The Ship That Sailed The Time Stream Part 31

Joe nodded absently. The two swimmers were halfway to the quinquereme. Abruptly, they stopped swimming and started yelling.

"Leaving? Oh yes," Joe remembered. "Rose, light 'er off."

"Yes sir!" Rose twiddled topside controls and the warm diesel started immediately.

Things were finally happening aboard the Roman

s.h.i.+p. Oars uns.h.i.+pped and stroked rapidly toward the two swimmers. Joe threw in the forward clutch and spun the wheel, idling the Alice gently upwind so they could make sail. Dead ahead the island silhouetted in the faint beginnings of dawn. "Look," Dr. Krom said.

A thin tendril of smoke issued from the crater.

But Joe was looking elsewhere. The quinquereme had quickstroked to full speed. Nearing the two swimmers, she tossed out a spar for them to cling to and raced on without missing a stroke. The bronze ram was less than a hundred feet away, aimed straight for the Alice's mids.h.i.+ps. Joe rammed the throttle home.

He thumbed his nose as the Alice walked away from the undermanned galley. Once more he was heading south, toward the mouth of the Aegean. One right turn at the Sea of Crete and they wouldn't stop till they reached the Azores. Saving the diesel for emergencies, he could outrun anything the Romans could send against him.

Water tanks were still full, thanks to the Roman ignorance of pumps. He wondered what would have happened if they had discovered all that wine. While the Alice's men traced out lines and undid the Roman snarls in standing and running rigging, Cookie squared away the galley and put girls to grinding flour.

They were a mile ahead now and the galley was turning back toward the oarmaster and captain, who still clung to a floating spar.

Raquel hadn't said a word to Joe since boarding, yet some instinct told him their relations.h.i.+p had changed.

Bloodthirsty savage, he'd called her. How could he have known what lay so close beneath his own civilized ex- terior?

Then the engine stopped.

The quinquereme was completing its pickup, about a mile and a half behind them. Joe wondered if the engine's noise could carry that far upwind. His ques-

tion was answered when the immense striped sail dropped from its yard and bellied. The bronze ram lifted and began throwing twin wings of spray. "Make sail!" Joe shouted.

"Be a few minutes yet," Gorson answered. "Those sons of b.i.t.c.hes unrove the mainsheet."

Dawn was a little brighter now and the island was clearly outlined some five miles astern. "None too soon,"

Dr. Krom was saying. "Look at that smoke."

Joe went to see what had happened to the engine.

"Day tank ran empty," Rose explained.

"I didn't know how to fill it," Joe apologized.

"The engine drives the transfer pump."

Joe began to worry. "And without fuel to start the engine you can't pump fuel into the day tank to run the engine to-"

Rose laughed. "I'll drain a cupful somewhere." He grabbed a wrench and crawled deep into the Alice's bilges. "Don't worry," his m.u.f.fled voice came back, "I'll find a plug soon."

The galley had closed to less than a mile. Joe studied its bow wave and wondered if the Alice could outrun this light drafted vessel downwind. If it came to that the Alice could come about and tack until the oarsmen were exhausted.

"How much longer with that sail?"

"Any minute," Gorson said cheerfully. The galley was making a good nine knots now and the plume of smoke which rose directly behind her gave Joe the momentary impression of a destroyer preparing to ram at flank speed. He was starting down the after scuttle again when he heard the starting motor grind. The diesel coughed raggedly and the gla.s.s tube on the side of the day tank began filling. He went on deck to see what the galley would try.

"Not going to conk out again, is she?"

"If she does I'll turn Christian," Rose promised.

The galley was within three hundred yards, gaining rapidly. Joe opened throttle and headed crosswind to take the weather gage. Instantly, the sail brailed up and oars flashed as the galley turned. But the Alice was faster now and had no difficulty staying on the larger s.h.i.+p's stern. He caught a glimpse of the Roman captain, livid with rage as he shouted orders.

A catapult tw.a.n.ged and the stone splashed short.

