CHAPTER 6
Under the canopy, where it was noticeably cooler, Smith, the ladies and Will spent the next couple of hours conserving their strength. The Doctor continually dozed for brief snatches of time, often awaking with a start, not relaxing until he realized he was unharmed. He'd repeat the process once again, only to jump and startle himself.
Inspecting his crudely bandaged hands, Maureen seemed satisfied that there was no infection. "Water, Doctor?" she asked when he awoke yet again.
"Thank you, madam. Much appreciated." He swallowed a few sips of the clear tepid fluid and willed his stomach to cease its incessant cramping. "You have no idea what I would give for some Ibuprofen right now. Come to think of it, you have no idea how much I wish we were aboard the Jupiter 2 right now!"
Maureen smiled at the slight slip. Smith almost never included them in his plans. It felt slightly comforting to hear it even if his wish was, as they used to say on Earth, a 'pipe dream' at the moment.
"I couldn't agree with you more, Doctor," she admitted with a hearty sigh. "Unfortunately, as you well know, I don't have our medical kit."
Knowing what was expected of him, Smith moaned loudly, "Oh the pain, the pain of it all!" Then, seeing Will grinning at the familiar routine, he added for effect. "I shall never survive this. You hear? Never!"
Unfortunately for him, the leader was also aware that he was recovering and signaled to a guard who promptly dragged Smith roughly to his feet, shoved him down the walkway and dumped him back beside his previous benchmate. His manacles were re-threaded to the main chain, then he was left to sulk at his predicament.
The alien beside him intentionally avoided looking at him. Instead he lay his head across his arms, which rested above the oar, and attempted to nap.
When the wind died, the sails were tied up and the booming cadence resumed. Everyone knew the routine by then. Even Smith.
The pace was steadily increased until all the oarsmen were sweating and grunting with the effort.
"My back is a disaster area today! " Smith howled yet again to no one in particular but he was wise enough not to shirk his job.
"So what else is new!" Don spat back irritably.
"My head is a disaster area today!" the Doctor added, for a change of pace. Though Don didn't know it, that was the truth. "Oh sadness, oh sorrow. A man of my years, forced to labor like a common criminal!" His voice began to carry but apparently he didn't care. He was going through his verbal paces if for no other reason that to take him mind off the real pain, as nerve endings were screaming at him from ever inch of his body.
Too tired to comment, Don let it slide. But despite his breathlessness, Smith was in rare form.
"I refuse to do this anymore, do you hear?" he shouted at the guard who scowled nastily at him.
Nevertheless, Smith continued to pull at the oar. His T-shirt was once more soaked with sweat and plastered to every curve of body. His tanned complexion was turning ruddy with rising ire.
"Sustenance! I must have nourishment or I'll perish!" The guard turned toward him. Not that Smith cared at that moment. He was on a roll and seemed totally oblivious to the consequences.
His benchmate sharply elbowed the Doctor's ribs and Smith whooshed out his pain before turning an evil eye on his companion.
"Do your worst," he spat at the alien, the sharp edge to his words unmistakable. "All 206 bones in my body are already fractured!"
Another shot to the ribs. Another drag on the wooden oars that never seemed to cease their motion.
Smith faced the alien and stated in his most haughty tones. "Did you know there are 656 muscles in the human body, and right now every last one of them is aching. Not that you care. Whatever passes for gray matter in that thick cranium of yours, is probably too mashed up to realize the predicament we are all in."
The creature didn't know what to make of the speech. Whether from realization that he was being insulted or simply because he was fed up with hearing Smith's voice, he tried another elbow jab to illustrate his dissatisfaction.
At that moment the oars were on their way back toward them and just as the creature aimed that elbow, Smith let loose of the oar and hurled his body as far back as he could without actually landing in Don's lap. The chain drew taut, suddenly yanking the alien forward. The creature whiplashed forward, lost his grip and bashed his forehead on the oar.
"I don't believe it!" John gasped aloud, shocked at the mere sight of the doctor actually lashing out at someone. And he cringed. Because he knew what was coming next. Sure enough it happened.
The creatures green crest bristles flared so far apart that it appeared as if each hair was repelling the other. The virtually non-existent black lips curled upward and those awful fangs seemed to jut forward. His mouth opened and he sprang at the Doctor.
To the human's viewing the scene, they figured Smith was a goner. But to their utter surprise, he lunged forward, practically throwing his body across the oar, thereby dragging whatever loose chain there was with him. Not suspecting this, the alien fell sideways onto the bench, bashing his bony temple against the hard sea-stained wood.
"Smith! Are you crazy?" John shouted trying to intersperse himself between the two combatants, knowing full well who would come out the loser in this contest.
