185
New Sea
“So, my lord, where would you go?” Elizabeth asked gaily. They stood on the foredeck of HMS
Resolute, watching as seamen scrambled up the lines to their positions, awaiting the order to loose sail. A refreshing breeze off the sea, from the northeast, cooled them – for now; once moving with the wind, and with the promised late morning shift of wind, it would be, as was all too familiar, like a sauna.
Rigel laughed. “I only know three places – I’ve heard of Barregarrow, Bobrinskigrad, and Far Londinium. They make me think of hobbits, Russians, and Romans. What other fun names that don’t sound British do you have?” He realized the cause of her slightly puzzled look. “Ah – hobbits; you don’t know hobbits. Um....”
Rita came to his rescue. “At least three copies came on the journey, Rigel. I can find one to loan. Lady Meriel, reading the book will explain better than Rigel could.” That left Rigel opening and closing his mouth in protest as the two ladies laughed.
“I look forward to reading of hobbits”, Elizabeth declared. “Until then, I will associate them with Barregarrow, which actually is quite British, from the Isle of Man in the old world.” She pronounced it “Bare-garroo”, not quite the way MacNeil had said it with more of a long “o” sound, which Rigel had copied.
“Captain, we’ll begin with Barregarrow”, she ordered.
“How long will that take?” asked Rigel, who had no conception of the size of the Sea or arrangement of the islands.
“Helmsman, time to Barregarrow anchorage, please”, called Captain Heath. His voice was a clear baritone on deck, in contrast to tenor in his normal conversation. Rigel wondered if baritone carried better on a ship.
“Should be twenty-two, even twenty-four hours”, Kevin MacNeil commented, judging based on his experience of the Sea.
The helmsman had a different judgment. “I make it eighteen hours, sir!” MacNeil’s eyes went wide, but he knew better than to butt in on a ship’s business.
Heath nodded thoughtfully. “Your course?”
“Bearing two points north of north approach to Port Robert, then toward Durham when the wind shifts, coming about half an hour past Kittle, sir!”
The captain considered less than a second, then nodded once. “Make it so, helm.” He turned to Elizabeth. “Lady Meriel, we won’t make Barregarrow by nightfall, but you’ll be able to sleep at anchor.”
“Thank you, captain”, Elizabeth replied, but her grin was for MacNeil. “Well?” she asked.
Her Special Representative shook his head in wonder. “On that course, it should be twenty hours with a perfect wind!” His eyebrows drew together. “The lines of her bow – that wasn’t my imagination;
Resolute’s a new design!” Kevin dashed to the rail and looked over. “That curve – she clips through the water, doesn’t she? And makes, what – ten, twelve knots?”
“She did thirteen and a quarter running before a stiff wind”, Captain Heath said proudly. “
Resolute is the future, m’lord!”
Rigel winced but said nothing. Once Ryan and Devon had their railroad through to the Constant Hills, this would be the next goal, and once the railroad reached here, they’d have the first ship running on steam within a year, was Rigel’s bet.
Resolute might be the future for now, but it was going to be a quick reign. Not that sail would immediately vanish; the ships were too much an investment to be done away with before they wore out – though his guess was many would be converted. Then he grimaced inwardly: none of that would happen unless they got a source of metal!
A vibration under his feet brought Rigel’s attention back to the ship. Above, sails were dropping, at least the two levels nearest the deck. Catching the wind, they rippled, passing that to the masts as vibration, which he felt in the deck. Peripheral vision told him they were moving, just creeping. Memories of Ryan talking about overcoming the friction of sitting still came to mind, and he wondered if that even counted for a floating ship. Either way, it had to take a lot of energy to get something this size moving.
“Three hundred eighty tons”, Lady Meriel informed him. “Not the kingdom’s largest ship.”
“But its fastest, right?” Rigel asked with a smile. Meriel seemed to have Rita’s talent of knowing what he was thinking; or maybe it was what someone unfamiliar with ships would obviously be thinking when aboard one that had just started moving. “What about length and width?”
“Fifty meters at waterline, fifty-four deck length. Thirteen meters at midships. And yes, Lord MacNeil, a new design. I put some gold into her – may I not be proud?”
It was the tease she used in not-quite private, the Elizabeth Kevin knew so well. “Please, call me Kevin”, he requested, knowing how hard she was working to not call him that. “And yes, you can be proud – the whole kingdom can be proud!”
“You don’t have anything that fast?” Rita asked. “What about the couriers?”
MacNeil laughed. “Couriers are built to be nothing but fast! They can’t carry cargo, they sport cannon so small there are men who can lift one. Of course this isn’t as fast as a courier – but no frigate has ever moved like this!”
Antonio turned from watching the shore go by a little more quickly every couple of seconds. “Why all the guns? You don’t have any enemies here, do you?”
Elizabeth and Kevin looked at each other. Kevin took the question. “There are foreigners to the south. They have their own sea, smaller than the Sea. Their ships are strange, their language one we have never learned. They stay on their side of the straits, we stay on ours. But once or more a generation, one side or the other will test the other’s determination, which usually ends in cannon fire exchanged.
“But the greater reason is without guns, our ships would not be Fleet. By being Fleet, we have persevered. We keep discipline and pride by being Fleet. These days, many girls also try their hand at being sailors. The ones who become officers, though, come from the ranks of the Amazons, nearly always.”
“Like Marlys Chalmers”, Rigel said.
“Exactly.” Kevin grinned, trading glances with Elizabeth. “Your Druid could ask for no better captain for his adventure than an Amazon.”
“Daring and brave”, Rita stated. “Are they really deadly warriors?”
Elizabeth laughed out loud. “Lord Kevin said he gave you a copy of Bennington’s
Account! Did you not read it?”
“Of course. But things change”, Rita replied.
“Not in Lost Britain”, MacNeil averred firmly. “We experience change, but all has been toward recovering all we had lost.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “Not all. Britain of the old world had no ships this fast.”
Kevin rolled his eyes. “We’re not sure of that. We only know that none of the ships any of our ancestors served on were this fast.
Resolute is faster than any we know of – but we do not know everything.”
“So it’s active tradition, then”, Rita mused. “Not just remembering, but striving to match. But what happens when you match it? or surpass it? What happens to your anchor as Fleet, the Fleet your ancestors hailed from?”
