Tale of the Thunderbolt (5 page)

“I grew up in Kansas,” she whispered in his ear. “I don't know tides, except that they're caused by the moon. Oh, and a king tried to do something about them once but couldn't. In the end, the tide always wins. It's too strong.”

He turned the risks over in his mind, then unholstered and tossed his heavy .44 service pistol on the bed along with the spare ammunition he carried. He'd hide the loss somehow. “No,” Valentine signed, after buttoning his coat. “It's not too strong. The tide wins because it doesn't give up.”

 

The look of relief on Perry's face made Valentine forget the gruesome events of the night. For a moment.

“See, Perry, I told you so,” Valentine said, pointing to the clock. Its plain face indicated 2:40.

“You're a man of your word, sir. Thank you.”

“No, Perry, thank you,” Valentine said, smiling and waiting for the outer door to open. “I'll see you in three months.”

“I hope so, Mr. Rowan. Word has it my unit's going to rotate out. They're saying West Texas, which is fine by me. I've had it with the humidity around here. I got mold allergies something terrible.”

“Mobilizing for something big?” Valentine asked nonchalantly, looking out at the rain.

“Like I'd know. ‘You'll find out when you get there,' is what we get told.” The guard drained a cup of cold coffee.

“Enjoy the sun. I've got to get back to the ship before the captain gets up.”

“Me savvy.”

Valentine plodded into the rainy night, his hands thrust deep into his coat pockets. He had a good hour's walk ahead of him. The
Thunderbolt
sat moored well to the east in New Orleans's expansive but underused dikeside riverfront. High seas trade was not something the Kurians encouraged. They seemed so uncomfortable with oceans that Valentine wondered if Kur itself was not arid. Most of their sea traffic was made up of barges and tugs, hugging the coast as they moved from port to port in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Fear brought him out of his thoughts. A cold tingle ran down his spine. . . . There was a Reaper somewhere behind him in the fog.

Valentine stepped faster, shutting down everything in his mind except the animal reflexes required to keep moving, a fish swimming quietly and straight to avoid the prowling shark.

And he'd given his gun away to Duvalier. All he could fight with was the short service knife at his belt. Not enough steel to bite through a Reaper's neck — his sword was back at Ryu's hall with his other possessions.

The street was empty, almost unlighted. Doors and windows all around were buttoned up for the night.

He felt the cold spot growing as it came up behind. Its booted feet clipped along in the drizzle somewhere behind. He tore off his raincoat. Perhaps it would hesitate to attack a uniform.

A massive figure appeared out of the mist ahead of him.

Solid as the
Thunderbolt
's icebreaking prow, ugly as commandment-breaking sin, and the closest thing he had in the world to a brother, the Grog waddled down the street.

He heard the footsteps following halt as the Reaper read the newcomer's lifesign.

Ahn-Kha carried a great boat hook across his shoulder and wore a brown Grog Labor Brigade sash across his chest. Like a bull gorilla, he used his arms as well as his legs in his slow, deliberate stride. Rain matted his fawn-colored fur and dripped from flexible, batlike ears. Ahn-Kha bore a face like some stony nightmare leering off a cathedral at travelers below, but his steady eyes, black-flecked with irises the color of a healthy acorn, could only be called “gentle.”

Valentine clasped hands with Ahn-Kha. “Careful,” he breathed, gesturing behind with his chin.

He heard the Reaper approach, and Ahn-Kha straightened to his full eight-feet-plus, planting the boat hook solidly before him like a pikeman.

Valentine met the yellow-eyed gaze, touched the side of his hand to his eyebrow, and lowered his head, the usual salute to a representative of the Kurian Order.

The Reaper responded by throwing its hood back over its scraggly-haired scalp and striding off into the night.

Valentine didn't relax until the cold spot on his consciousness faded. The Reaper probably could have killed the both of them, but perhaps the Kurian animating it was more risk-averse than most, and didn't wish to damage his living tool for the extraction of vital aura.

Ahn-Kha put the boat hook over his shoulder again.

In the three years since Valentine had met Ahn-Kha, he had learned to rely on him for thought as well as thews. Years ago, Ahn-Kha's people, the Golden Ones, had been brought with the other species, labeled alike by much of mankind with the epithet
Grog,
across worlds to help the Kurians with the conquest of humanity. But even the Golden Ones had been betrayed by Kur when they were no longer useful. Thanks to the pair's chance meeting, the Golden Ones were again thriving along the west bank of the Missouri River around Omaha.