"Insane, Professor. Stark raving mad, loony, cracked, demented, and berserk." And he punctuated the last word with an elbow shot to his opponents nearest eye.
Why the guards had completely ignored the exchange, John couldn't say, except perhaps that they found the scene amusing or interesting. A way to break the monotony perhaps. Clearly they knew when it was time to step in and they chose that moment to do so, with several whips hissing and cracking against unprotected skin. Alien and human rounded on the guards, both too incensed to really ponder the depth of their danger.
Pushing John and Don back, two guards got between Smith and his benchmate and physically yanked them apart as far as the chains would allow. The leader, grumbled loudly under his breath. The words emanating from the translator's interpreted them as innocuous nouns and adjectives but John suspected they were probably the colloquial forms of curse words. He gestured to the alien beside Smith and that being was switched to another seat.
The new companion chained beside him was clearly older and less combative. He probably did think Smith was crazy because he cringed away from him. Ordinarily incredibly pompous, Smith might have played his advantage to the hilt, terrorizing the creature for the sheer thrill of dominating another person more fearful than himself. But Smith's glassy eyes told the story. In those preceding moments, he hadn't been acting purely out of anger or spite but from something far more primitive.
The leader stalked over to him, leaning over, his crest fluttering in agitation. The glazed look faded from the Doctor's eyes. Fear leaped afresh. "Stranger. You are quickly becoming more trouble than you are worth. I thought I could make a huge profit on you all, because a king would pay handsomely for such oddities as yourselves. But if you cause anymore dissention on this vessel, I promise you, your hacked up body will be soon digesting in the belly of 'S'jria'.
Smith's angry ruddiness instantly drained to a sickly pallor and he shrunk in on himself as much as possible while still continuing to pull at the oars. Terrified, he kept his eyes down on his chaffed and bleeding wrists which strained against the manacles.
As soon as the leader was a safe distance away and the guards eyes weren't upon them, Don heard Smith hiss, "Major, when I suggested a sea cruise for our next vacation, this was most definitely NOT what I meant!
"Shut up!" Don and Robinson said in unison and to their surprise Smith did just that.
That night, all the prisoners were allowed to eat then sleep, chained in place, released only to answer the call of nature. Heads cradled on arms covering the oars, most of them collapsed into the stuporous sleep of total exhaustion. Smith snored softly and trembled from time to time as if reliving the days events in his nightmares. Don tried to kick him under the bench to make him quiet up but all he succeeded in doing was barking his shins on the bench. The jolt did stir the Doctor but only for a moment.
Soon the other two men realized that Smith's noises were definitely preferable to the rasping, rhythmic snorts of the other sleeping members of the ship. Sleep elusively evaded them for a couple of hours before they too dropped into a nearly comatose state.
The next day brought overcast skies and more of the same arduous, routine tasks. Water, a light meal of hard biscuits, the meat jerky and some fruit were brought to them all by the women and then the drums began their seemingly endless cadence. Within a few hours, the sun was already hotter than the day before. Smith's strength was clearly flagging. Every muscle in his body was swollen from unaccustomed exertion and periodic cramping. John could see the signs of suffering. Hunched shoulders and narrowed eyes. The clenching of jaw muscles reflecting each fresh spasm of pain as it flared out from every part of his body, the tight lipped stoicism, because complaining would do no good. Robinson recognized them only too well because, as strong as he was, he too was feeling the effects of this torturous trip.
The Doctor didn't waste his breath for foolish chatter. The heat was getting to him again and he knew his brain was going to be permanently damaged if he succumbed to another bout of heat prostration so soon after the first. Within the first twenty four hours, he had picked up two words. The first was 'water'. The second 'food'. He knew there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that they'd give him something to eat but hope sprang eternal about the water issue. Desperate enough to accept a whack of the whip if it earned him a ladle of water, he called out the word.
The nearer guard, scar-face, gave him an irked look but surprisingly, relayed the request. The leader gestured from the bow of the ship. Smith's heart began to beat in anticipation as well as relief.
The water arrived alright...in a huge deluge of freezing cold seawater, raining down on his body. As soon as it stopped, he glanced over his shoulder and saw a hugely grinning guard with a bucket in hand.
"Well, at least I can keep cooler this way," he reasoned to himself, trying to find some good out of the situation.
Apparently the aliens thought this was prank was hilarious, as well as beneficial to this pitifully weak human, so they proceeding to douse him with a bucket full of water about once every half an hour or so. Sometimes it was the sneak attack and at other times they'd march over and with much fanfare, they'd slow upend it over his head in a slow stream.
