Pirates of the Timestream (18 page)

Jason met his eyes. It had to be said. “There are some things that I never knew even Transhumanists did.”

“Ordinarily, you would be correct. And I will own to a degree of squeamishness at first. But since then, I’ve found that what began simply as a matter of showmanship has become more and more strangely . . . habit-forming. And, of course, scruples do not apply when dealing with Pugs.” Romain gave Jason one more look, licked his lips, and was gone, leaving them sitting silently in the shadows.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The day finally came when they were herded aboard the Kestrel, with Grenfell moving listlessly, still detached from the proceedings. Two goons strapped them into the four rear passenger seats. Ahriman seated himself awkwardly into the forward one, next to the weapons station. Recalling Romain’s words, Jason decided against any attempt to communicate with him.

For a trip this short, the photon drive would have been superfluous. The grav repulsors, whose primary use was to provide the lift that enabled the photon drive to easily attain orbital space, had some lateral movement capability and could be used as a secondary form of propulsion for atmospheric maneuvering at low altitudes. So the Kestrel drifted, invisible and almost silent, on an east-by-northeast course that took it over the northern shore of the Bahia de Ocoa.

Hispaniola’s principal town of Santo Domingo was only a little further east, and this was one of the areas where the authorities had forced the population to concentrate itself, making it more defensible, but, as Grenfell had once explained, effectively leaving most of the coastline to the buccaneers. Their flight took them over areas where the Spanish presence was visible, at least in the lowlands. But their destination was up in the hills to the north of the tiny port of Ocoa, an area where runaway slaves lurked.

Not that Jason was able to observe the scenery below from where he sat, bound to his seat. Nor would he have paid any attention if he had been. His thoughts were focused exclusively on one problem: escape.

Unfortunately, there seemed no solution to that problem.

The one advantage he had was his brain implant’s map display. If they could somehow slip their bonds and elude the extremely thorough watchfulness of Romain and his goons, they would be able to find their way to wherever they decided to go. But his very use of that brain implant would expose them to detection by the Kestrel’s sensor that had found them in the first place.

“I can only think of one possibility,” he whispered to Mondrago as they sat, bound as usual, in the torchlit clearing the night after their arrival, watching preparations that included the construction of a closed coffin by cult adepts high-ranking enough to be trusted with knowledge of the Kestrel. “If Zenobia and I go in one direction—or, better still, two different directions—and the other three of you go another, they wouldn’t be able to track your group because none of you have any bionics. You could maybe lead Nesbit and Grenfell to safety.”

“Do you really think I’d leave you and Zenobia to . . . what Romain has planned for you?”

“You’ll damned well do it if I put it in the form of a direct order!
Somebody
has got to get back with the information we now possess.”

Mondrago didn’t meet Jason’s eyes. “Well, it’s all academic anyway, isn’t it? Before we can even think about eluding pursuit, we have to get away in the first place. And they don’t show any signs of letting us do that.”

Jason knew what he meant. If anything, they were under more thorough watch than ever, because more of Romain’s goons had been waiting here, under the command of the middle-level type Jason recognized from Port Royal by the bandage that circled his head and covered the hole where his right ear had been. The look he had given Zenobia had not been pleasant, and Jason had overheard Romain sternly explaining to him that she must be preserved intact for the sacrifice.

“One good thing,” he told Mondrago and Zenobia. “So far, we’ve made no attempt to escape, so the guards have gotten slack. Their procedures have become a matter of routine, and their vigilance is relaxed.”

“Something else,” said Zenobia. “My eyes are bionic—”

“Yes, Henri told us.”

“But they have an additional feature I never mentioned to him: night vision.”

“All right; that’s two things in our favor.”

“Actually,” said Mondrago—hesitantly, it seemed to Jason—“there’s a third.” Looking around to make sure none of the goons were watching, he put his bound hands inside his breeches and drew out a small general-purpose knife. Jason couldn’t imagine how he had been concealing it in there without cutting himself. Mondrago quickly pushed it back down out of sight. “One of the cult adepts dropped it the night of the . . . sacrifice. I scooped it up afterwards when I came to and he was still in the kind of dreamy state you’ve seen them in after . . .” He couldn’t continue.

“You didn’t tell me. Why?”

“I had a pretty good idea that, if there seemed to be a chance of escape, you’d give me the kind of orders you’ve just given me.”

