The Probing: Leviathan, The Mind Pirates, Hybrids, The Village Read online

  “You won’t be walking off that easy,” said Bennett Piel.

  Thatch and Andi turned slowly. Piel stood gloating. So did Mr. Ling.

  The captain didn’t seem surprised. “So it is as I hear: ‘We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.’”

  “Honor can’t stand up to a lucrative arrangement,” said Piel. “The smart ones know a better deal when it’s offered.”

  “Smart and a murderin’ scum! A big money man from Hong Kong, is he? ’Twas you and Ling pitched Ben Cardiff to the brine!”

  “If it’s any consolation, we didn’t mean to kill him. But he did take us for a million!” He nodded toward Mr. Ling. “Nevertheless, my friend here has promised me a fat future to finish this business any way we can. Mr. Ling wants your ship, Thatch, and all that gadgetry you have onboard!”

  The captain studied Mr. Ling a moment. “The Gate, I presume? I’ve heard tell of you around St. Clemens, and oh, you can persuade, I’ll lay to that.” The captain met the eyes of his men, then looked at Piel and Ling. “But will you leave a bloodied island for the law to find?” The captain slowly drew his pistol. “That we’ll try.” He looked around. “I’d find cover inside,” he drolly advised the costumed servers and staff.

  He didn’t have to tell them twice.

  Thatch’s crew drew their period weapons, clicking back the hammers all around, their muzzles mirroring the ones aimed at them.

  From the deck of the Predator, Scalarag and I could see the frozen tableau of some fifty mock tourists brandishing weapons and Thatch’s crew brandishing weapons right back.

  “This is insane!” I said.

  “This is money,” said Scalarag. “Thatch guessed right. Someone made Piel a better offer.”

  The Gate, I thought. This was their sneaky style. “They . . . they can’t just kill each other!”

  “Neither has a winning hand, so who knows where it goes from here?”

  Oh, Andi! She had such a gift for being caught in the middle. “Cheerios,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Ammunition for the cannons. We have Cheerios.”

  Mr. Ling broke into a smile. “So now we parlay, eh? And what have you to bargain with, Thatch?” He spoke loudly so all could hear, “Men of the Predator! Whatever Thatch is paying, I’ll make it double. All I want is that ship and what’s aboard. Hand it over and walk away alive—and richer!”

  There was a telling pause. Both sides still aimed their weapons, but Thatch’s men were thinking about it.

  “Mutiny . . .” a crewman muttered.

  “Mutiny?” bellowed the captain, striding before them. “And go home lesser men? Can honor be bought that easily?”

  Rock leaped to the first large limb of a tree, waved his sword, and hollered out, “Why stand you all tangled in the stays? Was it honor filled your purses? The gold’s the thing, mateys, and gold buys the wiser! Take it now, live to tell it, and live happy! Mutiny!”

  There was a cheer, but it was halfhearted.

  A knife came from somewhere and pinned Rock’s sleeve to the tree! That drew everyone’s attention to none other than Norwig the Bean, standing near the captain. He jerked his head at Piel and Ling. “And you’ll believe the word of scum like these, when the first word is pistols up your nose? What do you know, mates, if it ain’t the captain and his word? I say we stick by the old man and let tomorrow come as always! Mutiny against the mutiny!”

  Another cheer, but that was halfhearted, too.

  Oof! Spikenose, like a wiry little spider on a web, swung in on a rope and kicked Norwig aside, taking his place in the center. He had a pistol in one hand and a saber in the other and twirled them both to get everyone’s attention. “Come on, guys, get a clue! Thatch has been using all of us to make himself rich, and The Gate only wants to kill us and take what’s ours! Can’t you see this whole thing is falling apart? This whole pirate thing, it’s over, and I’m sick of it anyway! Listen! I’m the purser with signatory rights on the bank account. Let’s split the company assets and get out. Let Thatch and The Gate fight over the rest! Mutiny against the mutiny against the mutiny!”

  That brought an intelligent murmur.

