"Batteries B2, C2, and D2 will aim for the pilothouse top deck," John said.
Strubewell relayed the orders. Then he said, "Battery C2 doesn't reply, sir. Either the communication's cut or it's out of action."
"Tell C3 to aim for the pilothouse control room."
"You forget, sir. C3's definitely out of action. The last salvo got it, sir."
"B2 can do it then," John said.
He turned to Burton. His face looked purplish in the night-light. "Get to your men now, Captain," he said. "Be prepared to lead a boarding party from the midport side."
Burton saluted and sped down the spiral ladder. He got off at the hurricane deck and hurried down a corridor. His men and women were inside a large chamber outside the armory. Lieutenant Gaius Flaminius was outside the hatch with two guards. His face lit up when he saw Burton.
"We're going into action?"
"Yes," Burton said. "Very quickly. Get them out here into the corridor."
While Flaminius bawled orders, Burton stood at the corner of the two corridors. He would have to lead his force down the corridor going to the outside. They would have to wait there until the command came down to board the Not For Hire. Or, if the communication system wasn't working, he would have to judge for himself when to order the attack.
It was while the marines were being lined up in the corridor that the broadside from the Not For Hire struck. The explosions were deafening; they made Burton's ears ring. A bulkhead down the corridor bulged in. Smoke poured in from somewhere, setting everybody to coughing. There was another roar that shook the decks and deadened their ears even more.
Up on the bridge, John hung on to the railing and shuddered as the boat vibrated. At a range of only thirty feet, the portside rocket batteries of four decks of the Rex and the starboard rocket and cannon and steam gun batteries – those still in force – of the Not For Hire had poured fire into each other. Great pieces of the hull had flown spinning into the air. Entire batteries of rockets and their crews had disintegrated in flame and smoke. The two remaining cannons on Clemens' boat had been torn from their mounts as the shell supplies behind them were touched off by rockets. Two steam machine-gun turrets, one on each vessel, had caved in, opened as a can opens to a metal punch, then had been peeled apart as rockets or shells came in through the tears in the metal.
The great boats were wounded beasts, cut open, their insides exposed, bleeding heavily.
In addition, certain batteries on each craft had aimed volleys at the control rooms, the brains of the beasts. A number of missiles had shot by their marks, either splashing harmlessly into the water or striking elsewhere. A few plumped ashore, starting more fires. None had hit the pilothouses directly. How they could miss at that range was inexplicable, but this often happened in combat. Shots that should have gone astray did not, and dead-certain shots went awry.
The sharp nose of the Not For Hire turned, whether from design or accident, John could not know. Its prow sliced into the giant port wheelguard of the Rex, tearing it off, lifting its many tons up and off and precipitating it into The River. The prow continued on, crushing the paddles, bending the frame of the wheel, and then snapping off the massive wheelshaft. In the midst of the eardrum-shattering explosions, the screech of tearing metal, the screams of men and women, the roar of burning hydrogen, both boats stopped. The impact of the collision hurled everyone who wasn't strapped in to the deck. The prow crumpled in and up, and water poured in through several rents in the hull.
At the same time, the pilot house of the Not For Hire toppled forward. It seemed to those within it, Miller, Clemens, and Byron, the only ones left alive in the structure, that it fell slowly. But it did not, being attracted by gravity as fully as any other object. It crashed upon the foredeck of the hangar deck, and out of it hurled Clemens and Miller. Sam landed on top of the giant, whose own fall was softened somewhat by the padded and insulated uniform and helmet.
They lay there for several minutes dazed, bruised, deafened, bleeding, too numbed to realize that they were lucky to be alive.
35
* * *
Sam Clemens and Joe Miller climbed down the ladder leading from the hangar deck. The fire raged behind them. Then they were on the hurricane deck. Joe carried his colossal axe in one hand. He said, "You okay, Tham?"
Sam did not reply. He grabbed one of the titanthrop's fingers and pulled him oh around the corner. A bullet struck the bulkhead, its plastic fragments whizzing around them. None hit flesh, however.