“Well,” Jason sighed, “it’s still not a very good chance. And even if it was, we’d just be back face to face with the
other
problem: their ability to locate me and Zenobia.” Unbidden, there came into his mind the ancient joke about the First Principle of Military Leadership:
Never give an order you know won’t be obeyed.
Despite what he had said earlier, he was by no means confident that Mondrago would obey an order to leave him and Zenobia to their fate. And he was honest enough to admit to himself that he didn’t relish the role of decoy. “For now, let’s wait and see.”

But he knew they didn’t have much time left. The coffin was almost finished.

* * *

Early the following morning, there was a commotion. Romain and Ahriman engaged in what seemed to be a hurried colloquy, after which the Teloi and two goons boarded the Kestrel. Romain spoke briefly to One-Ear—Jason got the impression that the latter was being left temporarily in charge—and then followed Ahriman aboard. The cult adepts moaned softly and made signs as the Kestrel rose into the sky and vanished within its refraction field.

“What’s going on?” Nesbit whispered.

“I don’t know,” Jason replied. “Evidently something has come up that requires Romain’s and Ahriman’s presence elsewhere.”

“Maybe even somewhere off-planet,” Zenobia speculated.

“Wherever they’ve gone,” said Mondrago, “they’ve taken the Kestrel’s sensors with them.” His eyes met Jason’s. “It’s now or never, sir.”

“You’re right. After we’ve been fed breakfast, start working on your bonds whenever no guards are watching.” Jason worked his way around and whispered to the others. “All right, here’s what we’re going to do . . .”

* * *

One-Ear must have gotten renewed warnings about Zenobia from Romain, for he largely stayed away from the prisoners. That, and the fact that he was now somewhat shorthanded, gave Mondrago frequent opportunities to inconspicuously saw at his bonds, awkwardly grasping the knife behind the small of his back and maintaining a stoic silence whenever he inadvertently cut his wrists. After his hands were free, he kept them together, underneath him, whenever a guard came by. When no guard was about, he worked his way up against Jason and freed his hands.

That was as far as they had gotten when darkness fell and one of the guards approached with their nighttime rations. This had become so routine that the guard was unarmed, save with a knife thrust through his belt-rope, and had no backup. One-Ear and the rest of his men were in the distance, around a flickering fire. As always, the guard carried a tray with five bowls of glop about the consistency of thin gravy, which they were to grasp with their bound hands and slurp down. When he came to Mondrago and bent down, the Corsican raised his hands as usual. As far as could be seen in the night, they were still bound. And they concealed the knife held under Mondrago’s right wrist.

With a movement of almost invisible swiftness, Mondrago flipped the knife up. His left hand went up and behind the goon’s head and pulled it down and forward, while simultaneously he thrust the knife under the chin and up through the tongue and into the brain.

It probably wouldn’t have worked, given the goon’s genetically upgraded reflexes, had it been anyone but Mondrago. As it was, the goon never made a sound. There was the merest trickle of blood, as usual in cases of instantaneous death.

Mondrago lowered the goon to his knees and, using a nearby stick, propped the body into a kneeling position. Swiftly, before anyone could notice anything amiss, he handed the goon’s knife to Jason. The two of them swiftly cut the ropes binding their ankles, then freed the others, cautioning them to silence. The last was hardly necessary in Grenfell’s case, although awareness seemed to be awakening in his eyes.

“All right,” Jason whispered. “Before anybody over there at the fire notices that this goon hasn’t moved in a long time, let’s crawl—very slowly and quietly—over to the edge of the clearing.” He activated his map display. “Once we’re in the jungle, we’ll head in that direction, which is south. Zenobia, lead the way. Irving, can I depend on you to make sure Roderick keeps moving?”

“Yes, you can,” said Nesbit steadily.

“Good. Alexandre and I will bring up the rear.”

They were beyond the clearing, and up and running on their stiffened legs, before they heard the sound of shouting from behind.

* * *

Following Zenobia, they were able to outdistance their pursuers, who were blundering through the darkened jungle with the aid of torches. But Jason was only too well aware that in daylight they would lose that advantage, and that One-Ear’s cult adepts, escaped slaves all, were more jungle-wise than any of them except possibly Zenobia. He also knew that One-Ear would never give up the pursuit and face Romain’s wrath for losing the prisoners. So he urged his people ever onward through the night, gaining as much of a lead as they could. Nesbit was as good as his word, keeping Grenfell running whenever the historian seemed about to sink into vagueness.

