Christine Dorsey - [Sea 01] (13 page)

“That make any sense to ye, Cap’n?” Phin squinted down at his captain.

Jack leaned back, on his heels and shrugged. “Some.” Jack examined the sketch again. He supposed she was saying that if light took longer to get from two places that were far apart than two places that were closer, it meant it traveled. Kind of like it took him longer to sail from Charles Town to Barbados, than from Charles Town to Snebley’s Creek.

He lifted his eyes and related as much to her. And found himself nearly preening at the admiring look she gave him. By the way her eyes shone, one would think he’d just unlocked the mysteries of the universe. He should have been annoyed with her reaction, but instead Jack found himself asking, “This Dane have any idea how fast light travels?”

Jack could, by “heaving the log” every hour or two, determine the speed of the
Sea Hawk
. Of course, there was no way to travel in the sky between the Earth and Jupiter.

“Actually, yes, he does know.” Miranda couldn’t believe it. She was certain now that the captain not only understood what she was talking about, but he was showing some interest. “By using the differences in the time it took light to travel from Jupiter’s moon to Earth, he calculated that it travels about 141,000 miles per second.”

Jack whistled through his teeth.

Phin dug at his straggly beard. “Ye believe that, Cap’n? Nothin’ can move that fast, can it?”

“I don’t know.” Jack handed the parchment back to Phin and pushed to his feet. “What is it that’s moving?”

Miranda stared up at him in awe at his question. It was something she and her grandfather had debated for hours and hours. “No one knows for certain exactly what light is. Newton, of course, thinks it’s made up of particles. However Huygens insists it’s waves.”

“Like in the ocean?” Phin asked.

“Something like that. Only these waves travel in only one direction.”

The captain seemed to ponder what she said; then he leveled his gaze on her. “What do you think it is?”

Miranda felt a flash of surprise and something else... pleasure? that he asked her opinion. But her shoulders rounded. “I don’t know which it is,” she admitted.

Jack shrugged. “Well, whatever it is, it certainly travels fast.”

“Oh, it does,” Miranda agreed. “Much faster than we can see. That’s why it seems like light is just there, or that it travels at infinite speeds.”

“It moves faster than ye can see?” Phin’s expression was dubious.

“Yes. Remember there are things that you simply can’t see.”

“Ah, like them animalcules swimmin’ round in the water.”

Miranda’s eyes flashed to Jack’s. They were watching her with suspicion. “Nay, I didn’t mean that.” Phin must have realized what he said, for he shuffled back and forth on his feet and pulled on his beard again.

Jack tried hard to suppress a grin. “Do you wish to return to my... I mean, your cabin now?” he asked Miranda.

“Not unless I have to.” She wasn’t sure how angry he was about Phin’s reference to animalcules.

But apparently he wasn’t annoyed at all, for he bowed and expressed his desire that she do as she pleased. And Miranda wondered if all captives aboard a pirate ship were treated so courteously.

Captain Blackstone excused himself to go below, and Miranda couldn’t help feeling a twinge of regret. It really was nice to discuss Olaus Roemer with someone who understood.

Perhaps she didn’t do a good enough job of explaining, because Phin and No Thumb still looked quite perplexed. Miranda began to tell them again in simpler language, but they only threw up their hands and said they’d talk more later.

Both pirates seemed a lot more interested in studying the enlarged maggots and animalcules than in something they couldn’t see.

“Oh, well.” Miranda flipped through several pages of parchment and smiled when she found the one she wanted. It was a drawing of a man... a drawing of Captain Blackstone. No one would recognize it as him, at least she hoped not.

The features were indistinct, but then she wasn’t trying to paint his portrait. Miranda was interested in sketching his musculature, which she knew must be as superb as any da Vinci had drawn.

Miranda studied the paper. She felt fairly good about her depiction of his chest and arm muscles. And she’d noticed the ridges and valleys in his thighs as he squatted in front of her, but the rest...

If only he would pose for her. Miranda expelled her breath. No matter that the captain showed some interest in the speed of light, she seriously doubted he’d sit still and let her sketch him... in the nude.

