Distant Thunders

CHAPTER 15

U SS Dowden ’s anchor splashed into the almost mirror-clear water off the Lemurian city of Chill-chaap. Jim Ellis barely remembered having been there before-he’d had a fever at the time-and it wasn’t exactly where its human counterpart, Tjilatjap, had been. The human city was east-southeast of the place the Lemurians had once chosen, and Jim remembered it as it had been in the early, chaotic days of the war they’d left behind. Some ships were still getting in and out when they’d seen the old cruiser Marblehead moored there after the pasting she’d taken from Japanese planes. Anyone who saw her was amazed she was still afloat. Her rudder had been jammed hard aport and she was still low by the head. They’d been transferring the wounded ashore, since nobody really expected her to make it out of the area alive. Ellis reflected that he’d never know if she had or not.

Tjilatjap was a dump. The fueling and repair facilities there were inadequate and there were no torpedoes to be had. Worse, from the crew’s perspective, there was virtually zero nightlife. Even though it meant steaming back in the teeth of the Japanese storm, he’d actually been glad when they steered for Surabaya once again. He shook his head. That was another time, another world. Where the Tjilatjap he knew should have been, there was absolutely nothing, and never had been. Of the Chill-chaap their Allies had built on the other side of the peninsula, there was nothing left.

Even before the Grik came in force, a raiding party had sacked the city, eaten or taken its inhabitants, and razed much of what remained to the ground. Since then, a year and a half was all it had taken the jungle to reclaim a city almost as old and large as Baalkpan. It was a dreary, creepy sight. Vines and bizarre, spiderweblike foliage covered the ruins, and the old pathways were choked and impassable. From what Ben, Pam, Brister, and Palmer had told him, there were many bones as well. He figured rodents and other things would have eaten the bones by now, but he was glad they wouldn’t have to make their way through the once-proud city. According to Rasik, what they sought was a number of miles up the estuary where the river became a swamp.

“Good morning, Cap-i-taan Ellis,” came a voice from behind him. He turned and saw Chack standing there, neatly maintained Marine battle dress at odds with the dented American doughboy helmet he wore. He wore a sword suspended from a black leather baldric, and hanging by its sling, muzzle down on his brindle-furred shoulder, was his Krag.

“Morning, Chack. You ready for this?”

“Of course.”

Jim nodded. Of course. Chack’s steadiness and complete competence were among the constants he’d come to rely on. He still found it hard to believe the young Lemurian had once been a confirmed pacifist.

“Very well. You, me, half a dozen Marines, and Rasik-Alcas. I guess we’ll take Isak Rueben in case this ‘treasure trove’ of Rasik’s includes anything he might be needed to evaluate.” Jim frowned. Isak had transferred to Dowden as chief engineer for the trip, since the ship would be on her own. Isak clearly understood the principles of Dowden ’s machinery better than anyone else, but he wasn’t a very good teacher. Once away from Tabby and Gilbert, he wasn’t quite as antisocial as usual, but he didn’t delegate worth a damn and tried to do everything himself. He probably needed a break from the engineering spaces as much as the engineering division needed a break from him. “One of the Marines will be Koratin?”

“Yes.”

“Do you trust him?”

Chack’s tail swished thoughtfully. “In a fight, as a Marine, I trust him. His status as a former Aryaalan noble causes some mild concern. By all accounts, he once lived a life of expediency, taking the tack of best advantage for himself.” Chack blinked irony. “That is not necessarily consistent with the accounts of his performance in battle, so perhaps he has indeed changed.” Chack shrugged in a well-practiced, very human way. “We will see.”

The longboat went over the side and slapped the still water. The Marines escorted Rasik into the boat, followed by Isak, grumbling about the “stupid bulky rifle” he had to carry. Jim knew Isak was proficient with a Krag, but he also knew the wiry little Mouse didn’t like wagging one around. The black powder and hard-cast bullet loads they’d made for the weapons had proved fairly effective on animals as big as a midsize rhino-pig, but even the precious few remaining rounds from the Rock Island Arsenal barely got the attention of something the size of a super lizard. No one but Rasik had any idea what sort of monsters they might encounter, and on that subject, at least, he’d remained cryptic.

After a brief word with Muraak-Saanga, his exec and “salig maa-stir,” Jim was last over the side. He alone carried an ’03 Springfield with “modern” ammunition and extra stripper clips. He also had his 1917-pattern Navy cutlass and a 1911 Colt. Besides Chack, the Marines he’d handpicked were all armed with their swords and the shorter thrusting spears they preferred. None carried shields. Without the numbers required to form a wall, they’d only get in the way. Two had longbows slung over their shoulders.

