Crusade

by Taylor Anderson

  But Franklen wasn’t like that. He was a Kard-Karrying Klansman from Michigan who thought the U.S. should have thrown in with the Nazis—at least until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. As far as he was concerned, only white humans were even people. Now with the dame famine, the booze, the party—and the fact the Mahans hadn’t had near the contact with Lemurians that the Walkers had—Al“Jolson” Franklen had gone and done something he was probably going to have to die for.

  They should have been more on the lookout for something like this. Silva reflected guiltily that he might even have contributed to it, but it made no difference. The unthinkable had happened. Sexual assault had been perpetrated upon a Lemurian by a human, and somehow, tonight, they had to sort it out.

  It was obvious to Silva what was going on. They couldn’t report it. By morning, in the aftermath of the “great party,” news of the atrocity would spread. The captain would come down like the end of the earth, but the damage would already be done. Lemurian females did not ordinarily give their favors indiscriminantly, Silva’s real relationship with Risa notwithstanding. And that’s what they were: favors. Jealously guarded and given with care. They would not be taken, any more than from a human female. That they had been—and so brutally—could breed resentment and hate. This one would have to stay with the chiefs—if they could keep it that way. Possibly nothing less than the alliance, and maybe even the war, was at stake. All because of one selfish, perverted, racist bastard.

  A lot was up to the girl. They’d allowed Pam a few minutes to assemble a bag and without even a glance at Franklen she rushed to the young victim and began a quick, softly murmured examination. As she and Risa began to ask quiet questions, the grim-faced men turned to the prisoner. Chack crouched beside him in the sand, resting his chin on his cutlass guard, staring at him from inches away, his inscrutable eyes somehow radiating malice.

  “Pull his gag,” Gray instructed. He looked at Chack. “If he does anything but quietly answer questions, kill him.” He peered hard into Franklen’s eyes. “You got that? You answer questions and keep a civil tongue, you might just survive this night.”

  In spite of himself, Franklen snorted and blood bubbled from his shattered nose. The Bosun shrugged and nodded at Donaghey, who yanked out the nasty, bloody rag.

  Franklen coughed and spat for several minutes before his spasm subsided enough that he might be understood. Finally he spoke.

  “You gonna kill me any-ay, Chee. You ne’er ’iked me.” Black blood and wrecked lips made him almost unintelligible.

  “Not so. I thought you were funny as hell. When you’re made-up, you’re not near as ugly. You can act and talk as much like Al Jolson as anybody I ever seen, and you can tell the funny stories like he can. You just wouldn’t leave well enough alone. Hell, a lot of the coolies and Filipino guys got treated like crap for days after one of your shows. Not to mention the mess attendants.” He snorted. “Besides, I got news for you: you can’t whistle and you can’t sing . . . and your big Hollywood role model—who loaned you the only popularity you ever had—is a Jew!”

  “Das a damn lie!”

  Gray rolled his eyes.

  “An for de others,” Franklen went on, “they was just lyin’ Tagalog Bastards. Flips. Like Nigras back home. Takin’ jobs in de fact’ries from hardworkin’ white men just ’cause they’d work for less.” He looked around and sneered as best he could. “And now these goddamn ’Cats puttin’ on airs like real destroyermen. Real soljers!”

  Gray slapped him hard. He couldn’t help himself.

  “Like real people, you mean? You don’t even think of ’em like that, do you? You figure you can just have your way with one like one of your farm animals back home. Is that about the size of it?”

  Franklen stared at him defiantly. “You’re one to talk.” His tiny eyes squinted around. “All of you, I bet.” They fell at last on Silva. “And you most of all, you ’Cat-lovin’ traitor!”

  Gray and Donaghey almost weren’t quick enough to stop Silva from drawing the long bayonet at his side and ramming it into the top of Franklen’s head. Chack stood up, though, and watched Silva’s reaction with interest—as well as that of his sister, who came partly uncoiled from around the victim Pam was tending. With both a shudder and a sense of wonder, he realized their “carrying on” couldn’t be quite entirely a joke after all. Whatever it was, he was certainly getting a major contrast lesson in Silva and Risa’s relationship as opposed to others that were possible.

