Emperor of Gondwanaland Read online

  It regarded us in what I took to be an unmenacing manner, yet the Sanctus was completely unnerved.

  “I, I—” he faltered. Then, abandoning all pretense of calm, he turned and fled.

  Belgrano and I watched him scurry off in amazement. With no human left to speak to, we approached the Fanzoy.

  “Where is the captain?” I asked.

  It eyed me stoically, curled its unnatural lip almost into a roll, and departed wordlessly. Had it even understood?

  I decided to try the aft deckhouse, where traditionally, at least on Union ships, the captain’s quarters would be.

  At this point more Fanzoii, two or three dozen, appeared, seemingly springing up from the very planks. All were similarly hipless and possessed of deep amethyst eyes. I could not distinguish between sexes or individuals. Their velvet-flocked faces bore no obvious expression of ill will.

  Yet they carried at their sides wooden dowels like clubs.

  Belgrano and I hastened to the deckhouse, the Fanzoii following several paces behind, en masse. I confess my heart was racing a bit faster than was its wont. At the rear superstructure, the door hung closed on one hinge. I knocked, and also called out.

  “Hallo, captain of the Cockerel! This is Captain Sanspeur of the Melville. Are you there?”

  The Fanzoii ringed us at a small distance. I had no hint as to what their next move might be.

  I heard the door opening. I swung about.

  A man emerged, closely trailed by a Fanzoy.

  “Back, you rabble,” he called forcefully, gesturing languidly with one slim hand, which did much to mute the sternness of his command. “These are friends, not pirates. Can’t you fools see anything? Get back to your duties.”

  At his words, the Fanzoii dispersed. However, ten or twelve took up sitting positions in a rubber-limbed fashion not far away, their truncheons resting across their laps.

  I had time now to study the captain and his companion.

  The man was of medium height, slender and wiry, in his mid- thirties. His face was wan and pinched, its olive skin drawn, like that of a hedonist whose pleasures have betrayed him, or a man used to comfort whom life had treated unwontedly harshly of a sudden. His black hair was cut short. His long mustachios were waxed and pointed. I smelled the pomade’s scent. His dress was of faded elegance. His manner was refined, yet indolent.

  The Fanzoy had all the qualities of its kind: the eyes, the skin, the long graceful limbs. Yet I thought to detect a play of keen intelligence on its somewhat angular features, a kind of alert inquisitiveness not evident in the others, which set it apart.

  The man who had saved us extended a hand that bore several begemmed rings. “Captain Sanspeur,” he said in a weary and lax voice totally unlike that which he had assumed to dismiss the Fanzoii, and yet which I took for some reason to be his normal tone, “I am Captain Anselmo Merino of the Golden Cockerel, out of Saint Ursula. Welcome aboard. We have much to discuss.”

  As I shook Captain Merino’s bland hand, I marveled at his disingenuous understatement of the situation, and wondered what could possibly follow.

  III. Proposals and Rejections

  I expected Captain Merino to exercise common courtesy by inviting us into his cabin. Instead, he carefully closed the door—through which I had gotten only a glimpse of shadowy interior—and turned his aesthete’s countenance toward us.

  The Fanzoy that had emerged with him remained close by.

  “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see another human face,” said Merino in a drained and languorous voice that totally belied any excitement. “As you can see, my ship has suffered disaster—a most unsettling tragedy. Perhaps you can better gauge the extent of it— and more readily appreciate my tale—if we conduct a promenade about the ship as we converse.”

  Merino’s cavalier attitude—which I could only assume was a brave, if somewhat pompous, attempt to put up an unconcerned front— modified my fears that had arisen when the Fanzoii seemed ready to attack us. If this perfumed popinjay felt safe among his alien crew, then I could have nothing to fear.

  “Very well,” I replied. “Let us talk freely, as one captain to another. I confess there is much about your ship and its status that I find puzzling and improper.” I turned to my first mate. “Mate Belgrano, station yourself by the rail above the cutter—to make sure she does not loose anchor and drift.”

