Island in the Sea of Time

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

October, Year 1 A.E.

"She's coming 'round," Coleman said.

Cofflin rolled his wheelchair closer. The left leg was straight out before him, the wound a dull ache under the anesthetic. The other pain couldn't be dulled-he could feel it nibbling at the edges of his mind, roiling with a killing rage. But there was no time for it, not if he was to do what had to be done.

Alston's eyes fluttered open. They were bloodshot, wandering. Coleman leaned over her and shone a light into one and the other. A long-fingered black hand came up; Swindapa gripped it in hers and bent close. Alston's eyes closed again for a moment, and she sighed. Cofflin fought down a moment of sickening envy; it wasn't Alston's fault that he was the one left alone.

"Water."

A nurse cranked the hospital bed up. "Hospital" was a bit too grand for the little forty-bed clinic that was all the island had-all it had needed, when the mainland's hospitals and specialists were close. Morning sunlight shone through the open windows, and a breath of sea and flowers. The garden outside was heedlessly, cruelly beautiful with roses.

Swindapa held a cup to Alston's lips. The officer felt at the bandages above her left ear. When she spoke, it was quiet but coherent. "Hurts like hell."

"You're a very lucky woman," Coleman said, in the semi-scolding tone doctors always used in these situations.

"Ah'm lucky… the bitch was usin' a popgun," she said. "Concussion?"

"It skipped around the bone," Coleman said. "Light bullet, as you guessed. Some blood loss, minor concussion"- which was better than a serious one, but that was all you could say for it-"and you'll have a small scar. White streak through your hair, maybe. It didn't even need a stitch."

Alston sighed again. Her eyes swiveled around to Cofflin. "Fill me in."

"It was Lisketter and her gang," he said. "They took a boat-the schooner, Bentley-and kidnapped Martha. And I couldn't do a God damned thing." His fist pounded the arm of the chair, once, twice.

"Not… with a bullet through your knee," Alston responded. "That the whole of it?"

Cofflin shook his head. "Your… formerly your Lieutenant Walker was in on it. We got a couple of prisoners, Lisketter's people who jumped ship. Evidently he and Isketerol, the Tartessian, scammed Lisketter-got her to help them hijack the town's weapons and create a diversion. Meanwhile Walker got a gang of his own together, some Coast Guard, most townies, and took the weapons from the Eagle's armory, together with the Yare, its cargo, and John Martins and his lady Barbara. They were kidnapped too, evidently. Lisketter thought Walker was going down to San Lorenzo, Mexico, up the Coatzacoalcos River, to help her, some crazy scheme to arm the Indians there to protect them from big bad us. Then when the Yare and the Bentley were both out beyond the breakwaters, Walker gave her the finger and sailed east."

"I'm… extremely sorry, Chief Cofflin." Alston said softly. "Extremely."

"You did better than any of the rest of us," Cofflin said roughly. Which isn't very fucking good. "We got overconfident. We got lazy."

Alston nodded and winced. "How long?" she said to Coleman.

"I will not let you out of that bed for another two days," he said. "I'd like to have you under observation for another week after that."

"Not possible. Is Eagle still here?"

Cofflin cleared his throat and jerked his chin toward the next bed. Alston rolled her head slowly and carefully. Sandy Rapczewicz was there, her lower face immobilized in a brace. She held up a slate, marked in chalk:

Bastard broke my jaw, Skipper. Sorry.

Cofflin saw something in her eyes that answered his. He nodded. "Can you catch them?"

"Which ones?" Alston said. "Eagle's got more hull speed than either, but they can both cut closer to the wind. If Yare's gone east, and she has, I can probably catch him. Those are following winds-best for a square-rigger. Bentley will be beating to windward most of the way down. Eagle'd be traveling three sea miles to her two. Plus it's a big ocean and we don't have spotter planes. Eagle's radar is short-range."

"And besides, if you did run Yare down, he's got the machine gun, and most of the rifles. Unless you could ram him"-as a former fisherman he knew how nearly impossible that would be, especially for two ships under sail-"it would be a… hairy proposition."

Cofflin waited; he saw with some amazement that Alston was suppressing a laugh. At last she spoke:

"Not all that bad… I've got a nasty paranoid mind. The firm' pin, bolt, and return spring for that Browning are in a box under my bed at Guard House. Plus the pins fo' the rifles, although he might be able to make more of those. Various other crucial parts, too."

