The harpooner triggered his catapult. It unwound with a thunder noise. Barbed steel smote the engaged gondola low in a side, tore through, and ended on the other side of interior planking.
гWind Оer up!д bawled Hiti. His own gorilla hands were already on a crank lever. Somehow two other men found space to help him.
Ruori slipped down the futtock shrouds and jumped to the gaff. Another pirate had landed there and a third was just arriving, with two more aslide behind him. The man on the spar balanced barefooted, as good as any sailor, and drew a sword. Ruori dropped as the blade whistled, caught a mainsail grommet one-handed, and
hung there, striking with his boat ax at the grapnel line. The pirate crouched and stabbed at him. Ruori thtught of Tresa, smashed his hatchet into the manвs face, and flipped him off, down to the deck. He cut again. The leather was tough, but his blade was keen. The line parted and whipped away. The gaff swung free, almost yanking Ruoriвs fingers loose. The second Sky Man toppled, hit a cabin below and spattered. The men on the line slid to its end. One of them could not stop, the sea took him. The other was smashed against the masthead as he pendulumed.
Ruori pulled himself back astride the gaff and sat there a while, heaving air into lungs that burned. The fight ramped around him, on shrouds and spars and down on the decks. The other blimp edged closer.
Astern, raised by the speed of a ship moving into the wind, a box kite lifted. Atel sang a command and the helmsman put the rudder over. Even with the drag on her, the Dolphin responded well; a profound science of fluid mechanics had gone into her design. Being soaked in whale oil, it clung there for a timeчlong enough for гmessengersд of burning paper to whirl up its string. The kite burst into flame.
The blimp sheered off, the kite fell away, its small gunpowder load blew up harmlessly. Atel cursed and gave further orders. The Dolphin tacked. The second kite, already aloft and afire, hit target. It detonated.
Hydrogen gushed out. There was no explosion, but sudden flames wreathed the blimp. They seemed pale in the sun-dazzle. Smoke began to rise, as the plastic between gas cells disintegrated. The aircraft descended like a slow meteorite to the water.
Its companion vessel had no reasonable choice but to cast loose all unsevered grapnels, abandoning the still outnumbered boarding party. The captain could not know that the Dolphin had only possessed two kites. A few vengeful catapult bolts spat from it. Then it was free, rapidly falling astern. The Maurai ship rocked toward an even keel.
The enemy might retreat or he might plan some fresh attack. Ruori did not intend that it should be either. He megaphoned:
гPut about! Face that scum-gut!д And led a rush down the shrouds to a deck where combat still went on.
For Hitiвs gang had put three primary harpoons and half a dozen lesser ones into the gondola.
Their lines trailed in tightening catenaris from the blimp to the capstan in the bows. No fear now of undue strain. The Dolphin, like any Maurai craft, was meant to live off the sea as she traveled. She had dragged more than one right whale alongside; a blimp was nothing in comparison. What counted was speed, before the pirates realized what was happening and found ways to cut loose.
гTohiha, hioha, itoki, itoki!д The old canoe chant rang forth as men tramped about the capstan. Ruori hit the deck, saw a Canyon man fighting a sailor, sword against club, and brained the fellow from behind as he would any other vermin. (Then wondered, dimly shocked, what made him think thus about a human being.) The battle was rapidly concluded, the Sky Men faced hopeless odds. But half a dozen Federation people were badly hurt. Ruori had the few surviving pirates tossed into a lazaret, his own casualties taken below to anesthetics and antibiotics and cooing Doflitas. Then, quickly, he prepared his crew for the next phase.
The blimp had been drawn almost to the bowsprit. It was canted over so far that its catapults were useless. Pirates lined the gallery deck, howled and shook their weapons. They outnumbered the Dolphin crew by a factor of three or four. Ruori recognized one among themчthe tall yellow-haired man who had fought him outside the palaceчit was a somehow eerie feeling.
гShall we burn them?д asked Atel.
Ruori grimaced. гI suppose we have to,д he said. гTry not to ignite the vessel itself. You know we want it.д
A walking beam moved up and down, driven by husky Islanders. Flame spurted from a ceramic nozzle. The smoke and stench and screams that followed, and the things to be seen when Ruori ordered cease fire, made even the hardest veteran of corsair patrol look a bit ill. The Maurai were an unsentimental folk, but they did not like to inflict pain.
