He nodded approval as he swallowed the last of his sandwich and took a bite of strong cheese. A lot of the tribute was in raw wool and flax. Building the kick-pedal flying-shuttle looms and the spinning jenny hadn't been any problem, but getting the machines into actual production was another matter. Hong had taken the project under her wing for something to do, now that her regular clinic was well organized. It also made work for all those pregnant women, work they actually liked, and if you wanted decent sheeting or pillowcases here you had to make them yourself. The local linen was more like canvas.

"Good job," he said. The kitchen girl came in to clear away the wood and pottery plates. "As a reward, come along upstairs."

He rose. Hong dropped her chalk beside her quill pen and followed suit, grinning at him and slowly licking her lips. "You too," he added to the servant.

"You girls work on your times tables," Hong said to her helpers.

"Yes, Ms. Hong," they chorused, eyes firmly down on their slates.

The two Americans went out the door into the hallway, pushing the kitchen girl between them and up the stairs. Their hands met on her shivering back. Hong was smiling, and twirling a little silver-handled crop of bone and leather she always wore thonged around her right wrist.

Life is good, Walker thought, moving his hand down to the girl's rump. They turned left down the hall to Hong's room, which had the frontal mask of a human skull nailed to it with golden spikes.

"Wake up! Wake up!"

Ian Arnstein yawned and stretched, shaking off a dream in which he was trapped in a seminar without end, populated exclusively by illiterate surfer dudes who kept quoting Foucault at him; or even worse, Paul de Man. It was still dark outside, just the slightest hint of gray in the windows. It was his turn to make up the morning fire, and he snuggled down under the blankets and coverlet in reluctance. It might be March-now that he came a little more out of sleep he realized that it was the anniversary of Event Day, the morning of the expeditionary force's sailing date-but it was still cold and damp after a week of storms.

"Wake up!" Doreen said again, shaking his shoulder. "Ian! We're back in the twentieth! The Event reversed! There's a jet going by right over us and a Navy helicopter landing down by Steamboat Wharf!"

Ian hit the floor with a bellow "and tripped, tangled in the sheets. His elbows thumped on the floor; he ignored it and scrambled to the windows, throwing up the sash.

Cold wind and the drizzle it blew in raised goosebumps on his naked body. Below in the street a cart pulled by two cows went by, piled high with bundles of salted fish under a tarpaulin. A steam whistle sounded mournful and remote; he could smell burning whale oil from the lanterns…

A giggle from the bed brought him around. Doreen squeaked and hopped off the mattress, keeping the four-poster between them. "Now, darling, it was just a joke-"

He kept coming. She dodged and somersaulted over the bed. "Joke my hairy arse!" he roared. "That rain was cold, goddammit."

He chased her around the room. By the second circuit he was laughing as well; he took time to throw a few dry sticks on the fire before she let him catch her. They were both still smiling when they dressed and went across to breakfast, and so down to the wharves.

The two schooners Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tub-man were already being hauled out from the dock by the tugs. Eagle still waited. She didn't look quite so pristine as she had a year ago; they were still short of paint, and would be for years. Extra davits for more boats had been added to her stern and sides, and other shapes crouched at the rails, covered in tarpaulins. Umbrellas and rain slickers crowded the dock; there were hugs and tears as friends and family members said farewell. Father Gomez-who'd been chosen as head of the new church, rather to his own surprise-led a blessing service.

Then Jared Cofflin climbed onto a board between two barrels.

"Bad weather for a send-off, so I won't keep you long," he said. "We did all the speechifying necessary at the Town Meeting. This is something that has to be done. Lisketter's bunch got themselves killed, but we don't know what Walker and his gang have been doing, and we have to go, for our safety and that of our families and our homes. It isn't that far to Britain."

Not too far for Walker to come back with a horde of pirates, if we give him enough time, Ian thought soberly. Or for the Tartessians to do the same. That fact had sunk home well and truly over the winter; three-quarters of the Meeting's votes had gone to sending an expeditionary force and giving Alston plenipotentiary authority. Even Sam Macy had gone along with it, with a convert's zeal. Now that the spring plowing was mostly done, the islanders were anxious to see the expedition on its way. Not enthusiastic, certainly, except for some youngsters, but very willing.

He wondered whether it was the situation that made Town Meeting government work relatively well here, or the fact that this was a community whose core was people with real roots. I doubt a random collection of seven thousand Angelenos would have done nearly as well.

"I have complete confidence in Captain Alston's judgment and leadership," Cofflin finished. "With that, I'll turn this slippery plank over to her for a minute."

There was a friend's malice in the smile he gave the commander of the Republic of Nantucket's fleet. Ian knew they both detested public speaking. It was a bit of an irony that they'd both landed jobs where it was an essential part of the work.

Alston went up on the plank, yellow slicker over her working blues, and stood with hands behind her and feet braced wide. "I'm glad Chief Cofflin and the Meeting have confidence in us," she said. "This is an essential mission, and I intend to see that it's done right and at the least possible cost."

Well, that's the captain, he thought. Mission first, people second. She included herself among the expendable, of course.

"Cheer up," Doreen whispered in his ear. "Think of the adventure, Oh Speaker to Savages."

Adventure is somebody else in deep shit far away, as Marian so eloquently puts it. "Think of the cold, the wet, the cramped bunks, the salt meat and hardtack"-without refrigeration the Eagle and her consorts were back to traditional seafaring provender, "the natives throwing things at us," he whispered back.

"If all goes well, we'll make sure that there's no long-term menace to Nantucket's safety, and gain friends, allies, and trading partners," Alston went on. "Every one of us will do her or his best to see that things do go well."

"Or they'll answer to me and wish they'd never been born," Doreen whispered, in a sotto voce impersonation of the icy soprano Alston used when angry.

"We appreciate your support, and please keep us in your thoughts and prayers," Alston concluded. "Thank you."

She stepped down, and the last of the expeditionary force trooped up the gangplank.

"Almost wish I were going with you," Jared said.

"I don't," Martha added bluntly. "I just hope you all come back safe." She looked down at the baby sleeping in its carriage.

"You're right," Alston said. "That's important work too."

"You will come someday," Swindapa said. "There will be many voyages. I'll show you my birth-country." She bent and touched the baby's cheek. "You too, little Marian, iho-jax. You will see the midwinter Moon rising over the Great Wisdom."

Ian looked aside at Doreen, and smiled. "Remember our honeymoon cruise?"

"Time to break the mold," Walker said. "Hoist it out."

Men in thick leather aprons and boots and gloves went cautiously close and fastened a three-bar iron grapnel to the top of the mold. A ten-ox team bent their necks to the yoke and pulled in the muddy yard outside, and the long clay tube rose slowly out of the casting pit to the creak of harness and rattle of the block-and-tackle. The workers stood watching and blowing on their hands until it was free, then moved forward to guide it onto a timber cradle as the oxen walked backward and let the great weight down again.