Chack barked a command and the oars came out. First and foremost, Chack would always consider himself one of Walker ’s bosun’s mates, and whenever he was in charge of anything on the water, he reverted to that capacity. He moved to the stern and took the tiller himself. Jim settled in for what promised to be a long trip, and with another command from Chack, the oars dipped in unison. “Well, Rasik,” Jim said conversationally, “it’s your show now.” He grinned. “Don’t disappoint us.”

“You will not be disappointed.”

“Swell. I’m glad you want to please. Just to remind you, though, I’ll repeat the deal. You show us what you found. If it has any use at all to our war effort, you go free.” He gestured to the south. “That’s Nusakambangan. It’s a pretty big island, and even on my world there was plenty there to survive on.” He grinned again. “The Dutch used it as a prison, kinda like an eastern Alcatraz. For some reason, that strikes me as highly appropriate. Anyway, it may not be a palace, but if you managed to scratch out a living in the wild for nearly a year, you should have no trouble there. We’ll even leave you weapons.”

“I understand. Exile or death.”

Jim shook his head. “No. You lead us straight to what you found or there won’t even be exile, just death. If you try to give us the slip, I’ll kill you. If I even start to think you’re yanking my chain, I’ll hang you in the jungle and leave you for the skuggiks or bugs, whichever get you first. Period. We’ve come here on your word when my ship’s needed elsewhere-when I’d rather be elsewhere. If I find out you’ve been saving your miserable ass just to lead us on a wild-goose chase… you’ll wish you were in hell for quite a while before you get there.”

Methodically, metronomically, almost mechanically, the oars dipped and rose. They were following a major inlet north, and more than once, Jim wished they’d moved the ship farther inland. They didn’t have a clue about depths, snags, or sandbars, though, and there was really nothing for it. Eventually the inlet, or river, or whatever it was, began to narrow. So far, they’d seen only the usual wild variety of lizard birds and an occasional crocodile. Once, something large and heavy exploded out of the water near shore and went thrashing into the jungle. No one saw what it looked like. The water eventually grew shallower and opened into a vast swamp filled with fallen trees and stumps. The jungle around it remained dense and apparently impenetrable, and high, misty volcanic peaks were visible in all directions. Jim had no idea if the old Java looked like this around here; he’d never been anywhere but Tjilatjap, but they were always discovering geographic differences here and there. Whatever had changed this world, whether subtle or momentous, was still slowly at work.

A herd or flock-he had no idea what to call it-of strange creatures marched sedately across the swamp some distance away. They looked kind of like giant, fat ducks through his binoculars, but they didn’t have wings at all, that he could see, and their very ducklike beaks were proportionately much longer. Their necks were longer too, like a swan’s, and their heads bobbed as they moved, swiveling in all directions. Finally, they must have collectively decided the boat was getting too close and they began moving away. Quicker and quicker they moved, with a kind of odd, rolling, waddling motion, and it seemed like the faster they moved, the more panicked they became. One suddenly slammed into an underwater obstruction, a tree or something, and heaved itself up to scamper over it.

“Holy shit, Mr. Ellis!” Isak exclaimed with as much surprise as his voice had ever carried.

The creature’s long, gangly, almost delicate-looking legs must have been ten or twelve feet long! Apparently they weren’t very strong either, because it was having a hard time clearing the tree. It just kept leaping up, scrabbling pathetically, and falling back to splash in the murky water. What happened next was almost too fast to register in their minds. All they got was an instant-long glimpse of a terrifying jaws clamping tight on the flailing legs and a swirl of some mighty tail. Whatever got the duck thing must have been under the tree, or maybe it came from nearby, drawn by the thrashing sound of distress.

“Holy shit!” Isak said again, as the ducklike creature practically capsized, the short, severed stumps of its long legs flailing madly. For an instant, the head popped back out of the water and it mooed piteously before the long jaws came again, clamped on the graceful neck, and pulled the head back under.

They kept rowing, a little quicker now, as the capsized corpse continued jerking and heaving as something fed on it from beneath.

“That was… a little spooky,” Ellis said, controlling his voice. Isak was suddenly peering intently over the side at the dark water, Krag in hand.

Rasik smiled. “A ‘spooky’ place. You see why I and my followers”-he spit the word-“did not linger here despite our discovery.”

