CHAPTER 1
The atmosphere in the
wardroom of the old Asiatic Fleet “four-stacker” destroyer USS
Walker (DD-163) was no longer animated;
it was more . . . subdued and sickened than anything else. The
sultry, rotting breeze off the unknown atoll to windward entered
the portholes and swirled in the cramped compartment, resuscitating
an all-pervading aroma of mildew and sweat. beings sat stiffly,
tiredly, uncomfortably behind the green linoleum-topped wardroom
table, facing aft, waiting for the final prisoner to be brought
before them. It had been a long day, in many ways, and the fiery,
righteous passions that had inflamed the earlier proceedings had
finally dwindled to mere disgusted embers of their former selves.
The aversion, horror, and anger the “court” felt toward the
prisoners they’d judged was still very real and palpable, but it
had become an exhausted, mechanical thing by now, and everyone—the
judges, prosecutors, and even the defense—just wanted the whole
thing over at last.
Captain Matthew
Reddy, High Chief of the American Clan, and Commander in Chief (by
acclamation) of all Allied Forces united under the Banner of the
Trees, stared through the porthole at battered Achilles, anchored alongside. They’d nearly lost
the Imperial steam frigate to damage sustained in the battle
against the “Company” ships. She’d suffered even more sorely in a
vicious little storm that brewed up shortly after, before they made
this unexpected landfall that afforded some protection while she
and the rest of the little fleet performed emergency repairs. Now
the two “prizes” that Achilles and
Walker had taken intact—the HNBC
(Honorable New Britain Company) flagship Ulysses and the pressed Imperial frigate
Icarus—were already practically ready
for sea. Ulysses had fled the action
and been only lightly damaged, and Icarus had been wrested from her Company commanders
by loyal sailors and hadn’t participated in the fight. Achilles was mauled by HNBC Caesar, but ultimately sent her to the bottom. Even
Walker, with her comparatively
long-range guns, had taken a beating, and throughout the court
sessions her old iron hull had reverberated with the sound of
clanging blows from inside and out, as punctured plates were
replaced (they could do that now, at least) or heated, bent back in
place, and reriveted.
Walker wasn’t new anymore by any possible
definition, but after her resurrection and rebuilding, she’d at
least looked almost new for a while in
her fresh, darker shade of gray that the Bosun finally approved.
Her appearance had certainly been a far cry from the shattered,
half-sunken wreck she’d been after the Battle of Baalkpan.
Herculean work had been accomplished to return her to duty and,
ultimately, to ready her for this particular mission. It was really
a miracle that she’d ever floated again, much less steamed so far,
fought yet another battle, and arrived safely at this place.
Sometimes, when Matt gazed at her, he had difficulty believing she
had.
Neither Matt nor the
Bosun had participated in her refloating and rebuilding; they’d
both been off aboard Donaghey, leading
the Singapore Campaign. They hadn’t witnessed the unending hours of
wrenching labor, ingenuity, and tireless dedication that resulted
in her gradual but almost complete restoration. They’d returned
home from the war in the west prepared to embark on literally
anything available to chase the Company
criminal Walter Billingsley, who’d abducted Princess Rebecca,
Sandra Tucker, Sister Audry, Dennis Silva, and Abel Cook.
Kidnapping the princess was bad enough. She and her “lizard” friend
Lawrence—who’d also been taken—were heroes of the Alliance and the
Lemurians held them to their hearts. But Sandra’s abduction was
even worse, if that was possible. Not only was she a much-beloved
heroine who’d saved literally thousands of lives with her own hands
and her medical and organizational skill, she was the woman Matthew
Reddy loved. They weren’t married or even officially engaged, but
that made no difference to the Lemurian “ ’Cats.” To them, she was
their Supreme Commander’s “mate.” Nothing, not even the
all-important war, could or should interfere with his pursuit of
her captors.
There was genuine
concern for the other hostages too. Sister Audry had few
detractors, despite her heretical teachings. Quite a number had
even converted to her church. She was considered by all to be an
honest, pious female, if just a bit odd. Abel Cook wasn’t
well-known, but he was “one of theirs.” Dennis Silva was a genuine
hero, and though unqualifiedly deranged, he’d almost come to
symbolize the human Americans in some indefinable way as far as the
Lemurians were concerned. He was big, noisy, and irreverent, but in
an almost childlike, inoffensive manner. He was brave to the point
of recklessness, but tender with younglings. He’d sacrificed much
for a people and cause he barely knew, simply because it was
right—and he was capable of
unparalleled violence toward anything that posed a threat to his
new friends. His ongoing affairs with human nurse Pam Cross, as
well as the equally rambunctious Lemurian Risa-Sab-At, were also a
source of much gossip and amusement among the Allied ’Cats, even
though—and perhaps because—the affair seemed to cause such
consternation among his “own” people.
For whatever reason,
the Lemurians wanted all “their people” back, and therefore,
somehow, they and a smattering of Matt’s own destroyermen, who’d
been left in charge of salvaging his ship, not only did so but had
her ready for him when he needed her most. Matt rubbed his eyes. It
had been a miracle, sure enough. But he’d almost begun to expect
miracles where the Lemurians and his destroyermen—all his
People—were concerned.
