Ignoring all that, the two cars started firing at his rental with the kilcannons mounted in their noses.

  Fortunately, Silvera remembered most of the basics of air combat he’d picked up while researching The Boys’ Big Book of RAF Dogfights that he ghosted for a retired wing commander some years ago in the Earth System. Unarmed, and in a slower craft, he managed to outfly and outfox both ships. However, that took, nearly an hour.

  He landed on the rooftop parking pad of the Flying Dutchman Inn in Portown, rode an escalator that played sea chanteys down to the lobby and registered as James Perry Willis of Carson’s Landing, Venus. While writing Counterfeiting for Dummies he’d picked up a knack for producing whatever spurious documents he needed. This close to the Kamargo clan’s headquarters he felt it was unwise to use his real name.

  According to all the information Harry the Tipster was able to provide when Silvera contacted him on his tap-proof room phone. Amanda Kirkyard was the maverick of the Kamargo family and had a reputation for being trustworthy and relatively honest. “She’s got a second-rate prose style and is forever splitting infinitives,” Harry had reported, “but there’s nothing linking her with any of the dirty deeds, kidnappings, and assassinations that Runyon Kamargo and his kids have indulged in since he struck it rich.”

  “That’s gratifying to hear,” said Silvera, and he wished the informant a good night.

  Being on the outskirts of the vast Crimson Hawk theme park, the town was much given over to things nautical. Fog was also pumped in from the direction of the sea. On the next afternoon, as Silvera started walking to his meeting with Amanda Kirkyard at her Admiral Betsy Hotel, several of the fog machines were malfunctioning somewhat and the mist shrouding Portown was tinted pink and smelled strongly of cinnamon.

  Several of the tourists who’d stopped to watch the android midshipman in front of a ship chandler’s shop dance a hornpipe were sneezing and rubbing their eyes. The outdoor tables at a grog shop were attracting few customers.

  A gray-furred catman hailed Silvera from the doorway of a souvenir shop. “Special sale of scrimshaw, mate,” he said, making an inviting gesture with his right forepaw.

  “My wife says I’ve got too much of it around the house already.”

  “How’s about a ship in a bottle? We’ye got scale models, exact in every detail, of many of the handsome ships you see anchored in yonder harbor.”

  Silvera glanced into the thick fog. “I can’t even see the harbor from here.”

  After sneezing, the proprietor shook his head. “I keep telling them they’re overdoing the darn fog, but they never listen,” he said. “If you could see through this muck, mate, you’d see, among others, the H.M.S. Betsy, a handsome three-masted sloop like the one Admiral Betsy uses. You’d also view frigates, corvettes, and ships of the line.”

  “Actually what I’m hoping to see is the Admiral Betsy Hotel, where—”

  “I can offer you a model of Admiral Betsy’s ship in a bottle. Or you might prefer a miniature of the Crimson Hawk,” continued the shopkeeper. “Standing next to the taffrail is a tiny redheaded Captain Hawk. As you no doubt know, because of his fiery red thatch the captain is also known as the Crimson Hawk. So the ship and the—”

  “Being a great Crimson Hawk fan, I could talk about him for hours on end,” said Silvera. “Today, though, I have an appointment, and so—”

  “How about you buy the Crimson Hawk and I’ll throw in the H.M.S. Betsy for half price?”

  “Tempting, but I’ll pass.” Silvera continued on his way.

  When he entered the domed lobby of the Admiral Betsy Hotel, he was confronted with a large scattering of guests who were shouting, screaming, and making other signs of unease.

  The source of the agitation was the five peg legged pirates, armed with cutlasses and kilpistols, who were dragging a struggling, screaming Amanda Kirkyard off toward a side exit.

  “That poor child,” exclaimed a nearby matronly bird-woman.

  Taking a step forward, Silvera tugged out his stungun and took aim at the limping pirate who had both arms wrapped tight around Amanda’s legs.

  “Not today, sonny,” suggested the matronly bird-woman. She yanked an electosap from the bosom of her flowered dress and whapped Silvera on the side of the head.