“My David,” Ahn-Kha rumbled, his bass voice sounding as if it echoed from a deep cave. “I began to worry when you did not arrive by the time we darkened the ship. I feared something might have happened to you, and I made for the Station Rooms. Is all well?” The Grog did a neat turn on one of his hamhock fists and walked beside Valentine.

“Yes and no, old horse. Someone recognized me tonight, in a bar. He's dead, but unless his men were born stupid and got worse, they'll be looking for me. We're going to have to set off with the dawn, before the Kurians can organize a manhunt.”

“What about the men? Have they arrived?”

“No. We may have to go with the crew we have.”

“And the captain and the executive officer? Perhaps you plan to have them both meet with accident?”

“I'm going to try to turn the crew.”

Ahn-Kha snorted. “Maybe a few brave hearts will try. Not enough, my David, not enough.”

“I'm going to promise them a new life with their families, if we can make it back to the Ozarks. Duvalier is going to get their wives and kids out.”

“If she can manage that, the fates themselves fight on her side. But without the promised Wolves, I do not see how we win the ship.”

“When we're at sea, I'll try Lieutenant Post first.”

“The man's a drunk, my David, or he would be in command of the marines instead of you.”

“Yes.”

“How will you explain their absence to the captain? You told him the Coastal Marines were supplying a team of scouts, showed him fake orders.”

“We'll use your Grogs. I'll tell him your laborers can perform the job. Besides, the men like having a few Grogs around to do the dirty work. Will they do what you say?”

“They're Gray Ones — brutes. They obey me; it is easier than thinking. On paper, they are a combat-ready team, but I've never seen them shoot. When they are done working the ship, they were supposed to be moved inland. But a request from the Coastal Marines would outweigh such a trifle. The Kurians have many to take their place.”

“Better get them ready as soon as we reach the
Thunderbolt.
I'll have a word with the Chief, and we'll be under way by dawn. The radio is going to break down, as well. We can't be too careful.”

 

The
Thunderbolt,
tied up to the dock, did not live up to her name. She looked like the swaybacked old icebreaker that she was, new coat of paint and polished fittings or no. Her 230-foot length had a high prow, a deep well deck, and her castle amidships. Just below the bridge in the bow was the five-inch gun, her main armament. On the other side of the castle, a twenty-millimeter Oerlikon looked like an avant-garde sculpture under its protective cover. Valentine's marines were responsible for it and the four 7.62-millimeter machine guns in action. They lay ready to be placed in the mounts on either side of the ship, more or less at the corners of the upper deck of the square main cabin.

As she was now configured, she carried four commissioned officers and seven warrant officers, supervising divisions of forty-five Coastal Patrol crewmen and thirty-four Coastal Marines. Usually she patrolled with a higher proportion of CP, fewer marines, and more space for all concerned, but she had been modified to carry troops this trip. The captain had made no secret of their mission. A nest of “pirates and terrorists” on the island of Jamaica had been bold enough to trouble the continental coast. The
Thunderbolt
and crew was to “capture, scuttle, or burn” the pirates' ships and destroy their base. The gunboat had little to fear in return: she could stand off and sink the pirates in their harbor or on the sea, for the sail-driven brigands had no gun to match the five-inch cannon, and nothing short of naval gunfire, mines, or torpedoes could penetrate the icebreaker's hull.

Whatever her hoped-for glories, the
Thunderbolt
looked dismal enough in the predawn gloom as she waited in her berth. A light burned at the entry port at the end of the gangway, and a glow from the bridge revealed the outline of the officer of the watch.

Valentine and Ahn-Kha walked up the gangplank.

A duty officer came to attention. “Mr. Rowan, sir,” the CP said with just enough briskness to prove that he had not been sleeping. The man did not acknowledge Ahn-Kha.

Valentine looked forward and aft. Ahn-Kha's labor team lay in a snoring heap at the stern. Frowning, he turned on Ahn-Kha.

“If your gang is going to sleep like that on deck, you might as well get them some bedding,” he said. “You have permission to get it out of ship's stores.”

“Sir, thank you, sir,” Ahn-Kha said, giving a quick bow.

The duty snorted. “Hope they wash it afterwards. We got enough bugs already.”

For'ard, Valentine saw the red glow of a cigarette. The Chief sat on a stool, his legs up on the rail and an ankle comfortably cradled in a machine-gun mount, watching the rain fall. In a complement of more than eighty, Valentine's confidants consisted of the Grog next to him and the Chief by the rail. He moved forward. Obviously the Chief was waiting for him to return.

