1637: The Coast of Chaos by Eric Flint & Paula Goodlett & Gorg Huff

Author:Eric Flint & Paula Goodlett & Gorg Huff [Flint, Eric & Goodlett, Paula & Huff, Gorg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, Time Travel
ISBN: 1982125772
Publisher: BAEN BOOKS
Published: 2021-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Fort Sovereignty

At the mouth of the Connecticut River

There were Paugussets, Wangunks, and Hockanum Podunks. Quinnipiacs, Wampanoags, and Mattabesics. Other Niantic and Narragansett tribes had sent people as well, though Sun Rising and Ninigret and his father Sassious were not among them. There were Nipmucks and Mohegans and, of course, many Pequot. All camped along the banks of the Connecticut River. It was the largest gathering of people that Fast had ever seen, and his heart rejoiced. Rejoiced…until the sky skip arrived.

It touched down, as light as air, resting comfortably on steel arms that supported its weight. Up closer, it seemed no bigger now than a small boat, almost canoe-like, though it was much wider than a canoe, and certainly had more of an elegant—wasn’t that the English term for it?—construction than one. Oh, what it must be like to be flying like a hawk among the clouds…

“What are you doing?” Little Bear asked him late one evening as they camped near a Narragansett fire.

Fast dipped his fingers into yellow clay, and then ran it across his bare chest in a pattern of the jagged lightning bolt he saw in the dead Englishman’s book. It was not as even or as beautiful as the picture he had seen, but it would do. “Preparing myself.”

“For what?” Little Bear asked. “To meet the Red God.”

The sky ship was guarded. The large bladder, which had been all puffed out and prominent in flight, was now deflated, still and limp, and it sagged down onto the hull’s structure like the bark covering of a tipi. In its current state, the sky ship did not look so impressive; and yet, Fast could not think of any other place to be but on its deck.

The guards were white, but were they up-timers? They looked like Englishmen from this distance. He could not tell, but one thing was certain: they were lazy, complacent, and too confident in the muskets that they held. Fast looked past them and toward his target. All he needed now was for the moon to drop behind the clouds and then…

He moved quickly, just as the Red God had shown him in the book, unburdened now by anything but a thin breechclout. His bare feet were silent among the dry tufts of grass and weeds and small pebbles that lined his approach. He jumped straight over a tiny hillock, landed, rolled, and waited. The guard closest to him sniffed, turned as if he had heard something, paused a moment, sniffed again, cleared his throat, then returned to his post at the prow.

Fast crawled through the wet grass, worried that it would smear the yellow clay on his chest. But he kept crawling until he put his hand out and touched the hull of the sky ship.

It was dry to the touch. Its dull yellow sides felt no different than any other piece of wood he had felt. With his other hand he touched its steel leg. It was cold and smooth, smoother than anything he had ever felt in his life, save for perhaps the top of a lake or the cold rush of creek water.

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