The women who served aboard the Oregon quickly turned into angels of mercy, assisting the surgeon and tending to the wounded. Pitt's unlucky curse held tight. Instead of an attractive nurse to bandage his hip wound, his luck of the draw was the ship's quartermaster or mistress (her actual title in Cabrillo's corporate structure was supply and logistics coordinator), who stood six feet and weighed two hundred pounds if she weighed an ounce. Her name was Monica Crabtree, and she was as bright and resourceful as they came.

After she finished, she gave Pitt a slap on his exposed tail. "All finished. And may I say that you've got a nice set of buns."

"Why is it," Pitt said, pulling up his boxer briefs, "women always take advantage of me?"

"Because we're smart enough to see through that steely exterior and know that inside beats the heart of a sentimental slob."

Pitt looked at her. "Do you read palms, or more correctly, buns?"

"No, but I'm a whiz with tarot cards." Crabtree paused and gave him a come-hither smile. "Come over to my quarters sometime and I'll give you a reading."

Pitt would have rather rushed off for a root canal. "Sorry, knowing the future might upset my stomach."

Pitt limped through the open doorway to the chairman's cabin. No bunk for the chairman of the board. Cabrillo was lying in a king-size bed with a Balinese carved headboard on top of clean green sheets. Bottles on a stand containing clear fluids flowed into him through tubes. Considering his ordeal, he looked reasonably healthy as he sat propped up by pillows reading damage reports while smoking a pipe. Pitt was saddened to see that his leg had been amputated below the knee. The stump was elevated on a pillow, a red stain having spread through the bandage.

"Sorry about your leg," said Pitt. "I had hoped the surgeon might have somehow reattached it."

"Wishful thinking," said Cabrillo with extraordinary grit. "The bone was too shattered for the doc to glue it back on."

"I guess there is no sense in asking how you feel. Your constitution seems to be firing on all cylinders."

Cabrillo nodded at his missing limb. "Not so bad. At least it's below the knee. How do you think I'd look with a peg leg?"

Pitt looked down and shrugged. "Somehow I can't picture the chairman of the board stomping about the deck like some lecherous buccaneer."

"Why not? That's what I am."

"It's obvious," Pitt said, smiling, "that you don't need any sympathy."

"What I need is a good bottle of Beaujolais to replace my blood loss."

Pitt eased into a chair beside the bed. "I hear you've given orders to bypass the Philippines."