Elizabeth and Kevin looked at her, pondering seriously. But Captain Heath spoke up. “I think you, or your lord Rigel, are the answer to that. I heard of the battle at the Wall. Your rifles are better than the old world had; perhaps your cannon as well. Your Druids... to us they are tales from tales of the old world, yet with you they are real, and powerful, bringing new life into the world, shaking the world. I think these are not the end of the wonders you have to show us.” His gaze was calm, his face showing honesty.
“We do have a few things”, Rita answered before Rigel could begin. “Though, even among friends – a price.”
Rigel gave her a disgusted look; to the side, Antonio gave a short laugh. “Some cheaper than others”, Rigel managed. “If it aids in fighting the Aliens – cheaper.”
“Certainly do not give such things away!” Elizabeth declared. “Yet – this means your rifles, and your cannon – they can be bought?”
Landon had drifted up while Captain Heath had been speaking; now he joined in. “There’s a slight problem with that”, he noted, plucking a harp string. “Everywhere we go, iron is in short supply.”
MacNeil cursed silently – one of his hopes had been that his new friends would have iron! “Bard, we can’t help there. Our ore is so poor now, petitions come to Parliament to melt down cannon!”
“You’ll do that anyway”, Rita told him, “but just to turn them into better cannon. Rigel, did the wizards say how much metal they think can be saved?”
Rigel thought back to the conversations at the Wall and on the docks. “Between five and ten percent. It could be more, with the right alloys. Which reminds me – lord and lady, Kevin and Meriel, my wizards would like a look at your metal processes, from getting it out of ore to turning it into weapons or tools.”
“There are some smithies and foundries in Port Shaugnessey and Sidmuth, but no refining or smelting”, MacNeil responded. “Those facilities are on the islands, where your wizards may not go.”
“Better than nothing”, Rigel said. “The point is, they want to see how you do things, and teach steps toward being better.”
“He’s not guessing”, Rita added. “Believe me – our wizards are decades ahead of what you have.”
“You say that without seeing what we have”, Elizabeth observed. “Such confidence.”
“The products tell much of the processes”, Landon pointed out. “That your rifling is poor, that your barrels are not as straight – that says your precision is not what Lord Rigel’s wizards have, or you wish. This is no disparagement; it is merely truth. And it is important truth, because Lord Rigel would have you able to face such an attack on the Wall twice as great as what came, and not lose a man.”
“What price lords would pay, for such weapons!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “No, not for battle”, she told the northerners, “but for prestige. Lords sponsor ships, as I have sponsored
Resolute; ships compete.” She laughed. “In my grandfather’s time, an inventive engineer devised cannonballs which cannot harm a ship, but which make great orange marks where they strike – since, there are sea contests much like battles.” The delight left her expression. “Men are even killed, from time to time.”
“Which is why the king then forced Parliament to require that no man without a son may serve in such battles, and no woman without a daughter”, Kevin related. “Rigel, you have seen Bennington’s little book. What it does not fully make clear concerning the First Crew is that every effort was made that every man in that crew should have offspring. That is the foundation of the Amazons’ commitment to the kingdom: whatever service is required for our survival. Then, they were mothers, and little more, each having baby after baby, as quickly as possible, and as quickly as resources could support. Thus came a tradition as strong as law with us: every man and every woman must reproduce.”
“Which doesn’t always succeed”, Elizabeth went on. “Some men are sterile, some women are barren. When there is a marriage with no children, each spouse is required to try with someone else. The one who is found sterile receives a pension, because he, or she, must be parent to children not of his, or her, body.”
“Rigel – Lumina?” Rita asked softly.
He shrugged. “Might as well – Kevin saw her in action anyway.” He turned to Elizabeth. “Lumina Knay’zee can mend some sterility. If she can find students here, then–“
Elizabeth raised a hand regally. “Knay’zee – this is what became of Kennessee! The woman made her name a title!” Looking at Kevin, she rolled her eyes.
“Maybe not”, he disagreed. “Her name may have been taken as a title. Remember, before they were cast out, her followers were being taunted as ‘Kennessees’. And if you take ‘Elizabeth Kennessee’ and give it some lilt and twist from the Old Tongue, it can become ‘Elzbeth Knay’zee’. She may have just taken the taunt and made it a taunt right back.”
“Elzbédt Knay’zee”, Rita informed them. “I don’t know if she did that, or some of her followers, or the Celts. But they reached the Celts.”
“And changed history”, Antonio asserted. “Without the Healers, the Celts would have lost to the Others – the Aliens. Just ask Anaph”, he told his fellow Snatched. “If it hadn’t been for the Healers, there wouldn’t have been enough Druids still alive for the battle at the Valley mouth to have meant anything.”
“Wow – without Lord Escobar, the Druids wouldn’t have been able to do their thing; without the Healers, there wouldn’t have been enough Druids to do it?” Rigel wondered. “Talk about just the right pieces!”
“History is full of that, Rye”, Rita lectured. “Events where just the wrong piece was missing, or just the right one was there, are the things that make turning points. Then we arrived – and we seem to be a turning point, no?”
“Yeah”, Rigel conceded, uncomfortable because such talk always seemed to come to how important he was to it all. “What about Lost Britain?” he asked, shifting the focus.
“An incredibly important piece”, Landon pronounced with a deep strummed chord. “They have craftsmen who can make thousands of good rifles, once shown how, and hundreds of cannon. And they live in homes the Foe -- the Aliens -- cannot reach.” He emphasized that with a strong, proud sort of chord. “And at the Wall, they showed that they can face the Alien Foe – and win.” His chords at the end were triumphant. “Indeed, m’lord, m’lady” – he did two quick bows – “when you speak to your Queen and Parliament of this, be certain to say: we lost not an hundred, but they lost ten thousand.”
“Was it really that high?” Elizabeth asked.
“Probably”, Rigel replied. “Not at the wall itself, but with the bodies along the shores where your fleet clobbered them, and back in the woods where Kevin and I slaughtered more than a few – probably.”
“It’s hard to count when the bodies you’re hauling away are in bits and pieces or burned to ashes”, Antonio pointed out. “My guesstimate – your ships killed maybe two thousand. Colonel MacNeil and I did for probably three thousand. At the wall itself, I think Major – should be ‘Sir’; that man was amazing” – Rita and Rigel chuckled – “accounted for nearly two thousand before we got there. After that, it’s messy, because we really tore them up, but at least another two thousand, and probably more. So – call it ten thousand.”
“It’s probably some Alien number like nine times ten times eleven times twelve”, a familiar voice quipped.
“Which, Squire Austin”, Elizabeth demanded in a very schoolteacher-like voice, “is how many?”
