“I’ll make sure you’re caught, you bilge-bellied lunatic!” cried Tiger. And he lifted the lid of the steam sterilizer and shoved Dyhard’s head into it. Tiger banged the lid down, nearly breaking Dyhard’s neck. “You’re caught now, you swab!”
Tiger did not wait to see if any rose from the shambles. He swung through the doors and beheld reinforcements coming, attracted by the noise. Like a bull in a doll shop, without a pause, he went through them and out the front door.
A car was on the drive, Dyhard’s. Tiger paused for an instant, disoriented, blinking in the afternoon sunlight. Suddenly, from a dual nature, he became himself, a unity anew.
Jan the Tiger swung under the wheel and stabbed the car at the gates. The steel was locked but the bumper not only parted the gate but sent one half spinning from its hinges. Tires screamed and he was on his way to town. As he sped along the road which passed in their section for a highway, he gathered himself into himself. Thoughts of neurosurgery spun crazily with problems about Denaise. Dyhard’s punishment thirst was shot through with the sadism of Arif-Emir, the ifrit. Tall ships tangled with tall buildings and then he began to get himself straight.
Insensibly separated after the Curse had unified his two natures once before, Jan the Tiger was oriented well in two worlds. Half of his mind knew suddenly things the other half knew.
He knew, for instance, that when he had reached into the chest for the Two-World Diamond and almost grasped it, it must have been also in his wall safe at home, and, just as it was about to make passage between worlds, had been withdrawn from that safe and was now somewhere in Seattle. He knew that if he could not find that diamond he would probably be dead in both worlds, for he could not guess whether or not he had killed anyone in that operating room and he was sure that Arif-Emir would seek to interpose his fleetest vessels between the buckaroons and Denaise. In the world of the humans and the world of the jinn he could only be saved if he could find the diamond and if he could guess and use its powers, for powers it must possess.
The Tiger part of him would take long chances. The Jan part of him knew caution. He pulled up sharply in the suburbs, parked the car for which he knew there would be a search and took a taxi. He had ridden three dollars’ worth before he recalled that he had no money or valuables of any kind. That meant he would have to go home. And there the police might swiftly come to see if he would do just that. He had no illusions about it—he was an escaped maniac and would be billed as such.
He had the taxi pull up at the servants’ entrance and told the driver to wait. He swept into his study down the back stairs and scooped some bills from a drawer. He came back and threw ten at the driver and did not wait for change, for off a few blocks a siren was moaning and the moan was getting nearer.
Alice was just sitting down to supper in the dining room. He went by without a nod. To her, aside from his determined stride and face, he looked just Jan.
He spun the dial on the wall safe in the library just to check. It was empty of the diamond. Alice, puzzled and concerned, had followed him in.
“Who took that diamond?” he said sharply.
“Isn’t it there?” she said.
But he was already looking at the small drill holes in the steel. The safe had been looted. His wits were working at a furious pace. He recalled Chan Davies and the robbery and that the stone had been found in the other world on Muddy McCoy. There was only one conclusion to that. Muddy McCoy and Chan Davies were the same.
“Have you seen that Commie around here? The one who slugged me?”
Alice was very confused. “Jan, what are you doing home? You were to have one of these splendid new scientific operations that make everybody so well. Didn’t you want to go through with it?”
A siren was sounding in the street.
“Have you seen that Commie?” snapped Jan.
“I— No. I hired him but he quit. I—”
Tires were grinding in the gravel of the walk. “Tell no one I’m here,” said Jan. He sped down the back stairs into the servants’ quarters. He found the Swede girl sitting in a pool of tears.
“Where’s your boyfriend?” said Jan.
“Oh, oh, oh, he vas so cruel,” she moaned. But Jan wasn’t interested as Tiger or as Jan about the disillusionment suffered by all minorities so led astray. He extracted the information that Chan Davies hung out in the Friends of Russia Social Hall.
