Frankie nodded glumly. “What about our guys?” he asked Palmer.
The comm officer looked troubled. “Still no news. Salaama-Na and her escorts were on their way, last we heard, but there was another big storm out there, and we haven’t heard anything since. The ‘new’ Fil-pin-built Simms and Jenks’s Achilles sailed right after we did, but there’s been nothing from them either. Aerials or wind generators probably got carried away, and Simms might’ve cracked her batteries, or shorted everything out. Achilles ’ set was a piece of… junk to start with.” O’Casey nodded and Palmer lowered his voice. “Then there’s that damn Talaud. I hear Respite okay at night, but it’s fuzzy. Everything’s fine there, but they’re worried about a surge from the west. It seems the volcano’s been going nuts, and I only get snippets from Maa-ni-la. Respite Station passes stuff along, though, and it’s getting scary back home, Skipper.”
“So… nada,” Steele said. Palmer shrugged.
Matt took a deep breath. “And I guess if anybody’d seen or heard from Ajax, they would’ve said something.” Only silence answered, and he slowly exhaled.
“Okay,” he said, “here’s the plan. In the morning”-he rubbed his face-“later This morning, at 0400, Mr. Reynolds will take off… Everything still good with the Nancy, Lieutenant?”
“Swell, Skipper. It’ll be a little creepy taking off in the dark, but no sweat.”
“Good.” Matt looked at Frankie. “We’ll raise hell on the ship, blow tubes, vent steam, and generally carry on in a variety of loud, mechanical ways, to cover the sound of the Nancy’s motor. It’ll draw attention, but hopefully nobody’ll notice an airplane taking off in the dark.” He shrugged. “We goofed up telling them what the damn thing was, but most people here don’t believe it anyway. ‘It’s a proven fact that powered flight is impossible,’ ” he quoted wryly, and everyone chuckled. He looked at Reynolds. “It’ll probably be like looking for a needle in a haystack-and we don’t even know if the needle’s there-but if anything’s coming by sea, we need to know it. Keep a sharp eye off Scapa Flow, New Glasgow, and Edinburgh. I know that’s a big grid, and you’re only one plane, but you’re probably the only warning we’ll have.”
Fred Reynolds gulped. “Aye, aye, Skipper.”
“After that…” He paused. “Maybe it’ll look like a big send-off. Spin some platters over the shipwide comm too. Boats, Courtney, Stites, and myself will leave for the ‘dueling ground.’ ” He looked at Chack. “As soon as you hear the church bells sound the end to services, form your short company of the 2nd Marines on the dock. O’Casey? You’ll command the Imperial Marines. Lieutenant Blair’s been feeling out Marine officers, much like Jenks has been doing, to see who he can count on. He’ll meet you here with whatever he can scrounge up.”
“We should go with you,” Chack insisted.
“No, we have to assume they’ll be expecting that. It might even be what all this is about. You have to be ready to respond to anything. If we need you at the dueling ground, Stites’ll send up a flare. It’s about two miles, but you’ll see it well enough.” He arched an eyebrow. “It’s supposed to be a pretty day.” He laid his hands on the table, palm up. “Anything else? I think we’ve covered every base we can… I just wish we knew we’re in the right ballpark!” He waited a moment while his crew glanced at one another. “Okay, that’s it. I’m going to try to sleep. Wake me if anybody hears anything!”
At long last the gathering broke up. Matt started for his quarters, but Spanky blocked his way, hands on hips. Throughout the meeting, he’d done little but chew yellow tobacco and spit in a sediment-filled Coke bottle. “I oughta be with you,” he said.
“No. I want Frankie to have three boilers all day if he needs them. You’re the only guy in the whole world who can do that… and maybe not empty the bunkers!”
“Well…” Spanky stuck out his hand. “Good luck, Skipper.”
Matt took the hand. “You too. I expect we’re both going to need it.”
