“Indeed,” Bradford replied, then allowed a small smile. “The ‘matter’ is, Captain Reddy, I’m a ‘diplomat’ in name only. I’ve only ever dealt with beings whom I was relatively sure were being honest with me. I wouldn’t count Billingsley, since he turned out to be . . . whatever he is, and besides, I never had to bargain with
him
. Perhaps dealing with Saan-Kakja’s Sky Priest Meksnaak might count as a ‘disingenuous encounter,’ but he turned out fairly honest in the end. In any event, I’ve never had to negotiate with anyone who was practiced at it at all, and perhaps today—surely at some point, with this entire empire to draw upon—I’m bound to encounter someone who’s been studying diplomacy and deceit their entire lives!”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about it, Courtney,” Matt said, and his voice went flat.
Bradford didn’t notice. “Easy for you to say! You’ve had plenty of practice at what
you
do!”
Matt shook his head. “Notwithstanding this fine, clear lagoon, we’re all in murky waters here. None of us really knows what will happen. I just mean that you shouldn’t worry too much about what to say. Our mission’s pretty straightforward: find Sandra and the princess, and make the people who took them pay.” He shrugged. “Since it looks like those ‘people’ are the Company,
it
has to pay. In that respect, our mission and Jenks’s new cause do overlap, and if we’re both successful in achieving that, it might even help us gain another alliance of some sort as well. But make no mistake; we’re not here to ‘negotiate.’ At least not for anything beyond what we discussed yesterday evening at dinner. Apparently, that’s more of a business transaction”—he made a face—“and I’m sure you can handle that.”
The procession had come to a halt alongside
Walker
and appeared to be waiting expectantly. “Pass the word,” Matt said, speaking louder. “The Bosun, Stites, Chack, and two Marines of his choice will accompany me and Mr. Bradford ashore.”
“Weapons?” Steele asked.
“You bet. From now on, always.”
Marine Captain Chack-Sab-At proceeded across the gangplank, followed by two Marines with muskets on their shoulders. Matt was interested to note that he’d chosen First Sergeant Blas-Ma-Ar, whom the Bosun called “Blossom” for some reason, and the former Aryaalan noble, Corporal Koratin. Matt and Courtney followed them, dressed in their best, with 1911 Colts holstered at their sides. Courtney wouldn’t wear a cutlass—he was more of a menace to himself with one than to anyone else—but Matt had his now somewhat battered but highly polished Academy sword. Bringing up the rear was the Bosun with his Thompson and Stites with a BAR—Browning automatic rifle. Together they stepped briskly up to the mounted official and Chack and his Marines stepped aside.
“Governor Radcliff,” Jenks said to the man on the quite ordinary-looking donkey, “may I present the man who has made our arrival here, bearing this gloomy news, possible? There is no doubt that my ship and I, at least, would have been lost in the recent action without him, and had his people not previously rescued the Princess Rebecca, there would be no hope at all that she might yet live.”
Governor Radcliff slid the short distance to the ground from the burro’s back and peered intently at Captain Reddy. The feat didn’t require much in the way of physical exertion, but he managed it with a certain athletic grace inconsistent with his girth. He touched his immense graying mustache as if making sure every hair was in place. “Please do, Commodore. From our . . . abbreviated conversation, it would seem the Empire at large owes him and his people a great debt indeed.”
“Very well, then.” Jenks proceeded, bowing slightly and gesturing at Matt. “I present my excellent friend, Captain Matthew Reddy, High Chief of the American Clan, and Commander in Chief of all Allied Forces united beneath the Banner of the Trees.”
Matt glanced at Jenks. They’d considered numerous possibilities regarding how they’d be received here. Apparently, Jenks considered this Governor Radcliff an ally—for now. Matt saluted. “Captain Matthew Reddy, United States Navy ship
Walker
. I request permission to come ashore, sir.”
Radcliff looked at Jenks with a frown. “Well, what is he? A captain or a chief?”
“Both, Your Excellency. Ah, as I understand it, he prefers ‘captain’ while in direct command of his ship.”
“And he’s standing right in front of you . . . Governor.” Gray growled under his breath. He too was still holding a salute.