  “We can’t get anywhere with him.” Donaghey sighed emotionlessly. “He just don’t get it.”

  “I’ll get through to him,” Silva said softly, resheathing his bayonet and dropping to his knees in the sand. The two ’Cats who’d been holding Al fought his struggles, but were replaced by Laney on one arm and Chack on the other. For quite some time, Silva stared across the tent at the intensity of the eyes that glowed back at him from the females. One was filled with a murderous passion and the other . . . similar, but with a measure of devastation he’d seen only once before. In the belly of Revenge when they took the ship from the Grik and rescued the “provisions” there. He’d never been the sensitive sort and he’d used women like toys himself, but this . . . He almost felt ashamed to be a man. And to add a measure of icy mercury to his shame and his resolve, it suddenly dawned on him that this was the first time he’d ever seen a Lemurian teenage female seem just like a vulnerable, devastated, teenage girl. He was filled with a smoldering rage like he’d never known. Pam’s frequent glances in his direction weren’t much different from those of the Lemurians.

  “I’ll tell you something, Al. I like these ’Cats. A hell of a lot better than I like you. And I do think of ’em as ‘people.’ Hell, maybe even human. They’re a lot more human than you are; that’s a fact. I’ve fought with ’em and worked with ’em and spilled my blood alongside ’em. We’ve helped them and they’ve helped us.” He pointed at the crumpled child. “I don’t recognize her after what you done, but I bet I’ve fought alongside her!” He looked intently at Franklen. “The way I hear it, you never fought alongside anybody. Why don’t you tell us what you’ve done for ‘us humans’ since we got here, Al, ’cause by all accounts, it ain’t much. You supported Kaufman’s mutiny against Mr. Ellis, and look how many died because of that . . .”

  “Pardoned,” Franklen gummed, but Silva went on.

  “Let’s see, how many battles have you fought against the Griks that are swoopin’ down? You’ll at least agree they’re worse than ’Cats, won’t you?” There was no response. Dennis started counting on his fingers.

  “Well, let’s see. I seen—helped—the ’Cats fight like hell to save Big Sal from a gob as big as the one Mr. Ellis fought through. Which you was in the brig waiting for Captain Kaufman to come back aboard if what I hear is true. Skipped that one, didn’t you? Even stayed in the brig as ‘insubordinate’ the whole time the ship was laid up here and made no effort to give a hand.”

  “We were screwed, Silva, you dumb son of a bitch! Just look around yourself! The stupid ’Cats around here wouldn’t talk to us. They didn’t even care about the Griks until it was too late. All they cared about was fightin’ each other.” He spat a gobbet of blood. “Ellis weren’t no officer. He couldn’t get anything sorted out between ’em. And I did too agree to work on the ship.”

  “You agreed to work on the ship—for a pardon,” Gray glowered, “because the ship was so shorthanded. Mr. Ellis should’a hung you. Instead, your skipper forgave you and let you loose. Figgers ‘let bygones be bygones and we’re all together now.’ My God, after seeing that field in front of the city how could you think anything else? But you sat out the battle on shore. Again. Even when it started to fall apart and everybody went to fight.”

  Silva raised his eyebrows. “So on top of everything else, you really are a coward.” He shook his head. “Except where little girls are concerned. All you could think of, the first time nobody’s really watchin’ you, was grabbin’ up some . . . chi
ld and tearin’ her up like that. What were you gonna do next? You couldn’t have let her live.”

  There was a sharp intake of breath and suddenly everyone in the tent knew Silva was right.

  “Nah, Silva,” Franklen gushed. “It wasn’t like that! I wouldn’t’a really hurt her . . . I just wanted a piece—like you got!”

  Risa practically leaped across the distance separating them and grabbed him by the hair in iron claws.

  “Silva no have ‘piece,’ you piece of shit!” Her glare moved to encompass her brother as well. “He have friend. We make big joke, scare Chack. Scare Captain too, have big laugh . . . but we more than friends too.” Now she was talking directly to her brother. “Okay with you, the Captain.” She glanced at Pam. “Or anybody, that’s fine. Not okay?” She blinked sublime unconcern. “Still okay with Risa.”

