My Shipmate-Columbus Part 6

They heard a splash. Danny looked around, saw Don Hernan and a member of the crew gazing serenely down. Pietro was down there, where they had tossed him. For a while the body floated, then the limbs splashed wildly as Pietro regained consciousness. He drifted back away from the ship. He went under, and came up. He went under again, and stayed under....

"The Indies," Nina said.

"The Indies," Danny said. He did not make the distinction between east and west. They must learn for themselves.

The Pinta and the Santa Maria came up alongside. All thoughts of pursuit were gone. Columbus waved. He was very close now on the deck of the Santa Maria. There was something in his face, something changed.

Columbus was a new man now. He had been shamed. He had followed his daughter and Martin Pinzon across an unknown ocean and he was changed now. Somehow, Danny knew he could now make voyages on his own.

"Martin," Nina whispered. "They may say it was father. But it was you.

I'll know in my heart, it was you."

Danny nodded. She put her arm around his shoulder, and kissed him. He liked this slim girl--he liked her immensely, and it wasn't right. She wasn't his, not really. She was Martin Pinzon's. He let the Spaniard come to the surface, willed his own mind back and down and away. She's all yours, Pinzon, he told the other mind in his body. She--and this world. I'm a--stranger here.

But once more he kissed Nina, fiercely, with pa.s.sion and longing.

"Goodbye, my darling," he said.

"Goodbye! What--"

He let Martin Pinzon take it from there. "h.e.l.lo," said Martin Pinzon.

"I mean, h.e.l.lo forever, darling."

She laughed. "Goodbye to your bachelorhood, you mean."

"Yes," he said. "Yes."

But it was Martin Pinzon talking now. Completely Martin Pinzon.

He was back in his grand-uncle's bas.e.m.e.nt. He was in the trunk and he felt stiff. Mostly, his right arm and the right ribs felt stiff. He felt his shirt. It was caked with blood.

Proof, he thought. If I needed proof. What happened to Pinzon happened to me.

He stood up. He felt weak, but knew he would be all right. He knew about Columbus now. At first, a weak drunkard. But after the first voyage, thanks to Martin Pinzon and Nina, an intrepid voyager. For history said Columbus would make four voyages to the New World--and four he would make.

Danny went outside, to where the lawyer was waiting for him. The trunk was Danny's now, the time trunk. And he would use it again, often. He knew that now, and it was wrong to deflate a dream.

Columbus was a hero. He would never say otherwise again.

THE END