Free Run Afoul by Joan Druett Page B

keep to the same medication,” Dr. Olliver said. His expression, as he concentrated on filling his wineglass, was preoccupied.
    â€œIs that a problem?”
    â€œIndeed it is,” the naturalist said, frowning as he took his first sip. “I’ve only seven pills left, and, as you know, I’ve run out of Peruvian bark. Tomorrow we drop anchor, I hear, and it can’t come soon enough for me.”
    They were certainly close to port. When Wiki went out on deck it was to see land on the horizon, one immense peak with many little hills peeping up from either side of its bulge. In the last of the sunset, the mountain was deep purple, rising from a dark green sea. Cape Frio, he thought. It was the first indication of the port of Rio for those vessels approaching from the north, and a familiar sight from previous voyages.
    As he headed for the companionway, Wiki heard Forsythe, who was the officer of the deck, relaying Captain Wilkes’s orders to take in sail and prepare to lay to for the hours of dark. With the first light of dawn, he mused, the ship would put on all her canvas again, and proceed grandly into port. Provisions and fresh water were low, Captain Wilkes and his officers were anxious to know how the Peacock was faring, and the storeship Relief, sent on ahead many weeks ago because she sailed so slowly, had not been heard of at all. Getting to port would be a relief for everyone on board.
    When Wiki came back to deck at the start of the morning watch, however, it was to find that the wind had died. The glorious morning dawned, and they all waited for the customary sea breeze, but it failed to rise.
    The great peak of Cape Frio loomed over them, stealing whatever wind might come from the west. The sea was like shimmering satin, olive in color, with a deep swell that was not enough to break the surface, but made the motion of the ship uneasy. The sailors had spent the last three days preparing the ship to make a fine appearance in port—every glint of brass was burnished to a dazzle, deck planks scrubbed to the color of bone, deck furniture given yet another coat of varnish, bare patches in the rigging carefully touched up with tar—but now the watch did nothing but tend braces and haul up and down the courses for every trifling catspaw of breeze.
    To be so close to their destination and yet get nowhere was frustrating for all, but particularly for Dr. Olliver. Wiki watched him pace the decks, massive in form and yet remarkably light on his feet. At noon, when the junior midshipmen lined up along the rail with their sextants to take a sight of the blazing sun, he disappeared to tend to his patient. When Wiki followed, it was to find him crouched at the foot of the credenza with his great rump in the air, swearing as he groped beneath the dresser.
    â€œI’m down to the last three pills,” he announced, breathing heavily as he clambered to his feet. “And one of the bloody things rolled underneath.”
    Wiki cooperatively hunkered down, but couldn’t even see the lost pill, let alone retrieve it. A rat darted out from the darkest corner, and he flinched back and scrambled to his feet.
    â€œMaybe the rat ate it,” Dr. Olliver said gloomily as he sat down at the table. He filled his glass and drank it all, abandoning his usual ritual. Grimes was worse than ever, quite delirious, he said, and if they didn’t get to Rio within hours, he wouldn’t be responsible for the consequences.
    At four bells in the afternoon watch, a riffle of wind skipped over the tops of the waves. The weather leech of the main topgallant fluttered, and every man leapt to his station. The helm was put hard up, and the ship paid off, but then a flaw in the breeze brought her aback, and she was left hanging in the middle of the maneuver, with the canvas as straight up and down as ever.
    After that, the wind clung to the surface of the sea like a lover, undoubtedly affected by the great