This time she did laugh, a snarling chuckle which ended with a wince. Cofflin grinned, a baring of teeth. He had a score to settle with Lieutenant Walker, someday. But first…

He looked at Alston. There were two hostages on Yare, as opposed to one on Bentley… four on Yare, if Menendez and Hong hadn't gone of their own wills; their rooms were suspiciously unpacked.

"Bentley," Alston said. "We go after Bentley. More difficult… do that first. Then run down Yare."

Cofflin closed his eyes for an instant, shuddering, then opened them and met hers. His nod held a promise: I owe you one. Whatever the reason, she'd go after Martha first.

"Did I get… what's-his-name?"

"David Lisketter. We're not sure; they didn't leave a body, at least. They did leave the hand and the gun it was holding. They panicked, dropped any other plans and ran."

Alston nodded, closing her eyes and laying her head back on the pillows. Coleman stood and made shooing motions. "Let her rest; she'll recover faster that way. Out, all of you!

Well, you can stay, young lady, if you're very quiet. Out, the rest of you. Out!"

"You're not just a prick, Rodriguez, you're a stupid prick, you know that?"

The Yare was heeled over sharply, making twelve knots with a following wind. She was heading north by northeast, into the higher latitudes, and the raw wind was colder already over seas huge and ice gray. The schooner crested a rise, hesitated, then plunged downward with spray flying twice man-height from her bows. The others of her crew- twenty in all, not counting the women or Martins-were watching silently, except for the two at the wheel and a few more leaning over the rail, retching as the waves lashed their faces.

"I was just, like, trying to get some," the sailor whined. He was visibly forcing himself not to cringe, but there was a cornered viciousness in his eyes. "You got your squeeze, so does the wog-why shouldn't the rest of us get some?"

Crack. Rodriguez staggered back and grabbed at a rope, the imprint of Walker's hand across his face. Behind him Bill Cuddy picked a spare belaying pin out of the rack around the foremast and stepped forward, with McAndrews just behind him. Walker waved them back. This had to be settled right. He went on:

"Because, you dumb fuck, I told you to keep your hands off the blacksmith's woman. And you do what I tell you. What part of that is too complicated for you to understand?"

"You said we'd all get women!"

"You will… when you've earned it. Work to do first, fighting to do-and all of it when I say so. I say jump, you say 'How high, sir!' Got that? Sabe?" He grinned, slow and savage. "Or maybe you'd like to give the orders? Come on, Rodriguez, this isn't the Coast Guard. You want a piece of me, come and get it."

The Puerto Rican hesitated, wiping blood from his mouth, then whipped out his knife and lunged. Walker caught the wrist with a slap of flesh on flesh. Let's do this the simple, brute-strength, old-fashioned way.

He squeezed. Muscle stood out in cords along his forearm, and Rodriguez dropped the knife. It struck the deck point-down and the sharp point sank in enough to support it quivering by their feet. Walker kept up the pressure, until the bones in the smaller man's wrist began to grate together. He screamed and lashed out with the other hand. Walker caught that as well, twisting both arms until the seaman rose up on his toes, face livid and writhing with the unbearable pressure on his joints.

"And incidentally, Rodriguez, Isketerol is XO of this ship. So you don't call him 'wog.' You call him 'sir.' Capiche?"

"Sir, yessir!" came out in a gasp.

"And the reason I'm not pulling your arms out by the roots is that you're useful. But not that useful. So you're not going to try disobeying my orders again, are you?"

"Sir, nossir!"

This time it was more like a scream. Walker released him and he dropped to his knees, arms quivering with the released strain. The former Coast Guard officer raised his voice:

"Let's all get one thing straight. I'm in charge. Because I'm stronger and faster and meaner than any of you, but most of all because I'm smarter. I know the languages, I know the countries, I've got the plan. Without me you'd all be dead in a month-if you were lucky. Any arguments?"

There was a murmured chorus of agreement, a few grins and salutes. He went oh: "And I don't remember saying stop working." The crew split like magnetized billiard balls, back to the duties he'd assigned. "Thanks, by the way," he continued to McAndrews and Cuddy, nodding. "I'll remember that."