He shook his head.
Time to get back to business. Despite his misgivings, he’d agreed
to serve as President of the Court at Commodore Jenks’s request.
His ship had been attacked without warning and he knew he couldn’t
be entirely objective, but Jenks had argued that his was the only
ship without either a Company or an Imperial Navy presence aboard.
Since all the Company and Imperial Navy crews and officers were
potential defendants, prosecutors, or witnesses to the primary
charge of “Knowingly and Deliberately Attempting the Foul Murder of
Princess Rebecca Anne McDonald,” heir to the Governor-Emperor’s
throne, in the false certainty that she was aboard Matt’s ship, the
trial would conclude if the accused were guilty of high treason,
not a deliberate act of war against a sovereign state—or USS
Walker. Attacking Walker was merely the means by which they’d
demonstrated their treason. Matt’s crew was aggrieved that the
guilty wouldn’t hang for murdering the shipmates that had been
lost, but as long as they hung for something, the crew was
partially mollified.
Again, because they’d
agreed that no Imperial personnel should sit on the court, Matt had
been forced to choose the other two judges himself. On the surface,
Bosun’s Mate 2nd (and Captain of Marines) Chack-Sab-At was an easy
choice. The young Lemurian’s honor and integrity were beyond
question, as were his physical courage and sense of justice. Of all
the ’Cats Matt had come to know, Chack was, in many ways, the most
remarkable. He’d literally been a pacifist before the war against
the Grik, but he’d since become a consummate, skilled, and
resourceful ... Marine. He always reverted to his “old” status of
bosun’s mate aboard Walker, the ship he
now fully considered his Home, but he’d become much, much
more.
That was part of the
problem. The young Lemurian, once able to take such innocent and
childlike joy from the grand adventure of life, had become a
virtual killing machine. Fighting the Grik was one thing, however.
He’d been able to keep that separate, apart. He’d built a wall
between his soul and the things he’d done to save his people. The
battle they’d been forced to fight against other humans had apparently loosened a few of the stones
in that wall. He clearly didn’t understand it, and he was confused.
Lemurians simply didn’t fight other Lemurians—with a few notable
exceptions. He’d known and accepted from the start that humans
did fight other humans, and he’d even
helped fight the Japanese humans who aided the Grik. But
These humans, these “Imperials,” were
the very descendants of the ancient “tail-less ones” who once came
among his people and gave them so much in terms of technology,
culture, and even knowledge of the Heavens. Essentially, Matt
supposed Chack felt as if he’d met the ancient saints of his people
and discovered they weren’t saints after all.
Matt knew Chack’s
feelings weren’t unique. The very voyage they were embarked on had
done much to undermine some fundamental tenets of Lemurian dogma.
Even the fact that they’d traveled this far without falling off the
world had been sufficient to do that to a degree. Lemurians knew
the world was round, but apparently only those now aboard USS
Walker really understood the simple
truth that gravity pulled down, no matter where you went. This
didn’t come as a basic physics lesson to Walker’s now predominantly Lemurian crew; it
challenged many fundamental “laws of things” as far as they were
concerned, including such mundane things as where the water came
from that fell as rain from the Heavens.
Chack—and all his
people, ultimately—had a lot of stuff to sort out, and as essential
as it had become for them to enter the “modern world,” Matt felt a
profound sadness as he watched Chack’s and the Lemurian people’s .
. . innocence ... drain away.
The third member of
the tribunal had been a slightly controversial selection. Courtney
Bradford had been a civilian employee of Royal Dutch Shell before
the strange Squall brought them to this world. An Australian, he’d
been a petroleum engineer and self-styled naturalist. Quirky and
brilliant, the man was also a moderately reliable pain in the ass
in an unintentional, exuberantly oblivious sort of way. Despite his
personality, Matt considered him an obvious choice for the
assignment because not only was he Minister of Science of the
Allied powers; he also enjoyed the dubious and well-deserved, if
slightly nerve-racking, title of Plenipotentiary at
Large.
Matt had been
genuinely surprised when Commodore Jenks himself raised an
objection to Courtney’s appointment on the grounds that this was to
be a military trial and no civilian could sit in judgment of a
military man. Matt countered with a simple question: “How many
navies does the Empire have?” Jenks had been flustered, as if the
question had never occurred to him before. Perhaps it hadn’t. He
finally, thoughtfully, admitted there was only one Imperial Navy,
and “Company” ships weren’t part of it. That being established, he
readily, almost eagerly, agreed that it was perfectly appropriate
for a civilian to sit in judgment over what were, ultimately,
civilian pirates. As prosecutors, Jenks and his exec, Lieutenant
Grimsley, had pursued and stressed the treasonous pirate theme
throughout the trial, and Matt suspected they were practicing an
argument that Jenks intended to lay before the Lord High Admiral of
the Imperial Navy in regard to the actions of the “Honorable” New
Britain Company as a whole.
