“You heard what the captain said,” she began. “That there’s rumor of a mutiny planned. Well, we actually already knew that and . . . we’re here to stop it.”
“How could you possibly know about it?” Ricardo asked. “Did someone send you?”
Sera hesitated. Telling the complete truth was not an option, but maybe she could avoid lying, too. “Exactly. We have friends in high places and they sent us here, secretly. I know it’d be impossible to prove everything to you, but we know exactly who is plotting against the captain.”
“Who?” Francisco asked, his eyes alit with interest.
“Would you rat brains shut up!” someone yelled from across the room.
“Sorry!” Sera answered.
Everyone in the group scooted closer together and leaned in. Sera couldn’t help noticing Ricardo smelled of fish as Dak started whispering even more quietly. “It’s the Amancio brothers. I know, I know — hard to believe since they’ve obviously earned the captain’s trust. But it makes sense if you think about it. Pulling off a mutiny isn’t easy, so you’d need someone high up to be in charge of it. Otherwise it’d be difficult to make the rest of the crew follow the new leaders once it’s done.”
“Do you know what they’re planning?” Ricardo asked.
“From what I’ve re —” Dak stopped, and Sera knew he’d been about to say something about what he’d learned in history books. Fortunately, he’d caught himself. “We were told that three days after we launch out to sea, the two brothers are going to take the captain in the middle of the night, gag him, bind him, and throw him overboard. The next morning, they’re going to blame the disappearance on two other officers, men who are fiercely loyal to Columbus, then throw them off the ship before anyone really knows what’s going on. Just like that, we have new leaders and the voyage keeps on truckin’.”
Sera winced at that last word. She might not be a history buff like her best friend, but she was pretty certain they didn’t have trucks in the fifteenth century.
“Wow,” Ricardo said. “Serious? That’s all supposed to go down three nights from now?”
“Yep.”
“And how do you know all this again?”
Sera answered. “We have very good sources and powerful bosses.” She hoped that it was enough.
“Who do you guys work for?” Francisco asked. “Come on, you can tell us.”
Sera looked at Dak, eyebrows raised.
“Let’s just say we’re looking out for the interests of Queen Isabella,” he said. “She believes in Columbus, and we believe in her.”
Ricardo grinned. “And you believe she’ll come through with a handsome reward for your loyalty, I bet.”
“Then you’ll help us?” Sera asked.
“Oh, we’ll help you. Won’t we, boys?”
Francisco nodded, shaking his mop of hair again, and Daniel laughed, which from him evidently meant yes.
“Good,” Sera said. “Let’s get some sleep. Tomorrow we can scout around, learn some things, maybe even get some evidence. Then tomorrow night we’ll see if we can rally the rest of the people down here.”
“Sounds good,” Dak said, and the others all nodded.
Sera wrapped her blanket around her shoulders and lay down, squirming and twisting until she found the least uncomfortable position that she could manage. She still had the Infinity Ring tucked away in the satchel, which she kept strapped around her body and cradled to her stomach. She expected to have a hard time falling asleep, but all that scrubbing from earlier caught up to her and pulled her into dreamless oblivion.
The world was dark when she was jerked awake, a rough, callused hand gripped tightly over her mouth. Someone had her arms pinned to the hard floor below her. She struggled, tried to free herself, tried to scream, but it was all pointless. All she could hear was her own muted whine.
Then a voice whispered in her ear, the breath hot. “Shut your trap or I’ll slit your friend’s throat. Now.”
Sera stopped, went completely still. She couldn’t see a thing.
“That’s a good lad. Now you’re coming with me, nice and easy. If you scream when I let go, it won’t be pretty.”
The hand left her mouth, then she was pulled up and onto her feet. Someone stood behind her, keeping her hands clasped painfully in the small of her back. She heard the smack of stone against stone, saw a spark, and then a lantern lit up, its flame small but casting enough light for her to see a man standing just a couple of feet away, regarding her coldly.
