Chapter One

Maiden Voyage

“Let me speak to the yet unknowing world how these things came about: so shall you hear of carnal...and unnatural acts...put on by cunning and forced cause...all this I can truly deliver.”

Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 5, scene 2

Chief engineer’s mate Ralph Everhard wiped his sweating brow with an oil-stained cloth. “Dr. Rawson, sir, you’re the only officer aboard who supports our plan,” he said. The pounding of the engines guaranteed we wouldn’t be overheard on the upper decks. “We all agree you should be our new captain when we mutiny and take control of the ship.”

I hesitated on the gangway stairs, scanning the faces of dozens of crewmen. “Are you speaking only for yourself, just a few of the crew, or all of these men?”

A six-foot-seven-inch tall, amply-muscled black man raised his brawny hand for my attention.

“Yes, Seaman Thorne,” I said.

“We’re your men,” he spoke in a deep, rumbling bass. “You can depend on us to follow your orders.”

“All of us,” the rest of the men called out above the machinery’s din.

“There are some of the crew who can’t be here because of their duties,” Ralph continued. “You can speak to them secretly, of course, if you like, but they are all with us—we even slyly invited a few of the—um—masochistic female crew to join us and they agreed with intense enthusiasm.” He lifted his cap and tilted it in imaginary courtesy. “Lisa, the assistant cook, and Raquel, the cabin maid begged me to be kept on board as part of our—um—collection.”

“They volunteered of their own free will?”

“Sure. I’ve had both of them sneak into my cabin at bedtime and pester me to strip them naked and tie them down in my bed with my neckties for a night of sex.”

“Yeah,” another crewman said with a wicked laugh. “We all want the same thing—lots of helpless pretty girls to play with.” He winked and nudged the man next to him. They and the men around them broke into a coarse laugh and pounded each other’s backs in hearty comradeship.

I narrowed my eyelids and scanned their faces again, wondering if I could maintain control of them. One mistake, one slip of the tongue,