  A strong electric shock went zigzagging through his body and, dropping his gun, Silvera thunked to his knees. He tipped over, hit the holocarpet, and passed into unconsciousness.

  “C’mon, kiddo, off your ox. Rise and shine, huh?”

  Very slowly and cautiously, Silvera opened his eyes. There was an imitation antique hurricane lamp dangling from the low, beamed ceiling. His teeth felt fuzzy, most of the bones in his skeleton seemed to itch. When the big author hunched his shoulders, his bed swayed and he realized he was lying in a neocanvas hammock.

  “Time’s-a-wasting, Joe. Wake up so we can get rolling.”

  Perched on the back of a plaz chair was a large green and yellow parrot. He was eyeing Silvera with a gaze that mingled impatience and disappointment.

  Beyond the bird’s feathery head Silvera saw a porthole. “Have I been shanghaied?”

  “Naw, this is part of Amanda’s suite at the Betsy hotel, chum,” answered the parrot. “Get up.”

  “And you’re?”

  “I told her you were basically illiterate, despite all the crapola you’ve written. Here you don’t even recognize one of the more famous literary characters in the universe.”

  Silvera, feeling briefly woozy, managed to swing his legs over the edge of the hammock. “Oskar the parrot,” he guessed as his feet touched the planks of the hotel room floor. “The nitwit bird who accompanies Admiral Betsy on all her voyages.”

  “A guy who’s written all the garbage you have, Joe, is not in a position to hang such critical judgments as nitwit on—”

  “I only read one of Amanda’s Admiral Betsy books, after she intruded on me yesterday. Maybe the parrot isn’t such a halfwit in the others.” He stopped still beside the hammock, waiting out another spell of dizziness. “So what are you, Oskar, a toy her merchandising people cooked up?”

  “Do I look like a toy?” inquired the bird in his reedy voice, spreading his bright wings wide. “I happen to be, chum, a state of the art robotic parrot. When Amanda gets her park up and running, similar, though obviously inferior, parrots will act as lecturers and guides in the Maritime Museum and the gallery of—”

  “Who’d sit through a lecture by a parrot?”

  “You seem to be, jocko.”

  Silvera asked, “How long have I been out?”

  “Two hours. The old dame had her sap on the lowest setting,” said Oskar. “Now then, Joe’s let’s get a move on.”

  “Did they catch the birdwoman who bopped me?”

  “Nope, she scrammed along with the kidnappers,” said the robot parrot disdainfully. “The hotel has a half dozen big clunky security bots, but all you have to do to incapacitate them is shoot them with a cheap disabler.” “Where were you when Amanda was grabbed?” Oskar gazed at the beamed ceiling. “Well, I have to admit they used a stunner on me, too,” he said quietly. “I was only out for a half hour, though. Soon as I came to, I asked if you’d showed up.”

  “You knew I was supposed to—”

  “Hey, I’m more than a pet or a mascot to Amanda,” cut in Oskar. “I’m her pal and also her mentor.”

  “You’d have to be pretty dopey to accept a robot parrot as a mentor,” observed Silvera. “Did those peg leg pirates abduct her out of this suite?”

  “Nope, she was in the Crossbones Cocktail Lounge, awaiting your arrival.”

  Silvera nodded. “And why are you so eager to have me up and around again?”

  “I’m exceptional in a great many ways,” explained Oskar. “But I’m not much good when it comes to roughhousing. I’ve been planning to install a stunbeam in my left claw, but thus far…Anyway, pal, I need a big muscle-bound lunk to help me rescue Amanda. Admittedly you’re not much of a writer, but you’ve got a reputation of being handy with your dukes and a variety of weapons.”

  “I’m enough of a writer to have won Pulitzer Prizes on three different planets and—”

  “But not one Nobel so far, huh?” When the parrot shrugged, the feathers on his back fluttered. “So are you up to helping me track down the goons who abducted Amanda?”

  “You know who they are?”

