diagonally across the rear third of the intercepting pirate launch. Blood fountained as jeering men were ripped apart. Both sides of the hull shattered.
A wave carried the stricken launch up onto its frothy peak. The engine’s weight promptly snapped off the stern. By the time the wave plunged into the trough, all that remained above the water surface was bobbing debris. Including half a dozen heads, with faces that gazed up at Krysty with despair and desperate imploring.
“I never thought I’d be happy to see people doomed to drown like rats,” Mildred said. “I hate even being happy seeing rats drown. I hate what this world has done to me.”
“Well, you can be grateful to Stork in Finagle for clearing the way for us,” Krysty said, meaning it to help. She often was unsure how to deal with her friend’s occasional episodes of remorse, despair and homesickness.
Isis stood atop the cabin, shooting a gigantic pristine Desert Eagle handblaster at the pirate boats that still sought to overtake them. Looking toward the enemy flotilla, Krysty saw a long black yacht, its masts bare like Egret ’s, bearing down on them. Where Egret was spotless white, this vessel was painted black on every visible surface, hull, superstructure, even mast. A black-clad figure stood in the bow as if its feet were bolted to the deck, apparently unaffected by the violence of the waves. Its features were obscured by blackness as featureless at several hundred yards as the hull.
“Damn!” Isis exclaimed from overhead. “That ship’s the Black Joke, and there stands Black Mask his evil self. If only I had a decent fucking blaster!”
Krysty knew the rare handblaster was well-made, as such things went. She also knew what the Tech-nomad captain meant. No matter how good a handblaster it was, to reach out and have any chance at all of touching the pirate overlord, she needed range.
Mildred looked up from rummaging through the debris strewed about the deck for loaded BAR magazines. Krysty noted that not even pounding rain and the waves that broke over the railing with increasing frequency could wash all the spilled blood away.
“Speaking of blasters,” the physician said, “what’s that next to Black Mask?”
Krysty realized he stood beside a long tube laid horizontally on some kind of mount. It flared to a wider diameter at the after end. A wide steel sheet stood angled back behind it.
“Some kind of cannon—” Krysty began.
“Recoilless rifle,” Isis said.
Yellow flame and white smoke erupted out the rear of the tube to splash against the steel plate and boil out to all sides.
A blinding flash lit the thrashing cypress trees. A shock wave planed off the wavetops for fifty yards around.
Krysty’s breath solidified in her throat. Finagle’s First Law had blown up.
Chapter Eight
Someone was shaking Ryan by his shoulder. He wagged his head to clear the cotton that filled it. His hair slapped his cheeks and forehead like wads of seaweed freshly hauled from the sea. His knees were pressing down hard on something hard, and his face felt sunburned.
Also his head rang like an anvil, which was currently in use to forge red-hot iron.
“Ryan!” a voice called from the distance. He shook himself again. His sensory impressions, his very thoughts, whirled around him like shoals of little fish. Little flickering fish, their sides flashing silver in the yellow sunlight—
“Dear boy, please! The ship’s sinking. We have got to act upon the instant, or most assuredly perish!”
Whatever else could be said about Ryan, he was a survivor. He gave his head a final shake, short and sharp, and shook all those little vagrant fishes back into place.
He looked up to see Doc’s long face, streaming water, with raindrops exploding in little bursts all over it. His usually lank hair was plastered right down both sides of his head, making his skull look narrower than usual.
“Get up,” the old man urged. His words still seemed to cross
A wave carried the stricken launch up onto its frothy peak. The engine’s weight promptly snapped off the stern. By the time the wave plunged into the trough, all that remained above the water surface was bobbing debris. Including half a dozen heads, with faces that gazed up at Krysty with despair and desperate imploring.
“I never thought I’d be happy to see people doomed to drown like rats,” Mildred said. “I hate even being happy seeing rats drown. I hate what this world has done to me.”
“Well, you can be grateful to Stork in Finagle for clearing the way for us,” Krysty said, meaning it to help. She often was unsure how to deal with her friend’s occasional episodes of remorse, despair and homesickness.
Isis stood atop the cabin, shooting a gigantic pristine Desert Eagle handblaster at the pirate boats that still sought to overtake them. Looking toward the enemy flotilla, Krysty saw a long black yacht, its masts bare like Egret ’s, bearing down on them. Where Egret was spotless white, this vessel was painted black on every visible surface, hull, superstructure, even mast. A black-clad figure stood in the bow as if its feet were bolted to the deck, apparently unaffected by the violence of the waves. Its features were obscured by blackness as featureless at several hundred yards as the hull.
“Damn!” Isis exclaimed from overhead. “That ship’s the Black Joke, and there stands Black Mask his evil self. If only I had a decent fucking blaster!”
Krysty knew the rare handblaster was well-made, as such things went. She also knew what the Tech-nomad captain meant. No matter how good a handblaster it was, to reach out and have any chance at all of touching the pirate overlord, she needed range.
Mildred looked up from rummaging through the debris strewed about the deck for loaded BAR magazines. Krysty noted that not even pounding rain and the waves that broke over the railing with increasing frequency could wash all the spilled blood away.
“Speaking of blasters,” the physician said, “what’s that next to Black Mask?”
Krysty realized he stood beside a long tube laid horizontally on some kind of mount. It flared to a wider diameter at the after end. A wide steel sheet stood angled back behind it.
“Some kind of cannon—” Krysty began.
“Recoilless rifle,” Isis said.
Yellow flame and white smoke erupted out the rear of the tube to splash against the steel plate and boil out to all sides.
A blinding flash lit the thrashing cypress trees. A shock wave planed off the wavetops for fifty yards around.
Krysty’s breath solidified in her throat. Finagle’s First Law had blown up.
Chapter Eight
Someone was shaking Ryan by his shoulder. He wagged his head to clear the cotton that filled it. His hair slapped his cheeks and forehead like wads of seaweed freshly hauled from the sea. His knees were pressing down hard on something hard, and his face felt sunburned.
Also his head rang like an anvil, which was currently in use to forge red-hot iron.
“Ryan!” a voice called from the distance. He shook himself again. His sensory impressions, his very thoughts, whirled around him like shoals of little fish. Little flickering fish, their sides flashing silver in the yellow sunlight—
“Dear boy, please! The ship’s sinking. We have got to act upon the instant, or most assuredly perish!”
Whatever else could be said about Ryan, he was a survivor. He gave his head a final shake, short and sharp, and shook all those little vagrant fishes back into place.
He looked up to see Doc’s long face, streaming water, with raindrops exploding in little bursts all over it. His usually lank hair was plastered right down both sides of his head, making his skull look narrower than usual.
“Get up,” the old man urged. His words still seemed to cross
Similar Books
