Dectra Chain

by James Axler

  Ryan opened one of the windows, pushing hard, for it was stiff, the hinges rusted. It finally squeaked back and he was able to look out over Claggartvilie, toward the harbor a block or two away.

  The fog had settled down over the lower streets, courts and alleys, finding a level around the middle of the second-floor windows. For Ryan, a whole floor higher, it was an odd sight. The white mist writhing and undulating below him, like a living blanket, with the roofs of houses poking up like the prows of old, wrecked vessels, their chimneys smoking. There were lights to be seen, sometimes through the fog, like a host of drowned carriages. And voices, muffled, and the ringing of heels on cobblestones.

  Just visible in the moonlight was the forest of masts, spars and delicate rigging of the ships moored alongside the quays.

  "Anything to see, lover?" Krysty asked, leaning on his shoulder,

  "Sailers. Always wondered what it must be like to go out in a small wooden water wag, right out of sight of land for days and weeks." He laughed. "Not that I ever want to find out."

  Far below them they could still hear the noise of the inn—singing and an occasional bellow of merriment, the piano tinkling away and the constant buzz of talk.

  "Another customer." Krysty pointed to the alley.

  There was a black-cloaked figure, foreshortened by their viewpoint, stumping along toward the Rising Flukes, the metal ferrule of a cane ringing out on the damp stones. They could only see the man through a peekhole in the banks of fog, which swirled about the houses.

  They heard the crack of the front door of the inn being thrown open and the sudden, instant, total silence that followed.

  "Must be another outlander," Ryan guessed.

  Through the open window they could hear a few barked, harsh words, the voice raised as though in a query. No audible reply came from any of the tavern's customers. The door banged shut, and they could hear the stumping of feet. But the mist had swept back, and the alley had vanished from their eyes.

  THE NIGHT HAD PASSED peacefully. The companions dressed—although none of them had taken off all their clothes or weapons for the night—and made their way down into the main room of the tavern. It was a little after seven in the morning. The room had been swept and scrubbed, and the front door stood open to the bright morning sunlight. But the unpleasant odor of stale smoke and flat beer remained.

  Jed Rodriguez was washing tankards behind the bar and looked up at the sound of their feet on the stairs.

  "Good morrow, outlanders. Slept ye well?"

  He didn't wait for the answer, pointing them to a table in a bay window, calling out back for one of the servant girls to come and bring them something to break their fasts.

  "Going after work?" he asked.

  Ryan replied for them all. "First we need to pick our way around the ville. Suss out the good from the bad."

  "Nothing bad here in Claggartville, Mr. Cawdor! And thou might do well to remember that. Don't rock the boat is my motto, and it would be as well for thee to think on that."

  Ryan noticed the unveiled threat. Or was it just a warning?

  The food was plain but good.

  While the girl laid out the wooden platters, the landlord explained the simple facts of their economy in the ville. The whale oil and meat were traded up and down the coast of New England for other items of food or drink.

  "Don't grow much around here. Turnips and potatoes. Peas and beans. Not much corn or crops like that. Few cows. Mutie chickens. And lots of fish. Here's your breakfast. Eat hearty."

  The butter was heavily salted and the variety of smoked fishes oppressive so early in the morning. But the eggs, mostly double and triple yolked, were golden and good. There was also some fatback, which Ryan guessed was another of the commodities that Claggartville traded for their whaling produce.

  The drink, in an orange enameled jug, was dark brown and scalding hot, and Krysty correctly identified it as acorn coffee.

  Rodriguez came back as they were finishing off the meal. He beamed down at the empty plates. "Done good, outlanders. Eaten hearty. Give ye the appetite to go find some work."

  "Who's Captain Quadde?" J.B. asked, wiping the remnants of egg from his platter with a hunk of bread.

  The landlord of the tavern looked away, staring past them through the open door. "Looks like it'll be a goodish day. Fog's nigh lifted off the harbor already."

  Ryan stood up slowly. "Man who rocks the boat ends up falling overboard, wouldn't you say, Jed? Eh?"

  "Could be, Mr. Cawdor."

  "Then I'd be obliged if you'd answer our question to you."

  "Captain Quadde?"

