He thought he heard something stir in the darkness above and he froze. Muffled footsteps sounded on the iron deck, but they were slow and unconcerned. He resumed his task. As much of the bitter-smelling black food as the thing would hold had already been poured down its mouth. On top of that, six of the copper balls were firmly tamped in place and set with wooden wedges and thick red mud. Only the eye was left open at the back of the tube, so it could see the fire that was offered it. Mank-Lar didn’t know how the king knew to do these things; perhaps the information came from spies, but it wasn’t his concern. All he had to do was finish the job and he would be rewarded beyond his wildest dreams.
He removed the lid from a widemouthed jar. Inside was sap from the gimpra tree; thick and viscous, and quick to take a spark. Once ignited, it would burn with a fierce, hot flame and nothing he knew of could put it out. He smeared the foul-smelling sap all over the front part of the boat, leaving the back clear where he crouched near the mouth of the fire-spitter. He hoped the eye wouldn’t see the fire before he and his helpers got away. He removed the remainder of a coil of rope from a perforated copper box at his feet. On one end of the rope glowed a small orange coal. He blew lightly upon it and inched farther back. With a prayer to the Sun, he pitched the smoldering rope onto the sap.
Chief Harvey Donaghey had the deck. He could count on one hand the times he’d had the duty, but everybody was washed out and, he had to admit, the deck-apes were probably more hammered than the snipes for once. Besides, he didn’t mind. It was a beautiful, cool, starry night and it was good to be in the open where he could breathe fresh air for a change. The sound of the blower was reduced to a whisper and the whole ship seemed asleep. Onshore, it was much the same. After the captain came back aboard, everything wrapped up pretty quick. A few fires still glowed by the breastworks, but he imagined that, except for the guards, the whole AEF had knocked out. Things are gonna start happening soon, he thought, and folks are resting up.
He heard a sound from the amidships deckhouse. Earl Lanier and one of his new monkey-cat mess attendants emerged into the starlight, each carrying a pole. “Not everybody’s asleep, I guess,” he muttered to himself as the obese cook and his helper neared. “Evening, Earl,” he whispered, and nodded at the little black and white ’Cat Earl called Pepper.
“Evenin’, P.O.,” Lanier grouched. “I’m goin’ fishin’,” he announced, glancing around. For once, the area was almost clear of sleeping forms. It was cool enough, and after the toil of the storm, nearly everyone wanted the relative comfort of their racks.
“That’s fine, Earl. Catch me one too. Just make sure it doesn’t eat the ship this time,” Harvey warned, absently fingering his pistol. Some of the creatures the cook had dragged aboard from their various anchorages were truly dangerous and most were wildly terrifying. A few had gone . . . on the loose. Earl muttered something under his breath and continued toward the rail. Bored, Donaghey followed him. “Hey,” he said, about to ask what Lanier was going to use for bait, when he happened to look over the side and saw a shape on the water below. Earl saw it too and for an instant it looked like a small group of Lemurians sitting in a couple of boats smoking a cigar. Just for an instant.
Before their startled minds could comprehend what they saw, the Lemurian in the bigger boat flicked his “cigar” toward its bow. With a flash of light that seared their eyes the forward part of the boat erupted in flames.
“Bloody hell!” Donaghey shouted and reached for his pistol. The small boat rocked as the arsonist jumped in. One of his accomplices raised something to his shoulder and a crossbow bolt whanged off the rail.
“You little bastards!” Lanier screamed when another bolt appeared, its vaned shaft protruding from his wide, drooping belly. “I’m shot!”
“General quarters! General quarters!” Donaghey yelled at the top of his lungs, firing his pistol at the retreating boat. The slide locked back. Empty. He spun to the startled ’Cat named Pepper. “You speak-ee English?” he demanded, the old China hand. Pepper nodded. “Go, chop-chop, ring-ee bell, wake-ee everybody up! Sabe?”
“Aye, aye, Petty Officer Donaghey!” Pepper replied, and raced forward into the dark. Harvey never even noticed that Pepper’s English was clearer than his own.
“What the hell’s that?” Lanier demanded, pointing at the boat below. The spreading fire illuminated something lying in it.
