Silva didn’t answer. Instead, he looked up at the sail and then turned to Rajendra at the tiller. “See if she’ll come another point or two into the wind. Cinch up them sheets, boys,” he added to Brassey and Abel Cook. “Time to quit goofin’ off.”
“Goofin’ off!” Petey seemed to scold.
As the day wore on, the lonely longboat drew closer to Tagran, close enough to make out details of the island, but at some point Lawrence’s enthusiasm seemed to wane and he grew nervous again.
“What’s the matter, Lawrence?” Rebecca asked, increasingly concerned.
“That is Tagran,” he insisted, “It ... looks di’rent, though.”
“It’s been a long time, my dear,” Rebecca consoled him. “Perhaps you are mistaken?”
“Di’rent,” Lawrence said. “I don’t know how.”
“Different, like maybe a big wave splashed over the joint?” Silva said suddenly. “I didn’t see the one that washed over Yap, but it had to be twenty, thirty feet tall just to rinse all our ‘droppin’s’ out from under us. If it was that big when it hit here, or maybe bigger ... Looky there! There’s a buncha crap up in them trees yonder.” He pointed.
“No,” Lawrence moaned.
“What sort of houses do your folks live in?” Silva asked, uncharacteristically gentle.
“Tree timbers, like you call ca’ins ... cav-bins”
“Cabins. Are they built up high, like the ’Cats do?”
“No.”
Silva looked at Sandra and Rebecca. Sister Audry shifted to the front of the boat and put a hand on Lawrence’s back.
“Well ... a wave couldn’t have washed over the entire place!” Cook said. “There’s a small peak upon it. Two, in fact!”
“That is true,” Lawrence said, his voice miserable. “Tagranesi go there when ground shakes. None live there ’ut our ‘Noble Queen’ and her attendants, though. There is little to eat that is not carried there. Tagranesi catch ’ish, raise creatures to eat, grow things ...”
“There’s a sail!” Brassey exclaimed. “There, do you see? It’s coming around the headland! Two sails!”
Silva squinted with his good eye. “There’s more than two! Look kinda like proas! A whole swarm of ’em.” He glanced around. “You know, like big double-ended canoes, with outriggers and a bipod mast!”
“They do look quite like proas,” Sister Audry exclaimed, shading her eyes. “Proas were quite common around Java ... once.”
“Who are they?” Rajendra demanded, checking the prime in his pistol. “Are they your people, Lawrence?”
Lawrence shook his head. “I Think so. Others, not just Tagranesi, use those kichi-acki, ah, ’roas.”
“But they might be enemies of yours, here to plunder the remains of your home?” Rajendra insisted.
“I think not,” Lawrence replied as the vessels began converging toward the longboat. “They are Tagranesi! Thank the God!”
“Well, don’t just sit there gapin’, you nitwitted lizard!” Silva exclaimed. “Shout out to ’em before they think we’re here a’plunderin’!”
There on the open water beneath a clear, sunny sky, Lawrence was reunited with his amazed people. They weren’t the only ones amazed. Silva, Sandra, and Rebecca in particular had come to know the Grik better than they cared to, and the Tagranesi looked an awful lot like their hated enemy. They’d grown used to Lawrence, but to see so many of his people acting like ... people ... instead of raving killing machines was so far beyond their experience, it took a while for them to loosen their grips on their weapons. At first Lawrence jabbered excitedly across to one of the larger proas, apparently summarizing their tale and explaining his miraculous return. The Tagranesi listening to him appeared as tense as Silva and the others felt at first, but after a while they too laid their weapons aside and listened as Lawrence spoke. Occasionally, one of the apparent “leaders” made a comment or loudly repeated something Lawrence said.
“What the hell?” Dennis demanded during a brief pause.
“That’s Chinakru!” Lawrence replied, referring to what seemed the “main” leader. The creature looked like an older version of Lawrence, covered with fine orangish “fur” and dark brown stripes. The crest on its head was much longer and flatter than Lawrence’s, and fell down around its neck almost like a horse’s mane. Even when the crest stood up, as it had when the first words were exchanged, it still covered the top of the creature’s head like a horsetail plume. The most amazing thing about Chinakru, however, was that despite his apparent fitness, he looked old. His feathery fur was shot with white, and so was the thick crest. Some of his teeth were gone and the others looked none too sharp. There were even dark, wet circles around almost rheumy eyes. None of the humans had ever seen an old Grik.
