“Open up!” Silva growled at the inner door. A short man with spectacles and the almost universal Imperial mustache opened the heavy door and peered out. Silva drove the cutlass into his chest and pushed his way inside. Without a sound, the man slid off the blade and onto the deck when Silva lowered the cutlass and regarded the other man. He was bigger and might require more exercise.
He screamed shrilly.
So much for first impressions, Silva thought, and pinned the man to the bulkhead. The gunner, or mate- whichever he was-screamed even louder. “Well, shit!” Dennis hissed indignantly, skewering the man again. “I’ve seen bunnies make manlier noises when a dog gets ’em by the ass!” Still sobbing, but mortally wounded, the big man fell to the deck when Silva freed the blade.
Quickly, he laid the cutlass on the gunner’s table and hung the rope and rum bottle from a hook on the beam overhead. Snatching up a fifty-pound keg of powder, he hurried to place it in the passageway. He knew he was running out of time. Imperial drill for deterring mountain fish seemed to be three broadsides, and the next would fire any minute. He didn’t know what would happen after that. He doubted the powder boys would return the pass boxes to the magazine-there was limited space inside, after all-but somebody was liable to come down. He ran back inside, picked up another barrel of powder, and smashed it against the deck.
“I thought I might find you here,” came a voice from the armory compartment.
Silva looked up. “Well, how do, Mr. Truelove,” he said. “For some reason, I thought you might too.” He nodded at the pistol held casually in Truelove’s hand. “You gonna shoot that in here?”
Truelove grimaced at the pistol and slid it on his belt, where it hung by a hook. “I don’t suppose I really need it. I’m actually quite good with a sword. I’ve seen you use one, you know, at Baalkpan, before I gave you that little tap on the head. You fight quite… dynamically and enthusiastically… but your sword work is just that: work. To me, it is play.”
“Why’d you conk me then?”
Truelove shrugged. “Unsportsmanlike, I know, but necessary at the time. Perhaps now we might meet each other properly?”
“Sure. Just a couple o’ questions first. ’Twixt gentlemen.”
Truelove nodded. “Of course. Adversaries should know each other at times like this, and I already know a good deal about you.”
“How did you know I’d be here?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Call it intuition. You are a resourceful man. I thought it likely you might take advantage of the situation facing the ship. I don’t know what you hope to accomplish, but I’ve no doubt you have a plan. I almost regret thwarting you. I view you as a fellow professional in a way, and suspect I would have enjoyed seeing your plan unfold.”
So, thought Silva, he’s here on a whim. Everything else might still be going swell. He had no doubt Truelove was better with a sword, since Silva had no proper training at all. A real fight wouldn’t do, and besides, it might take too long and draw too much attention. A moment earlier he’d been in a rush. Now he needed to stall. “Why Billingsly?” he asked conversationally. “A fella like you’d go just as far on the right side, I figger.”
Truelove laughed. “Well, let us just say that I had gone quite as far as I could in His Majesty’s Secret Service, and I like money. Yes, indeed.” He nodded at Silva’s cutlass and reached for his sword. “Shall we be about it then?”
“Sure, but there’s just one thing you may not know about me,” Silva said, shaking his head with a conspiratorial grin and a prolonged display of being a man with a great secret.
“Oh?”
The third broadside erupted, jarring the ship and making the lantern in the adjoining compartment jump. Silva launched himself like a torpedo and struck Truelove in the chest with his head before the man could clear his blade. They sprawled together in the armory compartment, and quicker than his opponent could recover, Silva’s mighty fists were already slamming into his face like pile drivers. Truelove was still trying to free his sword, but with six inches of the blade free, Dennis paused long enough to grasp the man’s hand in his and wrench it to the side, breaking several of Truelove’s fingers against the guard and snapping the blade off at the top of the scabbard. He pitched the twisted guard in among the musket stocks. The last thing Truelove might have heard before darkness took him was Silva’s final, gasping explanation: “Sometimes I can be a little unsportsmanlike too.”
