The Ship That Sailed The Time Stream Part 9

"So the women choose your prince and banish him if times do not prosper?"

"Wellll. .." Joe began.

"Did women make you captain?"

"Not intentionally," Joe said, remembering Ariadne Battlement. "Where did you come from?" he asked.

She said something and he caught Burgos. He nodded absently, his mind on the new noise which had sud- denly added itself to the Alice's creakings and groan- ings. It was a rhythmic clank-bang as if a piece of chain were sweeping across the wet deck. Wearily, he b.u.t.toned his oilskins and started up the ladder. Just as he opened the hatch it stopped. To h.e.l.l with it, he thought, and came back down to the galley. Raquel still sat where he had left her. "But Burgos is over a hun- dred miles from the sea," he said, suddenly remember- ing. "How did Vikings catch you?"

She nodded and started to explain. The noise started again. Joe put his fingers to his lips. The noise didn't seem to be on deck after all. He crept forward with a hand to his ear. It stopped again. A weakened chain plate could dismast them. But it sounded too far for- ward for that. Maybe the anchor chain was rattling in its chock.

"When I was eight," Raquel continued, "my father took me to Santander."

It started again. Joe waved an angry hand and crept forward. In the forecastle Cookie held a stick of firewood with a hole drilled through it. One end of the copper coil from their homemade still projected through the hole. While sheep crowded around observ- ing interestedly, Gorson was trying to flare the tube with a mallet and marlinspike.

Relief gushed through Joe and culminated in a whirl-

pool somewhere beneath his stomach. "d.a.m.n it!" he yelled. "Haven't we got enough trouble without you playing junior scientist?" And what was the forecastle going to smell like by morning? But . . . the sheep couldn't stay on deck in this weather.

"Well h.e.l.l, sir," Cookie began, "we was just gonna make some rye whiskey."

"You'll make salt water taffy if I catch you s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around with that thing again. Where d'you think our next load of food's coming from?" He turned and stamped out of the forecastle. Back in the galley he absently drew another cup of burnt rye. Raquel still sat at the table. "Now what were you saying?" he asked.

"Oh go listen to your noises!" she flared, and ran out of the galley.

Now what got into her? Joe wondered. And what's gotten into me? He would never again have an op- portunity to study this period. What would Dr. Battle- ment have given to question a citizen of medieval Spain firsthand? But then, she was a woman and therefore uneducated. A peasant too, which cubed her ignorance.

He could probably get more from a world almanac than he would ever extract from Raquel about her own neighborhood. It would be nice to cross paths with an educated man of this era, but there was little chance of that. Besides, he had to take the crew to the Azores and figure this mess out. "To h.e.l.l with history," he muttered, and went to bed.

Light glowed down the edge of his door and switches snapped as Freedy checked the fathometer. The lights went out again. Had he been too sharp with Gorson and Cookie? Who ever heard of such a crazy idea for a vacuum still anyhow? A coil inside a bell jar! The copper spiral had looked more like Dr. Frankenstein's patented mummy resurrector.

Holy Appropriation! The more he thought about it the more possible it seemed. Dr. Krom must be right

after all: the Alice was the first s.h.i.+p ever to disappear into time. She was the first s.h.i.+p ever to have a screwy coil set at just the proper angle, with just the proper radius and s.p.a.cing inside a partially evacuated bell jar -and at just the moment when a bolt of lightning had come along to power the apparatus. Gorson and Cookie's still was the time machine! He stopped fighting the idea and immediately slept.

It was still blowing like an Eskimo in Texas next morning. Cookie's pancakes had a leaden texture so he guessed Dr. Krom had gotten his mill to grinding rye. One problem solved; now what about navigation?

Could he design an astrolabe? No, Joe decided. Maybe Columbus knew how to keep that silly little pendulum from swinging but Joe knew he'd never get an observa- tion from the Alice's plunging deck. How about a cross staff? The trick was to hold the long stick on your cheekbone and slide the T head until one end touched a star and the other was on the horizon. He sketched what he wanted on a paper towel and gave it to Abe Rose.

"What's wrong with the s.e.xtant?" the engineman asked.

There I go again, Joe thought. He hadn't expected Rose to know a cross staff from a ripsaw.

"I read a book once," Rose added with a thin smile.

"But maybe I can fix the s.e.xtant."

"What s.e.xtant?" Joe muttered. He went to look for Gorson and Cookie. They were in the galley, scowling into mugs of burnt rye. "Where's Raquel?" Joe asked after a moment.

"Last I saw, she was looking for a quiet comer to slash her wrists."

"Seasick?"

Gorson shook his head. "What'd you chew her out about?"

"Why, I never said a word-"

"That explains it," Cookie said.

"About the still," Joe said after a long pause. "Do you think you could get it working?"

Cookie's face lit up. "Why sh.o.r.e," he said. "Just give me a couple of days to sour the mash."

"I mean the way you were doing it before."

Cookie was hurt. "You don't like rye whiskey?"

"If I survive this cruise I'll never look a pumper- nickel in the face again."

"We ain't got any dried apples left," Cookie protested.

"I'm not interested in booze," Joe said patiently. "I just want it set up the way it was when lightning struck."

"An idea?" Gorson asked.

"I'm not sure, but we'll have to start somewhere."

"Cain't," Cookie said.

Joe looked at him.

"The bell jar. Hit busted in a million pieces."

Joe sighed and took a breath. "Rose!" he shouted.

The engineman popped his round face into the galley.

"It's not quite ready," he said.

"Forget the cross staff for a while. Do you have any of those 5 gallon bottles that Krom's distilled water came in?"

Rose mouthed his cigar. "I think so," he said.

"We need a bell jar."

The engineman grunted and disappeared.

The Alice drove southward through eight more days of heavy weather before the still was a.s.sembled and ready. The water bottle's corked neck had been dipped in paraffin. Its bottom, snapped off where Rose had flamed a gasoline soaked string, was not perfectly flat.

After abortive experiments with lengths of split rubber hose, Cookie had sealed it with a gasket of dough.

All hands stood by in anxious silence as Gorson humped over the vacuum pump. Joe glanced from him