Offer him a job

“Well, the general idea is to create something which will be as devastating as possible at close range, right as things slow down and the aggressor prepares to send out a boarding party,” Michaels explained the thick, snub-nosed cannon which he was showing Brenan sketches of, “while the design allows for larger calibres at a much lower weight, possibly as little as a third of that of a normal long gun.”

As he listened to Michaels go on about his plans, it struck Brenan that the older man seemed strangely naïve in his apparent ignorance about what his inventions would do to people. While it was reassuring that Michaels didn’t show any enthusiasm or malice about the possible effects of his weapons, it still made Brenan feel slightly uneasy as he listened to him.

“Of course, the fact that the cannon will be arranged on a slide rather than a traditional carriage means that it’ll most probably not work in conjunction with the suggested double ended gun carriages, although it might just be possibly to come up with a similar system,” Michaels began to sketch on a fresh piece of paper, still talking to Brenan but becoming increasingly focused on jotting down his ideas, “although it would possibly cause some problems with accessibility on foot.”

“Alright,” Brenan watched as Michaels scribbled down his thoughts, “but what did Black Bart think of your suggestions?”

The mention of Black Bart drove Michaels to let go off his pen and look up at Brenan, who noticed that the mad gunner’s face had gone quite pale.

“He, uh, didn’t care much for them,” Michaels began, seemingly losing his confidence as the subject turned away from weaponry.

“As I understand it, you didn’t care much for him either,” Brenan pressed on, trying to make it clear that he shared Michaels’ sentiments.

“No,” Michaels said as the waitress provided them with another set of beers, “No, I can’t say that I did… I was only a member of his crew for a few months, don’t you know? I used to serve aboard the Carnivore, now that was a marvellous ship with a wonderful captain, but it blew up.”

“Right…”

“It wasn’t me!” Michaels almost shrieked out before allowing his voice to die down until he was verging on whispering, “I was on shore leave at the time.”

“So what happened?” Brenan remembered hearing about the Carnivore’s spectacular demise while anchored in a port, though its captain and most of its crew were supposed to have survived it.

“Yes, well there was a bit of a mix-up with the crew’s guard duties, and Jerrold had been put in charge of keeping sure that there weren’t any fires on the gun deck during the night. Now, old Jerrold was quite keen on his pipe, you see, and though I tried as hard as I could, I never did manage to get him to comprehend the volatile consequences of mixing burning matches and gunpowder.”

“As previously divulged, I was on shore and somewhat incapacitated on the night when it happened, and so as I got up in the morning and headed down to the waterfront it was to find that the Carnivore simply wasn’t there. Ah, I’m ashamed to say that at first I thought that they had simply sailed off and abandoned me. So naturally I was quite relieved when a few of the chaps showed up a few days later and told me what had happened.”

“Naturally,” Brenan nodded his head.

Looking at Michaels’ honest expression as he brought his beer up to his mouth and took a sip of it, Brenan decided that the ‘Genius’ would fit right in amongst his crew, and so decided that the time had come to make the man an offer.

“Michaels,” Brenan began, “these modifications that you’ve sketched out, how would you like to make them happen?”

“You mean to say…”

“Well, I’m looking for a gun officer. It will probably take some time before we have the resources for some of your more ambitious projects,” Brenan thought back to the sketches of grooved cannonballs and the lightning-weapon, “but you should be able to get to work on the less complicated stuff straight away.”

“Yes, well, life on dry land really is awfully tedious… you don’t engage in the same sort of activities as Black Bart, do you? Piracy is one thing, but…”

“No.” Brenan cut Michaels off before he got too engaged in his observations.

“Then I shall gladly accept!” Michaels cried out, loud enough for everyone around them to hear it, and raised his half-empty mug of beer as a salute.