  “Now see,” Franklen whined, “I got no problem with that! That’s what—” He was almost dead before Silva and Chack could pull Risa off him and move her back across the tent.

  Gray, Donaghey, Laney, and Steele were kneeling over the unconscious form as if deciding what to do with a dead snake, when Silva and Chack returned. Silva didn’t come right out and say “Sorry about that,” but his body language did. He did apologize for “using up all the air so far.”

  “Hell. You just said what everybody was thinking,” said Gray. “Make no mistake. This is a trial. He’s admitted what he done, and you pointed out it would have been a lot worse if he hadn’t got caught.”

  “Who caught him, anyway?”

  “Steele. Sheer luck. He was runnin’ a final check before he went on deck for the party and heard her cries. Damn, he’s got good ears! Franklen had her down in Mahan’s steering engine room to show her the ‘machines.’ Hell, they can’t resist that. It’s like offerin’ ’em candy.”

  Silva felt another uncharacteristic twinge of guilt.

  “How much of me and Risa ‘carrying on’ mighta, you know, contributed?”

  Several faces became unreadable.

  “I don’t reckon any,” said Gray at last. “For one thing, nobody really knew what you were up to, and I guess we still don’t. I’d just as soon keep it that way. ‘More than just friends’ can mean anything. Outside this tent, they still won’t know that much.” His eyes bored into Laney’s. “Besides, whatever it was, it sure wasn’t . . .” He spit on Franklen as the man groaned and began to come to. “Like this.”

  “So,” Chack said at last, “what shall we do with this creature?” For the first time in a long time, he didn’t appear to be thinking about Silva when he said the word “creature.” Maybe he’d started to think over what his sister and friend had said—or maybe their “relationship” had finally been put in perspective for him. “We’ve already decided we can’t make an example of him, which is actually a shame. There are more than a few of my people who don’t think of humans as ‘people’ either.”

  “That’s changing fast enough. We’ve spilled enough blood together. Besides, most of the ones who feel that way are on the other side of that wall, yonder, or they’ve run off.” Franklen was fully conscious again when Gray finished. “And pretty soon, there’ll be one less of ours who feels like that.”

  “Let’s ask the girl,” Laney suddenly blurted. They were the first words he spoke. Donaghey nodded.

  “Yeah. Let’s see what she wants to do with him.” Franklen began to thrash and moan, but the bloody gag went back in his mouth and Chack and Laney held him again. Having made the suggestion, Laney was more than willing to let others carry it out. The last thing he wanted to do, in his heart of hearts, was speak to a teenage rape victim of any species.

  She looked better as they approached her. She was covered now, by what must have been clean linens from the ship. The blood had been cleaned from her fur and in its place was the viscous healing paste. Pam was still gently applying stitches to her lip, but she didn’t seem to notice any pain. Silva was uncomfortably aware that, like “Tabby,” the ’Cat “snipe” the Mice had taken on as apprentice, or whatever, this one was young and, well . . . stacked. After so long without female companionship, it was easy to understand how passions could flare. But rape was rape.

  “She speak English?” Gray asked. A small, dark-furred head briefly nodded.

  “Surprisingly well,” Pam said, glaring at the prisoner. “Most of the Baalkpan Lemurians I’ve met, and the ones from Big Sal too, are all pretty talkative. Kind of like they want to be our friends.”

  Franklen spit out his gag. “The nastiest cur-dog will lick your hand before it bites it off!” He began to scream before he was silenced again.

  “Shut up, you!” Gray roared loud enough that Silva was half convinced they’d hear him on the ships. Gray turned back to face the Lemurian and when he spoke again, his voice was softer than butter. Dennis’s mouth hung open, shocked by the Bosun’s transformation into something so . . . unsuspected.

  “What’s your name, child?” he asked.

  “Blas-Ma-Ar,” she whispered. “Nerracca, Body of Home clan.” She straightened slightly. “Striking for the Second Marines. I was in the square,” she added proudly. Gray smiled.

  “I happen to know the acting CO of the Second Marines and I’ll have a word with him this very night.”

  The young female’s facial fur stood out in a ’Cat blush when she looked over at Chack. Gray’s voice became more serious. “Now, all that aside, a man’s life is at stake. I’ve heard about all I want to hear out of him, but you have to tell me your side of the story.”