“Goddamn! It’s a gun! I bet those sneaky bastards filled it full of powder and plugged it up, hoping the fire would cook it off!” He started to run for a fire hose, then stopped dead in his tracks. No time. If he was right, that thing could go off any second. It would take several minutes for the water pressure to build. Without a word, he hopped the rail and began climbing down the rungs.
“Where the hell are you going?” Lanier yelled. “I got an arrow in my gut!”
“I doubt it hit anything vital, you fat tub of lard!” Harvey snarled back. “Don’t just stand there. Get the hose!”
Lanier waddled in the direction of the closest hose reel and Donaghey resumed his descent. The initial flash of the conflagration had diminished considerably to a steady blaze in the forward third of the boat. He could hear crackling as the wood began to burn. The heat pushed almost physically against him the lower he went and he wasn’t sure he was just imagining his skin beginning to blister.
“Hurry up!” he shouted, unsure if the cook even heard him as he gasped for breath in the acrid smoke. Below him, one rung down, he could see through his slitted, watery eyes that a rope had been tied to the ship. With one hand, he reached into his shirt and retrieved a long-bladed folding knife that always hung around his neck on a braided cord. Called a sausage knife, it had a long, skinny blade that was useful for a variety of things. He opened it with his teeth and leaned down to cut the rope that had already started to burn. He was certain he was blistering now and he cried out in pain. He smelled the hair on his arm begin to singe, mingling with the stench of the smoke. He sawed at the rope like a madman. Suddenly, unexpectedly, it parted under his blade and he would have dropped it in the water but for the cord.
The ship’s bell began ringing frantically in the dark, followed moments later by the general alarm. Harvey scrambled back up the side of the ship a few rungs to escape the worst of the heat and looked down at the boat. Slowly, lazily, it drifted with the current. Amid the flames he clearly saw the ruddy shape of the bronze cannon barrel as the fire grew around it. From above he heard shouts and curses and a gurgling stream of seawater trickled on the boat. Other hands had joined or taken over for Lanier and they were finally getting water on the fire. It would still take a while for the pressure to build, but it was better than nothing.
Or was it? Even as he watched he knew with a sinking certainty it would never work. The water was just spreading the flames around. Whatever the saboteur had used as an accelerant was acting like gasoline. Worse, the boat wasn’t drifting away. The incoming tide had served only to press it more firmly against the ship. All it was doing was creeping slowly aft, snug against the hull.
“Cut the water, you’re making it worse!” he shouted upward and with only the slightest hesitation he started back down the rungs. The back of the boat was under him now, where the flames had not yet spread, and he jumped down into it. He fell to the floorboards and came up looking directly into the mud-packed muzzle. Lurching to his feet, he snatched one of the sweeps out of its oarlock and pressed against the side of the ship. Gasping with exertion and bellowing in pain, he heaved with all his might. Slowly at first, but then more easily as momentum conquered mass, the boat began to move.
Coughing, he readjusted his grip and heaved again. Through the tears and sweat that ran in his eyes, he saw he had gained a gap about ten yards wide. Clumsily, he dropped the sweep back into its notch and grabbed the other one trailing alongside. Crouching on his knees, and with his hat pulled down low to protect his eyes, he laboriously managed to turn the boat. With a growing sense of urgency that bordered on p
anic, he rowed as fast as he could. He heard the yells of the men on deck—quite a few now, by the racket they were making—screaming at him to stop, come back, don’t be a fool—but there was no choice. He had no choice.
All he knew, as the flesh on his face and hands began to sear and his vision became a red, shimmering fog, was that he had to row. Nothing else in the entire world mattered anymore except for getting that crazy, stupid bomb the hell away from his ship.
He made it almost forty yards.
Captain Reddy paced the deck beside the number two torpedo mount, back and forth, his hands clenched behind his back. Occasionally he ventured near the smoke-blackened rail and stared at the water below. The angry red horizon that preceded the dawn was a singularly appropriate backdrop to the white-hot rage that burned within him. A quiet circle of destroyermen, human and Lemurian, watched him pace, and Sandra and Bradford were nearby as well, conversing in subdued tones.
