The Birth of People's Republic of Antartica, стр. 31

“I’m in charge,” I said, turning to Orlando the Black. “Get them in that boat there.” I pointed to the imitation six-meter Viking karfi, Black Crane, which had not been at sea for six years. I yelled to the Turks to cut the lines on the ketch and to get to Black Crane. I scrambled back to the shack for the sailbag and rudder, finding Babe grappling at the door with two insane Asians. I killed one—I suppose now that I killed him—and Babe bashed down the other. What was it like, my first murder? It was darkness, first and last, all darkness. I struck with the war-ax and can still feel the sensation that ran down the handle into my arm, my heart. It was like nothing. There is no adequate metaphor.

I pushed Babe through the window, tossed the sailbag and rudder down to him, soaked the floor with coal oil. The next moment I was in the stern of Black Crane, calling orders. The Turks unshipped the oars. I balanced the craft with people and dogs. I lowered the rudder and kicked off the pier. The mob roared above us. Babe fired two short bursts at the bait shack. I grabbed the gun barrel, tossed the weapon into the sea. Orlando the Black watched me closely but did not move. The bait shack exploded in flames. Once into the inlet we used the oars to fend off the partially submerged hulks. We came about sloppily, and I had to roll half overboard to keep us upright. I could see the pier over my shoulder, the mob stampeding past the fire and onto the drifting ketch. It listed with their sudden weight and crashed back into the pier, tearing loose a pylon, the bait shack toppling over to spread flames onto the rigging. The last I wanted to look, mothers and fathers were heaving their children toward the sinking ketch. No one can swim in the November Baltic.

The next morning, I found Stockholm harbor choked with ships and foreboding. Stockholm is built on islands and peninsulas bunched between an inland lake and a tongue of the Baltic. The channels are crisscrossed with bridges and dikes; heavy traffic was customary there in spring and summer. With the first bad weather, only the main channels were navigable into the markets. That morning, however, the lanes were so jammed there seemed no safe conduct. There were rafts, boats, barges, sailing ships, all manner of steamers and derelicts, some at anchor, or adrift, or aground on the mud flats. It was chaos, no one obeying port rules. I saw strange flags, stranger ships’ names. On the barges, badly dressed children surrounded cooking pots. Their faces had looks of sleepiness, upset, also curiosity.

I knew as we cleared the harbor light that the congestion ahead would add two hours to my estimation of arrival at the King’s prison island on the inland lake. I shouted this to Cleopatra as she emerged from the sailbag, where she had passed the night. Our crossing had been rough. Black Crane was an open boat, machine built, with a shallow draft; she wallowed under sail, did not answer to the helm quickly in even moderately heavy seas. We had bad moments. We had got to Stockholm, but it was much later than she had demanded of me, midmorning. I took the rudder from Wild Drumrul in order to avoid a barge that started to drift into our path. By the time I got us clear, Cleopatra sat conferring with Lazarus.

“Go there,” she said, waving weakly into the thick of the main channel. She was seasick, troubled.

“I can make better there,” I said.

“Obey her,” said Lazarus. I had seen him wince when I had told Cleopatra, on the pier at Vexbeggar, that I was in charge. As he watched for my reaction, I realized that Lazarus resented any authority from me. In the daylight he was stone-faced, his red hair and copper skin making him appear rusted. He seemed knowing, secretive, calculated. Cleopatra gagged then; he comforted her. He nodded some sort of fraternal message to Orlando the Black and to Babe. I had surmised enough of them during the night to know that Lazarus was the one to suspect; Cleopatra, to placate; the other two to avoid. Their high-handedness did annoy me. I had rescued them, yet they treated me as a convenience. I ordered the Turks to get down the sail, unship the oars. Our route was tricky; we repeatedly had to fend off small craft as we pushed deeper into the heart of the city. I discovered that the people on the sailing ships in particular were not Swedes, were instead Finns, Poles, Latvians. It made no sense to me. The large steamers had Asians and Africans hanging from the railings. They heaved debris down on us. Cleopatra kept waving toward the inner quays, below the opera house, by the fish markets. I navigated by keeping quick sight of a church steeple. Once out of the main channel, I saw that the quay road was lined with troops. At various points on the piers, King’s Spies, in their crimson coats, shouted down to gangs of glum men in longboats. There were multicolored tags (probably identification papers) on the coats of the men in the boats.

We were ignored from the shore as I poled us toward an opening between two sleek, well-guarded schooners flying Swedish flags. I asked Cleopatra if this was the place; she backed me off with a scowl. Lazarus nodded assent. Orlando the Black and Babe released the safeties on their pistols. Wild Drumrul looked to me for reassurance. I took the rudder and sent Little Dede Gone forward with the line. Three men in black, priestly clothes called to us from the pier and motioned toward a pylon, Little Dede Gone throwing the line, Wild Drumrul playing off the sea wall with an oar. A soldier came to the rail