“I love to travel, but hate to arrive.”
-Hernan Cortes
There was a subtle understanding among us that the afternoon before the second dinner would be the last window of opportunity to form lasting-alliances on deck. Conquistadors were keeping their heads down and “praying” when the zealot Captain was in sight like children obediently tucking their heads in bed when the prefect stepped into their room. Then, when all seemed satisfactory, he disappeared, leaving us men free to gather.
“I could care less about what the pen pushers within the brass blow up our asses, the King and our troops come first!”
Only Makachuk, being one of the most decorated veterans on the ship, would get away with such words on a boat full of Conquistadors besides being one himself, though there was more to his claim. His aim and language had a tendency to cut straight to the bone, yet everyone knew Makachuk’s younger brother Mooridore was proudly enlisted on the first campaign in the Checkered Brigade, which embarked sail among three other ships to the unknown isles across the Pacifico. The veteran honored us all with his presence, presenting a neatly-trimmed handlebar mustache, and his finest suit of armor which could stop those deadly home-made Blunderbusses so favored by criminals back in the mainland. The material of this particular set could resist the melting which conventional steel was prone to during prolonged exposure to steam, and it was kept in such good care that it blinded the crewmen when it threw the morning rays back at them.
Makuchuk addressed the lean, lanky comrade nearby us: “And what did you sign up on this voyage for, soldier?”
“What else but to get rich?” Lengir said, who was munching on pistachio seeds . He ate them in a rather unconventional way by popping the entire seed and shell into his mouth; cracking the shell with his molars, yet somehow eating only the fruit while spitting out the hollowed shells. Clitter clitter, went the empty shells onto the weathered surface of the ship deck. Confidence and a history of many battles survived enforced the candor of his reply.
“The New World is full of unplundered biomes and natural resources, enough precious metals and elements to not only provide Spania with more steam but perhaps an alternate energy resource...though that I would leave to the globe-heads.”
And then, Lengir added rather unconvincingly:
“And of course, we shall give back to the New World by bringing Universal Light to them.”
“If I may, Gentleman, we are there to bring them industry,” said Borion. “That is the greatest gift, far more profound than minute conflicts and religion.”
A man dressed in head to toe in protective clothing interjected himself into the conversation. He wore the iconic Globular helmet which all engineers who worked with steam wore to protect themselves from the long-term effects of exposure to steam.
This was Borion, who everyone had accepted as the authoritative engineer and tactless elocutionist who had the guns and field experience to back it up. He’s lucky the Captain whom we all inexplicably dubbed “The Headsman”’ wasn’t around to hear that comment- how he’d like to have hung the tinkerer by his wrists until the sea air and sun chapped his flesh to jerky.
“I have no illusions about these glorious claims appealing to a higher virtue,” continued Borion. “Just like I have no illusions about your personal, selfish reasons for risking your life for the Empire. At least Lengir’s first response about gold was honest. Imagine the glory that comes from dressing the aboriginals in clothing; to easen their hunter-gatherer way of life into agrarianism and steam. To clear their untamed jungles and canopies and erect monuments of engineering and prestige with our names on them. To bring institutions and economy to a world adrift in anarchy and isolation. Would history adulate us? Just as easily it can revile us, perhaps.”
Borion spread his arms theatrically, his eyes glimmering with excitement behind his multi-focal lens mask attachment on his helmet, which was mostly for show as it was only the second day and there was hardly any required maintenance.
“Surely…you don’t need to be a ‘globe-head’ to share this same awe and wonder at this realization: that we will all have a hand in physically, LITERALLY building the New World.”
His heretical grandeur and statement was met with silence.
“And you, Mathias?” Lengir spoke. “Why did you embark on this ill-advised campaign?”
With a pistachio seed still unraveling in his cheek, Lengir turned his scarred face at me, and I realized for the first time how cold and piercing his eyes were when meeting my own. He was less armored than Makachuk and even Borion. Coupled with his build, he appeared like he’d have engaged in assassin work like in myths of old.
I smiled disarmingly.
“I go to bring Universal Light to the New World.”
“That is a safe answer,” Lengir remarked, spitting out a Pistachio shell. “So you present yourself to us as a textbook Conquistador, who signed up exactly for what the pamphlets and radio declare we’d do.”
“I don’t like to share details about myself with people I’ve just acquainted with,” I said. “But if you must know, my father died an unbeliever.”
I could not read how this bit of information I offered was received by the men. Sensing the need to give a satisfying conclusion to my introduction, I continued,
“But I am not a single-minded zealot. I’m not the Headsman, and I’m no milk-boned priest. I’d be lying if I said I was not motivated to seek personal glory in serving the Emperor and assist in the growth of his borders, or that I am not motivated by riches.”
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For a moment, I interpreted the pale looks on their face as immediate disapproval of my words, but then I smelled the garlic on his breath before I could hear him. I turned to face the wall-like shadow of the Headsman, breathing down my neck.
“Compare me with a Milk-boned priest?”
Before I could say anything in defense, the Captain’s enormous hands grabbed my neck and shoulder in a submissive hold, as if I were livestock. I felt in those seconds why the Captain was dubbed the Headsman; my neck was going on the chopping block!
“I think you’d like to see how tough your bones are once hanging from the mast!”
The men whom I had been listening and partaking of their conversation swiftly scattered, as if they were never there. Barking swift commands to his closest Lieutenants, who in turn ordered their personal servants to action, the Headsman had me roughly bound by my wrists and hanging perilously from the lower sails, all while shouting obscenities and abusing the names of my ancestors.
