Dr. Wayne Nystrom, robotics researcher and inventor, was not comfortable. He stood in the shadows on the deck of the Old Laughing Lady, watching three different drunken brawls among members of the crew. Every man in the crew had started drinking rum from the moment the ship was under sail, not the least of them Captain Mick Tomann himself.

“Stand away! Stand away, lads!” Tomann was swaggering about the deck with a tankard in his left hand and a flintlock pistol in the other. As Wayne watched, the captain sighted drunkenly up into the rigging and fired. The ball chipped a piece of wood off a yardarm. “Ha! Got it.” He stuck that pistol into his belt and drew another.

The sound of scraping metal rose from one of the brawls. The fight between two men had grown more serious; cutlasses had been drawn and Wayne could see the yellowish light from a swaying ship’s lantern shining on them. Curious, but still careful, he moved up a little to watch.

“Hold! Hold there, I say!” Tomann somehow staggered toward the impending sword fight on the moving deck, brandishing his second pistol.

The crowd of buccaneers surrounding the fighters opened the way for him.

“Drop ‘em!” Tomann heaved the rum out of his tankard into one man’s face, then flung the tankard itself at the other. “Fight all you want, but save the cutting for the Spanish. We have gold to win tomorrow!”

Drunken cheers rose from the crew. A couple of men took the cutlasses away from their companions and gave them more rum instead. Distracted, they drank up. Tomann stumbled away in search of more rum.

Wayne sighed with relief and stepped back into the shadows. Then he looked out across the moonlit sea. The Hungry Hawk was hidden by the darkness, but Tomann had managed to get his crew together and set sail before it had been out of sight for long. Wayne had pointed out the way and, as Tomann had promised, the Old Laughing Lady was a faster ship. Shortly before sundown, the Hungry Hawk had come into sight again in the distance.

Steve stood with Jane on the dock, watching their small sailboat bob on the water, tied securely. Hunter had finished it near midnight. As Steve had suggested, one tall mast rose from a short, sharply pointed hull. Now that it was in the water, with the keel out of sight, it looked unbalanced, but the keel was big enough to help stabilize the little boat. Two long poles extended from the starboard side, holding a thick, smoothly polished log. The outrigging would make the craft even more stable. Hunter had stretched a canvas tarpaulin across part of the hull to provide some shelter for the humans when they crawled under it.

“Looks good so far,” said Steve.

“Let us load it,” said Hunter. “Steve, if you will stand inside, I will hand the containers to you.”

“All right.” Carefully, he moved from the dock into the sailboat. It swayed, then steadied. “Hunter, don’t wooden boats normally have to season in the water? So the wood will expand from absorbing the water and fill the cracks between the boards?”

“Usually, yes,” said Hunter, handing him a keg of fresh drinking water. “I included this problem in my calculations. The hull was already watertight as I constructed it.”

“Handy,” Steve muttered to himself, impressed.

Earlier, right after dinner, Hunter had accompanied Steve and Jane to buy and carry some food and water for their trip. After they had loaded the supplies and Steve and Jane had taken seats in the boat, Hunter cast off the lines and stood on the dock, still holding the bowline.

“We have a moderate onshore wind,” he said. “However, this boat is very maneuverable. I do not expect a problem.” He stepped into the boat with a robotic sense of balance that hardly made the boat sway at all.

“We should name this craft,” said Steve. “And break a bottle over its bow.”

“Why?” Hunter looked at him. “That would waste valuable drinking water.”

“It’s another joke, Hunter,” said Jane, grinning at Steve.

“Oh. Was this one funny?”

“Not any more,” said Steve, smiling back at Jane. “Here.” He reached down into the water and splashed water up against the hull. “I hereby christen her the Jamaica Jane.”

Jane rolled her eyes, laughing.

In one smooth motion, Hunter hoisted the sail and sat down at the tiller, holding it firmly as the wind filled the sail with a jerk. Steve flailed for a handhold and got a fistful of Jane’s hair. She jumped in surprise, then laughed as they both braced themselves against kegs of water.

Hunter took the Jamaica Jane away from the dock in a firm, sure tack against the wind. The boat tilted hard to starboard, driving the outrigger under the surface of the water. It held, however, preventing the sailboat from taking too extreme an angle.

Steve squinted against the breeze, feeling the cold spray hit his face. The night was cool but not cold, even over the water. He felt a surge of excitement.

“Hunter?” Jane turned around awkwardly to face him. “Can we really move fast enough to catch up?”

“Yes. We have an excellent ratio of sail to water resistance. Also, I have made careful calculations of the wind and currents.” He leaned over the side and reached out with his long arm to dip one hand into the water. “As we go, I will continue to feel the currents. This will help me calculate the best angle at which to sail.”

“Can you really do that? Feel the currents by sticking your hand into the water while we’re moving?” Jane looked at the dark water doubtfully. “I know your robotic sensors are good, but does the water tell you that much?”

“Yes,” said Hunter. “My data on sailing include some information about ancient Polynesians doing this. They could even calculate where unknown islands would be, from miles away, according to how the water moved around them.”

“No kidding,” said Steve. “Really?”

“Yes. We do not need to follow the Hungry Hawk precisely, or to use only line of sight to find it. Since I know the direction it took, the winds and currents it has had available to use, and the level of technology on the ship, I should be able to intercept it by sometime tomorrow.”

“Sounds like we’re all set,” said Steve.

“We have one serious vulnerability,” said Hunter. “This craft will not take high waves well. I will keep my sensors carefully trained on changes in ions, humidity, and temperature to predict the weather.”

“I won’t complain about that,” said Steve, grinning. He felt a surge of excitement as the wind whipped his hair and the boat rose and fell with the waves.

“Good idea, Hunter,” said Jane.

Steve leaned toward her. “Exciting, isn’t it? Chasing a pirate ship across the Caribbean?”

She nodded, more nervous than excited. “What’s wrong?”

“I’ve been thinking about these pirate ships. And the danger to MC 2. He’s heavier than water.”

“You mean if he goes overboard during an attack?”

“Yes. He can swim…if he’s close enough to land, he can get back. But if it’s too far-”

“He’ll sink to the bottom.”

“Actually, he doesn’t need oxygen. He could sink and walk to shore. But again, he has to be close enough not to use up all his energy first. And walking through water would drain his energy much faster than ordinary walking.”

“If he’s lost on the bottom, we’d never find him.”

“No. But when the right time comes, he’ll still explode with the same force, wherever he is on the seafloor.”

The next morning after a rather spare breakfast, Rita again stood by the rail with MC 2, staying out of the way of the buccaneers. Everyone was excited. As dawn had broken over the sea, they had spotted a Spanish merchant ship on the horizon. Rita watched it all morning, realizing for the first time how painfully slow the race between the ships would be.