|
The tobacco was good, the company was awful.
Which was strange in its way as this was usually not the case for a pirate. Weeks at sea usually led to camaraderie by necessity and threadbare luxuries by consumption. But Captain Svart wasn't at sea - the Jolly Greip was in dry dock and the shipwrights were giving him the hell of numbers and delays. So here he was, landlocked and insensate with boredom. The Pirate/Robot alliance was a necessary and strategic union, forged for all the right reasons, by sensible and forward thinking men and machines. And it made for tiresome and tedious bedfellows. With any other first mate the Captain would be up to high mischief and at least two sheets to the wind, working on the third. At least first mate Krampus was keeping his rusty voice box silent. Svart knew how to be a good captain, though, and had at made excuses for his crew. A crew who he was sure was burning the port town down to the ground with their excesses. Good, he thought, at least I'll get my revenge on the carpenters and bureaucrats in riot damage, if nothing more. But no good deed goes unpunished, and here he was left to watch over his boat and the remaining crew of automata. Fie. Still, the pipe was good, and the evening was soothing... and Svart was left to wonder why the robots annoyed him. He didn't get upset at a bucket of tar, or a block and tackle, or a trust cutlass -- and the robots were all more useful than those basics. A couple robots in the crew, and damn it, the work just got done. And even with their tendency to sink right down to the bottom of the ocean the moment they went overboard, you never heard one beep about everyday troubles or click away in nervous jittering. Take Krampus... hell, even at five hundred pounds he was worth his weight in gold in a pitched battle. Besides a little bit of rust and a peculiar stink, he's never seen the Zombie Nation put so much as a scratch on the robot. If Svart had to put his finger on it, it would have to be that a good cutlass will never offer an opinion. Sheets, belaying pins, cannonballs -- none of them would ever tell you how you should use them. Never have the unhearable hint of disapproval in their voice. And that was the really aggravating part about it. You could tell when a human was being sarcastic or putting on airs and you could do something about it. But the robots... they were just so inhuman. Not only could you never catch them at it, how could you even explain to them what they were doing in the first place? He could already hear what Krampus's response would be when the first of the wounded crew staggered back to the ship; "I will organize a medical bay, your crew is wounded." Fie. Svart tapped the ash out of his meerschaum, and contemplated refilling it -- first deciding against it, and finally gaving in. The Jolly Greip was in capable metallic hands, and the damn clanks weren't going to rob him of his one pleasure this evening. He started to fumble his one good hand into his vest coat pocket, getting a good grip on his pouch, when the deck behind Krampus exploded with rot and limbs. There was a tinny crump sound from the back of the robots head, and Svart heard an unhappy whirring slurring sound... |