Doreen spoke thoughtfully. "Aren't there cultures where boys are flogged as part of their initiation rites?"
"Yes," Ian said. "Sparta for one. The other scars look like fights to me. Fairly recent ones."
The ship's doctor had hooked up an IV. "Dehydration and sunburn," he said. "Looks like a pretty healthy young man. He should be all right in a few days."
"When will he be conscious?" Ian asked.
"Any time."
Doreen looked at the materials coming over the side. Besides the weapons, the bundles held mostly extra clothes-kilts, and simple T-tunics of linen or wool, woven in plaids or dyed in soft natural colors, blanketlike woolen cloaks, and a few pairs of shoes made out of a single piece of soft leather, rather like moccasins. There were baskets of dried meat, fish, hard crumbly cheese, and crackerlike hard bread. And there was an array of shields, difficult to see at first since they'd been laid down as seats. They were round or oval, frames of wicker and shaped wood covered in hide and painted in gaudy shapes, the swastika-like fylfot, or animals. Horses, wolves, bears, the head of a bull, or a figure half man and half elk, with horns growing from his head. A few had bronze rivets as well.
"What's this?" she said, prodding at a string of varicolored bits of leather with straggling fur attached. A thought struck her, and she backed away and wiped the hand frantically down the leg of her trousers.
"Human hair," the doctor said, glancing aside. "Scalps."
A murmur went through the crew. Doreen swallowed and forced her mind back to the task at hand.
"This man's people use representative art," she said. "Why don't we get some pictures? We can show them to him and ask the names. There's a set of National Geographies in the wardroom that would be perfect."
"Special court-martial is now in session. When did this happen, Ms. Hendriksson?" Captain Alston said.
"About half an hour ago, ma'am. Cadet Winters and several other members of the crew came to me, with Seaman Rodriguez in custody, and I had him put under arrest."
The lieutenant was young, looking as stern and efficient as someone with freckles and a snub nose could; her eyebrows and lashes were as white-blond as her hair, standing out against tanned skin. Cadet Winters had a black eye and an arm in a sling; Seaman Rodriguez was standing between two guards, sullen and hangdog, a scowl on his acne-scarred face. His lower lip was wrenched and swollen, with a deep bite mark sending a trickle of blood down his chin, and his nose was going up like a balloon. From the look of it someone had stuck fingers into it and pulled hard. Every so often his hand made an abortive movement, as if to rub his crotch, and he stood slightly bent over. Most of the off-duty crew hung back a little, close enough to hear what was going on on the quarterdeck.
Alston sat behind a table, the XO and a chief petty officer on either side of her. It was a little odd for a special court-martial, but the circumstances were more so.
"Seaman Rodriguez, what's your explanation?" Alston asked.
"Ah, ma'am, she said she'd go into the paint locker with me." Which was strictly against the rules, but it happened now and then. "Then she changed her mind and started yelling and hitting me. Ma'am."
Winters was spitting angry, Alston saw-which was all to the good, much better than depression. "Cadet Winters?"
"He grabbed me and tried to stick a sock in my mouth and drag me into the locker," she bit out. "I gave him a knee where it'd hurt, ma'am, and then he punched me and dislocated my arm, so I went for him and yelled."
"Ms. Hendriksson?"
"Several of the crew heard screaming, ma'am, and ran to the locker. They found Seaman Rodriguez struggling with Cadet Winters; her clothing was torn, and they were both injured. Seaman Rodriguez had been drinking."
Others stepped forward to confirm the testimony. Captain Alston fixed Rodriguez with a basilisk stare. There was sweat on his face, and he looked around unconsciously for support and found none. She thought for a moment, and the three judges bent their heads together to consult in whispers.
"Court will now pronounce its verdict and pass sentence," she said aloud, in a formal tone.
"Hey-I mean, ma'am, this isn't no real court-martial."
"No, it isn't, Seaman. However, since it's unlikely we're going to get back to a base in the near future"-or the distant past, you noxious little shit-"it'll have to do. We're not under the Uniform Code of Military Justice anymore; we're operating under the authority of the Nantucket Council. I think," she went on to the others behind the table, "that we're agreed this goes beyond sexual harassment."
"Attempted rape, aggravated assault," Rapczewicz agreed.
"Ten years minimum, dishonorable discharge," the CPO said.
And concealing liquor, she thought; Rodriguez seemed to be the sort who couldn't win for losing. Aloud: "Seaman Rodriguez, you are found guilty. As imprisonment is impractical, under the circumstances I think discharging you on the nearest shore would be equitable."
Everyone knew what the nearest shore was, and they'd all seen the contents of the coracle or heard about the scalps. Rodriguez lunged forward, face crumpling. The guards grabbed him by the arms as he tried to go down on his knees.
"Oh, madre de dios, please, Captain, no-" They shook him into silence.
"But heinous as your crime is, under the law it isn't punishable by death, which marooning you probably would cause. Get him a lifejacket."
Hands shoved the bright-orange float jacket onto the man and laced it tight. "Get a rope sling and secure it on him. Reeve the other end to the fantail railing. Chief Master-at-Arms, execute the sentence," Alston said, her face like something carved from obsidian.
Two of the ship's noncoms obeyed with gusto, with the sole of a boot in the small of Rodriguez's back. The push sent him out like a screaming meteor, to fall in the curling blue water and white foam of the ship's wake. The line paid out and then sprang taut where it had been secured around the rail's metal supports. He wouldn't quite drown, but being towed behind the ship would be considerably worse than the flogging Rapczewicz had suggested. That water was cold, too. Not North Atlantic frigid, but chilly. He probably wouldn't die of hypothermia either. Not quite.
"Court is adjourned," Alston said. "Hands to their stations, if you please."
She caught the tenor of their murmurs. Not bad, she thought. That would preserve discipline, without making the crew think she'd started doing a Captain Queeg. And Coast Guardsmen were as much policemen as anything; they didn't have much sympathy for criminals. Plus more than two-thirds of the crew were cadets and one-third were women. All in all, she'd done the right thing. For justice, and for the good of the ship.
It wasn't her fault if she'd enjoyed it. She didn't like criminals either, particularly that kind. I hope there are sharks out there, you little piece of shit.
Walker coughed discreetly. "The… man we picked up is awake, ma'am," he said. "You said to let you know."
The stranger thrashed and moaned as Marian Alston bent over him. His eyes were blue, and right now they were showing white all around the iris.
"I think you'd better back out of sight, Captain," Ian said. "I don't think he's ever seen a black person before, and this environment is strange enough as it is."
Alston nodded and stepped back with some difficulty; it was crowded in the little one-bunk sickbay. "I'll be on deck," she said. "Report when you've found out anything significant."
"And don't exhaust him," the doctor warned. "He's still weak as a kitten."
The stranger stopped his feeble struggling and let himself be pushed back into the bunk, although his eyes still flickered across bulkheads and porthole, electric lights and metal shapes-alien madness, terror building on strangeness. "He must think he's dead and among evil spirits or something," Doreen murmured.