“Boats!” Matt ground out.
The governor of Respite chuckled and Jenks quickly whispered something in his ear. “Oh! Of course!” He sketched a salute and Matt and Gray dropped theirs. “Permission granted, certainly—not that we could deny it, if the good commodore has been remotely accurate in his description of your ship’s capabilities.” He turned to look at Chack and the other Marines. “And what have we here?” An expression of genuine wonder crossed his face.
“They call them ‘Lemurians,’ Excellency,” Jenks supplied. “Descendants of the ancient”—he glanced apologetically at Chack—“ ‘Ape Folk’ that the Founders described in their journals.”
“If I may?” Matt said, not really asking. “As Commodore Jenks is likely about to inform you, they don’t like the term ‘Ape Folk’ very much. I think they’ve figured out what an ape is by talking to us, even though they’ve never seen one. Jenks has told me you
do
have apes, descendants of pets aboard your old ships. Seeing those apes and being equated with them is likely to cause resentment. Trust me, sir, you really don’t want to create resentment among my crew, and particularly among these Lemurian Marines.”
“Indeed not, I assure you!” Governor Radcliff exclaimed. “These friends of yours seem rather touchy, Commodore,” he said in an aside to Jenks.
“Still standing right here,” Gray said. Matt rolled his eyes.
“Indeed. Please forgive me,” the governor said. “I’m not accustomed to speaking so forthrightly with strangers.”
“I believe you may find, as I have,” Jenks stated in a neutral tone, “that is about the only way to communicate with Captain Reddy and his people. Perhaps it is time, and past, for a serious, forthright discussion about many things, Your Excellency.”
“So it would seem,” Radcliff agreed. “Captain Reddy, please do accompany us to Government House.” He fanned himself with his wide hat. “We have much to discuss, and this heat is most tiresome. I would be honored if you would join me in some refreshment.” He glanced at Chack. “And . . . charmed . . . if your Lemurian Marines and other companions would join us as well.”
“Thank you, sir. We’ll gladly attend. But maybe there are a few more pressing matters?” Matt looked at Jenks questioningly.
The governor clasped his hands behind his back and raised his chin. “Forthrightly, then,” he said. “Captain Reddy, even as we speak, the Company Director and all his factors are being placed under house arrest by Commodore Jenks’s Marines. I have personally ordered the territorial constabulary and militia to scour the island for any possible Company agents. My militia is ill-equipped, and while they may not be Marines, I expect they will be highly motivated.” He paused and frowned. “I had never previously met Commodore Jenks before this day, but his reputation as a discoverer, a loyalist, and a man of irreproachable honor is universal within the Empire. With the few brief words we have shared thus far regarding this emergency, I have no doubt that the very existence of the Empire is at risk.” He sighed. “Understand, something insidious has been brewing beneath the surface for a great long time, and the people here, and elsewhere, are not blind. I’m a loyal subject of the Empire, but even I can see that something has gone fundamentally wrong. Some will see this atrocity that you bring word of as the final spark necessary to ignite a powder keg of secession that has long been standing, waiting to explode. It may even be that Respite must finally split from the government over this event, if it does not suppress the Company at last. Perhaps I may repair the rift before the split becomes permanent, but I have a sick feeling that the twisted, almost incomprehensible agenda of the Company might shatter my beloved Empire forever.”
CHAPTER 18
Yap Island (Shikarrak)
“
O
kay,” Dennis Silva hissed, “don’t nobody move! There’s one o’ them shit-sacks plopped square on our path ahead.”
Instantly, the rest of the group ceased heaving on the boat and did their best to freeze in spite of the life-sapping heat. It was a good thing he hadn’t told them to be quiet, because they simply couldn’t have stopped their noisy gasping in the sodden air.
“Where?” Sandra Tucker wheezed, trying to clear the burning sweat from her eyes with the back of a grimy hand.
“Just ahead. Larry seen it first,” Dennis admitted. Lawrence was poised, still as a statue, staring straight ahead. “Little booger’s a good pointer. Make a swell bird dog someday.” He was slowly easing the Doom Whomper from his shoulder.
