The Celtic Mirror Read online

He held his fire until Le Fay poised at the top of a roll, then depressed the firing stud. Flames burst from the tube’s front and rear orifices, challenging the heat of the sun against his skin for an instant.

  The missile described a shallow arc and then terminated its “flight” with a satisfactory combination of pyrotechnics, noise and spray aft of the lead vessel—distant enough to keep its crew from becoming hamburger but close enough to get them wet. Morgan gripped the cockpit coaming, expecting one of two reactions: a violent counterattack or a hasty retreat. Neither happened. Instead, the boats lowered sail and hove-to, maintaining their distance from the man with the rocket launcher. The orca closed with the lead vessel and remained with it for the space of a minute. Then it headed for Le Fay unescorted! Morgan cast the expended tube into the sea and readied the second throwaway launcher, all the time watching the graceful killer narrow the distance at an incredible speed. Morgan kept pressure off the firing stud until his target was certain.

  Three hundred meters His finger began to caress the button. He took a deep breath and held it. The orca stopped its rush and raised its head out of the water. Beautiful! At that instant, the underside of the creature’s body was partially exposed, and Morgan’s target was no longer racing toward him like a car out of control.

  He applied a little meaningful pressure to the firing stud.

  “Mor...gan!”

  He jerked as if slapped in the face, shakily, uncertainly, lowered the launcher and stared at the enigma that faced him across the waters.

  “Mor...gan.” Click...whistle. “Use...click...ra...di...oh.”

  Before Morgan could react, the orca executed a joyful and effortless leap and dove out of sight.

  Stunned by the inhuman messenger and his second experience with cetacean sapience, Morgan stumbled below to follow his instructions. He quickly checked the boat’s power level. The battery registered slightly over a quarter charge. Not good, but good enough, He set the channel selector to 16, the customary marine contact frequency and depressed the key on the hand-held mike.

  “Unidentified craft, this is Le Fay, Whiskey Victor Mike, four one two niner. Please identify,” he said formally, feeling foolish.

  The receiver crackled, then: “Le Fay, this is Tanaris. The cocktail pennant is hoisted.”

  Morgan’s reply deviated somewhat from prescribed radio protocol. “Screw you, Connach!”

  Three years earlier, Ian Connach had appeared in Morgan’s life, looking more like a sixth-century Irish coastal raider than a recent graduate from an obscure college in the Midwest. His lean, freckled face had been engulfed by an explosion of wildly curling red hair, and his eyes were pale and penetrating as if they were tools used to search out enemy sails instead of searching out solutions to sticky engineering problems. A shabby, leather-patched jacket and discount store slacks imperfectly concealed his formidable physical strength. He immediately reminded Morgan of a Clark Kent, biding his time in disguise, waiting for an empty phone booth.

  When Connach had extended his long arm and had taken Morgan’s own substantial paw in a carefully controlled grip, and when he had split his Celtic face with a grin of genuine pleasure, Morgan had been completely charmed by the trickster. His soldier’s instincts had not wasted away in those years at PacSail, but in Connach’s case, he had chosen to ignore the persistent screams of warning that had tugged at the hairs on the back of his neck.

  Then, Morgan had been impressed by Connach’s apparent love of the sea, blue-water cruising boats, and mellow Irish whiskey. At times, when they were working on the 4D project, the two of them would talk at once as if each shared the same brain, loudly bouncing ideas back and forth, making incredible things happen. The only enthusiasm not shared, on Connach’s part, was Morgan’s love for Kendra, a love, Connach told him, that the marina’s most notorious boat bunny did not deserve.

  “That little piece of trash is going to rip you up, my friend,” Connach had told him one night as he sipped at his drink. “Your emotions still haven’t recovered from that goddamned war. They hang all over you like wet laundry. Kendra’s going to pull them off the line one of these days and drop them all in the dirt.”

  “What the hell do you know about my damned emotions?” Morgan had roared back, his raw nerves burned by the truth of the engineer’s insight. “What were you doing when I was getting my ass shot at? Sitting it out safe in school, maybe picketing with some radical bunch to get us misguided monsters out of those jungles and deserts so we couldn’t raid any more of those stinking terrorist training camps?”

