“I not lost,” Lawrence grumped. “I thirsty, though.”
“Shouldn’t have drank all your water so fast then.”
“I ’ound ’ater. I al’ays do.”
“Even if it leaves you draggin’ ass along like a one-legged toad? ” Silva accused.
“I not draggin’ ass. You draggin’ ass. I go slow to stay ’ehind you. I don’t need to hack a hole to get giant, useless ass through here.”
“Mmm.” Silva looked at the Tagranesi, who stared back with his head cocked slightly to one side. According to Bradford, the young darkening and lengthening crest atop it meant he was nearing adulthood—if he hadn’t already reached it. Whether he was actually there or not, he increasingly acted like it, and joking aside, Dennis knew exactly what Lawrence had been up to. Oddly enough, his almost orange, tigerstriped, downy-furry hide afforded him considerable camouflage, even against the dark green, hazel, and almost bluish foliage of the dense jungle covering most of the island. As usual, he’d been hanging back to make sure he’d spot anything that went after the main party so he could give warning before it was upon them. He had a musket and he could shoot it, but his formidable claws and teeth were probably a better deterrent to anything sneaking up behind them.
“Well,” Dennis said when the group had gathered around him, “let’s see if we can get across that patch yonder in one piece.” Without waiting for comments, he started across the clearing, entering the ever-deepening grass. Behind him, Rajendra slung on his musket and pulled out his pistols—the better to engage close-up threats. Silva was mildly impressed that the usually puffed-up Imperial did something he approved of without being told.
“Mister Silva?” Abel asked. “I notice that you are avoiding the large clumps of colorful foliage.”
“Yep. If there’s any dangerous beasties out here, I’d expect ’em to live in the thicker crap.”
“May I approach one closer?”
Silva stopped. Abel was kind of Bradford’s protégé, and was apparently just as interested in strange critters and bushes as the Australian “naturalist” was. “Well, I suppose,” he grumped. “You’re the next thing to grown-up, and I can’t nursemaid you forever. Just be careful.” He raised his voice. “Larry, Mr. Cook’s gonna gawk at them weeds. Keep an eye on him, will ya?”
Larry nodded without complaint. He’d learned to “kid around” with Silva and others, but an order was still an order. Besides, he liked and trusted Abel.
“We don’t have time for this,” Rajendra grumbled. “We’ve wasted more of the day in that dreadful bamboo than I care to contemplate. What if we reach this dubious destination of yours and then can’t make it back to our beach camp before dark? We may be forced to make camp out here somewhere. I don’t relish that thought.”
“Oh, quit moaning. It’ll be clear sailing from here. The sea can’t be far beyond that little stretch of jungle past this plain. Hell, I can
hear
it. We won’t get stuck out here; all we got to do is scamper back down this cut we made. It may have taken us all day to make it, but we can be back at camp in an hour or two, I guess. Why don’t you ever look on the bright side? We done thrashed a damn road through here, like fleas marchin’ across a dog’s back.”
“Where you are concerned, Mr. Silva, the only ‘bright side’ to anything I seem able to imagine involves fire and destruction,” Rajendra said darkly. “You must forgive my lack of enthusiasm.”
“Gloomy, pessimistic,
and
touchy,” Silva replied cheerfully. “How you ever survived childhood, ugly as you are, is a myst’ry to me.”
Rajendra’s face clouded, but he didn’t respond. Dennis knew the man hated him for a number of reasons, not least because Silva was very good at pointing out Rajendra’s real failings. The problem was, Silva was irrepressibly irreverent by nature, and friendly banter was as necessary to his survival as food and water. Particularly now. The worse things got, the more he joked around. It was his way of dealing with stress. If it helped keep his and the others’ spirits up, that was a bonus. He’d begun to suspect that Rajendra just couldn’t take a joke though, especially from him, and probably took his banter as calculated taunts and insults. Oh, well. He couldn’t help what folks thought. Maybe, if he was lucky, he’d finally goad the Imperial captain into giving him an excuse to kill him. Then he wouldn’t have to watch his back so much.
He eased a little farther to the left while Abel and Larry approached the nearest mound of “kudzu” so he could cover them a little better.
“Goodness gracious!” Abel exclaimed, reminding Silva of Bradford again, and causing a grin to split his face. “It’s full of bones!”
“Bones? ” cried Midshipman Brassey, hurrying to join Abel. The two boys shared many interests and were becoming friends. “What sort of bones?”
“Well, big ones! They’re difficult to see through all the foliage, but they’re perhaps comparable to those of a small whale.” He stopped, looking at Brassey as the boy joined him. “Do you have whales? I mean, are there any where you live?”