Looking like a filthy, bedraggled cat, Smith bore this stoically, reminding himself that at least he was the only one not ready to drop from the heat and humidity. From sheer fatigue yes, but not from the heat. Besides, that, the leader had determined that the humans were not as adaptable to this form of work without more frequent water breaks so he allowed Judy or Maureen to attend to that need. In this manner they staved off dehydration and managed to refortify their stamina somewhat.
When a stiff wind kicked up, the sails were unfurled and the crew was allowed a respite from their labors. West and Robinson stretched their incredibly stiff muscles, not bothering to hide the groans of discomfort. Smith, however, hunched over the oars, in seemingly somnolent repose. Booting the seat, they got the Doctor to stir briefly, long enough for him to grumble, "These lodgings are deplorable and the ghastly cuisine would make a billy goat ill. I really must lodge a formal complaint with the management when we land."
"You just do that," Don said, shaking his head and smirking.
"Same old Smith," added John in a whisper, for once not minding the comments because, given the circumstances, that critical spirit was actually encouraging news. The truth was that he had no desire to drag an emotionally broken man through the forest during their escape... provided that opportunity presented itself, he amended morosely.
He was too wrapped up in his own thoughts to notice the low murmuring of many voices around him. In fact, he didn't hear them until the pitch of those voices became more strident. He turned to look at them...and found many orange eyes gazing fearfully skyward. It was then that he noticed the dark wall ahead of them, on the horizon. A storm, he surmised. And judging from the alien's reactions, this wasn't going to be pleasant for anyone.
The sails were trimmed immediately upon the leader's command and anything loose was dragged to a small hatch leading below deck.
In what seemed like minutes, though it was more likely an hour, the storm bore down on them with the ferocity of a herd of stampeding rhinos. Lightning highlighted the rolling clouds in flashes of glowing amber. Thunder vibrated through the stout wood of the vessel. Waves crested and crashed over the heads of guards and prisoners alike. Many of the stalwart, feisty prisoners were reduced to trembling masses of quivering flesh. They repeatedly cried out their distress and jangled chains that would bind them to the ship should it go down.
The vessel rose and plunged with each mounting wave. More water deluged them, clawing at them from below, trying to embrace the tiny ship to it's deep dark bosom. Maureen, Judy, Penny and Will had disappeared below, pushed there by the anxious guards. Some of the guards lashed themselves to the railings or the mast to keep from being swept overboard into the heaving seas.
White foam, tiny pinpricks of moisture, sailed through the air, assailing them with unexpected velocity. The ship pitched and yawed, almost capsizing on numerous occasions as the intensity of the storm escalated. Too tired and frightened to waste breath on screaming, the aliens clung to their oars as if the sheer power of that embrace would help keep them all afloat.
Smith was the first member of the Jupiter 2 crew beset by seasickness, though his human companions weren't far behind. Between bouts of sickness, they focused sharply on the swells of the waves, preparing to take that all important deep breath before the next wave smashed them down. Again and again, lightning blazed through the roiling clouds. Sheet rain pelted them like shards of ice.
From in front of them Don heard a rich but slightly off key baritone voice, singing... "Momma said there'd be days like this, there'd be days like this my Momma said, Momma said, Momma said..." and it was cut off as another bout of retching wracked the doctor's body.
The two men glanced at one another, wondering if Smith had finally cracked or if, in his unpredictable fashion, he was bolstering up his nearly nonexistent bravery through jaunty humor.
"Smith!" John howled above the screeching wind. "You okay?"
The Doctor's answer came drifting faintly back to them...the chorus of "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head".
"Oh brother!" muttered Don, before he too felt his stomach rising into his mouth.
"I'm so dizzy. My head is spinnin'. Like a whirlpool it never ends. And it's you girl makin' it spin. You're makin' me dizzy..."
John was tempted to command Smith to shut up, but instead, he told Don "Well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." And so, in the violent clasp of the storm, the three humans hurled their voices skyward, to pierce the heart of nature's assault. The precarious nature of their situation didn't diminish, but below decks the Robinson family occasionally caught distant refrains emanating from human throats and knew, that for the moment at least, their loved ones were still alive.
And then they felt it. The waves weren't rocking them as violently. The rain was slowing to a heavy drizzle. Then far ahead, a slice of yellow sky.
The miserable mass of muscle, bone and sinew had somehow managed to ride out the storm and many of the aliens were quickly thanking whatever gods they believed in for their unexpected luck. Perhaps the sea's embrace might have spared them years of hard laboring under a cruel taskmaster, but at that moment, they, like the humans, were too preoccupied by their good fortune to worry about the future.