"The Rex is right alongside us!" Clemens said.
"Yeah, I thaw that," Joe said. "I think they're going to try to board uth."
"I can't control my boat!" Sam cried. He looked as if he were going to weep.
Joe seemed as calm and as impervious to destruction as a mountain. He patted Sam on the shoulder. "Don't vorry. The boat'll chutht drift athyore. It von't think. And ve'll knock Chohn and hith aththholeth thilly."
Then both were hurled to the deck. Sam lay for a while, groaning, unaware that the Not For Hire had ripped off a paddlebox and wheel of the Rex. During the firing that broke out as soon as the boats had come to a stop, he continued to lie with his face pressed against the cold hard deck. A hand reached down and grabbed his shoulder and picked him up by it. He yelled with agony.
"Thorry, Tham," Joe rumbled. "I forgot mythelf."
Sam held his one shoulder. "You dumbbell, I won't ever be able to use that arm again!"
"You egthaggerate ath uthual," Joe said. "You're alive vhen by all rightth you thyouldn't be. Tho am I. Tho get vith it, Tham. Ve got vork to do."
Clemens looked up at the flight deck. The flames had by now covered not only that but had reached down into the hangar deck. There was not much to burn, however. The barrels of methanol that were usually stored there had been taken to the lowest deck before the battle had started. Though the flaming hydrogen was hot, it would burn itself out quickly.
As he thought this, he saw the flight deck cave in on itself. From this angle, he could only see its edges sticking out. But the crash that went with the falling parts told him that at least half of the structure had collapsed. And flame gusted out, like a dragon breathing at him.
Joe leaped forward, yelling, "Chethuth Chritht!"
He picked up Sam and continued forward until he had reached the edge of the hurricane deck. Then he dropped Sam.
"Tham, I think I'm burned!"
"Turn around," Clemens said. On inspecting the back, he said, "You clown! The armor saved you. You may be a little hot under the collar, but you're not hurt."
Joe went back to get the axe he'd dropped. Sam looked at the bulk of the Rex. Its port side was against the starboard port prow of his boat. Grappling lines were being shot or hurled from both sides on all three of the lower decks, and the boarding bridges were already extended. The walkways and the ports and hatches, as far as he could see, were crowded with men and women. All were either firing at pointblank range or getting ready to attack as soon as the lines were secured. The boarding bridges would be manned in a very short time.
He did not have a gun. Fortunately, there were plenty on the decks, dropped from nerveless hands. He picked one up, checked its chambers, removed a bandolier from a corpse, put it on himself, and removed bullets from the belt to put in the pistol. Joe's form loomed up from around the corner, startling him. He did not reproach Joe for being so silent, since Joe was supposed not to make noise. But he had thought his heart would stop.
"Vhat'll ve do now, Tham?"
"Join our men and let them know we're still alive and kicking," Clemens said. "That'll recharge their morale."
They arrived just in time to see the last of a large group storm onto the hurricane deck from the Rex. Below them, however, John's men were forcing back the would-be boarders from the Not For Hire. In fact, John's men were boarding his – Sam's – boat on some of the bridges.
Sam leaned over and emptied his pistol into the rear-guard of the boarders below. Two men fell, o
ne going down in the narrow gap between the two vessels. But one of the boarders, still on the Rex, looked up and then shot his own pistol. Sam ducked as the first bullet screamed by his ear. The other missiles shattered against the railing or the hull just below the railing.
Joe was going to look over the railing then, but Sam yelled at him that if he did he'd get his head blown off.
After waiting until he was sure that the boarding bridges below were empty, he looked over and down. The deck below was jammed with struggling, shouting people and was noisy with ringing metal. Sam told Joe what he wanted to do. Joe nodded, lifting his great proboscis up and down like a log floating in a rough sea.
They ran across the boarding bridge, Joe bellowing to the men there that he and the captain were coming.
On both sides of their group were a few of the Rex crew, rapidly backing away before the superior force. These broke on seeing the great head and shoulders of the titanthrop above the crowd of Clemens' men. They ran as fast as they could, some diving into hatches, others leaping over the railing or through the gaps and into The River.