“Who’s he?”
“Chinakru is—used to—ah, he teacher, head’aster, leader on island that I grew to ...” Lawrence shrugged. “Island I grew to ‘Lawrence’ on. He knows I! He knows ‘Lawrence’ now too! I told him the title ’Ecky gave! It is a strange title, true, yet it is I now! It is real! I real!”
“That’s wonderful, Lawrence!” Rebecca gushed. “Are you sure you don’t mind the name? It was all I could come up with at the time. Perhaps one less ‘strange’ to your people would be best?”
“No! I Lawrence now!” the Tagranesi declared proudly. “I achieved all that is I as ‘Lawrence.’ Lawrence I stay!”
“That’s swell, Larry,” Silva jibed, “but what’s goin’ on? Why’s everybody out here bobbin’ around on the water to meetcha?” More than twenty proas of all shapes and sizes were in view now, and several had gathered around them, hove to. “Why don’t we take this touchin’ reunion party ashore?”
Lawrence spoke to Chinakru and then listened as the old Tagranesi told his own people’s tale. His voice was grim as he passed the translation. Essentially, though Lawrence was now a “person” in the eyes of his people, his people no longer had a home. They weren’t even “Tagranesi” anymore. The great wave had come in the night, as Lawrence had feared, and many had been drowned. Worse, all the survivors’ livelihoods, their crops, livestock, everything, had been destroyed as well. All that remained were these boats nestled in a cove on the lee side of the island to carry almost three hundred refugees. Perhaps ten times that number had died, or had been left behind to starve.
Chinakru and his best pupils had left the “proving ground,” the “forming” island to help those he now led on a mass migration “somewhere else.” It had happened before, centuries in the past, and now they must endure the greatest trial of all.
“But it’s right there!” Silva protested. “How come they have to leave? What about us? Can’t we at least rest up for a while? Shit!”
The ground had not shaken before the wave, but now it shook all the time. More waves would come, perhaps even bigger. The only “safe” place would be the highest hill on Tagran, and only the “Noble Queen” of Tagran could remain there with a select few to rebuild their people, since there was not nearly enough food for all. The only chance for the refugees was to get as far out to sea as possible before the next waves came, and ride them out. They might not even notice them on the water. After that, they must find a new place or die.
“Jeez,” Dennis muttered, looking longingly at the island so close. “I guess it’s the Philippines, then, after all. Talk about wasted time!” He looked around the boat. “That’s six, maybe seven hundred miles, and the currents won’t be any help at all.”
“But the current carried Lawrence, Mr. O’Casey, and myself in the right direction,” Rebecca protested.
“You were south of here, and lucky too,” Dennis said. “Besides, it carried you nearly straight at Talaud. If that’s what’s causin’ most o’ this ruckus, that’s the last place we want to make for. Cap’n Lelaa?”
Lelaa nodded slowly. “Agreed. Talaud must be the culprit. I hope Mr. Laumer’s expedition has already left that place!”
“What should we do?” Sandra asked t
he Lemurian sailor, seeking her professional opinion.
“Mr. Silva is right—we must make for the Fil-pin Lands.”
Rajendra growled something under his breath.
“What’s that?” Sandra demanded, but Rajendra didn’t answer.
“It’s our only real option,” Lelaa persisted. “The map from Ajax shows other, closer islands, but they will be as vulnerable as Yap and Tagran, and we don’t know who, if anyone, might meet us there.” She stared significantly at the gathered proas. “We can’t stay here. There’s no food, and I suspect going ashore to take any that remains would result in violence. Personally, I’d rather die than return to Yap, even without the shiksaks. It must be the Fil-pin Lands! Now, if Talaud ‘blows,’ there will be massive waves, much like Sister Audry described. The southern Fil-pin Lands, Min-daanao particularly, will be swamped. We should steer west, northwest, and sail as fast as we can. With the compass, the Heavens, and Captain Rajendra’s quadrant, we will not get lost.” She sighed. “Silva is also right about the currents, if not the distance. I have never been this far east, obviously, but I’ve been off the east coast of the Fil-pin Lands. The currents will be against us. We’re now actually about nine hundred of your miles from our destination, a voyage of ... months. How much food and water do we have?”