“I still don’t see it,” Sandra said anxiously.
“I do, now that my good eye’s turned thataway. Bastards is like camee-lee-ins. Blend right in. I never seen anything like it!” There was genuine admiration in his tone.
“My God!” Princess Rebecca exclaimed. “I see it! It’s quite close indeed!”
“I see it too,” Captain Lelaa commented. “It must have sensed our approach and positioned itself to intercept us. It takes them some time to blend in so well.”
In recent days they’d all learned far more about shiksaks than they’d ever cared to know. There were more of them all the time, and Lawrence was growing increasingly nervous and upset, urging them on whenever they stopped to rest or sleep a very few hours. The boat was repaired, but it was big and heavy and the move was slow going, even with all of them pushing, pulling, or placing rollers in its path. They’d almost reached the end of the bamboo jungle and the going would soon improve, but their progress thus far could be measured in yards and sometimes feet per hour.
“Nothin’ for it,” Silva groused. “Larry, it’s time for us to do our ‘trick’ again.” Lawrence twitched his growing bristly crest and then, as fluid as mercury, flowed into the thick bamboo beside the trail. Silva looked at Captain Rajendra. “You stay here. If that sumbitch hops thisaway, you better already be dead if any harm comes to any o’ these ladies, you hear?”
“I hear you,
Mr
. Silva,” he snarled. “Such a thing goes without saying!”
“I hope so, but I feel better with it said.” He was easing toward the trail Lawrence had already taken. “Whatever you do, though,
don’t
shoot at it!”
“Mr. Silva?” asked Abel Cook, rising from within the boat and grasping the gunwale with his bandaged hand. His face was flushed. In spite of the polta paste they’d almost exhausted on him, he still had a persistent infection since they’d cut off his finger. Sandra was sure they’d gotten all the kudzu stringers out, but suspected that tiny particles may have entered his bloodstream. So far, it didn’t look like they’d “taken root,” and she doubted they could, but they must be toxic in some way and they’d clearly initiated a major response by the boy’s immune system. “I would like to come,” he said. “I can help!”
“No, boy,” Silva replied in a gentler tone. “You and Mr. Brassey stay here and help protect the gals. I know
ya’ll
will.” With that, he was gone.
Lawrence could hear the thing breathing as he snaked through the bamboo or the strange cane alongside it. He’d never figured out whether the things had a well-developed sense of smell, either when he was here before or now, but he stayed downwind just in case. The breathing grew louder, more labored-sounding, the closer he came to the beast. With their immense bulk, shiksaks had to have a hard time sucking air during their annual venture upon dry land. He’d heard during his hatchlinghood and adolescent tutelage that the things sometimes ventured ashore on Tagran, his native isle, and were killed in a cooperative hunt, but here on the island that Silva called “Yap” was the only place they regularly did so. The others that occasionally menaced Tagran were probably lost or just old and wanted to lay their eggs in a place without so much competition for space and food.
Slowly, he eased closer, until all that remained between him and the massive, camouflaged flank was a single sturdy stand of bamboo. He glanced directly downwind, hoping Silva had had enough time to get in position. He took a breath. With a sharp, fierce cry, he lunged forward with the musket he carried, burying the sharp triangular bayonet deep into the monster’s side. Twisting the blade and yanking it free, he fired the musket as directly into the gushing wound as he could, spattering the thin, slippery, almost watery blood all over himself and everything around him. Then he ran like hell.
With a thunderous, reverberating, outraged
groank!
the shiksak heaved its head and torso high and to the right. The bamboo splintered as the beast changed its direction and shifted its back legs to position them for a leap. The camouflage pattern rapidly drained away, replaced by a mottled greenish purple as the creature launched itself through the tall shoots. Lawrence was faster in a sprint than any human, but he nevertheless had to negotiate the rigid upright obstacles. All the shiksak had to do was smash them down. Still, he was clear before it landed with a crashing, earth-trembling grunt. He raced ahead, even as the beast gathered itself for another leap. A dense tangle of shoots appeared before him, and he reversed the musket, trying to use the butt to batter a way through. The bayonet end might have helped part the bamboo, but it might also get stuck. He had no choice. Lowering his head, he dug in with his claws and plowed forward. Behind him, he heard the crash of the shiksak’s next hop and knew it would be close this time.