"That thyure ath hell didn't take long, did it, Tham?"
"No," Sam said. "I wish it was always that easy. Okay, Joe, you give them the orders."
The titanthrop yelled at the top of his voice at the men. They had no trouble hearing him. Indeed, at least half of the people halfway down both boats on this side must have heard the thunder. In fact, on one deck below and opposite, the battlers stopped for a few seconds.
The men ahead of Joe cleared to one side. Joe proceeded to the nearest ladder, Sam immediately behind him, and the others following. They went down the ladder to the hurricane deck and along it until they came to the boarding bridges. Here the men spread out, forming lines of two abreast at each of the eight bridges.
Sam checked that everybody was ready. Attacking John's men from behind them, from their own boat, tickled him. They would be demoralized when the titanthrop swung that Brobdingnagian axe upon their heads from behind them.
"Okay, Joe!" Sam yelled. "Go get 'em!"
Joe, bellowing a war cry in his native language, ran across the metal strip. Sam came behind him. There was not room on the bridge for another person where Joe went. Besides, it was more discreet to stay behind him. ,
Things happened so swiftly that only in retrospect was Sam able to figure out what happened.
A great noise deafened him, and a shock traveled through the bridge and hurled him onto it. Almost immediately after, the far end of the bridge lifted up, bending as its hooks kept their hold on the railing, then tearing loose with a screech of metal.
Sam, clinging stunned to the edges of the bridge, both arms extended to their utmost, the fingers clinging to the edges, looked up.
Joe had dropped his enormous axe. It slid along the upward and sidewise tilting bridge and fell off into the gap between the boats.
Joe had not fallen, but now he was bellowing in wrath. Or was it fear? It didn't matter. He was bellowing because both his arms were caught about his body by a noose.
The other end of the rope was being tied to a railing on the deck above. The man who had lassoed Joe from the hangar deck wore a Western sombrero, white enough to gleam in the pale light. His teeth flashed briefly below the wide brim.
Then Joe had fallen off the bridge. But, instead of going straight down into the chasm between the vessels, he swung down and then slammed against the hull of the Not For Hire. Joe quit bellowing then. His head lolled to one side, and he hung like a giant fly caught in the strand of an even larger spider.
Sam cried out, "Joe! Joe!"
It seemed impossible that anything serious could happen to Joe Miller. He was so enormous, so muscular, so . . . invincible. A man the size of a cave lion or a Kodiak bear should not be . . . mortal . . . vulnerable.
He did not have much time for such thoughts.
The bridge continued to tilt upward as the Rex rolled over. Sam clamped his hands on the sides of the bridge, his head turned away from Joe now. He saw men and women on the other bridges lose their holds and, screaming, fall into the narrow well of darkness between the vessels.
How ironic that the fabulous Riverboat Rex, which he had built, should be responsible for killing its builder. What a joke that the first boat should catch him halfway between the second boat and itself. Suspended him like Mohammed between heaven and earth.
Then he had let loose, had slid backward down the bridge, fallen into the angle made by the vertical deck and the horizontal bulkhead, had scrambled up it, and was sliding face down on the hull. He was up on his feet somehow and running down toward The River. Then he was slipping and rolling down the curve and into The River.
He went down, down, struggling to get rid of his cuirass. His helmet had come loose sometime during the struggle. He was terrified now that he could not get the armor from his body in time to keep from being sucked on down by the sinking Rex. That colossal sinking body would make a great whirlpool which, when it collapsed, would take all jetsam and flotsam, all debris, inanimate or animate, deep down with it. And if he was heavily burdened by his armor and weapons, he'd go down, too. Even if he were unburdened, he might sink.
At last, his belt and the bandolier and his chain-mail shirt and the attached skirt were off. He rose then, his chest seeming to burst, the ancient horror of drowning threatening to tear apart his hammering heart, his ears ringing with a tolling from the deeps. He had to breathe but dared not. Down there was the mud, as black and as evil as and far deeper than the mud of the Mississippi, and around him was water, squeezing like an Iron Maiden made of putty, and above – how far away? – was air.
