“What is happening?” Caroline shouted to Praxus.
“A sail! He has sighted a sail on the horizon!” Praxus replied anxiously.
39
Mixed Spirits
He was never what you’d call a drinker, but the night before, Morris Tauber had matched Boats and Jimbo beer for beer. The last thing he could recall was giving a thumbs-up when Boats suggested they open a bottle of peppermint schnapps.
Who would have thought peppermint would taste so bad coming back up? He yanked the flush pull and leaned on the steel sink for support. The Ocean Raj was in motion now, on course for the island of Rhodes. According to the dog-eared Penguin Classics edition of the Codex Profectus Praxus, that would be the next place they could find his sister and her new boyfriend.
Now there was nothing to do but wait. That was the worst part of this whole endeavor. All Morris could do was fret and fuss and review every detail and answer every question again and again. As sick as he felt right now, he was still glad for the few hours’ respite from worrying.
Jimbo knocked and entered to find Morris lying back on his bunk with a wet washcloth tented on his face. The physicist did not look much like a scholar in a sweat-stained t-shirt, tighty-whities, and one sock.
“You still with us or are we going to have a burial at sea?” Jimbo said.
Morris moaned.
“It smells like Peppermint Patty took a dump in here.”
“Ha. Ha,” Morris said from beneath the cloth. “Boats says we’ll be sighting Rhodes this time tomorrow.”
“How drunk did I get?”
“You didn’t get drunk, Mo. You got wasted. I stuck to beer, but you and that pirate polished off that minty shit and moved on to Maker’s Mark.”
“I don’t even know what that is,” Morris groaned.
“Bourbon. You really liked that shit,” Jimbo said and slapped Morris’ bare foot. “You need to haul your ass up and get something on your stomach to take away that head of yours.”
“I’ll puke. Again.”
Jimbo got a San Pellegrino out of the mini-fridge and made Morris sit up and sip it.
“The headache is from dehydration. Your blood vessels are flat. They need liquids.”
“You’re a doctor now?” Morris said, retrieving his eyeglasses from the bedcovers and placing them on his nose.
“No. But I’ve seen more guys drop from dehydration than combat. We’re seventy percent water, you know.”
“Yeah. I read that on a Snapple cap.”
“See? A joke. You’re back in business already,” Jimbo said. “Let me give you the sitrep. Me and Boats did an inventory of the stuff we brought back from the island.”
“What’s missing?” Morris held the cold bottle to his forehead.
“Some clothes, a combat knife, and Dwayne’s Kimber.”
“That’s a gun, right?”
“A really nice gun. Dwayne paid a shit-pile for it.”
“We’re all going to pay a shit-pile for that gun, James,” Morris groaned. “It’s a chronal catastrophe. An anachronistic Hiroshima.”
“Dwayne knows that, and Caroline wouldn’t let him forget anyway. I’m sure he threw it in the water or ditched it somewhere on the island. When we find them, he can confirm that.” Jimbo slapped his shoulder and rose to leave.
“When we find them. Any luck reaching Chaz?”
“I have messages out at all his contacts and hangouts. He’s gone dark on me. Hammond, too. I think something’s up, but we’ll reach one of them. Don’t worry.”
“Worry. It’s what I do,” Morris said with a quavering smile. “Until Caroline’s back, it’s all I’m going to do.”
40
The Slow-Motion Race
Dwayne thought it was all like something from a movie until it wasn’t.
Men were running everywhere. The two “Roman” captives were ignored. The unconscious Xin remained unmoving. Men ran to their assigned oar stations without direction. They were clambering down to their benches. All took their seats facing sternwards with hands clasping the oars and awaiting command.
A boy wearing nothing but a water bota on a cord about his shoulders shinnied up the mast using only hands and bare feet until he was perched on the top spar high above the deck.
Others tore at lines and tarps to uncover crates woven from wax-covered reeds. The lids were prized from the crates to reveal stacks of swords, axes, and spears stored within to protect them from moisture. There were helmets and few bits of dented armor. The men armed themselves and hauled the empty crates to the aft where they stacked them and dogged them down and out of the way.
The captain’s tent was struck and stowed away. The old seer shuffled aside to make room. Xin’s body was dragged over the deck and rolled against the strakes behind the prow. Another man took up the dropped ax, the symbol of office for the second in command.
A rumble shivered the ship its entire length as two banks of oars were turned and run out either side. The oars were turned to lock pegs against the tholes. The blades were fully extended and held suspended above the water. The armed men cleared the center deck to line either gunwale. Dwayne and Caroline were pushed aft, and Praxus limped to follow. The kid had taken a beating.
A single figure was left standing amidships. He was a rough-looking man with long braids touched with gray and worn free on his head like a mane. A striped loincloth was knotted about his waist. In his hand, he held a wooden staff topped with the brass head of a lion. He tapped the staff once on the deck. The blades of the lower bank of oars dropped into the water in a single motion and began to sweep through the water.
“Aleph!” the man with the staff called.
When one pass was completed, the man thumped the deck twice. The top bank of oar blades bit into the water and pulled until they reached the same angle as the lower bank.
“Bet!” the man called.
They were soon in steady motion powered by one hundred and twenty men in synchronized motion under the command of the man with the staff who tirelessly
