Chapter 11: A More Defensible Position

I awoke some time later to a terrible prickling in my right leg. I'd been sleeping uncomfortably upon it, and in that position it had inexorably fallen into a state of the pins and needles. Resituating myself, I opened my eyes and inadvertently looked up. The Doctor was looking about him, his eyes patient, and held the gun at a slant, the nozzle supported upright by his left hand and the butt sitting in his lap. I then realized I was resting my head upon his shoulder, and I supposed it must have drifted there while I slept. I closed my eyes again without a second thought and, feeling as though under sedatives, I very willingly fell back to sleep.

I awoke again to the sound of the Doctor's voice pulling me from my subconscious. He whispered to me somewhat urgently, and I stirred slowly, my eyelids feeling indomitably heavy. At that moment I felt four tentative fingers slide gently across my face. This awoke me quickly, for it stirred something inside me I'd never quite felt before, and I lifted my head hurriedly off his shoulder. When the Doctor saw that I was awake, he took his hand away and quickly and hesitated. "I'm…" he floundered for a moment. I stared at him intently, and he swallowed. "I'm sorry…" he said, and then added, "…to wake you, Captain, but I can hear someone coming; I'd like for you to be awake… just to make sure."

I sat readily in a moment, still feeling as though under some sort of tranquilizer, and looked about dizzily for whatever was making this audible advancement.

There were indeed clumsy rustles from distant foliage, and I wondered if Silver and the others had found us before Jim Hawkins had had a chance to find a better position. Then it occurred to me that they might have found Mr. Hawkins and captured him already, and they were now here simply to pick up the rest of the pieces. However, there a came a hailing voice from a near distance that sounded reassuringly like Jim's, which was then accompanied by another voice of which I could not supply recognition. The Doctor stood, and out of the foliage came Jim Hawkins and Silver's morph, followed by a little copper metal man jumping round behind him.

"Jim! You're here! Thank goodness; are you—" the Doctor began, but Mr. Hawkins waved his hand dismissively.

"I'm fine, Doc, listen: I found this really great place to hide for a while. It's back there…" and Jim turned and pointed in the direction he'd come. The robotic man accompanying Jim stood fidgeting beside him gleefully. I stared at him for a moment with narrowed eyes, and he took notice of me and waved like a child. The Doctor looked down at the odd mechanical man. The copper robot looked up at the Doctor, waved stiffly, and then leaned to Mr. Hawkins and whispered loudly, "Ah, Jimmy—Jimmy, aren't you gonna introduce me?" and then straightened. Jim looked dully at the Doctor. "Doc… he comes with the hiding place. Booby prize. His name's B.E.N. B.E.N, this is the Doc."

B.E.N took the Doctor's hand and rigorously shook it. "That's 'B.E.N.' for Bio Electronic Navigator-- Me n'Jimmy here are getting to be the best of buddies, ain't we, Jimmy?"

Mr. Hawkins nodded wearily.

I smirked at Jim's disposition toward the Navigator. It was slowly dawning on me that our B.E.N was much older than he was really acting. A hundred years ago, Bio Electronic Navigators were designed to have distinct personalities, as though they were another sailor. The prototypes for Navigators today are programmed much simpler, with hardly more than a capacity to navigate precisely and communicate in intelligible language with their commanders. But from B.E.N's obvious programming, I concluded with impressed astonishment that the little robot was a Navigator built one hundred years ago. I wondered fleetingly and humorously if B.E.N had known Captain Flint.

Jim noticed me and wiped his face, made to tap B.E.N on the back of his head for his attention, and instead fumbled for a place at the top of the android's head. I noticed here that B.E.N was missing an entire portion of his head—the memory, it looked to me—but B.E.N seemed unaffected and granted Jim a kind of childish attentiveness. Jim said, "And that's the Captain. Captain, this is B.E.N."

B.E.N hurried with hand outstretched to shake mine, but the Doctor quickly stopped him and remarked, "Ah… she's in a temporary state of recuperation, B.E.N. You can shake her hand later."

"Pleasure to meet you anyway, Captain!" B.E.N assured me, coming to attention and saluting. I nodded my head in his direction and forced a smile.

"Where is the hideout, Jim?" the Doctor asked. Jim's hand crept to the back of his head and he admitted quietly, "It's kinda' far… but it's a great place to hide. We're gonna hafta' follow B.E.N to get there again; it's where B.E.N lives, he knows where to go."

The Doctor took a deep breath, and turned to me. "Captain…? Can you stand?"