“And just where is this ‘discovery,’ damn you?” Ellis demanded.

“You do not see it?”

“What do you mean? I swear I wasn’t fooling! I’ll pitch you over the side and let whatever got that big duck have you!”

“A little farther then. Perhaps just a bit to the left. You will see it soon.”

They did.

“Sweet Olongapo!” Isak exclaimed when Chack suddenly pointed at something nestled against the western shore of the swamp. “It’s a goddamn ship!”

Closer they rowed until it was clear for all to see. It was a ship, heavily corroded, daubed entirely with rust, and almost consumed by the vegetation along the shoreline. If she was one of theirs, she had to have been in pretty sad shape even before being abandoned here for more than a year and a half. She listed toward shore and was clearly a freighter of some kind, with cargo booms, a single funnel, and a straight up-and-down bow.

“Old,” said Ellis. “About six, seven thousand tons, by the look of her. How the hell did she get here?”

“Same way we did, I figger,” Isak muttered. “Captain, Mr. Bradford, and Spanky was all talkin’ about there maybe bein’ other stuff scattered around, got sucked here too. The Squall that got us woulda come through here first, maybe not as bad, maybe worse. Somebody said somethin’ about local intensity or somethin’.” Isak shrugged, but his expression was pensive. “She looks like a dead body that’s bobbed up.”

They steered closer until they passed under the dangling anchor. The water lapped gently against her rust-streaked side and Jim looked up at the raised-lettered name.

“ Santa Catalina,” he said. “Huh. Never heard of her. Never saw her. She sure wasn’t in Tjilatjap when we were.”

“She looks sorta like the Blackhawk,” said Isak in a strange tone, referring to their old Asiatic Fleet destroyer tenderly.

“Yeah. Same as a hundred other ships,” Ellis replied. “ Blackhawk was built as a freighter and bought by the Navy. I bet she’s thirty years old, though.”

“So,” interrupted Rasik. “Are you satisfied now?”

“So far. Don’t give me reason to change my mind. Did you go aboard?”

Rasik shook his head and pointed across the swamp to the east-northeast. “We saw it from there. It does not look like anyone is on it, and it would have been a march of many days to reach. The swampland extends far to the north and there are rivers besides.”

“So you don’t know what she carries? Taking a lot for granted, aren’t you?”

“There is much iron. That alone should be worth my life.”

Jim grunted. “Where it is, it might as well be on the moon. I can tell she’s beached, and probably flooded too.”

“Do you want me to kill him, Captain?” Chack asked. “I would enjoy the… honor.”

Jim shook his head. “No, a deal’s a deal. She’s worth something, even if it’s just a boatload of bolts. Let’s see if we can squirm through all that growth on her starboard side and try to get aboard.”

It took much hacking and chopping, but they finally maneuvered the boat between the ship and shore. She was beached, all right, and that just added to the mystery of her presence here. A number of trees had fallen across her from shore, but there was a stretch of water as well. Also, eerily, rotten cargo nets draped her starboard side, as if the crew had used them to escape.

“Do we trust them?” Jim asked himself aloud, referring to the nets. Without a word, Chack sprang across to the closest one and scampered up. He disappeared over the bulwark. “I guess so,” Jim said philosophically.

“You’re heavier than Chack,” Isak pointed out.

“Yeah, maybe a little. C’mon.” He looked at two of the Marines. “You stay here with the boat. Keep your eyes peeled. You others, come aboard-but keep your eyes peeled, too!”

“What about Rasik?” Chack called from above, peering over the side now.

“He comes too. Might as well let him see what bought his life. What’s up there?”

“Hard to say. There is much growth and many big boxes. Nobody seems at home. You can tell me what I see when you get here.”

The four detailed Marines, including Corporal Koratin, swiftly climbed the nets. Rasik followed with apparent reluctance. Jim went next, followed by a less than enthusiastic Isak Rueben. When he gained the deck, Jim looked around. The ship was an ungodly mess. Vines crawled over everything and debris was strewn about as if large animals had been tearing into things.

“Stay on your toes,” Ellis cautioned. “We might run into just about anything.” Even as he spoke, his eyes were drawn to a number of large wooden crates still chained to the deck. They were about forty feet long, ten feet high, and maybe six feet wide. The paint had flaked off of most of them, and the wood underneath was black with mold. Other than the weights, around eight thousand pounds apiece, and faded arrows pointing up, the crates were unmarked. “Chack,” he said, motioning the ’Cat to take two Marines and begin searching the ship. Isak and one of the Marines paced him as he approached the crates, looking around for something to crack one open.

