Emperor of Gondwanaland (2 page)

I descended the netting, Mate Belgrano steadying the cutter against the
Melville
’s flanks.

In the cutter, I received from Belgrano his usual deferential nod, which I had long since ceased attempting to dissuade him of. Years ago, when Belgrano had first shipped under me, that gesture had rankled, seeming not in keeping with the egalitarian spirit of the Union as I conceived it; more the servile mark of acquiescence an Aristarch might demand. But after a time I realized it was only the old salt’s way of acknowledging the trust he placed in my command. Although he had five years over my forty-nine at the time, he treated me as one incredibly superior to him, and I could not but be suitably flattered.

“So, Captain Sanspeur,” he said in his hoarse growl, as he shoved off from the
Melville
before starting the motor up, “what do you make of this derelict? Think you we might find something worth salvaging?”

“Much remains to be seen,” I said, as if I knew more than in fact I did. Actually, the appearance here of the lame vessel, so far off normal sea lanes, was an enigma to me.

Slowly, as if some unseen force impeded the cutter’s progress, we approached the gaunt and haggard ship.

II. Aboard the
Golden Cockerel
, and Her Captain

As Belgrano steered in his assured way nearer and nearer the barely drifting ship, which seemed to have lost the current that had carried her so far, I scanned her bow, looking for her name. Several scores of meters away, I described the name in flaking red paint:
Golden Cockerel
. I knew then, from the style of lettering, that the ship hailed from the Aristarchy.

Why she neglected to fly that country’s flag, I could not guess, unless it had been destroyed like her sails.

Also, at this distance I noticed the movement of figures on the ship’s listing deck. So then: this was to be no salvage mission, but one of succor and rescue. I was grateful that the
Melville
held a surplus of food and fresh water (for I had replenished both on Encantada), with which to allav their sufferings.

Every minute our boat drew closer, I expected the rails to fill with the eager faces of the survivors I had glimpsed. The spaces at the starboard rail remained empty, however, as if no one noted or cared about our approach.

Finally we were bobbing close against the ship’s battered hull. No ladder was in sight. Belgrano silently returned my gaze, as if to ask, “What next?”

“Drop the anchor, Master Belgrano,” I said, and he heaved it overboard, paying out the line through his roughened hands. In the clear waters of the bay, we could watch our metal grapple sink for many a fathom, until it went where we could not follow.

“Ahoy, the
Cockerel
!” I shouted. “Toss us a line.”

I expected no response from the incurious ship, and so started a bit when a thick hawser flew from nowhere and thwacked against the hull.

Old as Belgrano and I were, we still retained a spryness of limb many a younger man might envy. It was an easy task to ascend the rope.

Aboard the
Cockerel
, there was so much to see at first—and so many of the sights exceedingly jarring—that I hardly know now where to begin to describe what greeted my eyes. Let me start— arbitrarily, for I cannot recollect after so many years the exact order in which I apprehended things—with the ship herself.

I have mentioned the shattered solarcells and the charred woodwork, visible from afar. Fresh evidence of the
Cockerel
’s sorry state was a scarred deck littered with trash: fruit peels, rags, empty bottles, several robot corpses, and, incredibly, pages from the ship’s log. The aft deckhouse had several panels missing from its walls. Coils of rope lay in tangles.

Altogether, a most unholy mess. The skipper had to be dead—lost at sea—or insane for such a state to exist.

Simultaneously, I was taken with the figure of the man who had thrown us a line. A short and scrawny fellow, with a beak of a nose and a sharp chin, he wore a soiled knitted ecclesiastical shawl atop a ripped embroidered purple shirt. Purple pantaloons ballooned on his skinny legs. I recognized him as a Sanctus.

Five hundred years ago, the Aristarchy had colonized Paean. As their name implied, they had been severe critics of everything about their home world, including its religion. They had come to Paean, the first humans, to implement their curious and stringent beliefs. The Aristarchs brought with them underclasses to do their bidding. Their religicos bore the title of Sanctus.