  Blas hesitated and Pam and Risa practically melded into her with their caresses and reassurances.

  “It will be difficult,” she said in a distant voice.

  “I know, sweetie,” Gray whispered back. “I know.”

  When she was finished, Gray nodded. It was about what he expected. It was also very detailed and disturbing. Since Lemurians had virtually no concept of modesty, no detail was left to his imagination and since, conversely, Blas-Ma-Ar (he’d taken to thinking of her as Blossom) had experienced the assault much like any teenage human girl might, with the same outrage, terror, and even guilt, Gray found himself controlling his killing rage with difficulty. He looked at Franklen and was surprised to see him dozing. Oh, well. He looked back at the “girl.” No, “girl” wasn’t right even before tonight. She was a proven warrior who’d fought for her people. More than Al Franklen ever really had.

  “You understand why we have to keep this between ourselves for now?” he asked gently and she nodded. “People will know, and it won’t happen again. But word will spread slowly and it will add power to the words. That’s why we have to do things like this sometimes.”

  “Captain no have power for this?”

  Gray shook his head. “No, sweetie. The captain has too much power for this right now. His anger would overcome everything else, and then others would get mad, and others, until everything was just about this. We might even forget to fight the Grik. You don’t want that.”

  “No,” she whispered softly. “I don’t want anything like that. I want to be a Marine.” She paused, looking at Franklen, who had awakened and was looking back. “And I want to eat his eyes.”

  Donaghey glanced at his watch. “Whatever we do, and whatever she eats, we better get on with it. Sooner or later some officer is going to figure out there’s a hell of a lot of Indians running around without any chiefs to tell ’em what to do.”

  “Right,” agreed Gray. “Call ’em in and we’ll sort this out.”

  Except for Russ Chapelle and the Lemurian Marines, everyone else managed to squeeze in the tent. They made solicitous comments as they passed by “Blossom,” but had only hard stares for their former shipmate.

  “We ain’t gonna have no jury,” Gray said. “The ‘accused’ was caught in the act, admitted what he done, and invited Mr. Steele to ‘get some’ himself. No one has since heard him deny he raped and brutalized one of our young female allies. He is guilty, so I won’t even call
for a vote. The only thing we have left to decide is punishment.”

  Steele sighed. “We’re kind of in the same boat there. There’s only one punishment for what he did, and he probably would’ve done worse before he was finished.”

  “I never figured chiefs had so much power,” Laney whispered. “This ain’t in the book!”

  “No, it ain’t,” Gray growled. “There’re lots of things that ain’t in the book. This world we’ve wound up in, for one. But chiefs have always ‘handled’ things.” Gray looked at Donaghey. “And this ain’t the first time we handled somethin’ like this. Sometimes problems just have to go away and Franklen’s turned himself into one of those problems tonight. With all that’s at stake, we can’t dump this on the captain.”

  “It will even look better from our point of view,” confirmed Chack, speaking very close to Franklen’s ear, “if news of this . . . event comes forward over time. It will show your people honor your leader and the alliance, but you also honor a youngling’s virtue enough not to wait until the ‘time is right’ to sort things out.” Blossom bristled at the “youngling,” but Chack blinked reassuringly. “You are still a youngling—I am scarcely beyond that myself—but you are also a Marine.”

  “So, how are we gonna do it?” Silva asked, ever practical and to the point. “I’d kinda’ like to get some more dancin’ in before the party winds down.”

  “We can’t shoot him, for obvious reasons,” Donaghey mused.

  “Easiest thing is to take him down to the water and just throw him in. Let the flashies have him,” said Silva. “Where’d ol’ Al Jolson go? Hell if I know. Musta’ got drunk that night at the propeller party and fell in the water. Yeah, seen him swipin’ everybody’s half-empty seep cups when they was dancin’. Serves the bastard right.”

  Gray looked thoughtful. “Say, that’s just how we’ll work it. You’re a fiend, Silva, but you’re a pretty good acting chief so far.”

  Throughout this exchange, Franklen was unable to speak, but his eyes had begun to move rapidly back and forth. They were talking about killing him, right in front of him, matter-of-factly, like he wasn’t even there.