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Chapter 16: Doctor Doppler Takes the Jolly Boat

There was a silence as Meltdown watched the pirates leave, firearm cocked towards us threateningly, before he turned to the Doctor and me and growled in his broken English, "Any talking dat is done, you will get head blown off!" And he enthusiastically demonstrated, pointing the gun at his own head and issuing an interpretation of the sound of an explosion through his lips. He then flailed his arms about to signify that his head had been successfully blown off and that insides were thusly going everywhere. He then chortled loudly, turning round in his seat to leave us in our expected misery.

I let another pause go by before I struck up genially, "Jolly good of you, my man, to sacrifice your share of the treasure to keep watch over us for your mates."

The Doctor looked at me warningly.

Meltdown spun about like a top and faced me again, the flintlock held skyward at his side. "Whut?" he asked me, gruffly perplexed, as though he had thought of something he hadn't before and couldn't believe it. "Nothing," I continued spiffily, "Your large sacrifice for your pirate friends has simply occurred to me, and I wanted to be the first to praise you for it. It's admirable, I should think. I'm sure they are all thankful to you for it."

"Whut 'bout my shares?"

I smiled. "Your shares," I told him, as if he was already aware, "why, are the rest of the pirates' shares now. They'll take it, I've no doubt, and I've no doubt you already knew this. What an honorable thing to do, Mr. Meltdown! Someone had to stay and play sentry, and I think it a notable thing that you would sacrifice your share of the treasure and do that for them. I call that integrity, and you've shown a mighty amount of it this morning!"

Meltdown looked positively bemused. His head was spinning, and his eyes were writhing in their sockets like a man who had been betrayed by a lifelong friend. "My shares!" he shouted after a while, and I could see that a rage was broiling up inside him. "If dey takes my shares…!"

He got up and he stomped about, rocking the longboat violently with his impacts. The Doctor fell over on one side and wormed his way to the tip of the stern in a fit of terror as Meltdown's huge fists came down upon the bulwarks of the longboat and gave us a rather steep tip to starboard.

Meltdown's tantrum over his gold lasted a long while. He shouted and swore, stomped and kicked and cursed the crew, specifically cursing 'Cap'm Silver', for he felt certain that this was exactly what Silver had planned, and cursed Turnbuckle and Scroop for being so close to Silver, and then he cursed Birdbrain Mary, for he was certain that she'd be the first at his shares, and he supposed he might as well. When he had finished, he cursed them all around again, to make his curses doubly good and harder to be rid of, and then he collapsed at the tip of the bow, for he had quite worn himself out.

With the heavy, wheezing breath of the exhausted Meltdown still audible at the bow, I twisted round to look at the Doctor, who was sitting as far from Meltdown as he could. After a time, he slipped back towards me and sat down beside me. We sat for a little while in silence, listening to Meltdown catch his breath, until the Doctor whispered in a scold, "I thought he was going to kill you."

I smiled, a little softly. "No," I said. "I knew he would get too distracted about his gold."

"You knew?"

"Well… I felt it likely."

The Doctor situated himself a little on the longboat seat and sighed reproachfully. After another pause, he asked quietly, "Why did you tell him that if you knew he would get so angry?"

I looked at Meltdown, who looked at me, and who then looked away. "I'm disappointed…" I replied, leaning toward the Doctor and whispering quietly. "I had hoped that hearing that would send him after the rest of the pirates, and then we could take the longboat for ourselves and get back to the Legacy."

"Ah."

Meltdown then waved a hand at us with the monition, "I still blow heads off!" and he picked up his flintlock and waved it about as well. "Nobody talks except Meltdown!"

So, still imprisoned, the Doctor and I were silent again for a long time.

For the duration of that silence, Meltdown was quietly livid. He would grumble evilly at the bow, and pout, head in hands, and pick up his flintlock and grumble loudly, "If dey take my shares…" and with that he would hold the gun in his lap for a long time. Then he would get up and pace, and stretch, and laugh, and say, sometimes directing the statement unnervingly at me, "If dey take my shares…!" and he would ball a hand into a fist the size of a melon and beat it into the open palm of his opposite hand, and then he would sit down.

The rope around my wrists was beginning to hurt a little, as did my side if I sat in one position for too long a time. I would sometimes try to situate my position in the longboat, but Meltdown would have his gun whipped up again, pointing it at me, and I would immediately have to sit still again. His jealousy had not died down, and I was beginning to regret having made him so angry. But what was done was done, and I decided that I couldn't take it back, and that the Doctor and I would have to endure it, whether or not we ever were to successfully break free.

When my side was again beginning to get uncomfortable, I moved my shoulder a while to see if I could do nothing about it and yet keep still. I winced every now and again, and the Doctor leaned confidentially towards me and asked in a low whisper, "Are you all right?"

"My side is… bothersome… a little," I told him vaguely. "Are you uncomfortable?"