There was a slight vibration, barely discernible through the leafy carpet and questing roots beneath their feet. Ellis paused, listening, feeling. “Heads up, Chack!” he called as the three Lemurians peered into the darkness beyond an open hatch. “Did you notice something?” Three heads nodded. “Either that was an earthquake or somebody… some thing is running around down below. Try to make torches or something. Don’t go where it’s dark without a light! Something might get you!”

“Somethin’ might get us,” Isak grumbled. He glanced nervously at the bulwark. “Somethin’ that eats giant ducks with ten-foot legs!”

“Shut up. Just look around. Find a fire ax or wrecking bar or something!” Jim ordered.

Chack ran up the mushy ladder to the pilothouse. All the windows were gone and the whole space was badly overgrown. He wrenched open the door to what he assumed was the charthouse or the captain’s ready quarters. On Walker and Mahan, the only two human ships he’d ever been aboard, the two had been one and the same, as well as serving other purposes. The compartment had survived severe invasion, and he snatched up a few rags that had probably been clothes. Shelves held moldy, insect-eaten books. He was beginning to read English a little, but not enough to tell what the books were about. No matter. All books contained precious information and his friends would want them. He kicked over the cot he expected to find and discovered the bottom of the mattress cover was intact. Wrapping up the books and grabbing some other fragments of the mattress cover, he descended back down to his Marines. One was holding a kerosene lantern he’d found by venturing a short distance into the darkness. He shook it with a grin and it made a sloshing sound.

“Kind of beat-up, but almost as good as the ones we make in Baalkpan now, to burn gri-kakka oil. If we use your scraps for torches, we’ll be in the dark before we go ten tails-if we don’t burn up this dead ship!”

Chack chuckled and, removing his tinderbox from his pack, tossed it to the Marine. “You found it; you light it. Just remember, that’s not gri-kakka oil! If it is like the stuff they use for aar-planes, it might burn you up!”

The Marine’s grin faded, but soon he had the lantern lit and they entered the darkness beyond the hatch. They moved slowly, two facing forward and one walking backward behind them, all their spears out-thrust. Something was in the ship; Chack knew it. It might take forever to search the ship like this, but with its proximity to shore, it was probably unreasonable not to expect some kind of threat, whether they’d noticed the vibration or not. They descended a companionway with care and entered a dank passageway. Nothing grew in the darkness, but the deck was mushy and clammy beneath his sandaled feet. It stank and there were occasional large heaps of what might have been excrement.

He stopped and considered. The funnel was aft, so the engineering spaces were as well. Maybe the engine and boilers were salvageable, maybe not. Chances were, the spaces were flooded. He’d spent most of his life aboard massive Salissa, and if he’d learned to discern the subtle sensation of buoyancy aboard her, the utter lack of it now convinced him the water level within the ship was probably almost as high as without. That meant they wouldn’t be immediately firing up her boilers and steaming out of here. That realization moved her possible cargo to the top of his list of priorities.

“Forward,” he said, “to the hold.”

He didn’t know the layout of the ship, but some things were obvious. The main forward cargo hatch was ahead of them and one deck up. They should find an entrance to the forward hold if they continued down the corridor. There was another heavy vibration, longer this time, and accompanied by a shifting, sliding sound. He glanced at his Marines and saw them exchange nervous blinks in the lantern light. Whatever had infested the ship was big. They couldn’t tell where the motion came from because it seemed to resonate through the vessel’s very fibers. He handed his short spear to the Marine beside him and unslung the Krag. A hatch gaped before them and they eased slowly toward it. He nodded at the Marine with the lantern, who shone it through the opening. Chack poked his head around the lip and looked inside.

The hold was the largest iron chamber he’d ever seen. Nothing compared to the holds on Salissa, which held provisions, barrels of gri-kakka oil, and other necessities of the Home’s long, solitary sojourns, but it was far larger than anything Walker could boast. In the meager light of the lantern he couldn’t even see how far the space extended, but he imagined one could pile all the cannons yet made by the Alliance in the place. He looked down. There was water, but it didn’t look too deep, maybe two tails by the curve of the hull. There were also many more huge boxes, just like the ones they’d seen on deck. He wondered what was in them. Smaller boxes, or crates, were stacked outboard on either side of the larger ones. Some were underwater, others partially so, but most seemed high and dry.