Matt’s own exec,
Francis “Frankie” Steele, reluctantly but competently presided over
the defense, with Lieutenant Blair of the Imperial Marines to
assist him. Despite their reservations, both men took their duties
seriously and were scrupulously, almost torturously fair, but the
preponderance of the evidence and the vast numbers of witnesses for
the prosecution left them relying almost entirely on “reasonable
doubt,” which was recognized by the Empire. Unfortunately for most
of their “clients,” there wasn’t any doubt at all.
The trials were
finally over, and this day had been dedicated to summoning the
prisoners to hear their fate. A total of fifty-one HNBC officers
and Company officials had been charged and tried. Of those,
thirty-one had been found guilty of the capital crime they were
accused of. According to the Imperial trial procedures and Articles
of War that Matt had agreed were appropriate under the
circumstances, there was only one possible sentence for them: death
by hanging. Even now, the condemned men were being ferried across
and hoisted, one at a time, to the tip of the main yard of
Ulysses. Thirteen were guilty of
arguably lesser crimes, for which they would be imprisoned at the
first Imperial settlement they reached. Six were actually found not
guilty of anything, as far as even Jenks could tell, other than
being Company toadies who’d mistreated the naval personnel placed
under their authority. They hadn’t had any idea what the true
nature of their mission was.
Still staring at
Achilles through the porthole, Matt was
glad Ulysses was out of sight. He had
no concern that they might be hanging innocent men, but he’d seen
so much death in all its forms over the last couple of years, the
cold-blooded, methodical hanging of men was not a mental image he
needed to add to the album of his troubled dreams. Not while he was
attempting to remain as objective as possible and trying very hard
not to hate the Empire as a whole for what some of its people had
done. Not while he thought he might enjoy the hangings a little too
much . . . He glanced at the other “judges” beside him and
sighed.
“Let’s get this over
with,” he murmured quietly.
“Forgive me, Captain
Reddy ... Captain Chack. You as well, Mr. Bradford,” Jenks said
apologetically. “I knew I was asking a lot of you. Of you all. But
this . . . process . . . was utterly necessary, I’m afraid. We
still have a long voyage ahead, and an unknown situation awaiting
us when we arrive. We haven’t caught up with Ajax and Commander Billingsley, nor had any of the
ships we fought sighted or spoken them. With this delay to make
repairs and the delay we must endure a little farther along while
we await your replenishment squadron, I fear we may not catch
Billingsley at all. We must assume he will reach New Britain, or
one of the other main islands before us, and we must be prepared to
counter his version of events. That assumes, of course, that he
makes his presence known when he arrives. We have no conception of
his agenda or how the Company means to use its possession of the
princess—not to mention the other hostages. Taking the princess
will have been bad enough, once known, but taking the other
hostages, your people—” He stopped, knowing full well one of those
“people” was the woman Matt loved. “That has made this an
international incident,” he ended at last.
“It was an act of
war!” Matt reminded him. “Besides the hostages he took, he
destroyed Allied property and killed people when he did
it!”
“Rest assured,
Captain Reddy, I shan’t forget. It will be our business, yours and
mine, to convince the proper people—hopefully the Governor-Emperor
himself—just how significant an act that was, not only from the
perspective of avoiding conflict between our peoples, but how that
might affect our future cooperation against the Grik.” He frowned.
“Trust me in this—having seen and fought those vicious buggers, I’m
quite a fervent convert to your assertion that they pose a
monstrous threat not only to our way of life but to all life on
this world.” He gestured around at the compartment and, by
implication, the proceedings underway. “This unpleasant business
will have been expected of us, and not
to put too fine a point upon it, many of these traitorous scum will
actually escape the hangman if the Company is allowed to take a
hand. In that case, not only will justice never be served, but we
might find ourselves in the dock facing
a—I believe you call it a ‘stacked deck.’ If we hope to accomplish
anything when we reach New Britain, ours must be the official,
legal, indisputable account of the events that have
transpired.”
There came a knock on
the passageway bulkhead beyond the beautifully embroidered curtain
that had replaced the vile, stained pea green curtain that had hung
there when Matt first took command of USS Walker a lifetime ago. The new curtain was still
green so as not to clash with the cracked and bulging green
linoleum tiles on the deck, but some Lemurian artist had lovingly
embroidered the U.S. Navy seal and “USS Walker, DD-163” in gold and colored thread. The
thing was beautiful, and in stark contrast to the spartan interior
of the wardroom.
“Enter,” said Matt
after a slight hesitation.
Juan Marcos, the
bold, inscrutable little Filipino steward who had, by force of will
alone, established himself as Matt’s personal steward/
butler/secretary, moved the curtain aside with a grim expression.
The final prisoner to come before them was none other than the
captain of Ulysses, the flagship of the
Company squadron that had attacked them and then fled so
ignominiously in the face of Walker’s
vengeful salvos. As flagship, Ulysses
carried the greatest weight of metal and the most powerful guns.
She had most likely been the ship that fired those first unexpected
broadsides that damaged Matt’s ship and killed several of her crew.
