Mariners of Gor

“Beware of Seremides,” said the tarnsman.

“I shall,” I said. “I wish you well.”

We turned about, to leave the open deck.

I doubted that I was the less in danger from Seremides, for having forgone the use of a slave. It might have been pleasant to fling her upon the coil of rope, head down, and thrust up her tunic, but one must concern oneself with discipline, and the ship. Too, her use was not mine.

Such things concern some men.

Not every man will untether another’s kaiila.

We had scarcely moved toward the port companionway leading under the stem castle when our progress was suddenly arrested by a cry from the height of the foremast.

“Ho!” cried Leros from above. “Ho! A light, a light! Ahead, ahead, a light!”

The bar sounded, struck twice.

Cabot and I hurried, followed by his lantern bearer, along the narrow port passageway about the stem castle, and stood at the bow. We heard others climb the steps to the stem-castle deck. We heard others hurrying about the starboard passageway about the stem castle, and were soon joined at the bow.

“Ahead, dead ahead!” called Leros, from above, his voice seemingly far away.

“There!” said Cabot, pointing.

Twice more the bar rang.

We could see the light now, even from the deck level.

“It is a ship!” cried a man.

“No!” said Lord Nishida, suddenly beside us. “It is too soon, too soon!”

At the same time, with a shift of the moist wind, a heavy, sweet odor emerged from the darkness.

“Turn about! Turn about!” cried Lord Nishida.

By now, given the ringing of the bar, one supposed that Aetius, and perhaps even Tersites, and the major officers quartered astern, closest to the helmsman, had come to the command deck, the stern-castle deck, whence orders might be most conveniently and immediately conveyed to the helmdeck, some feet below.

Lord Nishida turned about and began to hurry aft. Cabot and I, and the lantern bearer, followed him. We pressed our way through excited and curious men, in their crowds, come from below decks, rushed forward.

Save for the lanterns rushing about the deck, it was dark.

The odor became more pervasive.

I heard something brush the side of the hull.

In a few Ehn Lord Nishida was at the foot of the helm deck. There were dark figures on the stern-castle.

“Put about!” cried Lord Nishida to the stern-castle deck. “Put about! Put about!”

From the darkness above came the shrill voice of Tersites. “Forward!” it cried. “Forward!”

“Fools! Fools!” cried Lord Nishida.

He clambered to the helm deck and began to fight the helmsman for the helm.

Two mariners pulled him from the helm.

“Forward!” cried Tersites.

The wind turned, and was fair, swelling the mighty sails, and the great ship, like an unleashed sleen, leaped forward.

It was an Ahn later that the sails fell slack, and the ship ceased to move.

Once again the heavy, sweet odor was pervasive.

One could now, in the light of the dawn, see the color about, yellow and purple, the myriads of blossoms, many a foot in width, opening to the morning sun.

I now heard the voice of Aetius, above, frantic with concern.

“Put about! Put about!” he called to the helmsman.

“No!” screamed Tersites.

“We must put about, dear master!” cried Aetius.

“Never!” said Tersites.

“Take him below!” cried Aetius.

A mariner took the shipwright by the arm, and conducted him, that small, misshapen figure, protesting, struggling, from the stern-castle deck.

“Put about!” called Aetius, to the helmsman.

“I cannot!” he said. “I cannot!”

Chapter Thirteen

We Board an Unusual Ship; The Mystery of the Parsit is Solved; There is Evidence our Presence has been Noted

I looked about.

“It is an odd ship,” I said to Tarl Cabot.

We had clambered aboard the vessel, from a small ship’s boat, cutting through the masses of snarled, ropelike, blossomed vines which encircled it, covering it, almost obscuring it. It was one of several such derelicts we had noted, resting variously in the sea, a pasang or two apart. We did not know how many such vessels might lie trapped in this place, in this welter of tangled, blossoming growth which stretched far about us. At first, from several hundred yards away, we had thought them only inexplicable mounds in the sea, hills of flowers uncannily forced upward by the riot of growth, vines upon vines. Then we learned the tendrils had clasped and climbed, and covered the works of men. The odor of these enormous fields of growth, alive, rocking and swaying in the sea, with their ubiquitous, massive blossoms, yellow, and purple, which had struck me one night some weeks ago as so pervasive, striking, and unpleasant, was doubtless as physically present as ever, but, interestingly, one now scarcely noticed it, excepting with an effort of attention. The odor, in time, became a lulling odor, and, no longer noted, but invariably present, tended to produce a sense of lethargy.

“Not really,” said Cabot. “It is only different.”

It had a high stem-castle, and two fixed masts. It was a round ship, of sorts, a vessel not made for war. Surely there was no ram, no shearing blades, no sockets for fixing catapults or springals. It would move solely under sail. There were no oar decks. It was somewhat larger than a medium galley. What most struck me was the battening, the sail-reinforcing ribbing, to which clung the shreds of matting.

“I wonder how long it has it been here,” I said.

“It is hard to say,” said Cabot. “A hundred years, perhaps two hundred.”

“That is long,” I said.

“The hull,” he said, “is bored by ship worms, and rotted. The deck is split and the boards shrunk. Were it not for the clasp of the foliage, suspending her, she may have disappeared long ago.”

He punched downward with the heel of his sea boot and the board broke under the blow, revealing a brown, spongelike mass of fiber.

This was the first time I had been on one of the derelicts, but they were not unknown to many of our armsmen and mariners who had boarded them to loot the cabins and the dozens of small holds, or compartments, in each, which, at one time, though now half flooded, may have been watertight. The sea chests of many of our fellows were now heavy with pierced coins, pearls, and precious stones.

Few skeletons had been found on the derelicts, which suggested that men, perhaps in madness or desperation, had somehow fled these strange fields or perished in the sea.

The strange ships were flat-bottomed, and so could navigate rivers, perhaps by poling or towing, and shallow waters, as well as the sea. Several, on the other hand, possessed daggerboards, which, by means of a slot in the hull, might be raised or lowered, these, when lowered, providing greater stability in open water. But all, however fitted, had been arrested here, tangled in the growth.

One could almost walk upon the vines, but one could draw a small ship’s boat, or raft, through them, hoping eventually to reach free water.