“Not that much!” Rajendra blurted.
“Have you a better suggestion?” Sandra asked. Rajendra just shook his head.
“We have about a month and a half, usin’ just enough to keep body and soul together,” Silva said. Lelaa nodded agreement. She’d estimated as much.
Sandra sighed, rubbing her forehead. “Lawrence,” she said at last, “your people have no knowledge of the Philippines, correct?”
“None, except I.”
“I imagine those ... proas are a lot faster than this boat, with as little sail as it can carry.”
“True,” Lawrence agreed.
“Twice as fast?”
Lawrence didn’t know. The only one he’d ever sailed, he’d built himself, and it was very small.
Lelaa had been looking at the lines of the boats in question. “At least that,” she said, “which would shorten the trip, but those boats do not look as well suited to heavy weather.”
“And ours is? How much food and water do they have?”
Lawrence asked, and discovered that the refugees had less than they did, for all intents and purposes.
“Saan-Kakja may kill me,” Sandra muttered, “but ask them if they want to go someplace way bigger than they’ve ever seen; where no wave can ever wash their lives away.” She looked at Lelaa. “I don’t think Saan-Kakja even has a colony on Samar, does she?”
CHAPTER 26
Talaud Island
“Jeez, Mr. Laumer,” said Shipfitter Danny Porter nervously, watching the distant mountain through binoculars, “I don’t think I can take this much longer! I’m starting to think poor Sid got off easy.”
Laumer stood beside him on S-19’s conn tower, beneath the brown-gray sky. He turned and gave Porter a blistering stare. “Stow that crap right now, sailor! Sid didn’t give up, and neither will you.” Laumer paused, taking in the hellish scene of desolation surrounding the boat. The island was a dusty, skeletal corpse, and the strange winds and twisting thermal eddies kicked up random vortices that danced among the wooden bones. The air was full of an ash so fine that it resembled a smoky haze, and everyone who came up from below wore bandannas. They didn’t help much. The whole crew had hacking coughs, and some were coughing blood. The dust was everywhere, and even below, red, puffy eyes streamed constantly.
“Look,” Irvin continued, less harshly, “I know you’re scared. Everybody is. This is the screwiest situation imaginable. But think about it like this: you were at Baalkpan, under Chapelle, right?” Danny nodded. “I wasn’t even there,” Irvin said with a touch of bitterness. “I was at Sembaakpan with the ‘women and kids.’ Tell me this—which was scarier, this or a couple hundred thousand Grik coming to eat you?”
“Well ... that was,” Danny confessed, “but there was fighting, see? We were doing something! There wasn’t all this time ... just sitting and waiting.”
Irvin nodded. “Yeah, we’ve been waiting a few days, but we’ve been busy too. We’ve been working on the boat and waiting for the lagoon to clear enough for us to get out of here. That was a chance Captain Reddy, you, and all the ’Cats never had at Baalkpan—a chance to get away from what was coming. By all accounts, you didn’t lose it then, and you’re not going to now. Got it?”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
The steel beneath their feet reverberated with a gasping, metallic groan, and black soot mixed with rusty red dust exploded from the port exhaust, aft. For almost a full minute, they listened to the labored, clattering rumble of the port diesel, before it belched and died.
“Looks like Sandy might finally have a handle on that thing,” Irvin observed. “Seems the biggest problem with it was that a leaky exhaust vent let water in, rainwater mostly, thank God, and it rusted everything up in the cylinders and seeped into the crankcase.” He raised his own binoculars and scanned the lagoon. There was still a lot of debris, and the water around the anchored submarine was dark and gray with mud. But most of the detritus had washed ashore by now, or gathered into tangled islands close to the beach. “Which is good,” Irvin continued, “because we’re through waiting. As soon as the tide clears as much of that junk out of the mouth of the lagoon as it’s going to today, we’re getting the hell out of here!”