The front doorbell was ringing but Jan didn’t see any advantage in answering it. He went over a windowsill and dropped into the garden. He opened the back garage door and took the car that was pointed down the drive, Alice’s coupe. He could see the tail end of the prowler car. He supposed that it would start up in a moment, sent away by Alice. But he had not reckoned upon the propaganda which tells a public about the glories of neurosurgery. Two officers quickly came around the front corner of the house and started for the rear.
Jan decided he had waited long enough. He jammed down on the starter, raced the motor and shot the coupe forward. One of the officers leaped out into the gravel on the theory that he would not be knocked down. Jan threw his left wheels into a rose bed, careened back into the drive and rocketed out into the street. His tires screamed as he turned and screamed again at the corner. He could hear the siren starting to howl behind him as the police got going.
Weaving through traffic along Meridian Way, Jan outdistanced his pursuit. He plummeted off the express highway and shot along a side street toward the docks. He reached Alaskan Way and, playing it swift, picked up his lead by dodging in front of a freight engine. The squad car was paused by the freight and Jan hid the coupe behind boxcars and dodged through a parking lot to a line of shabby warehouses where the Friends of Russia held out.
Jan saw the inconspicuous sign ahead of him and started for the door. But just before he reached it, the squad car, evidently on radio directions received from Alice whose only thought was for her husband’s “best interests,” swerved in toward the curb.
With a rush Jan reached the door, a command to stop buffeting him. He went up the steps three at a time but as he neared the top he saw his quarry starting down.
Chan Davies was intent upon a sheaf of papers, the result of some days of work and worry, which included false passports and visas which would permit him to reach Mexico and jewel cutters. He saw Jan and screamed. He raced back across the hall, chattering with terror.
Jan bounded after him and saw that Davies would make a back staircase before he could be caught.
There was the crack of a pistol shot. Jan’s leg buckled under him. He fell. There was a slam as Davies made the back door and vanished and then two police officers were standing over Jan, steel bracelets ready. There was a click and Jan’s arms were cuffed behind his back.
Stunned by the shock of the bullet, it took an instant for Jan to collect himself. He struggled to rise but two strong officers held him down.
“Is he bleedin’ much, Mike?” said one.
“Not bad. You better call that doc that was taking care of him.”
“Poor guy. Screwy as a bedbug on the subject of Commies. Gosh, he sure wants to kill them on sight. Put some bracelets on his ankle. Got it? What’d his wife say the doc’s name was?”
“Dyhard.”
“Got him safe now? I’ll go put in a call.”
Chapter Thirteen
The Chase
Tiger woke with the dawn pouring into the stern windows, spreading red light through the Terror’s cabin. The rush and plunge of the ship, driven before a freshening wind, resounded through her timbers.
Dazedly he looked at Wanna asleep on the far bunk. He had difficulty orienting himself, for with these sounds seemed to mingle, in his half-awake state, the screams of a madman and the footsteps of a guard. Then he abruptly realized what had happened to him. He was complete, he was himself. He was Jan Palmer. He had another body in another world and that body was wounded and in danger.
Wanna started awake, looked dazedly around and began to
weep. Tiger went to her.
“I had the most terrible dream,” she said, weeping. “I dreamed you had gone mad.”
He patted her shoulder, calming her. With reassuring words he pulled on his sea boots, stroked her hand and went up on deck.
The Terror’s people were swabbing her decks, hoisting frothy water from the sea. As they tossed it across the holystoned wood the sun caught it so that it appeared that they scrubbed with blood.
Tiger was no longer dazed. He was coldly competent. He strode forward through the work party and into the berthing where he thought he would find Muddy McCoy. There were blankets on the bunk but it was cold and Tiger came back instantly to the deck. He glanced swiftly over the side. The Terror had been towing several boats, the overflow of the stores of war which she could not cram into her holds. A severed painter dangled there showing that one of the cutters was gone.
He took a short tour of search through the ship without finding Muddy. And then he raised himself into the rigging and gazed astern.
