Pirates of the Timestream by Steve White Page B

Spaniards who were professional soldiers had little incentive to fight for a government that was often as much a year late in paying them—in fact, they often reverted to the level of part-time militia themselves as they did other jobs to keep body and soul together. Speaking of lack of incentive to fight, remember that the pirates weren’t conquerors who permanently occupied the land and enslaved the inhabitants; they came, plundered, and went away. Under those circumstances, flight was often a more attractive option than fight, especially if you had some advance warning and could hide your valuables.
    “But more fundamental than any of that was the empire’s innate vulnerability. It was totally dependent on the flow of precious metals from the New World to Spain, especially the silver mined at Potosí in Peru and Zacatecas in Mexico. The amounts were fabulous, and the kings of Spain could never understand why they were chronically on the brink of bankruptcy and, in fact, went over the brink numerous times. Nobody in those days, you see, had any concept of inflation. By constantly increasing the quantities of monetary metals they were causing the ‘Price Revolution’ of early-modern Europe and inflating their wealth away. The only solution they could imagine was to bring in still more gold and silver, which of course only perpetuated the vicious cycle.”
    “Junkie behavior,” Mondrago stated shortly.
    “Hmm!” Grenfell gave the Corsican a look of hitherto well-concealed appreciation. “I’d never thought of it in exactly those terms. But that’s not a bad way of looking at it.” Jason suspected he was looking forward to springing Mondrago’s insight on some of his earnest academic colleagues. “The empire was living on borrowed time until someone saw past its imposing façade and realized how vulnerable its lifeline was, how dependent it was on the steady supply of silver that enabled it to . . . support its habit. At the time we’re going to be visiting, that someone had appeared: Henry Morgan.”
    “Yes,” Jason nodded. “You’ve mentioned him several times in the orientation lectures.”
    “The most successful pirate who ever lived. In fact, he was so successful that he ceased to be a pirate. Eventually King Charles II knighted him and appointed him lieutenant governor of Jamaica, with instructions to hunt down his former cronies and suppress piracy—which he did with great efficiency. He died in bed, honored and filthy rich—practically a unique event in the annals of piracy. When they buried someone who had served in a gubernatorial office, it was customary for the Royal Navy ships in port to fire a twenty-one gun salute. They gave Morgan twenty-two.”
    “But all of that still lay well in the future in our target year, right?” asked Jason after a pause.
    “Oh, yes. In late 1668 he was gathering recruits for his greatest raid up to that time. His reputation was already such that buccaneers were swarming in to join him. I think we’ll find Port Royal to be even fuller than usual of, ah, ahem, colorful characters.”
    “Some of us,” Da Cunha commented archly with a sidelong glance at Mondrago, “ought to fit right in.”
    “Well,” said Jason, “let’s get out there on the target range and get some practice, so we can all fit in.”
    The muskets did turn out to be more accurate than expected. Of course, it helped that the Authority’s artisans had been able to embed very tiny laser target designators in the end of the stock just to the rear of the muzzle, activated by a partial squeezing of the trigger. It was one of the concessions Jason had been able to extort from Rutherford, using the argument that they might—perish the thought!—find themselves in a position where they needed to display the level of marksmanship for which the buccaneers were renowned. He had no real worries in the case of himself and the other two Service people, and Grenfell’s training, however rusty,