Good timing, he thought. Good that it had come so soon, and in such a formless way. He turned and walked back toward the wheel, passing John Martins crouched with his arm around Barbara.

"You know, John," Walker said cheerfully, "you'd better pray real hard that I stay alive. Because without me, I don't think you or your little second-wave flower child there would live long enough to dance on my grave."

He turned aside from their glares, laughing. He was still chuckling when he settled by the wheel. Isketerol was standing there, his cloak flying in the wind and feet braced against the plunging roll of the ship, one hand caressing the butt of his pistol.

"You like not mutiny, do you, blood-brother," he said with a grin. The language was Tartessian.

"Not unless I'm leading it," Walker agreed, in the same tongue; slow and halting, but understandable. He switched to Iraiina. "Better this way. I don't have laws and custom behind me, only my own strength. Now they know my strength."

"Better still if you'd flogged him," Isketerol suggested.

Walker clapped the Tartessian on the shoulder. "Maybe with your people, but not with mine, brother. That would have convinced them I'd gone mad, and they'd have killed me to save themselves."

"You know them best," Isketerol shrugged. "Will they stay obedient when they learn about the guns?"

Walker shrugged in turn. "They don't have much choice. They can't go back, and alone they're just so much meat. We still have the shotguns and pistols, anyway." He shook his head admiringly. "That is one smart bitch," he said. "Of course, look on the bright side." The Iraiina word was sun-turned, but it meant about the same thing.

"Is there a bright side to the most powerful weapons being useless?"

"Of course. We can't use them without the pins… but Alston can't either, without the guns. And we have the two Garands-they're functional."

Isketerol nodded respectfully. "You are a hard man to discourage; that is good. No plan works perfectly against an enemy."

"Interesting; we have exactly the same saying."

Walker looked up at the sky, and took a glance at the compass and his wristwatch. "We're making two hundred miles today," he said. "But we may have to reef; I don't want to risk the sails."

Isketerol flipped a hand in agreement, looking around. "What a ship!" he breathed. "The Eagle, that was like sailing a mountain-it never seemed real to me. But this Yare, I understand her. Let me sail her into Tartessos harbor, and in a year I will have four more like her with trained crews."

"And she'll be yours," Walker agreed. "Just as soon as I'm in Tiryns, with my men."

"We will do much good business together," Isketerol said, pleased.

Up. Guard, guard, crosscut, crosscut, pivot, guard…

The swords moved in perfect unison, flashing in smooth controlled arcs. Their feet rutched across the sand of the beach as one, like a mirror image set side by side as they went through the kata. Alston held the last movement, crouched with the sword out and down, until her leg muscles began to quiver slightly. Then she sank back to one knee, sword snapping sideways in the move that was meant to represent flicking excess blood off the blade. Pull the cloth out of your belt, run the sword through it, slide it back into the sheath, sink back on your heels with hands on thighs…

That night was the first time I've ever actually cut anyone with this thing, she thought as she completed the movement.

Oh, she'd shot once or twice in the line of duty; hurt men with her hands and feet a few more times in self-defense. Never used the steel to kill before, though, or really thought she would-except in the trancelike way you were supposed to imagine it as you practiced. Odd. I'd have thought it would affect me more. Instead she simply felt irritated she hadn't been able to finish David Lisketter off. Perhaps it was the circumstances; she'd been angry. Controlled enough to use it rather than be used by it, but it was nothing like action against a boatful of drug smugglers. Much more personal; her friends had been in danger of death, one hurt… she'd never felt so lifted out of herself before.

"How are you?" Swindapa asked beside her.

Alston laid the sheathed sword down before her, bowed to it with hands and forehead to the ground, and sat back. "No pain at all. Just a bit of an itch," she said, touching the wound under a small bandage. Of course, an inch this way and I'd have left brains spattered on the Athenaeum notice board.

"I was so frightened for you," Swindapa said. "I asked Moon Woman to find the good star for you, one that would stand for your birthstar and namestar."

"You did the right thing though, sugar," Alston said. "Gettin' help." Rushing in like a berserker would have been the worst possible choice at that moment.

"But you're still hurt," Swindapa went on, the hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth. "You shouldn't be all alone in that big cabin on the Eagle-"

Alston laughed. "I said no yesterday, no this morning, and the answer's no again at sunset. If I make a rule for my people, I have to keep it, just as they do."