гHose,д rasped Ruori. The streams of water that followed were like some kind of blessing. Wicker that had begun to burn hissed into charred quiescence.
The shipвs own grapnels were flung. A couple of cabin boys darted past grown men to be first along the lines. They met no resistance on the gallery. The uninjured majority of pirates stood in a numb fashion, their armament at their feet, the fight kicked out of them. Jacobвs ladders followed the boys; the Dolphin crew swarmed aboard the blimp and started rounding up prisoners.
A few Sky Men lurched from behind a door, weapons aloft. Ruori saw the tall fair man among them. The man drew Ruoriвs dagger, left-handed, and ran toward him. His right arm seemed nearly useless. гA Canyon, a Canyon!д he called, the ghost of a war cry.
Ruori sidestepped the charge and put out a foot. The blond man tripped. As he fell, the hammer of Ruoriвs ax clopped down, catching him on the neck. He crashed, tried to rise, shuddered, and lay twitching.
гI want my knife back.д Ruori squatted, undid the pirateвs tooled leather belt, and began to hogtie him.
Dazed blue eyes looked up with a sort of pleading. гAre you not going to kill me?д mumbled the other in Spaflol.
гHaristi, no,д said Ruori, surprised. гWhy should I?д
He sprang up. The last resistance had ended, the blimp was his. He opened the forward door, thinking the equivalent of a shipвs bridge must lie beyond it.
Then for a while he did not move at all, nor did he hear anything but the wind and his own blood.
It was Tresa who finally came to him. Herв hands were held out before her, like a blind personвs, and her eyes looked through him. гYou are here,д she said, flat and empty.
гDo–ita,д stammered Ruori. He caught her hands. гDoflita, had I known you were aboard, I would never have . . . have riskedчд
гWhy did you not burn and sink us, like that other vessel?д
she asked in a flayed voice. гWhy must this one return to the city?д
She wrenched free of him and stumbled out on to the deck. It was steeply tilted, and it bucked beneath her. She fell, picked herself up, walked with barefoot care to the rail and stared out across the ocean. Her hair and torn dress fluttered in the wind.
ОTn
There was a great deal of technique to handling an airship. Ruori could feel that the thirty men he had put aboard this one were sailing it as awkwardly as possible. An experienced Sky Man would know what sort of thermals and downdrafts to expect, just from a glance at land or water below; he could estimate the level at which a desired breeze was blowing, and rise or fall smoothly; he could even beat to windward, though it would be a slow process much plagued by drift.
Nevertheless, an hourвs study showed the basic principles. Ruori went back to the bridge and gave orders in the speaking tube. Presently the land came nearer. A glance below showed the Dolphin, with a cargo of war captives, following on shortened sail. He and his fellow aeronauts would have to take a lot of banter about their celestial snailвs pace. Ruori did not smile at the thought or plan his replies, as he would have done even yesterday. Tresa sat so still behind him.
гDo you know the name of this craft, Doflita?д he asked, to break the silence.
гHe called it Buffalo,д she said, remote and uninterested.
гWhatвs that?д
гA sort of wild dattle.д
гI gather, then, that he talked to you while cruising in search of me. Did he say anything else of interest?д
гHe spoke of his people. He boasted of all the things they have which we donвt . . . engines, powers, alloys . . . as if that made them any less a pack of filthy savages.д
At least she was showing some spirit. He had been afraid she
had started willing her heart to stop; but he remembered he had seen no evidence of that common Maurai practide here in Meyco.
гDid he abuse you so badly, then?д he asked, not looking at her.
гYou would not consider it abuse,д she said violently. гNow leave me alone, for mercyвs sake!д He heard her go from him, through the door to the after sections.
Well, he thought, after all, her father was killed. That would grieve anyone, anywhere in the world, but her perhaps more than him. For a Meycan child was raised solely by its parents; it did not spend half its time eating or sleeping or playing with any casual relative, like most Island young. So the immediate kin would have more psychological significance here. At least, it was the only explanation Ruori could think of for the sudden darkness within Tresa.
The city hove into view. He saw the remaining enemy vessels gleam above it. Three against one . . . yes, this would become a legend among the Sea People, if it succeeded. Ruori knew he should have felt the same reckless pleasure as a man did surfbathing, or shark fighting, or sailing in a typhoon, any breakneck sport where success meant glory and girls. He could hear his men chant outside, beat war-drum rhythms out with hands and stamping feet. But his own heart was Antarctic.