“Torpedo room reports that the submerged anchor’s secure,” Tex Sheider announced over the rumble of the starboard diesel and the distant, fitful cracks booming from the mountain.
Irvin nodded, glaring at the volcano. “Bitch acts like she doesn’t want us to leave,” he murmured. “Very well,” he said louder. “Lookouts to the bow, and as far aft as they dare. Stand by to fend off debris. Make all preparations for getting underway.”
Midshipman Hardee tooted a call on a bosun’s pipe—the kid had a real talent for the thing—and Lemurians scurried from below, positioning themselves for the prearranged detail, closing the hatches behind them. Just moving around on the boat was a real chore now. With her strakes burnt away, her furry crew had to climb over and under the exposed deck supports and they looked like kids charging through a set of playground monkey bars armed with long poles and lashed-together broom handles.
“The maneuvering watch is set,” Tex said, repeating a call from below. “Such as it is.” He changed his tone to that of an ominous lecture. “All hands are informed that the submarine service expects every man aboard, from the captain on down, to know his boat from the topmast to the keel,” he quoted, then shrugged. “All stations manned and ready.”
“Very well,” said Irvin again. He took a breath. He’d been in command of the operation from the start, but now, at last, he was about to command S-19 while underway. It was different. “Port motor, ahead slow. Steer zero, six zero, but stand by for prompt course corrections.”
“Port ahead slow, zero six zero, and stand by for corrections, aye.”
Slowly, almost unnoticeably at first, S-19 began to move under her own power once again. The merest wake ruffled back from her straight up and down bow, parting the mud-thickened sea. Almost immediately, the port screw bit something under the water. They felt it in the fibers of the sub and Laumer’s carefully neutral expression ticked just a bit. There was no change in the bass tone created by the turning port shaft, however, so whatever it was, it must have been insubstantial. It might have been the submerged carcass of an animal. The boat crept onward. Several times, the lookouts called out and pointed at something floating in the water and Irvin ordered slight course corrections to avoid the obstacles. Once, the forward starboard lookouts had to heave at something with their poles as they passed. After nearly an hour, S-19 finally eased out of the mouth of the lagoon and into the bigger waves beyond.
They literally weren’t out of the woods yet, thou
gh. Debris and shattered trees might extend for miles beyond the island, but as the boat began to pitch, Irvin called the majority of the lookouts away from their posts. A few would have to stay, but now, in clearer seas, they should spot any hazards soon enough to avoid them. Tex called some of his electricians to the bridge to resume work on the antennae aerial they’d begun rigging to the bent but now permanently extended number two periscope. Slowly, the dust that had hung around them like a shroud began to clear as a gentle northeasterly breeze carried it away, and a few ’Cats even removed their bandannas experimentally. On impulse, Irvin suddenly turned and looked back at the island, looming there, still dominating the horizon like a malignant blotch.
“Where to now, Mr. Laumer?” Tex asked.
“Hmm? Oh. Well, we’ll maintain this course for the time being, maybe add some speed after a while if the lookouts don’t see too much junk. Right now, I want to get as far away from that island as we can.” He snorted. “And I don’t want to get between it and Mindanao! We’ll steer northeast for the rest of the day and tonight, maybe tomorrow too, depending on how things look, then we’ll turn north across the Philippine Sea. We might try the San Bernardino Strait, but as long as we have the fuel and nothing breaks, we’ll go all the way around Luzon to Manila if we have to. We got this old gal off, Tex!” he said adamantly. “I’m damned if I’ll let that island snatch her back from us!”
“You think Danny’s right? You think Talaud’s gonna blow its top?”
Irvin shook his head. “How should I know? But if it does, it’s not going to get S-19! Too many have died to save her.” Suddenly, Irvin snapped a sharp salute toward the island and held it. Tex started to protest, then he understood. Grumbling at himself, he saluted as well. Soon, everyone topside on S-19 was standing straight, saluting not the island but Toolbox, Sid Franks, and all the others they’d left behind. Finally, Irvin lowered his hand and the others followed suit. “So long,” he whispered hoarsely and turned to face forward. “Get that aerial up, Tex. I’d sure love to be able to whistle up a tow, if it comes to that. A lot of folks probably think we’re dead already.”
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