On the continent of Carambriole, the Aristarchy flourished alone for two centuries. Then new settlers appeared in orbit, my ancestors among them, and claimed Ordesto, the eastern continent. From this second wave of colonists the Transmontane Union arose.

At the present, there was little commerce between our two cultures. Relations were marked by a coldness that stopped short of belligerence.

All this history mattered little to me at the time, in the face of the chaos around me.

Yet I include it here to indicate how my feelings of unease were compounded by facing this alien ambassador of a hidden land.

The withered man bobbed his head and torso, his hands clasped together in supplication. I gripped his shoulders and straightened him up.

“Stand erect, man,” I said. “We’re here to help, not plunder. I am Captain Josiah Sanspeur of the
Melville
, out of Tirso Town. I take it your ship is captainless.”

His reedy voice sung out as if reciting liturgy. “Oh no, good sir, such is not our situation. We have a most fine and excellent captain, only occupied with pressing matters now is he. Our situation is more dire than mere loss of captain. You see—”

The head of the Sanctus had been constantly swiveling on his crane-like neck as he talked, while his pop-eyes stared here and there for I knew not what. His speech was cut short by the arrival of what he had obviously been fearing.

A Fanzoy walked into view.

The Fanzoii were the native race of Paean. They lived only on Carambriole. I had never seen one before.

Tall and willowy, the Fanzoy was clothed in a billowing off-white robe, sleeveless, with a square-cut yoke of intricate patterns. The Fanzoy’s flesh could be observed on its arms and neck and bare feet, as well as its face. It was a subdued orange, like the color of a peach or burra-fruit, and had a velvety nap, not unappealing. The Fanzoy’s lips were somewhat prehensile, its eyes a stunning violet.

It regarded us in what I took to be an unmenacing manner, yet the Sanctus was completely unnerved.

“I, I—” he faltered. Then, abandoning all pretense of calm, he turned and fled.

Belgrano and I watched him scurry off in amazement. With no human left to speak to, we approached the Fanzoy.

“Where is the captain?” I asked.

It eyed me stoically, curled its unnatural lip almost into a roll, and departed wordlessly. Had it even understood?

I decided to try the aft deckhouse, where traditionally, at least on Union ships, the captain’s quarters would be.

At this point more Fanzoii, two or three dozen, appeared, seemingly springing up from the very planks. All were similarly hipless and possessed of deep amethyst eyes. I could not distinguish between sexes or individuals. Their velvet-flocked faces bore no obvious expression of ill will.

Yet they carried at their sides wooden dowels like clubs.

Belgrano and I hastened to the deckhouse, the Fanzoii following several paces behind, en masse. I confess my heart was racing a bit faster than was its wont. At the rear superstructure, the door hung closed on one hinge. I knocked, and also called out.

“Hallo, captain of the
Cockerel
! This is Captain Sanspeur of the
Melville
. Are you there?”

The Fanzoii ringed us at a small distance. I had no hint as to what their next move might be.

I heard the door opening. I swung about.

A man emerged, closely trailed by a Fanzoy.

“Back, you rabble,” he called forcefully, gesturing languidly with one slim hand, which did much to mute the sternness of his command. “These are friends, not pirates. Can’t you fools see anything? Get back to your duties.”

At his words, the Fanzoii dispersed. However, ten or twelve took up sitting positions in a rubber-limbed fashion not far away, their truncheons resting across their laps.

I had time now to study the captain and his companion.

The man was of medium height, slender and wiry, in his mid- thirties. His face was wan and pinched, its olive skin drawn, like that of a hedonist whose pleasures have betrayed him, or a man used to comfort whom life had treated unwontedly harshly of a sudden. His black hair was cut short. His long mustachios were waxed and pointed. I smelled the pomade’s scent. His dress was of faded elegance. His manner was refined, yet indolent.

