The Protectors war

"Only if we breed very enthusiastically," Alleyne said. "Killing off all but one in every two hundred of us seems an odd way for the Supreme Being to show family-feeling, even if it does make many corners of foreign fields forever England in times to come. Though I think it's definite that He isn't French, what?"

Nigel nodded. "On the evidence, my boy, He seems to be Tasmanian."

"I thought Australia was bad, until I saw Europe," Nobbes said, with a gesture of half agreement. "And America 's worse if anything:

"

"Most of the parts we can reach are bones," Nigel said judiciously. "Some islands did well and we don't know anything about the interior or the western portion."

Alleyne put in: "There's quite a few Italians left, though-ten thousand in the Alps, fifty thousand in that clump in Umbria, two hundred thousand on Sicily. A fair number of Greeks farther east on Crete and Cyprus, and of course as you get east of central Poland: It will be interesting to see how things shape in the next couple of generations."

Nobbes nodded. "Right now we'll see if Cutty Sark really is chasing us. Clear for action!" he called. "Helm, come about-right ten degrees. Let's see how high that beaut can point."

"Damn my eyes, but she's fast," Nobbes said, standing by the wheel of his ship and watching the Cutty Sark in the double circles of his binoculars as she tacked, beating up into the wind.

For the Pride, that was easy-just put the helm over, let the fore-and-aft booms swing across the deck above head-height, and the ship was making another leg of its zigzag course upwind. A square-rigger couldn't point nearly as close to the wind, and it was much easier for her to be "caught in irons," left bobbing helplessly with her sails pressed back against the masts and yards. The Sark was crossing her bowsprit over the eye of the wind nearly as nimbly as the schooner.

"And: mainsail haul," Nobbes murmured, the command that would set the crew to pulling the big square sails round on the clipper.

I think our good skipper is envious, Nigel thought, amused despite the tension of the moment. But then, what sailing-ship captain wouldn't be?

As they watched, the tall sail pyramid of the pursuer passed through the vertical and lay over; the sails that had been clewed up to the yards dropped down again and her bow-wave grew taller, until white water raced from her knife-sharp prow down the long sleek sides and her mizzen chains were nearly buried in the foam.

"My oath, but she's fast," Nobbes said again. "If she weren't sailing four miles to our three, she'd have caught us by now. And she's got three times my displacement and a crew to match."

"Do you think there's much hope?" Alleyne Loring said.

At Woburn Abbey, Sir Nigel and his wife had been under administrative detention on vague allegations of sedition. If the Lorings and Hordle were recaptured, they would face court-martial on very specific charges: desertion, murder and levying war against the forces of the Crown for all three of them-a noose for Sergeant Hordle, and the gentleman's ax for the officers. Swords and armor weren't the only ancient things that had turned up resurgent in the aftermath of the Change, and the Emergency Powers regulations were still very much in force. That had been one of the matters Sir Nigel had objected to.

"Well," Nobbes said, then unexpectedly gri

"Ah," Nigel said. "And in a blow-"

"Right, sport. I've a solid welded steel hull under me arse, and steel lower masts and steel-cable ru

Be careful what you pray for, Sir Nigel thought six days later. You may get it.

The bowsprit of the Pride rose and rose, until the on-rushing wave seemed to tower above them like a mountain of steel-gray water, sliding down towards them with a ponderous inevitability. The top began to curl, collapsing under its own weight and the fury of the northerly gale. Long streamers of spray and foam flew out from its top, ghostly in the half-light through the dense cloud overhead. More surged down the slope ahead of the breaking wave: and struck.

White water leapt ahead of the surge as the bows went under, and the wave raced the length of the Pride's deck towards him. He braced himself, involuntarily flinging up an arm before his eyes, and then the water struck-first a foam like the head on a giant's glass of beer, then a solid smashing blow of cold sea. The cord that linked his belt to the safety line stretching fore and aft kept him from going over the taffrail as he was tumbled and pounded in the darkness, but when the wave passed he was on his knees, coughing the wrack out of his lungs as he blinked his eyes and checked that the two helmsmen were still on either side of the wheel.

They were; one of them was John Hordle, and he gri

Nigel scrambled up; the schooner was cresting the wave like a chip of wood washing onto a beach, and as she cleared the crest the force of the wind snatched the breath from his mouth and made the skin of his face burn. For an instant he could see for miles, across a seascape of waves three-quarters hidden by the white froth that tore from their tops, as if the ship was sailing through the storm clouds themselves rather than the ocean. Then the two scraps of staysail set forward to keep her nose into the wind caught the full force of the gale and jerked her forward with an acceleration that made his teeth snap together. She skidded down the steep north face of the wave like a skier down a mountainside, faster and faster, the high whine of the rigging turning to a deeper note as the walls of water gave a momentary protection from the storm. Another burst of seawater came over the bows and raced along the deck as they slid into the trough of the wave and dug in for an instant; this time the wave was only waist-high when it struck the quarterdeck, and he kept his feet easily enough.

As the Pride began the long slow climb up the next wave rain slashed down. At first Nigel didn't notice it-everything was thoroughly wet as it was-but soon it cut visibility noticeably. The cold chill that made his bones ache in the spots where they'd been broken and put knives in his joints was no worse, but it felt so. It took him a moment to realize that the two dim figures in their gray rain slickers were newly on deck.

"You are a good relief," he said semiformally to Al-leyne-or as formally as you could when you had to shout to be heard-and then smiled. "And a very welcome one! Is the galley fire lit?"

"It is, Father. And plenty of actual tea. I'm getting quite used to it again."

The other was Captain Nobbes. He shouted something, then repeated it as he came closer, snapping his safety cord onto the lifeline with practiced ease.

": you taste it?" he was asking. "The rain!"

Well, it's rain, Nigel thought, then concentrated; he knew better than to dismiss something an expert said about his own field. He took a mouthful of the downpour and ran it over his tongue-it was pleasant to get the salt taste out of his mouth anyway.

"Grit!" he shouted back. "There's grit in the rain!"

Nobbes gri