  In truth, I had no expectation of that happening. My real aim was twofold: to prevent any of the Fanzoii from appropriating the cutter, and to be with Merino alone, without subordinates, so that he would perhaps speak more directly.

  Belgrano left, somewhat uneasily. I had faith in his abilities to hold off idle Fanzoii, or, failing that, to remove the cutter from their reach. I waited for Merino to dismiss his pet Fanzoy, which continued to hover close by him like an apricot-colored specter.

  Merino only sized me up with an open and minute disbelief, as if he could have wished I had done otherwise than send Belgrano away. He pivoted on one booted heel and strode off, leaving me to catch up.

  The Fanzoy never left him.

  Merino began talking almost before I drew abreast of him. He did not catch my eyes, but stared straight ahead, ignoring both myself and the shoddy mishmash of trash at his feet. His manner belonged to one who recounted a much-rehearsed story that had been leeched of meaning. Yet as his talk progressed, he became a bit more fervid and uneasy, as if he could not repress all he must be feeling.

  “We sailed from Saint Ursula over a year ago, on a voyage that was to take three months. My crew was a good and capable one, ten men and the standard complement of bots. Our ship was sweet and swift. Yet witness the once-proud Cockerel now: derelict and without destination.”

  I could well believe that the ship had had a year’s worth of neglect. “You shipped with ten men, yet I saw only one.”

  Merino waggled his hand negligently in the air. “You mean our Sanctus, Purslen Monteagle. Faugh! I had not even counted him, else it were eleven. He is supercargo, which the Aristarchy bids me haul, as every one of its ships must. No, not one of the ten remains”— he paused unnaturally—”alive. Nine were swept overboard in one of the fiercest storms I have ever experienced, along with many bots. Not a month out of port were we when it came upon us. The surviving man—my first mate, who was also my beloved cousin—took a great hurt and died shortly thereafter. With our sails rent and our cells staved in, we have drifted since, at the whim of the currents and the winds. Monteagle and I have been living off the victuals stored for eleven, yet even these are almost gone.”

  The account seemed credible to me. Merino struck me as an indecisive and artificial captain, who could easily lose his crew through incompetent orders.

  “This is your first command, I take it,” said I.

  Bristling, he turned to impale me with his dark eyes. “Why do you say so? Am I so obviously and contemptibly inept?”

  I recalled the stern pride of the Aristarchs, which had caused them to consider themselves superior to those others on their long-ago home-world, and which no doubt operated to this day. I tried to placate the unstable man.

  “No, no, it is just that you are young. In the Union, a man is often close to my age before he attains his first command.”

  Merino relaxed somewhat. “Perhaps I am too young. I had sailed much before this voyage, but only for pleasure, up and down our coast. My uncle, a high Aristarch, chose me for this mission. It is a government voyage I was on.”

  Merino seemed like the weather, shifting and unpredictable, a man of many extravagant moods. Now he grew the most excited I had yet seen him.

  “If you could help me complete my mission, the Aristarchy will reward you generously. You will have my undying gratitude as well.”

  I was about to ask the central question that I had been withholding all this time: How did the Fanzoii figure in this bizarre affair? But I wished to ask it out of earshot of Merino’s pet Fanzoy, which tagged along still, sharp-eared and alert.<
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  Merino must have intercepted my intent study of his familiar. His quick elation subsided to dourness. He said, “You may say whatever you wish in front of Tess. I call her by the closest approximation I can make to her true name. She understands our speech, but cannot reproduce it, and so nothing will be repeated.”

  I observed then the queerest look pass between the man and the alien. It was a gaze compounded equally of desire, hatred, repugnance, and fatal attraction. I hope never to see its like again.

  “All right,” I said. “I will be blunt. Why do the Fanzoii roam the ship, armed and dangerous? Why are they aboard at all? Was it some mad attempt by the Aristarchy to turn them into sailors? I have heard they are intractable.”

  “You speak to the point,” Merino said, squeezing his chin, “and I can do no less. The Fanzoii were my cargo. Now they are my crew. I asked you before to help me complete my original mission. I doubt that such a thing could be done now.”

  Perplexed and not a little frustrated, I said, “How were they your cargo?”

