Dinosaur Beach

10

There was no doubt of his identity. To the untrained eye a Class-One Karg—the only kind ever used in Timesweep work—was indistinguishable from any other citizen. But my eye wasn’t untrained. Besides which, I knew him personally.

He was the same Karg I’d left in the hotel room back in Buffalo, defunct, with a soft-nosed slug in the left zygomatic arch.

Now here he was, pre-Buffalo, with no hole in his head, climbing down onto the deck as neat and cool as if it had all been in fun. From the draggled gold lace on his cuffs and the tarnished brass hilt on his sword, I gathered that he was a person of importance among the victors. Possibly the captain; or maybe officer in charge of the marines. They were listening to him, falling into ragged ranks, quieting down.

The next step would be the telling off of details for a systematic looting of the ship, with a sideorder of mercy killing for anyone unlucky enough to have survived the assault. From what I remembered of conditions in the holds of Spanish ships of the time, a fast demise was far preferable to the long voyage home, with the galleys at the end of it. I was just beginning to form a hopeless plan for creeping out of sight and waiting for something that looked like an opportunity to turn up, when the door I was lying against opened. Tried to open, that is. I was blocking it, so that it moved about two inches and jammed tight. Somebody inside gave it a hearty shove and started through. I saw a booted leg and an arm in a blue sleeve with gold buttons. He got that far and stuck. Something on his belt seemed to be caught in the door hardware. The Karg’s head had turned at the first sound. He stared for a long, long time that was probably less than a second, then whipped up a handsome pearl-mounted wheellock pistol, raised it deliberately, aimed— The explosion was like a bomb; flame gouted and smoke gushed. I heard the slug hit; a solid, meaty smack, like a well-hit ball hitting the fielder’s glove. The fellow in the door lurched, thrashed, plunged through and went down hard on his face. He jerked a couple of times as if someone was jabbing him with a sharp stick, and then lay very still.

The Karg turned back to his men and rapped out an order. The boys muttered and shuffled, and shot disappointed looks around the deck, and then started for the side.

No search, no loot, just the fast skiddoo.

It was as if the Karg had accomplished what he had come for.

In five minutes the last of the boarders were back aboard their own ship. The Karg stood near the stern, patient as only a machine can be. He looked around, then came toward me. I lay very still indeed and tried to look as dead as possible.

He stepped over me and the real corpse and went into the cabin. I heard faint sounds, the kind somebody makes going through drawers and peeking under the rug. Then he came out. I heard his footsteps going away, and opened an eye.

He was by the weather rail, calmly stripping the safety foil from a thermex bomb. It gave its preliminary hiss and he dropped it through the open hatch at his feet as casually as someone dropping an olive in a martini.

He walked coolly across the deck, stepped up, grabbed a line, and scrambled with commendable agility back to his own deck. I heard him—or someone—yell a command. Sounds of sudden activity; sails quivered and moved; men appeared, swarming up the ratlines. The galleon’s spars shifted, withdrew with much creaking and tearing of the defeated galleass’s rigging. The high side of the Spanish ship drew away; sails filled with dull boom!s. Quite suddenly I was alone, watching the ship dwindle as it receded downwind under full sail.

Just then the thermex let go with a vicious choof! belowdecks. Smoke billowed from the hatch, with tongues of pale flame in close pursuit. I got a pair of legs under me and wobbled to the opening, had to turn my eyes from the sunbright holocaust raging below. The tub might have steel walls, but in 5000° heat they’d burn like dry timber.

I stood where I was for a few valuable seconds, trying to put it together in some way that made some variety of sense, while the fire sputtered and crackled and the deck wallowed, and the shadow of the stump of the mainmast swung slow arcs on the deck, like a finger wagging at the man the Karg had shot.

He lay on his face, with a lot of soggy lace in a crimson puddle under his throat. One hand was under him, the other outflung. A gun lay a yard from the empty hand.

I took three steps and stooped and picked up the gun. It was a .01 microjet of Nexx manufacture, with a grip that fitted my hand perfectly.

It ought to. It was my gun. I looked at the hand it had fallen from. It looked like my hand. I didn’t like doing it, but I turned the body over and looked at the face.

It was my face.