With one eye.
"LOOKS LIKE we have some talkers in our midst,” Eyeball said. “Talkin’ about things that ain’t none of their bidness. And . . . spying.”
Dak and Riq were right next to Sera, held by two more of Eyeball’s thugs. She couldn’t even move enough to turn and get a good look at them.
A few people had awakened on the floor around them, including Ricardo. She eyed him, trying to warn him to keep quiet. The thought crossed her mind that maybe he had betrayed her and Dak somehow, but the look on his face was genuine shock. With some fear thrown in.
“Nothin’ to say for yourself, eh?” Eyeball asked with a sneer. “At least you’ve got some gumption, I’ll give you that. Take these brats to the brig and make sure they don’t get no breakfast.”
Sera concentrated on not crying as the burly men dragged her away.
She didn’t think it possible, but they went even deeper into the ship, to a dank, smelly pit that had several small cells along its length, each outfitted with bars and chains. All of them were empty, which didn’t surprise Sera considering they had just left the dock. They had the honor of being the first criminals of the voyage.
Eyeball opened up one of the cells and the men literally tossed Dak, Sera, and Riq into it. Sera landed with a thump, smacking her head against the wall. She cried out, the first sound she’d made since being taken. Dak grunted then rolled up into a ball, moaning with pain. Riq lay on his stomach, his head nestled in his arms as if he were asleep.
There was a rattle of chains then the click of a lock. Sera looked back to see Eyeball staring down at her through the bars of their new prison.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” he chided them. “I should’ve known you three wastrels were up to something when you came beggin’ to get aboard at the last minute. And sneaking around like that. The only reason I don’t throw you on the docks right now is because I want you in me sight. Answerin’ me questions when the time’s right for askin’. I hope you three enjoy discomfort and pain.”
He turned and left, hanging his lantern from a hook before disappearing up the rickety ladder with his three goons.
Sera crawled over to Riq, who hadn’t moved yet. Dak’s moans at least told her that he was alive.
“Are you okay?” she asked, gently shaking Riq’s shoulder.
He rolled over onto his back. Sera gasped when she saw the hideous swelling of his right eye, the puffy skin already turning purple.
“One of his thugs punched me on the way down here,” the older boy said in a strained voice. “For no reason — I wasn’t resisting.”
Even though they’d all been mistreated, his almost childlike explanation just about broke her heart.
Dak groaned again, wincing from some unseen ache. “I thought I liked that stupid cyclops.”
“I wonder what happened,” Sera said. She showed Riq how to tilt his head to maximize the blood flow for his aches, then moved to sit against the damp wood of the wall. “I knew we should’ve been more careful in there. Someone obviously heard us and tattled.”
Dak’s face was all scrunched up in pain or anger, or both. “This would make more sense if we were plotting against the captain, but we were talking about saving him. I guess the Amancio brothers have allies everywhere.”
“We should’ve bee
n more careful,” Sera repeated in a deadened whisper.
“I’ll say,” Riq replied. “I rest my eyes for one minute and you two go and botch the whole mission.” He gingerly prodded his swollen temple. “I guess there’s nothing for it but to use the Ring to get out of here, then warp back in. Assuming you haven’t mislaid it.”
“No, I haven’t mislaid it,” Sera said bitterly. She pulled the Infinity Ring out of the satchel, happy that she’d kept it on her while sleeping — and that Eyeball clearly hadn’t expected it to hold anything of value. “But we can’t just hop around with it. It’s out of the question.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Dak. “That’s our ace in the hole!”
“Do you want to do the calculations? Look, this thing doesn’t just move us around in time. It lets us travel through space, too. Every time we use it, I have to input global coordinates — while compensating for the rotation of the Earth, the Earth’s orbit around the sun. . . .”
“So you’re saying you can’t figure it out,” said Riq.