The Company captain’s later protestations of innocence and remorse
only added to the contempt in which Walker’s crew held him. He was a murderer and a
coward. Currently, only his cowardice was on display. When the ’Cat
Marines practically carried him into the compartment and he saw his
own sword laid upon the table, its point arranged in his direction,
he already knew the verdict and began to blubber. Any sympathy Matt
might have felt toward the man evaporated, and his voice was harsh
when he spoke.
“Captain Moline, it
is the judgment of this court that you are not a naval officer and
are therefore not subject to punishment for certain infractions of
the Imperial Articles of War of which you have been accused—even
though it’s my understanding you did swear, upon receiving your
HNBC commission, that you’d abide by those articles. That being the
case, this court has no choice but to find you not guilty of the
crimes specified under articles two, three, four, twelve, thireen,
fifteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, and twenty-seven of which
you’ve been charged.”
Matt had never
considered himself a cruel man, but he couldn’t stop himself from
pausing, ever so slightly. Just long enough to see the first rays
of hope begin to bloom in Captain Moline’s eyes. He abruptly
continued, in the same harsh tone.
“However, even as a
civilian, you’re still subject to certain specifications within
those military articles, and of course you’re entirely subject to
numerous civil charges as they exist for the protection and
punishment of non-military subjects of Imperial law. No provincial
Assize court or Home Circuit being in the vicinity, it’s my
understanding that, according to Imperial law, this court must
assume the duties normally prescribed for them. If you were being
tried by a civil court, you’d certainly face at least the charges
of high treason against your sovereign and nation, piracy, and
attempted murder of a member of the Imperial family. I could add
other charges, but there’d be no point. Any of these are capital
crimes, and this court finds you guilty of all
specifications.”
“But ...” Moline
floundered desperately. “I was following orders! The orders of a
representative of the Prime Proprietor’s personal
factor!”
Matt paused and took
an exasperated breath. He glanced at his notes. “Yes. You testified
that a ‘Mr. Brown’ presented you with sealed orders that were to be
opened in the event you sighted this ship—a ‘dedicated steamer with
four funnels,’ you said. You also said these orders directed you to
lure the described steamer as close as possible and destroy it
without warning.”
“Despicable orders,
but orders nevertheless!” pleaded Moline.
Matt continued
relentlessly. “Orders you did not question? Commodore Jenks assures
me that even masters of Company vessels are free . . . are
required to question orders they
consider criminal or immoral—it’s in your charter!”
“Much of what is in
the charter has no meaning now,” Moline moaned. “Questioning orders
is no longer encouraged or even allowed!”
“The charter reflects
Imperial law. It does not supersede it!” Jenks accused. “Neither do
the orders of rogue Company officials! Regardless of what the
Company might or might not encourage or allow, you are still
subject to Imperial law!”
Moline looked at
Jenks and his eyes grew dull. “You have been gone a long time,
Commodore. Who are you to say what supersedes what?”
Jenks jumped to his
feet. “Honor supersedes treachery!” he practically shouted. “Duty
to the Governor-Emperor supersedes any conceivable ‘duty’ to a
Company ... creature . . . in the office of the Prime Proprietor!”
With a visible force of will, he composed himself. When he
continued, his voice was dry and emotionless.
“If your ‘Mr. Brown’
had not been so conveniently killed in the exchange of shot with
this ship, perhaps some of what you say might be verified and your
own guilt mitigated to a slight degree, but not enough to save you
from a rope.” He glanced at his own notes. “You testified that
these ‘sealed orders’ were destroyed as soon as you were acquainted
with them, so clearly even ‘Mr. Brown’ recognized their criminal
nature. It has been established by numerous witnesses that Ensign
Parr, whom I dispatched aboard Agamemnon, duly reported to the first authorities
he met—Company officials!—the survival and rescue of the princess,
as well as her intention to take passage on this ship. Numerous
witnesses—virtually Agamemnon’s entire
original crew!—also report that they were transferred and
sequestered aboard Icarus, a less
powerful and capable ship, before they could report to any naval or
Imperial authorities. Finally, both Icarus and Agamemnon
were pressed into Company service! Imperial Navy ships and crews
were illegally seized by, and placed into the service of, Company
pirates bent on committing high treason! Regardless of any ‘sealed
orders,’ these acts were no secret to you. That you continued in
command of Ulysses is abundant proof
that you made no objection to these other crimes at least, and
obviously made no attempt to thwart them! Even if you are as
utterly stupid as you would have us believe, you are at the very
least guilty of being an accessory to a blatant act of
piracy!”
Jenks paused,
catching himself. His voice had begun to rise again and his fury
toward not only Captain Moline but the HNBC itself threatened to
overwhelm him. Matt suspected Jenks’s emotions were stirred by
terror as well: not physical terror—he knew Jenks was no coward—but
a growing terror of what they might discover his precious Empire
had become in his absence. Matt could identify with that kind of
terror: he felt it at the edge of his consciousness every moment of
every day. He somehow managed to function and perform his duties—he
had no choice—but he was genuinely terrified for the safety of one
Nurse Lieutenant Sandra Tucker, who even now was still in the
maniacal hands of the Company minion, Walter Billingsley . . . as
far as they knew.