My dignity flew back into my face. Because of my injury, my slumber, and the Doctor's reassuring aid, I'd forgotten all about it-- now it flared again and I placed a hand upon the thwart I'd been resting upon to push off of. "I feel certain," I replied.

I did make it to a stand, but didn't feel sure enough on my feet to take my hand from the longboat's support. My side was beginning bitterly to object, and I again felt foolish and dependent, and wished that the Doctor's sling had never come into creation. I tried my balance by taking my hand off the longboat, felt secure enough, took a step, and nearly lost my balance, for the shock of the knife in my side, a pain that I hadn't felt for some time, stiffened me so that I had to stop and involuntarily clutch my side. I looked at the Doctor for a moment, frustrated and defeated at the same time, and he approached me.

His face came close to mine and he looked me in the eyes. "Does your side still hurt?" he asked in a gentle whisper. I looked back at his eyes, again senselessly distracted by them. Since I had stopped moving altogether, the pain was indeed beginning to subside, and I blinked deliberately to break the tight lock our eyes had forged and glanced down. "Only a little," I told him stiffly. He nodded professionally at this and shifted his weight, buckled over, and in one decided sweep I had been scooped into his arms, one arm tucked securely at my upper back, and the other supporting my legs at the back of my knees. I swung both my arms about his neck instinctively and stared at him, flabbergasted. He returned my gaze, eyebrows lifted, as if expecting me to begin a casual conversation with him. I nearly hissed, "Are you insane?"

He shook his head. "Just concerned," and he turned to face Mr. Hawkins and B.E.N once again. "Lead the way, B.E.N. We're ready now."

The Doctor proved a steady ride. I had settled almost comfortably in his arms long before we reached the automaton's home, and will own that I slipped in and out of consciousness. I had bouts of heavy sleep, during which I had strange and elaborate dreams, mostly very vivid, in which I was flying, or at home with my family as a child, or somewhere very dark, listening to the gentle beating of someone's heart. And then there were times when I was awake, but disoriented. I can vaguely recall at one point asking where Arrow was. But there were nightmares dominantly, all terrible; I remember being chased by some unknown danger, and not being able to run because I couldn't breathe. I would dream the pirates found us, and that they were going to leave us marooned on Treasure Planet. I dreamt at one point of a massive explosion, which blasted away something that I understood only intuitively to be extremely valuable.

And then I would snap awake and unfailingly find myself in the Doctor's arms, secure, supported, and unfaltering, and my panic rendered from the nightmares would slip away. I could hear the Doctor's heart beating; my head was propped against his chest, for I had dropped my arms from about his neck some time ago. There would be no immediate danger in our midst, no sign of burden or enemy, and I would inadvertently drift to sleep again, to once more brave my tumultuous subconscious.

I awoke in the early evening feeling slightly better and much more in command of myself. My side was bluntly throbbing, but cost me no painful discomfort, and soon I heard the copper robot shout enthusiastically, "There it is, everybody! Ya like it?"

And slowly we made our way up the sloping hill leading to B.E.N's home. I lifted my eyes to the doorway, which was like the mouth of a cave, still elevated above me at the top of the knoll. The structure was not much more familiar a landmark than the alien trees and shrubbery that lined the surface of Treasure Planet, and with so many strange surroundings I suddenly felt oddly misplaced. I closed my eyes again and rested my head once more against the Doctor's chest, still for some reason feeling somewhat weary, and he shifted the position of his arm slowly and whispered, "Are you awake?"

"Yes, Doctor," I responded with a nod, without opening my eyes, and he said nothing more.

As we entered the formation I could hear the sound of the robot's voice chattering away about dusting more, and then a crash made itself audible and I opened my eyes to see that he had knocked away a chess board and its pieces from a small table, which had uncovered a pair of oversized, polka-dotted undergarments that he abashedly hid from view behind him. I closed my eyes again indifferently.

"Awww," the little robot began again, and cooed, "Isn't that sweet?"

I was thinking to myself just how laughably indifferent to the Navigator I was when, unexpectedly, I felt myself lowered back upon the ground. I opened my eyes again as the Doctor laid my head gingerly upon a small, cold metallic dome rising up from the floor, and the copper man commented sweetly, "I find old-fashioned romance so touching, don't you?"

The Doctor looked up quickly.

The robot was gone and came back again, carrying a trey of cups with motor oil in them, and offered genuinely, "How 'bout drinks for the happy couple?"

