1636: Seas of Fortune (30 page)

“Describe these white men, if you can. Especially what your scouts said about their leader,” said Henrique grimly.

* * *

The next day, gifts for the Manao Indians were lowered in the spy basket, and Henrique and Maria rode it back up to report to Captain Neilsen.

“My best guess,” said Henrique, “is that they are led by Bento Maciel Parente the Younger, who is a scoundrel of the first order, but also a good woodsman. And very well connected, his father having been the captain-major of Grand Pará. I presume that he was sent out to restart the rubber tapping in Tapajós.”

“But how did he know how to do it?”

Heinrique shrugged. “Perhaps he was sent encyclopedia descriptions. Perhaps he tortured the Tapajós until they showed him the technique. I know the rubber trees there are rich in latex, so we should collect their seeds. We just need to use this airship to destroy Bento and his men.”

“Impossible,” said Captain Neilsen. “First, this is not some kind of aerial dreadnought. We have no bombs, no cannon, no rockets, no volley guns, just a few small arms. Second, my orders are to facilitate your mission, but only to the extent commensurate with the safety of this extremely expensive airship.”

“It seems very strange to me that so expensive an airship would sail without any armament,” said Henrique.

“My dear sir, you have walked the entire deck of this gondola. Have you seen, heard, or even smelled the slightest hint of a substantial weapon of any kind? We don’t need armament because when we are six hundred feet in the air, no enemy can touch us. At least, none that I know of.”

Henrique looked down at his feet for a moment, then glared at Captain Neilsen. “I accept your word. But we could still sail to the Tapajós, trade weapons for seeds with the natives there. Bento Maciel Parente can shake his fist at us as we pass overhead, but it’s almost four hundred miles to old time line Santarem, at the mouth of the Tapajós, and we can fly that distance faster than he can paddle it, even with the Amazon current helping him.”

Captain Neilsen scratched his chin. “But why go to the trouble? Aren’t the right kind of rubber trees available here?”

“Yes, but all we know is their yield of the moment, since we arrived,” said Henrique. “And we are at the end of the tapping season, so the figures are unpredictable. On the Tapajós, I know how each tree performed, day in and day out, for a whole season. We can go straight to the best producers and collect their seeds.”

“You are certainly correct that we can outrun a bunch of canoes,” Captain Neilsen admitted. “But it will take time to make contact with the Tapajós Indians, especially since the appearance of this airship would probably scare them out of their shoes, if they wore them! Moreover, the trees you’re most interested in may have already dropped their seeds, or not be ready to oblige you for another week or two. That’s time enough for the Portuguese to paddle down to us. And isn’t it likely, if the Portuguese have resumed your old tapping operation, that they left soldiers there to keep the Indians working?”

Henrique sighed heavily. “Very likely.”

“Then it seems to me that the value of a trip to the Tapajós is outweighed by the danger to the ship. Not to mention the risk that if Parente arrived while you were on the ground, I might have to abandon you!”

“Of course I could not let Maria take the risk. But I could go down alone.”

“I will need your help getting plantations started,” said Maria. “Please, Henrique, don’t consider this further. At least, wait until we see how much seed we can collect here before doing anything rash.”

* * *

Bang!

Henrique and Maria exchanged looks, and moved cautiously uphill toward the sound. This wasn’t foolhardiness; their ears, tuned by experience to the sounds of the rainforest, recognized that what they heard was not a gunshot, it was the noise made when seeds burst from a ripened rubber tree seed pod.

The tree’s genetic blueprint called for the seeds to be flung as much as a hundred feet away from their parent, carried off by the rising waters, and at last to germinate miles, perhaps many miles, away.

But the sound had been heard by other creatures, and they had their own genetic blueprints, which told them to consider the “bang” to be a dinner bell. Some of the seeds fell into the water, where they were eagerly snapped up by the
tambaqui
and other fish. The
tambaqui
mostly fed on falling fruit, but its favorite meal was the rubber tree seed. Indeed, the Indians could trick it to the surface by imitating seeds falling into the water, and then harpoon it.

