"Very interesting," said Bulnes. "But you'd better get some sleep, if you'll let me say so, because in a few hours I'm going to wake you up to take the con."
Chapter Two
Flin woke him in the gray and spray-clouded dawn, saying, "Could you wrap this around my finger, Knut?"
"What'd you do to it?"
"Burned it on that cooker. I can't seem to make it work."
Bulnes sighed. "God help us if we have to hide from the Emp's men. You'd drop something at a critical moment."
"What'll happen if they do catch us?"
"Then Trends will need a new article editor."
"I hope I shall get on with him as well as I have with you." Flin referred to the articles on Roman ruins he had sold Bulnes, which sale had led to their acquaintance.
"Thanks, but you forget that Somerset School will need a new teacher of dead languages, too." He grinned at Flin's stricken expression. "It was your idea. Now go back on deck, please, while I get us some coffee."
Bulnes pulled on his shirt and dungaree pants and splashed water in his face. He squinted at his face in the glass, noting how the reddish brown stubble on the cheeks would soon match the mousquetaire mustache and goatee that both he and Flin wore. The face combined a swarthy complexion, a hint of a high-cheeked oriental look (from his Filipino grandmother), and wavy hair of an incongruous light brown, receding at the temples. Altogether Knut Manuel Edger Bulnes y Nyberg was a pretty mixed type.
A few spins of the generator crank showed nothing but sea return on the radar scope, and a look outside revealed only the Mirtoön Sea. Although the wind still drove a drenching spray across the deck, the rain at least had desisted.
Over breakfast Bulnes said, "Please, remember our story if we're caught. Our power plant broke down, and the wind blew us right through the force wall."
"We might stand on our constitutional rights," said Flin.
"What a naive little man you are!"
"Oh, come now, things aren't really so bad as that."
"Not in England. Not yet, that is. You ought to hear some of the stories from the Continent and from Africa."
"You mean you think Lenz will get around to us when he's strong enough?"
"Naturally. I suspect Lenz has been giving the Emp a free hand in Greece to get him out of the way so he can suppress the Opposition altogether."
"How shocking!" said Flin.
"If you're easily shocked."
"I thought we were all through with that sort of thing. And the Populists were always strong for personal liberty."
"That was before they had power. Didn't a fellow-countryman of yours say something about 'Power corrupts'?"
"I suppose so," said Flin unhappily.
"Constitutional rights will mean something again when the Populist Party has a real Opposition."
"And where are you going to get that before Lenz makes himself a world autocrat?"
Bulnes shrugged. "I don't know. I like the program of the Diffusionists, but Wong's a windbag. Falal Mansur's the ablest Opposition leader, but I can't imagine voting Asceticist."
"The Populists always had the most enlightened program, and they did achieve a lot of good when they got their majority."
"That," said Bulnes, "is precisely the trouble. Because they did so much good when they came to power, they got a large majority; and because they got such a large majority, they were corrupted by power and are dangerous now. A paradox, no?"
"If the Emp's brother were alive ..."
"Probably no better than Vasil. I remember Serj as a hell-raiser. What did your man Gibbon say about hereditary monarchy?"
" 'Of all the forms of government devised by man, it affords the fairest scope for ridicule.' Still, you know what the sociodynamicists said ..."
As the equinoctal day wore on, the wind moderated enough for Bulnes and Flin to hoist the mizzen sail. Toward dusk the radar showed an island, perhaps four miles long, and shaped something like the Hebrew letter vau reversed, a little to starboard of dead ahead. That would be Velvina. Bulnes altered course to pass well to the west of this island into the Saronic Gulf. From time to time he found himself cocking an ear for the ping of the radar alarm that would show him that someone was sweeping the yacht with a search beam — forgetting momentarily that without power, this gadget was dead like all the others.
The wind had now backed to the south, which made tacking unnecessary. It continued to weaken until before dark they hoisted the main as well.
Bulnes, hand-steering the Dagmar II by the magnetic compass (the gyrocompass being inoperative), looked at his smart Marconi rig straining in the following wind and thanked his gods that he had put in enough sailing practice to be able to handle her. The ancient skills did come in handy at times, even in this push-button world. Of course with power plant intact he'd have reached Piriefs the previous night.
Still, he should not complain too bitterly. At the present rate they should make the harbor at Athini before morning, and if he could find some Oppositionists ashore, he might even get his power plant fixed.
He lashed his wheel and ducked inside for a look by radar.
"For the love of Ormazd!" he said. "You must want attention."
Flin was carefully laying out his city clothes: his best ankle breeches, ruffled shirt, gold-laced jacket, and steeple-crowned hat with plastic plume.
"Well — uh — I wanted to look decent, you know ..."
"And let me do the dirty work?" Bulnes snorted and addressed himself to the radar. A sweep of the antenna showed the battered triangle of Eyina to port and the double sickle curve of the Attic coast to starboard.
"How's the wind?" asked Flin.
"Still dropping."
They ate. As evening wore on the wind fell to a mere breeze and a fog came up.
Bulnes said, "I think we shall still make Piriefs by morning, but we must take a radar reading every quarter-hour."
"Who'd run us down? Since we ran the barrier we haven't raised a single ship or plane, by viz or radar."
"Now that you mention it, it is queer. Piriefs used to be one of the busiest ports in the Mediterranean. Wonder if the Emp has cleared the area to make a wildlife preserve?"
"Doesn't sound reasonable. What's become of all the Greeks? Why should he send his agents to round up all the Greeks who heard what was coming and fled the country, like my wife's family?"
"Maybe he wants to exterminate them because of some pseudo-scientific racial theory, like that fellow Hitler in the twen —"
"Gad!" said Flin, eyes popping. "You don't really think ... ?"
"No, not really, old fellow," said Bulnes. "Vasil may have some queer ideas, like being a reincarnation of Henri the Fourth of France and Franklin Roosevelt of the United States, but I've always heard he was an essentially kindly and altruistic soul."
"Kindly and altruistic! When he separates a man from his wife for years ..." Flin muttered under his breath. "You're no idea how dependent I am on Thalia. If she were gone — well ..."
"You'd be lost." Bulnes stretched his long arms and yawned. "I'm crawling back into the sack for a couple of hours. Please wake me if we raise another ship or Piriefs on the scope."
It was on Bulnes's watch, however, that the scalloped peninsula of Piriefs came into view on the screen. He let Flin sleep, ducking into the cabin for frequent spins of the generator crank, until Zea Harbor was a mere nautical mile away. Then he awoke him.