Matt cleared his
throat. “Further demonstrations, protestations, or even admonitions
are pointless at this stage. As previously stated, Captain Moline,
you’ve been found guilty of the crimes described by Commodore
Jenks. It is therefore the order of this court that you be taken
from this place to the deck of the pirate prize Ulysses, where, according to the customs of your
service, you will be bound hand and foot and hanged by the neck
until you’re dead.” Matt glanced from the frozen form of the
prisoner to the two Marines. “Get this bastard out of my
sight.”
Brad “Spanky”
McFarlane scrutinized the toil underway in the crew’s forward
berthing space with a critical but generally satisfied eye.
Standing in the steamy compartment where hardly anyone ever
actually slept, he struck his trademark pose—hands on his skinny
hips, his absolute authority over everything in his domain
radiating from his diminutive but powerfully wiry frame. Before
him, a party of’Cats adjusted shoring timbers while two men held
torches against a warped steel plate, heating it to a dull reddish
orange. Radiant heat from the torches and the steel they played
against only added to the stifling temperature of the berthing
space, even with the portholes open. Absently, Spanky wondered
again what kind of idiot designed this ship and so many like her
with the portholes in the forward berthing space so close to the
waterline that they could almost never be opened—at least not in
any kind of sea, or while the ship was underway. If it hadn’t been
for the meager light they provided in daytime, he probably would’ve
plated over them during the reconstruction.
Periodically, the
smoking timbers were pounded against the plate, pushing it a little
closer to where it had been before the large roundshot bent it
inward. It was the last one; all the others that had been displaced
nearby had already been reformed. The racket of the sledges against
the timbers in the confined space was terrific.
“Almost there,
Lieuten-aant McFaar-lane,” cried a ’Cat between blows. Spanky
nodded. He was far more than a mere lieutenant now, he was
“Minister of Naval Engineering,” or something like that, but he
didn’t care. Usually he couldn’t even remember whether his
“official” Navy rank was lieutenant commander or commander, but it
couldn’t have mattered less to him. Nobody would try to tell him
what to do when it came to his area of expertise, and right now,
aboard USS Walker, doing what he was
doing, he was the ship’s engineering lieutenant, and that was it.
As far as he could recollect, he and the Skipper were the only
officers currently on the ship still performing their “old
jobs.”
Spanky and Chief
Bosun’s Mate Carl Bashear were inspecting the final touches on the
repairs to Walker’s hull. They’d
already fixed several similar perforations acquired during the
sharp action with the Company traitors. The hole that opened up the
forward engine room had been the worst, not only puncturing the
hull—right at a frame—but also knocking a double hole through one
of the saddle bunkers. They’d salvaged most of the fuel, pumping it
into bunkers they’d already run dry. They even saved most of what
leaked into the bilge, just in case, but fixing that damage had
been their most critical and difficult repair. They had found the
roundshot that made the holes—and nearly took Brian Aubrey’s head
off—rolling around in the bilge. Jenks identified it as a
thirty-pounder. This struck everyone odd, since the Grand Alliance
had sort of based its shot sizes on the old British system, and its
closest equivalent was a thirty-two-pounder. The Brits themselves
seemed to have abandoned the very system they brought with them—or
adopted another. Oh, well, that wasn’t Spanky’s concern beyond the
proof it provided concerning who’d shot it into them. Ulysses carried thirty-pounders. Even now, unless
he missed his guess, her skipper was swinging for it.
“Nice to be able to
fix something right for a change,” Bashear rumbled. It was a
positive statement, but still came out with a tone of
complaint.
“Yeah. Havin’ enough
guys for a job makes a difference—not to mention havin’ somethin’
to do it with.”
Their labor pool and
equipment list were far better than they’d ever been when they’d
attempted similar repairs in the past; they had spare plate steel,
rivets, and plenty of acetylene—even if it popped and sputtered—and
Walker’s crew was actually somewhat
over complement for a change too. Almost two-thirds of that crew
was Lemurian now, but they took up less space and more would fit.
Many were Chack’s Marines, who had shipboard duties as well. Spanky
was generally satisfied with the growing professionalism and
competency of all their “new” ’Cats, and he’d long been pleased
with the “old hands,” who’d signed on as cadets when Walker first dropped anchor in Baalkpan Bay, but
there was just no way he’d ever get used to certain aspects of this
new navy they’d created.
He sneezed. Lemurians
sweated more like horses than men, kind of “lathering up.” They
also panted. Bradford said they’d developed this somewhat unique
method of heat exchange due to their environment. They also shed
like crazy, and Spanky was allergic to the downy filaments that
floated everywhere belowdecks when they were hard at
work.
“C’mon, Carl,” he
said. “These apes and snipes are working together so well it turns
my stomach.” There were grins at that. “I don’t think we need to
keep starin’ at them to keep them away from each other’s
throats.”
“I just don’t
understand it,” Bashear commiserated. “Whatever happened to
tradition? Where’s the pride? You’d almost think they like each other, to look at ’em get on so. Ain’t
natural.”
