Free Wake of the Perdido Star by Gene Hackman Page A

sails and hauling what would seem to any landlubber a hopeless tangle of lines about the deck. There was obviously some arcane design to their effort, but even after all this time it eluded Jack. He noted that Paul was livelier on his perch today and the young man even started making eye contact, as if working on some inner resolve concerning Jack.
    Suddenly, Paul stood and began taking a circuitous route around the busy seamen, in Jack’s direction. He ventured a smile. “I decided to not go over the side, you see.”
    â€œAye, you even look like you could be mistaken for a human being.”
    â€œIndeed. The cook let me take a pot of hot water to the scupper during that last squall and I devised a bath from the rainwater, followed by a warm rinse.”
    â€œAnd the clothes?”
    â€œThe cooper and bosun rounded me up some discards that work well enough.”
    â€œWell, it’s easier talking to you—I mean with your not being dead and all . . . What do you think of Habana?”
    â€œIt’s a balm for the soul. Hard to stay wrapped inside yourself when there’s a world like that out there.”
    â€œYes,” Jack said. “It’s night and still hotter than hell’s hinges, but the place seems to not slow down when the sun drops.”
    â€œThere are lights everywhere. I trust that music I hear isn’t coming from my own head.”
    â€œNo, indeed, me hearty. It’s coming from one of those drinking establishments where there are beautiful, dark-eyed ladies who don’t even know the resurrected Paul Le Maire has arrived. Aye, arrived to rescue them from their otherwise dreary lives.”
    Paul grinned. “It’s thoughts like that will make a person almost forget their troubles. When, think you, will the skipper let us ashore?”

    â€œI believe there’s inspections and quarantines that have to take place. Might be a couple of days, then they’ll start lightering the passengers and cargo. Don’t know about human flotsam picked up along the way, though. Might be weeks before they let you on shore.”
    For the first time Jack heard a chuckle from his new acquaintance. Paul was coming alive and there was something in the fellow that Jack liked. He had a seriousness and intensity in his manner, offset by a twinkle in his eye, an eye that seemed to see the world in different shades of irony.
    For the next three days, anchored tantalizingly close to land, the young men passed the time together, watching self-important officials strut about their ship and accept bribes from the officers. This ritual was usually followed by the crew hauling batches of cargo topside for unloading. Hides, tallow, whale oil, and what appeared to Jack to be machined tools and hardwood lumber all made their way out of the hold. The trade goods seemed to be released in increments more in proportion to the silver flowing under the hastily erected documents table than over the top, for payment of duties and port taxes. The latter, formal transactions, were accompanied by duly witnessed scratching of quills and impressing of wax seals on stiff parchment, first by the ship’s captain, then the mustachioed Spanish port officials.
    Standing at a respectful distance, Jack and Paul were unsure of the particulars of the transactions, but obviously the ship’s manifest and what it actually carried in cargo were two distinctly different things. As Paul opened up to Jack during these days of bureaucratic captivity, Jack felt he was watching a fine instrument being unpacked from a sawdust-filled crate. Paul carried a source of knowledge and information hard to credit in one of so few years.
    The night before they were finally given leave to disembark, a simple remark by Jack regarding one of the patterns of stars that looked like a sort of wide W started Le Maire on a soliloquy regarding “a celestial seat for Cassiopeia’s shapely derriere,” and a
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