The Doctor took one look at the oil and grimaced, covering it quickly with a forced smile, and replied politely, "Oh! Ooh, ooh… no, uh, no thank you, we— we don't drink…" and he removed his coat cautiously, "…and, er… we—we're not a couple." He smiled at me, and I blinked slowly, smiling weakly in return.

The Doctor stared dumbly for a moment before clearing his throat, and commented on the markings imprinted upon the dome-shaped walls of the interior of B.E.N's cavern: they looked, was the Doctor's observation, remarkably like the ones on the map. B.E.N. listened intently, having put back his drinks, but I lay quite without attention to the Doctor's observations, all at once thinking of a surprise ambush or trap that our enemy might have prepared for us. I sat up and looked about, caught sight of Jim Hawkins standing near the door holding the gun, and coughed, "Mr. Hawkins, stop anyone who tries to approach—"

I had spoken. I remembered I was not supposed to as the knife in my side ran through my rib and I choked. The Doctor eased me back upon the metallic lump, accomplishing rolling up his coat into a bundle and placing it behind my head to rest upon. "Yes, yes," he told me sternly, "now you listen to me: stop giving orders for a few milliseconds," and he placed one of his hands upon my own, "and lie still."

I looked at him keenly, and smiled, my eyes narrowed. Speaking more carefully, I commented, "Very forceful, Doctor…" and then, softening a little, added, "Go on… say something else."

A careful smile spread sincerely along his face, and I couldn't help but notice that his gaze was almost affectionate. I very nearly called him on it, when I heard our automaton host shout jubilantly, "Look! There're s'more of yer buddies!" and he turned round and called to what I could only assume to be the pirates we meant to avoid, "Hey, fellas! We're over here!"

Sure enough, a volley of shots came blasting in at the little robot, and Jim Hawkins came speedily to his rescue, whipping the Navigator from the door and answering the shots with the flintlock. In a moment or two I heard the gruff voice of Silver, toned now with a thick overcoat of assertiveness and intelligence, angrily command for the gunmen to 'stop wasting their fire'. In the next moment he hailed our position with the same smooth, syrupy voice I was more familiar with, calling for Mr. Hawkins by the same nickname I'd heard since the first day of our voyage: 'Jimbo'.

"If it's, ah… all right with th' Cap'm…" he could be heard calling out as he made his way up the knoll, "I'd like… a short word witcha'. No tricks! Just a little palaver."

I scoffed contemptuously, leaning earnestly on my left elbow, which was a good ways from my side. "Come to bargain for the map!" I advised Jim bitterly. "Don't listen. Pestilential…" I tried to rise to a sitting position, but my side flared in objection, and I fell back against the small dome, letting a cry go without stifling. The Doctor placed his hands firmly on my right hand, and warned me urgently, "Captain…"

"That means," Jim was suddenly articulate, and the Doctor and I both looked up at him as he lowered his gun furtively, grinning, "that he thinks we still have it."

Thus it was arranged that Jim would reply to Silver's hail, and try to talk terms with him. The Doctor was to keep to the door with the rifle, seeing to it that he did not expose himself, and fire a shot should any danger to Jim be intended. And so Jim Hawkins went down the incline to speak with his former confidant, the morph pet trailing behind, leaving the Doctor by the door and me propped intently against the metallic rise and the Doctor's coat, while B.E.N waited with some obvious oblivion as to how dire this situation was.

We waited in unmoving silence for some time. Silver and Jim spoke low with one another, and the Doctor relaxed his grip upon the rifle after four or five minutes. Then, slowly, like a wave, their voices grew louder and louder, gaining in both tones intensity and anger. The Doctor tensed as their voices rose, until at last. Jim's voice shouted out over the trees something incomprehensible-- a sentence ending with the word 'map' and a mocking 'by thunder'. There was then a pause where they spoke low to one another again, until at last Silver's voice exploded, distinctly audible from where we were positioned in the structure: "…Either I get that map by dawn tomorrow, or so help me… I'll use the ship's cannons to blast ya' all to Kingdom Come!"

At which point in time the Doctor lifted the rifle fully to eyelevel and prepared to aim. I held my breath, but nothing happened, and the Doctor lowered his weapon again, and a few minutes later Jim reentered the cavern, despondent and quiet.

The Doctor dropped the rifle and looked Mr. Hawkins in the face. "Well…?" he asked, a little frantic. Jim sighed heavily, running his fingers slowly through his hair.

"We've gotta get the map back, Doc. …If Silver gets it first…we'll be in a lot of danger."

We all sat in a silence that seemed to press upon us the entire weight of Flint's trove.