The vessels of Arif-Emir, reinforcing the remaining bulk of the Tarbutón fleet, had had to sail slightly to the north to round Frying Pan Shoals before they could set a straight course for Denaise. This had caused them to lose a considerable length of sea, for, additionally, some islets had blanketed the wind on part of that voyage around. The Terror and the brigantine, though heavily laden and gunwales awash with men, could make almost as much speed as the fleet which, in keeping station on each other, was retarded. It was possible that the Terror and the brigantine might reach Denaise on the morrow before the fleet was within range of them.
But as Tiger looked aft he saw that during the night the two fastest frigates, either of them twice the tonnage and with four times the firepower of the buckaroons, had been sent ahead under all sail. These, Tiger saw with a shock, were within eleven miles of the Terror. And as he watched he saw that they made, little by little, a slow gain. They were sailing on their best course; they were being handled undoubtedly in a manner calculated to stretch any previous speed they had made. Such ships were capable of standing a lot of wind and, with a glance at the sky, Tiger saw that more wind was coming.
Tiger sung out to the quartermaster on watch and a moment later Mister Luck scampered up the ratlines, a brass telescope in his hands. Tiger trained it on the sea. Far to port, lifting and falling, now in sight and now out because of its size in relation to the waves, was a cutter. It was heading up toward a tangle of islands and reefs and it was obvious, with a swift guess at its speed and course, that it would escape into the shoals before the frigates could reach it. There, he knew, went Muddy McCoy.
He did a quick calculation. He made his decision. He bawled his orders to the quarterdeck and with a dismayed glance up at him, Walleye passed the commands to the steersman and the watch. The Terror jibed and put the wind on her port quarter. She was less easy to steer here because of the swell but it was a more favorable sailing angle for her. Tiger looked back at the frigates. Behind them, hulls down, came the vanguard of the combined fleets.
The brigantine sent up an anxious string of signal flags and Tiger replied to them with orders for her to keep her course for Denaise. That done, he looked back at the frigates. They had also jibed. Their position was such that they had a shorter run to that cutter than had the Terror. It looked probable that they would be within range before the cutter was overhauled.
“Run out the stern chasers!” roared Tiger. “All hands stand to general quarters!”
The Terror was pressed almost beyond endurance by a wind which, as the dawn became clear day, rose to twenty-five knots and more. Blocks complained, spars stood from the masts, the mildewed canvas stretched. The silence of a ship under all strain settled upon her. Whitecaps began to pick up and race along with her. The sough and rush of the sea through which she tore and the creaming of churned water were loud in the quietness of her racing tension. She was doing thirteen knots, better than she had done in these later years of her life, but thirteen knots was her limit with her cargo in this wind.
“Cut away all boats!” commanded Tiger.
Knives slashed and the cutters drifted astern, turning to broach in the rushing sea. The Terror picked up half a knot. Thirteen and a half, according to the chip log cast by Ryan and Mister Luck.
Tiger mounted again into the ratlines. He was a little shocked to see how much larger the bow gun crews of the frigates looked. The bones in the teeth of that voracious pair rose up and, as they plunged, engulfed their manropes. They were doing fifteen and better and they had a shorter course to run to reach the cutter. They might not know the significance of that small vessel nor know what lay in the pocket of the thief aboard it. Indeed Tiger himself could not be sure the diamond was still there with Muddy McCoy, elsewhere Chan Davies. But Tiger knew he had to take that chance to save himself in two worlds if he could and to save these buckaroons and humankind as slaves to the jinn. The frigates only saw that the Terror was rushing down upon a small boat in the sea and they strained to reach it before the Terror could, for there they would have a chance to blow the buckaroons to glory. It was a bit of luck, thought the frigates’ commanders, a bit of luck they could use.
Straining and plunging, the Terror quartered the seas. Before it the cutter grew bigger. In the brass spyglass Tiger could see Muddy’s writhing back, for Muddy, seeing himself the goal for the Terror and frigates alike, was steering his own race, trying to gain the reefs over which only his small craft could make passage.
“Port batteries!” bawled Tiger. “Load chain shot!”
