Chapter 15: Show Time

Sixteen days later...

Time: Sunday, July 20, 2053 3:44 AM, aboard M.N.S. Discovery

Warrant Officer Megan Lopes left the ship's bridge and walked down to the small cabin she and Alvaro were sharing. He was asleep on their cot, already dressed for the day, and Megan decided to leave the lights off for a moment. She sat on the edge and gently petted his head, stroking his temple with her fingers.

Alvaro sighed and opened his eyes. "Show time already?"

Megan nodded her head. "Just about. It's an hour and a half before sunrise. We have a little time. I thought I'd give you an update. Target has just closed to within ten kilometers of Funchal, rowing due north at 2.5 knots. Captain Mendes thinks they've lined up the North Star with the peak of Pico Ruivo and that's how they're steering. Coke is keeping a very close eye on them. If they keep this up, they'll land directly at the city around 6 AM."

Alvaro nodded. "Nice of them to row exactly where we want them to be."

"Yes. Captain Mendes says she won't move in until the very end, not unless they change course. We'll probably move in at daybreak. That way we won't have to tow them as far."

Alvaro nodded and stretched, sitting up in bed. "How's Madeira doing with the blackout?"

"Okay I think. There's no indication the Phoenicians suspect anything." Megan sighed. "It's a beautiful night on deck. A moonless night, clear skies, almost no wind, dry air, the typical doldrums of the horse latitudes. It's really very pleasant."

Alvaro nodded and held her gently by her side. "Think you're ready?"

Megan paused for a second and then nodded. "I feel as if I've spent my life preparing for this moment." They shared a kiss and then headed to the ship's galley for a quick breakfast.

An hour later.

Time: July 20, 2053 4:52 AM

Hannibal stood forward near the stem post of Asherim's Offer, the flag ship of his three-vessel trading fleet. Slightly behind and two hundred cubits to either side were the ships Profit and Toil, captained by Hannibal's younger cousins Devarim and Edom. Hannibal smiled in the pre-dawn light. After two days and nights of seeing only the mountain peak, the island's coastline was now clearly visible. Finally! Hannibal judged its distance to be at most eleven thousand cubits. They should make landfall within the hour.

He squinted for a moment in the dim predawn twilight and offered a quick prayer to Shahar, god of the dawn. Were his eyes deceiving him? For a moment, he thought he had seen the coastline saturated with great geometric shapes, as if the long coastline were densely covered with impossibly large buildings. But no buildings could be that large, and then a thin veil of predawn mist moved in and covered the view. No matter. The air felt so dry, Hannibal was sure the sun would burn off the mist as soon as Shahar let it rise in the east. Hannibal shook his head and smiled and decided to wait a few minutes for the dawn god to hear his prayer and grant him a better view.

He looked to the east past Devarim's boat and to the yellowish and pink horizon. A bit of stormy weather coming up, perhaps by the time the god of the dusk Shalim arrived, there would be a fierce storm. Hannibal wondered if they would find a good harbor at the island before them, or would they be safer off riding out the storm at sea. He began to pray again as he considered his options.

As his eyes idly watched the eastern glow, his mind drifted back four years ago, to the terrible wrath of Resheph. The god had been furious, causing the sun goddess Shapash to stumble on her path, and to this very day she had still not found her old track.

Hannibal's people did not have a scientific understanding of the summer solstice, but from their interactions with the Egyptians and Hyksos, they were excellent stargazers. They knew that Shapash was still lost, forgetting to make her northernmost walk across the sky at Falcon, a constellation that would one day be called Cancer. No, Shapash was still lost, starting the summer from the Sleeping Bull, a constellation that would one day be called Taurus.

Hannibal turned to the figurehead on his ship and caressed his protector Asherim, the Canaanite goddess of sensuality. The carving was head to toe and very lifelike, even arousing. More than once during the long voyages of his life, Hannibal had overheard crew members and even the slaves whisper about petting the statue's shapely feet and breasts and then mounting her naked form. Hannibal didn't mind. Asherim had amply rewarded his devotion through the years, and Hannibal thought the sensuous goddess welcomed the lust of his crew.

He took a moment to glance at his cousins on the other two boats. Devarim was off his starboard side and Edom off his port to the west. They had both been reluctant to follow him out of the inland sea, and for good reasons. The monsters that swallowed boats here were frighteningly real. This was truly the region of Yamm, god of the deep sea and judge of the dead. His divine displeasure could force Hannibal to sail off the edge of the ocean into oblivion. But Hannibal thought the rewards were worth the risks. His nose was smelling profit.

