Maelstrom (5 page)

Before, he’d gazed upon the bay and the busy commerce of the city’s fleet of coastal traders and fishers with a sense of satisfaction. Sometimes as many as a dozen enormous seagoing Homes might be moored or snugged up at the piers, disgorging barrels of gri-kakka oil in exchange for services, necessities, and even luxuries they craved from the increasingly prosperous, influential, and just as increasingly resented “land folk.” Occasionally, swift, tall-masted feluccas dashed across his view, hurrying to ports across the dangerous strait, or returning with cargoes from distant land Homes. He marveled at the speed they achieved with their fore and aft rigs and sleek, radical hulls. Now the seagoing Homes were mostly gone; only the transient freighters and the three ships of the Allied “battle line” remained.

With the return of the AEF, and the Aryaalan and B’mbaadan warriors it had managed to save, the city’s defenses were nearly tripled, but they needed more just to survive. Nakja-Mur was skeptical that more troops would be forthcoming from Manila, beyond the hundred or so volunteers they’d already sent, and he’d come to agree with the argument Cap-i-taan Reddy once made before the AEF set out in the first place: they could prevent defeat, for a time, with static defenses, but they could only
win
if they attacked. Attack, now, was out of the question, and Nakja-Mur constantly brooded over the implications of that.

The water of the bay glowed red beneath the lowering Sun, and except for the absence of most of the Homes, the bustle of small craft seemed undiminished even as they toiled for a much greater imperative than personal profit. His heart lifted when he saw one of the Amer-i-caan destroyers—
Mahan
. His newly practiced eye could tell by her awkwardly repaired pilothouse, even if she now sported a new fourth funnel. The ship was steaming slowly toward the mouth of the bay on some errand to Fort Atkinson, he guessed, or testing some repair. She was resplendent in a new coat of light gray paint, and he still marveled at the effortless grace with which she moved in any wind, though he knew she could use only one of her “engines.”

Despite the fact
Walker
had seen more action in this war,
Mahan
was the weakest, most badly damaged of the two Amer-i-caan ships that came to them through the Squall. He now understood that that damage was due to an earlier encounter with
Amagi
. As powerful and indestructible as she seemed to him—she was made of iron, after all—he had to remind himself that if
Amagi
one day came—perhaps entered this very bay—she could swat
Mahan
aside with little concern. Such a thing was so far beyond his experience as to seem unthinkable. But he hadn’t been there; he hadn’t seen. Those he knew and trusted who’d beheld
Amagi
assured him it was true, and somehow he managed to believe them. The thought churned his gut with dread.

A servant, a member of his expanded wartime “staff,” pushed through the curtain behind him and stepped into view, waiting to be noticed. Nakja-Mur sighed. “Oh, I wish you wouldn’t lurk behind me like that; I won’t eat you!” His tone was gruffer than he intended, and if anything it made the young servant cringe back a step.

“He does not know you as I do, lord,” came a voice from beyond the curtain. It parted, revealing the hooded form of Adar, High Sky Priest of
Salissa
Home. Adar was tall for one of the People. He wore a deep purple robe adorned with embroidered silver stars across the shoulders and chest. The hood bore stars as well. His silver eyes peered from a face covered with fine, slate-gray fur. He gestured at Nakja-Mur’s stomach, which, though considerably shrunken from its prewar dimensions, was still quite respectable. Nakja-Mur chuckled.

“I only eat youngling servants for
breakfast
these days, you know.” He patted his belly and it rumbled on cue. “Though perhaps . . .”

“I will bring food instantly, my lord!” cried the servant, and he vanished from view.

Adar blinked amusement. “Do you suppose he will return?”

Now that the youngling was gone, Nakja-Mur sighed again. There was no need to keep up appearances for Adar. “Of course. Please be seated,” he said, gesturing at a cushion nearby. “We have much to discuss.”

Adar folded himself and perched rigidly on the firmer cushion Nakja-Mur knew he preferred. For a moment he just sat there, looking at the High Chief and waiting for him to speak. Nakja-Mur was casually dressed in a light, supple robe, and sat with a mug of nectar loosely balanced on his knee, but his increasingly silver-shot fur, and the absently troubled cant to his large, catlike ears, would have belied his relaxed pose to any who knew him well.

