As related by Prince Evan Finlay-Cole, Esq., Ipsissimal Bard
« It was Quennel’s idea. He believed that using the swan boat might give us the advantage of observing the enemy from the sea. At the time, it seemed brilliant. We scarcely expected the sea itself to turn against us. »
« Foolish, » says Benbow. « No sailor fully trusts the sea. A sailor has to have the courage to love while expecting betrayal. »
« You must understand that although our emanated bodies are indistinguishable from human ones, our connections to our nau’gsh allow us to instantly regenerate any injuries and perform continually at the body’s optimum capacity. For example, my incredible dexterity when playing the fasharp is not superhuman per se, but at the peak which this human body will allow, and this is a body designed for agility. »
« The point he’s trying to make, » says Owen, « is that none of us had ever gotten fucking seasick before. »
« It was a little rough, » says Benbow.
« A little? » Lugh rebuts. « The only ones who weren’t leaving their lunch over the railing were you, Briscoe and Vassali. »
« Lunch? » says Owen. « I think I lost half of my digestive tract. »
« Well, it was pretty bad when the really big waves hit, » Benbow admits. « The tsunami almost smashed us into the rocks. »
« We were in unfamiliar water. We expected just to sail down the coast past Court Emmere, but once we got outside of Merenis Harbor, everything was different. No Capital City, no Atlas Tree…»
« That makes a bit of sense, » says Malachi, « since the locus of the Atlas Tree within the pleroma is actually the treedominium containing Daniel’s flat. »
« But even the ecosystem changed, » says Daniel. « It’s like the tropics – palm trees, but with turquoise fronds. »
« It’s hot, » says Dermot. « I’ve actually got a sunburn. »
« The point of all this is that we were hardly in our best form when we encountered the Elusive Queen. We heard the cannons before we spotted her. She’s one of those lovely tall ships from the age of sail. »
« She’s a British race-built galleon, circa the defeat of the Spanish fleet in the late 1580’s, » says Benbow. « The really archetypal age of sail ships came several centuries later. »
« Nevertheless, their cannon is functional, » says Owen. « Primitive, but effective. »
« It didn’t seem to be able to really damage the swan boat, » says Malachi, « probably because the boat is the locus of Canopus within the pleroma. »
« We were boarded, » says Benbow. « The crew of the Elusive Queen was made up of droid sailors who claimed that their objective was to “liberate” the swan boat, which they called the Herzeloyde. »
« Herzeloyde was the grandmother of Lohengrin, » says Dermot, « who travels in a boat drawn by a swan. It’s part of the same idiom. »
« We put up a good fight, » says Tielo, « considering that none of us specializes in combat. »
« Vassali was awesome, » says Daniel. « None of us knew. And Owen’s a pretty tough nut to crack. »
« But we were lucky, » says Owen. « They weren’t trying to kill us. They took us captive. »
« The captain of the Elusive Queen brought us all on deck and said we were being pressed into service. He said that if we didn’t work, he’d have us keelhauled, or make us walk the plank. Most of us got put into heavy labor although Quennel was employed to mend the sails. »
« Since I wasn’t good at anything heavy, he made me climb the rigging and keep watch from the crow’s nest, » says Malachi. « It was interesting. »
« But I’m pretty useless at any sort of labor. Then he found out that I was a bard, so he made me sing. I sang an old Dolparessan folksong, but he hated it. He made me learn a different song, not even an ancient chanty from the age of sail, but one of those horrid ones about anti-matter reactors and coming out of a wormhole into a nebula. »
« I don’t know, » says Benbow, « I kind of liked it. »
« The Atlas and Goliath emanations are Skarsian to the bone and sap, » says Tielo. « If it didn’t happen on Earth or in the Domha’vei, it’s not real history to them. »
« To finish up the tale, as soon as I sang the piece, I heard that disembodied voice announcing all of that, ah, information about me. And then the captain of the Elusive Queen took a step backwards and said, Sir Evan! Forgive me for not recognizing you before! Did these pirates take you captive? And he let me go back to the swan boat, taking a crew with me. But he’s still got Quennel, who he said was the pirate captain, and Briscoe, his first mate…»
« Frankly, I’m offended, » says Benbow.
« It’s symbolic, » says Malachi. « Quennel and Briscoe are Canopus emanations, and their home is on the boat. It says nothing about your nautical skills. »
« Also, Vassali had to stay because he’d incapacitated a number of the droids, and the captain said he was dangerous. The three of them are being taken to stand trial. We were following the Elusive Queen, hoping to catch up with them, but, uh… »
« She’s elusive, » says Dermot. « I’m afraid that we lost them.