A year ago they were exploring south, down the wild coast past the Pillars of Hercules. His cousins had just convinced him to turn back when Hannibal noticed the faintest of a smell coming off the westerly ocean wind. His cousins vowed they could sense nothing, but Hannibal was sure it was the smell of people, a lot of them. It was the smell of profit.

A year ago they were not equipped to sail out into the great expanse. But they were now, and sensual Asherim had protected them once again. The crew had been drinking fish blood for the last two days, stretching their last reserves of fresh water. There was a large clay amphora lashed to the prow stem post near where Hannibal stood, and it was now almost completely dry. Unknown to the crew, there was less than one full cup of drinkable water on the boat.

But with the gods' benevolence they'd be landing within the hour, and Hannibal was optimistic that plentiful fresh water would soon be available. Whether the natives would welcome traders was another question entirely, but Hannibal wasn't too worried. His three ships were a formidable fighting force of forty-eight men. At sea, each crew was comprised of a captain, a helmsman for the tiller, and fourteen rowers, seven on each side, mostly freemen but also a few slaves. And when pressed, the crew could transform into a small army.

Each boat carried two of the six compound bows that Hannibal's father had traded from the Asiatic Hyksos. With a large cache of balanced arrows with hard, razor sharp arrowheads of bronze and the new iron of the Greeks, Hannibal thought his boats almost invincible against attacks from savages. And if the arrows weren't enough, he and his two cousins each had the fine bronze swords of the Egyptians. And the rest of the crew were all skilled fighters with axe, mace, and sling, even the slaves. No, Hannibal wasn't too worried about being attacked. His chief concern was whether the island before him was inhabited, and if so whether the people would want to trade.

He had high hopes. Even simple savages would often produce novel goods or exotic foodstuffs that would fetch a good price at his home port of Sidon, and if not Sidon Tyre. Hannibal's three round boats were packed with a large assortment of trade goods, everything from trinkets to large clay pots of dry wheat to their prize cargo on the flagship, linens beautifully colored with purple dyes from the crushed shells of sea snails.

Hannibal's eyes fixed on one of the compound bows as he reminisced. It was securely mounted within easy reach of one of the lead rowers, a slave Hannibal considered perhaps the finest archer he had ever met. And the bow... it was five years ago. Hannibal remembered the trip well. His father had been captain of the Asherim's Offer then, Hannibal's uncle captain of the Profit, and young Hannibal promoted from helmsman and in command for the first time, captain of the Toil. His uncle's two sons were helmsmen, Edom serving on Hannibal's ship. Those were good times.

It was five long years ago, one year before the terrible rage of Resheph, the god of illnesses and plagues. It was a rage so awful that Hannibal's father cried that surely terrible times were ahead. And he was right. Resheph was so angry even Shapash the sun goddess, Astarte the goddess of the heavens and Yarikh the moon god all shook and trembled before Resheph's wrath. The stars of heaven shifted, and Yarikh jumped back from his second phase to his first in a single night.

Young Hannibal had once been quietly skeptical regarding some of his father's beliefs, but no longer. He had seen the gods tremble before the power of Resheph with his own eyes, and it was only a moon's cycle later that the fury of Resheph was loose upon the lands, just as his father predicted. His dear father and uncle, such fine men...

It was just a few minutes before dawn. The wave of Edom's arms on the Toil finally caught Hannibal's attention, pulling him out of his daydream. His cousin was yelling and gesturing wildly and pointing west down the shoreline. The mist was lifting like a veil, and Hannibal looked past Edom's boat to see what Edom was so excited about.

Time: 5:08 AM

Aboard the M.N.S. Discovery...

Eight minutes before the break of dawn, Captain Mendes ordered an intercept course for Discovery with the Phoenician traders. She had been lurking ten kilometers distant and close to shore against the dark coastline, confident her conning tower would remain unnoticed in the pre-dawn light. Coke was doing a fine job of pinpointing her target from an altitude of 2500 meters. Designed in the shape of a very large and lifelike eagle, Coke had the ability to select its surface colors, and could dynamically adapt to the changing black and grayness of the nighttime sky. With its propulsive drive of two mega-Newtons of noiseless dark force, the bird was silent and damn near invisible when it wanted to be.

With the aid of her propellers and twelve mega-Newtons of dark force, Discovery accelerated to forty knots in ten seconds. Captain Mendes could have pushed the ship even faster but did not want to create a bow wave and wake too violent for the small Phoenician boats to handle. Incredibly, the three boats were still rowing peacefully to Funchal less than five kilometers away. Captain Mendes did a quick visual scan through Coke and realized a bit of morning mist was giving the Phoenicians a very hazy view of the city. Perfect...

