Free Blow Me Down by Katie MacAlister Page A

game. What I needed was a piratey version of e-mail, some way I could get a message out to the real world.
    “There’s no other way, lass,” he said, giving me a surprisingly knowing look.
    “So you say,” I said slowly, racking my brain for any tidbits of knowledge about how computer games worked. Didn’t people always write something in called a back door, a secret way for the programmers to get in and access things? Maybe if I could find it, I could get out of the game . . . or at least contact the programmer. “But how do I know you’re telling the truth?”
    “How do ye know I’m not?”
    “Good point.” Dammit.
    “If it’s out of Turtle’s Back ye want, ye’re going to have to play the game.”
    Was he speaking of the game itself, or metaphorically? Hmm.
    He set the dagger down and went to a mahogany glass-fronted hutch to pour himself what looked like brandy. “I’ll have one of the men show ye the way about a ship tomorrow. Ye’ll be needin’ to sail to Mongoose to find Corbin.”
    “Mongoose?”
    “ ’Tis the island where he puts into port. Ye’ll either find him there, or skulking around its shores. Until ye’ve got yer sea legs, ye’re welcome to stay here with me.”
    “Eh.” I accepted the small tumbler of brandy he gave me without comment, absently sipping at it, enjoying the burn it made going down my throat. What was I going to do? I couldn’t kill anyone, not even in a game, but on the other hand, if doing so was the only way I’d get back to reality and my own life, how awful could it be? It wasn’t like Corbin was a real person, after all.
    My stomach turned over a couple of times at the thought. Quickly I set down the brandy and squared my shoulders. The situation couldn’t be as bleak as it appeared. I just needed to examine the circumstances fully, and another solution would be sure to come to me. “Thank you, but I’m staying at Renata’s. I would appreciate your help with the ship thing, though. As I said, I’m not much of a sailor.”
    Bart’s eyes smiled at me over the rim of the tumbler. “Ye will be, lass. Ye will be. To get ye started, I’ll loan ye a few men to help ye sail yer ship. Ye should be fine with three able-bodied seamen and a cabin boy, I think. Maggot!”
    I jumped at Bart’s sudden bellow, taking the chair he absently gestured to while he talked to his man. “Round up three seamen for the lass. And be that half-witted little mongrel still clamorin’ to be a cabin boy?”
    “Aye. Maltwise Sam threw him in the drink yester eve, but the bilge rat didn’t drown. He’s hangin’ around the gates, beggin’.”
    “Fetch him in. He’ll do for the lass, as well.”
    “Er . . . thank you. I think.”
    “Ye’ll note that I be bendin’ the rules for ye, m’dear,” Bart said as he poured himself another drink. “Maggot’ll be thinkin’ I’ve gone soft in the head, but I’ve an idea that ye’re worth the trouble.”
    “Oh. Thank you. I’m sure I am. That is, I appreciate everything you’re doing for me. Almost everything. That death order I could do without, but we’ve been over that—”
    The door opened to admit a small boy of about seven or eight, dark-haired, dark-skinned, covered from head to toe in filthy rags, mud, dirt, what smelled like manure, and no doubt a host of other things that I really didn’t want to identify. His right arm ended in a crudely fashioned metal hook. Perched on his scrawny shoulder was an equally dirty ratty black bird, wearing the same air of abandonment and squalor as was settled around the boy.
    “Scupper me,” Bart said, a look of profound distaste flickering across his face. “He be even worse than I remember. What’s yer name, lad?”
    The boy stood impassive, his face a dirt-encrusted mask of indifference. “Don’t got one,” he finally squawked when Maggot gave him a none-too-gentle shove of encouragement. The bird squawked as well, fluffing out his feathers enough for me to see that,