“Should we go down?” asked the Marine he’d handed his spear to. She was a female, young and attractive. Her real name was Blas-Ma-Ar, he suddenly remembered, after spending most of the day trying to recall it. He could never forget how and when she’d become a Marine, or the ordeal she’d once endured, but the name that always stuck in his mind was the one Chief Gray had given her: Blossom.

“I think not, for now,” he answered softly. “Most of what is here looks to be much the same as what is on deck. Let Cap-i-taan Ellis discover what it is. If it is a good thing, we will know we have more of it.” He shook his head. “I dislike moving any nearer the dark water below until we know what manner of creature dwells within this… human grave of a ship.” The others nodded eager agreement and they retraced their steps. A trip through the engineering spaces seemed appropriate now, as they worked their way to the aft hold. In the corridor, they passed staterooms filled with decaying matter. Some doors were shut, and when they forced them open, they were gratified to see far less damage within the compartments. They found a few more books, in much better condition, and one such room even held a modest armory of unfamiliar weapons and rectangular tins of ammunition. These they carried up to the deck in two trips, along with their booty of books, before proceeding aft.

The boiler room was partially flooded, as Chack had suspected, but a meager light filtered through the grungy, vine-choked skylights, making visibility slightly better. They worked their way carefully along the highest catwalk. A sudden flurry of probably nocturnal lizard birds, disturbed by the lantern, frightened them, but Chack quickly recovered. He wanted to see where they went. They swooped around the space shrieking and flapping until they found a large gap between two twisted plates not far above the waterline. Like sand poured from a cup, they burst through into the daylight beyond.

“So she was sunk here,” he surmised. “Or damaged elsewhere, and this is where she came to rest. Curious.”

Unlike the boiler room, the engine room was relatively dry. There was water, but not much more than might be accounted for by a year and a half of seepage through riveted seams. They wouldn’t be steaming her out of here, but the sight of the rusty but intact machinery was encouraging. Finally, they reached the aft hold and here they found their greatest surprise. More crates like those forward, and many smaller crates filled the space. Everything was a jumble, but Chack recognized hundreds of wooden boxes-maybe thousands-spilling rectangular, green metal cans like those that held ammunition for the big Amer-i-caan machine guns. Enough light diffused into the compartment through the murky water to indicate a substantial hole below the waterline.

“Another wound here then,” he said. “Probably the fatal one. Still, though tossed about, many of the boxes are dry. Some are right below us,” he said, pointing. “It looks like each intact box contains several ammunition cans. Let us claim as many as possible. Proof of the importance of our discovery!” The sight of so much clearly useful ammunition and the better light and visibility subdued his earlier caution. They laid down their burdens and the Marine who’d been holding the lantern descended a ladder to the top of a heap of boxes. Chack was the strongest of the three, so he positioned himself halfway down the ladder, where he might pass the boxes up to Blas-Ma-Ar.

“Here’s somethin’ might work,” Isak said, returning with a small hand maul, a heavy, rusty chisel, and a piece of pipe.

“Sure,” Ellis said. “Let’s open this one.” He’d been trying to choose the worst of the rectangular monstrosities, hoping the mysterious contents were already damaged by the elements and opening it wouldn’t make any difference. The crates were unbelievably stout, built to take significant abuse. He hated to crack any of them, fearing he might ultimately only expose the contents to further, more rapid corrosion. But whatever they held, it would be a while before anybody could come retrieve four-ton crates from a swamp! They had to know what was in them.

“Here, give me that,” Ellis said. Isak handed over the chisel and Ellis positioned it on a seam. “Now the hammer. If I let you do it, you’ll knock my fingers off.”

With deft blows, he drove the chisel in, moved it over, and did it again. When he’d loosened an entire seam, he began prying at it with the chisel until they could insert the pipe in the gap. “Give me a hand,” he said, and Isak and the Marine leaned on the pipe with him. A tortured greeech sound came from the crate. “Again!”

They worked the pipe up and down, much as Jim had done with the chisel, taking occasional anxious looks into the dark interior. “Once more at the top and bottom, and I bet one of us can squeeze in there if we hold it in the middle!” A little more effort and it was done. Jim inserted the pipe in the center of the seam and handed it over. “Pull!” he said. The gap widened and he knocked a few nails over with the hammer. Then he stuck his head inside.

“Great God Almighty!” he said, his voice muffled.

“Well, what the hell is it?” Isak demanded acerbically, losing patience.