The no-fraternization-on-shipboard rule was essential to discipline, in her opinion, and without discipline a ship was a snack for the sea to gobble down. There were a good many other things in the Uniform Code of Military Justice that she'd been glad to leave behind in the twentieth century, but that wasn't one of them.

Swindapa sighed and rolled her eyes. "There's always the paint locker…"

"I have to keep the rule better than they do," she said. "Let's get going. We're not sailing until tomorrow morning, remember. And I am feeling better."

They picked up their swords and headed back toward town along the beach, running at a steady jog-trot with their arms pumping and bare feet light on the sand. To their right was a sand cliff, covered in low green scrub and topped with houses, trees, and a fringe of seagrass. Waves broke to their left, green-blue and white, hissing up almost to their feet. Out on the water were the sails of the fishing boats; whatever happened, the town had to be fed, something that had sunk home to just about everybody over the summer. The wind blew in from the sea, cool and welcome. Alston concentrated on her breathing, feeling for any trace of dizziness or pain in her head.

None. Good. The island didn't run to a CAT scan or MRI imager, and there was no way to tell if the trauma had produced an aneurysm or clot, short of waiting for her brain to burst. She grinned without mirth. They'd been thrown back more than three thousand years, but every one of the temporal deportees still moved forward an inexorable minute per minute in her own losing fight with Father Time. You could win battles, but entropy won all the wars.

"Let's go!"

They turned inland and raced for a long wooden staircase built up the near-vertical slope of the bluff.

From here she could see the masts of the Eagle, where it waited in the harbor. There were clouds on the northern horizon; she'd have to check the barometer. Bad to be caught on a lee shore in this shoal water, with the wind blowing toward the shallows. Hard to beat off, unless she fired up Max the engine and won free that way, got some sea room for tacking. Maybe they'd have the steam tug take them well out, a couple of miles.

Pedaling back along the smooth paved road was almost a relaxation. Chief Cofflin was waiting for her, standing with boulder patience before the police station and leaning on his crutch. The street there still had bloodstains, where the life of the two police officers had flowed out under the doorjamb. She strongly suspected that if Cofflin's leg hadn't been injured he'd be on board Eagle, all arguments to the contrary. The look in the blue Yankee eyes was worse than fury; a cold, grim deadliness, intelligent and calculating.

"I'm fit for duty," she said quietly, swinging down from her seat. "We leave at dawn tomorrow." Stepping closer and taking his hand: "I'll get her back, Jared."

She didn't add: or die trying. That was for losers.

"You've got the best chance," Cofflin said, returning a controlled pressure before releasing her. "That's why I waited two days." Hiller could have taken the Eagle west and south. She knew that Cofflin had vetoed that because he trusted her judgment better in a fight.

"They need her alive," she said.

Cofflin nodded, his face unchanging. "That bunch, they'll be lucky to keep alive themselves."

"Right. That's another reason I voted to go after Bentley first. Walker is almost as smart and tough as he thinks he is, and he needs Martins for his skills and Barbara to control Martins with. Lisketter will probably need to be rescued herself."

Cofflin's smile was icy. "Kidnapping's a capital crime, the Town Meeting decided," he said with a tone even colder. "I don't give a shit if she dies down there or hangs back here."

Not much to say to that, Alston thought. Swindapa reached out and touched Cofflin's shoulder.

"I will talk to Moon Woman and ask for a favorable constellation," she said. "The captain already carries great luck for the rescue of those in need, I know."

The edge of Cofflin's narrow Yankee mouth turned up slightly. "Thank you," he said, sounding sincere.

They turned to watch the last cargo going down to the docks, ready to be loaded on Eagle. Bundles of spears, of swords, of crossbow bolts. Suits of armor carried on poles run through the armpits; the sight prickled at Alston, a shadow familiarity… yes, the Bayeaux tapestry.

She hoped that was a good omen; William cognomine bastardus had sailed to victory. She looked eastward, unconscious that her expression was twin to Cofflin's. There was a debt to be paid there too, and she'd always believed in the full, precise, and punctual payment of obligations.

Not least, that this world didn't deserve to have Walker unleashed on it.