“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 tha
n 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 . . . something 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.”
Distant Thunders Page 29
