Using his robotic calculations of the physics involved, he released the rope at the top of his swing. He sailed through the air high above the decks but quickly grabbed a rope on the Sidonia. Once his hold was secure, he quickly climbed hand under hand down the rope to the deck.

Hunter found himself in the middle of a wild melee, fought with pistols, belaying pins, boarding pikes, and swords. He looked around quickly and found Steve and Jane standing in a corner, avoiding the worst of the action. Even as he saw them, however, a determined Spanish sailor snatched up a fallen cutlass and swung it at Steve.

Grimacing, Steve blocked it with a belaying pin, and the blade glanced off the scarred, hard wood. He had a determined but desperate look on his face. The sailor advanced on him again.

Hunter frantically worked his way through the crowd toward them.

A Spanish sailor jumped in front of him, brandishing a rapier. Hunter, bare-handed, waited for him to make the first move. As soon as the sailor began a feint, Hunter judged his motion and anticipated the sailor’s complete motion and weight shift.

Too fast for a human to match, Hunter leaned slightly to his right and grabbed the man’s wrist in one firm hand. With his other hand, he took hold of the sword by its hilt and flung it away to clatter on deck. Then he pushed the sailor down flat on his back and hurried past him.

Instantly, another Spanish sailor leaped on him, grabbing his shoulders. The human was much smaller than Hunter, but his angle and momentum pulled Hunter around. Hunter regained his balance, shoving the man away. When the man swung a fist at his head, he only ducked, then lifted the sailor under his arms and tossed him onto a rolled sail lying on the deck.

Ahead of Hunter in the crowd, Steve now held his belaying pin in both hands. He swung it wildly, each time blocking a sword stroke from the Spanish sailor’s cutlass. The impact of each blow forced him back another step; chunks of wood had been chopped out of his dwindling weapon. Jane was shuffling behind him uncertainly, also holding a belaying pin but not sure what to do.

Hunter had to stop abruptly. Two men, wrestling with each other, fell to the deck in front of him and rolled. He stepped over them and ran toward Steve and Jane. As the sailor swung his cutlass back and forth at Steve, Hunter judged the arc of his swing, intending to wrench the cutlass from his hand as soon as it came within reach.

Suddenly Jane stepped out from behind Steve. While Hunter was concentrating his attention on the sailor fighting Steve, Jane raised her belaying pin. She swung high, clubbing Hunter over the head hard enough to snap the wooden belaying pin in half with a loud crack.

14

Hunter was not physically damaged, but the shock profoundly upset him. Confused, he dared not fight any more for fear of making a serious error. He collapsed into a sitting position on deck, staring at Jane, mystified.

Even on the original mission to find MC 1, back in the age of dinosaurs, Hunter had suffered from various doubts about his ability to follow the First Law successfully. After being hit, he worried that these doubts had impaired his judgment. Burdened by additional doubts, he slowed down all his processes and lay back on the deck, motionless. He was certain that he must have done something seriously wrong for Jane to have struck him over the head like that.

Steve was frantically blocking the sword blows of the sailor in front of him with his belaying pin. To one side, he had seen a tall, bearded buccaneer run up and reach forward. The stranger was huge, and Steve had hoped for a moment that Hunter would show up at the last second to stop him. Instead, Jane had stepped out from behind Steve and clobbered the big buccaneer.

The sailor who was fighting Steve had been distracted for just a moment. Steve swung his belaying pin down on the sailor’s head with a clunk. The sailor collapsed onto the deck.

“Traitor! Traitor!” A man’s voice shouted at them from the crowd.

Steve looked around. It was Ned, the buccaneer who had chased them from the Cadiz across to the Sidonia a few minutes ago. He was almost as tall as the stranger Jane had just clubbed, though not as brawny.

In an instant, Steve understood. Ned had seen the two of them hanging back from the fight, and now he had seen Jane hit one of the buccaneers from behind. He had concluded that they were perpetrating some sort of betrayal, probably to take more than their share of loot.

“Oh, no,” said Jane, looking down at her fallen opponent. “He’s dressed like a pirate, isn’t he? I thought he was charging at us.”

“Look out!” Steve saw that Ned was running toward them angrily. He stooped down to pick up the cutlass the Spanish sailor had dropped.

Ned swung his cutlass at Jane’s head. She ducked under it and Steve slashed at Ned with his cutlass. Ned blocked it easily and Steve was forced backward by the force of the collision.

“Jane, run!” Steve yelled. Out of the comer of his eye, he saw her slip away. At the same time, he was still blocking Ned’s sword strokes, slowly backing away.

Steve was scared, and felt trapped; he couldn’t possibly win a sword fight with an experienced buccaneer, especially one with a big advantage in height and reach. Still, he also felt exhilarated. He could hardly believe he was fighting a real pirate on a Spanish ship in the Caribbean.

Steve was inexorably driven back against the rail. Ned swung with hard, regular sword strokes, glaring at Steve angrily. Steve knew he couldn’t fight his way out of the confined space. Finally, desperate, he jumped up on the rail itself.

“Ha!” Ned laughed and moved forward.

Steve threw his sword at Ned, turned, and jumped feet first into the sea far below.

The blue waves came up fast, and he hit the water hard, plunging deep below the surface. He kicked and stroked to break his descent and finally began to swim upward. It seemed like a longer way up than he had expected, and he held his breath desperately. Finally, he broke through the surface of the salt water, gasping.

“Steve!” Jane was shouting and waving anxiously. She stood at the rail far above him, but well away from the place where he had left Ned.

From his present position, Steve could only see the steep side of the hull, the rail, and the rigging stretching high above the deck. Jane was the only person close enough to the rail for him to see. He waved to reassure her, but he realized that he had no way to get back on board.

Then, as he watched, Jane ran to a hanging dinghy swaying horizontally over the edge of the ship. It was suspended from wooden arms by rope. She fumbled with a knotted rope for a moment, then jumped back as the rope came free. The heavy dinghy fell all the way to the water with a tremendous splash.

Steve struck out for the boat, swimming clumsily in his clothes, but he kept his head above water $0 that he could see. Ahead of him, Jane took a deep breath and jumped feet-first into the water near the boat. When she surfaced, she swam to the boat and pulled herself up and over the edge.

As Steve neared the boat, Jane extended an oar for him to grab. He took it with relief, finding that he was exhausted from the effort of fighting and swimming. After pulling himself hand over hand along the oar, he grabbed the edge of the boat and rolled over the edge to fall inside.

“You okay?” Jane took his hand and helped pull him up into a sitting position.

“Yeah.” Steve looked up toward the deck of the ship. He couldn’t see much from the dinghy, but the sounds of the fight were continuing. “Anybody notice?”

“If they did, they didn’t care. Besides, as soon as we went over the rail, we were out of sight.” She looked at him. “Now what?”