  Connach’s response had been to walk out of the room, leaving Morgan alone with a crowd of conflicting thoughts that had taken him days to tuck back into the few safe corners left in his mind.

  The only other thing that Connach had refused to share with Morgan was the secret of the Mirror.

  “Look, man,” he had once said, “Leave engineering to me. You design the yachts. Let me design my ‘Celtic Mirrors’.” He laughed as if at a private joke. And that had been that. They had been working then on the first drawings for the 4D24, a baby born out of the twin necessities of solving the problem of nationwide mooring shortages, and the E.E.P. ban on pleasure craft power plants that required fossil fuels.

  Morgan’s problem had been to create two boats: a twenty-four foot shoal-draft sloop and a forty-foot blue water cruising yacht. Ian Connach had promised to stitch the two together with the blue haze of a humming Mirror.

  They had almost succeeded.

  Morgan thought that maybe Kettelmann had been the jinx. Jay Kettelmann had been foisted off on the project members by John Wiscombe, not because he had been capable of functioning as a team player or because he was capable of being accepted by the other project personnel, which he was not, but because he was a winner. John Wiscombe liked winners.

  The German immigrant was good at winning things, and when he was not busy winning races in PacSail boats, he was supposed to advise Morgan on the racing refinements that could be built into the 4D. When he tired of blatantly hustling Kendra at company parties, he had done just that and in the most obnoxious and arrogant manner possible.

  Kettelmann had irritated Morgan to the point of twice giving Wiscombe notice. Morgan was a purist who felt that any boat designed for both cruising and racing was an impossible creation that looked like a humpbacked whale, sailed like a neurotic bitch, and was as well suited for offshore cruising as a birdbath.

  Morgan had fought to keep the 4D looking like a lady, but he nearly lost after Kettelmann had abandoned his own prototype in perfect weather conditions and on a leg of a race in which no obstructions or problems had been reported by any of the other competitors.

  Hot-dog Kettelmann! Morgan snorted contemptuously and caught the line tossed from the Tanaris.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “You were carrying a bit of heavy cargo, old buddy,” Connach began in a conversational manner that irritated Morgan.

  He swirled the contents of the copper mug he had been handed, watching the pale liquid chase itself in tiny whirlpools, clear and flawless, going nowhere. Just like me. Ice was a luxury Connach had failed to provide; not that it would have improved Morgan’s attitude appreciably. Connach’s laugh abruptly rang out over the span of water that separated Tanaris from Le Fay, and one of Connach’s sailors grinned in response, a sign of loyalty that all commanders hope to inspire in subordinates. Connach was definitely in command. Connach definitely enjoyed being in command.

  “You look like a character from a Flash Gordon serial,” Morgan said at last. “What parade were you going to lead today? Disneyland, perhaps?”

  Connach wore a pair of white shorts, fastened at the waist by a red webbed belt that bore an intricate pattern in gold thread; its buckle was of worn yellow gold, fashioned into a four-spoked wheel. A dagger with a use-smoothed hilt hung upon the belt that reminded Morgan of the cinglium, a badge of rank worn by the nobility and military officers during the Roman Imperial Period.

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sp; Connach spread his hands wide as if embarrassed. “Kerry, don’t knock the suit. It’s my uniform. I’m on duty. I guess you could call me a captain, but my seamen call me ‘Navarchus.’” At a glance, Morgan could see that his friend’s embarrassment was only feigned—a ploy to put him at ease.

  “Well, well. And here I thought you were one of the low-profile types when the crunch hit. I guess I owe you an apology for the uncharitable thoughts I’ve been harboring.” Morgan was nearly as accomplished an actor as Connach. He’d had to be to hide his scars. He still held a few uncharitable thoughts as far as Connach was concerned… more than a few.

  “Were all of the shanghaied 4D skippers as slow on the uptake as I seem to have been?” He asked, pointing with his mug at the familiar faces aboard the other boats. They were all there: Castillo, Pierson, Greenfeld and Evans. All were 4D sailors who supposedly had vanished soon after Kettelmann had lost his boat. Pierson and his wife never returned to West Harbor after a day sail to the coastal islands. Antonio Fernando Castillo, a twice-wounded and highly-decorated hero of the short, savage Gulf of Aden Conflict, had vanished in Mexican waters in a 4D within sight of land. The other’s stories were variations on that single theme—the old hat trick in reverse.