"Yes; my rear is asleep," the Doctor told me, and I chuckled a little, when suddenly Meltdown heard us at the bow and shot up angrily. "I told you I blow heads off! You are keeping the talk! Well, I fix dat!" And he hurried towards us and wrenched me up by the shoulder. "You will be sitting here now!" and he guided me roughly onto the seat behind the Doctor, so that we were back-to-back, with his hands touching mine. "Now," Meltdown said hotly, "Let's hear you talk like dat!" and he tromped back up to the bow.

The Doctor's fingers moved, brushing mine, as if in an attempt to comfort or encourage. I did nothing to respond to his touch, feeling somewhat ridiculous and foolhardy.

There was again a reigning silence that prevailed for a time, until finally, with alarming suddenness, Meltdown sprang from his seat and roared with frustration. "They are taking my shares!" and he stooped again among the firearms the pirates had left with him, and he began to grumble soberly, loading all the guns. We could hear him talking to himself: "No good, rottin' pigs, all 'ub'm! Let dem take the shares-- when dey comes back, I pick dem off with guns, an' take my shares and their shares back! Let 'em take my shares, I will be taking dem back," and he laughed uncontrollably, having loaded and checked the priming of all his weapons. He sat back again, serene at last after a long while, and, for a little while, he was silent, until he told the Doctor, "I pick you off, too, you two, since I am might as well. You see me pick off pirates, can't have you two witnessing alive." I felt the Doctor go rigid in a breath. I myself felt quite lost.

There was a silence again, except for the occasional laughter of Meltdown. That was daunting enough, to know that we were waiting there for the pirates to return, only to witness a massacre, especially since I was the one who had told Meltdown the initiating fib that they were going to steal his shares. I sat quietly, feeling rather nauseated, when a strange rumbling in the distance was audible among the trees. I heard it again and came to the conclusion that it might be thunder, but when I heard it a third time, I realized that the sound did not seem to roll from the clouds but from the earth, and the land trembled slightly when the rumble was audible. I strained my ears to listen, attempting vainly to make out what this new sound might be. Behind me, I felt the Doctor's fingers move again, brushing mine softly, warmly, the same caressing marble they'd been yesterday. I turned my head toward him involuntarily at the touch, and I was almost surprised to hear him begin to speak, in a tone that seemed nostalgic and apologetic.

"…All my life…" he began, and I turned my head a little more to listen, "…I dreamed of an adventure like this." I narrowed my eyes a little in mild confusion. It was not simply the fact that he had always dreamed of an adventure, but also that he was now on one and did not sound fulfilled that surprised me. For once I could not predict his motivation for speaking. "I'm just sorry I couldn't have been…" he continued, and turned his head toward mine remorsefully, "…more helpful to you."

I looked down at the floorboards of the longboat and reviewed his participation in almost determined resolution to prove he had been the most helpful thing that had ever happened to me. To my greatest relief, and indeed, in all actuality, he had been extremely helpful. Had he not been a help in navigation, when the map had not been opened? And had he not told me of the magilla so that we could use its energy to escape the black hole? And had he not been the one who helped me through my friend's death? He was also the one who did everything he could for me when my injury had reached a kind of climax. I realized at that moment, not without some astonishment despite my determination to prove it, that he had been an important asset to the expedition. And yet here he was, apologizing for having been useless. I shook my head. "Don't be daft…" I said quietly. "You've been very helpful… Truly."

His head turned away despondently, and I could feel him wring his hands behind him agitatedly for a moment before he took a breath and declared in agony, "I feel like such a useless weakling!" and I felt his hands whip away. I was prepared to ask him just how he'd gotten his hands out in front of him when his hands were bound behind him, when he added peculiarly, "…with abnormally thin wrists."

Now I intended to ask him just what he meant by that, when he placed his hands behind him again and unexpectedly addressed Meltdown. I shall own that I was rather favoring the assumption that the captivity and hopelessness of the situation had at last taken effect on him, but that proved not be the case; in fact, I am to this day extremely proud of the way the Doctor handled himself.

"Excuse me, brutish pirate," he said casually. At the bow, Meltdown was scratching himself, and in reply to the Doctor's address, belched loudly. "Yes, you," the Doctor allowed. I found myself going against my role, for I was not supposed to know he was up to something, so I turned my head quickly away. "I have a question," the Doctor continued, and at his next words I had to look up again in shock, for I was so startled by them, "Is it that your body is too massive for your teeny-tiny head… or is it that your head is too teeny-tiny for your big, fat body?"

Within no time at all Meltdown had covered the distance between himself and the Doctor and, lifting him off his seat by the collar and raising a fist, he said, quite insulted, "I pummel you good!"

"Yes, I'm sure you will," the Doctor agreed quickly, and I was again frightened by Meltdown's declaration that the Doctor would be harmed. "But," the Doctor added, "before you do, I have one more question." And before Meltdown could respond, the Doctor's hands came out from behind him and nabbed the pirate's gun from its holster. As he pressed the nozzle of the stolen firearm against Meltdown's belly, he asked sweetly, "Is this yours…?"