11:02 AM
I Get Lucky With A Mermaid
With Flarq clearing a path through the crowd outside the
courthouse, he, Nelson and me made it to the dock. The rest
of the crew was waiting in the fishing boat we’d come into
possession of when the pirates who’d owned it died while trying
to kill us.
We were aweigh in no time. The problem was the
Tortolan navy guys chasing us had boarded their cruiser just as
quick, and they’re right on our stern now.
Can we escape their veritable water rocket in our shlumpy
fishing brig? We have a chance. Here’s why:
Local lore has it that one morning a bunch of centuries
ago, a young sailor by the name of Hansel Nycroft was combing
the beach and happened upon a beautiful mermaid. The tide
had receded and left her stranded on the sand, trembling at the
sight of the rising sun as exposure to it’d mean her death for
sure. The young sailor gazed in amazement. At the same time,
he thought about the fortune the discovery’d bring him. He
imagined himself in top hat and tails, drawing aside a velvet
curtain to reveal his giant saltwater tank. He imagined the gasps
of carnival crowds the world over.
As if reading his thoughts, the mermaid said, “Kind sailor,
if you help me back into the waves, I shall grant you any wish.”
Nycroft reckoned that it’d be wrong to turn the poor
creature into a freak show. Also, he hated getting dressed up.
“I want to build ships,” he told her, “that will be fast, that will
never sink, and from which no man shall ever be lost.”
“Then so shall it be,” the mermaid said.
Nycroft knelt down, gently picked her up, and carried her
to the water’s edge. He never saw her again. Not even his closest
friends believed he’d seen her in the first place. But he did
become a shipwright, and his wares proved unflaggingly swift.
Only on a single occasion did one capsize, but she didn’t sink,
and never’d a man drown.
Generation after generation of Nycrofts carried on his
business in the Caribbean with similar success. The pirates
whose mundane fishing boat we’d captured had had the Nycrofts
replace her wood hull with an all-but-impenetrable layer of iron.
The shipwrights’d also fitted her with four monstrous, custom-
built four-thousand-horsepower aeroderivative gas turbine
“Specials”—amalgams of racing boat and jet engines with a
family-secret nitrous oxide injection system. With the Specials
in her belly, the fishing boat’s capable of forty-odd knots, which
was sufficient for the pirates to prey on all but the swiftest yachts
in the Caribbean, and more than ample for the Tortolan navy
cruiser to choke on our wake.
The problem is the deck-mounted rocket launcher the
Tortolans have got. One look at it gave me a Vietnam movie
flashback. Plus made me aware that the rocket launcher’s being
aimed at us as I write. So I’d best duck out for now.
P.S. Here is Flarq’s scrimshaw of a 2004-model pirate brig, a.k.a.
our new fishing boat. Don’t judge her speed by her looks.
P.P.S. Flarq apologizes if the lines are a bit shakier than he
usually does them. But you know how it is when you’re trying to
scrim shaw during a life-or-death, high-speedboat chase.
Tuesday, 13 July 2004 6:06 AM
Enemy, Mine
Good and bad news. First, some of the good: We just received
a reliable report of a sighting of the bastard’s pod. Because the
Tortolan navy might be reading this, I’m gonna keep the L & L
on the QT.
Speaking of the Tortolan navy, here’s some of the bad
news: Their cruiser is chasing us right now, and she’s gotten into
firing range. That brings us to the real bad news, the details of
the sleek, rotating, high-tech gun on her bow.
“Neptune Sea-Sprite missile launcher,” Thesaurus said
gravely. “Not the sort o’ pom-pom them pirates ever expected
this brig to have to withstand.”
He handed me the telescope and pointed out the
Neptune’s twin tubes. They fire, he explained, medium-range
I Get Lucky With A Mermaid
With Flarq clearing a path through the crowd outside the
courthouse, he, Nelson and me made it to the dock. The rest
of the crew was waiting in the fishing boat we’d come into
possession of when the pirates who’d owned it died while trying
to kill us.
We were aweigh in no time. The problem was the
Tortolan navy guys chasing us had boarded their cruiser just as
quick, and they’re right on our stern now.
Can we escape their veritable water rocket in our shlumpy
fishing brig? We have a chance. Here’s why:
Local lore has it that one morning a bunch of centuries
ago, a young sailor by the name of Hansel Nycroft was combing
the beach and happened upon a beautiful mermaid. The tide
had receded and left her stranded on the sand, trembling at the
sight of the rising sun as exposure to it’d mean her death for
sure. The young sailor gazed in amazement. At the same time,
he thought about the fortune the discovery’d bring him. He
imagined himself in top hat and tails, drawing aside a velvet
curtain to reveal his giant saltwater tank. He imagined the gasps
of carnival crowds the world over.
As if reading his thoughts, the mermaid said, “Kind sailor,
if you help me back into the waves, I shall grant you any wish.”
Nycroft reckoned that it’d be wrong to turn the poor
creature into a freak show. Also, he hated getting dressed up.
“I want to build ships,” he told her, “that will be fast, that will
never sink, and from which no man shall ever be lost.”
“Then so shall it be,” the mermaid said.
Nycroft knelt down, gently picked her up, and carried her
to the water’s edge. He never saw her again. Not even his closest
friends believed he’d seen her in the first place. But he did
become a shipwright, and his wares proved unflaggingly swift.
Only on a single occasion did one capsize, but she didn’t sink,
and never’d a man drown.
Generation after generation of Nycrofts carried on his
business in the Caribbean with similar success. The pirates
whose mundane fishing boat we’d captured had had the Nycrofts
replace her wood hull with an all-but-impenetrable layer of iron.
The shipwrights’d also fitted her with four monstrous, custom-
built four-thousand-horsepower aeroderivative gas turbine
“Specials”—amalgams of racing boat and jet engines with a
family-secret nitrous oxide injection system. With the Specials
in her belly, the fishing boat’s capable of forty-odd knots, which
was sufficient for the pirates to prey on all but the swiftest yachts
in the Caribbean, and more than ample for the Tortolan navy
cruiser to choke on our wake.
The problem is the deck-mounted rocket launcher the
Tortolans have got. One look at it gave me a Vietnam movie
flashback. Plus made me aware that the rocket launcher’s being
aimed at us as I write. So I’d best duck out for now.
P.S. Here is Flarq’s scrimshaw of a 2004-model pirate brig, a.k.a.
our new fishing boat. Don’t judge her speed by her looks.
P.P.S. Flarq apologizes if the lines are a bit shakier than he
usually does them. But you know how it is when you’re trying to
scrim shaw during a life-or-death, high-speedboat chase.
Tuesday, 13 July 2004 6:06 AM
Enemy, Mine
Good and bad news. First, some of the good: We just received
a reliable report of a sighting of the bastard’s pod. Because the
Tortolan navy might be reading this, I’m gonna keep the L & L
on the QT.
Speaking of the Tortolan navy, here’s some of the bad
news: Their cruiser is chasing us right now, and she’s gotten into
firing range. That brings us to the real bad news, the details of
the sleek, rotating, high-tech gun on her bow.
“Neptune Sea-Sprite missile launcher,” Thesaurus said
gravely. “Not the sort o’ pom-pom them pirates ever expected
this brig to have to withstand.”
He handed me the telescope and pointed out the
Neptune’s twin tubes. They fire, he explained, medium-range
Similar Books
