“What will you do if Rita is not fully cooperative when you find her?”
“She radioed me for help,” said Hunter. “I believe she wants to rejoin us.”
“I hope you’re right,” said Jane. “But I’m asking you as a roboticist. Can you bring her back against her will?”
“Normally, I could not,” said Hunter. “She would give me instructions that I would have to obey. However, in the current circumstances, I can interpret the potential harm she may cause to our future as a First Law imperative.”
“What if she puts up a real fight?” Steve asked. “And makes enough noise to bring trouble?”
“You mean, if she alerts her captors?”
“That’s right.”
“In that event, I would have to judge whether or not an even more immediate First Law imperative exists. This contingency is too complex to predict.”
“In other words, you’ll have to improvise.”
“Yes.”
“I wonder how long it will be before we anchor.” Steve looked up at the stars. “We’re still going south, maybe a little to the southwest. I wonder where we’re going.”
“I do not have enough detailed history to know,” said Hunter. “The data I stored from the city library focused on Jamaica and did not include this voyage. I hired Rita to provide this kind of historical data, which I could not foresee needing. I made a poor choice.”
“She failed to keep to her agreement,” said Jane. “That’s her responsibility, not yours.”
Steve gazed out at the other ships again. They were a silent, peaceful sight on a calm, warm night. For now he could see nothing to do but wait.
As before, Hunter remained awake next to Steve and Jane as they stretched out for the night.
At dawn, Steve rose to find that the ships were still sailing in a good wind. On the captain’s orders, some of the buccaneers broke open crates and barrels of bread, cheese, rum, and fresh water and passed them out. Steve and Jane took their shares and moved away from the crowd, as usual.
“Ah! Good morning to you, Steve and John.” captain Morgan came up to them. “Where’s Hunter?”
Steve grinned and pointed upward. “He’s up in the crow’s nest. He volunteered to take a turn up there.”
“Really?” Captain Morgan craned his neck to look. “Aye, I see him. I hope it’s strong enough to hold him. He’s a very big fellow.”
“And his eyesight is surprisingly good.” Steve grinned and took a bite out of his hunk of cheese.
“I don’t expect he’ll have much to see for a couple of days,” said Captain Morgan. “But we must have someone up there, just in case.”
“So,” Steve said casually, looking at the other ships in the fleet. “Where are we headed, Captain?”
Captain Morgan laughed. “Not yet, my friend. Not yet. In a couple of days, granted fair weather, I shall call all the captains together in council. Then I will reveal our destination, but not before.”
“I see the Hungry Hawk over there,” said Steve, pointing to it with his tankard of drinking water. “We’d like to greet Captain Quinn again, if we get the chance. He sailed on that last voyage of ours.”
“The time will come.” Captain Morgan shrugged and moved on, calling to someone else.
“Why did you say that?” Jane asked.
“I wanted to remind him that we’re buccaneers-that we belong.”
“I wouldn’t let him know we’re interested in the Hungry Hawk. ” Jane paused to munch on a piece of bread. “We don’t want him to know that we have our own agenda.”
“You’re right.” Steve smiled, and nudged her playfully with his elbow. “You’re learning more all the time.”
“About what?”
“How to improvise.”
Alone in her chamber, Rita paced anxiously. She wondered if Hunter and his team were anywhere nearby. For the first time, she was considering that she might really get herself killed in the seventeenth century. At the windows, she looked out at some of the other ships in the fleet.
So far, Captain Tomann had left her alone. She liked Roland and supposed that he was with the fleet somewhere. Maybe he would save her if he learned she was locked up.
Rita decided it was time to call Hunter again-if he was still in range of her communicator. First she went to the door and listened for footsteps. She might make excuses about talking to herself if someone heard her voice, but she would not be able to explain if they heard Hunter’s. Then, just to make sure, she moved back to the rear of the room.
“Hunter. Rita calling.”
“Hunter here. Are you well, Rita?”
“Yes-but where are you? Are you close?”
“Steve, Jane, and I are on board Captain Morgan’s flagship. I will have to wait until we anchor before I can attempt taking you off the Old Laughing Lady, under present circumstances. However, if an emergency arises earlier, call me.”
“We won’t anchor for days,” said Rita.
“How long will this leg of the voyage take?”
“I don’t remember exactly. Let me think. At top speed in perfect wind, three or four days. Realistically, I would guess a week at the soonest; maybe longer-if the wind is a big problem, much longer. When we do anchor, it will only be for a short time. We’ll stop first off the coast of Costa Rica.”
“You know where we’re going then. What will happen at Costa Rica?”
“Not very much. Captain Morgan will send longboat crews to shore for fresh water and any food they can find. He’ll be meeting with his captains to give them our true destination. We’re going to attack a city in Panama called Portobelo, near the modern city of Colon.”
“Thank you, Rita. We will help you as soon as we can. Hunter out.”
Rita sighed, wishing that he could help her right away. Still, knowing the team was nearby was reassuring. She gazed out the window again, watching the other ships.
Hunter passed the information he had learned from Rita to Steve and Jane as soon as he could. As Rita had predicted, the ships sailed for over a week. Jane avoided the buccaneers, still worried that they would discover she was a woman. Hunter and Steve usually found chores the three of them could do by themselves. Anyone who began to work on a job was allowed to continue, as the assignments on the pirate ship were haphazard. They kept to themselves and the rest of the crew mostly left them alone. Even under the influence of their nightly rum, none of the buccaneers wanted trouble with someone who could lift, carry, and climb the way Hunter could.
On the eighth day out of port, the lookout shouted that land was visible to the south. As the buccaneers ran to the side to look, Hunter used the map in his stored data and correlated it with the duration, speed, and direction of their voyage. This confirmed to him that they had arrived off the shore of Costa Rica.
“The captains will meet after we anchor,” Hunter said quietly to Steve and Jane. “But longboats will be sent ashore for supplies. It will be a good time for me to attempt reaching the Old Laughing Lady from here and I will feel more secure under the First Law if you two remain safely on board ship. So we should avoid being assigned to the longboats.”
“We won’t be close enough to drop anchor for most of the day,” said Steve. “But when the time comes, let’s go below. I doubt anyone will care, but if anyone comes down, we’ll look busy. We’ll move crates around in the hold or something.”
“Good.”
At midafternoon, the fleet finally drew near enough to drop anchor offshore. Hunter glanced at Captain Morgan, who was eyeing the jungle-covered coast through a spyglass. Then Hunter turned to Steve and Jane.
“It is time, I think. Into the hold, quickly.”