Distant Thunders d-4

by Taylor Anderson

  “So?”

  “So we look aft,” Danny answered, shrugging.

  The aft crew’s quarters and officer’s country looked much the same. The batteries under the plates looked okay too. There was water in the bilge under the engines, but it hadn’t reached the huge machines.

  “Those are the engines?” Lelaa asked. She’d seen the steam engines they were building, but the difference in sophistication was stunning.

  “Yep,” Irvin said. “Two NELSECO diesels. Twelve hundred horsepower combined. They’ll move this tub at fifteen knots on the surface, if the sea’s calm.”

  “And they were both running when you ran out of fuel?”

  “That’s right,” said Danny. “They worked the last time we used them.” Lelaa looked at him and twitched her tail. She had much to learn about Amer-i-caans, but the statement sounded… odd.

  “What is in the next compartment?”

  “The motor room.”

  Lelaa was confused now. “I have heard you, your people, use the words ‘motor’ and ‘engine’ interchangeably,” she said. “Why would S-19 need engines and a motor?”

  Irvin started to laugh, but then realized it was a perfectly good question.

  “Motors, actually. Plural. Okay, here’s the deal. Unlike the new Fleet Boats, S-19 can run her propeller shafts with a direct drive straight off the diesels. She’s actually faster that way. The trouble is, she can only run them one direction-forward. She can’t back up or use her screws for maneuvering with the engines. Since she has to use electric motors underwater-they don’t burn fuel, make exhaust, or need air; that’s how it works-we use the motors for reverse and maneuvering on the surface too. The new system’s really better. They don’t use the engines for anything but charging the batteries, and the motors do all the work. You’ve got forward and reverse and all the maneuvering you want all the time.” He patted one of the NELSECOs. “But these babies do pretty good.”

  “I am anxious to see these ‘motors,’ but you did not answer my question: why is one a ‘motor’ and the other an ‘engine’?”

  Irvin and Danny looked at each other.

  “Ask Sandy,” Irvin said. “He’ll know.”

  Danny nodded agreement, but then turned back to Irvin. “So what’s the verdict, Skipper? What do we tell the guys?”

  Irvin rubbed his forehead, looked at his two companions, and sighed. “Tomorrow we dig. And I want everybody trying to figure out the best way to dredge a canal this thing’ll fit through!”

  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.”

&n
bsp; “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.