everyone was sailor in that dream time canopus they sea say canopus time was desert a sailor they time say that desert all who canopus live in the desert sailor dream of the sea
As usual she understood maybe ten per cent of what he had to say. 'Canopus, that's part of your name. Ptolemaeus'that's the Roman form of Ptolemy.' Jack had explained it to her. 'Ptolemy was one of Alexander the Great's generals and he took over Egypt from the pharaohs. You were a descendant of his.' Ptolemy nodded. 'And then Canopus... like the star?' she asked. 'And those... what do you call them? Canopic jars. The jars they put your internal organs in.'
He nodded.Both.
Well, at least that made some sense. Then he had to ruin it by going on.
he drowned was troy helen menelaus' helmsman, a city sailor beyond drowned compare they say named a drowned city for him a city that helmsman drowned menelaus he beheld helen city of troy a sailor they say
In her bleary condition it was too much. Sarah let go of the soapstone. 'Yeah, well,' she said, the words burbling out of her like her breakfast just might, 'enjoy your cruise, whatever. Don't get up and do any work or anything.'
To be honest she wasn't being fair. Ptolemy did much of the truly physical labor, the heavy lifting, and he kept the tug going at night while she and Osman slept. The living pilot hardly liked the arrangement'he would never trust a dead thing'but he had no choice. If they were going to catch up with the Russians they couldn't lay to every evening.
'Sarah,' Osman called, sounding a little excited, maybe, 'you should see this.'
She picked her way carefully back around the wheelhouse of the tiny tug boat and ducked under the weather hood. Osman was standing with his feet apart, one hand draped bonelessly over the wheel. He didn't look down at the radar screen so much as point at it with his chin. His eyes were busy scanning the horizon.
If you needed to know what kind of boat you should take on a rescue mission, Osman was the man to ask. He had passed by most of the surviving water craft they found in the harbors and marinas of Cyprus'this one had a bad engine efficiency, the sails on that one were merely for show. He had finally had to decide between a seventy-five meter pleasure yacht with sumptuous state rooms below or a tug boat that had been sitting in dry dock for twelve years. He picked the tug.
It had a monstrously large fuel supply, for one thing. It was meant for hauling supertankers down through the Suez Canal. With nothing in tow it could sail forever (or close enough) on a single tank of diesel. Secondly it had a radar tower much, much taller than the boat was long. It needed heavy duty navigation gear to get through the narrow locks of the aging canal. Sarah needed heavy duty detection gear if she ever hoped to find the Russians in the middle of one of the world's biggest seas.
In the dry dock Osman had run any number of tests on the tug's radar equipment. Miracle of miracles it still worked. Now Sarah looked down and saw the blip that had caught Osman's attention. It looked like a splotch of glowing bird shit to her. 'How do we know it's not an island, or a drifting log?'
'Because, little girl, I know the difference between a radar and a tin can on a string. A bogey that size was rare enough back in the golden age. Now it means only one thing'a sea-going vessel at least a hundred meters long.'
So it was a lot bigger than the tug. Well, no surprise there. 'How far away?'
'We'll see it in a moment. You'd better get your boyfriend out of sight. We know this bunch don't care for mummies.'