Nantucket #01 - Island in the Sea of Time by S. M. Stirling

Author:S. M. Stirling [Stirling, S. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.
Published: 2011-01-05T23:00:00+00:00

The one good thing about this, Marian Alston thought, is that tacking broad means we cover more ocean and are more likely to blunder into ’em.

The Eagle lay hard over with her port rail nearly under and white water foaming from the bow and hawse holes; the wind was out of the south—a little to the east of south—and they were making sixteen knots with all sail set. She locked her hands behind her back and gritted her teeth, taking little of her usual pleasure in the dolphin grace of the big windjammer’s passage or the blood-flogging breeze and spindrift in her face. Sixteen knots by the log, but they were tacking, zigzagging up into the teeth of the wind and making more mileage left and right than forward. Eagle was square-rigged on her two forward masts, which meant she couldn’t point anything like as near to the wind as a schooner. That gave the Bentley a two-knot advantage in actual sea miles covered southward, overall, sailing straight into wind like this. She looked up into a cloudless sky. If the wind were to back and come out of the north, she could cannonball down at twice the Bentley’s best rate; schooners were at a disadvantage running before the wind, and the one she was chasing was no greyhound, nor was it well manned, probably.

On the other hand, if I could run her straight before the wind, I might well simply sail past Bentley. The ship’s radar had a limited coverage, and it was a big, empty ocean. If Lisketter changed her plan and ran the Bentley into the Chesapeake or one of the big Gulf rivers, there wouldn’t be the chance of a Klansman at a Black Muslim convention of finding them. Everyone was keeping an eye out, too, not just the posted lookouts; that was an old Coast Guard tradition.

Tom Hiller cleared his throat. “Very well, Mr. Hiller,” she said.

“Aye aye, Captain.” Louder: “Ready about!”

The orders echoed louder than they had before the Event, without the continual burr of generators and fans; those were secured for emergency use only, now.

Feet thundered across the deck. At least they had a full crew—overfull. Walker had taken only six of the Eagle’s complement with him, thank God. None of them were men she would miss, except McAndrews, and she could guess how Walker had scammed the black cadet; no women among the deserters, she noted without surprise. As it was, there were a hundred and fifty sets of hands available for this maneuver where thirty would do at a pinch.

Commands cracked out, to the helm, to the hands on the lines across the decks. Everything had to be adjusted throughout the maneuver, and precisely, with split-second timing.

“Fore manned and ready,” shouted the foremast captain.

“Main manned and ready.”

“Mizzen manned and ready.”

“Helm’s alee!” she ordered. “Right full rudder.”

The four hands standing on the platforms beside the wheels heaved at the spokes. Down in the waist and on the forecastle deck came a chorus of heave .

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