“Good evening, Captain Rowan,” the Chief murmured as Valentine approached. The Cat paused and rested his elbows on the rail, looking out at the drizzle. Chief Engineer Land-berg, like Valentine, had a strong dash of Native American blood in him, giving his title an ethnic twist which he bore with good humor. Though not a tall man, he had a wide wrestler's torso supported by pillarlike legs. Unlike his body, his face was soft and rounded, a textbook example of the kind of face described as “apple-cheeked.” The Chief had been an informer for Southern Command since his youth, but until this run limited his service to simple intelligence-gathering.

The rain had washed the air clean of the usual fetid river odors. All Valentine could smell was the vaguely metallic tang of the ship, new paint, and the Chief's burning tobacco.

“What's the matter, Chief, can't sleep?” Valentine looked back over his shoulder. The sentry probably couldn't hear them over the weather, but no sense taking chances.

“No, the sound of rain on this biscuit tin keeps me awake sometimes, so I just come up and watch it fall.”

“How's that fuel pump coming? I'd really like to get under way. The men are getting anxious.”

Landburg looked up, swallowed. Valentine gave him a nod.

“They are, huh?”

The engineer pinched his lower lip between thumb and forefinger when overhauling a problem. He would pull out his lower lip then release it so it hit his upper lip and teeth with a tiny
plip.
“Well, I reckon good news shouldn't wait” —
plip.
“I got sick of waiting on the part, so I found something I could modify with just a little machining. I'll try it out right now, if you want” —
plip
— “and we can let the captain know if it works. These delays have been driving the old man nuts.”

“Good work, Chief.”

Valentine exhaled tiredly and left the Chief to finish his tobacco and thoughts. He was committed now. By this time tomorrow, he would be at sea, with only Ahn-Kha and the Chief set against the captain and crew, backed up by the Kurian system that controlled them. Were it not for the rock-steady support of Ahn-Kha, as imperturbable as a mountain, and the Chief's wily aid, his quest would have foundered long ago.

He climbed one of the metal staircases running up the castle side to the bridge and asked the watch officer to call him at dawn, and retired to his shared cabin. Originally only he and the captain were given their own cabins, but after he saw the crowded conditions on board, he invited Lieutenant Post to share his cabin. Post got quietly drunk each night, duty or no, and Valentine felt for him after hearing some of the gibes hurled with casual viciousness by the other wardroom members.

He looked down at Post, a sleeping ruin of what must once have been a physical archetype of a man. His six-three frame didn't fit on the bed, from his salt-and-pepper hair to rarely washed feet, breathing in the restless, shallow sleep of alcoholic oblivion. As usual, he hadn't bothered to undress before turning in, and would attend to his duties tomorrow in a wrinkled uniform, permanent stains marking the armpits and back. Post ignored even the captain's comments about his appearance, but in some fit of contrariness shaved each morning after Valentine had once privately mentioned over coffee that he would have a terrible time keeping his marines clean shaved if his lieutenant sprouted three days' worth of stubble.

Valentine sat on his untouched cot and began to remove his shoes. Above him, a railed shelf held his meager collection of books. Father Max's gilt-edged Bible — the old Northern Minnesota priest had raised him after his family's murder, and died of pneumonia while he was training Fox-trot Company. The Padre had willed the aged tome to him. It had arrived while he and Duvalier were seeking the Twisted Cross on the Great Plains. Next to the Bible were his battered old Livy histories, brought down when he first joined up with the Cause eight years ago. He owned copies of Clausewitz's
On War
and a Chinese Army translation of Sun Tzu, volumes he'd had to study at the military college in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, as he'd been studying for his commission. His American Civil War histories were next: Sam Watkins's
Company Aytch
and Frisch's
Lincoln: Leadership to Liberty.
Then came his little collection of fiction.
Water-ship Down,
its yellowed pages stitched together and ironically rebound in rabbit skin — given to him as a welcome-home gift by the craftsman, a Wolf named Gonzalez who'd survived their ill-fated courier mission to Lake Michigan in 2065. Next to it, and in much better shape, was a recent hardcover of the complete set of the
Sherlock Holmes
stories. Then there was his latest acquisition, a copy of
Gone with the Wind
bought at a New Orleans bookstore. He'd seen his fellow infiltrator Duvalier reading it last year while he was undergoing Coastal Marine training in Biloxi, Mississippi. Shocked to find her so deep into such a brick of a book, he'd made some comment about the four-color cover. “Ever read it?” she asked. When he admitted that he hadn't, she told him not to offer an opinion out of ignorance. Sensing a challenge when he heard one, he sat down with it his first free day, intending to mock it and her — but within twenty minutes was so captivated that he went out and treated himself to a bottle of cognac to enjoy with the epic.