The frigates were nearer now, much nearer. Only a league of white-capped sea separated them from the Terror. Only two miles remained between the Terror and the cutter. A puff of white smoke came from the nearer frigate. The dull concussion of it was faint in the strained faces of the buckaroons. The ball skipped across the crests of ten successive waves, sending geysers of white water up from the bright blue, falling short of the Terror by five hundred yards.
The buckaroons looked whitely at Tiger poised in the mizzen shrouds. They did not understand. They saw the cutter, but they also saw that the frigates made a steady gain on the same goal and would intercept them. Tiger seemed to know what he was doing. But fear was in them.
Another puff came from the Long Tom in the frigate’s bow. The shot skipped within a hundred yards of the Terror.
“Load the starboard battery with chain!” bawled Tiger.
Though this was the off side of the action the ports were already down and gunners, late of the Tarbutón navy, stood ready to these guns. They hurriedly withdrew the wadding and shot and crammed the brazen mouths with chain shot, two iron balls connected together with a length of forged links and which, when fired, would spin around and around, a fine method of cleaning enemy decks or dismasting ships.
The frigates were lunging and pounding forward faster now, the freshening wind coming to them before it reached the Terror. They drew so far ahead in the race that it was obvious they would come up with the cutter well before the Terror.
“Stand by sheets and braces!” bawled Tiger. The seamen leaped to their stations, preparing to handle sail.
A report flatted from the nearer frigate. It was almost on the Terror’s port bow now, well within range. There was a splintering aloft and the fore-r’yal yard tipped crazily and came lunging down at the deck to crush a Long Tom’s crew below. Bodies were swept aside. Axes sounded in the wreckage. The Terror’s bow gun was once more manned.
“Starboard your helm!” roared Tiger. “Bring her up. Brace and trim!”
The Terror swept broadside to the sea. Braces and sheets hummed, the sails trimming in ready hand for her new course, a reach. After an instant’s slackening she began to pick up new speed.
Just as she turned, the whole side of the nearer frigate rolled white. From bow to stern in swift rotation, her starboard battery thundered out a broadside.
A solid shock crashed into the Terror’s bows in a fan of splinte
rs. The sea on the Terror’s port, where she should have been had she not turned, churned high and white with thirty-seven battering shots which, had they landed, would have finished her. Tiger, watching the nearest ship’s quarterdeck, had seen the order pass, had seen the gunner alert the frigate’s maindeck crews.
The whipping wind fast cleared the smoke but it stayed long enough to permit the Terror a gain. Steering now for the stern of the nearer frigate, the buckaroons could read Mount Kaf across the gilding. Jockeying his ship in close, Tiger reached the Terror across the wake of the frigate.
“Guns one to eleven!” cried Tiger. “Train for her spars!”
The Terror came on range; the Mount Kaf was speeding directly away from them but not quite fast enough.
“Fire!” bawled Tiger.
There was a shuddering reel in the Terror and a momentary backing of her sails. The white smoke of half her starboard broadside went whipping after the Mount Kaf.
The second frigate had shortened sail to fall back behind her companion and have a chance at the game. She was on a starboard run, her crews busy with a temporary furl.
“Guns thirteen to twenty-one!” bawled Tiger, citing the remaining five guns in the starboard battery, all of which were odd-numbered as was proper. “Stand by. Aim for her masts!”
The Terror was jockeyed closer to run perpendicularly across this second wake. The name of the second frigate, the Ras Faleen, became brightly visible on her stern, close aboard.
“Fire!” bawled Tiger.
The remainder of the broadside belched flame and smoke, the Terror reeled to port, and white fumes raced after the shot to engulf the Ras Faleen.
Tiger whipped around to stare at the Mount Kaf. His naval gunners knew what they were doing. Like a great avalanche from the sky, the Mount Kaf’s mizzen and main were shedding sails. The masts themselves were teetering and then they crashed, borne forward by the pressure of wind. The foremast strained at the impact of the falling main, the foresail tilted crazily. Then suddenly all carried away.