Maelstrom (56 page)

“How?” whispered Matt. Beyond his earlier statement of fact, he didn’t really want to talk long-term strategy just then. His heart wasn’t in it. He just wanted to mourn his ship.

“Easy, Skipper.” Spanky grinned. “We’ll build battlewagons!”

Matt blinked. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Ever see a walking-beam steam engine? Put one—a
big
one—on something the size of
Big Sal
, stick on some paddle wheels, and pack her full of guns . . . ’Cat battlewagons!”

Keje was intrigued. “Steam engines . . . in a
Home
! Remarkable! You must tell me more, Mr. Maac-Faar-Laan.” Then he shook his head. “First we must consider, however, that we still need more help.” He bowed to Saan-Kakja. “Less now, of course, but Princess Re-beccaa’s people will surely appreciate the necessity of our cause. We must send a delegation across the Eastern Ocean. Take her home, Cap-i-taan Reddy; let her speak for us.” He glanced at Chief Gray. “In light of our victory, they may be . . . easier to convince than before.”

“Not much time for that,” Matt murmured dolefully, still looking at
Walker
’s grave. The destroyer’s speed would have made communications across such a distance much simpler. He sighed. No point in wishing for the impossible. Unintentionally, Matt was sure, Keje rubbed salt into the wound.

“Why not raise
Waa
-
kur
?” Keje asked, genuinely curious.

Matt snorted bitter laughter, then blinked apology in the Lemurian way. “I’m sorry. I sure wish we could, but it’s impossible.”

Keje blinked perplexity. “Why? She is not heavier than
Salissa
, yet I know my Home can be raised.”

“Look,” said Spanky, “I know you guys have great pumps; I’ve seen ’em work. But no matter how much air we put in her, it’ll just come out faster. We can’t dive and weld, so we can’t plug the holes. There’s no way.”

Keje looked at him and blinked surprise. “Have you never wondered how we build something the size of
Salissa
and then float it?”

“Well . . .” Spanky looked flustered. “I just thought you built ’em on land and launched them down a ways, like we did the frigates.”

Keje shook his head. “I understand your . . . misunderstanding . . . now. We build smaller ships, like feluccas, like that. But I assure you, we do not build the great Homes on land.”

Spanky’s eyes widened. “A dry dock?!”

Keje now had everyone’s attention. “You have spoken at some length about what you call a ‘proper’ dry dock,” he said with a touch of irritation, “but we make do with a simpler expedient. We build a wall in the sea and pump out the water behind it. That is what we use this very basin for. I thought you knew? Why else put your ship into it? Here it is very simple. We flood down two Homes across the mouth of the basin, and build the walls only between them. It takes many days to pump the water out, but then you may freely work.”

“A cofferdam!” Matt shouted triumphantly, and grinned. It was as though the weight of the world had fallen from his shoulders. Dared he hope? “We
didn’t
know! By the time we got here, I was just following the boats pulling us in!”

“And I was following the pilot’s directions on the felucca!” Jim said. “I bet Frankie was too!”

“At least somebody knew what they were doing!” growled Gray. Everyone laughed.

Rolak, Chack, and Queen Maraan appeared, joining a happier group than they’d expected.

“What have we missed?” Safir asked pleasantly. She was still sad from the funeral, but uplifted as well.

“We’re going to raise the ship!” Sandra announced triumphantly, squeezing her captain’s hand.

Spanky’s brow knitted into a frown. “Still won’t work,” he said. “I’m sorry. The damage is just too severe. If we had some steel it might be different, but her structural integrity’s shot. We can’t keep patchin’ her with copper plates and rivets.”

Faces fell, but Chack only grinned.

“Steel is like iron, is it not? I’ve heard the term used interchangeably at times.”

“Yeah . . . sorta,” Spanky replied.

“Then what are you worried about?” He barked a laugh. “Sometimes you Amer-i-caans are so clever I almost think you are gods. But often you miss the painfully obvious.” He gestured vaguely over his shoulder toward where
Amagi
lay on the bottom of Baalkpan Bay, broken and gutted by flames, her warped and dreary superstructure still protruding above the water as a constant, grim reminder. “Out there is all the iron in the world!”

