by John Ringo
"Boat broad on the starboard bow!" the mast-head lookout called.
"Boat?" Edmund said quizzically, looking off to the west. Somewhere over there was distant Flora but it was on the other side of the Stream. And the lookout had distinctly said "boat" not "ship" which they had all learned, quite pointedly, meant a little boat. Nobody in their right minds crossed the Stream in a small boat.
"What do you make of it?" the skipper called up. He had binoculars to his eyes but for the time being the boat was below the horizon.
"Looks like a small canoe of some sort, sir, maybe a kayak," the lookout called down. "One person in it. Coming up from the southwest."
Half the crew crowded the side of the ship, trying to get a look at the suicidal person who appeared to have crossed the Stream in what the lookout noted was, indeed, a canoe, not a sea-kayak. As it approached his descriptions got clearer.
"The crew's a female," he called down. "Dark hair . . . wearing . . . a bathing suit?"
Herzer suddenly groaned and sat down on a coiled pile of rope, holding his head.
"That's no bathing suit," he muttered. "Five gets you ten it's a leather bikini. Which means it's no human."
"No." Edmund sighed, turning away from the rail. "It's an elf."
"Bast?" Daneh gasped. "How did she? I mean . . ."
"Bast?" Rachel asked, having just appeared from below. She shaded her eyes and looked to port where the canoe was now faintly visible. "Are you sure?"
"Who else would cross the Stream in a dugout canoe?" Herzer asked.
"And there's a rabbit in the bow!" the lookout yelled down.
"Well, that's one of life's little rhetorical questions answered," Duke Edmund said with a chuckle. "The answer being 'that damned bunny.' "
* * *
"Bast," Herzer said, giving her a hug as she swarmed up the side. She kept right on swarming until she had her legs wrapped around his waist and her lips planted on his.
The female he was referring to was no more than a meter and a quarter tall; she barely came to his waist. Her eyes were green with vertically split pupils and her ears were delicately pointed. She had high, small breasts and was wearing a green bikini of soft, washed leather. She carried a bow and quiver over her back and a light saber with a jewel-encrusted hilt belted to her side by a jeweled and tooled leather belt. On her left shoulder was a pauldron, a curved piece of armor to protect the shoulder, on her right shin was a greave, another piece of armor, on her left leg was a fur leg warmer and on both arms she wore leather bracers. Other than that she was naked. It was the most impractical getup imaginable, but that was pure Bast.
"Hiya, lover," she said when she'd finally drawn back. She leaned over and winked at Rachel. "I'm not stealing him, yet, am I?"
"No," Rachel replied with a grin. "As a matter of fact, you can feel free to use my bunk. He snores."
"Especially when he's all worn out," Bast admitted, dropping to the deck as the rabbit scrabbled up the side. It shouldn't have been able to but its claws bit the wood like talons.
"Bast . . ." Edmund said, pausing. "Not that I'm not glad to see you, but . . ."
"But you're on this important secret diplomatic mission," Bast said, as Herzer delicately prized her off and set her on the deck, "and you don't want two spirits of chaos ruining it."
"That's probably how I'd put it," Edmund admitted with a chuckle. "At least mentally. Why are you here?"
"Well, you took lover-boy with you," she said, grabbing Herzer's arm and wrapping herself around it. This apparently was too unfamiliar so she swarmed back up him, this time on his left side, and wrapped her legs around his waist, leaning out for all the world like a koala on her favorite tree. "I couldn't leave him to be all alone in the dangerous Southern Isles!"
"Okay, so what's with the bunny?" Edmund said, sighing.
The rabbit in question was a brown-and-white, flop-eared mini-lop who looked for all the world like the world's cutest, albeit dumbest, pet. That is if you ignored the black leather harness loaded with knives and a pistol crossbow. And the mad, red eyes.
"Hey! Island vacation!" the rabbit snapped. "Big-titted blondes, warm beaches, sun, surf, sand and, most importantly, alfalfa margaritas!"
"There's no tequila on board," Edmund sighed. "And certainly no alfalfa."