Austin laughed and shrugged. “Closer to twelve thousand than to ten. Abaca would know.”
“And why would they choose such a number?”
Rigel’s squire stared. “Because they’re Aliens – they won’t do things the way we do! They probably count different, I bet they have kids different, they sure eat different, with those mouths! Their fortresses are different, they learn different – they’re so different that to them this might not even be a war!”
That brought laughter all around. Landon’s, though, was thoughtful.
“Master Druid, unless you can give me a great light, in a quarter hour we’re anchoring”, Marlys Chalmers informed Anaph. I’m not running that flood in the dark.” The moon had gone into its period of hiding two days earlier, though to Earth-born eyes the stars were like a full moon. “She’s not responding well; her hull’s not clean.”
“That faint shudder?” Kandath asked.
Chalmers looked at the Druid sharply. “You can feel that? You’re no seaman!”
“I like wood – I’ve been feeling the ship’s wood. It gets a shudder.” While the junior Druid explained to the Commander, Anaph took a step sideways. Sailors watched intently as he let go his staff, leaving it to stand, something that had caused uneasy mutters the first time they’d seen it. The Druid’s attention, though, was for the ship: resting his right hand on the stern mast and reached out to sense the vessel’s hull as Kandath had been doing.
“The ship is covered in living things!” Anaph exclaimed. “They really don’t like moving this fast”, he commented with less energy.
Commander Chalmers rolled her eyes. “Of course it’s covered! Barnacles and lots of other things in the Sea like living on flat surfaces. A ship’s hull sits in the water, it gets covered just like rocks do. Little by little, a ship gets slower, until its time to scrape it.”
“How close can you get to shore?” Anaph asked, making her blink.
“Why should I get any closer?” Chalmers demanded.
“Ahead – that rocky stretch. Your barnacles and things could live there.” She looked totally blank. “Captain, I’m going to tell them to let go”, the Druid explained. “If I drop them here, they’ll sink and die. By that stone it isn’t as deep, and they can live.”
Marlys blinked twice and shook herself. “They’d have a chance, anyway. Druid, if you can clean my hull without lifting her out of the water, you’ll save me two weeks of agony! So I’ll get you close to those rocks – it’ll be slow, though, since–“
“The water’s deep enough”, Anaph informed her. “But don’t turn away until a hundred meters past the last cliff part – there’s a submerged boulder as big as the ship.”
“This is crazy”, Chalmers muttered. “All right – I’ll trust you, because your lord said so.” She grinned. “A fast pass by a short cliff – fun!” Then she turned and gave orders for the altered course.
Ocean’s head poked into the small cabin. “Rita? There’s something you need to hear.”
Rita regarded the paper in front of her, and shook her head. “Come on in – I can’t write with the ship moving like this.”
Ocean ducked in, a quizzical smile on her face. “It isn’t moving that bad”, she stated.
Rita chuckled. “No, it doesn’t make my pencil move, it messes with my thoughts. The ship moves like it’s alive – it’s distracting, and my sentences... well, I can’t concentrate. So, let me guess – a vision?”
Ocean shrugged. “Vision, dream, whatever. Rita, Rigel’s going to be a king.”
Rita laughed softly. “I can tell that! He’s going to have to outrank a duke or two pretty soon.”
“It’s going to drive him crazy. I saw – he was yelling at people for not getting things done fast enough. He was yelling at people for working on useless things. I think... I think he felt trapped, and with nothing to hang onto.”
Rita didn’t press for details; she’d learned that Ocean knew what she knew, and to push just made her less clear about anything. “Okay, lets look at the last part – something to hang on to. Guesses?”
Ocean pursed her lips and sucked breath through her nose, making a sort of whistling sound that Rita found annoying, but in a way endearing. “He’s happy when he’s traveling. He gets moody when he has to stay somewhere.”
“I’ve noticed that”, Rita agreed. “It was that way, what you saw, too?” Ocean nodded. Rita stood and rotated, loosening her shoulders after the extended attempts at writing. “Okay, when he’s out traveling, things – no, we have complex schedules and details on the trail, too; he just doesn’t complain as much.”
“He complains about wagons”, Ocean offered with a chuckle.
“Yes – no, he also is happy about wagons”, Rita realized, “because we can bring lots of supplies – it’s the speed he doesn’t like.
“For sure – he said he could mountain bike faster”, Ocean agreed.
“Mountain bike – that’s it!” Rita dropped back onto the small bench. “When we travel, it’s like camping – he enjoys himself at it and doesn’t complain about inconvenience, because that’s part of the experience. But when he settles in one place.... Deep down, I think he hasn’t accepted the loss of our world. He wants things to be like they were. But they won’t be, no matter how hard he pushes. So he gets angry – it’s all alien, and he wants it to be like home.
“So he needs things like home....” She turned her sheet of paper over and picked up the pencil. “Okay – what are some things from home we can aim for?”
Bishop Theodoro dropped back in his seat. “No”, he whispered.
“Yes”, his visitor, a very rugged-looking woman apparently of some means. “In six cities I know, when people say, ‘Our bishop’, they mean the one in their local cathedral, but when they say, ‘The Bishop’, they mean the one in Pueblo Corazon dos Reyes. And you are he.”
“I sought no such burden!” Reflexively he turned to look at the two dozen children playing quietly in his private garden.
The woman facing him shrugged. His centurion smiled slightly; the unconcern of others as to how his bishop had come to his position was nothing new, but this woman had it more... purely, he decided – than others. “That’s between you and God. I have been weeks, now, carefully making my way here with these young ones, keeping them free from slavers, guarding them from beasts, making sure they were fed and warm” – not that warmth had been a problem lately; the Quistador plateau in summer was warmer at night than the warmest hall’s warmest room in winter – “and that their hurts were tended to. If you cannot help them, I may as well go to the slavers now, and at least have silver from my efforts.”
The bishop’s face went white. “If a jest, that was poor taste”, Tacito Vargas cautioned, tapping her shoulder, “and if a threat – threats given in this room have no force.”
The woman sighed. “My apologies. I’m tired and worn.” She definitely didn’t look it. “My whole thought has been getting them all here safely, where you would wrap your arms around them, bishop, and I would return home. I forgot that bishops sent by God must be as human as others.”
Theodoro managed a wan smile. “There are so many! Two or three, I could manage easily; this...” – he shook his head – “This s a challenge. Can you not remain until homes are found?”