Others seeds came to rest on land, and insects and rodents hurried to the feast. As did Maria. She walked, then ran, basket in hand, toward the base of the tree, where there were many seeds. There, an agouti was already greedily stuffing seeds down its gullet, as fast as it could. Maria’s seeds, damn it!

“Wait!” ordered Henrique, grasping Maria’s shoulder.

An instant later, the predator that Henrique had spotted, a
jararaca do norte
, struck. The agouti shuddered in the six-foot-long pit viper’s fangs. It didn’t suffer long; the snake, what an up-time biologist would call
Bothrops atrox
, a kind of fer-de-lance, could deliver a large dose of a quite potent venom. Enough to kill an agouti quickly . . . or an overeager Dutch naturalist more slowly.

“I didn’t see it. . . .” Maria murmured.

“Neither did the agouti.”

* * *

“Remember, I agreed only to a flyover, as far as the Madeira,” said Captain Neilsen. “This mission is just so we can warn our Manao friends of what they are up against, we are not here to make war on the Portuguese or try to sneak over to Tapajós. You have a ton of seeds on board. That’s plenty.”

“Understood,” said Henrique.

* * *

“That’s him,” said Henrique grimly, spyglass in hand. “In the rear of the first canoe. Bento Maciel Parente, the scum of the earth.

“Captain, did you really mean it when you said that this airship was unarmed, or were you holding out on me?”

“Sorry, we just have a bay for lowering the spy basket. I suppose it could be used to drop bombs, if we had them. The designers may even have had that possibility in mind. But it’s a moot point, since there are no bombs aboard.”

“Maria, you’re the science whiz, can you improvise something?”

“The target’s a little canoe, traveling in a mighty river. At our present altitude, the chance of setting it afire with a fused fuel flask is remote, I think, even if we managed to hit it in the first place.”

“But you can take us lower?”

The captain shook his head. “I am not going to bring our gas envelope within Portuguese musket range. We’re a much bigger target than they are, and if we’re holed, hydrogen can leak out and air can leak in.”

“But a bullet, fired upward, can hardly have much force,” Henrique pleaded. “And surely the hole made by a bullet is very small compared to this giant gas bag. How much leakage could there be?”

“If we lose just one-sixth of our hydrogen, and it’s replaced with air, the hydrogen-air mixture in the gas bag will become flammable. If lightning strikes—” The captain shuddered.

“Dammit,” said Henrique. “Is there nothing that can be done?”

“You could—never mind,” said Maria.

“What were you going to say?” Henrique demanded.

“You got that fancy rifle as a present from Captain de Vries. You could go down in the spy basket and shoot from there—while our envelope stayed safely out of harm’s way. But I think it’s too risky.”

“I’ll do it.”

“But the basket might be swinging like crazy. The airship would have to keep up with the speed of the canoes—which is the rowing speed on top of the current. It’s not like hovering in one spot and lowering Maurício.”

Captain Neilsen had listened to the interchange with unconcealed interest. “We can use our speed to get downstream of the canoes, then hover. You can shoot them as they come toward you. It will be an interesting experiment. I can imagine circumstances in which knowing that we can use a rifleman to clear enemies from a proposed landing site might come in handy.”

* * *

Maria looked anxiously at the winch. They had paid out several times as much steel wire as they had for Maurício’s test run. Would the wire hold, or would Henrique drop into the turbulent waters below?

* * *

Captain Neilsen has done well by me
, thought Henrique. There had been a bit of oscillation, but the captain had managed to damp it down somewhat. It helped that there wasn’t much wind, here in the doldrums, and over land to boot. The basket still swung, a bit, but Henrique remembered a bit of reminiscence from Captain de Vries.
We fire cannon at the peak of the upswing, when the ship seems to stand still, for an instant.

Henrique squeezed the trigger.

The
bandeirante
standing next to Parente slumped. “What the hell,” the leader said, scanning the trees on the nearest bank for signs of an enemy. He hadn’t thought to look up, and even if he had, the spy basket at least was lost in the glare of the sun.

Henrique fired again.

Bento clutched his breast. Slowly, like a giant tree blown over by a gust of wind, he toppled into the depths of the Amazon River.

“Good-bye, Bento,” said Henrique. “And good riddance.”

