He didn't know he'd been boarded until he heard the clump of boots right behind him. He turned, startled, and out of the fog stamped Roscoe Arafoot and half a dozen toughs who looked like fugitives from Yuma Penitentiary. "Oh!" Captain Flagway said-a tiny cry lost in the fog-and dropped his pole in the drink.
Roscoe said, "We're supposed to move the ship now."
"Oh," Captain Flagway said. He'd thought they were here to crimp him. "Yes," he said, and swallowed. "Well, I'll just…" He pointed in several directions, cleared his throat, twitched and smiled aimlessly, scampering out of their way.
He felt a bit safer in his cabin, with the door more or less locked. That is, the door did have a lock, but a five-year-old child could have gotten through it by leaning on it. Once, off the coast of Peru, a high wind had blown that door open while it was locked. Still, it was the thought that counted, and it relieved the captain's mind somewhat to be able to throw that useless bolt.
Next to the brave door was a porthole, with an all-too-clear view of the deck. The captain stood peeking out this porthole and watched obscure figures moving out there in the fog. At least none of them were moving in his direction.
The fog began to lift as the sails were raised, and soon the full glory of the San Andreas could be seen in the thin translucent light of a pale morning sun. The ship's sails looked like patchwork quilts. She tended to heel over at a steep angle on even absolutely calm water, and the bow preferred to dig itself through the water rather than sail over it.
The lifting of the fog didn't do much to lift the captain's spirits. It only meant he could see those ruffians more clearly, and nothing about them reassured him. They looked to be a breed of man which spent much of its time biting other people and being bitten in return. There was a frayed, toughened, gnawed, tooth-marked look about them, with here and there an eyepatch, or a dangling sleeve, or a suspiciously stiff leg.
Slowly the San Andreas slipped away from her pier, with Captain Flagway watching through his cabin porthole. The crew might be truculent and frightening, but they appeared competent, moving about their duties in a sea-manlike fashion that Captain Flagway himself had never been able to duplicate.
The ship sagged across the Bay toward the pier normally occupied by the New World, where the other day they had all gone into the water in the rented wagon. Roscoe's crew tied up broadside to the end of the pier and then ran a pair of wide planks out onto the pier from amidships.
Captain Flagway remained where he was, watching. He'd been present for all the planning discussions, of course, and so knew exactly what was going on, and yet he found himself as fascinated as if all this activity were as mysterious and opaque as the fog had been. People at work. Captain Flagway could watch them forever.
Roscoe went ashore. The crew remained aboard ship, strolling around the deck in a kind of angry, dangerous boredom, growling at one another from time to time like lions irritated by fleas.
The captain stayed in his cabin. His stomach rumbled softly, not like a lion at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The balloon came sailing through the foggy air. There was utter silence up here, the streets and roofs seen patchily below through breaks in the fog like a dream incompletely remembered. In the basket swaying beneath the great bulb of the balloon sat Gabe, Vangie, Roscoe and Ittzy, each one silent, pensive, waiting, thinking his own thoughts. This was the highest from the ground that any of them had ever been, and none of them much liked it.
Gabe sat on a coil of heavy rope, Roscoe hunkered between the canisters of laughing gas, Vangie stood braced against the side of the basket with her arms folded and her chin lifted in the heroic pose of a woman going down on the ship with her man, and Ittzy sat on a wooden box marked DYNAMITE and read slowly but soberly in a book titled THE HANDLING OF A. NOBEL'S DYNAMITE IN CONSTRUCTION, DEMOLITION AND MINING EMPLOYMENT, Or, The Art of Explosives in the Modern Age.
Vangie spoke only once during the voyage through the air. "Gabe," she said, "I want you to remember what I'm saying, in the years to come. You aren't going to get away with this. I'll be baking a fresh cake for you every month in prison-fifty years, that's six hundred cakes."
"Uh huh," Gabe said.
Vangie frowned at him. Then a breeze touched the basket, making it hop, and distracted her into grabbing the suspension cords to keep her balance. By the time she looked back at Gabe, he had twisted around and was watching over the side of the basket toward the ground, looking for landmarks.
It was hard to make things out in the fog. Still, through the occasional wispy holes it was possible to recognize the ornate elaborate decorations on the rooftops of the Nob Hill mansions. One more hilltop to cross, if Gabe's calculations were correct, and they would be over the Mint.
He faced the inside of the basket again. Vangie continued to frown in his direction but had nothing more to say. Roscoe looked almost as uncomfortable in the air as he usually did around Francis. Ittzy continued to read his book, occasionally licking a fingertip and turning a page, then licking the fingertip again and turning the page back, to frown at what he'd already read. The book appeared to be heavy going for Ittzy, but Gabe's confidence in him was undimmed. Ittzy would be all right.
Gabe licked his own finger, and held it up to test the moist foggy wind. It was still on course, easy and steady, leading them to the Mint. He smiled contentedly, ignored Vangie's disapproving looks, and when he next twisted around to look over the side of the basket there was the Mint, dead ahead.
The fog was beginning to break up; they weren't getting here a minute too soon. In ever-largening misty holes in the fog layer Gabe could see the Mint yard down below, with the tour guide gathering his charges for another pass through the interior of the building. It was midmorning now, visiting hours; the main gates were open and people were wandering in, well-surveyed by the guards.
The balloon-brightly colored, painted in astrological and other cabalistic signs, and bearing in great red letters the name PROFESSOR NEBULA (whoever he might be)-drifted over the courtyard and then over the main building of the Mint. At the right point, as he judged it, Gabe yanked the bag-release cord to open the valve and let enough gas out to lower the balloon to the roof.
Nothing happened.
Gabe frowned at the cord in his hand, frowned up at the balloon, frowned over the side at the roof of the Mint, drifting slowly by no more than ten feet below. He tugged again at the cord, and again nothing happened.
Vangie said, "What's the matter?"
"Nothing," Gabe muttered, and yanked at the cord some more. "Not a damn thing."
Everybody was now looking at him in alarm. They were drifting along, at the wind's pace. Soon they'd drift past the Mint and right on out over the Bay… Finally in desperation, Gabe pulled the whisky flask from his hip pocket and shot a hole in the balloon.