Dak looked at Sera, almost sad. “Guess you have to be a jerk to lead a ship full of thugs.”
“You want to give us away?” she whispered back to him. “Careful what you say!”
“Hey, that rhymed.”
Sera wanted to strangle him.
“You poppycocks done?” Eyeball asked roughly. “Embarrassed me right in front of the captain. I ought to dash your brains out and throw ’em overboard.”
“We’re really sorry,” Sera said. “My friend is just excited that we’re here and got a little carried away. We’re ready to work.”
A huge grin spread across the man’s face. Several of his teeth looked rotten and about to join their long-lost partners. “That’s good, then. ’Cause you’re gonna be worked to the livin’ bone.”
Eyeball lived up to his word.
Sera spent the next few hours working harder than she’d ever done before. And it mostly involved crawling around on her hands and knees, scrubbing the wood of the upper decks. Every last muscle in her body ached. Dak was helping her, and Riq was behind them spreading out pitch — a black tarlike substance that sealed the wood and protected it from water.
Despite having the easiest job, Riq complained the most. But they didn’t talk much, because every time they did, someone would yell at them to shut their traps and get back to work. It had become impossible to tell who was in charge anymore, but everyone on board seemed to have the right to boss them around. Eyeball showed up every now and then, threw out a few swearwords for good measure, and then he’d disappear again.
Sera was scrubbing away when she heard voices above her. She looked up to see a couple of men fixing a rip in one of the sails with some thick twine and a large needle. She couldn’t quite tell what they were saying, but she thought she heard the name “Amancio,” and one of them was pointing toward the back of the ship.
She nudged Dak, then turned to look. Two men — one short, one tall — were making their way along the decks. They both had long black hair and shirts that revealed their entire arms, which were ripped with muscle.
“Those’re the Amancio brothers,” she whispered.
“You’re right,” he said back. “I’ve seen paintings, and that’s definitely them! The tall one is Salvador, the shorter one Raul.”
Sera flicked a glance at Riq, but he was too far away to join the conversation. “What do you think? Is this mutiny supposed to happen or what?”
“I don’t know. We need to snoop around and learn more, I guess. We’ve only got a few days before they do it.”
“Huh? How do you know that?”
He gave her his special look that said, How can you possibly doubt my infinite wisdom?
“Slacking on the job, are we?” a voice said from behind them.
Sera spun to see that the Amancios had stopped directly in front of them. The taller one — Salvador — leaned over and put his hands on his knees.
“So you’re the ones old Eyeball brought in for us today, eh?” he asked. The man smiled, and he looked way too kind for someone about to throw the captain overboard. “Well, work hard and you’ll do great things here.”
He straightened, and then his brother Raul spoke. “Great things indeed. You’re going to be a part of history, boys. Is this your first voyage?”
Sera and Dak, both a little starstruck, only nodded.
Raul looked out at the distant sea, where the sun was almost ready to dip below the horizon. “Ah, there’s nothing more invigorating than the open sea. You pips are gonna love it.”
The two of them marched off, stopping to talk to each worker they passed.
Sera looked at Dak and raised her eyebrows. “Did we just get a pep talk?”
“I kinda like them,” he said, then got back to work.
Sera did the same, her shoulders aching with every push and pull of the brush.
They worked into the evening, right through the launch of the ship, which Dak was devastated to miss. But Eyeball had a talent for showing up every time Dak attempted to sneak off to the ship’s railing. He was still grumbling about it an hour later as they scrubbed by the light of lanterns. They’d finished most of the area they’d been assigned when Eyeball appeared again, seemingly out of nowhere.
“I heard you met the Amancios,” he said. “They approve of you wretches, I reckon.”
“They said that?” Sera asked, feeling a little burst of pride.
“Ha! No such thing. But they didn’t throw your tails off the ship, so that says it rightly enough. Now come on. You’ve barely done a blastin’ thing, but it’s time for a meetin’ with the captain.”
Barely done a blastin’ thing, Sera repeated in her head. She fought an urge to poke the man in his remaining eye. But it was all she could do to walk straight on the bucking, rolling ship.
The meeting he’d mentioned was for the whole ship. Nearly three dozen people packed onto the lower deck, body to body from fore to aft, some having to climb up onto the masts and rafters to fit. Christopher Columbus stood on the highest deck, looking mostly down on his men. And, unknowingly, one girl, Sera thought. The Amancio brothers stood to each side of their boss, which made Sera feel a prickle across her shoulders. The captain had no idea what history had in store for him.
Then Columbus began the meeting with a statement that emptied her head of all other thoughts.
“Listen up, crew.” His voice boomed through the night. “It’s come to my attention that there’s a mutiny planned on our voyage.”
THE REST of the meeting was a bunch of noise to Dak. He couldn’t focus, could barely hear over the chatter going on all around them. Columbus said something about how there’d be no stopping him, that the voyage would go on as planned. Dak wanted to look at Sera, talk to her, but he knew it’d be risky. Every eye on the ship was now searching faces for clues that might reveal who the scheming culprits could be.
And Columbus seemed even more like a pompous jerk than he had before.