“I’m saying that there’s no way I can transport us back onto a moving ship. So unless you want to end up in the Atlantic Ocean circa August 1492, we need another plan.”
“We need to break out,” Dak said, as if he’d just announced he needed to use the bathroom. “That’s it.”
“No problem, right?” Sera said. “Just break on out. Okay, go ahead and do it.”
Dak frowned at her. “Don’t be a smart aleck. I’ll come up with something.” He leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes.
“I’m sure you will,” Riq muttered. Impossibly, he was snoring a minute later.
“What a weirdo,” Dak said. “He could sleep on the tip of a weather vane.”
Sera smiled sadly, and looking at her best friend, everything going down the drain, she thought of his lost parents. “I’m so sorry about your mom and dad.”
Dak seemed surprised, but grateful. “Thanks. I just . . . I just hope we can figure this out and maybe help them.”
“Yeah, me, too.” She thought of her Remnants, and how they might stop if they pulled off a miracle and managed to fix all the Breaks. Again, she wondered if it was better not to have them, or to at least hold on to those pseudo memories. Either way, she felt like she lost.
She sighed and put the Infinity Ring away, then tried to get comfortable. Maybe her mind would work better after a long nap.
She woke up later to the sound of rattling metal.
Dak was shaking the prison door back and forth, the iron hinges squeaking and squawking against the wood. But the door only moved about a half an inch in each direction. It was obviously doing no good.
“Chill!” Riq yelled at him, scrambling to his feet. “You’ll rip your own arms off before you get that door open.”
Dak took a step back. “Just wanted to get my mid-morning workout in. We’ve gotta figure out a way to get this thing open. And is anyone else in the mood to upchuck with the boat bobbing up and down like this? Blech.”
“It’s probably worse being down here where we can’t see outside,” Sera said. She stood up to join him, examining the chain and lock, then the bars that went from floor to ceiling with a gap of only a couple of inches along the bottom and top.
“It doesn’t look very promising,” she said. “But the three walls are made out of wood — maybe we can do something with that.”
They each took a wall and started inspecting. Sera crawled along the back one, which she assumed was part of the ship’s hull because of its slight curve and dampness. As soon as she had that realization, she stopped — it wouldn’t do much good to escape into the ocean and sink the ship while they were at it.
“I might’ve found something,” Dak announced.
Sera had just turned to see what he meant when there was a sound of hands and feet scuffling down the ladder. She looked to see Ricardo jump down the last few rungs and land solidly on his feet. He ran over to the cell, his face tight with worry.
Sera and the others rushed forward to talk to him.
“What’s going on?” Dak blurted right before Sera almost asked the same question.
“They’re gonna kill me if they catch me down here,” Ricardo said through heavy breaths. “But I needed to tell you something. We found the kid who ratted you guys out and made him spill everything. He said that when the Amancio brothers were told about you . . .” He stopped and his face grew pale.
“What?” Sera pushed.
Ricardo swallowed. “They ordered you be killed tomorrow morning.”
“DEAD BY morning. Just in time to get rid of us before their big mutiny,” Riq said.
Dak knew that he should be terrified — that he should go curl up in a corner and bawl his eyes out. But the immediate threat did something else to him — it made him realize he couldn’t waste one more second feeling sorry for himself or it’d be over for everyone.
“What’re we gonna do?” Sera asked. She looked at him and her eyes were hard. She knew the stakes.
Dak tried to clamp down on his panic. “Okay, Ricardo. Get out of here before they catch you. Sneak around and see if you can find us some weapons. Anything we can use to stop this from happening. Hide them where you can get to them later. Then you need to talk to every person you can trust — anyone loyal to Columbus. You’ll have to use your judgment. Don’t give out too many specifics, just in case. But we need to act tonight, as soon as the crew is asleep. Have people ready.”
“At least now you know we were telling the truth,” Sera said to Ricardo. “The Amancio brothers obviously want to silence us.”