  Merino sighed. “You do not have the Fanzoii to contend with on Ordesto, and can perhaps afford to be moralistic about what I shall tell you. Please restrain yourself. We of the Aristarchy are not so lucky, due to the twist of fate that inclined us to settle on Carambriole, and our plight could easily be yours. In any case, the Fanzoii occupy much choice land that our growing country needs. They are reluctant to be assimilated. Coexistence is proving impossible, as we expand. I was taking the first load of Fanzoii to the Nameless Continent, to plant a colony there.”

  Paean has but three continents. The Nameless Continent stretches from the South Pole north for some forty degrees. Only its extreme northern edge is livable.

  “But could they survive there?” I said. “Is it what they are used to?”

  Shrugging, Merino replied, “Such questions were not thought to be germane. Our plan was simply to remove all the Fanzoii there and forget about them, so Carambriole could be free. However, with my crew lost, I was forced by practical considerations to free the Fanzoii from belowdecks, for their aid. Tess here has been a remarkable go-between, almost my second-in-command. The rest of the Fanzoii have proved themselves”—he shuddered briefly— “eminently capable at whatever they turn their hands to.”

  The man’s mission seemed both mad and bad, not something that I wished to aid him with. “It is impossible for you to cling to this hulk any longer. Come aboard the Melville with me, you and the Sanctus. We will find room for the Fanzoii somewhere in the hold. With good winds, southern Carambriole is only three weeks away. Your troubles will be over as soon as you land. Let others try the voyage again, if they will.”

  Merino parted his sensualist’s lips, and for a moment I was convinced he wanted—longed—to accept. Then the indigo eyes of the Fanzoy—Tess—seemed almost to spark, its upper lip fluting in that obscene fashion. A visible twinge went through Merino, whose back was to the native.

  “No, I am afraid that is impossible. You must do whatever you can to refit my ship, so I may continue. Spare sails, cells, bots—whatever you can lend.”

  I balked. “It seems like helping to send you to your doom. The Fanzoii are not experienced. You yourself are debilitated by your woes.”

  Merino assumed a sudden absurd gaiety, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “We are prattling out here under the blazing sun like savages. This is not the treatment I should be extending to a guest—nay, a rescuer. Let’s adjourn to my cabin for a meal—it’s past noon—and discuss things further.”

  I considered. It seemed allowable. I might learn more if Merino felt more relaxed.

  “Done. Provided we can send my man Belgrano something at his watch.”

  “Certainly,” said Merino. “Come with me.”

  We reversed our course. As we were passing a large plastic water butt, full of a stagnant algae soup, I chanced to see the crouching figure of Purslen Monteagle behind it. Merino did not notice him, his eyes focused rather on some private landscape.

  The Sanctus, knowing he had my attention, worked his wrinkled lips silently, over and over again, mouthing a single word which I at last interpreted as a name.

  “Sadler.”

  IV. A Meal, and Its Consequences

  Back in front of the aft deckhouse we encountered the twelve seated Fanzoii. Their demeanor was obscure and unfathomable. Still in the positions we had left them in—ophidian limbs neatly coiled, truncheons laid across the valleys of their robes—they emanated a curious sensation of mental communion with each other, for all that their ianthine eyes followed our movements precisely.

  Merino ignored—or truly failed—to see them.

  The Fanzoy named Tess exchanged, I thought, a brief glance with her kin.

  The captain of the Cockerel laid his bejeweled fingers on the door handle to his cabin. I noticed the smashed security keypad above the handle, and wondered how the storm had done that damage.

  “You must,” said Merino, “excuse the condition of my cabin. At home, I was overused to servants, I fear, and have consequently never gotten accustomed to tidying up after myself. And with the trouble and all …”

  I dismissed his concerns—as always, seeking to make myself agreeable to him, and so bring down the barrier I felt he was maintaining between us. “I am not overnice,” I said. “Life at sea is not for the fastidious. A moderate cleanliness suffices.”

  “Not for the fastidious,” he mused somberly. “How true.”

  He swung the invalid door open and we entered.

