Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [542]
They tackled the captain’s cabin in the stern. The lock broke under their assault, and they burst in. They found themselves in a comfortably appointed quarter galley with windows opening above the water.
They drew up short. A man with an old-fashioned bell-mouthed musket was sitting with his back to the windows, aiming the gun at them.
‘Don’t shoot,’ Shokerandit said. ‘We intend no harm.’
The man rose to his feet. He lowered the weapon.
‘I would have blasted you if you were loonies.’
He was proportioned in the unaccustomed thickset way. He had passed through the Fat Death. They recognised him then as the captain. His officers lay about the cabin, their hands tied. Some were gagged.
‘We’ve had a high old time here,’ said the captain. ‘Fortunately, I was the first to recover, and we have lost only the first mate – for eating purposes, that was, excuse the expression. A few more hours and these officers will be back in action.’
‘Then you can leave them and see to the rest of your ship,’ said Shokerandit sharply. ‘We’re beached, and there’s a threat from phagors ashore.’
‘How’s Master Eedap Mun Odim?’ asked the captain, as he accompanied them from the cabin, his gun under his arm.
‘We haven’t found Odim yet.’
They found him later. Odim had locked himself in his cabin with a supply of water, dried fish, and ship’s biscuits as he felt the first fever upon him. He had undergone the metamorphosis. He was now a few inches shorter, and of much more rounded bulk than before. His characteristic straight-backed stance had disappeared. He wore a floppy sailor’s garb, his own clothes having become too tight for him. Blinking, he emerged on deck like a hibernatory bear from its cave.
He looked round quickly frowning, as they hailed him. Shokerandit approached slowly, well aware that it was he who had passed the Fat Death to all aboard. He humbly reminded Odim of his name.
Ignoring him, Odim went to the rail and gestured over the side of the ship. When he spoke, his voice choked with rage.
‘Look at this barbarism! Some wretch has thrown my best plate overboard. It’s an atrocity. Just because there’s illness on the ship, it doesn’t excuse … Who did it? I demand to know. The culprit is not going to sail with me.’
‘Well …’ said Toress Lahl.
‘Er …’ said Shokerandit. He took a grip on himself and said, ‘Sir, I have to confess that I did it. We were being attacked by phagors at the time.’
He pointed to where phagors could be seen by the rock.
‘You shoot phagors, you do not throw precious plates at them, you imbecile,’ Odim said. He reined in his temper. ‘You were mad – is that your excuse?’
‘The ship has no weapons with which to defend itself. We saw that the phagors were going to attack – they will try again if they get desperate. I threw the plate over the side deliberately, to cover the sand spit. As I expected, the fuggies believed they were treading on thin ice, and retreated. I’m sorry about your porcelain, but it saved the ship.’
Odim said nothing. He stared down at the deck, up at the mast. Then he brought a little black notebook out of his pocket and perused it. ‘That service would have fetched a thousand sibs in Shivenink,’ he said in low tones, darting swift glances at them.
‘It has saved all the rest of the porcelain on the ship,’ Toress Lahl said. ‘Your other crates are intact. How is the rest of your family?’
Muttering to himself, Odim made a pencilled note. ‘Perhaps more than a thousand … Thank you, thank you … I wonder when such fine ware will again be manufactured? Probably not until the spring of next Great Year, many centuries in the future. Why should any of us care about that?’
He turned bemusedly, to shake hands with Shokerandit while looking elsewhere. ‘My gratitude for saving the ship.’
‘Now we’ll get it afloat again,’ said the captain.
The noise of the flambreg herd was louder now. They turned to see the animals pour by, not more than a mile inland. Odim disappeared unnoticed.
Only