“Your agony can’t even amount to a fraction His Son endured!” was the final remark offered by the Headsman as the rest of the crew headed below deck for dinner.
The ropes creak with the swaying of the ship, each bit of motion offering searing, burning pain on the flesh and long-term damage to the wrists themselves. A few minutes felt like hours as I heard the laughter and mischief occurring below deck, my lonely agony all but forgotten by the crew.
I recited invocations to the Matriarch perhaps a hundred times in an attempt to take my mind off the humiliation and torture. The pain must have really overloaded my senses for me to not have heard footsteps approaching me.
“Off to quite a start, eh?” I heard the gruff voice of Makachuk beneath me, who had appeared with a piece of bread from below deck. As a tall man he appeared to be addressing my toes, which dangled just a bit beneath his eye-level.
“Nevermind the fact that you lost face in front of the entire crew,” said Lengir, who appeared beside him. “But you’ve managed to get on the bad side of the captain, so he’ll be picking on you for the rest of the voyage.”
The man named Lengir had materialized beside Makachuk, with an entire bag of pistachio seeds bowled in his right arm. Makachuk glanced around him before looking oddly at Lengir.
“Where is that globe-head, and where did you get those and why?”
“In the kitchen, doing who knows what. And they’re mine. Fresh-roasted,” said Lengir, popping shell after shell into his mouth. “Just a few minutes ago for my consumption. I brought a personal selection of seeds that I can roast when no one’s in the kitchen. They won’t keep well on voyages, I’ll consider them my contribution to the New World if the soil proves ideal for growing them.”
Makachuk paused with a look of incredulity before before chuckling.
“And here I thought you were going to share some with our unfortunate acquaintance hanging up here!”
My seemingly dried-out mouth began to salivate and my eyes beamed in hope at these words from Makachuk.
“I think not,” said Lengir. “As Mathias said, he does not like to share things with men he just met. And as I said, they’re from my personal selection and for my enjoyment only.”
Lengir’s tone of voice was factual and indicated zero vindictiveness or scorn, as if he were listing axioms about above and below. I felt my heart sink to my stomach, which already felt like it was being squeezed through the soles of my hanging feet.
Makachuk stared at the bread in his hand for a few seconds with a thoughtful look. Then, his eyes grinning with conviction, he took a big bite out of the bread.
“Hmmm, I think this ought to be a lesson to our acquaintance here to not be a stranger to men he’ll be sharing a vessel with for twelve weeks, especially when our lives will depend upon each other during storm or naval encounters.”
“That is not the takeaway here,” said Lengir, spitting out a pistachio shell and looking me straight in my eyes from below. “You were given the chance to reveal your heart to us, but you chose the option to be a jack of all trades. Rather than confidently settle on one identity; which was going to be that of the devout Conquistador soldier, you sought a way out through diversity and ambiguity. You claim to share an interest in all domains which motivate a mercenary, as if you were a blank slate, which of course, by virtue of having lived to your age and earning the right to this voyage, you are not.”
Hunger and humiliation was nearing its peak. I took all of Lengir’s words quietly, my endurance at near limit. I just about passed out when the globe-head Borion stumbled after Makachuck and Lengir.
“Oh hey, you guys are about to tease that rube too?” He said, his arms draped with an assortment of fruits and sausages.
“We’re not teasing him,” Makachuk said. “And who said you can join us? You’ll be joining Mathias up there if the Headsman catches you taking that much food with you, engineer or not.”
“Oh gentlemen, please,” Borion said, biting into a juicy mango. “The fruit will go bad within days. Also, I believe we were having an interesting conversation. I believe we three can converse freely among ourselves, and such company is to be valued on a twelve-week voyage!”
It’s been about two days since we set sail away from the peninsula of Spania, drowned in its toxic fog which at the same time provided the magic that fueled our engineering and economy. We set sail to the New World so that we could bestow the uncharted lands the many gifts from our Empire of Spania, among them including but not limited to: the collective knowledge of recorded history; agriculture; supply and production; an updated concept of class and social structure beyond tribal castes; the concept of employment; coordinated symphonies, organized athletic events and fundraisers; the mathematics and magic behind cogs and gears; politics; firearms; automatons and dirigibles, all fueled by our precious yet damning steam.
The trio’s prediction for me became true: I was mercilessly picked upon by the Headsman and his henchmen, and the crew quickly learned to shun me. For the rest of the eleven weeks, I was to be bad luck on two legs for the duration of the trip. Many times I caught myself staring at the sea during its calmer temperaments and wondering how it would feel to become one with the sea, not that I’d ever commit the sin (nor have the courage) to throw myself into it.
I caught myself wishing calamity to befall the ship, not out of ill will to punish my peers, but to throw a wrench in the stillness, that perfect calm from which the Headsman and the crew could torment me at their leisure. There were no tremendous storms, no hurricanes, no piracy or rival Anglo or Ottoman ships for me to redeem myself in combat; nor sighted sea monsters to give me a moment’s break from being the center of negative attention.
For the longest time, all my hopes lay in arrival at the New World, until the Lady of the Bearer encountered its first nautical anomalies.
“All hands on deck!” The Headsman bellowed. “That means even you, Dante!”
Someone cut me from my suspended ropes, and I fell hard on the wet deck. My bleeding wrists and nearly-twisted ankles shared unequal pain, but my discomfort was fleeting compared to the sights our crew was seeing.
Glowing orbs lay about the sea all around us, like a sea of mines made from the same gaseous substance heretical natural philosophers claimed our Sun to be made out of.