Spanky chuckled. The
old rivalry between the deck (apes) and engineering (snipes)
divisions still existed, but it had been “tamed down” a little
without the caustic presence of Dean Laney aboard. He’d been of the
“old school,” in which duties were strictly defined in an almost
labor union-like fashion. The Bosun wasn’t much different, but he’d
adjusted to the new imperatives. Laney hadn’t. It hadn’t been so
bad when Chief Donaghey had ridden herd on the man, but after
Donaghey’s death, Laney became a tyrant. There just wasn’t room for
that on something as small as Walker
anymore. On this mission, Laney had remained behind to supervise
the production of heavy industry—something his obnoxious
personality was well suited for. And besides, the
running—mostly—joke was that if somebody “accidentally” dropped
something big and heavy on him, the world would be a better
place.
In the meantime, the
Lemurian apes and snipes on Walker got
along much better. None of the ’Cats liked the Imperial term “Ape
Folk,” even if, as far as anyone knew, they’d never seen an ape;
they understood it was derogatory and condescending. In contrast,
the “deck apes” didn’t mind that term at all. It was occupational .
. . and almost fraternal. They embraced it just as the engineering
divisions accepted the title of “snipes” in much the same way.
There were still pranks and jokes, and a competitive spirit existed
between them, but they’d all been through far too much together to
lose sight of the fact that they were all on the same side, part of
the same clan, living on the same Home. Spanky, who’d had a little
college before joining the Navy as a mere recruit and rising as a
“mustang,” was reminded of guys from different college fraternities
who played on the same football team. In spite of his remarks to
Carl Bashear—remarks expected of him—he liked it this
way.
“Where’re we goin’?”
Bashear asked as they left the repair detail to their work and
moved aft.
“Something I gotta
do, then I’ll go topside with you and have a look at that winch.
You say it ain’t blowin’ steam?”
Carl shook his head.
“Nope. Nothin’ blows steam around here ’cept the fellas now and
then.” He shook his head. “That ain’t natural either. That gasket
stuff Letts came up with works almost too good. No, there’s
something else, and I gotta get it fixed. The Skipper wants Mr.
Reynolds to fly tomorrow, or the next day, when we get underway.”
He pointed in the general direction of land. “According to our
charts, that thing’s not even supposed to be there. The Brit charts
don’t show it either, for that matter, but they do show a lot of
stuff a little farther along that ain’t right.” Bashear scratched
his head. “So far, west of here, everything seems about the same.
Nothing too out of the ordinary that different sea levels wouldn’t
account for, other than the occasional volcanic island that ain’t
where it’s supposed to be. What’s the deal with these atolls and
stuff?”
Spanky shrugged. “Ask
Mr. Bradford. He knows all that stuff. From what I gather though,
these pissant desert islands and atolls pile up on old coral reefs
or something. Kind of random. No reason they had to show up the
same place they were ‘back home,’ since there was no real reason
them other ones formed where they did. Just luck that the first
coral pod—or whatever they are—took root where it did. The islands
are in the same basic area, but no reason they should be
exactly the same either.”
Bashear looked at him
skeptically. “Well, either way, the Skipper wants Reynolds to fly.”
He chuckled. “Now that he’s fixed all the holes in his plane. You
heard one of the holes was ‘self-inflicted’?”
“I heard,” said
Spanky, “and you ought to cut the kid some slack. Most of the holes
weren’t self-inflicted and there were a
lot of’em. All he had to shoot back with was a pistol, for
Crissakes. So he got a little fixated on his target. Happens all
the time. Just think how many observers prob’ly shot their own
planes to pieces back in the Great War.” He grinned. “Think how
many times those battlewagon boys blew their own observation planes
over the side just in exercises, before the war! You get ’em in a
real fight, they’d probably blast their own damn
ship!”
“Well, any way,”
Bashear continued as they worked their way aft, “Skipper wants him
to chart shoals and such from the air so we’ll know if we can ever
get something big through here, like a ’Cat flattop. I can’t lift
the plane without the winch.”
“Right,” Spanky
replied, and left it at that. Reynolds had taken a lot of ribbing
for shooting his own plane, but the kid had guts. Once he’d finally
decided what to do with himself, he’d become a good pilot for one
of the tiny, rickety-looking “Nancys,” or prototype seaplanes Ben
Mallory had designed. Spanky wouldn’t have gone up in one of the
things, and he respected anyone willing to do something he
wouldn’t.
Together, he and
Bashear cycled through the air lock into the forward fireroom.
’Cats looked up as they passed, nodding respectfully but remaining
at their posts. The number two boiler was lit. Cycling through to
the aft fireroom was almost like passing through another Squall to
a different world all over again. In contrast to the peaceful
routine they’d just left, the aft fireroom was a scene of
chittering excitement, shouted commands, and almost frantic
activity. Black soot floated in the air along with the downy
filaments of Lemurian undercoats. Spanky sneezed again and blew his
nose into his fingers. He no longer slung the snot at the deck
plates as he once had, but wiped his fingers on a rag hanging from
his pocket. Somehow, slinging snot at Walker just didn’t seem right anymore.