  "Yeah."

  "Captain Quadde's one of the richest skippers ever sailed from Claggartville."

  "And… ?" Ryan prompted, still facing the man.

  "There's those as might say that to sail with Quadde is to buy thy pay with the skin off thy back and…maybe with thy mortal soul, as well. But I don't say that. I just say that it's best to keep well to windward of Captain Quadde. If thou catchest my drift on the matter?"

  "Take your meaning, Jed. Thanks for it. We'll watch out for the captain."

  DOC TANNER, with his sprouting side-whiskers and his old-fashioned manners, fitted seamlessly into the daily round of life in the town of Claggartville. Even his clothes, with the stained frock coat and the cracked knee boots, attracted no attention from any of the locals.

  Ryan, with his eye patch and armory of weapons, was stared at from around corners and behind draperies. J.B. didn't catch much notice. Lori was openly ogled by the young men, as was Krysty. But the height and bearing of the women created its own immediate barrier. There was rather more awe than there was simple lust.

  Most of the interest was reserved for Jak and Donfil.

  The Apache was a full foot taller than anyone else in the ville, and his clothes made him stand out like a cockerel in a henhouse. As he stalked barefooted through the winding cobbled streets, reflecting glasses shielding his eyes, every head turned to follow him. Every jaw dropped and every conversation suddenly halted.

  Then they noticed Jak, bouncing along behind the long-haired scarecrow. The young boy nodded and smiled to everyone they passed, quickly picking up the habit of bowing to all of the women and girls. There was a fresh breeze in off the Lantic, and it made his fine white hair dance and spin about his shoulders.

  A pretty blind girl was playing a dulcimer on a balcony as they passed, and Jak called out a bright good-morning to her, making her blush and lay down her instrument, and run inside her house. Before they'd gone a dozen paces a man rushed from the white-painted building, face heavy with anger.

  "Outlander dog!" he yelled. "Come thou here, thou mutie spawn!"

  "Easy, Jak," Ryan warned, hand dropping, so casually, to the butt of the SIG-Sauer pistol.

  "No problem," the teenager said, stopping and turning calmly to face the enraged man, who was several inches taller and a hundred pounds heavier than the albino.

  "Thou hast given insult to my poor, afflicted child!" he screeched.

  "Then sorry. Not deliberate," Jak apologized.

  "Mutie demon! Thou shalt be beaten and driven from the ville for thy wickedness."

  "Boy didn't mean anything by it, mister, and he's said he's sorry. Let it lay."

  Ryan's attempt to pour oil upon the troubled waters was ignored. The man carried a stout cudgel, and he raised it above his head and aimed a blow at Jak's skull.

  "Oh shit," Ryan sighed, hoping the white-haired youth wouldn't butcher the man in the street.

  Jak dodged effortlessly, dipping under the crushing swing, one of his many hidden throwing knives appearing in his fingers like magic. He held the leaf-bladed weapon by its weighted hilt, point up, like all classic knife fighters. He waited in a half crouch, whispering to the man.

  "Last warning, bastard. Said sorry, now get away. Cut you horrible. Peel face like skinning rat. Fuck off!"

  The last was hissed with such fearsome malevolence that the
angry father took three tumbling steps backward, tripping over his own feet and nearly falling. A muscle worked at the corner of his mouth, making his lips twitch and jerk. Ryan thought he looked like someone who'd been about to strangle a kitten and found he was holding a panther. From the way the man was standing, slightly bowlegged, he guessed that he must have lost control in his sudden terror and fouled his dark serge breeches.

  "Best do like the boy says, mister," J.B. urged.

  They left him there, still holding his cudgel, knuckles white, face drained of blood, and carried on with their walk around the streets of Claggartville in the brisk fall sunshine.

  Twice they passed sec patrols. The first time they were stopped and questioned. With an infinite, oppressive politeness, the sec boss carefully wrote down their details in a small leather-bound notebook, using a stub of lead pencil—their names and when they entered the ville, that they'd registered at the Rising Flukes Inn, and that they knew the regulations about finding work within three days or they would have to leave.

  "Tightest little ville in all Deathlands," Krysty said as they moved on.