Dak’s heart raced and his mind spun. Was their mission already jeopardized? What was their mission?
Columbus had grown quiet and was waiting for the crew to do the same. Shushes hissed through the air until everyone finally went silent.
Their captain leaned forward, his face grave in the lantern glow. “There’ll be no mercy. No quarter. Anyone who plots against me will be thrown overboard. Anyone who reveals those who plot against me will have their pay doubled. I’ve put Salvador and Raul in charge of this matter, so all suspicions and reports should go directly to them. For now, we will get our rest. You are dismissed.”
The crowd erupted again into sound, everyone talking over everyone else, bustling about and heading this way and that. But Dak couldn’t move. The Amancio brothers were in charge of investigating their own planned mutiny. He didn’t know if that helped or hurt his task. Sera stepped in front of him, a forced smile on her face.
“Well, shall we find our spots to sleep?” She said it loudly, with a piercing look in her eyes that said he needed to snap out of his stupor. Now was not the time to look out of place. Someone would suspect them.
He shook his head to get the cobwebs out and then nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, we better.”
Eyeball appeared then, having pushed his way through the crowd, barking orders as he went. When he saw Dak and Sera, his eyebrow arched above his lonely namesake. “You two lookin’ a mite tired, I’d say. Better rest up before the sun pops her head over the horizon and says boo. Gonna work you to the bone again. You’ll see.”
“Where do we sleep?” Sera asked. “Nobody’s shown us our room.”
Eyeball exploded in a fit of booming laughter. “Your room? Your room?” He paused for another round of guffaws. “You’ll be sleeping on the splintery floor with a dozen other louses like yourself. Now get belowdecks before I change me m
ind and make it the floor of the sea.”
Dak and Sera rushed off, rejoining Riq and following a small crowd of others who looked as pathetic as they. Down the ladders they went, into the stinky bowels of the ship.
As they descended, Dak noticed that Salvador and Raul had come along, not far behind, then broken off to go somewhere else. Before Dak could think about the danger, he grabbed Sera and Riq by the hands and led them in the direction the brothers had gone.
“What’s our plan?” asked Riq in a low voice.
“I don’t know,” whispered Dak. “But they’re probably going to talk about what just happened, right? Maybe we can listen in. Maybe we can offer to help with their investigation, so we can figure out who’s on which side.”
They rounded a tight corner just as a cabin door thumped shut ahead of them. Neither of his friends protested as he crept up to the door — in fact, they followed him, crouching close to listen. Dak’s heart pounded like a gorilla trapped in a cage — they couldn’t risk this for long. The three of them leaned in and put their ears against the wood.
The voices were too muffled to reveal which brother was which, but their words were clear enough.
“It’s going to be tougher than we thought.”
“How did he find out? I thought we’d rooted out all the spies.”
“I don’t know. But this better be the last time we have to do all the dirty work.”
“You know it will be. We’ll rise quickly up the ranks of the SQ once this is done.”
Dak’s heart had slowed, but it was also breaking. He’d known deep down that this was probably the reason they were here — that the mutiny was one of the Great Breaks, that it never should have happened — but it still hurt to hear it.
Heavy footsteps sounded, and the three of them straightened up and scurried away from the door — a good thing because Eyeball came thumping around the corner.
“Burn me crusty lid!” he roared. “Where’d you lumps go off to?”
Riq spoke quickly. “Sorry, sir. Somehow we took a wrong turn. Can you help us?”
Eyeball scrunched up his face, but he looked more annoyed than suspicious. “Dumber than a cured slab of ham, you three. It’s back this way.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder.
They headed that direction, Dak’s head buzzing. There was no doubt what they had to do now. Dak. Sera. Riq. The Three Pathetic Musketeers.
They had a mutiny to stop.
THEY ENDED up in a corner of a low-roofed room that would’ve looked cramped and uncomfortable before a dozen people packed inside of it. Two low-lit lanterns hung from the rafters. Each member of the crew had been given a scratchy wool blanket, and Dak and Sera now sat with their backs against the rough wood of the wall, people of all ages around them. Riq was just a few feet away, already lying down, his chest slowly rising and falling.
“How’d he fall asleep so fast?” Sera asked. It was the first they’d spoken since Eyeball had chased them off. But the shock of the dreadful news they’d learned — and what it meant for their mission — was evident in her eyes.
Dak shook his head back and forth mockingly. “The little cowboy is all tuckered out. Hey, I guess there’s not a shower on board, huh.”
Sera wrinkled her nose. “Imagine how bad this place is gonna stink in a week.”
“A week?” Dak asked. “Try a couple of months. These voyages aren’t like Caribbean cruises, ya know.”
“What’s your story?” someone said.
Dak looked over to see a boy, just a couple of years older than him by the looks of it. He was filthy, and the ship hadn’t even left yet.
“Our story?” Dak repeated. He didn’t feel ready to use his translation device to make friends quite yet. But it was now or never — they’d need help if they were going to mutiny against a mutiny. “Just needed some work, like everybody else.”
“How about you?” Sera asked. “What’s your story?”