For a moment, Jim couldn’t speak. Before him, as his eyes adjusted, he saw a bright, greasy metal spindle with only slight surface rust. Beyond was a triangular joint with bolts conveniently screwed into six holes. Still farther in he made out a radiator and the beginnings of a distinctive, Curtiss Green-painted shape that he’d never, ever expected to see again. Pulling his head back out, he looked at his companions with wide eyes. “Nail it up tight, fellas,” he said. “As tight as you possibly can.” He looked around at the other, similar crates and a slow grin spread across his face.

“Well… what the goddamn hell is it?” Isak demanded.

“Ah, they are pleased. I am so glad!” Rasik said to Koratin. The two had stayed back, near the bulwark, talking.

“So it seems. They also seem to have forgotten all about you.”

“How convenient.”

“Indeed.”

“What is the plan?”

“Simple. Do you see that Marine with the Amer-i-caans? He is one of us. He will continue to distract Cap-i-taan Ellis and the wiry one while we take a boat ride.”

“The other Marines?”

“With us.”

“How delicious!” Rasik exclaimed. “They meant to maroon me, and I will maroon them! A shame we cannot kill them and take their weapons, but with half our group ordered to remain with the boat…”

“Precisely. It might prove dangerous. Now all we need to do is slip back down the net while they exult over their prize! After you, Lord King.”

Down in the half-flooded aft hold, they heaved the heavy crates up one after another until Chack’s shoulders screamed in agony and the others were panting with exertion. Through their increasingly concentrated toil, none of them noticed when it suddenly grew darker in the chamber for a moment as something moved through the light-giving rent in the ship’s side. They felt it, though, another vibration like the others, but clearly here.

Chack looked down at the upturned face of his Marine on the diminished stack of crates. “Up!” he shouted. “Out of the hold!” He turned to race up the ladder, to get out of the way. Blas-Ma-Ar heaved frantically against the crates stacked above to make room for him to pass and so neither ever saw what got the other Marine. They heard a heavy splash and felt the entire ship judder slightly. More splashes came when the stack of crates collapsed into the water, but by the time Chack reached the top and spun to offer his hand, the other Marine was gone. There’d been no scream, no shout. Nothing but the splash. Chack snatched his Krag and frantically searched the water. He thought he saw a dark shape near the hole in the ship and fired, but all that apparently accomplished was to create an impenetrable haze of gun-smoke. He roared in frustration and fired again anyway.

“Cap-i-taan! Cap-i-taan!” Blas-Ma-Ar was pulling on his leather armor. “He is gone!” Chack shook her off and chambered another round. The almost youngling’s voice turned hard. “Cap-i-taan Chack-Sab-At, we have lost a Marine. He died bravely doing his duty. How many lives is this ammunition worth? We still have our duty as well!”

Chack took a deep breath. “Very well. You are right, of course. Come, help me with these crates, but stay alert! There may yet be other dangers within this foul place!”

“Was that shots? That was shots!” Jim exclaimed. “Muffled in the ship. Chack!” He looked around. “Hey, where’s Koratin and Rasik?”

“They left,” the Marine with them said simply.

“ What? Wait, never mind that now. C’mon!” Jim snatched his Springfield and raced toward the hatch he’d seen Chack and his party enter. “Chack!” he bellowed, and was relieved to hear an answering shout, still muted by decks and passageways. “Where are you? What did you shoot at?”

“We are here,” came a closer reply. “We need help with some heavy objects. Most are still stacked in the entrance to the aft hold.” Chack finally appeared at the base of the companionway they were looking down. It was dark as pitch.

“Where’s your lantern?” Isak asked.

“Follow this corridor behind me, through the engineering spaces. It is not so dark back there. The lantern marks the spot.” Chack paused, taking a breath. “Do not enter the aft hold. Something is in there. Something that got one of my Marines. You should be safe enough,” he continued brusquely. “I do not think whatever it was can reach as high as the crates we retrieved.”

Jim turned to face the Marine who’d stayed with them. “What’s this about Rasik? What do you mean, ‘they left’?”

Chack had reached the top of the companionway. He was puffing from exertion and repressed emotion, but he interrupted before the Marine could answer. “Cap-i-taan Ellis, we found much ammunition. Good ammunition for the big machine guns. I lost a good Marine to some monster getting it out. Please let us retrieve it while we know the path is clear. I will try to… explain the situation with Rasik as I see it when we are done.”

Jim started again to demand an immediate explanation, but Chack had already turned to go back for another crate. “Come on,” he said to the others.