She almost lied by claiming she was overdue, but as she’d already learned, there was no lying to those eyes. “A few days”, she conceded. “But I have duties....”
Vargas was watching the children, and other than his constant alertness, his mind had wandered. “Bishop, there is that abandoned house, out the south road – it would serve for a home.”
Theodoro followed his centurion’s thought. “It would – for these, and more.” He sighed. “I must brave the Count’s clerks....”
The woman actually laughed, a musical sound contrasting with her tough appearance. “I can brave those clerks”, she asserted, “except that they will be the ones in need of bravery. You need the title cleared?”
Theodoro adjusted his opinion of her. “Yes. Tacito can explain the particulars. Yet – Centurion, will they not have need of someone to take charge?” He didn’t take his eyes off the one who had taken charge of the children since the day after a distant Count had been deposed. She stiffened.
“Indeed, bishop. I think their ‘aunt’ so far may have means to find such a person, if you know of none.”
Theodoro shook his head. “I know of one, but I don’t think she’d do for these children, not after their journey here.” From his visitor’s tale they’d grown up fast, learning self-reliance, trust, cooperation, and confidence beyond their years. “I defer to your resources”, he concluded with a nod to his visitor.
The crew worked silently, starlight and experience sufficing to manage lines and sails. Commander Chalmers stood by the helm, staring forward not at their course, but at the silhouette of the Druid at the prow, a beam of pale light showing the way ahead.
Mercury’s Blade responded beautifully to the lightest touch on the great wheel, slicing through the water like her name implied, with no trace of vibration or drag. The evening sea breeze was dying; it was one of those days when it would be calm until an hour after sunset, and then the land breeze would start, blowing the wrong way for this passage, but the current already had them. She gave a glance to the shore where the great cables and rollers once used to get sloops into the lakes sat unneeded, wondering briefly if they could be adapted to get a ship back
out. A practiced eye judged the opening at a hundred sixty meters wide – and even as she estimated, a section of cliff to port broke, twisted, and majestically sank into the great swirling waves along the edge. Chalmers shuddered at the thought of trying to sail something like that; fortunately, with
Mercury’s narrow beam, they had plenty of space between the ten or twelve meter wide maelstrom to either side, and the V pointing down-current was clear of the least froth on its rolling waves.
The helmsman made a tiny adjustment, reacting to a change in the water’s surface.. Chalmers had seen it, too, her mind registering the submerged obstacle indicated by the rough disturbance in the smooth flow. She didn’t have to think, really, to judge it as something buoyant but caught, bobbing unseen save for the indication plain to a knowing eye. “Shorten sail”, she called out softly to the deck leftenant, trusting him to get the specifics correct. Their speed was enough that soon the sails would actually be slowing them – this she understood after giving the order based on recognition of conditions on a level apart from conscious thought.
When she returned her attention to the bow, surprise struck: the Druid wasn’t there – but the light still was! She’d just remembered how he could make his staff stay upright in one place by itself when Anaph’s head rose up as he climbed to the low quarterdeck. He wore a big grin.
“Big enough light?” he asked.
His positive attitude was contagious: Chalmers laughed. “By the good saints, Druid, it is! You rot decks, shake the earth, clean my hull as we sail, and give a lamp to my course!”
“By the first mast, look at our speed!” the helmsman exclaimed as the two, Druid and captain, stood grinning. They turned to see the near shore flying by. “We’re in it now – Lord and Lady, we’re on thirty knots!” Briefly Anaph wished Oran were along, then wondered....
“Dugal!” he called out.
“Above”, came the reply. Anaph looked up to see the Scout perched halfway up the mast. “I heard. I’m can’t tell so well as Oran, but... not quite so fast as the wheelman says, like a twelfth part less”, he finished after a long pause. “But we’re speeding.”
The Celt meant they were gaining speed, an observation with which the helmsman agreed. “
Mercury’s no meant for this”, Chalmers muttered a minute later.
Yahala stepped in with a comment. “Most of the ship’s speed is the water’s speed”, she asserted. “Scout Dugal, what speed against the water? It carries us along; how do we move through it?” It was a clumsy way to put the question, but then her studies hadn’t taken her into physics.
Dugal frowned. “Anaph, I can’t see the water well”, he called down. A moment later the light from the staff at the ship’s bow swept around to cover the starboard side. All eyes saw a log coming, then slipping by. “I see some ten, perhaps eleven knots”, he called much later, after the first log had vanished and a patch of floating vegetation drifted past – or rather they had forged ahead past it. “The wind’s shifting”, he observed in the next second.
Chalmers looked up at him sharply. “I can’t feel it. Lookout!” she yelled. “How goes the wind?”
“‘Tis near calm, captain”, the reply sang out. “A touch from a-fore, mayhap.”
Commander Chalmers shook her head. “Druid, what say you?”
“Scout Dugal’s right – it’s starting to shift. Really, it’s almost not blowing, measured by the land, except along the channel here. Once we’re done racing down, we’ll start fighting it.”
“Mayhap every ship needs a Druid”, Marlys stated, a bit sarcastically. “Always, I’m near the first to feel a change!”
Anaph chuckled. “You feel it
here – Dugal and I sense farther out.” The Druid wondered if that were an emerging Scout gift; he’d never noticed any Druid spark in Dugal.
The ship’s commander stared at him a moment, then shrugged. “If you can shake the earth, why not know what the wind will do?” she posed softly, following it with a chuckle.
“Romantic, isn’t it?” Rita asked softly. She sat with Rigel where they and the other Vortex Snatched had decided to pitch their bedrolls, on the foredeck. “No moon, but the stars here are gorgeous! And no light pollution, either.”
“I could wish we had light pollution”, Rigel responded seriously. “It would mean we had electricity – and if we were that far along, I wouldn’t worry much about the war with the Others; we’d be so far ahead of them.” He scanned the sky where his eye had caught a flash of light. “Shooting star!”
“Then you’d wish for an air force”, she teased.
“We’ll have one, now. The wizards say that British cloth is tight enough. Ryan already picked a wood for the frame – we can build dirigibles.”
“And power them with what?” she inquired, equally serious. “Steam engines? People pedaling?”
“I’m hoping our wizards can make a fuel for regular engines.”
“Internal combustion? I didn’t think we were that far along on machining – that takes precision.”
Rigel smiled. “I said I was hoping”, he answered.