  They went past a shop selling fruit and vegetables, the contents spilling out on tables over the narrow sidewalk. The owner, a stout man with jolly red cheeks and eyes like small chips of Sierra melt ice, greeted them.

  "Morning to ye, outlanders. A merry pippin to crunch? Punnet of blackberries? Lovely ripe pears from the Shens? What's your fancy, fine ladies and fine mariners? Come taste."

  Lori reached for the golden pear that the shopkeeper held out temptingly toward her, but at the last moment he snatched it back.

  "Why d'you did that?" she asked crossly.

  "Show thy jack, lady. Handful of jack buys a handful of good victuals. No jack. No eat. Thy credit runs only with Master Jedediah Rodriguez and the Rising Flukes. And no place else."

  "Then stuff it up your fat arsehole, you sad fat bastard," she said, knocking the false smile clean off the plump lips.

  THE QUAYSIDE of Claggartville was bustling with action, men heaving casks and bales, pushing small carts with iron wheels over the clattering cobbles. Mongrels slunk around, snapping at one another, cowering from the blows and kicks aimed at them. As they moved through, Ryan and the others could catch the scent of tobacco and liquor.

  "Git out th'way, outlanders," bellowed an enormous man in a stained white shirt, who carried a pile of baskets filled with fish on his head.

  The ships loomed over it all, masts rocking in unison on the gently rolling waters of the harbor.

  "She's a whaler," Doc said, pointing to one called Rights of Man. "There's the ovens on decks there."

  "The one painted dark brown?" Donfil asked interestedly.

  "Not paint. Blood," J.B. said.

  The last ship along the line was another whaler, painted in somber black, with a narrow white stripe running all the way around her, just beneath the rails. False gun ports were etched in white along her sides, and a white flag hung limply from the masthead.

  The men working on the dock seemed to be avoiding this ship. It was almost as though there were an invisible barrier erected on the quay. Nothing was being loaded or unloaded at that end of the harbor, and there was nobody to be seen on the deck of the dark vessel.

  "Called the Salvation," Ryan said. "Fine name for a sailer."

  The seven stood and watched the ship, admiring the elegant lines of her yards and the four slim twenty-eight-foot whaleboats that hung from the davits on either side.

  "Everyone stopped," Jak whispered.

  It was true.

  Behind them, all along the dock, work had ceased as though a switch had been thrown. Every bearded face was turned toward them, staring in a fascinated stillness. The only sound was the sighing of the wind through the rigging and the scream of gulls, circling around a small shoal of herring a quarter mile out into the bay.

  "Someone farted?" Jak asked, giggling nervously. "What d'they want?"

  "Something about the ship?" Krysty suggested.

  "She looks normal enough. Like the others. Sight cleaner than most."

  "True, Ryan," Donfil agreed. "But there is something I like not about it."

  Krysty nodded slowly. "Know what you mean. Feeling gets me across the back of my head and clear down my spine. Something about the Salvation just doesn't set right. Can't say what."

  "Guess we can go," Ryan said. "Find out later. Mebbe."

  As they neared the turning into Try-pot Alley they came across a ragged urchin bowling a metal hoop, striking sparks from the stones. Ryan reached out a hand and took the hoop from the boy.

  "What art thou…?" the guttersnipe began.

  "One question. Who owns the Salvationl"

  The boy spit against the wall. "Everyone knows that, 'cept outlanders. Captain Quadde, of course."

  Ryan gave him back the hoop, and they continued on to the Rising Flukes.

  Chapter Fourteen

  "NO WORK?"

  "No work."

  "All day in Claggartville… seven healthy outlanders and no work?"

  The incredulity of the landlord was going on and on, and Ryan Cawdor was already beginning to find it exceedingly tedious. Ever since they'd returned after exploring the ville he'd been on about work, counting off on his fingers the people that he knew personally who were almost begging in the streets and alleys to find men and women to fill vacancies for all manner of work.

  "Rory Starbuck the chandler. Also runs the rope-making works. He could take on a couple of fresh hands with no trouble. The women would be welcome with their looks at Eleanor Goodman's gaudy…" He caught the eye of Doc Tanner and hastily changed his mind. "No, I didn't… There's many taverns'd take them as pot girls or cooks if they had the skill. The Indian could ship as harpooner on any vessel leaving harbor. There's jobs in some shops for… Oh, so many that it makes my head spin."