  Morgan had met all of those 4D owners at the PacSail yards. They were not the kind of men who robbed banks and held wealthy executives for ransom.

  He sat, overpowered by the rapid succession of unlikely events, and sipped at his whiskey while watching Connach’s mobile, dissembling face. A gentle touch of alcohol began to caress his mind, and he wondered if he could really be seated next to Ian Connach, Navarchus, watching strange seamen, directed by men newly brought back from the dead, resurrect his Le Fay. A snap of the fingers, the merest thing, might shatter the illusion, and he would awaken to find himself—where?

  “Kerry.” The voice with the faint accent he had never really noticed before urged his attention to return. Connach was looking steadily at him. “By now, you’ve probably figured out that I set all of you up. I’m not through setting you up, either. Without asking you ahead of time, I’m going to involve you in a dangerous game in which you have no stakes, at least not yet.” He toyed with the mating snakes that formed his dagger’s hilt. He was no longer smiling.

  “It was getting pretty damned obvious, even to me, that this was your doing, but how you did it, I don’t know.” Morgan locked eyes with the taller man. “I’ve been set up before,” he said quietly,” but the doers never felt like making a second try. Now, you may have that Boy Scout knife handy, but you might have noticed that my hands haven’t been tied. So, before we get blood all over this nice, clean deck, let’s get all the cards dealt. I’ll start the honesty session with the first question. Just where in hell is this place, old friend?”

  Connach stared appraisingly at Morgan’s hands for a tense moment. “It’s Earth; I can tell you that honestly enough. But it’s not the same Earth you sailed from seven days ago.”

  Morgan shifted his position to hide his reaction. Well, Morgan, old pal, we can scratch the concussion theory for good. “I pretty well had that one worked out for myself.” He then described his violent entry into Connach’s world.

  “That goddamned Thorkell!” Connach growled at the conclusion of Morgan’s long narrative, “Those monsters of his are being finally used as warriors. Well, the Council has been afraid of that possibility for a long time.” He drew his dagger and pointed at the lone orca. The setting sun turned the outthrust blade red. “My people also command the loyalty of the sea-wanderers, but we have never asked them to kill for us.”

  Morgan’s eyes followed the sun-bloodied steel. The orca swam lazily just in sight, a glimpse of monochrome against a molten sea.

  “We had given up on you, Kerry, and were heading for home when Mauric heard of a battle at sea that involved a lone human against a pod of fighting orcas.”

  “You should have been there!” Morgan countered hotly then abruptly controlled his tongue. Connach, after all, held most of the cards, and Morgan didn’t even know the game yet. “Since when have killer whales lived in tropical waters like this, and when did they start communicating with men?” he resumed on a calmer note.

  “Much has changed from your world. Orcas have always been intelligent. You know that. Some orcas have always ventured into tropical waters, following their food. After the Great Disasters they all were forced to adapt to warmer conditions and developed the ability or perhaps just developed the desire to talk with us before we destroyed their world any further. After that, the seafaring nations employed them on many tasks. They have always had an inexplicable affinity for man, the only real enemy they have ever had. They’ve explored the sunken cities for treasure and for things we can no longer make and have searched out the location of mineral deposits on the sea bottoms. Many have volunteered to scout for us, like Mauric; but never before have they been used as soldiers. In more honorable days, men agreed not to corrupt the sea peoples with the illnesses of the surface civilizations. But that was in more honorable days.” His voice lost some of its force and his shoulders sagged almost imperceptibly. “And that was the time when there were many independent nations. Today there is only an isolated Reged to remember the taste of that freedom. Most of this world lies at the Vik’s feet...or licks the Mercian boot.”

  “All this is supposed to make sense to me?” He disguised his confusion by turning from Connach to look into the sea.

  “You’ll learn enough to satisfy your curiosity when we reach Verulamium, my city. Then you can decide whether or not you will throw in with us like the others or be sent back to West Harbor as if all this has never happened.”

  Morgan made no reply. There was none possible. The illusion that all was illusion was again complete.