"What?!" the rabbit gasped in a high, tenor voice. "No tequila? In the islands?"
"Tequila comes from Chiara," Edmund explained. "The guava plant grows there. Rum comes from the islands."
"Well, that's a point. Navy ships always have a tot of rum once a day. I'll take rum. Rum is good."
"Unfortunately, UFS ships are dry," Daneh said, dryly. "As in, not wet. As in, no alcohol."
"DRY?!" the rabbit shrieked. He whipped out a switchblade and hopped up on Herzer's shoulder, waving the knife at Bast. "You said there'd be booze! A pleasure cruise to the islands you said! All the booze I could drink! Maybe even telemarketers! I'm going to turn you into elf cutlets!"
"You can try, black-heart," Bast snapped, launching off of Herzer in what was a quite improbable back flip and landing on the deck with her saber drawn. "Any time, you flop-eared monstrosity!"
"Bast, why did you inveigle this . . . this . . ." Edmund waved his hand at the rabbit. "This insanely programmed AI onto this ship?"
"Well, I couldn't leave him in Raven's Mill with both of us gone, could I?" Bast shrugged, putting away her saber. "And I'm sure we can find enough rum somewhere in these islands to keep him happy."
"Bast . . ." Edmund said, then paused as she raised a finger at him.
"Ah, ah," she said, cocking her head to the side.
"Bast . . ." he said, a wheedling note in his voice this time.
"Ah!"
"Oh, damn," Edmund sighed. "We're just getting ready to leave and we need all the weight we can spare for the dragons, spare food for them and our gear."
"I'm light," Bast said. "I'll ride Joanna."
"I give up," Edmund said. "What about the bunny?"
"You're going to visit the mer, right?" the rabbit asked. "That means swimming, right? I don't swim."
"Rabbit, you make problems on this ship and they'll make you walk the plank," Edmund growled. "In concrete shoes."
"Them and what army?" the rabbit challenged, hopping off of Herzer's shoulder and landing on the deck with a solid thump. The switchblade waved back and forth menacingly.
"There's a hundred and twenty-five crew and a dozen marines," Edmund said. "If worse comes to worst, they'll roll you up in a spare sail and toss you over the side weighted with ballast. How long can you hold your breath?"
"A long time," the rabbit said, staring him in the eye. After a moment he quit to nibble at his shoulder as if he could care less for the threats. "I'll behave. But you'd better find me some booze. I get all ticky when I don't have booze."
"There're settlements around," Edmund said. "We'll see what we can do."
"General," Commander Mbeki said. "I hate to break up this spectacle but the wyverns are saddled and ready to go. We've got the spare stores and between the wind and the current we should be able to loft all of it, if you leave soon."
"We're ready," Edmund replied. "Someone had better tell Joanna that she has a spare passenger and while you're loading I need to go talk to the skipper."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
"What . . . is that thing?" Chang asked.
"I'd say a spirit of elemental chaos," Edmund replied with a frown. "But that would be superstitious. It, he, is an AI cyborg, not any sort of real rabbit at all. He was created a long time ago. And I'm being forced to leave him on your ship."
"Thank you so very much, General," the skipper said with a bemused expression. "What happens if he goes berserk?"
"Well . . ." Edmund said with a frown. "His programming is almost unbelievably chaotic. But one tendency is to never harm his own side in a truly irrevocable way. He plays tricks, sometimes quite painful ones. And generally is a bully until he gets his way. He'll also betray
you, for cash, goods or services, on half a chance. But never in a way that will cause true, irrevocable, harm."
"That's . . ."
"Weird," Edmund sighed. "I do believe that the twenty-second century was the most . . . complex and baroque century in human history. That's one of the results."
"Why would anyone create something like that?" the captain said. "It would almost immediately betray its creators, wouldn't it?"
"Oh, yes," Edmund said. "And he was reported to have done so. Something about a large bomb. He was apparently based upon a comic from the twenty-first century."
"A comic?"