“The Amer-i-caans are planning a ‘fallback’ source of gish, to power their ships,” he stated abruptly. “So no matter what they say, they recognize at least the possibility Baalkpan will fall.” The strange Australian, Courtney Bradford, had been an upper-level engineering consultant for Royal Dutch Shell. That occupation allowed him to pursue his true passion: the study of the birds and animals of the Dutch East Indies. Also because of that occupation, however, stuffed in his briefcase when he evacuated Surabaya aboard
Walker
were maps showing practically every major oil deposit in the entire region. There’d been some skepticism that the same oil existed on “this” Earth that they’d found on their own, but after the success of their first well—exactly where he’d told them to drill—they were all believers now, even the Mice. Tasked by Captain Reddy to locate another source, he assured them they’d find oil in a variety of places. Most, for one reason or another, were rejected, but Tarakan Island seemed perfect. It was more than halfway up the coast of Borneo, bordered by the Celebes Sea. It was beyond anything the Grik maps showed they’d ever explored, and it was in a fallback position not only toward the Fil-pin lands, but one of Baalkpan’s “daughter” colonies nearby.

The “colony” was a growing settlement right across the little strait in a marshy, swampy hell called Sembaakpan. There they gathered small crustaceans called graw-fish by basketfuls at low tide. They were very tasty in their premetamorphic stage, and considered a delicacy because no one knew them to exist anywhere else. They had a short shelf-life too, and were some of the strangest creatures the destroyermen had yet encountered. They looked and acted like little horseshoe crabs till they shed their shells and swam—and ultimately flew—away. Anyway, at least there were friends nearby, but they’d never even come up with their own name for the tiny, forbidding, impenetrably blanketed island, so Tarakan it still was.

“A prudent decision,” Adar said, “and one I heartily approve.”

Nakja-Mur grunted, his eyes still upon the bay. “It smacks of planning for defeat.”

“You are mistaken. They plan for victory; why else embark on this expedition to seek allies—and a new source of fuel? No.” He blinked in positive denial. “They do not
plan
for defeat, but prudently prepare for the possibility. Even if we are defeated, I do not think Cap-i-taan Reddy can imagine such a thing might be the end of the fight. Another setback, perhaps, and a serious one, but not the end.”

The High Chief gazed out upon his city, contemplating it as a ravaged shell in the hands of the Grik. “How can such a thing
not
be the end,” he breathed, then changed his tone, suddenly urgent. “How soon can you leave?”

Almost two full faces of the Sun Brother had passed since the AEF returned. Repairs were taking longer than anticipated. Evidently each time they fixed one problem, some new issue was revealed.

“A ten-day.
Walker
’s repairs are almost complete, but it will take much of that time to dismantle the rig at the well site and transport it to the city. By then,
Mahan
will be completely ready to masquerade as her sister, and the three damaged Grik ships towed in from the strait will be repaired, armed, and ready for sea. With the flying boat still grounded—and likely to remain so, I fear—we cannot leave you blind. If their scouts sneak past, they will see everything seeming as before. With
Mahan
pretending to be
Walker
, they will never suspect the other ship is gone, or that there are, indeed, two Amer-i-caan destroyers. That’s a secret we must keep at all costs. Within another ten-day after that, the first of your own warships that you so wisely commissioned in our absence will be ready for sea.” He blinked. “I understand it is a great improvement over those of our enemies.”

Nakja-Mur nodded enthusiastically, his depression momentarily forgotten. “Indeed! She is far more modern.” He gestured toward the shipyard, where two sleek hulls still sat on the ways. A third was down at the new fitting-out pier, undergoing completion. Even now, the ship seethed with busy shapes silhouetted against the ruddy, reflected sunlight on the bay. “I have watched them erect every frame, place every plank. Cap-i-taan Reddy and the engineer, Brister, provided the basic design, but even they say we have built them better and stronger than their people ever constructed such ships! They call them ‘frigates,’ but they have yet to be named. As you know, a great deal of thought must go into such things.”