  “Kerry,” Connach said abruptly. “You’ll sail with me. I’ll detail a crew to Le Fay.”

  “You’re in charge for now, Ian. But you’d better deliver.”

  At dawn, the six boats sailed parallel to an apparently deserted coastline. A violent jungle growth topped a wall of breathtaking cliffs and spilled seaward. A breaking froth of lianas and vines tumbled over the edges, twisting to sandy beaches. There, a converging of opposing breakers, saline and vegetal, crashed into one common green foam on a single shore. Morgan noted that the formidable heights were geologically unstable, showing signs of frequent landslide activity. Brown gashes, not yet submerged by the verdant swell of vegetation, marred the coastline like unhealed scars. Bracing himself against the mast, he stared up at the cliff tops, half-expecting to see the pyramidal bulk of a Mayan ruin thrust itself against the towering skyline. He could detect no trace of the hand of man in that awesome landscape.

  “Our battlements.” Connach, at the wheel in a classic helmsman’s stance, gestured landward with his head. Seaward, the horizon was empty. Beyond the six coasting sloops lay only a procession of undulating swells and a tumultuous cloud of wheeling seabirds. And then Morgan sensed wrongness. The only animal sounds he heard came from the gyring birds. The jungle above was silent. No howls, coughs, grunts, or wails drifted out to sea to mingle with the skirling cries of the gulls. The silence of the land was unreal, unnerving.

  Morgan had no time to comment on the unnatural littoral.

  As the boats ghosted along a tumbled headland, Pierson’s lookout blew a quavering tone from a hand-held horn. From beyond the headland came an answering trumpet call, fragmented by the vagaries of the offshore breeze.

  “Home!” Connach shouted to Morgan, a mixture of emotions tugging at his warrior’s face. He surrendered the wheel to a seaman and crossed the cockpit to his VHF. He cupped the microphone in his hand and transmitted in a strange, yet all too familiar language. The last time Morgan had heard it, he was being invited to his own death! Connach spoke Morgan’s name twice before the short transmission was terminated and the mike was nested again in its hanger.

  “Letting the Council of Ten know that the navy has grown by one,” Connach
offered with a wry grin. “You haven’t been drafted yet, but Le Fay has. There was no choice involving her, I’m afraid.”

  “She’s not mine now, anyway. She never did belong to me, did she?”

  “No. They all belonged to me from the start.” Morgan would have felt better if Connach had at least pretended shame or apology, but he did not even make the attempt. Instead, he looked irritatingly pleased with himself. “Watch this, Kerry! Verulamium’s outer harbor.”

  Morgan saw nothing that resembled a harbor...no breakwater, no lights, no shipping. Then the headland dropped astern and the wide mouth of a fjord yawned off the port bow.

  The helmsman carefully steered for the center of the kilometer-wide entrance even though Morgan could see no sign of shoaling waters or of dangerous coral heads beneath the surface. Each boat, in turn, followed the course set by Tanaris, deviating not more than two meters to port or starboard.

  “Cables,” Connach said, answering Morgan’s unasked question. “They’ve lowered one section for us now—but only deep enough for us to clear our keels at dead center.” He waved a free hand descriptively in the air. “Keeps the damned Pillage Boats out. But not their sea people.” He grinned again: a feral baring of teeth. “But we’ve prepared for those visitors as well.” He pointed into the water forward of the sloop’s bow. There, Morgan watched Mauric as he was bumped and rubbed by a score of black and white beasts. The scout was welcomed by a toothy greeting; a chorus of clicks and whistles that made Morgan grind his teeth.

  “A Vik scout would get an entirely different greeting,” the tall Navarchus explained simply. Morgan was not entirely successful in suppressing a shudder as icy currents flowed down his spine. He could picture that greeting only too well.

  The boats glided unmolested past the cavorting orcas, sailed past titanic rock walls, and dropped anchor on Connach’s shouted command. The bay encircled by the towering stone arms of the fjord sea approach was sufficient to shelter an armada and large enough to rival Los Angeles Harbor for sheer size, but Morgan could see no freighters, no massive dreadnoughts, no pleasure craft. Together and yet more alone than before, the six sloops were reduced to insignificance by the immensity of the empty port and by the height of the cliffs that protected it from the pounding seas.