The Viking waved his hands at the surrounding forest. “The gods sensed your plans long ago. They provided us with many fine oaks for the planks and arches of the vessel.”
Bowie nodded. Not that he believed in the Norse deities, but he found it highly unusual that both bamboo and oak thrived in the valleys. It was as if the unseen masters of this world challenged men to build boats and explore the River. The Texan wondered if he would ever know the truth. Or if he really wanted to.
“And what do you require in return?” he asked Thorberg, pushing the speculation from his mind. No use contemplating questions without answers.
“To sail with you,” answered Thorberg immediately, not surprising any of them. “You need a master helmsman to steer your ship. I am that man.
“After all,” he added, “none of you has any experience guiding a longboat on this River. I already piloted such a vessel for King Olaf’s fleet.”
“You’re hired,” said Bowie with a laugh. “How long will it take to construct this marvel?”
“With the help of the other shipwrights,” said Thorberg after a.short pause, “three months. Add to that another two weeks to train the crew. In a little more than a hundred days, we can set sail.”
Bowie turned to Crockett. “Your revenge hold till then?”
“You betcha,” replied the frontiersman., “I don’t mind setting a spell, knowing the reward is waiting at the end.”
“Then it’s decided,” declared Bowie. “Thorberg, you
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assemble your friends and start working. Any assistance you need, let me know. In the meanwhile, we’ll recruit a crew and gather our supplies.”
Enthusiasm for the project welled up within the Texan, filling him with excitement. For the first time since Resurrection Day, he felt truly alive. It was good to be working for a cause again. Any cause.
“You picked out a name for this ship already?” asked Crockett, grinning.
“I think so,” said Bowie. “Unless you gents object, I plan on callin’ the boat Unfinished Business. Because that’s what it’s all about—unfinished business.”
Exactly one hundred and ten days later, they set sail. Along with Bowie and his friends, the crew consisted of sixty Greek sailors under the command of Lysander of Sparta. Most of the men had served for the Greek Admiral on Earth and were hardened veterans of the long war between Sparta and Athens.
It was agreed upon by all concerned that Bowie would serve as leader of the expedition. A true man of the people, the Texan was one of the few men in New Athens without enemies. He, in turn, appointed Lysander as his second-in-command. The Greek soldier was a tough, capable sailor who hungered for action and adventure. A sixty-year-old man resurrected in a twenty-five-year-old body, his optimistic expectations provided an interesting contrast to Socrates’ cynical views of the human condition.
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The two men often engaged in long, heated debates contrasting Athenian democracy and Spartan militarism.
Thorberg’s ship proved to be a marvel of Viking engineering. A hundred feet long and twenty feet at the beam, the longboat had ports for twenty-five oars per side. There was a solitary mast fitted between two heavy oak blocks, the leeson and the mast partner. Sail raised, the speedy, maneuverable ship made ten knots with a following wind.
Like all such ships, it was built from the outside in. The T-shaped keel, cut from the giant oak Thorberg had shown Bowie, was bowed in the middle so that in a battle the ship could be spun around on its axis. Attached to it was a thin shell of oak planks, each one cut from a single tree, bark to core. The boards were affixed to the stempost and sternpost by roundhead nails and bolts, then joined to one another in an overlap fashion with twisted and tarred ironwood vines. The resulting hull was incredibly light but remained watertight no matter how rough the going.
The boat weighed less than thirty tons when fully loaded with crew and supplies, and it drew less than three feet of water. To Bowie and his friends, the ship appeared to almost fly over the river. Thorberg even constructed wooden rollers, kept in the rear cargo area, on which the longboat could be dragged onto the beach when necessary.