What had been a gloomy gathering became almost a celebration of sorts. Voices rose with excited, animated suggestions, punctuated by occasional laughter. Finally, the great victory they’d achieved actually began to
feel
like a victory instead of yet another ordeal they’d somehow managed to survive. Eventually, as the afternoon waned, the friends began to disperse.

Finally alone, as the sun touched the dense jungle horizon, Sandra wrapped her arms around Matt’s neck, pulling him down for a joyful, passionate kiss.

“Gotta go,” she whispered at last, tears streaking her face. “Work to do.”

“I’ll be along.”

“You’ll be all right?”

Matt smiled at her and nodded. “I think I
am
. Right now, finally, I think we all will be.” She hugged him tight, and as she disengaged herself, her fingers trailing away from his, her smile turned impish.

“Karen’s pregnant,” she announced.

Matt was stunned, as all men are by such sudden, momentous statements. “She didn’t look any different to me.”

Sandra giggled and shook her head. “See you later, sailor,” she said, and stepped away into the gathering twilight.

“Huh,” Matt said, turning to walk along the dock. Eventually he grinned.

A short distance away he was surprised to encounter the Mice sitting on coiled cables and leaning against a fallen piling. All three had their elbows on their knees and their chins in their hands as they stared glumly at their sunken Home.

“Evening, uh . . . men,” he said, inwardly amused by his own confusion regarding how to address them. The trio began to stand and he waved them back. “Why the long faces?” They looked at him as if he were nuts.

Gilbert hopped up anyway, whipping his hat from his head. No matter how crazy he thought he was, there was no way he could answer the skipper sitting down. “Well, sir, beggin’ yer pardon, but our ship’s, well . . . sunk.”

“So? We’ll raise her. What’s that compared to everything else we’ve done?” Isak and Tabby both jumped up.

“But . . . beggin’ yer pardon too, how we gonna patch her?” Isak demanded.

Tabby suddenly blinked inspiration. “We gonna use iron from that Jap ship, ain’t we!” she exclaimed in a passable copy of her companion’s lazy drawl.

Isak stiffened. In a voice both excited and scandalized at the same time, he spoke. “Hally-looya, we’re gonna get our boilers back . . . but goddamn! Jap iron? It ain’t decent!” Catching himself, he yanked his own hat off his head and mumbled, “Sir.”

Matt laughed. “Settle down! Steel is steel. Besides, remember all that scrap we sold the Japs before the war? Maybe
Amagi
used to be a Packard!”

He was still laughing when he left them talking excitedly among themselves. Slowly he walked around the basin, inspecting the remains of his ship with a critical eye. Inevitably, looking at her, he became more somber. No question about it: raising and refitting the old destroyer would be a daunting task. But they
had
performed miracles; they could do it again. The mere fact that any of them were still alive was a miracle in itself.

He stopped when he reached the other side of the basin. The ship was farther from him now, and the exposed damage didn’t look so bad. An errant ray of the setting sun managed to blink through the jungle on the far side of the bay and cast his long shadow upon the distant pilothouse. That was where he’d been standing when they fought
Amagi
the first time, he reflected, and when they came through the Squall. It was from there that he’d first seen the Lemurians, and directed the first action in their aid. It was probably where he’d first realized he was in love with Sandra Tucker. He’d fought the Battle of Aryaal/B’mbaado Bay and tried to save
Nerracca
from within its confines. And that was where he’d been standing just the other night. . . .

It suddenly occurred to him that
Walker
’s pilothouse, her
bridge
, was where he had become the man he was. More properly, that . . . living . . . ship, and—he couldn’t find the words for her crew—had taken the man he’d been and molded,
refined
him into the man he had become. Hot tears stung his cheeks, and, impatiently, he wiped them away. No time for that, and
she
wouldn’t want it. As his shadow disappeared and
Walker
’s bridge grew dark, he knew someday, somehow, he’d stand there again. When he did, it would be at the head of a
fleet
that would scour the Grik from existence and secure the safety of his people—regardless of race—and the memory of all those who’d died to make it happen.