[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
said Mudge softly, "you really do think we went over into your world, don't
you?"
He nodded. "It was in the song. I didn't mean it to happen that way, but yes,
I think we crossed over. And I
was too drunk to do anything about it."
"Maybe we're still in yo world," said Roseroar.
Mudge noticed movement in the water. " 'Ang on. I
think I know 'ow to find out." He headed toward the bow.
Jon-Tom rose, swayed slightly. Roseroar put out a hand to steady him but he
waved her off with a smile. "Thanks.
I'm okay now. Stone-cold sober."
"Yo drunkenness did come from yo song, then?"
"Something else I didn't plan on. It's worn off. That's why I don't think
we're still in my world. The good wears
THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
105
off along with the bad." His voice fell to a whisper. "I
was home, Roseroar! Home."
"Ah am sorry fo yo, Jon-Tom. Ah really and truly am."
"You've got a big heart, Roseroar. Along with every-
thing else." He smiled at her, then walked toward the front of the boat. Maybe
he was wrong. Maybe there was still a chance, however faint that seemed now.
The otter was leaning over the side. "How are you going to find out where we
are?" Jon-Tom asked.
Mudge glanced up at him. "That's easy enough, guv'nor.
All you 'ave to do is ask." He turned his face to the water racing past the
prow and shouted, "Hey, you, where are we?"
Jon-Tom peered over the railing to see the playful, smooth, gray-backed shapes
sliding easily through the water, hitching a free ride on the boat's bow-wave.
One of them lifted its bottle-nose clear of the surface and squeaked a reply.
"You're at half past a quarter after." Giggles rose from around the speaker as
the rest of the dolphins vented their appreciation of the little joke.
Mudge gave Jon-Tom an apologetic look. "Sorry, mate, but tain't easy gettin' a
straight answer out o' this bunch o'
sea-goin' comedians."
"Never mind," Jon-Tom sighed. "The fact that it answered at all is proof
enough of which world we're in."
"Hey:ya," said another of the slim swimmers, "have you guys heard the one
about the squid and the Third
Mistress of Pack Thirty?"
"No." Mudge leaned forward, interested.
The dolphin now speaking sidled effortlessly up to the side of the speeding
sloop. "It seems she..." Jon-Tom abandoned the ongoing display of oceanic
vulgarity and climbed the central cabin to contemplate the horizon.
Page 58
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
No, he wasn't home anymore. Maybe he'd hallucinated the whole incident. Maybe
there'd been no ski boat full of
106
Alan Dean Poster
THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
1O7
stoned stockbrokers from New York. Maybe the entire episode was nothing more
than the result of his drunkenness.
Except that Mudge and Roseroar and Jalwar had seen them also.
The last vestiges of inebriation left him frighteningly cold inside. It was
bad enough that fate had dumped him in this alien otherworld. Now it had
chosen to tease him with a glimpse of reality, of home. He felt like a poor
kid forced to stand in front of the main display window at
FA.O. Schwarz the night before Christmas.
Slipping the duar around in front of him, he tried the song again, tried
altering the inflection in his voice, the volume of each stanza. Tried until
his throat was dry and he could hardly speak. Nothing worked. The song
remained a song and nothing more.
He tried other songs, with the same result. He sang everything he could
remember that alluded however vaguely to going home, to returning home, to
longing for home.
The sloop John B. cut cleanly through the waves, running southwestward under
Roseroar's expert guidance. There was no sign of land to cheer him. Only the
dolphins with their endless corny jokes.
"Sail ahead!" Jalwar yelled from the top of the main-
mast. Jon-Tom shoved his own concerns aside as he joined
Mudge near the bowsprit. Stare as he might, he saw only empty horizon. Mudge
had no difficulty in matching the ferret's vision.
"I see 'er, mate."
. "What does she look like?"
"Rigged normal, not like this thing." The last of
Jon-Tom's hopes vanished. Not a speedboat, then. "Big, two rows of oars. That
I don't like."
"Why not?"
"Think about it, mate. Only a fool would try rowin'
across an ocean. Only a fool... and them that's given no choice in the
business."
The visitor was bearing down on them fast. Soon
Jon-Tom could make out the silhouette. "Can you see a flag?"
Mudge stared hard. Then he began to shake. "That's all she wrote, mate.
There's a 'eart with a knife through it flyin' from the yardartn. Pirates." He
raced sternward, Jon-Tom hurrying after him.
"I thought only traders traveled the Glittergeist."
"Aye, traders and them that preys on 'em." The otter was dancing frantically
around Roseroar. "Do somethin', you bloody great caricature of a courtesan!"
Roseroar put the wheel hard over, said evenly, "They've probably seen us
already."
"Jon-Tom, spellsing us out o' 'ere!" By now the huge, swift shape of the
pirate ship was bearing down on then-
stern. Strange figures lined the rails and the double rows of oars dipped in
unison.
"There's not enough wind," Roseroar observed. "What there is, is at our back,
but they're supplemental' their own sails with those oahs."
Jon-Tom was trying to untangle his duar from around his neck. "Our engine's
out of diesel." He found himself eyeing the approaching behemoth in
fascination. "Interest-
Page 59
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
ing lines."
"Interestin" my arse!" Mudge was saying frantically.
"You'll see 'ow interestin' it can be if they take us!"
"I'm afraid I don't know many songs about boats,"
Jon-Tom muttered worriedly, trying to concentrate, "and none at all about
pirates. See, where I come from they're a historical oddity. Not really a
valid subject for contempo-
rary song writers."
"Screw wot's contemporary!" the otter pleaded with him. "Sing something!"
Jon-Tom tried a couple of hasty, half-remembered tunes, none of which had the
slightest effect on the John B. or the approaching vessel. It was hard to
remember anything, what with Jalwar moaning and genuflecting to the north
108
Alan Dean Poster
THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
1O9
and Mudge hopping hysterically all over the boat when he wasn't screaming in
Jon-Tom's face.
Then there was no time left to think as Roseroar rum-
bled, "Stand by to repel boarders, y'all!"
Jon-Tom put the duar aside. No time for playing. The upper deck of the pirate
ship loomed over them. Arrayed along the rail was the oddest assortment of
creatures he'd encountered since finding himself in this world.
One massive dirty-furred polar bear missing an ear stood alongside three
vicious-looking pikas armed with four-
foot-long lances. A pair of lynxes caressed chipped battle-
axes and prepared to swing down on ropes dangling from a boom. Next to them a
tarsier equipped with oversized sunglasses aimed a bow at the sloop.
"Take "em!" snarled a snaggle-toothed old bobcat. He leaped boldly over the
side, swinging a short scimitar over his ears, and landed on the club end of
Jon-Tom's ramwood staff. He made a strangled sound as the breath went out of
him and there was a cracking sound as a rib went.
As the bobcat slid over the side a coyote came down a rope dangling above
Roseroar, intent on splitting her skull with a mace. The tigress's swords
flashed in unison.
Four limbs went their separate ways as the coyote's limb-
less torso landed soundlessly on the deck, spraying blood in all directions.
It twitched horribly.
Jon-Tom fought for control of his stomach as the attackers began swarming over
the side in earnest. He found himself backing away from a couple of armored
sloths whose attitudes were anything but slothful and, rather shockingly, a
middle-aged man. The sloths carried no weapons, relying instead on their
six-inch-long foreclaws to do damage.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]