The atmosphere at the dueling ground was like a big, garish fair, and as Jenks predicted, attendance was huge, even compared to the Pre-Passage Ball. The event had been the talk of the Empire for an entire week, and people came from almost every island to view the spectacle. Not many came from New Ireland, but it was a virtual Company possession and only a few executives there had the means to hire passage. Even so, oddly, not a single ferry or Company official arrived from New Dublin. That struck many as strange, since New Dublin constituted Harrison Reed’s prime constituency. Nevertheless, the New Scotland churches bulged with pious attendees, praying for the souls of the soon to be departed, and bookmakers hawked odds through the teeming crowd.
“Jenks is runnin’ about even,” Gray announced, reappearing with Courtney, pewter mugs in their hands streaming suds. “Thanks for the loan, Commodore,” he added.
Jenks nodded. He was dressed simply in a white shirt with a red cravat, his white Navy knee britches, and a pair of knee-high boots. Around his waist was only a tight red sash, into which was thrust his naked sword. His long hair was clubbed at the nape of his neck, and his mustache was freshly braided. He looked very businesslike, and it was clear he’d done this before. Matt had followed his lead, wearing khaki shirt and trousers, both of Lemurian “cotton.” His loose trouser legs were bound by a pair of U.S. Navy leggings. His own naked Academy sword-carefully sharpened-was held against his side by a web belt. He took off his hat and handed it to Juan, who’d sneaked off the ship to join them as they made their way to the grounds. Juan had even shed his sling, gamely moving his arm around when confronted and claiming he didn’t think it was ever really broken at all.
“What about me?” Matt asked, tying a bandanna around his neck. He needed something to sop at sweat.
Gray winced. “Lots of sympathy, Skipper, but you’re runnin’ about twenty to one, give or take. Against.”
“Ridiculous,” Juan scoffed, tying another bandanna around Captain Reddy’s head to keep sweat from running into his eyes. Juan’s attitude reflected that of virtually Walker ’s entire crew. The “distracting” send-off they’d given him had been real, and it warmed Matt’s heart, but he’d been a little taken aback by how little concern they’d shown that he might lose his contest. Most just couldn’t understand how far out of his element he would be.
“That bad?” asked Matt. “What makes folks so pessimistic?”
Gray cleared his throat. “Well, ah, as we suspected, there’s been scouts down watchin’ you and the commodore prancin’ around on the ship, practicin.’ Lots of folks think you’d do well… with a lot more practice. But the word is you’re too, ah, ‘predictable.’ Too worried about form…” He shrugged. “Sorry, sir. Like I always say, too much calf slobber’ll spoil the pie.”
Matt frowned. “That’s okay, Boats. I’ll give ’em a show, whatever they think.”
“That’s the spirit, sir! You’ve been in worse scrapes before.”
Matt nodded thoughtfully. He had. “Who’d you bet on?”
“You, of course.” He glared at Jenks. “Penny-pinchin’ devil didn’t give me enough money to do it up right, and he demanded fifty percent of my winnings too!”
“It was a risky wager,” Jenks reminded him. He paused. “The good thing is, your opponent will likely ‘stretch it out.’ He’s a ‘professional,’ and makes his living at this. He’ll want to make it look good; provide a ‘spectacle.’ That should give you plenty of time to practice your new, ‘predictable’ style against him.” He stopped. “Please excuse me,” he said, stepping away to meet his wife, waiting behind the rope line. They saw him cradle her chin with his hand.
“Weird duck,” Stites pronounced, fiddling with a tarp-covered crate they’d sent up the day before. “All of ’em. Weird ducks. Treat wimmen like pets, or worse, but Jenks does love that gal. I wonder if he ‘bought’ her.”
“I sorta loved a dog once,” Gray grumbled. “Damn fine bitch. Even so, my mother woulda cased me out if I treated a woman like I did t
hat dog.” He paused. “Skipper, are we even sure this is our fight? We got women now-though I ain’t personally-and a hell of a fight all our own, a long way from here. I know we wanna save our girls, and even Silva, but… well, you know as well as I do that’s… probably out of our hands.” It was the closest anyone had come to actually saying the hostages were probably lost with Ajax. “We still need to kill the Company and that’s a fact, but… this is a lot bigger than that now.”
Matt looked at the Bosun, but for an instant he was seeing the face of Don Hernan, and remembering that… twisted interview. He was personally convinced that the “Blood Cardinal” was up to his neck in whatever was going on, though he still didn’t know how.