It still took several trips by all five of them to retrieve the crates and drag them to the bulwark, where the cargo net was. There was indeed much ammunition. For some reason, Jim wasn’t surprised to see the boat gone. “All right,” he said at last, gasping from his effort, “what gives?”

Chack was breathing hard too, but when he set his last crate down, he turned to Ellis. “I learned a great lesson once, not long ago, from some very wise men.” He glanced at Blas-Ma-Ar, puffing up behind them festooned with the odd-looking weapons and the sack full of books. “Sometimes, for their own sake and the sake of the greater good, there are things leaders keep from followers because they do not have ‘need to know.’ ’Specially if the knowing-and only the knowing-will cause grief or… make things harder.” Chack’s tail flicked dramatically from one side to the other in a gesture that meant much the same thing as “on the other hand.”

“There are also some very few rare times when followers decide their leaders don’t have ‘need to know.’ These… what-if-hypothetical?-decisions do not come from distrust, animosity, or for any bad reasons at all.” His tail flicked again. “It is the esteem they feel for their leaders that makes them happen.” He took a final deep breath and continued. “Sometimes, followers see… again, hypothetically… that a thing must be done. For reasons of honor, integrity, and the greater good of others, there is no choice.” He held up a hand. “But, for those same reasons, leaders need not- must not -know about the thing that must be done.”

“That’s not good enough, Chack! What the hell’s going on? Tell me; that’s an order!”

“Very well, but forgive me if my explaining wanders. I’ve just lost a Marine and I’m maybe ‘rattled,’ as you say.” He sighed. “I’m poorly prepared right now, but may I answer you… philosophically?”

“What is this bullshit?” Jim’s ’Cat was good, but Chack was speaking English. He must have practiced saying “philosophically” for a while.

“I take that as yes. You of all people know that a leader’s honor and authority must be maintained at all costs.”

Jim blanched slightly, but he already knew Chack meant no insult.

Chack continued: “He cannot, must not, break his word. Not to his crew, or even his prisoners.”

Jim’s eyes went wide as he finally realized what Chack was saying. “So you’re telling me…”

Chack shushed him. “A moment. I’m not telling you anything. For the sake of our ‘philosophical discussion,’ say Cap-i-taan Reddy, our supreme commander, was forced to make a decision… a terrible accommodation that must torture him… even though it was made for the greater good. You, as his friend and follower, are bound to honor that accommodation in his place. You have no choice, no matter how distasteful you find it, even knowing how much it cost Cap-i-taan Reddy to make it in the first place. You would be tempted as his friend to break the accommodation, but that would be against his orders. That would reflect poorly on you and him as well. If, however, unknown to you, a small group of followers-who’d gravely suffered, I add-decided they could not bear this accommodation, and took it on themselves-knowing you would be bound to punish them-to break it without your knowledge…”

“They’re gonna bump off that Rasik bastard!” Isak said gleefully.

Chack stared hard at the fireman. Under his helmet, his ears were probably slicked back in irritation. “I didn’t say that. Nor as I understand it, is that their exact intent.”

A short time later, the boat pulled back to the ship with Koratin and the two Marines. Immediately, all those on the ship besides Jim Ellis began passing crates and green metal boxes of ammunition down. Ellis fumed. He was relieved and infuriated at the same time. A plot had been hatched under his very nose-again-and although this time it was apparently done to spare him, he was still angry. Much to Isak’s consternation, Jim hadn’t revealed what he’d seen in the massive crates. It was just too big and it might be better if it remained a secret. Also, in this case, Isak’s opinion wasn’t worth much. A short time ago, it wouldn’t have occurred to him to keep a secret from Chack, but right now he was mad and a little distrustful. Besides, he realized after he thought about it some more, they were going straight from this place into probable battle. If the Grik captured anyone, God forbid, it was best they have no idea what was in the wrecked ship north of Chill-chaap. It wouldn’t be difficult for the Grik to launch an expedition to destroy it, because who knew when the Allies would be able to come back themselves? No, this he’d keep to himself for a while until he had a chance to think more about it.

“We’ve done what we came here to do,” he said. “We’ve found Rasik’s ‘surprise,’ and I know what’s in the big crates. This ammo will come in real handy. Hell, it’s worth the trip by itself.” One of the books Chack had retrieved was the ship’s manifest. They’d lugged fifty-five thousand rounds of. 50 BMG to the bulwark, and a few thousand rounds of. 30-06. According to the pages in the book, there were two million more rounds in the ship. Quite understandable when one considered what they were for. A lot would be underwater and some might be ruined, but they’d have the brass and bullets. He tucked the manifest under his arm. He’d look it over some more on the way back to the ship.