  "Why don't you just spin off and bring us some food?" J.B. suggested, as calm as ever. As menacing as ever.

  The supper was baked fish, what Rodriguez called "star-gazers' pie." It had a thick golden crust with the heads of a dozen mackerels protruding through the top, eyes open, staring ceilingward. With it came some fried greens and large potatoes roasted in their skins, with butter oozing over the platters.

  They washed it down with bumpers of ale, perhaps the very same they'd seen being rolled in iron-hooped kegs along the quayside.

  The piano was being played by a blind man whose forehead was furrowed by a huge scar. He picked at the keys with a soft touch, singing slow ballads of lost love and vanquished honor.

  As Rodriguez came across at the end of the meal to oversee the removal of the greasy dishes and dirty glasses, Ryan caught him by the sleeve of his linen smock.

  "What is it, Mr. Cawdor? The meal not to thy liking?"

  "Tell us about Captain Quadde and the Salvation. What's so terrible?"

  The innkeeper tried for a laugh that got lost somewhere between his throat and his mouth, coming out like a strangled yelp. "Terrible?" he squawked. "Why rock the boat asking that sort of question? Won't do thee good, outlander."

  "Quadde and the Salvation," Ryan repeated, tightening his grip.

  "Not good to blab 'bout it. Don't want to finish keelhauled or having my backbone laid bare by the cat. Let thee find someone else to tell thee about Quadde. Not me."

  Ryan looked around the Rising Flukes, seeing that his conversation with Rodriguez had hushed every voice in the place. Every face was turned to him.

  "Well!" he shouted. "Any of you chicken-shit bastards tell an outlander about the fireblasted mystery of the Salvation and her captain?"

  Faces were averted, eyes downcast.

  "Let it lie, mister," the landlord whispered. "There's a couple of men of her crew here."

  Ryan stood up, feeling the familiar rise of anger, the crimson mist that flowed down over his brain when the rage took him. For most of his adult years he'd been able to control it. Most of the time. But now it was swelling agai
n.

  "Rodriguez says some of you are off the Salvation. So, what's so fucking frightening about her?"

  "Outlander?"

  "At last." Ryan turned to face the man who'd spoken. He was sitting in front of a half-finished plate of mutton stew at the long table nearest to the silent piano. "I'm second mate on the Salvation. Been that for five years now."

  He was a little taller than average height, with a smaller beard than was usual about the ville. Several scars lined his weather-beaten face, one of them pulling down the corner of his left eye. The middle finger was missing from his left hand. He wore the jumper and breeches that most of the sailors favored. There was a dirk in his belt with a hilt that looked as if it had been carved from a piece of bone or ivory.

  "Then you can tell me why everyone shits themselves at the mention of your ship and your captain."

  "Best keep thy prow out of waters that don't concern thee."

  Ryan spit on the floor, shrugging off Krysty's warning hand, knowing with a surge of strange excitement that he wasn't going to be cautious. Not this time. This time he was going to see the quarrel through. Even if it meant pushing it all the way himself.

  "You scared to tell?"

  The man stood at that, pushing away the table, hands resting on his hips in a gesture that was provocative and also kept his right hand near the knife hilt.

  "Scared, outlander? Jonas Clegg fears neither man nor beast. There isn't the man born of woman or the whale broaching from the deepest waters that scares Jonas Clegg."

  "I say you're a liar. I say you're a liar, Clegg, and a white-gutted coward!"

  The mate smiled at that, gesturing to the three men with him to step away. The rest of the customers of the Rising Flukes also got up from their tables, backing off to ring the walls. Rodriguez shrugged his shoulders and retreated behind the bar.

  "Come on, lover," Krysty urged quietly.

  Ryan glanced at her and she took a sudden, indrawn breath. She knew Ryan was a killer. That was his trade. But rarely had she seen his face glowing with the thrill of an imminent fight.

  "Got to be, lover," he replied softly. "Had enough of this place. Polite on the surface and something stinking rotten underneath. Time to get that out here in the open."