Commodore Howe considered cursing over the new message, this from what was unofficially being called “the lakes”. But the message before it, still centered on his desk, was too good to get upset over this: six more ships were coming, to stay under his command. Yet that merely accented the annoyance of this news.
“Word is to go to Lord MacNeil”, he recounted, dropping the form. “But Lord MacNeil is off playing guide for the Lady Meriel’s tour.”
His aide nodded. “While your two fastest vessels are off on errands”, he commiserated. “Who shall I send, sir?”
Howe chuckled gruffly. “None, Thomas. Chalmers will take it when she comes back. Oh, don’t look at me like that – she’s just mad enough to think of running back up that current anyway, and when she sees this from the stations, or gets it from Shaugnessey, she’ll be determined.” Glancing out the window, he scratched at his chin. “I’m not forgetting that she bears along a man who shakes the earth, rots decks, and turns Alien corpses into fertile soil. I’d give her decent odds to get out by herself – with him along? They’ll find a way.”
“Ma’am, lookout says the fort’s abandoned.” The midshipman looked puzzled. “Says it looks black and gray inside, where buildings should be.”
Chalmers saw two possibilities. “Either Aliens attacked and they were overrun, or Aliens attacked and they turned it into a trap. If the first, there’s nothing we can do. If the second, we’ll find them most likely gone to Fort Narrows. Captain Shaugnessey’s out here somewhere; he’ll certainly know. So for now – Master Druid, we’re at your bidding. You’re certain of that island?”
Anaph nodded. “Yes. It’s cut off.” He didn’t frown at the nest item, though she did when she heard it. “There are people there – maybe a hundred. Maybe from the fort. Anyway, we turn before the island, to go south, then back into the bay. I need to look over the dike from close on the way by.” He looked distant for a moment. “Not too close – it isn’t quite stable now. But that just means I have to break it soon.”
“We make best speed, then. We should see your dike about lunchtime.”
“Thank God and His Son”, the engineer said softly. The message in his hand said that Engineer Devon was on his way. The reason for that was to be regretted, but the result wasn’t. They’d followed instructions, but this project – damming in a sea! – was far beyond anything any Briton had done in generations. “How’s the leak?”
“Like a river. We’re dumping overburden down the outside, and still pumping sludge down the inside. Thought we had it a bit ago, we did; it all stopped to a muddy trickle, but then burst loose in just a minute.”
The engineer ran down his options again, but didn’t see anything else to do. “We’re out of sand?”
“Aye, and pea gravel. And almost of the small gravel.” Part of the effort to plug the leak had been to use muddy water to see where the current was, and dump material they’d hoped would be sucked in and plug whatever hole there was. “But it’s an even game – the flow isn’t increasing.”
“No point in dumping small gravel if the flow’s that heavy. Put some overburden down the inside – maybe those bits and pieces will make themselves into a seal.”
The junior engineer saluted and left on the run. His senior looked out at the spreading lake beyond the dam – with two more past it, by Scout reports. “Well, that Druid means to break the dam anyway, he does”, he said to no one in particular. “Having a good deal of water out there already won’t hurt, that I can see.” His gaze turned to the steady movement of wagons along the dam, where men would die if the thing broke. “All we have to do is hold it.”
“How did you sleep, my lord?” The musical voice was Lady Meriel, already on the deck before Rigel – before he awoke, though she wouldn’t tell him that.
“It’s sort of like a waterbed”, he replied, then laughed at himself. “In our homeland, people make great bags like mattresses, and put them inside frames. Filled with water – well, a lot of people find sleeping on water very restful. This was a little like it, except the rocking wasn’t so... immediate.”
She favored him with a smile and a light laugh. “You feel the rocking of the ship in a calm anchorage! Either you are sensitive to the sea, or a hopeless landlubber.”
“Hardly a landlubber”, Rita chimed in, thinking of escapades from college days. “Sensitive to the sea? I think he’s sensitive to anything soothing and gentle, these days.”
Meriel looked concerned. “You are under strain, my lord?”
Rigel laughed. “Always – I think it comes from being alive. Really, I’m mostly worried about not getting back before winter. I appointed Ryan my regent, but....”
Her gaze was penetrating; it made him want to squirm. “You trust him, but neither of you enjoy being apart. You are connected, deeply.” She crossed the distance between them as she spoke, in proper ladylike steps, then her left hand landed lightly on his shoulder. “It is good to have such a friend for your right hand. If your departure is late, be assured, we will do all we can to make your return possible despite the weather.”
Rigel heard deep confidence in her resources, in that feminine voice, and felt reassured. “Thank you, Lady Meriel. I am grateful for the offer.”
“We can always travel light, Rigel.” The voice was Austin’s. “Titanium and Anaph and the Scouts will get us through anything.” Seeing Lumina coming up on deck, he added, “And the Healers, when something goes wrong.”
“Planning on getting in trouble, squire?” Lumina’s voice was teasing. She turned her attention to Meriel. “Barregarrow is a healthy place, Lady Meriel. I would like to see it.”
Elizabeth showed no reaction to the claim Lumina had made. “I’m sorry, but that is not permitted. And if they are healthy, they hardly need a Healer.” There wasn’t an individual on the
Resolute who doubted Lumina was what her friends said, not since she’d gotten disgusted at seeing a string of cases of a rash the evening before, when crew had lined up for their ration of wine. On seeing the ninth case, she’d grabbed the man, nearly spilling his drink, pushed up his sleeve, concentrated, and banished the affliction on the spot. Ignoring the captain, she’d gone from one person to the next, Healing not only the rash, but scrapes and bruises and cuts, headaches and sore muscles – with lectures about stretching to avoid injury – and one cracked rib, the last with an admonition to settle matters before it came to fighting... And when questioned on that by the deck officer, she’d said not a word, claiming Healer’s seal. “When Parliament has discussed the matter, we shall know.”
“Ladies and lords, good morn.” Captain Heath lifted his feathered captain’s hat in greeting. “Breakfast on the foredeck, this pleasant morning.” That was no mere pleasantry; the air was cool with a slight breeze, the sun not yet pounding every square centimeter with its radiation. “For your comfort, a canopy awaits.”
“Lead us, Captain”, Elizabeth responded. She took his offered elbow, and the pair led the way to breakfast.