“You’re right,” he said. “This is way bigger than that. But it is our fight because we’re here.” He snorted. “Hell, Boats, that’s what we’ve been doing for the last two years, since Pearl Harbor: fighting the war we’re at. I’m not saying we need another war, or even that I like this Imperial setup much, but I have started to like the people. Some of ’em. Right now I think they need us… and damn it, we need them. That Don Hernan gives me the creeps worse than the first Griks I ever saw. In a way, he and his Dominion strike me as even worse than the Grik because they’re people that act the way they do. And this Reed and the Company…” He shook his head in exasperation. “Hell, I don’t even try to calculate ‘shades of gray’ anymore. There’s just too many. All we can do is try to look underneath them all to see if we can find the basic black or white, good or bad. Maybe I’m a sucker, but I can’t help feeling that if we quit trying to find good folks on this world, even if we run into more bad ones while we’re at it, we might as well steam back to Baalkpan and wait for the Grik to return and finish us off.”
Gray nodded slowly, staring out at the dueling ground. “Aye, sir. Maybe so. I sure would like to get me one of them gals and spend a year or two retired before I croak, though.”
Stites rolled his eyes. “S.B., if you ever ‘retired,’ we’d be buryin’ you from boredom in a week.”
Horns sounded, and the combatants moved to face one another across the field. It had been decided that the contests would be simultaneous. Despite the gladiatorial atmosphere, the layout of the dueling ground itself reminded Matt of a football stadium in a forest. The architecture was surprisingly familiar, and the thick woods of Imperial Park surrounding the grounds were unlike anything Matt had ever seen on the “old” islands. They looked more like pines. The spectators on one side occupied an expansive set of wooden bleachers, built around the Imperial viewing box. The Governor-Emperor stood in his box with Andrew and a number of military officers. All were dressed in their Sunday best and wore impassive expressions, but it was clear whose side they were on. The bleachers around them thundered with noise, the accumulated effect of perhaps four thousand voices talking at once.
There was a stark contrast between that and the “opposing” bleachers. Don Hernan occupied that box, surrounded by a phalanx of priests and a few local clergy. Matt was surprised to learn that the Empire allowed Blood Priests of the Holy Dominion to preach on its soil, but it did. Only those of the English Church enjoyed full citizenship, but vestiges of Hinduism and Mohammadism still lingered as well.
“Oh, that’s done it,” Jenks said aside to him as they strode forward. He sounded stunned.
“What?”
“Look there.” Jenks pointed. Joining Don Hernan in the opposing box was Harrison Reed himself, followed by a large entourage. Many of the spectators on that side hissed and grumbled and began to get up and leave, apparently outraged, making their way to the opposite bleachers. “Good God, we were right! Reed’s declared himself!”
“Why wouldn’t he be on that side?” Matt asked. “You represent the Governor-Emperor and your argument’s with Reed.”
“That may be how it seems, my friend, but that’s not exactly how it is. Technically, ‘on the field,’ I represent only myself. That’s why, close as we admittedly are, His Majesty has taken no official notice. Reed should be-normally would be-watching from the same box as the Governor-Emperor, pretending to be his very best friend. By standing with Don Hernan, he has made this a political fight. Worse, he’s declared himself against the Governor-Emperor and with Don Hernan! See? Even much of the Company baggage is clearing from the opposing stands! For the most part, nobody hates the Doms worse than the Company! Even Billingsley despised them! Called them ‘Roman Witches and Freaks.’ ”
“Then… I’m more confused than ever. Why work together? Why would Reed stand with them?”
“They work together for ‘the Trade,’ the commerce in people that you hate so much. It’s the Dominion’s cheapest, most plentiful resource and the Company’s most lucrative commodity. Otherwise, the Company and the Dominion couldn’t be further apart-I see you don’t understand, but we don’t have time to go into economics. Suffice to say for now that they hate one another. Up ’til now, they needed one another more.”
“What’s changed? Why would Reed show his hand?”
“ Everything’s changed. We were right, it will be today. Reed has chosen his side and thinks he’s safe to do so. Stop here.”
“Well… that’s nuts. Won’t he be arrested, for treason or something?”
