The Green Odyssey

11

MIRAN COUGHED and said, «You two and your children and maid must get off the deck and go amidships. That is where you will live. Never again must you set foot upon the steering deck unless you are summoned. I run a tight ship and discipline is strictly adhered to.»

Green followed Amra and the children down the steps to the deck below, noticing for the first time that Inzax, the pretty blond slave who took care of the children, was also aboard. You had to give credit to Amra. Wherever she went she traveled in style.

He also thought that if this was a tight ship a loose one must be sheer chaos. Cats and dogs were running here and there, playing with the many infants, or else fighting with each other. Women sat and sewed or hung up washing or dried dishes or nursed babies. Hens clucked defiantly from behind the bars of their coops, scattered everywhere. On the port side there was even a pigpen holding about thirty of the tiny rabbit-eared porcines.

Green followed Amra to a place where an awning had been stretched to make a roof.

«Isn't this nice?» she said. «It has sides which we can pull down when it rains or when we want privacy, as I suppose we will, you being so funny in some ways.»

«Oh, it's delightful,» he hastened to assure her, «I see you even have some feather mattresses. And a cookstove.»

He looked around. «But where are the fish tanks? I thought Miran was going to bolt them to the deck?»

«Oh, no, he said that they were too valuable to expose to gunfire if we encountered pirates. So he had the deck cut open wide enough to lower the tanks inside the hold. Then the deck planking was replaced. Most of these people here would be sleeping below if it weren't for the tanks. But there's no room now.»

Green decided to take a look around. He liked to have a thorough knowledge of his immediate environment so that he would know how to behave if an emergency arose.

The windroller itself was about two hundred feet long. Its beam was about thirty-four feet. The hull was boat-shaped, and the narrow keel rested on fourteen axles. Twenty-eight enormous solid rubber-tired wheels turned at the ends of these axles. Thick ropes of the tough rubber-like substance were tied to the ends of the axles and to the tops of the hull itself. These were to hold the body steady and keep it from going over when the 'roller reeled under too strong a side wind and also to provide some resiliency when the 'roller was making a turn. Being aboard at such times was almost like being on a water-sailing ship. As the front pair of wheels-the steering wheels-turned and the longitudinal axis of the craft slowly changed direction, the body of the vessel, thrust by the shifting impact of the winds, also tilted. Not too far, never as far as a boat in similar case, but enough to give one an uneasy feeling. The cables on the opposing side would stretch to a degree and then would stop the sidewise motion of the keel and there would be a slight and slow roll to the other direction. Then a shorter and slower motion back again. It was enough to make a novice green. 'Roller sickness wasn't uncommon at the beginning of a voyage or during a violent windstorm. Like its aqueous counterpart, it affected the sufferer so that he could only hang over the rail and wish he would die.

The Bird of Fortune sported a curving bow and a high foredeck. On this was fastened the many-spoked steering wheel. Two helmsmen always attended it, two men wearing hexagonal goggles and close-fitting leather helmets with high crests of curled wire. Behind them stood the captain and first mate, giving their attention alternately to the helmsmen and to the sailors on deck and aloft. The middeck was sunken, and the poopdeck, though raised, was not as high as the foredeck.

The four masts were tall, but not as tall as those of a marine craft of similar size. High masts would have given the 'roller a tendency to capsize in a very strong wind, despite the weight of the axles and wheels. Therefore, the yardarms, reaching far out beyond the sides of the hull, were comparatively longer than a seaship's. When the Bird carried a full weight of canvas she looked, to a mariner's eyes, squat and ungainly. Moreover, yards had been fixed at right angles to the top of the hull and to the keel itself. Extra canvas was hung between these spars. The sight of all that sail sticking from between the wheels was enough to drive an old sailor to drink.

Three masts were square-rigged. The aft mast was fore-and-aft rigged and was used to help the steering. There was no bowsprit.

Altogether, it was a strange-looking craft. But once one was accustomed to it, one saw it was as beautiful as a ship of the sea.

It was as formidable, too, for the Bird carried five large cannon on the middeck, six cannon on the second deck, a lighter swivel cannon on the steering deck, and two swivels on the poopdeck.

