The Dancer from Atlantis

XIX

The Russian had built the closest possible copy of a Byzantine capital ship in his own century. Twice as long and thrice as high as Reid’s, it, had two lateen-rigged masts; but today, with the wind foul, it went on a hundred double-banked oars. Its beak tore the waves as if they were enemy hulls. Decked fore and aft, it bore equally outsize catapults. Amidships a pair of booms extended, great boulders suspended at their ends for dropping on hostile crews. Shields were hung on frames at the waist, where the gun-wale dropped low,, to protect the rowers. Above those benches swarmed warriors.

“Alert!” Reid yelled. “Wake, wake!”

His folk dragged themselves from sleep. Dagonas alone seemed to have kept vitality. He bounded to Reid and the Erissas. “What’ll we do?” he cried. “They’re fresh, those dogs. They can raise sail if they choose. We’ll never outrun them. And when we’re caught—” He stared down at the girl and groaned.

“We head for the big vessel,” Reid told him. “Its captain is my friend, who won’t knowingly fight against us. I hope.”

The woman bit her lip. “You youngsters—Well, we must see. Stay close by her, Dagonas.”

She drew Reid aside. “Something will go wrong,” she said bleakly.

“I’m afraid so,” he agreed. “But we’ve no choice, have we? And ... remember our hope. That time travelers, hovering somewhere about, will notice a ship that doesn’t belong in this age and come for a closer inspection. Well, here we have two. His is even more out of place than ours. We must get together with him.”

He cast a glance upward but saw only clouds, gray, brown, and black, piling southward into lightning-shot masses that betokened a new storm. Of course, futurian observers might well have some device for invisibility.

“If we’re not rescued—” he began, and faltered.

“Then we make our way together.” Both their gazes strayed to the couple in the bows, the sleeping, smiling girl and the boy who crouched before her. “Or we die,” Erissa finished. “But those two will live. In the long run, I’ve been lucky. I pray that you have been too.”

The oars ground into motion. It was necessary to intercept the dromon before a lesser galley cut this one off. The Achaeans were widely strewn, in no particular formation—the idea of a real navy would not occur for centuries, now that the only one in the world was gone—but they were bound to notice the peculiar vessel and its obviously Minoan markings. Closing in, they would see that the people aboard were Keftiu, fair game.

The deck rolled. Waves splashed over the rails onto near-naked lads, who rowing must push aside bewildered men, huddled women, wailing children. Wind shrilled and carried the remote sound of thunder.

“You’re not afraid, Duncan, are you?” Erissa asked.

“No,” he said, and was faintly surprised to note that that was true. He thought: Maybe I’ve learned courage from her.

The dromon changed course. Evidently its captain was himself interested in contact. They were gesturing and hailing on that foredeck, but their voices blew away and as yet no individuals were recognizable.

However—“My God!” exploded from Reid. “They’re loading the catapults!”

“That’s our disaster, then,” Erissa said between clenched teeth. “They’ve seen our ram and are afraid.”

A ball of flame, tow soaked in pitch and set ablaze, arced from the Athenian. Reid thought wildly: Must be the closest Oleg could come to Greek fire. “Forward!” he shouted, “We’ve got to close in—show him who we are—”

The first two missiles hissed into the sea. The third smote the upper deck. No persons remained there except Reid’s party and the helmsman. The latter yelled and sprang below. Reid couldn’t blame him much. These tarred and seasoned planks were a tinderbox. Flames gushed. The American jumped down likewise, into chaos. “Row on, row on!” he bawled. “And somebody help me!” He grabbed a bailing bucket, filled it over the side, handed it up to Erissa the woman.

She cast the water across the fire but called, “No use. Another has hit. The wind’s fanning them.”

“Well, get the young ones to the boat!”

“Aye. Erissa, awake. You, Dagonas, follow me.”

They joined Reid in the stern. Amidst rampant confusion, only a couple of men noticed him draw the lifeboat in. Tylisson pushed close and said through the racket, “No room for more than a few in that, skipper.”

