I think that the name of the story was ‘Quiet Sea’ or ‘Silent Sea’ or
something similar, but I can’t remember the. name of the author. It made
the cover of a MF&SF issue from, I think, the 1970s or very early 1980s. The
illustration was of a large galleon style sailing ship, with lots of
explosions up in the sky. The plot was:

The planet, most definitely not Earth, had a surface that was almost entirely
water. Very little land, and not much growing on land. Humans got there, by
some accident. There were natives. Neither the humans nor the natives had
much in the way of tech, no land, very little in the way of metal ores or any
way to work those ores. The humans mostly lived on large sailing ships,
grouped into fleets; some fleets segregated men and women on different ships,
to keep the population in bounds, other fleets practiced drastic methods to
keep the population down. Fleets might fight each other, fleetsa might fight
the natives, fleets might ally with one group of the natives against other
natives or against other fleets.

Our Hero arrives. He’s human, his spacecraft has had a bit of an argumenmt
with another spacecraft, also run by humans. His spacecraft ‘won’, in
that he got out and managed to make it to the planetary surface while the
opposition was lost with all hands. Our Hero is fairly important.

Our Hero manages to land near a human-run ship, a ship belonging to one of
the fleets which segregate genders, and is picked up. Some of his equipment
proves useful. He spends a _lot_ of time on shipboard. And then his ship
rendezvouses with one of the shipswith women... and Our Hero sees that one of
the women has a new knife, a design he recognizes. Apparently the oppostion
has come back. As Our Hero’s spacecraft didn’t get a signal off, and the
opposition spacecraft was destroyed before it could signal, the opposition
doesn’t know that he’s there... and neither does Our Hero’s people. Our
Hero is sufficiently important that if the opposition knew he was around,
they’d kill him, even if it meant sinking the ship he’s on. Meanwhile,
hos people would try to get him back. Shenanigans follow. One of the
oppositon finds Our Hero, and there’s a confrontation; the opposition guy
establishes who the bad guys (not Our Hero) and Our Hero drags out Esmerelda,
his personal sidearm. Esmerelda is a’lasgun’; the opposition guy sneers
at Our Hero, and calls the bluff of the obviously dead (it’s been _years_
that Our Hero was stuck on the planet) lasgun. Except Esmerelda still has
enough charge for one shot, and Our Hero wasn’t bluffing.

Our Hero gets hold of the opposition guy’s comms and calls his people. The
cover illustration shows what happes when his people arrive and trap the
opposition forces at the bottom of a gravity well.

Anyone have any idea what the real name of the story is, who wrote it, and
which issue of MF&SF it appeared in?

On 27/08/2022 14:31, Wolffan wrote:
>
> I think that the name of the story was ‘Quiet Sea’ or ‘Silent Sea’ or
> something similar, but I can’t remember the. name of the author. It made
> the cover of a MF&SF issue from, I think, the 1970s or very early 1980s. The
> illustration was of a large galleon style sailing ship, with lots of
> explosions up in the sky. The plot was:
>
[SNIP]

Have a gander here:
<https://archive.org/details/fantasyandsciencefiction> you might spot
the cover.

Cheers,
Gary B-)

On 27 Aug 2022, Gary R. Schmidt wrote
(in article<gebpti-iub.ln1@paranoia.mcleod-schmidt.id.au>):

> On 27/08/2022 14:31, Wolffan wrote:
> >
> > I think that the name of the story was ‘Quiet Sea’ or ‘Silent Sea’
> > or
> > something similar, but I can’t remember the. name of the author. It made
> > the cover of a MF&SF issue from, I think, the 1970s or very early 1980s. The
> > illustration was of a large galleon style sailing ship, with lots of
> > explosions up in the sky. The plot was:
> [SNIP]
>
> Have a gander here:
> <https://archive.org/details/fantasyandsciencefiction> you might spot
> the cover.
>
> Cheers,
> Gary B-)

Thanks. This
https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v055n06_1978-
12_Lenny_Silv3r is the one. The story is ‘Quiet Sea’, by Glen Cook.

Wolffan wrote:

>Thanks. This
>https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v055n06_1978-
>12_Lenny_Silv3r is the one. The story is ‘Quiet Sea’, by Glen Cook.

I recently read the collection The Best of Glen Cook, and that story is
in there.

Brian