Run Afoul Read Online Free PDF Page A

Polynesians and their strange little companion, he spat in the direction of the rail, and sourly observed, “That’s a damn lot of fish.”
    â€œIt is,” Wiki agreed smugly.
    â€œYou expect me to cook it?”
    â€œI don’t,” Wiki informed him, and looked around for Lieutenant Smith—who, as usual, was absent when most needed—and wondered why the devil he hadn’t told this man that he was being replaced.
    He waved an arm at Festin. “This gentleman is the new chef.”
    â€œWhat the bloody hell?”
    â€œLieutenant Smith will give formal notification,” Wiki said firmly. Then he turned to Festin, and said, “ E hoa, nadacowaldam —this is now your galley.”
    Festin eyed the cook, and the cook stared at Wiki, with indentically aggressive expressions. The Acadian said, “Awani agema? Who bloody he?”
    â€œSoon he will go away,” Wiki said optimistically. “Just fix the fish.”
    It took some multilingual argument, but finally Festin set to with his knife, while the man he was supposed to be supplanting watched with a supercilious air. Another few minutes, and fins and tails had been lopped off with satisfying celerity, and the Acadian was cutting slits along the backbone and across each side of the fish. When Wiki looked at the old peg leg again, it was to find that he had retired to a patch of sunlight by the scuttlebutt, and was smoking a pipe with a virtuous air, obviously waiting to reclaim his realm. Smith had still not put in an appearance, so Wiki asked Sua and Tana to keep an eye on Festin, just in case a ruckus broke out, took over his sea chest, and headed for the afterhouse.
    Lieutenant Smith was not there, either. Instead, as Wiki shoved his chest beneath the double berth of his stateroom, he could hear Captain Wilkes and Captain Ringgold in the big drafting room. Both were laughing, Captain Wilkes seeming very amused by Ringgold’s blunder in mistaking the Dutchman for the Vin. Quite a contrast to the way his tardy arrival from Shark Island had been received, Wiki thought wryly, then heard footsteps approaching.
    He turned hopefully, thinking it might be Lieutenant Smith at last, but instead it was a thin, lugubrious man with prematurely gray hair, a desiccated, skull-like face, and badly stooped shoulders. He was holding a large chamber pot in his left hand, which hung forward from his fingers so that Wiki, fascinated, could see that there was a portrait of Napoleon painted in the bottom.
    He had only met the man holding the pot twice before, but recognized him immediately—Astronomer Grimes, who had been a witness in a case of murder early in the voyage. As Wiki remembered vividly, getting testimony out of him had been difficult, as the scientific had been utterly appalled at the very notion of being questioned by a South Seas savage. Now, it seemed not only that Grimes was the man who had come from the Porpoise with Captain Ringgold, but that he was to sleep in the lower bunk, which was not a pleasant prospect at all.
    Obviously, the astronomer felt the same way. He exclaimed, “ You! ”—and took such a fast backward step that he crashed into Jack Winter, who was carrying a couple of his bags. Then he fell into a furious fit of coughing, which sent tears down his cheeks and stooped his back even more.
    Wiki waited, thinking that this boded badly for the nights ahead. Grimes smelled sour, as if he were prone to cold sweats, and his collar was very dirty. When the wet, hacking noises stopped, he said, “Dr. Olliver told me that an instrumentmaker was moving in here. He said nothing about an astronomer.”
    â€œI am an instrumentmaker. I was only an astronomer’s assistant, ” Grimes said. “If you cast back your mind, you would remember that when I joined the fleet I was Dr. Burroughs’s instrumentmaker and assistant. ”
    Wiki also remembered that Grimes had joined the