Still, Jason couldn’t free himself of the feeling that, given the Transhumanists’ lack of scruples about bringing high-tech equipment into the past, One-Ear might very well have a means of communicating with the Kestrel. He could only hope that One-Ear, in the immemorial way of underlings everywhere, would try to recapture the escapees on his own rather than immediately summoning the spacecraft, lest Romain conclude that he couldn’t handle his own problems.

Instead of brooding about it, he concentrated on their route. The tiny port of Ocoa lay about fifteen miles south-southwest. He had no intention of actually going there, given how the Spaniards felt about pirates. But Grenfell had said that Morgan was due to land raiders in its vicinity to supplement his water and meat supplies, although he had been unable to be precise about locations or dates. So Jason led them down the slopes into the coastal lowlands along the eastern shore of the Bahia de Ocoa, where there were ranches the pirates might raid.

“Of course,” said Zenobia as they made one of their occasional stops for water along the Rio Ocoa, which they dare not follow consistently for fear of discovery, “they might raid on the
other
side of Ocoa, further southeast.”

“But that would put them closer to the Spanish stronghold of Santo Domingo,” Jason argued. “No, my hunch is that they’ll land north of Ocoa.”

“Unless they’ve already come and gone.”

“I prefer not to assume that.” Jason stood up. “All right. Let’s go. Irving, is Roderick in shape to get moving?”

“Yes, I think so.” Nesbit murmured something in Grenfell’s ear. The historian nodded slowly and got to his feet.

They resumed their trek, leaving the Rio Ocoa behind and following a smaller stream southwestward, occasionally glimpsing the Bahia ahead whenever the vegetation grew thin enough. Finally they entered the fringes of the coastal plain, and Jason turned out to be right that there were ranches here.

Unfortunately, those ranches showed signs of having already been raided. There were burned-out sheds, and fly-swarming carcasses of cattle and horses lying about.

Jason had difficulty meeting his companions’ eyes, especially Zenobia’s. “This all looks very recent,” he said. “Maybe—”

All at once, a sound of shouting and musketry was heard. They ran behind a ruined building as a ragged line of men, apparently Spaniards, broke into the cleared area, plainly beating a retreat. Their retreat turned into a rout as another line of men—clearly pirates this time—appeared behind them, pausing to fire their expensive muskets with their famous marksmanship, bringing several Spaniards down and then breaking into a charge.

Jason stepped around a corner of the ruin and started to wave his arms in the direction of the pirates. “Over here!” he shouted . . . then doubled over, breath whooshing out, as the butt of a laser carbine smashed into his stomach.

Before he could straighten up, he was shoved back behind the wall among his companions. A goon stepped quickly around the corner, covering them all with the laser carbine. “No one move or make a sound,” he commanded.

Jason sensed rather than saw Zenobia bunching her muscles to spring. The goon smiled lazily and pointed the laser carbine at her midriff. “Don’t be a silly bitch. Nobody’s
that
fast.” He sounded almost bored. One muscle at a time, Zenobia uncoiled. The goon smiled again, then moved his lower jaw in a way that Jason recognized: he was activating an implanted short-range communicator. “I have them. I’m at—”

With a roar, a large figure burst around the corner of the ruined wall, waving a cutlass overhead. The goon swung around. Before he could bring the laser carbine into line, the cutlass came down, smashing the weapon out of the goon’s hands. At the same moment, Zenobia leaped forward. She grasped the Transhumanist’s left wrist and wrenched the arm back up behind him, while clamping her right arm around his throat. With a bellow of triumph, the new arrival thrust his cutlass into the goon’s midriff, gave it a vicious twist, and yanked it out, trailing a rope of guts.

As Zenobia let the body fall, their rescuer wiped his sweat-soaked dirty-blond hair back, revealing the Neanderthaloid countenance of Roche Braziliano.

I never thought I’d be grateful to see a face like that,
Jason thought.

“Zenobia!” rumbled the pirate in his almost impenetrable Dutch accent. His scowl almost entirely smoothed itself out, which Jason suspected constituted his version of a toothy grin. “It’s you! And you—Jason,
ja?
—I remember from the
Oxford.
How come you to be here?”