  Harry the Scar stepped into the center and gave a shrill whistle. The murmuring stopped. “Just walk away with the money, is that it? That simple? Any of you want to lay me odds the Feds aren’t onto us by now? They’ve gotta be tracking these Gate guys and they’ve got to know where most of our money’s come from. You don’t think they’re all over us, too? Listen, we didn’t invent the technology, right? We were just working the ship, doing the shows, right? But we know about the captain and now we know about The Gate, so let’s go to the Feds, turn ’em in, and cut a deal.” He had to count on his fingers as he said, “Mutiny against the mutiny against the mutiny against the mutiny!”

  What was this, parlay ad absurdum? Andi looked around, wondering who was going to speak next when—

  SQUAWK! A huge hand from behind grabbed her by the scruff of her costume.

  It was Sparks’s voice! “All this blabbering and you don’t know what’s right under your nose!”

  He held her up, half hanging by her costume, her parrot feet barely touching the ground. He yanked the goofy parrot head off her and tossed it aside. Her unconstrained hair exploded from her head like a red firework.

  Most everyone gave a little gasp or mutter at the sight of her, but Piel and Ling stood silent as lights came on behind their eyes. Piel even mouthed the words, The redheaded girl!

  “Ah,” said Sparks, “so you know what I’m holding!” He put a knife to her neck. “Here’s the real prize: Everything Ben knew and you paid for, it’s in her head—and that includes where your million dollars went. So here’s my offer: Make me captain. Give me the crew and the Predator, and we’ll come over to your side and hand you the girl.” He dragged her around a little, making sure all the crew could see the prize and his knife to her throat. “Can’t make up your minds? Take a good look at her! Follow me, I follow them, they get the girl, we keep the Predator, and we all get richer.”

  Spikenose looked into space, counting, “A mutiny against the mutiny against the mutiny . . .”

  “Shut up!”

  There must have been something about a knife to her throat that Andi found disagreeable. With abandon and bravado she must have learned from Ben, she burst out, “By the powers, ya swab, you’re as sharp as paint, you are! Be the captain? Is that why you scrambled the system and Jean-Pierre’s brain? You were hoping the cap would put on that earring as always, but Jean-Pierre wore it that day, and ’twas his bad fortune!”

  He tightened his grip. “Hold your tongue, or I’ll cut it out.”

  “And toss it to Piel and Ling? Oh, they’ll pay you well for that!”

  Click! Oh, how she hated that sound!

  Sparks spun around, dragging her with him.

  The captain was pointing his pistol at Sparks, steady, steely-eyed. In his free hand he held the earring. “So that’s why you hoped I’d put on the earring today. You were planning for me what fell to Jean-Pierre.” He shouted to the men of the Predator, “This man’s killed one of your own hoping to finish me! Would you have him wearing the captain’s hat?”

  Sparks sneered. “This from the man who scoffs at truth?”

  “The cap’s speaking straight and I be the one that knows,” cried Andi. “’Twas Ben left the system running when he jumped ship so he could send his mind to Piel and Ling. The system was ticking like a fine clock when I bought the earring and it sent Ben’s mind to me along with his killing.” She nodded toward Piel and Ling. “And the faces of his killers!”

  Piel and Ling were watching, listening. Ling said matter-of-factly, “We will want the girl.”

  “Aye, you hear that, Sparks? So put a thought to it! You cut my neck, you kill the head that’s on it, and what do you know but half the system? It’s Ben’s in my head, and Ben knows the whole of it.”

  “Meaning . . .” said th
e captain, “take away the girl and the whole matter ends.” The captain shifted his aim so Andi could see right down the bore. “You know half the system, Sparks, but she knows all of it. You know how to scramble it, but she knows how to fix it. Without her, the system’s no good . . . and neither is your deal, and what does The Gate go away with?”

  Sparks tightened his grip on her. “Give it up, Thatch. You can’t do it.”

  “Ask Jean-Pierre.” The captain’s voice was low and even. “You were there. You know I can. You know I will.”

  CHAPTER

  20

  The Battle

  Lighter in hand, I reached to ignite the vent hole of the cannon.

  Scalarag blocked me. “This isn’t it.”

  I nearly struck him. “Isn’t what?”

