Emperor of Gondwanaland Read Free Page A

Ursula. Welcome aboard. We have much to discuss.”
    As I shook Captain Merino’s bland hand, I marveled at his disingenuous understatement of the situation, and wondered what could possibly follow.
     
    III. Proposals and Rejections
     
    I expected Captain Merino to exercise common courtesy by inviting us into his cabin. Instead, he carefully closed the door—through which I had gotten only a glimpse of shadowy interior—and turned his aesthete’s countenance toward us.
    The Fanzoy that had emerged with him remained close by.
    “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see another human face,” said Merino in a drained and languorous voice that totally belied any excitement. “As you can see, my ship has suffered disaster—a most unsettling tragedy. Perhaps you can better gauge the extent of it— and more readily appreciate my tale—if we conduct a promenade about the ship as we converse.”
    Merino’s cavalier attitude—which I could only assume was a brave, if somewhat pompous, attempt to put up an unconcerned front— modified my fears that had arisen when the Fanzoii seemed ready to attack us. If this perfumed popinjay felt safe among his alien crew, then I could have nothing to fear.
    “Very well,” I replied. “Let us talk freely, as one captain to another. I confess there is much about your ship and its status that I find puzzling and improper.” I turned to my first mate. “Mate Belgrano, station yourself by the rail above the cutter—to make sure she does not loose anchor and drift.”
    In truth, I had no expectation of that happening. My real aim was twofold: to prevent any of the Fanzoii from appropriating the cutter, and to be with Merino alone, without subordinates, so that he would perhaps speak more directly.
    Belgrano left, somewhat uneasily. I had faith in his abilities to hold off idle Fanzoii, or, failing that, to remove the cutter from their reach. I waited for Merino to dismiss his pet Fanzoy, which continued to hover close by him like an apricot-colored specter.
    Merino only sized me up with an open and minute disbelief, as if he could have wished I had done otherwise than send Belgrano away. He pivoted on one booted heel and strode off, leaving me to catch up.
    The Fanzoy never left him.
    Merino began talking almost before I drew abreast of him. He did not catch my eyes, but stared straight ahead, ignoring both myself and the shoddy mishmash of trash at his feet. His manner belonged to one who recounted a much-rehearsed story that had been leeched of meaning. Yet as his talk progressed, he became a bit more fervid and uneasy, as if he could not repress all he must be feeling.
    “We sailed from Saint Ursula over a year ago, on a voyage that was to take three months. My crew was a good and capable one, ten men and the standard complement of bots. Our ship was sweet and swift. Yet witness the once-proud Cockerel now: derelict and without destination.”
    I could well believe that the ship had had a year’s worth of neglect. “You shipped with ten men, yet I saw only one.”
    Merino waggled his hand negligently in the air. “You mean our Sanctus, Purslen Monteagle. Faugh! I had not even counted him, else it were eleven. He is supercargo, which the Aristarchy bids me haul, as every one of its ships must. No, not one of the ten remains”— he paused unnaturally—”alive. Nine were swept overboard in one of the fiercest storms I have ever experienced, along with many bots. Not a month out of port were we when it came upon us. The surviving man—my first mate, who was also my beloved cousin—took a great hurt and died shortly thereafter. With our sails rent and our cells staved in, we have drifted since, at the whim of the currents and the winds. Monteagle and I have been living off the victuals stored for eleven, yet even these are almost gone.”
    The account seemed credible to me. Merino struck me as an indecisive and artificial captain, who could easily lose his crew through