Foreigner (qa-3) by Robert J. Sawyer

Author:Robert J. Sawyer [Sawyer, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf
ISBN: 0-765-30793-4
Publisher: Ace Science Fiction
Published: 1994-03-18T16:00:00+00:00

*17*

"Angle the sails!" shouted Keenir. "Slow the ship!"

Crewmembers ran to do the captain’s bidding. Toroca was up in the Dasheter’s lookout’s bucket, the far-seer Afsan had given him in his hands. He scanned the waters to the stern. There still seemed to be some forty ships in pursuit. By letting them approach more closely, Toroca and Keenir hoped to be able to get a count of how many Others might be aboard each of them. It took a while for the ships to draw visibly nearer. There, on that ship — decks crawling with Others. And on that one, a line of perhaps fifty Others leaning against the ship’s wooden gunwale. And on the lead ship, Others furiously scrambling to one side and struggling now with a piece of heavy equipment.

As he scanned ship after ship, Toroca’s heart leapt as he saw one Other who looked a bit like Jawn.

Suddenly, thunder split the air. The view in Toroca’s eyepiece shook wildly. The mast tipped way over. Toroca was slammed against the sides of the lookout’s bucket. He lowered the far-seer.

Another thunderclap. Smoke and flame erupted from a large black cylinder on the foredeck of the lead Other ship. For an instant, Toroca saw something large flying — flying! — through the air, then the water just astern of the Dasheter went up in a great splash. Something round and heavy had fallen short of hitting the ship by a matter of paces.

Keenir’s gravelly shout, from below: "Full speed! Increase the gap!"

Footsteps pounding on the decks.

The snap of the two unfurled leather sails.

Another explosion from the tube on the lead ship, but this time the object — something round — smashed into the waves perhaps twenty paces astern. Toroca carefully placed the far-seer in its padded shoulder bag and made his way down the web of ropes to the deck below. Keenir was waiting.

"What was that?" shouted the captain.

Toroca, still rattled, held on to the mast for support. "They’re like those handheld fire tubes I told you about, but much bigger…"

"Did you see the smoke?"

Toroca nodded. "Thick and dark, like from the blackpowder we use for rock blasting. But they … they channel the force of the explosion, and use it to hurtle metal balls."

"Aye. If they’d connected, the Dasheter would have been halfway to the bottom by now. We’ll have to be careful not to let them get that close again."

"Eventually," said Toroca, "they’ll be close to Land itself. Are you sure we’re not setting up our own people for slaughter?"

"There will be a slaughter," said Keenir, "but not of Quintaglios."

"I wish," said Toroca, his voice barely audible above the snapping of the sails, "that there didn’t have to be any slaughter at all." He took his leave of Keenir and went back to his lab to put the far-seer safely away.

As he opened the door, he saw cracked eggshells.

Had the ship been rocked that badly? Were the eggs broken?

And then he saw the little yellow head of a baby Other who had tumbled out onto the leather blankets the eggs were resting on.

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