  “The moment.”

  “What moment?”

  “You’ll know. Keep an eye on ’em. Gotta go below, fire up the engines.”

  I’ll know?

  The captain called out to his men as he aimed his pistol at Andi’s head. “You’ve all sailed with me, so what say you? What rule’s to stop me? From what truth comes the shame?”

  He waited, looked them in the eyes. Not a single man gave an answer. Andi began to tremble.

  The captain called again, “Can you not tell me? Where’s the wrong in taking the girl’s life?”

  One wimpy little swab offered, “We don’t get the money . . .” and a whiny murmur of agreement passed through the crew.

  The captain watched them a moment, gave them time, but all he got was silence.

  At last, with resignation, he raised the muzzle of his pistol toward the sky and uncocked the hammer. “So . . . if there be a truth, it’s of a truth that you have none, and I took it from you. Very well, then. Let the truth fall to me, and I’ll be the man.” He tucked the pistol into his belt, then removed his hat and held it high. “Sparks is your captain!”

  No one cheered.

  “Hip! Hip!”

  Two said Hurray.

  “Hip! Hip!”

  Same two.

  Sparks’s hands were occupied holding and threatening Andi. Thatch did the honors, placing the hat on Sparks’s head. He then took hold of Andi and pulled her gently away . . . just as Sparks went berserk.

  He screamed, his eyes rolled, he held his head as if it were bursting; he toppled, rolled on the ground. The hat came off, but it had done its work. Sparks would never be clever or conniving again.

  Captain Thatch snatched up the hat and, before putting it back on, surreptitiously removed the earring he’d concealed in the lining. He dropped the earring, crushed it under his boot, and replaced his hat.

  This was it! The moment!

  Running along, I touched fire to the vent hole of Cannon One, then Two, then Three. Each gun unleashed a fiery, percussive thunder, recoiling against its tethers. The explosions quaked my insides; the whole ship rocked under my feet.

  The town square disappeared behind a cloud of blue smoke and oat-colored haze.

  The captain knew the moment as well. He held Andi tightly against him, his back to the blast, as five hundred boxes’ worth of Cheerios, reduced to crumbles and dust, blasted the whole village like a sandstorm. The stuff got into eyes, stung faces, and threw everyone into a panic.

  Which was just what Thatch wanted. “Run, lass, run!”

  Andi kicked off her parrot feet and sprinted for the wharf, winged arms covering her face through the rain of oats. The captain, face sheltered under his hat, stayed right on her heels. Passing the photo booth, Andi grabbed a scarf from the rack of Readers, then dashed onto the wharf and up the gangplank.

  “Cast off! Cast off!” Thatch shouted, stomping up the gangplank behind her.

  I cast off the last stern line even as Andi and the captain landed on the deck.

  “The system’s yours, lass,” I heard the captain say as he threw off the gangplank.

  Andi ran up to me and handed me the scarf. “Here, put this one on!” Then she dashed below.

  A Reader, no doubt. A signal for help? I took off my old scarf and put on the new one.

  The smoke was clearing. Some of Thatch’s crew were occupied with Sparks, who was leaping on the tables, waving his knife around, and throwing things. The others were scattered like windfall about the town square, bereft of a leader—or a moral imperative.

  Ling was filled with purpose, however. I could see all of his rogues running our way, some squinting and teary-eyed from the powdered oats, some clear-eyed enough to fire their weapons. Bullets pinged and chipped the bulwarks, the companion. I crawled for any cover I could find as the engines below rumbled and the big hull lurched away from the wharf.

  Below, Andi tapped out lines of command and code at the console. Once again, the computer beeped, drives whirred to life, and the very attractive lady pirate appeared on the screen, presenting a menu of links and sub-pages.

  Ready.

  “Oh!” said Audrey Snow, viewing the screen in Key West.

  “Oh my word,” said Zedekiah, seeing what she saw. “Oh my word!”

  Tank, Brenda, and Daniel came running from different parts of the house.

  Zedekiah was ecstatic. “The system has unscrambled, and not only that, it’s let us in! We’re getting a signal from one of the Readers!”