On deck, trussed up like hogs, were two Aryaalans. Dennis Silva towered over them with a pistol in his hand and Earl Lanier, shirt off and with a wide bandage encircling his midsection, menaced the prisoners with his fishing pole.
Harvey Donaghey had hit one of them with a lucky shot from his pistol, causing the ’Cat to lose his oar and slowing their escape. By the time the cannon exploded, the saboteurs were far enough away that they weren’t directly injured, but they were so startled by the blast that they dropped the other oar over the side. Thus they were quickly discovered by the vengeful whaleboat, wallowing helplessly back toward their intended victim with the tide. By then, the one Donaghey had shot was dead. Garrett commanded the whaleboat and it was all he could do to bring the others back alive. Even so, their capture hadn’t been gentle and the Aryaalans watched Matt pace through puffy, swollen eyes, nervously licking their split, bloody lips.
Mank-Lar had told him everything. Why not? It had been an exploit of warriors and had been commanded by his king. It was the way of things. His dishonor was not what he tried to do, but that he had failed. Rasik-Alcas might kill them for that, but even the sea folk would understand they were bound to obey their king . . . wouldn’t they? Mank-Lar vaguely understood that the tail-less sea folk might consider it dishonorable that King Alcas had ordered the attack in the first place, particularly since they were not at war. But that was between them and the king, was it not? He himself was just a tool, and it was pointless to deny his role. Regardless, he couldn’t escape a growing concern as he watched the brooding leader of his king’s enemy.
Larry Dowden approached his captain with care. He’d seen him this way—this intense—only once before, when Walker and Mahan made their suicidal charge against Amagi, so long ago now. It had worked, somehow, but it had also been a reckless moment and he wondered if the captain was on the verge of another one now. He opened his mouth, but hesitated, daunted by the working jaw and the icy green braziers gazing back.
“Captain,” he said quietly, “Radioman Clancy says the radio’s up.
Lieutenant Mallory requests permission to commence a search for Revenge.”
Matt looked at his exec for a moment and then nodded slightly. “Very well.”
“Aye, aye, sir. Ah, Captain? You said you wanted to begin installing the screw this morning?” Dowden prompted gently. Matt only glanced around for a moment, as if surprised the task wasn’t already under way. For the first time he noticed that almost the entire crew was present, grim-faced and angry.
“Right. I guess the men are a little distracted. Have Spanky and the Bosun light a fire under those repair parties.” Several of the men held his gaze as it passed across them. “They have their own duties to perform today,” he said in a voice that matched his eyes. “I’ll take care of this one.”
“What should we do with these two, Skipper?” Silva asked, nudging Mank-Lar hard with his shoe. Matt shrugged.
“Don’t even need to try them. They’ve admitted they’re enemy saboteurs under orders of their king. But they’re without uniforms or even the courtesy of a declaration of war. Hang them.”
“I want that little son of a bitch dead!” Matt said in a calm but eerily forceful tone. The gathering was almost identical to the one the night before, only this time it was convened directly behind the massed block of the Second Marines, flanked by Rolak’s expatriate Aryaalans and Queen Maraan’s Six Hundred. Another entire regiment of B’mbaadan infantry was added as well. Thirty heavily armed destroyermen—not all human—were in the center, anxious to spearhead the assault with fire. The Orphan Queen stood beside Matt, her eyes gleaming with a feral, joyful light.
“It could break the alliance!” Adar pleaded. “Think of the greater threat!” Sandra stood beside the Lemurian Sky Priest and nodded her agreement, but she seemed deeply troubled.
“Why? I haven’t asked any of the Homes or Guard regiments from Baalkpan to contribute to the attack.” He wore an ironic expression. “I notice none have offered, either, but if they don’t want to be in the assault, that’s fine.”
“What about the Marines? They are drawn from all our people.”
Matt looked coldly at Adar. “The Marines are mine. They’re all volunteers and they’ve volunteered for this. I ordered Chack to make sure.”
“That still does not give you the right to throw them away on this . . . sideshow!”
