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The Ionian Bewilderment
Captain Jack Aubray of HMS Surmise chewed in silent meditation upon a mango, the deck rolling under his feet as the juice dripped to the freshly holystoned wooden planking. The Surmise was entirely shipshape, the crew had been tuned and spurred to function much like a well oiled machine. In all the scene was one any sailor might count as well omened, the sea and sky smooth as glass and cloudless, twinned shades of deep blue, and the late afternoon sun shone on the broad backs of the hands as they went about their duties, reaving ropes, painting moving and immobile objects alike and recalibrating the marlinspikes. Still, Jack’s inner mood was not quite as calm as the broad expanse of sea.
Behind him came Jack’s personal friend, the ship’s doctor, Stephen Menorquín, his black pelt shaded and cooled by a bizarre geometric contrivance of white canvas and sticks that fell somewhere well outside strict naval regulations and somewhere within the modern conception of a dome tent. “Is not all well, brother? The miles fall away behind us, the weather is as beautiful as a Celestial mare could bestow upon us from afar, and our mission to the Ionian Consulate has every auspice of success.”
Jack spat the mango pit over the rail; a nearby fruitshark made an unsuccessful leap for it as it fell. “I tell you, Stephen, it is nothing very definite, but I have some feeling that we are under pursuit… yes, yes I know,” he temporized as Stephen looked out over the featureless and shipless watery horizon. “We are quite far from the Horse Latitudes as you know, yet gossipy old mareners love than to weave tales to befuddle new hands and landsponies. Still, HMS Impertinence was sent through these Greecian waters three years back, and vanished utterly; whether she was assumed directly to the heavens or sent to the deeps one may only speculate, and some of the more superstitious ascribe the cause to the Sirens of myth…”
Stephen blinked. “The Sirens, the half-birds that called to Odysseus as he was tied to his ship?”
Jack nodded. “Aye, but many nowadays claim they are mares with fishy tails below…”
Stephen stroked his whiskered chin. “Speculation without facts is considered to be a capital error in reasoning,” he mused, “Even so, your own intuition is well-honed upon these matters and the fact that you are ill at ease must be tallied in the list. Should you like to mull it over with some toasted cheese and a duetto or two?”
Jack sighed and barked a crisp command at a work party that had painted several ropes so that they now adhered tightly to the mizzenmast. “I should indeed, let us attempt one of those pretty puzzles of Marlotti, so elegant but so far superior to my fiddle…”
As the two strolled to the Captain’s cabin, the Surmise sailed on in the moderate breeze, leaving behind it a smooth wake in a placid surface that seemed bereft of all but the ordinary sea life and one dejected-looking fruitshark. But things were quite different below the surface, where dark shapes darted under and around the hull of the ship as the afternoon sun gracefully descended towards the wide blue horizon.
That evening, in the Surmise’s wake, dead astern of her rudder, a small figure was bobbing in the waves as a stream of musical notes from cello and fiddle in the Captain’s cabin wafted out upon the sea breeze. A scale-skinned mare from the waist up, she kept herself close to the ship with steady flicks from her piscine tail. There was a ripple beside her as another popped up from the depths.
“Peisinoë,” exclaimed the newcomer, “Why the delay! Stop hippocamping and get some singing done! This ship is to be led onto the rocks!”
“Oh, Aglaope, I know but… that music is so enchanting… just listen to that violi player! Such passion, such fire… Wait, listen, they are replaying the third movement, hush now and hear that artful transition!”
Aglaope pressed her hoof to her scaly face. “You seem to have lost track of who is supposed to be fascinating whom, here… But wait… oh, that cello player must have drunk of nectar from Olympus to be calling forth such honeyed tones!”
The two Sirens swam onward through the wake, bobbing their heads in rapt attention, as Jack and Stephen continued to intently work their way through Marlotti’s Sonata in D Minor for a Placid Sea…
Behind him came Jack’s personal friend, the ship’s doctor, Stephen Menorquín, his black pelt shaded and cooled by a bizarre geometric contrivance of white canvas and sticks that fell somewhere well outside strict naval regulations and somewhere within the modern conception of a dome tent. “Is not all well, brother? The miles fall away behind us, the weather is as beautiful as a Celestial mare could bestow upon us from afar, and our mission to the Ionian Consulate has every auspice of success.”
Jack spat the mango pit over the rail; a nearby fruitshark made an unsuccessful leap for it as it fell. “I tell you, Stephen, it is nothing very definite, but I have some feeling that we are under pursuit… yes, yes I know,” he temporized as Stephen looked out over the featureless and shipless watery horizon. “We are quite far from the Horse Latitudes as you know, yet gossipy old mareners love than to weave tales to befuddle new hands and landsponies. Still, HMS Impertinence was sent through these Greecian waters three years back, and vanished utterly; whether she was assumed directly to the heavens or sent to the deeps one may only speculate, and some of the more superstitious ascribe the cause to the Sirens of myth…”
Stephen blinked. “The Sirens, the half-birds that called to Odysseus as he was tied to his ship?”
Jack nodded. “Aye, but many nowadays claim they are mares with fishy tails below…”
Stephen stroked his whiskered chin. “Speculation without facts is considered to be a capital error in reasoning,” he mused, “Even so, your own intuition is well-honed upon these matters and the fact that you are ill at ease must be tallied in the list. Should you like to mull it over with some toasted cheese and a duetto or two?”
Jack sighed and barked a crisp command at a work party that had painted several ropes so that they now adhered tightly to the mizzenmast. “I should indeed, let us attempt one of those pretty puzzles of Marlotti, so elegant but so far superior to my fiddle…”
As the two strolled to the Captain’s cabin, the Surmise sailed on in the moderate breeze, leaving behind it a smooth wake in a placid surface that seemed bereft of all but the ordinary sea life and one dejected-looking fruitshark. But things were quite different below the surface, where dark shapes darted under and around the hull of the ship as the afternoon sun gracefully descended towards the wide blue horizon.
That evening, in the Surmise’s wake, dead astern of her rudder, a small figure was bobbing in the waves as a stream of musical notes from cello and fiddle in the Captain’s cabin wafted out upon the sea breeze. A scale-skinned mare from the waist up, she kept herself close to the ship with steady flicks from her piscine tail. There was a ripple beside her as another popped up from the depths.
“Peisinoë,” exclaimed the newcomer, “Why the delay! Stop hippocamping and get some singing done! This ship is to be led onto the rocks!”
“Oh, Aglaope, I know but… that music is so enchanting… just listen to that violi player! Such passion, such fire… Wait, listen, they are replaying the third movement, hush now and hear that artful transition!”
Aglaope pressed her hoof to her scaly face. “You seem to have lost track of who is supposed to be fascinating whom, here… But wait… oh, that cello player must have drunk of nectar from Olympus to be calling forth such honeyed tones!”
The two Sirens swam onward through the wake, bobbing their heads in rapt attention, as Jack and Stephen continued to intently work their way through Marlotti’s Sonata in D Minor for a Placid Sea…