"You'll see. He's pretty funny if you're into black comedy. Anyway, he had three or four primary programming requirements. In sort of reverse order they're: Have a fun and comfortable life, beat up a designated 'nerd-boy,' track down the cast of a show called Baywatch and be affectionate with the women . . ."
"Affectionate?"
"His term," Edmund grinned. "Spend lots of time around large-breasted blondes and kill telemarketers. The last one is his primary programming."
"What's a telemarketer?" the captain asked.
"A form of human gadfly." Edmund sighed, thinking how much of human history had been lost to disinterest. "Like a spammer but they used telephones which were..."
"Oh, I've heard of them," Shar said, suddenly. "Weren't they all wiped out in the . . . oh."
"Right," Edmund replied. "And you're looking at their doom."
"And you're leaving him on my ship?"
"Have fun. Keeping him drunk sometimes works."
* * *
The dragons were heavily laden but between the wind and the catapult they were able to get into the air and the party started out to the east, following the course that Edmund and Joanna between them set.
The seascape that they flew over was a patchwork of reefs, wide, white flats and small uninhabited islands. There were occasional patches of green in the water, which Herzer was informed were patches of sea grass. From time to time they saw a fishing boat but that was the only sign of humanity. There were fish aplenty in the waters, small schools turning in the sun and flashing up at them. When they had started off it had been nearly high tide and as they flew more and more of the flats became exposed.
The sunlight on the white flats was nearly blinding and after a while Herzer quit trying to look at them, looking out in the distance instead. Within an hour or so he could see the waters ahead were turning the green of the shallows with blue beyond and he knew they were passing over the flats and approaching the deeps beyond.
When they reached the edge of the flats, Joanna turned north tracing the edge of the land that was one small island after another. More flats were to their north, beyond the thin necklace of islands, but to the south the water quickly shaded from green to the dark blue of pelagic seas. Herzer had looked at the charts and the water over there was over a thousand feet deep. Admittedly, it was as easy to drown in five meters of water as a thousand, but there was a special feeling to seeing that immense body of horrendously deep water.
Finally they saw, at the tip of one of the islands, a two story concrete building that was their landmark. It appeared to be an ancient, but until the Fall well maintained, lighthouse. There were no signs of current habitation around it; the bushes were well grown up and the walkways near it were covered in weeds.
"Mer!" Koo called, pointing down and to the right. Sure enough, in the midst of a pod of dolphins the distinct silhouettes of mer-folk were visible. As the shadows of the dragons passed over the pod the mer came to the surface for a look, then dove into the water headed southeast.
"Do we land and swim out?" Joanna yelled.
"Land," Edmund replied. "Then we'll see about getting the dragons fed."
They swept in for a landing by the old lighthouse and as they dismounted saw a line of heads popping up out of the water.
"Herzer," was all Edmund said, starting to strip off his riding gear.
The wind was still from the north, blowing up a fine grit of sand and quite cold. Herzer was shivering by the time he'd stripped down himself and he pulled the mask on, looking forward to what he assumed would be warm water.
It wasn't. The water was bitterly cold when he entered it, striding up to his waist, then putting on his fins. Edmund was already in, heading out to the mer-folk, flapping and splashing like a walrus.
Herzer quickly ducked under and started out himself, staying below the light chop. The bottom was mostly sand at the shore but bits of broken reef started to appear by the time they were halfway to the line of mer.
The mer-men started towards them as they swam, hesitantly at first and then more quickly, a line armed with bone-tipped spears at the front while the rest, who were burdened with mostly empty mesh bags, followed behind. When they got to within a dozen yards or so, Edmund stopped and hung in the water, feet down, and raised a hand.
"We're here from the United Free States; we're looking for Bruce Blackbeard."
Herzer stared at the line of mer that approached. He had seen them before the Fall but never in a group and never in their natural environment. They were, he decided, no less graceful than dolphins, darting in patterns around each other. But they were far more colorful, their tail ends flashing blue, green, red and every other color of the rainbow. Their hair was all the colors of the rainbow as well and each of them had hair that more or less matched their tails. Besides all the other differences from humans, they had huge ribcages which, as he watched, opened and closed. Clearly they were gills. Their bodies were also far bulkier than those of most humans, but very smooth-skinned and not rippled with muscle. They appeared, as much as anything, fat.
