HE DISSECTED MORE than his share of dead men's heads during those early Royal Society days, and knows that the hull of the skull is all wrapped about with squishy rigging: haul-yards of tendon and braces of ligament cleated to pinrails on the jawbone and temple, tugging at the corners of spreading canvases of muscle that curve over the forehead and wrap the old Jolly Roger in as many overlapping layers as there are sails on a ship of the line. As Daniel trudges up out of Minerva 's bilge, dragging a chinking sack of ammunition behind him, he feels all that stuff tightening up, steadily and inexorably, each stairstep a click of the pawls, as if invisible sailors were turning capstans inside his skull. He's spent the last hour below the water-line – never his favorite place on shipboard, but safe from cannonballs anyway – smashing plates with a hammer and bellowing old songs, and never been so relaxed in all his life. But now he's climbed back up into the center of the hull, just the sort of bulky bull's-eye pirates might aim swivel-guns at if they lacked confidence in their ability to pick off small fine targets from their wave-tossed platforms.