Maelstrom (11 page)

Gilbert peered at him through slitted lids and proceeded to perform another feat he and Isak were very good at: mentally tripping Spanky up with their disjointed stream-of-consciousness thought processes. “We’re goin’ to set up the spudder someplace else, ain’t we?”

“Well . . . of course. That’s part of the reason for this trip.”

Gilbert looked at Isak significantly. “We know that, but you’ve come here to tell us
we’re
gonna hafta do it!” he accused. “Leave our boilers and toil away onshore, just like last time!”

“Ain’t fair!” Isak proclaimed. He held out his tanned, skinny arm like a bloody rag. “Just look at that, what the damn sun did to me! We joined the Navy to burn oil . . . not to keep diggin’ it up!”

Spanky glanced at his battered wristwatch, an item he’d always taken for granted, but which was now precious beyond words. A few Lemurian artisans had experimented with large clocks, achieving mixed results. Right now everyone’s priorities were elsewhere, and the best potential clock makers were consumed by the necessity of creating the more complicated armaments. If he didn’t hurry, he’d be late for the meeting in the wardroom.

“Life isn’t fair,” he said, “but you do your best. My curse is, I have to put up with you. But right now you’re the best oil men we’ve got, and if that means you keep working on your tans, that’s what you’ll do. For what it’s worth, though, that’s
not
what I came to tell you. Right now I want one of you to run topside and show those apes what parts of the rig have to come off first. They want to restow the stuff. There’s not much point; we’ll be there tomorrow, but just make sure they don’t screw anything up. As to the other . . .” He scowled, contemplating. “I’d just as soon you didn’t go either. We’ve got too many green firemen down here, and I need someone to show them what to do. Maybe I can get the captain to let me keep one of you, at least.”

He expected an argument over that, something like, “Where one goes, we all go,” but there was only silence and calculating expressions.

“Jeez. Well, carry on.” With that he strode forward, past the other firemen in the compartment. He chose one more to accompany one of the Mice above and then paused at the huge copper fuel tank taking up most of the space once occupied by the number one boiler. He felt the cool metal and was relieved, as always, that the hellish temperatures didn’t seem inclined to heat the fuel inside. All the sloshing around probably helped dissipate the warming effect. He didn’t like the idea of all that fuel right here in the fireroom; if they ever had an accident . . . but there was nowhere else to put it, and it was his idea, after all. Oh, well. He patted the tank and went through the forward air lock.

“I swear, Tabby, how come ye’re always waggin’ yer boobs at the chief?” asked Gilbert after Spanky was gone. “You know it drives him nuts. Just havin’ wimmin aboard at all is enough to cause him fits—and then you do that!”

“Yeah,” agreed Isak, “ain’t ever’body in the Navy as sensitive as us two.”

“He needs to laugh,” Tabby replied, “and he will, later.”

The meeting in the wardroom was also a late breakfast, catered to perfection by Juan. The food was laid out, buffet style, on the wooden countertops on the port side of the compartment spanning the width of the ship. Juan and Ray Mertz, a mess attendant, stood ready with carafes of ice water and coffee. Those eating were seated at a long, green, linoleum-topped table that also served as an operating table when necessary. A bright light hung above it from an adjustable armature allowing it to be lowered over a patient. It was currently raised and stowed, but there was plenty of light, and even a slight breeze through the open portholes on each side. Much of the food looked familiar to the humans, even if the source wasn’t. Mounds of scrambled eggs and strips of salty “bacon” tasting much like one would have expected them to—even if the eggs came from leathery, flying reptiles, and the bacon from . . . something else. Biscuits had been baked with the coarse-grained local flour, and pitchers of polta juice were provided for those who cared for it. There was no milk, although there was something that tasted a little like cream with which they could season their ersatz coffee if they chose. Lemurians were mammals, but considered it perverse for adults to drink milk. Understandable, since the only other creatures that might have provided it were decidedly undomesticated.