It didn’t crush him, just barely, but the tall, heavy bamboo it knocked down fell across his legs and tail, pinning him to the ground. He struggled and squirmed, trying to slip out from under the trunks, but there were too many and they were too tangled. There was a gust of hot breath and he felt the strain building as the shiksak scrabbled quickly forward, keeping him pinned until it could seize him with its jaws.
“Hey, Larry,” came a calm voice. Just ahead. Lawrence saw a ragged pair of go-forwards with two big feet stuck in them. His view traveled up past the battered cut-off dungarees and latched onto Silva, standing there with his bronze muscles tensed, his once black eyepatch faded and stained white with sweat, the huge rifle aimed, muzzle bobbing slightly in time with the motion of the shiksak.
The lock “clatched” and a cloud of white smoke “fissed” and swirled from the pan, but the gun didn’t go off! Still, Silva continued aiming, steady as a rock. It probably took less than a second, but to Lawrence it seemed a lifetime. Suddenly an orange jet of flame gushed from the vent and a bigger jet vomited from the still gently bobbing muzzle amid a distinctive roar and gout of choking white smoke. In an instant, Lawrence felt himself grabbed by his proud new crest and dragged out from under the tangled bamboo. Silva was hauling him along the ground like a sack when Lawrence flailed at the hand and managed to scramble to his feet. Together, the big man and the smaller, ruffled Tagranesi bolted clear of the indiscriminate death throes of the mighty shiksak.
“Popped ’eem right in the noodle!” Silva chortled around great gulps of air as he and Lawrence finally wove their way to a stop. Behind them came the thundering, crashing, ground-shaking impacts of the thrashing, flopping—brainless—beast. They knew from experience that the shiksak might carry on like that for a quarter hour or so.
“I thought he had’e . . . I,” Lawrence admitted, gathering in his panting tongue to speak.
“Naw, ol’ Silva wouldn’t let that happen! You did good, you little scamp.” He swabbed the Doom Whomper, wiped the lock with a piece of his shirt he kept in his pouch, then reloaded. Lawrence did the same with his musket when his hands stopped shaking. Silva held his weapon out, examining it. “She kinda hung-fired on me, though. I never get a chance to really clean her right, an’ with all this moisture in the air, the fouling around the vent turns to soup.”
“How did you know it ’ould still . . . shoot?”
Silva cackled. “Yep, I guess that must’a gave you a turn! I heard it hissin’, see? I knew she’d go; I just had to hold her steady. Follow through.”
“You sa’ed me,” Lawrence said, a little resentfully. “Again.”
Silva rubbed Lawrence’s crest, then patted it down. “Hell, you saved
me
. All of us, likely.” He pointed at his ruined eye. “Sometimes a fella don’t notice as much when one o’ his peepers is busted. I never saw the damn thing to start with. I prob’ly would’a marched straight down its throat if you didn’t hit on it.” He shrugged. “Let’s get back. Them gals’ll be worryin’. ’Bout you, anyway.”
Lawrence was looking down, scratching the dirt with his toeclaws. Finally he exhaled noisily and looked up at Dennis. “This ’ill not ’urk,” he said at last. “Us see too ’any shiksaks. They are here in . . . lots. Us take too long to go.”
“Sure,” Silva agreed, “we’re seein’ more o’ them devils every day—most we don’t have to fight with, thank God. I figger we can dodge ’em a few more days till we can get the boat in the water, though.”
“No!” Lawrence said adamantly. “I . . . should not tell you this, ’ut I ha’ to. ’Ecky and Lieutenant Tucker are at stake.” He paused. “There
lots
shiksaks here, ’ut not near all. They all get here, that is all there is.”
“Sure, that’s why we need to get off this bump.”
“No. Too late. This . . . lots o’ shiksaks on land, there hundreds—thousands? In sea near here, they get ready to co . . .” He shook his head irritably. “To get on land. No ’oat get out on sea until they are gone. Too late.”