As soon as the slashing wind finally died down, the unoccupied crew members set about repairing the damage done by the storm. The Robinson family was ushered from the dark haven and together they restrung the canopy. Dragging out heavy bucket, Will moved from oarsman to oarsman, doling out more of the jerky, while Penny followed along providing the fresh water. After a brief rest, the sail dropped into position and the vessel continued it's journey.
"You all right?" the Major eventually asked a too quiet Smith. Their reluctant stowaway had never acted so strangely before, nor was he inclined to keep silent unless he was sleeping, which certainly wasn't the situation at the moment.
"I? What ever made you think otherwise?"
Don cocked his head slightly and grinned. "Because you definitely fell off the deep end back there. I thought the shock had finally done you in."
Sitting up stiffly, Smith rounded on West with a haughty sneer. "Fiddledy Fie, Major. Did you think I feared our imminent demise for even a second? As I've said numerous times before-"
"-Never fear, Smith is here," West and Robinson finished in perfect sync.
"Too true!" the Doctor replied, jutting out his chin defiantly.
He was answered by an awful rendition of Don signing another oldie, carefully rephrased of course. "I am Smith, hear me roar. A blowhard too big to ignore..."
Don was tempted to go on, but the pained expression on Smith's face stopped him cold. Clapping him on the back, West finally admitted, "Okay. Your little trick kept us from giving up, I'll give you that much."
Later on, William returned bearing chunks of something that looked like pre-digested meat, and smelled like the food remnants still splattered across the deck. He gingerly handed it out to his father, Don and Smith. John, taking one good whiff, wrinkled his nose and inquired. "What is it?"
"The translator called it 'cheese' but I doubt it," his son replied, rolling his eyes. "I think they consider it a delicacy from the way they talked about it."
Smith didn't bother to hide his skepticism. "And why would we merit such special treatment?"
Leaning closer, as if he didn't want to be overheard, he told his father. "You know that singing you were doing?" As soon as John nodded, he continued. "Well, they think you were chanting to some unknown god and that god must've granted your ... uh..."
"Supplications?" Smith provided the word. When Will gave him a confused blue eyed gaze of query, Smith explained, "Entreaties. Earnest pleas."
"Yeah, I guess that's what they meant." Rolling his large blue eyes. "Can ya believe that? You out there singing those ancient tunes and they think you were working some sorta magic." This time he laughed at the thought of it.
"Ancient indeed," Smith snorted. That crude noise was followed by the growl of his stomach. Tentatively he reached out, breaking off a small chunk of the putrid 'cheese'. "Delicacy, hmm? I suppose if I could keep Zeno's 'usual' down, I can survive this." Despite the brave words, his hands trembled slightly as he guided a bit of it onto his tongue. John and Don instinctively backed up, anticipating a rather violent reaction.
Instead, Smith smiled slightly. "Delicious!" he proclaimed in surprise. Obviously delighted he popped the larger piece into his mouth. "Creamy, sweet. Granted it smells atrocious but the taste...absolutely exquisite. I certainly understand why they consider it a delicacy!" He stretched out a hand for another hunk of white and red bubbled cheese. Will tore one piece off, then gave the remainder of the food to his father and Don.
"Don't enjoy it too much, Smith," Don chastised. "Just because we are being rewarded means nothing. You'll notice they haven't set us free. Hardly honored guests."
Smith stopped mid-chew and pierced West with flashing blue eyes. "Any good treatment is better than none," he philosophized, and swallowed loudly. "Besides, if they think we are 'lucky' or blessed of the gods, they will be more inclined to protect us."
John's reply was cut off by the cry of an alien in the bow of the ship. "Antraca City," he yelled through cupped hands, then pointed forward and slightly to their right. Glancing in that direction, John saw craggy cliffs jutting up in the distance, and beyond that, whitish square protuberances, interspersed with emerald and maroon flora. As they drew closer, the oarsmen received the command to commence rowing. The city grew up before them...though John would have been hard pressed to call it a true city. It was comprised of a long pier, with additional wharves jutting out toward the sea. The single story crude buildings pushed back from the pier, up a slight hill, and outward in several directions.
Pulling a long orange curled horn from a chest, the leader blew out a long mournful resounding note. Seconds later he was rewarded with a similar greeting and suddenly the crew sprang to life, their pronounced crests fluttering with anticipation. Various rough boxes were being hauled up from below deck and stacked up in the center of the ship. Swirled long-haired pelts were tossed into bundles nearby. Other aliens awaited them on the shore and as soon as the vessel drew up alongside one pier, they were tossed two ropes, which they expertly used to tie down the ship. In short order the long chains were rewound, and each prisoner's shorter chain was unlocked. Still manacled, everybody was herded up onto the walkway.