Below, one of Bento’s men, eyes shaded, was pointing upward at the airship.

A telegraph wire connected Henrique with the airship, and he clicked out a quick signal. As the spy basket lurched upward, and Parente’s men fired wildly into the air, Henrique remembered one of Maria’s odd American phrases. “Beam me up, Scotty,” he murmured.

Gustavus (Paramaribo)

Captain David de Vries stared up into the sky in amazement. A small airship floated there, like a cloud. The airship delivered by steamship to Maria Vorst, for an aerial raid on the botanical treasures of the Amazon.

Carsten Claus beamed at him. “Quite a sight, isn’t it?”

“Carsten, I am tired, fucking tired, of being a governor. You’re the one interested in politics. On behalf of the Company, I appoint you as my successor.”

Carsten nodded sympathetically. “I always knew you were more interested in adventure than colonial management. Going to go privateering in the Spanish Main?”

“No need. We did well in the gold field. It’s time to head back to Amsterdam. But after that, I am going to learn to sail one of those things.” He pointed upward. “I want to be an
airship
captain.”

* * *

The
Sandterne
faced into the wind, and slowed down its propellers just enough to hover, the gondola a few feet off the ground. Lars and his ground crew grabbed hold of the mooring ropes attached to the
Sandterne
’s nose cap.

The airship fought to remain airborne, like some wild animal resisting capture. For a moment, the ground crew found themselves with their feet dangling in the air. Fortunately, there was still mooring rope on the ground, and colonists, watching the landing, ran over and grabbed hold. The ground crew regained their footing and with the colonists’ help eased the
Sandterne
into its mooring position, nose almost nuzzling the metal ring of the airship’s mooring mast. Then a couple of crewmen raced up the stairs of the tower and fastened the bowlines to the mooring ring.

* * *

Maria had intended to watch the entire deflation of the
Sandterne
, but left after a few minutes. She couldn’t help thinking of the
Sandterne
as a living thing, a “she,” not an “it.”

It was like watching a beloved mount be put down.

Henrique had refused to talk about her proposal that he join her in Copenhagen, and later in Asia. She wasn’t sure why he hadn’t jumped on the idea. After all, if he secretly wanted her, despite their difference in religion, he should want to come along, as otherwise they might never see each other again. And if the religious difference was insurmountable, then he should come along at least as far as Copenhagen, and then travel to one of the Jewish enclaves of Europe.

Was he afraid of joining society—real society, not the crude community life he had experienced in Belém and then Gustavus? Well, then he could go with her to Asia, soon enough.

Or was it that he couldn’t bear to be parted from Maurício? Maria had thought that with Maurício’s new role, that he needed Henrique to step away and let him become the man he could be, not just Henrique’s shadow. But perhaps Henrique didn’t see it that way. And perhaps Maurício wasn’t ready to let go, either.

* * *

“Thank you for the letter of introduction, Captain Neilsen.”

“My pleasure, Captain de Vries. The airship service would profit from having a skipper of your maritime experience. But please remember that there will be much to relearn. You will need to first serve as a crewman on an airship, under another captain.”

“I understand. Flying is not sailing. But the freedom . . . To travel as easily over the land as over the sea.”

They exchanged knowing looks. “It’s too bad they won’t let you sail this airship across the Atlantic,” de Vries added.

Captain Neilsen shrugged. “The
Royal Anne
could do it, I think. It made it to Tranquebar, with a refueling stop in Venice. I was a crewman on that flight. Perhaps you will fly to Asia, or back to the New World, one day.”

“I hope so, Captain.” He touched his hat in salute, and Neilsen returned the honor.

* * *

Maria stood on the dock as the
Valdema
r made its final preparations for departure. Many colonists had come to personally thank her for her services. But where was Henrique?

“Do you need any help, Maria?” It was Kojo. The Ashanti was traveling with her to Copenhagen. There, she would make arrangements with friends in Amsterdam for him to go to Havana, in the guise of a free servant of a Spanish gentleman. The gentleman in question was a trusted colleague of Captain de Vries, and he would carry a letter of credit with which he could buy Kojo’s children . . . assuming they could find them. She had been taught Kojo Spanish . . . enough to get by, at least.