Miranda squirmed on her seat of coiled hemp. Why should the idea of seeing the pirate captain without clothing make her uncomfortable? After all, she’d seen Borelli’s sketches in his book,
De Motu Animalium
. What was the problem with her making sketches of her own? But no matter how she tried to rationalize it, she felt an odd sensation in the pit of her stomach at the thought of seeing all of Captain Blackstone... even if he was only made of skin and bone and muscle.

“What ye doin’ there?”

Miranda jumped and hurriedly covered her drawing of the captain. Scar was leaning over her shoulder, and Miranda wondered if he’d seen her sketch; but he didn’t pursue the subject. He just yanked off a less than clean red scarf and wiped his face.

“Sure is hot today, ain’t it?”

“It is quite warm,” Miranda agreed. Actually, sitting in the shade of the mast she hadn’t noticed the heat that much. But Scar had obviously been working in the sun.

“Don’t know as I ever will get used to this heat. Course where I’m from it was more the cold that got to ye, so I guess it’s even.”

“Where are you from?” Miranda realized that was a question she never contemplated before. These pirates must be from someplace. And obviously they’d been something before they’d become pirates. One wasn’t born a pirate... not even Captain Blackstone.

“I’m from London, down by the docks. Had meself a pretty decent lot till ‘65. Sold pies, what my mom baked. But then the death swept through and kilt her and me brothers and wasn’t none left but meself.” He shrugged and tied the damp kerchief back around his neck.

“So that’s when you became a... a pirate?”

“Naw.” Scar breathed in the salty air. “Had me a stint on one a His Majesty’s ships for a while. Cabin boy I was.”

“Why that’s wonderful.” Miranda couldn’t imagine why Scar would give up a career in His Majesty’s service to become a freebooter.

“Weren’t so grand as all that. The damn captain had a strong likin’ for the cat. Whipped the crew on a regular like basis, he did. But that weren’t the worst of it.” Scar leaned closer. “The man was a damn sodomite, if ye knows what I mean.”

Miranda was pretty sure she did. Her smile was wan, and she sank back a bit; but Scar didn’t seem to notice.

“That’s where I got this here.” He ran his finger along the ridge of his scar and grimaced. “He didn’t take kindly to me refusin’ him. But I just say to him, ‘Captain Sherry, beggin’ your pardon sir, but I ain’t no queer.”

“I don’t imagine he liked that much.”

“Ye got the right a it there, ye do. Zipped out his saber and slashed me good across the cheek.” Scar took a deep breath. “Kept me safe from him, though, till we reached Barbados. Then I jumped ship. Joined up with Red McNeil; he was the
Sea Hawk’s
captain before Gentleman Jack. And I never did look back.”

Well, she’d wanted the story of how he became a pirate, and he’d given it to her—perhaps given her more than she wanted—but still, it made her see him as more human.

“And you’re happy, I mean, being a pirate?”

Scar rubbed at his puckered cheek. “I can’t say that I never miss ol’ England. Like I said ‘bout the weather. It can get mighty hot. But I ain’t got no complaints.” His hands straddled his wiry hips. “Cap’n Blackstone’s a good sort. And ye don’t have to worry ‘bout him being no sodomite.” He said the last with fierce determination.

“No,” Miranda agreed. “I don’t imagine you do.”

After she was escorted below, Miranda sat thinking... wondering what Captain Blackstone’s story was. Surely he had some reason for being a pirate. But she knew she’d never ask him, and she didn’t imagine any of the crew would satisfy her curiosity about their captain. Besides, she didn’t want them to know she was even curious.

Miranda took out her sketch of the pirate captain’s musculature and filled in all she could remember.

The next morning Miranda sighted a shore bird, and by afternoon the verdant shoreline wavered on the horizon. The crew was busy all morning, but after the midday meal of salt pork and pease, several of them including Phin, Scar, King and No Thumb sat on barrels near her resting place.

Captain Blackstone had ventured below deck, but Miranda chose to remain above where the temperature was cooled by the offshore breeze.