“We have creatures we
call
whales,” Brassey admitted thoughtfully, “but they may not be precisely the same. I’ve seen drawings in books of the whales from . . . our old world—from the time before the Passage—and we have similar things ...” He grew silent as his eyes sought out what Abel had seen. “Look! There! I see them too!” He moved slightly forward, pushing some of the purple flowers aside. “It may well be an entire skeleton, fully articulated!” He gestured around. “It’s as if all this viny grass has grown up around it.”
Abel slung his musket onto his shoulder and began parting the flowers as well. Larry crouched, sniffing, staring into the shadows beneath the grass around the bones.
“Come on, boys,” badgered Silva, growing impatient. “So there’s some old bones. Quit foolin’ around.”
“Wait,” said Abel, “there’s something—Ow!”
“What? What is it? Are you all right?” asked Brassey.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine. Something poked my finger. One of these little thorny things, I believe. I thought for a moment I saw something moving in there. You may think me mad, but it looked quite like a fox!” He held up his hand and examined it, finding a tiny thorn in his left pinky. “You see? It’s nothing. It doesn’t even hurt.” He removed the thorn and cast it away. Just before a tiny drop of blood welled up, he thought he might have seen a dark speck within the wound, but he shrugged it off. “Come on, Brassey, we mustn’t anger Mr. Silva. Perhaps we can look again when we return this way.”
Reluctantly, Brassey agreed and the two boys moved back toward where Silva and Rajendra stood. For a moment longer, Larry continued to stare at the kudzu, until Silva whistled at him. Tossing his head, he bounded back through the tall grass to rejoin his companions.
“Next best thing to a dog,” Silva said, laughing. “Next best.”
“What is a dog?” Larry asked, suspicious.
“Man’s best friend,” Silva said, his grin fading. “If you saw a dog you’d prob’ly chase him down and eat him, but dogs are the best. I guess you’ll just have to do for now.” Larry looked at Silva as if unsure whether he was being mocked or complimented. His uncertain pose provoked another laugh and Dennis ruffled his crest. “Don’t worry, you make a pretty good dog substitute. You can’t help what you are any more than I can. Just wag your tail now and then and you’ll be close enough as to make no difference. ’Specially if you don’t talk so much.”
Larry glanced at his slightly feathery tail and twitched it experimentally.
“Can we please resume our march now?” Rajendra demanded exasperatedly.
“Why, by all means!” Dennis said. “In fact, why don’t you lead the way, Captain Rajendra? With them two pistols, you can pro-tect us from the boogers.”
Meeting the challenge, Rajendra stepped off and led them across the remainder of the clearing. They passed several more clumps of the strange kudzulike grass, and it looked like there were more bones in at least a couple of them. Abel and Brassey chatted excitedly about what it might mean, clearly hoping to crawl all through the things as soon as they could. The little thorn that had pierced Abel’s finger was already forgotten.
As Silva had predicted, the stretch of jungle was not very wide, and though they traversed it with care they soon saw the sea through dwindling brush. Without a word, Silva resumed the lead and stepped out from the cover of the jungle alone. Intently, he scanned the beach in both directions for some time, looking for telltale tracks or marks in the sand. They saw them sometimes, even near camp. When they did, they knew they had to be extravigilant that day. Who knew what improbable, screwy, terrifying damn thing might have squirmed up out of the sea during the night? God knew the island was dangerous enough without the shiksaks it was beginning to draw.
A mighty bolt of lightning seared the guts of a distant, spreading thunderhead and lashed the sea behind a black curtain of rain. Except for that one squall, however, the sky remained mostly clear and the fierce sun baked the sand around him. Silva saw no evidence that shiksaks or anything else had come ashore nearby, and he motioned his companions to join him.
“Well, here we are, Mr. Silva,” Rajendra growled irritably. “I do hope you haven’t had us thrashing about for most of a day merely so you might view yet another beach—that looks quite identical to the one we left this morning, I might add.”
“As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what we’re doing here.” Silva waved out to sea. “You’re a sailor. You’ve seen the beach we came ashore on. There’s breakers, coral heads or something like them, for a mile or more offshore. No way we’re gonna get the boat back through that even after we’re done fixin’ it. It was some sort of biblical miracle we came across in one piece the first time. I guess the tide was running and them big waves helped a bunch, sort of tossed us over the reef, or something. Anyway, like I said, we’re going to have to break out somewhere.” He nodded beyond the beach. “This might not be it either. If you look over there, the breakers seem to run even farther out to sea.” He pointed southwest along the beach. “That might not be too bad over there, though, see? The tide’s not out, but it’s on the ebb. I don’t see anything but happy beach waves there. We take the boat out at high tide, we might just make it.”
Rajendra spluttered. “Are you suggesting we attempt to move the boat through . . . I don’t know,
miles
of terrifying jungle, full of even more terrifying creatures? I consider you an evil man, Mr. Silva, but not an idiot. It simply can’t be done.”