“Tabby!” He had to
shout to be heard over the commotion in the fireroom.
Tab-At, or “Tabby” as
the original “Mice” (a pair of extraordinarily insular and unusual
firemen who actually looked quite a bit like small rodents) had
christened her before she became one of the Mice herself, looked up
from where she stood, striking a pose similar to the one Spanky
himself often used. Her hands rested on admittedly shapelier,
disconcertingly feminine hips, even though she belonged to an
entirely different species. The tail that twitched beneath her
abbreviated kilt at Spanky’s shout undermined the image to some
degree, but oddly, not too much. As usual, whenever Spanky
encountered her, she wasn’t wearing a shirt either. This time at
least, she probably hadn’t been doing it just to get his goat,
since her silky gray fur was lathered with sweat and covered with
soot. Even so, Spanky had to take a deep breath and force himself
not to bellow at her for being out of “uniform” once again. Her
beguilingly . . . human . . . well-rounded breasts were the very
reason he’d dictated that every fireman must wear at least a
T-shirt on duty. None of the firemen in the aft fireroom had
T-shirts on now, because for this task he’d given special
dispensation. That didn’t mean Tabby or the several other female
“firemen” they now had were included in that dispensation. Spanky
had thought that was understood. Apparently it wasn’t. ’Cats could
be very literal-minded—especially when they wanted to
be.
“Tabby,” he repeated,
“get over here!”
Bashear looked at
Spanky curiously, wondering what this was about. That he hadn’t
thrown an instant fit over the lack of T-shirts was strange enough.
His opinion on that was common knowledge and a source of some
amusement. None of the female deck apes (and there were a lot more
of them) had to wear shirts for special duties that anyone else
might remove theirs to perform. But Spanky McFarlane had bent as
far as he intended to just by letting females of any sort into his
engineering spaces. If they were going to be down there, they were
going to wear clothes! Tabby tormented him constantly, but he was
torn by his own personal axiom: if somebody does something that
bothers you, either pretend it doesn’t or make them stop. In
Tabby’s case, he couldn’t figure out how to do the second, so he
tried unsuccessfully to do the first. He wasn’t fooling
anybody.
Oddly, instead of
undermining his authority, his . . . predicament probably
strengthened it. Early on, he was viewed by many ’Cats as some sort
of omniscient, unapproachable wizard. They now knew he wasn’t, but
although they weren’t terrified of him anymore, they were amazed
that a mere mortal such as they (albeit without a tail) could be so
knowledgeable about machines. Wizards and magicians didn’t have to
know things, or so the tales of younglings said. They just cast
spells and things occurred. Spanky couldn’t cast spells; he
actually knew things, and he’d come by all that knowledge the hard
way: he’d learned it the same way everyone else had to, and they
respected him immensely for that.
Tabby hopped over the
’Cats on the deck plates that were hauling debris from within the
number three boiler with a hoe-shaped tool on their hands and
knees. Others gathered the stuff up and put it in heavy canvas bags
to be taken topside. Amazingly, Tabby snatched a T-shirt from a
valve wheel as she approached and pulled it over her
head.
“You wanna see me,
sir?” she asked.
“Uh, yeah.” Spanky
gestured back at the work. “That bad, eh?”
She shrugged.
“Whoever overhauled that boiler did a piss-poor job on the
firebrick. Waadn’t me. I guess with the hurry we were in, somebody
got sloppy.”
“Probably so. You
were supposed to tell me if you wound up having to tear it down and
rebrick it, though.”
“We be done by
tomorrow,” she assured him. “I didn’t think it was worth buggin’
you about.”
Spanky took a breath.
“Now you listen to me,” he said in a low, intense tone. “Anything
that affects this ship’s readiness to steam at a moment’s
notice—anything the Skipper needs to know before he can make a
decision based on that readiness—is always worth buggin’ me about,
no matter how trivial it seems. Last I heard, you were planning on
replacing a few firebricks, and I specifically told you to let me
know if you had to do more. I didn’t hear from you, so I came in
here thinking we still had three boilers, in a pinch. Right now,
the Skipper thinks he has three boilers, but he doesn’t, does he?
All he’s got is two—with a lot of crap in the way of one of’em.
What if a squadron of them Brit, Imperial,
Company—whatever—frigates suddenly shows up on the horizon? The
Skipper’ll be deciding what to do based on his certain knowledge he’s got three boilers! Don’t
ever just jump up and crack this deep
into something without telling me first! Is that
understood?”
Tears welled in
Tabby’s large amber eyes.
Spanky was stunned.
“Goddamn!” he managed. “Are you fixin’ to cry?” His voice was incredulous. His own eyes went
wide when Tabby’s tears gushed out and coursed down her furry
cheeks.
“I . . . I so sorry!”
Tabby practically moaned. As usual when she was upset or excited,
she lost her careful drawl. “You got so much . . . so much other
stuff; I just want to not bother you with more! I sorry, Spaanky!
Please no be maad! I never, ever do nothing you no tell me! I wear
shirt all the time! Just please no be maad at me!”