The Fanzoy had all the qualities of its kind: the eyes, the skin, the long graceful limbs. Yet I thought to detect a play of keen intelligence on its somewhat angular features, a kind of alert inquisitiveness not evident in the others, which set it apart.

The man who had saved us extended a hand that bore several begemmed rings. “Captain Sanspeur,” he said in a weary and lax voice totally unlike that which he had assumed to dismiss the Fanzoii, and yet which I took for some reason to be his normal tone, “I am Captain Anselmo Merino of the
Golden Cockerel
, out of Saint Ursula. Welcome aboard. We have much to discuss.”

As I shook Captain Merino’s bland hand, I marveled at his disingenuous understatement of the situation, and wondered what could possibly follow.

III. Proposals and Rejections

I expected Captain Merino to exercise common courtesy by inviting us into his cabin. Instead, he carefully closed the door—through which I had gotten only a glimpse of shadowy interior—and turned his aesthete’s countenance toward us.

The Fanzoy that had emerged with him remained close by.

“I can’t tell you how glad I am to see another human face,” said Merino in a drained and languorous voice that totally belied any excitement. “As you can see, my ship has suffered disaster—a most unsettling tragedy. Perhaps you can better gauge the extent of it— and more readily appreciate my tale—if we conduct a promenade about the ship as we converse.”

Merino’s cavalier attitude—which I could only assume was a brave, if somewhat pompous, attempt to put up an unconcerned front— modified my fears that had arisen when the Fanzoii seemed ready to attack us. If this perfumed popinjay felt safe among his alien crew, then I could have nothing to fear.

“Very well,” I replied. “Let us talk freely, as one captain to another. I confess there is much about your ship and its status that I find puzzling and improper.” I turned to my first mate. “Mate Belgrano, station yourself by the rail above the cutter—to make sure she does not loose anchor and drift.”

In truth, I had no expectation of that happening. My real aim was twofold: to prevent any of the Fanzoii from appropriating the cutter, and to be with Merino alone, without subordinates, so that he would perhaps speak more directly.

Belgrano left, somewhat uneasily. I had faith in his abilities to hold off idle Fanzoii, or, failing that, to remove the cutter from their reach. I waited for Merino to dismiss his pet Fanzoy, which continued to hover close by him like an apricot-colored specter.

Merino only sized me up with an open and minute disbelief, as if he could have wished I had done otherwise than send Belgrano away. He pivoted on one booted heel and strode off, leaving me to catch up.

The Fanzoy never left him.

Merino began talking almost before I drew abreast of him. He did not catch my eyes, but stared straight ahead, ignoring both myself and the shoddy mishmash of trash at his feet. His manner belonged to one who recounted a much-rehearsed story that had been leeched of meaning. Yet as his talk progressed, he became a bit more fervid and uneasy, as if he could not repress all he must be feeling.

“We sailed from Saint Ursula over a year ago, on a voyage that was to take three months. My crew was a good and capable one, ten men and the standard complement of bots. Our ship was sweet and swift. Yet witness the once-proud
Cockerel
now: derelict and without destination.”

I could well believe that the ship had had a year’s worth of neglect. “You shipped with ten men, yet I saw only one.”

Merino waggled his hand negligently in the air. “You mean our Sanctus, Purslen Monteagle.
Faugh!
I had not even counted him, else it were eleven. He is supercargo, which the Aristarchy bids me haul, as every one of its ships must. No, not one of the ten remains”— he paused unnaturally—”alive. Nine were swept overboard in one of the fiercest storms I have ever experienced, along with many bots. Not a month out of port were we when it came upon us. The surviving man—my first mate, who was also my beloved cousin—took a great hurt and died shortly thereafter. With our sails rent and our cells staved in, we have drifted since, at the whim of the currents and the winds. Monteagle and I have been living off the victuals stored for eleven, yet even these are almost gone.”