"You'll chill her first?"

In the rolling darkness, Ryan nodded. "Yeah. Guess so. If I can do it right. Then see if we can take out enough of the crew to win the ship. Not much of a hope, I guess."

"I got nothing better. Maybe we'll catch some whales tomorrow. Take her mind off... off other things."

"Yeah. Maybe."

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Following a hunter's instinct, Pyra Quadde set her course back toward land, moving northerly, hoping to pick up one of the mighty schools of whales that broached and sunned themselves off the deserted coves.

The sun shone brightly, and the last of the blubber was finally rendered in the ovens and stored in sealed barrels below the main deck. The whaleboats were cleaned, lowered and raised again, the men on the davits chanting an old whaling capstan song to lighten the chore.

Though the sun shone brilliantly, Ryan noticed that dark clouds were building up, far away ahead of them, thunderheads that rolled and bubbled, filled with venomous lightning, streaked with white splashes across the violet sky.

"Yeah," said one of the other sailors, when he mentioned it to him. "Over the land, that is. Wind rips it apart and pushes it our way. Could be bad from the height of them chem clouds."

"How come the sea's so flat?" Donfil asked.

It was true. The waves had flattened out and disappeared, and even the long ocean swell had almost gone. The ship sailed gently on, as if it were a child's toy, placed upon a painted, mirrored sea. The sails flapped idly on the yards and the helmsman spun the wheel, looking for a breath of a breeze to help them on their way.

Captain Quadde had a canvas chair brought out and placed on the quarterdeck, where she sat and watched her crew with a baleful eye. It was warm, and she'd changed out of her heavy sweaters.

Now she wore a white blouse, with torn, dirty lace at collar and cuffs. One sleeve was ripped from elbow to wrist. The material was thin, and it was possible to see that the woman wore nothing beneath it. The dark circles of her nipples pushed at the tight blouse.

Her skirt was cotton, pale blue, covered with food and drink stains down the front. It was too tight for her around the waist, and she'd tried to pin it shut. But it revealed a gap of rolling fat. Her wide belt carried the belaying pin on one side and the .44 on the other. Her legs and feet were bare, the toenails crooked and jagged.

She had a bottle of the usquebaugh at her side, as well as a chipped tankard of clouded glass. By late afternoon she was visibly, and audibly, drunk.

"No fugging whales in the whole fugging sea. She was only a fishmonger's daughter, but she knew how to lie on the fragging slab and say fill it! Fillet! Where's the pigging whales gone? Must be the outlander with his one fucking eye and all bad luck. Like whistling on deck. Brings lucking bad fuck, it does. Yeah, it does."

Around noon the lookout from the masthead had called down that he could see the top spars of another ship. Shadowing them, so he said. But he couldn't make out enough of the cut of the jib to be certain that it was still the Bartleby, searching for her missing children.

"Course it's them," Quadde shouted. "Preaching Biddy Delano! May his balls rot and his cock wither and his ass leak his brains all over his clean frogging decks."

Each change of lookout reported the same sight. Just on the edge of seeing, only the top spars visible, keeping her distance, beating in toward the stormy land at the same speed as the Salvation. Maybe just a knot or two faster.

"Don't keep telling me the same, or I'll have thee bunking 'stead of th'outlander."

So, after that, none of the crew mentioned to their captain that the whaling ship on the horizon was steadily creeping in closer. Cyrus Ogg ventured to mention to Second Mate Walsh that in his humble opinion the other vessel wasn't necessarily the Bartlebyunder Captain Delano. He certainly wasn't about to hazard his lay on whose ship it was. But the set of the mizzenmast reminded him very much of the Phoenix, Captain Deacon in command.

Dusk was beginning to ease itself across the mirrored sea. The wind had just begun to freshen again, bringing the threat of the storm clouds even closer. Now, from the crow's nest, it was possible to make out a gray smudge away to the north, beneath the dancing daggers of the lightning.

"Shore, right enough," Johnny Flynn confirmed, sitting behind the tryworks, exercising the joints of his broken finger.

"How far off?" Ryan asked.

"Good many sea miles, yet, cully," the sailor replied.

"The chem storm looks closer."

Flynn spit over the side of the ship, nodding his agreement. "Aye, outlander, it is that. Me da's da spoke of the years after the long winters and the red fires. Said they had storms then as a man would die in. Off the sea it'd rain purest acid and strip the flesh off of thy bones faster than a pack of mutie sharks. Lightning spears so thick and fast a man couldn't hope to dodge 'em. But... we still get good blows now and again. Best beat away from 'em."

The wind was freshening, growing stronger with every minute that passed. Already the sea was patterned with lacy cat's-paws, and the sails were straining at the yards.

Pyra Quadde got up from her comfortable chair and vanished below, reappearing a minute later in her more familiar garb of seaboots, sweater and longer skirt. But the gun and the belaying pin were still at her belt.

"Be all hands to reef soon enough," Flynn muttered.

But the voice, cracking with excitement from the masthead, altered that.

"They blow! Three... five... a dozen or more! A great school of right whales."

"Where away?" the captain shouted, squinting aloft, as was most of the crew.

"Port bow, ma'am. Large a school as ever I seen! There!" An outstretched arm, like a hunting dog, pointed to the whales.

"Helm over!" she yelled to the helmsman in his shelter. "Mr. Ogg! Mr. Walsh! Boats' crews at the ready. Hands to the davits! We've struck lucky at last."

Ryan was one of the men nearest to Pyra Quadde. Cyrus Ogg was standing right by him, and he walked up to his captain. His face was worried, mouth working nervously as he peered out over the bow, toward the maelstrom of spray where the whales were broaching, visible now from the deck.

In the direction of the looming menace of the storm.

"Captain," he began.

"What is it, Mr. Mate?"

"There's a bad squall yonder."

"I see it."

"We lower and hunt, then the whaleboats will be in peril."

"Aye, Mr. Ogg. What of it?" Ryan noticed her right hand was creeping down to touch the shining wood of the heavy belaying pin. But her face was solid, betraying no emotion.

"Dost thou not think it a danger, Captain?"

"Aye. Our lives are danger, Cyrus Ogg. Who knows when infinity will strike us down and pluck us to the bosom of Abraham?"

"Truly. But I think it would be safer and better to haul off for three hours or so. The whales will not move far."

"Ah, thoudost think, dost thou? It would be safer andbetter! I think not."

The mate didn't move, balanced against the increased rocking of the ship, hands at his side, licking his lips. Jehu stood next to Ryan, and he began to patter a kind of a prayer beneath his breath.

"Save him, brave him, grave him. Shut up his mouth and seal his eyes and fill his mouth with oysters and tell him lies, lies, lies."

"Thou still dost stands to argue with me, Cyrus Ogg? Dost thou?"

"The storm will take the dories under."

"That storm?" She pointed with her left hand, ahead of the ship. The mate followed her finger, staring toward the silver-slashed murk.