“So you’re sayin’ the Earth ain’t round?” Phin’s face was screwed up in thought. Even he’d heard of the brave sailors who sailed the whole way around it.

“Not exactly, no.”

“It ain’t flat, is it?” No Thumb wanted to know.

“Goodness, no.” Miranda laughed, and No Thumb looked relieved. “It’s relatively round, but it’s more an oblate sphere. No, that’s not a good explanation.” Miranda chewed on the end of her thumbnail. “Think of an egg.”

“I’d like to be eatin’ an egg ‘bout now.”

“Hush your mouth, Scar, and let her ladyship finish,” Phin said.

Miranda sighed. She wished she had an egg right now, too. Not to eat, though it would taste good after all the salt pork she’d consumed. But she’d discovered the men understood things much better if she could show them.

Instead she cupped her hands, roughly showing them the Earth’s shape according to Newton’s theory.

“Of course he can’t prove it,” Miranda continued, “but it makes sense that the Earth is larger around at the equator since the gravitational pull is less there.”

“What’s this gravinal pull stuff?”

“Gravitational pull, Scar. It’s the attraction that keeps us from falling off the Earth.”

“Fallin’ off? What ye talkin’ bout?”

“Don’t concern yourselves. We aren’t going to. Gravity from the center of the Earth keeps everything down on the ground.” The relief on their faces was amusing. To further mollify them—Miranda didn’t want them running to their captain with fears of falling into space—she related some examples.

“You’ve all thrown something into the air, haven’t you?” They glanced at each other and nodded. “Well, what happened to it? Did it go flying off into space never to be seen again?”

“Hell, no. If ye don’t watch, it will come down and bop you on the noggin.”

“Exactly. Gravity did that. Pulled it back to the Earth.” Miranda shrugged. “It keeps you on the ground, too.”

“Well I’ll be.” Phin dug at his beard with gnarled fingers. “That’s why them heavy rocks we use for ballasts fall so quick.”

“Actually, it doesn’t matter how heavy something is. It falls back to Earth at the same speed.” Skeptical expressions greeted this new revelation by Miranda.

“Ye mean to tell me a heavy rock don’t fall no faster than a light one?”

“I know it seems it should, but it doesn’t. Galileo first proved it—”

“Din’t we hear ‘bout this fellow before?”

“Yes, I believe we did discuss him. He was a very interesting scientist... and quite brilliant. Anyway, he showed that two objects fall at the same speed regardless of their weight. Later, after Otto von Guericke invented the air pump, he proved—”

“How’d he do that?”

“Do what, No Thumb?”

“How’d that Gallo fellow show a heavy thin’ and somethin’ light dropped the same? ‘Cause I just don’t believe it,” he finished, crossing his arms over his barrel chest.

“Well, he went to the top of a tall tower and he—Wait a minute.” Miranda shaded her eyes and glanced skyward, a smile spreading across her face. She knew what the best way to teach them was.

Turning her attention back to the pirates, she ticked off the things she’d need on her fingers. “‘Two pouches, some hardtack...”

Jack finished writing in his log and stretched. Leaning back, he crossed his booted ankles on the edge of the desk. He was tired of being below, but at least this time in his cabin was put to good use. He managed to cipher how much Henry still owed him on the cargo he hadn’t had a chance to unload in Charles Town. He smiled thinking of that figure. But even though he’d done pretty well, Jack was getting the uncomfortable feeling that times were changing. Spanish galleons weren’t as plentiful or as easy picking as they once were. And the French... Jack curled his mouth in derision. It was hardly worth his while to expend the shot on them. They rarely carried anything of much value.

Jack folded his arms and inclined the chair on its back legs. Phin was always talking about heading for the Indian Ocean. Attacking Mogul shipping was easy and profitable. But Jack didn’t like the idea. For one thing the Indian Ocean was a long way from St. Augustine, or Spain for that matter. And if he ever hoped to find his sister or de Segovia, he couldn’t leave. The other reason had something to do with the itch at the base of his neck. He’d even spoken to his uncle a while back when he was in Charles Town, about giving up the life of a freebooter. It wasn’t as if he needed the money. There was the plantation.