centerline of the ship, but each individual mast split into two just a few feet above the deck, looking more like overgrown slingshots. The rigging of each mast was attached to its neighbor with chains and the sails draped continuously along the twin masts, maximizing the surface area. Another difference was her hull, painted black and lacquered to a high polish, and up close I couldn’t discern the edges in the planking. Could the entire hull be carved out of one gargantuan piece of wood?
I wanted to stop and look at everything, absorb each detail. Especially those thrusters. I wanted to talk to whoever worked with them, but I remembered one of the basic axioms from my first trip: in Shard World, you didn’t ask questions.
The Black Ship lay close-hauled to an eddy of wind, the effect of which was to keep her relatively still in space. They couldn’t just drop anchor when there was no sea beneath them. Despite the oddness, the ship was a thing of beauty, with a brass figurehead adorning the bow just beneath the bowsprit; though she may have lacked the distinctive edging of the plank work, her bow was etched with a swirling pattern, as if waves were crashing on her sides. A dozen men worked the rigging, though the Black Ship only sported topsails, with her main and mizzens lufted away on their yards. We came alongside on the small launch, attracted to a magnetic docking port that we settled into with a sudden lurch.
The captain was the first to come aboard, barking orders to her crew as she hopped over the gunwale to the main deck with grace and agility one wouldn’t expect from such a large creature. The ship was alive with activity, with aliens of all sorts rushing to the rigging, crew swabbing the deck, and yet more of the pirates painting just about every nook and cranny aboard the ship. Others stowed ropes and rigging or brought them forth from the holds below. A carpenter and his assistants worked over the stairs up to the quarter deck, forcing the captain aloft to the rigging to reach the wheel. At the tiller was an octopus-like reptilian creature that acknowledged the captain landing beside it. With just a nod from the captain as command, the reptile turned the wheel, firing thrusters that rotated the ship and opened the sails to the gusting winds. The sails billowed out and sent the ship reeling off into the depths of Shard World.
I would have stayed in the launch, in awe of all the shipboard commotion, if not for a strong shove from behind from the skull-faced fellow I had fought just a few minutes earlier. For a moment, I feared he might toss me overboard, but he twisted his face into a skin-less smile and gave me a hand onboard.
The ship was clean, something you might not expect from a band of pirates, particularly this rough bunch. Every inch of the deck was scrubbed and cleaned, the masts were sanded down and painted, the rigging was properly greased and coiled, and the unused sails were shipped away in their yards.
The sundry of creatures that kept the ship going reminded me of my prior experience in Shard World, of the small village we fought to protect, and the variegated creatures that called the place their home. The difference was one of functionality: there were few aliens aboard the Black Ship that couldn’t avail themselves in a scrape.
None gave me more than a cursory glance as I came onboard. They were more concerned with their duties than with the weird-looking newcomer. Besides, they were probably used to new crew joining all the time.
I had to admit, it was exciting, getting to live through a childhood dream, sailing onboard a pirate ship, cutlass in hand and a scarf on my head, swinging from yard arm to yard arm, while fighting a boarding action. It hearkened back to all my favorite movies as a child, the 1940s Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power classics that I would watch with my brother, then act out using a ruler as a sword and a kitchen towel as a cape, tucked into the collar of my shirt. We’d fight and prance around the house, drawing the ire of my stepmother and her brother, Bennett. Even knowing we’d get a beating from our masochistic uncle was worth the fun, and once the pain of the whipping belt would fade, our minds would wander