The line of spear bearers had stopped as well and now looked at them in surprise.
"Bruce is at the town," one of them said. "I think he's expecting you."
"I'm Edmund Talbot," Edmund said. "How far is it?"
"Not far, just out on the edge of the deep," the mer replied. "I'm Jason Ranger."
Herzer wondered what it was about his voice that was strange and then realized that it wasn't a voice at all, but the computer in the mask converting it. It had no particular timbre. The mouth of the mer-man didn't move, except for slight changes that might have been subvocalizations.
"This is Lieutenant Herrick, my aide," Edmund replied. "We'd like to visit your town. My wife and daughter are with us as well."
"And wyverns," Jason said.
"Yes, there's a ship beating around to here. We expected to find you over by Bimi island. The wyverns are going to need to fish for food. Is there somewhere they can do that?"
The mer paused at that and shook his head.
"Wyverns fish?"
"They're learning," Herzer replied. "They catch reef fish well enough. And sharks," he added.
"These fishing grounds around here are ours," Jason said. "I'd prefer they not get fished out. And don't let Bruce find them hitting the reefs or you'll lose any goodwill you might have. But if they want to move up or down the coast a few klicks, that should be fine."
"I can show them," one of the spear-bearing mer-men interjected. He had blond, nearly white, hair and a light tan tail.
"This is Pete. When he's not out hunting, he's one of the best chefs in the mer-folk."
"When I've got spices, I'm the best chef in the mer-folk," the cook said. "But if we can get me up on one of those wyvern, I can show you where they can fish. There's a drop-off to the east. Lots of grouper and big hogs, but too far to make it worth our while to fish there."
"Herzer?" Edmund asked.
"We'll have to more or less strap you on," Herzer pointed out. "You don't have legs to go in the mount."
"Understood," Pete replied.
"Will you need me in the town?" Herzer asked.
"No, but go get Daneh and Rachel. Tell Warrant Officer Riadou that I'd like him back here no later than sundown and that if he can get the wyverns to catch some fish, and not just eat them, that would be an i
nteresting, and useful, experiment."
"Will do, sir. One question, what about Bast?"
"What about her?" Edmund replied after a brief pause. "I don't have a mask for her, or a set of fins. Have Rachel bring out the net," Edmund added as Herzer, following Pete, started to swim back in.
"You have nets?" Jason asked.
"We just have one with us," Edmund replied. "All the room we had. But there's more on the ship."
* * *
Evan looked up as a rabbit landed on his workbench with a thump.
"What'cha doin'?" the rabbit asked, raising one paw to vigorously scratch at his ear.
Evan looked at the apparition blankly for a moment, then said, distinctly: "Working on a device."
The rabbit hopped over and looked at the device, then shrugged.
"So you're making a flamethrower. Big deal."
"You know what it is?" Evan said, surprised.
"Of course I know what it is," the rabbit snapped. "I've had them turned at me enough times. Used them a time or two for that matter."
Evan noted at that moment that instead of normal rabbit feet, the rabbit had handlike forepaws with opposable thumbs.
"Well, maybe you can tell me what's wrong," Evan said. "I can't get it to maintain a stream, no matter what I do. I've been working with water, obviously, but it sprays outward when I fire it. I don't want a wall of flame."
The rabbit hopped from one end of the scattered parts to another, then shook his head.
"You do good work."
"Thank you."
"And I know what your problem is," the rabbit added. "But to tell you, I have to extract a price."
"Why?" the engineer said with a puzzled expression.
"Bloody programming, that's why," the rabbit sighed. "I can't just tell people things that they need to know, even when I want to. And I'd like to have you make a flamethrower. I like flamethrowers."
"Okay, as long as it's not going to get the ship in trouble," Evan replied.
"Actually, I want two things, come to think of it," the rabbit said, scratching at his ear again.
"Well, you're only telling me one," Evan pointed out.