Juan had worked wonders to lay in the supplies and logistical support necessary to provide the simple, “normal” breakfast. Standard Lemurian morning fare was dry bread, fruit, and fish. It
had
been standard, at least, until Juan Marcos stepped up. Many Navy ’Cats had developed a liking for the powdered eggs and ketchup the American destroyermen ate, but that was long gone now. The refrigerator was stocked with fresh eggs, though, and that would serve until they ran out. Alan Letts was working on several projects to desiccate food—eventually, for longer trips, they’d have to come up with something—but for now they’d laid in a supply of dried fish and fruit for when the fresh stuff ran out. Strangely, they did still have plenty of one type of food they’d stocked so long ago when
Walker
escaped Surabaya: crates of Vienna sausages. The cook, Earl Lanier, still tried to infiltrate the slimy little things into meals on occasion, carefully camouflaged, but the men hated the “scum weenies” with a passion, and always ferreted them out. Even the ’Cats had finally grown to dislike them. Regardless, the fat, irascible cook refused to get rid of them, calling them “survival rations.”

After cordial greetings, the officers in the wardroom ate in silence, for the most part. It was the Lemurian way not to discuss matters of importance during a meal, and Matt thought the custom made sense. Instead of talking, he enjoyed his food and looked around the table at his companions. Seated to his left like some reddish brown, cat-faced bear was Keje-Fris-Ar, High Chief of
Salissa
Home—
Big Sal
, as the Americans called her. Matt was glad his friend Keje felt free to make the trip. Like the other Homes in the alliance, Keje’s would take its turn guarding the mouth of the bay, but under the command of his cousin, Jarrik-Fas, she didn’t really need him for that. Also, he’d finally decided to allow some of the “alterations” Letts and Lieutenant Brister had been harping on, so
Big Sal
would spend much of his absence at the fitting-out pier. Initially reluctant, Keje was now prepared to allow any modifications whatsoever to his Home that would make her more formidable. He’d cast his lot, and that of his people, entirely for the cause of destroying the Grik forever. Matt was grateful not just for the sake of the alliance, but for his own. He’d grown extremely fond of the gruff, wise Lemurian, and had come to rely heavily on Keje’s judgment and support.

Keje’s sky priest, Adar, sat in the next seat. He was the only sky priest Matt knew well, and he’d been Keje’s childhood friend. With Naga’s decline, he had, for all intents and purposes, become High Sky Priest of all the allied powers, so his presence on the expedition, while chancy, should help immensely with negotiations. In theory, even among the Maa-ni-los, every high chief of every Home, whether land-based or seagoing, was a head of state in his own right, and all enjoyed equal status according to custom. But Sky Priests were a little different. As High Sky Priest of the entire alliance, there was no question but that Adar was a little more “equal” than the others. He hadn’t planned it that way, but that was the way it was, was the way it had to be. His position was fragile, but potentially very powerful. Right now that power was founded on trust. A well-founded trust, in Matt’s opinion. It was Adar who’d have to convince the Maa-ni-los it was in their best interest to openly join the alliance, and if anyone could do that with heartfelt arguments, it was Adar. Time would tell.

If there was a potential weak link in the command staff chain represented on his ship, there was only one. Everyone at the breakfast table had been tested in a variety of ways and hadn’t been found wanting, but seated to Matt’s right, beyond Lieutenant Dowden, was Lieutenant (Brevet Major) Tamatsu Shinya: a fellow destroyerman, but one who’d served the Japanese Imperial Navy. The compact, dark-haired man had once been an anonymous enemy on a half-glimpsed ship in an impossibly far-off war. Unbelievable as it sometimes seemed even now—he was a Jap, for crying out loud!—Shinya had become a trusted and valuable friend. He’d found his calling as a commander of infantry, and had served with distinction in every battle since the Squall brought them together. He was highly regarded by his ’Cat infantry, and even the old Asiatic Fleet destroyermen had grown to grudgingly accept and respect him. Matt doubted he’d need his services on this trip, and he’d probably have been more use back “home” helping prepare defenses, but it was clear he had issues that needed sorting out. Perhaps the trip might help.

