The Dark Design by Phillip Jose Farmer

“I know that, of course,” Frigate said. “Well, I’d like to travel to the end of The River, for one thing. The catamaran I was on was going there, but it got burned during an attack by slavers. The schooner was sunk by a dragonfish while we were helping some locals fish for it. It was Moby Dick and the Pequod all over again.”

“You were Ishmael?” Rider said.

Frigate looked at him. Rider was supposed to have been able to quote great chunks of Shakespeare, to be well read indeed. But that could have been Hollywood publicity crap.

“You mean, was I the lone survivor? No, six of us got to shore. It was scary, though.”

“Was . . . ?”

Farrington stopped, cleared his throat, and looked at Rider. Rider raised thick, dark eyebrows. Farrington was evidently considering how to rephrase the question.

“Who were the captains of these two crafts?”

“The catamaran captain was a Frenchman named DeGrasse. The schooner captain was a rough son-of-a-bitch named Larsen. A Norwegian of Danish birth. He’d been captain of a sealer, I be­lieve.”

Nothing he said about Larsen was true. But Peter couldn’t resist testing Farrington’s reaction.

The captain’s eyes narrowed, then he smiled. He said slowly, “Was Larsen nicknamed Wolf?”

Peter kept his face blank. He wasn’t falling for that trap. If Farrington thought that he was trying to tell him circuitously that he recognized him, Farrington would not take him on.

“No. If he had a nickname, it was ‘Bastard.’ He was about six and a half feet tall and very dark for a Scandinavian. His eyes were as black as an Arab’s. Did you know him?”

Farrington relaxed. He dubbed out his cigarette on a baked-clay ashtray, and lit up another. Rider said, “How good are you with that bow?”

“I’ve been practicing for thirty years. I’m no Robin Hood, but I can shoot six arrows in twenty seconds with reasonable accuracy. I’ ve studied the martial arts for twenty years. I never look for a fight and I avoid one if it’s possible. But I’ve been in about forty major actions and a lot of minor ones. I’ve been badly wounded four times.”

Rider said, “When were you born?”

“In 1918.”

Martin Farrington looked at Rider, then said, ” I suppose you saw a lot of movies when you were a kid?”

“Didn’t everybody?”

“And what about your education?”

“I got a B. A. in English literature with a minor in philosophy and I was a compulsive reader. Lord, how I miss reading!”

“Me, too,” Farrington said.

There was a pause. Rider said, “Well, our memories of Earth get dimmer every day.”

Which meant that if Frigate had seen Rider in the films and Farrington on the dust jackets of books, he did not remember them. The captain’s question about his education might, however, have a double interest. He would want a crewman who could talk intelli­gently about many matters. On Earth, Farrington’s forecastle companions had been brutal and illiterate, not exactly his soulmates. So, for that matter, had been most of the people he knew until he had gone to college.

“We seem to have about ten in all to interview,” Farrington said. “We’ll make our choice after we’ve talked to everybody. We’ll let you know before noon.”

Peter wanted desperately to be chosen, but he was afraid that too much eagerness might put them off. Since they we’re, for some reason, traveling under pseudonyms, they might be wary of some­one who was trying too hard to sign on. Why, he did not know.

“One thing we forgot,” Rider said. “We don’t have room for more than one hand. You can’t take your woman along. Is that okay?”

“No problem.”

“You can take turns with Abigail,” Rider said. “If you don’t mind sharing with three others. And if she likes you, of course. But she hasn’t shown many antipathies so far.”

“She’s a luscious woman,” Peter said. “But that sort of thing doesn’t appeal to me.”

“Mustafa kind of likes you,” Farrington said, grinning. “He’s been eyeing you.”

Frigate looked at the Turk, who winked, and he blushed.

“That appeals even less.”

“Just make that plain, and you won’t be bothered by him or Binns,” Farrington said. “I’m no homo, but I saw a lot of buggery. Any man who sails under the mast has; every ship, naval or commercial, has been a viper’s nest of sodomy since Noah. Those two are real he-men, aside from their lack of interest in the fair sex. And they’re damn good sailors. So just tell them to back off. If, that is, we accept you. But I don’t want any bitching about being hard up. You can catch up when we go ashore, and if we lose a man you can get a woman for your bunkmate. She has to be a good sailor, though. Everyone pulls his weight on this ship.”