Matt’s mounting fury exploded. “I’m not throwing them away! I’m using them for what they’re for! We’ve been attacked! Suddenly and deliberately and by stealth! Believe me, my people have recent experience with that sort of thing!” His gaze lashed Keje. “We’ve been attacked!” he repeated. “And I lost a damn good man who died to save my ship. I thought you said it was ‘different’ if we were attacked? How is it different? I can’t tell yet. I assumed it meant that then you might bring yourselves to fight others of your kind. Is that it? Or is it only different if you are attacked? You’ll personally defend yourselves if you’re personally attacked? Where would you be today if Walker behaved like that?”
Keje met his gaze, but then looked at Adar and blinked furiously with shame and frustration. Matt continued, his voice angry and sarcastic. “Ever since we met, Walker has stood up for you and your people, and she’s lost a lot of good men—some to save that damn city I’m about to . . . lose more good men going into! But now, when it comes time to stand up for Walker, she’s not ‘one of you,’ is she? You almost had me fooled. I was ready to leave Rolak’s people to fend for themselves—even after they risked everything to come to our aid. We may have helped them first, but at least they know what gratitude is. Still, I was ready to leave them. Now I know there’s no way we can leave them here with that madman loose behind those walls. A madman who tried to sink my ship after she saved his ass because he thought that would break the alliance.” He grunted. “I wouldn’t have believed it yesterday, but now I think he was right.
“If you still think we can just leave here with that maniac free to threaten our friends and our lines of supply, that’s fine. You don’t have to soil your delicate sensibilities with a morally questionable fight. I will, though, and I’ll tell you something else; after what happened last night, ‘greater threat’ or not, if I don’t make this fight the alliance will break. If you’re all counting on Walker to hold you together, you’d better remember one thing. She may be made of iron, but it takes men to hold her together. Some of those men aren’t even all human anymore, but they’re still hers, and the ones who tried to destroy her after the sacrifice she made for them have got to pay! That’s what my people say. If you can’t see that, you may be ‘People,’ but you’re not men and you’re not our friends!”
“But—but what if you’re killed?” Adar demanded, putting voice to the concerns of many. His face bore no expression, but his words were anguished. “What if Lieutenant Shinya should fall? What will we do then? I understand your anger, even if it is misplaced, I assure you, but to me the Grik threat is the only threat. I have sworn—”
Keje held up his hand, inte
rrupting his old friend. “We know,” he growled. “Not to rest. What Captain Reddy asks of us is not a diversion from that struggle. It’s a task set before us all. Yet another task we must complete in order to finish the greater one.” He turned to the others. “He is right. You all know it is true. The Amer-i-caans are our friends! They are our brothers. They have been attacked by a treacherous foe, a foe that is already the enemy of our brother Lord Rolak, whose people have risked everything to come to our aid.” He turned back to Matt. “I am sorry, brother. Sorry and ashamed. I will fight with you.”
“As will I,” growled Ramik-Sa-Ar.
“And I,” said Geran-Eras.
Tassat-Ay-Aracca looked bemusedly at his father, Ramik.
“I wanted to all along! I—”
Adar stepped forward as if to shush him but stopped and lowered his head. Finally, he raised his eyes, already blinking furiously with shame. “No, brothers. It is I alone who is without honor.” He turned to Matt. “I see nothing but the Grik,” he said softly, his silver eyes blinking moistly. “At night my dreams are haunted by the lower deck of Revenge. The bones, the smells . . . and the eyes of those still living . . .”
He shuddered. “Against the fate that awaits our people, this”—he gestured toward the city—“this is insignificant.” He blinked apology. “But you’re right. You have been attacked. Lord Rolak has been wronged—as have we all—and many more souls light the heavens because of Rasik’s treachery. Souls that would be in this fight yet if not for him. You’re right. We cannot just ‘leave him here.’ He would continue to distract us from our bigger business. Besides, sometimes honor can endure only so much.” He drew himself up. “Captain Reddy, you have wronged these chiefs. I alone bear the guilt of perhaps too much zeal for our cause. I made them swear they wouldn’t get involved in any Aryaalan . . . adventures. I know now I have been misguided and asked too much of their honor.”
Crusade Page 28