For the moment, Truelove was out. Sore from his leap, Silva struggled to his feet and dragged the heavy, limp form into the magazine. Tearing off a piece of wadding made of something he didn’t recognize, he stuffed it into Truelove’s mouth and propped him against a heavy upright beam. Finding a spool of slow match, he fiercely tied the man’s head to the post, across the gag, then proceeded to secure him quickly and professionally against any attempt to escape. Tearing away a piece of Truelove’s shirt, he lit it from the lantern and carefully lit the rum- soaked cord that held the bottle suspended. He had no idea how long the cord would hold, five minutes or half an hour, but he needed to be gone.
As he fled the armory, as an afterthought he snatched Truelove’s pistol from where it had fallen from his belt, then shut the outer door and locked it with his heavy brass key. He’d taken a chance the same key would work, but he’d expected it would. He knocked the top off the second rum bottle and liberally doused the passageway on both sides of the magazine, taking pains not to spill any right in front of it. Finally, he slung his big rifle and hoisted the keg of powder onto his shoulder. He lit another piece of Truelove’s shirt from the lantern in the passageway and pitched it onto the far splash of rum. It lit with surprising fervency. Beyond the sudden flame, he saw a boy’s panicked face appear and then quickly vanish, yelling, “Fire!” Oh, well. Dropping the lantern on the nearest splash, he hoisted his sack of rum bottles with a clinking sound and dashed up the companionway.
Things on the gun deck had calmed significantly when the leviathan they’d apparently struck failed to reappear. He even caught a snatch of a rumor that the starboard anchor had been discovered hanging in the sea. Maybe it was all just a false alarm. Silva paid no heed. His old maxim of doing sneaky stuff right out in the open seemed to be holding up. If a guy with a strange-looking gun came running by with a keg on one shoulder and a canvas sack on the other… he must have a good reason-or whoever had ordered him to did. Cries of “Fire!” began to increase, further distracting the crew. The alarm bell was sounding again when Silva reached the quarterdeck- and saw Billingsly pointing a pistol at Sandra, Rajendra, and Cook.
He was dressed in a probably stylish robe, with clashing colors and frills, and stood in stocking feet. He must have finally emerged from his spacious cabin to investigate all the commotion. Like Truelove, perhaps he suspected something and armed himself. Or maybe he was just paranoid. Regardless, there he stood with his long pistol aimed at Sandra. Again. He was shouting for guards, Marines-anyone-but no one could hear him over the alarm bell, the renewed uproar, and the still-venting steam. He didn’t hear Silva either, when the big man stepped up behind him and laid him flat with the sack of rum bottles. To Silva, the wild pistol shot was only slightly more alarming than the mournful crash and tinkle of an unknown number of the little prizes in the sack.
“Silva!” cried Sandra. “Thank God! I don’t know whether to yell at you for taking so long, or hug you for showing up when you did!”
He flashed a grin. “A hug’ll do, but later! We’d better scram! Over the side with you!” He ran to the rail. “Here, somebody strong’d better catch this!” he said, and tossed the powder barrel at the boat. Next went his sack, and he heard someone cry out when they must have found some broken glass. Sandra and Abel were sliding down the rope.
“You next, Mr. Silva!” Captain Rajendra said. “I must be last to leave my ship!”
“I know that sounds all noble an’ shit, but not this time,” Silva replied. He nodded at a group of men approaching, cutlasses out. Billingsly was beginning to revive as well. “I can handle ’em a lot quicker than you.” Rajendra hesitated; then, with a nod, he left Dennis Silva alone on Ajax ’s quarterdeck. Almost nonchalantly, Silva popped open the holster flap and drew his beloved 1911 Colt. He’d considered it-and all his weapons-as much a hostage as the rest of them. There was a magazine in the well, but if he remembered, he’d emptied it. Besides, the weight was wrong. Depressing the magazine release with his thumb, the-sure enough-empty magazine clattered on the deck at his feet.
“Stop him, you fools!” Billingsly screamed at the swordsmen. “That is a repeating pistol of some sort!” The crewmen hesitated. A few more scampered up the stairs; one was an officer. “Kill that man this instant!” Billingsly shrieked.
Silva fished another magazine out of a pouch on his belt, inserted it, and racked the slide. “Too late,” he said, and shot the officer. A large red hole appeared on the white jacket, exactly in the center of his chest, and he