Coke reborn as a bird was the most amazing reconnaissance device Captain Mendes could ever hope to image. With direct telemetry links to the geosynchronous satellites, it could be sent anywhere in the world. At 340 kg, the bird was not light, but its maneuverability was limited not by force availability but by the needs not to overheat from friction with the air or damage its circuitry with excessive acceleration. Once outside the atmosphere, Coke could change its hover position from any point on the globe to any other point on the globe in less than ten minutes.

Time: 5:15 AM

Aboard Asherim's Offer...

Hannibal's jaw dropped as he saw the mountain of metal flying down the coastline. He was speechless. A mountain of metal! He couldn't even give the order to stop rowing. In a frantic attempt to keep his sanity and save his men, his mind gave up trying to understand what the mountain was or how it was flying across the surface of the water. His one thought was whether the mountain was going to collide with them. After several heartbeats, he decided the flying mountain would clear their bow by perhaps a thousand cubits. Asherim be praised! But wait?! Could this mountain be a ship?! Hannibal had seen the great Egyptian barges, the largest a hundred cubits in length. This was at least three times longer, and yet... Yes! Not a mountain, a ship, a ship that could fly across the surface of the water like a bird! So fast!

Time: 5:16 AM

Aboard M.N.S. Discovery...

With all ship's personnel secured for battle maneuvering, Captain Mendes executed a preprogrammed maneuver, cutting power to the propellers and using all available dark power to brake and pivot the ship. In the span of just nine seconds, she slowed Discovery from forty knots to dead stop, pivoting the ship so that its bow was now pointed directly at the Phoenicians less than 500 meters away.

Aboard the Phoenician vessels...

Forty-eight jaws were gaping at the maneuver the monster ship had just executed. A gigantic wave from its braking could be seen rolling to the east. The oarsmen frantically turned their boats to head into the lesser wake that was heading towards them. Fortunately the deep ocean was swallowing much of the wave's power. And from all directions came loud rumbles of power, like nothing the men had every experienced. They look around wildly, and saw boats their size flying in the water all around them. Incredibly, they appeared to be dancing with each other! There was no other word to describe it.

Aboard M.N.S. Discovery...

Dawn broke at that moment, the tip of the sun shining at an azimuth of 65 degrees on the horizon. Discovery's twelve patrol boats put on a high-speed show for their visitors, circling the ships in a tightly choreographed manner and then forming two lines of six boats each. The two lines then sliced through each other at high speed, the boats interleaving and missing each other by a fraction of a second with only ten-meter separations.

The maneuver was possible because all the boats were under computer control of the Discovery, being guided in course and speed to a precision that human pilots couldn't match. After their demo, the boats fanned out and reformed their circle around the Phoenicians, cutting power and holding their positions just as Topcat, Coke, and the Bombardier Global Merchant descended from the sky.

Aboard Asherim's Offer...

Hannibal had never been so dumbfounded in his life. A part of his mind was screaming at him that his men would be looking to him for leadership, but he found it impossible to talk at all, let alone say something intelligent. His ears were vaguely hearing the moans of his men, and he couldn't decide whether his own voice was a part of the sound. The twelve smaller boats of magic metal were arrayed in a perfectly ordered circle around him, Hannibal guessed about 400 cubits distant. Men on the boats were clearly discernable. Hannibal couldn't decide if these men were the crews or the prisoners of these magical boats. The boats had performed beyond what would be capable for human sailors.

His experience as a sailor was also screaming at him of the danger. The mountainous ship before him did not have the proportions of a barge, despite its monstrous size. Hannibal's eyes saw the thin ratio of beam to length. This was no trader! His mind was screaming warship!

And in the air! "And why not?!" Hannibal thought hysterically. Two more gigantic gods, posing as birds with great fixed wings and the size of metal mountains. The greater was to the east directly over Profit, the lesser to the west above Toil. Hannibal waved at his two cousins to bring their boats closer to the flagship. If they were all going to die, he thought his men would prefer dying together than dying alone.

Hannibal took another look at the two gods above them as Profit and Toil were rowed to his boat. He guessed the gods' height at perhaps a thousand cubits, floating in the air with no concern at all for the welcoming attraction of their mother Earth. And as his cousins pulled alongside, a third divine bird appeared. It descended from the sky and began to hover just off the bow of his own ship. This one was large but not impossibly large, hovering just below the height of his ship's mast and less than twenty cubits forward the stem post. It could easily be hit with an arrow, but Hannibal had no intention of ordering such sacrilege.