Reid nodded. “Only these two will go,” he said, pointing.

“Me, desert you?” Dagonas protested.

Reid met his eyes. “You’re not doing that,” he said.

“You’re serving better than you’ll ever know.” His right hand gripped the boy’s. His left arm went around the shoulders of the girl, who was coming out of her drowse into bewildered and terrified awareness. Overhead, the upper deck roared with its burning. Forward, folk crouched and wailed.

“Brissa,” he said to her, “go. Endure. Know that in the end I’ll call you back to me.” He could merely kiss her on the brow. “Dagonas, never leave her. Farewell.”

The woman briefly embraced her and the lad. They entered the boat. Dagonas stayed troubled at the idea of tak-ing none else along. But before he could speak further, Reid slipped the tow line. Shoved by wind and wave, the craft fell quickly astern. It looked terribly frail and alone. Dagonas worked to step the mast. Before long, smoke of the blazing deck hid him and young Erissa from sight.

“You’re the captain,” Tylisson said, “but may I ask why you let no others go free?”

“I have my reasons,” the American answered. He didn’t give his main one: that whoever might have traveled off was probably better dead than doomed to a slavery from which only the boldest could escape.

The woman said, in a strange tone, “Now we are free.”

Reid thought: Free to die. We didn’t send those kids off just to play out a last act that is also the first, nor even to keep them from becoming the talismans which give the barbarians the will to overrun what’s left of civilization. We sent them off to make certain they’ll live. This ship is done for, and most likely we are ourselves. But I too will keep striving, Erissa.

“Come,” he ordered Tylisson. “Help me bring that panic under control.”

Shouting, cuffing, kicking, they restored a measure of discipline. The Knossians crowded on the midthwarts, the Atlanteans took up oars which, secured by thongs, had not come adrift. The burning vessel picked up new headway.

“Let’s go into the bows and show ourselves,” Reid said to Erissa.

They were now not far from the dromon. Across the blustery space between, blurred by smoke and spindrift, they could make out faces, Dimes, yes, on the foredeck, overseeing a catapult gang; and Oleg, by God, Oleg standing big and byrnied near him. Reid sprang onto the prow rail and clung to the stempost. Heat gnawed at him from the fire behind. “Oleg!” he yelled. “Don’t you know us?”

“Bozhe moi!” the Russian bawled back. “Duncan, Erissa—I wondered—hold off, fellows! Get a boat over there!”

Reid saw Diores shake his head. He could imagine the admiral’s words: “Too dangerous, them. Better we finish them while we can.”

Oleg roared indignation and lifted his ax. Diores snapped a word. A pair of warriors moved to arrest Oleg. His ax whistled. They retreated, Diores called to the rest.

“Hang, on, we’re coming!” Reid shouted. Down the length of the hull, to his rowers and to Ashkel at the steering oar which had been improvised to replace the tiller: “Our last chance. To disable that monster, board, seize their boats!”

Hoarse howls answered him. Muscles writhed under sooty, sweat-smeared skins. The galley plunged ahead. Reid pulled Erissa back to safety.

Oleg, on the dromon, had fought his way to Diores. The Athenian drew blade and lunged at him. Oleg’s ax knocked the sword free. A second, sidewise blow across the breast-plate sent Diores over the side. Cased in bronze, he sank when he struck. Oleg whirled to confront the warriors.

The lesser ship rammed, in a dreadful snapping of oars. Its beak sheared into planks. The fire upon it clutched at the hull and rigging of the dmmon. Reid seized a grapnel, swung it around his head, hooked a rail and went up the rope hand over hand. The thought flitted through him: So both these anachronisms are finished. Nobody’s going to build more in this generation ... not till long afterward, when Achaeans, Argives, Danaans, Dorians have become Greeks and the blood of the old Keftiu seafarers runs in all their veins.

A shining shape descended from the clouds.