Hung from davits were two long liferollers and a gig, all wheeled and with folding masts. If the Bird was wrecked it could be abandoned and all the crew could scoot off in the little rollers.

Green wasn't given much time for inspection. He became aware that a tall, lean sailor was regarding him intently. This fellow was dark-skinned but had the pale blue eyes of the Tropat hillsmen. He moved like a cat and wore a long, thin dagger, sharp as a claw. A nasty customer, thought Green.

Presently, the nasty customer, seeing that Green was not going to notice him, walked in front of him so that he could not help being annoyed. At the same time, the babble around them died and everybody turned his head to stare.

«Friend,» said Green, affably enough, «would you mind standing off to one side? You are blocking my view.»

The fellow spat grixtr juice at Green's feet.

«No slave calls me friend. Yes, I am blocking your view, and I would mind getting out of the way.»

«Evidently you object to my presence here,» said Green. «What is the matter? You don't like my face?»

«No, I don't. And I don't like to have as a crewmate a stinking slave.»

«Speaking of odors,» said Green, «would you please stand to leeward of me. I've been through a lot lately and I've a delicate stomach.»

«Silence, you son of an izzot!» roared the sailor, red-faced, «Have respect toward your betters, or I'll strike you down and throw your body overboard.»

«It takes two to make a murder, just as it takes two to make a bargain,» said Green in a loud voice, hoping that Miran would hear and be reminded of his promise of protection. But Miran shrugged his shoulders. He had done as much as he could. It was up to Green to make his way from now on.

«It is true that I am a slave,» he said. «But I was not born one. Before being captured I was a freeman who knew liberty as none of you here know it. I came from a country where there were no masters because every man was his own master.

«However, that is neither here nor there. The point is that I earned my freedom, that I fought like a warrior, not a slave, to get aboard the Bird. I wish to become a crew member, to become a blood-brother to the Clan Effenycan.»

«Ah, indeed, and what can you contribute to the Clan that we should consider you worthy of sharing our blood?»

What indeed? Green thought. The sweat broke out all over his body, though the morning wind was cool.

At that moment he saw Miran speak to a sailor, who disappeared below decks and come out almost at once carrying a small harp in his hand. Oh, yes, now he remembered that he had told the captain what a wonderful harpist and singer he was, just the man that the Clan, eager for entertainment on the long voyages, would be likely to initiate.

The unfortunate thing about that was that Green couldn't play a note.

Nevertheless he took the instrument from the sailor and gravely plucked its strings. He listened to the tones, frowned, adjusted the pegs, plucked them again, then handed the harp back.

«Sorry, this is an inferior instrument,» he said haughtily. «Haven't you anything better? I couldn't think of degrading my art on such a cheap monstrosity.»

«Gods above!» screamed a man standing nearby. «That is my harp you are talking about, the beloved harp of me, the bard Grazoot! Slave! Tone-deaf son of a laryngiteal mother! You will answer to me for that insult!»

«No,» said the sailor, «this is my affair. I, Ezkr, will test this lubber's fitness to join the Clan and be called brother.»

«Over my dead body, brother!»

«If you so wish it, brother!»

There were more angry words until presently Miran himself came down to the middeck. «By Mennirox, this is a disgrace.» he bellowed. «Two Effenycan quarreling before a slave! Come, make a decision quietly, or I will have you both thrown overboard. It is not too far to walk back to Quotz.»

«We will cast dice to see who is the lucky man,» said the sailor, Ezkr. Grinning gap-toothedly, he reached into the pouch that hung from his belt, and pulled out the hexagonal ivories. A few minutes later he rose from his knees, having won four out of six throws. Green was disappointed mere than he cared to show, for he had hoped that if he had to fight anybody it would be the pudgy, soft-looking harpist, not the tough sailor.

Ezkr seemed to agree with Green that he could not have had worse luck. Chewing grixtr so rapidly that the green-flecked slaver ran down his long chin, Ezkr announced the terms that the blond slave would have to meet to prove his fitness.