This is ridiculous, Joe thought. He didn't want to waste fuel playing tag, yet the Roman wouldn't give up. The quinquereme was more solidly built than that Scowegian dragon s.h.i.+p. Joe might get the worst of it in a ramming match. To h.e.l.l with it. He'd lead them off cross wind for a while, then set every st.i.tch.

Another stone plunked short of the Alice. Joe cracked the throttle a trifle wider. "Look!" Dr. Krom was point- ing at the island, now dead ahead.

It reminded Joe of the Bikini movie. A visible shock wave moved through the clear morning air. A mile high pillar of smoke was already beginning to mushroom.

How long before the tsunami reached them?

"All hands below!" he screamed at the spellbound deck force. "Dog everything tight!" He pushed Dr.

Krom through the scuttle and dived after him. Thank G.o.d they hadn't set sail! And the Alice, at least, was heading into it. "In your bunks," he yelled. "Shut it off, Rose."

The shock wave struck. There was no sound, just a feeling like the end of the world. Somewhere in the loudest silence he had ever known Joe heard a tinkle of broken gla.s.s.

There were ominous creakings and groanings, a hum which ended with a snap like an overturned guitar string. If that's the backstay we need a mast. The nearest suitable timber would be in Gaul. How many weeks to find a stick and shave it down? No, by Mahan-the

Bible mentioned cedars in Lebanon. But there wasn't fuel even to reach there.

The tsunami struck-a vertical wall of water which poured over the bow before the yawl could lift. Water poured through the slide behind him. Floorboards tilted slowly from beneath his feet and he hung from the lad- der. Girls screamed. The bow raised slowly, majestical- ly skyward. Joe surveyed the wriggling ma.s.s below him and wondered why in h.e.l.l they hadn't gotten in their bunks.

He heard water gurgling down the c.o.c.kpit's self- bailing drains. The Alice came to an even keel and after a moment he opened the scuttle and scrambled on deck.

The others streamed behind him and surveyed the tur- bulent, mud-colored sea. There was neither splinter nor corpse of the Romans.

He turned ruefully to Dr. Krom. "I see why you wanted to leave."

The old man grinned, looking suddenly young. "All my life I have lived with fear. First, it was the simple fear of starvation. Then came Hitler and new fears. All my life I have fought fear, seeking only to align myself with the lesser evil. Did you know the Communists also tried to buy me?"

What kind of confession was the old man leading up to?

"Freedom began the day I realized you were in com- mand-that I could in no way influence events." The old man smiled inwardly. "To be a leader is always to be alone. Chained to an oar, I suddenly knew I was free-for the first time in my life. I knew the island would explode but I could not act so I did not care."

Ma Trimble crowded up. "Quite a band, sonny," she said. "Did you shoot off one of them atomizer things?"

Dr. Krom laughed and probed layers of fat with his forefinger, poking in the general direction of Ma Trim- ble's ribs. "Do you realize," he asked Joe, "that this

blithe spirit has never heard of Hitler, Stalin, or Krush- chev?"

Ma Trimble gave the scientist a kittenish glance and they moved off together.

The island was visibly changed. The mushroom had torn and was streaking over the Alice. The wind blew due south and deposited a fine ash over the Alice and the surrounding sea.

"Make sail," Joe said. "First reef until things settle down."

It was nearly noon before they sighted land, ten de- grees off the starboard bow. Joe reflected a moment.

The Roman had been heading due west for Athens.

They were possibly fifty miles south of that position now. He studied the inadequate pilot chart and cursed.

Here he was, a historian professor traveling through the islands where so much of the western world's history had been made. Which was this? Was it the Paros which shuttled back and forth between Athens and Persia so many times? Could it be Naxos, where the G.o.d Dionysus picked up Ariadne after Theseus stood her up? Maybe it was Amorgus, where the Roman emperors sent their poor relations, or Kinaros, famous only for its artichokes. It couldn't be Kos, birthplace of that father of quacks, Hippocrates, or he'd have run aground long ago.