Seas of Fortune(44)

“I’ll think about it. But it is a waste of my skills as a shiphandler.”

“Then perhaps you need to forget about being a patroon, and stick to what you do best.”





Map 2A: Caribbean





Map 2B: Raid on Granada





Beyond the Line

April 1634 to Late 1634





Trinidad, April 1634





It was a lake, but one unlike any other they had seen. This was the famous Pitch Lake of Trinidad. A hundred acres of tar.

David Pieterszoon de Vries, captain of the fluyt Walvis, studied it for a few moments. The lake was nearly circular, perhaps two thousand feet across, nestled in a shallow bowl at the top of a hill. The surface wasn’t flat and still, like a mountain lake protected by hills from the wind. Instead, there were broad, dark folds, with clear rainwater lying in the hollows between them. David, in his youth, had worked for a bookseller, to learn English, and the haphazard folding reminded him of marbled paper. Here and there, the folds were festooned with a patch of grass, a few yards in width, with a shrub or small tree rising above it like the mast of a ship.

For Philip Jenkins, born in twentieth-century West Virginia, it awoke other memories. “This is a humongous parking lot.”

“Sir Walter was right,” said David. “Enough pitch here for all the ships of the world.” Sir Walter Raleigh had come here in 1595; his sailors used its tar to protect their ships’ hulls from the teredos, the wood borers of the tropical waters.

“We have a lot more uses for it than for caulking ships,” Philip replied.

“Wait here.” Using a boarding pike as a probe, David tested the surface. It seemed firm enough. He took a step forward. The tar sank slightly, but held his weight. He took a second step. No problem.

David turned his head. “Follow me. Test the ground before you trust yourself to it, there may be softer areas at the center of the lake.” After a moment’s hesitation, the landing party followed him.

* * *

Philip was surprised to discover that the tar didn’t seem to stick to his shoes or clothing, as he would have expected. Inspected closely, the tar was finely wrinkled, like the skin of an elephant.

David and his landing party walked around a bit, then he called them to a halt. “One spot seems as good as another, so let’s start here.” The sailors broke up the tar with picks, then drove their shovels into the bitumen, lifting out masses of dark goo. They dumped them into the waiting wheelbarrows. Philip wrinkled his nose; the disturbance of the lake surface had brought forth a sulphurous smell. Nor was the lake quiet; it made burping sounds, now and then.

“The lake is farting,” one of the sailors joked.

Philip saw a tree limb sticking out of the tar, and tried pulling it out. It resisted at first, then emerged, a ribbon of black taffy connecting it to the lake, like a baby’s umbilical cord. Philip studied it for a moment, then threw down the stick. He walked over to David.

“You know what this place reminds me of?” asked Philip. “The Welt-Tier.”

David puzzled over the word for a moment. “German? World-animal?”

“Yes, that’s right. It was in a science fiction story by Philip José Farmer. The ground was springy, like this lake. When someone walked across it, it rose up, like a wave, and tried to swallow him. The land was really the skin of the Beast.”

The sailors within hearing stirred uneasily. “Philip,” commanded David, “you should be shoveling.” Philip nodded, and took the shovel that was handed to him.

* * *

By the day’s end, they had excavated a rectangular pit, some tens of feet long, and several feet deep. David decided against camping on land, it being Spanish territory, and everyone returned to the ship.

When they came back to the lake to continue their labors, they discovered that the pit had partially filled in. Moreover, some of the nearby “islands” of vegetation had moved during the night.

“The lake does act like a living thing,” David whispered to Philip, “but an exceedingly sluggish one. Not like your Welt-Tier.”

Philip stuck a stick into the tar, and pulled it out slowly. The lake made a smacking sound as it released it. “According to Maria’s research notes, tar is usually what’s left behind when oil escapes to the surface, and dries out. But for those islands to move, there must be some liquid circulating beneath the surface. Perhaps it’s just water, but I think it might well be oil.”

“So?”

“We might want to drill for oil nearby. Tar is fine for waterproofing, and roadbuilding, and making organic chemicals, but oil—the liquid form—contains the fuel we need for our APVs. Or for power plants.”