“Say,” said Dennis thoughtfully. “You’re probably right about that. Damn.” He was silent a moment, thoughtful.
“Only thing to do, ‘gals’ get in trees, ’ig, tall trees. Us try to devend gals as long as us can. ’Orget ’oat. It no good. Us get gals in trees.”
“You said everything else that can will get in the trees too. They might need a heap of defendin’.”
“True. No choice.”
Silva was scratching his beard. “Maybe not. Maybe so.” He grinned. “I just had me a squirrelly notion. Maybe we can save the boat
and
everybody else too. Won’t be easy, but nothin’ else has been, so why whine about it? Maybe if all we save in the end is the gals, they’re still gonna need that damn boat. I figger it’s both, or what’s the point?”
“You really ha’ a ‘notion’?” Lawrence asked.
“I
always
got notions. Some are better than others, I’ll admit, but this just might work.” He slung the Doom Whomper and started back through the forest of bamboo. “C’mon. You’re gonna hafta help me sell this scheme. ’Sides, we still got a ways to heave that damn boat and time’s a’wastin’!”
“I keep saying that!” Lawrence complained.
Silva’s “scheme” almost killed them all. First, when he detailed it, it resulted in yet another near-violent confrontation with Rajendra and his remaining Imperials. Rajendra in particular thought it was insane, and almost had Princess Rebecca believing him this time. She’d thought their island ordeal was almost over, and she
so
wanted off the dreadful place. Young Brassey didn’t remain silent this time, but openly sided with Silva and ultimately Sandra and the princess as Lawrence’s clear certainty finally convinced them that, wild as it was, Silva’s plan was their only hope. It was unquestionably Abel Cook’s only hope, and Brassey had grown very protective of his injured friend. He knew Rajendra and the other Imperials considered the boy expendable, but he didn’t, and he was beginning to suspect his princess didn’t either. With Brassey, and eventually even carpenter Hersh, on Silva’s side, that left only Rajendra, his engineer, and a single Imperial Marine objecting. There was no question of a democratic resolution, but the three holdouts doubted they could handle the “Mad American” by themselves, much less the rest of the heavily armed party. When Rebecca reluctantly decided to endorse the plan, the specter of treason reentered the dispute and open resistance melted away.
The second thing that almost destroyed them, despite the fact that they were molested by no more of the growing number of land-weary, lethargic shiksaks they saw, was the blistering, killing, physical pace Silva set beneath the murderous sun. The newly arrived shiksaks that had ventured so far from shore—probably staking an early claim to an ultimately less-crowded nesting area—would recover their “land legs” in time. They had to be finished by then. As the day wore on and they heaved the boat down the mild, much appreciated slope into the narrow savannah that Silva called the “kudzu patch,” the apparent tension of the island itself began to grow. Lizard birds squawked querulously and the strange little birds in the clearing swarmed erratically from place to place, or burst their formations completely into chaotically buzzing individuals. The odd, purplish flowers of the kudzu seemed to dance and sway with the breeze, as though imitating live creatures grazing about. The prickly thorns, so small and difficult to see when the group had passed this way before, were now larger and more erect on the vines. They carefully gave them a wide berth, laying the wooden rollers to clear the menacing patches of the weed.
Odd, hoarse cries resonated from the tall trees ahead that separated them from the beach, and they saw many small—and not so small—creatures beginning to gather there. Shrieks exploded as fights broke out between different species. Lawrence warned that the fights would become general among individuals eventually, as the furry, gourd-like fruits in the trees were exhausted. Saying he had an idea, he sprinted back the way they’d come. A smallish shiksak thundered ashore, bellowing its arrival, beyond the massive trees ahead that they’d chosen for their size. It thumped and thudded directly beneath them, headed toward the boat at first, but then steered hungrily toward the coyly twitching kudzu flowers, crashing into the patch with a triumphantly gaping maw. It snapped voraciously at the flowers for several moments, but then seemed to grow sleepy, as if sated and now torpid. A little unsteady, it groped its way out of the kudzu in the direction of a distant shiksak that was still resting from its arrival.