  “Not specifically, but Amanda’s scoundrel of a father has to be behind the whole—”

  “I did some research on the Crimson Hawk park,” cut in Silvera, starting, carefully, to pace the cabinlike room. “There’s a Peg Leg Pirate Academy that trains actors to impersonate one-legged buccaneers. Runyon Kamargo insists on having peg legged pirates in all his novels and just about every attraction in his park uses them, too.”

  “By Jove, I believe you’ve hit on something, Joe.”

  “It seems likely that the peg leg pirates who pulled off this job are associated with the academy,” continued Silvera, feeling steadier on his feet now. “It’d be a good place to start asking questions about where she was taken.”

  Oskar left his perch, flew over to a table that held a computer terminal. “I tapped some Crimhawk files and got hold of the maps for the underground tunnel system and all the passcodes needed. We can sneak up on the academy from below and—”

  “I’m assuming that they found out Amanda was going to pay me off and want to stop her.”

  “Yep, they must have. I advised the kid to use the dough for herself, but she insisted on—”

  “She has the stop-proof check with her?”

  “Had it when they snatched her.”

  Silvera said, “Okay, let’s see the maps.”

  The parrot leaned, tapping the keyboard with his beak. “Coming right up.”

  Following in the wake of the Crimson Hawk proved to be more difficult than anticipated. Particularly after the commandeered three-masted frigate struck a reef off Skull Island and commenced, albeit slowly at first, to sink.

  Silvera was amidships when the ship hit, produced immense grating noises, and then floundered. Using a powerful brass telescope, he’d been following the course of the Crimson Hawk, a massive ship of the line warship. They were closing on the craft as it sailed across the large artificial ocean that lay at the heart of the theme park.

  As the gurgling of the seawater spouting into the hold increased, Silvera went running across the neowood planks of the deck to the fo’c’sle. “This may well delay our pursuit, Oskar,” he mentioned.

  The electronic parrot was standing on the padded seat that faced the open-air control panel for the ship. “That’s dam odd, Joe,” he remarked. “This particular reef wasn’t on the charts at all.” He pointed his beak at one of the monitor screens.

  “Are the pumps automatic?”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” The bird opened his wings, shut them. “It could be the reason this particular recreated frigate was in dry dock and relatively easy to swipe was because it’s still in need of a heck of a lot of basic and essential repairs.”

  “What about lifeboats, Oskar?”

  The frigate was sinking at a more rapid rate now.

  “There ought to be a couple of those around here someplace.”

  “Let’s locate at least one and abandon ship,” Silvera suggested.

  Things had gone relatively smoothly until they’d struck the unexpected reef. The journey through the plaz-walled underground passway had brought them, with Oskar as guide, directly to the lower level of the Peg Leg Pirates Academy.

  “We’re nearly there,” the robot parrot had announced as they neared the facility. “Hearken, chum, and give a listen.”

  A multiple thumping could be heard now echoing in the tunnel.

  “Practicing walking, are they?” inquired the big freelancer.

  “Righto. After they learn how to bend one leg up behind them and attach the neowood peg, they have to undergo several sessions of learning to stomp around.”

  “So I hear.”

  “They’ve got several things to consider,” amplified the parrot. “They’ve got to keep their balance and not trip over their keisters, and at the same time they’ve got to look menacing. It also helps if you can growl, ‘Ar, shiver me timbers!’ in a forceful, piratical fashion.”

  “Let’s slip inside.”

  Within the academy, after Silvera had stungunned two staff members, they located the Dean of the training school. A plump humanoid former actor with his curly hair dyed Crimson Hawk red, he knew quite a bit about the fate of Amanda Kirkyard.

  Applying a truthdisk—left over from research he’d done on The Interplanetary Oxford Companion to Interrogation—to the red-haired dean’s right arm, Silvera got him to provide considerable information. After delivering some negative opinions about Amanda’s prose style and syntax, he told Silvera and Oskar that Runyon Ka-margo had indeed had his daughter abducted. She was now aboard the replica of the Crimson Hawk ship and being conveyed to Dead. Man’s Isle. The senior Kamargo maintained a small sanitarium there with, among other things, a staff expert in applying mind wipes and other neurological applications.

