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“Thank you, sir!” Sandy heaved out, shuddering with relief.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Holmes said. “He may decide they should be shot in the morning instead. All right, my men are billeted in the linen factory next door. You men, round up your crew and restore them to the ship and get them working. We’ll supply any further crewmen if you need muscle. Get moving before insult sets in and I become surly. And clean up this powder monkey. He’s bleeding on my floor.”

Without offering the captain the respect of a “Yes, sir,” Picard put his hand on Alexander and ushered the boy out. Sandy followed them, and when the door closed behind them he sagged against the doorframe.

“Thank you for your help, Mr. Picard,” he huffed. “Perhaps Jeremiah’s life will be spared.”

“If so, it was your doing,” Picard said.

The next moment, the door opened again and two guards led Jeremiah and O’Heyne out onto the plank porch. Jeremiah instantly rushed to Sandy and the two clasped hands warmly.

“You’re everything I knew you were,” Jeremiah lauded. “Someday this will end and we’ll be family again.”

“I’ll always be your family,” Sandy told him warmly. “I swore an oath to the king and I’ll honor it, but I know now that I’m not your better at all.”

Jeremiah patted his hand. “Oh, in a few ways!”

“Don’t worry,” O’Heyne said, clapping Jeremiah on a shoulder. “England and the continent will be friends one way or the other, because we simply can’t have this for long.” He reached out to shake Picard’s hand. “Thank you deeply.”

“Quite welcome,” Picard responded drably. “Fair weather, Mr. O’Heyne.”

The guards took the two men away, and Sandy Leonfeld stared emotionally after them.

“You’d better go and inform Mr. Pennington,” Picard told him. “The ship is ours. And the fate of your cousin and O’Heyne are in his hands.”

“Yes,” Sandy said. “Yes—thank you.” He clasped Picard’s hand, then Alexander’s. “Thank you both!”

As he jogged off through the British military men now common in the brightening street, Alexander swung around to Picard.

“Wow!” the boy gushed. “I wonder if that really happened! I hope it did!”

“Well, the holodeck computer didn’t stop me,” Picard said on a sigh, “or contradict me either. So perhaps something like that did happen.”

“Sandy really stood up to that captain! He actually defended Britain’s enemies right to his face!”

“So he did. I liked what he said very much.”

“Do you think Mr. Pennington’ll let Jeremiah and Mr. O’Heyne live?”

“Mr. Pennington’s a compassionate and decent man. He doesn’t strike me as vindictive. And if war dictates otherwise… well, there are worse ways for a patriot to die.”

“Do you really think that? That there are good and bad ways to die?”

“Yes, and things very much worth dying for. You’ve heard these men, these colonists saying what they’re about, and you’ve seen dauntless behavior from the British as well. Higher civilization is emerging here. It’s bringing a higher morality with it. The old system of monarchy saw humanity through primitive times with great success, but with progress is coming the morality of individualism. It’s given us all we possess in our time, and we’d better nurture it, or we’ll lose everything.”

Alexander looked around at the morning scene—the early American town, masts stemming over the roof tops, the quaintly costumed people trying to get through this difficult day after a difficult night, and redcoat guards leading groups of Dover Infantrymen to the guardhouse.

“I think I get it now,” he said.

Picard couldn’t manage a smile. “I think I do, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that people have the right to make a decision, good or bad. How closely should anyone else hold the lens? And at what cost? Now, let’s get you to the sickbay. The real one. And I’d better make a will, because when your father finds you’ve been wounded, he’s going to relieve me of some important cerebral matter, I think.”

He paused, and gazed over the houses at the masts of the Justina. He let the Delaware River breeze brush his face as he memorized the masts and rigging, so he also would