Blood Harvest Read Free Page A

sharp. A few strokes of Doc’s pencil created a remarkable likeness of the bird.
    Ryan shot to his feet. “Boat.”
    Doc took a small pair of binoculars from his satchel. Ryan took his spyglass from his pack and snapped it open. It was a sailboat and heading in a straight line from the main island to their rock. Doc took in the steeply raked mast and the triangular sail. “A felucca, by the look of her.” He nodded to himself. “By the lines and piled pots on the bow, I suspect they are fishing for octopus.”
    Ryan was more interested in the occupants than the catch of the day. He counted seven men. They were short and stocky in build and wore black, waxed canvas slickers, and wide-brimmed felt hats shaded their faces. Several wore round, dark-smoked glasses and gloves. Ryan didn’t see any blasters on the boat but all the men carried knives on their belts, and gaffs and fishing spears stood in racks along the gunwales.
    â€œHmm.” Doc lowered his binoculars and frowned.
    â€œWhat?” Ryan asked.
    â€œThey seem a tad pale for fishermen. Men who work the sea tend to be well weathered. Those men look more like mortuary attendants.”
    They looked a lot like Jak to Ryan, except they had dark hair. He snapped his spyglass shut and loosened his handblaster in its holster. It didn’t matter. They had to get off the rock, get fed, see if they could get back and work on the mat-trans. “What islands we in again?”
    â€œThe Canaries, the Azores and the Madeiras are just about the only island chains of note in the North Atlantic.”
    â€œThey speak English?”
    â€œPortuguese would be the lingua franca in the Azores and the Madeiras, Spanish in the Canaries. However, the presence of our puffin friend leads me to believe we are too far north for the Spanish possessions.”
    â€œYou speak Portuguese?”
    â€œMy tutors insisted on Greek, French and Latin. However, Portuguese is a Latin-based language. It may suffice to convey basic concepts.”
    â€œConvey to them we want to get off this rock, but not much else.”
    â€œI believe I understand.”
    â€œLeave a note for our people. Put it on the body.”
    Doc scrawled a quick note on the back of his sketch and went back up the stairs. He returned just as the felucca thumped against the concrete pier. The pale, black-clad fishermen approached in a phalanx. Doc was half right. The men were chill-white, but up close their pale faces were seamed by lives led doing hard labor, and at least the ones not wearing gloves had thick calluses and whorls of scars both ancient and new from years of working knives, lines and nets. Their demeanorwas neither hostile nor friendly. Doc doffed his hat and displayed what had to be the most gleaming white teeth in the Deathlands. He had a magnificent speaking voice when he was in control of himself, and he spoke in his most mellifluous tones in a type of English Ryan had never heard before.
    The effect on the fishermen was galvanizing.
    Ryan knew enough words in Mex or Spanish, as Doc called it, to do a deal or to insult someone south of the Grandee. What the fishermen were speaking sounded something like Mex by way of Mars. “What’s going on?”
    Doc smiled. “They think I am a baron. I assured them I am not.”
    Ryan resisted rolling his eye up to the stormy sky for strength. “Doc? The next time people we don’t know think you’re a baron, you let them think that until it’s time not to let them think that.”
    Doc reddened and coughed into his fist. “Yes…I believe I take your point. These people do indeed speak Portuguese. The big island has a ville. I believe the baron there is a man named Xavier Barat.” Doc gestured at a pale, powerfully built man wearing dark glasses, gloves and wide black hat. “This man is Roque. He is the fishing captain of the ville’s fleet.”
    â€œCaptain Roque.”