the internal magazine and then tapered dramatically toward the muzzle. Behind the trigger the stock took a hard turn south to form a pistol grip. The buttstock was adjustable for both cheek height and length of pull. The cold black barrel mounted a muzzle break on the business end.
J.B. moved forward like a moth to a flame. “With the captain’s permission?”
“Please do, Mr. J.B.”
The Armorer took the longblaster out of the case. He opened the action and glanced inside. “T-76 Dakota Longbow. I’ve only read about these in old magazines.”
“What’s the caliber?” Ryan asked.
J.B. registered genuine glee. “It’s .338 Lapua.”
It was a cartridge Ryan had personal experience with, and his experience was that very few things that walked on two to four legs, mutie or otherwise, could withstand a .338 round without losing all hostile intentions. J.B. worked the bolt repeatedly, feeling the action and trying the trigger pull. Oracle extended his horrible monkey’s paw at the empty screw holes where optics or iron sights should have resided. “Gunny got the scope on, but none aboard have the knowhow to sight the weapon in. We wasted a great deal of ammo in our first attempt and have precious little to spare.”
“Yeah.” J.B. had eyes only for the blaster he lovingly examined. “You want an expert to do that.”
Eyebrows rose around the small circle on the quarterdeck. J.B. seemed blissfully unaware of his impertinence. In his favor, J.B. was a master armorer and he showed it in his every movement around blasters. Oracle seemed to be willing to let it pass, in the same way he might let Atlast talk frankly about the sails or Commander Miles about navigation and strategy. “Are you the expert who can do that?”
“Oh, yeah,” J.B. confirmed.
“Is Mr. Ryan the man to shoot it?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Mr. J.B., what is the range of that blaster?”
“In good shape and properly sighted in, 1,500 meters effective.”
Commander Miles grinned ferociously. “That’s nearly a mile!”
Captain
Oracle regarded J.B. dryly. “I gather that is on a stable platform, on land.”
“There’s that, Captain,” J.B. agreed. He held the longblaster out to Ryan. “With permission, Captain?”
Oracle nodded.
Ryan took up the black longblaster. It was heavy, at least thirteen pounds, and that was unloaded and without an optic. He snapped it to shoulder and aimed out the stern windows at the empty ocean. Form followed function. Ryan’s Scout longblaster was a jack-of-all-trades, designed for a hunting and fighting, running and gunning marksman. The Longbow, as J.B. called it, was a Thoroughbred, built for one purpose. It had been forged in the previous age expressly for chilling men at very long distances.
“Mr. Ryan, I intend to draw Dorian in. You see these cannons in my cabin? We call those stern chasers. Dorian has bow chasers. When he comes into range, we will duel. We will both attempt to take each other’s spars and masts. He will accept this duel because he has engines. A long cannon shot is about half a mile. Luck, wind and roll will decide much. I cannot guarantee you a stable deck, but I will bring you well within range for the blaster you hold. Kill Dorian if you can and any of his officers who present themselves. Failing that, kill his bow chaser blaster crews and we shall raise all sails and pull away. If nothing else, I want to enrage Dorian and at the same time have every sailor on the War Pig living in fear of losing their lives should they come within cannon shot of the Glory.
Ryan’s eye stared steadily over the Longbow’s naked barrel and past the Glory’s wake. He slowly took up slack on the trigger. It broke at a crisp two and a half pounds and the hammer clicked. “Can do, Captain.”
Chapter Thirteen
Ryan plotted a course for Panama, or what was left of it. Multiple nuke strikes had closed the canal, but at Oracle’s order Ryan sat on a sea chest on the quarterdeck with a chart book across his knees, a ruler, compass, J.B.’s personal sextant and pen in hand, and he calculated. Koa sat next to him. The Hawaiian was one of the best sailors on the ship, but he had mostly sailed the Cific, and he did it as his ancestors did, by the stars in their seasons, the colors of seas and sky, the migrations of birds and sea life, the clusters of waves and clouds and dead-reckoning. His people called it wayfinding, and the methods were based on the passed on lore of the pre-and post-skydark Cific. The constellations of the north would not serve him now in the South Lantic, much less his wayfinding in the chilling winter. Koa sought to learn the Glory way of navigation. Rumor was he had the captain’s ear even though he rated no more than seaman. Ryan had liked him immediately. Koa looked up from his chicken scratches. “This sucks, brah.”
