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39: The Confrontation

As the dim lump of Crown Mountain appeared on the horizon all of Gregory's old dread returned like a virulent flu. Big Tom was waiting there for him. Whatever had become of the old slaver's mania, Gregory would know soon enough. He imagined Thomas Harbor scorched by a madman's fury—twenty skimmers bottom up in the shallows, perhaps; the blackened tips of pilings all that remains of the docks; a plume of smoke rising from the ruin of the mainhouse; worst of all, those valuable, sweeping Northland timbers of the new ship splintered about the beach—tomorrow's driftwood. Just how extensive was Big Tom's potential for self-destruction?

It could not be as bad as that. By sea courier, Gregory had received Big Tom's emotionless directive to collect his emissaries in Chautown and to haul out a final skimmer-load of provisions—even the perishables, which meant that the first overseas exploration was about to begin. Somehow through his powder fog and despair, Big Tom must have finished a reasonable ocean craft.

Gregory crossed his sweatered arms over his chest against the early chill. He shared the seventy feet of deck only with the pimply young captain and two grizzled crewmen. Still dozing in the cabins below were Gregory's newly recruited explorers—the mapmaker-navigator named Lapp, an inventive cook who was also familiar with photographic equipment, and four sea hands proven loyal to the new Government.

The youthful skimmer captain had been eager to make this charter run to Thomas Island—he let on that he considered the Blue Islands to be an opening frontier for trade, now that the new Government was extending its influence and protection.

"The Rafers, them on the islands, they're amenable would you think to an influx of mainlanders—the trade good for all of us?" he had asked. Gregory had nodded affirmatively, although he was certain the Rafers had not been consulted. Those negotiations would be among a long list of fine points to iron out over the years.

By the time Gregory's chartered skimmer rounded the southwest corner of the island, the morning mist had burned off. This inner crescent of Thomas Island shimmered in the early light, docile and intact, perfect as a fresh pastry. And there on the west side of the harbor lolled a wooden behemoth dubbed the Nina. Her broad siding cut such a swath in the water that Gregory's eye muscles contorted, doubting that their focus could be proper. She was military neat, too: rigging taut, spotless, sails precisely folded, sheets coiled.

Big Tom, Gregory told himself, is alive and well and in control.

 

"Gregory, I want ta tell ya a story on myself, boy. An' I want ya to consider it the next time ya decide to poke me in the arse like ya did when ya took Moori to the mainland."

Big Tom had perched himself regally on a stool in his open-air office, commanding the room. His beard bobbed hyperly as he spoke, and Gregory found himself thinking: Maybe Bishop is telling the truth. Maybe Big Tom did quit the powder once his final-last wife had abandoned him. As soused as Big Tom might get on land, Bishop insisted, he never failed to hang straight when it came to captaining a ship. And his massive new skimmer, the Government-commissioned Nina, was now fully rigged.

Bishop had helped himself to Big Tom's stuffed chair and Bark towered behind him sullenly. Two of the Government toughs, the quiet one named Widekilter and the baudy one named Guinness, carried ugly pistols in unsnapped hip holsters. Pec-Pec's eyes danced around the room merrily, as if the proceedings were no more explosive than a picnic's.

Attention duly garnered, Big Tom began his story: "What ey Bark? A score of years ago, me and Bark comes up with a near mutiny as we was picking between the radiation fields looking for a particular ganja farm." Bark gave an obedient nod, and Gregory wondered if this was the same dubious mutiny story he had heard a dozen versions of in Sanders's pub.

"Once we found the farm," Big Tom said, "the crew dropped the sheets and swore we were pickin' up nay bales until I agreed to split the proceeds evenly among all—ta compensate for the dancy-dance around the radiation. Hmph.

"Well I say, now, that a man ain't bound by promise made under extortion like that. Once we entered the Out Islands up these parts, Bark and I decided we could handle the skimmer ourselves and thought to teach the crew a lesson. We put 'em off on that bare rock called Dead Man's Chest. Ya know? A hunk of harddick twenty miles from nothing.

"Told 'em we might be back in a few days—ta take the survivors home. And we left 'em plenty to drink. A case of rum. Hah. Stranded for days, and nothing but alcohol.

"What would you choose, Gregory? One of four men, ya don't know when rescue will come, and the only drink to be had will dehydrate you quicker than drinking nothing at all. What would you choose? Better to drink—and die quickly but stoned? Or better to thirst and wait, trust in the rescue? What do you think we found when we returned, Gregory?"

Gregory was in no mood for guessing. His forehead felt tight, as if a migraine might be returning. "I. . .don't. . .know," he said.

"You're right!" Big Tom cried, laughing. "No one knows. These twenty years, Bark an' I haven't bothered to go back yet!" The reaction in the room ranged from Bishop's dutiful chuckle to Pec-Pec's grim silence.

Gregory threw his hands open, pleading innocence. "I can assure you, Big Tom, as a representative of the new Government, that I have no intention of letting personal feelings interfere with our voyage," he said.

Big Tom sneered. He stood and marched to his drafting table, where he pulled open a drawer and extracted a small bundle of letters. His beard of gray speckles quivered. "These," he said, shaking the stack of papers at Gregory, "are letters from Moori. Says she wants to come back when things settle down, that she regrets her mistake with the half-wit—thass what she calls you, Gregory. The night in the shed with her—know what she thought of it, ey? She thinks it was yer first time, Gregory. Mmmm? First time? Heheee! What are you—thirty-five?"

"Well there's a man name of Lesoli. . .." Gregory desperately wanted to blurt the details of Moori's new lover, but he instantly regretted that his sheet could be yanked so easily.

Big Tom threw the letters onto the drafting table, eyes cold. "Who. . .is. . .Lesoli?"

The tension in the room began to harden like concrete. Silent seconds ticked by. "Ah, Big Tom, I was changing us from a painful subject," Gregory finally said. He lifted his leather case from the floor, unknotted the center tie, and drew out several sheets of yellowed, delicate paper. "Um, Lesoli is a merchant in Chautown, a trader of ancient items gleaned from the salvagers. Some he sells to the science waggos—Cred Faiging and the like. Piddling knacks he sells out of a retail shop in Chautown. But these"—Gregory tapped his finger theatrically on the worn papers—"I had to harangue for, threaten for. They's maps. Ancient maps, not just of the north continent, but over the Big Ocean, too. It's what we need, Big Tom—to find what's left of what once was."

"An' ain't no more," Bishop threw in sarcastically.

All of the ill tension drained from Big Tom's face, and his eyebrows spread with childlike wonder.

"Maps!" the aging mariner shouted. "No! They're all destroyed—orders of the Monitor, hunnerds of years. Can't be real maps."

"Real maps," Gregory answered. The lie he had told about Lesoli prevented him from explaining their real source, however. He would have to warn the cartographer Lapp about the story.

Big Tom took the delicate papers reverently, cradling them as carefully as one would a baby, and laid them one by one onto his drawing table. "Ooohh," he said lustfully, "they got to be real. Lookit the paper." He pointed. "England! Pig. . .poke. England. It's where Eng-glish comes from, ya know?"

The others were standing now around the table, in awe of the impossible documents, but Big Tom was already a step beyond. The former slaver turned to Gregory again, face empty of animosity: "This ain't a wild poke into the unknown, then—an' you knew it, dint ya?"

Gregory nodded modestly.

Big Tom stared up at the ceiling, calculating new possibilities. "An' ya say ya brought a cartographer? Ah! I knew the mission would sail, but. . ." His face beamed. "Maps!"

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Framed