“Just as soon as our little ‘entertainment’ is over,” Jenks swore.
They’d reached the center of the field and the now much larger “home” crowd cheered lustily. An announcer was introducing them with a speaking trumpet, but Matt couldn’t hear the words.
“And in This corner,” Matt muttered to himself as their opponents strode to meet them. The slick-haired man was dressed much as he’d been that night a week before. His lips still bore heavy scabs and his crooked grin was missing a couple of teeth. He moved like the professional he was, but his eyes glinted with hatred and anticipation-as though he expected to enjoy this chore.
“What?” Jenks asked.
“Skip it. Who’s your guy?”
“I’ve no idea. It doesn’t matter.”
“I don’t even know ‘my’ guy’s name. Will we say ‘hello,’ or just ‘come out swinging’?”
“We won’t say ‘hello.’ ”
“We’ll just start hacking away at each other, perfect strangers?”
Jenks sighed. “As soon as the Imperial Marshal inspects our weapons, reads the complaint, and gives the signal, yes. Now please stop distracting me and concentrate on what you must do!”
Matt smirked. He supposed he should be nervous, but his mind was already far beyond the moment, worrying about everything else going on. Somehow, he couldn’t escape the suspicion he was missing something. He knew he had to focus, or all that other stuff very shortly wouldn’t matter to him anymore. Like the others, he submitted his sword for inspection and half listened to the various complaints and the Rules of Combat. Jenks had gone over the rules with him pretty carefully. Finally, the marshal stepped back and held a kerchief high, fluttering in the morning breeze. There was a hush in the stands.
“What’s your name?” Matt blurted at the slick-haired man. He didn’t know why he did it. Maybe it was a final, subconscious attempt to think of him as a man. His opponent seemed taken aback, but sneered as best he could around his broken lips.
“Does it ’atter? You’ll soon be dead.”
Matt shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t after all.”
The kerchief dropped.
Lieutenant Fred Reynolds knew he was on an important mission, and he was suitably serious about it, but he couldn’t help but appreciate the stunning view presented by the early-morning spectacle of the New Britain Isles. He’d never flown above the Hawaiian Islands before. He’d never flown at all before he entered Ben Mallory’s Air Corps, but he knew he’d made the right decision. Ever since they came to this world, he’d just been a seaman, the last of Walker ’s original crew who hadn’t advanced, or even struck for anything. He’d gained a lot of experience as a talker, but that was all he’d ever really been. N
ow he was an aviator, a pilot, an officer; and all he’d really done was finally pick something to do that didn’t scare him or bore him. Sure, sometimes he was scared of flying, particularly when somebody was shooting at him, but he wasn’t afraid of the idea of flying, and even with the improved ships, it was never boring.
Comm was boring. Constantly listening for messages that never came. He’d had a taste of that, and couldn’t stand it. That was Kari-Faask’s job on the plane-along with all her other jobs-and he didn’t envy her that one at all. She seemed to like it, though, and probably would have liked it better on the ship or ashore. She was no coward-cowardice didn’t run in her family-but her courage was of a more sensible nature than the great Haakar-Faask’s. Probably more sensible than Fred’s-and she hadn’t ever shot any holes in their own airplane either. Their pairing made better sense all the time, to Reynolds’s mind. He was the increasingly “hotshot” pilot who took their little ship where it needed to go, and had a real feel for takeoffs and landings on the water. She was the workmanlike side of the team, diligently doing her duty, monitoring the receiver, and constantly scanning for the things they’d been sent to look for.
It was no surprise to Reynolds, then, when her tinny voice reached him from the speaking tube, interrupting his enjoyment of the sense of being the very first person ever to view these new islands from the air, as well as simply appreciating the sharp, almost chilly air. They were on the second leg of their pattern, flying northwest along the coast between Scapa Flow and New Glasgow. Ever efficient, Kari had made an observation and monitored a transmission at the same time.
“Surface target, bearing two three zero,” she said, and Fred looked to his left. Sure enough, there were shapes to the southwest, sails, lots of sails, coming from a direction Jenks had said no large Imperial force was operating. Either that was Walker ’s Allied resupply or it was bad guys. It was that simple.
Rising Tides d-5 Page 40