Devon had learned the British signals code on his own, so he read the signals as they came in. “Engineer. Dam leaks. Holding. Flow steady. Awaiting suggestions.” He waved off the messenger who refused to acknowledge that someone had figured out the code without help. “And we go as fast as we go. Lads have already thought of overburden, and plugging first with coarse”, he mused. “Tent cloth might work, if they can find the right spot, but it’ll be gone when she breaks.” Eyes nearly closed, he gazed at infinity and pictured the scene around Fort Narrows. “Sod – I’ll bet they haven’t tried sod! Okay, signals – send ‘em ‘sod’. Just the one word.”
Less than half an hour later, the message was delivered. “Daft – we’re daft! Colin, send every other wagon to the sod stack. Sod houses are warm, but if we don’t plug this, we’ll be a sorry lot with no enjoyment of them.” Mentally he saw what would happen: chunks of sod, half a meter square, would get sucked in by the current. They’d wedge in the first tight spot they hit, the fibrous turf holding them together. Mixed with sludge and overburden, they should build up and plug everything but something seriously large. If that happened – if they cut the flow but didn’t stop it – he’d order meter squares dug. At worst, they’d stabilize the leak, he told himself, and when Engineer Devon arrived, decide if they needed to do more.
“Durham, Kittle, Waring, then Port Robert”, Captain Heath replied to Kevin MacNeil’s question. “I’m thinking Lord Sidmuth or Commodore Howe may have some detail for your attention, or for yours, Lord Rigel, forgotten in the rush. So, for now, we remain close. We won’t cover the whole Sea this season, Lady Meriel, so we may as well not make a hurry of it.”
“That’s true”, Elizabeth replied agreeably. “Rushing is for those with urgent things to do. If one rushes when things are not yet urgent, one may lack energy to rush when that is needed,”
Rita grinned. “There’s a lady you should meet, who would love that statement, Meriel. She’s called Maolmin, and she’s chief Wise Woman of the Village of Servants – pretty much chief Wise Woman of all the Celts”.
Elizabeth’s eyebrows rose. Rita’s tone seemed to carry the confidence that all the Celts were part of Lord Rigel’s domain – as they suspected, but it was nice to be reassured. “All the Celts! She must be truly wise. How long must a woman live, to gain such wisdom?”
Rigel almost choked. Austin said what his master wouldn’t have. “Oh, two or three hundred years”, the squire pronounced. “She’s not as old as the hills, but she’s closer than anyone else!”
Elizabeth shuddered involuntarily, beyond her control. She sensed truth in that young voice – was it the same voice which had proclaimed his lord to be “Ard Righ”, the High King? “Centuries? Then I would like to meet her – one could learn much, in that time.” Rigel tensed, even though he trusted Austin and the rest not to blurt out the secret of the stone. His confidence was reaffirmed again.
The dike Anaph had described was a ridge of land. Where HMS
Mercury’s Blade rode the swells, the water was lower than that on the other side by over four meters. The water beyond was clear, free of the silt and dirt picked up on its way from the Sea, for at this end there was no rush of current, no turbulence to keep the particles suspended. They settled, covered what had once been rolling grassland with silt of particles finer than talc.
Parts of the ridge had sagged. Anaph felt them, judged them, awed by knowing that just weeks ago he would have failed in the task, so much had he learned. Some was having the power stored in his staff, a reservoir to draw on at need, but mostly it was skills learned by trial and error, matched with knowledge from the Stone – and he reeled again, in spirit, at the knowledge still beyond him! Yet the greatest lesson was the need for balance, to serve life by repaying what was taken at need. In that, he dimly saw that there were limitations on his power, so that in some ways he would be constrained from ever exercising its limits except in greatest need.
Happily, the price here would be small; he had enough energy in his staff to do it. Many creatures were going to die from his acts, though, so he would use what he took – another part of balance, to not take life needlessly, to honor it when taken by putting it to use. In a stray thought, he wondered if the area would have more life as a sea than as grassland, but he recognized that he didn’t know enough to even make a guess. In that, he knew he was a poor Chief Druid, but he also knew he could learn. It never struck him as strange that he had skipped a lot of school, often sneering at the classes and learning, but now he hungered for it.
It wasn’t the sagging spots that had his attention; those would take care of themselves. Tendrils of Druid-directed energy searched instead for strong spots, the ones he’d need to shatter to collapse the entire dike, and the ones he wanted to collapse now to get a flow started. This would be done in two steps, not because it had to be, but because there was something else to do in between.
What those on the deck saw was a naked form, majestic in its fitness, hands stretched toward the ridge, elbows a third of the way to straight, a staff standing upright on its own, staying vertical to the earth and not the deck. Then with a rumble, a section of hillside slumped and gurgled into the sea – if something that large could be considered a gurgle, with bubbles larger than barrels bursting on the water’s surface. Two seconds later, a crack appeared in the stone the slide had uncovered – and then it broke, water pouring through, shooting out as a stream once it got going.
Anaph sucked in a deep breath and grabbed his staff. It hadn’t taken nearly as much energy as he’d guessed, but regardless he leaned on the upright oak for a moment. “Done, for now. Next stop is Fort Narrows – I have to see the dam.” He could feel water passing through, but from here couldn’t tell if it was a leak or just seepage, and he needed to know.
Commander Chalmers watched the new... well, it wasn’t a waterfall, the way it shot through the gap; but whatever it was, it was amazing, beautiful... and frightening. “Remind me to never give you cause for anger with me”, she remarked. With a shake of her head she turned and fired off orders. Within the minute, the vessel was on its way around the island with its new village, headed for Fort Narrows and its great dam.
“At least we can see Durham”, Rigel commented, scanning the waterfront with his telescope. “Kevin, are those barges, out from the docks?”
“Ah – yes. Floating islands would be better”, MacNeil replied. “Thanks to the University, we’ve learned ways to get more food from the Sea than just by sailing about and finding it. Here, they harvest shellfish from chain or cable lattices hung off the sides of the islands. Some they pull up to harvest, others men have to dive for. The shells are returned to the Sea, some crushed and ground to powder, some burned, not dumped in so much as sloshed now and then. That seems to feed the life there, so they get more swimming fish too, not only shellfish.”
“Sea farms”, Rita concluded. “Nice – I like it.”
Krissa, one of Rita’s Yankee apprentices, looked down into the water. “Those barges are big – their shadows will cool the water”, she observed. “In summer, I bet it results in slow convection. That will bring nutrients from the bottom for the sea life. Even without returning the calcium, you encourage the ecosystem.”
MacNeil frowned. “Calcium? Is that what shells are made of?” He’d stopped marveling at what some of Rigel’s people knew, and only sought to learn.