It was too dark to see anything. For all he knew, he was going deeper, heading in the blackness the wrong way. No, his ears would hurt if he were diving instead of ascending.
He could not hold out much longer. Not more than a few seconds. Then . . . the death that his Mississippi boyhood had made him fear more than any other. Except one. If he had to die, he would do it in water rather than in fire.
For half a second, or however swiftly such thoughts went, he visualized Erik Bloodaxe.
At least that nemesis would not get him. The Viking, as a prophet and a nemesis, an avenging human machine, was a failure. All those nightmares of all those years had been wasteful torture. That the man could see into the far future, in fact assure it, was a superstition.
All those people in Hannibal who had prophesied that he would hang had been twice wrong.
Strange how such amusing thoughts could flash through the mind of a man whose only thought should be on the blessed air. Or was he actually drowning, almost dead, had forgotten the horror of having to open his nostrils and gulp in water, was thinking dying thoughts, his body flaccid and sinking, his eyes glazed, mouth open as any finny denizen, a tiny flicker of electricity in some cells of his brain the only life left in him?
Then his head was in the air, and he was drinking in oxygen and glad, glad, glad because he was not dead.
His flailing hand touched a rope, moved back, felt it, seized it. He was hanging on to a rope the other end of which was tied on to a stanchion from the main deck of his boat. He was near the stern. A few more seconds, and he would have found the boat out of reach.
He was lucky that he had come across the line at once. The River pulled at him, forcing him to clutch the line as tightly as he had the bridge. The Rex was gone, but it was dragging along a broad and deep hollow, waters whirling and sinking. There was an even greater pull on him as the walls of the whirlpool collapsed.
What had sunk the Rex? A torpedo from the Post No Bills?
He looked up. He couldn't see Joe's body hanging from the rope. It could still be there, but the decks were set too far back for him to see Joe from the surface of The River. Was he still hanging? Or had the man who'd lassoed him cut the rope? If so, Joe might have fallen onto the deck below, a long hard fall but still better than plunging into the water. But he could be dead or dying already.
That long swing inward, ending up against the metal bulkhead, could have smashed his ribs, caved in his skull.
Never mind Joe now. He had to save himself.
For some time, while the howling and blasting went on above, and occasionally a man or woman would topple over the railing and fall with a splash near him, he hung on to the line. When the sound of immediate battle died down rather suddenly, he started to climb up. It was not easy, since so much of his strength had been squeezed out of him. He finally got his feet against the hull and, leaning outward above the water, pulled himself up puffing and panting, his muscles hurting, until he was near the railing. He eased himself down until his face was against the hull, and he began hauling himself up by his arms alone. Now he wished that he had not avoided daily exercise so much. For several minutes, as he rested, unable to hitch himself up until he had regained his breath, he thought that his clenched hands would come apart. He would drop back into The River and all would be over.
Finally, he got one hand up to grip the upright to the railing. He got his other hand around it. The long painful pull began. Then it was over, and he had managed to throw one leg over the edge of the deck. Wheezing, he squirmed until he had half his body on the deck. Then he was able to roll onto the deck, to lie there face up while he tried to get all the air in the world inside his lungs.
After a while, his narrow chest quit rising and falling so hard, like a pair of worn-out blacksmith's bellows. He rolled around to look back and up alongside the decks. He still could not see Joe.
Perhaps he was too far away and the angle of sight was too oblique. He needed to get further away, which he could not do, or get upon the same deck.
For that moment, he had to get weapons. And he also had to get at least a kilt. During his struggle his magnetically attached cloths had come off. Naked I came into this world, and naked . . . nonsense. He was not leaving. Not yet.
He got unsteadily to his feet. Bodies and parts of bodies lay along the deck in both directions. The parts of bodies or legs stuck out from hatches. Weapons were everywhere. So were cloths.
The Magic Labyrinth Page 27