  Amanda was due to be processed and converted into a more cooperative member of the Kamargo family. Something that, frankly, should’ve been done long ago. Her plan to pay Silvera an outrageously large sum of money was, when he got wind of it, what prompted her father to have her hauled back to the theme park for modifications.

  Because aircraft and skycars didn’t fit in with the historical Earth look of the park, they were restricted The young woman was, therefore, being taken to the brain lab by ship.

  Leaving the dean in a stupefied state, Silvera borrowed a frigate from a nearby shipyard and set off in pursuit of the Crimson Hawk.

  Now, as twilight closed in one the artificial ocean, they located a lifeboat and lowered it.

  “We’re in luck, kiddo,” observed Oskar as the small craft smacked the water. “This is one of those anachronistic jobs with a fuel cell-propulsion system.”

  “Then we ought to be able to catch up with them.” Silvera settled down at the controls.

  They were still some distance from the Crimson Hawk when an enormous explosion sounded and one of the ship’s masts shattered. The main topsail went winging away into the gathering darkness.

  “That’s what did it, buster,” pointed out Oskar as they came drifting, motor off and lights out, into the cove at Dead Man’s Isle.

  “The sloop that’s anchoring over there, you mean?” inquired Silvera. “The one with the two-dozen-some smoking cannons mounted on her and bearing the slogan For The Best in Maritime Fiction Read the Mr. Midshipman Strongfort novels by James M. Kamargo! emblazoned in foot-high litestrip letters on its side? That ship perhaps?”

  “There’s no harm, if it doesn’t become too frequent a habit, in pointing out the obvious,” observed the robot bird in a slightly miffed tone. “Jim and his pop have been feuding for weeks and he’s finally decided to assert himself.”

  “These Kamargos are a terrific family,” observed Silvern as they moved quietly closer to shore. “On two of the planets in the Trinidad System five-act tragedies dealing with fratricide and patricide are very popular. Next time I get hired to knock out a couple, I can use this clan for inspiration.”

  “Typical of the mercenary hack mentality,” remarked Oskar, “taking the troubles of others and converting them into cheap—”

  “Help, help,” cried a faint feminine voice off their portside.

  “That’s Amanda,” exclaimed the bird, feathers fluttering.

  “Yeah, there she is over there trying to swim to shore,” Silvera pointed into the thickening twilight.

  He guided their craft over to the struggling young author, leaned out and caught hold of her soggy singlet. He hauled her into the safety of the lifeboat. “Welcome aboard, Amanda.”

  “Jose, how providential,” she gasped, as, with his help, she got herself seated. “Of course, I got into this whole mess because of trying to help you out, and so it’s only fair that—”

  “Are you all right, hon?” The anxious parrot had risen up and was circling her head.

  “Yes, I’m in pretty fair shape,” she told the robot bird. “Jose, it’s wonderful that you came to rescue me.”

  “You and the check,” he corrected. “Do you still have it?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes.” She tapped her left ankle. “It’s in my boot in a plyo envelope. They never got around to searching me.”

  “Splendid,” he said, smiling.

  “My father is still aboard the Crimson Hawkshe informed him. “I managed to jump overboard when my dippy brother Jim attacked us, but my father is still out there on the ship.”

  “That’s interesting,” said Silvera.

  “I imagine he and Jim will be fighting it out for a while,” she added. “A perfect time for you to sneak aboard unobserved.”

  “Why the hell would I want to do that?”

  “Well, darn, wouldn’t revenge be a sufficient motive?”

  “Revenge for what?”

  “The way he treated you, not to mention what he had in mind for me.”

  He pointed at her boot. “Could you hand over the check, Amanda? Then we’ll make an unobtrusive departure from hereabouts.”

  Sighing, she tugged off her soggy boot and drew out the waterproof envelope. “I must say, Jose, this isn’t my idea of the way to end a romantic adventure.”

  He opened the envelope, determining that the stop-proof check was within. “This isn’t fiction, Amanda,” he reminded her. “This is, more or less, real life.”

  SARGASSO by Simon Hawke