For the first time, with human help, Lemurians had bent their formidable engineering skills toward constructing dedicated warships. Human and Lemurian technology and techniques comingled at every hand, and at least as far as the wooden shipyards were concerned, the Lemurians gave as much as they got. Their structural designs were amazingly efficient, as well as highly redundant—in exactly the sort of way to be prized in a warship. The humans made many suggestions for lines based on speed, and the Lemurians took them to heart, but they built the ships their way. The result was, hopefully, ships much faster—and stronger—than any sail-powered vessels the world had ever seen.

Adar nodded, looking where Nakja-Mur pointed. “Of course. They are very beautiful as well. A pity . . .”

The High Chief snorted. “. . . there will be only three? True. We will never have time to build more, no matter how long the Grik delay. With but fifty such ships, the Grik would never dare attack if it weren’t for
Amagi
!”

“I meant that it’s a pity they will be the last of their kind. The next ones will have auxiliary steam engines, I understand. As for the Grik . . . Oh, I think they would dare,” Adar murmured. “They might lose, as you say, but they would still dare. They would have no choice.” He blinked discontent. “And even if we had them, we haven’t the crews.”

“True, and that brings us back to our original discussion. I yearn for you to be on your way. First to gain us allies, of course, but also so you might more quickly return. I cannot help but fear the Grik will come while
Walker
is away.” He waved off Adar’s protest. “I know Cap-i-taan Reddy believes that unlikely, and without more troops to defend my city, her presence might make little difference. But to many people, she has become more than just a ship. After all she has done, and particularly after
Nerracca
. . . her absence will be felt.”

“I understand what you mean,” agreed Adar.

“Do you? Do you indeed? For it is not just the ship people look to, but the people who will be with her: Cap-i-taan Reddy and his crew, Braad-furd, Chack-Sab-At, my dear cousin Keje-Fris-Ar, if he goes . . . and you, of course. As you know, my own Sky Priest, old Naga, has become increasingly . . . disassociated. He cannot accept what has come to pass.”

Adar nodded sadly. Naga had been his teacher, as a youngling, and had set a high example. His ancient mind was full of the lore and history of the People, and his knowledge of heavenly paths and mysteries was without compare. He once could recite, from memory alone, every word of the Sacred Scrolls, and unerringly describe every coastline drawn upon them. Recently, however, all that priceless knowledge and wisdom was increasingly locked away, inaccessible even to himself in any coherent fashion. Even though Adar was Sky Priest to Keje-Fris-Ar and
Salissa
Home, the people of Baalkpan, and strangely—given their different dogma—Aryaal and B’mbaado, increasingly looked to him for spiritual and moral inspiration. Ever since he’d learned the true nature of the Grik, Adar’s most consistent inspiration was to fully embrace what the Amer-i-caans called “Total War.” Only by doing so did the People have any hope of survival.

“Perhaps,” he whispered.

The promised food arrived, and both Adar and Nakja-Mur forced confident grins and stilled their twitching ears. Fortunately, their tails were confined by their postures and couldn’t betray their agitation by swishing back and forth.

“Leave us,” said Nakja-Mur congenially, when the servant placed the tray before them. The youngling quickly departed. “Speaking of what this war has cost our Naga, how is Cap-i-taan Reddy? I will never learn to understand their grotesque face moving and hand waving, but he does not seem the same.”

“He is driven,” Adar conceded. “After what happened to
Nerracca
, he hates the Grik just as passionately as I, and if anything, I believe he hates the Jaapaan-ese even more.” He cocked his ears. “Tragic as
Nerracca
’s loss certainly was, it is stunning how it has strengthened the alliance.”

“True, but he seems distracted as well.”

“There is tension,” Adar confessed. “He is reluctant to mate with their healer, although their attraction is plain to all. I believe it has to do with the scarcity of females available to the rest of his people.”

“Absurd.”

“Perhaps. But there is also the issue of his secondary commander of land forces, Lew-ten-aant Shin-yaa.”

“Shin-yaa is a ‘Jaap,’ I believe they call them, is he not?”

“Indeed. An enemy, yet they trust him; rely heavily upon him, in fact. Shin-yaa is of the same race, or clan, controlling
Amagi
, and he recognizes the evil she aids—represents—but he cannot believe all the beings aboard her have become evil as well. He is . . . conflicted, to say the least. It tortures him that his own people assist the Grik and did what they did to
Nerracca
. Yet, like us, the idea of fighting his own people tortures him just as much.”