  Besmudged windows excluded much light. My eyes were some time in adjusting. Merino failed to turn on any luminescents, and only then did the ship’s complete lack of power hit home. Suddenly, I had a vivid image of Merino sitting in this stuffy cave on a black night, his ship drifting helplessly, the insidious Tess his only companion. I experienced a deep sympathy for the man, tinged with revulsion.

  My eyes could see at last. If I had thought the deck full of detritus, it had only just prepared me for Merino’s quarters.

  More logbook pages lay like a snowy blanket. Organic rubbish bred unhealthy odors. Two large wooden chairs flanked an intricately carved table, whose top was heaped with miscellaneous objects: a broken clock, a ceremonial dagger, glasses, a bottle of yellow wine, redolent cigar stubs. A bunk bore dirty, sweat-reeking sheets in a tangle. A door led inward to what I surmised was a private galley or head.

  “Take a seat,” said Merino debonairly, as if hosting me in a lavish palace.

  Incredulously, I swept debris from a chair and sat. As I did, I noticed two other objects in the room. One was a wall-mounted glass-fronted case, with a useless lock, bearing on racks a score or more of laser pistols. The other was a tall, sheet-draped figure in a corner. From its shrouded lines, I had sworn it were a man, had it not been so stiff and immobile. Perhaps it was some religious effigy, and I thought it best not to mention it.

  Not so with the weapons, however, the presence of which made me skittish.

  “Why do you carry so many arms?” I asked, nodding toward the case.

  Merino, seating himself, said, “It was felt that we should have them against the Fanzoii, should they escape. But you can see how needless such precautions were.”

  Tess remained standing, seemingly awaiting orders. Merino at last deigned to acknowledge her, speaking directly to her for the first time in my hearing. I listened closely for what his tone of voice might reveal.

  “Tess,” he said equably, “please serve us a meal.”

  Nothing. Master to slave, equal to equal, captor to captive—any or all of these might have been inferred.

  Tess departed through the second door, and soon the noise of clanking pots and pans filtered out.

  “Now,” said Merino, “out of that brutal sun, with a glass of good wine to hand, we may truly talk.” He lifted the broad-based flask full of amber wine and poured us each a glass. “You must praise such an excellent vintage. It’s from my estate back home. I bless the day I th
ought to ship several cases of it. Truth be told, I believe sometimes it’s all that has seen me through this crisis.”

  I sipped my wine after Merino sipped his. “Very palatable,” I said. “But you should not give the wine overmuch credit. Surely the inner qualities of a man count for far more. Fortitude, endurance, courage, wit.”

  Merino’s false ebullience disappeared. “Perhaps you are right. Yet when those fail a man, the consolations of wine are not to be spurned.”

  Merino drained his glass and poured another. Aromas of cooking wafted out the open galley door.

  “This bouquet reminds me of my home,” Merino said dreamily. “The dark woods, the bright, cloud-swept lawns, the lavish rooms of Truro …” His bronze-olive face grew animated. He stroked his oily mustache. Without preamble, as we sat in the gloom, he launched into a rambling discourse on his distant home.

  I had only to listen and nod, and used the interval to study the enigmatic captain. He struck me as whimsical and capricious, by turns mordant and blithe, a poorly balanced fellow, who knew not his own mind. I felt then that his trouble was that he had no code to live by, was rudderless in the ethical sea, despite the imposed strictures of the Aristarchy. I, who have always prided myself on living by a certain code (whose tenets need not be described here), thought this to be the ultimate moral abyss.

  What I did not consider at the time was the possibility that Merino had had a code—but that it had broken down of its inherent inconsistencies or limitations, leaving him despairing and deracinated.

  The man chattered on, his black eyes liquidly refulgent, seeming to trap all the small light there was. What I gathered from his talk was that his old life had been one of leisure and only ceremonial duties, carefree and pleasure-centered.

  Not the best preparation for the mission he had been sent on.

  At last Tess entered with our meal: canned beef, heated, with boiled potatoes in which I later found a dead worm.

  Her entrance completely transformed Merino. His pathetic panache vanished, and he fell mostly silent, drinking even more heavily.