“It ain’t ‘miles,’ an’ not that much is even jungle. Did we just come the same way? Besides, there you go about ‘evil’ again,” Dennis said, shaking his head in frustration. “It’s been maybe a month since I blew up your ship! Give a guy a break! You blew up Cap’n Lelaa’s ship first, and helped start this whole mess, but she doesn’t whine and moan about it on and on like you do. She’ll probably kill you someday when this is over, but for now she’s put all that aside to get the princess and Miss Tucker off this damn bump. Why don’t you do the same?” He paused, reflecting. “I never said I ain’t an idiot, though. If you can think of a better idea, maybe we’ll give it a shot. Ain’t you been thinking about anything? Larry says this joint’s gonna be jumpin’ with shit-sacks soon, and we can’t be here when that happens.”
Rajendra surveyed the apparent passage in the breakers. “Perhaps we could launch the boat where it is and sail it around to this point,” he speculated.
“Might work,” Silva admitted. “I’ve walked the beach this far a couple of times, and the patch this side of the breakers is real calm in places. The rough stuff’s just too damn close in others. We’d have to land the boat and cart it around a few times. Amounts to about halfway. I’m not sure if that would be easier or harder. I’ve walked a lot farther in the other direction, north, and it’s the same deal, except I bet the breakers run two miles out to sea, and I never saw a hole in ’em. This is the only place I’ve found so far. We can keep looking, but anything we find is just going to be farther and we’re runnin’ out of time. Unless you can come up with a better stunt, moving the boat, one way or another, to launch it here is what we have to work on.
“Now, one other possibility might be to break it up and wag it over here in pieces, since we’ve got it apart to fix it anyway. Bring it across a piece at a time and rebuild it here. It’s either that or try to move it in one piece. Float it and drag it, or drag it all the way. Personally, I’m for bringin’ it overland. Less complicated. All we have to do is clear a bigger trail and use rollers or somethin’. I know it’s too heavy to carry, push, or drag without rollers.” He shrugged. “Those are the schemes I’ve come up with. You conjure up something better, we’ll do it.”
Rajendra was silent for a long moment, staring at the shoreline, the breakers, and the waves. Absently, he twisted the ends of his mustache probably out of what was an old habit. He sighed. “The shattered planks on the bottom of the launch have been removed. Sadly, there were quite a few. Like you, I confess to believing only a miracle delivered us across the breakers. The carpenter has been shaping planks from what he hopes will be suitable trees—it is so difficult to tell with these unknown woods—but even with the existing repairs, he fears an inadequacy of fasteners. Nails. I don’t see how we can disassemble the boat further without damaging or destroying even more fasteners. That’s one thing we didn’t think to carry away much stock of.”
“Carpenter forgettin’ nails is like a gunner’s mate runnin’ off without bullets,” Silva accused. “Dumb-ass.”
“He does have tools,” Rajendra said in defense of the carpenter. “A drill and some bracing bits. Perhaps he can use dowels instead of nails, but I don’t think we dare break the boat down into pieces small enough to carry.” He looked at Silva. “I also agree, if you’re right about the obstacles, that the combination of floating and portaging the boat would be more complicated and potentially more dangerous.” He sighed. “So for now it looks as though your tedious and laborious plan is our best chance after all.”
CHAPTER 4
Talaud Island
L
ieutenant Irvin Laumer felt the tremor through the hull of the old submarine, S-19, even over the vibrating rumble of the big starboard NELSECO diesel. The battered submarine was entirely afloat now, in the sandy pit they’d carved around it, which meant the tremor must be bad indeed if he felt it through the water. He looked at Machinist’s Mate Sandy Whitcomb, who was tinkering with the diesel, adjusting it. Sandy glanced back at him, catching his eye. He felt it too. Together, they just stood there in the engine room, sweating in the dull glare of the electric lights that glowed with the power the generator was packing into the batteries. The tremor continued. Radioman Tex Sheider stuck his head into the compartment through the forward hatch. His bearded face was flanked by a pair of’Cats, and it would have been a comical scene if not for Tex’s expression.
“You better get a load a’ this, Skipper,” he said.
“On my way,” Laumer replied. “Where’s Midshipman Hardee?”
“Topside.”
Laumer exchanged another tense glance with Whitcomb and hurried after Tex. The almost bare aft berthing space had been converted into a workshop where many of the boat’s systems were undergoing repair, and they had to weave their way among the various ongoing projects before reaching the even more cramped control room. Climbing the forward ladder, they exited onto the deck, just in front of the conn tower and aft of the boat’s four-inch-fifty gun.
