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“What’s holding us back, sir?” Bennett wanted to know when Picard paused.

“Looking for Committee of Safety guards,” Picard answered. “Seems they’ve all gone to defend the town. All right, let’s board and load.”

There were only the four of them now, their shoes throbbing on the dock as they ran out to the gangplank and charged onto the ship. The Justina was eerily quiet, without another living soul on board. And yet there seemed to still be a pulse of life here, as if the beast were just in repose waiting for its master to return.

So it was true … no ship was entirely inert. The life pulse of the shipwrights, the sailors, the officers remained on board somehow. She was alive.

“Is this your first action on this continent, Mr. Leonfeld?” Picard asked as they reached the main deck.

“Yes…”

“What dp you think so far?”

Sandy tightened visibly. He sighed twice. “I cannot believe it can work for the mob to decide … yet how can I tell a man like Patrick O’Heyne to go and be a collier because he was born to a collier? To go back to his ‘station’ in life? And my dear, decent Jeremiah, whose heart I know as my own … . How can the right of kings be less than divine and still be sacred?”

“Perhaps power flows the other way in a better world, Sergeant,” Picard said. “From the people to the government, instead of the other way round.”

Sandy shook his head. “You are a confusing man, sir! And I am confused.”

Picard nodded. “Congratulations.”

In the town, shouts pierced the night, the voices of commanders barking instructions spared them from pressing the issue.

“Close up!”

“Wheel right!”

“Forward!”

“Fix bayonets!”

“Uh-oh,” Picard uttered. “Mr. Bennett, arm phasers. Eh—instead of that, prepare a cannon to fire. We’re going to make the dock impassable.”

“Aye, sir!” Bennett sprang for a midships gun. “I’ll use the foredeck gun, sir, beggin’ your pardon. We’ll get a good punch taking the dock at a bit of an angle.”

“Very well. Help him, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir.” Sandy put down his sea-issue rifle and hurried to assist.

As the skirmish escalated on the visible street beyond the wharf, Picard and Alexander crouched at the ship’s rail, weapons aimed. Dim outlines of redcoats and patriots picked through bloodsoaked bodies cluttering the ground.

It took time to load and run out a cannon, and before Wollard and Sandy were finished, several armed townsmen appeared on the wharf, running toward the extended dock that would bring them out to the ship’s T-shaped dock.

Picard raised his rifle and fired, but the unfamiliar weapon damned his aim, and shot downward and a foot to the left of the colonist he had sighted down. Fortunately, it did take out the dock plank the man was standing on, and the colonist fumbled and spun into the water. With a soaked rifle and heavy clothing, the floundering man was now paddling about uselessly, trying to find a way out of the water.

Alexander looked at the other colonists pounding down the dock. “Should I shoot?”

Picard glanced at the boy. “Do what you think is right.”

The boy stared at him, then looked down at the long rifle in his hands. Unexpectedly, he lowered the gun, and looked up again. “They’re only defending their say over their own lives. They just want to keep what they earn.”

At first he seemed to be waiting for approval for his words, but when none was forthcoming, Alexander glowered fiercely as if making up his mind a second time, put his rifle down, and turned his back.

In that silent moment, the halyards flapped against the mast, the water patted the ship’s planks, and the pop of riflefire pressed into the night, each percussion ticking off a second. A full minute went by, and still the boy did not turn.

“Mmm,” Picard mumbled. “Progress.” He gripped the nearest shroud and called, “How’s that cannon, Wollard?”

“Ready, sir!”

Bennett’s voice cracked on a grunt as he and Sandy put their shoulders to the lines. The loaded gun groaned out on its heavy truck. It took considerable strain, and all the leverage the blocks could offer for