He studied Koratin as the Marine corporal worked. It was hard to spot, but there was a little blood on his now slightly grungy white leather armor. “What did you do with Rasik, Koratin? I have to know.”

Koratin paused in his labor. “He desired to be set ashore here, instead of on the island,” he said simply. “As you Amer-i-caans would say, I owed him one.”

Ellis clenched his teeth. “Is he alive?”

“Of course! We left him quite well situated, as a matter of fact.” He glanced at the other two Marines. “We left him all our rations and even our spears! He should have no difficulty surviving for a considerable period. I swear to you now, before the Sun sinking yonder, Rasik will never die by our hands!”

Slightly mollified-Aryaalans didn’t swear by the Sun lightly-Ellis frowned. “But he might wander back to Aryaal, damn it! That’s why I wanted him on the island!”

“It matters little. If he’d wanted across, he could have built a raft. No, I think King Rasik will trouble the Alliance no more. He fully understands he is not wanted!”

“Well… you still disobeyed an order! Put yourself and these other Marines on report. I’m tempted to put Chack on report as well, as an accessory of some kind!” Jim looked at Chack. “Philosophical, my ass!”

“He had nothing to do with it!” Koratin objected.

“Maybe not, but he knew.”

“He may have surmised, Cap-i-taan, but he did not know.”

Jim looked at Chack again. Maybe Koratin was right. Clearly, Chack had expected them to kill Rasik. “Very well. For now. Let’s hurry up and get the hell out of here. It’ll be a long row home, mostly in the dark, and with that giant duck-eating… whatever it is, and with what got our Marine, that’s kind of a creepy thought!” He shook his head. “What is it with this damn world, where everything wants to eat you?”

“Hey, Cap’n Ellis,” Isak said suddenly. Once unaccustomed to making unsolicited comments to officers, the fireman blurted them out all the time now. “It just hit me. The ol’ Blackhawk used to be named Santa Catalina before the Navy bought her! One of her snipes told me once when we was alongside.” He shook his head. “Guy was one squirrely bastard. Used to run around ever’where tootin’ on a duck call! That’s why I remembered it all of a sudden. You know, the duck call…? Well, anyway, it’s still kinda weird.”

Weird was right, Jim thought. Weird the way Isak’s brain worked. A few minutes before, he’d been irate that Jim wouldn’t tell him what was in the crates. Then he dredged up something like that.

Rasik-Alcas watched the boat pull away through small gaps in the canopy. They hadn’t covered his eyes; they’d only gagged him. Now, through the searing waves of agony, he couldn’t even scream. They hadn’t taken him far, just a short distance beyond the jungle-choked shore. He’d actually been close enough to hear Koratin reassure Ellis that he wasn’t dead! How could any creature lie so amazingly well? Rasik himself hadn’t suspected a thing-but of course, he hadn’t wanted to. Koratin would have known that! As depraved as Rasik knew himself to be, he’d certainly met his final, evil match-and all because of younglings!

He struggled feebly, but the movement only caused more agony. Koratin and the Marines had pinned his arms to the trunk of a wide subaa tree, right through the twinbones. He couldn’t even tear himself free! Not that it would do any good. They’d done the same to the twinbones in his legs and then made a small incision in his belly. Not large enough to bleed him to death, but quite large enough to pull his intestines through. The squirming, tearing sensation had been more than he could bear, and he’d finally passed out. When he awoke, his murderers were gone. Food was scattered on the ground all around him-and his guts had been strung five or six tails away and hung on a limb.

He clenched his eyes shut as biting insects buzzed around his entrails. If only he’d known! How could he have known? Not only Koratin’s precious, despicable younglings had perished on Nerracca -the Home the Japanese destroyed-but so had the younglings or mates of all his conspirators! He should have had a way of knowing that. Would have, if he’d been thinking clearly! Even so, what did younglings measure against the power Koratin could have had as King Rasik-Alcas’s Supreme Minister? Younglings were simple to replace, even a pleasure, but the kind of power Koratin had denied was a priceless, precious thing. It was madness!

Even as Rasik-Alcas considered these imponderables and watched the boat grow small against the setting sun, the tiny, timid night predators began to gather around.

Environs of Tjilatjap