  “Way cool!” said Tank.

  And that was the last thing said before they all stared at each other, thinking the same thing.

  Tank looked at Brenda, then Daniel. “I’ll do it.”

  Audrey picked up the earring. “How can we be sure?”

  “Everything looks stable,” said Zedekiah. “Only . . . good heavens! The Reader must be aboard a speedboat. I’ve never seen a sailing ship go so fast!”

  Tank didn’t have pierced ears. He just pressed the earring against his ear. His eyes widened with shock. “Whoa! WHOA!” He backed off, staring at the earring in his hand.

  Zedekiah got quite a scare. “Hello? Are you still with us? What is your name? Do you know where you are?”

  “I’m Matt Damon,” he answered. “Just kidding. I’m okay, but boy, what a ride!” He pressed the earring against his head again. “Man oh MAN!” He almost lost his balance. Audrey and Brenda guided him to a chair. He jerked, he leaned, he ducked as if the chair were a toboggan at the Olympics. “Woo-hooo! We are flying!”

  Well, of course Tank was inside my head, standing next to Captain Thatch aboard the Predator as the ship defied its design and anyone’s good sense, plowing through the water at reckless, breakneck speed, lurching with nauseating power over the swells and kicking up a violent wake. The shrouds were humming, the masts and yards groaning.

  Thatch gripped the wheel, a strange, gleeful look on his face as he pointed the bow toward a small island a mile away. “Bindy’s Mayday, they call it! Very nice channel on the other side with little room for ships to pass. Let ’em follow us there!”

  I looked astern. Not more than a mile back, the Riqueza was giving chase. Apparently, it had oversized engine power as well since it was gaining on us.

  “This ain’t real!” said Tank, seeing one three-masted ship from the deck of another, plowing along with a bone in its teeth though its sails were furled. “It’s the pirate show, but we didn’t see this part.”

  “Whose thoughts and impressions are you receiving?” Zedekiah Snow wanted to know.

  Meanwhile, I was trying to talk some sense to that loony captain before he got us all killed, all the while gaining new insight into where the stereotypical sailor got his language.

  “Uh . . . angry, scolding, kind of know-it-all . . .” said Tank. “Big words . . . whoa! Bad words, too.” He grinned with recognition. “It’s the professor.”

  Thatch grabbed me. “Take the wheel.”

  Horrors! The man was daffy! “I will do no such thing!”

  “Trust your captain!” He pulled me over and put my hands on the wheel. “She likes to bear away to starboard without her sails. Make her mind. Circle to the righ
t of that rock sticking up, just to the right of Bindy’s, you see it?”

  I was holding the reins of a bucking monster, fighting for control. I nodded as if we were having a reasonable conversation.

  “Stay clear of it, then duck behind the island and into the channel. Scalarag’s giving you full throttle.”

  “Full—?!”

  “Whoa!” Tank laughed. “He is scared poop-less! Sorry . . .”

  The captain raised his spyglass to his eye. “Aye, it’s Ling’s men, all right. They won’t let us get away, no way in heaven or hell.” He set the spyglass aside and headed for the companion, leaving me alone at the wheel.

  “What are you going to do?” I hollered over my shoulder, my hands welded to the wheel.

  “The right thing, if God be my Judge” was all he said as he went down the stairs to his quarters.

  The rock to the right of Bindy’s Mayday was a black, jagged tooth, a perfect hull opener. I veered farther to the right to be sure we missed it, then cut a gradual turn to port to head around the island. Now I could see another island beyond this one, and between them, a narrow channel. I steered for the channel and, looking back, saw the Riqueza had veered to port to circle the island from the other direction.

  They were going to head us off.

  Zedekiah Snow activated another computer, another program, and a real time map of the Caribbean appeared with a tiny blip representing the location of the Reader. “Well, folks, there it is.”

  Tank remained in the chair, eyes closed, experiencing the lurching and dashing of the Predator, the wind in my face, the salt spray in my eyes, the roar of the wind in the rigging—and the Riqueza rounding the other end of the island to intercept us. “He’s not having fun. There’s something really heavy going down.”