The boy nodded. “I’ll do what I can up there. But what about you guys?”
Dak grinned — no one else knew about the discovery he’d made right before Ricardo had dropped in on them. “Don’t worry. We’ll be there to help.”
“Now go!” Sera yelled.
Ricardo ran to the ladder and shot up the rungs.
“That’s it?” Sera asked. “For the love of mincemeat, that’s your grand escape plan?”
“You got something better?” Dak pulled on the board again, felt it give an inch or so. It ran along the bottom of the wall between their cell and the one next to it, and if they could pull it all the way free, he thought maybe they’d be able to get another board loose, too. Just enough to crawl into the next cell — which was unlocked.
“No, I don’t,” Sera responded as she gave the wood her own tug. “But this thing seems pretty solid, loose or not.”
“Let me try,” Riq said, already gently pushing Sera aside. “You kids don’t have fully developed muscles yet.”
Dak felt he had to say something back to preserve his dignity. “Well . . . you don’t have a fully developed brain, so I guess we’re even.”
“Good one,” Riq said blankly.
“Yeah, good one,” Sera added.
Dak smiled as if he’d meant for his comeback to be lame. “All right, tough guy, show us how manly you are and pull that thing free.”
Riq tugged and tugged, but the board didn’t move any more than it had for the others. Dak almost felt elated, until he realized this was their only chance of escaping certain death.
He sighed. “We’ll just have to keep working at it. Take turns so our fingers don’t fall off.”
“Looks like we have all day,” Sera said.
Riq kept yanking on the stupid board.
Three hours later, the piece of wood had come loose another inch. It had started to make an ugly screeching sound with every pull, and Dak’s head was aching from the noise. They shifted turns about every ten minutes, but it was starting to seem hopeless.
At one point while Dak was working on it he heard the sound of someone coming down the ladder and he had to jump away from the wall in a hurry
. It was Eyeball, carrying a loaf of bread and a small pail of water. Two guards were with him, looking utterly bored out of their minds.
“Here you go, you louses,” Eyeball said. “I was tempted to let you starve until we threw you overboard, but me softer side shone through. I’m a beacon of light, I know.”
One of the guards keyed open the lock and pulled the chains loose. Eyeball stepped forward and threw the bread inside — Riq caught it. Then the man set the small bucket of water on the floor.
Dak tensed, seriously considering hurling himself at Eyeball. But the armed guards made him think twice.
“Eat,” the man said. “Nothin’ more tasty in this world than bread and water. Don’t you fret now — we’ll be enjoyin’ a nice rabbit stew in the captain’s hall.” He smiled and winked his one eye. “Lock ’em in.”
The guard repositioned the chains around the bars, pulled the links tight, then locked them in place. The three men disappeared up the ladder.
Dak was the first to the water, dying of thirst. He picked up the pail with both hands and drank steadily for ten seconds.
“Hey, save some for us!” Sera yelled. “And what about germs?”
Dak smacked his lips and let out a satisfied sigh, then handed the water to her. “Serious? Germs?”
“I was just kidding.” She took her own long gulp.
“That was the most glorious thing I’ve ever tasted,” Dak said.
Riq divvied out the bread and they wolfed that down, too. And then it was back to work on the stubborn board.
By the time evening came — which they could only guess at because they were far from any sign of the sky outside — they’d given up. Dak sat against the opposite wall and stared at the board that would bend but not break. He didn’t speak, and neither did anyone else. The depressed mood was almost like a living thing — a monstrous, invisible creature that shared their cell, sucking the life out of them.
They’d have to rely on Ricardo now. Dak and the others could use the Infinity Ring to escape to another time and place, hoping that their warnings would be enough to spark a mutiny against the mutiny. Riq had figured out where they needed to go next. Sera had programmed the Ring for a quick exit. But Dak hated that idea, hated it. He didn’t even want to know where they were going next. They’d come here to do a job — trusted by the Hystorians — and if they failed . . .