To Shinya’s right was the captain of the Second Marines and also one of
Walker
’s bosun’s mates when he was aboard: Chack-Sab-At. Of all the Lemurians Matt had come to know, Chack was possibly the most remarkable. He’d come aboard
Walker
right after she first met the ’Cats as a kind of full-immersion exchange student. He’d been a willing, happy addition to the crew, and as time went by Matt came to realize just how skilled an ambassador he’d been. He came among the Americans at a time when they’d just lost a lot of friends and were only beginning to grasp the fact that something terrible and extraordinary had happened to them. They were afraid, and a little shocky, and even with their relatively sophisticated weapons, they’d been vulnerable. They hadn’t been vulnerable to the People of
Big Sal
—or the thousands of Grik they helped defend her from—but they were quite vulnerable to their fears. They were on a hair trigger, and none of the People wanted it to go off pointed at them. Matt now knew Keje chose Chack to send over partly because he had just, somewhat unexpectedly, proven himself a warrior of unusual skill, and Keje believed it took a warrior to evaluate warriors. But the main reason was that no other of his people combined the skill of a warrior—newfound as it was—with anything close to Chack’s simple, inherent friendliness. He’d been the perfect choice.

Once aboard, Chack had been his normal, inquisitive, gregarious self, and if not all of
Walker
’s crew was smart enough to realize he was at least as smart as they were, nobody considered him any more dangerous or offensive than a pet monkey. The fact that the Americans had already formed something of a protective attachment toward his people, combined with Chack’s engaging ministry and a mutual desire for allies in the face of the Grik threat, had resulted in what was probably the most seamless amalgamation of purpose two races had ever experienced. Let alone two entirely different species. Matt wasn’t sure anyone else could have done it.
Walker
’s Asiatic Fleet sailors had been worldly, but also extremely insular. Much like Chack’s sea folk or “People of the Homes,” they’d seen much of the world as they knew it, but wherever they went, their “home” was still USS
Walker
. Even when they were in foreign ports, they went ashore with people they knew, to visit familiar haunts, and do familiar things—often with familiar results. (Chief among these were hangovers and “social” afflictions.)

Walker
, and a fair percentage of her people, had been on the China Station so long that any change in the ordinary routine of life was potentially traumatic. The word that reached them in the wee hours of the Philippine morning of December 8, 1941, had been catastrophic. An endless procession of brutal changes proceeded to destroy the world as they knew it, when they were forced to evacuate the Philippines and participate in chaotic, ill-conceived battles against overwhelming forces. The pitiful remains of the outdated Asiatic Fleet withered under the Japanese onslaught like a candle under a blowtorch. Then, during the mad dash to escape the relentless enemy, the greatest change of all occurred: the Squall that swept them . . . here.

Chack had been a calming influence during the difficult time following their arrival, and everyone now knew he had far greater depths than he’d first displayed. Probably deeper than he’d known himself. Events since then had changed the young Lemurian, matured him beyond his years. He wasn’t as gregarious as before, was less engaging and carefree than the Chack they’d first come to know. After all the battles and suffering they’d endured together since that first strange day, it was no wonder. Like all of them, he’d lingered in the hellish heat of the cauldron of battle a little longer than might have been wise, and emerged as something different. Harder, maybe. Similar, but not quite the same. Matt recognized the shift, just as he’d once seen it in himself. At the moment, however, any change was hard to see. Chack was grinning and blinking amusement at something Courtney Bradford had said.

Matt took a bite of the ersatz bacon and contemplated the strange Australian for a moment. Just as he’d been genuinely angry at Silva for taking the self-proclaimed “naturalist” super-lizard hunting, he’d actually hesitated to bring Bradford on the mission because he was just too damned valuable to risk. Bradford would have none of it. He’d “suffered in silence” long enough, he claimed. How could Captain Reddy, if he possessed a conscience at all, continue to persecute him by refusing him yet another opportunity for discovery? He’d finally threatened to “feed himself to death” if left behind, and ultimately Matt relented. Not because he thought Bradford was actually willing (or able) to carry out his threat, but he knew Bradford would be an asset to the trip. Not only was he a fair diplomat, but he spoke fluent Latin—the liturgical language of the Sky Priests in which their Sacred Scrolls were transcribed. Also, Matt had to admit he liked having someone around to bounce ideas off of who didn’t look at everything almost solely from a military perspective. Sandra was the only other person who fit that description, and he couldn’t have allowed her to come along. For lots of reasons.