For a moment Spanky
and Bashear were both speechless. Tabby sniffled loudly a few more
times, then tried to collect herself. She began wiping the tears on
her clean shirt, smudging it with wet soot and firebrick
dust.
“I’ll swan,” Bashear
said softly.
“Shut up, you!”
Spanky growled. He turned back to Tabby. “Ah, lookie here,” he said
clumsily. “No sweat. Just don’t do it anymore, see? ” Tabby nodded
almost spastically. “All right, then.” He looked around, staring at
anything but her for a few moments. If the work detail had heard or
even paused in their labor, he couldn’t tell. They were still
drawing the broken firebricks and passing them along to others, who
dropped them into sacks. Finally Spanky looked back at Tabby. He
was glad she’d apparently composed herself. He hadn’t come here to
jump all over her; he actually had something else on his mind.
Still, what he’d said was true and needed saying. Especially
now.
“Look, Tabby, just
get the job done, now you’ve started it. I’ll report the boiler’s
down to the Skipper.” He gestured at the detail. “Things look well
enough in hand.” He paused. “You’re doing a good job here in the
firerooms. Those squirrelly Mice taught you all right, God knows
how. I expect you know the old gal’s boilers as well as they do by
now.” He paused again and took a breath. “Here’s the deal. I made
Aubrey chief down here because he was a torpedoman. He knew
turbines and steam plants, but he never was really all that good
with the big stuff. Never should’ve used him like that. Should’ve
left him working with Bernie Sandison back in Baalkpan.” He shook
his head. “Well, Aubrey’s dead, and I’m going to split Engineering
back into two divisions: steam plant and propulsion. Every fireman
on this tub is a ’Cat now, and it would be stupid to take some guy
off something else and put him in charge in here when you’d know
more than he would, so as of right now, you’re chief of the boiler
division, got that?”
Tabby’s surprised
eyes began to fill again.
“But only if you
don’t start cryin’ over it, for God’s sake!” Spanky added hastily.
“There will be no cryin’ in the
firerooms, clear? Not ever!”
Instead of answering,
Tabby lunged forward and touched him on the cheek with her muzzle,
tongue slightly extended. Spanky knew the gesture was a Lemurian
version of a modest, chaste kiss. Passionate kissing involved much
more licking. Even so, he was thunderstruck and didn’t have a
chance to say anything before Tabby bolted back to the detail she
was overseeing.
Bashear, uncertain
how Spanky would respond, guided him back toward the air lock and
they cycled through. “C’mon,” he said. “I still need you to look at
that winch.”
“What the hell was
that all about?” Spanky asked quietly, still torn between shock,
fury, and . . . God knew what. “What the hell’s got into her? I
had to chew her out about letting me
know, but I figgered she’d make some crack and get back to work!
Then she starts bawling! And that . . . whatever she did to me . .
. Do you think she’s crackin’ up?”
“You really want to
know what I think?” Bashear asked as they went through the forward
air lock and headed for the companionway.
“Well . . .
sure.”
“I think she’s sweet
on you,” Bashear said seriously.
“Horsefeathers!”
“Sweeter than honey
on a comb. I wonder how many engineers ever had sweethearts in the
fireroom? Not many, I hope.”
Spanky turned on him.
“Shut the hell up, you goddamn perverted, filthy-minded ape!” he
said hotly.
“There!” Bashear
said. “Now that’s more like it. Thought I’d never get a rise out of
you!” His voice became serious. “She is
sweet on you though, and it shows. A lot. What’re you gonna do?
Turn Silva?” That was the increasingly accepted term for men
suspected of having “taken up” with a Lemurian gal.
“She ain’t ‘sweet’ on
me,” Spanky protested. “Sometimes she’s downright
insubordinate!”
Bashear nodded
sagely. “That’s always the first sign. ’Cats ain’t really all that
different from us, you know. Once you get past the fur and
ears—and, well, the tail.” They’d reached the weather deck and were
passing under the amidships gun platform that served as a roof for
the galley. Chief Gunner’s Mate Paul Stites was supervising a
maintenance detail on the number three, four-inch-fifty. They were
installing new oily leather bushings in the recoil cylinder. Below,
Earl Lanier, the bloated cook, had left a heap of sandwiches on the
stainless steel counter. Bashear snatched one. “Wimmen is all the
same,” he continued. “Even ’Cat wimmen, I bet. They take to
thinkin’ you belong to ’em and they start treatin’ you like dirt.
Take advantage. I been married twice, so trust me, I know.” He
looked at Spanky. “You want my advice?”
“No.”
“You can’t just
ignore it,” Bashear advised anyway. “You treat her like a dog,
pretend she ain’t there, it’ll just get worse. I don’t know what it
is about ’em, but every time I try to get rid of a dame, they just
try harder. You can’t chase ’em off.”
“Well . . . supposin’
you’re right—which you ain’t—how would you make Tabby get over her
fit?”
“Easy,” Bashear said
around a mouthful of sandwich. “Be nice to her. I never could keep
a dame I really wanted. Nobody can. It’s the rules.”