For just a moment Laumer looked around. The excavation around the boat had filled with water during a small storm the week before, which meant any remaining repairs below the waterline were out of the question. It was just as well. The boat was as tight as they had any reason to expect after wallowing on the Talaud Island beach for the better part of a year and a half. The rudder, shafts, and screws seemed relatively straight. The only thing they hadn’t been able to fix was a warped starboard diving plane. They’d managed to straighten it a little, so it shouldn’t cause a problem on the surface, but it had little range of motion. Of course, the last thing any of them ever wanted to do was take S-19 underwater again.
He quickly noted that their tender, perhaps whimsically named USS
Toolbox
still floated where she should a couple of hundred yards offshore. As an auxiliary, she carried only a few guns to save weight for things Irvin’s project might require, but like so many Allied ships, she was a highly modified Grik prize captured after the battle of Baalkpan. Even as he stared at her, Laumer began to feel a little dizzy and her masts almost seemed to blur.
“At the mountain, sir! Look at the mountain!” Hardee blurted. Laumer turned to see and automatically looked up. And up.
“Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!” exclaimed Shipfitter Danny Porter, joining them from below. Far in the distance, a massive mushroom cloud of dark ash piled high into the otherwise clear late-afternoon sky above the volcanic mountain that dominated the island’s landscape. The ash resembled a titanic, roiling, spreading blot in the heavens.
“What do you think, sir?” Tex asked. “Maybe it’s just a fart, like all them others.”
“Bigger this time,” Porter said. “Might be just clearin’ its throat for something
really
big.” That was the closest anyone had come to suggesting that the Talaud Island volcano might “pull a Krakatoa” since Laumer’s own long-ago ill-considered comment.
“Shut your hole, you mindless monkey turd!” Tex demanded. “You’ll jinx us for sure.”
“Maybe not,” Laumer said thoughtfully. “According to reports from Mr. Ellis, and now General Alden too, Krakatoa hasn’t ‘pulled a Krakatoa’ on this world. They said they saw it, and it’s a humongous mother, but all the ’Cats who hang out around there say that aside from spewing a lot of red fire, it never does very much.”
“Well,” Porter said, “ just because Krakatoa hasn’t ‘pulled a Krakatoa’ doesn’t mean Talaud’s not fixing to pop its cork.”
“If you don’t shut the hell up, I’m going to feed you to the spiderlobsters if they come back,” Tex declared.
Laumer put his hand on Tex’s shoulder. “Skip it,” he said. “You’re both right.” He looked at Porter. “You
do
need to lay off. You’ll upset the fellas.” He forced a laugh. “Shoot, you’ll upset
me
. You’re right, though; I don’t know anything about volcanoes, but that thing’s starting to give me the creeps.” Even as he spoke, the tremors slowly subsided and the relief he felt around him was palpable. He sighed. “Anyway, we’ve got to find some way to pick up the pace. Adar hasn’t come right out and ordered us off the project, and neither has the Skipper, but I guarantee
Toolbox
has already reported this latest burp. Her captain isn’t any happier about hanging around here than we are, and I can’t say I blame him. If we don’t wrap this project up pretty quick, I expect we
will
be ordered out.”
“Maybe the transmission didn’t get picked up,” Tex said. “Comm’s been pretty spotty.”
“Maybe not,” Irvin agreed, “but they’ll send it again. It usually does get through at night.”
“Well, so what’s left?” asked Porter. “We’re afloat and the starboard diesel’s up and running. We could get the boat underway . . . well . . . today, for that matter, if only ...”
“Yeah,” agreed Laumer, gazing at the beach-locked puddle the submarine floated in. “If only.”
“Sid has six boats, nearly a hundred ’Cats, and the whole
Toolbox
dredging us a channel. They’re going as fast as they can,” Hardee defended.
“I know. They’re all doing a swell job.” Laumer looked back at the mountain and rubbed his face with his hands. “We’re going to get some ash tonight. Make sure everyone’s under cover. Bring them on the boat if you have to. Maybe we can get an early start in the morning.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Irvin took a last look around at the battered submarine that he was determined to deliver—intact—back to Captain Reddy, and the ’Cats working so hard to help him succeed. Then he glared at the mountain in the dwindling light. He was on the very brink of accomplishing his mission—and the almost more important mission he’d set himself: to prove he was worthy to join the “Captain’s Companions,” those who’d been with Reddy from the start. To be considered worthy of that, he’d do whatever he had to—even if it killed him. To accomplish so much only to have it threatened by a volcano, a force of nature, seemed wildly unfair, but he would manage. Somehow, he would succeed. Pacing to the hatch, he prepared to descend the ladder and go back to helping Whitcomb. Before he did, he stood up straight and shook his fist at the distant smoky peak. “You won’t beat me,” he warned. “By God, you won’t.”