“Got nothin’ else in life. My name’s Ricardo.” He nudged the boy to his right, a darty-eyed kid with messy hair. “This is Francisco. And this is Daniel.” He gave a jerk of the head to his left. Daniel was much older, but had a blank look on his face that made him look young.
“Where are you from?” Dak asked, but immediately regretted it. He didn’t want the same question returned to him.
“A small village about a hundred miles from here. Decided maybe we should skip town when the mayor put a price on our heads.”
The boy named Francisco spoke up, wiping the hair out of his eyes. “Like all our thieving was such a bad thing. People’s gotta eat, right?”
“People’s gotta eat,” Daniel followed up, a goofy grin on his face. “Or people’s gotta die.”
“Where are you from?” Ricardo asked. “Your accent is . . . weird.”
Sera opened her mouth to speak but Dak hurried to cut her off, scared she’d get something wrong. “We’re immigrants. Been all over. Never settled.” He flashed a quick look at Sera, trying to communicate that being vague was best.
“Got stories to tell, I bet,” Ricardo said. “Stories to hide. Doesn’t matter. We’re all the same now. Brothers, startin’ all over.”
Dak nodded. He liked this guy. “That’s right. Brothers.” He elbowed Sera just to rile her a little. “This one has been a brother to me since before I can remember.”
Sera elbowed him back, much harder. “Yes. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to save this one from getting his throat slit or his face beaten in by thugs. Not the strongest boy, I can tell you that. Ugly as a burnt stick, too. But he’s all I got.”
Ricardo and his two friends looked from Sera to Dak and back again, their expressions somewhere between surprise and delight. Then they all burst into laughter.
“It’s gonna be a long voyage,” Ricardo said when the chuckles died down. “It’ll be good to have friends. Especially if this rumor about a mutiny is true.”
Dak’s smiled vanished at that. Reality struck home. “Hey, what do you think about all the people lumped with us? Any chance . . . you know, that they could be involved with the plot?”
Ricardo scoffed and smacked his friend Francisco in the head, ruffling the boy’s mop of hair. “People like us? This riffraff? No way. We’re the dried scum on the bottom of the bucket.”
Dak took a second and scanned the room, searching their company, barely revealed by the soft light of the lanterns. Shaggy hair, ratty clothes, dirty faces, rotten teeth. The lowest of the low, with no aspirations but to earn a next meal. This was exactly what they needed.
He brought his attention back to Sera and their new friends. “How much can we trust you?” he asked Ricardo.
The boy held out his hand. Dak shook it.
Ricardo gave a stiff nod. “Completely. If you’re alone on a voyage, you might as well be dead. Why are you asking? Why so serious all of a sudden?”
Dak looked at Sera, who he knew understood the thoughts going on in his head. Both of them had doubts about their mission, even after hearing firsthand that the Amancio brothers worked for the SQ. It didn’t help that Salvador and Raul seemed all right, while Columbus seemed like a jerk. But the fact of the matter was this: The SQ ruled the world of the future with an iron fist, and the Cataclysm that Brint and Mari had spoken of seemed to be coming faster and harder with each passing day. Dak and Sera had experienced the evidence up close and personal.
They were Hystorians, and it was time for action.
Dak, his resolve solid, faced Ricardo again. “Riffraff is a good name for this group. We might need to turn them into an army.”
SERA HAD always known that she and Dak shared a special link. As different as they were, they thought alike, and often came to the same conclusions. And she’d shared his line of thinking over the last few minutes.
&
nbsp; They were here to do a job. Going to Columbus with what they’d learned was out of the question — there wasn’t much of a chance he’d take their word over the Amancios’. Which meant they’d have to get directly involved. But if they were going to stop a mutiny, they’d need help. And the sorry bunch of runaways and criminals surrounding them might be their best shot at finding any. Especially since the SQ probably paid them no attention. Looked at them as powerless and therefore worthless.
“What’s this army stuff about?” Ricardo asked Dak. “Why ya need such a thing?”
Sera leaned forward and whispered in Dak’s ear. “Are we sure about this? Totally?”
“Hey, no secrets,” Ricardo snapped. “Not a good way to start.”
Sera sat back. “Sorry. I was just making sure. This is a big deal.”
“I think it’s okay,” Dak said. “We don’t have much time — it’s supposed to happen soon.”
“What’s supposed to happen?” Francisco asked.
Daniel — the older man who looked lost in a world of his own — suddenly laughed. “Sun’ll go down, I bet. Then the moon’ll come up.” He laughed again, this time with a snort.
“Oh, jeez,” Ricardo said, but his tone was more playful than annoyed or embarrassed. “Our friend is a lot smarter than he looks. Aren’t you, Daniel?”
“Two plus two is four,” the man responded. “Four plus four is eight. Take away the four times two and zero is your mate.”
“Huh?” Dak asked.
Sera liked the man. There was a twinkle in his eye that said he knew more than he was letting on — that maybe he didn’t know how to socialize and this was how he’d learned to make up for it.
“Anyway,” Ricardo said. “What were you getting at?”
Sera decided it was time to go for it. If they were going to do something about fixing this Break in history, they needed help and they needed to get started.