Chapter 11

Cameron leaned against the side of a wagon. Lying scattered on the ground were the bodies of three men in the sort of disjointed attitudes adopted only by the unconscious or dead. From the amount of blood around one, probably the latter for him at least. Kneeling in front of him were two young women, one he recognized as Leia, the other was a stranger and obviously no older than 15. "Thank you for rescuing us," said Leia, "Now it is time for your reward." With that Leia unzipped his pants and fished out his rapidly inflating cock. Cameron felt her lips part around his pole, then he realized that he could see them as well, and that they were attached to Megan. Aware that he was awake, Megan went into full hoover mode and Cameron was soon pumping a load into her mouth. "Good Morning!"

After cleaning up and donning the handy robes Cameron and Megan moved to the dining area where they ordered up breakfast. "I think preparation for your mission involves two sorts of briefing," started Megan, "material relevant to the mission itself and general background on Chaos and the area of the mission."

"Sounds right. Let's start with the general background because the mission brief may make more sense if it has a context."

"OK, is there anything you think you know about Chaos that we haven't already discussed?"

"Not that I can think of offhand."

It turned out there was quite a lot about Chaos that Cameron hadn't known about, or only had part of the context. The exchange system for instance was primarily one of barter though there was a universal coinage system based on flecks of gold embedded in glass disks. There didn't appear to be any large political or governmental organizations though there were almost feudal family groups, and businesses. The coastal area where his mission was to take place was culturally more diversified and economically richer than some of the inland areas because of the opportunities provided by the sea for fishing and trade.

The damsel's name was Rachel Tutor, her charge, Sally Jacobsdatter. Sally's father was more of a merchant prince than a mere ship's chandler as he also owned 3 ships of his own and had trading factors stationed in several port towns besides his home town. One of these factors was in residence in the town where the slaver's ship was docked but he appeared to have no knowledge of the ship's nature. The town has a small force of watchmen but their function is primarily to keep carousing sailors confined to the waterfront pubs, boarding houses, and brothels so as to not bother the burger families.

Rachel and Sally had been kidnapped by Captain Jack Dandy and his two henchmen, Bosun Hamfist and Supercargo Ratso. Dandy was a big man, six foot three and about 240 with gray eyes in a wide face set over a full dark beard. Hamfist was a touch taller and heavier with brown bloodshot eyes, the big red nose of a heavy drinker, and was quite bald. Ratso was a smaller man at about five-eight, he had feral little black eyes set close together in his narrow face, longish brown hair and pointy little VanDyke style beard.

Dandy and Ratso were riding horses, Hamfist was driving the covered wagon in which they had placed their trussed up captives. The relatively slow speed of the wagon meant that they were not going to make it all the way to Port Fortunate today but would surely arrive about mid day tomorrow.

"Do you have any ideas about how you're going to get the women away from these three?"

"Yeah, I'm going to kill as many of them in their sleep as I can and then using their own weapons kill the rest. I hope they all sleep through it!"

"That doesn't sound very heroic."

"It isn't intended to be, what would you suggest?"

"Oh, it sounds good to me. Given what we know about their character it isn't likely anybody will call foul. Let's get you dressed and on your way. Costuming - seafarer outfit, blue canvas pants, black shirt, boots, black watch cap, belt, and kerchief."

The clothes appeared in a neat pile in the middle of the table. The pants looked like blue jeans without the rivets and buttons instead of a zipper. The shirt appeared to be made of a light weight cotton fabric. The boots looked sort of like Wellington's but again without obvious metal parts, the watch cap was indistinguishable from the wool cap Cameron carried in a back pocket of his fishing vest. The belt was braided twine spliced to two wooden rings which served the place of a buckle. The kerchief was a 30" square of a deep red silk like fabric. The pile was topped by a pair of woolen boot socks.

"Oops," said Megan, "I guess we missed something." Cameron used his own underwear and put on the rest of the outfit. Megan showed him how it would be worn by a native of Chaos. "Now you look like any other fairly competent and reasonably paid sailor on shore for liberty."

"Well, best be on my way then." They walked hand in hand to the transfer room where Megan turned him to face her. She lifted her lips to his, kissed him and whispered in his ear, "Save Rachel - Go."

Cameron stepped through the portal to Chaos into a wood paneled closet. The door led to an anteroom, a set of stairs led up, opposite the stairs was another door barred by a heavy timber grill. The stairs opened into the lobby of the local bank where he sought out the the officer on duty. "Could you please direct me to the factory of Jacob the Chandler?"

"My name is Paul. Delighted to be of service and I hope you will be a long term customer. Follow me please."

The banker led Cameron to the main entrance of the bank which let them out onto a busy street corner. The street from the left dwindled in the distance to the left and ended quayside a block down ahead of them. The cross street from the right also extended several blocks and ended a block down on the left on the bank of a river entering the bay. A large, two story brick building ran across the entire lower end of the block bounded by the harbor, river, and the two streets. "That is Jacob's factory," said Paul with a sweeping wave of his arm.

"Thank you. I expect to be back tomorrow or the next day at the latest with some business for your bank." Cameron shook hands with the banker and then turned back to survey the street scene. He was surprised to see that the streets in this part of town were paved with cobble stone. The frequent piles of horse and ox dung were surprising only in that they looked like only one day's worth of accumulation. Clearly this town exceeded the Chaos norm for civic cleanliness. There was a baker, a seamstress, a hat maker, a cooper, a blacksmith, a livery stable, and at least two places that showed the signs of being Chaos typical inns within a few doors or across the street from the bank.

Recalling the map of the town and its environs he and Megan had studied oriented Cameron. The street running to the harbor was Beanburg Road. This was the road out of town he would need to take to intercept Captain Jack. The cross street was called Bank Street. Jacob's factory fronted Quay Street and was flanked by River Street. Cameron crossed Bank Street to check out what appeared to be the busiest of the inns, another brick and timber framed two story structure. The inn's sign featured a blue bull perched on the stock of an anchor. Picked out in yellow, it looked like the bull had swallowed a fork, a tankard, and a bed. Enticing smells wafting out of the door would have gone with the meal which had obviously been enjoyed by a substantial lunch crowd starting to break up when he entered. Cameron took note of the bill of fare posted over the pub counter and then returned to the street.