“Shells, and bones. It’s critical for sea life – low calcium, low life”, Krissa said. “But so are all the nutrients that circulating water brings. All the dead things in the sea end up on the bottom, and unless the water circulates in convection, those nutrients stay there.. When you make water cold, it sinks, and the warmer water rises, bringing up nutrients. Places where currents hit the shore are richer, especially deep, cold currents full of minerals, but this works.” She estimated the size of the barges. “They should try making their barges about three times as big, though. That’s just a guesstimate”, she conceded.
“Three times as big – across, or around?” MacNeil inquired, quite serious.
“Around”, she answered. “You know circumference and area?”
MacNeil blinked; that was knowledge he hadn’t used in.... “Circumference is pi times the diameter”, he responded. “Area... I confess I don’t recall.”
“Area is one-half circumference times the radius”, Krissa informed him. “Think about the difference between tripling the diameter and tripling the circumference.”
MacNeil looked at Rigel in entreaty, but Rigel just shrugged and grinned. “You’re doing better than I am, already”, he confessed.
The Druid blinked and came out of his concentration. “It’s not ‘a couple of lakes’, Devon, it’s nine – and the last two are huge.” Anaph shook his head. “That’s a lot of leak!
“Master Druid, I don’t know where we made the mistake–“
Anaph cut the engineer off. “You didn’t. There’s a–“ He started over. “It’s in the ground under the dam; the dam is good. But a part of the ground there is like fine sand. It let water through, and then started to flow. It’s mixed with rock, or the dam would be gone. But your sod fixed it – it won’t get any worse. Well, it won’t get worse soon enough to matter.”
“So the lakes aren’t a problem?” Devon was fairly certain of the answer, but his men needed to hear it.
Anaph grinned, but that vanished suddenly. “Have any Others seen them?”
“You mean Aliens? The scouts haven’t seen any that close.”
The Druid grinned. “Then the lakes are good. We want water over there! As long as the Aliens don’t notice, they won’t be warned.”
“All they’re doing is making great circles around their fortresses”, Devon related in a musing sort of tone. “And a grid of hexagons – whatever that’s about.”
Anaph shrugged. “I don’t care. Devon, you have about eighteen days – no, make that twenty, because of your leak. Don’t try to fix it, just don’t let it get worse. Now I have to go finish the job here, and then catch Rigel – with your news, and because he’ll want to be here. Um, you can tell me what happened at the other fort when I’m back.”
Devon marveled at how businesslike this kid, transformed into an older man’s body, could be. “You got it. But how are you going to get back to Rigel – hike over and capture a ship?”
Anaph grinned. “I have an idea”, was all he would say.
Anne didn’t respond when two lithe and very alert youngsters slipped into the pew on either side of her. Boys wouldn’t be part of any secret police, or at least any official one. That made them part of Scout Casey’s city Scouts and thieves. She added a prayer for them, that they keep to honorable activities.
They followed the Mass with precision, as befitted someone in the pews. Knowing who they were, she concluded that the people did as well, or they wouldn’t have been allowed the luxury of seating. She held in the smile that wanted to show over what that said about the people and their bishop – and what it might portend for unwanted visitors. She was certain there had been deaths to protect this shepherd over this prominent city; it was something she just sensed.
So as the end of the liturgy approached, she readied herself to go with them. No malice showed in their auras; their task was to take her to meet Theodoro. Since that was where she wanted to go – though not so publicly – she wouldn’t do more than tease them a little. Thus the moment after the benediction, she tapped both on the shoulder and said softly, “Let’s wait till most are gone.”
A chuckle came from the one on her right. “I told you she was smart, Eduardo.”
“I did not doubt, Esteban. But, Lady, we could exit, and return through a side door.”
“That would be better”, Esteban agreed. Minutes later, Anne learned how the mysterious appearance of the bishop-to-be had come about one misty morning.
Marlys Chalmers started at the gentle bump against the hull. Glancing at the Druid, she saw a small smile. They were racing under full sail, driven by a hot wind from the west that Anaph had predicted, a stiff wind that had begun as a breeze at a few kilometers per hour, and was now, in the early afternoon, rushed along at nearer forty. “All right, Anaph, what are you doing?”
His grin was boyish. “Large creatures from the sea – they don’t like the dirt in the water here. I... told them I’ll get them back to the Sea, if they help us. So they’re pushing. I told them not to bump too hard.” His eyes crossed. “That was a mated pair. Three more are almost caught up. More are waiting up ahead.”
Chalmers chuckled. “You amaze me – now you talk to fish you can’t see. How fast can they swim?”
“Over thirty kilometers per hour. But so close to the ship, they can go faster. The ship drags water along with it.” Anaph shrugged. “It’s science.”
The ship’s captain looked over at the land going by. “Faster, you say – how fast do you think this ship can go?”
Anaph laughed. “No clue. But we’re going to find out. The faster we hit that current, the easier it will be to get back – back into the Sea, I mean”, he explained.
“You’re crazier than I am. But if we’re going fast, how will we turn off by your dike? You said you have more to do there.”
“We don’t turn off – I, um, set triggers so I can finish from a distance. It’s all ready, I just have to set it off.”
Chalmers nodded. “We just keep gaining speed. Shall I put out deck sails?”
Anaph had thought of that, inspired by the story of Captain Shaugnessey’s riding the giant wave. “Not yet. Much faster, and I won’t be able to collapse the dike. Hold steady for an hour, then add what you want. Hey – would it help if your masts stayed upright?”
The captain gaped. “You mean vertical? Like your staff?”
A grin preceded the reply. “Yeah – I think I can make the mast do that.”
“Amazing. We’re almost direct before the wind, so knowing the ship would be steady wouldn’t hurt. Sure – see if you can really do it.”
“First I’ll do the dike. Then we go for it.” His way of speaking was odd to her, but she got his meaning.
They didn’t see the result of Anaph’s efforts, but he assured them it had done what he wanted: a gap several kilometers wide and nearly sixty meters deep was now letting the waters he’d freed with his earthquakes tear into the lakes They got proof of it some forty minutes later.
“Anaph, your dike collapse triggered a tsunami”, Staio reported. “It’s going to catch us.”
The chief Druid reached out his senses. “Is it dangerous?”
“Probably not, but we should stay to deep water. Should I tell the captain?”
“I will.” Anaph had wanted a straight course, but if there was risk, they’d have to steer the best course.
Commander Chalmers looked behind them. “The dike collapsed in the water, and made a wave – I understand that. But one big enough to endanger us?”
“I don’t know. It’s better to be safe. You know where the deep water is, right?”
She shrugged. “More or less. I know the old shape of the lakes, and the middle should be deep. We shouldn’t have to turn much. Did your Engineer tell you how much deeper the water is?”
“Over nine meters so far. Does that help?”
“We can steer outside the old shoreline some – that means we can go straighter. I don’t suppose this wave will help us go faster?”
“Not really”, Staio responded when Anaph looked to him. “Maybe like swimming behind the ship and pushing.” It wasn’t a scientifically accurate comparison, but it was plain and direct.
Chalmers chuckled. “Fine. Okay, I’ll choose our course – and add more sails.”
Four and a half hours later they passed Fort Fitzhugh, noticing a faint smoky aroma. “I call it twenty-six knots, and gaining”, Dugal told him. “Kandath says he’s changing the hull to make us faster. Does he know what he’s doing?”
Anaph shook his head, wondering. “No idea – I don’t know anything about ships except they float and move.”
At that, Dugal laughed. “Wonderful! Casey would call it fun.”
“He would”, Anaph agreed. “If – oh.” The Druid turned and looked southwest. “Another wall broke back there. I hope I collapsed the dike soon enough. Well, should be – there’s one more lake to fill between my water and the new sea.”
“New sea? It’s going to be that big?”
“Oh, yeah – with islands as big as any the British have”, Anaph said proudly.
Dugal looked thoughtful. “Rigel brought us all to the Constant Hills, and the Escobars are moving out into new lands. Rigel brought us here, and now you give the British new islands.
“You were his first sworn man, true?” Anaph nodded. “And the two of you change the world.”
“I didn’t plan to – I just wanted to drown Others”, Anaph admitted.
“And Rigel just wants to defeat them. That will change the world – but you’re already changing the world, and the war isn’t really started.”
Captain Heath consulted the cabin timepiece. “We’re hardly coursing along. This rude west wind is right against us. We’ll do better making course for Edward, and beating back to Port Robert from there. My Lady, I recommend we lie in along the strand there until this wind ceases.”
Lost Britain’s Queen had already decided that would be the best course. They were already going to spend a bit of a rocky night on the open Sea, shaken by this wind. When it had come up, she’d made sailing estimations, and bet Kevin MacNeil that Commander Chalmers would use it to run the current back to the Sea. Since Port Robert would be the sensible place to come for word of the
Resolute, it made double sense to lie in there. “Very well”, she replied. “Rigel, by the strand there, islands of sand appear and disappear. If you wish, we could spend some time on land, however fleeting that land might be./”
“With this wind, those islands will rise above the waves”, MacNeil pointed out. “Already it’s driving sand across the estuary.”
“Tents, then – thank you, Kevin, for reminding me.” The two exchanged a silent laugh at her pretense; she knew her realm well enough to need no reminder.
Rita grinned across the table at Rigel. “You and Austin can build sand castles”, she teased.
“I just might”, he replied “Why be serious, at the beach?”
“Thirty knots”, Dugal reported. Commander Chalmers beamed. “It can’t count for a speed trial, but it’s bragging rights!” she exclaimed.
“Half an hour till the real battle”, Anaph pointed out.
Chalmers nodded. They stood on the quarterdeck, for she’d taken the helm herself the moment Anaph detected inflowing current. He’d released the upright hold on the mast; now the ship heeled moderately, running the calm water as close to the north shore as the Commander dared. “I’ll shorten that”, she told them. “There’s that small cape ahead. Past it, the water will flow back toward the gap. I’ll use it to gain us speed.”
“We’ll lose it as soon as we switch currents”, Kenedh pointed out. The Scout had been spending time with the sailors, up in the rigging and down in the hold, learning about sailing. “It’s just water velocity.”
Chalmers nodded. “True. But we’ll still gain; we won’t be fighting the current for that time. And it will give Anaph’s helper a rest, for the real battle.” A full twenty-nine of the huge sea creatures, which Commander Chalmers called “eel-whales”, were now adding their push to
Mercury’s Blade.
The whole ship shuddered as they crossed from one current to the other, from back flow to incoming flow. The water wanted to rip them into the rush and fling them back into the lakes, but they had reached a full thirty-six knots relative to the water, and had every bit of sailcloth out in imitation of Captain Shaugnessey’s wild ride, so though she shuddered,
Mercury’s Blade didn’t slip backward at all.
“Impossibly smooth”, Chalmers muttered.
“What was that, captain?” her first leftenant asked.
“This hull shouldn’t have made that smooth a transition”, she replied. “No ship has ever been so smooth.”
“My apologies”, Dugal said. “I failed to tell you: Kandath has changed the shape of the hull. I don’t understand it, but he said it makes us slide more smoothly. Staio says he’s ‘reduced the turbulence along the boundary layer’.”
The Yankee Druid had explained that to Anaph. “A small layer of water moves with the ship”, he related. “Where it meets the Sea, it makes swirls and eddies. That makes the ship slower.”
Commander Chalmers was already nodding. “So we move through the water like an eel-whale with its strange skin?” she asked.
“Not quite.” Dugal laughed. “Staio said if the wood was new, Kandath might be able to do that. But he’s just changing the shape a little.”
“Whatever it is, I approve”, the ship’s captain stated. Her eyes gleamed. “We’ll be the fastest ship on the Sea!”
Time stood still, stretching long. “Another ridge just collapsed. I have to believe the last one will hold. And we’re losing our helpers”, Anaph reported softly. “One by one. They’ve done their best.”
“Will they slip back down? After all this?” Dugal asked. “A poor repayment!”
Anaph squeezed the Scout’s shoulder. “No, they can ride the ship’s slipstream – a place behind, near the rudder, where the water gets pulled along with the ship. We’ll pull them along. All they have to do is push lightly against the ship and stay in place.”
The Scout walked to the rail and stood looking down for a minute, then at the faint shore to the north.. “Five knots”, he estimated. “How far to go?”
Anaph concentrated a moment. “Two kilometers till the water’s level.”
“We cut starboard before that”, Chalmers told them, her voice weary. “There’s a back current on the south side. Once we’re in it, I’m furling sail and giving the crew a rest.” She sighed. “She’s still slowing – I can feel it.”
Dugal shook his head, grinning. “We’re still faster forward than the water is backwards – that’s what matters.”
The first officer looked back. “Druid, how long until we can sail without a fight in and out of this new sea?”
(With another HUG for Bammer!)
